Last updated: 7 October 2026. Every price, fee and plan limit read on Teachable’s and Thinkific’s own pricing and help pages that day. Written by Josh Hutcheson, OnlineCourseing editor. See our review methodology.
Some links on this page are affiliate links: if you buy through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes the verdict, and we name options we earn nothing from when they are the better fit.
TEACHABLE VS THINKIFIC AT A GLANCE
Bottom line: Choose Thinkific if you expect to sell more than about $1,760 of courses a year, want unlimited courses, or run cohorts, coaching or a community: its Basic plan ($40 a month, billed annually) has no platform transaction fee on Thinkific Payments, and it has a 30-day free trial. Choose Teachable if you are just starting and selling little, sell to buyers in many countries (it handles sales tax, VAT and GST for you), or want student mobile apps included on every plan.
- Entry price: Teachable $29/mo annual ($39 monthly) · Thinkific $40/mo annual ($54 monthly)
- Platform fee on entry plan: Teachable Starter 7.5% · Thinkific Basic 0% on Thinkific Payments (5% via Stripe)
- Fee-free plan: Teachable Builder $69/mo · Thinkific Basic $40/mo
- Course limits: Teachable 5 / 10 / 50 products · Thinkific unlimited courses
- Trial: Teachable 7 days + 30-day refund · Thinkific 30 days
- Checked: Both pricing pages, 7 October 2026
Teachable and Thinkific are the two best-known places to build and sell your own online course. Both host your videos, run your checkout, and give students a branded school to learn in. They look similar on a features list. The differences that decide which one costs you less, and which one you will outgrow, are in the fees, the plan limits and the direction each company is heading.
We read both pricing pages, their fee pages and Thinkific’s September 2026 restructuring announcement on 7 October 2026. Where a number depends on how much you sell, we show the arithmetic so you can redo it with your own figures. We earn a commission if you sign up for Teachable or LearnWorlds through our links. Thinkific runs an affiliate program we have not joined, so we earn nothing from it.
Teachable vs Thinkific: the short comparison
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| Teachable | Thinkific | |
|---|---|---|
| Plans (billed annually) | Starter $29, Builder $69, Growth $139 a month; Custom by quote | Basic $40, Start $82, Grow $164 a month; Plus by quote |
| Monthly billing | $39, $89, $189 | $54, $109, $219 |
| Platform transaction fee | 7.5% on Starter; 0% above with Teachable Payments | None on Thinkific Payments; 5% / 2% / 1% via Stripe |
| Courses or products | 5 / 10 / 50 products | Unlimited courses on every plan |
| Students | Unlimited through Teachable checkout | 10,000 current students on Basic, Start and Grow |
| Admins | 1 / 1 / 5 | Custom roles and extra admins on Plus |
| Free trial | 7 days, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee | 30 days |
| Certificates | Growth plan | Start plan and above |
| Community | Lesson comments | Community on every plan (1 / 1 / 3) |
| Student mobile app | iOS and Android apps on every plan | Branded app add-on, $199 a month |
| Sales tax and VAT | Handled for you (US sales tax, VAT, GST) | Not stated on the pricing page |
| Remove platform branding | Growth | Grow |
Sources: Teachable pricing and Thinkific pricing, 7 October 2026. Annual billing saves 22% on Teachable and 25% on Thinkific.
Teachable vs Thinkific pricing
Teachable is cheaper to start with on paper. Thinkific is cheaper once you count fees, and gives you more for the money at each step up.
| Tier | Teachable (annual / monthly) | Thinkific (annual / monthly) |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Starter: $29 / $39 | Basic: $40 / $54 |
| Middle | Builder: $69 / $89 | Start: $82 / $109 |
| Upper | Growth: $139 / $189 | Grow: $164 / $219 |
| Enterprise | Custom (contact sales) | Plus (contact sales) |
Neither has a free plan. Teachable gives you 7 days free and a 30-day money-back guarantee; Thinkific gives you a 30-day free trial, long enough to build a first course and test the checkout before you pay. On 7 October 2026 Teachable’s site was also advertising “3 months for the price of 1”; check the terms on the offer page before you rely on it.
