2025 Showdown: Which Platform Reigns Supreme—Thinkific or Teachable?

Thinkific vs Teachable: A Brief Overview

Some of the standout features of Teachable include the ability to quickly construct a website using a simple drag-and-drop editor, access to analytics tools that help you assess your course performance and return on investment, and the capacity to create landing pages suited for increasing conversions and sales. Additionally, Teachable offers advanced marketing tools and sales pages to support your efforts after launching. If you have a WordPress site, you can easily integrate Thinkific buy buttons with checkout options using shortcodes, making it flexible for existing platforms.

The main distinction between the two is that Teachable excels in marketing functionalities, while Thinkific provides superior site design options. However, to make an informed choice, it’s important to explore other features deeply before deciding. Let’s dive in.

Thinkific vs Teachable: Which One Is the Best Option?

Evaluation criteria include performance and uptime reliability, user-friendliness, security protocols, marketing capabilities, data analytics, customer support, payment options, customization flexibility, and pricing plans. Let’s analyze each.

Performance and Uptime Assessment

Ensuring your course platform remains accessible when students are ready to enroll or learn is critical. Downtime can lead to lost revenue and damage your credibility. Thinkific monitors its website around the clock and claims an impressive 99.9% uptime. Its support team actively oversees the platform to maintain optimal performance. You can verify their actual uptime records through publicly available links for transparency.

In contrast, Teachable’s monitoring is also continuous, but reports indicate it experiences more frequent outages and technical issues, such as problems updating billing info, intermittent connectivity, latency, and 504 errors. While Thinkific has faced its issues in the past, they have been promptly resolved, and the platform maintains a high standard of reliability. It explicitly states its goal of achieving 99.9% uptime, demonstrating transparency that Teachable lacks.

The clear winner in this area is Thinkific, thanks to its consistent uptime and active monitoring.

Get started with Thinkific.

Ease of Use for Course Creation

An intuitive, user-friendly platform is essential for efficient course development. A complicated interface can hinder progress and frustrate users. Thinkific simplifies course setup with a drag-and-drop content builder, allowing you to upload and organize materials swiftly. This ease of use means you can focus more on content quality and less on navigating the platform.

In essence, Thinkific provides a seamless experience for course creators, making it accessible even for those with limited technical skills.

• No previous coding skills needed to customize your platform.
• Supports various multimedia content types, such as videos, surveys, discussion boards, downloads, and services like Typeform.
• You can host video content on the platform for free without additional costs.
• Utilize ready-made themes to quickly launch your online learning site with ease.
• Seamlessly connect with popular email marketing tools like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or ActiveCampaign to start marketing campaigns and automate content delivery.

• Allows uploading of videos, texts, images, audio files, and PDFs directly from cloud storage services such as Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox.
• Features a drag-and-drop website builder to create engaging and functional pages effortlessly.
• The websites created are highly responsive, ensuring an optimal experience across desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
• Team members can access advanced editing tools to implement personalized features.
• The page editor enables instant addition of new course pages or updates with the latest offerings.
• You can customize the website language to better serve international students.
• Use sales templates optimized to increase conversions and quickly grow your revenue.

Winner: Teachable.

3. Security Measures

Thinkific:

• Features secure cloud hosting providing constant data protection.
• Automatic, regular backups help prevent data loss.
• Built-in SSL certificates ensure all data transferred is encrypted and secure.
• Security updates are rolled out automatically to patch vulnerabilities.
• The platform is monitored 24/7 by security professionals to detect and handle threats immediately.
• You retain full control over your website data at all times.

• Implementing payment integrations only with PCI level-1 compliant providers ensures your data remains completely secure. Additionally, employing a 2048-bit SSL certificate guarantees that all student information is protected during transactions. These platforms offer automatic updates to incorporate the latest security enhancements, giving you full control and ownership of your data at all times.

Winner: Thinkific

4. Marketing Capabilities

Thinkific Marketing:

• Thinkific supports affiliate marketing initiatives, allowing you to reward partners instantly for referring students to your courses. You can track performance directly and set different commission rates to motivate affiliates.
• You can connect with email marketing platforms seamlessly to create personalized campaigns that reach the right audience at optimal times.
• The platform offers integration with over 1,000 external marketing tools, making campaign management and automation straightforward.
• Advanced data tracking enables real-time optimization of marketing strategies, ensuring your efforts are always effective.
• Support for ad tracking and analytics is available through Facebook, Google AdWords, and remarketing, helping you measure and improve your ad campaigns.

