Thinkific Review 2026: What a Course Business Really Pays, From the 30-Day Trial to Card Fees, and the Terms Behind It
Thinkific lets you build and sell online courses, communities, memberships, digital downloads and coaching from one branded site, and take payments through its own checkout. On Thinkific's pricing page as of Oct 26, 2026, Start costs $109 a month, or $82 a month billed yearly; Grow is $219 or $164; Expand is $499 or $374; Plus is quoted by sales. There is no free plan, only a 30-day free trial. The subscription is only part of the bill: Thinkific Payments charges 2.9% + 30¢ per US card sale, stores that stay on Stripe pay Thinkific an extra 2% to 0.5%, the self-serve prices rose about 10% during 2026, the AI teaching assistant Thinker is sold only on Plus, and the Terms of Service say Thinkific does not provide refunds except for its own errors or where the law requires.
There are no affiliate links in this review. Every Thinkific link goes straight to thinkific.com, its help center, its legal pages or its investor site.
| Made by | Thinkific Labs Inc., Vancouver, Canada; listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange as THNC |
| What it is | Hosted platform to build and sell courses, communities, memberships, downloads and coaching, with its own checkout |
| Plans | Start $109; Grow $219; Expand $499 a month, or $82, $164 and $374 billed yearly; Plus custom |
| Fees | US cards 2.9% + 30¢ with Thinkific Payments; Stripe users pay Thinkific 2%, 1% or 0.5% more |
| Best for | Course sellers past about $1,000 a month in sales who want courses, community and checkout in one place |
Thinkific is a capable all-in-one course platform with no transaction fee on its own checkout, but it now costs more to start than Teachable or Podia, and the company's attention is moving to enterprise customers.
“No, instead, you can explore the whole platform with a 30-day free trial.”
That is Thinkific's own answer, on its pricing page, to the question “Does Thinkific have a free plan?”. For years, a free tier was the reason many first-time course creators started on Thinkific. That door is closed. Today the cheapest way in is Start at $82 a month billed yearly, or $109 month to month, after a 30-day trial. And those numbers are about 10% higher than they were in May 2026, when archived copies of the same page showed Start at $99 and Grow at $199.
What you get for that money is broad. Every plan includes unlimited courses, quizzes, assignments, certificates, drip schedules, live Zoom lessons, memberships, bundles, payment plans, coupons, abandoned-cart emails, a site builder, a custom domain and at least one community. If you take payments through Thinkific Payments, Thinkific itself takes no cut of your sales, so your cost is the subscription plus the card fee of 2.9% + 30¢ per US sale. Among the four course platforms we priced (Thinkific, Teachable, Podia and Kajabi), only Thinkific and Kajabi have no platform transaction fee on their lowest plan.
The weaker side is easy to miss on the pricing page. The headline AI feature, Thinker, an assistant that answers students from your course content, is available only on the Plus tier, which has no public price. SCORM, single sign-on and learning paths are Plus-only too. Start keeps Thinkific branding on your site, has no PayPal checkout and no API. The student mobile app averages 1.8 stars from 104 ratings on the US App Store. And on Sep 23, 2026, Thinkific announced a reorganization that eliminated 96 positions to focus its investment on Thinkific Plus, its offering for mid-market and enterprise organizations, while saying it would keep supporting all customers.
One site, many product types, one checkout, and a plan that decides your limits.
Thinkific is built around a single branded site. You pick a plan, and the plan sets how many communities, administrators and partners you can have, how much video bandwidth you get, whether Thinkific branding shows, and which payment and integration options you can use. On that site you publish courses, communities, memberships, digital downloads, coaching and webinars, and students reach everything through the Learner Hub. Money comes in through Thinkific Payments in 36 supported countries, or through Stripe, in which case Thinkific adds its own transaction fee in the US, Canada, the UK and the EU.
Above the self-serve plans sits Thinkific Plus, which has its own landing page and a sales-led sign-up, and below all of it sits one contract: the Terms of Service, whose current version is dated Jun 30, 2026.
Higher prices, a Basic plan that came and went, an AI tutor for Plus, and a reorganization.
