Thinkific in a Nutshell
Excellent: 4.9 / 5
Pros:
Cons:
Thinkific Review: Bottom Line
More and more people are now moving online to launch their business. And the online learning industry is one such business that is experiencing rapid growth in the last few years.
In 2020, the size of the e-learning market was $250 billion that is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 21 percent through 2027, to hit the $1 trillion mark.
To take advantage of this huge demand, many businesses around the world have launched their own platform where anyone can create, launch and sell online courses.
Among these online course platforms, Thinkific is the most popular choice among course creators due to its easy to use platform and advanced features that I am going to cover in this Thinkific review.
Due to its competitive price and great features, it has got excellent rating and reviews on platform like Trustpilot in comparison to its competitors like Teachable.
In this review, I’ll tell you all about Thinkific, its best features & benefits, how to create courses, how to market courses, pros & cons, price and its alternatives.
Price: Free as well as Paid plans starting at $39 per month.
Thinkific offers a free account that allows you to create courses that can be accessed by unlimited number of students. It gives a wonderful opportunity to users who wants to try Thinkific platform before buying the paid plans. Try Thinkific for free using the link given below.
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Thinkific Review: Overview
Living in 2023, an era of the global village, online business has become common and easier for everyone. Building an established online brand is not a single-step procedure. A lot of work needs to be done. That also holds true for creating online courses.
Creating professional course content that goes best with your business or website can be made easier using free online learning platforms.
An online course platform for course creation that is user-friendly, business-friendly, and has powerful tools is the best way to create and sell your expertise or knowledge in the form of courses. And this is made possible by Thinkific.
Now anyone can create and sell their online courses using this all-in-one best course platform Thinkific. Already 50000+ course creators have launched their courses on this platform.
Now you won't like to miss this opportunity of getting your hands on this tool to upgrade your course content to another level, would you?
Let's go through Thinkific review 2021 to know every bit about Thinkific.
What is Thinkific?
The power supply to your education empire can be the precise definition of Thinkific. Using this platform, the users can learn and earn both. Isn't it great? The target of this platform is basically:
- Entrepreneurs
- Educators
- Business Coaches
- Thought Leaders
- Fitness Experts
- Professionals
In the sea of different learning management systems that let you create the most suitable virtual course for your brand or organization, Thinkific is a top name. Within no time, you will see your brand becoming a thriving business.
Using the Thinkific online learning platform, you can create:
- Multimedia Courses
- Exams & Certificates
- Quizzes, Surveys, Assignments
- Live Streams
- Embed Videos
Thinkific was founded in the year 2012 by the Smiths. The headquarter is in Vancouver, Canada. By now, more than 50,000-course creators are using Thinkific, and different users around the globe have taken 100 million-plus courses on this platform. The system is widespread and used across 190 countries around the globe.
This all-in-one platform is beneficial for both the creators and the audience, and this is one main reason behind the popularity of this service.
Why Choose Thinkific?
As I have said earlier, Thinkific is a multitasking platform. All the tools an educator or the creator need are present within this platform.
Already 50000 plus educators have earned more than $650 million selling courses on this platform.
Here are some reasons why course creators prefer Thinkific as a very reliable platform:
- It is easy to set up.
- Different types of integrations and templates are made available for the user.
- You don't need to use different platforms for different services, and everything will be provided here - integration tools, email marketing, affiliate marketing and others.
- No coding skill is required for creating courses.
- The free trial worth 30-days is available.
- A fast and active customer support team to give you timely help.
- The business transition is seamless - collect payments using PayPal or Stripe.
- The student progress tracking system is also available in it.
- Students can easily complete the course to achieve their goals.
- Access to different knowledge-based articles is also provided.
Thinkific Pricing & Plans
Four different plans are offered to the users of Thinkific. A set of core features are available for all four plans and are almost the same. Additional features vary as per the plans. The more you pay, the more you unlock.
The four pricing plans are - Free Plan, Basic Plan ($39 per month), Pro Plan ($79 per month) and Premier Plan ($399 per month).
Thinkific Free Plan Features
The free plan lets you start Thinkific for free, enjoy the user-friendly experience, and then choose the next plan. You can also cancel the membership within 30 days of a free trial, so you won't be charged before subscribing to a plan.
Core Features
- Limited courses and unlimited students
- 1 site admin account
Additional Features of free plan
- Easy drag and drop Course Builder
- Full e-commerce
- Easy to use website templates
- Email and phone support
Thinkific Basic Plan Features
Basic features are offered in this plan with a monthly cost of $39 USD. To launch your first online course, this plan is recommended for you.
Core features
- Unlimited courses, students, and content
- 1 site admin account
Additional Features Included
- Includes all free features
- Live Chat support
- Custom domain
- Coupons & Promotions
- Thinkific App Store
- Drip (scheduled) content
- One-to-One Student email
- Thinkific Academy Basic Courses
Thinkific Pro Plan Features
A complete set of tools for outstanding learning of students. Pro Plan has a monthly price of $79. A successful plan for establishing the best course content.
