Platform notes

Thinkific: plans, fees, limits, and who should shortlist it

From $40/moFree trial available

Hosted course platform with real B2B group selling on published plans

See Thinkific pricing →See the plans

Plans and pricing at a glance

Three levers force an upgrade on Thinkific, and none of them is the base price. The first is admin seats: Basic gives you 1, Start 2, Grow 6, and Plus is custom. A support team of three or four already pushes you to Grow at $164 per month on annual billing.

The second lever is the payment surcharge when you bring your own gateway. Using your own Stripe or PayPal instead of Thinkific Payments adds 5% on Basic, 2% on Start, 1% on Grow, and nothing on Plus. Thinkific Payments itself runs at standard processor rates of about 2.9% plus 30 cents. The surcharge is a reason to either use Thinkific Payments or climb plans.

The third lever is capability gating. SCORM, SSO, CRM integrations for HubSpot and Salesforce, and a branded mobile app all sit on Plus, which is quote-based. The published student ceiling below Plus is 10,000 current students, so a large catalog audience is itself a Plus conversation. See the full Thinkific plan comparison.

Where it is strong

• Selling B2B seats. Group and B2B selling plus invoicing are documented from the Grow plan ($164 per month on annual billing), which is the cleanest published path to selling seats to companies without an enterprise contract.
• Scaling past a first course. Unlimited courses on every plan, up to 6 admin seats on Grow, API access from Grow, and student engagement reports give a growing catalog room to operate.
• Invoicing without procurement. Invoicing lands on Grow, so you can bill a company by invoice rather than card without opening an enterprise negotiation.
• Brand removal mid-tier. Removing Thinkific branding starts on Grow, earlier than a full enterprise tier, though a branded mobile app is tied to Plus.

For the head-to-head reads, see Thinkific vs LearnWorlds and Thinkific vs Teachable.

Limits to price in before you commit

• SCORM requires Plus. SCORM import and delivery are listed on the quote-based Plus plan only. If your catalog is SCORM based, either budget for a Plus quote or look at LearnWorlds, which opens 20 SCORM uploads on Pro Trainer. The SCORM comparison works through the split.
• Own-gateway surcharge. Bringing your own Stripe or PayPal adds 5% on Basic, 2% on Start, 1% on Grow. The workaround is to use Thinkific Payments at processor rates, or to climb to Grow or Plus where the surcharge shrinks or disappears. See how fees really add up.
• 10,000 student cap below Plus. Every plan under Plus caps at 10,000 current students. A large or fast-growing audience pushes you into custom Plus pricing. Model it in the cost calculator before you commit.

Weighing a switch or a rival? See the Thinkific alternatives page.

What is not published

Two B2B dimensions are not documented publicly and should be pinned down in a demo, in writing, before you rely on them.

• Delegated client-admin rights below Plus. Whether a client manager can run their own people without touching your other clients is not published below Plus. Ask the vendor to show a client manager account on your target plan and confirm exactly what it can see and edit.
• Per-client data separation. Thinkific makes no public commitment about separating data per client. Communities and group selling live inside one school. Test the multi-account scenario with fictional accounts in two client groups trying to reach each other's data, and get the answer in writing before using words like isolation.
• SSO protocols. SSO is listed on Plus, but the protocols and setup terms are a demo conversation. Ask which protocols are supported in writing on the SSO and client access checklist.

Who should pick it, and who should look elsewhere

Pick Thinkific if you are:

• A training company selling B2B seats that wants invoicing and group selling on a published plan (Grow).
• An established course business scaling past a first course, needing several admin seats and API access.

Look elsewhere if you are:

• A training provider that needs SCORM on a published plan: start with LearnWorlds.
• A team that wants full ownership and the lowest license cost: compare LearnDash and read hosted vs WordPress.
• A solo creator with a small catalog and simple needs: Podia or Teachable may be simpler.

What it actually looks like

Frequently asked questions

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