Trying to pick between Thinkific and Kartra in 2025? You’re not alone. These two platforms serve different purposes but overlap just enough to make choosing between them tricky, especially if you’re a course creator, coach, or digital entrepreneur.
We’ve tested both platforms extensively and compared their key features to help you make an informed decision. Whether you're looking to deliver online courses or build a high-converting sales funnel, this guide breaks down everything you need to know to choose the right tool for your business.
Quick Comparison: Thinkific vs Kartra
Thinkific Overview
Thinkific is a course-first platform built for educators and creators who want to build, market, and deliver engaging learning experiences. Whether you are a solo creator launching your first course or an institution training hundreds of employees, Thinkific makes it easy to create structured, high-quality course content.
It comes with:
- A drag-and-drop course builder
- Communities & memberships
- Student progress tracking
- Certificates, quizzes, and assignments
- SCORM/xAPI support for enterprise use
Thinkific focuses on learning outcomes more than marketing tools, which makes it great for those who care more about student engagement than running complex funnels.
Kartra Overview
Kartra is a fully integrated marketing platform designed for online business owners who want to automate every part of their customer journey. It is often compared to platforms like ClickFunnels or Kajabi, because it offers:
- Sales funnel building
- Email marketing automation
- Affiliate management
- Calendar scheduling
- CRM
- Video hosting
- Product checkout pages
- Webinars
- Upsells
- Website and landing page builder
- Course builder
Kartra shines when it comes to building end-to-end customer journeys with powerful automation and monetization features.
Course Creation & Delivery
Thinkific provides a dedicated course builder with support for videos, quizzes, downloads, certificates, and drip scheduling. You can organize content into chapters and lessons, and you get tools like:
- Progress tracking
- Assignments and exams
- SCORM/xAPI support (for corporate training)
- Student engagement analytics
Kartra, in comparison, is not built for academic-style course delivery. You can create courses with lessons, videos, and downloads, but it lacks features like quizzes, certificates, and advanced student analytics.
Winner: Thinkific
If your focus is on delivering the best educational experiences, Thinkific is the better option by far.
Sales & Marketing Tools
Here’s where Kartra dominates. You get:
- Advanced email automation with tagging
- Drag-and-drop funnel builder
- Behavior-based automation
- Affiliate management
- Checkout pages with upsells and downsells
- A/B testing
Thinkific offers some marketing features like email notifications, landing pages, and coupons, but nothing close to what Kartra provides. You will likely need third-party tools like ConvertKit or Mailchimp if you choose Thinkific.
Winner: Kartra
Kartra is built for marketing. If you need lead generation tools, conversion funnels, or advanced automation, this is your tool.
Pricing & Plans
Thinkific Pricing:
- Basic: $49/month
- Start: $99/month
- Grow: $199/month
- Thinkific Plus: Custom pricing
Thinkific has zero transaction fees, supports Stripe and PayPal and offers a 25% discount on annual billing.
Kartra Pricing:
- Essentials: $59/month
- Starter: $119/month
- Growth: $229/month
Kartra also offers annual billing with up to 22% off. It also has zero transaction fees, but has monthly limits on leads, bandwidth, emails, and pages based on your plan.
Winner: Tie
Thinkific is a bit more affordable than Kartra but Kartra offers many more features so it is hard to call a clear winner here. The winner for you depends on your needs.
Website Design & Customization
Thinkific has a website builder that lets you create course pages, sales pages, and a student dashboard. The templates are professional, but customization is limited unless you are on higher plans.
Kartra has a very good drag-and-drop page builder with dozens of templates optimized for marketing and conversion. You can build full websites, landing pages, or opt-in forms.
Winner: Kartra
Kartra gives more creative freedom and advanced web design tools for marketing-heavy users.
Sales Funnel Building
Kartra is a funnel-building powerhouse. It offers:
- Multi-step sales funnels
- Behavior-based email sequences
- Visual flow editors
- Goal tracking
Thinkific does not offer built-in funnel tools. You will need to integrate it with third party sales funnel providers using Zapier or another tool.
Winner: Kartra
Email Marketing
Thinkific provides basic email marketing but if you want to run complex email campaigns or have segmentation, you will need to connect an external email platform.
Kartra has powerful built-in email automation with features like:
- Drip campaigns
- List segmentation
- Triggered responses
- Analytics and deliverability tools
Winner: Kartra
Community & Engagement Tools
Thinkific has a community feature that allows community posts, discussion threads, and groups. It is a great way to engage your learners and keep them active within your course environment.
Kartra does not have built-in community features.
Winner: Thinkific
User Experience
Thinkific is easy to use and great for beginners. The dashboard is clean, and most users can launch a course within a day or two, even without prior experience.
Kartra, due to its all-in-one nature, can feel overwhelming at first. There is so much that you need to understand, but once you get the hang of it, you can build incredibly powerful systems.
Winner: Thinkific
Thinkific is far more beginner friendly than Kartra.
Customer Support
Thinkific provides:
- Email, live chat and phone support
- Video tutorials and webinars
- Help docs and community forum
Kartra offers:
- 24/7 live chat (on higher plans)
- Helpdesk tickets
- Onboarding resources
Winner: Tie
Both platforms offer good customer support options..
Pros & Cons
Thinkific Pros:
- Built mainly for online learning
- Excellent student experience and engagement tools
- SCORM support for corporate training
- Easy to use
Thinkific Cons:
- Basic marketing tools
- Limited design customization on lower plans
- No built-in CRM or funnels
Kartra Pros:
- Powerful all-in-one marketing suite
- Funnel builder, CRM, affiliate tools
- Built-in video hosting
- Advanced automation
- High-converting page templates
Kartra Cons:
- Takes a while to fully learn
- Quite pricey
- Basic course features
Who Should Choose Thinkific?
- Educators and course creators focused on better learning experiences
- Users who want affordable plans with no transaction fees
- Users who want a fast and easy setup
Who Should Choose Kartra?
- Digital marketers looking to automate everything
- Businesses selling high-ticket services or coaching
- Users who need email, funnels, and CRM in one tool
- Advanced users ready to build complex systems
Final Verdict: Which Is Better?
The answer to this question depends on what you need. If your goal is to deliver structured online courses with a strong student experience, Thinkific is your winner.
But if your goal is to sell different types of digital products and scale using automation-heavy funnels and marketing tools, Kartra is your best bet. If you are still not convinced, you can try the free trial of both platforms and see which one works best for your business.
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