Core Features
- Unlimited courses, students, and content
- 2 site admin accounts
Additional Features include
- Priority Support
- Private & hidden courses
- Subscription & Flexible Pricing
- Completion Certificates
- Single Communities
- Live lessons
- Advanced Course Building
Thinkific Academy Premier Courses
By paying monthly $ 399 USD this plan can be bought. It is for advanced customers who want to build their learning business. It helps in providing quality education online.
Core features
- Unlimited courses, students, and content
- 5 site admin accounts
Additional Features include
- Includes all Free, Basic, and Pro features
- Groups
- Onboarding package
- 15 Group Analysts
- Single sign-on (SSO)
- Unlimited Communities
- Brillium exams integration
- White labelling
- API access
I would recommend you to join the Free Plan and later upgrade to the Basic Plan. Once you're able to grow your student base and get used to the platform, I would advise you to join the Pro Plan which is the most popular plan by Thinkific.
Or you can join the 30-day free trial plan available only on the Pro Plan to see if Thinkific is the right course creator tool or not.
How to Create Courses on Thinkific
Here is the step-by-step guide on creating courses on Thinkific.
1. Pick an Online Course Topic
There is only one difference between earning a good amount from this course creation and being a failure at it: being strategic about the course content topic.
The first thing is knowing your audience. Do some research or conduct polls to learn what people want to learn. This will help you identify topics that are in demand and of course, target audience.
This exercise will help you to create specific course content that you can market/sell to your audience.
A simple formula to success is:
Topic in Demand + Specific Target Audience = Winning Course
2. Validate Your Online Course
The fear of failure can haunt you when you are building up your empire. But how would you if it is a success or a failure if you are not even trying? Here comes the need of validating your content. This helps you know if people really want this course. What are people likely to reach your content? Would you be able to generate revenue from this course content?
Now the question is how you would do that? You can validate your course by
- Asking people. You can ask people in your email list or Facebook Group if they want the learning course you are offering.
- Pre-selling it. Before selling your courses to a large set of audience, you can start small. You can start selling your courses to the limited audience you may already have, like - email subscribers or members of your Facebook Group. It will help you to assess whether there is demand for such courses of not.
- Launching pilot courses. You can offer a demo/trial for a small fee and ask your buyers to give feedback on the course. It will help you to assess whether people are liking your product or not.
3. Create Your Course Content
After validation, it is time for you to do the actual work. Yes, create the real course. You have a topic and start making content on that. The content can include pdfs, images, and audio files along with the videos. This will make your course look interesting. Adding tests and quizzes are a great option as well.
Leave some information about the kind of content you are creating and start working on it by
- Using the right tools to create your videos, for example, Adobe Premiere Pro
- Creating an outline for your course
- Creating engaging content using combination of text, image and videos
- Making more educational content
- Giving your content a touch of entertainment
- Making your content inspiring
4. Price Your Online Course
Pricing is an integral part of Marketing. Too high prices can leave you at no sale as no one will buy your course, and too low prices will not let you earn anything as well.
Pricing your content appropriately will bring more audience towards your content. It also depends on the type of content you're uploading and the type of audience you want to reach.
There is no specific scale as to how to price your course. Depending on the content and audience, courses should be charged differently. And keep in mind that the standard of your content must agree with the price you are demanding.
You may follow the below mentioned points to accurately price your courses:
- Avoid very low prices. It may not justify the time, effort and money spend on your courses.
- Increase the price when you have build a sizeable audience and have lots of positive feedback on your courses.
- Update your content regularly to add more value to your courses. People may be willing to pay increased prices on courses that are updated at the regular interval.
5. Create a Course Sales Page
For the marketing of your content, you have one step left. That is the course description. You have to prepare a sales page that will represent your course.
Before deciding on signing up and pay for your course, people will go through this page.
This sales landing page should contain all the details about the content of the course, who should go for this course, how is this course going to help people, price, call-to-action and why this course?
In short, you have to create a perfect landing page that can convince the students or learners to go for your course.
A landing page builder like Unbounce can help you to create a sales page that can bring you more sales conversion. It has lots of converson-focused templates that can be easily customized as per your requirements.
If you want to learn more, check out my Unbounce review where I have explained all its feature in detail along with its pros & cons, price, alternatives and others.
A good sales page contains:
- A strong heading
- An opening story
- The solution to their problems
- Benefits
- Testimonials
- FAQs
- Pricing
6. Market Your Online Course
Marketing your online course is a big step. Now that you have created the content, there can be two scenarios.
Either (1) you are already a renowned creator with several audiences, or (2) you are a newbie who has no audience as of now.
In both the cases, you will need customers to make a sale. It could be a long way without using proper tools.
