Looking for a Thinkific alternative?
Thinkific is genuinely good at delivering courses, and at $54/mo it is the cheapest serious course platform on the board. We will not pretend otherwise. What it is not is an institution: Basic gives you a single administrator, so you cannot staff a team without paying up to $219/mo, there is no API below that tier either, and community is an add-on beside a course product rather than the centre of it. Most importantly, your members cannot sell to each other at all. If you want a course player, Thinkific is a fair choice. If you want an economy, that is a different kind of product.
Thinkific pricing read from their own pricing page on 2026-10-02. If they have changed it since and we have not caught up, tell us and we will fix it.
What each one charges
Every plan on both sides — no picking their most expensive tier against our cheapest. Platform fee is the cut taken off each sale, separate from card processing.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual / mo | Platform fee on sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ziion | |||
| Ziion Starter | $59 | $49 | 10% network due |
| Ziion Growth | $99 | $82 | 0% — keep 100% |
| Thinkific | |||
| Thinkific Basic | $54 | $40 | 0%2.9% (Thinkific Payments) |
| Thinkific Start | $109 | $82 | 0%2.9% (Thinkific Payments) |
| Thinkific Grow | $219 | $164 | 0%2.9% (Thinkific Payments) |
Ziion's member-to-member services marketplace takes a flat 10% on both plans, and Ziion absorbs the card processing on those sales — the seller keeps a clean 90%.
What it actually costs you
Platform fee and card processing together, because some of these bundle processing and some don't. Comparing headline rates alone would hide the ~2.9% you pay Stripe either way. Ziion figures use the Growth plan.
| Your sales / month | Ziion Growth | Thinkific Basic | Thinkific Start | Thinkific Grow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | $128 | $83 | $138 | $248 |
| $2,000 | $157 | $112 | $167 | $277 |
| $8,000 | $331 | $286 | $341 | $451 |
Thinkific is cheaper than Ziion at these volumes, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. If price is the only thing deciding it, they are the better buy. The rest of this page is about what the money is buying.
What Thinkific does well
- Strong, well-tested course delivery
- Lowest entry price in the course-platform set
- 30-day full-access trial
Course-first LMS with community bolted alongside it.
Where it stops
- Basic gives you one administrator — you cannot staff a team without paying up.
- No API or webhooks below the $219/mo Grow plan.
- Thinkific branding stays on your site until $219/mo.
- A branded mobile app is a $199/mo add-on.
- Community is an add-on to a course product, not the centre of it — and members cannot sell to each other at all.
What Ziion adds
Four things that none of the platforms in this comparison offer — not cheaper versions of them, none at all.
Members who sell to each other
A services marketplace inside your community: citizens list what they do, other citizens hire them, and the nation takes a cut of a transaction that would not otherwise exist. Not one platform in this comparison has an equivalent — every one of them is built for a single creator selling to an audience.
Real multi-tenancy
Nations with their own staff roles, permissions and passports. No cap on administrators, no metered spaces. Structure is a billable resource almost everywhere else.
A credential layer
Learning paths that issue verifiable certificates and a passport ladder members carry with them. None of these platforms can certify anyone — a membership ends when the subscription does.
A native mobile app, included
A branded app is $199/mo at Kajabi, a $199/mo add-on at Thinkific, and custom-priced at Circle. Ziion ships one as part of the product.
Build the institution instead of renting the audience
Nations are by application — we are selective about who gets one. Fourteen-day trial once you're in.