Thinkific Review
Reviewed by Carlos Gil · Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Updated 8 min readEditorially reviewed
Quick facts
- Starting price
- Basic $40/mo billed annually ($54 monthly)
- Free plan
- No
- Best for
- Experts, training academies and companies that want to sell courses, communities and memberships to their own audience on a branded site, with B2B group sales on Grow and enterprise LMS features on Plus
- Platforms
- Web (admin and learner site); Thinkific mobile app for learners on iOS and Android; branded iOS and Android app as a $199/mo add-on; API and webhooks on Grow and Plus
BestStacked Score
Weighted average of 5 categories. Methodology below.
Quick answer
What is Thinkific, and is it worth paying for?
Thinkific is a hosted platform for creating and selling online courses, communities, memberships, coaching and digital downloads on your own branded site, with its own checkout (Thinkific Payments). It is not a course marketplace: Thinkific's own AI information page says organizations sell to their own audiences, so you bring the traffic. It's worth paying for if you want unlimited courses, communities and cohort features in one place and plan to sell through Thinkific Payments. There is no free plan anymore; every account starts with a 30-day free trial. Basic costs $40 a month billed annually ($54 monthly) and Start, the plan most course businesses need, costs $82 ($109 monthly), checked on Thinkific's pricing page on October 13, 2026, after a roughly 10% increase on August 13, 2026.
- Best for
- Experts and academies selling courses, cohorts and memberships to an audience they already have, and companies selling training seats to other businesses on Grow or Plus.
- Skip it if
- You expect a marketplace to bring you students, need a free plan, or want certificates, memberships and payment plans on the cheapest tier.
- Strongest capability
- Unlimited courses on every plan, plus communities, live Zoom cohorts, certificates, memberships and bundles from Start, all on one branded site with a built-in checkout.
- Biggest limitation
- Plan gates and fees: Basic lacks certificates, memberships, bundles and payment plans, Stripe sales carry an extra 5% fee on Basic, every self-serve plan caps current students at 10,000, and the AI teaching assistant is Plus-only.
The Verdict
Thinkific covers the full course business on one branded site: a drag-and-drop course builder, unlimited courses on every plan, communities with live events, coaching and webinars, digital downloads, and a native checkout with order bumps, gifting, coupons and abandoned-cart emails. Start adds the features most paid courses need, including certificates, assignments, memberships, bundles, payment plans and live Zoom cohorts. Grow removes Thinkific branding and adds group orders, invoicing, PayPal, the API and phone support, and Plus adds SSO, SCORM, learning paths, HubSpot and Salesforce sync and Thinker, the AI teaching assistant. The trade-offs are real. The free plan is gone, prices rose about 10% in August 2026, self-serve plans cap current students at 10,000 and video bandwidth at 100 to 400 GB a month, and Stripe sales carry an extra fee unless you use Thinkific Payments. Thinkific also doesn't run a student-facing marketplace, so discovery is on you. We score Thinkific 8.4/10.
Best for
Course creators, academies and companies with their own audience who want courses, community and checkout on one branded site.
Skip if
You need a free plan, want a marketplace to find students for you, or need certificates and memberships on a budget tier.
The Background
What Is Thinkific?
Thinkific (thinkific.com) is a learning commerce platform and learning management system run by Thinkific Labs Inc., founded in 2012 in Vancouver, Canada, and listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: THNC). Creators build courses, communities, memberships, coaching and webinar products and digital downloads, then sell them on their own branded site through TCommerce, Thinkific's checkout powered by Thinkific Payments (built on Stripe). Self-serve plans are Basic, Start and Grow; Thinkific Plus is the enterprise tier for organizations training customers, partners and members, with custom pricing. Thinkific describes three audiences: individual experts, academies and associations, and companies. Its own llms.txt file says it is not a course marketplace and not an internal HR training system.
The Product
Thinkific Features: What You Actually Get
Course builder and learning products
Every plan includes unlimited published courses with video lessons, quizzes, drip scheduling and in-course discussions. Since September 2026 every new customer starts in the new course builder, with quizzes and discussions built in. Start adds completion certificates, assignments, course compliance tools (required video or lesson completion), private and hidden courses, Zoom lessons and multimedia content, and Grow adds Brillium exams. Digital downloads and coaching or webinar products are capped at 5 each on Basic and unlimited from Start.
