Thinkific

What: Thinkific helps you set up your own website aimed at teaching and selling online courses, allowing you to set the price and terms

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Expected pay: varies

Husl$core: $$$$$

Commissions & fees: Free – $500 a month, depending on the plan you choose.

Where: Nationwide

Requirements: Have a course to teach and the legal right to teach it

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Thinkific Review:

Thinkific allows individuals to design and publish an online course. It can be anything from “How to Master Excel,” to “How to Improve Your Abs.” And the company offers a host of free tutorials to help you through the process, making it easy to design, create and market your course.

However, Thinkific doesn’t dictate how much you charge for your course, nor does it limit your ability to communicate directly with your clients. 

“You have total control over your clients, your marketing, your brand, your price,” said Patrick McGill, Thinkific’s business development manager. In fact, Thinkific often runs silently in the background of well-known teaching sites, such as HootSuite, McGill says.

The fact that the course was prepared with Thinkific software would only be disclosed if you happened to choose the company’s free plan. In that case, Thinkific places its logo on your site (much like Mail Chimp does with its free email service).

You do the marketing

What Thinkific does not do, however, is help you sell your course.  McGill suggests establishing a following elsewhere — Facebook, Instagram, or even at competing teaching site Udemy — before launching on the Thinkific platform.

Why does SideHusl rate Thinkific so much more highly than Udemy? Because it will not discount your class. Udemy will. And you can use the platform for free, if you’re willing to go without some bells and whistles. Udemy charges sometimes astounding commissions on your course sales. And while Teachable has a free option, it does charge commissions on course sales. Thinkific’s free plan is truly free. 

If you want to offer multiple classes or have several members have administrative access, you’ll need to pay for a monthly subscription. These subscriptions cost between $74 and $499 per month. However, they give you access to a variety of teaching, course and community-building tools and can supercharge your sales, too. So, when you’re ready to push your course to the next level of sales, we think these are products worth paying for. You can sign up for Thinkific here.

What their users say (from SoftwareAdvice). 

“Thinkific won’t host all your marketing needs, but it will nail your online course, and I’m a big fan of that. They also offer GREAT webinars and opportunities for professional development, which I really appreciate. I really do feel like they want me to succeed.”

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