How to Create a Membership Site on Thinkific

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Creating a membership site is an excellent way to give your students access to your ongoing content. In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about creating a membership site on Thinkific. We will cover what features you’ll get, which plans are available, how you can launch a membership site, and how you can get the most out of it.

Thinkific Membership Site

What Is a Membership Site?

A membership site is a subscription-based site with gated content exclusive for its members. It’s a hub where your students can get continued access to your community, content, and maybe even your time.

A membership site typically differs from other websites in four ways:

  • Ongoing training: Creating new content and continuing offering it to members.
  • Recurring revenue: Students will subscribe to the site and pay a recurring fee to access content or services.
  • Focus on retention: Emphasis on keeping subscribers as long as possible.
  • Building a community: Accessing a community of like-minded people

Which Thinkific Plan Works Best For Membership Sites?

Thinkific offers multiple plans with a range of features, but membership sites are only available as a feature starting with the $99 per month Pro plan, making it the best option for this purpose.

Thinkific’s Pro plan is the most popular, offering course creators a wide range of features to build an online course business and create an exceptional student experience.

Hence, you should opt for the Pro or Premier (costs $499 per month) plans that offer course bundle features and allow for recurring revenue flow. With the Pro plan, you can increase your revenue by selling packaged membership and course offerings.

Thinkific Features For Successful Membership Sites

Thinkific provides extensive features to help you build a membership site successfully. Besides the basic features, it also gives you advanced features to boost your site, helping your members get the most value out of their subscriptions. Some of these advanced features are:

  • Advanced Pricing Options – Give your students the option to choose a multi-level subscription to choose from signing up.
  • Discussion Feature – Build a community where students can offer support and ask questions.
  • Member-Only Pages – Create private pages that only students with your membership site bundle can access. 
  • Live Zoom Lesson Integration – Give your students live group sessions using Zoom Meetings or Zoom Webinars by scheduling a Live Lesson within Thinkific.
  • Membership Site Templates – To give you ideas and shortcuts to create your membership site.
  • Drip scheduling – Gives you the option to control when students can access your course content.
  • Unlimited Members – To enable as many people as possible to subscribe to your site.
Subscription tiers Thinkific

How To Launch a Membership Site On Thinkific

Creating a membership site in Thinkific involves four steps. These are:

  1. Create a course bundle – Course bundles are the core of your membership and allow you to sell multiple courses in a single package.
  2. Set up recurring payments through Stripe – To charge subscriptions for your site, you need to first integrate with Stripe, after which you can set a subscription price.
  3. Create a Thinkific community – To allow members to engage and connect with you and each other.
  4. Design your site’s landing page – Build a landing page with details on your membership to sell to as many people as possible.

How To Create A Course Bundle For Your Membership Site On Thinkific

Course bundles allow you to add value and, for your membership site, you can include all the courses you want in the Bundle. You can also add content to an existing bundle, especially handy if you’re uploading content every month. Here’s how you can create a Course Bundle:

  1. Go to Manage Learning Content
  2. Select Courses
  3. Select the Membership and Bundles tab
  4. Click + New Bundle
  5. Title your new bundle
  6. Click Create Bundle
  7. Add all the courses you want your students to access within the bundle
  8. Connect your Stripe account to accept recurring payments
  9. Set a subscription price

Top Tips For Successful Membership Site On Thinkific

Once you have the foundation of your membership site laid down, it’s time to create a site that grows into an active community. There are multiple areas you can focus on to ensure you’re providing real value to users. Here’s what you can do:

  • Define your target market and ideal member
  • Get Pro Plan or above
  • Provide a great onboarding process and support to your customers
  • Create social media communities for your members
  • Create a minimum viable product (MVP)
  • Get your audience’s feedback
  • Research your competition
  • Choose a platform to host your site

Summary

While creating a membership site can be challenging at first, it’s an excellent way to elevate your course offerings. It’s a great option to consider if you’re going to add new content to your course regularly, which is crucial for a successful membership site to keep your students aboard. 

Thinkific provides an excellent platform for creating a full-fledged membership site that provides continuing value to users. By following the guide above and focusing on customer retention as your long-term strategy, you can easily create a membership site that keeps users engaged.

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  • Samuel Fletcher

    Samuel Fletcher is a entrepreneur with over 15 years in online course development. With an in-depth understanding of online course platforms, including Kajabi, Thinkific, LearnWorlds, and more, he has not only created courses on these platforms but has also assisted others in their course creation journeys. Beyond his hands-on experience, Sam is a passionate blogger, online business mentor, and a proactive contributor to community initiatives. His commitment to excellence and belief in dedication, perseverance, and unwavering commitment drives his success. Recognizing the gap in unbiased, quality information about online course platforms, he co-founded SupplyGem. In addition to his leadership role, Samuel serves as a Technical Writer at SupplyGem, sharing his expertise with a broader audience. Moreover, he's an active member of professional associations such as the Association for Talent Development (ATD), The Learning Guild, and others, underlining his dedication to continuous learning and industry advancement.

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