Transaction and payment fees: where the real difference is
Two kinds of fee come out of every sale: a platform fee the course platform keeps, and a processing fee for handling the card payment. Processing is similar on both. The platform fee is where they differ.
Teachable
- Starter: 7.5% transaction fee on every sale.
- Builder, Growth, Custom: 0% transaction fee when you use Teachable Payments.
- Processing (all plans): 2.9% + 30¢ on US card sales, 3.9% + 30¢ international, 3.49% + 49¢ on US PayPal sales and 4.99% + 49¢ international PayPal; $15 per chargeback.
- Payouts: daily with Teachable Payments.
Thinkific
- On Thinkific Payments: no platform fee on any plan; Thinkific says its processing is “in line with other processors like Stripe and PayPal at 2.9%”.
- On Stripe: a third-party gateway fee of 5% on Basic, 2% on Start and 1% on Grow, charged on your first $1 million of sales each calendar year. Plus has no fee.
- Apple Pay and Google Pay fees vary; Thinkific links to the details.
Sources: Teachable pricing; Thinkific’s third-party payment gateway fee FAQ.
THE PRACTICAL RULE
On Teachable, the 7.5% fee is the reason to move off Starter as soon as you sell regularly. On Thinkific, use Thinkific Payments: keeping Stripe on Basic costs you an extra 5% of every sale.
Which is cheaper for you? The break-even
Teachable Starter costs $348 a year (annual billing) plus 7.5% of sales. Thinkific Basic costs $480 a year with no platform fee on Thinkific Payments. The $132 difference is used up once 7.5% of your sales reaches $132, which happens at about $1,760 of sales a year. Below that, Teachable Starter is cheaper; above it, Thinkific Basic is.
| Your yearly course sales | Teachable Starter | Teachable Builder | Thinkific Basic |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | $423 | $828 | $480 |
| $1,760 | $480 | $828 | $480 |
| $5,000 | $723 | $828 | $480 |
| $10,000 | $1,098 | $828 | $480 |
| $20,000 | $1,848 | $828 | $480 |
Plan price on annual billing plus the platform transaction fee. Card processing (about 2.9% on both) is left out because it is roughly the same either way. Thinkific Basic assumes Thinkific Payments; on Stripe add 5% of sales.
Two things the table doesn’t show. Teachable Starter allows only 5 products, so a creator with more than five courses or downloads has to move to Builder anyway. And Thinkific’s cheaper plans cap you at 10,000 current students, which only matters at a scale where you will be on a bigger plan regardless.
Plan limits: courses, students and storage
| Limit | Teachable Starter / Builder / Growth | Thinkific Basic / Start / Grow |
|---|---|---|
| Courses or products | 5 / 10 / 50 products (a course, coaching offer or download is one product; memberships and bundles don’t count) | Unlimited courses |
| Digital downloads | Count toward the product limit | 5 / unlimited / unlimited |
| Coaching and webinars | Count toward the product limit | 5 / unlimited / unlimited |
| Students | Unlimited through Teachable checkout | 10,000 current students |
| Admin users | 1 / 1 / 5 | Not listed (custom on Plus) |
| Video | Storage up to 1 TB | Bandwidth 100 / 200 / 400 GB a month |
| Communities | — | 1 / 1 / 3 |
Teachable counts products; Thinkific counts students and bandwidth. If you plan many small courses, Thinkific’s unlimited courses are worth more than Teachable’s unlimited students. If you plan one or two big courses for a large audience, the opposite is true.
Features compared
What Teachable includes
- Every plan: AI course-creation tools, iOS and Android student apps, global payments with US sales tax, VAT and GST handled for you, upsells and abandoned-cart recovery.
- Builder adds: 0% transaction fee, a built-in affiliate program for your own sales, real-time support.
- Growth adds: course certificates, removal of Teachable branding, student imports, custom admin permissions, and free subtitles and translations.
What Thinkific includes
- Basic: unlimited courses, video lessons, quizzes and discussions, one community, up to 5 digital products, checkout with order bumps and coupons, abandoned-cart emails, dashboards, custom domain.
