Kajabi vs Teachable: Which is the Best?

If you’re in the business of creating online digital courses, you’ve probably heard of Kajabi and Teachable, both provide an online course platform and are two of the top Learning Management Systems (LMS) and website builder solutions. Today we will discuss what Kajabi and Teachable have in common, where they differ, and who I think is the winner.

Kajabi vs Teachable: Pricing

Kajabi and Teachable have different price strategies. Teachable caters to people with small to no budget for software with their free and low cost plan. They have transaction fees so you only pay when you make money, and they will give you more features when you pay more in a higher plan.

Kajabi has a simple price framework with a flat monthly fee and no extra charges. You get all the features in each plan and only need to upgrade from the basic to growth plan if you want to remove Kajabi branding or get a higher quota of some of the features.

For the Teachable platform, these paid options are:

• Basic, the plan for your first online course: $29 per month (billed annually)
• Professional, the most popular plan: $99 per month (billed annually)
• Business, Teachable’s best experience: $249 per month (billed annually)

For the Kajabi platform, the paid options are:

• Basic, $119 per month (billed annually)
• Growth, $159 per month (billed annually)
• Pro, $319 per month (billed annually)
• For a full review of Kajabi’s pricing, check out this post here.

Teachable does offer a limited free plan that is available forever. If you want more features, you must upgrade to a paid plan. Kajabi’s 14-day trial, by contrast, gives you access to all the features, then automatically bills you for whichever plan you chose initially when the trial period expires. If you are interested in trying Kajabi, I can offer you a 30-Day free trial, no strings attached. You can give Kajabi a full test drive before you commit to spending anything. I will also give you a ton of free support during your trial to help you understand if they are right for you. Click here to learn more about that.

If we were strictly looking at the monthly fees, then it might seem a no-brainer to choose Teachable. Just considering the transaction fees, however, may make even owners of small businesses change their mind. Though it does cost more up front, Kajabi doesn’t charge any transaction fees, ever. Teachable, on the other hand, charges $1 plus 10% per transaction on the free plan, or 5% per transaction on the basic plan, so be sure to add that into your budget calculations if on those plans.

Kajabi vs Teachable pricing = Tie. 

The bottom line: Teachable gets points for offering a potentially cheaper solution for very low volume and somewhat allowing people to pick the features they need by moving up or down on the price ladder. Kajabi gets points for offering all their features at the lowest price point and not charging transaction fees.

Kajabi vs Teachable: Similarities

Both Kajabi and Teachable offer an easy to use, simple user interface. For course creation and memberships, which is the bread and butter of both sites, both offer a simple, straightforward way to host and sell online courses.

While they both offer analytics and reporting features to monitor your sales, Teachable wins out on metrics at the course-level. The two are fairly similar in higher level and more general analytics.

Kajabi vs Teachable courses = Tie

The bottom line: Both Teachable and Kajabi offer a great solution for course creation and content management. Each has unique features such as Teachable’s in-course certificate creation and Kajabi’s extra layer of content management with sub categories. But all in all both do the job very well of delivering a digital course.

Kajabi vs Teachable: Points that differ

The main difference between the two online course platforms is their focus. Teachable focuses more on the courses themselves, and Kajabi instead focuses on the overall business around the courses you create. As an all-in-one platform, Kajabi tries to give you everything you need to run a business on their platform.

This is where Kajabi noticeably pulls ahead in the Kajabi vs Teachable battle. Kajabi provides a wide range of features including: (Click here for a fuller review of Kajabi’s features)

• Email marketing
• Funnels/Pipelines
• Automations
• Website
• Landing pages
• Blog
• Podcast hosting
• Kajabi App

In each of these areas, Teachable offers something that is less capable or doesn’t offer it at all. It just isn’t what Teachable is trying to do.

Not everyone needs all of these features, which might be a reason to choose Teachable over Kajabi, but two features that everyone will need is a CRM (customer relationship management) tool and email marketing. Teachable doesn’t offer that. In Kajabi, you can easily tag and segment your email list. Keep track of clients and prospects as they interact with your free or paid content, and send marketing emails.

Another useful feature in Kajabi easily facilitates interacting with your students—and how they can interact with each other. Kajabi offers a dedicated community where your students can interact more freely; Teachable only offers a comment section.

While Teachable does have a website editor, it is very limited in comparison to what you can do in a Kajabi website, and you will likely need to turn to code based input to achieve what you want. Click here to see examples of Kajabi websites.

Teachable wins when it comes to built-in course certifications as mentioned above. It also offers unlimited course creation—even with the free plan. Also, Kajabi’s course creation is limited by the given plan you use.

Then there are little things, like app support (Kajabi offers both Android and iOS support, while Teachable only offers iOS). Overall, Kajabi does cost more, but it offers far more customization and template options for your site and products.

Kajabi vs Teachable differences = Kajabi wins

The bottom line: In this area it isn't a fair comparison. Teachable isn’t trying to be the same type of platform as Kajabi, it just wants to be your choice for online courses. Kajabi however, matches Teachable in its online courses and then provides critical features to be a one stop shop for your business.

Who Wins in Kajabi vs Teachable? For me, it's Kajabi!

When it comes down to choosing either Kajabi or Teachable for your business, it really depends on your goals and budget. The Teachable platform may be a better option if you have a smaller business with a lower budget, but beware of the translation fees, if you are more successful than you expected, you could be paying more for Teachable and getting much less than Kajabi. That said, Teachable may not offer all the functionality you need for your business, so Kajabi may be your best bet.

Kajabi will match Teachable in its ability to offer digital courses and it will provide you with so much more as well. All for one consistent monthly fee. One benefit I like to highlight is that with Kajabi, you only need to learn one platform, this will save so much time and energy that you can put into your clients. You will be able to manage your courses, clients, email list, websites, landing pages, and sales, all in one place.

If you are interested in trying Kajabi out, I can give you a 30-Day free trial. I also give anyone who takes the 30-day trial from this page access to an unheard of bonus to help them get the most they can out of their trial period. I don’t think you’ll find a sign up bonus like this anywhere else. Click here to learn more

The real winner is whichever product has the features and pricing that will work for you. I consider Kajabi the winner due to its all-in-one business approach, its greater customizability, and support of a greater number of features. If you want something that you can stick with forever, I recommend Kajabi as the way to go.

JD

Kajabi Expert