Thinkific's public pages carry no dated pricing announcement, but the Internet Archive keeps copies of the pricing page, and each copy records which country the page was served to. Put side by side, they show three different line-ups in one year.
| Pricing page as archived | Shown to | Plans, monthly / yearly per month |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 8, 2026 | US | Basic $49 / $36, Start $99 / $74, Grow $199 / $149 |
| May 18, 2026 | US | Start $99 / $74, Grow $199 / $149, Expand $499 / $374 |
| Jul 31, 2026 | US | Basic $54 / $40, Start $109 / $82, Grow $219 / $164 |
| Sep 8 and Oct 5, 2026 | Canada | Same as Jul 31, prices in US dollars |
| Oct 26, 2026 (live) | Vietnam | Start $109 / $82, Grow $219 / $164, Expand $499 / $374; no Basic |
So the increase landed between the May 18 and Jul 31 copies (the Jul 31 copy says the page was last modified on Jul 23, 2026): Start rose from $99 to $109 a month (10.1%) and from $74 to $82 billed yearly (10.8%); Grow rose from $199 to $219 and from $149 to $164 (10.1% each). Expand stayed at $499 and $374. Thinkific's own fact page for AI assistants, last updated in October 2026, lists the same three plans and prices as the live page, so the Vietnam view matches what Thinkific publishes for everyone. The Terms of Service promise 30 to 60 days' written notice before a price change applies to your subscription.
The other 2026 changes matter just as much. Thinker, the AI teaching assistant, launched on Feb 24, 2026 for Plus customers. The Learner Hub, a new student home that replaces the old dashboards, began rolling out to all customers in the second quarter. A new course builder became the default for new customers in September. Articulate and Thinkific announced a native integration on Sep 10, 2026, for Plus. And on Sep 23, 2026, the company announced it had eliminated positions affecting 96 employees to put more of its investment into Thinkific Plus.
A small public company whose self-serve business is flat and whose growth is in enterprise deals.
Thinkific Labs is listed in Toronto, so its numbers are public. They describe Thinkific's own revenue and the payments that run through its checkout, not how much creators earn, and they should be read with their definitions.
| Signal | Value | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue, Q2 2026 | $18.6M, up 3% | Thinkific's own revenue for the quarter to Jun 30, 2026 |
| Self-serve vs Plus | $13.3M (down 1%) vs $5.3M (up 14%) | Subscription plus commerce revenue by segment; self-serve is 71.5% of the total |
| ARR | $61.7M, up 2% | Subscription run rate at period end; excludes payment revenue |
| ARPU | $177 a month, up 5% | Average monthly revenue per paying customer |
| Payments volume (GPV) | $71.4M, up 10% | Sales processed by Thinkific Payments; 67% of all sales on the platform, up from 58% |
| Customers | More than 35,000 | Company statement of Sep 23, 2026; businesses, not learners |
| Creator earnings | $4.23 billion, 214 million learners | Cumulative, company data per the pricing page; not audited |
Sources: Thinkific's second-quarter 2026 results release of Aug 5, 2026, its Sep 23, 2026 release and its pricing page, Oct 26, 2026. The investor home page shows GPV as $71.5M while the release says $71.4M.
The pattern is clear. Plus, the custom-priced tier for mid-market and enterprise companies that train customers and partners, grew 14% in the second quarter, while the self-serve plans that most course creators buy shrank 1%. The Sep 23, 2026 reorganization follows that line. In the company's words, it is designed “to accelerate growth in Thinkific Plus”, and “Thinkific eliminated positions impacting 96 employees.” The same release says Thinkific will keep “maintaining support for all of Thinkific's valued customers.” For a solo creator, that is not a reason to avoid Thinkific, but it is a reason to expect the newest features, such as Thinker, learning paths and custom roles, to land on Plus first.
Next data point: Thinkific reports third-quarter results on Nov 3, 2026, which should show the first effects of the reorganization.
Creators praise the all-in-one setup; students struggle with the mobile app; recent public reviews skew negative.
The reviews split by who is writing. Creators, who pay Thinkific, mostly write on review sites such as G2, where Thinkific's own pages report an average of 4.4 to 4.5 stars from about 420 reviews. Students, who use what creators build, write in the app stores, and their verdict is much harsher.
App Store and Google Play figures from the US storefronts on Oct 26, 2026, for the Thinkific student app. G2 figures are as stated on thinkific.com (home page and pricing badge: 4.4 from 424+; AI information page: 4.5 from 419). Trustpilot's profile for Thinkific could not be checked for this review, so no Trustpilot figures are used.
“It used to hold all my courses, now they are all gone.”
The most common complaint in this sample: courses missing from the app or only some showing.
“You can’t access the course content cos it keeps crashing when you click on it.”
