Both Kajabi and Teachable are online course platforms designed to help entrepreneurs create, market, and sell online courses. Kajabi is not limited to online courses and allows you to sell any digital (or physical) product.
Kajabi also has an excellent comparison on their blog, if you need more information.
In a hurry and just need a quick answer? Kajabi is a better choice.
- Website: Kajabi.com
- Based in: United States
- Powers: Thousands of Businesses
- Established in: 2009
- Employees: 100+
- Website: Teachable.com
- Based in: United States
- Established in: 2014
- Employees: 50+
If you know anything about the online course creation industry, then odds are you have heard of these two platforms before.
If you have heard of these two platforms, you might be wondering:
Main Differences Between Kajabi and Teachable
There are quite a few differences between Kajabi and Teachable.
- First of all, Teachable has a free plan, whereas Kajabi starts at $119/mo.
- Kajabi does not charge transaction fees, while Teachable charges 10% + $1 on their free plan.
- Kajabi is an all-in-one solution, Teachable is only suitable for online courses.
- Teachable offers unlimited courses, but you’re limited to 10 students on their free plan. Kajabi allows you to have 1,000 students on their basic plan.
Kajabi vs Teachable: Which is Right for Me?
Choosing between course creation platforms involves more than just taking stock of their respective features.
You need an in-depth picture of how well all those features work together.
We are here to give an expert opinion on Kajabi and Teachable from a creator’s point of view.
You definitely want a learning management system for creating an online course. Both Kajabi and Teachable have some great features to offer digital course creators, including website building materials, course creations modules, email marketing, and more.
Both platforms give you an all-in-one business platform for growing your brand.
That being said, there are some key differences that we are going to cover.
Not all learning management systems are built equally and the same is true of these two Here is our side-by-side comparison of Kajabi vs Teachable.
Kajabi Highlights
- All-in-one platform
- Excellent UI and UX
- Constant improvements (e.g. Kajabi Email)
- Friendly customer support via multiple channels
- Best platform for online courses
Teachable Highlights
- Good Low Cost Option
- 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
- Simple, Easy to Use Platform
Overall Ratings
Kajabi vs Teachable: Pricing Comparison
For most people, price is the very first thing that is looked at. This makes sense; after all, the price of a service is usually the ultimate arbiter of whether you can actually use it. If a product is too much then it might not be the one for you.
Kajabi
Kajabi is the more expensive of the two platforms. However, Kajabi’s higher pricing is made up for by the fact that you get access to a ton of extra features you normally have to pay for using other platforms. The platform offers a free 28-day trial but it does not have a free-tier plan.
Kajabi has 3 basic pricing tiers that start at $149/mo:
Each plan is billed monthly, though there is the option to be billed annually and you will save 20%. That is a pretty good deal if you know you are going to be using the platform long term.
The best part of Kajabi’s pricing is that there are no extras you have to buy. Everything is included with the subscription and there are no extra fees for using resources. The transparent payment structure is definitely a big plus.
Teachable
Teachable offers substantially lower pricing plans than Kajabi, though the plans come with fewer features. Keep in mind that even though the subscriptions are lower, you will still have to pay extra if you want access to additional features. The only way to get all available features in one-go is to buy the highest-tier plan.
Pricing plans for the platform start with the free option and paid plans start as low as $39/mo.
As you can see, there is a huge jump in pricing from the Pro plan to the Business plan. Like Kajabi, the platform offers a 20% discount if you sign up for annual instead of monthly billing. The one major advantage this platform has is its pricing structure is that every plan after the free-tier offers unlimited students.
With Kajabi, you have to pay for the premium plan to allow for an unlimited amount of students.
Teachable’s pricing structure is more lenient than Kajabi’s at the lower ends, but the highest-tie plan costs more than the highest-tier pricing plan.
The Business level plan does unlock a whole host of features that may make it useful for someone who already generates consistent revenue.
Course Setup Comparison
Kajabi
Kajabi has some powerful tools for creating online courses and offers a lot of flexibility in how you approach things. You can view a demo of Kajabi here.
Using Kajabi, you can create an entire webpage complete with blogs, course listings, product pages, landing pages, opt-ins and more.
In that sense, it’s more customizable and lets you create the course that is exactly on your mind.
Of course, this means that Kajabi’s powerful setup might take some getting used to while you get started.
That being said, the course business module uses a pretty easy to learn edit-and-click interface.
The main difficulty is creating the tiered lists of categories, products, courses, and posts. If you are just starting out creating an online course, it might take some time to break it in.
Luckily, users get access to a fantastic learning resource called Kajabi University which can help you out if you get stuck.
One of the absolute best things about the course creation is how everything is integrated into the rest of the page.
The course creator lets you not only create your online courses but assign them to pages, membership offers, and more.
Kajabi also has some excellent email marketing templates and pipelines for selling your courses (which we will cover more in-depth below). One major difference between the two platforms is that Kajabi lets you create subcategories under each larger lesson category.
