Kajabi vs Teachable: A Definitive Comparison (July 2023)

On the other hand, Teachable stands out with its free lifetime plan, which can get starters on track at little or no cost. However, Teachable doesn’t offer all its features and integrations for all plans. So, for the lower tiers, you’ll need to pay for third-party tools.

In this article, I’ll review Kajabi vs Teachable regarding the following points:

1. Pricing
2. Payments
3. Products
4. Course creation
5. Sales and marketing tools

Comparison Summary: Kajabi vs Teachable

Kajabi is best for creators starting off with high-ticket digital products, or for those willing to grow their online business with its built-in marketing tools. On the other hand, Teachable is best for beginner course creators because of its more affordable plans. Its advanced plans will also suit creators who prefer third-party marketing or native payment gateways.

Teachable	Kajabi
Price
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Free lifetime plan. Basic plan is $39/mo, $119/mo pro plan, business plan varies	⭐⭐⭐⭐ 14-day free plan. Starter plan costs $149/mo, business plan is $199/mo, pro plan is $399/mo.
Payments
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Native payment gateways. Transaction fees for free and basic plans. Tax handling.	🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Members pay with Stripe/Paypal. Split payments. More upsells/ downsells. No transaction fees.
Course Creation
🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Better outlines. Simplified course-building tools. Course compliance controls.	⭐⭐⭐⭐ Course templates. Provides better assessments and more digital products.
Student Communication
⭐⭐⭐ Student-to-teacher via comments and email. Limited variety for assessments and feedback.	🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Better student-to-student communication via communities. Email + comments for teachers.
Sales and Marketing Tools
⭐⭐⭐ Affiliate and email marketing are limited to some plans. Google analytics integration for all plans.	🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pre-built funnels, landing pages, affiliate, and email marketing. Built-in analytics.
Integrations
⭐⭐⭐ Zapier, Facebook Pixel, ConvertKit, Circle.so, ActiveCampaign, and more.	🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Zapier, Facebook Pixel, Calendly, ConvertKit, Cloudflare, Segment, Typeform, Drip, and more.
Best for
Course testing. Low-ticket digital products supported by external marketing.	Creating an all-in-one business with websites, email lists, and integrations.
Try the free lifetime plan	Try free for 14 30 days

What is Kajabi?
“The solo educator’s business hub” 👨‍🏫👑

In 2010, Kenny Rueter founded Kajabi after struggling with monetization on YouTube.

Today Kajabi empowers “knowledge entrepreneurs” to seamlessly set up and grow their digital product businesses with an all-in-one platform. Kajabi understands that uploading course material is only one side of the teaching business. So, it eliminates the hassle of managing third-party tools and specialized team members. Kajabi’s array of built-in tools includes email marketing, communities, funnels, websites, and integrations.

As a high-end solution in the field, Kajabi is best for professional educators aiming to manage their businesses by themselves.

What is Teachable?
“Simplified knowledge sharing” ✍️💁

Dissatisfied by his teaching experience on Udemy, Ankur Nagpal launched Teachable’s predecessor, Fedora, in 2014.

Teachable gives more autonomy to tutors through brand-ability and individual websites. Although there are fewer tools included, Teachable’s plans cost less, allowing tutors to integrate with their preferred marketing tools. It also simplifies the tutor’s mission with financial management options available through their native payment gateways.

With its free lifetime plan, Teachable is best for beginners testing their course as well as tutors with an established marketing model.

Kajabi vs Teachable: Pricing

Kajabi is priced higher for its all-in-one package. Teachable is more affordable for sole course creation.

Kajabi has fixed pricing tiers with no transaction fees. Teachable cuts transaction fees for the free and starter plans.

Kajabi’s pricing starts at a higher initial cost compared to Teachable pricing but has no transaction fees for all plans. Teachable takes $1 plus 10% of each sale for the free plan, and 5% for the starter plan.

These two plans will be more affordable as long as your cumulative transaction fees are lower than $99 per month, which is Teachable’s price tag for its growth plan if you’re paying annually.

Kajabi has more tools and product types. Teachable offers more courses per tier.

Kajabi’s growth plan costs $20 (or $30) more than Teachable’s starter plan, but it gives you access to extra products like podcasts in addition to multiple integrations and advanced email marketing tools. However, product numbers and customers are limited per tier. There are only three products on the starter plan, and 15 products on the growth plan.

If you’re selling multiple courses, Teachable’s plans will be more valuable because you get five courses for the starter plan and unlimited courses for the growth plan.

Kajabi has a 14-day free trial for its middle tier.

Kajabi offers a 14-day free trial for its growth plan. You can also get a 30-day free trial for the basic plan if you use an affiliate link.

According to Kajabi, you can start making money within 30 days because of their pre-written sales copy and ready-made frameworks for webinar funnels, lead generation, and product launches. This means that you should be able to set up your digital product business, at little or no cost. Kajabi University and its live chat support eliminate guesswork, making the process less risky.

Teachable has a free lifetime plan but offers no free trial for higher tiers.

