Thinkific Pricing (2026): What’s the Real Cost [Fee Calculator]

TL;DR: Thinkific Pricing Analysis | The Real Cost Of Using It
Thinkific offers four pricing plans. Prices rose about 10% on August 13, 2026, the first increase since 2022.
Basic: $40/month on annual billing ($54 monthly)
Start: $82/month on annual billing ($109 monthly)
Grow: $164/month on annual billing ($219 monthly)
Plus: custom pricing

Thinkific charges no platform transaction fees on any plan when you use Thinkific Payments. If you use your own Stripe account, it adds a surcharge to every transaction.

Thinkific discontinued its free plan, and our link gets you a 30-day free trial on Basic, Start, and Grow.

My quick verdict by plan:
Basic: Good for launching your first course and testing demand. You will hit its limits fast if memberships, certificates, or bundles are part of your plan.
Start: The plan most serious course creators need. It unlocks memberships, bundles, certificates, and payment plans at $82/month on annual billing.
Grow: Worth it for specific needs, such as removing Thinkific branding, full analytics, Mass Email to your student base, Zapier actions, and B2B selling tools.
Plus: An enterprise product for organizations, with SCORM, Thinker AI, and the Thinkific MCP. Most individual creators won’t need it.

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Don’t want to do all the math? Use our free Thinkific Pricing Calculator to find out exactly how much each plan would cost you.

I have been using Thinkific for years, and right now I host six different courses on the platform across my businesses, including Learning Revolution, Leading Learning, and Tagoras.

I have been through course launches, pricing decisions, feature limits, and plan upgrades on it, so I know where it delivers and where it falls short.

My honest view is that Thinkific is among the best online course platforms for experts, coaches, and educators who care about the quality of the learning experience they deliver.

Its course builder is excellent, and its assessment tools, from quizzes and assignments to compliance controls and certificates, give you real control over how learners progress.

And the depth of its learner management features is difficult to match at comparable price points.

For anyone building an expertise-based business where the course itself is the product, Thinkific is where I would tell them to start.

Pricing is where I see people make costly mistakes.

Thinkific looks affordable at $40/month until you start building the business you actually want to run, and then the plan you need often differs from the one you started on. A payment processing surcharge can also change the real cost significantly if you aren’t paying attention.

This guide gives you the honest pricing picture before you commit. I’ll show you what each plan delivers, where the real costs show up, and whether the price is justified at each level.

Read my full Thinkific review for a complete look at the how it performs in practice.

Thinkific Pricing Plans: Comparison Table

The features below drive the decision between plans. If you are trying to choose, these are what matter.

Annual billing saves about 25% on every plan. Thinkific doesn’t distribute public coupon codes, so annual billing and the free trial are the only official ways to cut your cost.

The Stripe Surcharge: Thinkific’s Most Misunderstood Cost

This cost deserves its own section before the plan breakdowns, because it changes the real cost calculation significantly.

Thinkific advertises zero transaction fees, and that holds when you use Thinkific Payments, its built-in processor. The moment you use your own Stripe account, Thinkific charges a surcharge on every transaction. Thinkific’s own Third-Party Payment Gateway Fee documentation confirms this.

Stripe Surcharge by Plan

Plan	Stripe Surcharge	Combined Rate (Stripe 2.9% + Surcharge)
Basic	5.0%	About 7.9% + $0.30 per transaction
Start	2.0%	About 4.9% + $0.30 per transaction
Grow	1.0%	About 3.9% + $0.30 per transaction
Plus	None	About 2.9% + $0.30 (standard Stripe only)

The surcharge applies to creators in the US, Canada, the UK, and all EU countries who use their own Stripe account. Creators in countries where Thinkific Payments isn’t available yet are exempt.

It also stops at your first $1 million in annual sales, and Thinkific waives it entirely above that.

What the Surcharge Actually Costs at Different Revenue Levels

Monthly Revenue	Basic Surcharge (5%)	Start Surcharge (2%)	Grow Surcharge (1%)
$1,000/month	$50	$20	$10
$3,000/month	$150	$60	$30
$5,000/month	$250	$100	$50
$10,000/month	$500	$200	$100

At $3,000 a month on Basic with your own Stripe, the surcharge costs $150 a month. That brings your real monthly cost to $190 before Stripe’s own per-transaction fee, far above the advertised $40/month.

