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May 18th, 2026
Thrive Academy vs ThriveCart’s Learn: What’s Actually Changed and Should You Upgrade?
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If you’re a ThriveCart Learn or Learn+ user, you’ve probably already heard the news.
ThriveCart has launched Thrive Academy – a completely rebuilt platform to replace Learn.
And if you’re with Thrivecart Learn or Learn+, your account is being migrated across whether you upgrade or not so you can take it for a test drive and decide what your next best step is.
If you want a free trial of all the new community/gamification features then you’ll need to sign up for Thrive Academy to trigger migration.
New customers get 14 day free trial. Learn users get up t0 3 months and Learn+ users get up to 6 months.
Otherwise your courses will eventually be migrated but I’m not clear on when this will happen. Possibly not until Thrive Learn gets sunsetted in 2027.
Once you’ve taken Thrive Academy for a spin, you’ll have 3 options…
- Upgrade and get access to all the community and gamification features
- Keep your courses on Thrive Academy but without paying for the extra community features. So if you got Learn on a lifetime plan, then no further fees. If you were already on a monthly plan then you can either continue that plan or switch to the Thrive Academy monthly fees – which in some cases (dependent on student numbers) is cheaper.
- Switch back to Learn/Learn+ (for now. They will be sunsetting Learn but not until 2027 so you have time.)
So the real question isn’t whether to switch. It’s whether to actually make the most of it and pay to upgrade to access all the community and gamification features.
I’ve been on ThriveCart Learn+ for years. And whilst I broadly enjoy using Learn+ and think it was the right move for my business, I also know its frustrations well.
And after following the Thrive Academy launch closely, here’s my take on what’s changed, what’s actually worth getting excited about and what you need to know before you decide whether to upgrade to a paid plan.
Thrivecart Academy vs Thrivecart Learn? Let’s find out which is best for your business…
Quick Answer: Is Thrive Academy Worth Upgrading To from Learn or Learn+?
Yes probably! Especially if you’ve ever wanted community features, better analytics, or built-in video hosting.
Thrive Academy isn’t a tweaked version of Learn. It’s a fundamentally different product built around community rather than just course delivery.
For most Learn users, the upgrade makes sense. Especially as I think we are going to see a huge market shift towards community focussed offers and away from DIY courses. (Thanks to AI making information easier to access, putting us into a trust recession and making people crave real human connection more than ever!)
And for those who purchased Learn+ after it switched to a monthly subscription, it might even work out cheaper (depending on which plan you choose.)
What Is Thrive Academy & How is it Different From Thrivecart’s Learn?
Thrive Academy is ThriveCart’s new community-first learning platform. It launched in May 2026 to eventually replace ThriveCart Learn entirely (which will happen in 2027.)
The philosophy is different from Learn at a fundamental level. Learn was a course delivery platform – you delivered content, students consumed it, that was roughly it.
Thrive Academy is built around community first. When your students log in, they don’t land inside your course. Instead they land inside your branded community space with courses sitting inside it rather than being the whole experience.
Think of it as the upgrade ThriveCart Learn should have been – plus a community layer on top.
Thrive Academy vs ThriveCart’s Learn vs Learn+ : The Full Comparison
| Feature | Learn | Learn+ | Thrive Academy Starter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Included with TC | ~$50/month | $37/month |
| Community spaces | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ 6 built-in |
| Gamification | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ XP, badges, leaderboards |
| Built-in video hosting | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ 100GB |
| Course analytics | ❌ | Basic | ✅ Full per-course data |
| Drip content | Basic | ✅ | ✅ Advanced |
| Quizzes | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Certificates | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Version control | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Paste from Google Docs | 😤 | 😤 | ✅ Finally |
| Member limit | Unlimited | Unlimited | 2,000 (Starter) |
What Was Actually Frustrating About ThriveCart Learn
As much as I generally liked Learn+ as a platform, there were several places it fell short and got frustrating at times…
The analytics in Learn & Learn+ were basically useless.
You could click into a student’s profile and see their completion status. That’s it.
You couldn’t see how many students had completed a course overall. You couldn’t see where people were dropping off. You couldn’t spot the module where everyone disappeared.
If you wanted to improve your course, you were guessing or relying on student feedback not on actual data.
Video hosting wasn’t included with Thrive Learn.
You had to use Loom, Vimeo or YouTube and embed the links. That’s an extra cost, an extra tool, and an extra step every time you record something new.
For me this wasn’t a huge issue as I think I’ll continue to pay for Loom regardless as I use it for many things like creating SOPs for my virtual assistant.
But I did have occasional issues with Loom not playing videos correctly and so having this feature is something I will definitely explore and I think lots of people will be glad of it and happy to ditch another paid subscription for it!
Pasting from Google Docs was painful inside Thrive Learns edit dashboard.
Every time you pasted content from a doc into Learn, the formatting broke. You’d spend time fixing paragraph breaks and line spacing before a lesson was even live. It was really annoying, especially if you create a lot of content.
After discussions with the Thrivecart team, they confirmed that will no longer be an issue. There may be occasional features that format differently when you bring them across but correcting or tweaking small sections is a lot less time consuming than editing an entire lesson.
There was no community inside Thrivecart Learn courses.
Students had no way to connect with each other, ask questions publicly, or feel like they were part of something. In an era where community is increasingly what people are actually paying for, this was a real gap.
I was using a student only Facebook group instead but getting frequently frustrated by Meta’s limiting post reach. Even on posts that got great engagement, Meta was barely showing it to anyone. And as a result, my group always felt a little quiet.
