If you’re about to sell your first course, you’ve probably narrowed it down to these two.
Fair enough.
Both host your videos, take the payments and give you a course site, and on their pricing pages they look almost identical. The differences hide in the fees, the limits and who deals with your VAT.
On paper, Thinkific is the better home once you sell several things, and Teachable is the cheaper way to find out whether one course sells at all.
What this comparison is based on
Thinkific’s (opens in new tab) and Teachable’s (opens in new tab) pricing pages, their help centers and feature pages, checked on 16 October 2026.
My own hands-on test of both is in progress, and I’ll update this review with the results. Until then there are no ratings, no “tested” badges and no winner.
I’m a nerd: when I started selling courses online, I went all in and tried most of the platforms out there, these two included. That was years ago, and both have been rebuilt since, so nothing below leans on those memories.
Key takeaways
- Thinkific charges no transaction fee when you use its own Thinkific Payments, only the card fees. Teachable takes 7.5% per sale on Starter and nothing from Builder up.
- Teachable Builder is cheaper than Starter once you sell more than about $670 a month.
- Thinkific publishes unlimited courses on every plan. Teachable caps published products at 5, 10 and 50.
- Teachable collects and pays your sales tax and VAT. On Thinkific you file and pay EU and UK VAT yourself.
- Neither has a free plan. Thinkific’s trial is 30 days, Teachable’s is 7.
Thinkific vs Teachable at a glance
These are the things that change what you pay and what you can sell. Prices are per month, and the lower number is with yearly billing.
I’m in Estonia, so Thinkific shows me euros. Teachable lists every price in US dollars.
| Feature | Thinkific | Teachable |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Basic: €53, or €39 yearly | Starter: $39, or $29 yearly |
| Middle plan | Start: €107, or €79 yearly | Builder: $89, or $69 yearly |
| Growth plan | Grow: €213, or €159 yearly | Growth: $189, or $139 yearly |
| Top plan | Plus: custom quote | Custom: custom quote |
| Transaction fee | 0% with Thinkific Payments (5%, 2% or 1% with Stripe) | 7.5% on Starter, 0% from Builder |
| Published courses or products | Unlimited courses (5 downloads on Basic) | 5, 10 or 50 products |
| Admin seats | 1, 2 or 6 | 1, 1 or 5 |
| Custom domain | Every plan | From Builder |
| Community | Built in (1, 1 or 3 communities) | Closed to new schools |
| Student mobile app | Free Thinkific app for iOS and Android; a branded app is $199 a month extra | iOS and Android on every plan |
| Affiliate program for your courses | Every plan (you pay affiliates yourself) | From Builder |
| Sales tax and VAT | Handles US and Canadian sales tax; you file EU and UK VAT yourself | Collected and paid for you in 45+ countries |
| Completion certificates | From Start | From Growth |
| Remove the platform’s branding | From Grow | From Growth |
| Free trial | 30 days | 7 days, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee1 |
Pricing: what each plan costs in 2026
Both have three plans you can buy yourself and a custom plan for larger schools. By their own numbers, yearly billing saves 25% on Thinkific and 22% on Teachable.
Entry plans: Thinkific Basic vs Teachable Starter
Teachable Starter is the cheapest way in at $39 a month ($29 billed yearly). But it takes 7.5% of every sale on top of card processing, and a custom domain, affiliates and email marketing only start on Builder.
Thinkific Basic costs €53 a month (€39 yearly), takes no transaction fee with Thinkific Payments, and includes your own domain and one community.
Volume matters too. Starter publishes up to 5 products. Basic publishes unlimited courses, though only 5 digital downloads, which is great if you plan to sell a lot of small courses.
If you have one big master course, you probably don’t need many products anyway.
Middle plans: Thinkific Start vs Teachable Builder
This is where Teachable drops its transaction fee. Builder costs $89 a month ($69 yearly), allows 10 products and adds the affiliate program, a custom domain, CSS snippets, email marketing and real-time support.
Thinkific Start costs €107 a month (€79 yearly) and adds memberships and subscriptions, bundles, upsells and payment plans, live cohorts, completion certificates, assignments and an HTML and CSS editor.
Growth plans: Thinkific Grow vs Teachable Growth
Thinkific Grow costs €213 a month (€159 yearly), Teachable Growth $189 ($139 yearly). Both remove their own branding and add admin seats (6 on Thinkific, 5 on Teachable).
Grow adds API access, webhooks, group orders, invoicing and phone support. Teachable Growth allows 50 products and adds certificates, bulk student imports, custom admin permissions, API access and free subtitles.
When I last compared these two, I wrote that once you’re paying about $200 a month for a course platform, the difference between them gets very slim.
It still does.
Above that, Thinkific Plus and Teachable Custom are priced by quote, and both include help with migrating.
Transaction fees: what you really keep from each sale
I led growth at a payments company that served subscription businesses, so this is the section I’d read twice.
