Thanks to the rapid growth of the e-learning industry, there’s no shortage of excellent platforms for online businesses selling a course, membership site, or other digital products.
But because there are so many of them, it’s hard to identify the best one.
To help you choose wisely, we decided to differentiate two of the most promising software as of today: Kajabi and DropFunnels.
Keep scrolling to learn more about their features, capabilities, and pricing.
Table of Contents
- What is Kajabi?
- Why Choose Kajabi?
- What is DropFunnels?
- Why Choose DropFunnels?
- Pros and Cons of Each Platform
- Which Has Better Pricing Options?
- Which provides a better user interface?
- Which platform has a better course, membership site feature, and website builder?
- Which provides more sales and marketing features?
- Other Important Things to Consider
- DropFunnels vs. Kajabi: Which Should You Choose?
What is Kajabi?
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for content creation that empowers you to share your knowledge and expertise with the world.
With its intuitive design, you can easily create and promote online courses, coaching programs, podcasts, membership sites, and more.
Its built-in CRM helps you manage your people and grow your business. And because of its native and third-party integration, you can extend its functionality to fit your specific needs.
Why Choose Kajabi?
Using Kajabi is like getting the best of both worlds. You get to control your entire business in one place and escape the process of mixing and matching complicated tools. We make a price comparison between Kajabi and using a tech stack in our review of Kajabi.
Besides the fantastic course and membership site builder, Kajabi offers excellent marketing tools, website builder, analytics, affiliate management, and student management features.
So whether you’re a first-time user, seasoned online entrepreneur, or expert course creator, Kajabi can help you grow your business and achieve your goals.
What is DropFunnels?
DropFunnels is an extensive software that gives you everything you need to operate and scale your online business. It’s built on WordPress so that you can expect flexibility and power.
With DropFunnels, you can quickly create high-converting landing pages, membership sites and online courses, SEO-optimized websites, and code-free blogs.
Even though this tool is newer than Kajabi, it’s a strong contender in the course, membership site builder, and funnel builder category.
Hence we created this much-needed comparison.
Why Choose DropFunnels?
DropFunnels allow you to boost organic traffic and conversion rates through premium funnels and optimized web pages.
It also removes the need to download multiple plugins and tools so that online businesses can operate smoothly and efficiently.
Pros and Cons of Each Platform
Kajabi
Pros
- All-in-one platform.
- Smooth course creation process.
- Built-in blueprints for sales funnels and digital products
- Better and more user-friendly builder for membership sites
- Customizable and premium-looking themes and templates
- Affiliate management program
- Built-in automation
Cons
- More expensive than DropFunnels and other funnel builders or platforms
- Lacking funnel features when compared to DropFunnels
DropFunnels
Pros
- Create unlimited funnels, courses, and membership sites at a more affordable price
- More customizable and flexible course, page, and sales funnel builder
- Offers more advanced funnels than other funnel builders
- Has order tracking system and link tracking system
- Provides custom domains
Cons
- Lacks marketing features like email campaigns and affiliate management
- Doesn’t offer a separate membership site builder
- Although the interface is user-friendly, there’s a little learning curve because of its features
Which Has Better Pricing Options?
Kajabi and DropFunnels offer three types of plans for their users. However, there’s quite a difference between the prices and the features included.
Kajabi Pricing Plans
Kajabi’s pricing options are as follows:
- Kickstarter – $69/month or $660/year
- Basic – $149/month or $1,428/year
- Growth – $199/month or $1,908/year
- Pro – $399/month or $3,828/year
What’s good about Kajabi is that you get all the necessary features in all plans. That includes unlimited emails, unlimited landing pages, site builder, funnels and product builder, assessments, and access to automation and integrations.
All plans also provide a 0% transaction fee, which is a huge advantage for online businesses that rely on digital products or services.
Regardless of your selected plan, you’ll be able to create an entire business and build a solid user experience.
The distinction of the plans falls to the number of products, funnels, websites, admin users, and contacts you can have. Let’s discuss each of them to give you a better idea:
Basic Plan
The Basic plan is a good starting point for users who are still exploring which online products or courses to offer. With this plan, you can:
- Create up to three products and funnels
- Accommodate 10,000 contacts and 1,000 active members
- Build one website
- Use Kajabi’s built-in themes and templates
- Give access to one admin user
- Get a 1-on-1 welcome and check-in call with a Kajabi expert
- Receive email support
Growth Plan
If your business has gained some traction and you’re now ready to upscale, the Growth plan is the most ideal for you.
