Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
Last updated
If you have Thinkific’s checkout page open right now, here are the real numbers, verified against Thinkific’s own live pricing page as of August 2026: four paid plans running $54–$219/month (or less billed annually), a flat 2.9% transaction fee on every paid tier, and a 30-day free trial rather than a permanent free plan. No plan is a bad deal on its own — but if your office is also running a member community alongside your courses, the total cost changes once you account for what Thinkific’s plans don’t fully replace.
Tip: try code CASRAI at checkout for 15% off, if the offer is currently active for this program — codes vary by vendor and aren’t guaranteed.
This guide breaks down Thinkific’s actual plan tiers, the transaction-fee math Thinkific doesn’t lead with on its pricing page, and the specific case — a professional society or research consortium running CPD courses and a member community — where Circle‘s bundled pricing comes out ahead. We’ll also say plainly where Thinkific is still the better buy.
Thinkific pricing plans and what’s actually included at each tier
Thinkific dropped its old “Free” plan tier; as of August 2026 the lineup is four paid plans plus a 30-day trial. All figures below are from Thinkific’s own /pricing page, checked August 2026 — confirm current pricing before you buy, since SaaS vendors revise tiers without much notice.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed annually | Communities | Certificates | Drip & quizzes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $54/mo | $40/mo (save $173/yr) | 1 | No (requires Start+) | Included |
| Start (most popular) | $109/mo | $82/mo (save $330/yr) | 1 | Yes | Included, plus assignments & memberships |
| Grow | $219/mo | $164/mo (save $660/yr) | 3 | Yes | Included, plus API access |
| Plus | Custom (contact sales) | Custom | Unlimited | Yes | Included, plus SSO, SCORM, AI teaching assistant |
Every tier includes unlimited courses — Thinkific doesn’t gate course count the way some competitors do. What changes as you go up is certificates (locked out of Basic), how many separate “communities” you can run, and support tier. Each Thinkific “community” is a discussion space tied to your courses — useful for course-cohort discussion, but a narrower feature than a standalone community platform: it doesn’t give you the spaces, events calendar, member directory, or gamification layer that a dedicated community tool like Circle builds around.
Thinkific transaction fees explained (and when they add up)
Here’s the number Thinkific’s pricing page doesn’t put front and center: every paid plan — Basic through Plus — carries a 2.9% transaction fee when you process payments through Thinkific Payments, its built-in processor. Unlike some platforms that waive their own cut at the top tier, Thinkific’s 2.9% applies uniformly across Basic, Start, Grow, and Plus (as of August 2026).
That fee is on top of your monthly subscription, and it scales with revenue, not seats — which is exactly when it starts to matter for a society or consortium selling CPD courses at volume. A concrete example: a research society selling $10,000/month in course enrollments pays roughly $290/month in transaction fees alone, on top of whatever plan they’re on. At $30,000/month in course sales, that’s $870/month — more than the Grow plan’s own subscription price. The fee doesn’t shrink as your program grows; it grows with it.
By comparison, Circle’s transaction fee is tiered and drops as you move up plans — 2% on Professional, 1% on Business, 0.5% on Circle Plus (verified via circle.so/pricing, August 2026) — which matters for the same reason: an organization running real course-sales volume pays less of it back out in processing costs the higher its plan.
Does Thinkific have a free trial or free plan?
Thinkific offers a 30-day free trial, no credit card required, with full access to explore the platform. It no longer offers a permanently free plan tier — that changed since Thinkific’s earlier “Free Forever” plan was retired; as of August 2026, Basic ($54/mo, or $40/mo billed annually) is the cheapest way to actually publish and sell a course. If you saw references elsewhere to a free Thinkific tier, that’s outdated — verify directly on Thinkific’s pricing page before assuming it still exists.
Circle vs Thinkific pricing for a 200-member research society
Here’s where the buying decision actually changes for a specific, common case: a professional society or research consortium running continuing-education (CPD) courses and a genuine member community — discussion spaces, events, a member directory — for a membership in the low hundreds.
To get certificates for CPD credit, that society needs at least Thinkific’s Start plan ($109/mo, or $82/mo annually). But Start’s “1 community” is a course-linked discussion feed, not a full community space. If the society’s real requirement is a proper member community — the kind professional associations actually run, with events and cross-cohort discussion — it typically ends up paying for Thinkific plus a separate, dedicated community platform in the same general price bracket, pushing combined software spend well past $200–$300/month before either platform’s transaction fee is even applied.
Circle’s Business plan ($199/mo) bundles unlimited courses with certificate-eligible completion tracking and a full community layer — spaces, events, live rooms, member directory — in one subscription, at one transaction fee (1%, versus Thinkific’s flat 2.9%). For a 200-member society running both a course program and a real community, that’s one bill instead of two, at a lower per-sale processing cost. It isn’t a universal win — see the honest tradeoff below — but for this specific, common shape of buyer, the bundled math favors Circle.
When Thinkific is still the better choice
Be honest about this: if what you actually need is a mature, dedicated course/LMS platform — drip scheduling, completion certificates, quizzes and graded assignments, SCORM compliance, an AI teaching assistant — Thinkific’s course tooling is more built-out than Circle’s. Thinkific has spent years as a dedicated course platform first; its assessment, certification, and content-sequencing features go deeper than Circle’s, which built courses as one module inside a broader community product. If your organization is delivering asynchronous CPD or certification training at real scale, with no meaningful community/member-space requirement attached, Thinkific is the more purpose-built tool and the transaction fee is a real but manageable cost of doing that well. Circle’s advantage here is specifically the bundled-community case above — not a blanket claim that it’s the better course platform.
FAQ
Is Thinkific’s transaction fee avoidable? Only by using an external checkout/payment integration where Thinkific supports it on higher tiers — confirm current support directly with Thinkific, since integration options change plan to plan.
Does Circle’s price include hosting for both courses and community content? Yes — courses, community spaces, events, and (on Business and up) workflows and API access are one subscription, not separate add-ons.
Which is cheaper for a pure course-only seller with no community need? Likely Thinkific Basic ($54/mo, or $40/mo annually) if certificates aren’t required — it’s the lower entry price when community isn’t part of the requirement.
See also our related coverage: Circle pricing in full, our Circle review, and Circle vs Skool vs Mighty Networks for how it stacks up against other community platforms, plus Kajabi vs Teachable if you’re evaluating other course-platform alternatives to Thinkific.