If you prefer to take a 100% risk-free approach for a new course, go for Teachable’s free plan until your course business is up and running.

You’ll only pay when you make a sale and you won’t be pressured by the time limit of the free trial. Keep in mind though that you might take more time to start selling courses because you’ll be primarily dependent on your own marketing efforts.

Another disadvantage of Teachable is that you don’t get to try the premium features until you pay.

Kajabi offers all its features for all plans, but their numbers vary. Teachable limits some features for lower pricing tiers.

Kajabi provides all products, funnels, sales pages, and email marketing tools for all its plans. However, you’ll need to upgrade to higher plans if your business scales and requires more of those tools.

Teachable offers unlimited products starting from the growth plan. However, some features are exclusive to specific plans. For instance, the free plan doesn’t include integrated email marketing, and affiliate marketing is only available starting from the pro plan.

Winner: Choose Kajabi if you’ve got a limited number of high-ticket digital products that you can bet on, or if you’re scaling an established business. Choose Teachable if you’re starting out with a new course idea, or if you prefer third-party marketing tools.

Kajabi vs Teachable: Payments

Kajabi eases payments for hosts and customers. Teachable complicates the setup process but offers additional services.

Kajabi has no additional fees besides monthly payments. Teachable charges processing fees for handling payments and taxes.

Kajabi creators only pay the processing fees of their chosen payment gateway.

Teachable’s native payment gateways can cut up to 4.99% + 49¢, depending on student payment methods. In return, Teachable handles taxes, affiliate payments, and potential student purchases. There’s also an optional BackOffice service for an extra 2% transaction fee.

Kajabi integrates with Stripe and Paypal, while Teachable has native payment gateways.

Kajabi has a seamless setup process for both Stripe and Paypal. You can also use third-party payment gateways by connecting them through webhook URLs or Zapier triggers.

Meanwhile, Teachable has two native payment gateways: Teachable:Pay and Monthly Payment Gateway.

The setup is relatively complicated and not all countries are eligible for Teachable:Pay, which allows for daily, weekly, or monthly transfers to a bank account. Monthly Payment Gateway only allows monthly payments via PayPal.

If you’re using Teachable’s pro or business plan, you’ll be eligible for custom payment gateways; namely Stripe or PayPal. This option has its pros and cons:

Kajabi has better upsell and downsell options, while Teachable only offers upsells on the pro plan and above.

Kajabi has a bunch of options to increase your customer’s average order value.

It lets you set up order bumps before customers complete a purchase and up to 10 upsells or downsells for every single offer. This lets you present extra offers to clients that already bought something (upsell) or declined an initial upsell (downsell).

In both cases, your average order value per customer gets higher — whether the customer decides to buy extra offers or not.

Meanwhile, Teachable has upsells on lectures and pages, but they’re limited to the pro and business plans. It doesn’t have a downsell option either.

All Teachable’s paid plans offer a single order bump per checkout page. Products offered for free on Teachable courses can’t have order bumps because they don’t have checkout pages.

Winner: Kajabi. Although it doesn’t offer tax management features, Kajabi has a more streamlined payment process and an extensive upsell/downsell feature.

Kajabi vs Teachable: Products

Kajabi has more product types. Teachable allows hosts to sell more of each category.

Both offer courses, coaching, and digital downloads. Kajabi stands out with its podcast and community products.

Kajabi offers three products for its basic plan and 15 products for the growth plan. Products include courses, podcasts, communities, and coaching. The trick here is that you’ll have to prioritize products because their number is limited by pricing tiers.

Meanwhile, Teachable offers courses, coaching, and digital downloads. The free plan includes only one product per category. The basic plan includes five products for each category, and for pro and business plans you get unlimited products.

Kajabi’s coaching program has additional built-in scheduling options.

Kajabi’s coaching program has more scheduling options, including in-built booking, Calendly, custom links, and manual booking.

Teachable’s coaching program integrates natively with Calendly. Alternatively, you can manually set dates or add a separate scheduling link.

Kajabi integrates digital downloads via email. Teachable has stand-alone digital downloads.

Kajabi hosts have to set up email automation to sell digital downloads. File types will have to comply with the requirements of the email body.

Teachable has a dedicated section for digital downloads, allowing for a variety of file types and a maximum file size of 250 MB.

Kajabi’s built-in communities can replace Facebook groups. Teachable integrates with Circle.so.

Kajabi hosts can create communities, which count as separate products. You can attach communities to certain product offerings, allowing for free or paid access.

Kajabi communities provide an effective alternative to Facebook groups. You can create circles, challenges, and live meetups just like you would on the social media. You can also start meetups instantly or schedule them on a recurring basis.

Teachable doesn’t offer a built-in community section, but there’s an opt-in for Circle.so starting from the basic plan.

Winner: Kajabi is better for community-based learning and regularly updated products like podcasts and live meetings. Teachable is better for digital downloads and multiple courses.

Kajabi vs Teachable: Course Creation

Kajabi allows for more product branding. Teachable’s course outlines have better organization.

Kajabi has more themes for courses while Teachable unites courses with one school theme.

