Teachable vs Thinkific for Selling a Coding Course (2026)

For a coding course, Teachable is the better default: it has a dedicated Code Example block for showing code in lessons, and Thinkific’s documented text editor has no code formatting at all. Thinkific wins on price at low revenue (Basic is $54/mo with no platform fee if you use Thinkific Payments), but the features a coding course usually wants, like embedded sandboxes and custom HTML, start on its $109/mo Start plan.

We haven’t run a course on either platform. Everything below comes from the two pricing pages and their help-center docs, fetched on 2026-10-12 and linked at the bottom.

How we compared them

A coding course has different needs from a typical course. We looked at four things that matter more when the product is code:

1. Code in lessons. Can you show readable code, and can you embed a live sandbox?
2. Video. Screencasts are long and high-resolution, so upload and bandwidth limits matter.
3. Fees vs revenue. At what monthly revenue does a flat plan beat a percentage fee?
4. Export. If you leave, what comes with you?

Code blocks and embeds

Teachable has a Code Example block in the lesson editor. Teachable’s help article says it shows “code in read-only form (students can view, but not run)”, and you pick a language from a dropdown. The listed languages are CSS, Dart, Go, Haskell, HTML, Java, JavaScript, JSON, Liquid, MySQL, Objective-C, PHP, Python, Ruby, Scala, Text, TypeScript and YAML.

That list matters. Rust, C, C++, C#, Kotlin, Swift and shell aren’t on it. If you teach one of those, you’d fall back to the plain “Text” option. Check this before you build a course around it.

For live embeds such as a StackBlitz or CodeSandbox iframe, Teachable has a separate Custom Code block. The help article says “Custom code is supported on the Basic plan and higher”. Basic isn’t a plan name on Teachable’s current pricing page (Starter, Builder, Growth), so confirm with Teachable whether Starter includes it. The same article warns that Teachable Support “does not guarantee the functionality, maintenance, or compatibility” of custom code. The Easy Embed block handles YouTube, Vimeo, Loom, Google Docs and Typeform by URL.

Thinkific’s help docs list the New Course Builder text block’s formatting options as headings, bold, italic, underline, lists, alignment and links. There’s no code block. Its lesson-types article suggests text lessons for material that’s “traditionally text-based (like coding or math)”, but it doesn’t describe code formatting. For iframes there’s the Multimedia lesson (“as long as the content is ‘iframeable’, it should work”). Thinkific’s pricing page lists “externally hosted and interactive content” and advanced CSS/HTML editing as not included on Basic, only from Start ($109/mo) up.

A workaround is to load a highlighter such as Prism through Site Footer Code, which is available on every plan. Thinkific’s docs say custom JavaScript “might” run in the Course Player, and the footer code has to be opted in separately for the new Course Player and Learner Hub. That’s a fragile foundation for every lesson in a course.

Takeaway: if code-on-screen is most of your course, Teachable’s built-in block is the safer bet, as long as your language is on its list.

Video hosting

The 3GB per-video cap on Thinkific is the one developers hit. A long, uncut 4K screencast can go past it, and Thinkific’s own advice is to compress with Handbrake. Splitting long sessions into shorter lessons also solves it.

The Basic bandwidth cap is worth a quick calculation. Check the file size of one of your own exported lessons. If an hour of your 1080p screencast exports at around 0.5GB (an assumption, not a vendor figure), 100 GB/mo covers about 200 student-hours of watching a month. That’s plenty for a small launch, but a popular course on Basic could outgrow it.

Transaction fees vs revenue: the break-even table

The figures below cover only the plan price and platform fee, on monthly billing. Card processing (2.9% on Thinkific Payments, and 2.9% + 30¢ for US cards on Teachable’s checkout) is roughly the same on both, so we left it out.

*Teachable’s 0% applies when you use Teachable Payments. Thinkific’s third-party gateway fee (5% Basic, 2% Start, 1% Grow, none on Plus) currently applies to Stripe transactions. Its FAQ says it will extend to PayPal and other providers later, and it stops after your first $1M in sales in a calendar year.

