Thinkific vs Teachable: Which is Better? (2024 Comparison)

Choosing the right platform for your online course is a crucial step when starting your online learning business.

By now, you’ll have come across Thinkific and Teachable – 2 of the best online course platforms out there.

But do they match up to your specific needs? Is there a more powerful alternative out there?

In this guide, we’re going to compare Thinkific and Teachable, and look at their: 

• Features. 
• Pricing. 
• Pros. 
• Cons. 

And then, we’re going to show you how they match up against Uscreen, so you have all the details you need to pick the perfect platform to host your online learning business. 

Let’s get right into it… 

Thinkific vs Teachable: Key Features Comparison

In this section, we’ll compare the key features of Thinkific and Teachable. 

To make things easier, we’ve divided them into 6 categories:

1. Course creation.
2. Student interaction.
3. Site design and customization.
4. Sales and marketing tools.
5. Support and training.
6. Site admin and security.

Let’s dive in…

1. Course Creation

The first step in choosing the right online course platform is making sure you can easily build and structure your courses. 

Thankfully, both Thinkific and Teachable make it easy to create online courses.

But they tackle it differently.

Course curriculum and structure

The ‘curriculum area’ is where you determine the layout of your course, add your content, and include optional quizzes, surveys, discussions, and more.

On Teachable, you can choose whether to create a course or coaching product.

Coaching is ideal when you offer one-on-one training with scheduled video calls. But for most situations, a course is better as you can compile everything in one place for students to follow.

Teachable courses are made up of sections that contain lectures. And for each lecture, you can choose which content format you want:

On Thinkific, you can start your course from a blank page or choose from 5 custom course templates to speed up the process:

Thinkific courses are made up of chapters that contain lessons. And for each lesson, you choose which content format you want:

Also, both course builders let you add multiple content types in the same lecture. For example, you could have multiple videos or a combination of video + text + pdf.

Teachable also lets you bulk select lectures and change the settings without going into individual lessons, which is a handy time-saver.

Uploading course content

Both platforms include unlimited hosting so that you can upload a wide range of multimedia content, including: 

• Video. 
• Audio. 
• PDFs.
• Text.
• Quizzes. 

Teachable lets you bulk upload material from cloud-based storage, like…

• Dropbox 
• Google Drive
• OneDrive 

…as well as your computer. 

Once you’ve uploaded your content, you can arrange it in your own style.

Delivering course content 

Both platforms offer an easy-to-use Course Player. 

The sidebar shows students how they’re progressing, and it’s easy to revisit a lesson if needed. 

Or they can use full-screen mode to hide the sidebar and other on-screen distractions.

On Thinkific, students can also search through the course by lesson titles. 

Course players for both platforms are mobile-responsive, so students can follow courses on any mobile device.

Teachable also offers an OTT app, but it’s only available on iOS so Android users miss out. 

Assessing your students

While both platforms allow you to create quizzes and assignments, Thinkific offers more advanced options.

With Thinkific, you can:

• Grade questions.
• Include multimedia.
• Allow multiple tracked attempts. 
• Draw from a randomized question bank.
• Include explanations of the correct answers. 

Thinkific also lets you survey your students with… 

• single-answer 
• multi-answer 
• rating 
• scale  
• long-form 

…response questions. 

These are ideal for: 

• Conducting student assessments.
• Collecting instructor feedback. 
• Tracking goals.  

And there’s more…

Because Thinkific also integrates with a third-party exam provider, Brillium, that offers more advanced testing.

Finally, we need to mention assignments. 

Thinkifc’s Assignment lessons let you create, request, and review student submissions: 

Content drip and locking

Both platforms let you ‘drip content’ to control how fast students move through your courses.

You can drip content based on the course start date or student start date. For example, allow access to Lesson 2 the second day after enrollment.

But here’s the difference:

Teachable can send an automated email to notify your students when you unlock a new lecture, whereas Thinkific can’t.

Both platforms also let you ‘lock content’ – also referred to as course compliance – so that students must complete specific tasks, such as lessons or quizzes, before they can move on.

