Kajabi vs Teachable (2026): Pricing, Fees, and Which to Pick

Kajabi is a feature-rich platform for learning businesses that want to bring every touchpoint, from courses and coaching products to their website and blog under one roof. That approach sets Kajabi apart from other learning management platforms but it will cost you.

Teachable doesn’t try to do it all. Instead, it focuses on the essentials, offering a user-friendly solution for setting up and managing online learning products. Built-in automated tax management frees creators from burdensome administrative tasks.

Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses. So how do you decide if Kajabi or Teachable is the right solution?

The short answer

Kajabi offers what you need to build a recognizable brand experience on your website, products, landing pages, and blog. It has more, less generic template designs and a store with additional free themes. While the builder offers greater customization than Teachable, adding your own HTML, CSS, and JavaScript takes the Pro plan.

In contrast, ease of use is central to Teachable’s value proposition. While its templates may be few in number and customization is limited, the guided setup and AI support help you build and launch a course quickly.

Pricing and fees side by side

Compare plan pricing alone, and Kajabi looks much more expensive than Teachable. Factor in Teachable’s 7.5% transaction fee and the cost of any additional tools you’ll need to add to match Kajabi’s built-in features, and the gap shrinks.

Products include courses, coaching and digital downloads. Both platforms take Apple Pay and Google Pay and offer buy now, pay later through their own payments.

Kajabi Payments adds 1.5% for international cards, 0.7% on subscriptions and 15¢ per sale for Kajabi Sales Tax; Afterpay costs 6% + 30¢ (plus 1.5% cross-border) and Klarna 5.99% + 30¢. Teachable Payments charges 4.4% + 30¢ on international cards and 3.49% to 6% + 30¢ for buy now, pay later, and its Standard bundle adds 0.5% on sales where tax is assessed and 0.7% on recurring payments.

Kajabi's pricing page offers a 30-day money-back guarantee rather than a free trial. Teachable offers a 7-day free trial on every plan.

What you’ll pay at $1,000, $5,000, and $20,000

To help you understand what you’ll pay for Kajabi vs Teachable as your average monthly revenue grows, we’ve calculated the total costs for the subscription, estimated payment processing based on a product price of $100, and any additional platform transaction fees.

The table below shows how the 7.5% transaction fee on Teachable’s Starter plan takes an increasing cut of your earnings as your sales grow. Once you reach $5,000 in monthly sales, Builder will cost less than half of what you would pay for Starter.

At $5,000 in revenue, Kajabi’s Basic plan also becomes cheaper than Teachable’s Starter plan, despite its higher subscription cost: $303 for Basic, $564 for Starter. In fact, from about $1,500 in monthly revenue, Basic is the less expensive option. Between Teachable's own plans, Builder costs less than Starter from about $530 a month.

Teachable’s Builder plan is still the most budget-friendly choice for creators who want a standalone learning platform, and don’t want an all-inclusive platform, as Kajabi offers.

The worksheet assumes one-time $100 sales through each platform's own payments, paid with U.S. cards, with no sales tax collected. Subscriptions add 0.7% on both platforms, and Teachable adds 0.5% on sales where tax is assessed.

Community features

Communities on Kajabi are private spaces you use to further monetize your learning business. It’s where students can discuss, comment, ask questions, and interact as a group. Standout features are the option to host virtual events and embed a private community in a course, ideal for professional team building and training programs.

The number of communities you can create depends on your plan. It’s one community on Basic and Growth and up to three on Pro.

Teachable no longer offers dedicated communities for new schools. Instead, students can leave questions and comments in courses, or participate in community-style groups you set up and link to on third-party platforms like Discord and Slack. Legacy schools can continue to use Teachable Community for an unspecified period of time, though updates and bug fixes are disabled.

Kajabi offers more options for building and managing student interaction. Organized discussions can be public, private, or read-only channels, with feed-style posts or group chats. Members can send direct messages, attend virtual events, join challenges, and interact through leaderboards. Kajabi’s moderation tools allow you to review posts, hide content, and manage discussions to maintain standards.

