Podia vs Thinkific: Which One Is Worth Your Monthly Bill?

Thinkific wins once you actually start selling.

Podia killed its free plan a while back, so both platforms now start you on a 30-day trial and a real bill after that. Neither has a permanent free tier anymore, which changes the calculus for anyone who bookmarked an old “Podia is free” post. On the sticker price, Podia and Thinkific are close enough to call a wash; it’s the platform fee that decides this one, and Thinkific’s 0% cut beats Podia’s 5% on its cheapest tier every time a sale goes through.

Prices verified August 2026.

Which one is cheaper to start?

Barely different, and that’s the point. Podia’s Mover runs $49/month ($42/month billed yearly) versus Thinkific’s Basic at $54/month ($40/month billed yearly). Pay monthly and Podia is $5 cheaper; pay yearly and Thinkific flips ahead by $2. Neither gap is worth losing sleep over — what happens after checkout is the real decision.

Here’s the part that stings: Podia’s Mover plan charges a 5% platform fee on top of standard payment processing. Thinkific charges 0% platform fee if you use Thinkific Payments, though a third-party gateway fee applies if you go with Stripe or PayPal directly instead. So Podia’s cheap entry plan isn’t cheap once you’re actually selling — it’s cheap until the first sale, then it starts taking a slice of everything.

Podia removes that 5% cut entirely on Shaker ($99/month, or $84/month yearly) and Earthquaker ($179/month, or $150/month yearly). Thinkific’s 0% platform fee, meanwhile, applies from Basic upward — you’re not paying to make the fee go away, it’s just not there to begin with. If you’re doing meaningful volume from day one, that structural difference matters more than either homepage’s monthly number.

What do you actually get for the money?

Thinkific’s plans hinge on team size and video bandwidth: Basic gives you 1 administrator and 100 GB/month of video bandwidth, Start bumps that to 3 administrators and 200 GB, and Grow goes to 10 administrators, 400 GB, and finally removes Thinkific branding. If you’re a solo creator, none of that matters much. If you’re building a team, Basic’s single admin seat will bite fast, and the jump to Start is where the real headroom shows up.

Podia’s tiers gate different things: email subscriber counts, product counts, video counts, and spaces. Mover caps you at 100 email subscribers and 50 products, with no affiliate marketing, upsells, PayPal, or Zapier. Shaker unlocks all of that at 500 subscribers and 150 products, plus one assistant seat. Earthquaker removes the product, video, space, and assistant caps, but email subscribers still top out at 1,000 — a limit that’s easy to miss if you’re comparing plans by name alone.

Notably, Podia bundles the same core toolkit — website, custom domain, blog, landing pages, 1,900+ integrations, tax handling in 230 countries, and built-in checkout — into all three tiers, including the cheapest one. Thinkific’s cheapest plan gets you unlimited courses and a 10,000-student cap identical to every other tier, but you’re paying extra as you move up mainly for administrator seats, bandwidth, and things like API access and phone support (Grow only). If you want the branded mobile app on Thinkific, that’s a separate add-on at $199/month, not bundled into any tier.

For a deeper look at whether Podia’s bill is worth it on its own, the Podia review breaks down the day-to-day experience beyond the pricing page.

The surprising catch in the free trial

Both platforms advertise a 30-day free trial. Podia’s starts with no card required, standard stuff. But Podia’s refund policy is the one worth reading twice: you have to contact support within 72 hours of your last payment, and there are no partial refunds on annual plans. Commit to a year, decide it’s not for you in month three, and you’re not getting anything back. That’s a real cost of choosing annual billing before you’re sure, and it applies whether you pick Mover or Earthquaker.

Three creators, three answers

A coach with 200 students and one course, no team, no funnel: Podia’s Mover plan covers this, assuming subscriber count stays under 100. Watch that 5% fee once sales pick up — it adds up faster than the monthly price suggests.

A teacher running a paid community plus a course, wanting affiliates to help sell it: both platforms can do this, but the math differs. Podia Shaker adds affiliate marketing and removes the platform fee at $99/month ($84/month yearly); Thinkific offers affiliate reporting and revenue sharing starting with one affiliate on Start and three on Grow, with unlimited affiliates on Plus. If the 0% platform fee matters more to you than bundling everything into one lower tier, Thinkific’s structure is worth pricing out against your expected sales volume.

