If you're looking for a place to create online courses, you've probably heard about Teachable and Thinkific. Both are popular places to build your course business, but it can be hard to figure out which one is right for you because they look very similar on paper.
We're also going to talk about Podia for comparison. Podia is an all-in-one option for creators building communities alongside their courses, coaching, products, email marketing, and website, and it's a good option to know about if you want to expand beyond Teachable and Thinkific.
Keep reading to learn:
- Teachable vs. Thinkific vs. Podia pricing
- What Teachable and Thinkific do well
- Where both tools have gaps, and how Podia could be a good fit
- A detailed breakdown so you can make the right choice for you
Getting this decision right matters. Revenue in the online education space is expected to hit $221.71 billion in 2026 (Statista), so there's never been a better time to get your courses in front of the people who need them. The right tool can help you do that.
What changed for Teachable and Thinkific in 2025–2026
Both tools went through significant restructuring recently, and a lot of what you'll find in older comparisons no longer applies.
- Teachable removed its free plan in June 2025 and replaced its old lineup with four new tiers: Starter, Builder, Growth, Advanced, and a custom Enterprise plan. The entry-level Starter plan now comes with a 7.5% transaction fee and limits you to 5 products and 100 students.
- Thinkific dropped its free and lower-cost tiers entirely. Their cheapest plan is now $99/month. There are no transaction fees if you use Thinkific Payments.
With the new plans and pricing, the "which is cheaper" answer has flipped. For years, Teachable looked like the budget option. Today, once you factor in the 7.5% fee on Starter, Thinkific can actually work out cheaper depending on your revenue level.
Teachable vs. Thinkific pricing
Here’s a breakdown of Teachable and Thinkific’s plans and pricing. (Pricing verified June 2026.)
Like I mentioned above, Teachable has four main pricing plans and a 7-day free trial. They also offer a custom Enterprise plan for larger organizations, but you’ll have to contact their sales team to get the pricing details.
- Starter: $39/month with a 7.5% transaction fee ($29/month when paid annually): Includes 5 published products, up to 100 students, course certificates, and upsells and cart recovery
- Builder: $89/month with 0% transaction fee ($69/month when paid annually): Includes 10 published products, up to 1,000 students, and everything in Starter, plus affiliates and real-time support
- Growth: $189/month with 0% transaction fee ($139/month when paid annually): Includes 50 published products, up to 5,000 students, 5 admin users, and everything in Builder, plus the ability to import students and remove Teachable branding
- Advanced: $399/month with 0% transaction fee ($309/month when paid annually): Includes 100 products, up to 10,000 students, 5 admin seats, and unlimited integrations
The thing to call out here: all plans limit the number of products you can make, so if you ever plan to grow beyond 50 courses, coaching offers, and downloads, Teachable might not be a good fit.
Teachable also has student limits on all plans until you reach $10,000/year in sales, at which point the student cap is removed.
Thinkific has three main plans, plus an enterprise option called “Thinkific Plus.”
- Start plan: $99/month ($74/month billed annually): Includes 10,000 students, unlimited courses, live events and coaching sessions, 1 community, memberships and subscriptions, and 200GB of course video bandwidth per month
- Grow plan: $199/month ($149/month billed annually): Includes 10,000 students, unlimited courses, live events and coaching sessions, 3 communities, ability to remove Thinkific branding, ability to connect third-party integrations, and 400GB of course bandwidth per month
- Expand plan: $499/month ($374/month billed annually): Includes 10,000 students, unlimited courses, live events and coaching sessions, plus 10 communities, more admin accounts, and revenue sharing options.
Unlike Teachable, Thinkific has unlimited products on all plans. But they still have the student cap (although it’s more generous), which could be an issue as your business grows and reaches more people.
Let's see how this plays out by the numbers.
Say you're earning $1,000 a month in your online business. Here's what you'd actually pay with Teachable and Thinkific at their entry-level plan:
- Teachable Starter ($39/mo): $39 for the plan plus $75 in transaction fees (7.5%), so $114 total. That leaves you with $886.
- Thinkific Start ($99/mo): $99 for the plan, no transaction fees with Thinkific Payments, so $99 total. That leaves you with $901.
At $1,000/month, Thinkific actually works out cheaper despite the higher sticker price, and it comes with unlimited products compared to Teachable’s five-product limit. And that gap widens as your revenue grows. At $2,000/month, Teachable Starter costs you $189 total versus Thinkific's flat $99.
That's when upgrading to Teachable Builder ($69/month when you pay annually, 0% fees) starts to make a lot of sense, plus you’ll be able to sell more products.
