Kajabi Review [2022]: Why It’s My Top Online Course Platform
*OnlineCourseHow.Com is reader-supported. When you buy through links on this site, we may earn an affiliate commission (at no cost to you). We greatly appreciate your support!*
When researching the best online course platforms, you’ll likely come across Kajabi.
It’s been around for a while and has many big names like James Wedmore and Amy Porterfield using it.
It is the platform I use myself after trying out all the different options and concluding that it is the best.
In this in-depth Kajabi review, I’ll take a deep dive look at it’s many features and discuss why I think it’s the most complete online course platform out there today.
Our Top Pick
Kajabi
Kajabi is our favorite all-round platform for creating & selling beautiful online courses.
It is the most complete course creation platform on the market.
Test it out and see for yourself with a free trial:
There are many online courses out there. So choosing the best one to run your online business and sell your digital product will ultimately come down to your personal needs and preferences. So read on to find out more about what Kajabi offers, and see whether it suits your needs. We think you will find it to be an excellent option for hosting your course.
Table of Contents
What Is Kajabi?
Kajabi was founded by Kenny Rueter and Travis Rosser. It is a very powerful software tool for all those who want to monetize their knowledge by creating and selling digital products like online courses and membership programs.
Kajabi has an extensive set of features (discussed more below) and aside from creating online courses it can also be used for creating marketing emails, different types of membership sites, checkout pages, landing pages and so on. It offers all the tools you probably need to customize your site to perform the exact function you are looking for.
In fact, you can use it to create your entire website and manage your whole online platform, including your email list.
Kajabi will allow you to offer all sorts of payment options and automated marketing tools and processes on your site.
All of this in just one app. This is what sets it apart from other options like Teachable or Thinkific which are lacking in the ability to create your own website and run complex advertising and marketing campaigns. Kajabi offers design and promotion options that are simply above and beyond the other online courses on the market, and because of this we think it will best suit your needs, no matter what they are.
How Does Kajabi Work?
Since Kajabi is an all-in-one, stand-alone platform, you can have everything you need for your online marketing business in one place.
It features a convenient dashboard from which you can create and control your sites.
Before we delve deeper into the key features, keep in mind that you need to start by completing a Kajabi profile.
Kajabi Review: The Key Features
The biggest benefit of Kajabi is the sheer range and quality of it’s many features. No matter what you are looking for, it is likely that it is offered by Kajabi. Let’s dive in and take a closer look at all the features of this platform:
User Interface
This is where you will be spending most of your time as a course creator and online course business owner. Thus, it is imperative that it easy to navigate.
The user interface is very intuitive and easy to use as it comes in the form of a nicely designed dashboard.
Everything is well organized, with 4 main sections you can access from the left side menu or you can use the search bar at the top at any time to quickly jump to whatever you need.
It’s easy to navigate between different features of the platform, and if you get stuck at any point you can just use the live chat support for help.
If you’ve used WordPress before, you will have no problem using Kajabi and you won’t have to worry about updating plugins either!
Themes and Editing
Kajabi comes pre-loaded with 11 different themes to make your own site and courses.
They are all beautifully designed and compared to any other online course platform they are light years ahead in helping you create a visually appealing online course website.
Obviously compared to the full functionality of WordPress it’s not as easy to adjust them and make them look exactly as you want, but you can change images, text, colours, and move different elements around to get it to at least 90% of how most people would like (and there’s no messing about with code!).
So while it may not be quite fully customizable, it’s about as close as you can get without having to worry about many of the headaches that come with coding and web development.
Additionally, Kajabi comes pre-loaded with around 70 selected fonts, and you can use the colour picker to incorporate the colour palette of your own brand, which is another helpful feature to help you create a unique brand.
It goes without saying that you can preview your site in both desktop and mobile to allow you to make adjustments for one or both. Your site needs to look good for all users, or you risk losing precious customers.
All the pre-loaded themes are mobile responsive, so once again, there is no need to override that with CSS or HTML.
Overall, the design features offered by Kajabi are unparalleled when compared to the other platforms available. It truly offers you the product creation tools to offer your product exactly as you like.
Opt-In Form
All the themes come with opt-in forms, so once again you don’t have to rely on your coding skills.
These forms are very easy to set up, incorporate into email marketing platforms and add onto your website.