Crashes, freezes and video playback problems recur across 2025 and 2026.
“Only some of my available courses will show up.”
Students who buy from several creators find the app hard to navigate.
“This app is working great as I work through my courses!”
Positive reviews exist but are rare in the recent sample: 2 of 50 are 4 or 5 stars.
“The most useful of them make it more like an easy way to search the docs, as opposed to a way to get actual help.”
On support chatbots at Substack, Circle, Thinkific and Stripe. Thinkific routes support through its Champ chatbot first.
What makes people buy, from Thinkific's pages and the creator-side ratings: courses, communities and checkout in one subscription, no Thinkific cut of sales on its own payments, and unlimited courses. What makes people leave, from the public reviews: an unreliable student app, support that starts with a chatbot, and a price that went up while the free plan went away. The Google Play listing also declares “Data isn’t encrypted” and “Data can’t be deleted” for the app, which sits awkwardly with the encryption described on Thinkific's security page for its platform.
Three self-serve plans from $82 a month billed yearly, a $199 mobile add-on, and Plus by quote.
All prices are in US dollars, from thinkific.com/pricing on Oct 26, 2026, and match Thinkific's AI information page of October 2026. Yearly billing saves about 25%. Every plan starts with a 30-day free trial.
Start
a month, or $82 a month billed yearly
- Unlimited courses, downloads, coaching
- 1 community, 10 spaces, 5 live events
- 2 admins, 200 GB/mo video bandwidth
- Thinkific branding stays; no PayPal, no API
- Email and chat support
Grow
a month, or $164 a month billed yearly
- Removes Thinkific branding
- 3 communities, exams and question banks
- API, webhooks, PayPal, Zapier actions
- B2B group sales and invoicing
- 6 admins, 400 GB/mo, phone support
Expand
a month, or $374 a month billed yearly
- 10 communities, 200 spaces
- 1,000 GB/mo video bandwidth
- Email white-labeling, custom SSL
- 15 admins, revenue sharing with 10 partners
- Dedicated launch support
Plus
flat-rate, quoted by sales
- Thinker AI teaching assistant
- SSO, SCORM, learning paths
- Custom roles, custom dashboards
- Bandwidth from 7,500 GB/mo
- 99.5% SLA, dedicated success team
Two things on this page deserve a second look. First, every self-serve plan caps “Current Students” at 10,000, counted as unique students with unexpired access to at least one course. That is enough for many creators, but it does not grow between Start and Expand. Second, the Branded Mobile App, your own iOS and Android app, is an add-on at $199 a month on any plan, included only “on select Plus plans”. Start's yearly card also has a small arithmetic oddity: 12 times $82 is $984, but the card says you save $330 against $109 monthly, which implies $978 a year, or $81.50 a month.
Swipe sideways to see all plans.
| Limit | Start | Grow | Expand | Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current students | 10,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 | Custom |
| Communities / spaces | 1 / 10 | 3 / 20 | 10 / 200 | Unlimited |
| Video bandwidth | 200 GB/mo | 400 GB/mo | 1,000 GB/mo | From 7,500 GB/mo |
| Administrators | 2 | 6 | 15 | By plan |
| Max group size | 50 | 100 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Remove Thinkific branding | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PayPal, API, webhooks | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSO, SCORM, Thinker | No | No | No | Yes |
| Support | Email and chat | Phone, priority chat | Phone, priority chat | Dedicated team |
From the plan comparison table on thinkific.com/pricing, Oct 26, 2026.
No Thinkific cut on its own checkout, but the card fees and extras add up, and Stripe costs more.
Thinkific Payments is Thinkific's own processor, run in partnership with Stripe. In the US it charges the same headline rate as Stripe's own pricing page: 2.9% + 30¢ per domestic card sale, plus 1.5% for international cards and 1% when currency conversion is needed. Thinkific's fact page puts it plainly: “Thinkific charges zero transaction fees on paid plans when customers use TCommerce.” The fees below come from Thinkific's help article on supported countries and fees, Oct 26, 2026.
