In this Thrive Apprentice review, you’ll learn exactly what it is, including features, pros and cons, pricing, and lots more. That will help you make an informed decision as to whether you should use it for your courses.
The e-learning market never sleeps. It has especially been a busy sector, as the world settles to a new normal. Right now, e-learning is the only safe form of education until the global epidemic crisis wanes. It is rising with such a great force that it will be worth over $275.10 billion by 2022.
The current overwhelming global drive in professional skills development and lifelong learning is pushing the knowledge economy to higher heights every day. Through e-learning, edupreneurs can offer flexible and low-cost education online, ensuring equitable access to knowledge for all.
Thrive Apprentice Review: In a Nutshell
Thrive Apprentice is a premium WordPress online course builder plugin. It is lightweight and is designed to ensure that the process of course building is as simple as it can be. This 3rd party WordPress plugin is not a full LMS platform as LearnDash or LearnPress are.
A full LMS does not only make course building a breeze but adds other features such as certificates, grades, quizzes, homework amongst other complex course building and marketing features. Thrive Apprentice, unlike these other LMS platforms, does not have as many features.
It is therefore perfect for the edupreneur who is simply looking for an easy to use course builder, without all the bells and whistles that can cost them a good dime. Complicated premium features might look attractive, but they often end up creating clutter and becoming a source of confusion for course builders.
Therefore, if all you are looking for is a clean, organized, and easy to use education site builder with ample course and module features, then Thrive Apprentice is the go-to option. You can access Thrive Apprentice as part of the Thrive Themes membership or as a standalone purchase of $67 for a single site.
Why Online Course Builder Software is a Necessity
An edupreneur planning to launch a course site will first need to create their course structure and upload it online. This activity is not always as easy as it is in other forms of online businesses. Why? Educational websites have a certain look and feel that makes them stand out from any regular WordPress site.
They also have unique features and functionalities that are generally unavailable in other regular WordPress themes. The need to create educational sites with unique functionalities is the reason why the learning management system (LMS) market has also exploded.
You will find many LMS platforms in the market, and choosing the most adequate platform for your website is not an easy process. LearnPress, LearnDash, LifterLMS, Sensei, and Thrive Apprentice all make education site design and management easier.
There are, however, differences between these platforms and Thrive Apprentice. So, if you are planning to build a course site and need course builder plugin, then this Thrive Apprentice review is for you. We will show you why Thrive Apprentice is a unique course builder and why it is worth its price tag.
Features and Benefits
Easy to Use Drag and Drop Builder
We will kick off this Thrive Apprentice Review with the software’s stand out feature; its unlimited course page design flexibility. The truth is, an attractive looking website will attract more learners than a regular run-of-the-mill type of course site.
Thrive Apprentice course websites are some of the most elegant you can find out there. The plugin is built and maintained by the same brains that are behind the robust Thrive Architect page builder. The builder is hands down the best WordPress drag and drop editor, and is not only powerful but has a low learning curve as well.
On Thrive Apprentice, unlike other expensive LMS platforms, you have the creative ticket to design just about anything you want. The possibilities are endless due to the increased flexibility of the builder; you can, therefore, build fancy pages in no time at all.
You can, for instance, create flexible column layouts by simply dropping elements next to each other. There are no rules here, no segment sections, containers, or rows. Changing the layout is also very easy. Add resize or remove any element, as you desire via the WYSIWYG editor.
On Thrive Apprentice, you can add a background image with text overlays, on any section of your course page. The builder allows the addition of image gradient overlays to make the text legible on image and text design combinations.
The builder will also give free reigns over the typography of your course site. There are over 700 custom fonts available. So go ahead and design that to die for glossy magazine look should you courses require it. Full-width page layouts have also become a very popular web design feature.
Thrive Apprentice allows full-screen background widths that are 100% responsive to all devices. Should you prefer vertically split page layouts you can also do so for some extra oomph. Add hover effects as well.
