Skool vs Kajabi: A Definitive Comparison (July 2023)

Like many other content-creation platforms of their caliber, they allow you to create online courses and form communities around your products. But that’s where their similarities end. These tools offer unique features that appeal to vastly different audiences, so Skool vs Kajabi is one of the hottest debates these days.

This article examines the differences that show how you can get the most out of either tool. I’ll go over the most important features like:

• Community
• Online courses
• Product offerings
• Website

Then, I’ll talk about integrations with third-party software and, most importantly, pricing.

Let’s get right to it.

Comparison Summary: Skool vs Kajabi

Skool is a simple and intuitive app for community managers that need an online course platform to tutor their members. Kajabi is a powerful, all-in-one tool for professional infopreneurs, coaches, and consultants, looking to build a full-blown online business.

Skool	Kajabi
Price
🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Single-tier pricing model with a 14-day trial. Unlocks full functionality for $99/mo.	⭐⭐⭐⭐ No free plan, 14-day free trial. Basic plan is $119/mo, while Growth plan is $159/mo.
Community
🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Community feature is fully unlocked in the single-tier plan. Offers leaderboards and community rewards for better engagement.	⭐⭐⭐⭐ Membership is hard to implement. However, it has a built-in Live-Room for virtual meetings.
Online Courses
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Works like a component of communities. Has video integrations but lacks templates.	🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fully-featured course creator with audio and video content. Offers templates and built-in automation
Products
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Only offers online courses and communities.	🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Offers various products, including courses, podcasts, coaching, and communities.
Website
⭐⭐⭐⭐ No dedicated website or website builder. Only provides a community portal.	🏆 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fully-featured website builder with templates. Offers up to three separate websites in the $399 Pro plan.
Integrations
⭐⭐⭐⭐ No native integrations. Provides webhooks for limited integrations.	⭐⭐⭐⭐ Designed to be self-reliant, but offers 16 integrations.
Best for
Creators looking for an affordable platform to sell online courses and create communities around them.	Professionals that need an industry-standard platform for info business products and services.
Try free for 14 days	Try free for 14 30 days

What is Skool?
“Income stream, not a cost” 💸

Skool was created by a group of self-proclaimed gamers and geeks to help content creators grow their communities.

The gamer culture of Skool’s development team is evident in its central feature — the community. It’s a gamified experience with levels, points, and gems that encourage members to engage with course content and each other. It has community leaderboards to turn member engagement into a friendly competition and a native chat — as powerful as any other chat app. Skool offers only one product and focuses all its efforts on it. And it shows, it’s one of the best suites of tools for creating appealing courses, selling them, and growing your community.

Skool is great for beginners and business owners that don’t have time to learn complex tools. It’s also one of the cheapest platforms for marketing digital products.

What is Kajabi?
“Monetize your passion” 💹

Kajabi was founded in 2010 as a content-creation platform to help coaches, entrepreneurs, and other content creators who are serious about their course business to achieve success online.

This all-in-one tool has established itself as a giant in the digital knowledge industry. It excels as a content-creation platform for podcasts, online courses, webinars, and coaching sessions. Moreover, it provides the tools to manage communities that inevitably form around these products. That’s why it’s unsurprising that Kajabi’s community portal evolved to be one of its most advanced features.

Whether you’re an individual looking to break into the info business space or part of an established team, Kajabi is versatile enough to cater to your needs as long as you’re serious about your business and can afford the cost.

Skool vs Kajabi: Pricing

Skool offers a single subscription plan with no hidden costs or charges, while Kajabi’s plans are more expensive.

Skool’s subscription is cheaper than Kajabi’s basic plan.

For just $99/month, you can create unlimited courses for an unlimited number of students in Skool. You can also access all its features, including email broadcasts, chat, and community metrics. Additionally, Skool offers a 14-day free trial to test all these features. And there are no hidden fees, no transaction fees.

Kajabi offers a 14-day free trial, but its subscription plans start from $149/month. Moreover, Kajabi only provides a maximum of 100 products and 20,000 students.

Skool pays you when you invite new members.

If your community members create groups, Skool automatically pays you 40% of their monthly subscription revenue. This unique auto-affiliate feature makes Skool an income stream rather than a monthly expense.