You must optimize your sales page to create a sales funnel and drive traffic towards it using the following two traffic sources (free and paid):
- Drive free traffic from your existing website, email newsletters, Facebook Groups, Twitter and others.
- Run Google Ads or Facebook Ads and others to drive paid traffic to your sales page.
The above two method will help you to drive your audience to your sales funnel which in turn will help you to collect leads and eventually convert your traffic into a potential customers.
7. Help Your Students Succeed
Your work does not end after selling your course. If students trust you with something and are willing to learn from you, make sure that they succeed in learning.
A simple way to state this is successful students or learners mean successful you. If your students are satisfied with you, they will bring more customers to your course.
- Measure the success of your students. Ask them their goals and ask them where they are lying in the run for their target. This assessment will be helpful for both students are creators.
- Ensure that the objectives of students match with the course you are providing them.
Thinkific Customization Features
The Thinkific customization features lets you upload and drag-and-drop your content quickly. you can use the existing ready-made templates to design your courses. It is about generating quality content that offers an improved user experience.
If you want to customize your course content, Thinkific lets you do all of the following:
- Set video completion percentages for your video content.
- Set quiz grading percentages after students have undertaken quizzes, particularly with the learning videos.
- You can add auto-play experiences to keep students engaged for a longer time.
- You can add on-lesson discussions. This will provide an area for student-student and student-teacher interaction.
You can also customize the entire website by:
- SEO optimization
- Change site name
- Use different languages
- Terms of use
- Cookie consent bar
- Privacy policies
- Login using other social medias
Thinkific Marketing Features
Thinkific platform offers a wide range of sales marketing features for your course content. These features help you optimize your page and improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
- Instant Access to Your Funds
- Launch a Membership Site
- Offer Free Trials of Your Courses
- JavaScript Tracking
- Order Tracking, Conversion Tracking, and Retargeting Pixel Support
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Multiple Payment Methods & Currencies
- Basic Marketing & Email Integration
- Bundles & Upsells
- Advanced Marketing & Email Integrations
- Affiliate reporting
- Coupons & Promotions
- Additional courses prices
- Offer Payment Plans
Thinkific Student Management
The user or customer accounts that purchase different courses or enroll in them are the students of Thinkific. There are different features that help the creators to enroll, access, and engage the students. Successful student management means you have succeeded in your initial aim of this course content creation. You can use the below-mentioned features
- Manually Enrolling Students into a Course
- Importing students from file
- Bulk Enroll of students
- Canceling enrollment of Students
- Making Groups
- Managing Student's Billing
- Processing Refunds
- Editing a Student's Course Expiry Date
- Creating a New User
- Easy course navigation
- Choosing site language
- Optimization for all devices
Thinkific Integration
Software can communicate with each other using different coding techniques, and this process is called integration. The integration can be a one-way or a two-way thing. It helps you use the services or techniques that one software is lacking.
Thinkific has been focusing on six different integration areas.
- E-commerce: Your account at Thinkific can be linked with Stripe or PayPal for smooth billing and payment techniques.
- Email marketing: Thinkific has integrations with top email marketing tools like ConvertKit, Active Campaign, AWeber, and MailChimp.
- Analytics: Google analytics tracking code and site verification code work well with Thinkific.
- Automation tools: Zapier and InfusionSoft are the best platforms for small and new online businesses and help you promote your courses.
- Growth tools: Thinkific has integration with Sumo that helps in increasing email list and social accounts' followers
- Student success: Brillium, Disqus, and Accredible platforms for certificates and assessments can be dropped in your courses.
Thinkific Alternatives
LMS technology is used these days widely. Many platforms are providing their services for this matter. In the longer run, Thinkific is a reliable and most popular name, but there are some other popular alternatives also.
People have shown a good amount of interest in these learning management systems as well. Thus, the competitors of Thinkific are:
Thinkific Review: Is it Worth It?
Of course, it is a big yes. Thinkific provides you with a great set of features all in one place, but you have to pay for them. A 30-day free trial is a great way to try this wonderful platform.
So far what we have covered in this Thinkific review, one thing is clear - Thinkific is the best online learning tool, and it will help you a lot in setting up your education empire from scratch.
In this review I have tried to list all the valuable features of this amazing course creation tool. The use and access of this platform are very easy and friendly. The simple layout, quick access to all the features, convenient pricing plans, marketing features, integration & others, everything adds to why you should go for Thinkific.
From integration to marketing to management to analytics, everything is managed in equal ratios, and Thinkific is trying its best to provide quality services and not to disappoint the customers. It works as a win-win situation for both the students and the creators.
The vast platform has complete guidelines over everything. Good and continuously available customer support is a basic need, and Thinkific does provide it.
Thinkific offers all the essential features that is required to launch a successful online course. That is why it is one of the most popular online course platform.
