GrooveFunnels Vs Thinkific. Which Is The Better Platform?

If you’re looking to be a course creator, and build your own course to sell online, there are a myriad of different options out there to choose from.

To narrow things down a bit however, I’ll be comparing two specific options when it comes to online course building and selling (mainly…but not only). GrooveFunnels or Thinkific? Which one should you choose? 

In this GrooveFunnels vs Thinkific post, I’ll be talking about the features, what each of the software platforms are, how much each of them cost, what they do…basically just line both up against each other, and gives you some ideas as to which one to choose, depending on what you want to do.

Let’s check it out.

What Is GrooveFunnels? 

GrooveFunnels is a very recently created all-in-one digital marketing platform. It was built by the ex co-founder of another very impressive all-in-one solution, called Kartra. 

The platform was designed to be able to allow you to do anything and everything you want, when it comes to digital marketing. From selling your own digital products, to doing email marketing, blog building, webinar hosting, etc. It’s made out of a set of over 12 individual tools, that all have different functions, but work interconnected, underneath one single roof. 

It’s was built, with the end goal of becoming the #1 all in one platform for digital marketers by 2023, is offering one of the better “free trials” available in the market today, is using some incredibly modern technology, and replaces over 26 tools at a cheaper price, than all of them combined. 

I’m personally both a customer and a partner to the GrooveFunnels platform, and have written all about it in this website. If you’re interested in learning more, you can check out this article here. I go over every tool, some of the upcoming features, the partner program, and a lot more.

What Is Thinkific? 

Thinkific is a course creating platform, that allows you to create, host and sell your online courses, all within one same platform.

It’s a very modern (and very cheap solution) for anyone who’s looking to create a course and has pretty much everything from content hosting, email and custom software integrations, quiz and survey tools, the ability to drip feed, lock and have expired and evergreen content, certificates, affiliate programs and even has its own website drag and drop builder included.

It also has a generous free plan, that gives you access to host up to 3 courses for free by using a Thinkific subdomain. 

GrooveFunnels Vs Thinkific: The Features

GrooveFunnels Features

Now, let’s go over all of the features of the GrooveFunnels digital platform, and the different things you can do with it.

• Build websites and landing pages – You can build stunning websites, landing pages and funnels, that are optimized for search engines, load fast and look amazing, with their drag and drop technology.
  
  
• Email Autoresponder– GrooveFunnels has its own integrated email autoresponder feature, that you can use to send broadcasts and emails, to up to 10,000 contacts.
  
  
• Branded Videos– The tool GrooveVideo, is a video hosting tool, that allows you to upload and brand your videos. You can change the player skins, add CTAs and see analytics.
  
  
• Sell your digital courses and products – With the help of the GrooveSell tool (and the page builder), you can build your own complete online courses and create the whole sales pipeline, from pricing to checkout pages, order bumps, discounts and more.
  
  
• Manage affiliates– If you’re interested in having your own affiliate program, you can set one up easily with the help of the GrooveAffiliate tool. With it, you can see analytics, set commissions, refund periods, add commission bumps, manage affiliates…and so on.
  
  

• Surveys and Quizzes – GrooveFunnels has two different tools (GrooveSurvey and GrooveQuiz) which allow you to set surveys and quizzes to your pages, which allow for increased interaction with your visitors and customers and more conversions on your pages.
  
  
• Blog builder – GrooveFunnels also allows you to set up a complete blog, with the help of their GrooveBlog tool. It’s comparable to something like WordPress although a little less complex and powerful.
  
  
• Calendar and Schedule– With the GrooveCalendar tool, you’ll be able to schedule events, coaching calls, meetings, trainings and a lot more.
  
  
• Build membership sites– If you want to create membership sites, or sites to deliver your digital courses or trainings, the tool GrooveMember, will allow you to generate a password-locked membership site where you can drip feed, lock and share content to your paid or free members.
  
  
• Webinar hoster– For those of you looking to run youtube own webinars, the GrooveWebinar tool, will allow for both automated and live webinar streaming.

These are just some of the major features of the GrooveFunnels platform,  based on each of the different tools.

As you can see, there is a lot to go over. If you’re interested in learning more about some more features like the GrooveFunnels integrations and the open-source developers kit features, you can go here.

Thinkfic Features

Course content hosting – Thinkific allows you to store all of your course content, be that pdf, videos or audios, on their platform for you, even on their free plan.

Build and design your website – The platform also allows you to customize your website, and organize your content as much as you want with their drag and drop technology, making it a complete front-end and back-end experience.

Affiliate Program builder – If you’re interested in having an affiliate program for your course, Thinkific makes it easy for you to create one on the go, and customize it to your heart’s content.

Complete sales process – The platform allows you to set up a checkout process, as well as give you the ability to offer subscriptions, one-time offers, free accounts, and allows your students to pay in up to 100 currencies.

Integrations – Thinkigic also integrates with over 1000 external businesses and marketing apps, as well as with your favorite email marketing provider so as to communicate with the platform and deliver your course, as well as possible.

