Before picking a platform to start selling online courses, read my review of Kajabi. I’ll share the pros and cons of the platform and compare it to the other top online course platforms.
I’ll also show my cost analysis of whether Kajabi is worth the money
Kajabi Review – The Good & Bad
Pros: Here’s what I like about Kajabi
- Built-in email marketing tools so there’s no need to integrate a 3rd party email provider.
- Built-in sales funnel software (aka The Sales Pipeline Builder) that lets you create several types of marketing funnels to drive customer sales.
- Marketing automations that allow you to trigger emails or course offers based on things like course completion or inactivity.
- Ability to customize. You can match the look and feel of your business or website.
- You are able to choose from a large set of professionally designed, customizable themes.
- Great digital coaching platform for interactive sessions.
- Custom domain. While Kajabi will host your course, you can set the domain to make it appear as part of your website.
- You can engage with your students through a built-in Community platform (similar to a forum). You can also offer this as an upsell and even charge for it.
- You can offer students payment options like a monthly payment plan for more expensive courses.
- You can offer a monthly recurring subscription for ongoing access to a course in a membership model.
- The Kajabi marketplace offers a way for users to discover your course organically.
- Having AI help you outline and even create lessons for the course helps alleviate the complexity of creating an online course.
- Completion certificates are now available without needing to use a 3rd party provider.
Cons: Here are the only things I don’t like about Kajabi
- There is no free option and prices are slightly higher than other platforms (I’ll assess whether the cost is justifiable in the next section).
- The Kajabi course marketplace is small and does not have search functions for students (only a category filter).
Kajabi Overview
Kajabi is an elite “one-stop-shop” software for selling online courses. As an all-in-one platform, users can craft, market, distribute, and get paid for their custom classes without having to switch to other programs.
Kajabi offers payment integrations through Stripe and PayPal. Users can also market their courses through email marketing tools. Optimizing and scaling their online course selling a business is also possible through fully-automated marketing campaigns and funnels. Furthermore, Kajabi provides built-in analytics tools to let users track their progress and continue to grow.
Through Kajabi, users can also create their own websites that store all of their courses and other important information. A library of ready-made themes streamlines the website creation process. Users can even create their custom domain to ensure that their courses can be found easily and efficiently.
While the platform places a huge emphasis on marketing, Kajabi also offers plenty of course creation tools to make classes from scratch. Every Kajabi plan comes with a course creation tool that lets you create classes, videos, and other forms of digital educational content.
Kajabi also offers lead generation and product launch tools as well as webinar funnels through what’s called Blueprints to make your course selling business even more efficient. This takes out the guesswork for your marketing campaigns through efficient automation.
It’s safe to say that Kajabi isn’t lacking in any features (we haven’t even mentioned the networking and mobile features), making their statement as having everything you need “all in one place” a genuine claim.
What Is Kajabi Used For?
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform primarily used to sell online courses. This business makes it very easy to create, market, and grow online courses, membership sites, and coaching programs. They also provide other tools like a website builder, payment gateway, email marketing, a mobile app, and pre-built templates.
The great thing about Kajabi is that it is very easy to use, and creators do no have to learn any code or have to worry about integrations.
What Sets Kajabi Apart From Other Providers?
The two features that set Kajabi part from all other platforms are:
- It is the only all-in-one platform with no need for 3rd party tools
- It has a major focus on sales and marketing tools. This includes its own built-in email management, sales funnel builder, and marketing automation.
Kajabi Pricing
How much does Kajabi cost?
Kajabi has three pricing options ranging from $149-$315 / month. All pricing plans can be purchased annually for a cost savings. Upgrading or downgrading your plan doesn’t incur any additional costs and can be done at any time.
There are no hidden Kajabi fees. However, there is a standard Stripe merchant processing fee of 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction.
One of the nice things that Kajabi offers is a money back guarantee. This provides you ample time test out their software and determine if it suits your needs. If for whatever reason you are not satisfied with Kajabi within 30-days of your first payment, you can cancel your subscription and request a refund.