The fix: use Thinkific Payments in place of your own Stripe. Thinkific Payments charges the same as Stripe for standard US and Canadian cards, 2.9% + $0.30, with no surcharge. Your payment setup then lives inside Thinkific rather than in your own Stripe account, which is fine for most people building a course business.

If you want direct control over payment data, or you have significant existing Stripe subscriptions you’d rather not migrate, think this through before you sign up.

The Basic Plan: What Does It Actually Offer

Basic is Thinkific’s entry plan. For $40/month on annual billing ($54 monthly), you get unlimited courses with 100 GB of video bandwidth a month, a site on your custom domain, the drag-and-drop course builder, and drip content scheduling. You also get basic sales tools like coupons, order bumps, and gifting, one community with five spaces, up to five digital downloads and five coaching or webinar products, and lead capture through free lead magnets.

You also get Thinkific’s native email automation. A Sales Flow sequence automatically emails new leads who haven’t bought a specific product yet, and abandoned cart emails go out through Thinkific Payments. Both are useful, and both run on Basic without an upgrade.

For existing students, you can email anyone individually and send the weekly reminder, an automated Sunday email that lists each student’s incomplete courses.

What Basic Includes vs What It Does Not

Included on Basic	Requires an Upgrade
Unlimited courses, 100 GB video bandwidth a month	Memberships and subscriptions (Start)
Custom domain	Completion certificates (Start)
Drip content scheduling	Course bundles (Start)
Coupons, order bumps, gifting	Payment plans (Start)
Abandoned cart emails	Assignments and compliance tools (Start)
Sales Flow lead sequences	Zoom lessons (Start)
Weekly student reminder email	Private and hidden courses (Start)
Up to 5 digital downloads and 5 coaching or webinar products	Unlimited downloads and coaching (Start)
Individual student emails	Remove Thinkific branding (Grow)
1 community, 5 spaces	Full analytics dashboard (Grow)
Basic reporting	Mass User Email broadcast (Grow)
Lead capture via lead magnets	PayPal for students (Grow)
Email and chat support	API, webhooks, Zapier actions (Grow)
1 site admin	SCORM compliance (Plus)

The 10,000 student cap applies on Basic, Start, and Grow. Thinkific counts students with active access to at least one course, so students who finished a course and keep lifetime access still count. Most course businesses never come close, but keep it in mind if you’re building toward significant scale.

Where Basic trips creators up in practice

Here is a scenario I see regularly.

A coach or consultant decides to build a recurring membership with monthly content, ongoing community access, and a subscription price. They sign up on Basic, spend six weeks building the course structure, set up their landing page and sales funnel, and start promoting.

Then they go to configure the membership pricing and discover that memberships require Start. Mid-launch, they’re upgrading plans and rebuilding pricing settings while their audience waits.

The upgrade itself takes minutes, but the timing is painful and entirely avoidable. If recurring revenue is part of your plan from day one, and for most coaches and educators it should be, start on Start.

Who should actually be on Basic

Basic suits creators testing an idea with no existing audience, who expect modest early enrollment and need no recurring revenue, certificates, or bundles in their first few months. It’s a legitimate starting point, and a serious course business outgrows it quickly.

The Start Plan: Where Thinkific Becomes a Real Business Tool

Start unlocks the features you need to run a course business rather than simply host a course. It costs $82/month on annual billing or $109 billed monthly.