Teachable Marketing:

• Teachable offers built-in features to track affiliate programs and reward partners when they successfully sell your courses or digital products.
• Creating discount codes and promotional offers is straightforward, helping incentivize new sign-ups and motivate existing users to promote your platform.
• You can customize your pricing plans, including one-time fees or subscription models, to fit your business model and marketing goals.
• Utilize their landing page builder features to enhance your sales strategies
• Accept payments swiftly in over 130 international currencies, allowing for multiple currencies within a single course
• Integrate seamlessly with top marketing tools like MailChimp, Mixpanel, Infusionsoft, and others
• Insert conversion pixels easily into your website to monitor and evaluate marketing campaign performance

Winner: Teachable

Teachable provides a more extensive list of marketing tools that enable highly tailored and efficient marketing campaigns. Its comprehensive marketing suite simplifies managing complex campaigns with greater clarity and control.

Start your journey with Teachable.

5. Data Analytics

Understanding and interpreting user data generated through website visitors and marketing efforts are crucial for businesses today. Equipped with robust analytics tools, companies can extract actionable insights that support data-driven decision-making.

Recent statistics indicate that the global business intelligence market is projected to reach approximately $29.48 billion by 2022. As more organizations undergo digital transformation, effectively leveraging data becomes vital for maintaining a competitive edge. Therefore, it’s important to choose an online course platform that offers powerful analytics solutions and insights.

Here’s a comparison of how Thinkific and Teachable perform in delivering data analytics capabilities:

Thinkific



• Integrates easily with analytics platforms like Google AdWords, Facebook, and other remarketing tools
• Enables tracking of individual student progress via specific filters
• Sends targeted email broadcasts to select user groups
• Supports highly personalized marketing campaigns aimed at specific segments

Teachable



• The platform’s dashboard provides insights into student signups and revenue within specified periods
• You can measure average course completion rates and categorize students by account type
• Exporte detailed revenue and student data to generate actionable insights
• Leverage integrations with Zapier to trigger personalized marketing events
• Use attribution models like first and last touch to identify which campaigns effectively converted students

When comparing Thinkific and Teachable in terms of analytics tools, both platforms offer reliable integrations and comprehensive features for tracking student progress and marketing effectiveness. Nevertheless, Teachable excels slightly with its more advanced data tools and user journey insights.

Winner: Teachable

Teachable provides superior data analytics capabilities that facilitate deeper understanding of student behavior and more efficient marketing strategies. Its features allow marketers to easily evaluate and optimize the student journey.

Get started with Teachable.

Disclaimer: This article includes affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. These are the tools I personally recommend for launching online courses. You can read my full affiliate disclosure in the privacy policy linked in the footer.Start creating your online course platform by focusing on resolving operational challenges promptly. Reliable customer support is essential, especially when quick and straightforward assistance is needed to fix issues efficiently. Without effective support, delivering a seamless service and satisfying your customers can become very difficult.

Both the online learning platforms discussed here offer extensive collections of tutorials and handle customer inquiries through support tickets. Typically, responses to support tickets take 24 hours or longer. In addition, both platforms maintain active communities on social media platforms like Facebook, where users can quickly get their questions answered.

Thinkific and Teachable provide various support options, including support tickets, online tutorials, onboarding emails, active Facebook groups for community queries, and comprehensive knowledge bases. Thinkific offers live support calls from Monday to Friday, 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. PST. Meanwhile, Teachable provides real-time live chat support on its Professional plan and higher, available Monday through Friday, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Eastern time, and email support seven days a week from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. Eastern for all plans.

It’s a close call when comparing customer support. Thinkific’s team is generally more proactive and better trained to resolve issues swiftly, with faster turnaround times for paid tickets. On the other hand, Teachable’s live chat feature offers instant assistance, which can be very convenient. Overall, both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses in customer support, making it a tie.

When it comes to payment integrations, ensuring secure and reliable processing is crucial given current data security concerns. Both Thinkific and Teachable support popular payment methods like PayPal and Stripe. Thinkific also offers a feature called Stunning, which helps prevent transaction failures on Stripe, leading to fewer downtime issues and higher customer satisfaction. Additionally, Thinkific integrates well with third-party tools that assist with tax management. Teachable can handle VAT taxes too, but its automatic EU VAT collection feature can sometimes complicate matters.

Thinkific emerges as the winner here because of its seamless third-party integrations, especially for efficient tax management. You can start with Thinkific to enjoy its advanced payment features and integration capabilities.

In the realm of customization, providing a tailored and engaging user experience is key to differentiating your online service. A platform with strong customization options allows you to craft a unique, intuitive, and immersive learning environment. Here’s a look at what both platforms offer in terms of customization features. Thinkific stands out with its extensive customization capabilities, enabling you to tailor your courses and website to match your brand’s identity and optimize user engagement.

• Introducing prerequisite lessons that enable learners to request access to courses or lessons ahead of time.
• Utilize multiple instructors in real-time to serve different student categories, which also helps increase revenue by handling more students simultaneously.
• Implement drip content schedules to distribute your course materials efficiently.
• Easily integrate with membership sites to attract a broader audience and foster loyal users.
• Organize your content into private or hidden courses, offering options for free or paid access.
• Choose from various themes to present your courses exactly how you envision.
• Provide students with completion certificates to validate their progress.



