Kajabi vs Teachable (2026): Which Platform Should You Choose?

I’ve evaluated more course platforms than I can count — first as a college dean building online programs at scale, and now as a consultant helping creators pick the right tools. Over my career, I’ve trained more than 39,000 professionals, and I’ve watched the same mistake play out over and over: people pick a platform based on the monthly sticker price without calculating what they’ll actually spend once they need the features that aren’t included.

Kajabi and Teachable are two of the most popular course platforms on the market, and they appeal to fundamentally different types of creators. Kajabi is the premium all-in-one — courses, email, funnels, website, community, podcast hosting, all under one roof. Teachable is the focused course seller — it does one thing and does it well, but leaves you to figure out everything else on your own.

After Kajabi raised prices in January 2026 and Teachable restructured its plans in mid-2025, the comparison has shifted enough that it’s worth a fresh look. I’ve already reviewed both platforms individually — Kajabi and Teachable — and both are on my list of the best online course platforms for 2026. Here’s the head-to-head.

Quick Verdict

Kajabi is the better choice if you want everything in one place and you’re willing to pay for it. Courses, email marketing, sales funnels, website, community, and podcast hosting are all built in. You log into one dashboard and run your entire business.

Teachable is the better choice if you just want to host and sell courses — nothing else. It’s simpler, cheaper at the entry level, and has a cleaner student experience. But you’ll need separate tools for email, funnels, and marketing, and those add up fast.

The surprise for most people: When you factor in the cost of the tools Teachable doesn’t include, Kajabi’s total cost of ownership is often lower — sometimes significantly so.

Pricing: What You’ll Actually Pay

Let’s start with the numbers, because this is where most people make their decision — and where most people get it wrong.

Kajabi Pricing (Updated January 2026)

Plan	Monthly	Annual (per month)	Products	Contacts
Kickstarter	$89	$71	1	250
Basic	$149	$119	3	1,000
Growth	$249	$199	15	10,000
Pro	$499	$399	100	100,000

All plans include a 14-day free trial. Annual billing saves roughly 20%.

What’s included at every tier: Course builder, email marketing, sales funnels, website builder, blog, community, podcast hosting, and payment processing. You’re getting a complete marketing and delivery stack — no add-ons required for the core feature set.

The catch: Kajabi charges a 0.7% surcharge on subscription and payment plan transactions. If you sell a $97/month membership, you’re paying 3.6% + 30¢ per transaction instead of the standard 2.9% + 30¢. There’s also a 1.5% surcharge on international cards. A creator doing $10,000/month in recurring revenue with some international students can expect $150–200/month in surcharges on top of their plan.

Teachable Pricing (Updated June 2025)

Plan	Monthly	Annual (per month)	Transaction Fee	Published Products
Free	$0	—	$1 + 10% per sale	1
Starter	$39	$29	7.5%	1
Builder	$89	$69	0%	5
Growth	$189	$139	0%	25
Advanced	$399	$309	0%	100

What’s included: Course builder, student management, basic checkout pages, and payment processing. That’s it. No email marketing. No funnel builder. No website. No community. No CRM. No podcast hosting.

The Real Cost Comparison

Here’s where the sticker price lies to you. Let’s look at two realistic scenarios.

Scenario 1: First-time creator, 1 course, 500 students, $10,000/month revenue

Cost Category	Kajabi Basic	Teachable Builder
Platform	$149/mo	$89/mo
Email marketing (ConvertKit/ActiveCampaign)	Included	$49/mo
Funnel builder (ClickFunnels)	Included	$97/mo
Website builder	Included	$15–25/mo (WordPress, Squarespace)
Total	$149/mo	$250–271/mo

Kajabi is cheaper by $100+/month because you’re not paying for separate tools.

Scenario 2: Growing creator, 3 courses, 2,000 students, $25,000/month revenue

Cost Category	Kajabi Growth	Teachable Growth + Tools
Platform	$249/mo	$189/mo
Email marketing (ActiveCampaign)	Included	$79/mo
Funnel builder (ClickFunnels)	Included	$97/mo
Community tool (Circle/Skool)	Included	$49/mo
Website	Included	$20/mo
Subscription surcharge (0.7%)	~$175/mo	N/A
Total	$424/mo	$434/mo

At this scale, they’re roughly even. But the Kajabi creator has everything in one dashboard, unified analytics, and zero integration headaches. The Teachable creator is managing five separate logins and praying their Zapier connections don’t break.

The bottom line on cost: Teachable looks cheaper until you add the tools it doesn’t include. At that point, Kajabi is either cheaper or roughly the same price — with far less complexity.

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Course Builder

Winner: Kajabi — but Teachable holds its own.

