Kajabi vs Thinkific: A Definitive Comparison (July 2023)

One of those competitors is Thinkific and course building is its main game.

So, should you go for Kajabi’s lucrative package, or let Thinkific take your courses to the next level? Only a closer look at their comparable features can give a definitive answer.

In this article, I’ll review Kajabi vs Thinkific regarding:

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

Let’s get into it!

Comparison Summary: Kajabi vs Thinkific

Kajabi works best for knowledge entrepreneurs aiming to grow their outreach with professional marketing tools. If you need to spare yourself the hassle of running a dozen third-party tools, Kajabi’s built-in alternatives and templates will simplify your tasks, although it’ll cost you more. On the other hand, Thinkific will be a better option if you’re an educator, aiming to build your course at the utmost learning quality and stellar student experience. You’ll need an intuitive interface and advanced course creation tools and Thinkific can give you that.

Thinkific	Kajabi
Price
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 30-day free-trial. Unlimited free plan. Basic plan costs $49/mo, Start plan is $99/mo, Grow plan is $199/mo	⭐⭐⭐⭐ 14-day free trial. Basic plan costs $149/mo, Growth plan is $199/mo, Pro plan is $399/mo.
Payments
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Stripe/PayPal. Better built-in payment processor (limited release). Upsells/order bumps.	🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Members pay with Stripe/PayPal. Split payments. Upsells/downsells/order bumps.
Course Creation
🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ More intuitive interface. More file types and larger attachment sizes.	⭐⭐⭐⭐ Course templates. Graded assessments/certificates/variety of question types.
Student Engagement
🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ More organized and interactive community. More file and post types.	⭐⭐⭐ Communities are a simple alternative to Facebook groups.
Built-in Marketing Tools
⭐⭐⭐ Advanced built-in analytics. No built-in email marketing tools. Relies on integrations.	🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pre-built funnels, landing pages, and sales pages. Better website builder. Built-in analytics and email.
Integrations
🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️ More than 90 integrations for all plans, including course building and marketing tools.	⭐⭐⭐ Zapier, Facebook Pixel, Calendly, ConvertKit, Cloudflare, Segment, Typeform, Drip, and more.
Best for
Intuitive online course creation and integration with a variety of third-party tools.	Creating an all-in-one business with websites, email lists, and integrations.
Try free for 30 days	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 online course businesses by themselves.

What is Thinkific?
“Intuitive course-building” 🤹‍♂️📚

Aiming to reach more students, Greg Smith founded Thinkific for his LSAT online course.

Thinkific chose to specialize in course creation and proved its success in that area since the beginning. At the same time, it aims to maximize every educator’s potential by integrating with over 90 tools to help manage, sell, and scale their learning environment. While connecting several tools can complicate the process, Thinkific stands out with its intuitive interface, truly living up to its motto of simplifying expertise monetization.

That’s why Thinkic best suits beginner course creators who are inexperienced with course-building tech. Advanced users, on the other hand, will appreciate the integrated tools and their superior features, compared to the lackluster built-in tools of competing platforms.

Kajabi vs Thinkific: Pricing

Kajabi has more tools and products for a higher price tag. Thinkific offers unlimited courses and customers for all paid plans.

Both offer a free trial for their middle tiers. Thinkific has a free lifetime plan.

Both Kajabi and Thinkific require credit cards for the free trials of paid plans. Kajabi has a 14-day free trial for its Growth plan, but you can get a 30-day free trial for the Basic plan if you join through an affiliate program.

Thinkific also offers a 30-day free trial for its Start plan ($99/mo) and a 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans, which allows you to try out all the advanced features risk-free.

Additionally, Thinkific has a lifetime free plan with no credit card required so you can freely explore its core features without pressure.

Kajabi offers all its features for all plans. Thinkific limits some features for lower tiers.

Kajabi gives equal access to Kajabi University and live chat support for all plans. But, the higher tiers are best-suitable for knowledge entrepreneurs with a wider variety of topics. For instance, the top plan allows you to have three separate websites.

Thinkific offers better support and some premium courses for top pricing plans only.

Winner: Kajabi pricing turns out to be a better deal if you can exclusively rely on its built-in tools. On the other hand, Thinkific pricing will work out the best for you if you seek unlimited growth with customers and courses.

Kajabi vs Thinkific: Payments

Kajabi has better after-purchase options. Thinkific has a built-in payment processor for some countries.

Both integrate with Stripe and PayPal. Thinkific’s built-in payment processor has additional features.

Both Kajabi and Thinkific integrate with Stripe and PayPal for payment processing. They also accept external payment gateways, but you’ll have to use Zapier for automation.

Thinkific offers a native payment processor, named Thinkific Payments, which allows creators to manage orders, payouts, refunds, and shared revenue from the dashboard. This option is currently in limited release for a few supported countries including, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, and EEA countries.

Both have order bumps and upsells. Kajabi also has downsells.

Upsells and order bumps increase your chances of selling more products at once. Order bumps will show up to your customers before checking out and offer related products, while upsells allow you to present additional offers after purchase.

Kajabi offers order bumps and up to 10 upsells or downsells for a single offer. Downsells allow you to offer customers a more affordable option if they refuse an earlier upsell.

Thinkific offers order bumps only through its native payment processor, which isn’t currently available for all countries. You can also add upsells as part of the after-purchase experience for your customers.

Winner: Kajabi has better after-purchase options because of its downsells. However, if you reside in one of the eligible countries, Thinkific makes a better deal because of its built-in payment processor.

Kajabi vs Thinkific: Course Creation

Kajabi has all the essentials but Thinkific offers more advanced course creation tools and integrations.

Kajabi has more templates and themes for courses.

Kajabi’s outline tool and templates make it easy to set up courses. Added to that, there are over six ready-made themes, which heighten your customer experience.

