Thinkific

Thinkific is a course platform that lets creators and businesses build, host, and sell online courses, memberships, and communities under their own brand rather than on a marketplace. It was founded in 2012 by Greg Smith, Matt Smith, Miranda Lievers, and Matt Payne and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. It competes directly with Teachable and Kajabi.

There is a genuinely free plan with one course, which lowers the barrier for referrals considerably. Paid tiers start at roughly $36 per month and scale through Start and Grow, with Thinkific Plus as a separately quoted enterprise product.

The affiliate program pays 30% lifetime recurring commission on standard monthly and annual paid plans — genuinely lifetime, not capped at 12 months, so a referral who runs their course business for years keeps paying out. Referrals onto Thinkific Plus pay a flat $150 per month instead of the percentage, which is where the headline figure of up to $1,800 per referral comes from.

Tracking runs on PartnerStack with a generous 90-day cookie, giving buyers time to work through a decision that often involves migrating existing course content. Payouts are monthly through the PartnerStack dashboard.