Thinkific was founded in Canada in 2012 by entrepreneurs Greg and Matt Smith. They originally wanted to find a way to reach a bigger audience and sell their LSAT course online. They decided to build the entire platform from scratch to sell their course. They set out to build a platform to help course creators sell courses online.
What is Thinkific?
Thinkific is a platform that sells online courses, communities, coaching, and memberships. This publicly traded company has 35,000 customers who sell digital products to over 200 million learners. Overall, Thinkific is a platform for teachers to sell products to students.
How does Thinkific work?
Thinkific works in three steps. First, you need to create your course creation plan. This step allows you to plan out all aspects of your business and all the areas you need to account for.
Second, you’ll need to create a lead magnet to attract potential customers. Your lead magnet could be a checklist, mini-ebook, or other resources to help you provide value to your customers.
Third, you’ll need to create your paid product. This product is what you’re actually trying to get sales for. It could be an online course or digital download. The email subscribers you get from your lead magnet will be used to try to upsell the main product, so you can make some sales.
What you need to know about selling on Thinkific
One thing to know about selling on Thinkific is that in 2025, they removed their free plan. Now, all plans cost a monthly subscription. This means that even if your course isn’t selling, you’ll still need to pay a fee. Plans start at $49 each month, with discounts on the annual subscription.
Another thing to note about Thinkific is that some features are gated by higher-tier plans. For example, the plan with the most features is their $199 Grow plan. But even to get unlimited coaching sessions, you’ll need to upgrade to a higher plan tier. Some Thinkific alternatives, like Payhip, actually include all features on all plans.
Thinkific doesn’t have a built-in blog feature. Unfortunately, if you’re in the knowledge-sharing space, this can be a challenge. You would need to install an app to add this feature. However, the app isn’t free. It costs $39 monthly. Considering most digital product platforms offer this feature for free, it can definitely be a setback.
Thinkific also doesn’t offer flexible payment processing options. They have their own Thinkific Payments, which don’t serve every country and include transaction fees. If you’re outside of the US, you may have to pay a currency conversion fee. In addition, some of their payouts can take up to 7 days if you’re outside the US. This can delay cash flow in your business, which may be problematic for some.
The platform is mostly focused on online courses. If you wanted to sell physical products, like workbooks with your course, it would be difficult to do that as they don’t natively offer this functionality.
Thinkific also lacks marketing tools you’ll need to sell products online, like coupons, upsell and cross-sell, and an affiliate program. They only have email marketing and other “features” that are standard to offer, like a site builder.
Thinkific also requires you to be on the highest pricing tier to remove their branding from your website. Thus, making it harder for you to differentiate yourself from their brand unless you pay nearly $200 each month. The price tag doesn’t make sense. Removing their branding from your website should be a given.
Is Thinkific the best platform to sell products?
No, Thinkific isn’t the best platform to sell products; Payhip is. Payhip allows you to sell courses, memberships, coaching, software, digital downloads, and physical products. Overall, this platform lets you sell any type of product on all plans, including the free one. To start selling courses and other products, sign up today.