Want to build a thriving online community?
Choosing the right platform is key, but it can be tough.
Two popular options, Skool and Thinkific, offer different approaches.
This article dives deep into Skool vs Thinkific, comparing their strengths and weaknesses.
Overview
We’ve spent considerable time exploring both Skool and Thinkific, diving into their features, interface, and community aspects.
Our hands-on testing, including creating sample communities and courses, allows us to provide a practical comparison to help you choose the right platform for your needs.
Skool offers a streamlined platform for building online courses and fostering thriving communities. Try it now!
Pricing: 14-day free trial available. Paid plan Starts at $99/month
Key Features:
- Simple Course Creation
- Built-in Community
- Gamification
Ready to build a thriving community? BetterMode offers customizable features and flexible pricing plans to fit your needs.
Pricing: No free plan is available. Paid plan Starts at $36/month
Key Features:
- Course Creation
- Marketing Tools
- Community Features
What is Skool
Skool is a platform designed to help creators build thriving online communities.
It’s all about bringing people together to learn, connect, and support each other.
Think of it as a digital clubhouse where you can host discussions, run events, and offer exclusive content.
It’s a user-friendly platform that makes community management a breeze.
Also, explore our favorite Skool alternatives…
Our Take
It excels at building engaged communities and offers excellent value for its price. However, it loses a few points due to its slightly limited course customization and fewer marketing integrations than other platforms. If community is your top priority, Skool is worth checking out.
Key Benefits
Kajabi’s biggest strength is its comprehensive suite of tools.
They’ve helped over 75 million customers turn their passions into profitable businesses.
You get everything you need to create, market, and sell your digital products.
- All-in-one solution: No need for separate website, email, and course platforms.
- Built-in marketing tools: Create funnels, automations, and email campaigns right inside Kajabi.
- No transaction fees: You keep 100% of your earnings on all plans (minus payment processor fees).
- 24/7 support: Get help whenever you need it with their customer support team.
- Mobile apps: Members can access your content and community on the go.
Pricing
- Hobby: $9/month
- Pro: $99/month.
Pros
Cons
What is Thinkific?
So, you’re thinking about Thinkific?
It’s a popular platform for creating and selling online courses. Lots of people use it, from individual creators to big businesses.
It’s designed to make it relatively easy to build your courses and get them out there.
Also, explore our favorite Thinkific alternatives
Our Take
Unlock your expertise with Thinkific and create unlimited courses for an unlimited number of students. Build a professional, branded online school and keep 100% of your revenue with zero transaction fees.
Key Benefits
- Powerful Course Builder: You can create high-quality, professional courses easily. It uses a simple drag-and-drop builder to organize videos, quizzes, and text.
- Zero Transaction Fees: On their paid plans, Thinkific doesn’t take a cut of your sales. You keep all the money you earn, minus standard payment processing fees.
- Complete Customization: You can fully brand your online school to match your business. This helps you build a strong, professional presence.
Pricing
- Basic: $36/month.
- Start: $74/month.
- Grow: $149/month.
Pros
Cons
Feature Comparison
Skool vs Thinkific Feature Comparison Skool is the ultimate community building platform that prioritizes engagement, whereas Thinkific offers a solid platform with robust course building and sales tools for most course creators in the online course platform market.
1. Primary Focus and Goal
- Skool: The primary focus is building an active community and boosting student engagement through gamification and integrated discussion forums, serving as a clean alternative to a facebook group.
- Thinkific: Thinkific’s primary focus is providing a comprehensive course building solution to help most course creators easily create courses and successfully sell courses successfully, focusing on content delivery.
2. Community Features and Engagement
- Skool: The core features are centered on community engagement, offering a seamless skool community experience with built-in leaderboards, points, and group discussions.
- Thinkific: Thinkific offers a community feature, but it is an add-on and less integrated; for strong student engagement, most course creators still rely on other platforms.
3. Course Creation and Structure
- Skool: The course creation process is deliberately simple and straightforward, allowing users to create courses with video content and offering unlimited courses on its single plan.
