Thinkific vs Teachable: which should you pick?

Both numbers below come from each company's own pricing page, read on the day this was written. If you sell full courses, one of these two is likely your pick. If you mostly sell single downloads, read the last two sections first, because a course platform may be more than you need.

What is the difference between Thinkific and Teachable?

There is not a huge gap in what they do. Both are course platforms. Both let you build a course, sell it with a checkout, and give buyers a login to watch the lessons. Both also sell coaching and digital downloads, not just courses.

The real difference is how they price it. Teachable has a low starting plan with a per-sale fee bolted on. Thinkific starts higher but does not add a platform fee on its plans. So the two platforms are close on features and far apart on how the money works. Neither has a free plan, and both run on a free trial instead. If you want communities, email and a website in the same tool, that is a different kind of product, and our guide to what Kajabi is covers that all-in-one route.

How much does each one cost?

Thinkific has three named plans: Start at $109 a month, Grow at $219, and Expand at $499, with a larger Plus plan sold by its team. Our breakdown of what Thinkific costs goes through what each plan limits.

Teachable also has three, and they start lower: Starter at $39 a month, Builder at $89, and Growth at $189, with a Custom plan you book a call for. Our write-up of what Teachable costs covers the same. Here is how the plans line up side by side, with Stakk in the table so you can see where a plain checkout lands.

Plan	Monthly	Transaction fee	Free trial
Thinkific Start	$109	None on top of card processing	30 days
Thinkific Grow	$219	None on top of card processing	30 days
Thinkific Expand	$499	None on top of card processing	30 days
Teachable Starter	$39	7.5%	7 days
Teachable Builder	$89	0%	7 days
Teachable Growth	$189	0%	7 days
Stakk	$0	10% + $0.50	Free to start

The prices above are the monthly rate. Both platforms charge less if you pay for a year up front.

Which one charges transaction fees?

This is the line that catches people. Teachable's cheapest plan, Starter at $39, carries a 7.5% transaction fee on top of card processing, as shown on the Teachable pricing page. Its Builder and Growth plans drop that fee to 0%. So the fee is the price of the cheap plan, and you buy your way out of it by moving up.

Thinkific does not add a platform transaction fee on any of its plans. The Thinkific pricing page says card processing is in line with Stripe and PayPal at 2.9%, and notes a third-party gateway fee that varies per plan type without publishing the amounts. Both platforms still pass on normal card processing, which runs around 2.9% plus a small fixed fee per sale. The difference is the extra platform cut, and only Teachable's entry plan has one.

Do they have order bumps and upsells?

Yes, both do, and on every plan. Thinkific lists order bumps and an After-Purchase Flow for upsells on all plans. Teachable lists order bumps and upsells too. An order bump is an extra item the buyer ticks on the checkout. An upsell is a second offer shown after they pay.

So neither platform makes you climb a tier to get the bump and the upsell. That is worth knowing, because on some tools those two sit behind the pricier plans. Here they are standard, which means the choice between Thinkific and Teachable does not come down to which one has them.

Which should you pick?

Run the math on how much you sell. If you are just starting and your sales are low, Teachable Starter at $39 a month is the smaller bill, even with the 7.5% fee, because 7.5% of a little is still a little. As your sales grow, that fee adds up, and at some point Thinkific Start at $109 with no platform fee, or moving to a Teachable plan with a 0% fee, works out cheaper.

So there is no single winner. Teachable wins on the lowest entry cost. Thinkific wins if you want no per-sale platform fee from day one. Do a rough sum: take your expected monthly sales, apply 7.5% on Teachable Starter, and compare that total bill against Thinkific Start at $109. Whichever is lower is your answer.

When is neither the right choice?

If you do not sell courses at all, a course platform is the wrong tool, and Stakk can be the wrong tool too. Stakk has no course hosting, no communities, no memberships, no call booking and no email marketing. It sells in US dollars only and caps prices at $999. It also stores no files: you paste a link to where your file lives, and Stakk emails that link to the buyer once they pay. If you want a full course player, pick Thinkific or Teachable. And if the cost of each sale is what decides it, use Systeme.io or Whop instead. Systeme.io has a free plan with 0% transaction fees, and Whop charges 2.7% + $0.30 per sale with no monthly fee. Both take less per sale than our 10% + $0.50.

What Stakk is good for is selling a download without a course wrapped around it. There is no monthly fee and no plan to pick. You connect your own Stripe account, so the money lands in your bank and we never hold it. The order bump rides the same charge as the product, so it carries one fee rather than two. The upsell after payment is a second charge, so our fee applies to it again. Both are on every account.

Want a checkout for downloads instead of a course platform?

If your product is a template, an ebook, a preset or any other file, you may not need Thinkific or Teachable at all. On Stakk you connect your own Stripe account, paste the link to your file, and add a bump and an upsell to any product. It is 10% + $0.50 a sale with card processing included, and a month with no sales costs nothing.

Start selling on Stakk, free