Online course creation is a great source of earning passive income. But a thriving course business requires choosing the right platform.
Thinkific and Udemy are two of the best online course platforms in 2025. Both platforms differ in approaches and features for educators. Knowing the differences between them allows you to make the optimal selection for your goals.
In this blog, I’ll cover an in-depth review of both platforms across multiple important criteria. We'll analyze their strengths and weaknesses to simplify your decision-making process.
Let’s begin the comparison between Thinkific vs Udemy.
Thinkific vs Udemy: A Quick Overview
Before understanding each platform's strengths and limitations, let's dive into the Thinkific vs Udemy overview:
Overview of Thinkific
Thinkific is a powerful online course platform. It allows anyone from independent entrepreneurs to large businesses to create, market, and sell online courses. It has some flexible tools and a user-friendly interface for creating courses, interacting with students, and marketing.
Thinkific is widely used by educators, entrepreneurs and companies. The platform takes care of hosting, content delivery, payment processing, and analytics. This helps creators concentrate on their content and students’ experience.
Overview of Udemy
Udemy is a widely used marketplace of courses on numerous topics to learn from. The courses are basically taught by independent teachers. It includes both free and paid courses. These courses are flexible tools for resource purposes, whether personal or professional.
Self-paced learning, with an option to track progress, is what Udemy offers. Most of the courses have downloadable resources, assessments, and quizzes that serve to improve the enrichment of the course.
Thinkific vs Udemy: Feature Comparison
Both Thinkific and Udemy comes with several features for online course creators. I have put the five key differences here:
1. Business Model:
Thinkific: It is a platform for creating and selling your own courses under your own brand. You are completely in control of pricing, branding, and marketing.
Udemy: Udemy is a marketplace in which you can upload your courses and sell them to Udemy's existing students. Udemy handles most of the marketing and takes a cut of your sales.
2. Pricing and Revenue:
Thinkific: You can set your own prices for your courses. You retain most of the earnings from revenue, regardless of the transaction fees.
Udemy: Udemy has its own pricing structure, and they heavily discount on courses. You typically receive a smaller percentage of the revenue, especially if Udemy finds a student. For example, Udemy takes 63% of the revenue for courses that are purchased without any instructor coupon or course referral link.
3. Course Creation and Customization:
Thinkific: Thinkific offers you a customizable platform with a drag-and-drop builder and the ability to use a custom domain. You have greater control over the appearance and feel of your courses and website.
Udemy: It is easier to upload content and create courses on Udemy. It offers less customization, as you're building on their platform.
4. Marketing and Audience:
Thinkific: You are responsible for marketing your courses and building your own audience. Thinkific offers some marketing tools and integrations.
Udemy: Udemy handles a lot of the marketing and promotion to its large existing audience. However, you don't own the audience you build on Udemy.
5. Key Features:
Thinkific:
Custom pricing and revenue control.
Drip course content delivery.
Integrations with robust 3rd-party apps (e.g., PayPal, Zapier).
Custom domains and white-label branding.
More control over course design and structure.
Can bundle courses and offer subscriptions.
Udemy:
Large existing audience.
Handles marketing and promotion.
Relatively easier to get started.
It can be good for reaching a broad audience quickly.
Offers "Skill Gap Analysis" and "Skill Assessment" features.
Thinkific vs Udemy: Pros & Cons
Pros of Thinkific
The interface is straightforward - both you and your students can figure it out easily.
You get lots of freedom to customize your course site, pick templates, use your own domain, and make it look like your brand.
Your courses feel like they belong to you, as the branding control will be in your hands.
You can mix different content types and arrange them with simple drag-and-drop tools.
You can offer flexible payment options to your students with options like Stripe and PayPal. On top of that, you can offer one-time payments, monthly subscriptions, yearly billing, or multiple payment plans.
You decide how to price and sell your courses.
No caps on students or courses, even on basic plans - great if you want to scale up quickly.
They don't take a cut of each sale, so you keep more of what you earn.
Thinkific offers round-the-clock support through phone and email.
You can connect your course platform smoothly with tools you probably already use, like Mailchimp and Zapier.
Good for courses that include tests and assessments to check learning.
Cons of Thinkific
The extensive features of Thinkific can be daunting for newcomers, especially when attempting to use the more advanced features.
Pre-order courses are difficult to set up.
Bulk importing of students or courses is a slow process. It is necessary to upload CSV files manually, which can be very time-consuming.
Doesn't have its own marketplace to help sell courses, unlike some other platforms.
Users must rely on external platforms for blogging, requiring integration with other software.
Pros of Udemy
Tons of courses on just about everything - whether you want to learn coding, design, business skills, or creative stuff.
Courses are usually pretty affordable, and they're always running sales that make them even cheaper.
Once you buy a course, you can access it forever - no rushing to finish before it expires.
Learn at whatever speed works for you and go back to review things whenever you need to.
Perfect for busy people since you can study whenever and wherever you have time.
You get a certificate when you complete paid courses, which looks good on your resume or portfolio.
Most instructors actually work in their field, so you're learning real skills from people who use them every day.
Works great on your phone or tablet, and you can download lessons to watch without internet.