The break-even points:

• Teachable Starter vs Builder: about $667/mo in revenue ($50 difference ÷ 7.5%). On annual billing ($29 vs $69) it’s about $533/mo. Past that, Starter’s 7.5% fee costs more than upgrading.
• Teachable Starter vs Thinkific Basic: about $200/mo. Above that, Thinkific Basic is cheaper, but only if Basic’s limits are acceptable for a coding course (no external interactive content, no advanced HTML/CSS).
• For a like-for-like coding course, compare Teachable Builder ($89) with Thinkific Start ($109). Both have no platform fee on their own payment processor, and Teachable is $20/mo cheaper.
• Bringing your own Stripe account to Thinkific is expensive on Basic. At $2,500/mo, the 5% gateway fee is $125, more than double the plan price.

Export and lock-in

Neither platform lets you export a course and walk away with it in one step.

• Teachable: “we don’t currently have a native feature that allows you to export a course as a single unit.” Videos, PDFs and other files download one at a time from the curriculum editor, and text has to be copied out by hand. Students and transactions export as CSV, and the files are emailed to you.
• Thinkific: “We don’t currently have the option to export an entire course… as one file.” There’s no bulk video download either, so each video is saved individually, and text, quiz and survey content is copied and pasted. Thinkific also notes it stores “only the most current version” of your content.

For a developer, the fix is to treat the platform as a host and not as your source of truth. Write lessons in Markdown in a git repo, keep your master video files locally or in object storage, and paste into the course builder. Then a migration means re-uploading, not scraping your own course.

The two platforms

1. Our pick

Teachable

Best for selling online courses

Pricing: 7-day free trial; paid from $39/mo (Starter)

What we like

• 0% Teachable fee on Builder and up with Teachable Payments
• Built-in email marketing
• Public API with OAuth

Watch out for

• 7.5% transaction fee on Starter
• Community not included on Starter
• No free plan

Pick Teachable if you’re showing code in most lessons and your language is on its Code Example list. Start on Starter while revenue is under about $667/mo, then move to Builder ($89/mo, 0% with Teachable Payments). Webhooks are capped at 1 on Starter, 3 on Builder and 5 on Growth, which is enough to trigger a Discord invite or a repo-access script on purchase. Builder also allows 10 products, up from 5 on Starter.

2. Runner-up

Thinkific

Best for course businesses that want a full LMS

Pricing: 30-day free trial; paid from $54/mo (Basic)

What we like

• 30-day free trial
• Custom domain and email automation on every plan
• Communities included (1 on Basic)

Watch out for

• No free plan
• API and webhooks only on Grow ($219/mo) and up
• 5% fee on Stripe payments on Basic (2% Start, 1% Grow); 0% with Thinkific Payments

Pick Thinkific if your course is mostly video, you’re happy with plain text or images for code, and you want the cheapest fee-free setup: Basic at $54/mo with Thinkific Payments. It also has the longer trial (30 days vs Teachable’s 7). If you need embedded sandboxes or custom HTML, budget for Start at $109/mo. If you want the API or webhooks to automate access, that’s Grow at $219/mo.

Quick decision rule

• Teaching Rust, C/C++, Swift, Kotlin or shell? Teachable’s Code Example block doesn’t list those languages, so its main advantage shrinks. Compare on price and video instead.
• Under $200/mo in revenue and mostly video? Thinkific Basic with Thinkific Payments.
• Code-heavy lessons and over about $667/mo? Teachable Builder.
• Need API access to automate enrollments? Teachable has a public API and webhooks on its standard plans (confirm the limits for your plan). Thinkific’s API starts at Grow ($219/mo).
• Already on your own Stripe account and won’t switch? Avoid Thinkific Basic, where the 5% gateway fee adds up quickly.

FAQ

Does Teachable charge transaction fees? Only on Starter, which charges 7.5%. Builder, Growth and Custom show 0% when you use Teachable Payments. Card processing fees still apply on every plan (2.9% + 30¢ for US cards).

Does Thinkific charge transaction fees? Not on Thinkific Payments. If you process through your own Stripe account, there’s a third-party gateway fee of 5% on Basic, 2% on Start and 1% on Grow, with none on Plus for now.

Can I export my course from Teachable or Thinkific? Not as a single package. Both let you download files one at a time and export student lists as CSV, but lesson text has to be copied out by hand. Keep your own copies.

Which is cheaper for a small coding course? Thinkific Basic ($54/mo) is the cheapest fee-free option, but it excludes embedded interactive content. Teachable Starter ($39/mo) is cheaper until your revenue passes about $200/mo, after which its 7.5% fee makes it the more expensive choice.