Switching from Thinkific to Ruzuku: 2026 Migration Guide

Short answer: You can move your courses from Thinkific to Ruzuku while your Thinkific site keeps running. Build and test on Ruzuku’s free plan, which has no time limit and allows up to 5 students. Then move to a paid plan (Core is $99 a month or $997 a year) to invite the rest of your students by email. There’s no import tool, so you’ll download your files from Thinkific and upload them yourself, and your students’ progress won’t carry over. You don’t have to delete anything to cancel Thinkific, but you do have to stop your students’ recurring payments first.

Still deciding whether to leave? See the Thinkific review covering fees, limits and what reviewers report or the Thinkific pricing breakdown with costs at real revenue levels.

What moves from Thinkific, and what doesn’t?

Nothing moves on its own. Thinkific can’t export a whole course, and Ruzuku doesn’t have an import tool. So when I say something “moves,” I mean you can take it with you and put it back by hand. Here’s what that looks like for each part of your site:

Do you have to delete your courses to cancel Thinkific?

No. Thinkific’s cancellation steps don’t include deleting anything, and a course that has ever had students can’t be deleted at all. You may have read otherwise, including on an earlier version of this page. Deleting your whole account is a separate request you make to Thinkific support after you cancel.

Here’s what does happen when your Thinkific plan ends, according to Thinkific’s help center:

• Your site stays up. Students keep access to the courses they bought.
• You lose your admin dashboard. You can’t edit courses, students or subscriptions, and you can’t open your order, transaction or user tables. Export what you need first.
• Your custom domain stops working. Thinkific asks you to remove it as your primary domain before you cancel.
• Students on subscriptions and payment plans keep being charged. Thinkific warns they can lose access at their next billing date while the charges continue. Cancel every recurring payment before you cancel your plan.

How do you move without disrupting your students?

Keep Thinkific running until your students have settled in on Ruzuku, and cancel it last. Running both for a while costs you a little more, but you keep your admin access while members move, so you can cancel their Thinkific payments one by one as they sign up again. If you pay Thinkific yearly, check your renewal date before you start and aim to finish before it. If you sell a membership or payment plans, read the subscriptions section below before Step 1. Here’s the order I’d follow:

Here’s a sample note to your students that you could adapt for Step 6:

Plan for the move to take a while, even if your content is simple. A diversity-training consultant weighing Thinkific against Ruzuku in 2023 put it well:

"The cost is one issue, and although migrating content is easy enough, platform-hopping is a HUGE time suck."

For a fuller checklist that works for any platform move, see the course platform migration checklist.

What happens to your subscriptions and payment plans?

This is the hardest part of leaving Thinkific. Ruzuku can’t take over subscriptions or payment plans that are running on Thinkific. If you ask, Thinkific’s payments team can move your members’ subscriptions from Thinkific Payments into your own Stripe account. That still doesn’t connect them to Ruzuku, which creates a member’s subscription when they check out and can’t take over one set up elsewhere. So your members need to sign up again on Ruzuku, with their card. Two Ruzuku features make that easier:

• A free trial that covers what they’ve already paid for. A Ruzuku subscription price can start with a free trial of a set number of days. Members enter a card when they sign up, and Stripe doesn’t charge them until the trial ends. Your members probably renew on different days, so one trial length can’t match all of them. The simplest choice is a trial as long as one billing period: 30 days for a monthly membership. As long as you cancel their Thinkific subscription before it renews, nobody pays twice. The cost to you is that each member gets the days between their last Thinkific payment and their Ruzuku signup free.
• A coupon. If you’d rather offer a first month free or a thank-you discount, Ruzuku coupons can take a fixed amount or a percentage off, for one payment or several.

On the Thinkific side, two details matter:

• Cancel each member’s Thinkific subscription the day they sign up on Ruzuku. Their next Thinkific renewal may be days away, and the trial doesn’t cover that charge. If they pay through your own Stripe or PayPal account, cancel it there instead.
• Before you cancel your Thinkific plan, cancel every recurring payment that’s still running, including members who haven’t moved yet. Thinkific says they’ll still be billed after you cancel, and once your plan ends you can’t edit their subscriptions.

Here’s a sample note to members that you could adapt:

Students partway through a payment plan are the tricky case. You can keep Thinkific open until their plans finish. Or add a payment-plan price on Ruzuku for the payments they still owe, send those students its checkout link, and cancel their Thinkific plan once they’ve signed up. Either way, tell them the date their Thinkific billing stops.

What help do you get from Ruzuku?

Here’s what’s on offer, so you can plan around it:

• No done-for-you migration service. There’s no import tool, so plan to do the rebuild yourself.
• Answers while you rebuild. Real people on our support team answer your questions at [email protected], on every plan including Free.
• Support for your students. If a student can’t log in or can’t reach a lesson, they can write to us directly. You don’t have to field those emails yourself.
• A free call about the move. You can book a 20-minute video call with Peter at Ruzuku to talk through your site and what moving it would involve.

If your program is large, ask about it on your call. There’s no migration service, so plan to do the rebuild yourself.

How do Thinkific and Ruzuku compare on cost and support?

Thinkific’s pricing page, checked October 31, 2026, lists Start at $82 a month billed annually ($109 month to month) and Grow at $164 ($219). Thinkific Payments has no gateway fee, but its fee page lists 0.5% on every sale where Thinkific works out sales tax or VAT (students in the US, Canada, the UK, the EU and Switzerland), and 0.7% more on subscriptions and payment plans. If you use your own Stripe account instead, it charges a gateway fee of 2% on Start and 1% on Grow, on your first $1 million in sales each year, in the US, Canada, the UK and the EU. Ruzuku charges no transaction fee on any plan.

