Alva Courses vs Thinkific
Alva Courses is a Shopify app that builds, sells and delivers online courses natively inside your store — students check out once and learn in your branded storefront and customer account, with one login and no separate subdomain. Thinkific is a standalone learning platform hosted on its own site. Here's how the two compare across where students learn, checkout, customer-data ownership, video hosting and pricing.
Side by side at a glance.
| Capability | Alva Courses | Thinkific |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Native inside your Shopify store | Standalone platform on its own site / subdomain |
| Checkout | Your existing Shopify checkout | Thinkific's own checkout |
| Student login | Existing Shopify customer account — one login | Separate account on the Thinkific-hosted school |
| Customer data | In your Shopify admin (orders, customers, tags) | In the Thinkific platform, separate from Shopify |
| Starting price | $9.99/mo · Pro $14.99/mo · 14-day trial | Standalone tiers — check Thinkific's current pricing |
| Video hosting | Alva Video Hosting (50 GB, Pro) + YouTube / Vimeo / VdoCipher / Loom | Built-in platform video hosting |
| Quizzes & assessments | Build quizzes inside lessons | Yes — quizzes and assignments |
| Completion certificates | Custom certificates on every plan, emailed automatically | Yes — certificates available |
| Drip scheduling | Drip lessons / sections X days after enrolment | Yes — scheduled / drip content |
| Discussions / comments | Native per-lesson comments with moderation | Yes — communities (varies by plan) |
| Branded delivery email | Customizable, send from your own domain | Platform-branded by default |
| Marketing site builder | Uses your existing Shopify theme & storefront | Built-in site, landing pages & funnels |
| Member & enrolment management | Per-course + global members view, CSV import / export | Yes — student management in the platform |
Thinkific is a well-established standalone course platform with its own site builder, communities and marketing tools, and is a strong choice if you want a course business that lives independently of a store. The comparison above focuses on the one thing that changes most for a Shopify merchant: whether courses live inside your store or on a separate platform. For Thinkific's current tiers and feature limits, check Thinkific's own pricing page.
When staying inside Shopify wins.
Thinkific is a capable platform, and for some creators a dedicated, store-independent course business is exactly right. But if you already sell on Shopify, sending students to a separate platform splits your checkout, your branding and your customer list in two. Five specific reasons Shopify merchants keep courses inside the store with Alva Courses:
With Alva Courses, a course is a Shopify product and an enrolment is a Shopify order. Students buy through the same checkout, discount codes and payment methods as everything else you sell. Thinkific runs its own checkout on its own platform.
Students access courses from the Shopify customer account they already have and watch lessons in your branded storefront — no second sign-up and no Thinkific subdomain to remember. Fewer logins means fewer "how do I get in?" support emails.
Every student is a Shopify customer, so enrolments, emails, tags and lifetime value sit alongside your other orders — ready for Shopify segments, flows and email. With a standalone platform, course buyers live in a separate system you have to reconcile.
Alva enrols the student the instant the order is paid and surfaces the course on the Shopify Thank-You page, the Order Status page and a branded email — so they can start learning before they leave checkout, without bouncing to another site to set up an account.
Alva Courses is $9.99/mo for Unlimited and $14.99/mo for Unlimited Pro (which adds 50 GB of Alva Video Hosting), each with a 14-day free trial and no per-transaction course fees. You keep paying your usual Shopify subscription either way — there's no second platform bill on top.
Choose Alva Courses if you…
- Already sell on Shopify and want one checkout for everything
- Want students on one login — their existing Shopify account
- Want enrolments and students in your Shopify customer list
- Prefer courses on your own domain and theme, not a subdomain
- Want flat pricing from $9.99/mo with no per-transaction course fees
- Need video hosting, quizzes, certificates, drip and discussions built in
Thinkific may suit you if you…
- Want a course business that runs independently of a store
- Don't sell on Shopify and don't plan to
- Want a built-in site builder, landing pages and sales funnels
- Prefer an all-in-one platform with its own marketing ecosystem
Three differences that matter.
Where students learn: your store vs a separate platform
Thinkific hosts your courses on its own platform — typically a Thinkific subdomain or a connected custom domain that points at Thinkific, with its own course player, account system and checkout. That independence is the point of a standalone LMS: your school can exist whether or not you run a store. For creators without an online store, that's a clean model.