Both platforms let you create modules, lessons, drip schedules, and multimedia content. Both handle video hosting, PDF attachments, and quizzes. Both support completion certificates (Teachable on Builder and above).

Kajabi’s course builder is more visually polished. The student experience is cleaner, the mobile app is better, and the content organization feels more intuitive. Teachable’s builder is functional and straightforward — it won’t wow anyone, but it works reliably.

If course delivery is the only thing you care about, Teachable is perfectly adequate. If you want a premium student experience with a branded mobile app and community integration, Kajabi pulls ahead.

Email Marketing

Winner: Kajabi — because Teachable doesn’t have one.

This isn’t close. Kajabi includes full email marketing with broadcasts, automated sequences, segmentation, and templates at every paid tier. Teachable has zero built-in email marketing. You’ll need ConvertKit ($25–$100/mo), ActiveCampaign ($49–$149/mo), or Mailchimp to fill the gap.

For course creators, email is not optional. You need it for launch sequences, nurture campaigns, student engagement, and re-enrollment. Having it built into Kajabi means your student data and email list are automatically synced. With Teachable, you’re setting up integrations and hoping they stay connected.

Sales Funnels

Winner: Kajabi — again, because Teachable doesn’t have one.

Kajabi’s funnel builder handles opt-in pages, sales pages, checkout with order bumps and upsells, and post-purchase automation. It’s not ClickFunnels — you can’t build wildly complex funnel architectures — but for standard course launch sequences, it’s more than enough.

Teachable gives you basic checkout pages and sales pages. No opt-in funnels. No upsell flows. No automated sequences. If you want a real launch funnel with Teachable, you’re adding ClickFunnels ($97/mo) or building one on WordPress with a page builder.

Website Builder

Winner: Kajabi.

Kajabi includes a full website builder with templates, blogging, SEO tools, and custom domains. It’s not going to replace a custom WordPress build, but for most course creators, it’s more than sufficient.

Teachable doesn’t have a website builder. You get a school homepage and course sales pages, but if you want a real website with a blog, about page, and content marketing, you’ll need a separate tool. That’s another $15–$50/month and another platform to manage.

Community Features

Winner: Kajabi.

Kajabi includes community features — discussions, group coaching, challenges, and member interaction — at every paid tier. It’s not Circle or Skool, but it handles the basics well.

Teachable added basic community features recently, but they’re rudimentary. If community is a core part of your course offering, you’ll likely want a dedicated community tool alongside Teachable. Add $49–$99/month.

Podcast Hosting

Winner: Kajabi — Teachable doesn’t offer this.

Kajabi includes podcast hosting natively. This is a genuine differentiator. If you use a podcast as part of your content marketing strategy (and you should consider it), having it alongside your courses creates natural cross-promotion. Students discover your podcast. Listeners discover your courses.

With Teachable, you’re paying $15–$40/month for a separate podcast host like Buzzsprout or Libsyn.

Payment Processing and Fees

Winner: Teachable (on paper). Kajabi (in practice).

Teachable’s Builder plan ($89/mo) and above charge 0% transaction fees. You pay standard Stripe/PayPal processing (2.9% + 30¢) and nothing else. That’s clean and predictable.

Kajabi charges the same Stripe rates but layers on the 0.7% subscription surcharge and 1.5% international card surcharge. On paper, Teachable is cheaper on processing.

In practice, the surcharges are a relatively small cost compared to what you’d spend on the separate tools Teachable requires. And if you’re selling one-time courses (not subscriptions or payment plans), the 0.7% surcharge doesn’t apply at all.

Ease of Use

Winner: Teachable.

Teachable is dead simple. You can create a course, set a price, and start selling within an hour. The interface is clean and minimal. There’s almost no learning curve.

Kajabi has more features, which means more complexity. It’s well-designed and logical, but you’ll spend a few hours learning your way around. Not weeks — Kajabi is easier than GoHighLevel — but it’s not as simple as Teachable’s focused interface.

If you’re not technical and you just want to get a course up fast, Teachable wins. If you’re willing to invest a little time upfront for a more powerful system, Kajabi is manageable.

Where Each Platform Falls Short

Kajabi’s Weaknesses

Price. At $149/mo minimum for a usable plan (Basic), Kajabi is expensive. The January 2026 price increase and the subscription surcharge made it harder to recommend to beginners or creators just testing the waters. If you’re not generating at least a few thousand dollars a month in revenue, $149/mo hurts.

No legacy pricing. Kajabi didn’t grandfather existing customers when it raised prices. If you were on an old plan, your next billing cycle reflected the new pricing. That’s a trust issue, and it’s worth keeping in mind.