The main difference here is that Thinkific lets you set course compliance at the lesson level, while Teachable does so at the course level.

💡Course Creation: The Takeaway

Both platforms make it easy to structure your course curriculum, but Thinkific has the bonus of course templates to get you up and running quicker. That said, Teachable is fine for creating straightforward courses.
It’s simple to upload and reorganize your content as you wish. And both platforms offer handy course delivery options, including content dripping and content locking, with a few subtle differences.
Thinkific also has excellent quizzes, surveys, and assignments for deeper student interaction.

2. Student Interaction

Connecting with your students is an essential element of online learning, so let’s check out what each platform has to offer.

Student discussions and communities

Thinkific lets you interact with your students using its Communities feature that you attach to a specific course or bundle of courses. 

Instead of using a social media group or Slack channel, everything stays inside Thinkific. 

It’s handy for creating a support group for your courses or building an ongoing community for your membership.

Teachable uses a native commenting system rather than communities to support student interactions. You attach comment blocks to specific lectures, which makes it topic-based. 

Thinkific offers a similar system called Discussions, which you can enable for individual lessons or the whole course. 

Completion certificates

Both Teachable and Thinkific let you create and send certificates to your students when they complete a course automatically.

On Teachable, you can choose from one of 3 pre-designed templates or create a custom certificate.

On Thinkific, you can choose from a library of 7 templates.

Thinkific also integrates with a third-party certificate service called Accredible, but you’ll probably find the native certificates are fine.

Course reporting and analytics

Teachable and Thinkific both offer similar course reporting and analytics tools that help you observe:

• Course enrollments and completion rates.
• Lessons completed vs. lessons viewed. 
• Views by content type.
• Quiz attempts and scores.
• Number of course reviews.
• Average course rating.
• Total payments and sales.

For example, Thinkific shows a basic level of student engagement:

But Teachable includes more granular reporting, so for example, you can see whether your free or paying students completed more lectures:

You can also view orders and track revenue so that you can: 

• Compare new versus returning students. 
• Check payment providers. 
• Monitor affiliate sales.

💡Student Interaction: The Takeaway

Both platforms allow comments and discussions on individual lessons, but Thinkific has the additional community feature.
Teachable’s course reporting capabilities are more substantial than Thinkific.

3. Site Design and Customization

Next, you’ll need to consider the site design.

Teachable and Thinkific offer drag-and-drop landing page design and custom pages. Plus, you can adapt your checkout and thank-you pages with items like upsells and social proof.

But here are some differences…

Website themes

Teachable has one default template where you can change the: 

• Logo. 
• Background color. 
• Typography.

But Thinkific offers a suite of 10 beautiful custom-designed themes for selling education where you can choose colors. 

Page builder

Teachable’s page builder only lets you add: 

• Banner. 
• Text. 
• Image with Text blocks. 

Plus, you’re limited to 3 pages per course:

1. A course description landing page.
2. A sales page.
3. A checkout page.

Thinkific’s page builder is much more customizable with 20+ section types, including:

• Testimonials. 
• Pricing. 
• FAQs. 
• CTAs.
• Countdown timers. 

White labeling

Both platforms let you remove their branding. But even if you use a custom domain in Teachable, the signup, login, and checkout pages still use a Teachable sub-domain which you cannot change.

💡Site Design and Customization: The Takeaway

When it comes to site design and customization options, Thinkific has far more than Teachable.

4. Sales and Marketing Tools

You’ll need to market and sell your course after you’ve created it. And both Teachable and Thinkific provide the tools to do that.

For example, you can:

• Sell lifetime courses.
• Create subscriptions.
• Add 1-click upsells.
• Generate coupon codes for promotions.
• Bundle courses, promote, and sell them as discounted offers.
• Pre-launch courses to build a waitlist.
• Conduct email marketing campaigns.
• Launch affiliate marketing programs.
• Use Google analytics and course tracking.

However, they approach it differently, so let’s take a look.

