96 Thinkific Workers Lose Their Jobs as the Course Platform Shifts Focus to Enterprise Clients

Thinkific Labs Inc., the Vancouver company whose software lets businesses build and sell online courses, has eliminated positions affecting 96 employees in a company-wide reorganization. The cut equals about 30 percent of its workforce, spread across its global team, and Smith said it was concentrated in areas that supported small and medium-sized business customers. The company is shifting its investment toward Thinkific Plus, its offering for mid-market and enterprise organizations. For Metaintro readers, the useful questions are what a laid off worker is owed and what to do next. Here is what the company's release says, why it made the call, and what British Columbia's rules and the federal benefit system offer the people who lost their jobs.

What Did Thinkific Announce, and How Many Workers Are Affected?

The company's own release, dated September 23, 2026, describes a strategic realignment of its workforce and operating model. As part of those changes, Thinkific eliminated positions impacting 96 employees. The release says the positions were already eliminated, so these are cuts already made, not a plan under review.

The share of staff is not in the release itself. Chief executive Greg Smith put the reduction at 30 percent of the workforce in an email, and he did not say how many Canadian employees were affected. The Techcouver coverage of the cuts frames it the same way, as nearly one-third of the company's total workforce.

That missing Canadian number matters to the people involved. British Columbia's group rules apply when 50 or more employees at a single location lose their jobs within any two month period. Without a count by site, nobody outside the company can say which rules apply to which worker, and we return to that gap below.

Which Teams Were Hit, and Why Did Thinkific Make the Cut?

Smith said the cuts reached most of the company's departments, with less impact on its customer-serving teams. He said they were concentrated in areas that supported small and medium-sized business customers, because Thinkific has decided to focus completely on mid-market and enterprise customers instead.

Smith explained the decision in terms of the older business. In his words, “Our legacy SMB business isn’t showing the same growth trajectory, and it doesn’t make sense to continue investing at the same level there,” and he added that “This wasn’t about AI or purely about cost.” He also described the financial benefit as an outcome of the strategy, not the reason for it.

The company's release puts it in more formal terms. The reorganization is meant to let Thinkific invest more in products serving its highest value-customers, keep growing its upmarket customer base and focus research and development on enterprise-first innovation, while maintaining support for all customers. The CEO also pointed to new AI-first products as part of the next stage of growth, so artificial intelligence sits in the product plan even though Smith said the cut was not about AI.

For workers, that distinction is practical rather than philosophical. The reason Smith gave was the growth trajectory of the SMB business, a reason that says nothing about the skills of the people who served those customers.

Thinkific eliminated positions impacting 96 employees, and it expects about $19 million in gross annualized cost savings from the changes.

What Does the Company's Own Release Say About Money and Timing?

The release is the most useful document here, because it lays out a timeline. Thinkific expects the changes, together with lower operating expenses, to generate approximately $19 million in gross annualized cost savings. Most of those savings are expected to be realized in the fourth quarter of 2026, with some non-headcount savings expected in the first quarter of 2027.

The cost of the cuts comes first. Thinkific expects about $5 million in related restructuring charges, incurred mainly in the third quarter of 2026. In Canadian terms, that is around $7 million CAD, while the headline savings figure is in U.S. dollars. The release does not break those charges down, so it does not say how much of that money goes to severance for the people who lost their jobs and how much to other costs.

The goal behind the numbers is cash. Thinkific is targeting a free cash flow margin of 25% or more of revenue in F2027. It also lifted its outlook for the third quarter of 2026, raising expected adjusted EBITDA to a range of 7% to 10% of revenue, up from 2% to 5%, and it expects revenue at the high end of the $18.6 million to $18.9 million range it gave earlier. The company expects to give more detail on the financial impact on its third quarter earnings call.

Investors reacted positively. BetaKit reported that the stock jumped 70 percent, from $1.20 CAD to $2.10 CAD per share between the market close on Wednesday and its press time.

Why Is Thinkific Betting on Plus Instead of Small Business Customers?

The company's second quarter results, released in August, show the split clearly. Total revenue rose 3% to $18.6 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. Within that, Thinkific Plus subscription and commerce revenue grew 14% to $5.3 million, while self serve revenue fell 1% to $13.3 million.

In other words, the smaller Plus line grew and the larger self serve line fell compared with the second quarter of 2025. Self serve still brings in most of the money, but it is the part that declined. Annual recurring revenue was up 2% to $61.7 million, and the company posted a net loss of $0.3 million with cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $51.0 million as of June 30, 2026.

