The best Kajabi alternatives are:
Since its launch in 2010, Kajabi has helped over 50,000 online course creators across 120 countries to serve over 60 million students, generating over $1.5 billion in revenue.
Their army of users has established the platform as a predominant member of the online course industry. However, Kajabi, with its bells and whistles, is not the best fit for everyone.
This is mostly due to Kajabi’s pricing. The Kajabi discount helps, but sometimes it’s just not enough when you’re getting started.
Kajabi, as an all-in-one platform, has a lot of features that give it an edge over several regular online course platforms.
It has great features like communities, memberships, a sales funnel builder, webinars, email marketing, and more… But, its pricing is rather steep for most beginner/intermediate online course creators.
Is there any Kajabi alternative that can give you almost the same perks at a more budget-friendly price?
Absolutely. There are quite a few Kajabi alternatives that can give you great features at more affordable prices.
In this Kajabi alternative guide, we will explore some of the best Kajabi alternatives available in 2024. We will analyze their features and prices, along with their pros and cons, to help you make the best choice possible.
Sounds good? Let’s proceed!
Table of Contents
10 Best Kajabi Alternative Competitors
We’ve compiled ten of the best Kajabi alternatives in the market. As we go down the list, you will be able to weigh through all their attributes and see which one is probably the best option for you.
1. Teachable
Teachable is a top-rated online course platform, with over 100,000 course creators and 23 million students to its name.
It doesn’t come as an all-in-one platform like Kajabi but focuses on dominating one thing: course creation.
If you want to focus on honing your craft as a course creator solely, Teachable is an excellent choice. The course platform boasts of a few advanced features that are either limited or completely absent in Kajabi.
For example, Teachable automatically generates certificates of completion for your students, a feature that’s unavailable on Kajabi. Kajabi also doesn’t give you access to unlimited students on its paid plans.
Furthermore, the course building and course reporting tools on Teachable are more flexible and user-friendly.
One of Teachable’s lesser-known assets is its coaching module, which allows you to host coaching services. So, if you want to offer coaching services and online course creation, you can also do that on Teachable.
When it comes to overall user-friendliness, Teachable ranks high. Its interface is pretty straightforward and straightforward to use.
It uses a sidebar to show the main menus while the submenus are neatly arranged at the center of the screen.
Thus, you can smoothly proceed with course creation, account customization, and more with just a click.
Teachable’s course creation tools are, in general, superb. It’s easy to set up your course curriculum, upload your course content, set your pricing, and go live.
Speaking of pricing, Teachable gives you the freedom to have different pricing options for your online courses. You can offer your courses:
- for free,
- charge recurring fees through subscription,
- accept one-off payments,
- and even create payment packages.
You can also create coupon codes for promo sales on Teachable.
While there are no specific tools for memberships and digital downloads, you can still create memberships and sell digital products by setting up subscriptions and uploading downloadable content.
Just like Kajabi, Teachable allows you to run an affiliate program for your course(s). Thus, you can get more sales for your online courses with less marketing. Furthermore, you can integrate any third-party application with the platform to get a unique and overall better experience.
Starting at an affordable $29/month, Teachable is affordable when compared to Kajabi. If you’d like an in-depth Teachable review, you can read ours here.
Pros
- Simple, user-friendly interface
- Offers unlimited students, products, and video bandwidth
- Offers a drag-and-drop course creation tool and site builder, which makes it easy for ANYONE to build efficient websites for their online course business
- Provides upsell features that allow you to upsell to your students
- Has an iOS app
- Offers course compliance features that help you ensure that your students complete your courses
- Automatically generate course completion certificates for your students.
Cons
- Its native integrations are limited
- Minimal functionalities on the Basic plan
- Long payouts for users outside the US, UK, and Canada
2. Podia
If you want an all-in-one platform that comes at a lower price, then Podia is an excellent choice. Podia, just like Kajabi, provides a suite of tools needed to run an online business.
With this platform, you can sell online courses, host membership sites, and even sell digital downloads. Like Teachable, Podia allows you to have unlimited products, video bandwidth, emails, and students on all its plans.
Related: Podia vs Teachable
Unlike Kajabi, this only allows you to create a maximum of 15 products on its most popular pricing plan and a lot less on its lowest plan.
Podia is described as ‘pretty’ even by its competitor, Thinkific. This is because the platform’s interface is very captivating.
On your dashboard, you’d see your main menus boldly and neatly arranged on the screen so you can quickly begin creating your membership site, online course, or digital download with a click.
When it comes to online courses, Podia’s course builder makes the process a cakewalk.
It starts you off with uploading your course content and breaking them into sections. Afterward, you’ll be able to create settings like start date, content dripping, third-party integrations, etc., for your course. You’ll also set up your pricing, add coupon codes, manage comments, etc.
