Kajabi and Thinkific are both online course and digital product creation platforms, but which one offers the best features and value?
This comparison reveals all.
- Plans cost from $149/month
- Kajabi is rated as the best overall platform on SupplyGem
- Kajabi has a rating of 4.6 on Trustpilot
- Kajabi is the overall winner of this comparison
- A free plan is available
- Thinkific is rated as the 6th best platform on SupplyGem
- Thinkific has a rating of 4.7 on Trustpilot
- Thinkific is a solid option for limited budgets
Key Takeaways:
- Kajabi has unbeatable features and is our top recommendation
- Thinkific has limited features but is more affordable – perfect for limited budgets
Kajabi vs Thinkific at a Glance
| Feature | Kajabi | Thinkific |
|---|---|---|
| Current Promotion | 30-day free trial | 30-day free trial |
| Funnels | ✅ | ❌ |
| Landing Pages and Websites | ✅ | ✅ |
| Email Campaigns | ✅ | ❌ |
| Blogs | ✅ | ❌ |
| Course Creation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Communities | ✅ | ✅ |
| Coaching | ✅ | ✅ |
| Live Video Streaming | ✅ | ✅ |
| Automation | ✅ | ❌ |
| Native Checkout | ❌ | ✅ |
| Analytics | ✅ | ✅ |
| Integrations | ✅ | ✅ |
What Are Kajabi and Thinkific?
Both Kajabi and Thinkific offer features to create courses, communities, coaching products, and more. Additionally, both platforms provide tools and ways to help you sell your digital products.
Kajabi is known for its advanced content creation and marketing tools, but its prices are high. Thinkific, on the other hand, is much more affordable but lacks comprehensive marketing features.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Pros and Cons
| Kajabi Pros | Kajabi Cons | Thinkific Pros | Thinkific Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| You get best-in-class features and tools | Very expensive compared with other platforms | Native checkout available | Many platform features are only available on the higher-priced plans |
| Excellent and modern templates | Have to rely on third-party payment gateways (native payment gateway currently not available to all users) | Free plan available and paid plans very affordable | The user experience isn’t the best |
| One of the best user experiences around | Zero transaction charges on sales | Lack of decent templates | |
| The help center is top-notch | Unlimited course creation on all paid plans | No marketing features | |
| Free 30-minute onboarding call | |||
| Plenty of automation tools to reduce boring admin tasks |
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Affordability
- Thinkific’s plans range from free up to $299/month
- Kajabi’s plans range from $149/month – $399/month
| Price | Kajabi | Thinkific |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | From $149/month | Free or from $49/month |
| Annually | From $119/month ($1,428 total) | Free or from $36/month |
| Discount for paying annually | 20% | 25% |
| Standard free trial | 14 days | Free plan available |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days | 30 days |
Winner Is Thinkific
Free plans are fantastic since they give you the opportunity to really try out the platform and see if it’s for you before laying down any cash. Although limited, Thinkific’s free plan is more than enough to get a good feel for things.
Thinkific’s paid plans are also a lot more affordable than Kajabi’s – even on the highest tier. However, it is worth pointing out that Thinkific’s best features are only available with the Start and Grow plans.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Course Building
Kajabi Course Building
There’s no doubt that Kajabi’s course-building tool is nothing short of excellent. The modern and sleek interface is easy to navigate and learn, while the large array of templates provides an established base to start with.
Courses are versatile and can include as many modules and lessons as you need to create anything from a mini-course right up to comprehensive learning programs. Plus, you can bring the material to life using video and audio content and upload numerous file types if you need to include supporting documents.
One advantage is that Kajabi supports native video and audio uploads, so you don’t have to rely on third-party hosting apps to use this type of content.
Editing course material and lessons is done via the drag-and-drop tool, which, in our experience, works smoothly and effectively.
You can monetize courses in a variety of ways, such as one-time payments and subscriptions. And of course, your Kajabi courses work seamlessly with Kajabi’s marketing tools like funnels, which makes it a million times easier to promote them.