What Start Adds Over Basic

Feature	What It Means in Practice
Memberships and subscriptions	Charge recurring monthly or annual fees for access
Completion certificates	Issued automatically when students meet your requirements
Course bundles	Package multiple courses together at a combined price
Payment plans	Split a $500 or $1,000 course across multiple installments
Private and hidden courses	Courses kept off your public catalog for specific clients or internal use
Assignments	Students submit work for your review or feedback
Course compliance tools	Stop students from skipping content before they advance
Post-purchase upsells	Offer more products right after a purchase
After-purchase flows	Custom redirects and thank-you page experiences
Zoom lessons	Live sessions built directly into course delivery
Free trials on subscriptions	Let students sample before committing to a recurring fee
Members-only website sections	Gated pages only enrolled students can see
Advanced CSS and HTML editing	Deeper visual customization of your site
Unlimited downloads and coaching	Up from five of each on Basic
200 GB video bandwidth a month	Double the Basic allowance
2 site admins	Bring in an instructor or manager
1 revenue-sharing partner	Split course revenue with an instructor or partner
10 community spaces	Up from 5 on Basic

What Email Marketing Features Does Thinkific Start Offer?

Start includes everything Basic does, from Sales Flow lead sequences and abandoned cart recovery to individual student emails and the weekly reminder. Mass User Email, the ability to broadcast to your full student base, requires Grow. On Start, if you want to email all your students about a new course launch or a promotion, you need an external email tool or you send it from the admin dashboard one student at a time.

What Start Still Does Not Include

Missing Feature	Requires
Remove Thinkific branding	Grow ($164/month on annual billing)
Full Thinkific analytics dashboard	Grow
Mass User Email to students	Grow
PayPal for students	Grow
Bulk enrollment	Grow
Group orders and invoicing	Grow
API and webhooks	Grow
Zapier actions	Grow
Phone support	Grow
SCORM	Plus (custom pricing)

Start is the right home for most active course creators. At $82/month on annual billing or $109 billed monthly, it delivers strong value for what it unlocks, and most course businesses run on Start for years without hitting a limit that justifies Grow.

The Grow Plan: What You Are Really Paying For

At $164/month on annual billing ($219 monthly), you pay twice what Start costs. The features you gain are meaningful, but they serve a specific type of business. If you need them, Grow is clearly worth it. If you have no specific use for what Grow unlocks, staying on Start is the better financial decision.

What Grow Adds Over Start

Feature	What It Means in Practice
Remove Thinkific branding	No Thinkific references on your site, products, or emails
Full Thinkific analytics dashboard	Enrollment trends, revenue breakdown, learner behavior, engagement by course
Mass User Email	Manual broadcasts to filtered segments of your student base
Bulk enrollment	Enroll large groups at once with a CSV upload
Group orders	Sell bulk course access to organizations in one transaction
Invoicing	Send, track, and manage invoices for business clients
3 communities, 20 spaces	Up from 1 community and 10 spaces on Start
API and webhooks	Build custom integrations with your tech stack
Zapier actions	Automate enrollments and workflows into Thinkific from other tools
PayPal for students	Students can choose PayPal at checkout
6 site admins	Up from 2 on Start, for bigger teams
400 GB video bandwidth a month	Double the Start allowance
3 revenue-sharing partners	Share revenue with several instructors
Phone and priority chat support	Faster, more accessible help
Brillium Exams integration	A formal, advanced exam environment
1% Stripe surcharge	Down from 2% on Start

The Kajabi Comparison at This Price Point

Thinkific Grow now costs more than Kajabi’s entry plan, Grow at $164/month vs Kajabi Basic at $143/month on annual billing. That makes this the comparison worth taking seriously.

Dimension	Thinkific Grow ($164/month)	Kajabi Basic ($143/month)
Course builder	Deep, with compliance, assessments, and granular learner management	Standard
Assessments	Quizzes, assignments, compliance, Brillium exams	Basic
Community	3 communities, 20 spaces	1 community
Email marketing	Mass Email to existing students only, with no reach to external lists	Full platform with any contact list, funnels, and automations
Analytics	Full dashboard	Included
White-label branding	Yes	No (Growth plan and up)
SCORM	No (Plus only)	No
Sales funnels	No	Yes
Own-Stripe surcharge	1%	2% on Basic
Best for	Learning-depth businesses	Marketing-first businesses

Thinkific is the better learning platform. Its course structure, assessment depth, compliance tools, and learner management are stronger than what Kajabi offers at a similar price. If you care about the quality of the learning experience, and as someone who has built and sold courses for more than two decades I think you should, Thinkific gives you more to work with.

