Thinkific vs Teachable (2026): Pricing, Fees, and Which to Pick

Recent updates to Thinkific and Teachable’s pricing and plan features have made it harder to figure out which is better for your learning business.

The web is filled with articles claiming to be the final word on these two popular learning platforms, but they’re anything but. Neither Thinkific nor Teachable has a free plan anymore, despite what you may read. Thinkific has a 30-day free trial, while Teachable gives you 7 days to test the platform before you pay.

You may even find conflicting or outdated information on Thinkific and Teachable’s websites, which can make it harder to decide.

They’re both solid options for setting up and selling online courses, coaching services, digital downloads, and other learning products, but they have different strengths and weaknesses.

Which is better will depend on your goals and the business model you prefer.

The short answer

Thinkific suits learning businesses that want to build a custom brand experience and need greater flexibility for the type of products they can offer. You can sell webinars as well as courses, coaching services, downloadable digital content, communities, and memberships.

The cheapest plan is more growth oriented and feature rich than Teachable's. It includes unlimited courses, up to 10,000 current students, and all products except paid memberships,

Teachable is best if you’re looking to quickly set up an online school. The tradeoff is customization. It has stronger built-in payment and affiliate marketing tools, but its less expensive plans are more restrictive than Thinkific’s.

Teachable pricing looks cheaper at first, but it levies a 7.5% fee on all transactions on its entry plan, and caps the number of total products you can sell at just 5. Even its premium Growth plan limits total products to just 50, an indication it’s more suited to small to mid-sized learning businesses.

To help you decide which platform makes more sense for your business, start with our overview of current plan pricing and fees. Then we compare Teachable vs.Thinkific and lay out the pros and cons of each platform. Choosing the better option at the outset avoids the hassle of having to switch later.

Pricing and fees side by side

Per month, billed annually, with monthly billing in brackets. US card rates on each platform’s own payment processor. Prices checked October 11, 2026.

To compare what you’ll actually pay on Teachable vs. Thinkific, our worksheet tallies the annual plan fee and estimated processing fees for US credit card payments using each platform’s native processor, plus any additional platform transaction fees.

We calculated processing fees based on a price of $100 for each product you sell. Your actual costs will vary, depending on what you charge per product. The difference in processing costs for lower and higher priced products rises as your monthly revenue grows because you pay a percentage plus a 30¢ fee per transaction.

Monthly cost: the plan billed annually, plus 2.9% + 30¢ processing on $100 sales, plus Teachable’s 7.5% fee on Starter. The lower cost in each row is in bold.

The processing fee is the same for digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay), with either Teachable Payments or Thinkific Payments.

Teachable charges 4.4% + 30¢ for US businesses accepting international payments and 3.49% + 30¢ to 6% + 30¢ for buy now pay later options. Thinkific adds 1.5% to its standard processing fee for US schools processing payments with international cards, for a total of 4.4% + 30¢, the same as Teachable. Buy now pay later transaction fees are 6.5% + 30¢ for US creators offering students installment options. Other fees for instant payouts and currency conversions may apply.

Community features

Building an active learning community where students can discuss lessons and engage with other learners can support your school’s growth.

A major change hit Teachable educators in 2026 when it eliminated its Community feature for new schools and put Community on maintenance for existing schools. No upgrades, no bug fixes, and no new features. It now recommends encouraging discussion within a course, or by running group chat on Slack or Discord, which you can link to from your Teachable dashboard.

While integrating student discussions within courses can be a positive move, relying on Slack and Discord is not. You can’t embed Slack or Discord into your Teachable course, so students have to switch between platforms. Free plans on Slack limit message storage history and paid plans can be expensive.

In contrast, Thinkific Communities gives you a dedicated space where your students can post, comment, send direct messages, and learn as a group in either public or private spaces. You can connect a community to specific courses and bundles, or sell community access as a standalone product. Thinkific also supports community events through its mobile app.

