Need to set up your Thinkific online course and website fast? We've got you covered. Read on to learn the essential steps to getting your course launched on Thinkific.
In this article:
Sign Up for a Thinkific Account
Before you begin...
In this guide, you'll get an overview of how to set up some of the tools that you'll need to create an account, start building your first course, and customize your site. Once you've worked through the articles below, don't forget to bookmark this page so you can come back to it again later.
Now, let's get started!
Sign Up for a Thinkific Account
You'll need an account to follow along with this guide. Thinkific is free to get started with, no credit card required.
Signing up for a Thinkific paid plan will unlock features that you may want (or need) to launch your course with. Browse Thinkific pricing plans here to compare available features by plan level, and decide if you need to upgrade before getting started.
Create Your Online Course
Once you've created your account, the first thing you'll want to do is create a new course. When you sign in to Thinkific, you will see your Admin Dashboard:
From this page, you can access all of the parts of your Thinkific course website. From here, you can get started on your course by following the steps below:
- Go to Manage Learning Content (from the left hand menu of your Admin Dashboard)
- Select Courses
- Select + New Course
- Name your course - this can be changed later
For more detailed instructions, check out: Creating a Course
Add lessons to your course
Thinkific courses are made up of Chapters which contain Lessons.
After creating a course, you'll begin by editing it in the Course Builder. You can add lessons from the Curriculum tab, or you can use the Bulk Importer tab if you want to upload several files at once.
To add a new Lesson from the Curriculum tab:
- Select Add Chapter
- Name the Chapter, and select Save
- In the new Chapter, select Add Lesson
- Choose a lesson type
- Name your new lesson
- Add your content (how you do this will depend on which lesson type you chose)
- (Optional) Configure the Lesson Settings
Explore the different lesson types here: Thinkific Lesson Types
Customize your Course Player
The Course Player is where students will view lessons, watch your videos, take quizzes, and more! You can customize the Course Player with your personal branding by adding a logo, changing the color, and updating the font.
- From your Admin Dashboard, go to Manage Learning Content
- Select Courses
- Select Player Settings
- Make your changes, and click Save
You can learn more about the Course Player here: The Thinkific Course Player
Customize Your Site
Now that you have created your course, you can start working on your site pages!
Thinkific's Site Builder allows you to fine-tune your course website pages with images, branding and more. For a quick set up, we'll take you through the essentials: customizing your course's landing page and website home page.
Customize your course's landing page
Each course has a landing page (i.e. sales page) created for it automatically. You can edit this page in Site Builder, which can be accessed from the Admin Dashboard.
- From the Admin Dashboard, select Manage Learning Content
- Select Courses
- Click on the course you want to edit
- Click Build Landing Page on the top right
- Now you are in the Site Builder
When editing a course's landing page:
- Click Theme Settings to change the theme, add a logo, add your brand colors, update fonts, etc.
- Any changes you make in Theme settings will apply to your whole website!
- Customize the Header for your course website
- Customize the Banner section
- Customize the Footer for your course website
- (Optional) Add, reorder, or delete sections on the page
Check out Site Builder Sections for a full overview of section types, and learn more about setting up your landing page here: Build a Course Landing Page
Customize your course website's home page
Home pages direct your website's visitors to the right place. They're useful if you plan to create and offer more than one online course.
First, decide if you're going to create more than one course.
If you plan on creating multiple courses, you will want to edit your home page in Site Builder:
- From your Admin Dashboard, go to Design Your Site
- Select Site Pages
- Locate your Home page
- Click the pencil icon to open Site Builder
For an in-depth guide see: Build Your Home Page
If you are creating only one course for now, we recommend using a home page redirect. This will send visitors from the home page to your course landing page instead, so you don't need to spend time customizing your home page. You can always remove the redirect later if you add more courses!
- Following the first two steps above, select the page you want to use as your homepage redirect, and click the ellipses (three dots)
- Select Set as Home
Learn more here: Understanding Home Page Redirects
Personalize your site name and URL
Your site's name and Thinkific URL can be changed at any time, but it's best to set this up before launching to avoid confusing your students. You can change the site name and URL from the Settings page.
To change the Site name:
- From your Admin Dashboard, go to Settings
- Under the Site tab, select Site Details
- Edit the Site name field
- Save your new site name
To change the Site URL:
- From your Admin Dashboard, go to Settings
- Under the Site tab, select Site URL
- click the three dots next to the current URL, and select Edit URL
- Edit the My Thinkific URL field
- Save your new URL
If you want to remove the '.thinkific.com' part of the URL, you can add a Custom Domain on any paid plan.
Publish Your Course
Once you've got all of the essential first steps set up, you will be ready to add these next final touches to prepare for your big launch!
Price your course
If you will be offering your course for free, you don't need to do anything. The default pricing for courses is set to free, so you can skip to the next section.
If you want to sell your online course, you will need to connect a payment processor:
- From your Admin Dashboard, go to Settings
- Select the Payments tab
- Follow the instructions to set up Thinkific Payments, Stripe or PayPal
After setting up a payment processor, set a price for your course:
As of May 19th 2022, all new Creators located in Canada or the USA who sign up for Free and Basic plans will have Thinkific Payments set as their default payment processor. As of June 10th 2022, all new UK (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) creators who sign up for Free and Basic plans will also have Thinkific Payments set as their default payment processor. Learn more about this update: Thinkific Payments Updates: What to Know
- From your Admin Dashboard, go to Manage Learning Content
- Select Courses
- Click on the course you want to edit
- Select the Pricing tab
- Select One-time payment, Subscription / Membership, or Payment Plan
- Enter a price and hit Save
Learn about the different price options here: Set Your Course Pricing
Customize your course image and description
Your course image and description will show up in link previews on social media, and in your checkout. It's like a tiny sales page for your course.
- From your Admin Dashboard, go to Manage Learning Content
- Select Courses
- Click on the course you want to edit
- Select the Settings tab
- Select Course image and description
- Upload an image for the card (760 pixels by 420 pixels)
- Write a description for the card (Max 250 characters)
- Save your course card
See this article for more details: Edit Your Course or Bundle Image & Description
Finally, don't forget to check out our Launch Preparedness Checklist - one of many great resources available to help you make sure you've got everything you need!
Publish your course
Publishing a course makes it visible to visitors, and allows students to enroll. Courses can be unpublished at any time, but this will remove access to students as well.
To publish your course:
- From your Admin Dashboard, go to Manage Learning Content
- Select Courses
- Click on the course you want to edit
- Go to the Publish tab
- Under Course publish status, select Published
- Save to publish the course.
To learn more about publishing, check out: Publishing Your Course
Share your course
You can send your published course to anyone by sharing the link to:
- Your home page (which looks like https://course-site.thinkific.com or your custom domain)
-
Your course landing page (see how to copy your course landing page link here)
- Or share the link to your course checkout instead!
Nice work! You've launched your first online course!