In today’s competitive e-learning market, selecting the right platform for your online course business is a critical decision.

While Thinkific is a popular choice, it may not suit everyone’s needs. In this blog post, we’ll explore top Thinkific alternatives that offer unique features and benefits, and discover why Disco is the ideal choice for 2024 in empowering your learning business.

Key Takeaways:

• Explore alternatives to Thinkific for a learning management system that meets unique needs, budget constraints, and business goals.
• Disco is an advanced operating system designed specifically for learning businesses with powerful automation and comprehensive Slack integration.
• Choose Disco as the alternative to Thinkific to power your learning business, it offers all the features necessary for a seamless experience.

The Best Thinkific Alternatives

Opting for a Thinkific alternative can present a platform that aligns more closely with your unique needs and budget constraints for online course creation. With options ranging from free plans to feature-rich solutions, you can find the perfect learning management system that supports your unique course offerings and business goals. Some alternatives to Thinkific include:

• Disco. Your Modern Operating System for Innovative Online Courses
• Learnworlds. A Comprehensive Platform for Selling Online Courses
• Teachable. A User-Friendly Solution for First-Time Creators
• Kajabi. An All-in-One Content and Marketing Platform
• Podia. A Simple and Affordable Solution for Course Creators
• Mighty Networks. The Trailblazer in Online Course Creation Tool

From unlimited courses to third-party integrations, these alternatives offer diverse and core features that cater to various needs and preferences, including the ability to sell courses with minimal transaction fees.

Some platforms, like Disco, offer an innovative approach to learning experiences, while others provide more customization options and marketing tools for course creators.

Regardless of your specific needs, the exploration of Thinkific alternatives allows you to select the best online course platform poised to support the growth and success of your online course business.

Alternative #1: DISCO – Your Modern Operating System for Innovative Online Courses

Imagine an online course platform that not only offers an impressive array of features but also focuses on the needs of learning businesses. Disco is the modern operating system designed for this purpose, providing powerful automation, diverse learning formats, and comprehensive Slack integration making it suitable for any learning business plan.

Its flexibility and advanced online course builder make it the perfect solution as a Thinkific alternative that aims to deliver transformative learning experiences. Trusted by the industry giants in community-based learning and learning businesses such as altMBA, YSpace, WeAreNoCode, Agile Academy, and Eskwelabs--you are sure you're in good hands!

Disco's Core Features: Why Disco Stands Out Among Thinkific Alternatives?

Here are just some of the notable features of Disco:

Powerful Automation

• Efficiently streamlines community management by automating routine tasks, ensuring smoother operations.
• Integrates intelligent automation to enhance productivity, enabling operators to focus on strategic tasks rather than repetitive processes.

Deep Slack Integration

• Facilitates automated direct messages (DMs), reminders, and member engagement directly within Slack.
• Enhances real-time communication and collaboration within the community, improving overall engagement.

AI-powered Co-Pilot

• Disco's AI Co-pilot revolutionizes member management by automating responses and optimizing interactions for improved efficiency.
• Enhances community engagement through proactive assistance, providing personalized support to community members.

Comprehensive and Versatile Learning Products

• Offers a diverse array of formats and templates for cohort-based courses, events, paid memberships, and more.
• Provides a comprehensive suite of learning products to cater to various educational needs and preferences.

Simplified Operations

• Implements features like automated actions, member subgroups, course duplication, and actionable insights.
• Significantly reduces operators' workload, saving you 100s of hours of work and effort in managing the community and learning platform.

Seamless Learning experience

• Integrates learning, community, productivity, and communications into a unified and seamless experience.
• Enhances the overall learning journey by providing a cohesive and interconnected environment for both learners and operators.

Intuitive, Modular, and Customizable Design

• User-friendly and accessible for learners, ensuring an intuitive learning experience.
• Effortlessly customizable and aesthetically pleasing for operators, allowing them to tailor the platform to their specific needs and branding.

In summary, Disco provides learning businesses with an effective online course creation platform for learning, featuring streamlined community management, increased efficiency, and a consistent learning experience.

What industry giants are saying:

Alternative #2: LearnWorlds – A Comprehensive Platform for Selling Online Courses

LearnWorlds is an amazing cloud-based learning management system. It enables you to easily manage, sell, and create courses. It offers up to 20 pre-defined/custom user roles, bulk actions, and 24/7 premium support, along with interactive course elements such as assessments, quizzes, and course completion certificates.

However, despite its comprehensive features, Disco remains a stronger solution for learning businesses due to its complete and all-in-one learning platform with 24 notable features to help you create personalized learning journeys, scale your learning business, and increase community engagement without the hassle.