Sales checkout and upsells

Teachable has a smooth 1-step checkout process. Students enter their details and make the payment on the same page. Once the payment is successful, they create an account. 

Thinkific has now upgraded it’s old 2-step checkout to a streamlined 1-step checkout:

Both platforms let you add a 1-click upsell to your “Thank You” page. Plus, you can add various conversion elements like a video and CTA. 

Product pricing options

Both Teachable and Thinkific allow you to create a: 

• One-time price. 
• Recurring subscription. 
• Payment plan.

You can also bundle and sell your courses together with different pricing options. For example, you can sell the same course for a one-time price or charge a recurring subscription.

On Teachable, you can price your course in different currencies. But Thinkific only allows one.

In contrast, Thinkific lets you create a free trial period or a custom first payment and charge a subscription fee upfront – perfect if you’re creating a membership site.

Payment processing and payouts

Another key difference is how the platforms handle payments.

On Thinkific, payments always go instantly to your Stripe or PayPal account. 

On Teachable, there are 2 possibilities:

1. If you use a custom payment gateway, the funds go to your Stripe or PayPal account.  
2. If you use Teachable’s payment gateway, they process the money through their account. You only receive an instant payout in the US or Canada. Elsewhere, Teachable holds your funds for 30-60 days. 

However, if you use Teachable’s payment gateway, you can:

• Accept credit card (or PayPal) payments even if Stripe (or PayPal) isn’t supported in your country. 
• Accept payments via Apple Pay and Google Pay.

EU VAT handling

Thinkific does not collect EU VAT, but Teachable does.

The system automatically calculates a student’s VAT rate based on their location and sends them an invoice with the VAT details. 

And with Teachable’s payment gateway, the tax is paid directly to the official authorities.

Affiliate marketing 

Both platforms let you set a custom commission rate for your affiliates and select which courses you want them to promote. Affiliates also get a dashboard where they can track their performance and generate links.

With Teachable, you can use the BackOffice feature (2% fee) to manage and pay your affiliates. But on Thinkific, you’ll have to make payments outside the platform and then record them in your dashboard separately.

Third-party integrations

The two platforms integrate with thousands of third-party marketing tools directly or via Zapier, including: 

• Google Analytics. 
• Facebook Pixel. 
• ClickFunnels.

Teachable integrates directly with two email marketing solutions – ConvertKit and MailChimp.

Thinkific integrates directly with:

• ActiveCampaign. 
• Aweber.
• Constant Contact. 
• ConvertKit. 
• Keap. 
• MailChimp. 

You can check all integrations in Thinkific’s app store.

💡Sales and Marketing Tools: The Takeaway

Teachable has the overall advantage with its sales and marketing tools.
Its checkout process is superior, it handles EU VAT efficiently, and affiliate payouts are easier to manage. On the other hand, Thinkific gives you more flexibility for subscription pricing, offers instant payouts for all creators, and has more third-party integrations.

5. Support and Training

Both Thinkific and Teachable provide good customer service, including a self-service knowledge base and private Facebook community. 

Teachable offers email support on all its plans and live chat support on the Pro Plan and above. It also has an online training school called TeachableU (available on any paid plan) to help course creators.

Thinkific offers email support on all its plans and live chat support on all the paid plans. It also has several free training courses and a premium training program called the Online Business Masterclass, available to its paid subscribers for free.

💡Support and Training: The Takeaway

Both Thinkific and Teachable offer a range of support and training options.

6. Site Admin and Security

Before we get onto pricing, let’s cover a few backend site admin and security topics.

Both platforms include…

• free secure cloud hosting and daily backups,
• built-in security and SSL certificate,
• 24/7 monitoring, maintenance, and updates, 

…so you don’t need to worry about any of that.

You can check their uptime performance here:

• Thinkific Status
• Teachable Status

Plus, they also let you:

• Enroll an unlimited number of students.
• Manage and export your student data.
• Segment and email your students. 
• Provide comprehensive progress tracking, reporting, and analytics. 

💡Site Admin and Security: The Takeaway

All square here with good uptime performance.

