Thinking Cap LMS Pricing
Transparency is our foundation. Choose the model that aligns with your audience's behavior.
Transparency in LMS pricing is rare. A plan that isn’t stacked against you is even rarer.
We don’t nickel and dime. We charge a fair price and offer multiple models that reflect the real ways a learning management system is used.
Legacy giants play a shell game. A low entry price, followed by a mountain of add-on fees for features you assumed were included. It’s exhausting.
At Thinking Cap, your license fee covers our entire ecosystem. No feature tolls. No surprise upgrades. Your budget goes to learners and outcomes, not software activation.
One price, Everything Included
Onboarding, Included.
We handle onboarding properly. That means importing historical data, setting up your organisational structure, integrating external systems, and connecting your LMS to SSO and your system of record for users. A strong onboarding sets the foundation for everything that follows. Many vendors charge extra for this. We include it because shared outcomes require shared commitment.
No Upsell Features.
There are no surprise modules or gated essentials. Advanced reporting, certifications, multi-tenant branches, e-commerce, and badging are all included. You are not renting fragments of a platform. You are licensing a complete LMS.
Training and Ongoing Partnership
Your team training, ongoing support, and day-to-day guidance are part of the relationship. We do not disappear after implementation. We operate as a long-term partner, and we price accordingly. We have heard about Premium Support as an add-on... we think it's an essential element.
Simple Pricing,
Flexible Models.
See exactly what ThinkingCap will cost with no demo required. Build your own scenario or let AI do it for you.
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Choose the Model that Fits Your Audience
Thinking Cap offers three distinct commercial models, each aligned to how your audience actually uses the platform. This lets us right-size your contract while giving you predictable performance, transparent billing, and efficient use of your budget.
Annual Model
Choose this model when you have a stable, internal workforce with consistent, year-round training requirements.
Monthly Model
Choose this model when participation levels are unpredictable but you want the freedom to scale usage up or down month to month.
Hybrid Model
Choose this model when you know roughly how many users you will have each month, but the individuals change. The overall volume is reasonably consistent, even though participation rotates.
Annual Model
Choose this model when you have a stable, internal workforce with consistent, year-round training requirements.
How it Works
You reserve a fixed number of seats for the year at our best rate. If you need more, extra licenses are discounted rather than repriced.
Billing Signal
A unique user account that is in an “Active” status for three months or more during the 12-month license period. In this case, the annual license is the most cost-effective option.
Reset Cadence
Active seat counts reset annually on the contract anniversary date. At renewal, users set to inactive or deleted are removed from your count, and the new term reflects only your current active users. At that point, you may upsize or downsize as needed.
Advantages of this model
Audit-Ready Archiving
Even if a user is deactivated to free up a seat for a new hire, their historical transcripts and compliance records remain fully accessible for reporting at no extra cost.
Total Budget Predictability
You pay one flat fee with zero monthly fluctuations, regardless of how many training hours your team consumes or how often they log in.
No "Activation Tax"
Unlike the giants, we don't charge you a setup fee just to turn on the seats. Onboarding and technical setup are included in your base rate.
Rules-Based Automation of Enrollments
Exclusively available on the Annual User Model, this ensures system integrity and transparent upgrades by managing continuously active users.
Who This Model Is Best For
This model works best for organizations with predictable staffing and ongoing training obligations.
Typical fits include:
Mid to large corporations
with stable internal teams and mandatory annual training programs …especially in regulated or compliance-heavy environments.
Professional associations
delivering member education, certification, or continuing education year-round.
Government departments and public agencies
with fixed headcounts and budget cycles.
Healthcare networks and hospital systems
where staff training is continuous and audit readiness matters.
Education providers and internal academies
supporting faculty, staff, or long-term cohorts
Enterprises with strong HR or L&D governance
that value budget certainty, reporting continuity, and minimal license churn.
This model favors stability, predictability, and long-term record keeping over short-term flexibility.
Pricing Scenario
A national insurance firm manages a stable, full-time workforce with recurring internal requirements and high-frequency touchpoints.
The Audience
These permanent employees, including adjusters, underwriters, and administrative staff, are required to consume regular professional development modules, compliance updates, and multi-week leadership tracks.
The Pulse:
Continuous engagement throughout the year, as employees return for their upskilling and compliance training.
Ideal Alignment:
The Seat-Based Model is the ideal plan as it keeps a seat warm for each employees every month.
Monthly Model
Choose this model when participation levels are unpredictable but you want the freedom to scale usage up or down month to month.
How it Works
This is a fully usage-based, transactional model with a minimal annual entry point and no baseline commitment beyond the first 100 users. A fee for the initial 100 users is billed at the start of the term. Each month thereafter, you pay only for users above that threshold.
