Kajabi vs Teachable – Which Course Building Software Should You Choose?

by Lewis Ogden | Last Updated: May 27, 2022 | Blogging

As the popularity of online learning continues to rise, choosing the best software is even more critical. In this article we take a look pit Kajabi vs Teachable, to find out which of these titans is the best tool for your business.

Since some industry experts even suggest that all learning will move online within the coming years (GMP), in order to stay ahead of the curve in business, finding software that facilitates course building is key.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to monetize your knowledge or a large company looking to train staff online, there are hundreds of great course building options and it can be overwhelming!

Kajabi and Teachable are two of the leading options, but how do you even begin to decide between them?

Having tried both Kajabi and Teachable and in order to help you make a truly informed decision, I’m going to break down and both products in detail and compare their pros and cons.

Things To Consider Before Buying Course Building Software

Whether you have no idea what makes great course building software or you’ve read 100 articles by now, some of the important qualities are obvious. 

Course building software should be easy to use and should facilitate the creation of professional-looking courses quickly. You don’t want to have to hire a designer or spend hours learning how to integrate your course with your existing marketing funnels.

Additional marketing tools and user-friendly features like payment integrations, however, are going to be the difference between breaking even and generating great profits from your course. Figuring out how much to pay for course building software will depend on how many profit-generating features it includes or enables.

With this in mind, we are going to be comparing Kajabi vs Teachable through these categories:

• Ease of design and customization options 
• Pricing plans and value for money
• Marketing tools
• Student communication and engagement tools
• Payment integration
• Customer support 

To get a full understanding of which software will be best for you, it’s important to read the full article. However, if you are pushed for time, the final paragraph in this article will give a brief overview.

Kajabi

Pros

• Advanced marketing tools
• Great student engagement tools
• Integrated marketplace

Cons

• More expensive price plans
• The basic plan has limitations in course numbers
• 24/7 live support only included in advanced packages

Kajabi is not only a course builder but an “all-in-one” piece of software that offers tools for building out entire marketing funnels. From email marketing to blog software, Kajabi is aimed mostly at people who want to see everything they need for sales and marketing in one place. 

While markedly more expensive than Teachable, it does have a number of unique benefits that lead you to choose it… 

Teachable

Pros

• More user-friendly design interface
• 24/7 live support on all plans
• Great value for money 

Cons

• Offers fewer options for customization 
• More limited in marketing tools

Marketed largely towards entrepreneurs, Teachable is a focused course building software that hosts over 100,000 members (Teachable.)  

Whilst it doesn’t offer the full range of other features that Kajabi offers, it packs a punch when it comes to course building functionality.

Kajabi vs Teachable A Side By Side Comparison

With the basics laid out, it’s time to go into a deep dive comparison… 

1. Ease Of Design & Customisation Options

When it comes to the process of uploading content and crafting a course, both Teachable and Kajabi have slightly different approaches that will suit different audiences. 

While both Kajabi and Teachable offer an intuitive drag and drop builder as well as giving a good amount of guidance on typical course structures, Kajabi’s bulk upload feature can be a great benefit if you have your courses set up already. In Kajabi, it is also easy to create a drip-feed structure where Teachable only allows courses to have two levels built-in.

Kajabi also contains three pre-set course structures that you can follow, mini-course, online course, and evergreen training- a.k.a drip content that your audience will view time and time again.

Within this, you then have categories and subcategories. This allows you to design really advanced courses and to integrate them within the awesome websites that you can design within Kajabi. 

Combined with the extensive course templates (from flagship course to webinar replay), Kajabi really allows you to experiment with different types of courses and see which might bring you the best return. This is great if you are looking to get heavily involved with the world of online courses or if they already comprise a large part of your funnels.

However, some users do find this interface a bit overwhelming and the number of features a little distracting. I found Teachable more user-friendly overall  Both course builders allow for the integration of video, quizzes, PDFs, and more, but the process of incorporating these into Kajabi is a little more complex. You are also unable to add multiple content types (like two videos, for example) within Kajabi whereas Teachable allows you to do this.

If you are just starting out with online courses, Teachable might be a good route to go down. Its interface is stripped back and it’s less complicated to create courses, even those with advanced features.

However, you might also find that having everything in one place (including a great website with blog function) might save you time if you don’t have these things set up already, in which case Kajabi is a great option.

As an advanced course developer, it really is just a matter of preference. Since you know how you find it easiest to build courses, considering what types of media you like to include and how many stages you like your courses to have is key. 

2. Pricing Plans & Value For Money

Whilst the pricing plans offered by Kajabi and Teachable are starkly different, the two both offer great value for money, depending on what you are looking for.

Teachable’s plans range from $39 a month to $299 a month. The most expensive plan- the Business Plan- includes 20 admins and group coaching calls, but is unlikely to be needed unless you have a very large team. 

Then, since the basic plan comes with transaction fees and doesn’t include some of the marketing features (like affiliate marketing), the best Teachable plan for most users will be the Pro plan… and this still sits at only $99 a month. Considering the number of features that Teachable includes- as I will go onto address in this article- there’s no doubt that it offers great value for money.