Blogging
The blogging platform is the part of Kajabi that I like the least.
If you compare it to blogging platforms such as WordPress, Kajabi simply can’t deliver in terms of customisation and functionalities.
Kajabi’s biggest issue is its images.
There is no dedicated area where you can keep all your uploaded pictures, which means if you want to use pictures from your previous posts, you are going to have to upload them again. This can turn into quite a nuisance if you are blogging often.
You can only use 15 images in the “recently uploaded images” area.
Also, if you insist on good SEO tools, keep in mind that these settings are rather minimal. You can only specify the title, the meta description and the image for social media sharing.
If you like tagging your posts, there is no list of tags you’ve used earlier.
This means that the only way you can handle this is to memorize them.
If you already have a blog or website that you use to publish free content on, I’d recommend continuing to use that and just use Kajabi for hosting your courses and some of your marketing. SEO is a very valuable tool for digital marketing these days, so if that is imperative to your business strategy, you might want to evaluate whether Kajabi has the necessary functionality for your success.
Website Membership
This is another great aspect of Kajabi.
You can easily create a community for your website members, including the members of your team.
Among the other goodies, you will probably be delighted with the built-in Wistia service for video streaming.
Keep in mind that this service costs $99 each month when purchased as a stand-alone item.
Also, you will receive notifications for every action on the part of your members, such as comments and replies.
Drip schedules for any lessons or courses can be easily implemented and controlled in many ways.
Any type of content can easily be imported from your computer, Google Drive or Dropbox accounts, which is another excellent tool for building a strong membership on your site.
Creating categories and lessons is fairly easy. You can do this by using a simple drag-and-drop editor.
Once you start selling your courses, you can easily track and monitor the progress of your students, as is the case with most other knowledge commerce platforms out there. Monitoring these analytics are quite crucial in maintaining and growing your student base.
Integrations
It is good to know that Kajabi supports integrations with most big name email marketing services such as MailChimp, Aweber, Drip, ConvertKit, and Active Campaign.
You can also connect it to Google Analytics and add Facebook Ad tracking pixels, or connect to your accounting software. This can be very helpful in creating marketing funnels to monitor success in various aspects of your website, or monitoring and optimizing success with your ad campaigns.
Amongst a total of 500 possible intergations available to you, chances are that if you want to integrate a piece of software you already use, it’s possible with Kajabi!
Landing Pages
Included in Kajabi is a rather powerful landing page builder which comes with 24 pre-defined templates.
You can build a page from scratch, as with any other page in Kajabi.
You can also add multiple options such as sales pages, webinar registrations and opt-ins. Customization is vital in ensuring that your course offers what you want, your way. It can also help separate you from your competition with product creation that is truly unique.
Pipelines
This is yet another useful tool that comes integrated in Kajabi, used to create marketing funnels with a complete workflow for your products.
This comes in handy when you want to sell eBooks, for example.
The process is visual and automated, and you are guided through the building of a marketing funnel. Just drag and drop and build your workflow.
No one else offers a process so simple, yet so effective. Marketers find these funnels very valuable, as they allow you to isolate success to certain areas of your site, and see which areas are performing the way you want them to. From there, you can further optimize each area to ensure that your online business is converting to the best of its ability.
Email Marketing
Kajabi has none of the clever features that you would want with the top names in email marketing service, such as Convertkit.
But it is still loaded with most basic functionalities to get the job done.
There are no advanced features, but it’s nice to know that it supports broadcast emails, opt-in forms and auto-responders.
It is also easy to create follow-up campaigns, as the interface is once again easy to use and navigate.
Unfortunately, you will have to make do without tagging and segmentation options.
So while Kajabi does offer you the tools you need to get the job done, if you are very serious about creating and optimizing e-mail marketing campaigns, Kajabi might not be quite what you are looking for.
Contacts
The details for each of your members are kept in a simple record, where you can check every piece of data about that member.
This includes their name, email address, received emails, and the list of items they have purchased so far. This information can be highly useful in organizing and contacting your members, and can help to keep them engaged and involved in your online courses.
Payments
Another great advantage of an all-in-one app such as Kajabi is that all payments can be processed easily.
There are many to choose from, including PayPal and Stripe. The latter allows you to accept credit cards over the internet.