But Kajabi’s email marketing is a full platform. You can reach any contact list, build multi-step funnels, and run sophisticated automations with no limit on who you email.

Thinkific’s email on Grow adds Mass Email to your existing students only, so it can’t reach people outside your school.

If your revenue depends mainly on marketing-driven sales rather than the learning experience itself, Kajabi costs less than Grow and deserves a direct comparison before you commit.

Who Should Be on Grow

Situation	Grow Justified?
Need white-label branding for corporate or B2B clients	Yes
Want full analytics to make data-driven course decisions	Yes
Sell bulk licenses or group enrollment to organizations	Yes
Need to invoice business clients	Yes
Want to broadcast emails to your student base	Yes
Need Zapier actions to automate workflows into Thinkific	Yes
Want more features without a specific need	No. Stay on Start and save $984 a year on annual billing

Thinkific Plus: Who It Is Actually For

Custom pricing through a sales conversation

Plus is an enterprise product with its own infrastructure, support model, and integration depth, so treat it as a separate purchase from Grow.

What Plus Adds Over Grow

Feature	Detail
SCORM compliance	Import content built in Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, and similar tools
Articulate integration	Build courses in Articulate and deliver them on Thinkific
Thinker AI	An AI teaching assistant that answers learner questions using only your course content
Thinkific MCP	Connect Claude or ChatGPT to your course and learner data
Single Sign-On (SSO)	Employees log in with existing corporate credentials
HubSpot and Salesforce integration	Native CRM connection
Learning paths	Structured progression across multiple courses
Custom student limits	The 10,000 cap is set by contract
Unlimited communities	Up from 3 on Grow
Advanced analytics	Custom dashboards and automated exports
Dedicated customer success manager	Active, ongoing guidance
Formal SLA and MSA	Enterprise-grade commitments
Dedicated sandbox	Test changes without affecting live students
No Stripe surcharge	Plus is explicitly exempt
Branded mobile app	Included on select Plus contracts, and a $199/month add-on on every other plan

SCORM is the biggest differentiator for Plus. If your training content was built in a professional authoring tool for compliance training, certification programs, or regulated industries, you’ll usually need SCORM support, and Plus is the only Thinkific plan that delivers it.

If you’re evaluating Plus, also look at LearnWorlds Learning Center at $249/month on annual billing. It includes white-label branding, unlimited SCORM packages, Zapier, and advanced reporting at a published price, so compare it before you commit to a custom Plus contract.

Is Thinkific Worth the Price? My Verdict

I have six courses on Thinkific right now across Learning Revolution, Leading Learning, and Tagoras, and I’m staying on the platform. Here’s a straight answer on each plan.

Basic is worth it in one situation. You’re launching your first paid course, you have no existing audience, and you want to test whether people will pay for what you teach before investing in a full business setup. The moment you want recurring revenue, certificates, or bundled pricing, Basic runs out of room. If any of those are part of your plan, and they should be if you’re serious about building an expertise business, start on Start. The $42 monthly difference on annual billing is trivial next to the cost of a botched launch because you hit a feature wall mid-momentum.

Start is where you get real value. It gives you a professional course school with memberships, bundles, payment plans, certificates, compliance tools, live Zoom sessions, and Thinkific’s lead nurture email sequences. That covers what most coaches, consultants, and subject matter experts need to build and sell structured learning programs. My courses run on Start-level features, and they handle course delivery, learner management, and monetization without friction. If you’re an expert building a course-based business and wondering whether Thinkific is worth paying for, the answer at this plan and price is yes.

Grow is worth it when you have a specific reason to be there. If you sell training to corporate clients and need to remove Thinkific’s branding, Grow is the minimum plan, with no workaround. If you want Thinkific’s full analytics dashboard to see where learners drop off and which courses deserve expansion, Grow is justified. A campaign email to your entire student base also requires Grow. Those are real business needs with real dollar value attached. If you’re eyeing Grow because it feels like progression, run the comparison against Kajabi first, since Kajabi Basic now costs less. Thinkific wins on learning depth, Kajabi wins on marketing, and you should know which one your business depends on before you commit.

