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Systeme.io or Thinkific: which lets a UK coach sell a course without a large monthly bill?

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Both tools will host a course and take a card payment. The bill is different before the first sale. Systeme.io publishes a free plan in US dollars. Thinkific’s pricing page, read the same day, also shows US dollars, and its FAQ says there is no free plan. A UK checkout may add VAT. Thinkific’s cost article says tax can apply and does not state a UK rate on that page. Prices below are the ones the vendors published. Checked 21 October 2026.

What public reviews say

These are third-party scores, read on 21 October 2026. They are other people’s reviews. Occono has not collected them, and they will move. Trustpilot says, on the Thinkific profile, that the company has not invited customers recently, so the reviews may not be representative. That profile also says it was merged with one or more other Trustpilot profiles, so some reviews were first left on another page.

Thinkific’s 1.8 and its 69% five-star share are both on the same Trustpilot page. They are not the same kind of number. The star split is the whole set of 868 reviews. The TrustScore sits next to a note that only 30 of those reviews are from the last 12 months. Recent reviews on the page, quoted below, are complaints about access, cancellation and getting course files back. Capterra’s 4.4, from 207 software reviews last updated on 29 September 2026, is the kinder Thinkific score, and Daphnie C.’s August 2026 review is about delivering training, not about a refund.

Systeme.io’s Capterra score is 4.8 from 2,131 reviews, on a page last updated the same day. This article does not put a Trustpilot number next to it, because that profile could not be read on 21 October 2026.

“Overall, my experience with Systeme.io has been pretty smooth. I liked having emails, landing pages, and automation together, although the interface took some time to get used to.”

Harshit V., digital marketing executive, Capterra, 26 September 2026. Link to the Systeme.io page the review was read on. Checked 21 October 2026.

“Overall, my experience with Systeme.io has been very positive. It’s a reliable all-in-one platform that combines email marketing, sales funnels, automation, and digital product delivery in a way that’s easy to use and cost-effective. It’s especially well-suited for solo entrepreneurs, creators, and small businesses looking to simplify their marketing stack without paying for multiple tools.”

Anonymous user, listed as a consultant, Capterra, 29 January 2026, on the same Systeme.io page.

“Overall, our experience with Thinkific has been positive. The platform is easy to use and provides a reliable way to host, manage, and deliver our online training courses to learners. Course and user management are generally straightforward, and the platform works well for our core training needs. There is room for improvement in reporting, automation, and integrations, but overall, Thinkific has been a useful and dependable platform for managing our online learning programs.”

Daphnie C., operations manager, Capterra, 28 August 2026. Link to the Thinkific page the review was read on. The same review gives customer service 4.0 and likelihood to recommend 8 out of 10.

“I've been using Thinkific since June 2023, trusting them to have a safe, dependable and secure platform for clients to learn from my tutorials. Well, come to find out three years later that the platform was not allowing people to click on the lessons and complete them.”

Monica Kearse, in the US, Trustpilot, 12 October 2026. Link to the Thinkific profile. The same review says only a chatbot was available at first, and that Thinkific offered to refund one month. Checked 21 October 2026.

“I am writing an update to my review AGAIN, for the THIRD time, because their "customer service" did NOTHING to help me retrieve my OWN course materials after I stopped paying Thinkific $45 every month when my courses were not selling at all.”

WeHo Guy, in the US, Trustpilot, 10 September 2026, on the same profile. The $45 is the amount stated in the review. It is not the Start price on Thinkific’s pricing page on 21 October 2026. Thinkific replied on 11 September 2026: “once a subscription is cancelled, access to administrative features, including course management, manual enrollments, and site editing, is no longer available.” The same reply says video files remain accessible through the Video Library for download.

What you actually get

Checked 21 October 2026 on Systeme.io’s pricing page and on Thinkific’s pricing page. Where a vendor’s own pages disagree, the cell says so. Subscription prices are in US dollars, as those pages show them.

Systeme.io prices and limits: systeme.io/pricing, including the plan descriptions and the FAQ text served from that URL. Checked 21 October 2026. The visible FAQ says the free plan never expires, needs no card, and includes 500 students. The FAQ data on the same URL adds the 6-month inactivity rule, the $10,000 sales cap, and the line that payments on a paid plan are non-refundable. Startup, Webinar and Unlimited are $17, $47 and $97 a month in that data.

