Online courses are a huge business.
If you have been looking around for online course platforms to sell online courses, then you have probably heard about Kajabi and Podia.
Both platforms are designed to help entrepreneurs and businesses sell online courses. But they are not the same and have some big differences in their features.
Main Differences Between Kajabi vs Podia
The main differences between Podia vs Kajabi come down to their focus.
Podia is more oriented towards solo entrepreneurs and course creators while Kajabi is aimed at small-to-medium businesses. Kajabi also has more powerful marketing and webinar capabilities.
Overall, Kajabi offers more features and so is the superior online course platform.
Pricing Comparison
Kajabi has a logical pricing structure divided into 3 plans:
- Basic: $149/mo
- Growth: $199/mo
- Enterprise: $399/mo
Pricing is a bit higher than other online course platforms out there, but it comes with more features.
All plans come with access to more-or-less the same features and everything scales based on your pricing plan.
On the Basic plan, for instance, you get access to 1,000 active users while on the Pro plan you get up to 20,000 active users.
Only a handful of features are left of the lowest pricing plan such as the ability to remove branding and 24/7 live chat customer support. No plans charge transaction fees.
You can also double your offerings by purchasing Kajabi Access.
They do not offer a free-tier plan but they do offer a free trial, so you can get used to the features before committing.
You can also sign up for annual billing and get a discount.
Podia has a smaller selection or pricing plans. Podia only offers 2 pricing tiers:
- Mover: $39/mo
- Shaker: $79/mo
One great thing about Podia’s pricing is that they don’t put any limits on how many customers you can have.
Both the Mover and Shaker plans let you upload an unlimited amount of products and have an unlimited amount of students.
The basic plan noticeably does not give you access to membership sites, the blogging tool, affiliate marketing, or offsite buy buttons.
All plans offer free migration so you can take your course from one platform to Podia free of charge.
Podia offers a 14-day free trial but they do not have a free tier plan. You can also opt for annual instead of monthly billing to save 20% on subscription costs.
Podia also does not charge transaction fees for sales made on your site on any plan.
Marketing Tools: Kajabi vs Podia
Kajabi’s suite of marketing tools are its best feature.
Even with the lowest-tier plan, you get access to unlimited marketing emails, unlimited sales/landing pages, a huge list of email marketing automations, marketing campaign and email advertising templates, and more.
The set of marketing tools can handle every aspect of your marketing efforts all in one place.
There is also the “Pipeline” builder, Kajabi’s take on sales funnels.
The pipeline builder presents you with a visual representation of your sales funnel and you can add landing pages, opt-in forms, webinar pages, and more with the drag-and-drop editor.
The point of the pipeline builder is to create a flowing and logical sales experience for the customer.
Another great feature is the email automations. Automations can be set up to target segmented email lists and you can set up elaborate autoresponder sequences based on defined trigger-actions.
Along with the marketing tools, users can select multiple pricing options on products aside from the standard subscription model.
The platform has built-in payment functionality for Stripe, though you can add a third-party payment processing app if you want to accept other forms of payment.
Podia has a few sales and marketing tools, but not nearly as many as Kajabi.
Podia does not have something comparable to the pipeline builder, and the email marketing features are rather thin.
This is mostly because Podia is not designed as an all-in-one platform, but is more focused on providing course content.
Podia has built-in support for both Stripe and PayPal along with instant payouts you can also choose between one-time payments and payment plans.
We noticed that you cannot have multiple price points for the same product, so you can’t sell a basic version and premium version of an online course for different prices.
Website Building Comparison
Both Kajabi and Podia have good web building tools for creating a wide variety of pages.
A big advantage of both platforms is that they are hosted, so you don’t have to worry about paying for a separate hosting service.
Also, both platforms provide free SSL certificates for your domains and subdomains.
These are some useful features to have at a base level.
Kajabi’s website building tools focus on predefined templates. The builder uses a simple drag-and-drop editor that can be customized by dragging elements and layout on the screen with your mouse.
The interface is clean, neat, and intuitively set up. Every icon does what you expect and it’s easy navigating your site pages using the sidebar.
Also, all designs made with the page building tool are 100% mobile responsive so you don’t have to worry about separate page formatting for mobile devices. Lastly is the blogging tool. Creating blog posts using the tools is simple and is like making a WordPress post.
Podia utilizes templates, but they only offer one template for storefronts built using the platform.
The only real modifications you can make are colors, fonts, and some headings.
You don’t even have access to the CSS to change up the layout.
You also cannot change the style of your site by changing the position of menus or buttons. That being said, the default template is clean and looks great out of the box.
Podia’s page builder also uses a drag-and-drop editor.
You can add basic elements pretty quickly and change templates on a section-by-section basis.
The page builder is easy to use and does not require any technical know-how, but it’s ultimately limited.
Ultimately though, Kajabi wins out with design features. The web-building tools are much more comprehensive and you have more access to custom layouts. Also, the site builder gives users access to the code editor for even deeper customization.
Theme Comparison
As we stated earlier, both Kajabi and Podia work with themes.
These serve as high-level templates that set the general look and feel of your website.
Let’s look at Kajabi first. Kajabi used to offer 11 different themes you could choose from, but they have recently shifted priorities to focus on their Premier Theme.
The Premier Theme has been developed into a super-flexible framework that is highly customizable, which essentially removes the need to have a large library of templates.
You can still choose from the 11 old themes by checking the Legacy Themes archive if you want.
Within the Premier Theme are 6 layout presets that include sets of predefined layouts and elements.
All layout presents have a clean, modern design that is perfect for online storefronts.
Layouts can be customized further once you set them on the page.
Podia also works with themes, but they are much more restrictive than Kajabi.
Podia offers one default theme that cannot be modified at a higher level.
You can’t change the style and you can’t change the overall site navigation.
The basic template design is clean and modern-looking, so it can be good if you need to get a course off the ground fast.
Otherwise, though, Podia’s template selection is lacking in options compared to Kajabi.
Course Creation & Student Engagement Comparison
Both Kajabi and Podia have excellent online course creation tools.
Both platforms can create multi-lesson online courses divided into lessons, sections, and categories, and both platforms allow for multiple file type upload and host all course materials.
Kajabi’s course builder uses “product blueprints” which serve as pre-built templates for your online courses.
The blueprints make setting up a course quick and easy.
Just select the blueprint you want and you can then start filling out the sample post with your course content using the drag-and-drop editor.
You can divide courses into categories and posts for organizing content.
Kajabi accepts many media formats for course materials, including video, text, audio, PDFs, and more.
Video hosting for courses is handled through Wistia and there is no limit to how many videos you can upload.
You can also pull files directly from Google Drive or Dropbox. One area where the tools for courses could do better is adding multiple formats to a single lesson.
Podia also has powerful course building tools. Podia uses Wistia for video hosting and you can upload multiple file formats individually or in bulk.
Podia also divides course content into sections and lessons which are used to organize content.
One thing we noticed is that Podia does not let you upload files directly from dropbox or Google Drive.
A far as student engagement goes both platforms allow for quizzes, assessments, and student feedback.
Podia has a great quiz feature and allows for comments on individual lessons.
Kajabi also allows for quizzes, but you cannot randomly seed problem sets so every student will see the same test.
Kajabi also does not allow for comments on individual lessons.
Integrations: Kajabi vs Podia
Both platforms have a large library of integrations to take advantage of.
Kajabi allows for 10-built-in app integrations including popular services like MailChimp, Drip, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Google Analytics, and Clickfunnels, and more.
The platform also includes a Zapier integration which opens up the potential for over 1000s of non-native ap integrations.
You can use Zapier to integrate apps that are not built-in to the platform.
Strictly speaking, you don’t have to use any integrations at all.
You have all the tools you need already so you don’t really need any new services.
That being said, you can integrate another service if you are already familiar and comfortable using it.
Kajabi makes integrations easy and you can set them up in just a few minutes.
Podia also has several popular app integrations, which is a good thing considering some of its email and marketing features are thin.
Podia connects to popular mail apps like MailChimp, Drip, and ActiveCampaign.
Podia also recently added a Zapier integration too, so you can customize integrations with non-native apps. It is a good thing that Podia has solid integrations as those make up for shortcomings with other areas in the platform.
Customer Support Comparison
Our last point of comparison is customer support and training. Both platforms excel at offering training and support materials to users.
Kajabi offers 24/7 live chat support and users get access to Kajabi University, a massive online library of educational and training resources.
The University has articles and training videos on a wide range of topics, and the dev team also hosts regular live training events and webinars.
Podia has also been received well for its great customer support team.
Podia offers customers on all plans access to 24/7 email or chat support. Chat support is not exactly live chat, but it still is fast and efficient.
The Podia team normally responds to requests in about 5-10 minutes, though you normally have to wait longer if you send a request over the weekend or outside business hours.
Podia does have an extensive education library similar to Kajabi University which you can search through using the helpful search bar.
Conclusions: Kajabi or Podia?
Overall, both platforms are very strong for creating, marketing, and selling online courses.
Both platforms have great course creation tools and excellent customer support and training. However, Kajabi comes out on top due to its superior marketing tools and more flexible site customization options.
Kajabi’s marketing tools are top-of-the-line and very few online course platforms hold a candle to them.
So, if you are looking for a solid platform to host and sell online courses, then Kajabi is the best platform you can choose.