- Thinkific: Thinkific helps course creators with a robust course building platform, offering interactive lessons, quizzes, assignments, and detailed course content structure.
4. Sales Tools and Marketing Features
- Skool: Offers limited marketing features and sales tools; creators must use external services for email marketing and funnel building to boost sales.
- Thinkific: Thinkific offers strong marketing features and sales tools, including built-in email marketing, the ability to create promotions, and an affiliate program to boost sales.
5. Website and Landing Pages
- Skool: Is just a platform for community and courses, with a basic landing page builder for the group and no ability to create a full course website.
- Thinkific: Features a full site builder and landing page builder, providing multiple professional looking themes and course pages to sell courses successfully.
6. Pricing and Unlimited Courses
- Skool: Skool offers one simple, flat-rate fee for unlimited courses and unlimited members, providing complete control over cost predictability.
- Thinkific: Thinkific pricing plans are tiered, and while even the basic plan allows for unlimited courses, more advanced sales tools and features require higher tiers.
7. Branding and Custom Domain
- Skool: Offers limited customization options; the skool community interface is simple and clean but looks the same across all groups, and custom domain is not a core feature.
- Thinkific: Provides extensive customization options and allows creators to connect a custom domain and remove thinkific branding on paid plans, giving full control over the course website.
8. User Interface and Technical Skills
- Skool: The user interface is highly user friendliness and intuitive, making it extremely easy to use and requiring minimal technical skills to set up your first course.
- Thinkific: Offers a powerful user interface with a drag and drop editor, but its vast array of creation tools and features means it has a steeper learning curve than Skool.
9. Analytics and Progress Tracking
- Skool: Analytics are focused on community feature metrics and measuring student engagement within the discussion forums and leaderboards.
- Thinkific: Provides thinkific analytics, offering deeper insights into course performance, video watch rates, and progress tracking for student management.
10. Digital Products and Payment Options
- Skool: Skool offers primarily memberships and course access, with a single payment option that automatically handles the payment processing.
- Thinkific: Thinkific offers diverse products including digital downloads, courses, and coaching, with multiple payment options (subscriptions, payment plans), allowing students to easily pay.
11. Support and Mobile App
- Skool: Skool offers a highly rated skool mobile app for both iOS and Android, which is a key feature for on-the-go access, and relies on community support for quick queries.
- Thinkific: Thinkific helps creators with extensive resources and offers live chat support on higher-tiered plans, providing a solid platform for the complete control of a serious business.
What to Look For When Choosing a Community Platform?
Beyond the features already discussed, here are some additional key considerations:
- Ease of Use: Is the platform easy to navigate for both admins and members? A clunky interface can hinder adoption.
- Scalability: Can the platform grow with your community? Consider member limits, storage, and bandwidth.
- Support: Is there adequate documentation, tutorials, and responsive customer support?
- Security: Does the platform offer robust security measures to protect your community data?
- Community Culture: Does the platform’s design and features align with the type of community you want to build?
- Moderation Tools: Does the platform provide tools to help you manage and moderate your community effectively?
- Accessibility: Is the platform accessible to all users, including those with disabilities?
- Analytics & Reporting: Does the platform provide insights into community activity and member behavior?
- Trial Period: Is a free trial or demo available to test the platform before committing?
Final Verdict
So, Skool vs Thinkific – who wins?
It depends entirely on your priorities.
If building a vibrant, engaged community is your primary goal, Skool is the clear winner.
Its integrated platform and gamification features make it ideal for fostering connections.
However, if your focus is creating and selling highly customized online courses with advanced marketing tools, Thinkific is the stronger choice.
We’ve rigorously tested both platforms, and our experience shows that aligning your platform with your specific needs is crucial.
Don’t just take our word for it – explore both platforms yourself!
But based on our testing, for community-first creators, Skool takes the crown.
More of Skool
Here’s a brief comparison of Skool against the listed alternatives:
- Skool vs Circle: Skool integrates community with gamified courses, while Circle focuses primarily on customizable community building.
