Overview.
Thinkific has more than 40,000 course creators and over 30 million online courses. It allows anyone to sell courses and membership sites all in one place.
Thinkific has around 100 dedicated employees and offers its services in more than 15 countries. Through its video and homework based learning tools, the platform has revolutionized the way people learn and earn a living through online channels.
Here are some of the main features of Thinkific :
- Thinkific offers easy installation and gives you absolute control over their content and customer data.
- They have great website design options without the need for HTML and CSS. You can personalize every inch of the website and the course.
- Their marketing and analytics tools help you maximize engagement and increase revenue.
Teachable was founded in 2014 and currently has 83,000 instructors and 23 million students.
It is currently the second largest e-learning platform to the world.
Some of the most important features of Teachable include:
- Allows you to quickly create a website using a “drag and drop” editor.
- Offers analysis tools to evaluate your prices and calculate your return on investment.
- You can design landing pages that are optimized to drive conversions and sales.
- They have advanced marketing and sales pages to help you after the launch.
- Possibility to insert Thinkific buy buttons and to checkout if you have a WordPress site and a short code plugin.
The main difference between the 2 is that Teachable offers better marketing features, while Thinkific offers better site design.
However, with so many other characteristics, we need to dig deeper before deciding.
Let's get started.
What is the best online course platform?
- Performance and uptime review
- Ease of use
- Security measures
- Marketing
- Data analysis
- Customer support
- Payment integration
- Customization
- Rates
1. Performances.
You would never want your course builder to go down while potential students are about to buy or take lessons.
In addition to the loss of revenue, this will seriously damage your brand image. That's why it's crucial that you have minimal downtime.
Thinkific offers 24/7 website monitoring to ensure it's still up and running. Additionally, the platform claims to have an excellent uptime of 99.9%.
The Teachable support team also constantly monitors the platform to ensure that the site is still up and running and effective.
However, to free yourself from any doubts, you can check their operating hours here:
- http://status.teachable.com/
- https://status.thinkific.com/
If you check out the 2 links, you'll find that Teachable has more downtime incidents than Thinkific.
Some of the most common problems include
- Issues with updating billing information
- Intermittent connectivity issues
- Latency and 504 errors
However, Thinkific has also experienced downtime and responsiveness issues in the past. But all of these issues have been addressed as a matter of priority and the platform offers effective performance.
In addition, Thinkific has categorically mentioned 99.9% uptime and 24/7 monitoring on its corporate website, which is a very transparent process. You won't find any such claims on the official Teachable website.
🏆 Winner: Thinkific
With 24-hour website monitoring and over 99% uptime, Thinkifc is the clear winner when it comes to ensuring maximum uptime.
Start with Thinkific ->
2. Ease of use
It is essential to have an online course platform that is intuitive and user-friendly. There is no point in having a powerful platform equipped with a complex user interface that you can't use.
Here are some of the key features that make Thinkific an easy to use platform:
- Drag-and-drop content for easy uploading and positioning to launch a course more quickly.
- No coding required for personalization
- Support for any type of media content, including videos, surveys, discussions, downloads, Typeform, and more
- Enables free hosting of video content on the platform
- Allows you to use predefined themes to easily launch an e-learning platform.
- Easily integrates with email marketing software suchlike Mailchimp, Constant Contact or ActiveCampaign to launch marketing emails and content at the drop of a hat.
Teachable also offers a list of features that make the platform very functional and easy to use.
Here are some of the most important features of Teachable that make it an easy to use platform:
- You can add video, text, image, audio, and PDF files from cloud storage services including Google Drive, onedrive and Dropbox.
- Take advantage of the drag-and-drop creation tool to easily create a very attractive and functional website.
- The built website is highly responsive to provide an omnichannel user experience on desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
- Anyone on the team can use the Power Editor to implement highly customized features.
- Use the page editor to instantly launch new pages with the latest course offerings.
- Easily change the language to make your website more suitable for international students.
- Leverage sales models that are optimized for conversion to quickly boost sales.
🏆 Winner: Teachable
Teachable offers more options for easily customizing your website. Additionally, all design functions are fairly easy to use and even a beginner with minimal technical expertise can use the platform.