Winner: Skool. Its single subscription tier and affiliate program make it more affordable than Kajabi.

Skool vs Kajabi: Community

Skool and Kajabi share similar community features, but Skool is more engaging and easier to use.

Creating groups is largely the same in Skool and Kajabi, with similar customization options. You can edit the group name, icon, and description. Both software allow you to create paid groups and set privacy levels.

Additionally, communities have leaderboards, polls, and posts. You can also send direct messages to members, receive notifications, and create custom profiles.

Kajabi provides a Live Room for virtual meetings.

Despite their similarities, Kajabi offers a vital feature missing in Skool. It allows you to organize physical and virtual meetups for members. You can send exclusive invites, and Kajabi automatically notifies all relevant members.

For virtual meetups, you can use Kajabi’s built-in Live Room, which is very similar to video conferencing platforms like Zoom or Skype. It allows you to share your audio, camera, and screen and customize their output. You can also record meetings and use the meeting chat.

Skool allows you to gamify your communities.

Skool offers some gamification tools to make your communities fun and engaging. You can create levels and reward players with points and gems.

Skool also allows you to lock content based on player level, incentivizing players to increase community engagement.

Unlike Kajabi, Skool’s community challenges play a more active role in increasing engagement. Members compete for a top spot on public leaderboards and can even award other users points and gems.

Skool’s user interface is more ergonomic.

Skool provides a handy drop-down menu for switching between different communities. That makes it much easier to use than Kajabi for creators managing multiple communities. The interface is also the same for community members, allowing them to switch between groups with ease.

For context, Kajabi’s communities are deployed as individual web apps and you must visit the main website to switch between them.

Furthermore, Skool pins upcoming meetings and calendar appointments at the top of the chat feed, ensuring that members don’t miss important updates.

Skool’s been dubbed the “Facebook Killer”, not just because of its parallels to Facebook Groups, but because of its advancements.

Winner: Skool. While Kajabi provides a Live Room for virtual meetings, Skool’s communities are more fun and encourage user engagement. Moreover, you can schedule virtual Zoom meetings on Skool’s built-in calendar.

Skool vs Kajabi: Online Courses

Skool’s courses are offered in classrooms within the community, while Kajabi’s courses are separate products from the community.

Unlike Kajabi, where communities are separate spaces from online courses, Skool combines these products to form an online school. All modules, courses, and resources are available on the community website under the Classroom tab, increasing completion rates. This structure removes the need to switch between different tabs on the browser or use separate logins for each product.

As for the learning side of the two e-learning platforms, Kajabi also includes the grading part like assessments and quizzes. Skool is not quite there yet.

Skool integrates with streaming sites for video content, while Kajabi provides video attachments.

Skool provides a dedicated section for pasting video links from YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, or Loom. This unlocks useful features like timestamps and automatic closed captions.

Furthermore, if you have communities on all these platforms, you only need to upload your video once and use the link in any course.

Kajabi allows you to add videos to courses, but you must upload the file directly. Also, you’ll have to add SRT files manually to disclose transcripts and closed captions.

Kajabi provides templates to help create courses, but Skool does not.

Kajabi provides product templates to define the look of your courses and course templates to create course structures with placeholder content. These templates make the website builder more accessible to beginners and also save time when creating courses.

For example, rather than manually setting each course in your modules to drip, you can use the Drip course template to unlock lessons over several days or weeks.

Kajabi provides built-in automation, while Skool’s courses lack automation.

Kajabi’s allows you to unlock modules, remove tags, send emails, and execute other actions when students complete your courses. You can also add dynamic conditions they must fulfill before the automation runs.

For example, you can unsubscribe customers from your email lists they haven’t engaged within the last seven days.

Skool does not offer any in-built automation tools. And, while it’s possible to use Zapier to integrate with third-party automation tools, there are no clear instructions on how to do so.

Winner: Kajabi. Kajabi’s online courses are very similar to Skool. However, it contains quality-of-life features like templates and automation that make course creation much more effortless.

Skool vs Kajabi: Products

Kajabi is an all-in-one content creation platform, while Skool only offers courses and communities.

