Thinkific Over-delivers for New Course Creators
May 06, 2020

Thinkific Over-delivers for New Course Creators

Kate Murray, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Thinkific

We use Thinkific as a platform to deliver several digital courses. It is used for delivering content such as video modules, text, and downloads, but also serves the purpose of both lead generation as well as customer retention efforts. The main problem it solves is delivery of digital course content to multiple users.

Pros

  • User Interface Design for the Course Creator
  • Ability to Customize Branding
  • Intuitive Flow for the Student

Cons

  • When viewing your content as a student, it does not provide easy navigation back to the Creator Dashboard which is not necessarily the most intuitive navigation for the creator.
  • With the basic plan, you don't have the ability to allow students to have a monthly payment option for purchase. For this feature, you must upgrade. I think it should be part of the basic plan.
  • I'm not a fan of their affiliate interface. It is not very robust. I actually purchased this software originally because they included an affiliate dashboard within the system making it easier to convert students into affiliates, but I quickly realized that it was not robust enough for my needs.
  • 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.
I have used Kartra, Kajabi, WishList Member, and ClickFunnels to deliver digital content in the past. Out of all of these platforms, I selected Thinkific because overall, it just worked better. I very much dislike when software tries to become something it's not, and this is happening a lot lately with different technology. The company decides to pivot and tries to add something to its tech stack and it's completely inferior. For example, Thinkific has a 'sales page builder' and aims to help course creators sell their course, however, it's not that good. Why? Because Thinkific is a course delivery platform, not a sales page builder! I think software needs to be phenomenal at what they do and stop worrying about trying to be something they're not. As another example, ClickFunnels is a great sales page builder but a terrible course delivery platform. So the reality is, you need both. But in the scheme of things, you have Kajabi who is trying to be everything to everyone and tries to combine it all and they have failed miserably. I'm not a fan of Kajabi at all. Thinkific's user interface is much, much better.
I had a question when I first started using the software and they literally replied within an hour. Sometimes companies (such as ClickFunnels) outsource their customer service to countries where English is not the primary language, and the barrier is steep. I have a background in technology and web development, so I consider myself a very experienced user of this type of software, and when I asked a question of a ClickFunnels representative, they didn't even properly understand the question. It was a lot of back and forth (and lost revenue) that could have been avoided, all because the customer service rep did not understand English. I am a fan of Thinkific because they have great customer service.

Do you think Thinkific delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Thinkific's feature set?

Yes

Did Thinkific live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Thinkific go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Thinkific again?

Yes

Overall, I'm very happy with Thinkific and will continue to use it to deliver my digital courses. It's perfect for those who have only one (or several) courses. It's also a good price point at only $49 per month to get started for someone who is just dipping their toe into the pool with digital courses. When I first started creating digital courses almost 10 years ago, there were not many software options available to deliver the content. Now there are many and I have tried many and have found Thinkific to be among the best for digital course newbies.

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