Podia vs. Kajabi [2022]: Which Is Best For You?
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Selling online courses has really exploded as a way to make money online in recent years. Podia and Kajabi are two of the online course platforms that have risen to the top that can help make your job easier. But which is a better choice for your business?
Podia vs. Kajabi, which is better? Kajabi is a premium platform that has everything built-in, so you can run everything from one dashboard. It’s better suited for medium-sized businesses. Podia is a less expensive option that offers many of the same features, and is a bit more accessible.
In this article, I’ll go over the various features and areas that you may want to consider if you’re trying to decide between Podia and Kajabi. I’ll look at the pricing, integration, types of products that you can sell, and much more.
Podia vs. Kajabi Compared
Both Podia and Kajabi are hosted platforms.
Basically what that means is that they’re an all-in-one solution that has most of the tools you’ll need to make and sell online courses, subscriptions, and digital products all in one place.
Either platform could be a great option if you’re less technically-minded when it comes to making your online course and want something that’s a bit more user-friendly.
Unlike using a Learning Management System that you host yourself, both Podia and Kajabi will handle all the more mundane stuff that you might not want to worry about.
This includes security, site maintenance, and software updates.
That means you’ll have more time to focus on making great course content and optimizing your sales funnels, instead of dealing with updating plugins and other boring admin tasks.
Pricing
Podia and Kajabi are in quite different categories when it comes to pricing.
Podia is the less expensive option that I feel is more suited to people who are just starting to sell their courses.
Kajabi is more aimed at medium-sized businesses. Kajabi arguably offers more features than Podia for the price, although that gap has certainly closed over the years.
Overall I feel like Podia is probably a better value for your money, and here’s a brief rundown of why.
Podia Pricing
Its Mover plan is $39 per month and offers most of the features that it has available, with some limitations.
The Shaker plan is $79 per month and includes extras like the ability to create memberships, a blog, embedded checkout, affiliate marketing, and third-party code.
- Read the full Podia review to know all features you will get and learn deep about Podia Pricing Plans.
Kajabi Pricing
Its Basic plan starts at $119 per month, which is already $40 more expensive than Podia. For that higher price, I expect to be wowed in terms of extra features. But it’s not really there for me.
The Basic plan entitles you to up to 3 products, 3 pipelines, unlimited landing pages, and unlimited marketing emails.
For $159 per month you can upgrade to the Growth plan, which allows for up to 15 products and pipelines.
At this level you also get access to Kajabi’s affiliate program and the ability to remove Kajabi branding from your site.
Or for the $319 per month Pro plan, you can host a whopping 100 different products and pipelines.
Plus on this higher plan you can have up to three websites and as many as 25 admin users if needed.
- Read the full Kajabi review and why it’s my top online course platform.
- Learn in-depth about Kajabi Pricing Plans before you start your courses.
- Inspire by these amazing Kajabi Course Examples.
Transaction Fees
Both Kajabi and Podia offer 0% transaction fees, regardless of what plan you’re using on each platform. So when you’re comparing Podia vs. Kajabi, it’s one thing that both platforms have in common.
I think that’s great, because it’s one less thing to worry about or calculate when figuring out how much you’ve made each month.
You make the full amount from the courses that you sell, and just pay a single monthly fee for your plan which is the same each month.
Limitations on Resources
One of Podia’s big features that it promotes is what it calls “unlimited everything.” This means the platform tries to not put any limits on your growth.
Your account lets you have an unlimited number of products and files hosted. You can have an unlimited number of customers and sales, and send an unlimited number of emails.
Kajabi seems to be a lot more restrictive. On their basic plan, you can only offer 3 different products.
You’re also only allowed to have 1,000 active members and 10,000 contacts before you’ve either hit your cap or will need to upgrade.
On Kajabi’s Growth plan you can have 15 products, 25,000 contacts, and 10,000 active members.
And on their Pro plan you can have up to 100 products, 100,000 contacts, and 20,000 active members.
On their highest plan, the number of marketing emails you can have actually decreases from unlimited on the previous plan, to 2,000,000 emails on the Pro plan.