| Fee (US business) | Rate | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Card sale | 2.9% + 30¢ | Every successful US card payment |
| International card | +1.5% | Student pays with a non-US card |
| Currency conversion | +1% | Price shown in another currency |
| Subscriptions and payment plans | +0.7% | Memberships, installments |
| Sales Tax and VAT tool | 0.5% | Each sale where tax is assessed for US, Canada, UK, EU and Swiss students, even at a 0% rate |
| Buy now, pay later | 6.5% + 30¢ | Afterpay or Klarna checkout |
| Amazon Pay, Cash App, Link | 3.9% + 30¢ | Domestic payments |
| Instant payout | 1.5% | Optional; standard payout is 2 business days |
| Invoices | 0.4%, max $5.00 | B2B invoices on Grow and up, plus the payment method fee |
| Refunds | No fee, but original fees kept | Full and partial refunds |
Two of those rows surprise people. The sales tax tool fee applies, in Thinkific's words, “even when the system calculates the tax rate as 0%”. And refunds are free to issue, but “the fees from the original charge are not returned.” The subscription surcharge of 0.7% matches Stripe's own Billing rate on stripe.com, while Thinkific's buy-now-pay-later rate of 6.5% + 30¢ is higher than the 5.99% + 30¢ Stripe lists for Klarna.
If you stay on Stripe instead. In the US, Canada, the UK and the EU, Thinkific adds a third-party gateway fee on every Stripe sale: 2% on Start, 1% on Grow, 0.5% on Expand and none on Plus. The fee stops after your first $1 million of sales in a calendar year. Thinkific's help article says “No, you will not be charged a fee if you are not able to use TCommerce in your country.” Thinkific Payments covers 36 countries, and Vietnam, where this review was written, is not one of them, so a Vietnam-based creator would use Stripe or PayPal without the Thinkific surcharge.
Three sales levels, five plans: Thinkific is not the lowest entry price of the plans compared, but its fee-free checkout catches up fast.
Here is what a US creator would pay each month, subscription plus fees, on yearly billing. We assume $100 per sale, all US cards, so card fees are 2.9% + 30¢ on every platform (Thinkific Payments, Teachable Payments and Stripe on Podia all list that rate). Kajabi is left out because its card fees vary by country and are not on its pricing page.
| Plan (billed yearly) | $1,000 a month | $5,000 a month | $20,000 a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thinkific Start ($82) | $114 | $242 | $722 |
| Thinkific Grow ($164) | $196 | $324 | $804 |
| Teachable Starter ($29 + 7.5%) | $136 | $564 | $2,169 |
| Teachable Builder ($69) | $101 | $229 | $709 |
| Podia Mover ($42 + 5%) | $124 | $452 | $1,682 |
| Podia Shaker ($84) | $116 | $244 | $724 |
| Card fees alone | $32 | $160 | $640 |
JAVIS calculation: subscription + platform fee % of sales + (2.9% of sales + 30¢ x number of sales). 10, 50 and 200 sales. Prices from each vendor's pricing page, Oct 26, 2026.
What the numbers say. On yearly billing, Thinkific Start costs less than Teachable Starter once you sell more than about $707 a month ($53 difference divided by the 7.5% fee), and less than Podia Mover above $800 a month. On monthly billing the break-even points are $933 against Teachable Starter and $1,200 against Podia Mover. Against the fee-free plans of its rivals, Teachable Builder and Podia Shaker, Start sits within $13 a month at every level, so the choice comes down to limits: Builder allows 10 products, Shaker 150, Start unlimited courses but only one community and two admins.
Extras to budget. At $5,000 a month, selling memberships instead of one-time courses adds $35 (0.7%), the sales tax tool adds up to $25 (0.5%), and if every buyer used a foreign card it would add $75 (1.5%). A creator who stays on Stripe in the US pays Thinkific $100 more on Start (2%), $50 on Grow or $25 on Expand. And the 2026 increase alone adds $96 a year to Start and $180 to Grow on yearly billing.
Refunds, failed payments, cancellation and data: the exact rules.
These come from Thinkific's Terms of Service (last modified Jun 30, 2026) and its help center, quoted word for word.