Other features allow you to bundle courses, coaching, digital downloads, and community access into paid membership tiers, set a different price for each tier, and control the products members can access.

Group interaction on Teachable is primarily within individual courses and lessons. Students can post comments and participate in multi-threaded discussions. Educators manage discussions and comments from their dashboard, though all comments are public by default. Settings let you review and approve comments before they post, delete comments and threads after they appear, and allow students to add images to their comments.

Courses and cohorts

Both Kajabi and Teachable let you add images, video lessons, audio, resources, and quizzes to your courses. You can organize lessons into modules, release content on a schedule, issue completion certificates, and sell courses individually or as bundles. Payment plans and recurring subscriptions give students multiple ways to pay.

For businesses and other users interested in team building or group training, cohort-based learning is the answer. It brings a group of students together who work through lessons on a set schedule. Kajabi offers cohort courses that can include live video sessions on its Growth and Pro plans, but not Basic.

Teachable doesn’t offer cohorts, it’s primarily designed for offering content to self-paced, individual learners. To simulate a cohort learning experience, you can schedule lesson releases for specific students, so they can move through a course as a group.

Payments, offers and memberships

Both Kajabi and Teachable offer preferred rates when you use their native payment processor. You can sell products and memberships for a one-time fee, promote special offers and subscriptions, and set up recurring payments. The main difference is how they package products and support sales.

Kajabi allows you to offer hidden discounts and sell the same product at different price points to reward loyal customers or target a specific audience. You can bundle multiple products into a single package, customize checkout pages, sell recurring subscriptions, and offer flexible pricing to drive conversion, including installment plans and buy now pay later options.

Membership tiers let you bundle courses and community access into premium packages. Set different prices for each tier and offer exclusive content to encourage upgrades.

Teachable is also flexible when it comes to offering one-time payments, payment plans, or subscriptions for online products, bundles, and memberships. Membership tiers let you sell content at different price points, with monthly or annual billing. Abandoned cart recovery emails, upsells, coupons, and optional free trials support business growth.

Affiliate marketing is available on both platforms, but not on Basic or Starter.

Mobile app and branding

Both Teachable and Kajabi offer iOS and Android apps for students, available to download from the Apple or Google Play stores, but only Kajabi also offers apps for educators.

Teachable’s app has a clean interface that’s easy for students to navigate on the go. Cross-platform sync keeps progress up to date on a laptop or tablet. Automated push notifications alert users when new content drops and remind students to pick up where they left off. With offline viewing and locked screen audio and video controls you can follow a lecture, even on a plane or while commuting to work.

Similarly, students can use the Kajabi app to log into courses, coaching programs, community features, and backstage private sessions. Podcasts are integrated into the mobile app for streaming and tracking listening progress while multitasking.

The Kajabi Creator App gives businesses the tools to manage aspects of their learning site from their phone, including viewing recent transactions, following up on leads, tracking performance, and recording and uploading videos.

Kajabi also sells a branded mobile app for $199 a month, and it's included on the Pro plan.

Where Kajabi wins, where Teachable wins

As you weigh Teachable or Kajabi for your learning business, review each platform's strengths below to decide which is the best pick.

Kajabi has the advantage if you’re interested in:

• One platform for your website, courses and marketing, if you're willing to pay a premium for it.
• Built-in email marketing and sales automations, including a native CRM.
• A wider selection of templates, block sections, and layout elements for greater design control over your product pages and other content.
• Mobile apps for both students and educators.
• No platform transaction fee on any plan.

Teachable beats Kajabi on pricing and ease of use:

• Lower starting price for creators on tight budgets, but factor in the 7.5% transaction fee on Starter.
• Simpler course creation and management with helpful built in AI tools for quick product launch.
• Handy checkout, payment processing for 45+ countries, and automated tax handling for U.S. sales tax, VAT, and GST, for 0.5% of each taxed sale.
• Learning creators who don’t want to pay for a full CRM and marketing suite.