All course features are available on all Kajabi plans; you just have a limit on how many courses you can create.
Thinkific Course Building
Course-building is Thinkific’s core feature. Therefore, it is about as comprehensive as it gets.
You have the ability to build a range of different courses, such as mini-courses and larger learning programs. And, like Kajabi, you can add a range of different elements like videos, presentations, audio files, and more (Thinkific’s video hosting is also native).
The one area that could be better is its templates. There is one standard layout for the lesson which you can edit and switch up as needed. Apart from that, you’re on your own.
Editing and adding content to your course is somewhat clunky. Often, it can be tough to understand what you need to do or find what you’re looking for. Overall, it’s not the best user experience here.
Monetizing courses can be done via one-time payments and subscriptions, plus you can offer coupons and create a website to host the course landing page.
Winner Is Kajabi
Overall, you can do pretty much the same with either platform, and each boasts similar course-building features. However, Kajabi’s user experience in this area is much better than Thinkific’s.
Furthermore, Kajabi has better templates, is more intuitive, and unlike Thinkific, doesn’t limit the features depending on which plan you subscribe to.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Quizzes and Assessments
Kajabi Quizzes and Assessments
Kajabi offers both quizzes and assessments. However, an important distinction must be drawn between the two:
- Quizzes are used in courses to test or assess student’s knowledge
- Assessments are used on websites and landing pages to survey visitors and gather data
The in-course quiz feature allows for several different types of assessment. You can create different styles of questions, such as checkboxes and multiple choice, or students can upload documents for manual assessments.
To ensure learning has taken place, Kajabi lets you “lock” modules that are only made available once a student has achieved a passing grade.
Thinkific Quizzes and Assessments
Thinkific has several options for testing your student’s knowledge. You can build a quiz consisting of different types of questions, set an assignment (like homework), or create a survey to obtain feedback.
If you want to take things one step further, Thinkific has a direct integration with Brillium – a tool that delivers professional exams to your students.
One neat tool is the randomized question bank which is essentially a depository for quiz questions that you create. You can arrange them into categories and then choose to add a randomized selection to your course quizzes. This one is a great time-saver.
Winner Is Thinkific
Thinkific definitely has more options and versatility when it comes to assessing your students. And since it integrates with Brillium, you get even more functionality which is essential if you need to create professional exams and tests.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Membership Site
Kajabi Membership Site
Kajabi memberships provide a way to create recurring revenue through subscription payments. Your members pay an ongoing fee to get access to the membership site.
Here, you can place course content, videos, and other learning material for your subscribers to enjoy and then regularly update the content to keep people interested. You can also provide access to a community to increase engagement and connect with your audience.
Furthermore, you can create different membership tiers and offer them on a Kajabi landing page or funnel.
Thinkific Membership Site
Thinkific’s membership site feature works in much the same way as Kajabi. Curate your content into membership tiers and collect recurring payments for it.
The difference here is that Thinkific membership sites can also include communities if you wish.
Membership content can be made available all at once, or you can drip-feed it on a month-by-month basis.
Winner Is Thinkific
Both platforms perform well in this respect, but Thinkific has the edge because it’s more straightforward to create a membership site on its platform than it is on Kajabi. With Kajabi, you have to create “offers” and this can be a little confusing for new users.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Communities
Kajabi Communities
Kajabi’s community feature was given a massive boost when it acquired Vibely in 2022. Now it provides you with a virtual playground in which to cultivate and nurture your community members.
There’s plenty you can do here. You can charge for community access and even create private areas within your community, which you can then charge for if you wish.
Then you have the newsfeed where you can add videos, uploads, text, and more. Plus, there’s a chat feed and the ability to direct message members.
Set up and run challenges with accountability tools and tracking; to really engage with your audience, you can hop on a live stream whenever you want.
Thinkific Communities
Thinkific’s community feature is decent but more limited than Kajabi. You can post content onto the newsfeed and create space for specific subjects or topics of discussion.
One feature we really like is the ability to link a community to a course to allow for a more blended learning experience. Plus, it allows you to sell courses that come with a community, thus enhancing the value of your offer (note that this feature is only available on the higher-tier plans).
