Are Thinkific’s Email Marketing & Automation Features Worth Using (2026)

TL;DR: What is Thinkific Email Automation and Can It Replace Your Email Marketing Software?
Thinkific Email Automation is a built-in tool designed to convert leads and students already inside your Thinkific account into paying customers. It is not a replacement for a dedicated email marketing software as it is not built to grow or nurture a broader audience.

It offers three types of emails.

1. The Email Sales Flow: A fixed 3 email sequence that nudges a lead toward buying a specific product.
2. Mass Email: Lets you send a one time broadcast to your existing students or leads.
3. Abandoned Cart: Sends a single automatic reminder to anyone who started checkout but did not finish.

You need a dedicated email marketing platform like Kit, Mailchimp, or ActiveCampaign the moment you want to reach people outside Thinkific, send regular content like a newsletter or podcast updates, or build real segmentation and nurture sequences over time.

So, Thinkific doesn’t replace your email marketing software, but does offer useful automations to boost conversions.

If you’re looking for a course platform that can replace your email software as well, Kajabi is a great option.

Try Thinkific for Free

I run six courses on Thinkific and consider it the best online course platform for most beginners and mid-tier course sellers. I also use its built-in email marketing tools every day for those courses. Yet, I still pay for ActiveCampaign every single month. 

Sounds confusing? Let me explain. 

Thinkific does have email marketing features built in that allow you to send automated emails, follow up on abandoned carts, and welcome new leads. 

So does that mean you do not need Kit, Mailchimp, or any other dedicated email marketing software? Is it enough for a typical course creator or coach’s email audience building needs? 

The honest answer is it depends on what you are trying to do. In this article I will show you exactly what Thinkific’s email can handle on its own, where it runs out of road, and how to tell which situation you are in.

Read: My complete Thinkific review to understand why I recommend it

What Is Thinkific Email and What Exactly Does It Offer

Thinkific calls its email feature Email Automation. It lives inside your admin dashboard under Marketing, and it gives you four things.

The first is the Email Sales Flow. This is an automated sequence of 3 emails that goes out to leads who have not bought a specific product yet. The first email fires 1 hour after someone opts in. The second goes out 2 days later. The third follows 2 days after that.

The second is Abandoned Cart. If someone starts checkout and does not finish, Thinkific can send a follow up email asking them to complete the purchase. This only works if you use Thinkific Payments as your processor.

The third is Mass Email. This lets you send a one time broadcast to your students or leads inside Thinkific. It is not automated. You write it and send it whenever you want.

The fourth is transactional email. These are the automatic notifications Thinkific sends on its own, like enrollment confirmations and lesson reminders.

That is the full list. There’s no visual automation builder or complex branching. Just these four tools working inside your Thinkific account.

What this means in practice is that Thinkific built these tools to close a sale, not to grow an audience. Every one of them assumes the person is already inside your Thinkific funnel as a lead or a student.

If your email strategy depends on reaching people who have never interacted with Thinkific at all, none of these four tools were built for that job.

Thinkific Email Automation vs. a Dedicated Email Marketing Platform

Before I go any deeper, let me clarify the difference between a dedicated email marketing software platform like mailchimp or Kit and Thinkific’s Email Automation.

Feature	Thinkific Email Automation	Dedicated Email Marketing Software (Kit, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp)
Reach contacts outside your platform	No, only sees leads and students who entered through Thinkific	Yes, import or grow a list from any source
Build a general email list	Only through Thinkific lead capture funnels	Yes, opt in forms, landing pages, imports, integrations
Welcome or nurture sequences	One fixed sequence, 3 emails over 4 days	Fully customizable length, timing, and content
Number of emails in a sequence	Fixed at 3	Unlimited, add or remove as needed
Sequence timing	Fixed at 1 hour, 2 days, 2 days	Fully customizable
Behavioral branching	None	Yes, branch based on clicks, opens, page visits, purchases
Segmentation	Limited to sequence trigger conditions	Full segmentation by tags, behavior, interests, purchase history
One off broadcast emails	Yes, to students and leads inside Thinkific only	Yes, to your entire list including non buyers
Abandoned cart recovery	One email, requires Thinkific Payments	Often included, works regardless of payment processor
Retroactive list entry	No, only new leads after publishing qualify	Yes, you control who enters a sequence at any time
Visual automation builder	No	Yes, in most dedicated tools
Best suited for	Converting leads already inside your Thinkific funnels	Growing, nurturing, and communicating with your full audience

Read: The best email marketing software for course creators and marketers

If I Have Thinkific Email, Why Do I Use ActiveCampaign?

I use Thinkific’s Sales Flow and Abandoned Cart features on most of my courses, but every month I also pay for ActiveCampaign.

I use ActiveCampaign because it does a job that Thinkific cannot do at all.

ActiveCampaign is where I keep my general entire email list, including people who have never bought a course from me. That includes readers who found a blog post and signed up, people who listened to my podcast and joined the list, and subscribers who downloaded something free years ago and are still on there. 

None of these people exist inside Thinkific. They never entered through a Thinkific funnel, so Thinkific has no record of them at all.

ActiveCampaign is also where I send regular content to that list, things like podcast episode notes, blog updates, and tips that have nothing to do with selling a specific course. 

This kind of ongoing contact is what builds trust over months, sometimes years, before someone is ready to buy anything. Thinkific has no feature built for that. It only activates once someone has already entered a course funnel.

So Thinkific is not bad at email. It just was not built to do this part of the job, and this part is where most of my list actually lives.

Now I’ll explain the different email types you can create in Thinkific and how they work.

