Kajabi vs Shopify – Which Online Business Platform Should You Choose in 2024?

Selling online courses and digital products is a great way to make extra money or turn your hobby into a full-time business.

But before you can start, you need to choose an online platform that can attend to all your needs.

To help you decide, we picked two of the well-known platforms in the industry – Kajabi Vs Shopify. Keep reading to see which one we think is the better option for you.

What is Kajabi?

Kajabi is a comprehensive business platform that allows you to sell digital products like online courses, membership sites, and coaching programs.

It’s a hybrid of a Learning Management System (LMS) and an eCommerce platform that makes it easy to build, market, sell and deliver your content.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that allows you to sell physical and digital products and services. It’s a great option because of its versatility.

Like Kajabi, Shopify offers tons of great features. That includes:

• website and blog builder,
• email marketing tools,
• more than 70 payment gateways,
• and more!

Similarities Between Kajabi and Shopify

Before discussing the differences, let’s look at the similarities between the two platforms.

• Subscription-based. You need to pay monthly or annually to use Kajabi or Shopify.
• Third-party Integrations. You can integrate Shopify andKajabi with other software to extend the functionality of your online business. 
• Fantastic Customer Support. Both platforms pride themselves on having outstanding customer support that is always available to assist you.
• Free trial. The platforms offer a 14-day free trial. Both require your credit card information. 
• Drag-and-drop page builder. You can create beautiful pages easily with Kajabi and Shopify by simply clicking and dragging elements on the left sidebar.
• SEO features. They guarantee fast-loading websites and offer basic on-page SEO like adding your keyword to the title, URL, and description.

Critical Differences Between Kajabi and Shopify

These are the things you should consider before choosing which platform to use.

Kajabi Is an All-In-One Business Platform; Shopify Is an Online Store Platform.

Kajabi is more than just an eCommerce platform; it has everything you need to create, grow and manage your business online.

On the other hand, Shopify is great for those who want to build an online store to sell their products and services. You can get many features for selling, but you’ll need to use other software if you want to do more than that.

Shopify Is More Affordable Than Kajabi.

Shopify plans start at $19/month, while Kajabi’s lowest plan costs $149/month. In addition, the highest plan of Shopify is at $299/mo., but Kajabi’s goes up to $399/mo.

Kajabi Is for Digital Products; Shopify Is for Physical Products and Digital Downloads.

Kajabi’s mission is to streamline creating and selling digital products like online courses, membership sites, webinars, podcasts, etc.

In contrast, Shopify is the best for selling physical products. You can also sell some digital ones like printable art, PDFs, eBooks, and audio files. However, you’ll need to download other apps on the Shopify store to do so.

Related:

• Can you sell physical products on Kajabi too?
• Can you schedule coaching with Kajabi?
• Does Kajabi have an audio player?

Kajabi and Shopify: Comprehensive Comparison of Features

Online Course Creation and Membership Site

Kajabi

Kajabi offers one of the best and smoothest creation tools for online courses and membership sites. They are extensive and user-friendly. So, you can create high-quality and engaging online courses without any headaches.

Shopify

In contrast, Shopify doesn’t have a built-in online course and membership creation tool. To add this function to your Shopify account, you either integrate an LMS platform, like Kajabi and Thinkific or install the add-on “Courses” from the Shopify store.

Winner: Kajabi. It has all the tools you need for creating digital products. It also includes blueprints and guidelines to speed up your creation process.

Website Builder (Themes & Templates)

Kajabi 

Kajabi website builder allows you to create premium and responsive websites and landing pages without coding, thanks to its drag-and-drop editor.

If you’re not into designing but want a website that looks great, Kajabi offers premade templates and themes that are both mobile-responsive and professionally designed.

Shopify

Likewise, Shopify also has an excellent website builder that is user-friendly and code-free. You can also choose from its list of stylish and customizable themes.

Both platforms have great website builders and themes. However, Kajabi offers more.

Shopify doesn’t provide separate templates for web pages. So you can only apply one theme to your whole website.

In contrast, Kajabi has numerous templates that you can use on different landing pages like sales, webinar, about me, and thank you pages. It also provides a blank template if you want to create something from scratch.

These features allow you to add pages to your website without affecting the design of the other pages.

Winner: Kajabi. Kajabi’s website builder is more user-friendly and offers more customizable templates for web pages.

Pipelines

You need a pipeline to turn strangers into website visitors, visitors into leads, and leads into customers.

Not having a designated sales funnel for your product or service can result in lost sales opportunities.

Kajabi

Kajabi is in the lead when it comes to this. It offers advanced, comprehensive, and fully-customizable pipelines and sales funnels. 