For Kajabi’s lessons, creators can attach text, video, and audio to each lesson. Lessons are grouped into modules and submodules for user-friendly navigation.

Meanwhile, Thinkific’s outline in the course builder is made of chapters including separate lessons or assessments.

Lesson formats include video, audio, downloads, text, PDF, presentation, multimedia, and live video hosting or webinars with Zoom.

Added to that, Thinkfic allows hosts to create more interactive lessons using third-party integrations available on their app store.

Both offer completion certificates and graded assessments but Thinkific has more assessment options for its top tiers.

Setting up assessments in Kajabi is more intuitive because question types and grading options are all in one place.

You can also set a passing grade to ensure that students have enough skills for the coming lesson.

You’ll find Kajabi’s assessment options in Thinkific course builder too, but they’re scattered among four categories: quizzes, assignments, surveys, and exams. For instance, quizzes are graded and assessments are dedicated to student uploads.

Thinkfic’s exams allow hosts to integrate with Brillium, but they’re only available within the Grow plan, the most expensive one.

Winner: Thinkific is superior for course creation because of its intuitive interface and multiple lesson types. Additionally, advanced paid integrations allow you to create more interactive assessments.

Kajabi vs Thinkific: Additional Products

Kajabi has more product types. Thinkific has better communities.

Both monetize communities and memberships. Kajabi has built-in podcasts and coaching.

You can create membership sites in Kajabi using one of its course templates and receive recurring income as you’re developing the main course content. Podcasts and coaching are stand-alone products in Kajabi, which are limited based on pricing tiers.

Thinkific only monetizes courses, communities, and memberships. Communities allow your students to interact, which can be included as part of membership perks.

Kajabi’s built-in communities can replace Facebook groups.

Kajabi communities allow hosts to create circles, challenges, and live meetups. However, they’re a basic alternative to Facebook groups. Post types and attachments are limited, which makes the community less interactive.

On the other hand, Thinkific community posts allow members to attach images, videos, and files. Posts are categorized into spaces, which can be easily accessed from the sidebar. This makes Thinkific communities more intuitive and easier to navigate, compared to Kajabi communities.

Even more, Thinkific has additional community customization options, including appearance and SEO settings.

Winner: Kajabi offers more ways for repurposing your expertise with its podcasts and coaching program. Still, Thinkific is a better option for peer-to-peer learning because of its interactive communities, which can build long-term relationships with your customers.

Kajabi vs Thinkific: Marketing Tools

Kajabi has everything educators need to boost sales. Thinkific has more integrations.

Kajabi takes the lead with its built-in funnels. Thinkific has less advanced email tools.

Not only does Kajabi provide a reliable email marketing tool, but it also offers sales funnel templates for automated workflows. You can easily connect multiple marketing pipelines for maximum growth.

In contrast, Thinkific has no built-in email, but it integrates with multiple third-party alternatives, including ConvertKit, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign.

Thinkific has more integrations. Kajabi offers some replacements for the built-ins.

Kajabi has a few professional integrations that can replace its built-in tools, but they’re limited to sales and marketing categories.

Thinkific, on the other hand, has more than 90 integrations. Categories include business operations, site design, and learning experience.

Both have built-in analytics. Thinkific offers advanced reporting for top plans.

Kajabi has advanced insights for all plans, including revenue, page views, Opt-ins, and more.

Similarly, Thinkific has detailed analytics in its advanced reporting section, but that’s only available in the Grow plan.

At the same time, Thinkific offers general analytics of video uploads for all plans, which is helpful for creators testing out new courses.

Kajabi can replace WordPress. Thinkific has basic website features.

Kajabi stands out with its blog feature and multiple pages for websites. Its website builder gives a better user experience with professional fonts and well-designed page blocks. The drag-and-drop website templates provided make the setup seamless. Kajabi’s websites are outstanding since they integrate with email lists and landing pages.

Meanwhile, Thinkific page builder offers a few default homepage templates and a few custom pages, but there is no option for creating blogs.

Although it provides some interactive site design additions, the overall customer experience feels less professional compared to Kajabi.

Winner: Kajabi’s built-in marketing tools will allow you to easily grow your business while focusing on product creation. Thinkific is a better option for creators who need specialized third-party tools, but it’ll be more complicated to manage all those tools at once.

Kajabi vs Thinkific: Pros & Cons

Kajabi Pros	Kajabi Cons
✅ All-in-one business hub	❌ Limited number of members and admins
✅ Built-in marketing features: Advanced funnels and email marketing	❌ Limited number of products per plan
✅ Advanced course website builder	❌ Forum-like community
✅ Templates for courses, website, and funnels	❌Fewer Integrations
✅ Better support for all plans
✅ Mobile app

Thinkific Pros	Thinkific Cons
✅ Affordable plans	❌ Limited support for lower pricing tiers
✅ Better course creation	❌ Limited website features
✅ Intuitive interface	❌ Limited templates
✅ More integrations	❌ No built-in email marketing or funnels
✅ Unlimited students and courses

Final Verdict: Kajabi vs Thinkific

Kajabi brings marketing tools under one roof. Thinkific excels in course creation.

So, which one in the showdown Thinkific vs Kajabi is the best online course platform?

All in all, both Kajabi and Thinkific strive for simplicity but they take different approaches. Kajabi streamlines the flow between multiple tools, while Thinkific excels with its intuitive interface and numerous integrations.

Use Kajabi if:

• You need a mobile app for your courses.
• You want to run all business tools on a single online course platform.
• You need more product types, like podcasts and coaching.

Click here to get started with Kajabi!

Use Thinkific if:

• You’re starting out with your first course.
• You need an intuitive course creation interface.
• You can manage external marketing tools for automated actions.

Click here to get started with Thinkific!