Key Takeaways:
- Kajabi is an established and trusted brand among course creation platforms
- It provides a great user experience and features and is beginner-friendly
- Plan limits can be restrictive and payment gateways are limited
Kajabi Pros and Cons at a Glance
Kajabi Pros
- Trusted name
- All-in-one platform
- Great user experience
- Excellent customer support and training resources
- Capability to create diverse and engaging products
- Beginner-friendly
- Decent AI content generator
- Easy automation
- Flexible sales tools
Kajabi Cons
- Restrictive plan limits
- Limited payment gateway options
- Limited design options
- Not suitable for selling physical products
- No staging area
- Limited sales tax calculations that cost extra
Why I Think Kajabi Is an Excellent Platform
It’s a Trusted Brand
You can find some impressive stats on Kajabi because it has built up a large base of avid users over the past decade. Its creators have collectively earned over $6 billion in revenue with $5 million being generated each and every day.
That’s no small thing, and it shows that Kajabi is invested in making it work for its users. It’s a robust platform that actually works.
No Need for Third-Party Apps
Kajabi replaces the need to use and pay for a ton of separate apps such as a funnel builder, emailer, product builder, and more. Paying for all of these separately would cost a fortune, but Kajabi has it all on one platform for a single subscription fee.
It calls itself “all-in-one,” and it’s almost true. It’s still necessary for some users to use a third-party payment gateway, but apart from that, you really don’t need to connect the platform with any other apps.
Great User Experience
Kajabi’s user experience is light years ahead of competitor platforms like Thinkific and Teachable. The developers have thought about every aspect of it, from making the layout and navigation intuitive to ensuring the features work properly.
The features often get updated, too, so the platform remains modern and current rather than outdated. Come to think of it, I don’t believe I have ever experienced a platform glitch when using Kajabi.
And in case you are wondering, the student experience is just as seamless whether they are using a browser or the Kajabi mobile app.
Top-Notch Support and Training Materials
Kajabi has great customer support. In many cases, you’ll find the assistance you need in the comprehensive Help Center. It’s kept up-to-date with short, easy-to-follow articles that are backed up with video guides.
You can get in touch with human support via email or live chat. Whenever I have contacted them, I have always found them super helpful and responsive. One agent spent an hour researching something on my behalf!
Create Cool Products
We can’t ignore the choice of products you can create in Kajabi. In total, the platform has four product types:
- Courses
- Podcasts
- Communities
- Coaching
The course builder lets you build mini courses through to huge multi-module learning programs and everything in between, while the coaching product is perfect for those who want to run live sessions, masterclasses, and more.
You can include digital downloads, fill your products with quizzes and assessments, and even set up a community and run challenges and events.
Whatever your preferred way of delivering your learning content, Kajabi has the tools to make it happen.
Marketing Tools that Work
There are plenty of course-building platforms out there, but most of them have a surprising lack of marketing tools. That means you either need to have an audience already waiting to buy your product or you have to purchase and use third-party software.
Living up to its “all-in-one” name, Kajabi offers features that include email campaign management, sales funnel and landing page creation, and a new Creator Studio tool that generates fresh marketing content for you in seconds.
And because they are all on a single platform, you don’t have to worry about connecting everything together—everything works from the offset.
Five Things I Really Love about Kajabi:
1. Beginner Friendly (Anyone Can Use It!)
A platform that is difficult to understand or takes too long to learn can be incredibly frustrating.
Kajabi has put a lot of thought into designing its platform to be as user-friendly as possible, regardless of whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user.
New users get a step-by-step “Get Started” guide that helps you set up your first products and pages while further assistance is offered throughout the platform (without it being invasive to the more advanced users).
Kajabi manages to pack in the features and tools without them seeming overwhelming, and the platform employs the drag-and-drop method to build web pages, which I’m a fan of as it makes it so easy and fast.
2. Build Diverse Offers Your Customers Will Love
Creating standalone products like courses is already a great thing, but having the ability to bundle multiple products into a single offer is even better. I love that you can create unique offers tailored precisely to what your audience loves.
For example, bundling a series of courses together and selling them for a single price creates an appealing deal, but throwing in a private community where your students can engage with each other takes it to another level.
Similarly, creating a membership site that you regularly fill with new content gives your audience a reason to stick around—and keep paying you for the privilege.
3. AI Content Generator
Who isn’t using AI these days? Kajabi was quick to jump on the technology and introduce it into its platform.
It now features AI content generators for courses and creating your marketing content. And it doesn’t do a bad job of it, either. Simply plug in your prompts, and it will generate text for you. You’ll have to edit it some ways, but it gives you a good base to start from.
My favorite is the course generator. If you tell it what your course is about, it’ll create a full course outline, lesson content, landing pages, and even marketing emails. It’s generic stuff, mostly, but it saves you a lot of effort since you don’t have to start from scratch.
4. Easy Automation
When I first started using platforms like this, the automation part scared me off because it all seemed so complicated. The tools weren’t user-friendly at all.
Kajabi has turned things around and made automation accessible to all. You can set up a simple automation in just a few clicks, and if you want something more complex (like an email sequence), you can use the visual workflow feature to make it happen.