A financial planner publishes a free mini-course as a lead magnet and a paid 8-module retirement course with a certificate on Start.
Communities, cohorts and memberships
Basic includes one community with 5 spaces, direct messages, weekly digests and up to 5 live events. Start allows unlimited live events, 10 spaces and paid community memberships, bundles of courses and community, and live cohorts with unlimited Zoom sessions, bookable calendars and attendance tracking. Grow allows 3 communities with 20 spaces each, and Plus is unlimited. Thinkific's July and August 2026 updates added certification programs, learner streaks and goals, and a Study Session Scheduler.
A fitness coach runs a 6-week cohort program with weekly Zoom calls, then moves graduates into a monthly paid community.
TCommerce checkout and Thinkific Payments
All plans include a native checkout with order bumps, gifting, coupons, abandoned-cart emails, affiliate reporting and instant access to revenue. Start adds payment plans, subscriptions, bundles, extra price options and after-purchase upsell flows; Grow adds group orders for B2B seats, invoicing and PayPal (one-time payments only). Thinkific Payments charges 2.9% plus $0.30 per US card payment, with extra fees for international cards, currency conversion and subscriptions, and is required for TCommerce tools such as buy now, pay later and sales tax handling.
A software trainer sells 50 seats of a certification course to a client company through a group order and sends the invoice from Thinkific on Grow.
AI tools and Thinker
Thinkific's help center lists an AI Course Outline Generator, AI landing pages, and an AI Quiz Generator on all paid plans, and its dashboards add AI-generated summaries. Thinker, the AI teaching assistant, answers learner questions from your own course content and uploaded PDFs, works site-wide since May 2026, and is available only on Plus, billed through a monthly allotment of credits (one credit per answer). The Thinkific MCP connector, which lets an AI agent read courses, learners and enrollments, is a read-only Plus beta.
A professional association on Plus turns on Thinker so members get answers about continuing-education modules at night without emailing staff.
Plus: enterprise LMS features
Plus adds single sign-on, SCORM 1.2 and 2004 content, learning paths in the Learner Hub, custom roles, extra administrators, custom analytics dashboards, a sandbox site, a 99.5% SLA, an MSA, HubSpot and Salesforce sync, Articulate 360 one-click publishing, multiple branded environments and a dedicated customer success team. Thinkific says Plus uses flat-rate pricing with no per-learner or setup fees, but doesn't publish a price. Thinkific does not support xAPI or cmi5 packages, according to its AI information page.
A SaaS company moves its customer academy from a legacy LMS, imports SCORM modules from Articulate, and logs course completions to Salesforce.
Feature recap
- Unlimited courses on every plan, with quizzes, drip content and discussions
- Communities with spaces, DMs and live events from Basic
- Certificates, assignments, memberships, bundles and payment plans from Start
- Live cohorts with unlimited Zoom sessions from Start
- Native checkout with order bumps, gifting, coupons and abandoned-cart emails
- Group orders, invoicing, PayPal, API and webhooks from Grow
- SSO, SCORM, learning paths, CRM sync and Thinker AI on Plus
- Branded iOS and Android app as a $199/mo add-on
The Numbers
Thinkific Pricing: Every Plan Explained
These Thinkific prices come from Thinkific's pricing page, checked October 13, 2026, in USD. Annual prices are shown as a monthly figure; Thinkific's 2026 pricing article lists the yearly totals ($475, $978 and $1,968). Prices rose about 10% on August 13, 2026, the first increase since 2022, according to Thinkific's help center. There is no free plan; every plan starts with a 30-day free trial.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Included Features | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $54/mo | $40/mo ($475/yr) | Unlimited courses; 1 community (5 spaces); up to 5 digital downloads, 5 coaching or webinar products and 5 live community events; checkout, order bumps, gifting, coupons, abandoned-cart emails; custom domain; 1 admin; 100 GB video bandwidth a month; 10,000 current students; email and chat support. No certificates, assignments, memberships, bundles, payment plans, PayPal or API. 5% fee on Stripe sales | First course, building an audience |
| StartBest value | $109/mo | $82/mo ($978/yr) | Everything in Basic plus live cohorts with unlimited Zoom sessions, certificates, assignments, memberships and subscriptions, bundles, upsells, payment plans, private and hidden courses, HTML and CSS editor; unlimited downloads and coaching; 10 spaces; 2 admins; 200 GB bandwidth. 2% fee on Stripe sales | Most paid course businesses |