I contemplated hosting a community elsewhere such as Skool or Circle but I always felt like not enough people would use it because it was another place to go and log in. (I know I rarely log in to communities hosted elsewhere.)
Thrive Academy feels like the solution I needed because people are already logged in to access the courses. And hopefully it will also get people logging in more often and consuming more course content.
No quizzes for Thrivecart Learn or Learn+.
You couldn’t test understanding or create interactive elements. Course completion was entirely passive. Quizzes kept getting promised but never materialised. So those who had been waiting will be glad they can now use them.
There’s also going to be a feature on the higher tier plans that allows you to create assessments mid video that pause, allowing them to complete the quiz to test understanding before moving on. And you can even use AI to turn your course content into a quiz.
It could be a bit of a marmite feature but it’s something I’m looking forward to exploring & testing before I reach a conclusion – for now it’s certainly intriguing!
What’s New in Thrive Academy
Community That Actually Works Inside Thrive Academy
This is the biggest change. Thrive Academy is built around six community spaces that are ready to go from day one:
- Q&A – for member questions, with voting so the best answers rise to the top
- Announcements – your updates, new lesson alerts, and promotions to your warmest audience
- Course Space – where courses live inside the community
- Resource Hub – all your tools, downloads and templates in one place so students aren’t hunting around
- Quiz Hub – all quizzes pulled together
- Lounge – a more intimate space for premium or cohort members
Students land in the community first which changes everything about how they experience your content.
Thrive Academy Gamification Features
XP points. Badges. Leaderboards with actual podiums. Streaks. Level-up prompts.
This is what makes people come back. The Duolingo brain hack but applied to your courses.
It’s not gimmicky when it’s done well. It creates small, satisfying hits of Dopamine that keep members connected to what they’re learning.
Completion rates go up. Better results mean better testimonials. Better testimonials mean more sales.
Built-in Video Hosting inside Thrive Academy
Upload your videos directly to Thrive Academy. No Vimeo. No Loom. No embedding. Just upload and it’s there.
100GB on Starter, 500GB on Growth, unlimited on Scale.
A Better Course Builder That’s Been Properly Rebuilt
- Drag and drop.
- Paste from Google Docs and it formats correctly.
- Version control so you can undo mistakes.
- Multiple layout templates.
- Course cloning for rapid deployment.
- Blueprints – pre-built lesson templates you fill in rather than starting from scratch.
Thrive Academy Offers Analytics You Can Actually Use
- Per-course completion rates.
- Lesson-by-lesson drop-off data.
- Community engagement dashboards.
You’ll know which module loses people. You’ll know which courses your students actually finish. You can make decisions based on real data rather than guessing.
What About the Migration from Thrivecart Learn to Thrive Academy?
If you’re on Learn or Learn+, ThriveCart is migrating your account across automatically at some point. You’ll keep access to your existing Learn setup while the migration happens, so nothing breaks overnight. You can then choose whether to continue hosting your courses on Thrive Academy or go back to using Learn/Learn+
If you want to make use of the free trial then you need to sign up for a paid plan with the free trial. But you can cancel anytime.
The free trial for existing Learn or Learn+ users automatically defaults to the highest tier plan. That’s intentional so you can experience all the full range of features but it doesn’t mean you have to opt into the highest tier at the end of your trial. I think they could be a bit clearer about that on the sign up page but Thrivecart have confirmed that’s the case inside their Facebook group.
If you don’t decide to take the free trial then you will eventually be migrated across though at this point there’s no information on when that’ll be. Soon or in 2027 before they retire Learn completely? You will also only get access to the course platform without community spaces if you decide to do that.
The one thing to note is that if you make changes on either platform – Learn or Thrive Academy – those changes won’t be reflected on the other platform after the initial migration is complete.
Free Trials for Thrive Academy
All trials require you to register a payment method.
New users get a 14 day free trial.
Learn users get 2 months free on Thrive Academy’s top-tier plan, plus 1 extra month if you share about it. That’s 3 months free – worth around $291.
Learn+ users get 4 months free, plus 2 extra for sharing. That’s 6 months free – worth around $582.
If you are an existing Learn user, at the end of your trial you can choose which tier of Thrive Academy you want to continue with. Alternatively you can switch back to Learn until they retire it or continue with Thrive Academy for courses without the community features.
Should You Upgrade to a Paid Plan with Thrive Academy?
Here’s how to think about it.
You probably should upgrade if:
- You want community features alongside your courses
- You’re paying for Loom, Vimeo or another video host separately – Thrive Academy’s built-in hosting may cost less
- You’re considering adding a membership or paid community to your business
You can probably wait if:
- You just deliver standalone courses with no community component
- You’re happy with your current video hosting setup
- You’re at an early stage and want to keep costs down while you validate
The Starter plan at $37/month is less than Learn+ was ($50/month), and it includes features Learn+ never had.
For most active course creators, that’s a straightforward decision because it’ll actually work out cheaper.
However, the decision gets a little more complex if you have over 2000 students as you’ll need to join a higher tier of Thrive Academy. That said, the extra features for a small extra cost will likely be worth it for MOST people.
Think about it like this. If you sell offers >$100 and having all the extra community, support, accountability etc makes you just 1 extra sale a month, it’s paid for itself even on the highest plan with unlimited students and 4K video!
Frequently Asked Questions About Thrive Academy vs Learn
If you’re signing up for a paid Thrive Academy plan, check out my bonus package here →
I’ve put together a membership hub Airtable template, email sequences, sales page templates, and guides specifically for getting your community set up properly.
Drop any questions in the comments – happy to help you figure out the right move for your setup.