Kajabi Basic
The Basic Plan which gives users a total of 3 products and 3 pipelines. Through this plan, clients can use an unlimited number of landing pages and marketing emails. They are limited to 10,000 contacts and 1,000 active members, as well as a single website for one admin user.
The Basic Plan costs $149 a month, or $119 a month if the annual billing plan is selected. Furthermore, users gain access to Kajabi University, webinars, dozens of premade templates, key automation, and more.
Kajabi Growth
The next and most popular plan is the Growth Plan, which ups the number of products and pipelines to 15. Users can gain up to 25,000 contacts as well as 10,000 active members. Though they are restricted to one website, up to 10 admins can be deployed.
The Growth Plan costs $199 a month, or $159 a month if paid through the annual subscription. Users will receive advanced automation, 24/7 chat support, and the ability to remove Kajabi’s name from their domains.
Kajabi Pro
The final plan is the Pro Plan, allowing users up to 100 products and pipelines, 100,000 contacts, 20,000 active members, and 3 websites for 25 admin members.
My pick for the best plan is the Growth plan for $199/month
The Growth Plan comes with comes with integrated email, a sales funnel builder, marketing automation, and affiliate tools to help you sell your course.
Recognizable Kajabi Customers
Kajabi is used by over 25,000 course creators including big names like Amy Porterfield (online marketing expert), Brendan Burchard (personal development coach), and Billy Gene (social media marketing guru).
Kajabi has been accessed by over 33 million students and has generated over $650 million in sales.
Is Kajabi Worth the Money?
Kajabi is the Cadillac of online course platforms but it does come at a premium. It’s two main price plans are the Basic ($149/mo.) and Growth ($199/mo.) plans. Comparable plans from competitors are priced at $49 and $99 per month.
So is Kajabi worth the extra cost?
Assuming the basic features of comparable plans are relatively the same, let’s look at the extra functions Kajabi provides.
Most providers only include just one of the functions below and no one else provides a sales funnel builder. So, if you didn’t use Kajabi, you would need to pay for each of these features separately from a 3rd party and integrate them with your course platform.
Kajabi Cost Analysis |
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| Kajabi Functionality | 3rd Party | 3rd Party Cost (Low-end) | 3rd Party Cost (High-end) |
| Sales Funnel Builder | ClickFunnels | $97/month | $297/month |
| Marketing automations | Zapier | $20/month | $120/month |
| Email Service Provider | MailChimp | $10/month | $299/month |
| Website themes + blog | Bluehost | $8/month | $119/month |
| Affiliate Platform | ShareASale | $550 start-up (equates to $46/mo. for first year). Plus 20% of affiliate earnings transaction fee. | |
As you can see, if you used a course platform other than Kajabi, 3rd party costs can easily range from $181/mo. to $881/mo., not including affiliate platform transaction fees.
So even if you only plan to use 1 or 2 of these key features, my assessment is that Kajabi functions more than justify the cost!
Overall, Kajabi’s, all-in-one platform will ease the burden of figuring out 3rd party tools and allow you to build professional looking sales funnels that no other platform can match.
Kajabi AI
Kajabi now integrates AI to create course outlines, lesson content, and landing page copy, which gets your course up and running faster and more efficiently.
Creating a course can feel pretty daunting. There are tons of things to keep track of when creating a course. Having an AI on board will help you create certain aspects of the course and remove some of the burdens of course creation.
Given how Kajabi wants to truly be an all-in-one option for creators, it’s no surprise that they’ve integrated AI to round out their offerings.
Kajabi Communities Overview
Kajabi has just announced that it has acquired Vibely and will soon be offering its services as part of Kajabi’s monthly subscription program.
Let’s learn a bit more about what this means for Kajabi’s customers.
What Is Kajabi Communities?
Kajabi Communities is a feature that Kajabi already offers where customers can form communities within their course platform for their users to discuss ideas with each other.
These communities are not unlike Facebook groups and can be exclusive if the organizer (course owner) wants them to be.
