Thinkific reviews

The best online course platform for those who are starting out.

Opmerkingen: Excellent, it has helped us get more clients and earn more money without having to set up a website from scratch.

Pluspunten:

The number of options available and the affordable price.

Minpunten:

Poor HTML editor. I hope they can improve this.

This is where I have my courses

Opmerkingen: Anytime I have a problem their tech support is great. And I haven't had any tech problems with the platform - my students are happy and use it easily.

Pluspunten:

When I was researching all the different software for course hosting, I liked that this had a place to upload documents in the discussions. That might be really important for people teaching code or other products. Then I'm glad I choose this one because others take a % of income AND you have to wait longer for money.

Minpunten:

The layout isn't as clean and modern as others - I'm hoping that will be updated at some point. It's a little ugly.

Thinific delivers

Opmerkingen: Overall it is goo. The product delivers what it sets out to deliver. I am happy to receive payment immediately unlike other online course options who hold on to payment for weeks.

Pluspunten:

Payment is received immediately when someone purchases my course.

Minpunten:

It is expensive compared to Systeme.io. They use Stripe as the payment gateway. South Africa and Stripe are not compatible so I'm forced to use Paypal. This leads to lost sales.

Stick with wordpress

Opmerkingen: We just moved our members to Thinkific. I like some features but mostly it was a big mistake. But we're kind of stuck here now. I'm not changing again since we're looking to sell soon.
This was part of the reason for the move, when we sell we wanted to make it an easier transition than a whole bunch of wordpress logins everywhere.
But ultimately, I got caught up in the hype around these course platforms. I have tested pretty much all of them, and they make the UI look and feel great. But then once you start working in there you become super limited in what's achievable.
I've had another reality check now. Honestly, I just don't understand why people use them. It's like going back 10 years in time for the page builders.
Wordpress is far superior than anything else out there. Even though it can be a little clunky at times too. And the UI & UX is nowhere near as good. But it costs a fraction of the price of every other platform and you can do 10x more. Even when using the best plugins.
Ultimately, the benefits of this platform definitely do not outweigh the limitations it has. And definitely not when you are paying 5-10x the price tag.
Mostly I am writing this here to keep myself accountable moving forward lol. You would think that after 8 years I'd be smarter than this by now. But nope 🙄😂

Pluspunten:

Easy login process for members and easier to upgrade into other courses, easier to use coupon codes, etc Single dashboard for partners, users and affiliates. This is the main issue we are trying to solve in the best way possible. Easier to display the courses on the site like an education company. Less design needed which is good for our VA's. A mobile app included, but it's super basic and not at all impressive

Minpunten:

We had to manually import every student and bulk enroll them into every course individually. The bulk enroll will only run 1 import at a time. So it took about 2-days to import them for every course We had to individually add every single affiliate because they don't have bulk enroll. It's taken my VA 3 days to do since we have over 300 affiliates. We're also going to have to manually pay them each month. The only way Thinkific is useful is if you buy a bunch of plugins so you can build a proper website. That then causes caching issues. The video player is old an outdated. We have to now go back and manually add every SRT file. It doesn't auto-generate like most players do these days. This will take a VA about a week to do. They also don't have an inbuilt API that when a subscription member cancels to remove a tag from your CRM. This blows my mind. It's simple, standard practice for any membership platform. So we have to use Zapier instead which adds another unneccesary cost. Support team is fairly unhelpful. All they do is send you to a document. They don't every help in any other way. For example, we just wanted to change the font size for the header menu. It had to be done in code. Would have taken someone on their team with develper knowledge 30 seconds to do or point us in the right direction. They wouldn't do it.

A simple solution for course creators!

Opmerkingen: My overall experience was great with Thinkific and our students loved using the platform. The Admin side was pretty easy to navigate but I just wanted a bit more when it came to the design features.

Pluspunten:

I liked the ease of Thinkific the most. It was super easy to upload videos, add files, write course curriculum and design a landing page for the course.

Minpunten:

What I like least is the ability to make the sales page exactly how you want it... Thinkific (at the time when I used it) had a very limited design feature, so I was very restricted with the way everything looked. I also felt the pricing was bit high for what you get...these days there are all-in-one solution platforms that offers everything that Thinkific offers for much less than the monthly cost.