With so many other platforms offering plans without any limitations at all, I have to wonder how much longer Kajabi can remain competitive with these restrictions in place.
On one hand, you’re not likely to have more than 1,000 active members on your course any time soon if you’re just starting out.
And even if you do, you’re probably earning enough that it’s not a concern for you to pay an extra $480 per year to go to the next available plan.
But for me, it’s just one more thing that I’d rather not worry about and have in the back of my mind.
Especially when another platform like Podia is offering similar services without any type of limitations, and its top plan costs half of Kajabi’s mid-tier plan.
So I think it’s a big drawback, and I’m not a fan of course platforms that give the impression they’re going to nickel-and-dime their customers.
Especially when they’re already charging a premium.
Types of Products That You Can Offer
Kajabi allows you to sell pretty much any online product that you’d want to offer. You can produce online courses, subscriptions, and digital products. Plus you can integrate and tie them all together.
You can fully customize pricing and how different items are delivered. You can also do webinars and events through Kajabi.
Podia has quite a similar offering to Kajabi in terms of products that you can create and sell using the platform. Podia makes it easy to manage and sell online courses, and no third-party plugins or tools are required.
You can also sell digital downloads, and Podia will handle everything from building a sales page, secure checkout, and delivery of content. You can choose to either sell or hold free webinars to build your email list too.
On Podia’s $79 per month Shaker plan, you have the option to create memberships as well. But this option isn’t available on the Mover plan.
Similar to Kajabi, Podia is also quite flexible in pricing and how you can combine things.
You can create basically an unlimited number of different membership tiers, with different offerings for each.
Ease of Use and User-Friendliness
Kajabi offers a wide assortment of ready-to-use templates. The platform also lets you connect everything to do with your business in one place.
So you can see your content, marketing, products, everything else all from your Kajabi dashboard.
And they claim everything just works seamlessly together, and you won’t run into issues of connecting different apps together.
Creating any kind of page on Kajabi is pretty straightforward. Just pick a theme, customize it however you want, and then publish it.
Likewise, Podia makes it easy to create a contact page, about page, or just about any other page that you want your visitors to see on your website.
They offer a flexible layout, so it’s easy to control what goes where and get the look that you want. You can add your logo and customize colors. Plus add videos, images, rich text, and more.
Plus Podia offers live previews, so you can see exactly how each change will look in real-time before you commit to it.
Both platforms are great at creating pages that look great on desktop, mobile phones, tablet, or any other screen.
Overall I think Podia is a bit more user-friendly and easy to navigate. At least for me, it feels more intuitive.
Whereas Kajabi seems a bit less user-friendly and more complicated. But I don’t think either is particularly difficult to use.
Third-Party Integration
Podia and Kajabi differ significantly when it comes to their approaches to integration.
Podia focuses on integrating with many of your favorite apps. While Kajabi looks to replace them entirely.
Podia Integration
Podia will integrate with many popular apps that you might already be using.
In terms of email service providers, you can use Podia with MailChimp, ConvertKit, Aweber, Drip, ActiveCampaign, MailerLite, and GetResponse.
For analytics, Podia integrates with both Google Analytics and HotJar. And it can take payment processing through either Stripe or Paypal. For advertising, it integrates with Facebook, Google Ads, or Pinterest.
You can also use Zapier to connect to a bunch of other apps like LeadPages, Trello, Google Sheets, and more.
Lastly, Podia will integrate with any app that gets installed via a code snippet like Sumo, Fomo, Olark, or Deadline funnel.
Kajabi Integration
Kajabi takes a very different approach to integration. While they claim to “play nice” if you do have a few of your favorite tools that you don’t want to let go of, they largely want you to do everything through their platform.
Obviously Kajabi is looking to replace other platforms like
You build your website right in Kajabi. That means you no longer need WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace.
Since Kajabi seamlessly integrates with Paypal and Stripe, you no longer need other plugins or apps like Woocommerce or Samcart.
Kajabi allows you to grow, manage, and reach your email list from right on the platform. Their visual builder lets you make and send beautiful emails that include countdown timers, automation, integrated video, and more.