Courses and cohorts

Both Thinkific and Teachable allow you to easily create and sell self-paced online courses. You can organize lessons into modules, add video and other content, and control how students move through the material.

Thinkific’s course builder supports live lessons, cohorts, and scheduled content, giving you several ways to structure a program. By linking a specific course to a private community, you can offer clients team-based learning, even on the Basic plan. You’re limited to one community on Basic and 5 on Start, though live cohorts are only available on Start and Grow.

Cohort-based learning experiences are especially useful for businesses that want to focus on group training, where employees or other participants start a program together and proceed as a group.

Daniel C. praised Thinkific’s capabilities for corporate e-learning programs, on November 8, 2025 on Capterra, “We’ve been using Thinkific to host a professional training program for the financial certification industry…The platform’s structure helps maintain a high-quality learning flow, and the flexibility to integrate videos, quizzes, and marketing elements makes it suitable for both institutional and individual learners. Overall, it’s a strong, dependable platform that continues to evolve with us.”

Linking Thinkific courses with a specific community helps improve completion rates, while bundling courses with memberships can create a more predictable revenue stream.

Teachable lets you embed video, text, quizzes, and other lesson content into your courses. Its Drip Option pre-schedules course sections for release on a specific date or based on a student’s progress. Automated emails notify students to let them know they can access the content.

Payments, offers and memberships

Both Thinkific and Teachable let you sell courses through one-time payments, payment plans, and recurring subscriptions. The differences become more important when you want to offer discounts, increase order values, or build recurring revenue through memberships.

Each has its native payment processor, but Teachable Payments offers more functionality. It’s more of a full-service payment and tax management tool that will calculate, collect, and pay sales tax, VAT, and GST for 45 countries. This convenience comes at a cost. Fees range from 0.5% to 2.8%, depending on the payment bundle.

Teachable supports one-time purchases, installment plans, subscriptions, and bundles. Sales tools include coupons, checkout order bumps, and upsells. Automated payments and tax management for affiliate marketers are coming as Teachable rolls out useful new marketing tools.

Teachable includes memberships and abandoned-cart recovery on every plan, although affiliate tools require Builder or higher. All Teachable schools are entitled to enroll 100 free students, through promotional offers like 100% off coupon redemptions. Above that number you’ll be charged 50¢ per student.

Thinkific’s e-commerce tools include coupons, order bumps, gifting, abandoned cart recovery emails, and post-purchase upsells. Thinkific will also automatically calculate, collect, and pay sales tax on purchases made in the US and Canada. For UK and EU sales, it will calculate and collect VAT, but you’re responsible for paying it. Thinkific charges a 0.5% fee per taxable transaction when you enable its tax management feature.

Thinkific also supports free course enrollment, but paid memberships aren’t available on the Basic plan. If paid memberships are central to your business model, Teachable may be the better fit.

Mobile app and branding

One of the biggest differences between Thinkific and Teachable is the degree to which users on each platform can create a unique brand identity for their school and products.

Both platforms offer free iOS and Android apps on all plans, so students can learn on the go, but Teachable has the advantage here. Students can create accounts, log in, purchase a product, and track their progress on all their devices.

Courses and other products you add to your Teachable or Thinkific store are automatically available in the app. A student can start a course on mobile and pick up where they left off when they switch from the app to the website.

Thinkific will also design a custom app for a price. Its branded mobile app costs $199 per month on Basic, Start, and Grow plans (free on some Plus plans). Given the price, only large, established or enterprise businesses would be interested.

The advantage goes to Teachable on mobile learning. The app lets students download entire courses for offline viewing, an added convenience. When enabled, push notifications automatically notify students when new content drops or remind them to pick up on an in-progress lesson. It’s a useful retention and marketing feature that Thinkific doesn’t offer.

Where Thinkific wins, where Teachable wins

Thinkific offers broader learning experiences, with courses, webinars, video completion requirements, and cohort options, making it a strong fit for more structured programs like professional training or certifications. All plans include unlimited courses, though the 10,000-student cap still applies.

