Move my course off Thinkific onto my own site
Most people leaving Thinkific are not leaving because the teaching tools are bad. They are leaving because their course lives behind a login on somebody else's domain, paying for a website and email they already have elsewhere.
Bring the structure, not just the lessons
The thing worth protecting on the way out is your chapter structure. A library that took two years to organise should not arrive as one long flat list of ninety lessons.
So send the curriculum as it stands: chapters in order, lessons under each. That grouping is rebuilt as it was (Organise a big course - modules, sub-lessons, many courses), and it is much cheaper to get right during the move than to reorganise after (Understand how a course is put together).
Collect three things while the account is open
- Your curriculum, in order, with chapters.
- Your videos, if Thinkific hosts them. Anything already on your own YouTube or Vimeo needs nothing doing (Use the videos already on my YouTube or Vimeo). Download the rest now - this is the piece that gets harder later.
- Your student list, exported.
Quizzes and certificates get rebuilt
Send the questions and they become real quizzes on your site, marked automatically, with pass marks and retakes you set (Make my quizzes count towards a certificate, Change my quiz questions and answers). Certificates are rebuilt rather than carried, so tell us what yours needs to say.
Reading Thinkific directly
Tools that read a course platform out of your account, with no assembling on your side, are on our roadmap. One is built and working for another platform. Thinkific is not done.
Ask where it has got to when you enquire. We would rather tell you which route you are actually getting than have you assume the automatic one and find out late. The syllabus route is available today and the finished course is the same either way.
Afterwards
Your teaching stops being invisible. Everything behind a Thinkific login is unreadable to search engines and AI assistants, so none of your expertise works for you in search. On your own site, the parts you choose to open become pages people can find (Use my teaching to win work instead of selling it).
The prompt
“I teach on Thinkific and want my course on my own site, keeping my chapter structure. Here is the curriculum in order: [paste your chapters and lessons].”
Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first - a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.
Questions people ask
- Does my chapter structure survive, or does it flatten out?
- It survives. Send the curriculum with its chapters and the lessons under each one, and the same grouping is rebuilt on your site. Big libraries especially need this, and it is worth getting right first time rather than reorganising afterwards. You approve the whole structure as a draft before it goes live.
- Is there a direct Thinkific import?
- Not yet. Tools that read a course platform straight out of your account are on our roadmap and one is already working for a different platform, but Thinkific has not been built. Ask us where it has got to when you enquire, so you know which route you are getting rather than guessing.
- What do I need to collect before I start?
- Three things: your curriculum in order, your videos if Thinkific hosts them rather than YouTube or Vimeo, and your student list. Collect all three while your account is still open and paid, because each gets harder to retrieve afterwards.
- What about my quizzes and surveys?
- Send the questions and they are rebuilt as real quizzes on your site, with automatic marking, pass marks and retakes. Certificates are rebuilt too rather than carried across, so tell us what yours says.
- Do my students and their progress come across?
- Their details can, from your export. Progress and completions do not - they stay on the old system so anyone part-way through finishes there undisturbed, and your new site starts with a clean record.