Usage is billed in volume blocks, with the per-user rate improving as usage increases. For example, if the first 100 users are billed at $7.70 per user, users 101 to 400 are billed at $6.65 per user, and users beyond 400 are billed at $6.23 per user.
This model includes a premium for flexibility. You are not committing to capacity beyond the initial minimum, and pricing reflects that optionality. The goal is efficiency. In many cases, it is better to pay a slightly higher rate for a small number of users than to secure a lower rate on capacity you do not need or use.
Billing Signal
Any unique user who triggers a usage signal (login, enrollment, content interaction, or system notification) within a calendar month.
Reset Cadence
Active user counts reset monthly on the 1st of every month.
Advantages of this model
Zero Waste on "Shelfware"
You have a $0.00 baseline liability during quiet months with no learner activity, ensuring you only pay for real pulses.
Massive Scalability
Transactional rates drop significantly as your volume increases, making this ideal for national-scale external training.
External Learning Support
Perfectly suited for B2B or B2C sales where learner volume is high but individual frequency is low.
Who This Model Is Best For
A monthly minimum of 100 users is billed at the start of the term. Beyond that baseline, usage is billed monthly based on actual activity, with no upper limit and no long-term lock-in.
Best for organizations with variable or evolving usage patterns.
Typical fits:
Training providers and program operators
delivering short-term, rolling, or cohort-based programs.
Organizations running pilots, trials, or phased rollouts
where participation grows over time
Seasonal employers
with fluctuating training demand.
Nonprofits and NGOs
operating on grant cycles or time-bound initiatives.
Enterprises
launching new programs before usage stabilizes.
Enterprises with strong HR or L&D governance
that value budget certainty, reporting continuity, and minimal license churn.
This model emphasizes flexibility while establishing a clear, predictable baseline.
Pricing Scenario
A professional certification body issues mandatory bi-annual credentials to a large, external membership base with no consistent daily usage.
The Audience
Professionals are required to continue their education throughout their career with a minimum number of credits (e.g., CEs, CEUs, contact hours) that must be earned every two years. Instructor-led sessions and high-stakes 3-hour recertification exams are being offered at various times during the year with various levels of audience interest.
The Pulse:
Training is highly episodic and transactional, meaning the vast majority of users log in only once every 24 months to finish their specific task and do not return until their next renewal cycle. But you cannot anticipate the interest in the training, making it nearly impossible to predict the population each month.
Ideal Alignment:
The Pure MAU-Based Model solves the unpredictability problem by offering complete flexibility. Starting with the base of 200 professionals taking training per month, the number beyond that may differ entirely and costs are only incurred when a professional purchases their training.
Hybrid Model
Choose this model when you know roughly how many users you will have each month, but the individuals change. The overall volume is reasonably consistent, even though participation rotates.
How it Works
We combine a committed annual baseline with a "reset" every month. This allows new cohorts of learners to use baseline slots without incurring extra seat costs.
Billing Signal
Any unique user who triggers a usage signal (login, enrollment, content interaction, or system notification) within a calendar month.
Reset Cadence
Active user counts reset monthly on the 1st of every month.
Advantages of this model
Audience Elasticity
If 1,000 people finish training in June and 1,000 new people start in July, you only pay for your 1,000-user baseline, not 2,000 unique seats.
Usage Fairness
You are never billed for "ghost users" who were invited but never actually logged in or engaged with a learning activity.
Automated Efficiency
Deactivating accounts once training is complete instantly stops them from counting toward your next month's total, maximizing your baseline utility.
Who This Model Is Best For
This model is commonly adopted once organizations observe a repeatable usage pattern, though some organizations will continue to operate with uneven traffic and prefer other models.
You establish a monthly usage floor, billed at a preferred rate. All users up to that floor are charged at the same discounted rate. Usage beyond the floor is billed monthly, and rotating users do not require annual licenses.
Best for organizations with steady monthly volumes and rotating participants.
Typical fits:
Organizations with recurring programs
and rotating participants.
Employers with predictable staffing levels
but regular turnover.
Associations with consistent monthly engagement
and rolling enrollment.
Enterprises balancing budget
discipline with operational flexibility
This model rewards consistency without penalizing rotation or variability.
Pricing Scenario
A regional transit agency manages a permanent operations team alongside a large, revolving population of seasonal and contract drivers.
The Audience
The year-round operations staff (e.g., dispatchers, diesel mechanics, and safety inspectors) and seasonal drivers are required to consume regular professional development modules, compliance updates, and multi-week leadership tracks. Seasonal drivers are hired during the summer months and therefore require more rapid onboarding and compliance training.
The Pulse:
While there is continuous engagement with the permanent employee throughout the year, there is a hiring free each November, causing a dip in training that month. The seasonal employees hired for the summer cause a natural spike every summer in their training.