Teachable
Teachable offers features for creating courses that are a bit more limited than Kajabi’s but they are more simple and better suited for first-time course creators.
The main downside is that the platform’s basic course structure does not scale that well, which means some course creators may find it ultimately limiting.
The course setup is pretty straightforward. From the main creation page, you can name your online course and upload thumbnail images and promotional videos.
Online courses are organized into sections each filled with lectures which are the basic lessons. Teachable lessons let you embed live videos using URL codes and lets you releaser prerecorded lessons on an automated basis.
You can also set up “authors’ who have permission to create online courses on your page.
Authors receive a commission on every sale they help make. That means a single site can be set up between several people working together to educate.
With respect to video, both platforms use Wistia on their backends for video hosting.
This is a good thing as that means on both platforms you can watch videos regardless of the device you are using.
Kajabi vs Teachable: Comparison of Marketing Tools
Another feature you will want out of your learning management system is functions to market your online course.
We will be honest here, Kajabi kind of blows Teachable out of the water on this front.
Teachable does have some decent marketing tools that definitely work well enough, but Kajabi just gives you so much more to do in terms of marketing an online course.
Kajabi
The two main draws of Kajabi’s features are its automation and built-in pipelines.
Add in the several landing page templates and you already have the skeleton for a powerful marketing campaign.
The best part is that you can do everything from the platform dashboard, no third-party apps needed at all.
Let’s start with the emails. Kajabi lets you set up one-time or recurring email broadcasts using the customizable automations. You can also integrate the platform with third-party API apps and mail services opening up a whole new realm of flexibility.
For instance, using the automations, you can set up automatic emails to be sent on a weekly basis to your students, or send out one whenever you upload a new lesson.
The pipelines are another great feature. The built-in pipelines let you set up drips, set up your marketing and sales funnel.
The pipeline tool can be used to construct attractive landing pages and submission forms that are more or less guaranteed to get conversions.
Best of all, there are a ton of landing page templates to pick from that you can further customize based on your needs.
The platform also offers affiliate marketing programs that you can use to up your brand exposure.
Teachable
Teachable offers some decent methods for promoting course content but ultimately they fall short.
Like Kajabi, it does have a pretty useful affiliate program. The platform’s referral program can make your students affiliates as well, further extending your course reach.
As far as email goes, the platform has basic automation and email harvesting tools.
You can collect emails through the sales pages, but unlike Kajabi, it does not give you the option to cross-sell products to students.
You can set up basic email broadcasts, send regular announcements, and segment your student list by courses.
Unfortunately, the included marketing features are not too useful for upselling products and do not have any action-triggered drip functionality.
Teachable does let you create landing pages, but the selection is limited to one semi-customizable template.
If you want to get more out of landing pages you will likely have to use some third-party landing page software. Depending on the service you choose, this could get expensive.
Theme Comparison
Kajabi
Kajabi also beats out its competitor in terms of available themes.
Themes, which are the overall aesthetic of your site, are extremely important for solidifying your online brand’s appearance and identity.
Kajabi gives users access to a library of high-quality themes that are fully customizable. Custom themes are also available.
Each theme consists of a distinct grouping of layouts and elements unified under a common idea.
For example, the Icarus theme is designed to emphasize the store aspect of pages and features clean corners and logical layout that the eye can follow.
These themes can be further edited using the intuitive click-and-edit interface.
One of the cooler features of Kajabi themes is that they do not have to be uniform across your site.
Each product on your sales page can have its own unique theme that differentiates it from others.
The platform also gives users access to the code editor so those with more technical knowledge can further customize things.
Even if you have no coding knowledge whatsoever, the basic editing options are good enough for most purposes.
Teachable
Teachable does have some themes for uses to customize their course appearances, but ultimately its options are more limited.
The platform offers a single theme that lets you customize the:
- Logo & background
- Fonts
- Colors
And that is pretty much it. If you are pretty creative, you can get some good mileage out of these customization options, but otherwise, your products will look pretty uniform, at least compared to Kajabi’s more customizable theme set up.
Teachable does let users modify the CSS in the “code snippets” area so that opens some nice customization options if you are code-savvy.
Kajabi vs Teachable: Website Builder Comparison
Both platforms have website building tools but with different levels of functionality. Overall, Teachable is easier to use and cheaper but Kajabi has many more customization options for creating a unique look.
Kajabi
Kajabi’s builder comes pre-loaded with a ton of highly customizable themes. Each theme lets you customize the sits basic elements including:
- Site header
- Opt-in forms
- CTAs
- Testimonials
- Sale Pages
- Blog Posts
- Video background
The website builder features a simple drag-and-drop interface. Just click on the elements you want to move and place them where you want.
The site editor also lets you add pop-up forms on your site, which is one of the key features it offers.
Kajabi’s tools are great and easy to use. It is definitely the superior option of the two when it comes to website building.
