Introduction
Both Podia and Thinkific are popular choices for course creators, educational content creators, and hosts of membership communities. But which is better?
The answer is complicated. Both have tons of features, from course design tools to the ability to create sales pages to live chat support. With so many features, it can be overwhelming trying to decide between the two.
We dug into the details to find the best platform for your online course or community. Let’s start with a quick summary.
Summary
Thinkific | Podia | |
---|---|---|
G2 rating | 4.6 | 4.5 |
Community features | Multiple communities and spaces per community, depending on plan. | One community with multiple spaces/topics. |
Membership features | Many payment options, can change subscription prices. | Fewer options, cannot change prices after a plan is created. |
Online course features | Flexible course creation tools, templates, and AI assistance. | Basic course creation tools. |
Website builder | Three templates, each with 3–4 styles. | Flexible, powerful drag-and-drop site builder. |
Marketing tools | AI-assisted email writing and sequencing. | Flexible segmentation and email design features. |
Mobile apps | Access courses and communities via the Thinkific app or pay $199 per month for a dedicated mobile app. | No mobile apps available. |
Support | Email and chat support, higher plans get priority and phone support. | Email and chat support on any paid plan. |
Pricing | Starts at $36 per month. | Starts (with limited features) at $0 per month. |
Where Thinkific wins
If online courses are your jam and you’d like to build community around them, Thinkific is a great choice. Its focus on course creation, coaching sessions, and learning communities means it’s tailored for educational creators.
In the year we’ve been using Thinkific, we’ve noticed several improvements and new features. From an admin perspective, the course builder is intuitive, the admin functions are straightforward to navigate, and launching new courses is a simple process.
Chelsea M., Validated G2 Reviewer
Thinkific’s straightforward email marketing tools, the ability to sell downloadable digital products, and the option to offer a branded mobile app for $199 per month all help you sell online courses and connect with your audience.
Where Podia wins
If you’re looking for an all-in-one business website builder, Podia is going to be more your speed. While you can offer both online courses and coaching, this platform is focused more on being a full-featured business website creator that offers access to a wide variety of features.
My current and potential clients can find everything they need on my Podia site. I can update my website, interact with my community, add new products, track email campaigns, and view audience activity—all from a single platform.
Michelle J., Validated G2 Reviewer
Those features include more robust email marketing tools like segmentation and analytics and a more customizable website builder that can be used for selling, blogging, hosting a portfolio, and more. If you want to make money through your own affiliate program, Podia will also help you there.
Thinkific vs. Podia features
Community features
Thinkific
While it’s primarily an online course platform, Thinkific’s community feature stands out over Podia for having more options. You can offer both free and paid communities with basic interaction capabilities like posts, comments, tags, and uploading videos.

You can also bundle access with your learning products to foster community around your online course or charge for access to the community as a standalone product. Thinkific also lets you enable access to a community for all logged in members, which might be useful if you have communities specific to your courses but you’d also like a more general community where everyone can interact.
Where Thinkific really stands out from Podia is that it offers the option to create multiple communities if you’re on the Grow plan ($149/month) or higher. Here’s how it breaks down:
Plan | Communities | Spaces per community |
---|---|---|
Basic ($36/month) | 1 | 5 |
Start ($74/month) | 1 | 10 |
Grow ($149/month) | 3 | 20 |
Expand ($374/month) | 10 | Unlimited |
Plus (custom pricing) | Unlimited | Unlimited |
If you’d like to run a lot of separate communities with their own spaces, Thinkific has an option for you – unless you’re on the Basic plan).
You can also run live events from your Community spaces to foster engagement from your members (building a community around video content is a great way to keep your audience’s attention).
Podia
Like Thinkific, Podia offers basic functionality for online communities – members can chat in the discussion forum, share images and video, and access private groups. And you can bundle access with your online courses or other products to upsell your offerings.
However, Podia accounts are limited to a single community. You can use topics to create different spaces for your members, but if you want entirely different communities, you’ll have to look at an alternative to Podia.

While Podia is a solid all-in-one platform, its community features are lacking compared to competitors. So you’ll need to decide how much of a priority building an engaged community is for your business. If selling digital products is your highest priority, for example, this may not matter as much to you. But if an engaged membership is high on your list, many other platforms offer a more robust experience for your subscribers.
Membership features
Thinkific
If you want flexible membership options, you’ll find them here. Here’s a list of membership options you can offer to your subscribers:
- Free plan
- Free trial
- Daily billing
- Weekly billing
- Monthly billing
- Every X months billing
- Yearly billing
- Every X years billing
- Custom first payments
That’s a lot of flexibility. Custom first payments are especially nice if you have a specific onboarding experience that you’d like to offer. For example, if your membership usually costs $50 per month, you could offer a temporary deal where the first month is only $25. Or, if you provide personalized coaching for the first month but not subsequently, the first month could be more expensive. It’s up to you.