While LearnWorlds might suit certain e-learning businesses, it falls short in providing the community features and capabilities offered by Disco. With Disco, you gain access to powerful automation, diverse learning formats, and deep Slack integration, all of which are essential for delivering transformative learning experiences and growing your online course business.

Pros of LearnWorlds

• Interactive Learning Tools: With LearnWorlds, users can create engaging and interactive courses. The platform offers a range of course creation tools such as quizzes, certificates, interactive videos, and ebooks to enhance the learning experience.
• Customizable Course Player: LearnWorlds provides a customizable course player that can be tailored to match your brand. This allows users to deliver a unique and consistent brand experience to their students.
• Built-in Social Network: LearnWorlds comes with a built-in social network that promotes community learning. Users can create a vibrant online community where students can interact, exchange ideas, and learn from each other.

Cons of LearnWorlds

Despite LearnWorlds' comprehensive feature set, it does have certain limitations that may pose challenges for some e-learning businesses:

• Limited Customization: While LearnWorlds offers a range of customization options, it might not provide the level of flexibility required by some businesses. For instance, the platform might not fully support unique branding or specific course structures.
• Complex Interface: LearnWorlds' interface, while feature-rich, can be overwhelming for beginners. The learning curve might be steep for users who are not tech-savvy.
• Lack of Community Features: LearnWorlds focuses more on the course creation and delivery aspects, and less on building a learning community. It lacks the advanced community-building features that platforms like Disco offer.

Pricing of LearnWorlds

• The Starter Plan is priced at $24 per month (billed annually) and is ideal for new course creators. It includes a custom domain, unlimited paid courses, and marketing tools integration.
• The Pro Trainer Plan, priced at $79 per month (billed annually), is perfect for professional trainers. It offers everything in the Starter plan, plus unlimited courses, and a membership platform.
• The Learning Center Plan, priced at $249 per month (billed annually), is designed for high-volume course sales and includes everything in the Pro Trainer plan, plus 25 collaborators, bulk user actions, and automation.
• The High Volume & Corporate Plan is a custom-priced plan designed for large organizations and high-volume businesses. It includes everything in the Learning Center plan, plus premium onboarding, premium support, and a dedicated account manager.

Alternative #3: Teachable – A User-Friendly Solution for First-Time Creators

Teachable is a platform that helps you share your knowledge with others. It provides the necessary tools to easily create, manage, and market courses. It offers a beginner-friendly interface and drag-and-drop features, making it an attractive option for first-time creators who are looking for simplicity and ease of use.

Pros of Teachable

Teachable is a user-friendly platform ideal for beginners aiming to create and sell online courses. It offers creators the ability to engage their online audiences and monetize their knowledge through courses, coaching, and downloadable content.

Additionally, Teachable provides features like automated tax filings, fraud monitoring, chargeback support, and e-commerce optimization tools.

However, while Teachable’s straightforwardness and user-friendly design make it a viable choice for beginner course creators, it lacks the advanced features and capabilities that Disco offers, making Disco the preferred choice for learning businesses requiring a more robust and feature-rich platform.

Cons of Teachable

While Teachable offers user-friendly features for online course creation, it lacks the advanced capabilities and scalability found in platforms like Disco. Disco, on the other hand, is a comprehensive platform that emphasizes community-centric features and integrates learning, community, productivity, and communication.

It provides structured learning experiences with tools like quizzes and prerequisites, making it a superior choice for learning businesses that prioritize community engagement and structured learning.

Pricing of Teachable

The Free Plan is ideal for beginners, allowing them to publish one product type at no cost, but charges a $1 + 10% transaction fee.

The Basic Plan, priced at $39/month, provides foundational tools for business building. The Pro Plan, at $119/month, offers advanced tools for business scaling and removes transaction fees.

The Pro+ Plan, at $199/month, is designed for fast-growing businesses and allows for 200 courses, coaching products, digital downloads, and product bundles.

Lastly, the Business Plan, at $499/month, is designed for large-scale operations and allows for unlimited courses, coaching products, and digital downloads.

Alternative #4: Kajabi – An All-in-One Content and Marketing Platform

Kajabi is a powerful cloud-based platform designed to support course creators, online coaches, and other digital entrepreneurs. It provides a comprehensive suite of features for creating, marketing, and selling online courses.

As a website builder, it offers a range of customizable templates for creating landing pages, sales pages, and checkout pages, as well as marketing and sales tools including email marketing, affiliate program management, and advanced analytics and reporting.

Pros of Kajabi

Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that provides a comprehensive set of tools for content creation and marketing. It offers features like an affiliate program, built-in email marketing tools, marketing funnel templates, and 24/7 chat support for its Growth and Pro plans.

Cons of Kajabi

Kajabi has limitations in terms of user management and learning tools, making it less suitable for learning businesses that require advanced features and customization options.