Thinkific plan prices, the 30-day trial, the “no free plan” FAQ, and the comparison table: thinkific.com/pricing. The page schema says it was modified on 20 October 2026. This article read it on 21 October 2026. Annual totals and the pound column: Thinkific’s 2026 price-update article. The increase was set for 13 August 2026. Some answers on that article still tell existing customers what to do before 13 August, so treat it as the published price table, not as a live checkout.

Thinkific fees: How much does Thinkific cost?, third-party gateway fee FAQ, and Thinkific Payments country fees. The UK row in that table is 1.7% + £0.20. The same article adds a 0.5% fee where its tax tool assesses sales tax or VAT, including some UK sales, and lists cases where that 0.5% does not apply. Checked 21 October 2026.

The offer

Systeme.io. Free plan: $0, no card. One course, up to 500 students, up to 2,000 contacts, unlimited email sends, and a $10,000 total-sales cap in the FAQ data. Startup is $17 a month. Webinar is $47 a month. Unlimited is $97 a month. Annual billing is on the page and badged “2 months free”. This article does not turn that badge into a dollar price, because the plan data it could read gives the monthly figures. There is no separate paid-plan trial. If you cancel a paid plan, the FAQ data says you keep it until the next billing date, then the account moves back to the free plan, and the payment is non-refundable. If you are then over the free limits, the account is restricted until you upgrade or remove the extra items. Nothing is deleted, including student progress, on that same answer.

Thinkific. No free plan on the pricing FAQ. A 30-day trial of Start, Grow and Expand. Start is $109 a month, or $82 a month on annual billing. Grow is $219 a month, or $164 a month on annual billing. Expand is $499 a month, or $374 a month on annual billing. Plus is custom. The pricing page says annual billing saves 25%. You can cancel during the trial, on the FAQ. The price-update article says you can cancel at any time without charge through account settings, and that a pro-rata refund of an annual plan after renewal depends on whether your jurisdiction requires it. This article does not turn that into UK legal advice. The same article’s new pound prices, for people billed in pounds, are Start at £92 a month or £828 a year, and Grow at £186 a month or £1,668 a year. The pricing page itself showed dollars when it was read. Thinkific is a Canadian company. Its cost article says a card issuer may add a cross-border fee, usually under $1, which Thinkific does not charge, and that VAT may be added on top of the subscription. It does not state the VAT rate.

A worked example, Occono’s own arithmetic. It uses the dollar prices above. It ignores VAT, the cross-border card fee, and payment processing. Twelve times Thinkific Start at $109 is $1,308. Thinkific’s price-update article lists the annual Start total as $978. $1,308 minus $978 is $330, which matches the “Save $330” label on the pricing card. Twelve times the card’s $82 is $984, which is $6 more than $978. $978 divided by 12 is $81.50, and the card rounds that to $82. Twelve times Systeme.io Startup at $17 is $204. That is the monthly price held for a year. It is not an annual-billing total, because Systeme.io’s page did not show one that this article could read.

One course at $97, sold to 10 people, is $970. That does not cover a year of Thinkific Start at the $978 figure. It does cover a year of Systeme.io Startup at $204, and it is inside the free plan’s $10,000 sales cap. The free plan’s 500-student cap is a different exit. At $20 a course, 500 students is $10,000, so the two free-plan caps arrive together. At $97, the sales cap arrives first: 103 sales is $9,991, and 104 sales is $10,088. Stripe or Thinkific Payments still take their own fee out of those sales. The $970 is not money you keep in full.

Which one fits you?

Harshit V.’s September 2026 review is a person who wanted email, pages and automation in one place, and who found the screens slow to learn. The anonymous January 2026 review is aimed at a one-person business that does not want a stack of tools. Daphnie C.’s August 2026 review is an organisation delivering training, happy with the course tools and still exporting data for follow-up. Monica Kearse and WeHo Guy are creators who paid and then could not get the student experience, or their files, to behave. Those four are closer to a coach deciding where to put a course than a software-buyer average is.

