Thinkific and LearnWorlds are both popular platforms for hosting courses. But which one should you choose?
I’ve used both extensively—let’s find that out!
Disclaimer: This post has affiliate links at no cost to you.
Who Is The Winner?
My platform of choice is Thinkific.
I’ve used Thinkific to host and sell 2 courses for nearly three years. I love it because it offers all the basic elements you need for courses.
Better yet, you can use my link to start using it for free:
But to be fair, the winner is also all about the use case.
For some, LearnWorlds could be a lot better than Thinkific.
- If you’re just getting started, Thinkific is the way to go.
- But if you have a team, then LearnWorlds might be better. That’s because there you can do all the marketing, community stuff, and more in a better way than on Thinkific.
Let me compare the two platforms a bit closer to give you a better idea.
Free Versions
Before I even try platforms like Thinkific or LearnWorlds, I ensure there are free trials.
I think it’s a signal of confidence and reliability if a platform offers either a free version or a free trial.
Thinkific
Thinkific has an entirely free plan.
It lets you create and publish courses without spending money.
This was great for testing my ideas before upgrading to a paid plan when I started my courses there.
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds doesn’t have a free plan, but there is a complete 30-day free trial.
This way I could explore the features of the paid plans before deciding to buy.
So this is a win for both Thinkific and LearnWorlds!
Customer Support
I looked into support options because having reliable support is crucial for resolving any issues quickly and keeping everything running smoothly.
Thinkific
Thinkific provides support through a Help Center, community forums, and email.
In my experience, they are active supporters.
However, I sometimes find myself talking to a support bot for a bit too long to my liking before an actual human steps in. (Also, the human answers are usually from a template.)
That being said, I never really have to wait for my answers. That’s great because I have a lot of questions related to specific setups and features.
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds offers support through email, a detailed knowledge base, and how-to articles.
I found the video tutorials and dedicated (human) support team especially helpful.
They provide 24/7 email support, and higher-tier plans include priority email support and personalized onboarding.
Once again, this is a win for both platforms!
(However, both could improve here a bit as well.)
Coaching/Webinars
Personalized webinars and coaching sessions can increase student engagement. Also, in some cases, they are crucial if you’re doing live teaching.
That’s why I wanted to see if these platforms offer solutions for live webinars and coaching.
Thinkific
Thinkific makes it easy to create 1-on-1 coaching through the platform.
Just create a new event in the products section:
To do this, you need to use the Thinkific Zoom integration. The same applies to live webinars and live teaching.
LearnWorlds
Similar to Thinkific, LearnWorlds integrates with Zoom for webinars and live classes.
Mobile Apps
A course platform mobile app allows students (and instructors) to access courses on the go.
That’s why I wanted to see if there’s one for Thinkific and LearnWorlds.
Thinkific
Thinkific has a mobile app for you and your students to engage with the content on the go.
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds also offers a branded mobile app option for schools. You can download this from the iOS App Store and Google Play Store.
AI Course Creator
Ok, I had to include this because it’s 2024. I’m of course talking about AI.
As much as I’m not a huge believer in creating content fully automatically with AI, I believe it can streamline some workflows at least.
Thinkific
Thinkific doesn’t use AI to create entire courses.
However, it has some basic AI features, for example, to create a course outline, course name, or ideas.
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds lets you create an entire course with AI.
It just asks you a bunch of questions related to your course, audience, and goals, and then it renders a ready-made course.
But at least based on my experience, this is something that you need to edit heavily.
Email Sales Funnels
The number one way to sell a course is through email marketing.
You first collect newsletter subscribers and then warm them up with valuable content while subtly promoting your course.
This happens with email sequences that you automate. When someone joins your course, they will start a journey of for example 5 emails during the next 10 days.
There’s no reason to do it manually. That’s why I expect course platforms to offer services like this.
Thinkific
Thinkific doesn’t offer native tools for creating sales funnels, but it integrates well with tools like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and ConvertKit nicely.
However, I’m surprised how big a hassle it still is.
Even though you can do marketing with Zapier and MailChimp integrations, I don’t think a modern course platform should ask you to join two other paid platforms to do basic email automation…
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds has built-in features for email marketing and sales funnels.
You can use it with tools like Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign.
Then the platform’s automation and funnel-building capabilities make managing your marketing efforts much easier than on Thinkific.
For example, here’s a simple sales funnel I set up on my account:
With the marketing tools on LearnWorlds, you can track progress, customize emails, send times, and more without having to jump between platforms.
SEO Features
SEO or search engine optimization means that your course website or landing page appears on Google (and other search engine) results.
Although SEO is all about building a good landing page and content, there are some small things you can tweak to tick some extra boxes.
That’s why I decided to include the SEO features on the list as well.
Thinkific
Thinkific comes with basic SEO features.
It lets you customize URLs, meta tags, and descriptions for your course pages.
For example, thanks to this, I was able to make my course landing page look like this in Google search results:
You can also integrate your Thinkific account with Google Analytics to see the views and performance.
LearnWorlds
Very similar to Thinkific, LearnWorlds offers good basic SEO features and a Google Analytics 4 integration to see the landing page performance.
Both platforms nail the basics of SEO. And why do I keep on saying the “basics of SEO?”
