Teachable vs Thinkific
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
The short answer
Both sides assessedTeachable compared with Thinkific
Thinkific starts at $54 against Teachable's $39, allows 10,000 students from the entry tier, and has materially deeper teaching tooling with assignments, prerequisites, and cohorts. Teachable counters with branded mobile apps on every plan and a 0 percent platform fee above Starter, where Thinkific penalizes you 1 to 5 percent for using your own gateway. Teachable for a small creator who wants an app; Thinkific for a training business with real students.
Thinkific compared with Teachable
Teachable starts cheaper at $39 and includes branded mobile apps on all plans, but caps active students at 100 on Starter and 1,000 on Builder until you pass $10,000 in platform sales, and its Starter plan takes 7.5 percent of every sale. Thinkific allows 10,000 students from $54 and has deeper assessment tooling. Teachable for a first course on a tight budget; Thinkific once you have students.
Choose Teachable if
Individual creators and very small businesses launching a first or second paid course who want a branded school on their own domain with branded mobile apps included, at the lowest credible monthly price, and who need a discussion area for students rather than a community as the product itself.
Choose Thinkific if
Course businesses and training providers who take teaching seriously, need real curriculum tooling with quizzes, assignments, and certificates, want a community attached to those courses under their own domain, and already have an email marketing platform they are happy with.
Side by side
13 attributes| Attribute | Teachable | Thinkific |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Community | Community |
| Starting price | $39 per month (Starter), or $29 per month billed annually (7 days trial) | $54 per month (Basic), or $40 per month billed annually (30 days trial) |
| Pricing model | Flat monthly subscription across three published tiers plus a custom tier, with caps on products, admins, active students, and imported students, and a transaction fee that applies only on the entry plan. | Flat monthly subscription across four published tiers plus a custom priced Plus tier, with limits on communities, spaces, admins, and video bandwidth, and a transaction fee that depends on whether you use Thinkific Payments or your own gateway. |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Free trial | 7 days, plus a 30 day guarantee | 30 days, full platform access, no sales call |
| Best for | Individual creators and very small businesses launching a first or second paid course who want a branded school on their own domain with branded mobile apps included, at the lowest credible monthly price, and who need a discussion area for students rather than a community as the product itself. | Course businesses and training providers who take teaching seriously, need real curriculum tooling with quizzes, assignments, and certificates, want a community attached to those courses under their own domain, and already have an email marketing platform they are happy with. |
| Setup time | Hours, not days. Teachable is the fastest platform in this category to get from signup to a live sales page, which is exactly why it remains the standard first course recommendation. | A day for a working school with one course and a community, a few weeks for a polished one. Domain, theme, first course, checkout, and a community with a handful of spaces are all achievable in an afternoon. |
| Learning curve | Low. Products, sections, lectures, and pricing plans are the only concepts, and the community adds two more (spaces and roles). There is no funnel or automation model to learn because there is no funnel builder. | Low to moderate. The course builder is the most approachable in the category, and the community concepts (communities, spaces, roles) are only three ideas deep. The confusing part is the plan matrix, not the software. |
| Platforms | Web, Branded iOS and Android apps included on every plan | Web, iOS and Android via the Thinkific mobile app, Branded iOS and Android apps as a paid add on |
| Compliance | GDPR, PCI DSS handled through teachable:pay and its processors | GDPR, PCI DSS via Thinkific Payments and Stripe, SOC 2 reporting available to Plus customers |
| Founded | 2013 | 2012 |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, United States | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Ownership | Owned by Hotmart, a Brazilian creator commerce company | Publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (THNC) |
Strengths and limitations
Teachable
Strengths
- Branded iOS and Android apps included on every plan including the $39 entry tier, which no other course or community platform matches at that price.
- Zero platform transaction fee on Builder and above with teachable:pay, so the effective cost falls to card processing plus a flat subscription as revenue grows.
- Custom domain on every paid plan with a genuinely branded member experience.
- The simplest course builder in the category, which is why it remains the usual recommendation for a first course.
Limitations
- The community is the weakest of any product in this category that charges for one: no leaderboards, no gamification, no serious events layer, no chat, and limited discovery within the discussion itself.
- Starter at $39 has no community at all and takes 7.5 percent of every sale, which makes it misleading as a headline price.
- One admin user on both Starter and Builder. The second team member costs $100 a month more.
- Imported student caps of 5, 50, and 1,000 make bringing an existing audience onto a cheap plan effectively impossible.
Thinkific
Strengths
- The best course tooling among the platforms in this category, with graded quizzes, reviewed assignments, prerequisites, certificates, cohorts, and per student progress reporting.
- A publicly traded company with audited financials, roughly $74M in trailing revenue and 276 employees, which is a materially different risk profile from a venture stage community startup.
- Communities is a real product now: spaces with independent permissions, post approval, read only spaces, a scoped moderator role, pinned posts, live events inside private spaces, and direct messages as of 2026.
- Entry price of $54 a month with unlimited courses, up to 10,000 students, and a custom domain undercuts Kajabi heavily.
Limitations
- Community limits are tight where it hurts: one community and five spaces on Basic, one admin seat, and unlimited only on a custom quoted plan.
- The 5 percent penalty for using your own payment gateway on Basic is punitive, and even Grow charges 1 percent, so payment independence is never free.
- Thinkific's own branding cannot be removed until the $219 Grow plan, which undercuts the white label promise at the price points most small businesses buy.
- No email marketing platform, no funnel builder, and a thin affiliate story, so the real monthly cost includes at least one more vendor.
Pricing compared
Teachable
Flat monthly subscription across three published tiers plus a custom tier, with caps on products, admins, active students, and imported students, and a transaction fee that applies only on the entry plan.
- Starter$39
- Builder$89
- Growth$189
- CustomCustom
Builder at $89 a month with a 0 percent platform fee, a custom domain, branded iOS and Android apps, and a community is one of the best value packages in this category, and at high revenue Teachable is cheaper than almost everything else here because it takes no cut at all above Starter. The value collapses in two places. Starter at $39 is a trap for anyone with real sales, since 7.5 percent on $5,000 costs more than four Builder subscriptions and it has no community anyway. And the single admin seat on both Starter and Builder means a two person team pays $189, at which point Kajabi's much larger bundle is only slightly more. The community you get for the money is functional rather than good: no gamification, no real events layer, no chat. Judged as a course platform with a student forum, this is excellent value. Judged as a community platform, you are paying for something else and getting the forum as a bonus.
Thinkific
Flat monthly subscription across four published tiers plus a custom priced Plus tier, with limits on communities, spaces, admins, and video bandwidth, and a transaction fee that depends on whether you use Thinkific Payments or your own gateway.
- Basic$54
- Start$109
- Grow$219
- Expand$499
- PlusCustom
Thinkific is fair value for a course business and poor value for a community business. At $54 a month the entry tier undercuts Kajabi by more than two thirds and gives you unlimited courses, up to 10,000 students, a custom domain, and a community, which is a lot of platform for the money. The catches are all structural rather than hidden: one community with five spaces, one admin, visible vendor branding until $219, and a 5 percent gateway penalty if you refuse to use Thinkific Payments. Where it genuinely wins is instructional depth. Quizzes, assignments, prerequisites, certificates, cohorts, and per student progress reporting are things Circle and Skool do badly or not at all, and if your product is education rather than access, that is worth paying for. Where it loses is everything Kajabi bundles: no email platform, no funnels, no affiliate engine, and a branded app that costs $199 a month extra.
Editorial verdict on each
Teachable
Teachable is the cheapest credible way to run a branded course business, and its community is a fair bonus rather than a reason to buy. Builder at $89 a month, or $69 annually, gets you a custom domain, branded iOS and Android apps, ten products, coaching, an affiliate program, a discussion forum, and a 0 percent platform fee, which at $50,000 a month in revenue makes it one of the cheapest platforms in this category on total cost. The Starter plan should be treated as a demo rather than a plan, because 7.5 percent on real sales costs more than upgrading and it has no community anyway. The genuine reservations are the single admin seat below $189, the very tight imported student caps that punish anyone bringing an existing audience, the absence of any email marketing, and a community product that has barely moved in three years and is comfortably beaten by Circle, Skool, and Heartbeat. Buy Teachable for the course, the checkout, and the branded app. Do not buy it because you want people to talk.
Read the full Teachable profileThinkific
Thinkific is the most credible teaching platform in this category and a competent, deliberately limited community platform. If your members are students rather than an audience, the quizzes, assignments, prerequisites, certificates, cohorts, and progress reporting are worth more than the extra polish Circle brings to discussion, and the $54 entry price is a third of Kajabi's. Being publicly traded with audited numbers is also a real advantage over venture stage rivals whose roadmap depends on the next round. The reservations are specific and worth negotiating around: one community with five spaces and one admin on Basic, vendor branding you cannot remove until $219, a branded app that costs $199 a month extra, no email marketing included, and a 5 percent penalty if you insist on your own Stripe. Buy Thinkific to run an education business with a community attached. Do not buy it to run a community with some lessons in it.
Read the full Thinkific profileTeachable profile last reviewed 2026-08-22; Thinkific last reviewed 2026-08-22. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.