Thinkific vs Kajabi

Thinkific vs Kajabi: Which Course Platform is Best?

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By David Borgogni

Last Updated on June 1, 2023 by Ewen Finser

Today we are going to be looking at two of the most powerful cloud-based online course builder and membership site software: Thinkific vs Kajabi.

The online course business is booming, and if you have a valuable skill to share then you have a fantastic opportunity to create a passive income source for your business by selling an online course. There are lots of platforms available which you could use to create and host your course or membership site, so it can be tricky trying to work out which one would suit your needs best.

When comparing these two online course platform solutions,  Thinkific vs Kajabi we will be reviewing features, benefits, and pricing of both platforms to help you make a decision on which online course platform will work best to sell online.

Bottom Line Up Front: Yes, Kajabi offers an all in one marketing suite. If you are a professional internet marketer I think there’s value in that. BUT, for the average online course creator, Thinkific just does a better job at the actual building of courses. Isn’t that the point, afterall? 

Main Differences Between Thinkific vs Kajabi 

The main differences between Thinkific and Kajabi are:

  • Thinkific offers a free plan, whereas Kajabi only has a 14-day free trial 
  • Thinkific offers a better pure course builder, whereas Kajabi is a full marketing platform
  • Thinkific offers certifications, whereas Kajabi does not offer certifications
  • Thinkific does not have full sales automation, whereas Kajabi has sales automation tagging features
  • Thinkific does not provide native email, whereas Kajabi has a built-in email provider
Our Pick
Why Go With Thinkific?

Thinkific is the best platform if you are looking to replicate a CLASSROOM experience ONLINE. Of all the options, it's the most SCALABLE for multiple instructors, admins, and support staff. In short, ideal for building an education empire!

Get 30 Days FREE Here See Black Friday / Cyber Monday Deal!
We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

Both Thinkific and Kajabi are known as Learning Management Systems (LMS), and they not only provide you will all the tools you need to build your course, but also the tools you will need to market and sell your course too, such as payment processing, sales funnel building, and more. 

Thinkific vs Kajabi each have different features, so today we are going to compare the both platforms side by side, so you can see for yourself which one would suit your needs best. As well as looking at the marketing tool feature options they offer, we will also be looking at the pros and cons of each, and the pricing, which could be a factor in your decision too. 

Let’s dive into what both platforms can offer, shall we? 

Thinkific Review 2021

thinkfik

Thinkific is a powerful all-in-one platform that entrepreneurs can use to create, market (marketing tools), and sell online courses. You can use Thinkific to build your entire website, so you have everything you need in one place, with none of the hassles of trying to ‘glue’ elements from different platforms together. 

The themes available have been designed specifically for online course businesses or online school, and all of your pages can be completely customized by using their drag and drop page builder. Any of the themes can be updated to match your style and branding, and you can also connect your courses to an existing website if you wish.

You can add all sorts of different elements to your courses, including: 

  • Quizzes 
  • Videos (course player)
  • Multimedia 
  • Text 
  • Surveys
  • PDF 
  • Disqus 
  • Audio 
  • Downloads 
  • Presentations (Webinar)
  • Exams 

You can create certificates of achievement for your students, and they can see their progress through the course as a percentage, so they know how far they have to go, and you can also encourage them and make sure they are staying on track with automated check-ins. 

Thinkific’s marketing automation features save you hours of time each week by automatic onboarding your students, sending them progress emails, and messages right when they need to be sent for optimal student experience. 

When it comes to payment processing, you can pair your account with your chosen payment processor such as PayPal, or Stripe, and you also have the option to charge a one time fee and offer payment plans or subscriptions. You can even offer free courses online to get people interested, and free trial periods or a discount on the first payment.

Building a free course is a great way to start building your following. You can collect emails and other data from these people and offer paid courses to them in the future. 

When you are ready to start scaling your online business, you have the option to sell your courses through affiliates (affiliate marketing), who you don’t need to pay until they have made a sale, meaning you can scale your online business quickly with no extra effort on your part. 

There are lots of integrations available, so if you are already using an email service provider that you know and love, you can easily integrate it with your Thinkific account.  

Security is a top priority, and with secure cloud hosting and daily back-ups, there’s no need to worry about the security of your content and course data. SSL certificates are included, and since it’s all on the cloud all the updates are automatic. Thinkific has 99.9% uptime, and 24/7 monitoring, so you can be sure your site will always be up and running when you need it to be. 

Thinkific provides support, advice, and training in their help center, so if you are ever having trouble or need advice you know where to go for help, allowing you to have complete confidence when you are building your website. You can also contact Thinkific by phone and email, and they pride themselves in answering 90% of questions in under 5 hours. 

The Main Features of Thinkific 

  • Drag and drop page builder tool
  • Quickly upload any existing content 
  • Rich multimedia course content 
  • Free video hosting for webinar-style presentations (course player)
  • Private and hidden courses 
  • Multiple course instructors
  • Drip content 
  • Evergreen and expiring content 
  • Membership site builder
  • Specifically designed education themes available 
  • Custom domain names
  • Full access to HTML and CSS if required 
  • Flexible pricing 
  • Immediate payments 
  • Take payments in 100+ currencies 
  • 100% secure payment processing
  • Sell through affiliates 
  • Integrate with over 1000 external marketing apps and marketing tools

The Benefits of Using Thinkific to Host Your Online Course 

  • Build a beautifully branded website and online course using the drag and drop page builder
  • All themes are created specifically for online courses, so you can be sure that all the elements you need are already included
  • There is a free plan available, which is perfect if you are just getting started and you want to test the waters before jumping into a bigger plan
  • You can use Thinkific to build a membership site as well as online courses
  • Use affiliates to easily scale your online business with little effort on your part
  • Great training and support are available, by both email and phone, as well as the help area. There will always be someone available to help you if you get stuck 
  • Seamless student experience, professional grade quality out of the box

The Downsides of Using Thinkific Tool to Host Your Online Course 

Since Thinkific does not have its own course marketplace like other course platforms such as Udemy, whether or not your course sells will depend entirely on your own marketing efforts.