So what do all these features cost? Let’s take a look at the pricing plans…

Thinkific vs Teachable: Pricing Plans

Both platforms have a freemium pricing strategy. Let’s examine the details:

Thinkific Pricing

Thinkific has one free and 3 paid pricing plans that come with unlimited students and unlimited courses:

1. Free: $0 per month with limited courses and features.
2. Start: $99 per month or $74 per month (billed annually).
3. Grow: $199 per month or $149 per month (billed annually).
4. Expand: $499 per month or $374 per month (billed annually).

With Thinkific, there are no transaction fees on any plan. Plus, you get instant payouts on all the plans.

Teachable Pricing

Teachable also has one free and 3 paid pricing plans that come with unlimited students and unlimited courses:

1. Free: $0 per month with limited features.
2. Basic: $39 per month or $29 per month (billed annually).
3. Pro: $119 per month or $99 per month (billed annually).
4. Business: $299 per month or $249 per month (billed annually).

Teachable charges ($1 + 10%) transaction fee on their Free Plan and 5% on the Basic Plan. 

Teachable also charge processing fees depending on the payment method and the country your student signs up from:

• US Card Fee: 2.9% + 30¢.
• US Paypal Fee: 3.49% + 30¢.
• International Card Fee: 3.9% + 30¢.
• International PayPal Fee: 4.99% + 49¢.

💡Pricing: The Takeaway

Both platforms allow you to test-drive their features and then scale and grow your online learning business.

Thinkific vs Teachable: Highlights (Pros and Cons)

Let’s take a quick look at the pros and cons of Thinkific and Teachable:

Thinkific Advantages

• Proven course templates for creating different types of courses.
• Features distraction-free, full-screen mode in Course Player.
• Supports advanced quiz features like question bank and bulk import.
• Built-in support for assignments and surveys.
• Better course compliance (content locking) at the lesson level.
• Ability to create a native community area.
• Powerful site and page builder with a choice of themes.
• More flexible pricing options for subscriptions.
• Zero transaction fees and instant payouts.

Thinkific Disadvantages

• Doesn’t handle EU VAT tax.
• Doesn’t handle affiliate payouts.
• Doesn’t let you conduct live workshops.
• Can’t bulk upload CSV files.
• Takes a long time to add new users to your account. 
• Slow to answer urgent problems but okay with others.

Teachable Advantages

• Ability to bulk select lessons and change the settings.
• Let’s you import course content from cloud-based storage.
• Option to send drip email reminders on content drip courses. 
• Provides better course reporting and analytics tools.
• Includes a well-optimized 1-step checkout process.
• Supports Apple and Google Pay on native gateways.
• Manages EU Digital Goods VAT tax.
• Includes back office services like automated affiliate and author payouts.
• Offers live chat support.
• iOS app included.

Teachable Disadvantages

• Adds transaction fees on payments.
• Delays payouts.
• Can’t bulk sell courses as easily.
• No option for live workshops.
• Difficult for students to use the MyTeachable account management. 
• Some course creators find the platform difficult to use.
• Slow to respond to support requests.

Thinkific vs Teachable: Is there a More Powerful Alternative?

Thinkific and Teachable are both excellent online course platforms. But you might be wondering if there’s a more powerful platform?

Well, now you mention it, yes there is…

Uscreen is one of the best platforms out there to grow your online learning business. It has everything you need to do your job as a creator and provide a great student experience. 

Our platform grows with your business, so you can:

• Deliver the educational content you want.
• Monetize it with a model that works for your audience.
• Market your courses with the tools you’re already familiar with through powerful integrations.

You can even launch your own branded OTT apps to reach your students wherever they are.

Uscreen: Key Features

For consistency, we’ll use the same 6 categories as before:

1. Course creation.
2. Student interaction.
3. Site design and customization.
4. Sales and marketing tools.
5. Support and training.
6. Site admin and security.

Let’s dive in…

1. Uscreen: Course Creation

Here’s how Uscreen lets you build and structure your online courses.