You will not need to insert a single line of code to build course pages on Thrive Apprentice. This is one major reason why this course builder blows its competition out of the water.
Easy User Onboarding
Most course building platforms have very messy user onboarding protocols. Unfortunately, a course buyer often wants instant access to courses after purchase and will quickly disengage from the site if this access process is too complicated.
Customers do not want to deal with tiring confirmation links or privilege and access problems. A website with a horrible user experience can cost you many potential clients. Thrive Apprentice has deep integrations with a variety of membership plugins.
The course builder integrates with Wishlist Member, MemberMouse, and MemberPress. Its newest and most exciting integration is with SendOwl. With SendOwl, you can inexpensively and easily create and sell your courses quite easily online.
The platform has a quick launch process, and on it, you can design subscriptions, memberships, and drip-enabled content. SendOwl has fixed and very low transaction fees, so you will not have a massive chunk of your earnings chipped away by payment fees.
On Thrive Apprentice, SendOwl will manage the courses available to paying members and display those that are available free as an incentive to customers on your mailing list.
Course Content Access Restriction
The access restriction feature can create and edit user rules that guide how your learners access their paid courses. If a particular user fails to meet the course access criteria, they will not get a hold of the course’s content.
Using SendOwl, you can create up to three levels of course access restrictions on this course site builder.
- The unrestricted course rule allows any internet users to instantly access the content. This rule is perfect for user onboarding information or content geared towards audience building.
- The subscriber-only course rule gives course content access to any user with a free account on your website. Any new account holder will have instant access to content once they have entered an email address to your landing page, created a password, and become part of an email list.
- The premium course access rule only allows paying customers access to course content.
If your Thrive Apprentice course site does not have a SendOwl integration, you will not have the premium course access rule on your Thrive Apprentice site. You can nevertheless use the inbuilt subscriber-only and unrestricted course access rules available on the course builder’s dashboard.
When you create new courses, Thrive Apprentice automatically gives them unrestricted access. You should edit your access rules to subscribers only if you want to use the course outline as a lead magnet.
Thrive Course Progress Monitoring
Learners navigate their course work in very different ways. Some will follow the designed trajectory while others will jump back and forth between modules and lessons, reading only what they want. If your course builder does not have an inbuilt progress tracking and monitoring system, your leaner’s will eventually lose track of their hard work on your website.
Thrive Apprentice has a cookies feature that stores a learner’s progress to ensure that each user is well informed of their learning progress. Each time one of your students completes a module or course, the lesson is marked as complete. This functionality is vital to enhancing the course site’s overall user experience.
Drip-fed Content
The drip-fed content feature is a very critical component of the online learning environment. When it is not in place, students will game the system, hopping all over courses just to get to the end and complete the final quiz. They will not learn much from your website unless you only give them access to content in smaller, more manageable chunks.
A drip-feeding feature keeps them from becoming overwhelmed by massive course content. Drip fed content is especially useful for language courses that generally have a lot of course topics. Drip-feeding is simply scheduling course content, ensuring that bits of it are delivered on specific dates or after certain intervals.
Thrive Apprentice does not have a native drip-fed content feature. Still, you can enjoy this functionality by integrating the course builder with SendOwl.
Thrive Video Content
The online learning environment has adopted video-based learning because of its benefits, such as its brevity and highly engaging nature. Videos are all the rage today and can enhance your relationship with members and change how they learn.
Videos will grab a student’s attention more than any other form of learning. Consequently, this learning model is on-demand on all learning platforms. Video is very crucial to the education process because data shows that the human brain can process it 60,000 times faster than it can process text.
Your learners are likely to recall 10% of what they read, 65% of audio content, and 95% of video-based content. Educational videos are not an option any longer, they are a necessity. Consequently, Thrive Apprentice has made video integration on websites easy by making sure that users can seamlessly integrate videos onto their course sites via third-party software.
You can add Wistia, YouTube, or Vimeo video content on your course site or host them via the JV player. With other LMS platforms, you have to upload the videos directly onto the platform’s database. Thrive Apprentice does not make this action, a requirement.
