Teachable vs Thinkific

Thinkific is the better default, and the free plan is why. One published course, unlimited students, no platform fee and no time limit means you can validate a course and collect revenue for nothing but the processor's cut.

No tier of Teachable matches that at any price.

Teachable wins on subscription cost once you are past validation, coming in $15 a month cheaper than Thinkific Basic, $20 cheaper than Start and $30 cheaper than Grow.

Whether that saving is real depends on the transaction fee on your plan, which is a number you have to get from Teachable rather than from us.

Thinkific loses when you want email marketing in the same product, because it does not include it. Teachable loses for anyone launching a first course, and it loses on high sales volume where a percentage fee outruns a $15 monthly saving.

Put your own revenue through our creator pricing calculators before committing to an annual term, and Kajabi against Podia covers the bundled alternatives.

The two platforms do the same job and price it from opposite ends. Thinkific gives away a working single-course setup and charges nothing on sales at any tier.

Teachable asks for a subscription from the first day and takes a cut on its lower plans, in exchange for a cheaper monthly figure at every paid tier.

Thinkific publishes three self-serve tiers as of our 2026-10-01 check: Basic at $54/mo, or $40/mo billed annually, Start at $109/mo, or $82/mo annually, and Grow at $219/mo, or $164/mo annually, with Plus quoted. Annual billing cuts roughly a quarter.

Every paid plan includes unlimited courses and students, and a branded mobile app is a paid add-on.

The free Thinkific plan is the detail that decides most of these comparisons. It publishes one course, takes unlimited students, charges no platform transaction fee, and has no time limit.

Students pay through Stripe, so Stripe's own charge, typically around 2.9% plus 30 cents, is the only cut on a sale. That is a legitimate business foundation rather than a trial.

Teachable publishes Starter at $39/mo, or $29/mo billed annually, Builder at $89/mo, or $69/mo annually, Growth at $189/mo, or $139/mo annually, and a Custom tier, as of the same check. It charges transaction fees on the lower self-serve plans.

Our Teachable review and Thinkific review carry the tier detail, and the course and membership platforms category covers the field.

Choose Thinkific if you have not sold this course yet, or if your sales volume is high enough that a percentage cut hurts more than a monthly fee.

The free plan takes one course to market at zero platform cost, and zero fees on every paid tier means your platform bill stops tracking your revenue the moment you upgrade.

Choose Teachable if the course is already selling, your volume is modest, and the monthly saving at your tier is larger than the fee you would pay on it. Starter at $39/mo undercuts Thinkific Basic by $15 a month.

Confirm the current fee on Teachable's pricing page first, because that number decides whether the saving is real.

At the entry point the two are not comparable, because one of them is free. Thinkific's free plan publishes one course, takes unlimited students and charges no platform fee. Teachable's cheapest option is Starter at $39/mo, or $348 across a year on annual billing.

For validating a first course, that is the entire argument.

Above the free tier Teachable is consistently cheaper on subscription. Starter at $39/mo against Thinkific Basic at $54/mo is a saving of $15 a month, or $180 a year. Builder at $89/mo against Start at $109/mo saves $20 a month.

Growth at $189/mo against Grow at $219/mo saves $30 a month. Annual billing keeps the direction and narrows the amounts.

Those savings only survive the transaction fee, and this is the arithmetic to do yourself.

Take the monthly saving on the tier you want, divide it by your expected monthly course sales, and you have the Teachable fee percentage at which the two platforms cost the same. Anything above that percentage and Thinkific is cheaper despite the higher subscription.

We do not publish the fee because our verified snapshot does not record it.

The capability gap runs the other way. Thinkific does not include email marketing, so a Thinkific business runs an email platform beside it, which is a second bill and a second login.

Our Kajabi and Thinkific comparison covers what bundling that in costs, and the course platform guide covers the rest of the field.

Thinkific, as checked on 2026-10-01: a permanently free plan limited to one published course with unlimited students, Basic at $54/mo or $40/mo billed annually, Start at $109/mo or $82/mo annually, Grow at $219/mo or $164/mo annually, and Plus quoted. Annual billing saves roughly a quarter.

There is no time-limited trial on the paid plans, because the free plan serves that purpose.

Teachable, as checked on the same date: Starter at $39/mo or $29/mo billed annually, Builder at $89/mo or $69/mo annually, Growth at $189/mo or $139/mo annually, and Custom quoted. Annual billing saves roughly a quarter. Transaction fees apply on the lower self-serve plans.

Thinkific's zero-fee position is verified and applies to every tier, so what you keep on a sale is the price minus the payment processor's charge. Teachable's fee exists on the lower plans but the percentage is not in our snapshot.

That asymmetry is not us being coy: a fee percentage is the one number that changes a comparison completely, so it belongs to the vendor's page and your own calculator rather than to a comparison article.

The branded mobile app on Thinkific is a paid add-on rather than part of a tier, which matters if a native app is on your requirement list. Price it separately rather than assuming a higher tier includes it.

Plan tables, fee notes and our check dates sit on the Teachable pricing page and the Thinkific pricing page. Both vendors revise rate cards without notice, so re-check before committing to a year.

Publishing a first course takes an afternoon on either platform: upload lessons, structure the curriculum, set a price, connect Stripe, publish.

Thinkific's free plan means you can finish that work and take a payment before entering a card of your own, which changes how you evaluate rather than how you build.

The operational difference appears in what sits beside the course. Thinkific does not include email marketing, so a launch sequence runs from a separate platform and you own the integration between the two. The upside is that the email tool is replaceable.

The cost is a second bill and a handover point that can break quietly.

Student payments go through Stripe on both platforms, so the processor's charge, typically around 2.9% plus 30 cents, applies either way and drops out of the comparison.

What does not drop out is Teachable's platform fee on its lower plans, which stacks on top of the processor's cut on every sale.

Moving between the two is manual in both directions. Neither offers a direct import from the other, so video files are re-uploaded, student records move by CSV export and import, and the curriculum is rebuilt by hand.

Active subscriptions are the hardest part, because student payment methods sit with the processor under the old platform's account. Schedule any move for a quiet sales week and tell students first. Our guide to selling online courses covers the sequence.