Rise, from Articulate Global, is a web-based system for course creation and learning, featuring a library of imagery and a collection of modular, customizable lessons on business topics relevant to every employee that can be mixed with the user's own content to develop custom courses faster.
$399
per month
Thinkific
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Thinkific headquartered in Vancouver provides their system for online course and content creators to distribute their lessons to unlimited students, featuring content schedule distribution, some marketing features, certifications, as well as quizzes and surveys.
$0
per month
Pricing
Rise
Thinkific
Editions & Modules
Starter
$399.00
per month, billed annually
Growth
$799.00
per month, billed annually
Midsize
$1,299.00
per month, billed annually
Larger
$1,999.00
per month, billed annually
Start
$99.00
per month
Grow
$199.00
per month
Expand
$399.00
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Rise
Thinkific
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
Thinkific customers save 25% when they subscribe on an annual basis.
We have utilized Articulate Rise for our primary curriculum design platform for multiple years. Although it can look pricey compared with other free options, they do a great job of supporting nonprofit use and more cost-effective. By doing so, they continue to be the best in the industry when it comes to value relative to cost with a nice suite of content creation tools that can easily create an out-of-the-box online curriculum while still being easy to navigate for traditional teachers who may be extremely knowledgeable about curriculum development but not tech-savvy. The product could benefit from more content formats and activity types (doesn't seem to have been updated in years) and more authority and control over color/visual palettes and style.
Thinkific is well suited for users who who want to make an impact teaching online, whether that's to B2C with independent course creators, or B2B where you're training clients, partners and internal staff for a company (which is how we deployed the Thinkific Plus plan). Deployment or migration is easy and the speed and ease of course creation and publication is second to none. It's probably the easiest LMS to administer whilst still providing a powerful suite of tools that give you the insight you need to grow your course business.Thinkific is ideal for creating a customer education program for your business, automating onboarding of client training and training partners too. The range of plans Thinkific offer equally make it ideal for smaller personal course creators too.
We will continue to use Thinkific for our company pieces of training. Until we are able to create our own in house portal, this is an excellent source to have a learning management software tool that is easy to use and easy to implement without much technical training to administer
I've used other learning management systems over the last 5 years and believe Thinkific is easily one of the ones that make getting started with zero tech skills or know-how easy peasy. Everything is laid out very well in how to set up your online school, create your courses and market and sell your courses. They provide a lot of great videos tutorials and offer a useful webinar series to help you understand how to market your courses like a pro
I've never had any issues with accessing Thinkific but I can see when it has been a problem for others. When I get updates on when they are doing maintenance to their platform I tend to make sure that is not the day I plan to be working on my school so as not to get frustrated
When it comes to the performance of Thinkific for me I find that it's good but could be better. I tend to think that the larger the files and videos you upload on your courses may add to the impact of it's uploading (not sure if that's actually true or not). But overall the performance of Thinkific via my tablet and desktop is very good when I have a fast speed broadband speed
I rate Thinkific a ten because of its excellent customer service, ease of use, high-quality product, fair price with excellent ROI, and because they keep making improvements. Using Thinkific solved the problems of piecing together our course with various WordPress plugins, iframes, and payment processing software. It's easy to create a course website for people who can't write code.
The implementation period took time like it would in earning and using any new tool. It was more about being organised, having better time management processes in place and having people you were able to reach out to if you were every able stuck. The other key ting with the implementation period was giving yourself a realistic time scale to get the job completed.
We chose Articulate Rise because it was the best balance of offering multiple design tools and embeddable content without being obnoxiously priced. Because the course design also ensures SCORM-compliance, whatever we create can easily be embedded in learning management systems later on. We looked at some more robust platforms but the type of tools they offered required a level of coding and technical expertise that would have left those same tools unused by staff. Meanwhile, many free services have some features but make it hard to create a truly cohesive, unified course experience (as opposed to disjointed activities and readings that essentially just get "collated" online). In this case, you really can build a great, linear, holistic course without spending an arm and a leg.
Overall, if I had the choice, Thinkific would be one of the tools in using an online course for instructors and private institutions. The higher-tiered plan is a bit steep for contractor instructors who may need to pay for it themselves to show the course would be a good course for the school to create. The free 3-course is helpful without the bells and whistles. The free program offers you to create three courses and keep all the profit from selling your courses minus a small transaction fee that won't break the break.
The opportunities to scale your online course business with Thinkific is endless. They provide a great range of plans with features, integrations and support to suit the needs of any business as different levels. The key here is knowing where to start with the budget you have and then knowing when it's time to scale up and the tools and resources it will require.
Ability to attract leads with a FREE membership library option
Ability to quickly and easily deliver course content without much of a learning curve for course creators
If you need affiliates to help sell your product, even though they advertise that they have the option for affiliates, if you want to do it right you must use an additional integration for affiliate software.