Great Course Platform

Opmerkingen: Thinkific is much better than trying to remember to share Google Drive links with people to watch courses. It also looks much more professional.

Pluspunten:

Thinkfic integrates well with CRM systems which is so important to manage leads and data. It works well with Zapier as well which gives numerous possibilities.

Minpunten:

I wish some things were a bit more clear. It provides the ability to have courses that renew or memberships but doesn't do great on the backend of highlighting pros and cons of each.

Using Thinkific has helped me grow my business!

Opmerkingen: LOVE thinkific!

Pluspunten:

It's so easy to use, has great tutorials and their support is amazing.

Minpunten:

It's gotten more technical over the years and really now a designer is needed to create beautiful landing pages unless you have time to figure it out.

A great platform, but not as robust as others

Opmerkingen: Thinkific was fine for when I started selling courses, but ultimately it wasn't the right tool for my business and needs.

Pluspunten:

This is a platform built for courses, and as such, it does that incredibly well. If you are only looking for somewhere to sell courses and are most concerned with those looking great and being well built for your customers, then this is a great program.

Minpunten:

I really wanted a platform that could handle more than just courses (ie, also selling digital downloads, memberships, and 1:1 coaching programs). Thinkific isn't made to do everything because they focus on doing one thing really well. If you're looking for a jack of all trades rather than a master of one, this probably isn't for you.

The Best Online Course Creator

Opmerkingen: We started with an idea to help colleagues and turned it into a course. Thinkific allowed us to get our idea out of our heads and into reality, and a usable product people could buy & use.

Pluspunten:

Thinkific made it easy to create & host our digital course for financial advisors. With any platform there is a learning curve at the beginning. Thinkific's support team was always quick to reply and help us learn the ropes.

Minpunten:

I don't really have any complaints. It would be nice if the WYSIWYG editor were as good as Apple Pages, and turned out prettier text layouts in the templates. But, it's good enough.

Robust, cost-effective learning solution

Pluspunten:

Authoring and course creation is easy. The interface is simple to use. Courses are available on the mobile making it easy for learners to access the material.

Minpunten:

Would be great if the tool could generate the Quiz based on the course content. Perhaps a consideration for future development on the platform

With Thinkific as our Platform, we have successfully launched three very different online courses.

Opmerkingen: We are at the beginning stages of offering a high quality course to students from around the world.

Pluspunten:

We researched many Platforms before choosing Thinkific. We love that Thinkific is Canadian. We love the journey that students take from first encountering the site landing page, going to the course landing page and then immersing themselves in the course. I appreciate the helpful support from the Thinkific team. They do a great job of answering our many questions. I am fortunate that Thinkific rebuilt their course editing software quite soon after we began developing our course. Their new software is quite easy to use and easy to revise. I really like their flat-rate monthly subscription fee with no hidden costs.

Minpunten:

I wish students could purchase this course in the currency of their own country. I wish we could pay for our subscription in Canadian funds instead of American. We have had to purchase a separate Discussion Forum because their Disqus Plug In is a social media plug in that is not confidential, and their built in Discussion Forum is very awkward and poorly organized with no ability to search, edit, or even manage posts. Thinkific focuses much more on supporting marketing than on supporting online course development. We were fortunate that we had already taken two excellent courses in online course development that we could apply to the Thinkific Platform. Thinkific is less responsive to good ideas for improvement than I would like them to be. For example, despite many, many requests from many course developers it is still not possible for the course author to copy, paste and edit quizes and so there is a lot of unnecessary labour involved in inputting quizes

Thinkific works for me!

Opmerkingen: No benefits realized yet as I just got my first course up and published. I have several courses written but finding the right software for me and my students was my Catch 22... never considered that would hold me back. I kept working on the courses... and finally, the solution was presented to me. I have tried so many different teaching platforms already and never actually published. Just wasn't confident in knowing the site well enough -- but in no time at all, I am published on Thinkific and so thrilled I made the leap. Finally! Pure FUN!

