Kajabi and Udemy are both platforms that allow you to create and sell learning products, but they behave very differently.
I’ve taken a good look at how much you can make with each platform, and Kajabi wins hands down.
Key Takeaways:
- Udemy fees can account for up to 75% of your revenue
- With Kajabi, you pay a subscription fee but keep most of the revenue
- Udemy limits you to courses, while Kajabi has a diverse product range
Kajabi vs. Udemy: A Quick Comparison
| Feature | Kajabi | Udemy |
|---|---|---|
| SupplyGem Platform Ranking | No. 2 | Not ranked |
| SupplyGem score | 9.5 | 6.1 |
| Trustpilot score | 4.4 | 2.1 |
| Costs from | $69/month | Free, but fees on sales apply |
| Free trial | Get a Growth plan 30-day free trial | No |
| Money-back guarantee | 30 days | N/A |
| Platform pros | – All-in-one platform with all the tools to run a business – Keep almost all of your revenue – Create diverse products, including communities and coaching – Charge what you like for your products | – 9.5 million daily website visitors – Does the marketing and promotion for you – No upfront costs – Easy to use |
| Platform cons | – Upfront subscription costs apply – Have to drive your own traffic – Requires time and effort to run your business | – Limited to selling courses – Takes up to 75% of your revenue – Few customization options – You’re forced into competitive pricing – You don’t own your business – Udemy has to approve all courses before publishing |
| Best for | Digital learning content creators who want a complete business solution | Those who want to create and sell courses with minimum effort |
Let’s Talk About Pricing and Why Udemy Is Actually Expensive
Udemy seems like a great deal. You can create your course and host it on its platform (to which Udemy drives the traffic), all for free. Yet, there’s a massive catch.
You won’t get much from the sale. Like, hardly anything.
If a site visitor likes your course and purchases it, Udemy will take a whopping 63% of your net revenue. You get the remaining 37%.
That doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, it’s not great, but it’s reasonable considering you didn’t have any financial outlay so far.
But note that I said net revenue. That means there are other fees to pay before Udemy gets its share.
The real killer, though, is if the course was purchased through the Udemy mobile app, Apple and Google Pay take an eye-watering 30%.
So, what will you get if you sell a $20 course that’s purchased via the mobile app?
| Fee | Amount | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Service fee | 3% | $0.60 |
| Apple/Google Pay fee | 30% | $6 |
| Net revenue = $13.40 | ||
| Udemy fee | 67% | $8.98 |
| Total revenue received: $4.42 | ||
Yep, you read that right. You’ll get less than $5 for your course. And that’s without factoring in any sales taxes that may be applicable.
Now, let’s look at a course purchased via a browser that wouldn’t be subject to the 30% fee:
| Fee | Amount | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Service fee | 3% | $0.60 |
| Net revenue = $19.40 | ||
| Udemy fee | 67% | $13 |
| Total revenue received: $6.40 | ||
Perhaps I’m being a little unfair here. There is a way to make a lot more money with Udemy.
If a customer purchases your course via any coupons you create or using your referral code, you get to keep 97% of the net revenue. The usual processing fee, etc. still applies.
Seems okay, right?
Not really. This way, you have to spend considerable time and effort promoting your course, which probably means paying for marketing tools and advertising.
Why You’ll Lose Even More Money With Udemy
The other big problem is that you’ll notice the vast majority of courses are priced lower than $20. If you want to compete with all the other sellers on the platform, you will have to price your courses similarly.
Believe me, you’re competing with a LOT of people. For example, there are over 6,000 network and security courses. Therefore, pricing tends to become a race to the bottom.
With Kajabi, You Keep ALL Net Revenue
In contrast, Kajabi gives you full control over how you price your courses. Better yet, you get to keep ALL of your net revenue.
All you’ll pay are any applicable sales taxes and payment processor fees. For example, the transaction fee (using Kajabi Payments) for US transactions is $2.9% + $0.30.