Finally, posts allow you to add videos, files, and images, and you can set up and run live events within your community too.
Winner Is Kajabi
While we do like Thinkific’s ability to blend courses with communities, Kajabi’s community tool has much more to it than Thinkific. Additionally, the layout is much nicer and provides a better experience for the community members.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Sales and Marketing
Kajabi Sales and Marketing
Kajabi was designed with marketing in mind. As such, you have a complete range of marketing tools at your fingertips, including a workflow builder where you can create automated and multi-channel marketing campaigns.
Its funnel builder is sophisticated and comes with a load of blueprints which are essentially done-for-you campaigns.
If you want to create websites or landing pages, once again, you have a massive array of fresh, modern templates to pick from. All can be edited using the drag-and-drop tool, plus you can add elements such as online forms, pop-ups, and more.
Finally, the platform features a native email marketing tool where you can create and send unlimited numbers of emails. Here, you can pretty much automate all of it, too.
Thinkific Sales and Marketing
Beyond the website creation tool, Thinkific offers little else to help you market your products. The website builder is okay, but there are only three themes to choose from, so there’s not much offered in the way of templates.
Using the website editing tool is clunky, and we found it bugged a little while trying to place elements onto the page. Not the best experience overall.
You can use marketing tools with Thinkific, but you’re going to have to subscribe to a third-party platform (MailChimp, for example) and then integrate it with Thinkific. This not only costs more, but it’s also more complicated.
Winner Is Kajabi
There’s no competition here. Kajabi delivers over and beyond in the marketing department and provides everything you could ever need to promote your digital products without resorting to third-party platforms.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Automation
Kajabi Automation
Kajabi doesn’t disappoint in the automation department and gives you the functionality to add individual automation rules to your products, offers, and campaigns. You can even go one step further and create detailed automated workflows.
For example, you can have an email automatically sent any time someone purchases a course. Or if someone submits an online form, you can set them to be automatically added to an email campaign.
There is a bit of a learning curve to this aspect of the platform. But Kajabi knows this and provides loads of helpful prompts and guides to walk you through it.
Thinkific Automation
Sadly, Thinkific offers nothing in the way of automation tools. Instead, to get automation capabilities, you are expected to sign up for and integrate Thinkific with a third-party platform.
Winner Is Kajabi
Zero competition here. All automation can be completed within Kajabi without using third-party tools. And the platform’s automation capabilities are really decent.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Payment Management
Kajabi Payment Management
Historically, Kajabi only had the option of using either Stripe or PayPal to take payments. However, it has released its own native payment facility, eliminating the need to use third-party providers.
Currently in beta mode, Kajabi Payments is only accessible if you are based in the USA and apply to be a beta user of the new feature. We’re looking forward to when this is released fully and made available to all Kajabi subscribers.
When charging for your Kajabi products and offers, you have a number of options. Create one-time payments, recurring payments, or subscriptions. Plus, you can add coupon codes, order bumps, and upsells to the checkout to enhance the buying experience for customers.
Thinkific Payment Management
Thinkific has its own built-in payment processor called T-commerce, eliminating the requirement to use a third-party payment gateway. The feature also connects with PayPal, Google Pay, and Apple Pay to further simplify the payment process for users.
This tool takes and processes customer payments and even has a 1-click payment facility to make the buying process smoother. You can use coupon codes, order bumps, and upselling at the checkout to increase the sale amount.
Winner Is Thinkific
Having a native payment gateway is convenient and allows you to manage all your payments, refunds, and subscriptions without having to leave the Thinkific platform.
Although Kajabi is catching up, its native payment gateway is still not available to all. But when it is, we’ll revisit and revise this section.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: User Experience and Onboarding
Kajabi User Experience and Onboarding
Kajabi has taken real care to ensure the user experience is as good and as pleasant as possible.
When you first log onto the platform you get helpful prompts and guides that tell you what you should be doing and how. Getting to grips with the tools is painless and for the most part, intuitive, and doesn’t require any further help.