Teachable
Teachable has some pretty competent website building tools but compared to Kajabi they fall short. All you get access to is a storefront page to display your products and not much else.
For some, this will work just fine, but others may want more customization options. Teachable does not offer overall website themes like its competitor either.
With the paid plans, you can add more subdomains to your site though you cannot remove the company branding unless you purchase the Pro level or higher (note: the same is true for Kajabi). The platform comes preloaded with default navigation links which make it easy to set up some pages in a logical manner. The main problem with this design is that there are no options for a drop-down or side-bar navigation tool
We do not mean to say that Teachable’s website building tools are bad, far from it.
There is a reason why the platform is so popular. Several people fare just fine with the included tools but Kajabi ultimately offers more things to do.
Kajabi vs Teachable: Student Engagement Comparison
Both Kajabi and Teachable have learning engagement systems that let you interact with your students and keep tabs on their progress through each online course.
Student engagement systems are a great way to connect with your audience and nurture a relationship with students.
Kajabi
Kajabi offers users access to a wide variety of course assessments, quizzes, and surveys that can be implemented in lessons.
You can choose to have these assessments and quizzes graded or not. One thing we really like is the ability to rank students based on their performance and answers on quizzes.
That way you can market specific products to students based on how they are doing. For instance, if you notice that a student is doing poorly on a course, you can market to them a supplemental course focusing on the issues where they are struggling.
Course assessments also can be used to modify courses in the event that students are having a difficult time making it through the material.
Kajabi gives the option to create multiple choice and multiple selection quizzes. Once students complete an assessment, the platform automatically grades the assignment and returns the results to the student.
You can also export test results into CSV format.
Teachable
Teachable allows content creators to add multiple choice quizzes to their lessons.
Questions can have one answer or multiple answers and you can set them up so that students are not allowed to move on to the next lesson until they complete the assignment for the previous.
Users are allowed to pack as many questions as they want into a single quiz but otherwise, your options are fairly limited.
You can’t give students feedback on their answers and there are no advanced quiz features like answer randomizing or storing questions in a question bank.
So while the quiz modules are good for basic learning, they are not really good for much else.
Lastly, there is no quiz import option, which means if you already have graded quizzes from students to have to enter those results manually into Teachable.
Integrations Comparison
Integrations are third-party apps that platforms can connect to in order to perform extra functions not built into the platform.
Both Kajabi and Teachable allow integration from third-party apps which gives you an alternative to using the included tools and plug-ins.
Integrations can be extremely useful but if your platform does not have good integration capabilities it can be a hassle to manage.
Kajabi
Kajabi has some basic integration options with major third-party apps like MailChimp. Activating these integrations is easy too.
Just go to the dashboard and click the integrate switch and the platform automatically connects the two and starts communicating data. Currently, the platform has built-in integrations for 10 apps including
- Zapier
- MailChimpDrip
- ConvertKit
- Segment
- Google Analytics
- ActiveCampaign
- ClickFunnels
- Aweber
- Facebook Pixel
Along with the built-in integrations, Kajai has a really cool pseudo-customizable API that runs through its integration with the app Zapier.
The Zapier integration lets you connect other third-party apps that are not natively included in the platform.
The technical specifics are too much to cover here but suffice to say, the Zapier integration opens up integrations with over 2000 other third-party apps. That is a ridiculous amount of functionality the integration adds.
Teachable
As of the time of writing, Teachable has native integrations for only 7 apps, including:
- Google Analytics
- SumoMe
- Zapier
- MailChimp
- Segment
- ConvertKit
- Facebook Pixel
These are some pretty decent integrations that cover the basic functions like analytics email address, SEO research, and marketing efforts.
The platform also allows integration with Zapier which opens up several avenues for customized integrations. Overall, Kajabi offers more native integrations with some especially useful ones (Clickfunnels comes to mind).
One last thing: Teachable is compatible with Facebook Pixel, but it requires a different set up than the other integrations.
To use Facebook Pixel you have to grab the code and manually paste it into each product you want to track, which can be quite the hassle if you have a lot of digital products to search through.
Conclusions: Teachable or Kajabi – Which Is Better?
So, Kajabi vs Teachable; which is better? Kajabi excels in its marketing tools, customization options, and overall features, while Teachable has slightly better course creation navigation and a much more budget-friendly price structure.
Both are competent platforms that digital course creators can get a lot of use out of.
Ultimately though, our winner for this matchup is Kajabi. Kajabi offers ultimately more features and is better for your online business to scale and grow.
Kajabi has some of the best marketing functions we have seen in a digital course marketing platform and a great library of educational resources and customer support if you get stuck.
Kajabi also incentivizes its users to use the platform through the Kajabi Partner affiliate referral program.
We will say that one area Teachable beats Kajabi is the pricing.
Teachable is much more budget-friendly for course creators who are just starting out, but ultimately the platform will be too limited to large expansion and growth.
In that sense, starting out on Teachable for your online business but making the jump to a different platform down the road might be a viable strategy.