A self-employed coach selling a first workshop to people who already enquire. You do not yet know if ten people will pay. Systeme.io’s free plan is the one that lets you put up a page, a checkout and one course before a monthly bill. The caps are the point to read twice: 500 students, 2,000 contacts, and $10,000 in total sales. A local workshop will not hit 500 students quickly. A $97 course can hit the sales cap in about a hundred sales, on the arithmetic above. Startup at $17 a month is the next step, and it is still far under Thinkific Start. Thinkific’s 30 days are enough to build the course. They are a short window if the first sale takes a term. The pricing page does not say the trial is free of a card.

A trainer whose buyers expect a quiz, a certificate, or a live cohort. Thinkific’s Start card lists those. Systeme.io’s pricing page does not. Daphnie C.’s review is the case for paying: course and learner admin in one place, with reporting that still needed a spreadsheet. If the certificate is part of what the buyer pays for, Start at $82 a month on annual billing, or $109 month to month, is the bill for that school. Branding stays on Start. Phone support and bulk email to students wait until Grow, at $164 a month on annual billing or $219 month to month. On a UK Thinkific Payments account, budget 1.7% + £0.20 on a card sale, and another 0.7% if the buyer is on a payment plan. If you keep Stripe instead, Thinkific adds 2% on Start for a UK creator. That 2% is not a Stripe fee. It is Thinkific’s gateway fee. The fee article says this fee applies only to the first $1 million in sales made through Thinkific in a calendar year, and is waived after that.

A consultant who needs the sales page and one follow-up more than a campus. Systeme.io is that stack: funnels, email and a course, with three funnels and one automation rule before you pay. Thinkific Start does include landing pages, a site builder and email automation. It does not include bulk email to students. If the letter is the product and the course is occasional, a newsletter tool is the closer question. The beehiiv and Substack comparison is that page, and beehiiv is the newsletter tool this site uses. If a new enrolment should also land on a spreadsheet you already keep, Make can connect the form to the sheet. That is a second product, and a second bill once you leave Make’s free plan.

Someone moving a course that already sells. Export the list, the files and the student record before you cancel anything. WeHo Guy’s September 2026 review is a creator who stopped paying and could not get the course materials back through support. Thinkific’s reply says admin access ends when the subscription ends, and that video files can still be downloaded from the Video Library. Monica Kearse’s October 2026 review is a different failure: students who could not open the lessons. Read those against Daphnie C.’s review, which is a training operation that found the platform dependable. If the student area is already the reason people buy, and the monthly bill is covered, Thinkific is the tool built for that school. If you are moving because the bill is the problem, Systeme.io Startup at $17 a month is the smaller number. The Kajabi comparison is the next page if you already have revenue and you want a more polished student experience than either of these entry plans.

Where Thinkific is the better buy

Thinkific wins when the course is the product. Quizzes, assignments, certificates, cohorts and a custom domain are on Start, not held back for a higher plan. The comparison table allows 10,000 current students on that same plan. Capterra’s 4.4 from 207 reviews, and Daphnie C.’s August 2026 review, are the public case that the teaching tools work for people running training. You pay for that from the first month after the trial. There is no free plan on the pricing FAQ, whatever the page’s short description says. Start at $82 a month on annual billing is $978 a year in Thinkific’s own price-update table. Grow, at $164 a month on annual billing, is the first plan that removes Thinkific branding and includes bulk email. The Trustpilot score of 1.8 from 868 reviews is the reason to test a real checkout, and to download the video library, before you point adverts at the school. Recent reviews on that profile are about access and cancellation, not about the course builder. The all-time star split is much kinder than 1.8, and only 30 reviews are from the last 12 months.

Systeme.io wins when the offer is still unproven, or when you would otherwise pay for a page builder, an email tool and a course host. The free plan is a real account: one course, 500 students, unlimited sends, no card. The $10,000 sales cap and the 6-month inactivity line are in the page’s FAQ data, next to a visible FAQ that says the free plan never expires. Read both on the day you start. Startup at $17 a month is the first paid step, against Thinkific’s $109. The platform fee is stated as 0%. You still pay Stripe or PayPal, and this page does not pretend to know the UK rate those two will charge you. Capterra’s 4.8 from 2,131 reviews is the public score this article could read. Trustpilot for Systeme.io is not in the table, because the page did not load. Harshit V.’s review is the learning-curve warning. Export the list if you later move.

Use one checkout. Two course platforms means two places a buyer can pay, and two student lists to export when you leave.

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Update details

• 21 October 2026 — Published.