ARMember vs Thinkific
Features, use cases, pros and cons, and pricing side by side — and which one to pick.
Quick verdict: Pick ARMember if you run a WordPress membership site, and Thinkific if you're selling courses on a hosted platform.
Best for: Coaches and creators selling online courses or gated lessons, Associations managing members and recurring subscriptions
Read the full ARMember reviewBest for: Experts and coaches selling courses, memberships, coaching, or digital downloads, Training academies scaling professional education programs
Read the full Thinkific reviewCommission may apply at no extra cost
ARMember vs Thinkific: features compared
Compare key features side by side
Feature Comparison Summary
Which should you choose?
Choose ARMember if
- Your site runs on WordPress and you want everything in one plugin
- You want 22+ native payment gateways with no third-party connectors
Choose Thinkific if
- You're selling courses and want hosting, checkout, and community in one place
- You need multi-currency checkout, automated sales tax, and B2B invoicing
ARMember vs Thinkific: pros and cons
ARMember bundles subscriptions, gated content, payments, and community tools into one WordPress plugin, with a genuinely free version you can keep. Just watch that courses, communities, and group plans sit in the $299/year Enterprise tier, and that premium plans are annual-only. Overall, it's a solid pick for WordPress owners who want membership essentials without stacking plugins.
Pros
- Ships with 22+ native payment gateways including Stripe, PayPal, and Razorpay, so you can accept recurring payments without installing third-party connector plugins
- Security features come built in — brute-force login protection, a hideable WordPress login page, and auto-locking of shared member accounts — reducing the need for a separate security plugin stack
- Supports four monetization models on the same site — recurring subscriptions, one-time lifetime plans, pay-per-post sales, and parallel memberships held by a single member
Cons
- Several headline capabilities — online courses, social community, group membership, and member network sites — only appear in the $299/year Enterprise plan, so lower tiers require workarounds or missing features
- No monthly billing option is listed; paid plans are annual-only starting at $89/year, and the site's lifetime option requires comparing terms separately
- The free plan is limited to 2 payment gateways, no premium add-ons, and limited support, so you can't fully evaluate gateway compatibility or premium features before paying
Thinkific bundles courses, community, and checkout on one platform, with flat per-site pricing that covers up to 10,000 students, verified security credentials, and a 4.5/5 G2 rating. The trade-offs: no free plan or refund guarantee, tier-gated features, and bandwidth caps. Overall, it's a strong pick for creators and teams serious about selling what they know.
Pros
- Courses, community, and checkout run on one platform with a single learner login, so you avoid stitching together a separate course builder, payment processor, and community app.
- Commerce goes beyond basic payments — subscriptions, payment plans, bundles, upsells, order bumps, multi-currency checkout, automated sales tax and VAT, and failed-payment recovery are all built in.
- Pricing is flat per site rather than per student — every self-serve plan covers up to 10,000 current students and unlimited published courses, so costs don't climb with enrollment.
Cons
- There is no free plan — only a 30-day trial — and Thinkific advertises no money-back guarantee.
- Video bandwidth is capped by tier at 100–400 GB per month, the main limit that scales with price, which can constrain video-heavy course catalogs.
- Important capabilities sit behind higher tiers — API access and webhooks start at Grow, Thinkific branding removal requires Grow, and SCORM, SSO, and HubSpot/Salesforce integrations are reserved for quote-based Plus.
ARMember and Thinkific in detail
ARMember
ARMember is a WordPress membership plugin for building paid-content sites. It handles subscriptions, gated content, member profiles, and communities from one dashboard.
You can run courses, video or podcast memberships, associations, and digital download stores. The site reports 50,000+ users, a free version, and premium plans from $89 per year.
Standout features
- Lock Down Content, Your Way
- Drip Content on a Schedule
- Flexible Ways to Charge Members
- A Community Feel From Day One
- Security That's Built In
Use cases
- Sell Online Courses Without Code
- Run a Podcast or Video Membership
- Manage an Association or Community
- Sell Digital Downloads and Paid Posts
Thinkific
Thinkific is an all-in-one platform for creating, selling, and running online learning. It covers courses, communities, memberships, coaching, digital downloads, and the checkout to sell them. It's built for experts turning knowledge into revenue, academies scaling training, companies running customer education, and associations powering member learning. Thinkific says 20,000+ teams use it, and customers have earned $4.23B.
Standout features
- Build courses learners actually finish
- Community that lives beside your lessons
- Sell more with built-in commerce
- AI that handles the busywork
Use cases
- Turn your expertise into revenue
- Scale a professional training academy
- Train customers and partners
- Build member education that renews
Pricing compared
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, before taxes and add-ons. Costs are per month.
| Pricing compared | ARMember | Thinkific |
|---|---|---|
| From (cheapest paid plan) | $8.25/mo Standard | $54/mo Basic |
| Free plan | Yes Limited support; no premium add-ons or premium payment gateways | No |
| Free trial | Not stated | 30 days |
| Money-back guarantee | 14 days | Not stated |
| Annual billing savings | — | Up to 26% |
| Pricing model | Flat price | Flat price |
| Cost for 1 user | FreeCheaper Free plan, billed annually | $40/mo Basic plan, billed annually |
| Cost for 5 users | $8.25/mo Standard plan, billed annually · price per account (user limit not stated) | $40/mo Basic plan, billed annually · price per account (user limit not stated) |
| Cost for 10 users | $8.25/mo Standard plan, billed annually · price per account (user limit not stated) | $40/mo Basic plan, billed annually · price per account (user limit not stated) |
| Cost for 25 users | $8.25/mo Standard plan, billed annually · price per account (user limit not stated) | $40/mo Basic plan, billed annually · price per account (user limit not stated) |
| Plans | 4 | 5 |
| Prices checked | Checked Oct 13, 2026 | Vendor page checked Oct 13, 2026 |
| Price history | Tracking prices since Sep 8, 2026. No price change detected yet. | Tracking prices since Oct 1, 2026. No price change detected yet. |
- Cheapest plan that fits each team size. Per-user plans are multiplied by the number of users (respecting stated minimums and seat packs). Plans that include some users cost their base price plus the extra-user price for each user beyond those included. Flat-priced plans with no stated user limit are counted as one licence per user.
Cheaper for your team size
For 1 user (billed annually), ARMember costs $0/mo vs Thinkific at $40/mo.
- Only ARMember has a free plan.
Computed from published list prices on the dates shown. Excludes taxes, add-ons and promotions.
More comparisons
Frequently Asked Questions
Do either of these tools offer refunds?
ARMember backs every paid purchase with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Thinkific advertises no money-back guarantee, but you can cancel Basic, Start, or Grow plans anytime, including during the 30-day trial.
Which tool is better for online courses?
Thinkific is purpose-built for courses, with cohorts, certificates, learning paths, SCORM on Plus, and AI course drafts. ARMember can sell courses on WordPress using its Online Courses Addon, available on Enterprise.