So it replaces other tools like MailChimp, ConvertKit, and Aweber.
Since Kajabi lets you make and integrate all of your pages together, and automates everything, you can easily make your own pipelines. So you no longer need tools like Leadpages or Clickfunnels.
You can even use Kajabi to make your own community for customers, so you no longer need services like Facebook Groups or Mighty Networks.
You can see where I’m going with this. Basically any business need that you have, Kajabi has a built-in solution to replace any third-party app that you may currently use.
It’s actually really convenient to have everything in one place with Kajabi. It makes it a lot easier to run your online business in many ways.
Everything that you need is on one dashboard, so you don’t have to check a bunch of different things, or worry about linking everything together. It just works, right out of the box.
But am I the only one that’s actually a little worried about giving any one platform that much power and control over my business?
While it’s really great and convenient to use Kajabi for everything, I also find it a bit terrifying to put all my eggs in one basket and have my entire business rely on one company for everything.
Affiliate Marketing
Neither Podia or Kajabi will allow you to start running affiliate marketing campaigns on their lowest plans.
For Podia, you’ll need the $79 Shaker plan to unlock affiliate marketing. On Kajabi, you’ll need to pay for the mid-tier $159 Growth plan or up to gain access to their affiliate program.
Once you have access to either program, they both provide you with a great way to create your own sales team to help promote your product.
You can give affiliates unique promotion codes, and you get to pick what amount you want to compensate them with for each sale that they drive to you.
Payment Processing
Both Podia and Kajabi allow you to offer a simple and streamlined checkout process for your customers.
Both platforms allow for the use of Paypal or Stripe, which will cover the vast majority of payment options that your customers may want to use.
Podia allows for the ability to embed buy buttons on any website, blog, or landing page. But it’s worth noting that this embedded checkout option is only available on their more expensive Shaker plan.
Either Kajabi or Podia will allow for one-time payments, or recurring subscriptions and memberships.
Plus the option to add one-click upsells is available on either too. So I feel that both platforms are evenly matched in this area.
Marketing and Automation
Since everything on Kajabi is built-in and tied together so well, any type of marketing and automation just works automatically. Everything just works together seamlessly with minimal effort.
Kajabi offers custom automation triggers that work similar to Zapier and let you create personal experiences for your customers, without a ton of extra effort upfront.
This is one area that Podia will have a harder time competing with Kajabi. Podia does offer things like email marketing that allow you to build and nurture your email list.
You can send newsletters to your entire list or target specific segments, as well as run drip email campaigns. You can track and analyze click rates, unsubscribe rates, and open rates.
Podia even has a built-in live chat tool to allow you to build deeper relationships with customers.
So Podia does have a ton of features for marketing and automation. Especially for someone who is just getting started. But it just can’t match the complexity and depth that Kajabi is able to offer in this area.
Especially for medium or larger businesses. While you could integrate Podia with other third-party apps to get similar features, it’s unlikely to work as smoothly right out of the gate as Kajabi does.
- You can check more Kajabi alternatives and I’ll explain why you may want to consider some alternatives to Kajabi.
Conclusion
When you’re comparing Podia vs. Kajabi, either online course platform could potentially be a great choice for you.
I think it largely comes down to the size and complexity of your business as to which one you’ll choose.
Podia is considerably less expensive, and it offers all of the essential features that I would want in a platform. Even more complex things like running email drip sequences and creating sales funnels.
I find it hard to recommend Kajabi over Podia for people who are just getting started. In the early stages of your online business, that extra $40 per month (at least) is probably a huge deal.
And I don’t necessarily think that Kajabi offers enough groundbreaking features to warrant the price tag.
If you go with Podia, you may just have some extra headaches if you’re trying to integrate third-party apps.
But for medium or larger businesses where an extra $500 per year isn’t a big deal, Kajabi can make your work a lot easier. Kajabi has everything you want to sell digital products built right in.
So there’s no need for additional email marketing, funnel building, checkout, analytics, or other tools. It’s truly one of the more complete all-in-one platforms I’ve seen.
If you’re wanting to see what other options are out there for selling your online course, then check out my Podia comparison articles:
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.
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