Course builder isn’t best-in-class. For pure course delivery — advanced assessments, SCORM compliance, deep learning paths — dedicated LMS platforms do it better. Kajabi is very good. It’s not the best.

Teachable’s Weaknesses

Incomplete platform. No email marketing. No funnel builder. No website. No CRM. No podcast hosting. No community (or barely). You’re building a tech stack, not choosing a platform.

Transaction fees on lower tiers. The Starter plan’s 7.5% fee and the Free plan’s $1 + 10% fee are punishing. On $10,000 in monthly sales, the Starter plan costs $750 in transaction fees. That’s absurd. You need to be on Builder ($89/mo, 0% fees) minimum, and at that point, you’re already paying nearly as much as Kajabi’s Kickstarter tier — without any of the marketing tools.

Free plan uncertainty. Teachable’s free plan has been unreliable since mid-2025. New users report difficulty finding it, and existing free-tier users have seen feature reductions. Don’t count on it.

Integration dependency. Everything Teachable doesn’t do, you need another tool for. And every tool is another subscription, another login, another integration to maintain. When Zapier goes down — and it does — your automated workflows break.

Who Should Choose Kajabi

The creator who wants one dashboard. You’re tired of logging into five different tools to run your business. You want courses, email, funnels, website, and community all connected. Kajabi was built for you.

The established creator doing $5,000+/month. At this revenue level, Kajabi’s price is justified by the tools it replaces. You’re not overpaying — you’re consolidating.

The podcaster who also sells courses. No other platform includes podcast hosting alongside course delivery. If you’re building a content ecosystem, this is a real advantage.

The creator who values polish. Kajabi’s student experience, mobile app, and overall design quality are a step above Teachable. If your brand is premium, your platform should match.

Who Should Choose Teachable

The first-time creator on a tight budget. If you’re testing a course idea and generating less than $2,000/month, Teachable’s Starter plan at $39/mo (or the Free plan, if available) lets you validate without a big commitment.

The creator who already has a marketing stack. If you’re already paying for ActiveCampaign, ClickFunnels, and a website builder — and you’re happy with them — Teachable slots in as a pure course host without redundant features.

The creator who values simplicity above all. Teachable does one thing well. If you don’t want to learn a full marketing platform and you just need a place to host course content and collect payments, Teachable is the easier on-ramp.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I switch from Teachable to Kajabi later?

Yes. You can migrate your course content, student data, and email list. It’s not instant — you’ll need to rebuild your course structure and funnels in Kajabi — but it’s doable. Most creators I’ve worked with complete a migration in 1–2 weeks.

Can I switch from Kajabi to Teachable?

Also yes, but you’ll lose the integrated marketing tools. If you’re moving from Kajabi to Teachable, budget for the additional tools you’ll need (email, funnels, website) and expect your total monthly cost to increase.

Which platform is better for memberships?

Kajabi, hands down. Built-in community, subscription management, email sequences for member engagement, and the 0.7% surcharge applies to subscription transactions but it’s still cheaper than buying separate tools. Teachable can handle recurring payments, but you’ll need external tools for the community and engagement side.

Which platform has better student analytics?

Kajabi. You get course completion rates, student progress tracking, revenue analytics, email performance, and funnel conversion data — all in one place. Teachable has course analytics but nothing for email or funnel performance, because it doesn’t have those features.

Is Kajabi worth the price after the 2026 increase?

It depends on your revenue. If you’re doing less than $2,000/month, Kajabi is expensive relative to what you’re getting. If you’re doing $5,000+/month and you’d otherwise be paying for separate email, funnel, and website tools, Kajabi is actually the cheaper option. Calculate your total cost of ownership before deciding.

Final Thoughts

Kajabi and Teachable aren’t really competing for the same creator. They’re solving different problems.

Teachable solves the “I need a place to host my course” problem. It’s simple, it works, and if that’s all you need, it’s a good choice. Just be honest with yourself about what “all you need” actually means — because you probably need email marketing, a sales funnel, and a website too.

Kajabi solves the “I want to run my entire course business from one platform” problem. It costs more upfront, but when you add up the tools it replaces, it’s often the same price or cheaper — with far less complexity.

My advice: If you’re just starting out and cash flow is tight, go with Teachable Builder ($89/mo). Validate your course. Prove people will buy it. Once you’re generating consistent revenue and feeling the pain of managing separate tools, graduate to Kajabi.

If you’re already established and tired of the multi-tool shuffle, start with Kajabi’s 14-day free trial. Build a funnel. Set up an email sequence. See if the all-in-one experience is worth it for you.

Still not sure? Use my platform picker tool to find the best fit based on your specific situation.