Course curriculum and structure

Uscreen comes with a built-in video catalog, so you can organize your course content with multiple filters, including categories, authors, and difficulty levels.

You can also create Collections which are perfect for course content. You can put all of your video lessons and modules in one easy-to-navigate space:

You can also organize your course material and provide unlimited access to your members or create a bundle of videos and other resources that members can access for a one-time fee.

Here are 2 examples of how Uscreen customers use this feature.

Example #1: Fader Pro

Fader Pro hosts a range of classes from superstar DJs in the EDM space. 

Their model gives lifetime access to each course that an up-and-coming music producer signs up for, with all the purchased courses held in one easy-to-access space. 

All the extra files needed for a course are easy to download with one click, too. 

Here’s another example…

Example #2: Sqadia

Sqadia uses a different model for students to access their professional medical training videos. 

Students sign up for monthly, semi-annual, or annual subscriptions to get full access to the vast library of resources offered, organized into an accessible catalog. 

Students also get access to an iOS and Android app to watch the library of 1,500+ videos on the go. 

Uploading course content

Uscreen offers unlimited video streaming, bandwidth, and uploads, with storage space starting at 3,000 minutes of course content. 

There’s even a bulk uploader to speed up the process, and you can upload from Dropbox directly.

You also get storage space to host other course content behind your paywall, such as course notes, ebooks, and other downloadable content, so your students can access a broader range of learning materials and digital products. 

Delivering course content

On Uscreen, your video content is delivered in Full HD quality on a fully-customizable and guaranteed buffer-freewhite-labelled video player.

It also features:

• “Resume Where You Left Off” feature – great for students on the go.
• Picture-in-picture to keep your students watching. 
• Optional subtitles to make classes super accessible. 

You can also live-stream classes and course content straight to your website using encoding software while running an interactive live chat – perfect for technical lessons that students may have questions about.

Uscreen will help you build your own, fully-branded mobile app for Android, iOS, and smart TVs – great for cooking, crafting, or kids classes – so your students can learn on the go or follow along with your tutorial from their kitchen or living room. 

Heck, we even support Apple WatchOS if you offer health and fitness classes.

2. Uscreen: Student Interaction

The Uscreen user interface is fully customizable so that students can sort all your course content using categories and filters, making it super easy to navigate. 

You also have the option to add closed captions and subtitles to your videos, making your courses even more accessible to the widest possible audience.

Student discussions and communities

Students perform better and display increased motivation in group settings. 

So, building a learning community within your online course can help keep students engaged and connected to the course material. 

Uscreen lets you build an engaged community around your content with comments and live chat where students can exchange ideas with you and their peers.

You can also take advantage of the live streaming capabilities to host live tutorials and take questions through the live chat feature. 

Completion certificates

On Uscreen, you can award certificates to your students when they complete your courses using a simple integration. 

Course reporting and analytics

Uscreen provides a range of analytics tools to help you understand what engages your audience and how to improve their learning experience. 

The analytics suite includes: 

• Video-level details, like watch time and view count.
• User information, like device and location access. 
• Financial figures, like royalties and affiliate payouts. 

3. Uscreen: Site Design and Customization

Uscreen is fully-equipped with options to build sales pages and landing pages so you can control your customer’s journey through your sales funnel.

Website themes

The Uscreen video website themes are designed for the best user experience and engagement across all devices. So, students get the best-in-class viewing experience without having to compromise on speed or quality.

Each theme is optimized for high conversions with the seamless flow of built-in sales and checkout pages. Plus, all our themes are SEO-friendly, so you can add relevant details like keywords and meta tags to improve your site searchability.

Page builder

Uscreen includes an easy-to-use website builder with options to customize and add your own branding. You can even stick with your own domain name, or we’ll help get one registered for you.

Our drag-and-drop website builder comes with all the blocks and tools you need to create a modern, engaging website that converts visitors into students. 

White labeling

The ‘Powered by Uscreen’ branding is only visible in the footer of our website themes. And Uscreen Plus customers can choose to have it removed. 

You also have the option to create your own white-labeled mobile and TV app, depending on what suits your learners and content. 

