Thinkific 🧰 Platform Paid

Thinkific hosts courses, coaching, memberships, communities and digital products, with a 30-day free trial rather than a permanent free tier. Basic starts at $40/month billed annually ($54 month-to-month) and covers unlimited courses, one community, up to five digital products and core e-commerce. Start ($82/mo annual, $109 monthly) adds live Zoom sessions, certificates, quizzes, assignments, payment plans and memberships. Grow ($164/mo annual, $219 monthly) removes Thinkific branding, adds up to three communities, B2B group orders, invoicing, API access and phone support. Plus is custom-priced for large cohorts with SSO, an AI teaching assistant, SCORM/learning paths and a branded mobile app.

Money moves through Thinkific Payments (Stripe-powered), which charges a 2.9% processing fee at every tier on top of the subscription; there is no separate platform revenue share, but that processing cut applies even on Grow and Plus. Third-party gateways and wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay carry their own variable fees, and payouts follow the connected processor's normal schedule.

For monetization, Thinkific sits alongside Teachable as a direct competitor: slightly stronger community and membership tooling, live cohort features from the Start plan up, and built-in affiliate reporting from Basic. It suits creators selling courses, coaching or memberships who want more community depth than Teachable and don't mind the processing cut.

The trade-offs: there's no permanent free plan, only a 30-day trial, so testing indefinitely or running at zero budget isn't an option, and several of the more useful monetization features (memberships, live sessions, payment plans) only unlock from Start at $82+/month. Marketing automation remains basic next to Kajabi. Best for creators who already expect to commit past the trial and want communities alongside courses, not for anyone who needs a permanently free tier.