- Launch up to 15 products and funnels
- Take in 25,000 contacts and 10,000 active customers
- Give access to 10 admin users
- Create advanced automation
- Remove Kajabi branding on your website
- Launch affiliate management program
- Get 24/7 email and live chat support
Pro Plan
The highest plan of Kajabi is perfect for those building a course or digital product empire. That can be schools offering MOOCs (massive online open courses) or course creators with a huge online presence.
Some of the features you get with this plan are:
- 100 funnels and products
- 100,000 contacts and 20,000 active members
- Three websites
- 25 admin users
- Code editor for full website customization
DropFunnels Pricing Plans
DropFunnels offer more affordable deals for its users. Here are the available plans under this platform:
- Lite Plan – $49/month or $490/year
- Starter Plan – $97/month or $970/year
- Ultimate Plan – $299/month or $2997/year
You can build a safe and secure website with fast loading and mobile-friendly pages in all plans.
You can also get access to 1-click upsells, customizable checkout, SEO framework, link tracker, premium themes, and custom domains.
Like Kajabi, the main difference between plans is the limitations. Here is the inclusion of each plan:
Lite Plan
- One domain and website
- Up to three funnels
- Access to drag and drop visual editor
- Unlimited landing pages and products
If you’re looking for the best plan that will give you access to powerful funnels and let you sell as many products as you want, you can go for the Lite Plan.
However, this plan doesn’t include membership sites and course creation tools.
Starter Plan
- Get two custom domain and DropFunnels accounts
- Unlimited funnels and pipelines
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited membership sites and courses
- Launch SMS marketing via Twilio
- Access to CRM to accommodate unlimited contacts
The Starter Plan is the most popular choice among online entrepreneurs due to its satisfying features.
If you want to offer more to your customers and create a better process for your online sales, then this plan is the best.
Ultimate Plan
- Up to 10 DropFunnels accounts, custom domains, and websites
- Access to unlimited features
- Private onboarding session for users
- Video hosting
As the name implies, the features of this plan are indeed Ultimate. It’s a big jump from the Starter plan and ideal for entrepreneurs and companies running multiple businesses.
Winner: Tie. Although DropFunnels provide more affordable pricing options, Kajabi offers more tools and features essential for your online business.
Which provides a better user interface?
When it comes to user experience, both Kajabi and DropFunnels deliver. They are beginner-friendly, well-designed, minimal, and highly responsive.
I had smooth interaction with both tools and didn’t encounter any glitches.
Although they are much the same, I like the user interface of Kajabi more than DropFunnels.
First, Kajabi offers a spotlight search on its dashboard. It makes the software more navigable because you can simply type the keyword on the search bar, and it will show you possible results.
This isn’t available on DropFunnels, but the platform has the “Quick Links” button. When you click it, you’ll see a short list of the most common actions you’ll take.
Another thing I like about Kajabi is its dashboard part shows a checklist and valuable resources for newbies.
On the other hand, DropFunnels’ dashboard is just revenue reports. Although it’s still informative and helpful, I find the resources of Kajabi more useful for first-time users.
Winner: Kajabi.
Which platform has a better course, membership site feature, and website builder?
DropFunnels offers more customization. For example, you can edit the design and content of the default course pages like the course login, welcome page, and dashboard.
The platform allows you to add a progress bar, button, countdown, and even popups inside your course, membership site, and website builder. These widgets add more interactivity and can further engage your audience.
These features are also available on Kajabi, but you can only use them inside the website and page builder. The course and membership site editor is much simpler and limited.
However, you’re still allowed to do some customization, like changing the theme, color, and font of your courses.
Regarding convenience and efficiency, Kajabi has the edge over DropFunnels.
Kajabi provides product blueprints which are pre-made page templates that you can use for your courses, membership sites, coaching programs, community, and more.
The blueprints contain tips on what to include in each lesson so you can improve the quality of courses for a better user experience.
DropFunnels doesn’t have this one, and there’s no separate option for membership sites, so you have to use the course builder.
Winner: Tie. DropFunnels has more customization ideal for advanced users. While Kajabi has product blueprints that are more convenient for beginners.
Which provides more sales and marketing features?
Landing Pages and Funnels
These two aren’t just for lead generation. You can use a funnel or landing page to increase the conversion rate and boost sales.
Both Kajabi and DropFunnels provide a builder for creating high-converting sales funnels and landing pages. They also offer built-in templates you can choose and edit to fit your needs.
However, DropFunnels has some advantages over Kajabi.
First, it provides more choices regarding landing page templates and design. For example, it has available pages for call-bookings, upsells, video sales letters, and more.
These extra page types can come in handy for most businesses.