For example, Practice with Clara successfully launched TV and mobile apps:

4. Uscreen: Sales and Marketing Tools

We’ve got a whole host of sales and marketing tools that’ll help you: 

• Build your audience. 
• Engage your community. 
• Increase your revenue. 

Sales checkout and upsells

You can use marketing tools such as… 

• gift cards 
• free trials 
• coupons
• upsells 

…on your sales pages and at the checkout.

There are also built-in retention tools that let you give win-back discounts and email automation for your users who cancel. Plus, an abandoned cart sequence to keep potential students in your sales funnel. 

Product pricing options

When it comes to pricing your online courses, there’s plenty of options, including: 

• Free Trial: Allow users to enjoy your content for free for a limited time. 
• Lifetime: Offer lifetime access to your content for a one-time fee.
• Bundles: Sell access to a bundle for a one-time fee.
• Subscription: Offer access for a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual recurring fee.
• Tiered Access: Offer beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, for example.

For example, Practice with Clara offers a monthly, quarterly, or annual membership option, and she accepts gift cards. 

Payment processing and payouts

On Uscreen, you can accept payments from 130+ international currencies through… 

• PayPal 
• Stripe 
• Authorize.net 
• Uscreen Payment Gateway 

…allowing you to cash out whenever you choose.

Stripe allows instant payouts directly to your bank account. While PayPal and Uscreen Payment Gateway hold funds for 30 days.

Uscreen’s primary purpose is to support your business in monetizing video content. 

We support SVOD, including multi-tiered memberships, so think Silver, Gold, and Platinum membership subscriptions – and TVOD, so you can sell one video or a package, which works great for educational courses, for example. 

You also get all the tools you need to take payments, with processing through:

– PayPal

– Stripe

– Authorize.net

– Uscreen Payment Gateway

Giving you as many options as possible to take debit and credit card payments. 

EU VAT handling

To collect VAT through Uscreen, you’ll need to include the amount in your total price. 

At the checkout, the Total will state that it already includes taxes: 

So when you are setting your prices, add the VAT to account for the taxes that users would typically pay for. You can then download your Invoices Report to see how much VAT is due for each country. 

Affiliate marketing

Uscreen includes detailed analytics to support you in managing and distributing your affiliate marketing payouts. You can even automate the entire process with our Rewardful integration.

Third-party integrations

Uscreen has over 1,000 third-party integrations either directly or via Zapier, including: 

• Email marketing. 
• Affiliate programs. 
• Google Analytics. 
• Certificates. 
• Awards. 

It integrates directly with two email marketing solutions – Drip and MailChimp.

You can also connect with ecommerce stores like Shopify to sell other products on top of your video content. Plus, there’s a powerful API to connect your existing tools and platforms.

5. Uscreen: Support and Training

Uscreen offers 24/7 email support with the same-day response on all plans for all customers, along with our robust help center.

Our Uscreen Plus package also offers an add-on with end-user support to help your students if they have technical problems, leaving you to focus on course creation. 

6. Uscreen: Site Admin and Security

Uscreen provides enhanced security and privacy features to keep your video content and client data secure, including:

• Secure cloud hosting and daily backups.
• Built-in security and SSL certificate.
• Secured (PA-DSS PCI compliant) payment data.
• 24/7 server monitoring, maintenance, and updates.

You can check our 99.99% uptime performance here: Uscreen Status.

So what do all these features cost? Let’s take a look at the pricing plans…

Over to You

Thinkific and Teachable are both excellent online course platforms, especially when you’re starting out.

But when you want to scale and grow your online learning business and get your content onto smart TV and mobile apps, then they’ll struggle to keep pace.

If you want to…

• build an app so your students can get your classes anywhere
• create a truly custom, white-label website experience that feels intuitive 
• interact with your community through live streams and live chat 
• access all the tools and apps you need to grow your online learning business

…then Uscreen is the online course platform for you. 

Start your free trial with us today to see exactly how we can help you expand your classes, courses, or coaching business.