| Grow | $219/mo | $164/mo ($1,968/yr) | Everything in Start plus Thinkific branding removed, 3 communities (20 spaces), group orders and invoicing, PayPal, bulk student import, Zapier actions, API and webhooks, Thinkific Analytics, Brillium exams; 6 admins; 400 GB bandwidth; phone and priority support. 1% fee on Stripe sales | B2B sales and growing teams |
| Plus | Custom | Custom (talk to sales) | Everything in Grow plus SSO, SCORM, learning paths, Thinker AI teaching assistant, HubSpot and Salesforce sync, custom roles, custom analytics, sandbox site, 99.5% SLA, MSA, bandwidth from 7,500 GB a month, custom student capacity, dedicated customer success team; branded app on select contracts | Academies and companies training at scale |
| Branded Mobile App (add-on) | $199/mo | Not listed | Your own iOS and Android app for courses and community, activated from the Thinkific admin; included on select Plus plans | Mobile-first learner audiences |
Start is the realistic entry point for a paid course: Basic leaves out certificates, memberships, bundles and payment plans. Thinkific Payments costs 2.9% plus $0.30 per US card payment, plus 1.5% for international cards, 1% for currency conversion and 0.7% on subscriptions and payment plans, according to its fees article. If you use Stripe instead, Thinkific adds a third-party gateway fee of 5% on Basic, 2% on Start and 1% on Grow, on your first $1 million of sales each calendar year. On $50,000 a year of Stripe sales, that's $2,500 on Basic or $1,000 on Start (our arithmetic). Self-serve plans also cap current students at 10,000 and video bandwidth at 100, 200 or 400 GB a month; going over leads to an upgrade request, with 60 days to act before the admin can be paused. Subscriptions are paid by Visa, Mastercard or Amex only. Thinkific's terms of service (last modified June 30, 2026) say subscriptions renew automatically at the then-current price, annual plans get a renewal notice 30 to 60 days ahead, price changes come with at least 30 days' email notice, and fees aren't refunded unless Thinkific made an error or the law requires it. Where local law requires it, cancelling an annual plan after renewal earns a pro-rata refund within 15 days; monthly plans simply end at the close of the billing cycle. You can cancel at any time in Account settings, including during the trial, and the terms exempt free trials from the credit-card requirement.
Read before you buy
Where Thinkific's own pages differ
Free plan: the pricing page's FAQ and Thinkific's llms.txt file both say there is no free plan, only a 30-day free trial, but the same pricing page's search description reads "Get started for free, upgrade when you need to", and the third-party payment gateway fee FAQ (updated February 2026) still lists a Free plan in its fee table.
Transaction fees: Thinkific's AI information page says Thinkific charges zero transaction fees on paid plans when you use TCommerce. Its Thinkific Payments fees article lists 2.9% plus $0.30 per US card payment, plus extra fees for international cards, currency conversion and subscriptions, and the pricing page's FAQ quotes 2.9% without the fixed fee. Treat "zero transaction fees" as meaning no Thinkific platform fee on top of processing.
Plan limits and support: a customer quote on the pricing page says Thinkific handles unlimited courses, students and bandwidth, while the same page's comparison table caps Basic, Start and Grow at 10,000 current students and 100 to 400 GB of video bandwidth a month. The table's overview lists Grow support as phone and priority email, while the plan card and security rows say phone and priority chat. The overview also ticks reporting and analytics on every plan, while the marketing tools section marks it Grow and Plus only, and several rows in the management section carry descriptions that belong to other rows.
Plus security: the Plus page says single sign-on supports SAML and OIDC, while the security overview and AI information page describe OpenID Connect and say Microsoft Entra ID needs a third-party tool. The Plus page and AI information page say SOC 2 Type II, while the security overview says "SOC2 Compliant" without a type. The Plus page also lists data residency support, while the security overview says customer and learner data is hosted in the United States.
Cancellation and payments uplift: the terms of service say you keep access to your account after cancelling, without paid features, while the help center's cancellation article says you can no longer access your admin dashboard, products or order tables once the billing cycle ends. Thinkific's site claims Thinkific Payments raises average order value by up to 31%, while its gateway fee FAQ says up to 22% larger transactions; both are Thinkific's own figures.
