Thinkific hosts your courses.
We host your whole business.
Thinkific is a course platform. Once you add email, CRM, community, affiliates, and a way to glue it all together, you're running a 5-tool stack. Simplero ships every one of those natively for $59/month — and never charges you a percentage of what you make.
The surcharge trap.
Use your own Stripe? Thinkific takes a cut.
At $5,000/month on Thinkific Start, using your own Stripe:
At $10,000/month on Thinkific Start, using your own Stripe:
Thinkific's surcharge drops to 0% only if you use Thinkific Payments and TCommerce. If you already have Stripe set up, or want to keep it for tax/accounting reasons, you pay the surcharge.
Thinkific is a course platform.
Your business needs more.
Email is basic.
Thinkific includes email automation with simple sequences and broadcasts. For real list segmentation, behavioral automations, and a CRM, most users plug in ConvertKit / Kit / Mailchimp — another $30–$200/mo on top. Simplero ships full email + CRM + automations on every plan.
No native CRM. No affiliates.
No way to track contacts across products, no built-in sales pipeline, no native affiliate management. On Thinkific, these are separate tools or higher tiers. On Simplero, full CRM is on every plan and affiliates are included from Scale up.
10,000 student cap.
Every Thinkific plan — even the $499/mo Expand tier — caps current students at 10,000. Hit that ceiling and your only option is Plus enterprise pricing (custom, talk-to-sales). Simplero scales without that wall.
Thinkific Start ($74/mo) + ConvertKit ($29–$199/mo) + an affiliate tool + Zapier glue = $130–$300+/mo.
Simplero replaces all of them. One platform. $59/month.
In their own words.
“I made more than $1M on Thinkific. Don't use it. I created a second account with them and they're holding on to my legitimate funds for 90 days. If $1M in sales is not proof of legitimacy, I don't know what is.”
“Watch out for unexpected charges! I signed up for the free month to test it out; yesterday i was charged an ANNUAL fee of over £900 — no explanation.”
“The constant limitations of the platform make it very hard to scale. Even when you upgrade your plan, important features all of a sudden belong to a even more expensive plan and remain locked or restricted.”
“We experienced a complete site outage that left users locked out and operations disrupted. We sent three urgent support emails over more than 24 hours — and received no response at all.”
“It's slow, it glitches and barely anything ever loads. One simple thing can take hours to do. It's a huge waste of my valuable time.”
“I've been using Thinkific for around ten months. In the basic plan you only get the email address. To find out their name, you have to log into the platform, export all the leads without any filtering options, and then download the list from your email.”
Side by side.
No spin.
| Thinkific | Simplero | |
|---|---|---|
| Plans available | Start $74/mo · Grow $149/mo · Expand $374/mo · Plus (custom). Free plan eliminated 2025. | Starter $59/mo · Scale $149/mo · Skyrocket $249/mo |
| Platform transaction fees | 0% on Thinkific Payments. 2% surcharge on Start, 1% on Grow if you use your own Stripe / PayPal. | 0% on every plan, every processor, every sale. |
| Student / contact cap | 10,000 current students on Start, Grow, and Expand. Need more = enterprise Plus only. | 500 contacts on Starter, scaling tiers above. No 10K wall. |
| Email marketing | Basic email automation included. Most users add ConvertKit / Mailchimp ($29–$200+/mo). | Full email + automations + segmentation on every plan. |
| CRM | — No native CRM | Full native CRM on every plan |
| Community | 1 community on Start, 3 on Grow, 10 on Expand. 10–200 spaces depending on tier. | Native community forums on every plan, with member profiles, comments, and threading. |
| Video hosting | 200 GB/mo on Start, 400 GB on Grow, 1 TB on Expand | Native video hosting included on every plan |
| Affiliate program | Affiliate reporting included. Revenue share with up to 1–10 partners by tier. | Full affiliate program from Scale up |
| Branded mobile app | $199/mo add-on, OR included on select Plus enterprise plans | Native mobile experience included |
| API / webhooks | Grow and above only ($149/mo annual) | Included from Scale ($149/mo) |
| Automations | Email automation included; deeper workflows often need Zapier | Native automations + triggers + behavioral on every plan |
| AI features | Course outline generator. Built-in AI teaching assistant on Plus only (custom). | AI transcripts & subtitles, AI-enhanced search, custom AI bots, Simplero.coach AI coaching |
| Tools you still need | Email/CRM tool, possibly affiliate tool, Zapier to glue them — $30–$200+/mo on top of Thinkific | None. Everything is in the platform. |
| Trustpilot rating | 2.3/5 across 851 reviews | 4.4/5 across 289 reviews · 232 mention support |
| Company | Public company (TSX: THNC). 76 layoffs in 2023. Profitable Q4 2023 after $26.4M / $36.4M / $9M annual losses 2021–2023. | Founded 2009. Bootstrapped. Profitable. Independent. No outside investors. |
Thinkific's surcharge drops to 0% only when you use Thinkific Payments. If you keep your own Stripe (for tax, accounting, or because it's already set up), you pay 1–5% extra depending on your plan.
The difference that doesn't
fit in a spreadsheet.
Thinkific is publicly traded on the TSX (THNC). Its stock fell from a 52-week high of $19.47 CAD in 2021 to $1.77 by mid-2023, prompting two rounds of layoffs (76 employees in 2023). Public companies optimize for the next quarter. We optimize for the next decade.
The free plan eliminated. The 10K student cap unchanged across $74–$374/mo plans. The Stripe surcharge designed to push you onto Thinkific Payments. These are decisions a public company in a tough capital environment makes — not a company optimizing for creators.
Simplero has been bootstrapped since 2009. No VCs, no public market, no quarterly earnings calls. Calvin (the founder) still answers customer emails. We haven't raised prices in years — while dramatically improving the product. We're not in a hurry. We're not going anywhere.
Founded 2009 · Bootstrapped · Proud of it.
What Simplero
customers say.
“I scored 12 platforms on a spreadsheet. Simplero won. I have never worked with a software company whose support team is fast, courteous, and knows what they're talking about.”
“When I found Simplero, it literally changed my life. I migrated my entire business and never looked back. My income tripled, quadrupled in the last six years.”
“I ended up paying my annual plan for Simplero in what I was paying for one month of all my subscriptions. And I had it just in one place.”
“Over the years Simplero has become increasingly easier to use. What I love most is access to personal professional support. There are no chatbot-gates you have to get through to get support from an actual human.”
Simple, honest
pricing.
Starter
$59 /mo
billed annually · or $70/mo monthly
10 products, 10 courses, 2 sites, 500 contacts. Email, courses, payments, website, automations — all in one place from day one. 0% transaction fees on every processor.
Choose StarterScale ✦
$149 /mo
billed annually · or $179/mo monthly
Unlimited products, courses, and sites. Affiliates, help desk, upsells, text messages, API. Where most growing businesses land. 0% transaction fees.
Choose ScaleSkyrocket
$249 /mo
billed annually · or $299/mo monthly
Everything in Scale plus unlimited storage, AI transcripts, AI bots, split testing, sales pipelines. The full power of the platform. 0% transaction fees.
Choose SkyrocketAll plans include email delivery, video hosting, and zero transaction fees. Need more than 5,000 contacts? Add them in blocks — $15/mo per 2,500 above 10K.
Stop running
a 5-tool stack.
14 days. Every feature unlocked. We'll help you migrate from Thinkific (and the email tool, and the affiliate plugin, and the Zapier glue), answer questions in plain English, and won't charge you a dime if it's not a fit. No surcharge for using your own Stripe — ever.
Founded 2009 · Bootstrapped · Proud of it.
Make it simplero™
