Thinkific Alternatives: Our Top 6 Best Picks

Kathy Alameda
5 min readJan 28, 2022

Thinkific is a software platform to build online course platforms and membership websites. It saves you from all the trouble of creating an online education site from the ground up, which is a hectic and potentially costly process.

While Thinkific boasts many strengths, it’s also lagging in certain aspects like email marketing tools, customer support (best is available only for premium plans), student interaction features, etc. Moreover, Thinkific’s regular prices are on the higher side despite their free plan.

As popular as Thinkific is, it still has several cons and hence is not a favorite of everyone out there.

Many Thinkific alternatives in the market outperform it in several aspects and come at a much lower price. If you are interested in this blog, let me guess, you have finally made up your mind about launching your online tutoring platform.

Keep reading on to find the best alternative to Thinkific, which can help you set up your own online tutoring platform without having to build it from scratch.

  1. Pinlearn

One of the best alternative to Thinkific is Pinlearn, an all-in-one online tutoring marketplace software. Offering support for both self-paced courses and live classes, the readymade solution is excellent for building eLearning websites like Udemy with the customizations you require.

Pinlearn provides support for unlimited courses, tutors, students, all this for a nominal price. It also offers complete control over the script so that course creators can brand their tutoring platform according to their business needs. That’s the perk of an open-source turnkey script.

Pros

  • Support for both online classes and courses.
  • Interactive whiteboard for classroom-like tutoring experience.
  • Live session recording.
  • Easy and quick deployment.
  • Multilingual and multi-currency features.
  • Affordable and cost-efficient pricing plans.

Cons

  • Being a self-hosted solution, you need to select the hosting provider and pay for it separately.

2. Teachable

When you are searching for sites like Thinkific, one of the names that come up first is Teachable. The drag and drop course builder is a tool that is very similar to Thinkific, which allows you to create the course with a few clicks.

The software comes with pre-made templates which can be tailored the way the course creator wants. Trusted by over 100,000 EdTech businesses and course creators, Teachable is popular for its simplicity and beginner-friendliness.

Pros

  • Features the flexibility to customize course content, template, and site design.
  • Integrated with useful third-party apps.
  • Excellent marketing features for upselling courses.
  • Cheaper price options when compared with Thinkific for basic and business plans.

Cons

  • No free plan.
  • The basic plan comes with a 5% transaction fee.

3. Kajabi

Kajabi is an online course creation platform that allows creators to create, sell, and promote online courses and membership programs. The all-in-one course platform allows building courses effortlessly. It supports collecting and monitoring customer profiles, insights, engagement, and forecasts. It is also packed with essentials to create good content and a marketing plan.

The software solution’s goal is to make everything easy for creators for their eLearning site and products.

Pros

  • Features drag and drop design templates.
  • No coding to create a tutoring site.
  • Kajabi assistant for quick assistance.
  • Integrated with Facebook Pixel and segment.
  • In-built affiliate and email marketing features.
  • No transaction fees.

Cons

  • Lack of a free plan.
  • Expensive plan than Thinkific and other alternatives of Thinkific.
  • The number of products creators can create is limited.
  • Limitation on the number of learners and active members.

4. Teachery

Teachery is another simple alternative to Thinkific, with unlimited access to everything on the platform. It includes online courses, students, emails, sales pages, and more. It doesn’t charge any transaction fee, which is an added advantage.

Pros

  • Teachery features a user-friendly and customizable interface.
  • The price is reasonable.
  • Supports unlimited courses, learners, and sales pages.
  • Comes with an integrated affiliate program.

Cons

  • No marketing tools and community management features.
  • Limited integrations.

5. LearnDash

LearnDash is another alternative to Thinkific, but it’s not a cloud platform to host online courses. Instead, it’s a WordPress plugin that helps you turn your WordPress website into an online course platform.

Like any other WordPress plugin, it registers a custom menu in WordPress after installation. If you are interested in trying out a plugin that can work for your website, then Learn dash is the right choice.

The course builder of LearnDash is easy to use and great at designing courses without any hassle. It allows creators to organize content into different sections, lessons, and topics for easy learning. It also supports community management for students and learners to interact with each other. It even comes with apps that you can install on your digital devices.

Pros

  • Unique online course elements.
  • Efficient tools for course management.
  • Advanced assessment and test options.
  • Monetization options.
  • Bulk emailing.

Cons

  • No free trial.
  • The interface of the software might be complex for first-time users.

6. WizIQ

WizIQ is another incredible Thinkific alternative that can help course creators create an online classroom. It comes with a course builder, test creation tools, analytics, eCommerce, and more.

The software features a user-friendly interface that allows you to integrate your own branding in the course materials.

The live class feature allows learners to attend their classes, enjoying a real classroom-like experience. Learners can also record their live classes to use for review.

Pros

  • Virtual classroom for live teaching.
  • Mobile learning management system.
  • Provision to analyse and generate reports.
  • Allows creating multimedia tests in various formats.

Cons

  • Price is high, and there are no monthly plans.
  • Poor response to emails.

Conclusion

The Thinkific alternatives we have mentioned here are great and unique in their own way. The best choice for your EdTech business depends on your needs and end goals. For example, if you are looking for creating, selling, and marketing educational products- Pinlearn can be the best choice. It allows you to have 100% control of the online tutoring platform and helps to integrate the customizations you need.

Whereas, Teachery and Teachable suit the best if your main goal is only to sell courses online. However, the best bet would be to choose an all-in-one tutoring software which makes the cost-efficient option. Take note of the pros and cons of each online course creation platform. If the pros outweigh the cons based on your unique needs, go for it.

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Kathy Alameda

I’m working as leading experts on building and implementing the learning strategies. I have led learning & performance improvement projects form last few years.