Start with Teachable ->
3. Security.
Cybersecurity threats continue to plague websites around the world. This threat increases when your website collects online payments.
According to a report, cybersecurity attacks will cost the world 6 trillion dollars per year by 2021. That's a lot of money lost due to the lack of due diligence.
To address cybersecurity concerns, Thinkific and Teachable both offer robust security measures to keep your data and financial transactions safe.
Here is a brief overview of some of the security measures taken by the 2 platforms.
Thinkific:
- It offers secure cloud hosting to ensure data security 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Back up data automatically on a regular basis to eliminate the risk of data loss.
- The platform is equipped with integrated and transparent SSL certificates that ensure that every piece of content is stored on secure servers.
- It periodically deploys security updates that are automatic so you don't miss any updates.
- The Thinkific team monitors the platform around the clock to ensure rapid action in the event of a security breach.
- Get total control of your data with absolute ownership.
Teachable:
- Integration with the only PCI Level 1 compliant payment service providers to ensure absolute data security.
- Leverage the 2048-bit SSL certificate to keep all student data secure.
- Receive automatic updates to instantly incorporate new security features.
- Allows you to have full ownership and control of your data.
🏆 Winner: Thinkific
Both platforms offer a solid set of security features. However, Thinkific has a slight advantage over Teachable because it is better able to maintain maximum uptime and offers additional security features.
Start with Thinkific ->
4. Marketing features.
Marketing is one of the most crucial aspects of successfully launching a course. An intuitive marketing strategy can increase the number of students who take your course.
While course marketplaces like Udemy and Skillshare offer a platform that's already full of students, they pay you less per course sales. The only downside is that Thinkific and Teachable both require you to market yourself.
Therefore, look for an online course platform that offers all the capabilities and tools you need to successfully run a marketing campaign.
Both platforms are equipped with a set of powerful marketing tools.
Thinkific Marketing:
- Thinkific allows you to use affiliate marketing and reward affiliates with instant payouts for sharing your online courses. You can follow them directly and reward them with the different commission rates you create.
- You can also connect effectively with email providers to run highly personalized campaigns to reach the right people at the right time.
- You can easily integrate your website with over 1,000 external marketing tools to run effective campaigns.
- You are able to use advanced data tracking to calibrate and optimize marketing campaigns in real time.
- Ads can be tracked and analyzed through Facebook, Google AdWords, and remarketing campaigns.
Teachable Marketing:
- Easily track affiliate programs with built-in features and pay affiliates who sell your digital courses and products.
- Create promotional offers by creating discount codes to encourage new users to join or to encourage existing users to promote your e-learning platform.
- Offer personalized price plans, including one-time fees, subscription payment plans, or bundled course offerings.
- Use landing page creation features to boost sales.
- Quickly accept payments in over 130 international currencies. It allows you to accept payments in multiple currencies for a single course.
- Take advantage of integration with major marketing tools including MailChimp, Mixpanel, Infusionsoft, and more.
- Easily add conversion pixels to your website to assess the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
🏆 Winner: Teachable
Teachable offers a longer list of marketing tools that you can use to run optimized, personalized marketing campaigns. Its marketing suite is capable of managing more complex marketing with greater ease and clarity.
Start with Teachable ->
5. Data analysis.
It's critical for businesses to make sense of all user data generated by visitors and marketing campaigns. With the right set of analytics tools, businesses can gain actionable insights and make more data-driven decisions.
According to statistics, the global business intelligence market is expected to reach $39.48 billion by 2026. As more organizations complete their digital transformation, it has become crucial for businesses to effectively exploit data to stay ahead of the market and the competition.
So be sure to opt for an online course platform that offers excellent data analysis solutions and actionable business insights.
Here's how Thinkific and Teachable do when it comes to providing data analytics capabilities.
Thinkific:
- Offers easy integration with data analysis tools, including Google AdWords, Facebook, and other remarketing tools
- Allows you to check the status of each student using specific filters.
- You can send emails to selected groups in the user base.
- Launch highly personalized campaigns aimed at specific groups
Teachable:
- Leverage its comprehensive dashboard to track student enrollment and revenue over a given period of time.