| Topic | Exact wording | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Refunds | “Thinkific does not provide refunds unless an error was made by us or unless otherwise required by applicable law” | Use the 30-day trial; do not count on getting a paid month back. |
| Yearly plans | Pro-rata refund of the unused term only “Where the consumer protection laws of your jurisdiction require” it; “Monthly subscribers are not affected by this provision” | Pay monthly until you are sure, unless your local law gives you more. |
| Price changes | “Prices for using the Services are subject to change upon not less than 30 days’ and not more than 60 days’ prior written notice from Thinkific” | Watch your inbox; you may cancel before a higher price applies. |
| Failed payment | After 21 days to update your card, “we will automatically downgrade you to a free plan” | The Terms still mention a free plan the pricing page no longer sells. |
| Cancelling | “If your students are enrolled in learning products, they will continue to have access and will continue to get charged.” | Cancel student subscriptions first, or they keep paying after you leave. |
| Plan changes | “Thinkific makes no guarantee regarding data retention during plan changes” | Back up before downgrading. |
| Exporting | “We don't currently have the option to export an entire course from The Thinkific Course Builder as one file” | Keep your own copies of videos, PDFs and text lessons. |
Two more rules belong here. Students who pay by subscription keep paying even after you cancel, and if you take payments through Stripe, a student who cancels from their own dashboard is not cancelled in Stripe: Thinkific's help article says “the student will still be billed” until you delete the subscription in Stripe yourself. And the Terms (clause 4.3.17) forbid using “any robot, spider, device, technology or process to monitor or copy any data or pages within the Services”, which rules out home-made scrapers as a way to move your school elsewhere; plan a manual export instead.
Nine places where two Thinkific pages give different answers.
None of these is a scandal on its own, but together they explain why you should confirm any number that matters with Thinkific before you sign up.
| Topic | One page says | Another page says |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Pricing FAQ: no free plan | Terms 8.3: downgrade “to a free plan”; gateway-fee article still lists Free and Basic |
| Uptime | Home page: 99.9% uptime | Pricing table: 99.5% uptime; formal SLA only on Plus |
| G2 rating | Home and pricing badge: 4.4 from 424+ | AI information page: 4.5 from 419 |
| Customers | Home page: 20,000+ teams | Sep 23 release and AI page: more than 35,000 customers |
| Payments uplift | Help center: 22% larger average transactions | Site menu and AI page: up to 31% higher order value |
| Card rate | Pricing FAQ: 2.9% | Help article: 2.9% + 30¢ (US) |
| Start yearly | Card: $82 a month | Same card: save $330, which implies $81.50 |
| After cancelling | Terms 10.1: you keep access to your account | Help article: no access to admin dashboard, products or order tables |
| Scale | Developer site: 50,000+ creators, $650 million+ earned | Pricing page: $4.23 billion earned, 214 million learners |
Answer four questions.
Yes: Teachable Starter or Podia Mover cost less. Thinkific has no free or low tier.
Yes: only Thinkific Plus has them; ask sales for a quote, or look at other platforms.
Yes: use Thinkific Payments to avoid the 2%, 1% or 0.5% Stripe surcharge. No: you use Stripe or PayPal without the surcharge.
Yes: budget for Grow at $164 a month yearly, not Start.
The course builder got a long list of upgrades in 2026, and the student side moved to a new hub.
Thinkific's core is still the course: lessons in video, audio, text, PDF and quizzes, organized in chapters, with drip schedules, certificates and completion rules on every plan. In 2026 the company rebuilt much of it. The monthly product posts list audio blocks, free previews and an asset library in June; drip scheduling, course duplication, certifications with continuing-education fields and a Downloads block in July; randomized quizzes, unified quiz reporting and course reviews in August; and in September an AI quiz generator, bulk question import and on-lesson discussions, with the new builder becoming the default for new customers.
On the student side, the Learner Hub replaces the old dashboard with one branded home for courses, communities, events and downloads. Thinkific added engagement streaks, a study scheduler, a get-started checklist and custom pages (up to 100 on all plans) during the summer. Several of the newest pieces, though, are reserved for Plus: learning paths, personalized goals, the AI widget generator and custom roles for staff. The official video below walks through the August 2026 releases.
What's New on Thinkific, August 2026: official video from the Thinkific YouTube channel (@Thinkific, linked from thinkific.com), published Sep 21, 2026, 3 minutes 11 seconds.
From idea to first sale on Start, in five steps.
How To Set Up Thinkific Payments: official Thinkific video, published Jan 8, 2026, 3 minutes 43 seconds.
Checkout tools are strong on every plan; repricing old subscribers is new.
Every plan includes order bumps, gifting, coupons, bundles, payment plans, free trials for subscriptions, after-purchase flows, abandoned-cart emails and email automation templates. Grow adds group orders and invoicing for selling seats to companies, and bulk email to students. In June 2026 Thinkific added Subscription Repricing for Thinkific Payments users on Start and above: you choose whether a new price applies to new sign-ups or to everyone, and changes are scheduled 30 days out and apply at each learner's next billing date. In September came bulk price updates for groups of subscribers.