Thrive Apprentice, therefore, gives you complete control of your creative videos, an advantage that you do not have with other LMS platforms. You can additionally add audio content from transcripts, MP3s in this same self-hosted flexible format.
More Thrive Apprentice Benefits
While it is true that Thrive Apprentice has fewer premium features that LearnDash or LearnPress, it has some advantages these LMS platforms do not have. These include features such as;
Autonomous Ownership of Sub-domain or Domain Name
Other robust LMS platforms might offer basic free packages but at a high cost to the domain name and content ownership. They will not only host your course content but will also force you to use a generic subdomain.
There is an advantage to a freestanding domain name for a course site. A website will look more professional if their domain name does not point to another service. Some LMS software might allow you to keep your branded URL, but they will charge you big bucks for it.
If autonomy and complete ownership of your course content is a critical feature for you, use Thrive Apprentice.
A Lack of Clutter
Other robust LMS platforms have fantastic features that can be very useful for large education sites when appropriately utilized. Smaller niche online course sites do not require the use of so many features.
Thrive Apprentice has lesser features than robust platforms such as LearnDash. You will not find features such as quizzes, grading, membership options, or a FocusMode as it is in LearnDash. You will nevertheless have a fantastically designed course site, which is easy to use with Thrive Apprentice.
Things You Might Not Like About Thrive Apprentice
- Thrive Apprentice is not an LMS. It is a simple but very effective course site builder. You will not find features such as grade books, course points, badges, and certificates or advanced quizzing.
- The tool’s standalone price of $67 might seem a little expensive due to limited features.
- Thrive Apprentice does not have a cheaper or free version
- This course building platform does not have inbuilt premium membership options or affiliate programs. Nevertheless, you can access these features by integrating Thrive Apprentice and SendOwl.
Pricing Plans
The Thrive Apprentice one-website license pack goes for $67 while its five-license pack sells at $97. Heavy users can purchase the $15 website license pack for $127. All packages have all of Thrive Apprentice’s features, a year of service support, and unlimited free updates.
Who’s Actually Using Thrive Apprentice?
As posted on their website, Thrive has 99,705 users so far. The platform also has an active development and social community as well.
How to Create Online Courses With Thrive Apprentice Plugin
Building a new course on Thrive Apprentice is very easy due to its easy to use Thrive Architect user interface. The process is as follows.
- Click on “Add New Course” on the Thrive Apprentice dashboard.
- Add your URL, course name, and description. Add SEO centric descriptions to give your pages better ranking opportunities with search engines.
- Upload your course’s cover image. If your landing page has, a video add its description also.
- Next, go to “Show Advanced Settings” and configure your course settings as per your preference. Here you can assign each course its different access rules.
- To create your course hierarchy structure, you need to add modules, chapters, and lessons. In Thrive Apprentice, lesson titles hold the full content of the course. Chapters and modules simply organize your lessons into a digestible format.
- If your course is simple and does not have too many hierarchical features, you can eliminate the chapters and use modules instead.
- To edit or personalize the course templates, go to Settings, then click on template settings. Use the pop windows to edit your page colors, fonts, and to add your branding elements.
Additional general settings
On the platform’s dashboard, you can enable options such as;
- Course page comments
- Badges
- Log in options
Thrive Apprentice Reviews: in Conclusion
There are, without a doubt, more robust LMS platforms out there than Thrive Apprentice. This Thrive Apprentice review can confidently conclude that this course builder software has its niche market, thanks to its lightweight feature and simplicity.
With Thrive Apprentice you have certain advantages such as;
- The ability and flexibility of building course pages on a “click-to-edit” format
- Easy, no code required page design from over 300 conversion-landing pages from Thrive Architect
- An autonomous domain name and content storage
- An organized and clutter-free course builder dashboard
If you are launching your edupreneur career online and need a course-building tool, try to Thrive Apprentice. We would love to hear your opinion on the course builder, so tell us all about it in the comments section.
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