Teachable vs. Thinkific (2026): Which Has Better Transaction Fees?

Most online course creators lose 5–10% of their revenue to transaction fees without realizing it until they’ve already scaled. The difference between Teachable and Thinkific on this front isn’t just about percentages—it’s about whether you’re building a business that keeps more of what it earns or one that quietly bleeds margin with every sale. This article helps you decide which platform structure actually protects your profitability in 2026.

Why this decision is harder than it looks: zero transaction fees sound great until you realize they often come bundled with higher base costs or feature limitations that force you into expensive workarounds.

Why Your Online Course Platform Choice Matters Right Now

The digital education market continues to expand as more professionals monetize expertise through online courses. For independent creators and small education businesses, platform costs directly determine whether a course generates sustainable profit or just covers overhead. In 2026, the competitive landscape includes dozens of platforms, but transaction fee structures remain one of the most overlooked cost drivers.

Choosing the wrong platform doesn’t just mean paying more per sale. It means compounding losses as you scale, reduced flexibility to experiment with pricing, and potential migration headaches if you need to switch later. The platforms that look cheapest upfront often extract the most revenue over time through hidden fees or forced upgrades.

What Online Course Platforms Actually Solve for Creators

Online course platforms like Thinkific (a course delivery and monetization tool for educators and entrepreneurs) and Teachable (an all-in-one platform for selling courses and coaching products) handle the operational backbone of digital education businesses. They manage content hosting, student enrollment, payment processing, and basic analytics so creators can focus on teaching rather than infrastructure.

These platforms also provide tools for marketing automation, community engagement, and business growth. The value proposition is straightforward: instead of stitching together separate services for video hosting, payment gateways, email marketing, and student management, you get a unified system. The trade-off is that you’re locked into the platform’s feature set and cost structure, which is why the transaction fee question matters so much.

Who Should Seriously Consider Teachable or Thinkific

Educators, coaches, and subject matter experts looking to monetize knowledge without building custom infrastructure will find both platforms viable. If you’re launching your first course or scaling from a few students to hundreds, these tools remove technical barriers and let you focus on content quality and student outcomes.

Entrepreneurs who need a robust platform for digital product sales—especially those selling multiple courses, memberships, or coaching packages—benefit from the integrated payment processing and student management features. Creators who prioritize ease of use over deep customization will appreciate the guided setup and pre-built templates both platforms offer.

• Solo creators monetizing expertise in coaching, consulting, or niche education
• Small businesses building recurring revenue through course libraries or memberships
• Educators transitioning from in-person teaching to scalable online delivery
• Entrepreneurs who want to avoid managing separate tools for hosting, payments, and email

Who Should NOT Use These Platforms

If you’re primarily interested in free content hosting without monetization goals, both platforms will feel overbuilt and unnecessarily expensive. Their core value is in facilitating sales and student management, not just content distribution. Businesses requiring highly customized, enterprise-level Learning Management Systems with deep integration into existing HR or compliance infrastructure will find these platforms too rigid.

Creators focused exclusively on physical product sales or service delivery without digital course components should look elsewhere. These platforms are optimized for digital education products, and trying to force them into other business models creates friction. If your business model depends on extreme customization or white-label deployment, you’ll hit limitations quickly.

Thinkific vs. Teachable: When Each Option Makes Sense

Thinkific is often chosen by creators who prioritize a clean revenue cut, as it typically boasts zero transaction fees on its paid plans. This means once you’re paying the monthly subscription (starting at $49/mo), you keep 100% of your course sales minus payment processor fees. Thinkific also provides advanced student management features, including progress tracking and detailed reporting, which matter if you’re running cohort-based programs or need granular analytics.

💡 Rapid Verdict:
Best for online education businesses that need predictable course delivery,
but SKIP THIS if you require deep customization or edge-case control.

Bottom line: Thinkific protects your margin but expects you to handle or integrate your own marketing tools.

Teachable provides integrated email marketing tools to help creators communicate directly with their students and leads, and it offers built-in affiliate marketing functionality to incentivize others to promote courses. This makes it appealing for creators who want a more guided experience in launching and marketing their first online courses. However, Teachable has historically applied transaction fees to sales made on its lower-tier plans, impacting creators’ net revenue. On the Basic plan (starting at $39/mo), you’ll pay a 5% transaction fee on top of payment processing costs.

Teachable supports the sale of coaching products, allowing creators to offer one-on-one or group coaching alongside traditional courses. This flexibility is valuable if your business model mixes self-paced courses with live or scheduled coaching sessions. The trade-off is that you’re paying for bundled features whether you use them or not, and the transaction fees on lower tiers can add up quickly as sales volume increases.

⛔ Dealbreaker (Thinkific): Skip this if you need native, advanced marketing automation without relying on third-party integrations from the App Store.

⛔ Dealbreaker (Teachable): Skip this if you’re operating on thin margins and can’t absorb transaction fees, or if you need unlimited customization of the student experience.

Key Risks and Limitations to Be Aware Of

Both platforms create vendor lock-in. Migrating your course content, student data, and sales history to another system later is possible but painful. You’ll need to export content, rebuild course structures, and potentially lose historical analytics. This isn’t unique to Thinkific or Teachable, but it’s a reality you accept when choosing any hosted platform.

