Thinkific

This is where I have my courses

Kommentit: 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.

Hyvät puolet:

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.

Huonot puolet:

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.

Great Course Platform

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

Hyvät puolet:

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.

Huonot puolet:

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.

Not easy to use - don't spend money on this

Kommentit: I am very disappointed and out $1800 to boot. They refuse to process a refund although after lots of attempts I was never able to publish a course. I tried and tried to get online help but it's hidden behind chat bots. If you do manage to get someone on the phone, you only get 15 minutes and they kick you off and you have to rebook more time! This could be the following day. So you can't get a cohesive amount of time to actually learn how to use the product. Only software experts or those willing to invest full time in figuring out this nuanced offering should bother. It is NOT easy to use as advertised. Far from it.

Hyvät puolet:

No pros. Incredibly difficult to use and impossible to get human help.

Huonot puolet:

This product is incredibly difficult to use. You don't realize it until you've already signed up and they won't process your refund. AVOID unless you want to devote full-time effort to figuring this coursework out. It's also very hard to reach a human being to get assistance.

Fun and Flexible Course Platform

Kommentit: I found Thinkific to be very satisfying. I had everything I needed to launch a single course on the free plan (one free single course), but I was looking for a fully-integrate funnel solution, so I went with a competitor that had that feature. But this will be very good for most users.

Hyvät puolet:

It is very easy to get up and running with Thinkific. The course templates are a breeze to edit; users can easily see how to add and edit content, and the presentation is slick and professional.

Huonot puolet:

Thinkific does not have an integrated email marketing feature, but users can connect MailChimp, et al., with Zapier. The design templates look okay until the user starts to change fonts and adds more content, then they start to look like a Wordpress template. Not bad, but not slick.

The Best Online Course Creator

Kommentit: 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.

Hyvät puolet:

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.

Huonot puolet:

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.

Thinific delivers

Kommentit: 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.

Hyvät puolet:

Payment is received immediately when someone purchases my course.

Huonot puolet:

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.

Only use if you never want to close account

Kommentit: Ended very badly, we are having our reputation damaged

Hyvät puolet:

Easy to set up. Seems reasonably priced

Huonot puolet:

Only use if you never (and I mean never) want to close accountI have been trying to close our thinkific account for a year, it is impossible! It will let you downgrade to a free account but there you are stuck! You might think, that’s ok, they’re now charging you. Well, the problem is that every time you disable a course another one is reactivated. I have just had to refund a load of learners who have managed to sign up and pay for courses that we no longer run.. Not good for business!!!! There are other, better and more cost effective platforms out there.Impossible to speak to a person, Help pages are a joke

A great tool for creating an online course and integrating with your website

Kommentit: Such a great tool that offers a lot of drag and drop features that are unique and help to make a course more interactive and user friendly. I mainly used Thinkific in consulting work helping other professionals create digital courses.

Hyvät puolet:

I really enjoyed the customizability that Thinkific offers for creating digital courses. The drag and drop features are really easy to use and there are a lot of different options that can be added to help make a digital course more interactive for learners.

Huonot puolet:

It was a little challenging making an aesthetically pleasing course with Thinkific I found compared to used template builders like Elementor for example, which make appealing visuals very easy.

Robust, cost-effective learning solution

Hyvät puolet:

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.

Huonot puolet:

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

Basic yet satisfactory

Kommentit: It is ok for basic needs, easy to work with. But if you need more elaborated fancy designs and funcions look for Learnworlds.

Hyvät puolet:

Thinkific was the first elearning platform I worked on. It was quite easy to manage but also ugly as hell.

Huonot puolet:

No adjustable themes, no colors to choose from. No updates to the interface throughout the year I worked on.

Thinkific LMS platform. An honest review

Kommentit: Thinkific is a great LMS with many inbuilt integrations. Even though most of the integrations are not free, they help in building a better LMS all round.

Hyvät puolet:

Other than being a good Learning management platform, students could upload video contents and gifs in the communities of a thinkific school. This isn't possible with other LMS I've used. I think this is a great advantage in my opinion as videos drives conversations better.

Huonot puolet:

If I could upload SCORM/HTML5 contents it'll be a better product for me. Also, the course builder layouts are not as sleek as I expected in comparison to other products.

Thinkific need to get their act together

Kommentit: I regret signing up to Thinkfic, its caused huge delays and I have spend much more money than I needed too.

Hyvät puolet:

Thinific customer support is great and I also liked the user platform. It's easy for user to navigate and looks professional. The user has a great experience from purchase to completion.

Huonot puolet:

Thinkific is missing contact form and blog integration. This means you have to pay 3rd party apps about $70pcm extra! Also the basic plan is completely useless because you can't index to search engine or run successful PPC campaigns. For start ups like myself this is nightmare. So much better options out there offer better value for money.

Thinkific

Kommentit: Thinkific is very useful for selling your learning courses.

Hyvät puolet:

What I liked most about Thinkific was that it was very easy to use and great training material and different price options according to your budget.

Huonot puolet:

If we are being honest, so far I am very satisfied with this platform so I don't have any complaints.

Thinkific works for me!

Kommentit: 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!

Hyvät puolet:

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! :)

Huonot puolet:

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!

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

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

Hyvät puolet:

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.

Huonot puolet:

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

Customer Service Very Disappointing

Kommentit: Very frustrating! Not a customer-friendly service. While they are friendly and say they hope you are having a nice day, they do not answer questions (or apparently read email chains). There is no support for European customers I fed this back to them when I first signed up around 2 years ago and nothing has changed. I have given them all of the feed back given here but they do not take any action. Waiting at least a day for an answer is totally unacceptable. What makes it even more frustrating is that, after waiting for a reply, they ask for information that was already included in your original email (and then you have to wait another day for a response). It just seems as though they work at their convenience, not the customer's. And yet they are happy to take the subscriptions when they are not providing an adequate service.