Pricing for Kajabi

Kajabi's pricing tiers cater to various business stages: the $149/month Basic plan suits startups with 0 transaction fees and resources for up to 10,000 contacts.

The $199/month Growth plan supports expansion with increased product management and resources for up to 25,000 contacts.

The $319/month (annually billed) or $399/month Pro plan is for scaling operations, offering expanded capacity and unlimited resources for up to 100,000 contacts.

Alternative #5: Podia – A Simple and Affordable Solution for Course Creators

Podia is a platform that caters to the needs of online course creators, digital product sellers, and membership site owners. It provides a simple, user-friendly environment where creators can easily design, host, and sell their digital products.

Whether it's online courses, digital downloads, webinars, or subscription services, Podia provides all the tools needed to build a successful online business. Podia offers a complete suite of tools for managing your online business, including email marketing, messaging, and sales funnels.

It also provides a customizable storefront where you can showcase and sell your digital products. With its unlimited hosting, zero transaction fees, and 24/7 support, Podia makes it easy for creators to focus on what they do best - creating valuable content for their audience.

Pros of Podia

Podia is a user-friendly platform ideal for course creators and digital entrepreneurs. It charges no transaction fees in Mover & Shaker plans, allowing users to retain all profits.

The platform includes built-in email marketing tools for direct customer engagement and offers the ability to create membership sites for recurring revenue. Podia provides 24/7 customer support and allows for customization of digital storefronts for consistent branding.

Overall, Podia provides a comprehensive set of tools for successful online business operations.

Cons of Podia

Podia has fewer features and limited scalability when compared to platforms like Disco. For example, it may not be suitable for course creators who require advanced features and customization options to meet the growing needs of their learning business.

Pricing for Podia

Podia offers three different pricing plans to cater to various needs:

Free Plan - $0 a month

Priced at $0 per month, this plan includes 8% transaction fees, a full website, a community, 1 download, 1 coaching product, draft courses, draft webinars, optional email add-on, optional team add-on, chat support, affiliates, and third-party code.

Mover Plan - $39 a month

Priced at $39 per month (or $33 per month when billed annually), this plan does not include transaction fees. It offers a full website, a community, unlimited downloads, unlimited coaching, unlimited courses, and many more!

Shaker Plan - $89 a month

Priced at $89 per month (or $75 per month when billed annually), this plan also does not include transaction fees.

Alternative #6: Mighty Networks – The Trailblazer in Online Course Creation Tool

Mighty Networks has been a trailblazer in the online learning platform arena for over five years, shaping collaborative spaces and elevating learning experiences.

In addition, its platform has community and marketing features that make it a favorable choice for course creators aiming to reach a wide audience and allow instructors to tap into a vast audience of learners.

Comparable to Disco, it stands out among Thinkific alternatives with robust membership capabilities, currently expanding its reach to support communities and enhance online course management.

Pros of Mighty Networks:

• Affordability: Provides budget-friendly pricing suitable for communities of all sizes.
• Tenure: Enjoys strong brand recognition as an original online community platform.
• Community Aspects: Offers robust features to foster community curation and growth.

Cons of Mighty Networks:

• Navigation Challenges: Some users report difficulties navigating the platform.
• Setup Complexity: Administrators may face challenges in optimizing community experiences.
• Limited LMS Functionality: While excelling in community features, it may lack customization options for a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS).

Despite its strengths, Mighty Networks may prompt learning business operators to explore additional platforms. Platforms like Disco seamlessly blend community enrichment and learning exposure for a holistic member experience.

Pricing for Mighty Networks:

Community Plan - $33/month: Includes a dedicated website, native video, live streaming, group chat, and Zoom integration.

Business Plan - $99/month: Access to hosting online courses, community analytics, member data tracking, and Zapier API integration.

Mighty Pro - Custom: Tailored pricing for branded apps leveraging Mighty Networks for community and learning-based experiences, available in major app stores.

Why you should choose Disco as the alternative to Thinkific to power your learning business?

Disco is the ideal alternative to Thinkific, providing a powerful, flexible, and feature-rich platform that supports your unique course offerings and business goals. With options ranging from free plans to feature-rich solutions, Disco enables you to find the perfect learning management system that supports your learning business.

By choosing Disco as your Thinkific alternative, you can ensure your learning business thrives in today’s competitive e-learning market.

Our Final Note

In the saturated e-learning market, choosing the right platform is crucial. While Thinkific is popular, exploring alternatives is wise. Disco emerges as the optimal choice, offering an advanced operating system tailored for learning businesses. With powerful automation, comprehensive Slack integration, and transformative learning experiences, Disco stands out.

Join Disco for a 14-day trial, experience transformative learning, and power your business seamlessly. If you want to learn more about us, feel free to book a live demo with our sales rep so we can answer your queries accordingly.