Here’s what each option costs per month, billed annually, before card processing fees (which apply everywhere):

The Thinkific Payments column assumes every sale is taxed, and leaves out the 0.7% on subscriptions and payment plans. On those terms, Start and Core cost about the same: $97 against $83.08 at $3,000 a month. The 0.5% pays for Thinkific working out your sales tax, so price alone isn’t a strong reason to move. The gap opens if you keep your own Stripe account: at $3,000 a month in sales, Start costs $142 against $83.08 for Core. If you need your own domain or certificates, compare Pro instead. Thinkific Start includes both, so it costs less than Pro unless you use your own Stripe account and sell more than about $4,200 a month. Start and Grow both stop at 10,000 current students. Ruzuku doesn’t limit students or courses on Core or Pro.

Support works differently too. Thinkific’s help center says people answer on paid plans, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Pacific. Start includes email and chat, and Grow adds phone. For your students, Thinkific says you’re “responsible as the first point of contact,” so their login questions come to you. On Ruzuku, our team answers your students directly. On Trustpilot, Thinkific had 1.8 out of 5 from 868 reviews on October 31, 2026. Trustpilot notes that Thinkific hasn’t invited customers to review it recently, so the reviews may not be representative.

When does staying on Thinkific make more sense?

Thinkific does some things Ruzuku doesn’t. Stay put, or look elsewhere, if one of these matters to you:

• You’re on Thinkific Payments and the cost suits you. Start and Core cost about the same, and moving takes real work.
• You want your own domain or certificates for less. Thinkific Start includes both at $82 a month. On Ruzuku they need Pro, at $166.42 a month, billed annually.
• You sell to companies. Grow adds bulk seat sales and invoicing. Ruzuku can invite a company’s staff from a list, but it has no seat checkout or invoicing, and no SCORM or single sign-on.
• Your students use a mobile app. Thinkific offers one. Ruzuku works in your phone’s browser and can be added to the home screen, but it isn’t in the app stores.

If none of these fits, compare support. Thinkific’s people answer you on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Pacific, and your students’ login questions come to you. On Ruzuku, our team answers you on every plan, including Free, and answers your students directly.

If you’re weighing other platforms too, the Thinkific alternatives comparison covers the main options, and Thinkific Payments versus your own Stripe works through the fee in more detail.

Is moving a good time to improve your course?

You’re rebuilding anyway, so it’s a good moment to change what you’ve been meaning to change. Two patterns from our platform data are worth building in:

These are associations, not experiments. Motivated students tend to do both, so the numbers don’t prove that a discussion question makes someone finish. Still, first-week activity is the strongest early sign of completion we’ve found, and after a move every student is new to the platform again.

Frequently asked questions about switching from Thinkific

Do you have to delete your courses to cancel Thinkific?

No. Thinkific’s cancellation steps don’t include deleting anything, and a course that has ever had students can’t be deleted. You cancel under Account, Account Management, Manage Subscription. Before you do, cancel your students’ recurring payments: Thinkific says they keep being charged after you cancel.

Can Ruzuku move my Thinkific courses for me?

No. Ruzuku doesn’t offer a done-for-you migration service or an import tool. You download your videos and files from Thinkific, upload them to Ruzuku, and paste in your lesson text. Our support team answers questions while you rebuild, and you can book a free 20-minute call about the move.

Can I export my students and their progress from Thinkific?

You can export a CSV of your students from Thinkific’s Users page, and progress and quiz reports for your records. Ruzuku can’t import progress or quiz results, so students start fresh. On a paid Ruzuku plan, you load that CSV (or paste the emails) to invite your students, up to 1,000 at a time.

What happens to my Thinkific subscribers when I switch?

Ruzuku can’t take over subscriptions or payment plans running on Thinkific, so members sign up again on Ruzuku. A free trial on the Ruzuku subscription as long as one billing period (30 days for a monthly membership) means nobody pays twice, as long as you cancel each member’s Thinkific subscription the day they sign up, before it renews. Cancel any that are left before you cancel your plan.

What happens to my students when I cancel Thinkific?

Your site stays up and students keep access to the courses they bought, but you lose your admin dashboard, so you can’t edit courses or students, or export your reports. Your custom domain stops working. Students on subscriptions or payment plans keep being charged unless you cancel those payments first.

Can I build on Ruzuku before I cancel Thinkific?

Yes. Ruzuku’s free plan has no time limit and doesn’t need a card. You can build as many courses as you like and test with up to 5 students while your Thinkific site keeps running. Inviting the rest of your students by email needs a paid plan: Core is $99 a month or $997 a year.

How do Thinkific’s fees compare with Ruzuku’s?

As of October 31, 2026, Thinkific Start is $82 a month billed annually, with no gateway fee through Thinkific Payments (it charges 0.5% on sales where it works out tax) and a 2% fee if you use your own Stripe account; Grow is $164 with a 1% fee. Ruzuku charges no transaction fee on any plan, and Core is $997 a year ($83.08 a month) with unlimited students. Card processing fees apply on both.

Where to start

The order matters most: export from Thinkific, rebuild one course, invite your students, stop the recurring payments, and cancel Thinkific last. You can start the rebuild today on the free plan, or talk the move through with us first.

Comparing the two platforms feature by feature? See Ruzuku vs Thinkific, or the guide to switching from Teachable.