The AI that course creators hear about, Thinker, is a Plus feature with credits.
Thinkific's AI comes in two layers. On every plan you get creation helpers: an AI course outline generator, AI landing pages and AI-written quiz questions in the new course builder; plans with analytics also get AI summaries of the dashboards. The headline product, Thinker, is different. It is a chat assistant that sits in the course player, the Learner Hub and the mobile app, answers students from your lessons and uploaded PDFs, and walks them back through missed quiz questions. Thinkific's help article lists its plan availability as Plus only, with “a monthly allotment of Thinker credits that reset at the start of each month”. The AI Addendum defines the unit: “Each credit represents one (1) AI response to an End User’s question or interaction within the Services.” The allotment per contract is not published.
Thinkific cites an internal study of 43 Plus sites in which learners using Thinker completed courses at 32.7% versus 16.1% without it, and labels the result itself “an observed association, not a causal test”. That honesty is welcome; it also means the number says little about your own course.
Meet Thinker: official Thinkific video, published Feb 24, 2026, 1 minute 14 seconds.
On data, the AI Addendum is clear: “Inputs and Outputs are not used to train Thinkific’s AI Features or third-party AI models”, providers are contractually required not to keep them, and you own the outputs. Thinkific names AWS Bedrock, Google AI and OpenAI among its AI partners and promises at least 15 days' email notice before adding a new AI sub-processor. The Terms add the usual caveat that AI output may be wrong and that you are responsible for reviewing it before publishing.
A REST API and webhooks from Grow up, Zapier on every plan, CRM links on Plus.
| Integration | Plans | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Zapier triggers | All | Start workflows in other tools when events happen in Thinkific |
| Zapier actions | Grow and up | Let other tools enroll students or create users |
| Admin API and webhooks | Grow and up | REST API at api.thinkific.com with API key or OAuth |
| Thinkific App Store | All | Third-party apps for email, analytics and more |
| Analytics pixels | All | Google Analytics, Meta Pixel and others |
| HubSpot, Salesforce | Plus | Native CRM integrations |
| Articulate 360 | Plus | Publish Rise courses in one click; needs an Articulate team plan |
| Single sign-on | Plus | OpenID Connect (Okta, Auth0 and others); Microsoft Entra ID needs a third-party tool |
From thinkific.com/pricing, Thinkific's AI information page and developers.thinkific.com, Oct 26, 2026.
Two gaps for technical buyers: Thinkific's information page says it “does not support xAPI or CMI5 content packages”, and none of the Thinkific pages we reviewed mention an MCP server for AI assistants, which Kajabi now advertises on its pricing page. If you want an AI assistant to work with your course data, the route today is the API or Zapier; our Claude MCP connectors guide explains what such connections can and cannot do, and the Zapier review covers the automation side.
SOC 2 Type II and US hosting; the weak points are export and the student app's data label.
| Area | What Thinkific states | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | “Thinkific hosts customer and learner data in the United States.” AWS and Google Cloud | EU creators rely on Standard Contractual Clauses |
| Encryption | TLS 1.2 or higher in transit, AES-256 at rest | The Google Play listing for the student app says “Data isn’t encrypted” |
| Audits | SOC 2 Type II report; quarterly third-party penetration tests | Report itself not public |
| Account security | Multi-factor authentication available for creators | Stronger password rules only on Plus |
| AI data | No training on inputs or outputs; providers do not retain them | Thinker only on Plus |
| Retention | Transaction records kept at least seven years (Privacy Policy, Sep 1, 2026) | Content may be permanently deleted after account cancellation |
| Export | Download videos, PDFs and audio one by one | No full-course export; only the current version is stored |
Work pattern, fit and likely plan.
Good fit. Start with Thinkific Payments; move to Grow when you need your own brand.
Good fit. Grow or Expand for admins, invoices, group orders and bandwidth.
Fit on Plus, where SSO, SCORM, Thinker and CRM links live. Get a quote.
Weak fit. No free plan; Teachable Starter at $29 or Podia Mover at $42 cost less to try.
Weak fit. The student app's US ratings are 1.8 and 3.3; the branded app costs $199 a month extra.
Mixed. No Stripe surcharge, but no TCommerce tools such as order bumps, gifting and buy now, pay later, which need Thinkific Payments.
Eight real drawbacks.
$82 a month yearly is more than Teachable Starter ($29) or Podia Mover ($42).
