Thinkific Apps allows you to build custom solutions and connections that extend and expand the functionality Thinkific provides out-of-the-box. Take control of the student experience and create powerful, customized experiences for educators and their students using apps.
Thinkific Apps can be used to build solutions that exist entirely in the Thinkific platform or integrations that connect Thinkific with outside tools.
Thinkific has 50k+ course creators who are helping 20m students globally so we are excited to provide an opportunity for app developers to earn revenue and attract new customers for their apps!
In this article
- What's the difference between Thinkific's GraphQL and Admin APIs?
- What's the difference between an app and an API Key integration?
- What kind of apps can I build?
- What can apps do?
- What apps do Thinkific customers want?
- Getting started with apps
What's the difference between Thinkific's GraphQL and Admin APIs?
Thinkific has both a REST and GraphQL API:
- Our GraphQL API is newer, uses API Access Tokens, and allows deeper access to student-related information such as course completion and quiz results.
- Our REST API was created first, and allows deeper access to account-based tables such as /coupons and /orders. It typically has more database write access than GraphQL.
Note: Where both a REST and GraphQL request can accomplish a task, we recommend using our GraphQL API as all new development will only occur in GraphQL going forward.
What's the difference between an app and an API Key integration?
Developers have multiple options when building against Thinkific's APIs:
- Public apps use OAuth for authentication and are listed on the Thinkific App Store
- Private apps use OAuth for authentication, but are not listed on the Thinkific App Store
- API Key integrations use Thinkific's built-in API Keys for authentication
For a full description of the differences between apps and integrations see What is the difference between a public app, a private app, and an API Key integration?
What kind of apps can I build?
This guide assumes that you are looking to build a public app that can be made available to Thinkific customers. If you are looking to build solutions for your own personal use, an app is not necessary and you can access the API using your site’s API Key. Learn more on how to authenticate using API Key
Public apps:
Public apps are installable on Thinkific sites and can request official approval from Thinkific to be made available in the Thinkific App Store. For more information on the process for submitting and getting a public app to our customers please see here.
What can apps do?
- Use the Public API (GraphQL or REST) to read, write or delete data from your site. Examples include apps which help course creators automate processes, communicate with their students off platform etc.
- Use Webhooks to listen for actions taken inside Thinkific sites, like when students complete a lesson or a course or when they make purchases.
We are currently working on building out our API capabilities to provide our app developers with even more opportunities to extend and customize the Thinkific experience for our course creators.
Please sign-up to our Partner Program and submit any feedback via our partner portal!
What apps do Thinkific customers want?
There is so much opportunity to build innovative solutions for our customers. We are particularly focused on encouraging app developers to build solutions which support our course creators across three main areas:
- Apps which helps our course creators save time and money
- Apps which help our course creators build more revenue and sell more courses
- Apps which help our course creators to improve the learning experience for their students
If you are looking for more ideas we can recommend looking at our Facebook group which has 20k active course creators discussing their needs!
Getting started with apps
In order to build apps in Thinkific, you will need a Thinkific Partner account. You can register for a partner account at www.thinkific.com/partners and learn more about Getting Started as a Thinkific Partner here.
All apps are managed using your Partner account by going to partner.thinkific.com and navigating to apps.
You can also check out our "Developing a Thinkific App" course for a more detailed walthrough of the app-building process