The plan price is only half the cost. On every sale you also pay a transaction fee, if there is one, and the card fee.
Teachable’s 7.5% on Starter matters most: €7.50 on every €100 sale.
It’s also why upgrading can save money. Builder costs $50 a month more and has no transaction fee (with Teachable Payments, its own processor), so it pays for itself once you sell more than about $670 a month ($50 ÷ 7.5%), or about $530 on yearly billing.
Thinkific charges no transaction fee with Thinkific Payments, the default for creators in the US, Canada, the UK, the EU and a few other countries. Connect Stripe instead and Thinkific adds 5% on Basic, 2% on Start and 1% on Grow.2
My old review said Thinkific wins on price if you’re just starting out. Today that only holds once you’re selling.
Thinkific Basic costs about €18 a month more than Teachable Starter,3 and Starter’s 7.5% fee costs more than that gap once you sell more than about €240 a month, before card fees.
Card fees come on top and depend on where your business is. Thinkific Payments charges an EU business 1.7% + €0.25 on European cards and a US business 2.9% + $0.30, plus extras such as 0.5% on sales where it works out the tax.4
Teachable lists 2.9% + 30 cents for US cards and 3.9% + 30 cents for international ones, and its help center (opens in new tab) says rates depend on your account’s country.
Free tool
What you keep from each sale
Pre-filled for a €100 course on Teachable Starter at Teachable’s rate for US cards. For Thinkific, or for Teachable Builder and above, set the platform fee to 0. For Thinkific Payments in the EU, try 1.7% and €0.25.
This calculator needs JavaScript. The formula: you keep the price minus the platform fee, the processing percentage and the fixed fee per sale. On Teachable Starter, a €100 sale leaves about €89.30; with no platform fee it leaves about €96.80.
More free tools are on the free tools and data page.
Building and running your courses
Both cover the basics: video lessons, text, downloads, quizzes and drip schedules that release lessons over time. The differences are in what surrounds the course.
- Community. Thinkific includes communities on every plan (one on Basic and Start, three on Grow). Teachable’s Community is in maintenance mode. Its help center (opens in new tab) says it’s no longer available to new schools and suggests lesson comments, or Discord or Slack, instead.
- Memberships. Thinkific adds memberships from Start. Teachable has them on every plan, and memberships and bundles don’t count against its product limit.
- Mobile. Teachable lists iOS and Android student apps on every plan. Thinkific has a free Thinkific app (opens in new tab) for iOS and Android, and an app under your own name and logo costs $199 a month extra.
- AI help. Teachable lists its “Create with AI” tools on every plan. Thinkific’s AI tools come with the trial, and its AI teaching assistant for students is part of Plus.
- Design. Thinkific Start adds an HTML and CSS editor, and Teachable allows CSS snippets from Builder. I like tweaking and A/B testing my pages endlessly, so this matters more to me than it might to you.
Selling and marketing
Both run a hosted checkout with coupons, order bumps and abandoned-cart emails on every plan. Teachable has upsells on every plan too, while Thinkific’s bundles, upsells, payment plans and subscriptions start on Start.
- Affiliates. Thinkific allows unlimited affiliates on every paid plan but only tracks their commissions, so you pay them yourself. Teachable’s affiliate program starts on Builder, and it can pay your affiliates for you for an optional fee of 2 to 2.8%.
- Taxes. Teachable Payments (opens in new tab) calculates, collects and pays sales tax, VAT and GST for you in more than 45 countries. Thinkific does that for US and Canadian sales tax, but for EU and UK sales it only works out and adds the VAT; you file and pay it yourself (opens in new tab). My old review gave Thinkific the edge on EU VAT. On paper, that has flipped.
- Email. Thinkific lists email automation with ready-made templates and sequences. Teachable’s built-in email marketing starts on Builder.
- Selling to teams. Thinkific Grow adds group orders and invoicing, which helps if companies buy seats for their staff. Teachable keeps bulk sales for its Custom plan.
Which is easier to use?
I can’t answer that honestly until my own test is done.
On the plan pages, Teachable Starter gives you less to set up, with no custom domain, CSS or affiliates. Thinkific hands you a domain, a community and affiliates from the first plan, and more options usually mean more setup time.
The trials are the cheapest way to find out for yourself: 30 days on Thinkific, 7 on Teachable. Build one module on each before you pay for a year.
Thinkific: who it’s for, pros and cons
Thinkific
Best for: creators selling several courses, downloads or a community
No transaction fee with Thinkific Payments, plus unlimited courses, a community and your own domain from the first plan. It costs more each month than Teachable’s entry plan, and you file EU and UK VAT yourself.
