Thinkific
Beautiful online courses, more product types, and integrated email marketing – all in a platform that’s already connected to everything else
With Podia, you can build your website, courses, and digital products in one easy dashboard. No need to set up extra apps to make your site work the way you want.
Podia vs. Thinkific
Thinkific primarily focuses on courses. Podia lets you sell courses as well as downloads, coaching, community memberships, and any other offer you can dream up.
Podia
✓ Free plan
✓ Sell online courses
✓ Unlimited customers
✓ Run your online community
✓ Full website
✓ Integrated email marketing & automations
✓ Customer chat messaging
✓ Sell coaching, webinars, & downloads
Thinkific
✓ Free plan
✓ Sell online courses
✓ Unlimited customers
✓ Run your online community
✓ Full website
x Integrated email marketing & automations
x Customer chat messaging
x Sell coaching, webinars, & downloads
Comparing Podia vs. Thinkific
Podia
Thinkific
Free plan
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Price
Podia isFree, or $4/month to $89/month
Thinkific isFree, or $39/month to $499/month
Remove transaction fees
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Free migrations
Podia is yes
Thinkific is no
Online courses
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Memberships and communities
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Digital downloads
Podia is yes
Thinkific isCan add downloads to course lessons
Webinars
Podia is yes
Thinkific is no
Coaching
Podia is yes
Thinkific is no
Email marketing
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Built-in affiliate program
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Unlimited customers
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Unlimited products on paid plans
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Unlimited membership plans
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Your own website
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Blogging
Podia is yes
Thinkific is no
Product sales pages
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Custom domains
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Teammates
Podia is yes
Thinkific is yes
Embeddable buy buttons
Podia is yes
Thinkific is no
Messaging
Podia is yes
Thinkific is no
Chat support
Podia is yes
Thinkific is no
Creator friendliness score
Podia is90.91
Thinkific is87.01
Video comparison
Podia vs. Thinkific
Podia and Thinkific are both great platforms for creators, but which one is right for you? In this video, we’ll compare the two and give you the info you need to decide.
Sell so much more than just courses.
Thinkific is mainly geared toward course creation. With Podia, online courses are just the beginning. From digital downloads and communities to webinars and coaching, Podia helps you spread your creative wings.
Build an amazing online community for free.
Communities are a powerful way to connect with your followers, share announcements, and provide value. With Podia, you can build a community with unlimited members on every plan – including the free one.
Connect with integrated email marketing.
With Podia Email, you can design beautiful emails, create automated campaigns, tag and segment your audience, and send as many messages as you want. Everything is already connected to your products and customers.
OMgee. I have finally found a platform that lets me sell my templates, courses, and membership without having a gazillion plugins that always glitch or cost a ton of money. After trying almost every selling platform out there, Podia became a favorite super quickly because of how easy it is to start selling products beautifully.
— Vanessa Ryan, designer and entrepreneur
Why creators choose Podia over Thinkific
Here are more reasons creators choose Podia instead of Thinkific to power their online businesses.
A custom website you can be proud of.
Longing for a clean, modern website that puts the spotlight on your products? With Podia’s easier-than-drag-and-drop site builder, you can create a fully customized home base for your business, complete with unlimited web pages.
An interface your customers will love.
We’ll go ahead and say it: our course viewer and student dashboards are beautiful. Podia makes every aspect of your business look stylish and fresh, and customers will love having everything they need in one sleek dashboard.
A support team that's here for you.
The number one reason people cite for loving Podia? Our customer service. We’re always here to help with real people offering chat support seven days a week.
Free migrations from Thinkific.
Sit back, relax, and let us do the heavy lifting. Our migration service makes switching from Thinkific to Podia easy, and it’s completely free on all annual Mover and Shaker plans.
Podia vs. Thinkific: Which is right for me?
Great question! We obviously think we’re pretty great, but here’s an honest answer:
Thinkific and Podia both allow you to sell online courses. Both give you a customizable website, product landing pages, affiliate marketing, and helpful selling features like coupons, payment plans, and upsells.
The key difference is that Thinkific is primarily an online course platform, and Podia is an all-in-one tool for running your entire online business.
To help you decide which option is right for you, let’s dive into the details.
All pricing is accurate at the time of writing but is subject to change over time.
Selling online courses and other digital products
With Thinkific and Podia, you can create unlimited courses and enroll unlimited students. Course creators can add as much lesson content as they want, set up live cohorts, enable drip content, build quizzes, and issue course completion certificates.
Both platforms allow you to add multiple payment options like one-time payments, subscriptions, and memberships. You can also create product bundles and upsells.
While Thinkific is a fine option if you’re certain you only want to sell courses, many content creators prefer to diversify their product suite.
In our study of 900+ entrepreneurs, we learned that creators have an average of 10.95 digital products. When asked to share the main type of content they create, 33.6% of creators said courses, 13.8% said coaching, 4.76% said digital downloads, and 2.81% said webinars.