Well, that’s because SEO is all about you providing value to your audience. There are no specific settings that would make you rank on top of Google.
If you create a landing page full of valuable, well-structured, and consistent content, that’s the definition of SEO.
Third-Party Addons
Both LearnWorlds and Thinkific offer third-party integrations, such as Google Analytics, MailChimp, ConvertKit, and more.
Also, on Thinkific, there’s a plugin store from where you can install extensions to your account to add a missing feature, for example.
Affiliate Programs
Affiliate marketing means that your students get a little kickback for recommending your course. If someone signs up after clicking their link, you will pay them a commission.
This is one of the best marketing strategies out there as it’s all performance-based. If your students don’t bring any customers, you’re not going to pay them. And if they do, you will give them a reward for each sale—automatically.
Affiliate marketing is such a powerful way to promote courses that I had to include it on the list. Before I had experience with both platforms, I was sure that both offer affiliate tools for course creators—and yes, I was right.
Thinkific
Thinkific includes an option for you to set up an affiliate program.
The Thinkific affiliate system which allows you to set up, manage, and track affiliate partnerships.
As I mentioned before, this allows your students (that is, affiliates) to promote your courses and earn commissions on sales.
This expands your course’s audience and reach automatically.
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds offers built-in affiliate program capabilities across all its plans.
This lets you create and manage affiliate programs, track performance, and provide affiliates with the tools they need to promote your course.
I love the fact that the affiliate program is not a higher-tier plan thing but it belongs to all the plans.
Course Website Builder
This is a no-brainer. To sell a course, you need a website where your students sign up and find your courses, sales, checkout pages, and support.
Once you’ve created your course and built your community, dealing with all the integrations can be overwhelming. Creating a website from scratch on top of that is a daunting task, isn’t it?
That’s why the best online course platforms allow you to do this very easily.
Thinkific
Thinkific offers a built-in website builder that lets you create and customize your course website.
For example, here’s my Thinkific school page (with my two courses listed):
And here’s an example of one of my courses landing pages:
Obviously, no coding is needed. Just drag and drop elements to the view and that’s it! This makes it a smooth and quick process.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for in the basic editor and have a knack for coding, you can use HTML and CSS for more customization too!
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds provides a comprehensive website builder with customizable templates and a drag-and-drop editor.
Here’s a sample page I built:
And here’s a sample course page:
LearnWorlds offers advanced options like custom domains, HTML/CSS editing, and various elements to create a fully branded online school.
The platform also supports multilingual websites, making it versatile for global audiences.
Payment Plans
If your students can’t pay in one go, you need a payment plan. This is a common excuse for someone to not take your course, so it’s a must-have feature.
Thinkific
Thinkific allows you to offer payment plans. This feature is available in all the paid plans and integrates with payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal to process these payments smoothly.
LearnWorlds
Similar to Thinkific, LearnWorlds allows you to set up payment plans and offer courses in installments.
This is in my opinion a crucial feature and both platforms nailed it!
Coupons and Promotions
Adding some scarcity offers can bump up your course sales as it creates a sense of urgency and incentivizes you to act now.
This is possible thanks to coupons and discounts that I expect both platforms to offer.
Thinkific
Thinkific lets you create coupons and promotions to offer discounts on courses.
You can set up percentage-based or fixed-amount discounts and specify the duration and usage limits of the coupons.
For example, if you want to create a promotion that gives 20% off for the first 100 students, you can do it easily on Thinkific.
One thing I didn’t like on Thinkfic, though, is that you can’t strike through the original price of your course on the landing/checkout page. I thought that’s easy to do but apparently, it’s not.
LearnWorlds
Similar to Thinkific, LearnWorlds allows you to set up promotions and discounts. You can do percentages and fixed discounts.
You can limit the number of codes as well as the date.
Payment Processors
Integration with payment processors is essential for handling transactions securely and efficiently. Imagine you had to send invoices, do refunds, and set discounts manually. That would get out of hand with just a handful of customers.
This is where the online course platforms shine. They’re not just course hosting platforms or community pages but also payment processors (or at least they integrate with one.)
Thinkific
Thinkific doesn’t have a built-in payment processor.
Instead, it relies on integrations with third-party payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal to handle transactions.
Anyways, this means that you don’t need to worry about payments. Everything happens under the hood. You get a checkout page that looks like this automatically:
Also, you can handle refunds and chargebacks there with a click of a button as well.
For example, the other day I had a student who wasn’t happy with my course.
Instead of having to hassle with the refunds, I could just click one button to refund the fee. That was just 15 seconds of extra work for me.
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds, like Thinkific, doesn’t have a built-in payment processor. It integrates with popular payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal to do payments and refunds.
To Take Home
Thinkific and LearnWorlds are great course platforms. As you can see from the comparison and reviews, they both have all the necessary features and integrations to successfully host a course.
That being said, now it’s time to consider which one you should choose.
As I mentioned before, I am using Thinkific to host 2 courses. I have an audience of about 25k subscribers and my student count is less than 100.
So for a small one-person team, Thinkific is a great platform to get started.
However, if you have a school or a big team of marketers, coders, designers, and such, you might find more bang for your buck on LearnWorlds.
It’s all about that use case.
Thanks for reading!
