Most businesses, coaches, and course creators usually struggle to find an online platform to host their business. Two commonly compared online tools are ThriveCart and Kajabi.
Kajabi is a leading online course platform, while ThriveCart is a well known checkout cart platform for digital products that have entered the course hosting business.
In this Thrivecart and Kajabi comparison, I’ll discuss everything you need to know and tell you which is the better investment.
Table of Contents
What is Kajabi?
Kajabi is a comprehensive course platform that provides the necessary features to launch, grow, and manage online businesses.
It’s the ideal software for:
- Content creators offering high-quality digital learning products
- Companies who want to build a complete online presence using a single platform
- Learning and development teams aiming for genuinely engaging training experiences
What is ThriveCart?
In comparison, Thrivecart is a full-packed shopping cart software. It has many features that businesses can use to increase their online sales.
Thrivecart is an excellent option for:
- Companies that need a premium shopping cart tool
- Sales marketers looking for advanced features to increase online sales
- Entrepreneurs who want a secure and reliable online payment system
- Content creators who want a lifetime course creation software (ThriveCart Learn) built-in with a checkout system like ThriveCart
Thrivecart and Kajabi: Similarities
Although Thrivecart and Kajabi have different purposes for most parts. They do have a few similarities. Both web-based software has:
- drag-and-drop interface that makes it simple to create and customize sales pages
- online training platform where you can create online courses
- secure and flexible registration and payment processes for customers
- real-time metrics to help you understand your business’ status, audience’s behavior, and areas for improvement.
- integrations and automation for a more efficient workflow
Thrivecart vs. Kajabi: Overview of Key Differences
Thrivecart Is an Online Cart Platform, While Kajabi Is an All-In-One Platform
Unlike Kajabi, Thrivecart is mainly a sales and checkout software. So you can’t expect to find features like website builder, email marketing tools, and membership or community site.
Kajabi Is for Digital Products, While Thrivecart Is for Physical and Digital Ones
Kajabi’s strength is in creating and selling digital such as courses, coaching programs, community access, and digital downloads. In contrast, Thrivecart can accommodate both digital and physical items.
Thrivecart offers a lifetime deal; Kajabi doesn’t.
Since Thrivecart is still in its early years, they offer a lifetime deal for $495. It’s great for those who aren’t fans of recurring fees. Kajabi, on the other hand, only offers monthly and yearly plans.
Thrivecart vs. Kajabi: Detailed Feature Comparison
Products: Courses, Membership Sites, and Items
Thrivecart
With Thrivecart, you can directly sell physical products and deliver them to your customers without hassle.
Thrivecart also launched Learn, a freemium platform that allows you to host, create and sell unlimited courses.
It has features like drip courses, which lets you release content over time, and bundles for grouping and selling courses together.
It also provides some templates and customization options for your lesson layout, but it’s simple.
Although Thrivecart is in the lead in offering physical products, ThriveCart Learn only provides basic online course features. However, it saves you on a monthly subscription bill with course platforms like Kajabi every month.
If you want customization and more course features, this is where Kajabi shines.
Kajabi
Kajabi’s courses and membership site builder are top-notch. It’s easy to use and has everything you need in one platform. You can make different types of courses, like drip, mini, or full-length, and build a community site for a collaborative learning experience.
If you also want to offer coaching sessions, you can do that with Kajabi. The platform allows you to create single or multiple sessions depending on your need.
Additionally, Kajabi provides blueprints and tips to help create premium courses that your students will love.
Besides these features, Kajabi also allows you to:
- track online courses’ progress of your students
- create quizzes and survey to check if your students are reaching their training and learning goals
So if you’re selling digital products and thinking that Thrivecart is a great alternative to Kajabi, you might need to think again.
Marketing Features
Marketing refers to the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service. Let’s see which offers better marketing features:
Email Marketing
Kajabi has a built-in email marketing campaign tool that allows you to cultivate relationships with your customers and promote your products.
You can create visual emails that can be easily customized and contain video, images, texts, CTA buttons, and more! You can also segment your list to send relevant emails to your recipients.
They are all beneficial for increasing customer engagement.
With Kajabi, you can also set up webinars (video broadcasting), marketing automation, and email sequences to nurture your leads and close more sales.
Thrivecart, on the other hand, doesn’t have an email marketing tool. But it integrates with popular ones like ConvertKit, AWeber, and GetResponse.
So if you want to use email marketing with Thrivecart, you need to use a third-party tool, which can be an additional cost.
Funnels
The goal of a sales funnel is to move prospects through each stage of the buyer’s journey until they eventually buy your product or service.
Thrivecart and Kajabi offer a sales funnel feature, but Kajabi’s is more powerful.
Kajabi
With Kajabi, you can create a sales funnel in just a few clicks through the templates provided. You can also choose from different types of funnels, depending on your goal. Most funnels include email sequences, a sales page or opt-in, and a checkout or thank you page.
You don’t need professional skills to create a funnel with Kajabi. The platform makes it easy to drag and drop the elements you want to add to your funnel.
Thrivecart
Thrivecart, on the other hand, only offers a sales funnel for upselling and down selling. You can use it to promote other products to your customers after they’ve bought something from you.
Landing Pages
A landing page, a.k.a standalone page, is a single web page designed for a specific purpose, such as collecting leads or selling products.
It’s different from other pages on your website because it has one focus and one call-to-action (CTA). A business must have a landing page because it helps increase conversions.
Kajabi
Kajabi’s drag-and-drop landing page builder allows you to create beautiful and responsive pages without coding.
You can also choose from different templates depending on your purpose or goal.
Besides building high-converting sales pages, you can create podcasts, opt-in, and thank you pages with Kajabi. Click here to see Kajabi landing page examples.
Thrivecart
In comparison, Thrivecart only offers a sales-checkout page for its users. It provides premium templates, and they are customizable, too.
The problem is that’s the only landing page you can create with Thrivecart.
For example, if you want to make your thank you page or edit the one Thrivecart provides, you’ll need to install some other plug-ins on your website.
Sales and Checkout Features
Both platforms have free trials, integrated checkout, discounts, coupons, and multiple payment options that you can use to gain more sales.
Besides that, Thrivecart and Kajabi have 1-click upsell and downsell features. They make your offer more irresistible to your customers and increase their chances of buying from you.
The two things that set Thrivecart apart from Kajabi are the sales tax calculator and A/B testing.
If you’re selling digital products in different countries in the world, the sales tax calculator is a handy tool.
As for A/B testing, it’s a feature that allows you to test different versions of your checkout page to see which one converts better.
Kajabi vs Thrivecart: Pricing
Thrivecart currently offers a lifetime deal for $495. You’ll get all of the basic features and access to future updates for this price.
To get the Pro version, you must add a one-time fee of $195.
On the other hand, Kajabi provides three plans:
- Kickstarter – $69/month
- Basic – $149/month
- Growth – $199/month
- Pro – $399/month
Kajabi gives a 20% discount on yearly plans, so if you’re planning to use it long-term, it’s better to sign up for an annual plan.
Conclusion
As you can see from the detailed comparison, both platforms have their charm.
Kajabi is better if you want an all-in-one platform with more features.
Although the pricing might seem more expensive than Thrivecart, you need to consider the value you’re getting for your money.
If you already have email marketing and website design tools and are only looking to increase your sales, Thrivecart is a good option.
Overall, for this comparison, we choose Kajabi because you don’t need anything else besides this platform to start and grow your online business.
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