Start and Grow went up between May and July; no dated price notice appears on Thinkific's public pages.
Thinker, learning paths, SCORM and SSO require a custom contract.
Thinkific branding, 2 admins, 1 community, no PayPal and no API.
1.8 stars on the US App Store; 90% of the 50 latest reviews are 1 or 2 stars.
Refunds only for errors or where law requires; courses cannot be exported as one file.
0.7% on subscriptions, 0.5% sales tax tool, 2% Stripe surcharge on Start.
Self-serve revenue fell 1% while the Sep 23, 2026 reorganization aims investment at Plus.
Teachable, Podia and Kajabi, priced on the same day.
All prices from each vendor's own pricing page on Oct 26, 2026, in US dollars. JAVIS has not yet published reviews of these platforms.
Swipe sideways to see all columns.
| Need | Platform | Entry, yearly / monthly | Platform fee on entry plan | Trial and refund | Choose it when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-in-one, fee-free checkout | Thinkific Start | $82 / $109 | None with Thinkific Payments | 30-day trial; refunds only for errors or by law | You sell $1,000+ a month and want community and memberships built in |
| Lowest entry price in this table | Teachable Starter | $29 / $39 | 7.5% | 7-day trial, 30-day guarantee | You are testing a first course with low sales |
| Fee-free at a lower limit | Teachable Builder | $69 / $89 | 0% | 7-day trial, 30-day guarantee | Ten products are enough |
| Simple creator store | Podia Mover / Shaker | $42 / $49; $84 / $99 | 5% on Mover; none on Shaker | 14-day trial; refund within 72 hours of a payment | You want email marketing included |
| Marketing suite | Kajabi Basic | $143 / $179 | None; card fee varies by country | 14-day trial, 30-day guarantee | You want email, funnels and community in one bill |
The refund rules differ more than the prices. Teachable's FAQ offers a refund within the first 30 days, Podia will refund if you “send us a message within 72 hours of your most recent payment and we'll refund it”, and Kajabi lists a 30-day money-back guarantee, while Thinkific relies on its 30-day trial instead. On fees, Teachable's FAQ says the 7.5% charge applies “Only on the Starter plan, which has a 7.5% transaction fee.” Kajabi's FAQ says “Kajabi does not take a revenue share as a platform”, though it charges its own card fee by country.
This review has no affiliate links.
Every Thinkific link here goes straight to thinkific.com, its pricing page, its Terms of Service or its investor site, without tracking parameters. The score, the drawbacks and the alternatives would be the same either way.
How this review was put together: Thinkific's pricing page, AI information page, Terms of Service, AI Addendum, Privacy Policy, security overview, sub-processor list, product update posts for January to September 2026, help center articles on payments, fees, plans, cancellation, export and Thinker, developer documentation, investor releases of Mar 5, Aug 5, Sep 10, Sep 23 and Oct 16, 2026, official Thinkific videos, Internet Archive copies of the pricing page from Jan 8 to Oct 5, 2026, the Teachable, Podia, Kajabi and Stripe pricing pages, the US App Store, US Google Play and Hacker News, as of Oct 26, 2026. This review involved no account of our own, no course, no sale and no support contact, so nothing here describes video quality, site speed or support from our own use. Screenshots show public pages only.
Making the course, not just selling it: reviews of the tools around a Thinkific school.
Each card opens a published JAVIS review, routed by where you are.
Questions people ask before committing
How much does Thinkific cost in 2026?
Per thinkific.com/pricing on Oct 26, 2026: Start $109, Grow $219 and Expand $499 a month on monthly billing, or $82, $164 and $374 a month billed yearly. Plus is priced by quote. The Branded Mobile App add-on is $199 a month.
Does Thinkific still have a free plan?
No. The pricing page says there is no free plan and offers a 30-day free trial instead.
Did Thinkific raise its prices?
Yes. Archived copies of the pricing page show Start at $99 and Grow at $199 a month on May 18, 2026, and $109 and $219 on Jul 31, 2026, about 10% higher. Expand stayed at $499.
Does Thinkific take a cut of my sales?
Not when you use Thinkific Payments; you pay the card fee, 2.9% + 30¢ for US cards. If you use Stripe in the US, Canada, the UK or the EU, Thinkific adds 2% on Start, 1% on Grow and 0.5% on Expand, up to your first $1 million of sales each calendar year.
Is Thinker included in my plan?