Ideal Alignment:
The Hybrid MAU-Based model addresses the mix of a continuous flow of employees, the summer hiring of seasonal staff, and the hiring free dip result in two periods of change in the usual flow of learners. While keeping a base level of active learners per month, it also allows for the once-a-year spike and dip.
Frequently Asked Questions
Choosing Your Model
The right choice depends on the rhythm of your training cycle:
- Seat-Based (Constant Presence): Best for internal employees who touch the system throughout the year—onboarding in Q1, safety in Q2, and reviews in Q4. Securing a permanent seat is the most economical way to provide 365-day access.
- Hybrid MAU (The Revolving Door): Best for high-turnover groups. If you train 500 people in the Spring and a different 500 in the Fall, you only need capacity for 500 at a time. The monthly reset ensures you don't pay for the Spring staff once they've left.
- Pure MAU (The Episodic Visitor): Best for "one-and-done" learners, like public certification. If a user logs in once to take an exam and doesn't return for three years, you shouldn't pay for them to occupy a seat for the other 11 months of the year.
It comes down to Predictability vs. Total Elasticity:
- Pick Hybrid if you have a "Known Minimum." By committing to an annual baseline, you secure a much lower "Additional User" rate. It is the "wholesale" version of activity-based pricing.
- Pick Pure if your audience is unpredictable. At higher tiers, Pure MAU has a $0.00 annual baseline. If nobody logs in during August, you pay nothing. You trade a slightly higher per-user rate for the safety of only paying for actual pulses.
If the system has to "work" for a user during a calendar month, they are active. This includes:
- System Access: Any authenticated login.
- Learning Activity: Starting, resuming, or completing any course, assessment, or survey.
- Administrative Actions: Being marked as "Attended" for an instructor-led session or any change in enrollment status.
- Platform Engagement: Interacting with resources, downloading media, or receiving automated system notifications.
Note: A user is only counted once per month regardless of how many actions they perform.
A seat is a reserved spot on the bench. Once you activate a user, they "own" that spot for the remainder of your contract year. This trades "usage-counting" for "access-certainty," ensuring your core team always has 365-day access without monthly fluctuations.
To provide the level of mentorship we promise, we focus on partnerships at the 250 (MAU) or 500 (Seat) level and above. We don't use chatbots; we provide human experts who know your project by name. To sustain that high-touch model, we maintain these enterprise minimums.
Yes. Because a "Monthly Active User" is defined by the system having to "work" for a user—including learning activity, system notifications, or administrative actions—any enrollment triggered by rules-based automation that results in a user engagement signal will be counted as an active pulse for that month[cite: 110, 111]. While automation is available across all models, it is most cost-predictable in the Annual User Model where seats are already fully accounted for[cite: 108].
The Partnership Model & Service
Organizations switch to our Partnership Model because they are tired of being "just another ticket." People pick Thinking Cap for Integrity (no hidden fees), Technical Accuracy (reporting you can trust), and Direct Access (a dedicated Canadian mentorship team that stays with you for years).
No. We fold onboarding, branding, and technical setup into the license. We also don't "gate" features—you don't have to pay extra for essential tools like E-commerce, Certification, or the Reporting engine. You get the whole toolbox on day one.
It means your budget is protected from "scope creep." If you hire a new Admin and they need training, or if you have a complex reporting question, we don't send you an invoice. Unlimited support, ongoing mentorship, and all system upgrades are included.
Because if a vendor hides their price, they are usually waiting to see how much they can charge you based on the size of your logo. We provide rates upfront to start our relationship on a foundation of Integrity. We want long-term partners, not one-time transactions.
Scale, Security & Terms
Absolutely. Our "Partnership Model" refers to our service philosophy, not our system's capacity. We provide the infrastructure of a global giant—high-availability AWS hosting and SOC 2 Type II security—supporting 200,000+ learners for highly regulated government and financial institutions.
Yes. We support Enterprise SSO (SAML/OAuth) and our robust API allows for automated user syncing with platforms like Workday, ADP, or Salesforce. We ensure your data flows seamlessly without manual entry.
You do. Always. We don't hold data hostage. If you ever choose to move to a different platform, we provide tools to export your user records and completions. We want you to stay because of our service, not because you're trapped.
Yes. For registered charities and 501(c)(3) organizations, we offer specialized structures that account for unique funding cycles and volunteer audiences. Contact us for a tailored NPO quote.
We maintain a No-Lockout Policy. Your learners are never blocked. Overages are billed at the end of the month (MAU) or year (Seat) at your pre-agreed "Additional" rate. No penalties, just transparent scaling.
Yes. A three-year commitment earns a fixed 8% discount on base licensing. We also provide Price Protection: your renewal rate is capped at a maximum 5% increase, protecting your budget from "bait and switch" price hikes.
sales@thinkingcap.com
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