Another advantage of DropFunnels is that it has Full Funnels, a series of pages designed to guide your visitors towards your goal.
It’s a little similar to Kajabi’s Pipeline, but instead of generic blueprints, you get fully designed pages available for different industries.
Lastly, DropFunnels allows you to A/B test your sales funnel to determine which version converts better. This feature is crucial for any business that wants to measure and improve its marketing efforts.
Email Marketing Feature
Kajabi is the only one that offers built-in email marketing.
The platform has an email campaign builder and autoresponder. You can use them to nurture your leads, engage your customers, and increase sales.
DropFunnels, on the other hand, doesn’t have these features, but it’s still possible to integrate with third-party email marketing platforms like Mailchimp and AWeber.
This means you’ll have to pay for another subscription on top of your DropFunnels membership fee.
So if email marketing is vital to your business, then Kajabi is the better choice.
eCommerce Tools
Most features on DropFunnels are also available on Kajabi.
Let’s start with the payment gateways. Both platforms are integrated with Stripe and Paypal, the two most popular payment processors today. This feature allows you to get paid quickly.
Next, if you want to provide enticing options for your audience and encourage them to buy, you can do the following with each platform:
- Offer coupons or discount codes.
- Change the product currency to match your target market.
- Create deals that contain multiple products sold at a lower price.
- Provide more affordable pricing options with multiple or recurring pricing plans.
- Increase sales through order bumps and one-click upsells or downsells.
Winner: Tie. When it comes to funnel builders, DropFunnels offer more customization than Kajabi. However, they have the same features for eCommerce except for affiliate management, and Kajabi has native email marketing tools while DropFunnels doesn’t have one.
Other Important Things to Consider
Customer Support & Resources
Kajabi has better customer support than DropFunnels. It offers a welcome and check-in call for new users so you can get help with using the platform.
The company has a dedicated support team available 24/7 to answer your questions. You can reach them through chat or email.
Additionally, Kajabi has a rich knowledge base called Help Center, where you can find answers to common problems and detailed how-to guides.
If you want to learn more about business growth and marketing fundamentals, you can access Kajabi University for free.
In contrast, DropFunnels onboarding call is only available for the highest plan. But they have a support team you can reach by submitting a ticket. Moreover, they also have a knowledge base, but since it’s still new, it’s not as extensive as Kajabi yet.
Winner: Kajabi.
Automation and Integrations
Both platforms allow third-party integrations, but Kajabi has more. You can directly connect it with popular applications like Facebook Pixel, Aweber, Drip, MailChimp, and Typeform. You can use Zapier or inbound and outbound webhooks if you want to connect more apps.
Webhooks are URLs that allow two apps to communicate with each other automatically. When an action is completed in one app, the webhook triggers a step in the other app. This allows for seamless communication and automation between two apps.
In addition to integrations, Kajabi has built-in automation, which you can use to save time on repetitive tasks.
For example, you can set up an automated email sequence triggered when someone subscribes to your list.
DropFunnels doesn’t have automation, and most integrations are only available through Zapier.
Winner: Kajabi. You can streamline your workflows better with this platform.
Student Engagement Tools
DropFunnels and Kajabi offer gamification of your courses through quizzes and surveys. It can help increase student engagement and make learning more fun.
These two platforms also allow you to track your student’s progress. Knowing this information can help you improve your course content and make it more effective.
However, some features make Kajabi a better choice.
For example, you can filter your member’s progress and view them based on the product or custom segment. In addition, you can click the member’s name and get a more detailed overview of their progress.
These features aren’t available on DropFunnels.
Kajabi also allows you to create a private community for your students where they can connect with you and other members. This is a great way to build relationships and keep your students engaged even after they finish your course.
Winner: Kajabi.
DropFunnels vs. Kajabi: Which Should You Choose?
It’s been a close fight. There are some parts where Kajabi has the advantage, and somewhere DropFunnels does.
Choose Kajabi Over DropFunnels
If you’re like me who want to create, manage, and promote everything in one place, choose Kajabi. You’ll need to pay more, but you’ll also get more useful features. That includes affiliate management access and blueprints for a membership site and course creation.
Additionally, Kajabi is more user-friendly and intuitive. It’s a perfect fit for busy business owners and entrepreneurs.
Choose DropFunnels Over Kajabi
However, if you want access to more advanced sales features like the tracking system, page builder, and funnel builder for a much lower price, then DropFunnels is the better platform for you.
If you’re still undecided, take advantage of the 14-day free trial offered by Kajabi (learn about Kajabi’s extended trials) and DropFunnels.
Related Comparisons:
