If you have been looking around for platforms for selling online courses, odds are you have heard of Kajabi and ConvertKit.
- All-in-one solution
- Excellent marketing tools
- 24/7 customer support
- More detailed information
- Somewhat reliable
- Basic features
- Easy to get started
- More detailed information
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Both platforms are commonly used to create, market, and sell online courses, but both have their strengths and weaknesses. So you have likely asked yourself at one point: Should I sell online courses with Kajabi or ConvertKit?
We will cover the main differences between the two platforms and give our verdict of which is better.
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Main Differences Between Kajabi and ConvertKit
The single most relevant difference between Kajabi and Convertkit is their focus. Kajabi is designed as an all-in-one platform for running an online business, while ConvertKit is a platform most focused on the email marketing side and page building side. In that sense, Convertkit is similar to MailChimp, another popular email marketing service.
- Features/functionality: Kajabi is all-in-one, ConvertKit is designed for marketing purposes
- Pricing: Kajabi plans start at $119/mo. with annual billing. Convertkit starts at $29/mo, but they have a free plan
- Marketing Tools: Both platforms have ample tools for marketing
- Website Builder: Convertkit is a competent page builder and so is Kajabi
- Integrations: ConvertKit integrates into Kajabi
Pricing Comparison
ConvertKit offers a free plan and a single paid plan that has a flexible pricing scheme. The free plan gets you access to the basic tools and up to 500 email subscribers. The paid plan starts at $29/mo. for 1,000 subscribers and goes all the way up to $3,999/mo. for 900,000 subscribers.
Even the free plan has unlimited landing pages, so you can get started easily. The paid plans add on a bunch of goodies like more integrations, free migrations, and reporting and automation tools. We appreciate how flexible Convertkit’s pricing structure is. You can sign up for a 14-day free demo of the paid plan.
Kajabi has 3 paid plans:
- Basic: $149/mo
- Growth: $199/mo
- Pro: $399/mo
Kajabi seems expensive but keep in mind that the price tag carries hosting, and everything else. You won’t have to shell out extra for extensions and plugins. Kajabi does not have a free-tier option but they do offer a free 28-day trial. You can also twitch to annual billing and save 20% of your yearly subscription costs.
Marketing Tools
ConvertKit’s main draw is its suite of marketing tools. ConvertKit plans come with unlimited landing pages, unlimited CTAs and opt-in forms, mobile responsive page templates, email broadcast capabilities, and a large library of landing page templates. The paid plans add visual automation funnels, automated email sequences, free migration from other platforms, and advanced integration & API customizations.
As evidenced by the name, ConvertKit’s whole motivation is to generate more customer conversions. You can easily create an enjoyable customer experience with the tools. The package also comes with good reporting tools.
Kajabi also goes hard on marketing. Two great marketing features Kajabi has are email automations and pipelines. Email automations make it possible to set up complex triggers sequences that react to customer actions. The pipeline builder gives a nifty visual view of your sales funnel that you can edit right from the dashboard. ConvertKit has a similar visual funnel editor but it’s not as intuitive as Kajabi.
The best part is that you don’t have to choose between Kajabi and ConvertKit. You can integrate both into each other and use them at the same time!
Website Building Comparison
Web and page building are other things ConvertKit is good at. ConvertKit has a simple but reliable page editor that can be used to make attractive sales and landing pages. The form builder in particular can make unique pages that can be inserted everywhere on your site. ConvertKit will host the pages you create (though they do not offer general web hosting), but you can set them up with a custom domain name if you like.
ConvertKit pages start off on a template design. Most ConvertKit templates are decent but some are dated. You need to sign-up for a paid plan to get the best page templates though.
Kajabi uses a simple drag-and-drop editor to build its pages. Kajabi makes it easy to create attractive web pages and string them together to make an easily navigable website.
Combining the potential of both Kajabi and ConvertKit is a smart idea to create powerful pages that can create conversions efficiently.
Theme Comparison
Kajabi used to offer 11 themes for its website builder, but the team has recently switched gears. Now they are focused on turning the Premier Theme into a highly customizable framework. You can still choose the older themes if you want though. Each theme is modern, clean, and looks good as a layout for an online storefront. You can also upload custom themes if you wish.
Kajabi also allows you to pick themes on an individual product level. That means that each product can be customized to have a unique look and feel. Kajabi currently allows for 6 distinct product themes.
ConvertKit does not have themes in itself but integrates with existing WordPress themes. This means that there are a ridiculous amount of potential themes for ConvertKit, though not all of them will be functional or worth it.
Once again, you can integrate ConvertKit with Kajabi and just run it off Kajabi’s Premier Theme.
Course Creation & Student Engagement Comparison
ConvertKit does not have tools for building or hosting courses, so you will have to find a separate service for those. Since ConvertKit is not a hosting service, you cannot upload course materials. Likewise, ConvertKit does not have any tools for student engagement, like quizzes, surveys, assessments, or the like.
Kajabi puts course building front and center. The course builder is intuitive and is kind of like making a blog post on WordPress. Once you determine the structure of your course, you can add your materials. Kajabi uses Wistia for its video hosting and each plan allows for unlimited uploads for course materials. There are also tools for quizzes and assessments. You can currently choose between multiple choice, multiple selection, and true/false style questions. There is no option to randomize quiz questions for each assessment though.
Kajabi can keep track of student progress with the reporting tools, which give you actionable insights on how you can improve your customer experience.
Integrations
Kajabi currently has 10 built-in integrations, including popular services like Aweber, MailChimp, Clickfunnels, Google analytics, and Drip. Kajabi has a built-in integration for ConvertKit so it’s extremely easy to connect the two platforms. Kajabi also has a Zapier integration, which opens up 1,000s of integrations with third-party apps that are not natively compatible.
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform, so you don’t actually need any integrations to use it for your business. That being said, the integrations are an ice option in case you are already comfortable using some service.
ConvertKit has a ton of compatible integrations including Shopify, Teachable, Stripe, Wix, SquareSpace, ZippyCourses, and more. Notice that ConvertKit has integrations specifically for some popular LMS services. So it would not be too difficult to integrate ConvertKit with your course page.
Customer Support Comparison
Kajabi takes pride in its customer service and has a lot of resources for onboarding new users. First off, those on the Growth plan or higher have 24/7 live chat and email support. All Kajabi users get access to Kajabi University, a depository of articles, how-to guides, and training materials designed to settle new users into the process. Kajabi has managed to build a vibrant community of users so you can always talk to another user for tips and tricks. Lastly, the development team hosts regular in-person training sessions and live webinar training events.
ConvertKit does not offer phone or live chat support. Instead, you have to send an email between 6am-6pm. Fortunately, the email service is available 7 days a week. ConvertKit recently added a direct message support service, but the wait is a bit long sometimes. At the very least, the customer support team is knowledgeable and helpful. ConvertKit also has a sizable user base and there are lots of internet forums to go to with questions.
Conclusions
Both Kajabi and ConvertKit have their strengths. Kajabi handles course creation and webpage building well, while ConvertKit has a decent page builder and great marketing assets. The best part is that you can integrate the two and so don’t have to choose between one or the other. You can run the main page and membership site off of Kajabi and handle email marketing on the backend with Convertkit.
That being said, if you are looking for just one solution for selling online courses, then we recommend Kajabi. Kajabi’s integrated, seamless design puts all the tools you need to run your business in an intuitive and easy-to-use package. You can run an entire business using Kajabi right out-of-the-box.