- Skool vs Teachable: Skool blends community with courses and gamification; Teachable centers on course creation with community as an add-on.
- Skool vs GoHighLevel: Skool is for community/courses with gamification; GoHighLevel is a broad marketing automation platform, including community features.
- Skool vs MightyNetworks: Skool emphasizes gamification within its community/course structure; MightyNetworks offers a wider range of content, event, and community options.
- Skool vs Bettermode: Skool offers integrated courses and gamification; Bettermode provides deeper customization for branded community experiences.
- Skool vs Thinkific: Skool combines community, courses, and gamification; Thinkific is primarily a course platform with community features.
- Skool vs LearnWorlds: Skool adds gamification to community and courses; LearnWorlds focuses on interactive online courses with integrated communities.
- Skool vs Swarm: Skool integrates courses and gamification with the community; Swarm focuses on structured, interest-based community interactions.
- Skool vs Disco: Skool includes gamified courses and community; Disco specializes in cohort-based learning and learning communities.
- Skool vs Kajabi: Skool is focused on community and courses with gamification, while Kajabi is an all-in-one business platform that includes courses, marketing, and community.
- Skool vs Wylo: Skool provides a platform for creators with courses and gamification; Wylo connects people through interest-based community discovery and interaction.
- Skool vs Whop: Skool offers a creator platform with gamified communities and courses; Whop is a marketplace and platform for selling access to communities and digital goods.
More of Thinkific
Here are brief comparisons of Thinkific against the specified alternatives:
- Thinkific vs Skool: Thinkific is a core course platform; Skool combines community, courses, and gamification.
- Thinkific vs Swarm: Thinkific is a course platform with a community; Swarm focuses on structured community engagement.
- Thinkific vs Kajabi: Thinkific is primarily a course platform; Kajabi is an all-in-one marketing, course, and website builder.
- Thinkific vs Teachable: Thinkific and Teachable are both leading platforms focused on creating and selling online courses.
- Thinkific vs GoHighLevel: Thinkific is a course platform, while GoHighLevel is a broad marketing automation platform that includes courses and a community.
- Thinkific vs MightyNetworks: Thinkific is a course platform with a community; MightyNetworks integrates community, courses, and content more deeply.
- Thinkific vs Bettermode: Thinkific is a course platform; Bettermode focuses on building highly customizable community spaces.
- Thinkific vs LearnWorlds: Thinkific is a course platform; LearnWorlds specializes in interactive courses and learning communities.
- Thinkific vs Circle: Thinkific is a course platform with a community; Circle focuses purely on building standalone communities.
- Thinkific vs Disco: Thinkific is a general course platform; Disco is tailored for cohort-based learning communities.
- Thinkific vs Wylo: Thinkific is a course platform; Wylo connects individuals via interest-based groups/communities.
- Thinkific vs Whop: Thinkific is a course platform with a community; Whop sells access to communities and digital products via a marketplace.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Skool better than Thinkific?
Neither platform is universally “better.” Skool excels at community building, while Thinkific is stronger for course creation. The best choice depends on your specific needs and priorities. If community is your focus, choose Skool. If courses are paramount, Thinkific is likely a better fit.
Can I sell courses on Skool?
Yes, you can sell courses on Skool. While Skool’s primary focus is community, it integrates course functionality to complement the community experience. However, the course creation features are not as extensive as those offered by Thinkific.
Can I build a community on Thinkific?
Thinkific offers community features, but they are not as deeply integrated as Skool’s. Thinkific’s community tools are more of an add-on, whereas community is the core of Skool.
Which platform is easier to use, Skool or Thinkific?
Skool is generally considered more user-friendly, especially for community management. Thinkific, with its broader range of features, can have a steeper learning curve, particularly for those new to course platforms.
What kind of businesses are best suited for Skool and Thinkific?
Skool is ideal for businesses focused on building engaged communities around a specific topic or niche. Thinkific is better suited for businesses primarily selling online courses and needing robust marketing and course customization tools.
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