Email Type #1: Thinkific Email Sales Flow (and How It Works)

The Email Sales Flow is an automated sequence of emails in Thinkific built to turn a lead into a buyer of one specific product. You set it up once, and from then on it runs on its own every time someone qualifies for it. 

The goal is to take someone who showed interest in your products but has not bought yet, and walk them toward a purchase without you writing a single email by hand each time.

Showing interest usually means someone opted in through one of your Thinkific funnels. That could be downloading a free guide through a Digital Download lead magnet, signing up for a free webinar or coaching call, or entering through the lead capture section on a page. 

Once they hand over their email this way, Thinkific records them as a lead, and that lead becomes eligible to enter a Sales Flow.

You start by picking one product you want to sell. Thinkific then generates a sequence of 3 emails using AI, based on prompts you answer about your audience and your product. You can edit the wording of each email, but the structure underneath stays the same.

The timing is also fixed. The first email goes out 1 hour after someone enters the sequence. The second goes out 2 days after that. The third goes out 2 days after the second. So the whole sequence runs across roughly 4 days from start to finish.

Each email has its own job. The first introduces the problem your product solves. The second tells your story, why you built the product and what you care about. The third presents your offer and asks for the sale.

Who enters this sequence is controlled by triggers. The default trigger is that someone is subscribed and has not yet purchased the product you picked. You can add more conditions on top of that, like requiring they came from a specific lead magnet.

Exit conditions work the same way. Someone leaves the sequence the moment they unsubscribe or the moment they buy the product.

But you cannot change any of this structure. For example, you cannot add a fourth email, shorten the gap between emails, or remove an exit condition.

You can only change the messaging and some of the triggers. I feel this makes it simpler and does the job for non-technical users. But for savvy marketers, it feels quite limiting.

Can You Build an Email List With Thinkific’s Email Tools?

Can Thinkific actually grow your email list the way Kit, ActiveCampaign, or any other dedicated email marketing software does?

The short answer is yes.

You offer a free lead magnet like a PDF guide, a template, a checklist, on your landing page in exchange for the user’s email address. The user fills out the form, gets their download, joins your list, and Thinkific records them as a lead.

Once they are a lead, they qualify to enter a Sales Flow if you have one set up.

Email Type #2: One-Off Broadcast Email Campaigns

Mass Email is Thinkific’s answer to sending a single broadcast email to a group of people right now, instead of an automated sequence that runs on its own. 

You write it once and send it out the same way you would send a regular email blast from any email tool.

Mass Email only goes out to students and leads that already exist inside Thinkific. 

Your blog subscribers, podcast audience, or anyone outside that list cannot be reached this way, no matter which plan you are on.

Email Type #3: Automated Abandoned Cart Emails

Abandoned cart sends an automatic follow up email to someone who got to checkout but did not finish the purchase. The email’s job is to recover as much lost sales as possible.

There is one email in this automation and you can edit its wording. But you cannot add more emails, change when it sends, or set up a second reminder if the first one does not work. It is a single nudge, not a sequence.

However, this feature only works if you are using Thinkific Payments as your processor. It is not enough to have TCommerce features turned on in general. If you are still running payments through your own Stripe account, the way a lot of creators set up their school years ago, abandoned cart won’t work.

Switching to Thinkific Payments changes how your payouts work and how your transaction fees are calculated. For some creators that tradeoff is worth it. For others, the missing abandoned cart emails are the smaller cost compared to staying on their existing payment setup.

What Thinkific’s Email Features Cannot Do At All

Thinkific’s email tools exist to engage and convert the leads already inside your Thinkific account. They are not built for nurturing your broader audience or communicating with people on your own terms, whenever you want, about whatever you want.

Here is what falls outside that scope completely.

1. It cannot reach anyone outside Thinkific. Your blog subscribers, podcast listeners, or anyone who signed up through a form on your own website are invisible to it. A real email platform lets you import or grow a list from anywhere. Thinkific only sees people who came through one of its own funnels.
   
2. There is no way to send a regular newsletter or update to your full audience on your own schedule. A dedicated platform lets you write something whenever you want and send it to everyone, no trigger required. Thinkific’s tools only fire based on specific lead or purchase actions, never just because you have something to say.
   
3. There is no behavioral branching. A real email tool can split your list based on what someone clicks, what page they visit, or what they have bought before, and send each group something different. Thinkific cannot react to behavior once someone is already inside a sequence.
   
4. Segmentation barely exists beyond the sequence triggers. You can filter who enters a Sales Flow by a couple of conditions, but you cannot build ongoing segments based on interests, engagement, or how someone has interacted with your content over time. And leads you already had before publishing a sequence do not enter it. Only new leads going forward qualify, so any list you built before turning on a Sales Flow is left out entirely.

Is Thinkific’s Email Automation Alone Enough For Your Business?

If you are just starting out with your first course and have no existing audience yet, Thinkific’s email tools are genuinely enough. 

You can use its landing page and funnels feature to offer a free lead magnet to grow your list. Then, the Sales Flow and Abandoned Cart emails handle conversions.

But when you have a blog or a podcast and want to grow and nurture an email list, Thinkific isn’t enough. 

Thinkific has no way to send a regular nurture sequence to people who are not ready to buy yet. It cannot send a broadcast promoting an affiliate product. It cannot send a simple update about something you wrote or recorded that has nothing to do with selling a course. 

Every tool it has is built to drive someone toward a Thinkific purchase, not to build an ongoing relationship or share content for its own sake.

That is the point where staying inside Thinkific’s email tools alone starts limiting what you can actually do with your list.

This is why I use ActiveCampaign for my regular email marketing goals while Thinkific’s email Automation handles conversions inside the platform.