Each course has discussion areas where you can ask questions and chat with other students and the instructor.
Cons of Udemy
Udemy's open marketplace model means there's no guarantee of a consistent standard of instruction. Some courses are good, but some are poorly organized, not deep enough, or outdated.
Udemy certificates do not usually have official recognition as qualifications by institutions or employers.
Although some support is provided, the interaction level tends to be minimal, especially in large courses.
The system is subject to manipulation, so reviewing a course does not reflect the actual quality of a course.
There is a lack of consistency in pricing; courses are often found at an exorbitant price before being put on sale.
Udemy vs Thinkific: Pricing Plans
Pricing Plans of Udemy:
Udemy comes with 3 pricing plans.
1. Personal Plan: Starting at $8.25/month (Offer price, billed monthly or annually)
2. Team Plan: $30.00 a month/user (Billed annually)
3. Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing
Pricing Plans of Thinkific
Thinkific has 4 different pricing plans.
1. Basic: $36/month (billing annually)
2. Start: $74/month (billing annually)
3. Grow: $149/month (billing annually)
4. Thinkific Plus: Custom pricing
When Thinkific Wins Over Udemy
Thinkific tends to be a better choice over Udemy when the course creator prioritizes flexibility in pricing. It's also better for those who want control over their brand and marketing, plus a more customizable platform.
Thinkific actually shines and wins over Udemy when:
You want control over your pricing.
With Thinkific, you set whatever price makes sense for your course. Udemy? Not so much. They pretty much dictate how much you can charge.
Your brand matters to you.
Thinkific lets you make your course site look exactly how you want it, so everything feels like it's truly yours. It's like having your own learning academy instead of just another course on a crowded platform.
You'd rather do your own marketing.
Sure, Udemy has millions of students already browsing around, but with Thinkific, you're building your own audience who specifically wants to learn from you.
You need the fancy stuff.
Things like releasing content gradually over time or connecting to other tools you use - Thinkific has these features built in, while Udemy keeps things more basic.
You're thinking bigger picture.
If you want to create a membership site where people pay monthly to access all your content, Thinkific makes that possible. It's a whole different business model that Udemy just can't do.
You need phone support.
Thinkific offers phone support for higher-tier plans, which Udemy does not.
When Udemy is a Good Choice
Udemy is a good choice if:
You're just getting started and don't have an audience yet.
Udemy already has millions of people browsing for courses, so you don't have to worry about finding your first students from scratch.
You want something dead simple to use.
Udemy's setup is pretty straightforward - you can focus on creating your course instead of figuring out how to build a website.
You're okay with them handling the pricing.
Yes, Udemy decides what your course costs, but that also means you don't have to stress about pricing strategy.
Marketing isn't your thing.
Udemy promotes your courses for you (though they take a bigger cut when they do). If the thought of running Facebook ads or building email lists makes you want to hide, this could be perfect.
Go with Thinkific if you want to build your own course business with full control over everything - pricing, branding, marketing, the works. It's like owning your own store.
Pick Udemy if you want someone else to handle the heavy lifting while you focus on teaching. It's more like renting space in a busy mall - less control, but way more foot traffic.
Udemy is a good starting point for reaching a large audience with less control and customization.
However, Thinkific allows for greater control and potential for higher revenue through custom branding, pricing, and direct marketing.
Is there any other platforms that can help you create and sell courses and coaching more efficiently? Well, let me introduce you an all-in-one online course platform to help you create courses, manage coaching, build communities and monetize memberships.
EzyCourse: Your All-in-One Solution to Replace Thinkific and Udemy
EzyCourse is an “all-in-one” platform for online course creators. This is a strong alternative to Thinkific and Udemy. EzyCourse provides advanced sets of features to build, manage, and sell online courses.
You are not only restricted to courses, you can also build your own community inside your website. Plus, there are membership management tools to build a complete membership site. Again, you can offer coaching services to your students with EzyCourse coaching feature.
Overall, the platform focuses on ease of use, offers multiple monetization methods, customizable websites, and a branded mobile app.
Here’s a sneak-peak of major EzyCourse features:
EzyCourse as a Thinkific Alternative
Super user-friendly. Whether you're flying solo or running a business, EzyCourse keeps things simple. You won't get lost trying to figure out how to build and sell your courses.
Everything in one place. No more juggling between different tools for creating courses, building a community, handling sales, or marketing your stuff. EzyCourse has it all under one roof.
Cost-Effective. EzyCourse offers a more affordable pricing compared to Thinkific, with selected plans offering free access to features. With EzyCourse, you can pay nearly 50% of the price of Thinkific while getting double the features.
Several Monetization Options. Beyond courses, EzyCourse offers you various ways to generate revenue, including communities, memberships, and digital product sales. The platform also supports physical product sales, subscription sites, events, appointments, and more.
White-label Branding. With this platform, you can get a branded mobile app for free with selected plans. Unlike Thinkific, EzyCourse’s white-label mobile app supports everything you need to grow. It doesn't charge you extra for going mobile. It’s a workable solution designed to offer you total freedom and control.
E-commerce tools. EzyCourse provides a complete e-commerce solution with features like shopping cart integration and support for various payment gateways.
