10 Thinkific Alternatives for Course Creation in 2022!

If you've been researching online course creation, you've likely heard of Thinkific, but many Thinkific alternatives also warrant consideration.

So, what makes Thinkific a popular choice? First, Thinkific has a long history — and a solid fan base — with brand recognition.

Second, Thinkific offers a genuinely free plan.

But, this doesn't guarantee it's the best choice for you!

Read on for the lowdown on nine great Thinkific alternatives so you can make an informed decision about your online course platform.

(Editor's Note: Don't miss our comprehensive Thinkific review and our deep dive into Thinkific pricing.)

1. Kajabi

Kajabi stands out for marketing tools and content management but is used to sell digital products and simple courses too.

It's the most expensive on our list, with business tools best suited for intermediate or advanced course creators.

Kajabi isn't the best choice for a new course creator testing unproven products.

Pros

• Includes advanced community management features
• Stands out for business and marketing automation options like built-in email, web hosting
• Boasts a bright and clean interface

Cons

• Focuses on digital product sales over course delivery
• Includes limited course customization options
• Restricts the number of courses and students you can host

Pricing

All plans limit products, pipelines, members, and websites; the more you pay, the more you get. Kajabi offers three plans and a 20% discount for annual billing:

• Basic: Includes features like unlimited landing pages and emails, Kajabi University, and ready-to-use templates
• Growth: Adds advanced automations, 24/7 support, white labeling, and an affiliate program
• Pro: Allows you to edit code

(If you're looking for more information on Kajabi, check out our Kajabi review, comprehensive overview of Kajabi pricing, and if you're interested in a Kajabi alternative, we've got that, too!)

2. LearnDash

LearnDash is the only WordPress plugin on our list and is the most affordable option if you have WordPress expertise.

If you don't, you should steer clear; the learning curve for inexperienced users is steep and likely to result in sourcing paid support to get the desired outcome.

Pros

• Includes features to motivate students, like certificates
• Allows you to leverage the branding and design of an existing website
• Is the most affordable option

Cons

• Excludes marketing features or sales funnel functionality and requires extensive use of other plugins
• Requires strong WordPress technical expertise
• Additional add-ons and plug-ins slow loading times

Pricing

LearnDash is priced as an annual license fee. The three plan options are:

• Basic: $159/year: Includes one site license and features like unlimited courses and users, advanced quizzing, course forums, and email notifications, which are available with all plans
• Plus: $189/year: Gives you ten site licenses and ProPanel
• Pro: $329/year: Includes 25 site licenses and ProPanel

3. LearnWorlds

Where Kajabi and LearnDash are a good fit for specific users, LearnWorlds is a good all-in-one course creation platform.

It has decent functionality for course creation, hosting, marketing and sales.

If you're looking for a jack of all trades, master of none platform, then LearnWorlds may be for you.

Pros

• Includes student engagement features, such as certificates
• Includes sales, digital marketing, and course creation functionality
• Allows you to add interactions to video easily

Cons

• Lacks a flexible course builder
• Charges $5/sale transaction fees with the Starter plan
• Lacks the site themes that are included in other similar options, like Teachery

Pricing

LearnWorlds has three packages and offers discounts for annual billing of up to 20%. They also offer an additional "contact for pricing" option for high-volume and corporate clients:

• Starter: Includes unlimited courses, three landing pages, coupons, and a $5/sale transaction fee
• Pro Trainer: Drops the transaction fee, gives unlimited landing pages, and other features like custom certificates
• Learning Center: Adds features like white-labeling and interactive video

4. Mighty Networks

Mighty Networks is community-focused and makes sense if you are promoting a membership site or subscription services rather than creating course material and selling online courses.

Marketing campaign and course delivery features are secondary. It's a Facebook group that's not on Facebook, so users aren't distracted by competing notifications.

Pros

• Stands out for community-centered functionality
• Provides excellent features for membership or subscription services
• Focuses on student engagement which may translate into higher completion rates and better results

Cons

• Lacks a robust marketing tool and course creation features
• Charges a 5% transaction fee with the "Free" Plan
• Creates another social media group that users have to log into separately

Pricing

Mighty Networks includes a free option and two paid packages, which include two months free when billed annually:

• Free Plan: Includes unlimited members, the ability to charge for membership, and a 5% transaction fee
• Community Plan: Includes the ability to use your domain name and has a lower transaction fee for memberships (3%)
• Business Plan: Adds the ability to charge for online courses and drops the transaction fee to 2%

5. FreshLearn

Pros

• 0% transaction fee.
• Sell all types of digital products. You can create and sell courses, live workshops, coaching, digital downloads, newsletters, podcasts and more.
• Advanced assessments and question bank. Import all your questions into the question bank and launch your assessments in few clicks. Include pass %, positive, negative scores and more.
• Compliance and Certification: Add course compliance to mandatory watch the course and issue completion certificates automatically on course completion.
• One stop shop. FreshLearn provides all the tools required for sales and marketing like coupons, affiliates, sales pages, checkout, payment gateways, different type of pricing plan options and more.

Cons:

• Lack of community. There is no option today for students to connect with each other.
• Limited Gamification. There is aspect of gamification like reward points but the badges features is not there.

FreshLearn Pricing:

• All plans include unlimited courses, users, hosting, assessments, and certificates.
• Free Plan: $0/year + 9% transaction fee.
• Starter Plan: $29/month + 0% transaction feeNo Brainer Plan: $59/month + 0% transaction fee and all features

6. Podia

Podia is a solid option for course creators selling memberships or a digital download but isn't well suited to selling online courses.