Affiliate Marketing
If you want to get into affiliate marketing, you can do so with a built-in program within Kajabi.
Just keep in mind that it only comes with the Pro and Premium pricing plans.
You can even provide your affiliates with stats.
As with other features on Kajabi, it is very simple to set up, run and manage. Affiliate marketing programs can be very successful in growing your brand and your online business.
Customer Support
Kajabi comes with amazing customer support options.
You can reach them 24/7 by email or live chat customer support.
I’ve personally made use of this multiple times and always found it to be quick, friendly and answered my query with ease.
How To Create Your Course On Kajabi
Like with all online course platforms there are multiple steps involved to get set up.
This video tutorial does a great job showing you what that process looks like on Kajabi:
Kajabi Pricing Plans
Compared to similar services like Teachable or Thinkific, Kajabi isn’t the cheapest – but you do get a lot for your money. So if you are willing to invest in your own success, you may find the additional features offered by Kajabi to be worth the additional cost.
Kajabi offers a 28-day free trial, which gives you a quick insight into most of the platform’s features.
There are three different price levels.
- Basic – cost: $119/ month. For this you will get one site where you can have 1,000 active members, one admin user account, three different products to sell, unlimited landing pages, and unlimited marketing emails to up to 10,000 contacts each month.
- Growth – cost: $159/month. For an extra $40/month you can scale your online course up with up to 15 products and pipelines, 25,000 contacts, 10,000 active members. You also have the ability to run your own affiliate program and remove the “powered by Kajabi” branding from the footer of your pages.
- Pro – cost: $319/month. This is designed for large online course businesses with big teams and many different courses. The Pro plan gives you three sites where you can have 20,000 active members, 100,000 contacts, 100 products and 25 admin user accounts.
Whichever plan you choose, there are no transaction fees.
All Kajabi pricing plans also include webinars, advanced tools for customisation, quizzes, use of all templates, drip content, training courses and 24/7 live chat and email customer support. So depending on the level of customization and size of your online business, there is likely a plan that will suit your needs.
Kajabi Review Summary: Pros and Cons
Kajabi Pros
- Multiple functions in one place
- Excellent user interface
- Mobile responsive themes
- Built-in opt-in forms
- Email marketing templates
- Integration with other services
- Extensive site membership functionalities
- 24 landing page templates included
- Amazing marketing funnel builder called Pipelines
- Different payment processing options included
- Three different pricing plans
- No transaction fees
- Excellent live chat and email customer support
Kajabi Cons
- Limited blogging functionalities
- No native solution for EU VAT payments (you can use a 3rd party integration for this)
3 Kajabi Course Examples
Here’s 3 real-life examples of the types of courses that creators are selling on Kajabi right now. There are no limits to what you can teach with Kajabi, and we’ve seen examples ranging from arts & crafts to engineering & mathematics.
Many creators have used online courses to turn their hobbies into side-hustles, or even a primary source of income (one creator we know is making 6 figures per month selling online courses).
Below we list three of our favorite Kajabi course examples. If you are looking for more inspiration or ideas on what you can build with Kajabi, check our full article: 7 Real Life Kajabi Course Examples
Example 1: Abstract Painting Academy
David M. Kessler is a contemporary abstract painter and nationally-recognized art educator.
After teaching workshops in person for many years, he decided to take his knowledge online. Now he teaches online courses on how to create abstract paintings.
By using Kajabi, David is able to deliver his course material. As well as worksheet downloads, a supply list, video demonstrations, a PDF copy of his book, and more.
Abstract Painting Academy is a perfect example that following your passion can also be a profitable business.
Example 2: Earn that Body
Kim Eagle is an award-winning online coach with a BA in Biology/Pre-Med and a Master’s degree in Science (Eastern Medicine.) She’s spent years helping people improve their nutrition and lifestyle.
She created Earn That Body in 2009 as a way to start doing all of her nutritional coaching and personal training online.
Today her website offers 7 nutritional programs, 3 athlete programs, as well as a bunch of workout programs and fitness challenges. These include everything from $15 ebooks, $200 video courses, and even private nutrition consultations.
Example 3: ICY Productions
ICY Productions offers two courses on its website. The first is a free mini-course made up of a downloadable PDF with links to recommended equipment, plus a step-by-step quick video tutorial.