Pluspunten:

Thinkific is easy to use. Add a new Module, one click to add content, module after module. So easy! Better yet, I LIKE how it looks to the user. I LIKE how the site can look like mine -- not another platform. It does look different, but MY site name is on top, visible, so users know where they are immediately. I've tried others and never quite liked the look as I work with seniors who have retired... and wanted simplicity. This time I found just that. AND YET -- very functional, with every content option I'd like to add. Thinkific has a great Facebook group too. Very active and helpful, learned how others are doing their classes so gives me new ideas. Some groups were full of people whining about what the software didn't do or needed to be corrected... that didn't work for me either, yeah, picky picky! :)

Minpunten:

I only had to ask Support one question while adding my first course. My only question was: how to add a manual student who paid me privately (or complimentary class) if they didn't purchase through Thinkific itself. I know its there, just chose to ask instead of searching! :) I didn't even use HELP pages to learn how to use it... it was pretty intuitive for me and I love that! Please don't think that means its not a fully integrated teaching service, it really is. They simply "got it" where the user (me, the instructor) and the other user (student) is concerned. Someone did the work to think about how both users will interact with the software. Kudos!

Thinkific is everything you need to publish online courses. There are different levels , even FREE!

Opmerkingen: It allows a person to publish an online course and customize everything, including the price you sell it for. Thinkific has everything you need to be successful. AND they offer lots of webinars and training as you need! I look forward to using it more as I grow my online publishing business!

Pluspunten:

I like that it is customizable. I like that Thinkific offers lots of webinars and help with all aspects of publishing online courses. It allows a couple ways to collect money for your courses. They spell out exactly what to do! For a newbie like me, I began setting things up months ago while I was working on my course. As I completed it, I began uploading the lectures and made some changes to my text and landing page and other info. Easy to make it your own. I am happy with how professional it all looks. Now I will get busy with the marketing end and Thinkific can help with info about that too! Customer service is awesome and they reach out frequently to see what they can do to guide you! I highly recommend this solution for getting an online course published. I am at the entry level, but am testing the waters until I need to go further and unlock more features.

Minpunten:

As expected the free version is basic, so in order to get to some of the good stuff, you have to upgrade. Not a big deal really, since I am producing my first course and need to go slowly.

Great product but there are cheaper options coming through.

Opmerkingen: Overall, a great experience and will continue to use it if updates are made. I've had emails from fresh learn as of late which are half the price for what seems to be the same features that Thinkific give.

Pluspunten:

I do really like Thinkific although the price seems a bit higher than some new online platforms that are coming through. I like the course layout and the amount that you can edit. It's a bit more tech-savvy than some which I don't mind. I've built fast courses with Thinkific and enjoyed being a user on a weekly basis. I do just hope that Thinkfics features get more modernised as time goes on as it can seem a little outdated at times. Just my opinion :)

Minpunten:

It's a bit more tech-savvy than some which I don't mind, but even a tech-savvy person wouldn't mind more convenience every day. This could come from more drag and drop and more templates to use as there doesn't seem to be any help in building your courses. There may be tutorials that I haven't come across the mind. I would like to see the price drop down before I go elsewhere.

No brainer choice of course management software

Opmerkingen: I researched so many LMSs out there and finally found my soulmate 😝 On Thinkific I am launching my first, course, the way I want it to be.

Pluspunten:

Free to get started Get paid via Paypal without being charged by thinkific Perfectly beautiful themes Add anything you can imagine, quiz, pdf, presentation, text, anything Support for Rich text e.g. make important words bold or italicized Available to anyone, not just Oxford or Harvard Professors boy, i am in love with literally every feature of thinkific

Minpunten:

user statistics are (so far as I understand) not recorded with quizzes. this could have been very great. so that students would know the level of difficulty of the quiz.

Love it!

Opmerkingen: I got leads into students who enjoyed this platform. I really loved setting up courses and I think this is a great product.

Pluspunten:

I really like how easy this system is; they have done a lot to make their platform easy to use. The free plan is good. Pro's: Easy to use & navigate Helpful tutorials Helpful webinars and manuals to help you get the most and market your courses Clean crisp look Responsive for mobile, tablet, and pc's

Minpunten:

Pricing for me was the only con; I had purchased a lifetime subscription to another course building platform and decided to switch to that otherwise i'd still be using thinkific.