It’s pretty simple to create Kajabi pipelines. You just need to choose what blueprint you’d like to use and edit the content. If necessary, you can also add more steps or change their order.

Shopify

In contrast, Shopify doesn’t have built-in pipeline blueprints or sales funnels. You’ll need to download and integrate another app to have this feature in your online store.

Winner: Kajabi. There is no need to think about the stages one by one, and you can easily automate your process from marketing to selling and delivering digital products.

Email Marketing

When it comes to email marketing, both platforms are excellent! They offer off-the-shelf yet customizable templates to make your emails look good.

Adding liquid objects, however, is much easier on Kajabi. Liquid objects are the part of your email broadcast that can be personalized.

With Kajabi email marketing, you can insert them by simply clicking or creating a custom one through a form.

For Shopify, however, you’ll need some knowledge about HTML to be able to add liquid objects to your emails.

Winner: Kajabi. Kajabi offers more design options for your email templates and is easier to use, even for those with no coding knowledge.

Sales & Checkout Pages (Sales Channels)

Kajabi and Shopify offer a responsive and customizable sales and checkout page. You can add things that increase your sales and make your pages more effective. For example, you can:

• add testimonials,
• change design and content,
• add banner image, footer, or service agreement,
• and add an upsell or order bump.

The difference is that Shopify provides more sales channels to its users. In addition, it accepts more payment methods without third-party integrations.

Sales Channels

Through Shopify, you can connect your Facebook, own website, or Shop app, and more to start selling.

Kajabi, on the other hand, only allows you to sell through their platform via Stripe and PayPal payment processors.

Payment Methods

With Shopify, you can accept money online without any hassle. Shopify accepts major credit cards, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, and even cryptocurrency payments. It will be convenient for your students or customers to pay you.

You may also add manual payment methods like bank deposits and cash on delivery.

In contrast, Kajabi’s built-in integration is only with PayPal and Stripe. But you can add third-party integration through Zapier.

Winner: Shopify. It provides accessibility to you and your customers with the different sales channels and payment methods available.

Visitors and Students Engagement

Interactive Activities (Quizzes, Surveys, Etc.)

Since Shopify doesn’t have a built-in course creation tool, you can’t offer quizzes, surveys, or assessments for your students directly at your Shopify account. It’s something you can do with the help of the LMS platform, like Kajabi.

Kajabi is the best platform for online course sellers as it offers more features for engagement and interactivity. Moreover, you can add quizzes to your courses and on landing pages and opt-in forms.

Community

The community is another thing you can offer with Kajabi that is not present in Shopify.

Kajabi has a built-in community feature, which is a great place to engage and support your students. It also lets you create forums or topic discussions to encourage interaction among your students.

Winner: Kajabi. You can increase engagement without additional costs or integrations.

Automation

They both offer email and eCommerce automation. You just need to set it up once, and it will do its job in the background.

Shopify and Kajabi have similar automation like cart abandonment emails, sending coupons, and adding tags.

Kajabi offers more basic automation than Shopify, which is helpful for beginners. You can streamline your pipelines, forms, posts, and almost everything on your Kajabi website.

However, Shopify’s automation is more powerful. It allows you to add cool-down periods and multiple actions and conditions in one automation.

Winner: Tie. Shopify is perfect for you if you want a more advanced platform, but if you’re just looking for essential ones, Kajabi is also good.

Pricing Comparison

Kajabi

Kajabi offers three types of plans – Basic Plan ($149/month), Growth ($199/month), and Pro ($399/month).

Editor’s Note: Kajabi introduced the Kickstarter plan, which now starts at $69/month – check it out here.

Every plan allows you to create unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, webinars, events, and assessments. All plans also have a zero transaction fee.

Shopify

Shopify also has three pricing plans:

• Basic plan – $19/month
• Shopify – $49/month
• Advanced – $299/month

The good thing about Shopify is you can offer unlimited products on any plan. All plans provide access to marketing automation, unlimited contacts, and 24/7 support. You also get a free SSL certificate that ensures your website’s safety.

Annual Pricing

Both Kajabi and Shopify provide a discount for users paying annually. Kajabi gives a 20% discount, while Shopify offers 10%.

Shopify vs Kajabi – Which One Should You Choose

The Shopify vs Kajabi debate is a never-ending one. And it’s not surprising because, in many ways, they’re two of the best platforms out there.

But which one should you choose?

I’d recommend Kajabi. It’s a comprehensive tool that assists you in your online business journey – from creating and selling courses to building a community of engaged students.

On the contrary, Shopify is more suited for businesses focused on eCommerce. If you’re looking just to sell products, Shopify would be a better option.

Still, it all boils down to your business needs. So feel free to claim their free trials and see which one works best for you.

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