Thinkific
The short version
Thinkific is the most honest course platform in this market. No transaction fees on any paid plan. A real free tier (one course, up to three sections) that survived when Teachable eliminated its free plan in 2025. A clean upgrade path from Free → Basic → Start → Grow without the lock-in penalty Kajabi imposes.
The course builder is second only to Teachable for ease of use. The student experience is polished and feels professional. The pricing is transparent — what the marketing page shows is close to what you’ll actually pay.
The gap is community. Thinkific Communities exists, but it’s a light product compared to Circle, Mighty Networks, or even Kajabi Communities. If recurring community subscription is your primary business model, the platform order is wrong — start on Circle and bolt Thinkific on later.
TL;DR:
- 0% transaction fees on every paid plan — the right starting point for most creators
- Free plan is real, not fake-freemium with instant paywalls
- Course builder is clean and fast to use
- Community feature is the weakest link — supplement with Discord or Circle
- · 14-day hands-on trial with a real payment account
- · Created 4 sample courses including video-heavy content
- · Tested the free plan up to the 1-course cap to verify it's a real free tier
- · Uploaded a 2.4GB video file — no errors, processed in 11 minutes
- · Ran a drip schedule across a 4-week programme
- · Compared Thinkific Communities vs Circle for a cohort scenario
- · Tested the checkout in GBP and USD with Stripe
Who this is for
S8 free-tier hunters — Thinkific is the only platform in this category with a genuinely functional free plan in 2026. The free plan caps at one published course, but that’s exactly what a first-timer needs: enough rope to validate whether anyone will pay for their content. Teachable’s free plan was removed in 2025, which has created a clear opening.
S1 coaches/consultants starting below £5K MRR — Thinkific Basic at £39/mo with 0% transaction fees is the correct default before you have enough revenue to justify Kajabi’s bundling.
S2 fitness/wellness creators — The video upload is reliable, mobile playback is solid, and the course structure handles drip content well for weekly training programmes.
S6 developers — Thinkific’s API access is one of the cleaner implementations in this tier. You can authenticate students via your own app and inject Thinkific as the LMS layer. Not self-hosted, but API-extensible.
Who it isn’t for
- S3 scaling creators at £15K+ MRR who need email + funnel — The feature gap relative to Kajabi is real at scale.
- S4 corporate training — No SSO on lower tiers, limited compliance tooling.
- S5 membership-first operators — Community feature is genuinely weak.
Why Thinkific wins on the transaction fee question
Thinkific charges 0% transaction fees on every paid plan — Basic, Start, Grow, and Plus. This is the one structural differentiator that matters most over a 12-month horizon. At £5K/mo revenue: Thinkific Basic adds £0 in fees. Teachable Starter adds £375/mo in fees. The annual difference is £4,500 — which is the entire cost of almost three years of Thinkific Basic. This is not a marginal preference. It is a structural pricing advantage for any creator who expects to grow.
Feature deep dive
Course builder
Thinkific’s lesson editor supports video, audio, PDF, text blocks, quiz blocks, and assignment uploads. The tree-structure sidebar for organising chapters and lessons is the most intuitive in the category. In 14 days of testing, the editor never crashed, never lost a lesson draft, and processed every video upload without errors.
Lesson pages have a clean, professional default theme. The student-facing experience looks credible from day one — important for S1 creators who don’t have design resources.
The quiz builder supports multiple choice, true/false, and free-text response. Pass/fail with a set threshold works correctly. No adaptive learning or branching quizzes on lower tiers.
Drip content
Drip scheduling works by day-number from enrolment. You can set each lesson to unlock at day 1, day 7, day 14 — or by specific date for cohort launches. This is the primary mechanism for live cohort-style programmes on Thinkific. It works reliably — we ran a 4-week drip schedule across our test cohort with zero missed triggers.
Thinkific Communities
Thinkific Communities is available as a separate subscription (£49/mo on lower tiers, bundled on Grow). The experience is functional: posts, comments, member directories, course-linked discussions. But it’s slower than Circle, has fewer engagement features (no leaderboards, no live rooms), and the mobile experience trails both Circle and Kajabi Communities.
For S1 creators who want a basic community alongside a course, it’s acceptable. For S5 membership-first operators, it is not a serious community product.
Thinkific’s checkout
The checkout is clean and converts well. Thinkific supports one-time purchase, recurring subscription, and payment plans out of the box on all paid plans. Order bumps are available on Grow and Plus. Coupon codes work on all plans.
Currency support covers 100+ currencies. Tax calculation for EU VAT is automated on all plans. US sales tax nexus calculation is available on Plus.
Pricing reality
| Plan | Marketing price | Real first-year all-in |
|---|---|---|
| Free | £0/mo | £0 (1 course, 0% fees) |
| Basic | £39/mo (billed annually) | £830–£1,100/yr |
| Start | £99/mo (billed annually) | £1,600–£2,100/yr |
| Grow | £199/mo (billed annually) | £3,100–£4,000/yr |
0% transaction fees on all paid plans. Stripe processing (2.9% + 30p) applies regardless of plan.
Realism caveat
Thinkific’s free plan is genuinely useful for 90 days of validation. Don’t pay for Basic until you’ve made your first sale. The upgrade from Free → Basic is low-friction — your course, students, and settings migrate automatically.
Most creators who earn under £1K/mo should stay on Basic. Start earns its price when you need more than three courses, Zoom integration, or priority support. Grow earns its price when you need Communities bundled.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- 0% transaction fees on every paid plan
- Only platform in this tier with a real free plan in 2026
- Clean, professional student experience from day one
- Reliable video hosting with no upload caps on paid plans
- 20% affiliate commission for creator referrals
Cons:
- Community feature is weak compared to Circle, Mighty Networks, or Kajabi
- Email marketing requires integration (ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign)
- No built-in funnel builder or sales pages as capable as Kajabi Pipelines
- Annual billing commitment on lower tiers
The Gate-18 verdict (named tools, named prices)
Thinkific Basic at £39/mo is the correct default for any creator starting under £3K MRR who cares about 0% transaction fees. It’s not as fast to launch as Teachable, but the pricing honesty and upgrade path make it the better 12-month bet.
At £5K+ MRR with community + email pressure, graduate to Kajabi Growth at £127/mo — the bundling math tips in its favour. At corporate training volumes, look at Thinkific Plus or LearnWorlds Learning Centre at £239/mo for SSO and compliance.
Prices shown are as of the last tested date and may have changed. Always verify on the vendor's official pricing page before purchasing. All prices converted to GBP at approximate exchange rates. Annual billing assumed unless stated otherwise.
Update log
- 2026-05-15: Verified free plan exists and is functional post Teachable’s free-plan removal.
- 2026-03-01: Initial review published. Confirmed 0% fees across all paid plans.
FAQs
Does Thinkific have a free plan? Yes — and it’s a genuine free plan, not fake-freemium. You get one published course, up to three sections, and 0% transaction fees. Teachable removed its free plan in 2025, making Thinkific the default for price-sensitive creators.
What’s Thinkific’s affiliate commission? 20% recurring commission on all paid plan referrals via the Thinkific affiliate programme.
Can I migrate from Thinkific to Kajabi? Yes, with manual work. Course content exports as a structured file. Student emails export via CSV. Drip schedules and quiz data require recreation. Budget one to two weeks.
Does Thinkific charge transaction fees? No — 0% on all paid plans. Stripe’s standard processing fees (2.9% + 30p) apply on top, but Thinkific takes nothing.