The quarter also shows where the product work is going. In the same release, Thinkific described making its Thinkific Learner Hub available to all customers, and adding a centralized asset library, permission management and custom roles that let customers act on their learner base at scale.

Smith said the decision followed “consistent proof” that the shift to larger customers and deals was working. Thinkific says it has more than 35,000 customers, including GoDaddy, Nasdaq and the University of Oxford, and Smith said it recently added a top-20 American bank and one of the largest media companies in the world.

Is This Thinkific's First Round of Layoffs?

No. Thinkific has cut staff in large rounds before. Thinkific listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in early 2021 at $15 per share, raising $184 million CAD in gross proceeds, and its shares later rose as high as $19.47, giving it a peak market capitalization of over $2 billion.

The first round came in March 2022, when the firm laid off 100 employees, or 20 percent of its staff. The second came in a January 10 letter to employees early in 2023, with plans to cut 76 employees, about 19 percent of staff by an outside headcount estimate at the time. That round was tied to a push to reach positive adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2023.

Techcouver reported that by the summer of 2026, the share price had slipped to an all-time low of just over $1, and the company had fallen short of profitability for several consecutive quarters. Read together, the three big rounds on record tell a worker something useful. The first two were tied to cutting costs, preserving cash and returning to profitability. Smith framed this one around which customers Thinkific wants to serve, which is why the teams tied to small business customers were the most exposed this time.

What Are Laid Off Workers in British Columbia Owed Under Provincial Rules?

The rules below come from British Columbia's Employment Standards guidance. Thinkific is based in Vancouver, so these are the rules of its home province. They cover British Columbia only, and the cuts were distributed across its global team.

Under the province's guidance, an employer ending a job can give written working notice, an equal amount of pay, or a combination of both. The minimum depends on how long you have worked there.

• Three months or less. No notice or pay is required.
• More than three months. One week of notice or pay.
• More than one year. Two weeks of notice or pay.
• More than three years. Three weeks, plus one more week for each additional year of employment, to a maximum of eight weeks.

Those tiers come straight from the provincial table on notice and pay. A week's pay is worked out by dividing total wages over the last eight weeks by eight, counting salary, commission, statutory holiday pay and paid vacation, but not overtime.

Timing matters too. When the employer ends the job, final wages must be paid within 48 hours after the last day an employee works. Final wages may include regular pay, overtime, statutory holiday pay, compensation for length of service and vacation pay.

These are floors, not the ceiling. The same page adds that employees who feel they were fired without just cause can sue for wrongful dismissal, which is a separate route from an Employment Standards complaint, and it points workers to legal advice for that path. Thinkific's release does not describe the severance it offered, so affected staff should compare any package against the statutory minimum and, if the offer asks them to sign a release, consider getting advice first.

In British Columbia, final wages are due within 48 hours after the last day an employee works when the employer ends the job.

Do Group Termination Rules Apply to a Cut This Size?

The answer depends on how many of the 96 affected employees worked at a single location, and Thinkific has not published that count. Section 64 of the Employment Standards Act covers an employer ending the employment of 50 or more employees at a single location within any 2 month period. When it applies, the employer must give written notice of group termination to each affected employee, to any union representing them, and to the minister. The province lists limited exceptions to these extra steps.

The notice period scales with the size of the cut. For 50 to 100 employees, notice must come at least 8 weeks before the effective date of the first termination. If the employer does not give that notice, it must give termination pay instead, or a combination of notice and pay.

Crucially, the group requirement sits on top of the individual one. The province's own worked example is a non-unionized employee entitled to three weeks of individual notice and eight weeks of group notice, who is owed a total of 11 weeks' notice or pay, or a mix of the two. Vacation pay is also payable on termination pay given in place of written notice.

What counts as a single location is decided on the facts of each case. The guidance lists the working relationship of the employees, how integrated their work or worksites are, and where employees work from or are controlled and directed from. In one of the province's own examples, a home care employer whose administrative, human resources and dispatching decisions are all made at head office would have all locations considered a single location if it went out of business. Because Thinkific has not published how many of the affected staff worked in British Columbia, we cannot say whether the threshold was met, and affected workers who think it was can contact Employment Standards or submit a complaint.

How Should Affected Workers Apply for Employment Insurance?