For some additional context, here’s how Podia’s pricing compares to Teachable and Thinkific:
Podia has three plans: Mover, Shaker, and Earthquaker. All Podia plans come with your website, digital products, community, and unlimited customers and sales. There's a 30-day free trial so you can test everything before you buy.
- Mover: $49/month and 5% transaction fee ($42/month paid annually). Includes your community, website builder, blog, landing pages, digital products, and courses, with 50 products, storage for 500 videos, and 25 community spaces.
- Shaker: $99/month and 0% transaction fee ($84/month paid annually). Everything in Mover, plus affiliate marketing, upsells, 1 assistant seat, and integrations with PayPal, Zoom, and Zapier, with 150 products, storage for 1,000 videos, and 100 community spaces.
- Earthquaker: $179/month and 0% transaction fee ($150/month paid annually). Everything in Shaker, with unlimited products, unlimited assistant seats, unlimited video storage, and unlimited community spaces.
Going back to our $1,000/month example, you’d pay:
- Podia Mover ($49/mo): $49 for the plan plus $50 in transaction fees (5%), so $99 total.
- Teachable Starter ($39/mo): $39 for the plan plus $75 in transaction fees (7.5%), so $114 total.
- Thinkific Start ($99/mo): $99 for the plan, no transaction fees with Thinkific Payments, so $99 total.
Podia Mover is the same price as Thinkific Start at this earning level, but Podia Mover doesn’t have limits on how many students you can enroll (Compared to Thinkific, which only allows 10,000 students), so you have more potential to grow.
What are Teachable’s pros and cons ?
Teachable has been around since 2013, and many customers have good things to say about the course creation experience. You can sell online courses, digital downloads, memberships, and coaching, and you can also set up a storefront page and sales pages for your products.
If you want to grow through affiliate marketing, Teachable also has built-in affiliate tools so you can incentivize others to promote your courses.
Recently, Teachable has also rolled out AI course creation tools. These features are available on all plans and can help you outline, draft, and build courses faster. It’s useful if you create content frequently, though it’s still important to keep your own voice and experiences central to your work to make it valuable for the people you serve.
Teachable also has a mobile app for students, so your members can access their courses from their phones without any extra setup on your end.
On the flip side, Teachable has tight product limits on all plans, which could be an issue as your business grows. The Start plan is capped at 5 products and 100 students, and the Builder plan only has room for 10 products with 1,000 students. (For comparison, Podia’s entry-level Mover plan comes with 50 products and unlimited students.)
Teachable lacks a full email marketing feature. It’s possible to send emails to the people in your courses or anyone who has an account with your business on the Builder plan and up, but these email messages are very basic. If you want to run automated campaigns or customize the design of your emails, you’ll need to connect with another tool.
Teachable also no longer supports its community feature. (At the time this article was written, they had a notice in the help center that the community tool is in maintenance mode and not being updated.)
If you want a way to connect with your people outside of courses and coaching, you’ll need a separate online community tool. This adds expenses to your tech stack and means there’s one more connection for you to manage.
What are Thinkific’s pros and cons ?
Thinkific has always had strong course features, and you can make downloads, coaching, and memberships, too. Like Teachable, Thinkific has recently added AI content tools to make the course and content process go faster.
(But again, use these tools thoughtfully. Your products need to have your real experiences and insights to be valuable for buyers.)
All of their plans have zero transaction fees when you use Thinkific Payments, which can be a big savings long-term, especially when compared to Teachable’s 7.5% fee on the Starter plan.
Thinkific has unlimited published products on all plans. There’s no cap on how many products you can build, which is helpful once your library starts growing. If you’re building courses, you can add assignments, exams, prerequisite lessons, and cohorts to have more options in your programs.
But even though Thinkific has unlimited courses, there is a catch. All plans (even the most expensive Expand plan) only allow you to have a max of 10,000 students. This limit could become a challenge as your business grows, as customers who are signing up for a free course or lead magnet would also count toward that total.
Thinkific also lacks a blog, which can be a powerful tool for getting more eyes on your work. If you plan to grow with SEO blogging, you’ll need to connect to another tool.
While Thinkific does have some email features built in, like automations and lead capture forms, the only way you can send an email to your full list is with their mass email tool, which is on the Grow plan and up.
Where do both tools leave a gap ?
Teachable and Thinkific do courses well, but both have product limits, student limits, or both. Moving course platforms isn’t how anyone wants to spend their weekend, so I always recommend picking a home base that gives you room to grow, even if you’re just starting out.