- Allows you to define the average course completion rate and quickly sort courses by student account types.
- Easily export course revenue data and student information for actionable insights.
- Leverages the robust integration with Zapier to send personalized course events to any marketing tool
- Leverage first and last contact attribution to find out which campaign converted the student into a user of the e-learning platform.
Here, the fight is tough between Thinkific and Teachable. The 2 online course platforms offer reliable integration and a robust set of analysis tools to track the customer journey or to take advantage of data analysis to optimize marketing campaigns.
However, the winner is Teachable.
🏆 Winner: Teachable
Teachable offers a better suite of analytics tools to better understand data and run more effective marketing campaigns. It also offers more features that allow marketers to quickly assess student journeys.
Start with Teachable ->
6. Support.
From setting up your website to resolving operational issues, you need solid customer support. And when you encounter a problem, you need proactive help for an instant and easy resolution.
Without effective customer support, it would become difficult to provide a flawless service. Here, the 2 e-learning platforms offer a robust repository of online tutorials and provide customer service through support tickets. The response time for support tickets is 24 hours or more. In addition, the 2 platforms also have a solid community on social networks, especially on Facebook. Users can also go there to get quick answers to their questions.
Thinkific and Teachable both offer solid customer support via:
- Support tickets
- Online tutorials
- Boarding emails
- Active Facebook groups for queries
- Knowledge base
Thinkific offers live calls Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. French time.
Teachable offers customer support via livechat on a professional level (and more). This service is available Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time.
Additionally, Teachable offers email support 7 days a week between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. (US Eastern Time). This service is available for all plans.
🏆 Winner: Both!
Customer support from Thinkific is more proactive and staff are better trained to solve problems effectively.
In addition, the processing time for paid tickets is much shorter than that of Teachable. However, Teachable has a considerable advantage since it offers support via livechat.
So if you think about it, both platforms have their pros and cons when it comes to customer support. So it's a draw!
7. Payouts.
Given today's data security concerns, you simply can't do without a robust and secure payment integration. The good news is that both Thinkific and Teachable offer reliable integration with PayPal and Stripe.
However, Thinkific is also equipped with a built-in function to avoid transaction failures on Stripe.
This means that with Thinkific, there is less risk of downtime or transaction failure. Stuntness will help the platform avoid failed transactions and improve customer satisfaction.
Thinkific also offers reliable integration with third party tools to effectively manage taxes.
Teachable is also capable of managing VAT taxes. However, its function of automatically collecting VAT in the EU can sometimes be annoying.
🏆 Winner: Thinkific
Thanks to its ability to integrate third-party tools, Thinkific is a clear winner as it allows users to take advantage of tools for effective taxation.
Start with Thinkific ->
8. Customization.
With an efficient and intuitive customer experience at the forefront of all activities, businesses deploy highly personalized features to make their services unique, intuitive, and immersive.
Therefore, to make your e-learning service stand out from the rest on the market, look for a platform that offers great customization options.
Here's an in-depth look at the personalization features of the 2 platforms to help you determine which one is best for your business.
Thinkific:
- Deploy the early lesson feature to allow the student to request a course or lesson in advance.
- Leverage the services of multiple instructors in real time to meet the needs of different categories of students. It also increases revenue because you can provide services to many students at the same time.
- Offers a dropper content scheduling function to quickly share your content.
- Offers easy integration with membership sites to attract more students and convert them into loyal users of the platform.
- Categorize your learning content into private and hidden courses, based on free and paid options.
- Use several themes to present your case the way you want.
- Provide end of course certificates to students
Teachable:
- Easily create intuitive web pages with minimal configuration.
- Easy to set up with only an email address and school name.
- Create intuitive quizzes and easily start lively discussions.
- Customize the look and feel of your website based on your specific branding guidelines.
- Achieve high levels of personalization without any coding.
- Leverage ready-to-use feedback and messaging features to create a vibrant community around your e-learning school and provide additional support to users.
- Leverage the thousands of online instructors already available on the platform to offer high quality courses.
Thanks to customization features such as drip programming and numerous third-party integrations, Thinkific wins the prize for personalization.