Data and terms
Marketplace, security and data
Thinkific does not run a student-facing course marketplace. Its llms.txt file says it "is not a course marketplace", and its AI information page lists "Thinkific is a course marketplace" as an inaccuracy. The Thinkific App Store sells apps to creators, and the Experts Marketplace lists service providers who build sites and courses; neither sends students to your courses. Learners can use the Thinkific mobile app to reach courses they've already joined.
Thinkific's security overview says its platform runs on AWS and Google Cloud, hosts customer and learner data in the United States, encrypts data in transit with TLS 1.2 or higher and at rest with AES-256, runs quarterly third-party penetration tests and daily backups, and leaves card data to Stripe under PCI-DSS. It offers a GDPR data processing addendum and a CCPA addendum. Thinkific says it does not train AI models on customer content and that its AI sub-processors (AWS Bedrock, Google AI and OpenAI) are contractually barred from doing so. The terms set a $20 chargeback fee and let creators refund student payments through Thinkific Payments for up to 60 days.
The Tradeoffs
Thinkific Pros and Cons
What we love
- Unlimited courses on every plan
- Communities, live cohorts and memberships in the same platform
- Native checkout with order bumps, gifting, payment plans and abandoned-cart emails
- 30-day free trial and cancel-anytime terms on self-serve plans
- Group orders and invoicing for B2B training sales on Grow
- Enterprise options on Plus: SSO, SCORM, CRM sync and an AI teaching assistant
What could be better
- No free plan, and prices rose about 10% in August 2026
- Basic lacks certificates, memberships, bundles and payment plans
- Extra 5%, 2% or 1% fee on Stripe sales unless you use Thinkific Payments
- Self-serve plans cap current students at 10,000 and limit video bandwidth
- Thinker AI, SSO, SCORM and CRM integrations are Plus-only with quoted pricing
- No student-facing marketplace, so you must bring your own audience
The Audience
Who Should Use Thinkific?
Best for: experts with an audience to sell to
Coaches, consultants and educators with an email list or social following can run courses, a cohort program and a paid community on Start, with certificates and payment plans, without stitching together separate tools.
Best for: academies and companies selling training
Training businesses and associations can sell seats to other companies through group orders and invoices on Grow, then move to Plus for SSO, SCORM, learning paths and Salesforce or HubSpot sync.
Skip if: you want a marketplace to find students
Thinkific doesn't list your course anywhere students browse, and there's no free plan to test demand for long. If you're starting with no audience, a newsletter-first tool like Kit or a cheaper starter plan elsewhere may fit better.
The Methodology
How We Reviewed Thinkific
This is an editorial review, not a documented hands-on test. We didn't use a Thinkific account for this review. It's based on Thinkific's pricing page and plan comparison table, Plus page, security overview, App Store, product updates for 2026, llms.txt file and AI information page, its terms of service, and help-center articles on the 2026 price update, third-party gateway fees, Thinkific Payments fees, PayPal, plan changes, cancellation, current students, bandwidth limits, AI tools, Thinker and Thinker credits, the Thinkific MCP, the mobile app and the Experts Marketplace, all checked on October 13, 2026. Where Thinkific's pages differ, we report both statements. No course-completion, sales-conversion or support-response results are claimed.
Our editorial evaluation considers product information, official documentation, pricing, features and professional experience. It is not a claim of documented hands-on testing.
Our review methodology →What changed
- : First published. Editorial review based on Thinkific's pricing page and plan comparison, Plus page, security overview, App Store, 2026 product updates, llms.txt and AI information page, terms of service, and help-center articles on the 2026 price update, gateway and Thinkific Payments fees, plan changes, cancellation, student and bandwidth limits, AI tools, Thinker, the MCP and the Experts Marketplace, all checked October 13, 2026.