The course builder is super-easy to use, and even newbies can create a fully-fledged course in a snap.
Podia’s editor allows you to customize the look and feel of your site. That way, you can create sales pages that are not just beautiful but also efficient.
Podia comes with in-built email marketing tools that allow you to send newsletters and drip campaigns. It also allows you to segment your students according to courses they bought and even track open and click rates to monitor how your emails perform.
Podia’s costs are low, with their basic plan starting at $39/month. For a more in-depth analysis of Podia, read this review.
Pros
- Charges reasonably lower for dozens of features
- Offers free migration
- Allows unlimited courses, students, storage, etc.
- Fast and friendly customer support
- Offers instant payout
- Easy to use
- Charges zero transaction fees
- Allows you to create quizzes
Cons
- Does not support cloud import
- No passing grades for quizzes
- No course completion certificates
Related:
3. Thinkific
Thinkific is another Kajabi alternative that focuses on online course creation. With over 50,000 content creators and $650 million in sales, Thinkific is undoubtedly a reliable course building platform.
Thinkific focuses on helping every course creator produce highly engaging courses using rich multimedia content. Thus, the platform supports all content types, including videos, Articulate, Typeform, surveys, Captivate, Google Docs, etc.
Thinkific’s interface is simple; however, it looks pretty outdated and unappealing.
Past that, it is relatively easy to create a course on the platform.
Thinkific provides several templates to help you create courses faster. There are templates available for mini-courses, flagship courses, pre-sells, membership resource libraries, webinar replays, etc. If you prefer starting from scratch, you can choose the blank option.
Thinkific’s site builder makes it easy for any course creator to build and brand their website. You can add your brand logo and color, along with text formats and images, to give your site a unique feel.
Unlike Teachable, Thinkific’s site builder is more customizable and gives you access to three different themes.
If you’re still working on launching your course, Thinkific pricing plans are affordable, and there’s even a free plan! Check out this guide for a more thorough review of Thinkific.
Pros
- No transaction fees
- Has a free plan
- Supports all content formats
- Impressive customizability
Cons
- Lacks inbuilt features for email marketing and sales funnel building
- Its interface is not so appealing.
4. LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is a powerful course creation platform with exciting features. One of the most exciting things about LearnWorlds is that it allows owning a branded mobile app for your school.
The platform allows you to sell courses, host membership sites, and create webinars.
LearnWorld’s user interface looks a little intimidating due to the numerous features and buttons they try to cram into a single page. But after a little while, it gets pretty easy to use.
As far as course creation goes, LearnWorlds performs amazingly. It allows you to extract and show transcripts from your course videos with just one button.
You can even make your videos more interactive by adding hotspots, overlay images, questions, and more without post-production.
LearnWorlds allows you to set up SEO for your courses as well. That way, you can get organic traffic to your school via search engines.
LearnWorld’s email marketing tools are also very robust and make it a lot easier to get more leads, repeat sales, and more revenue. There are just too many features on LearnWorlds that you may want to take a little more time to master the platform entirely.
Pros
- Has a lot of cool features for online courses, memberships, and even blogging
- Allows you to create incredibly interactive courses
- Has an in-built ebook maker
- Gives you access to a custom mobile app
- Allows you to have a course in multiple languages
- Offers multiple payment gateways systems for easier payouts
Cons
- Most of its outstanding features are not available on their Pro Trainer plan
- Charges a transaction fee on its Starter Plan
- Clustered interface makes it a little harder to master
5. Teachery
The remarkable thing about Teachery is that it doesn’t try to hold back some features to differentiate between its payment packages, and you won’t worry about paying any transaction fee as well.
Teachery is a simple online course platform that focuses on entrepreneurs who simply want to create online courses and nothing more.
It comes packed with the essential features you’d need to grow your online course business. This includes unlimited everything (courses, students, landing pages, and sales pages), affiliate marketing, lesson dripping, etc.
As far as courses go, Teachery emphasizes simplicity, providing only what you need to have your course up and running in a snap.
Pros
- Straightforward, beginner-friendly platform
- Puts no limit on you
- Straightforward pricing
- Supports custom HTML
- Offers the same features on both plans
Cons
- Limited marketing features
- Unattractive sales page templates
6. Ruzuku
Ruzuku is one of the simplest, beginner-friendly alternatives to Kajabi. The platform claims to make it ‘ridiculously easy’ to teach online.
It comes with all the commonly requested features for online courses, including content dripping, evergreen courses, unlimited courses, etc.
One thing that makes Ruzuku stand out is its communication system. You can interact with your students in real-time while they’re in the middle of their lessons.
The quizzing features on Ruzuku are pretty advanced and allow students to post PDFs, videos, images, and texts in their responses.
