Teachable vs Thinkific: Which Should You Start On?

If you are launching your first course and you want the cheapest way to test whether anyone will buy, start on Teachable. If you already know the course is the business and you want room to run cohorts, memberships and a community without replatforming, start on Thinkific.

Teachable vs Thinkific is close on features. It is not close on how the money works, and that is where most first-time creators get surprised.

Bottom line

• Teachable’s entry plan is cheaper per month but takes a cut of every sale.
• Thinkific charges more per month and takes no platform cut beyond payment processing.
• Neither has a free forever plan anymore. Both give you a trial, and Thinkific’s is much longer.

Quick comparison

Prices move. Confirm the current numbers on the Teachable pricing page and the Thinkific pricing page before you commit.

The fee difference is the whole decision

Teachable’s cheapest plan carries a 7.5% transaction fee. Thinkific does not charge a platform cut on any paid tier; you pay the payment processor and that is it.

Run it at two revenue levels and the answer flips.

At $500/month in course sales: Teachable Starter costs you roughly $39 plus about $38 in platform fees. Thinkific Basic costs about $54 and no platform cut. Teachable is still slightly cheaper, and that gap widens if you pay annually.

At $3,000/month: Teachable Starter is about $39 plus roughly $225 in fees. Thinkific Basic is about $54. Thinkific is now cheaper by a wide margin, and Teachable’s own answer is to move you up to its Builder plan at around $89/month, where the platform fee drops to zero.

So the honest framing is this. Teachable Starter is a cheap testing ground, not a home. The moment you are consistently selling, you either upgrade Teachable or you were better off on Thinkific from the start.

Payment processing sits on top of both. Expect roughly 2.9% plus 30 cents per US card transaction, more on international cards. Nobody escapes that.

Neither one is free anymore

Thinkific was known for a free plan for years. It is gone. What you get now is a 30-day trial across the paid plans, with no credit card needed to start.

Teachable gives you a 7-day trial plus a 30-day money-back guarantee, which functions as a longer test if you are willing to put a card down.

If a genuinely free forever plan is the requirement, neither of these is your platform. Systeme.io still has one, and we cover that trade-off in how to start selling online courses.

Product limits: read this before you pick a plan

This is where the entry plans differ most, and it is easy to miss.

Teachable Starter caps you at 5 products and 1 admin user. Builder raises it to 10 products. Growth goes to 50 products and 5 admins. “Products” includes courses, coaching offers and digital downloads, so a creator with a flagship course, three mini-courses and a template pack hits the Starter ceiling fast.

Thinkific Basic advertises unlimited courses, with a smaller allowance for other digital products and one community space. If your plan is to ship a lot of courses, Thinkific’s entry plan gives you more room.

Students are unlimited on both. That matters: some platforms meter active learners, and neither of these two does at this level.

Course building and delivery

Both give you a drag-and-drop curriculum builder, video hosting, quizzes, drip scheduling and a reasonably clean student player. If you have used one, you can use the other inside an hour.

Thinkific pulls ahead on structured teaching. Live cohorts with unlimited Zoom sessions, completion certificates, graded assignments and payment plans appear on its Start plan. If you teach in groups with a start date and an end date, that is the feature set you want.

Teachable pulls ahead on speed and on selling adjacent things. Coaching products, order bumps and upsells are native, and the setup path from blank account to live checkout is shorter. It has quietly become as much a “sell my expertise” platform as a course platform.

For course video itself, neither platform is an editor. If you are producing lessons from scratch, budget for a real editing workflow alongside whichever platform you pick.

Marketing, email and your website

Both include sales pages, coupons, affiliate programs and basic email. Both are weaker than a dedicated email platform, and you will feel it around your second launch.

Plan on running email separately once your list passes a few hundred people. The built-in tools are fine for receipts, course announcements and a simple welcome sequence. They are not fine for segmented launches or a newsletter you actually want people to read.

Thinkific’s Grow plan removes Thinkific branding and adds API access, three community spaces and phone support. Teachable’s higher plans lift product and admin caps rather than changing the branding story. If a fully unbranded student experience matters to you at a low price point, neither is the strongest option in this category — LearnWorlds is, and we compare that in Thinkific vs LearnWorlds.

Who should pick Teachable

• You have not sold a course yet and you want the lowest monthly commitment to find out if the idea works.
• You sell coaching, 1:1 sessions or a small bundle of digital products alongside a course.
• You expect fewer than five products and one person running the account.
• You accept the 7.5% fee as the price of a cheap start, and you have a plan to upgrade when sales get real.

Start a Teachable trial if that is you.

Who should pick Thinkific

• You want zero platform cut from day one, so growth does not quietly tax you.
• You plan to publish several courses, or run live cohorts with certificates and graded work.
• You want 30 days with no credit card to build properly before paying.
• You would rather pay a predictable monthly number than a percentage of revenue.

Start a Thinkific trial if that is you.

FAQ

Can I move my course from Teachable to Thinkific later?

Yes, and creators do it regularly, but nothing about it is one click. You re-upload video, rebuild the curriculum, rebuild sales pages and migrate student accounts. Budget a weekend and expect to email your existing students about new logins.

Which one actually costs less?

Under roughly $1,000/month in sales, Teachable’s entry plan usually wins on total cost. Above that, the 7.5% fee overtakes Thinkific’s higher monthly price, and you are better off on Thinkific or on Teachable’s zero-fee tier. Do the math on your own expected revenue rather than on the sticker price.

Do I need a separate email tool with either platform?

Eventually, yes. Both handle transactional email and simple broadcasts. Neither replaces a real creator email platform once you are segmenting a list or running a launch sequence, which is why most creators end up running one alongside.

Does either platform help me get students?

No, and be suspicious of anyone who implies otherwise. Both give you checkout, hosting and an affiliate program. Traffic is your job. Pick whichever platform you will stop fiddling with fastest, then spend your time on the audience.

Our call

For a first course with an unproven idea, Teachable is the cheaper experiment and the faster path to a live checkout page. For a course business you intend to still be running in two years, Thinkific is the better foundation because it never takes a percentage of what you build. Start the free trial on whichever description sounded like you, put one real product in it this week, and do not spend another evening reading comparisons.