Alva Courses takes the opposite approach. Courses live inside the Shopify store you already run. Students enrol through your normal checkout, then open "My Courses" in their Shopify customer account and play lessons in a branded storefront course player — sidebar lesson list, progress bar, completion ticks. There's no second platform to log into and no separate brand experience to maintain. The store you've already built is the course site.
- Alva model
- Courses native inside your Shopify store
- Thinkific model
- Standalone platform on its own site / subdomain
- Best for
- Alva: Shopify sellers · Thinkific: store-independent course businesses
One checkout and one login vs two of each
When courses live on a separate platform, a Shopify merchant ends up running two checkouts and two account systems. A customer who already has a Shopify account has to create a second login on the course platform; a discount that works in your store may not apply on the LMS; and the buying flow hands the shopper off to a different site mid-purchase.
Alva Courses removes that split. The course is a Shopify product, so it uses your existing checkout, your payment providers and your discount codes. The student signs in with the Shopify customer account they already have. One checkout, one login, one brand. For merchants whose audience already buys from them on Shopify, that continuity reduces drop-off and the "I can't log in" tickets that come with a second platform.
- Checkout (Alva)
- Your existing Shopify checkout
- Login (Alva)
- Existing Shopify customer account
- On Thinkific
- Separate checkout and a separate student login
Customer data ownership and what's built in
On a standalone platform, your course buyers and their purchase history live in that platform, separate from your Shopify customer list. To run lifecycle email, segments or reporting across your whole business, you have to export and reconcile two data sets. Thinkific does offer its own marketing tools and a site builder, which can be an advantage if you want everything in one course-focused ecosystem.
With Alva Courses, every enrolment is a Shopify order and every student is a Shopify customer. Orders, emails, tags and lifetime value stay in your Shopify admin, ready for Shopify segments, flows and email — no reconciliation. Alva includes the course essentials too: video hosting, quizzes, completion certificates, drip scheduling, member management with CSV import/export, and per-lesson discussions. You give up the separate marketing-site builder, because your Shopify theme already is your site.
- Data (Alva)
- Students = Shopify customers, in your admin
- Built in (Alva)
- Video hosting · quizzes · certificates · drip · discussions
- Thinkific edge
- Built-in site builder, funnels and marketing ecosystem
Two flat plans, predictable.
Alva Courses has two flat monthly plans — Unlimited at $9.99 and Unlimited Pro at $14.99 — each with unlimited courses, members and comments and a 14-day free trial. Pro adds Alva Video Hosting with 50 GB and no per-video limits. Thinkific prices as a standalone platform with several tiers and varying feature limits; its plans typically cost more per month, so check Thinkific's current pricing for exact numbers. With Alva you also keep your normal Shopify subscription, with no separate platform bill.
| plan | Unlimited $9.99/mo Everything to teach | Recommended Unlimited Pro $14.99/mo + Alva Video Hosting |
|---|---|---|
| Courses, members & comments | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Quizzes, certificates & drip | ||
| Progress tracking & discussions | ||
| Branded email · custom domain | ||
| Alva Video Hosting · 50 GB, no per-video limit | — | |
| 14-day free trial |
Full details on Alva's plans are on the Alva Courses pricing page. For Thinkific's tiers and feature limits, check Thinkific's own pricing page — they update regularly.
Moving from Thinkific to Alva.
- Install Alva Courses from the Shopify App Store and start the 14-day free trial — no need to disrupt your live Thinkific school while you set up.
- Rebuild your outline. Recreate courses, sections and lessons with the drag-and-drop builder. Reorder, duplicate and bulk-create lessons; map them to the structure students already know.
- Bring your content across. Upload videos to Alva Video Hosting (Pro) or embed your existing YouTube, Vimeo, VdoCipher or Loom links, plus PDFs, audio and quizzes inside each lesson.
- Create the Shopify products. Attach each course to a product so it sells through your normal checkout, and configure drip, certificates and the branded enrolment email.
- Import students and switch over. Bulk-import your existing learners with CSV, run a test enrolment to confirm delivery and the storefront player, then point new sales at Shopify and wind down the Thinkific subscription.
Alva Courses fits creators who already run a Shopify store — see how it works for online educators and coaches & consultants. For a deeper look at the trade-offs, read Shopify course app vs standalone LMS, and compare the Alva Courses pricing.
Answers before you switch.
Sell courses on Shopify — one checkout, one login.
Install Alva Courses from the Shopify App Store, build a course, attach it to a product, and run a test enrolment — students learn in your branded storefront with no second login and no separate subdomain. Both plans include a 14-day free trial, and you can keep your Thinkific school running while you set up.