You can also change the price of an existing subscription while leaving the current members at the same price. Only new members will get charged the updated price.
Each plan is easy to create – just create a new plan, then select the items that are included in it (online courses, specific membership communities, or other digital products).
Thinkific and Podia both offer membership features, but Thinkific clearly rises above when it comes to offering flexible membership options. (It’s worth noting, though, that you’ll need to be on the Grow plan to offer paid memberships; they’re not included in the Basic plan.)
Podia
Like Thinkific, you can easily create membership plans with Podia. Add a new membership, then select what that gives access to – add online courses, digital downloads, or community access.

However, your billing options are much more limited with Podia:
- Free plan
- Free trial
- Monthly billing
- Yearly billing
And you can’t change the price of a membership after you’ve created it. You’ll need to create a new one.
Online course features
Thinkific
Because it’s primarily an online course platform, Thinkific has a ton of great options for course creation and monetization.

Course creators will appreciate a variety of templates for building courses and the easy drag-and-drop interface for editing existing courses. There are also AI tools to help with your course creation if you need a little assistance. If you already have an online course (or several of them) built out, you can also use Thinkific’s import functionality to get it into your new online course platform.
There are plenty of ways to schedule and share your courses, with self-paced, cohort, and schedule options for releasing new content to learners. You can pre-sell your courses and release them on a specific date. And you can host live lessons and webinars if you’d like a live learning option.

We’ll get to pricing later, but all of Thinkific’s plans include the ability to publish unlimited courses, which is crucial if you want to build a business around online education. This includes both free courses and paid ones (this was one of the big differences when we compared Thinkific and Teachable).
If you want advanced features like course compliance tools, hidden and bundled courses, assignments, completion certificates, or a randomized quiz question bank, you’ll need to step up to a higher plan.
While digital downloads and coaching are available on Thinkific, it’s clear that it’s first and foremost an online course platform. Both Podia and Thinkific are viable choices if you want to sell online courses, but Thinkific definitely takes the win.
Podia
While Podia falls behind many other online course platforms when it comes to advanced features for creating courses, it does have some advantages that are worth mentioning.
First, you get the basics. There are course creation tools that you can use directly within Podia, just like you’d expect. Embed audio files and videos, enable comments to get course feedback from your students, and use cohort or drip scheduling to give access to students on your timeline.

There’s one feature in particular that stands out about this course creation platform. Podia’s free plan lets you build draft courses with their course builder. You can draft sales pages, too. That means you can sign up for the free plan, spend as long as you want preparing your courses, and only jump to a paid plan when you’re ready to start selling.
Website builder
Thinkific
If you’re looking for an easy site builder to create a place for your online business, Thinkific is a great choice. It includes pre-built pages for courses and bundles that you can update for your products and Smart Sections that automatically update your pages when you make changes to your courses or downloads.
However, this ease comes with a tradeoff: there are three primary themes with three to four styles, leaving you with little room for customization unless you want to dig into the HTML and CSS to make changes.

The Thinkific App Store includes over 80 free and paid apps that you can add to your website. Some of these are basic integrations, like Zapier, MailChimp, and Zoom. Others add more functionality, like chatbots. And you can integrate with services that help you run your online business, like Xero or Salesforce.
Still, if you want a powerful website builder with lots of options, you’ll need to look at an alternative to Thinkific.
Podia
Like Thinkific, Podia makes it easy to get started building your website, but it also provides more customization options. The sites don’t have the same polish as the limited selection of Thinkific themes, but there’s more out-of-the-box flexibility.

Because it’s an all-in-one platform for businesses, Podia offers a lot of options for site building, like customizable course landing pages and code-free editing. Choose a color scheme, upload your brand logo, and apply the styling to your entire website with a few clicks.
Podia also supports over 1,900 integrations, including Stripe and Paypal for multiple payment methods, email and marketing tools, and loads of automation options through Zapier.
Marketing tools
Thinkific
This online course platform includes some basic email marketing functionality. You can easily create automated email sequences with the assistance of AI. The built-in assistant will help you choose email copy, subject lines, and calls to action to optimize your open and clickthrough rates.

Like the site builder, Thinkific’s email marketing tool is best for people who don’t want to invest a ton of time in learning to design and write emails. AI writing assistants can be a little wonky, but if you want templates and pre-built sequences to help you get started, this is a good choice.
Podia
Podia’s built-in marketing tools are more robust than Thinkific’s. Again, if you want more customizability, this may be your best bet. Templates, forms, automations, segmentation, and an email designer all let you build out your email marketing funnel in the way you want to.

In addition to email marketing, Podia also specifically offers content marketing features through a blogging platform and lead magnets. You can even create link-in-bio pages designed for mobile browsing from your social media platforms.
It’s worth noting, however, that Podia charges an extra fee on top of its monthly subscription to access email marketing features. The fee depends on how many subscribers you have – we’ll discuss that below.
Mobile apps
Thinkific
Because it’s an online course platform, Thinkific is invested in mobile apps. Users can download the Thinkific app to access your course and communities, or you can get your own dedicated mobile app with your branding to share with your members.