So, for a $20 course, you’ll pay $0.88 in fees, which means you get to keep $19.12 (minus sales tax if applicable). That’s much better than Udemy.
The obvious drawback is that using the Kajabi platform isn’t free. You have to pay for a monthly or annual subscription, which costs as follows.
| Kickstarter | Basic | Growth | Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | $69 | $149 | $199 | $399 |
| Annual fee | $660 | $1,428 | $1,908 | $3,828 |
However, remember that this cost is per month or year, not per sale.
The Big Comparison
With all that info out of the way, let’s see how much you’ll really make with Kajabi versus Udemy.
All figures below are with the applicable fees and charges removed already. For Kajabi, I used the monthly plan price plus the US transaction fees noted above.
| Courses sold in a month | 50 x $20 courses ($1,000 total) | 100 x $20 courses ($2,000 total) | 50 x $100 courses ($5,000 total) | 100 x $100 courses ($10,000 total) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kajabi Kickstarter monthly | $887 | $1,843 | $4,771 | $9,611 |
| Kajabi Basic monthly | $807 | $1,763 | $4,691 | $9,531 |
| Kajabi Growth monthly | $757 | $1,713 | $4,641 | $9,481 |
| Kajabi Pro monthly | $557 | $1,513 | $4,441 | $9,281 |
| Udemy paid via mobile app | $221 | $442 | $1,120 | $2,240 |
| Udemy paid direct | $320 | $640 | $1,600.50 | $3,201 |
| Udemy paid via referral link | $940.50 | $1,881 | $4,704.50 | $9,409 |
So, you can make slightly more with Udemy if (and only if) ALL your sales come from your referral links. However, to drive this many sales, you’d have to put in a massive effort to drive traffic to your sales page (and hope your visitors don’t get distracted by other creator’s courses).
In all other instances, you make significantly more with Kajabi.
So, What’s the Benefit of Using Udemy If It Costs More?
Udemy is a big platform that spends a lot on advertising. According to Ahrefs, the site gets 9.5 million visitors per day, so that’s a lot of eyes that could potentially fall on your course.
Compared with Kajabi, where you are responsible for driving all your traffic, you don’t have to invest in any marketing efforts to promote your content.
Additionally, because of Udemy’s large audience, once you place your course on the platform, you can pretty much forget about it. It’s a low-effort solution if that’s what you want.
Also, the lack of upfront investment may appeal to some. There are no upfront fees to pay, which makes the barrier to entry about as low as it can go.
Kajabi vs. Udemy: Which Platform Has the Better Course Builder?
The only feature you can compare like for like is the course builder because, well, that’s all you can do on Udemy.
Udemy’s course builder follows the step-by-step approach and asks you lots of questions before you can get into the course builder itself. For example, you have to input at least four learning objectives before you can move on to the next step.
Udemy wants you to create your course in video format, so there are lots of tips and information about making your recordings look and sound good.
The actual course builder is minimal and rigid. You can only add text and videos as content, then you can create a quiz, practice test, or assignment to test knowledge.
I quite like the fact that Udemy lets you create a coding exercise. That’s pretty handy if that’s what you’re teaching.
Once you have created your course, you can set up the landing page (just check out any of Udemy’s courses to see what that can look like) and set your pricing.
As I said, most Udemy courses are priced around $19.99. However, it looks like you can only go up to a maximum of $199.99.
Finally, you have to submit your course to Udemy for review, so there isn’t any guarantee that it will get published, which is something to keep in mind.
Now, let’s look at Kajabi.
Right off the bat, Kajabi makes it super easy to create a course. It has a clever AI tool that will generate a full course outline and some of the content after you input a title and short description.
You can divide courses into modules, sub-modules, lessons, and quizzes. Also, you get more choice over the type of content you can add.
While Udemy focuses on video, Kajabi allows video, text, audio, and downloadable files.
You also get plenty of customization options. There are seven prebuilt themes to pick from (or you can purchase one from a third-party designer).