I would even go as far as saying that Kajabi has made creating automation processes fun!
5. Flexible Sales Tools
Kajabi has all the sales features you’d expect—subscriptions, payment plans, coupons, etc. However, there’s one I really like, and that’s allowing customers to “pay what they want.”
You can use this option with freebies. While the customer can still get it for free, some may be happy to pay a little toward it. It’s also a good option for low-cost offers—you can set a minimum price, but customers can pay a bit extra if they want.
Another tool I like is the “limited offer” where you can restrict the quantity or length of time it’s on sale. This creates a sense of urgency and nudges the customer toward making the purchase.
Six Things Kajabi Should Improve
1. Plan Limits
It’s no secret that Kajabi isn’t the cheapest platform around. With plans starting from $149/month, it can be a hefty investment for those who are yet to get their business off the ground.
While I fully believe the price represents great value in terms of the features you get, I also think that the plan limits could be more generous.
Kajabi places limits on the number of products, funnels, customers, contacts, and admin users you can have. For example, the Basic plan limits you to three products and funnels, so it won’t be long before you are forced to upgrade.
It is possible to double your plan limits by subscribing to Kajabi Access, but that’ll set you back another $99/month. The costs quickly add up.
2. Few Payment Gateways
Kajabi only offers a native integration with two payment gateways—PayPal and Stripe. While this will generally work for most people, it can be difficult for those in countries where these gateways aren’t commonly used or accepted payment methods. More regional payment gateway options would make the platform more accessible globally.
Kajabi has introduced its own payment gateway—Kajabi Payments—which is definitely a step in the right direction but is currently limited to account holders based in the USA.
The feature is also in limited beta mode in Canada and Australia, so it won’t be long before it’s fully rolled out in those places. Everyone else, unfortunately, will just have to sit tight and wait.
3. Limited Design Options
Don’t get me wrong—I think the templates offered on Kajabi are high-quality and give you a professional result. It’s just that there aren’t that many of them and they do look a bit “samey.”
Unless you heavily customize the design, your website or products will look very similar to others created by Kajabi.
This isn’t a huge problem, but those who are used to the flexibility and design options of a platform like WordPress might be disappointed.
4. Not for Physical Products
To be fair, Kajabi does not promote itself as a platform for selling physical products, but the limitation is there nonetheless.
You can add a Shopify “Buy” button to your Kajabi pages, but that means setting up (and paying for) another platform.
This complicates the setup process for those who want to sell a combination of digital and physical products and results in a less seamless experience for your customers.
5. No Way to Test Site Changes
Hands up—who has “broken” their website before? We’ve all done it. That’s why major website builders like WordPress include a staging area on the backend of their platforms.
If you’re making big changes to your site or anything else you have available online, it makes sense to have a safe space available to test it out and see if it works. That way, your site visitors won’t wind up on a 404 page or similar.
Unfortunately, Kajabi does not have a staging area available. It does have a “preview mode” where you can view what your pages and products will look like, but there’s no way to test them out before making them live.
6. Sales Tax Calculations
Manually dealing with sales taxes takes up SO much time, and it’s complicated since each country has its own tax rules.
Previously, Kajabi expected you to sort out sales tax yourself. More recently, it has introduced automatic sales tax handling, but there’s a catch.
The feature is only available via Kajabi Payments, which, as we learned earlier, is only available to those living in the USA, Canada, or Australia. So, if you don’t live in these countries, don’t throw away your calculator just yet.
Also, you’re charged for the privilege of using it too. A sales tax fee is imposed per transaction:
- USA: $0.15
- Australia: $0.20 AUD
- Australia: $0.20 CAD
Should You Still Use Kajabi?
No platform is perfect, but Kajabi has made every effort to position itself as a top player in its field. Sure, there are drawbacks to consider, but they are minimal in the grand scheme of things.
I’ve extensively reviewed all course-building platforms that are out there, and Kajabi consistently outperforms them all. In my opinion, if you’re okay with the high price tag, then you won’t be disappointed with Kajabi.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is Kajabi Best For?
Kajabi is best for creating and monetizing digital learning products. The platform has tools for building courses, podcasts, coaching products, and communities as well as everything you need to market and sell them.
What Are Some Benefits of Kajabi?
Some benefits of Kajabi are that it is a trusted brand and an all-in-one platform that allows you to create and sell diverse and engaging products. It’s beginner-friendly, has high-quality features, and provides a great user experience for all.
What Are Some Disadvantages of Kajabi?
Some disadvantages of Kajabi are that it is not cheap and plan limits can be restrictive. It has limited payment gateway options, and advanced users may find the design options limited. It’s also not suitable for selling physical products.
Is Kajabi Good for Beginners?
Kajabi is an excellent platform for beginners and is easy to learn and use. The platform guides you through the features step-by-step, and new users also have a setup guide to follow. The learning resources are high-quality and current.
Is Kajabi Suitable for Advanced Users?
Kajabi is great for advanced users and has a diverse range of customization features that seasoned course builders will love. The available templates may feel limited for advanced users, but these can be fully customized.
