Wondering whether you should create and sell courses on Thinkific vs Mighty Networks? You’re not alone. In fact, these are two of the most popular platforms for digital creators in this day and age. As a matter of fact, both of these solutions claim to be home to 50,000+ educators & businesses.
But, the livelihood of your business - whether you’re using this as a jumping-off point or you’re considering switching from an alternative provider - is largely rooted in the specific platform you build on. You need a solution that empowers you to reach your goals - not hold you back or create headaches.
The good news? Both of these solutions are excellent choices. Really. You can’t go wrong either way. But, you’re here because you want the best of the best - and we’re going to help you find it.
At first glance, Thinkific and Mighty Networks appear to be the same solution for creators. But as you’ll discover below, that is far from the truth. In fact, these platforms are vastly different - despite the fact that they help creators achieve the same goals.
That’s because Thinkific is purely based on course creation - whereas Mighty Networks allows you to curate communities, and then create courses based around those communities.
We’ll break this comparison between Mighty Networks vs Thinkific in greater detail below to help you make the right choice for your business. Let’s start with a brief overview of each platform on its own before we get into the intricacies that separate each from the other.
Thinkific vs Mighty Networks: The Basics of Each Platform Explained
Maybe you’ve already done your homework and researched these two platforms individually - and you just want to see a side-by-side comparison of the two. If so, you can skip this section and move on to the next.
But for those of you who are just starting this journey of finding the right course creation platform, we’re going to provide a brief overview of Mighty Networks and Thinkific individually to set the stage for the remainder of our conversation today.
A Brief Overview of Thinkific
Thinkific is one of the most trusted solutions for educators and entrepreneurs who sell their knowledge or experience.
In fact, Thinkific creators have earned a cumulative $650+ million on the platform! And with a 4.7-star rating on Trustpilot, the experience you’ll have creating and selling courses on Thinkific is sure to be a positive one.
The platform focuses on keeping things simple for creators - no design or technical experience is necessary. This short learning curve means you can get started selling what you know fast. And, there is a multitude of ways you can do that - create courses with any content type, sell downloadable content, offer live lessons on Zoom, and more.
Plus, Thinkific empowers you to grow your business through a variety of sales and marketing tools at your fingertips. And recently, the platform rolled out its community feature - so you can sell recurring memberships as well. There are four different plans available:
- Free ($0/month): Test-drive the solution with 1 course, 1 community, 2 spaces per community, unlimited students, and a fully integrated e-commerce store among other features/
- Basic ($36/month): Take your business to the next level with everything from the free plan along with unlimited courses, 5 spaces in your community, custom domain, coupons & discounts, and affiliate selling.
- Start ($74/month): Unlock additional features to enhance student engagement and experience - including 5 more spaces in your community, Thinkific mobile, assignments, bundles, memberships, live lessons, advanced course-building options, and advanced website code editing.
- Grow ($149/month): Grow your business in ways you never thought possible with 3 communities at 20 spaces/community, 2 admins, priority email support, the removal of Thinkific branding, bulk student emailing abilities, bulk enrollments, and API access.
Thinkific also offers a Plus Plan for enterprise clients, allowing for a more powerful, scalable solution. But now, let’s introduce the other side of the coin: Mighty Networks.
A Brief Overview of Mighty Networks
Mighty Networks is another excellent platform to grow your business on - whether you have 30 students or 30,000 students. It’s trusted by the likes of Ted, Fortune, Lifebook, and 50,000 other brands and creators.
However, the way you go about selling your knowledge or experiences is vastly different on Mighty Networks. That’s because course creation is a secondary offering on the platform. Instead, everything is focused on community.
Mighty Networks believes that when community is at the forefront of your business, you’re able to create magical member experiences that are simply not possible with a standard Facebook group or other platforms - like Thinkific.
With that said, you’re still able to create thriving course businesses on Mighty Networks - but each course is based on a specific community. This allows you to segment your information business in creative ways.
There are 2 main plans on Thinkific, along with an enterprise-level tier for big brands that need custom branding at every step of the funnel. We’ll break down the Community and Business plans below:
- Community ($33/month): Best for beginners, you’re able to create a community with live streaming, chat, memberships, events, and more - all on your own branded website. Chances are, though, you’re more interested in the Business plan - as that’s the tier at which you unlock course creation capabilities.
- Business ($99/month): You can use this plan ot grow your business with online courses - featuring live cohort course creation, featured pages & events, analytics & member data, and Zapier APIs & workflows to automate common tasks and create a seamless, business.
On both these plans, you’re able to offer your students an intuitive app experience that takes learning on the go. This is a huge advantage Mighty Networks has over Thinkific.
Speaking of which - let’s start comparing and contrasting each of these platforms side by side and help you gain a clear, confident understanding of where you should start building your offerings.
Thinkific vs Mighty Networks: Where Does Each Platform Have an Edge Over the Other?
We do want to reiterate that both Mighty Networks and Thinkific have created awesome solutions for digital entrepreneurs who want to sell their knowledge or experience. If you’re picking between one of the two, you can’t go wrong.
With that said, each of these solutions is geared toward a specific type of creator. Depending on your preferences and goals, you’ll skew towards one or the other. Our goal is to help you feel confident choosing between the two after breaking down 3 important factors: course creation, community, and marketing abilities.
Course Creation Capabilities, Ease of Use, & Student Experience
You are here reading this guide because you want to build a thriving digital business selling courses. So, it goes without saying that course creation capabilities, ease of use, and student experience should be at the forefront of your decision.
Both platforms offer unlimited courses for unlimited students (assuming you’re on Mighty Networks’ Business plan). They utilize customizable landing pages where you can drag and drop modules to build a unique, engaging learning experience. You can drip content, create public and private courses, and bundle offerings as well.