And you have the option to design digital course completion certificates, which are issued automatically to students.
Students can leave comments under the lessons, or, for even better engagement, you can link your course to a community.
Kajabi’s community is one of the platform’s top features (and a favorite of mine). You can use it to livestream, run challenges and events, and create a dynamic learning environment. It’s seriously cool stuff!
Then, of course, you get full control over how you price your product. You can offer it free or for a one-off fee. Or, you can offer it as a subscription or payment that can be made in installments.
Overall, Kajabi provides much more choice in structuring and presenting your course. It doesn’t just rely on video, and since you can connect it to a community, it gives you far more capability in what you offer your customers.
If You Want a Successful Business, You Need Kajabi
Your Business Is Your Own
With Kajabi, you get full control over your business. From the products you offer to the style and branding of your website and landing pages, you call the shots.
On the other hand, Udemy severely restricts what you can and can’t do and provides little customization. Besides, if you want to sell anything other than courses, the platform will no longer fit the bill.
You will always be beholden to whatever Udemy decides to do.
For example, if it increases its fees or restricts the number of courses you can add, there’s nothing you can do about it.
With Kajabi, you’re in the driver’s seat and get full autonomy over how you grow your business.
You Get Full Control over Product Pricing
The pricing is probably my main issue with Udemy. Exorbitant fees aside, it looks like you’re more or less forced to sell your course at a low price to stay competitive.
With Kajabi, you choose the price of your products. Want to sell a big-ticket course for $3,000? No problem! Want to provide a premium community and membership site for $99 per month? Also, no issue!
You Can Diversify Your Learning Products
We’ve already established that Udemy is only good for courses. There is literally nothing else you can do with the platform.
The feature set in Kajabi, however, is vast and lets you build diverse products tailored to your audience’s needs.
Here are some examples of what you can do (besides building courses):
- Create and run coaching programs. Kajabi also has its own live-stream tool.
- Start a podcast and monetize the episodes.
- Build a community filled with challenges, events, live streams, and conversation circles. You can charge for the community or create paid sections within the it.
- Develop a membership site that you regularly add content to and charge for it on a subscription basis.
- Create and sell a product bundle (several courses or other learning products).
- Send out a paid newsletter via email.
Build Your Exact Target Audience
Udemy traffic isn’t targeted to your course specifically. So, while it might get 9.5 million visitors, not all of them will be looking for your course.
Yes, with Kajabi you are required to develop and run your own marketing campaigns. But that means you can cultivate an audience that is properly matched to the products you offer.
Kajabi, of course, provides you with the tools to do this. You can build sales funnels, landing pages, and email campaigns targeted precisely to the audience you want to attract.
When you launch new products, you will already have an eager audience waiting to buy!
Kajabi Lets You Scale
The bottom line is that you can only go so far with Udemy. Since all you can do is create and sell courses, it makes scaling your business almost impossible.
Thanks to Kajabi’s diverse product range and full marketing suite, you have no limits to what you can achieve.
I’ll mention here, too, that although Kajabi’s plans have feature limits, if you want to extend beyond them, you can. The platform offers an enterprise solution for those who want to take their business sky-high.
Final Thoughts
Udemy clearly suits some people. It wouldn’t have over 200,000 courses hosted on its platform if it didn’t.
I think the site is ideal for those who want to create one or two courses and not have to worry about marketing them.
However, if you’re serious about starting and running a business and want the opportunity to scale at some point, Kajabi is the one for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Kajabi or Udemy Easier to Use?
Both Kajabi and Udemy are easy to use. However, Kajabi has a lot more features than Udemy, so you could argue that it is more complicated to learn. Yet, each feature is easy to grasp and use.
Does Kajabi or Udemy Have a Better Course Builder?
Kajabi has a better course builder than Udemy. With Udemy, you get few customization options, and the content needs to be mostly video. With Kajabi, you get a lot more control over the look and content of your course.