Teachable:



• Build user-friendly web pages with minimal setup effort. You only need an email and your school’s name to get started.
• Create engaging quizzes and foster discussions easily within your platform.
• Customize your website’s appearance to match your brand identity without any programming skills.
• Enjoy high levels of customization through simple tools, making your site unique and tailored to your needs.
• Utilize integrated comment and email features to develop an active community that provides additional support to your learners.
• Access a vast pool of instructors already available on the platform to offer high-quality courses without hassle.

With features like drip scheduling and extensive third-party integrations, Thinkific stands out when it comes to customization options.

Winner: Thinkific.

With numerous themes to choose from, Thinkific enables you to craft highly personalized course pages instantly. Its wide array of functionalities makes it well-suited to handle various tasks, serve diverse users, and deliver richer features competitively. Therefore, Thinkific emerges as the clear leader in this category.

Start using Thinkific today.

9. Pricing Plans.

Many businesses often opt for a product that fits within their budget, sometimes settling for average quality. That’s why the price is a key factor when choosing the best platform to meet your needs. Comparing the costs of different options before making a decision ensures you get the most value. Here, we focus on monthly subscription fees billed annually, as long-term plans typically offer better value and more features for your investment.Thinkific Pricing:

Thinkific provides a 20% discount on annual subscriptions. Its pricing plans range from $39 to $399 per month, billed annually.



Thinkific also offers a free plan that includes essential features like hosting up to three courses, unlimited students, quizzes, surveys, content hosting, and instant access to funds. This free tier allows users to start their online teaching journey without any initial investment. Business owners can easily upgrade to paid plans as their needs grow.

Teachable Pricing:

Teachable offers a variety of plans:

• Free: $0
• Basic: $29 per month
• Pro: $99 per month
• Business: $249 per month

These prices are billed annually, although monthly billing options are available with slightly higher fees.



All plans include unlimited courses, coaching services, product bundles, course templates, and ongoing support.

Winner: Teachable.

With its free plan and more affordable paid tiers, Teachable offers a more budget-friendly option compared to Thinkific.

Teachable vs Thinkific: Highlights.

This overview of both platforms should help guide your decision-making process. Given the extensive features and services bundled into each platform, it’s important to evaluate each point carefully before selecting the best fit for your needs.

To simplify your choice, I’ve compiled key aspects to consider when making your final decision.

Thinkific Review:

For a more detailed analysis, visit my comprehensive Thinkific review. Here are some of the main advantages and disadvantages of using their platform.

Pros
No transaction fees charged.
User-friendly course navigation to improve productivity.
Offers a free trial period without requiring credit card details.
Unlimited courses can be created on Thinkific.
No extra charges for hosting video content.
Possibility to embed sales widgets and promote courses directly on blogs or social media platforms.
Use popular payment systems like Stripe or PayPal for instant payouts.
Cons
The free plan offers limited features.
Workshops or live coaching sessions are not available on the free plan.
Limited on advanced quiz and survey capabilities.
Less adaptable compared to Teachable.

Review of Teachable:

Here’s an overview of some advantages and disadvantages of Teachable, especially when compared with Thinkific.

Advantages
Intuitive and flexible interface for users.
Robust analytics and detailed reporting features.
Provides premium live chat support.
Automates affiliate payouts upon sales.
No extra charges for video hosting.
Has a functional iOS app.
Manages VAT taxes effectively.
Disadvantages
Incur transaction fees.
Stronger course compliance features in Thinkific.
Limited pricing options for learners compared to Thinkific.
Less straightforward for bulk course sales.

Final Thoughts

This comprehensive comparison between Thinkific and Teachable aims to guide you toward an informed choice. Both platforms deliver powerful solutions for creating and selling online courses. Nonetheless, your ultimate decision should align with your specific needs.

In my view, Thinkific offers a broader range of features that facilitate quick deployment and steady growth of your online learning business. It stands out as the preferred option for those seeking a straightforward, reliable platform with high security. The free plan on Thinkific is especially appealing, allowing users to explore many features risk-free.

Teachable also provides a strong platform, with a user-friendly drag-and-drop builder as a key selling point. However, it has some shortcomings, like transaction fees and a somewhat limited tax calculation tool. Carefully compare all features against your goals to choose the platform that best suits your needs.

Get started with Thinkific today through a free 14-day trial.

Recommended reading on StepThroughThePortal.com includes guides to the best online course platforms, comparisons between Kajabi and Teachable, and detailed reviews of Kajabi. For building your online presence and earning income online, check out the beginner’s guide on how to start a blog.