But where Thinkific has an edge in terms of creation is the theme templates you can jumpstart your course with. This will save you time and the headaches of having to start from scratch each time you want to create a new page or course.
Now - Mighty Networks is a great way to offer courses, too. You can customize your course with ease - offering lessons, modules, and a variety of types of content that can be uploaded. That ranges from pre-recorded videos to live cohort courses. You can even use PDFs as part of your learning experience.
But, the course creation and ease of use aren’t what matters most. It’s your students’ experiences that you should prioritize. And each platform has some unique advantages over the other in this regard.
For example, Mighty Networks offers a mobile app where students can take learning on the go. You can even send push notifications for when you go live or post new content. This allows for a seamless learning experience for your students no matter where they are - giving it a slight edge over Thinkific.
On the other hand, Thinkific supports quizzes and surveys in a really unique way that drives better student engagement. This is something that isn’t possible with Mighty Networks - so keep that in mind.
Community Features to Supercharge Your Business
Now, selling information in the form of courses, webinars/live lessons, and digital downloads is just part of the process. A thriving course business also relies on community - where you can interact with your students in a more engaging way, and where your students can interact with each other.
And as we’ve mentioned a few times, Mighty Networks has a dramatic edge here over Thinkific. That’s because everything you build at Mighty Networks starts with community. You create your community, and then build courses around that community.
Think of it like having your own Facebook group - but with more advanced features specifically for educational purposes. And, you’re not competing with an algorithm or ads that try to steal attention from your members.
That’s not to say you can’t create a sense of community on Thinkific - but the solution isn’t nearly as robust. And, you only get community-building capabilities on the Start plan and upwards - whereas community is available through all Mighty Networks plans.
Marketing Abilities to Grow Your Student Base
You can create the best course and community possible - but what’s the point if you’re unable to get your offerings in front of the right individuals? That’s why we want to touch on the importance of marketing abilities to grow your student base, too.
Both solutions grant you a suite of marketing tools to leverage along the way. For example, Thinkific allows you to promote your online course through features, bundles, and affiliate marketing for existing members. And the website builder supports SEO strategy as well through blogging.
Mighty Networks empowers you to grow too, integrating with email marketing solutions like ConvertKit. And, the solution supports other powerful integrations to grow your business like Wordpress, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, and more.
In the end, we view this as a wash - as both Mighty Networks and Thinkific provide you with a few tools for growth, but neither is really all that impressive.
Comparing Mighty Networks vs Thinkific Plans and Pricing
We never recommend making business decisions based on price alone - but it’s still an important piece of the puzzle. After all, this affects your profitability.
You are going to work tirelessly to get your business off the ground and start earning an income - it goes without saying you want to keep as much of that cash in your pocket as possible.
So, let’s compare Mighty Networks’ Business Plan vs Thinkific’s Start Plan - as these are the closest in terms of features and pricing. At first glance, Thinkific is the more affordable option at $79/month compared to $99/month. However, the gap between the two is actually much more than just $20/month.
That’s because Thinkific charges no transaction fees across their entire range of plans. On the other hand, Mighty Networks takes 2% of all purchase run through their platform on the Business Plan (and 3% on the Community Plan).
That doesn’t sound like much, but it can really add up. Depending on which platform you were leaning towards before this comparison of price, this may make your decision easier or harder. So - let’s bring it all to a close by offering our recommendation between Thinkific vs Mighty Networks below…
So, Which is Better Between Thinkific vs Mighty Networks?
Maybe you’ve already started to make your decision between Mighty Networks vs Thinkific based on our conversation so far. Now, we’re going to really drive it home by giving you our opinion.
We’ve reviewed and compared countless platforms here at Ship 30 for 30. As digital creators ourselves, we use these platforms to earn an income - and thus, we know firsthand what matters most to you in a solution.
The best way we can summarize this section is by utilizing the Creator Friendliness Index. This is an unbiased rating given to a platform based on 20 different factors. As the name suggests, the goal of this index is to help creators choose the platform that is most “friendly” to them - in terms of pricing, support, features/capabilities, and more.
And, if we’re just going off this index, Thinkific takes the cake. Their rating of 84.42 is second only to Podia - whereas you’ll have to scroll down a ways to find Mighty Networks at just 59.74.
All of this is to say that from purely a course creation standpoint, we believe Thinkific is the premier solution. They still allow you to curate a thriving community, too. While Mighty Networks does have a great community-building process, it falls short in a few key areas - and you shouldn’t settle for less.
Don’t Pull the Trigger Before Considering These Alternatives!
Now - you can take what you’ve learned today and choose between Mighty Networks vs Thinkific. Or, you can consider a few other alternative solutions that achieve the same goals - perhaps in a more seamless manner!
We mentioned earlier that we’ve reviewed countless course creation platforms, and we’ve got a few resources that you may be interested in.
You can learn more about how Mighty Networks stacks up to the competition in our guides to Mighty Networks vs Kajabi or Circle vs Mighty Networks. Or, learn about Thinkific vs Kajabi or Podia vs Thinkific. We’ve also built resources on Podia vs Teachable, Circle vs Tribe, Podia vs Kajabi, and Learnworlds vs Podia.
We’re here to help you make the most of this decision to sell your expertise - no matter what platform you end up choosing!
Parting Thoughts on Mighty Networks vs Thinkific
Hopefully, you have complete clarity on which solution is right for you in the Mighty Networks vs Thinkific debate. In summary, they’re both awesome platforms for jumpstarting your information products business.
But, Thinkific is a better solution purely for course creation, while Mighty Networks has the edge in community building. With that said, you can still create great membership experiences on Thinkific - so we give that platform the edge.
So, with that said, it’s time to bring our Thinkific vs Mighty Networks comparison to a close. Now, it’s time to get started with a free trial on either platform today!