Kajabi allows you to create online courses, podcasts, communities, and coaching sessions. Each product can be monetized and has separate membership lists. In addition, Kajabi provides analytics on all products so you can assess your performance.

What’s more, you can create up to three websites to advertise and sell your products.

On the other hand, Skool only provides online courses and communities. In fact, both products are offered as a single entity. This may be undesirable if you want to monetize them separately.

Kajabi’s affiliate program can help you sell your products faster through referral links and

commissions. Skool offers a similarly-named program, but it’s more of a passive income stream.

Skool is minimalist by design.

Skool’s content-creation policy is “less is more”, meaning that it plans to only offer online courses and communities. This makes it more accessible to beginners and startups that don’t have time to learn all the complex features and tools in Kajabi.

While it doesn’t offer any built-in coaching products, the calendar and community posts allow you to schedule sessions on third-party apps like Zoom and Google Meet. The minimalist design won’t limit you in any way. Rather, it gives you the flexibility to market your products how you see fit.

Winner: Kajabi. Kajabi has more product offerings than Skool. It also includes tools to help market and sell them. Nevertheless, you can market the same products in Skool but offer them on other platforms.

Skool vs Kajabi: Website

Kajabi offers a complete, customizable website, while Skool lacks a dedicated website.

Kajabi provides at least one website to display your products and manage your communities. You can customize its appearance using the simple but powerful website builder. Moreover, Kajabi provides several customizable templates to help speed up the building process.

In contrast, Skool doesn’t offer websites and doesn’t have a website builder. Instead, it provides a community portal to host your groups and a course builder as a part of their Classroom. Unlike Skool, Kajabi’s community portal is a separate product from the website.

Winner: Kajabi. Simply put, Kajabi offers a website and Skool doesn’t.

Skool vs Kajabi: Integrations

Kajabi aims to be self-dependent but offers integrations with third-party apps, while Skool provides webhooks instead of integrations.

Despite its design philosophy as an all-in-one solution, Kajabi offers integrations with 16 third-party apps, including Zapier, MailChimp, and Google Analytics. These integrations provide missing features or serve as stand-ins for features under development.

On the other hand, Skool does not offer any native integrations. Instead, it provides webhooks for a small number of third-party apps to communicate with its API. Still, customers have requested more integrations or webhooks, particularly with payment services, so these features are on the horizon.

Winner: Kajabi, narrowly. Kajabi’s integrations are more extensive and easier to set up, while Skool’s webhooks require some technical expertise.

Skool vs Kajabi: Pros & Cons

Ultimately, Kajabi has more & better tools than Skool.

Skool Pros	Skool Cons
✅ Integrations with video hosting sites	❌ Doesn’t have templates
✅ Beginner friendly	❌ Limited product options
✅ Affordable subscription model	❌ Limited integration options
✅ Affiliate program
✅ Customer Support: email support

Kajabi Pros	Kajabi Cons
✅ Fully-featured tools	❌ Lacks gamification tools
✅ Built-in automation	❌ Expensive for individuals and small teams
✅ Lots of templates
✅ Live Room
✅ All-in-one content creation platform
✅ Marketing features included: email marketing, upsells, SEO tools, advanced funnels & pipelines
✅ Customer Support: 24/7 chat support

Final Verdict: Skool vs Kajabi

Skool is a community-first solution for beginners looking to create courses for their members, while Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for creating professional knowledge-based businesses.

So, which one’s the best online course platform in the Kajabi vs Skool showdown?

Skool seems like a lightweight version of Kajabi, with fewer features and product offerings. Yet, this simplicity makes it better suited for specific use cases. On the other hand, Kajabi has proven, time and again, why it is one of the best platforms for content creation. With these in mind, you should…
Use Skool if:

• You like passive income streams.
• You like simple, user-friendly tools.
• You want to make unlimited courses.
• You want to gamify your community.

Click here to get started with Skool!

Use Kajabi if:

• You love using templates to organize and speed up your activities.
• You want better community engagement features.
• You offer products other than online courses.
• You need advanced automation features and marketing tools.
• You need dedicated websites, landing pages, and membership sites.

Click here to get started with Kajabi!