Thinkific was created over a decade ago when CEO Greg Smith was finding it increasingly difficult to reach his students and help improve their SAT scores. He discovered that the old fashion formula for teaching was mostly irrelevant and sought a more technological friendly approach.

The company now supports over 25,000 online courses, 11.4 million students worldwide, 164 countries using the platform and over $100 million earned by its users. Impressive? Here is what you need to know about Thinkific…

Highlights

• Easy to use web builder and user interface
• Not just reserved for educators but business owners too
• Excellent customer service and support

Features

Thinkific is one part resource for education and one part resource for business owners. It is not strictly limited to academia, as many entrepreneurs have utilized Thinkific in order to present their employees with online courses to help expand the overall efficiency of their company.

Regardless of your intention Thinkific is very easy to use. It features one of the easiest to learn online course software builders on the web. The course builder is extremely intuitive with the best customer service in the business to offer support if and when you may get stuck.

Thinkific enables educators and business owners alike to fully customize their online course. Overall, the courses are well showcased and are designed to maximize sales. No coding is required, as you select a theme (which can be updated when you prefer) and then use the drag and drop interface.

 Thinkific supports just about any type of file you need to upload to an online course. It includes video, audio, quizzes, surveys and PDF support. Discussion forms are another option, and especially fitting for instructors that want to add yet another educational resource for their students.

Additionally, Thinkific provides a number of marketing and promotion techniques to help build your online empire whether it is attracting more students (even from different countries) or a business in it mostly for the money.
The marketing tools include email marketing campaigns and templates, integrated promo tools as well as compatibility with Stripe or major credit cards for transactions. Lastly, Thinkific is based on a robust formula so when your students thrive so does your business. It means that students can receive completion tracking, automated progress emails, course discussions and more.

People may not associate business productivity with online course software yet they could not be any more wrong. Employing a knowledgeable, well-informed staff is a surefire way to drive sales as well as improve internal customer service. If you, as a business owner, are serious about growing and/or maintaining a stellar reputation — you should give online course implementation serious consideration.

It would be impossible to review Thinkific without mentioning its highly ranked customer service. It seems like just about every website out there promises and supports high quality customer service yet very few deliver on said promise. Thinkific is an exception.

The company provides extraordinarily responsive phone and email support. Thinkific claims that they answer 90 percent of the questions thrown their way in less than five hours which is impressive consider that over 35,000 individuals use the platform. And it’s true, not only are they quick to respond but the answers actually make sense and don’t feel like they are outsourced with predefined scripts that get you nowhere.

Additionally, Thinkific presents a training site for new users as well as live webinars to keep their customers informed on everything happening with the software. If you really value good customer service (which is increasingly hard to find these days) than Thinkific may be the best online course software for you even if it’s a little more expensive.

Price

Thinkific offers a freemium plan and three paid plans. The starter package will get the online course off the ground at no cost to you. The plan does, however, have a high 10 percent transaction fee yet provides everything you need to create, manage as well as expand an online course.

From there customers have the selection of three differently priced options: Essentials ($49 per month), Business ($99 per month) and Advanced ($279 per month).

 The Essentials plan delivers all the core features yet only a 5 percent transaction fee (compared to 10 percent for Starter). There is also a ton of more marketing tools included with Essentials over Starter, and you will also get a custom domain (more professional looking).

Business and Advanced plans are definitely pricey but you are getting a lot of pack for the punch. The Business option includes advanced HTML/CSS editing (in order to fully customize the online course) as well as a number of other features designed to enhance profits. Advanced is very much the same yet with no transaction fees.

In terms of accepting payments from your students or customers, Thinkific is compatible with Stripe but not PayPal. It also accepts credit card payments from the major providers including Visa and Mastercard.

Thinkific’s pricing is a little higher than its competitors yet some customers deem it worthwhile considering the ease of use of the course builder not to mention the phenomenal customer service.

Conclusion

Thinkific is a really great all in one solution. It works just as well for an instructor that is teaching English to students in China as it does a business owner looking to quiz its employees on high powered sale skills.

The online course builder is very easy to understand and use even if you do not have much experience building or managing anything on the web before. The drag and drop feature along with the stylish templates do all of the heavy work for you.

And because Thinkific has so many outstanding marketing tools, it is very possible to see a boost in profits very quickly. The one knock is that Thinkific is more expensive than most of its competitors, though the Essentials plan is moderately priced at $49 per month, and likely your best option unless you are a well established business that may want to consider the Business plan.