- Start adds: live cohorts and coaching with Zoom sessions, completion certificates, graded assignments, bundles, upsells and payment plans, memberships and subscriptions, an HTML and CSS editor.
- Grow adds: removal of Thinkific branding, three communities, group and B2B sales with invoicing, phone and priority support, API access and webhooks.
- Plus (by quote): SSO, SCORM, learning paths, CRM integrations, an AI teaching assistant.
The pattern: Thinkific puts teaching features (certificates, assignments, cohorts, community) lower in its plans; Teachable puts commerce features (tax handling, mobile apps, its affiliate program) lower in its plans.
Building courses and the student experience
Both editors are drag-and-drop: you create sections, add lessons (video, text, PDFs, quizzes), and publish. The differences are in what a lesson can do.
- Teachable lists AI course-creation tools, course design templates, drip scheduling, auto-graded quizzes, short-answer assessments, lesson comments and, on Growth, certificates and free subtitles and translations. Its iOS and Android student apps on every plan mean students can watch lessons on a phone without you paying extra.
- Thinkific includes video lessons, quizzes and student discussions from Basic, then adds graded assignments that open the next lesson, completion certificates and live cohorts with Zoom sessions and attendance tracking on Start. A private community with a feed, direct messages and weekly digests comes with every plan.
If your course is self-paced video that students watch on their phones, Teachable’s included apps are the better fit. If your course runs in cohorts, needs graded work or depends on students talking to each other, Thinkific gives you more of that for less.
Marketing and sales tools
Both platforms include the basics of selling a course without extra software: a checkout, coupons, upsells, bundles and abandoned-cart emails.
| Tool | Teachable | Thinkific |
|---|---|---|
| Coupons and order bumps | Yes | Yes, from Basic |
| Upsells and bundles | Upsells on every plan; bundles listed | Bundles, upsells and payment plans from Start |
| Abandoned-cart emails | Yes | Yes, from Basic |
| Email marketing | Built-in email marketing | Email automation |
| Memberships and subscriptions | Memberships (don’t count toward the product limit) | From Start |
| Affiliate program for your own course | Builder and above | Not listed on the pricing page |
| Sales pages | Site builder | Site builder and landing pages |
| Selling to companies | Bulk sales on Custom | Group orders, B2B sales and invoicing on Grow |
For a solo creator, the deciding item is usually the affiliate program: Teachable lets you pay other people a commission to promote your course from the Builder plan. If you sell team seats to companies, Thinkific’s Grow plan is built for it.
Support and integrations
- Teachable support: email support and access to its Teachable University training, real-time support from Builder, and a dedicated account manager on Custom.
- Thinkific support: email and chat on Basic and Start, phone and priority support on Grow, and a dedicated customer success team on Plus.
- Integrations: Teachable lists Zapier, webhooks and a public API in its plan comparison. Thinkific has an app store, adds API access and webhooks on Grow, and keeps HubSpot and Salesforce integrations and single sign-on for Plus.
If you need to connect your school to a CRM or another system, check which plan includes the API on each platform before you choose a tier: on Thinkific that is Grow.
Taxes, payouts and selling internationally
This is Teachable’s clearest advantage. Its pricing page lists US sales tax, global VAT and GST handling on every plan, so when someone in Germany or Australia buys your course, Teachable calculates and handles the tax for you. Teachable also pays out daily when you use Teachable Payments. For a solo creator selling worldwide, not having to register for and file VAT yourself is worth a lot.
Thinkific’s pricing page doesn’t make the same tax claim, so check how Thinkific Payments handles tax in the countries you sell to before you commit, especially if you sell to buyers in the EU or UK.
Where each company is heading in 2026
On 23 September 2026 Thinkific announced a restructuring that eliminated positions affecting 96 employees. It said the change is meant to accelerate growth in Thinkific Plus, its offering for mid-market and enterprise organizations, “while maintaining support for all of Thinkific’s valued customers”, and it raised its profit guidance in the same release (Thinkific press release).