Administrators can create multiple different communities for specific topics or offer these communities as a separate feature for an additional charge.
Also Read: Steps to take when your course has been pirated
Kajabi and Vibely
The next generation of Kajabi Communities will use the Vibely platform, which Kajabi has recently acquired.
This will add features that foster closer relationships and more interactive groups to the existing Kajabi Communities feature.
Some of these features include challenges, leaderboards, live calls and chats, accountability tools, and more.
Essentially, the Vibely acquisition will create a better overall experience for those using Kajabi Communities.
This update is available to a select few currently but is expected to launch for all customers in January of 2023.
What Is Vibely?
Vibely is a platform that empowers creators to form communities to exchange ideas and create closer relationships between members and creators.
It’s a place where creators can create Facebook groups without the Facebook part. This allows for a more intimate experience.
Features include things like event hosting, Zoom integrations, resources for administrators and members, and the option to create fun challenges and display scores on a leaderboard.
Creators who use Vibely have the power to choose how much they charge for access to the groups.
How Does Migration Work?
So what do customers need to do to take advantage of this update?
It seems like users will not have to take any action to receive the benefits of this update.
Kajabi Website Examples
1. Grant Cardone Training Center
Grant Cordone is known as one of the top salespeople who provide marketing and sales training online. Therefore, the fact that the Grant Cardone Training Center uses Kajabi is notable. The site leverages Kajabi’s ability to host a large library of growing training videos for their clients.
Additionally, the Grant Cardone Training Center makes use of Kajabi’s landing pages and email marketing to help bring in a flow of new clients. Finally, this course serves a large number of students which can be facilitated by Kajabi’s ability to scale.
2. Glossible by Sonia Roselli Beauty
Glossible is one of the most popular destinations for those who want to learn how to become better makeup artists. With Kajabi, the site can create several small courses that specialize in different areas of make-up art. Additionally, Glossible has its eCommerce shop, which allows the company to have an additional stream of income.
To get more shoppers and students to the site, Glossible makes great use of Kajabi’s landing pages and email capabilities. The company can create marketing campaigns that flow easily to the website and convert more sales.
3. Juice Guru Institute
The wellness space is one of the most competitive markets out there. That’s where there is a big opportunity for someone to sell courses on how to market to this lucrative yet crowded market. The Juru Guru Institute uses Kajabi’s many attractive templates to create a stunning landing page and home page that can attract and convert more students.
Additionally, the Juice Guru Institute uses Kajabi’s blogging tool to optimize the content of the site for SEO. The website can create blog posts that are SEO-friendly and can attract a higher number of cold traffic which can lead to more sales.
4. Full Plate Living
Full Plate Living is a website that sells nutrition programs to those who want to eat better and enhance their wellness. The website uses Kajabi’s blogging tools to create attractive, SEO-friendly blog posts, which also include multi-media content such as videos and audio content. Full Plate Living demonstrates that someone can attract a large number of customers and students without having to use a paid media strategy.
Additionally, Full Plate Living is an attractive website that uses many full-color visuals which are ideally laid out thanks to Kajabi’s large selection of blogging templates. Finally, Full Plate Living uses Kajabi’s analytics to track website traffic and conversion numbers.
5. Education By Matt Johnson
Matt Johnson is one of the top trainers for those who want to be a wedding photographer. Since photography is such an integral part of the training program, the client makes use of Kajabi’s multi-media blogging capabilities. Additionally, the site makes healthy use of the platform’s landing pages and email campaigns to convert more website visitors into students.
This site is an ideal example of how you can get a healthy stream of students to your niche course site by using a combination of Kajabi’s multi-media, marketing, blogging, and SEO tools.
Kajabi Free Trial Promotion
Kajabi is offering a 60-day free trial, and it comes with access to their new Creator Challenge. With the Creator Challenge, you can launch your business with the help of established creators and entrepreneurs already using the Kajabi platform.