Hansomekelly

Opmerkingen: Covers literally all of my needs and services

Pluspunten:

The different type of quizzes that I can offer

Minpunten:

The growth package monthly payment per student

The best eLearning platform for beginners and experts

Pluspunten:

I have produced more than 200 online courses and used several platforms. Thinkific is my favorite. I have three schools there. It's easy to use, clean design, and the upgrades are customer-centered.

Minpunten:

I don't like the new admin organization. It's text heavy and not intuitive. I prefer simple headers like courses, users, admin, etc.

For the non-developer who wants to create great online courses - go with Thinkific

Opmerkingen: It's just a great piece of software to deploy an online course without having to rely on a expensive developer (like myself.)

Pluspunten:

I deploy Thinkific to my clients who need to an online course, but don't have the expertise or resources to recruit someone with technology skills. It's really easy with a short learning curve. If building a website with drag/drop tools is easy to you - this is even easier. Their support is fantastic! Their response time is quick, their team is helpful, and their reply is always clear and coherent. I've spoken to them as both a user, and a developer - and they were always willing to find a way to help me solve things.

Minpunten:

For the scenario of building a training program - Thinkific is great - no issues. If I had to say something, like anything - the only thing I can think of is, as a developer - I wish I can build add-ons to extend Thinkific's features. I'm probably in the 1% who wants it, which shows how much Thinkific really thought things

Budget Friendly Software for developing your program

Opmerkingen: Overall I am very happy with this software for my program and it's been a very helpful tool.

Pluspunten:

I love that it is one of the most budget-friendly software that I know to create an online program on.

Minpunten:

I do believe that the software has the potential to grow more and be a little bit more professional looking, I would recommend adding more features and better design options.

Thinkific is easy to use, the interface is friendly both for the administrator and for the users.

Opmerkingen: I get to sell my courses to students directly and receive a hire percentage than I would on Udemy and Skillshare.

Pluspunten:

I needed to create online courses to sell directly to students rather than putting all my eggs in one basket... in this case 2 baskets; Udemy and Skillshare. I began looking for cheap or free LMS system, and after vetting my options I was down to two choices Thinkific and Teachable. Thinkific isn't as popular as Teachable so I was already partial, expecting less from it than Teachable. I was surprised that Thinkific was the better option. Thinkific is easy to use, intuitive and very user-friendly, they have lots of resources on how to create courses. I hit a snag in the video production phase of my courses and I was surprised when they reached out to me, I explained that I hadn't been online as I was still creating my course and they sent links to resources that would help. That was a biggy for me, as I really needed that. The staff and the software itself has been amazing.

Minpunten:

Non really, at least for now. I'm on the free plan which has limited features, I'd need to upgrade to fully explore its capabilities but for now, I'm content

Love it

Opmerkingen: Love it so much- I take courses and make my own course

Pluspunten:

Easy to use and explains everything very very well- the best platform I’ve used so far for my business

Minpunten:

Nothing to complain about except not needing so many videos to split it up but to turn it into a pro makes it shorter and brings my clients attention back

Thinkific Has A Lot Going For It

Pluspunten:

The look presented to students, and options for directing their learning process is thoughtful and creative. When I have a question that the help file can't answer, the live chat has been helpful a number of times.

Minpunten:

Some options are "all or nothing", in other words, I can't customize to individuals as much as I might like.

Feel Confident in the Basics

Opmerkingen: Thinkific is a strong performer for the price. It covers a lot of ground for course management needs from the all sides: student, teacher and administrative. You get many capabilities for video, text, downloads, discussions that serve different learning styles. The login, registration and payment system works well. Support can get you through even non-standard apps connections though it takes time and back/forth on email and phone.

Pluspunten:

Thinkific covers course the basics very well. It also provides strong administrative functions to support the student and teacher. Payment works well too.

Minpunten:

The question import and question change functions need to be improved. Currently, they are unwieldy and time consuming. Support could be easier to connect to. But, as seems to be everywhere, you have to start with an email or chat.

Deliver Your Online Course or Digital Product With Ease

Opmerkingen: I think this is an ideal solution for someone just getting started with an online business.

Pluspunten:

I think Thinkific is super intuitive to use and offers regular, non-techy people the ability to deliver their digital products with ease.

Minpunten:

I would like to see an integration that allows for making the internal dashboard as well as creating landing pages more customizable.