🏆 Winner: Thinkific
With multiple themes, Thinkfic allows you to instantly create highly customizable course pages. Its other characteristics make it better able to handle multitasking, to meet the needs of more diverse users, and to offer excellent functionalities. Therefore, Thinkific is a clear winner here.
Get started with Thinkific ->
9. Pricing
Businesses tend to be content with an average product simply because it fits within their budget. That's why price plays a critical role in determining which product is the best fit for your business.
It is therefore essential to compare the prices of the 2 options before making a final decision.
Here we'll talk about monthly subscription fees that are charged annually, as long-term plans offer better value for money.
Thinkific pricing:
Thinkific offers a 20% discount on annual subscriptions. Its pricing plans start at $39 per month and go up to $399 per month, billed annually.
Thinkific also offers a free plan with a core set of features, including three courses, unlimited students, quizzes and surveys, content hosting, and instant access to funds.
Users can also take advantage of the free plan to launch an e-learning activity with no upfront costs. And business owners can easily expand their business with a paid plan.
Teachable pricing:
Teachable also offers a wide range of pricing plans, as follows:
- Free: 0$
- Basic: $29 per month
- Pro: 99 dollars per month
- Business: $249 per month
The above services are billed annually. There is also a monthly billing option at a slightly higher rate.
Key features included in all plans include unlimited courses, unlimited coaching services, product bundles, course design templates, and product support.
🏆 Winner: Teachable
With its free plan and lower monthly fees for its Basic and Business plans, Teachable wins this round.
Start with Teachable ->
Comparison of advantages and disadvantages.
It was all about the 2 platforms. When making the final decision, you need to consider a lot of things critically. With so many features and services packed into a single platform, you need to take a step back and analyze each point carefully.
To make the decision-making process even easier, I've put together all the relevant points you might want to consider before making the final decision.
Thinkific
For more information, you can consult my full review of Thinkific. Overall, here are the main pros and cons of using this course platform.
Pros
- No transaction fees.
- Easy navigation and organization of courses for increased efficiency.
- Free trial period and the possibility of creating a course without entering your credit card.
- Thinkific offers the possibility to create as many courses as you want.
- You don't pay extra for video hosting.
- You can embed your course sales widget and sell it directly through your blog posts, social media, or a third-party website.
- Take advantage of payment gateways like Stripe or Paypal to get instant payments.
Cons
- The free plan comes with limited features.
- It does not allow workshops or live office hours to be organized.
- There aren't as many advanced quiz and survey features.
- A bit less flexible than Teachable.
Teachable
Here are some pros and cons of Teachable compared to Thinkific.
Pros
- Flexible and user-friendly interface.
- Powerful analysis and reporting tools.
- Offers premium livechat support.
- Can pay affiliates automatically when they make sales for you
- You don't pay extra for video hosting.
- Has a solid iOS app.
- Deals with the calculation of taxes and in particular VAT.
Cons
- Transaction fees.
- Thinkific has better price compliance.
- Fewer pricing options for customers than Thinkific.
- You can't sell courses in bulk that easily.
Summary
This in-depth comparison between Thinkific and Teachable will help you make an informed decision. The 2 online course platforms offer a robust solution. However, the final decision to choose one or the other is subjective and depends on your needs.
In my opinion, Thinkific offers more features that can help you quickly launch an e-learning service while promoting growth. It should be the preferred choice for businesses looking for a simple platform that offers accurate features with high reliability and security.
The free version of Thinkific is a major asset of the online course platform that users can use to evaluate its various features and tools.
Teachable also offers a robust online course platform solution. Its drag-and-drop course creation tool is a valuable asset. However, it is lagging behind in some key areas, such as charging transaction fees and providing a tax calculation tool with limited capabilities.
Evaluate all of the features carefully in relation to your specific needs to ensure that you choose the most appropriate option.
Start with Thinkific starting today with a free 14-day trial.
Other readings : If you want to launch an online course this year, check out my guide to best online course platforms or my comparison between Kajabi and Teachable,
And to strengthen your online presence and make money online, read my beginner's guide to find out How to start a blog.