It is marketed as an all-in-one platform and provides a robust suite of support for a solo creator with simple products.

It is affordable but calling it an online learning management system (LMS) is a stretch.

Pros

• Supports sales of videos, ebooks, or digital downloads
• Plans include unlimited everything (customers, products, sales, emails, etc.)
• Includes marketing options like upsells and coupons
• Live chat support

Cons

• Lacks learning features like graded quizzes and certificates
• Excludes features like affiliate marketing, blog creation, and memberships unless you pay for the most expensive plan
• Lacks customization and design options

Pricing

Podia offers two packages, with savings for annual billing:

• Mover: Includes your own website, unlimited everything, online courses, and email marketing
• Shaker: Adds features like memberships, zoom integrations, blog, and affiliate marketing

7. Teachable

Teachable is a simple course platform that's a good fit with basic course offerings. It emphasizes sales over the learning experience but includes features for delivering quality training content.

Pros

• An affordable option for basic online course delivery
• It's easy-to-use and a solid choice for beginners
• Includes learning features like drip content and course compliance

Cons

• Excludes marketing and sales functionality
• Doesn't offer surveys or other student engagement tools
• Charges a 5% transaction fee with the most affordable Basic Plan

Pricing

Teachable offers three plans, all of which include unlimited students and courses. They also offer savings for annual billing:

• Basic: Includes email marketing, coupons, basic quizzes, and a 5% transaction fee
• Pro: Drops the transaction fee and includes affiliate marketing tools, graded quizzes, an unbranded website, and additional support
• Business: Adds features like theme customization, bulk student enrolments, and group coaching calls

(For more information about Teachable, check out our in-depth Teachable review. And we've got you covered if you're looking for a Teachable alternative.)

8. Teachery

Like Teachable, Teachery is a solid and affordable platform for course creators with simple course offerings.

The biggest drawback is that it doesn't host online learning course content like videos, so it isn't great if you use a lot of embedded multimedia elements and files.

Pros

• Includes "unlimited everything" (courses, students, emails, etc.) with all plans
• Allows for heavy customization of landing pages and course content creation to match your brand
• Allows for customization of course style to align with an existing website

Cons

• Lacks community management features
• Requires content like videos to be hosted elsewhere (e.g., YouTube or GoogleDrive)
• Includes fewer integrations than other alternatives

Pricing

Teachery's pricing model offers one suite of features with the option to pay monthly or save if you pay a full year upfront:

• Includes features like unlimited courses, students and landing pages, custom domains, an affiliate program, promo codes/discounts, and customer support

9. Udemy

Udemy is unique as a marketplace rather than an online course platform. It is free to get started, so it has a low barrier to entry.

They do the marketing, but competition is stiff, and you pay a significant percentage of every sale.

A Udemy course can be a good place to test the waters, but once you have a successful course offering, you'd want to pivot to another platform.

Pros

• Offers some student engagement features, like certificates
• It's an easy-to-use, inexpensive way to get started
• Includes free resources for you as an instructor

Cons

• Takes a high percentage of revenue on most sales
• Requires additional marketing effort as you can't control if your course is featured, and you'll keep a lot more money in your pocket if you drive students to your course
• Includes the risk that the platform shuts down your course if it's not performing

Pricing

The instructor gets a different revenue share depending on the sale channel:

• Instructor Promotion: Instructor gets 97% of revenue for any sale resulting from their coupon or course referral link (100% - 3% processing fee)
• Udemy Organic: 50% revenue share on courses purchased on Udemy without a coupon (for in-app purchases, Apple and Google charge 30% on each sale)

10. Xperiencify

Xperiencify is a new platform revolutionizing online course creation. Watch the video below to see how it works:

It shines for its use of gamification and critical psychological "triggers" to create an "ethically" addictive learning experience that your students won't want to turn off.

Most courses (and course platforms) have a shocking 97% quit rate, because they don't tap into these triggers.

Xperiencify adds them to your course automatically, leading to 10-30 times higher student completion rates, which drives more repeat purchases and skyrocketing profits.

Pros

• Includes advanced and unique student engagement features, like the use of psychological triggers
• Includes a complete suite of marketing and e-commerce features
• Offers the best return on investment (aka more money for you)
• Completely FREE to use until you're ready to take your course live! (Unlike other platforms, which begin to charge you whether you're ready or not!)

Cons

• Focuses on course delivery and community; may be overkill for simple products, like an ebook or video

Pricing

Xperiencify offers four plans, all of which use psychological triggers, gamification, and other unique "experiencification" features to keep students engaged. The plans include discounts of up to 25% for annual billing:

• All plans have unlimited unpublished courses. Different plans have a different number of courses you can publish.
• Starter Plan: $49/month. Features: Membership site, 3 published courses.
• Growth Plan: $99/month. Features: Cart abandonment, custom domain, 10 published courses.
• Pro Plan: $149/month. Features: Live group coaching, affiliate management, 20 published courses.
• Platinum Plan: $499/month. Features: Unlimited custom fields, dedicated customer success manager, 50 published courses.

What Thinkific Alternative Will Power You in 2022?

Choosing the best online course platform for your online education business is subjective. The "best" for you would not serve other content creators and vice versa.

Are you selling digital products and looking primarily for business, marketing, or customer relationship management?

Are you just starting with a shoestring budget? Or is ROI and course completion your main concern?

One of these Thinkific alternatives will have everything you need to create fantastic online courses — and start making money.

The world is waiting for what you have to offer. Pick a platform and get your content out there!