My bottom line: Thinkific is the best online course platform I know for experts who take the learning experience seriously. The course builder, the assessment tools, and the depth of learner management set it apart. Start on the right plan, use Thinkific Payments, and you’ll pay a fair price for a strong product.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Thinkific have a free plan?

No. Thinkific discontinued its permanent free plan. Through our link you get a 30-day free trial on Basic, Start, and Grow, and after the trial you need a paid plan to keep your school active. Plus has no trial.

What is the real cost of Thinkific if I use my own Stripe account?

Thinkific adds a surcharge to every transaction if you use your own Stripe in place of Thinkific Payments. It’s 5% on Basic, 2% on Start, 1% on Grow, and none on Plus. The surcharge applies to creators in the US, Canada, the UK, and the EU, and it covers your first $1 million in annual sales. Thinkific Payments avoids it at no extra processing cost.

Which plan do most course creators actually land on?

In my experience, people who sell actively land on Start. Basic works for testing and early validation. Start covers what a real course business needs, including memberships, certificates, bundles, and payment plans. Grow becomes relevant when you specifically need white-label branding, full analytics, Mass Email, or B2B selling tools.

What is the 10,000 student cap?

Basic, Start, and Grow all cap you at 10,000 current students, meaning students with active access to at least one course. Students who finished a course but keep lifetime access still count. Plus sets custom student limits by contract.

Does Thinkific include email marketing?

Thinkific includes native email tools on all plans, including Sales Flow sequences for lead nurture, abandoned cart emails, individual student emails, and a weekly reminder to students with incomplete courses. Mass User Email, which broadcasts to your student base, requires Grow. Thinkific’s email only reaches people already in your school, so for external lists you need a dedicated tool like Kit or ActiveCampaign alongside it.

Does Thinkific support SCORM?

Yes, but only on Thinkific Plus. If you have training content built in Articulate Storyline or Adobe Captivate, Plus is the minimum plan you need.

Can you switch Thinkific plans at any time?

Yes. You can move between Basic, Start, and Grow at any time. Upgrades take effect immediately, and downgrades take effect at the next billing cycle. Plus requires a separate sales contract.

How does Thinkific compare to Kajabi at the Grow price point?

Thinkific Grow costs $164/month on annual billing, and Kajabi Basic costs $143/month. Kajabi includes a full email marketing platform that reaches any contact list, with funnels and automations. Thinkific Grow‘s email reaches existing students only, but Thinkific is the stronger learning platform. Your business model decides the right choice.

Does Thinkific offer nonprofit discounts?

Yes. Thinkific offers 50% off to eligible registered nonprofits. Apply through Thinkific’s nonprofit form, and expect a reply within 72 hours. Check the eligibility criteria before you apply.

What happens to my courses if I cancel Thinkific?

Your school goes offline and students lose access. You can export student data as a CSV, but course content doesn’t export in a portable format, and active Thinkific Payments subscriptions can’t be migrated. Factor that lock-in into your decision before you build a large course library on the platform.

What is the cheapest way to get started with Thinkific?

Start the 30-day free trial through our link. When it ends, move to Start on annual billing at $82/month if you need memberships, certificates, or bundles, or Basic at $40/month if you’re still testing. Either way, use Thinkific Payments to avoid the surcharge.

Did Thinkific raise its prices in 2026?

Yes. Thinkific raised prices by about 10% on August 13, 2026, its first increase since 2022. On annual billing, Basic went from $36 to $40/month, Start from $74 to $82/month, and Grow from $149 to $164/month. Older articles that still quote the previous prices are out of date.

Does Thinkific include a branded mobile app?

Not by default. Students can use Thinkific’s shared mobile app on every plan. A branded app with your own name in the app stores costs $199/month as an add-on on Basic, Start, and Grow, and it comes included only on select Plus contracts.

Does Thinkific have AI features?

Yes, mostly on Plus. Thinker, Thinkific’s AI teaching assistant, answers learner questions using only your course content, and the Thinkific MCP connects Claude or ChatGPT to your course and learner data. Both are Plus-only, so creators on Basic, Start, or Grow won’t get them.