You also get the following when signing up:
- Community Access – Join a community of other creators and entrepreneurs
- Weekly Virtual Training Sessions – Get support and advice from industry experts
- Weekly Challenges – Use these weekly prompts as a checklist to grow your business
Kajabi is our favorite all-in-one course platform.
- Intuitive marketing tools to help promote and sell your course.
- No need to pay extra for email marketing, sales funnel builder, or marketing automations (all included).
- Great for selling big ticket courses.
Alternatives to Kajabi
Kajabi is one of the better course platforms and comes packed with features. I’ve also compared Kajabi vs Teachable.
While Kajabi has an all-in-one offering, if you are looking for a more affordable option, Thinkific is offered at much lower price points and lets you easily integrate with your favorite 3rd party platforms. Thinkific also has a viable free offering for people selling their first course.
Here are the top alternatives to Kajabi:
- Thinkific – Read our full review
- Learndash – Read our full review
- Teachable – Read our full review
- Podia – Read our full review
- Udemy – Read our full review
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Kajabi?
Kajabi is a “one-stop shop” software for selling online courses. It’s an all-in-one program that allows users to start a business by selling their own online classes.
Is Kajabi legit?
Yes, Kajabi is a legitimate company. The company was founded in 2010 by Travis Rosser and Kenny Rueter. Kajabi has 60+ employees serving over 25,000 course creators.
Who uses Kajabi?
Kajabi is used by tens of thousands of individual course creators and accessed by over 33 million students.
Does Kajabi replace MailChimp?
Kajabi has built in email marketing tools so there’s no need to use a 3rd party email provider. However, you can integrate it with popular email service providers like Aweber, MailChimp, Drip, ConvertKit and Active Campaign.
Can I sell physical products on Kajabi?
Yes, you can sell physical products through Kajabi. However, the software is primarily designed to sell courses and digital products.
Does Kajabi have gamification?
Yes Kajabi supports gamification. Gamification is a way to boost engagement through goals and challenges like points, awards, and badges. It helps students stay motivated and absorb more information.
What is a Kajabi pipeline?
Pipelines are marketing funnels, designed to maximize your conversions of leads and sales. You can connect landing pages, videos, and email marketing drips in a series to nuture leads into making purchases.
Does Kajabi integrate with WordPress?
Yes.
Is Kajabi mobile friendly?
Yes, Kajabi courses are fully mobile responsive and render well on any phone, tablet, or computer.
Is Kajabi free?
Kajabi offers a free 14-day trial, but the service is not free.
Does Kajabi charge transaction fees?
No, Kajabi does not have transaction fees.
Is Kajabi a LMS?
Yes, Kajabi is a web-based learning management system (LMS). LMS software is used to provide training courses and educational content in both written and video format.
Where is Kajabi located?
Kajabi headquarters is in Irvine, California.
What does Kajabi mean?
Kajabi is a knowledge commerce platform that allows users to create online courses or digital products and sell them. The name “Kajabi” comes from an aboriginal word meaning “to take flight,” according to Travis Rosser, one of the founders.
This symbolism represents the platform’s purpose of empowering individuals and businesses to “take flight” with their ideas, providing the tools they need to share their knowledge, grow their online presence, and generate income.
Taking this meaning a step further, Kajabi is designed to enable people to take their passion, expertise, or idea and transform it into a thriving online business, much like a bird taking flight for the first time. The platform provides the tools necessary to build, market, and sell digital products or online courses, enabling creators to reach their audiences worldwide.
With Kajabi, businesses and individuals can construct websites, set up email marketing campaigns, assess analytics, and perform other crucial tasks related to launching and maintaining an online knowledge commerce business.
So, just as a bird needs its wings to take flight, users of Kajabi utilize the platform’s features to launch and grow their online ventures. The essence of “taking flight” also symbolizes the journey of learning and growth that Kajabi’s users – and their customers – embark upon.
This could mean the journey of learning a new skill or discipline from an online course, or the process of building and growing an online business. Therefore, the term “Kajabi” encompasses both the platform’s functionality and its mission of empowering and uplifting individuals and businesses through knowledge sharing.