Facebook-like Community Creation. You can create your Facebook-like community inside your own website. This is more engaging and intuitive than the Thinkific community. Unlike Thinkific, EzyCourse provides unlimited communities, clickable links to posts, approval options, instant notifications, and so on.
24/7 Dedicated Support. EzyCourse is the best when you are tired of asking the Thinkific support forum and talking about reliable customer support.
Creative Marketing Tools. Thinkific takes additional costs for marketing integrations. But in EzyCourse, you have unlimited email marketing and no extra costs for marketing features because everything is available on EzyCourse.
EzyCourse as an Udemy Alternative
It's actually everything you need in one spot. EzyCourse handles course creation, website building, community management, payments, and email marketing all together. With Udemy, you're basically just renting shelf space in their store.
You're actually in charge. Want to set your own prices? Design your own brand experience? With EzyCourse, it's your show. Udemy calls the shots on pricing and keeps your students feeling like they belong to Udemy, not you.
Way more ways to make money. Sure, you can sell courses, but EzyCourse also lets you do memberships, digital products, bundles - over 20 different revenue streams. Udemy? Just course sales, and they take a big chunk.
Your students can actually talk to each other. EzyCourse has forums, groups, and chat features built in. It creates a real learning community instead of just people watching videos alone.
You can have your own mobile app. EzyCourse lets you create branded apps for phones and tablets. Your students get an experience that feels completely yours, not like they're using some generic platform.
Built-in marketing tools that actually work. Sales funnels, landing pages, email campaigns - EzyCourse has all this stuff ready to go. With Udemy, you're pretty much on your own for marketing.
Plays nice with other tools. EzyCourse connects with way more third-party apps and services than Udemy does. It's built to be the central hub of your online business, not just a place to dump courses.
EzyCourse, as an LMS platform, often offers more extensive integration options. It supports various aspects of online learning and business operations.
Key Benefits of Using EzyCourse at a Glance
Course Creation: Drag-and-drop interface for simple course building.
Live Classes: Built-in support for live classes with Zoom integration.
Coaching: Offer 1:1 or group coaching features.
Community Building: Tools for building and managing online communities.
Drip Content: Schedule content delivery to students over time.
Quizzes and Assignments: Assessments of student learning.
Memberships: Turn your website into a complete membership website.
Mobile App: A branded app for course delivery and community engagement.
Payment Integrations: Easy integration with popular payment gateways.
Email Marketing: Integrated email marketing features for course promotion and student engagement.
Final Verdict: Thinkific vs Udemy vs EzyCourse?
If you prioritize building a branded learning experience and have a strategy for attracting audiences, Thinkific becomes strong. Thinkific offers more control over branding, pricing, and customer relationships than most other competing online learning platforms today. If you're looking for a platform with a built-in audience and don't mind less control, Udemy works well.
Udemy provides immediate access to millions of potential students but limits your branding and pricing flexibility for courses. The ultimate winner depends entirely on your specific goals, resources, and long-term business strategy for online education success.
Ultimately, the right platform depends on your goals, resources, and long-term business strategy.
But what if you want the best of both worlds?
That’s where EzyCourse comes in. You can run everything under your own brand, get a free white-label mobile app, build courses, create communities, monetize memberships, and market like a pro…all in one platform.
With intuitive course building, integrated marketing, and competitive pricing, EzyCourse gives you full control without compromise. Start your free trial for 30-days today and grow your online course business with confidence.
FAQs
What are the key differences between Thinkific and Udemy?
The key difference between Thinkific and Udemy is that Thinkific allows you to run your business any way you like when Udemy likes to have control over how you operate.
Thinkific is like getting your own storefront where you can set up your online school exactly how you want it. Udemy is more like setting up a booth at a huge flea market where tons of people are already shopping around.
With Thinkific, you have more control over your course design, students’ data, branding, marketing, and pricing. On the other hand, Udemy has less control and revenue sharing, along with already built-in traffic and marketing.
How does each platform handle marketing and audience reach?
Udemy does the heavy lifting here - they've got millions of people browsing their site, and they'll promote your course to them. With Thinkific, you're on your own to find and attract students. It's more work upfront, but you're building your own audience who specifically wants to learn from you.
How do Thinkific and Udemy handle course and content creation?
Both make it pretty easy to build courses with drag-and-drop tools, and you can use videos, PDFs, quizzes, whatever you need. The difference is that Thinkific lets you make everything look like it's truly yours - custom web address, your own branding, the whole nine yards.
How does customer support differ between the two platforms?
The Thinkific customer support team focuses on helping you build and run your online school business. Udemy is more about helping you navigate their platform and get your course published.
Which platform is better for beginners with limited marketing experience?
If marketing makes you break out in a cold sweat, Udemy's probably your friend. They've already got the customers - you just need to make a good course. Thinkific works better if you already have some followers or you're comfortable with the idea of promoting yourself.
Which platform is better for long-term growth and scaling?
EzyCourse wins here. You're building something that's actually yours - your brand, your audience, your business. Other platforms are great for getting started, but eventually you might feel like you're just another fish in their very big pond.