The Field
Thinkific vs The Competition
Thinkific competes with other hosted course and creator platforms. Prices below were checked on each vendor's pricing page on October 13, 2026.
| Tool | Starting Price | Free plan | Best Feature | BS Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thinkific | Basic $40/mo billed annually ($54 monthly) | No | Course builder and learning products | 8.4/10 |
| Teachable | Starter $29/mo billed annually ($39 monthly) | No | Low entry price with student apps on every plan | 8.5/10 |
| Kajabi | Basic $143/mo billed annually ($179 monthly) | No | Email marketing, funnels and courses in one platform | 8.9/10 |
| Podia | Mover $42/mo billed annually ($49 monthly) | No | Courses, downloads, community and email in one low-cost plan | 8.1/10 |
| LearnWorlds | Starter $24/mo billed annually ($29 monthly) | No | Interactive video and course authoring | —No BestStacked review yet |
Teachable: Teachable's Starter plan allows 5 products with a 7.5% transaction fee; Builder ($69 billed annually, $89 monthly) drops the fee to 0%. Plans come with a 7-day free trial and a 30-day guarantee. Thinkific allows unlimited courses on every plan, while Teachable caps products by tier.Read our Teachable review →
Kajabi: Kajabi's Basic plan includes 5 products, 2,500 contacts, one website and one community, with unlimited marketing emails and funnels. It costs more than Thinkific Start but adds built-in email marketing and funnels Thinkific doesn't match.Read our Kajabi review →
Podia: Podia's Mover plan includes 50 products, 25 community spaces and email for 100 subscribers, with a 5% transaction fee that disappears on Shaker ($84/mo billed annually, $99 monthly). It offers a 14-day trial without a credit card.Read our Podia review →
LearnWorlds: LearnWorlds' Starter plan charges $5 per paid enrollment; Pro Trainer ($79 billed annually, $99 monthly) has no enrollment fee. It offers a 30-day free trial. BestStacked hasn't reviewed LearnWorlds yet.
Use cases
Example setups by buyer type
A coach launching a first paid course
Start the 30-day trial, build the course and a free lead-magnet download, and connect Thinkific Payments to avoid the gateway fee. Choose Start ($82 a month billed annually) if you want certificates, payment plans or a Zoom cohort; Basic ($40) only covers simple one-time-purchase courses.
A training company selling seats to employers
Grow ($164 a month billed annually) adds group orders with volume discounts, invoicing, bulk student import and the API. Check the 10,000 current-student cap; larger programs need a Plus quote.
A SaaS company running a customer academy
Plus adds SSO, SCORM imports, learning paths, Salesforce or HubSpot sync and Thinker for learner questions. Pricing is quoted per organization, so ask for the SLA, environment count and Thinker credit allotment in writing.
The Ecosystem
Thinkific Integrations
Thinkific connects to other tools through its App Store, Zapier, an API and webhooks, and native CRM sync on Plus. Zapier triggers work on every plan; Zapier actions and the API start on Grow.
- →Zoom live lessons and cohorts (Start and up)
- →Zapier (triggers on all plans, actions on Grow and up)
- →Kit, Mailchimp and HubSpot email and marketing apps
- →Google Analytics (GA4) and Meta Pixel
- →QuickBooks sync for Thinkific Payments data
- →Shopify store app
- →Brillium exams (Grow and up); API and webhooks (Grow and up)
- →Salesforce and HubSpot CRM sync, Articulate 360 publishing and SSO (Plus)
Integration availability above is from Thinkific's pricing comparison table, App Store and AI information page on October 13, 2026. The App Store also lists third-party apps from other developers, which Thinkific's terms provide as is. Confirm plan eligibility for any app before buying.
Common Questions
Thinkific FAQ
The Final Word
Should You Use Thinkific?
Thinkific is a solid choice for experts, academies and companies that already have an audience and want courses, communities, memberships and checkout on one branded site. Budget for Start rather than Basic, use Thinkific Payments to avoid the gateway fee, and check the 10,000-student and bandwidth limits before you scale. Don't count on Thinkific to find students for you: it doesn't run a marketplace. We score Thinkific 8.4/10.
Yes, if
You have your own audience and want unlimited courses, cohorts, a community and a built-in checkout on one branded site.
No, if
You need a free plan, want a marketplace to bring you students, or need certificates and memberships at the lowest price tier.
About the reviewer
Carlos Gil
Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Carlos Gil is the Founder & Editor of The Best Network, bestselling author of The End of Marketing, and a LinkedIn Top Voice. His digital marketing career began in 2008 and spans corporate roles at LinkedIn and BMC Software, consulting for global brands, creator partnerships, and building his own businesses.
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