That mobile app will run you $199 per month on top of your usual subscription, but having a white-labeled mobile app adds a significant amount of credibility to your online business.
Podia
No mobile apps here. Because Podia bills itself more as a business website builder and less as a course platform, that’s not hugely surprising. However, if you want your subscribers, members, or learners to have access to your courses and communities when they’re away from their home computers, you’ll need to explore what other platforms offer.
Support
Thinkific
All of Thinkific’s plans come with email and live chat support. With the Grow plan, creators get phone support and priority email. The Expand plan includes priority phone support, while Plus gets you access to a dedicated support team.

Podia
Paid plans get access to live chat support, while the free plan only gets email support. You won’t find phone support here, and there’s no way to get extra priority for your support requests.
Pricing
Thinkific
Here are the basics of Thinkific pricing (if you want more specifics on course completion certificates, coaching, webinars, student groups, or other details, you’ll need to visit the Thinkific pricing page):
Basic plan | Start plan | Grow plan | Expand plan | Plus | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly price (billed annually) | $36 | $74 | $149 | $374 | Custom |
Online courses | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Communities | 1 | 1 | 3 | 10 | Unlimited |
Spaces per community | 5 | 10 | 20 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Digital downloads | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Paid memberships | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Note that Thinkific doesn’t charge transaction fees for courses or digital downloads, but you’ll have to pay a fee to your payment processor (Stripe, for example, charges 2.9% + $0.30).
Podia
Podia only has three plans, one of them is free. Here’s what you need to know:
Free plan | Mover plan | Shaker plan | |
---|---|---|---|
Monthly fee (billed annually) | $0 | $33 | $75 |
Online courses | Drafts | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Digital downloads | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Community | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Transaction fees | 10% | 5% | 0% |
If you decide to use Podia’s email marketing features, you’ll also pay an additional monthly fee based on your number of subscribers. These are the fees for some of those levels, billed annually – if you want to find an exact number of subscribers, check out Podia’s pricing page.
- Up to 100 subscribers: free
- Up to 500 subscribers: $7
- Up to 1,500: $13
- Up to 2,500: $20
- Up to 5,000: $34
Uscreen: An all-in-one platform for video education creators
When you’re looking at Podia vs. Thinkific, you might get stuck thinking that one of them is going to be the platform you end up with. But it’s important to remember that there are lots of other options out there that may better suit your needs.
I have been using the Uscreen platform for over 3 years and I am really happy to host my membership platform on it. I find the framework really user friendly. There are plenty of in built marketing tools to help with automations and also to reduce churn.
Monica H., Validated G2 Reviewer
For example, Uscreen is a membership platform and video streaming service that lets you build your own website, sell courses, live stream video, and use community engagement tools to foster a thriving community around your online courses or membership community.

It’s been used by over 4,000 creators, from yoga and fitness instructors to auto racing leagues to language teachers.

Useful marketing tools like sales pages and landing pages let you tailor messages to potential members. Its fantastic user experience ensures that you provide the most value to your audience, while flexible monetization options help you build predictable revenue streams with payment plans and multiple subscription options.
They are the best when it comes to video content creation. Think Youtube. But this time, you control your website and email. It’s your platform. . . . Cannot recommend enough.
Jesse W., Validated G2 Reviewer
Uscreen also lets you build mobile and TV apps that let your viewers watch your content, whether they’re taking an online course or live streaming an event, wherever they are. This can have huge effects on your business – Abundance+ doubled their revenue by creating a niche streaming app!
While Uscreen doesn’t directly let you sell digital products, you can use third-party tools to host digital downloads and sell them from directly within your videos.
If video is a big part of your membership community or you want to sell courses, Uscreen is absolutely worth a look. Especially for its community features.
Thinkific vs. Podia: Which should you choose?
Choosing a winner in the battle of Podia vs. Thinkific depends largely on your needs. Both let you publish unlimited courses. Both provide tools to make the course creation process easier. Both make it easy to sell any digital download you’d like. And both let you host a membership community, something that’s useful for keeping the audiences of educators, YouTubers and influencers, course creators, and event broadcasters engaged.
But there are some differences.
Thinkific, for example, stands out for being very easy to use – its selection of site templates and pre-built email sequences are great examples. It also focuses largely on publishing online courses and building community around them.
That focus, though, means it’s not quite as versatile as Podia.
Podia is a capable platform for your course, but it’s worth noting that it’s built more to support businesses websites than course content. It has a wealth of options for site building, built-in email marketing, and more customizability. The fact that it has a free plan for creators is nice, too.
Both Thinkific and Podia will let you build a basic website that looks professional and host your course content. In the end, choosing will come down to comparing the specific features you’re looking for. If you prioritize excellent customer support, for example, or you want to be able to easily share audio files, you’ll want to compare the specifics of each platform.
And it’s worth remembering that there are other online course platforms out there, too. Uscreen, as we mentioned, is a great place to host content, live stream events, and build an engaged community around video content.
In the end, the decision is yours – but now you have the knowledge you need to make the right decision as a course creator.