Kajabi, on the other hand, has pricing plans that range from $119 to $319 a month, and calculating value for money can be a little more difficult…

While Teachable offers a basic landing page and the opportunity to integrate with your existing website, even the basic Kajabi plan includes a developed site, unlimited landing pages, blog, and email marketing builders. 

If you are looking for some of these features, or want to move over to an all-in-one system, Kajabi definitely offers great value for money. However,  it is important to note that the Basic plan doesn’t include access to the 24/7 Kajabi support that I discuss later in the article. It also has subtle Kajabi branding which can make your courses look slightly less professional.

If you decide to go for Kajabi, you’re probably looking at spending $199 a month, though there is a discount if you pay annually.

3. Marketing Tools

Creating your course is only half the job. Without marketing it to prospective buyers, your audience will be limited only to your team members. 

Whether or not you have a marketing strategy in mind, both Kajabi and Teachable contain a range of tools that will allow you to get your course out there… but let’s break the two down.

I have already mentioned Kajabi’s email marketing and blogging functions, but how exactly do they work? And how useful might they be for you?

Well, put it this way… Combining both effective design features and powerful analytics, Kajabi would work well even it only operated as an email marketing platform or blog host. Its email function is particularly great, rivaling even that of MailChimp with its personalization abilities. 

Email marketing is particularly powerful when promoting an online course since it allows you to target not only new leads but those further down the sales funnel. You can also see your entire funnels laid out in Kajabi which makes it easier to track where people are dropping off and to target those areas.

As well as this, Kajabi offers access to an integrated marketplace, which is great if your course will be of wide interest to Kajabi users.

Both Teachable and Kajabi offer affiliate marketing integration, allowing you to pay and organize influencers for your course. 

Other than this, Teachable offers a more basic email marketing integration and allows for easy integration with external marketing tools. It does uniquely allow for the creation of certificates- which have been proven to boost engagement with courses and might have some effect on convincing people to sign up. However, in general, Teachable’s marketing tools are far less extensive than Kajabi’s. 

4. Student Communication & Engagement Tools

Both Teachable and Kajabi have paid a lot of attention to the experience of anyone taking a course through their platforms. 

Teachable’s discussion forum allows students to communicate and ask each other questions when they are encountering difficulties. Not only does this improve your student satisfaction rates but it can save you a lot of time.

Kajabi’s community feature operates very similarly but the interface is cleaner in my opinion. Kajabi also allows you to pin comments which makes it easy to answer frequently asked questions as well as to make new announcements.

5. Payment Integration

Having great payment integration is important not only on the back end but in order to persuade people to sign up for your course. Most cart abandonment occurs where payment seems like it will take a long time or be complicated.

While Kajabi and Teachable both allow payments from all major platforms, Teachable only supports PayPal payments where it is a one-off fee. This is definitely something to consider when evidence suggests that effective PayPal integration can improve the conversion rate by up to 60% (Braintree). 

6. Customer Support

While both Kajabi and Teachable are high-end course building solutions and therefore experience very few technical errors, evaluating customer support is, of course, key when making any purchase.

Kajabi and Teachable both offer learning resources to get your courses up and running. Kajabi even takes this one step further with “Kajabi University” containing information about overall marketing strategy and funnel building.

Both Kajabi and Teachable offer 24/7 live support but it’s important to remember that this isn’t available on Kajabi’s basic plan. The existing support that they offer is still good, but 24/7 support is important when running live courses.

This 24/7 support is particularly important if you are going to be using Kajabi for your email system and website host too. If you have a lot resting on a system, quick responses become even more essential. 

Software Alternatives

If neither Kajabi nor Teachable seem quite right for you at this moment, there are a number of other options to consider.

• Thinkific – If you are looking for the customization options of Kajabi and the certification feature available with Teachable, it’s worth taking a look at Thinkific. Though it has limited marketing tools inbuilt, it is very reasonably priced, with packages starting at $49 a month, and can handle all payment integration for you, including tax payments! 
• Katra – Alternatively, if you are looking for an all in one platform but you don’t have the budget for Kajabi, Katra is a great option. Though newer than Kajabi, Karta is already beginning to rival it as it provides many great features for just $99 a month. Karta includes great email marketing integration and even more extensive landing page building software than Kajabi. They even provide a done for you marketing campaign function. It doesn’t offer the same level of customer engagement tools, however, and it is more difficult to use than Kajabi.

Final Thoughts

Overall, whilst both Kajabi and Teachable have a number of great features, I would recommend going for Teachable unless you are looking for software that not only allows you to build a course but has extra marketing software integrated within it.

For just $39 to $299 a month, Teachable allows you to create great courses and to market them using affiliate schemes and email marketing. It’s really easy to integrate it with external software and equally easy to use. A simple interface goes a long way when creating courses!

If, however, you’re looking to make courses a significant part of your offer-particularly as an entrepreneur- you might find Kajabi to be better for you. 

Which of these course builders do you think you’ll go for?

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• Thinkfic vs Kajabi – Which Is The Best Course Software
• Thinkific vs Teachable – Which Course Building Software Wins?

Tags: Reviews, Software