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Teachable vs Thinkific: real pricing guide

Every plan and fee verified against each platform's official pricing page · by FinanzaX Decide

Both of these are legitimate, mature platforms. Neither is the "budget" option in our full four-way comparison: that is exactly why this is a fair fight. The number that actually decides it is not on either pricing page in a way you would notice: it is what Teachable's entry plan quietly takes from every sale.

Disclosure. We currently earn nothing from either platform compared on this page: we are not yet in the Teachable or Thinkific affiliate programs. That means there is no financial reason for this page to favor one over the other. If either link below changes status, the button updates automatically; it is never edited by hand. Full disclosure.

The number both pricing pages bury

Teachable Starter looks like the cheap way in: … billed annually, against Thinkific's cheapest plan at $40/month. But Starter takes 7.5% of every sale on top of that subscription, the steepest transaction fee of any plan on either platform. Builder, one tier up, charges $69/month and takes 0%.

At five sales of $197 in a month ($985 in revenue), here is what each plan actually costs, card processing included:

The plan that looks $40 more expensive is … a month cheaper the moment you sell anything. The exact break-even is not tied to this example: it is a fixed point in Teachable's own pricing: at … in monthly revenue, Starter and Builder cost exactly the same. Below that line, Starter's lower subscription wins. Above it, every additional dollar you make costs you 7.5 cents on Starter that Builder does not charge.

Thinkific has no equivalent trap. Every one of its plans charges 0% through Thinkific Payments, so its price ladder is simple: what you see on the pricing page is what you pay, regardless of how much you sell.

Every plan, side by side

What each one is honestly worse at

Teachable

Starter and Builder both allow exactly one admin user. If you work with even one collaborator (a VA, a co-instructor, anyone who needs their own login), the only way to add a second seat is Growth, at $139–189/month. That is a much bigger jump than the Starter-to-Builder decision above.

Thinkific

There is no cheap way in. $40/month billed annually ($54/month billed monthly) is the floor, full stop, compared to Teachable's $29/month Starter or, outside this comparison, Systeme.io's permanent free plan. If you have not validated that anyone will pay for your course yet, Thinkific asks you to commit before you know.

So which one

Pick Teachable if your students will mostly learn on their phones: its native student app is on every plan, including Starter, which Thinkific only unlocks school-wide from its Start plan upward. Budget for Builder, not Starter, the moment you expect to clear roughly $500 a month.

Pick Thinkific if scale and structure matter more than starting cheap: 10,000 students and unlimited courses from its base plan, against Teachable's tiered caps of 100 / 1,000 / 5,000 active students by plan. If you already know you are building something large, Thinkific's higher floor buys you a ceiling Teachable does not give you until Growth.

If you are not sure yet which shape your business is, that is exactly what the calculator is for: put in your own price and expected volume and it prices every plan on both platforms instead of one illustrative example.

Run your numbers through the calculator Or take the 4-question quiz