Multimedia Options – Thinkific allows for a huge array of options and features when it comes to student interaction. You can build communities, have discussions, create downloads, course certificates, surveys, quizzes, expiring content, drip scheduled content…and a lot more.

GrooveFunnels Vs Thinkific: Pricing

Now, let’s look at what each of the platforms will cost.

GrooveFunnels 

GrooveFunnels has currently, 4 different pricing options. These are the following:

GrooveFunnels Base Account –  This account is free, with no strings attached and no credit card needed.

With it, you’ll be getting access to the page builder (GroovePages lite) the selling platform (GrooveSell), and the affiliate management platform (GrooveAffiliate) 100% for free.

You’ll also be given free SSL and up to 3 custom domain integrations. This is basically free hosting for up to 3 websites you own, which pretty much no other platform of this kind, is giving away. It’s crazy good.

So with the free GrooveFunnels base account, you can create sites, create a whole sales process and pipeline for your product, and a complete affiliate program (as well as giving you access to promote other peoples products) 

without ever having to pay anything… You can get a free GrooveFunnels account here.

GrooveFunnels Silver $99/month – This plan, gives you access to the tools in the free account, but also gives you some additional goodies. You’ll get GrooveMail (autoresponder up to 10,000 contacts) GrooveMember (for your membership sites) GrooveVideo (video hoster) and will also upgrade the page builder from GroovePages lite to GroovePages PRO (unlimited everything).

GrooveFunnels Gold $199/month – This plan, gives you access to all of the tools from the former plans, plus the helpdesk tool GrooveDesk, the event scheduler, and calendar tool GrooveCalendar and the blogging tool GrooveBlog.

GrooveFunnels Platinum $299/month – This is the premium and most expensive plan, and for a good reason. In addition to giving you all of the tools in the rest of the plans, you’ll also be getting the powerful webinar hosting platform GrooveWebinar (live and automated) and the survey and quiz building tools GrooveSurvey and GrooveQuiz.

Thinkific

Free Plan – This plan is free, and it allows you to test drive the platform, without having to pay anything for it. The cool thing, is that it allows for up to 3 courses, with unlimited students, allows you to host content in video, audio and PDF format, and allows for quizzes and surveys.

Basic Plan $39/month – The basic plan allows for the basic features of Thinkific, and is great for starters. It allows unlimited courses, email integrations and the ability to email students, affiliate reporting and gives you a custom domain, allows manual enrollment and scheduled content, amongst other things.

Pro Plan $79/month – The pro plan is more tailored to professional course creators. In addition to giving you access to the features in the former plan, you also get pricing flexibility (subscription, free or other course prices) course admins, live lesson features, the ability to provide certificates, communities and priority support.

Premier Plan $399/month – The premier plan is specifically made for advanced customers that want to deliver their programs on scale. It allows for most of the features of the othe plans, but takes it up a notch, as it allows for group analysts, onboarding growth packages (includes calls) and also allows for up to 50 course admins.

GrooveFunnels Vs Thinkific? My Recommendation.

Alright, we’re getting to the end of this GrooveFunnels Vs Thinkific post. We’ve looked at what both of them are, what they offer and what they cost. 

But at the end of the day, what option is going to be the best for you?

Here is my recommendation…

• You’ll want to get GrooveFunnels, if:

You’re interested in having the ability to create more than just an online course, or if you have multiple projects in mind.

If there is even a slight chance you’ll want to be running webinars in the future, or if you’re interested in creating websites, or funnels for clients, or doing affiliate marketing through email, or blogging…then you’ll want to go with GrooveFunnels.

With that said, with the GrooveFunnels free base account, you can actually create the sales pages, sales process (with custom pricing) and have an affiliate program for it, with FREE hosting (aka custom domain integrations, no subdomains) and SSL…for free.  

You don’t get some of the features that would get with Thinkific paid plan, for example the ability to add quizzes, build surveys, hosting your videos and so on…but you do get to do a lot, even on the free plan! 

And if you want to add email integrations, host your videos and have a membership site (plus more things), then the $99/month plan is worth it (although by then you’d probably want to go with the Thinkific basic plan).

• You should use Thinkific if:

If you only want to work with online courses, then Thinkific is obviously the way to go.

Giving you up to 3 courses on the free plan, is pretty valuable if you want to go that route, and then if you need to add an email marketing platform and add your own custom domain integration, you can upgrade to the basic plan.

Although you won’t be getting an integrated email autoresponder with the Thinkific platform, even the basic $39/month plan gives you unlimited courses, the quiz and survey tools (which you’ll only find in the GrooveFunnels $299/month plan) and unlimited courses.

All in all, I would highly recommend Thinkigic over GrooveFunnels SPECIFICALLY for course creation, in almost every case.

Thinkific would cost you probably $39/month plus the email autoresponder to contact your students (I’m thinking around $50/month, depending on the number of students) at which point you’re spending around the same $99/month that GrooveFunnels silver would cost you.

After the $100/month mark, I’d start to look at GrooveFunnels, since at that point the GrooveMail autoresponder allows for up to 10K contacts, so maybe you can save some cash on the transition, but even then…Thinkific is better as a course platform, than what GrooveFunnels is able to offer.