A small team of three running multiple cohort courses with real video volume: Thinkific Start, at $109/month ($82/month yearly), gives you 3 administrators and 200 GB of bandwidth, headroom Podia’s equivalent tier doesn’t frame the same way. If your business runs on a real content calendar and a growing team, that structure earns its keep. For a side-by-side on how Thinkific stacks up against another big “all-in-one” competitor, Thinkific vs Kajabi is worth a read too.

Who should NOT choose Thinkific

Skip Thinkific if you’re bootstrapping and price-sensitive at the entry level — the gap to Podia’s monthly price is small, but Basic’s single administrator seat means you’ll outgrow it the moment you bring on help. Skip it too if you want everything, website, blog, email, and courses, bundled into one flat monthly number with no fee attached at any tier; Podia does that more cleanly at the entry level, fee aside.

If you want a mobile app without an extra line item, that’s another mark against Thinkific — the branded app costs $199/month on top of whatever plan you’re on. For creators weighing this same trade-off against Teachable instead, Teachable vs Thinkific covers that specific fork in the road.

Who should NOT choose Podia

Skip Podia if you’re already running a team; its assistant seats are limited even on the mid-tier plan, and Thinkific’s administrator structure scales more deliberately from Basic upward. Skip it too if you’re anywhere near the subscriber caps on any tier, including Earthquaker’s 1,000-subscriber ceiling — email list growth is exactly the kind of thing that quietly forces an upgrade you didn’t budget for.

And skip Podia if you can’t stomach that 5% fee on the cheapest plan. It’s easy to underestimate how much a percentage cut costs once your course actually sells; the sticker price only tells half the story.

Switch cost: what hurts if you move later

Podia offers free migration help, up to 50 products on Mover, up to 150 on Shaker and Earthquaker, which softens the blow of arriving. Leaving is the harder part on any platform: expect to re-export students, rebuild checkout and payment connections, and lose whatever reviews or engagement history lived on the old site. Neither platform’s data here says how long that process takes, so budget more time than you think you need.

If you’re coming from Teachable and weighing whether Podia is the cheaper landing spot, Podia vs Teachable walks through that specific fee math.

FAQ

Does Podia still have a free plan? No, it’s discontinued. What’s left is a 30-day free trial with no card required, a detail worth noting since not every platform’s trial works the same way.

Which platform is cheaper for a solo creator with under 100 students? It’s close either way, but the fee tips it. Podia’s Mover is $5 cheaper monthly; Thinkific’s Basic is $2 cheaper yearly. Once you factor in Thinkific’s 0% platform fee against Podia’s 5% on Mover, Thinkific comes out ahead for anyone actually converting sales.

Can I avoid transaction fees entirely on either platform? On Thinkific, using Thinkific Payments gets you a 0% platform fee, though a third-party gateway still charges its own fee if you route through Stripe or PayPal directly. On Podia, the platform fee drops to 0% only on Shaker and Earthquaker. Mover always takes its 5% cut regardless of payment method.

Is annual billing worth it on either platform? Both give a real discount for committing annually. Thinkific frames it as 25% cheaper, and Podia’s yearly rates are noticeably lower per month across all three plans. The risk is Podia’s refund policy: no partial refunds on annual plans, so don’t commit to a year until the trial has convinced you.

What’s the biggest gap in Thinkific’s cheapest plan? Just one administrator seat on Basic. If you’re solo, that’s irrelevant; if you’re planning to bring on a co-founder or assistant soon, you’ll be upgrading to Start faster than the pricing page implies.

Does either platform charge extra for a mobile app? Thinkific does — $199/month as an add-on, though it’s included on some individually contracted Plus deals. Podia’s sources here don’t list a mobile app feature at all, branded or otherwise.

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How we got these numbers. Prices and fees come straight from the official pricing pages of Podia, Thinkific, checked in August 2026. Where a value wasn’t published, the table shows “—”. Prices in this space change often — confirm on the provider’s site before you buy.