From €39 a month, billed yearly
Pros
- No transaction fee with Thinkific Payments
- Unlimited courses on every plan
- A community and your own domain from Basic
- Free student app for iOS and Android
- 30-day free trial
Cons
- Higher entry price than Teachable Starter
- Using Stripe instead of Thinkific Payments adds 5% per sale on Basic
- Memberships, payment plans and certificates start on Start
- You file and pay EU and UK VAT yourself
Teachable: who it’s for, pros and cons
Teachable
Best for: testing one course cheaply, with your sales tax handled for you
The lowest entry price, iOS and Android student apps on every plan, and sales tax and VAT collected and paid for you. The 7.5% fee on Starter and the product limits push you up a plan as your sales grow.
From $29 a month, billed yearly
Pros
- Lowest entry price
- iOS and Android student apps on every plan
- Collects and pays your sales tax and VAT
- Memberships on every plan, outside the product limit
Cons
- 7.5% transaction fee on Starter
- Product limits on every plan (5, 10, 50)
- No custom domain, affiliates or email marketing on Starter
- Certificates only from the Growth plan
- Community is closed to new schools
When to choose neither: alternatives
Thinkific and Teachable are course platforms first. If the course is only one part of your business, one of these may fit better.
- Kajabi puts courses, email marketing, sales funnels, a community and a website on one bill. At $179 a month, or $143 billed yearly (checked on 16 October 2026 (opens in new tab)), it costs several times either entry plan, but it replaces your email tool and funnel builder too.
- A community platform if your members pay to talk to each other more than for lessons. Teachable’s own help center points to Discord or Slack.
- A newsletter tool with paid subscriptions, such as Kit, if what you sell is a weekly email.
Would you rather earn from recommending a platform? Thinkific (opens in new tab) pays affiliates 30% for as long as the customer you sent keeps paying, Teachable (opens in new tab) 30% for the first year (both checked on 16 October 2026). More programs are in my affiliate program database.
Still deciding whether a course is the right product for your audience? My guide to making money on Instagram compares courses with the other ways creators earn.
My hands-on test: coming soon
I’m running both entry plans side by side with the same small course: five modules with video, a quiz and a download.
I’ll buy it as a student on my phone, check the VAT on the receipt, ask both support teams the same questions and export my students to see what I can take with me. When that’s done, this review gets the results, screenshots and dates, following my test method.
Thinkific vs Teachable: frequently asked questions
Is Thinkific better than Teachable?
It depends on what you sell, and my own test is still running.
On paper, Thinkific is better value for several courses or a community, with no transaction fee on Thinkific Payments and no course limit. Teachable is cheaper to start with one product, and it collects and pays your sales tax and VAT.
Do Thinkific or Teachable have a free plan?
No. Both have dropped their free plans.
Thinkific gives every new account a 30-day free trial. Teachable has a 7-day free trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
What fees do Thinkific and Teachable take from each sale?
Thinkific takes none with Thinkific Payments, or 5%, 2% or 1% on Basic, Start and Grow if you use Stripe. Teachable takes 7.5% on Starter and nothing from Builder up with Teachable Payments. Card fees come on top on both.
Which is cheaper, Thinkific or Teachable?
Teachable Starter has the lowest monthly price: $39, or $29 billed yearly. Once you sell more than about €240 a month, its 7.5% fee makes Thinkific Basic the cheaper option, and above about $670 a month Teachable Builder beats Starter too.
Can I move my course from Teachable to Thinkific later?
Yes, but plan for some work.
Both let you export your students as a CSV file, but Teachable can’t export a whole course, so you download the videos and files one by one and rebuild the lessons. Both custom plans include help with migrating.
Thinkific or Teachable: which one fits you
Going by the pricing pages and help centers, Thinkific fits if you’ll sell several courses, downloads or a community and want your own domain from day one.
Teachable fits if you want the cheapest test of one course, or want someone else to deal with your sales tax and VAT; move up to Builder once you pass about $670 a month.
If you want courses, email and funnels on one bill, look at Kajabi.
Either way, start with the trial.
Thinkific’s 30 days is long enough to upload your course, promote it and maybe earn the first month’s fee before you pay it. I recommended it for exactly that in my old review.
Teachable gives you 7 days, so have your first module ready before you sign up.
More guides are in Course platforms.
- Teachable's plan cards and pricing FAQ say 7 days, checked on 16 October 2026. On the same day a pop-up on that page offered a 30-day trial that then continues on Builder, billed monthly. ↩
- Thinkific's third-party gateway fee applies to creators in the US, Canada, the UK and the EU who process sales through Stripe, on their first $1 million in sales each calendar year. From Thinkific's help center (How much does Thinkific cost? and the Third-Party Payment Gateway Fee FAQ), checked on 16 October 2026. ↩
- Teachable Starter's $39 converted at the European Central Bank's euro reference rate for 15 October 2026 (1 euro = 1.1208 US dollars), which is about €34.80, against €53 for Thinkific Basic. Both billed monthly. ↩
- Thinkific Payments Supported Countries and Transaction Fees, Thinkific help center, checked on 16 October 2026. The other extras for an EU business: 1.55% for international cards, 2% for currency conversion and 0.7% for subscriptions and payment plans. ↩
