Thinkific Review (2026): Courses from $82 a Month

Disclosure: Yabku may earn a commission if you sign up through links on this page. It doesn't change the verdict.

Short answer: Thinkific is a good pick if you want to sell courses, a community, or coaching from one site, and you can live with a Thinkific logo until you pay for Grow. It is a poor pick if you expected a free plan, or if SCORM and single sign-on have to be on the public price list. On 7 November 2026, Start was $109 a month, or $82 billed yearly. Grow was $219, or $164 yearly. Expand was $499, or $374 yearly. There is no free plan. The pricing FAQ offers a 30-day trial.

Too long; didn't read

• Best for: a person or a small academy selling courses, memberships, or coaching, who can start on one community and a custom domain.
• Skip it if: the school has to hide the Thinkific logo, email students in bulk, or connect an API, and the budget stops at Start.
• Price: $82, $164, or $374 a month if you pay yearly. Month to month those are $109, $219, and $499. A branded app is $199 a month on top. Checked 7 November 2026.
• Biggest plus: unlimited courses, quizzes, certificates, a custom domain, and one community are already on Start.
• Biggest minuses: there is no free plan, Start keeps the Thinkific logo, and Start, Grow, and Expand all stop at 10,000 current students.

How this review was made

We read thinkific.com/pricing on 7 November 2026, including the monthly and annual cards, the comparison table, and the pricing FAQ. We did not start the trial, build a course, or take a payment. The prices below are from that page. The opinion of who should buy is ours, not a test result.

Thinkific at a glance

Source: thinkific.com/pricing on 7 November 2026. The annual toggle is labeled Save 25%. Twelve times the gap between Start's $109 and $82 is $324, not the $330 printed on the card. Grow's $660 and Expand's $1,500 match twelve times their own gaps. A branded iOS and Android app is a separate $199 a month, and the page says it is included on select Plus plans.

What you actually do in it

Thinkific is a site for selling learning. The pricing FAQ describes courses, communities, memberships, digital downloads, coaching, and webinars, with checkout in the same product. Start's card includes unlimited courses, video lessons, quizzes, assignments, certificates, live cohorts, coaching, bundles, payment plans, memberships, and a custom domain. You do not need a separate web host. The FAQ says you can also attach it to a site you already have, including WordPress. We did not build a course, so this is the pricing page, not a session.

The comparison table is where Start gets smaller. Branding removal, reporting, bulk email, B2B sales and invoicing, and the API are marked not included on Start and included from Grow up. Start still has one community with 10 spaces. Grow has 3 communities and 20 spaces. Expand has 10 communities and 200 spaces. Video bandwidth is 200 GB a month on Start, 400 GB on Grow, and 1,000 GB on Expand. The Expand card calls that 2.5 times Grow. One thousand divided by 400 is 2.5, so that line matches the table.

Current students are defined as unique students who currently have unexpired access to at least one course. That cap is 10,000 on Start, 10,000 on Grow, and 10,000 on Expand. Moving from Start to Expand does not buy a larger student list. Plus is the row that says Custom. Group size does change: 50 on Start, 100 on Grow, unlimited on Expand. Administrators, including the site owner, are 2, 6, and 15.

SCORM, single sign-on, learning paths, exams with attempt limits, and the AI teaching assistant are on the Plus block, under Talk to sales. The FAQ repeats that SCORM is a Plus feature. We are not quoting a Plus price, because the page did not print one.

Thinkific's FAQ says customers have earned $4.23 billion on the platform and reached 214 million learners, across more than 100 countries. Those numbers are theirs. We did not audit them. The same page shows a 4.4 score from 427 reviews in its own markup. That is their figure, not a Yabku score.

If the job is a sales funnel rather than a course school, that is a different product. We reviewed ClickFunnels for landing pages and checkout. Thinkific's own card already includes bundles, payment plans, and memberships, so a second funnel tool is only for a site that is not a school.

How much does Thinkific cost?

The public bill is one of three plans, then 2.9% if the sale runs through Thinkific Payments. A year of each plan, using the prices printed on 7 November 2026:

• Start monthly: 12 × $109 = $1,308. Start yearly: 12 × $82 = $984. The difference is $324. The card says save $330.
• Grow monthly: 12 × $219 = $2,628. Grow yearly: 12 × $164 = $1,968. The difference is $660, which matches the card.
• Expand monthly: 12 × $499 = $5,988. Expand yearly: 12 × $374 = $4,488. The difference is $1,500, which matches the card.

Grow's yearly price is twice Start's yearly price. $164 is 2 × $82. That double is also the point where the Thinkific logo comes off, bulk email turns on, and the API turns on. A school that only needs unlimited courses and a custom domain can stay at $984 a year. A school that needs the logo gone is at $1,968 a year before any app or payment fee.

Thinkific Payments is 2.9% on the pricing FAQ. A month with $10,000 of course sales is 0.029 × $10,000 = $290 in that fee, on top of the plan. The page does not add a second Thinkific percentage when you use Thinkific Payments. Stripe and PayPal are also listed. In select countries they add a gateway fee that varies by plan. The page did not print that percent, so this review does not invent one. Standard Stripe and PayPal processing fees still apply, and those were not itemized here either.

The branded mobile app is $199 a month, activated from the admin. At that add-on, a year of Start plus the app is $984 + (12 × $199) = $984 + $2,388 = $3,372, which is more than a year of Grow and still short of a year of Expand. The app is included only on select Plus plans. We did not see which Plus plans.

The FAQ says Start, Grow, and Expand can be upgraded, downgraded, or canceled at any time, including during the 30-day trial. It does not say the trial requires a card, and it does not say it doesn't. We did not sign up. Plus is sold by a conversation, and this cancel line does not name Plus.

Pros and cons

Who should use it, and who should skip it

Use Start if you are selling your own courses, you can show a Thinkific logo, and one community is enough. At yearly billing that is $984, plus 2.9% of whatever you actually sell through Thinkific Payments. The custom domain is already on that card.

Use Grow if the logo has to go, or you need bulk email, company invoices, or the API. That is $1,968 a year at the printed yearly rate, not a small add-on on top of Start. The student cap stays 10,000.

Use Expand if you need 1,000 GB of video, unlimited group size, white-labeled student email, or 15 admins. That is $4,488 a year before the $199 app. Use Plus only after sales prints a price, and only if you need SCORM, SSO, or learning paths. Those three are not on Start, Grow, or Expand.

Skip it if you wanted a forever-free school. Skip it if 10,000 current students is already too small and you do not want a sales quote. Skip it if the product you sell is a funnel with no course. This page did not find a public Plus price, so do not budget Plus from the $374 Expand card.

Is Thinkific worth it?

Start at $82 a month, billed yearly, matches a first course site: unlimited courses, a custom domain, and checkout, with the Thinkific logo still on it. Grow at $164 is the plan that matches a school which has to look like its own brand. It is twice the yearly Start bill, and it does not buy more than 10,000 current students. Expand is a different budget, at $374 a month before a $199 app. The 30-day trial is the only free look the FAQ offers. We did not start it, so this is a reading of the price cards, not a report on how the course builder feels.

See Thinkific pricing