Creating courses on Ruzuku is super easy because they do not try to overwhelm you with options.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Advanced quizzing system
- Students have social bios and pictures for your course community
- Has its own streaming system for webinars
Cons
- Has no in-built email or sales tools
- Relatively unappealing landing pages
- Elementary offerings on its lowest plan
7. Udemy
Udemy is a tad different from the alternatives you’ve seen so far on this list. This is because it is an online learning marketplace where students come shopping for courses.
Also, Udemy is hands down the most SEO compliant online course platform right now. If you have your courses running on Udemy, you have a chance of getting organic traffic through search engines.
So far, Udemy has recorded over 290 million enrollments across nearly 200 countries with over 150,000 courses. Thus it is undoubtedly one of the most popular online course marketplaces in 2020.
Creating courses on Udemy is very straightforward, and the platform helps you do the marketing for you. You only need to focus on dishing out high-quality courses.
Their bulk uploader allows you to upload all your files at once, so it’s a lot faster to get the ground running.
Creating courses on Udemy is entirely free. However, it runs on a revenue-sharing model where you split your revenue by certain percentages. The percentage usually depends on factors such as the traffic source, coupons, referrals, etc.
They explained everything in detail here.
If you’re a beginner with no budget, you may want to get started with Udemy to generate some income before moving on to a more flexible platform.
Pros
- Helps you market your courses
- Completely free to use
- Easy to use
Cons
- Does not give you 100% privacy and control over your student data
- Subjects you to the marketplace algorithm. Thus some people have a hard time getting sales on the marketplace
- No customization options
- Not a great place to build a brand
Skillshare is a lot more like Udemy, but it caters to creatives. Some people refer to it as the Netflix of online courses.
The platform allows users to create video courses ranging from 20 to 60 minutes long. You’re also allowed to create projects to give your students hands-on experiences with your tutorials, and there is a community forum available for them to share their works.
The great thing about Skillshare is that they already have a vast pool of students looking for courses to buy.
Like Udemy, it doesn’t cost anything to host courses on Skillshare. However, there are trade-offs associated with this.
Skillshare operates on a subscription model. This means that students pay a monthly subscription fee to get access to courses on Skillshare. Thus, you don’t ever get paid directly by students.
You only earn through premium referrals and royalties. With Premium referrals, you earn $10 for every new student you get to sign up for Skillshare. With Royalties, you get paid based on how many minutes students spend on your classes every month.
According to Skillshare, their top teachers make at least $100,000 per year.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Free to use
- Has a huge pool of students ready to take courses
- Does most of the marketing for you
Cons
- You don’t own your customers
- You have limited control over how well your courses perform
- You’re subject to algorithms
9. WizIQ
WizIQ is a Learning Management System (LMS) that you can use to create virtual classrooms, host and sell online courses, and offer training to customers and partners.
The virtual classroom can contain well over 200 attendees and supports files, presentations, and videos.
The virtual classroom is a little different from the live webinar features on other course building platforms because it includes an online whiteboard, which gives it a full classroom vibe.
Its course builder is brilliant and allows you to create highly interactive, self-paced courses within minutes.
You can also create and analyze assessments using multimedia files in 9 different formats.
WizIQ owns a mobile app for all devices, making it a lot easier for your students to learn on the go.
Pros
- Helps you to build a highly interactive course
- Very beginner-friendly interface
- Offers a superb live classroom feature
- Fast and efficient customer support
Cons
- Doesn’t offer unlimited cloud storage for your files
- Offers only monthly payouts
10. Systeme.io
Systeme.io is another alternative to Kajabi, which also functions as an all-in-one platform. It allows you to do much more than creating, marketing, and selling courses online. It provides one of the best platforms for running your entire online business.
It comes with an autoresponder and allows you to send unlimited emails and build sales funnels. You also get access to an affiliate program and a blog for your products.
Furthermore, Systeme.io provides great marketing automation, one-click upsells, memberships, webinars, and impressive design options.
Its course builder is also easy to use, with easy-to-grasp steps outlined for you. You only have to fill them out as you build your way up.
Pros
- Offers similar features to Kajabi at very low prices
- Allows you to create unlimited emails and sales funnel
- Offers market automation features
Cons
- Does not have any external integrations for email, analytics, etc. You have to use the internal tools provided by the platform
- Limited design flexibility
- Takes a little longer to master
Learn more information about Systeme.io in our review.
Honorable Course Comparisons:
Related:
Types of Course Creation Platforms
Course Creation Software
Course creation software allows you to host and sell online courses independently. You own all the data associated with your school and are allowed to stand as a brand.
You also get tons of customization options for your landing pages, course assessments, and even content delivery.
You get access to a wide variety of marketing tools that you can use to bring sales to your online course business. Generally, course creation software comes with monthly fees, and a few include transaction fees as well.