On top of that, a lot of creators eventually hit a point where they want more than a place to host their courses. They want a community where their students can connect with each other, an email list with easy filters and segmentation, and a website and blog that feels like a real home base.
With Teachable and Thinkific, building that fuller picture means paying for and managing several separate tools. Your blog lives somewhere else. Your email lives somewhere else unless you upgrade. Your community either lives somewhere else or feels disconnected.
That’s why considering a true all-in-one like Podia might be a better fit for some creators.
With Podia, you can build a central community area for everyone in your business, and create paid plans with varying levels of access.
You can create and sell courses, digital downloads, in-person and virtual events, coaching sessions, and any other type of product you like. Plus you can bundle courses with community access, events with other products, and combine your offers however you want to structure your business.
We’ve seen people sell self-paced and cohort courses bundled with community, build free resource libraries, host retreats, run virtual summits, and plan great group coaching programs all from Podia.
There are no customer limits, and you can get unlimited products on the Earthquaker plan. Your email marketing, website, and blog are all built in too.
As author Fabrizia Costa puts it,
“I've been with Podia for years. Running all my courses, hosting all my lead magnets, collecting newsletter subscriptions... it does it all. Takes no time at all to create a page, upload content, and get paid! My business has grown a lot, and Podia has helped by being the simplest, fastest tool.”
But to help you make the right call for your work, let’s take a closer look at a few core features.
Comparing the details
How do communities work with Thinkific, Teachable, and Podia ?
Thinkific includes one community on the Start plan with more available on higher tiers, but it functions more like a standalone product than something integrated with the rest of your business.
Teachable no longer supports its community feature. If you want to build a community alongside your courses, you'll need a separate tool.
Podia's community is woven into everything. Your members get a home feed that brings together their courses, community spaces, and upcoming events in one place, and you can bundle community access with your courses or sell it standalone.
What’s better for selling courses : Teachable, Thinkific, or Podia ?
All three are great for building courses. You get video hosting, quizzes, certificates, drip content, and payment plans across the board.
Teachable's course builder is clean and consistently well-reviewed by students. The main thing to watch are the caps: 5 products and 100 students on Starter, 10 and 1,000 on Builder, 50 and 5,000 on Growth.
Thinkific goes deeper on the learning experience with prerequisite lessons, video completion requirements, and cohort options, making it a strong fit for more structured programs like professional training or certifications. All plans include unlimited courses, though the 10,000-student cap still applies.
Podia lets you build self-paced, drip, and cohort courses and bundle them with community access or any other product type, with no student caps on any plan. You can add seat limits, access durations, waitlists, and future start dates for more customization.
Do Teachable and Thinkific have email marketing tools ?
Teachable's email tools are available on Builder and above, and they're mainly designed for communicating with existing students. Broadcasts and course announcements are included, but for segmentation, automated campaigns, and growing a list from scratch, you'll need to connect a separate tool.
Thinkific includes email automations for sequences like onboarding and course completion follow-ups on all plans. If you want to send a one-time email to everyone in your business, that's only available on the Grow plan and above.
Podia has a full marketing toolkit, and all features are available on all plans. You get automations, broadcasts, segmentation, tagging, lead magnets, and opt-in forms, and each plan comes with a set number of subscribers out of the box. If you ever need more room, you can add on more subscribers any time from the billing page.
Because everything is connected with Podia, your email tool knows what your subscribers have bought, which emails they’ve clicked, and how much revenue each campaign has generated. All of that lives in the same place as your products and community, so promoting your offers is seamless.
What’s the best fit for you ?
The right choice comes down to what your business actually needs right now.
Teachable is worth considering if you want to start at the lowest fixed monthly cost and are selling a small number of courses to a small number of students. Just go in knowing the transaction fee math, and plan to upgrade to Builder once your revenue makes it the cheaper option.
Thinkific makes sense if you hope to make lots of courses, want zero transaction fees from day one, and are building something where you need in-depth course compliance features. There’s a higher monthly price, but you don’t have to factor in transaction fees which is a plus.
Podia is a good fit if you want your courses, community, email marketing, website, and blog all working together without connecting a stack of separate tools. Over 15,000 creators use Podia to run their whole business in one place, and you can sell to unlimited students on all plans.
It’s especially worth considering if community is central to what you’re building, or if you want to grow an email list and use content marketing as part of your strategy.
If you’d like to try Podia for yourself, you can start a free 30-day trial today. We can’t wait to see what you make.