Reliance on third-party integrations for advanced functionalities is common. Thinkific’s native marketing capabilities may require augmentation through its App Store or external tools for advanced campaigns. Teachable’s site customization options, while robust, may require some coding knowledge for advanced aesthetic changes. Both platforms integrate with popular payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal for processing student payments, but you’re still dependent on those external services for transaction reliability.

Scalability considerations matter as your creator business expands. Thinkific’s free plan includes transaction fees, which are removed upon upgrading to a paid subscription. This means you’ll need to budget for the upgrade once you start generating consistent revenue. Teachable’s pricing tiers force you into higher plans to eliminate transaction fees entirely, which can feel like a penalty for success rather than a reward.

• Migration complexity increases with the number of active students and courses
• Third-party integration dependencies introduce potential points of failure
• Pricing tier upgrades often come with feature bloat you may not need
• Customization limits become more apparent as your brand and student experience mature

How I’d Use It

Scenario: an independent online course creator and digital entrepreneur
This is how I’d think about using it under real operational constraints.

1. Start by mapping out my course structure and student journey in Thinkific, taking advantage of the zero transaction fees on the $49/mo plan to protect margin from day one.
2. Use Thinkific’s advanced quizzing and assignment features to enhance student engagement and assessment, ensuring the course delivers measurable outcomes rather than just content consumption.
3. Integrate with ConvertKit or Mailchimp through Thinkific’s App Store for email marketing, accepting that I’ll need to manage another subscription and learn another tool to handle lead nurturing and sales sequences.
4. Set up Stripe as the payment gateway, knowing that I’ll still pay standard payment processing fees (around 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction) but avoid the additional platform transaction fee that Teachable would charge on lower tiers.
5. Monitor student progress and completion rates through Thinkific’s detailed reporting, using that data to iterate on course content and identify where students drop off or struggle.
6. Accept that if I need built-in affiliate marketing or coaching product support, I’ll either need to add third-party tools or consider migrating to Teachable later, which would mean rebuilding parts of my infrastructure.

One thing that became clear: the zero transaction fee advantage only holds if you’re comfortable managing integrations and don’t need the bundled marketing features Teachable offers natively.

My Takeaway: Thinkific makes sense if you’re confident in your ability to handle marketing separately and want to maximize revenue retention, but you’re trading convenience for margin protection.

Pricing Plans

Below is the current pricing overview for the platforms discussed:

Pricing information is accurate as of January 2026 and subject to change.

Thinkific’s $49/mo starting price is higher than Teachable’s $39/mo, but the absence of transaction fees means you break even faster as sales volume increases. If you’re selling $5,000/mo in courses, Teachable’s 5% fee costs you $250/mo on top of the base subscription, making the effective monthly cost $289 vs. Thinkific’s flat $49. The math shifts dramatically at scale.

Kajabi (an all-in-one platform for course creators, membership sites, and marketing automation) starts at $89/mo for the Kickstarter plan and includes zero transaction fees, but you’re paying for a much broader feature set that may be overkill if you only need course delivery. LearnDash (a WordPress plugin for building courses on self-hosted sites) offers flexibility but requires you to manage hosting, security, and integrations yourself. Kartra (a marketing automation and course platform) starts at $59/mo with no transaction fees but is optimized for funnel-based marketing rather than straightforward course sales.

🚨 The Panic Test

You’re launching in 30 days. Revenue needs to start flowing immediately. You don’t have time to learn complex integrations or debug payment gateway issues.

Use Teachable if you need built-in marketing tools and can absorb the transaction fees while you validate demand. The integrated email marketing and affiliate functionality mean you can start selling without adding external tools. Accept that you’ll pay 5% on the Basic plan, but you’ll move faster.

Use Thinkific if you’re already comfortable with email marketing tools like ConvertKit or Mailchimp and want to protect your margin from the start. You’ll need to set up integrations, but you’ll keep more of every sale. Don’t overthink the feature comparison—just pick the one that matches your existing workflow and tolerance for setup complexity.

Forget trying to future-proof for features you might need in two years. Choose based on what you need to execute in the next 90 days. You can always migrate later if your business model changes, but you can’t recover lost revenue from poor margin management early on.

Final Decision Guidance: Choosing Your Ideal Platform for 2026

Prioritize platform features against your long-term business strategy, but don’t ignore the immediate operational reality. If you’re running a lean operation and every percentage point of margin matters, Thinkific’s zero transaction fees on paid plans make it the clearer choice. If you need a faster path to market and value bundled marketing features over margin optimization, Teachable’s integrated tools justify the transaction fee cost—at least initially.

Understanding the total cost of ownership beyond just transaction fees is critical. Factor in the cost of third-party integrations, the time required to set up and maintain those connections, and the potential need to upgrade pricing tiers as your student base grows. Both platforms offer extensive integration capabilities with email service providers and payment gateways, but Thinkific’s extensive App Store allows for more granular control at the cost of added complexity.

Making an informed choice to support sustainable growth and profitability means accepting trade-offs. Thinkific gives you better margin protection but expects you to handle marketing separately. Teachable simplifies the launch process but extracts revenue through transaction fees until you upgrade. Neither is perfect, but one will align better with how you actually operate your education business.