The gear list is a creative way to help people find what they need to start off filming while using affiliate links. And the overall goal of the course is to get people who sign up onto an email list and promote their paid product, called THE iPhone Film School.
THE iPhone Film School helps empower anyone to make great-looking video using just their iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.
Still not convinced that Kajabi is the right choice for your online course? In the next section we’ll explore some of our favorite Kajabi alternatives.
Our 2 Favorite Kajabi Alternatives
As we’ve mentioned above, Kajabi is our top pick for course creators in most cases; however, Kajabi doesn’t necessarily offer the cheapest plans when compared to other platforms. So if you’re on a tight budget, it might not be the right fit for you.
For beginner creators doing their first course launch, Kajabi might not be as user-friendly or offer as much hand-holding as other platforms.
Below we’ll explore two of our favorite Kajabi alternatives, but you can find many other options in our full alternatives post: 7 Best Kajabi Alternatives
Alternative 1: Teachable
If you need more in terms of marketing and promoting your course, then Teachable is an alternative that I would consider instead of Kajabi. The main reason that
While
One area that
Lastly,
You can also keep in contact with students even after they’ve finished your course, and use surveys and forms to follow up. This can be a great way to see what people love about your course, and also identify potential areas for improvement. So I feel like
- You can read more about this online course platform in our Teachable Review, Teachable Pricing Plans and Teachable Course Examples posts
Alternative 2: Thinkific
As a Kajabi alternative, Thinkific is very easy to use. The Thinkific dashboard is simple to use and easy to navigate. You can do practically everything in terms of course creation on Thinkific by using a drag and drop editor.
If you’re new to creating courses, websites, or online marketing in general, then this can be a big plus. You’ll save many hours that you might have to spend experimenting with different designs and coding on other platforms. Thinkific covers most of these things so you don’t have to think about them. That allows you to focus on just creating the best courses that you can.
Despite how simple it is to use, Thinkific actually offers a huge amount of flexibility in terms of design. You can create a wide variety of totally unique-looking landing pages and content. There are a wide number of different templates available, including for flagship courses, mini-courses, webinar replays, membership bundles, or digital downloads.
While Thinkific does offer paid plans, they also have a free plan. Which is a great option for beginners who may not have much to invest in hosting their course at first. I know it can be nerve-wracking to wonder if your brand new course will even sell enough copies to cover your hosting costs, and Thinkific’s free plan helps to alleviate those concerns.
The main downside I see to Thinkific is that it doesn’t have very powerful marketing features. So you’ll need to find some external way to drive people to your landing pages and get them to buy your course.
But if you’re a beginner course creator who wants a lot of flexibility but doesn’t want to mess around with coding, Thinkific is a great choice. Especially since you have the option to start for free.
- Read the full Thinkific online course platform review, compare Thinkific Pricing Plans, and view the examples of Thinkific courses.
Kajabi Review Conclusion: Is Kajabi Worth the Money?
Kajabi is an excellent online marketing platform which comes jam-packed with numerous cool features. With Kajabi you can design your sites from scratch, and then market them by targeting the right people and using simple and automated processes.
It has such a rich set of features – more than any other online course platform. You can run your whole online course business on Kajabi without the need for a separate website, email software and landing page builder. This is what really sets it apart from it’s main competitors like
Combined with these benefits, Kajabi is also very intuitive and easy to use, has beautiful themes and page designs, and offers excellent live support. This is why we use Kajabi in our other business where we teach people how to grow mushrooms, and it’s why we recommend it as the most complete online course platform.
If you have the budget for $100/month and want the most complete set of features, professional design, minimal tech headaches and top support – this is the platform for you.
So while Kajabi is more expensive than most other online course platforms, we believe that the additional features and tools make it more than worth the additional investment.
If you are on a tighter budget I’d recommend you going with Teachable instead. They also offer a high quality platform with slightly less features at a lower price.
Check these 7 best Teachable alternatives or you can check these 7 best Kajabi alternatives here.
You can also compare Kajabi with these online course platforms:
About the Author Jacob M.
Jacob has a background in finance and engineering. Outside of his day job, he is a lifelong learner, who enjoys reading, taking online courses, and writing about what he's learned.
Session expired
Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab. After logging in you can close it and return to this page.