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If you’ve created a digital product and a sales funnel for it…
And you have all your download files ready and you’re close to launching it – congrats! But you’re not done yet.
You need a system in place to deliver your course. If it’s just an eBook, you could easily provide a download link and be done with it. But what if it’s a full-blown video course?
You may have chapters and modules, and you want your customers/students to follow your training in a step-by-step manner. You’ll also want to protect your content from those who haven’t paid.
Maybe you’d prefer to drip the content where your students get access to 1 chapter and 7 modules each week. This bite-sized approach to consuming content will keep them focused and on track without making things seem too overwhelming.
In order to do that, what you need is a Learning Management System (LMS). With such software, you’ll be able to lay out your course in an organized manner so that learning will be a pleasant experience for your students.
One of the most popular LMS software used by thousands of online marketers is Thinkific. Let’s see why it’s so popular…
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What is Thinkific?
Company Background & Overview
Thinkific (affiliate link) was conceived when co-founder and CEO Greg Smith decided to take his LSAT course online with the help of his brother Matt Smith to reach more students. For Greg, taking his course online meant an opportunity to reach more students globally, and to generate more revenue and freedom.
The revenues from his online course soon surpassed his corporate law practice, and as the course took off and helped more and more students, other entrepreneurs and businesses reached out asking how they could do the same. They wanted to sell their own courses on their website and drive business growth under their own brand, with full control over their content, data, and business. Greg and Matt, along with co-founders Miranda Lievers and Matt Payne, set out to build the best platform for course creators and businesses looking to educate clients and potential clients.
Today, Thinkific has become one of the more popular online course platforms that you can use to create and sell courses and membership sites. It allows you to build a course with videos, rich text and images, and downloadable files.
You can publish a sales page with all your own branding to collect payments and grant access to the course. And on the backend, you can publish a curriculum for students to navigate between course sections, take quizzes, and obtain certificates for completing courses.
Benefits of Thinkific
Okay, perhaps you might still be wondering: “What is Thinkific? and what does it do?” Whilst you can take a look at their Blog, Training Site, or Knowledge Hub, let’s dive deeper.
Offers A Unique Free Plan
It’s understandable if you’re unsure about which learning management system to choose. There are so many out there and even the name ‘Thinkific’ even sounds similar to Thinkific. So, which one do you go with?
The answer to this question is this – free plan. Thinkific is the only online course platform that actually has a viable, long-term, free option to sell courses.
Yes, Thinkific allows you to try out their platform for free. You can sell a couple of courses on the free plan, though the features are limited to some degree. But at least you have an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the platform and see if you like it.
Easy To Use
You can customize your Thinkific dashboard to match your course and brand. They do allow some customization. You can easily build your pages just by dragging and dropping the elements
Excellent Student Management
You can track your students’ progress, bulk unenroll them, add quizzes and more with the Thinkific platform. It has most of the features you’ll find in other capable LMS platforms.
Multiple Payment Options
You can create payment plans for your students or even have a membership site with recurring payments. It’s all handled smoothly within Thinkific.
Reporting And Analytics
You’ll have access to your conversion rates, student sign ups, and other stats in your dashboard. You’ll be able to use this information to improve your marketing campaigns and so on.
Multiple Integrations
Thinkific integrates with several other 3rd party tools and software such as: PayPal, Stripe, Active Campaign, Mailchimp, Facebook, Google Analytics, and much more.
Excellent Support
You can always contact Thinkific’s support quickly via email, support ticket or even by phone. Among all the learning management brands out there, Thinkific is reputed to have the best support.
Employ A Custom Domain
If you don’t wish to use Thinkific’s subdomain you can always purchase your own domain from Namecheap and add it to your Thinkific account. Now it’ll look like the course is being hosted on your domain even if it’s on the Thinkific framework.
Reasonable Affordability
At $39 a month for the Basic plan, Thinkific is far more affordable than tools like Kajabi. Furthermore, Thinkific does not charge you transaction fees for your sales. That’s definitely a plus point.
Drawbacks of Thinkific
There are hardly any cons with Thinkific other than it doesn’t have as many features as some of the other tools. But that said, it’s also much cheaper and more affordable for most marketers.
It would have been nice if they had an integrated email marketing tool, but they don’t. Nevertheless, you can always get your own autoresponder and link it up to Thinkific. Make sure you check on the official website to see if it’s on Thinkific’s list of integrations first.
Thinkific’s Pricing Summary
Here’s the current pricing strategy. Thinkific has 4 price plans: Free, $49, $99, and $499. The free plan is a great starter option for new course instructors. The premium plans offer unlimited courses and additional flexibility to customize your course. My pick for best plan is the Pro plan for $99/month.
Alternatives to Thinkific
Thinkific is an easy top pick out of all online learning platforms. However, I always like to thoroughly review the competition. So, here are my reviews of the other top options.
- Kajabi – Read my full review
- LearnDash – Read my full review
- Podia – Read my full review
- Teachable – Read my full review
- Udemy – Read my full review
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Thinkific Legit?
Yes, Thinkific is a legitimate company. The company was founded in 2012 and has over 100 employees serving over 50,000-course creators.
Is Thinkific safe?
Publishing and selling your courses and content on Thinkific is safe. Courses cannot be accessed by unauthorized users – only students with active accounts are able to log in. There are also content permission controls within Thinkific’s course platform that prevents students from downloading videos and other information.
Thinkific also has a feature that can prevent students from selecting and copying text within your course.
Does Thinkific Own Your Content?
No, Thinkific does not own the content that you publish on their platform. Online course creators have 100% ownership over the content they publish and promote on Thinkific.
Is Thinkific Mobile Friendly?
Yes, Thinkific courses are fully mobile responsive and render well on any phone, tablet, or computer.
Is Thinkific Easy To Use?
When it comes to software, ease of use goes hand and hand with the user’s capabilities. Based on our experience testing Thinkific’s online course software, we found it to be relatively easy to design a course using their online builder. The user interface is clean and easy to navigate. While it may take some time to learn where things are, Thinkific has a really great support system and documentation that shortens the learning curve.
In general, Thinkific is much easier to use than some other software. It also beats the heck out of building an online course on your own website and hosting environment.
Who Uses Thinkific?
Thinkific is used by tens of thousands of individual course creators as well as big companies like Samsung, Intuit, Hootsuite, and AWeber.
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Is Thinkific Free?
Thinkific is one of the only course providers to have a truly free plan with no transaction fees. However, it is limited to offering 1 course.
Does Thinkific Charge Transaction Fees?
No, Thinkific does not have transaction fees, even on their free plan which sets them apart from their competitors.
Does Thinkific Take A Percentage Of Sales?
No, Thinkific does not take a cut or any commission from your course sales. Thinkific makes all of their money on paid plans, which can be found on their pricing page.
Is Thinkific an LMS?
Yes, Thinkific is a web-based learning management system (LMS). LMS software is used to provide training courses and educational content in both written and video formats.
Is Thinkific Better Than Teachable?
Both Teachable and Thinkific are leading providers of course software. The main difference between the two platforms is that Thinkific has more customization tools and better pricing options for course creators.
Where Is Thinkific Located?
Thinkific headquarters is located at 369 Terminal Ave, Vancouver, BC V6A 4C4, Canada.
Is Thinkific Right for You?
Since it has a free plan and even allows you to sell your course on it, of course, you should. Give it a try and discover how the platform works.
When you’re getting sales and see how simple it is for your students to navigate the platform and how even you can upload courses on it without wading through tons of tech tutorials – you’ll probably stick with Thinkific for years to come.
This brand is very popular and is only going to get better. Give it a try and sell your courses on it today.
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