Hyvät puolet:

I was so excited to find this product and thought it would be ideal for my needs

Huonot puolet:

The software is not user-friendly. I was hoping that it would be more straightforward and my staff have also commented that is it not user-friendly. There is nobody to call when you have a query and can only email. It takes them a day to get back to you. And we are based in the UK and with the time difference, we have to wait at least a day for an answer. What makes it even more frustrating is that, after waiting for a reply, they ask for information that was already included in your original email (and then you have to wait another day for a response). I sent a query on Monday asking how to do something and the reply said 'see instructions below' and there were no instructions there. In the same email, they asked me to confirm the email address (which I had emailed them on and they had clearly not tried this). I responded right away and just got an email asking how they could help me! (They clearly had not read the email chain). It is now 9pm at night on Tuesday and will be at least Wednesday afternoon with the time difference until I may get a reply and actually proceed.

So Far So Good

Kommentit: I was brought on board to help manage my client's Thinkific site. I did not have previous experience with Thinkific. So far, I've been satisfied with my overall experience.

Hyvät puolet:

I had no experience with Thinkific prior to jumping in to help my client with her account. However, I had some experience with other landing-page builders, and it was not too difficult to get the hang of using the Thinkific Site Builder. Also, I quickly found some YouTube videos that helped me out as well. My client already had a published Thinkific site. Thinkific has the option to create an offline copy so we can experiment with a new design and not worry about messing up the live site or causing disruptions for students. As a newbie, I was relieved not to have to worry about messing anything up. The Theme Library has a decent selection of templates - just enough to find a good starting point but not too many to be overwhelming. The sample landing pages are great inspiration as well. I love the "smart" blocks that pull content from elsewhere in your account. For example, the instructor's bio or course curriculum or student reviews.

Huonot puolet:

I encountered a few limitations: - The Site Builder includes about a dozen or so recognized fonts, but I did not see a way to add custom fonts. Maybe this is comes with a higher plan. - For the instructor's bio, I didn't like the default design of the "Instructors" block, so I just used a "Text & Media" block. That would have seemed fine, except the text and photo are too close together. I couldn't see a way to increase the space. - You can get a pretty good preview of the page using Fullscreen mode inside the Site Builder - but the links and buttons are not clickable. I didn't find a way to preview the course landing page with live links/buttons so I can make sure they are working properly. If I'm working with an offline copy, I would like to be able to check links and buttons BEFORE publishing and overriding our existing live page.

My experience with Thinkific

Hyvät puolet:

I like that it is simple, that they are quite transparant about their pricing and have an extensive help center. The Facebook group is also great for support. Making online courses comes with a lot of questions.

Huonot puolet:

Customization of the look & feel of online courses and landing pages is limited, as if payment options. For EU customers who are not accustomed to credit card / Paypal you need to integrate Shopify. This is possible, but connecting Shopify & Thinkific is not that great. Affiliate links don't work anymore and tracking sales becomes quite a bit harder.

Project your career by making your courses known on the net

Kommentit: An excellent way to place and sell your courses on the net, making you gain prestige in the online educational area.

Hyvät puolet:

A very easy to use application that projects your career as an instructor and educator, you can sell the courses to students or companies, allowing you to take better advantage as it allows you to enlarge your professional profile, showing the courses you have done and who and how many have seen, making you notice in the professional area, it is quite complete and easy to use, with an attractive cost for the market.

Huonot puolet:

I think they should improve a little the visual and design area, to make it more pleasing to the eye, allowing you to customize more each course and let your imagination fly to catch a larger audience, doing this would improve even more this excellent application.

Great Option

Kommentit: I enjoyed Thinkific and may yet return to it when my current contract is up with the LMS I moved to earlier this year. It's certainly as easy to use, and the sales page option is better designed. Everything else is about the same, but Thinkific is slightly more expensive and the pricing model is confusing.

Hyvät puolet:

I liked most that there was a free option to get started and that there is a front end option that shows all courses owned by an account native to the program. Thinkific is easy to use and now that it has added a community feature it's almost perfect.

Huonot puolet:

At the time I switched from Thinkific, I did so to get a native community feature so my students wouldn't have to go to Facebook for community. Now that Thinkific has added it, there's only one complaint I have, and that is that I need another layer of complexity for my courses. Unfortunately, I haven't found an LMS that has that, so Thinkific is no worse in that regard than any other LMS I've explored. I do have an issue with the pricing model, which is too complex and confusing. That makes it hard to compare with other options.

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

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

Hyvät puolet:

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.

Huonot puolet:

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

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

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

Hyvät puolet:

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.

Huonot puolet:

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

Customer Service is Horrid

Kommentit: In the days of Covid, with so many things happening to small businesses- THinkific has been the WORST to deal with. Just bad. So many other vendors are eager to help us adapt to all that is changing - not Thinkific. Just try to talk to a real person. Good luck.

Hyvät puolet:

Relatively easy to set up - as long as you don't want to have helpers.

Huonot puolet:

HORRID for anyone working with a few helpers... they want to rape you on fees for additional admins. Can't remove/archive past offerings Customer service SUCKS.

Hansomekelly

Kommentit: Covers literally all of my needs and services

Hyvät puolet:

The different type of quizzes that I can offer

Huonot puolet:

The growth package monthly payment per student

Deliver Your Online Course or Digital Product With Ease

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

Hyvät puolet:

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

Huonot puolet:

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