For a small creator, that is not a reason to avoid Thinkific, but it tells you where new investment is going. Thinkific’s own pricing page now leads with “businesses that can’t afford to outgrow their platform”. Teachable, by contrast, is pitching its new Teachable Payments and its built-in tax handling at independent creators, and asks anyone selling more than $12,000 a year to talk to its sales team.
Teachable vs Thinkific: which should you choose?
| You are… | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Testing one course, expecting under ~$1,760 of sales a year | Teachable Starter | Lowest fixed cost; the 7.5% fee is small at low sales |
| Selling regularly with a few courses | Thinkific Basic | No platform fee on Thinkific Payments, unlimited courses |
| Selling to buyers in many countries | Teachable Builder | Sales tax, VAT and GST handled; 0% fee |
| Running cohorts, coaching or assignments | Thinkific Start | Cohorts, Zoom sessions, certificates and graded assignments |
| Wanting students on a mobile app | Teachable | Student apps on every plan; Thinkific charges $199 a month |
| Selling to companies (team seats, invoices) | Thinkific Grow | Group orders, B2B sales and invoicing |
| Building a large catalog of small products | Thinkific | Teachable caps products at 5, 10 or 50 |
Both trials are long enough to decide. Build one module, run a test purchase through the checkout, and look at what the student sees on a phone. That tells you more than any comparison table.
A third option: LearnWorlds
If neither fits, LearnWorlds is the platform most often compared with both. Its plans cost $24, $79 and $249 a month billed annually ($29, $99 and $299 monthly). The Starter plan charges $5 per paid enrollment instead of a percentage, so it suits higher-priced courses, and it is known for its interactive video and assessment tools. We compare it head to head in LearnWorlds vs Teachable and LearnWorlds vs Thinkific, and cover Kajabi, the all-in-one option with a much higher entry price, in LearnWorlds vs Kajabi.
Frequently asked questions
Is Teachable or Thinkific better?
Thinkific is the better value for most course creators who sell more than a couple of thousand dollars a year: its Basic plan has no platform transaction fee on Thinkific Payments, unlimited courses and a 30-day trial. Teachable is better if you want built-in tax handling and student mobile apps on every plan, or if you sell under about $1,760 a year, where its $29 Starter plan with a 7.5% fee costs less.
Is Teachable cheaper than Thinkific?
On the sticker price, yes: Teachable starts at $29 a month billed annually ($39 monthly) and Thinkific at $40 ($54 monthly). But Teachable’s Starter plan adds a 7.5% transaction fee. Once your sales pass about $1,760 a year, Thinkific Basic is cheaper overall, and Teachable’s fee-free plan (Builder) costs $69 a month.
Does Thinkific charge transaction fees?
Not if you use Thinkific Payments, its built-in processor, which charges standard processing at 2.9%. If you process through Stripe instead, Thinkific adds a third-party gateway fee of 5% on Basic, 2% on Start and 1% on Grow, on the first $1 million of sales a year.
Does Teachable charge transaction fees?
Only on the Starter plan, which charges 7.5% per sale. Builder, Growth and Custom have 0% transaction fees when you use Teachable Payments. Card processing fees apply on every plan: 2.9% + 30¢ for US card sales.
Do Teachable or Thinkific have a free plan?
No. Teachable offers a 7-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Thinkific offers a 30-day free trial. Neither has a free plan you can keep using.
How many students can I have on Teachable and Thinkific?
Teachable lists unlimited students enrolled through its checkout on every plan. Thinkific’s Basic, Start and Grow plans each allow 10,000 current students; Thinkific Plus is custom.
Is Thinkific going out of business?
There is no sign of that. In September 2026 Thinkific announced a restructuring that eliminated 96 positions to focus investment on Thinkific Plus, its mid-market and enterprise product, and said it would keep supporting all customers. It also raised its profit guidance in the same announcement. It is a signal to watch if you are a small creator, not a reason to move.
Can I move from Teachable to Thinkific (or the other way)?
Yes, but plan it. Migration help is listed on Teachable’s Custom plan and on Thinkific Plus; on the cheaper plans, ask support what they will move for you before you start. Subscriptions and payment plans are the delicate part, because they are tied to the old platform’s checkout, so time the switch around your students’ billing dates.