Federal Employment Insurance regular benefits exist for people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own, including shortage of work and mass lay-offs, and who are available for and able to work but cannot find a job.

The key rule is speed. The federal guidance is to apply for EI benefits as soon as you stop working, and you can apply even before you receive your record of employment. If you delay your claim for more than 4 weeks after your last day of work, you may lose benefits.

Keep your termination letter and your last pay statements together before you start the claim, so you can answer questions about your job and your final pay without hunting for documents.

For job search help in British Columbia, WorkBC Centres offer free employment services. The centres run free workshops on resume writing, cover letters and interview skills, and you can apply online to find out whether you are eligible for WorkBC employment services, including one-on-one work with an employment expert on your skills and search plan.

Where Do Course Platform and Software Skills Transfer Next?

Smith said the cuts were concentrated in areas that supported small and medium-sized business customers, the creators and businesses that use the platform to build and sell online courses. The question for each person is which skill to lead with.

Customer-facing staff can look at the customer success manager career path as one option for their next role.

Staff who built courses or learning content can look beyond software vendors. Thinkific's own results show its Plus line for organizations grew 14% in the second quarter of 2026. The company now calls itself a learning commerce platform for scaling external training.

Engineers and product staff can point to concrete work. In the second quarter of 2026, Thinkific added mobile in-app purchases, multi-item checkout, improved checkout validation and clearer free trial billing, and people who built features like these can name them on a resume. Describe the customer problem you solved and the result, not just the tool.

If you are asked about the gap in an interview, keep it short and factual. The company's own phrase, a strategic realignment of its workforce, describes what happened, and the same short, factual approach applies when you explain employment gaps in interviews and turn the focus to what you did.

What This Means for Job Seekers, and What Should You Do Next?

Smith framed this layoff as a strategy decision, and the workers affected can present it that way. Thinkific did not say the work was done badly. Smith said it no longer makes sense to continue investing at the same level in the legacy SMB business. Workers who served those customers can pitch that experience to employers that still sell to small businesses.

The second lesson is about reading signals. Thinkific's second quarter results showed its self serve revenue slipping while Plus grew, weeks before this cut. If you work at a software company that reports segment results, read them. In this case, a shrinking segment came before the cut.

Here is what we would do right after losing a job at Thinkific:

• Check your notice or pay against the table. Count your years of service and compare your offer with the British Columbia minimum, or with the rules where you work.
• Ask for the site count. If 50 or more employees at a single location lost their jobs within two months, group termination notice also applies unless an exception covers the case.
• File for EI now. The federal rules let you apply before your record of employment arrives, and a delay of more than four weeks may cost you benefits.
• Get advice before signing a release. The provincial minimum is not the only route, because British Columbia's guidance says workers can sue for wrongful dismissal and should seek legal advice before going to court.
• Apply for WorkBC services if you are in British Columbia. WorkBC Centres run free workshops, and you can apply online to see whether you qualify for one-on-one support.
• Rewrite your resume around outcomes. Lead with customers kept, courses launched or revenue supported.

Related Articles

• How to Job Search With AI After a Layoff
• Laid Off by Oracle This Week? What Its Severance Plan Paid in the Last Round
• When Layoffs Hit Your Company
• Tech Leads Every Industry in Wage Growth Despite the Layoff Headlines
• GitLab Announces Layoffs Amid Country Exit Strategy
• Canada Bets Big on AI to Counter US Pressure, the Jobs Strategy Behind It
• The Zoom Firing Playbook: Why Companies Are Sending You Home Before Cutting You Loose
• Microsoft's First Voluntary Buyout Signals a New Tech Layoff Playbook for the AI Era
• Managing a Skeleton Crew: A Leader's Guide to Rebuilding After Mass Layoffs

People Also Asked

Q: How many jobs did Thinkific cut?

A: Thinkific eliminated positions affecting 96 employees in its September reorganization, which the CEO put at about 30 percent of the workforce across its global team.

Q: How much notice is a laid off worker owed in British Columbia?

A: The province requires one week after more than three months, two weeks after more than one year, and three weeks after more than three years plus a week per additional year to a maximum of eight weeks, as notice, pay or a mix.

Q: When should I apply for EI after a layoff in Canada?

A: Apply as soon as you stop working, even before your record of employment arrives, because a delay of more than 4 weeks after your last day of work may cost you benefits.

Looking for your next opportunity? Metaintro brings together 50M jobs in one place. Create a free profile and start your search for your next role.