Course Marketplaces
Course marketplaces are precisely what they sound like: an online marketplace with a massive pool of online courses where you can go shopping for new skills.
For online course creators, course marketplaces present great opportunities to have your courses in front of people already willing to buy. While you could slightly tweak your landing pages, there is very minimal customizability associated with course marketplaces.
Most of these platforms don’t charge anything. You could sign up and host your online course free of charge. Thus, they’re the best fit for beginners with no budget.
Learning Management Systems
A Learning Management System (LMS) is quite similar to course creation software. However, this platform is mostly tailored for institutions and corporate bodies looking to train their staff and partners.
This guide on Kajabi alternatives is meant for regular individuals who just want to sell courses. But we understand that it’s possible for you to be curious about what an LMS is. So we didn’t skip it entirely. WizIQ is one regular LMS we included in the list above.
We’ll also consider some of the best WordPress LMS plugins in the next section.
Best WordPress Website LMS Plugins
If you already run a WordPress website, you might want just to host your courses right there. One of the best ways to do this is to use an LMS plugin
The main benefit of using an LMS plugin on your WordPress site is that you cannot limit what you can do. You control everything. You can create as many courses as you want, enroll as many students as possible, and even use all the features you like.
However, one downside to it is that you might need some tech skills to get the plugin to work properly. You’d also be responsible for your school’s maintenance, speed, and security.
So if this seems like a challenge you can tackle, here are some of the best plugins you can use to host courses on your WordPress site.
1. LearnDash
LearnDash has been the go-to solution for businesses, universities, and training institutions because of its robustness. It has many features, including ones that foster student engagement, like forums, awards, and course certificates.
LearnDash is, however, limited in a few places, such as its shopping cart feature. But you can always get a better shopping cart plugin to beat this limitation.
2. LearnPress
LearnPress effectively supercharges a WordPress website with course management functionalities. It is currently used on over 200,000 active websites.
It has a free version with basic features. However, to get more premium functionalities, you’d need to sign up for a paid package.
3. LifterLMS
LifterLMS is pretty easy to use. You can use it to create and market online courses and even create a membership site as well.
However, to get access to advanced functionalities like quizzes, you’d need to purchase its add-on or get a premium plan.
What Type of Platform is Kajabi?
Answer: Kajabi is an all-in-one platform. This means that you can use it for more than just your online courses. It has all the tools you require for running any online business, including coaching services, memberships, digital downloads, etc.
Kajabi provides tools for hosting online courses and gives you a full suite of marketing tools.
Kajabi Features
- Drag-and-drop page builder
- Create online courses, membership sites, digital products, webinars, and more
- Blog
- Sales funnel builder
- Email marketing tools
- Customization for content delivery, sales pages, etc.
- Mobile app
- Multiple payment processors
Sales and Marketing Automation
Kajabi allows you to automate your marketing using its highly optimized pipelines. These pipelines will enable you to create sequences of marketing content that nurture your leads until they become customers.
You do not need to build these from scratch, as Kajabi already has several blueprints you can just use to get the dice rolling in a snap.
There are several ‘if… then’ rules you can include in your sequences to determine how your leads are managed.
For example, if you have a lead that has not engaged with your content or taken any actions in a while, the system will automatically unsubscribe them from your list.
When a student completes a form for an event, they receive a custom email or get auto-registered for the event.
Kajabi Frequently Asked Questions:
- Is Kajabi Good for Non Profit Organizations?
- What Integrations Does Kajabi Offer?
- Can You Host Audio On Kajabi?
- Can I Use Custom Domains on Any Kajabi Plan?
Why Most Kajabi Users Look for An Alternative
Kajabi is an excellent solution for anyone who wants to run an entire business with one platform. However, it is not a good fit for some users.
For example, if you want to focus on creating online courses solely, then Kajabi might be overkill. Also, if you’re a beginner with a modest budget, Kajabi’s starting price might be quite steep for you, and you may cancel your subscription within a few months.
There are quite a few crucial functionalities that aren’t available on Kajabi, which could also be a turn-off. For example, Kajabi doesn’t offer certificates of completion. This is very important for students and enough motivation for you to go looking for a Kajabi alternative.
Our Top Recommended Pick Out of the Kajabi Alternatives
To find a course platform that works best for you, you’d need to consider a few crucial factors, like your budget, design experience, and how much time you’re willing to dedicate to creating a course.
It is hard to find a platform that has it all. However, you can always find one that serves most of your needs as a course creator.
With that said, Teachable is the best Kajabi alternative in our opinion.
Here’s why:
It’s super-easy to use and provides a ton of great features, some of which aren’t even natively available on Kajabi.
For example, Teachable offers certificates of completion and also automatically handles taxes for EU residents. It also allows you to have unlimited students, while Kajabi limits you to a few thousand active contacts.