Podia makes it easy for creators to explore new content formats. You can sell courses, digital downloads, webinars, communities, and coaching services in one place.
With Podia’s user-friendly course builder, you can design a visually appealing learning experience for your students in minutes.
You can even embed content from 1,900+ third-party platforms like SoundCloud, Typeform, Spotify, Google Forms, and Github directly into your course content for a better user experience.
Thanks to Podia’s integrations with PayPal and Stripe, payment processing is a breeze.
You can sell live or pre-recorded webinars, free or paid membership communities, coaching or mentorship programs, and nearly any digital file you can think of, all under one roof.
Creators aren’t one-dimensional, and you never know where your creativity will take you in the future. By using an all-in-one platform like Podia, you can confidently build, sell, and market whatever terrific idea you think of next without paying for additional tools.
Online communities
Both Podia and Thinkific have a community feature, but not all communities are created equal.
With Thinkific, you can create an online community on the free plan and offer it for free or for sale as a one-time purchase. If you’d like to structure your community as a membership, you’ll need to upgrade to the Start plan for $99/month to access membership features.
With Podia, you can also create your online community on the free plan and enroll unlimited members. Communities can be free or paid, and you can offer them as stand-alone products, subscriptions, memberships, or bundled with other digital products.
Create as many membership tiers as you want and add different perks, products, and access levels with each plan.
Here are just a few ways you could use Podia’s free community feature:
- Create a private community area for your VIP coaching clients
- Accept recurring donations from followers in exchange for perks and behind-the-scenes announcements
- Build a membership site where you add new content every month
- Create a student forum area where customers can engage with your material and get questions answered
If you want to build an ultra-flexible community without paying a monthly fee, Podia is an excellent choice.
Integrated marketing tools
You can create the greatest digital product in the world, but without good marketing, no one will know about it. Luckily, Podia and Thinkific come with integrated marketing tools to help you grow your business and make more sales.
With Thinkific, you can offer coupons and build your own affiliate program. You can also send emails to your customers, but you’ll need to upgrade to the Growth plan to send bulk student emails and unlock advanced segmentation tools.
If you’d like to use a third-party email service provider, Thinkific integrates with Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Constant Contact, AWeber, Active Campaign, and Engage Bay.
Thinkific has other integrations to give you more marketing functionality, but these often come with additional costs and upkeep.
With Podia, you can do all of the above and more without any third-party tools or integrations. Offer coupons, build an affiliate program for your courses, create payment plans, and add multiple pricing options. You can even message your customers through our built-in live chat feature, which is available on all plans for no additional cost.
Email marketing tools are built in, and you can grow your subscriber list, segment your audience, and send email newsletters or broadcasts with ease.
If you prefer to use a secondary email service provider, Podia also integrates with Mailchimp, ConvertKit, AWeber, Active Campaign, Drip, MailerLite, and GetResponse.
All in all, Podia is a great option if you want maximum marketing power without having to use – and pay for – a bunch of different platforms.
Thinkific vs. Podia pricing
Both Podia and Thinkific have a free plan and paid plans.
On Podia’s free plan, you get a full website, an online community, basic email, one digital download, and one coaching product.
On Thinkific’s free plan, you get a full website, one course, and one community.
Thinkific pricing plans:
- Free
- Basic plan: $49/month
- Start plan: $99/month
- Growth plan: $199/month
- Expand plan: $499/month
Podia pricing plans:
- Free (10% transaction fee)
- Starter: $9/month or $4/month when paid annually (8% transaction fee)
- Mover plan: $39/month or $33/month when paid annually (5% transaction fee)
- Shaker plan: $89/month or $75/month when paid annually
At the end of the day, if your sole priority is online courses, Thinkific may be a good fit. But if you’d like to sell a wide array of products and services, create an online community around your brand, build your email list, and create a virtual home for your business, all for one affordable monthly fee, Podia is the way to go.
Make your free Podia account today, or watch our video demo to see these features in action.
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Absolutely! You can check out our Podia demo site, which we’ve built to show you what the Podia experience will look like for both you and your customers.
There are also dozens of creator example sites on our Examples page, so you can see what other creators just like you have built using Podia.
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Yes! We offer free (and hassle-free) migrations on all annual Mover and Shaker plans. Get started here.
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Yes! Podia has a free forever plan that includes your full website, blogging, one digital download, one coaching product, customer chat messaging, and your online community. Sign up for free today to see for yourself!
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Absolutely! You can see how Podia stacks up to many of our competitors right here.
We also have some head-to-head comparisons of other leading platforms in case you’re choosing between those, including:
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We’d love to. Podia’s customer support is here for you, seven days a week. Just reach out to us on chat and a real, friendly person will be delighted to help you out.