Thinkific vs Passion.io: App Builder & Course Platform Comparison

Choosing the right platform for your mobile app business can be tricky, and you might find yourself asking questions like...

What marketing features do I need?
What are my customization & integration options?
Will I have a content management system?
How will I handle customer communications?
Which payment gateways and plugins can I use?

And that's just the tip of the mobile-app-iceberg.

We understand that every online business has its own unique digital needs, so here's a quick comparison between Passion.io and Thinkific to help you find out which option best fits your requirements.

What is Thinkific?

Thinkific is a platform for online course creators that's incredibly easy to set up and maintain. All pricing plans include unlimited courses & students, digital downloads, and emails & lessons.

While the basic plan offers many core features, you'll have to subscribe to the most expensive plan if you want to unlock features & marketing tools like:

❌ Affiliate marketing

❌ Memberships

❌ Third-party code

❌ Embedded checkout

❌ White-labelling

Why is Thinkific such a popular online course platform?

Thinkific's basic plan gives beginners everything they need to start creating web-based online courses & lets you bulk upload files from your computer, Dropbox, Google Drive, or via links. If you need more functionality or broader monetization strategies, you'll have to pay for it.

Something you might like about Thinkific is that you can issue a certificate of completion to your students. Plus, Thinkific has a free trial, so you can try it before buying.

What is Passion.io?

Passion.io is an all-in-one platform for creating beautiful apps & courses without writing a single line of code. A highly intuitive visual editor makes it possible to launch your own branded mobile app in less than 30 days, with a list of key features & benefits like:

Free, paid or subscription-based content

Unlimited students

Interactive courses

Memberships

A central hub for your community

Basic & advanced quizzes

Passion.io doesn't just put your course on the web. You'll get your own fully functional app on the App Store AND a progressive web app. Your business and your content will be located in ONE place that's conveniently accessible on ALL devices.

Thinkific vs Passion.io

As a business owner and online course creator, you've got a lot to consider when choosing which learning platform will host your content and community.

Your top priority should be to create a delightful learning experience through a strong mix of student engagement features, community management features and custom branding.

Of course, the quality of your content is the lifeblood of your business, but without the right all-in-one platform solution, implementing a growth plan and getting digital product sales will be tricky.

Create Engaging Courses

Both Thinkific and Passion.io make it quick & easy to create an online course with both membership and single-purchase functionality. Both allow you to upload content of any type (video, audio, image, text), and both also have simple interfaces that allow non-tech people to create beautiful and modern designs.

What separates the two platforms is Passion.io's ability to launch your own branded mobile app to the Google Play and Apple App stores. This allows your customers to engage and consume your content from anywhere in the world, at any time, on any device.

A comparison table. Passion.io and Thinkific both offer a drag-and-drop course builder, a sales page builder, and a website builder. Only Passion.io offers an app builder and your own native mobile app.

Websites are ineffective and outdated when it comes to content consumption, and the data backs this up; web-based online courses have 6% completion rates.

When customers feel like they have an ongoing relationship with you via your branded app and its uniquely interactive features - engagement, retention and earnings are all significantly increased over a web-based equivalent.

(However, if your customers need to access your course on the web, or simply prefer it, everything published to your native app will be available there too.)

BTW - students can download your content for offline access with Passion.io, so you're always available, everywhere.

Native Mobile Apps

The importance of choosing the right tool for your business cannot be understated. There's a good reason Passion.io is committed to helping you launch your app - it's where the vast majority of content is now consumed.

Today, over 70% of ALL media is discovered on the phone
80% of consumers say they would rather buy from an app than a website

(Sources: Aumcore, Blue Corona, Medium)

A table comparing features. Passion.io and Thinkific both feature drip content, quizzes & surveys. Only Passion.io offers habit tracking, push notifications, interactive content, and your own native mobile app.

In 2022, the most popular way to learn is with mobile apps, so why try to teach with a website?

"Passion.io has made a huge impact on my coaching practice by allowing me to become more agile through remote community support for my clients." — Brittan B.

Track & Engage

Keeping track of student progress and maintaining high levels of engagement is a crucial part of building a sustainable online business. Both Passion.io and Thinkific allow you to see all your customers in a clean dashboard, as well as their progress.

A Thinkific user gets a detailed breakdown of their data points to monitor course consumption, but Passion.io allows you to interact with your customers more directly, from the palm of their hands.

Passion.io allows you to interact with your customers more directly with an in-app community newsfeed (like your very own social media app), and PowerChat - which lets you send messages with videos & images to customers to give direct feedback.

A table comparing tracking & engagement features. Thinkific and Passion.io both have analytics and course progression. Only Passion.io features an in-app community newsfeed and PowerChat, while only Thinkific offers course drop-offs.

"Passion has made it so easy to create my own app. The futures on the app make it easy for my clients to use and continue getting results." — Jack Graham

Integrations

Both platforms offer a wide range of integrations thanks to Zapier, and both allow you to perform a few of these functions within their platform, which is particularly useful for beginners.

Thinkific works particularly well with email service providers: MailChimp, ConvertKit, Constant Contact & Aweber. Passion.io also leverages email integrations, but it also has a more powerful push notification system.

Payment Processing

Both Thinkific and Passion.io allow your customers to easily pay online. Both integrate seamlessly with Stripe, the world's largest payment gateway and PassionPayments allows you to take payments directly from your app, for seamless one-touch payments.

These advanced features reduce the number of abandoned checkouts - where 80% of web payments are not completed, primarily due to the added friction of finding a credit card and copying long numbers into a website form.

One-touch payments from a mobile app completely erases this bottleneck, as there is zero friction between the moment a customer decides to buy and the purchase itself.

And as mentioned above, with over 80% of consumers preferring to buy online via an app, and not a website, this feature will be vital in 2022 and beyond.

Training & Guidance

Both platforms have a Help Centre and blogs to learn each respective platform, with in-depth guidance on each section and feature available.

On top of that, Passion.io prides itself on having some of the most comprehensive training packages for launching, marketing and scaling your mobile app to 6 or 7-figures.

Examples of on-demand training from Passion.io:

The Expert Unleashed Challenge

Get 5–15 high paying clients in your first 30 days.

The Expert Freedom Masterclass

Grow to 100+ clients and $100k+ revenue per year.

Pricing

What do Passion.io and Thinkific offer in return for your investment? Let's compare the monthly & annual payment plans to find out which platform is the better choice for your business.