As Nina B. who runs a professional training and coaching business noted on Capterra on September 26,2025, “We needed a platform that could easily manage both on-demand and live courses, and the course builder in Thinkific gave us the flexibility that we needed to scale.“

While Thinkific excels in custom branding, flexible course design, and live learning,Teachable has its own advantages, especially when it comes to managing international payments and affiliate marketing. Its mobile app also includes student retention features that Thinkific’s app lacks.

Users praise its sales features. On Sept. 22, 2026, Bonnie Harvey posted a 4-star review on Trust Pilot. “Teachable does a nice job on the actual selling side - checkout, payment plans, subscriptions, and the student experience all feel well thought out. My main hesitation would be the transaction fee on the Starter plan. Once you’re making regular sales, moving to a higher tier probably makes more sense.”

You may want to explore other platforms that combine the best features of Thinkific and Teachable.

The third option

Both platforms are built around the course. Thinkific adds a community alongside it, and Teachable has stopped building one: Community is closed to new schools, and Teachable points students to Slack or Discord instead.

If the community is what people pay for, the third option is a platform built around it. On Heartbeat, members talk to each other in channels, meet at live events and take courses together, with cohort courses, memberships and checkout in the same place. It includes a member app, and with Scale your own branded app in the App Store and Google Play. Heartbeat offers a 14-day free trial, with no card required to start.

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Verdict by use case

The Thinkific versus Teachable debate comes down to your current and long-term business needs.

Thinkific makes sense if you intend to offer a large portfolio of learning products, including live sessions and cohorts, and want more flexibility to design a unique brand experience for your school and courses. The monthly price is higher for the Basic plan, but you don’t have to factor in platform transaction fees, which can make a difference when you’re getting a business off the ground.

Consider Teachable if you want the cheapest monthly subscription and plan to sell a few online courses and products. Factor in the 7.5% transaction fee on Starter when comparing estimated costs with Thinkific Basic, as it will significantly reduce your earnings. Before you commit, evaluate Builder's features and total costs. Once your monthly sales rise above $533, the 7.5% transaction fee makes Builder cheaper than Starter, but it never costs less than Basic.

Frequently asked questions

What are the disadvantages of Thinkific?

Thinkific’s main drawbacks are its customer support options, limits on features in its entry and mid-tier plans, and a lack of advanced tax management services for international payments and automated affiliate payouts. Its mobile app does less than Teachable’s. International cards cost 4.4% + $0.30 per transaction for US-based businesses using Thinkific Payments, the same as Teachable.

How much does Thinkific cost per month?

Thinkific’s plans start at $40 per month for Basic, rising to $82 for Start and $164 for Grow, when billed annually. Plan price is approximately 33%-35% higher billed monthly. Your total cost per month also includes processing fees, which vary based on payment method, international vs. US payments, and monthly fees for third-party integrations. Selling fewer higher-priced products marginally reduces costs, because payment processing fees will be lower.

Which is better, Podia or Thinkific?

Podia is best if you want one platform to host your entire brand, including your courses, community, blog, and website. Thinkific is better if you’re looking for a platform designed just for marketing learning programs, with specialized features like student surveys, multimedia course content, and built-in tools for creating educational digital products.

Is there a free alternative to Teachable?

Payhip still offers a free forever plan that allows you to sell unlimited online courses, coaching services, memberships, and digital products. It charges a 5% transaction fee in addition to PayPal or Stripe’s processing fee. Systeme.io is another option, though the free plan is very limited. Creators can market and host just one course for 500 students. Heartbeat starts with a 14-day free trial with no card required, and every plan includes courses, cohorts and a community where students learn together.

Which platform has better built-in business and back-office tools?

Teachable offers stronger built-in back-office automation through Teachable Payments. It will automatically calculate, collect, and pay international sales tax, VAT, and GST. Thinkific provides more flexible student management and learning tools, like custom registration fields and advanced reporting. But while it will calculate and collect VAT taxes, it doesn’t pay them. It also doesn’t currently calculate GST.