The platform does have a help center and this is one of the best we’ve ever seen. Each article or guide has a video or an animated GIF that walks you through the process, and you also get step-by-step text instructions and explanations.
Beginners can take advantage of Kajabi University – a video series that gets you started on the platform. And best of all, all subscribers are treated to a free 30-minute onboarding call where you can speak to a Kajabi staff member and get them to help you and answer all your questions.
Thinkific User Experience and Onboarding
Thinkific helps out new users by providing progress bars and checkboxes to ensure you thoroughly go through the creation process. Although this is helpful, the platform itself isn’t the most intuitive.
Some of the features are placed in illogical places or don’t really make sense. Therefore, you need to find a support article to guide you through it. Furthermore, the user experience is somewhat clunky and not as smooth as it could be.
Thinkific’s help center is pretty bad. It’s quite hard to find what you’re looking for and when you do, you are presented with walls of text and very few visual aids to help you.
All-in-all, this is less beginner-friendly than Kajabi, which is a shame because it has beginner pricing.
Winner Is Kajabi
We can’t fault Kajabi’s user experience. It’s one of the only platforms where we can use most of the features without having to refer to a guide or help article. And when we do, the video tutorials are so helpful you instantly understand what you need to do.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Customer Service and Support
Kajabi Customer Service and Support
Kajabi provides live chat customer service for all its subscribers; however, access to it is determined by your chosen plan. If you’re on the Basic plan, you get the following support options:
- Live chat support between 6 AM – 5 PM, Pacific Time
- Email ticketing service
Anyone on the two higher plans then gets to enjoy live chat 24/7.
We’ve already mentioned the free 30-minute onboarding call that all subscribers get when they first join the platform.
Thinkific Customer Service and Support
Thinkific’s support is greatly limited on the free plan. You only get email support for 30 days after signing up, and then you’re left at the mercy of the chatbot.
Those paying for plans get to enjoy email ticketing and live chat support while those on the top-tier plan get phone support and priority email ticketing (as well as the live chat).
Winner Is: It’s a Draw
Both platforms limit their support for those subscribing to the lower-tier plans. However, each offers perfectly adequate support that will be sufficient for most users.
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Final Verdict
Thinkific is undoubtedly more affordable, but (and it’s a big “but”) the better features are only available on the more expensive plans. Additionally, if you want a solution as comprehensive as Kajabi, you’re going to have to purchase and rely on third-party apps.
It’s true that Kajabi is expensive, but you get what you pay for. Its features are extensive and of excellent quality, plus you have the added advantage of not needing to rely on any other third-party apps. Everything is available on the Kajabi platform.
- Choose Kajabi if you can afford the premiums and want the best of the best.
- Choose Thinkific if your budget is limited and you want to “test the waters” to try out course building for the first time.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Kajabi or Thinkific Better?
Kajabi has a much better and more comprehensive range of digital product creation and marketing tools on its platform. Thinkific’s tools are perfectly fine but are lacking in key areas such as marketing.
Which Is More Affordable – Kajabi or Thinkific?
Thinkific has a free plan and paid plans start from $49/month. When compared with Kajabi’s cheapest plan of $149/month, it’s clear that Thinkific is much more affordable.
Is Kajabi or Thinkific More User-Friendly?
Kajabi is a lot more user-friendly than Thinkific. The platform is intuitive, easy to use, and has a great resource and help center should you need it.
What Is the Difference Between Thinkific and Kajabi?
Thinkific is solely dedicated to digital product creation and relies on the use of third-party apps for anything else. On the other hand, Kajabi has digital product creation tools and a sophisticated range of sales and marketing tools.
Is Kajabi or Thinkific Better for Course Building?
Kajabi has better course-building tools than Thinkific. The platform is simpler to use, you have more features and options to create diverse courses, and you can automate much of the course admin, making course management a breeze.
Can I Use Kajabi or Thinkific for Free?
You can use Thinkific for free by taking advantage of its free plan. Kajabi does not have a free plan, but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial.