Only on Thinkific Plus, with a monthly allotment of credits, where each credit is one AI response. Start, Grow and Expand do not include it.
Can I get a refund?
The Terms say Thinkific does not provide refunds unless it made an error or the law requires one. Some local laws give yearly subscribers a pro-rata refund on cancellation; monthly plans simply end at the close of the billing cycle.
What happens to my students if I cancel?
They keep access, and students on subscriptions keep being charged, per Thinkific's help center. Cancel their subscriptions first, and save your course files, because there is no full-course export.
Where this came from, and when.
Every price, fee, rule and rating in this review comes from the pages below, as of Oct 26, 2026 unless another date is given. Expand for the full list, the scoring method and what the review does not cover.
Show sources, scoring method and scope
Pricing: thinkific.com/pricing (page modified Oct 20, 2026, prices in US dollars, viewed from Vietnam) and Thinkific's AI information page (thinkific.com/ai-info-page, last updated October 2026), which lists the same prices; Internet Archive copies of the pricing page of Jan 8, May 18 and Jul 31, 2026 (served to the US) and Sep 8 and Oct 5, 2026 (served to Canada).
Fees and help center: Thinkific Payments Supported Countries and Transaction Fees; Third-Party Payment Gateway Fee FAQ; Update Your Thinkific Subscription Plan; Cancel Your Thinkific Subscription; What happens to a student's subscription if I cancel my Thinkific plan; Can I export my course; Thinker AI Teaching Assistant; Change Your Currency; Free Plan Support Availability Changes. Stripe's US pricing page for comparison.
Legal: Terms of Service, last modified Jun 30, 2026, sections 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 20; AI Addendum effective May 1, 2026; Privacy Policy, last updated Sep 1, 2026; security overview; sub-processor list.
Product and company: product update posts for Q1, June, July, August and September 2026; Thinker feature page; developers.thinkific.com; investor releases of Mar 5, 2026 (fourth quarter 2025), Aug 5, 2026 (second quarter 2026), Sep 10, 2026 (Articulate), Sep 23, 2026 (reorganization) and Oct 16, 2026 (third-quarter timing); investor overview page.
Video: three videos from the official Thinkific YouTube channel (@Thinkific, linked from the thinkific.com footer): s2vsYe4KfVs (What's New on Thinkific, August 2026, Sep 21, 2026), yiEHTLTBI9A (How To Set Up Thinkific Payments, Jan 8, 2026) and zAI74eBSc-I (Meet Thinker, Feb 24, 2026).
Independent evidence: US App Store listing for the Thinkific app (id 1557573471) and its 50 most recent US reviews (Jun 14, 2023 to Sep 8, 2026); US Google Play listing (gl=US, hl=en); Hacker News comment 40744950. Trustpilot: not used, because its Thinkific profile could not be checked for this review. G2 ratings appear only as stated by Thinkific; G2, Capterra and Reddit are not quoted.
Competitors: teachable.com/pricing, podia.com/pricing (monthly and yearly), kajabi.com/pricing, Oct 26, 2026.
Images: screenshots of public pages taken on Oct 26, 2026 at 1280 by 800 pixels; archived pricing pages show the Internet Archive's copy with its toolbar. JAVIS charts and diagrams are labelled as such and computed from the figures above. Related cards use JAVIS's own featured images.
JAVIS Fit Score (62/100): an editorial composite scored out of 20 on five criteria. Price clarity 12: plans, limits and fees are published in detail, but prices rose about 10% without a dated notice on the site, a Basic plan appeared and disappeared within three months, and several pages contradict each other. Capability 16: courses, communities, memberships, payments and a rebuilt course builder on every plan, but Thinker, SCORM, SSO and learning paths need Plus, and Start lacks branding removal, PayPal and the API. Independent evidence 9: 1.8 stars on the US App Store and 3.3 on Google Play for the student app, against a G2 average of 4.4 to 4.5 reported by Thinkific. Terms, data and security 13: SOC 2 Type II, US hosting, a no-training AI addendum and 30 to 60 days' notice of price changes, against no refunds, no full export and students who keep being charged after you cancel. Cost and fit 12: competitive once sales pass about $700 to $1,200 a month, but the highest entry price of Thinkific, Teachable and Podia, and a company focus moving to Plus. It is judgment, not a measurement.
What this review does not cover: video playback quality, site speed, support response times, Thinkific Plus contract prices and Thinker credit allotments, the Branded Mobile App in use, and prices or tax rules outside the US.