Kajabi has seven readily available course themes in the course builder. You can customize themes, export them in .zip format, and re-upload them.

Kajabi also gives more branding options for its coaching products, including adjusting the color palette and uploading images. These are shown throughout the client experience.

On the other hand, Teachable only allows branding customization options for the whole program, which includes all courses, modules, coaching programs, and digital downloads. And you can’t remove the Teachable messaging on your website if you’re not on the pro plan or higher.

Teachable’s course outline has a better organization.

Kajabi has fewer attachment types for lessons and assessments aren’t attached to lessons. You can organize them separately within the course outline.

Teachable’s course structure is more organized because it allows hosts to attach more file types from a sidebar, in addition to assessments and upsells. There’s also a bulk upload option for all paid plans.

Kajabi has more interactive assessments. Teachable is limited to multiple-choice quizzes.

Kajabi’s assessments have open-ended questions and allow students to upload different file types as part of their responses.

Kajabi includes graded assessments for all its plans. You can also send quiz scores and completion emails to your team or individual students.

Teachable only offers multiple-choice questions and limits its graded assessments to the pro plan and up.

Both Kajabi and Teachable offer course completion certificates.

Kajabi seamlessly integrates certificates with its email templates. You can also set expiry dates and unique serial numbers.

Teachable offers automatic certificates with serial numbers, but they’re only available for the pro plan and up.

Winner: Kajabi excels because of its course branding and assessments which can creatively serve various educational fields. Teachable is a better option for online course creation only if your individual lessons have multiple attachments.

Kajabi vs Teachable: Marketing Tools

Kajabi has everything educators need to boost sales while Teachable relies on third-party marketing tools.

Kajabi’s funnels are hard to beat. Teachable has a less advanced built-in email.

Teachable provides built-in email for all paid plans, but it’s limited in terms of automation and email sequences. You’ll be able to send students automated email notifications after completing certain milestones or for upcoming payment reminders.

Still, Teachable integrates with ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, and Mailchimp, giving more advanced options.

Kajabi has all of Teachables’s basic e-mail functionalities and integrations, but its built-in email blends automation and sales with a dozen pre-built funnel templates. You can easily adjust ready-made frameworks for webinars, product launches, and lead generation, or even connect several sales channel pipelines into a single funnel.

The setup process is further simplified with prompts, integrated video tutorials, and textual explanations if you hover over the buttons.

Kajabi has more integrations for all its plans. Teachable’s integrations are limited per pricing tier.

Kajabi has over a dozen integrations, providing alternatives to its built-in marketing and analytics tools. However, it’s got no integrations for community-based platforms.

Teachable’s integrations can replace some of the built-in marketing features of Kajabi, but they’re not available for all plans. Zapier actions are only available in the pro pricing plan and up.

Kajabi can replace WordPress. Teachable has limited website features.

Kajabi has an impressive website builder with professional theme templates to get you started easily.

The fonts and page blocks are eye-catching, including videos, countdowns, and carousels. You can also host your blog on a Kajabi website, so you won’t need to fiddle with a separate WordPress website.

Meanwhile, Teachable doesn’t offer blogs for its websites. You can only create simple pages to display images, text, or sales buttons. The block types and designs are also very limited. Still, if you’re not looking for anything fancy, Teachable’s page builder will do the job.

Winner: Kajabi. Kajabi’s email marketing tools, sales funnels, and reliable website allow solo educators to focus on creating course content without the need for programmers or marketers. The customer experience is also superior because of the sleek website design and various branding options.

Kajabi vs Teachable: Pros & Cons

Kajabi Pros	Kajabi Cons
✅ All-in-one business hub	❌ Limited number of members and admins
✅ Advanced funnels and email marketing	❌ Limited number of products per plan
✅ Sleek user interface	❌ Forum-like community
✅ More integrations for all plans
✅ Affiliate program for all plans
✅ Insightful built-in analytics
✅ Live chat customer support

Teachable Pros	Teachable Cons
✅ Free lifetime plan	❌ Complicated payment gateways
✅ Simplified & user-friendly course building	❌ Limited marketing tools
✅ Tax and chargeback handling	❌ Transaction fees
✅ Unlimited students for all plans	❌ Limited brand-ability
✅ Better integrated assessments	❌ Limited features for lower plans

Final Verdict: Kajabi vs Teachable

Teachable is a straightforward tutoring platform while Kajabi is an all-in-one growth tool for digital product businesses.

Overall, both Kajabi and Teachable give more control to tutors, but from different perspectives. Kajabi provides all the required tools under one roof, but it doesn’t interfere with payments. On the other side, Teachable manages payments but lets creators choose their marketing tools with its affordable plans.

Use Kajabi if:

• You want to run all business tools on a single all-in-one online course platform.
• You prioritize brandability and an engaging user experience.
• You’ve got a variety of product ideas for podcasts and communities.

Click here to get started with Kajabi!

Use Teachable if:

• You’re testing a new course idea.
• You prefer third-party integrations for your marketing tools.
• You offer multiple courses or lessons with several attachments.

Click here to get started with Teachable!