The third option

Both platforms are built around the course. Kajabi adds a community alongside its website and marketing tools, and Teachable has stopped building one: Community is closed to new schools, and Teachable points students to Discord or Slack instead.

If the community is what people pay for, the third option is a platform built around it. On Heartbeat, members talk to each other in channels, meet at live events and take courses together, with cohort courses, memberships and checkout in the same place. It includes a member app, and with Scale your own branded app in the App Store and Google Play. Heartbeat offers a 14-day free trial, with no card required to start.

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Verdict by use case

Choose Kajabi if you want one business platform to host your website, landing pages, products, and communities with built-in tools for managing marketing and sales funnels. Growth-oriented learning businesses focused on driving engagement by creating an identifiable brand experience will also appreciate Kajabi’s more advanced template selection and design customization.

That’s why some users, like COO Kristin L., said they switched from Teachable to Kajabi as their revenue and business needs grew.

"We initially found Teachable to be a user-friendly and affordable platform for launching our course. It was particularly helpful in the beginning due to its ease of organizing course content and managing administrative tasks from the dashboard. However, as our community and platform grew, we eventually needed more advanced features that Teachable couldn't provide. Moving to another platform was the right decision for us to better serve our expanding needs." Kristin L., July 28, 2025

On the other hand, if you're starting out or working with a smaller budget, consider Teachable. It’s more suited to creators who want to quickly launch and sell courses, coaching services, and other products without paying a premium for a full business suite.

Users confirm Teachable’s ease of use, asserting, “It takes the headache out of course creation,” as Gabby W. did in her Capterra review.

“The course builder is simple to use, and I like that I can upload videos, PDFs, quizzes, and other resources all in one place. The platform also handles payments, student access, and basic marketing tools, which saves a lot of time. Overall, I would recommend Teachable to anyone who wants a straightforward way to launch and sell online courses." Gabby W., April 9, 2026

Teachable is a strong choice for its payment and tax management features. Instead of having to calculate, collect, and remit taxes, creators pay 0.5% on each taxed sale and can focus on other aspects of their business.

Selling coaching alongside courses? Both platforms sell coaching as a product. Kajabi's cohort courses on Growth and Pro can include live video sessions, which suits group programs. Teachable has no cohorts, so group work comes down to releasing lessons on a schedule.

Always compare plan limits and hidden fees against your expected sales before you commit.

Frequently asked questions

What are the downsides of Kajabi?

One of the biggest downsides to Kajabi is its price compared to other learning management software. The cheapest plan costs $143 a month billed yearly, or $179 monthly, a sizable commitment if you’re just starting out or have a small business. Core features, like affiliate programs and cohort-based learning, aren’t available on the entry plan and other features are capped.

Is there anything better than Kajabi?

This depends on your budget and whether you’re looking for a platform that includes a website builder, blog, landing page creator, marketing automations, AI capabilities, and sales and payment tools. Other learning platforms may be easier to use and more affordable. Consider Teachable if you don’t need Kajabi’s full-service approach, or Systeme.io if you want a free plan.

Is Kajabi still worth it?

Kajabi is worth the price if you want one platform to run your whole learning business. The cost is harder to justify if you're just starting out and want to quickly set up and sell a few courses. It's also not a good fit if you already have a successful website and simply want to link online learning products to your site.

How much does Teachable cost per month?

Teachable’s plans start at $29, $69, and $139, with annual billing, and $39, $89, and $189 when billed monthly. However, your total monthly cost will include processing fees, the 7.5% transaction fee on Starter, usage fees, and the price for any integrations you may add, like Slack to create a community for learners.

Is it easy to switch from Teachable to Kajabi?

You can switch, but you’ll have to invest some time. Teachable doesn’t offer an exporter that lets you move your entire site at once. While you can easily download your raw video and media files or export student lists and sales data as CSV files, you’ll have to manually copy your written content and rebuild your course pages, coaching sessions, quizzes, and sales pages on Kajabi.