This shouldn’t be a massive problem if you already have an audience or following, but maybe a problem for you if you have no one you can promote your course to. In this case, you would probably need to look at paid advertising sources and affiliates to get your course out there. 

Kajabi Review 2021

kajabi 1

Kajabi is an all-in-one online course platform that provides the tools to create and market your own online courses. You can also use Kajabi to build your entire website, as well as to create beautiful landing pages that get noticed (landing page builder). 

It is one of the most popular LMS platforms out there and has been the market leader for the last 9 years. Over 16,000 businesses use and trust Kajabi, and the platform is used by top thought leaders such as Amy Porterfield and Brendan Burchard.  

Kajabi makes it easy to market and sell your online courses, and it gives you all the tools you need to get started, so you have everything in one place. That said, a Kajabi course builder is just one element of the broader suite.

There are beautiful, high converting pre-made templates for you to choose from for your landing pages, websites, course pages, and sales pages, and they have all been rigorously tested and optimized for conversion, so you can rest assured that you are getting started on the right foot. 

thnkific

All of the templates available can be customized to suit your brand, and you can add your own logos and images, as well as change any of the colors, so you can make sure your website looks exactly the way you want it to. The themes available are all fully mobile responsive, so your website and courses will look perfect no matter what device you are using to access them. 

You can create online courses, websites, membership sites, and quizzes, and surveys, and when it comes to marketing your products, everything you need is in one place too. 

Kajabi lets you create as many pages as you want to for your website, so you can include things like and ‘about us’ page, as well as any other information you would like to share with your students. You also have the opportunity to create a blog, by using the integrated blog marketing feature that comes with your website. 

Landing pages can be created using the drag and drop page builder, so there’s no need for any coding. You can also create events, such as webinars, and email automation (email marketing) so that you can stay in touch with your followers and build a connection from the first point of contact. 

When you are ready to build a funnel with a professional landing page, you can do this with just a couple of clicks, and you can use the same funnels over and over again if they are working well, and there are also pre-built templates that you can use for your product launches, evergreen webinars and sales campaigns. 

It’s easy to collect payments for your products, and there are zero transaction fees. You can completely customize your checkout pages, and offer one-click upsells to boost your revenue. 

There is a reports dashboard that allows you to see all the sales you have made, as well as keeping track of your affiliate sales reports. Reports can be sorted and viewed on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, so you always know where you are with your business. 

Kajabi has excellent customer support with 24/7 live chat support (live chat functionality) and email support, so if you get stuck you can be sure there will always be someone there to help you out. 

The Main Features of Kajabi 

  • Create websites, online courses, membership sites, and landing pages
  • Library of fully customizable themes with plenty of customization options to choose from 
  • Custom URLs 
  • Built-in blog 
  • Reports and analytics (including Google Analytics integration)
  • Fully mobile responsive themes
  • Course Player Video hosting (ideal for hosting archives of lessons or pre-recorded webinar)
  • Digital downloads 
  • Community building 
  • Drip content 
  • Bulk user import (students)
  • Member dashboard 
  • Multi-step checkouts 
  • Announcements 
  • Tagging- segment users based on behavior 
  • Pipeline blueprints
  • Custom opt-in forms and plugins (plugins available internally and externally)
  • Capture leads 
  • Email analytics 
  • Email broadcasts 
  • Assessments for students (student experience)
  • Webinars and events 
  • Affiliate program 

The Benefits of Using Kajabi to Host Your Online Course 

  • Kajabi has a built-in email service, so you can send broadcast emails out to your users without the need to integrate with a third-party email provider or marketing campaign
  • Build pipelines and sales funnels with the pipeline blueprints
  • Tag and segment your users based on the previous behavior, and then you can send them more targeted marketing emails (e-mail marketing campaigns)
  • Create assessments and quizzes for your students, so that you can assess their progress at the end of each module
  • Build beautiful landing pages and use them to capture leads to enter your pipeline
  • Create membership websites with drip content
  • Everything you need to build and run your online education business is in one place, and everything works seamlessly together 

The Downsides of Using Kajabi to Host Your Online Course 

The main downside to Kajabi is the high price. There is no free plan available like there is on Thinkific, and even the most basic plan is quite expensive compared to its competitors. 

If you want to use affiliates to sell your digital products and courses to users then you will need to go straight to the ‘Growth’ plan, since the ‘Basic’ plan does not include affiliates.

The basic plan also doesn’t include an advanced marketing automation platform for creators, or the ability to remove the Kajabi branding from their own website, which seems very unreasonable, especially as the basic plan is still quite expensive. 

Both Platforms Pricing Plan Compared

Thinkific Pricing: 

thinkific pricing

One of the best things about the Thinkific course builder is that there is a free plan available, so you can test drive the core features before you decide to sign up for a paid plan. 

The free plan includes access to all core features, plus it lets you create up to 3 courses with unlimited students. You can also create quizzes and surveys, and you have access to content hosting. All plans offer instant access to your funds, including the free plan. 

The next plan available is the ‘Basic’ plan which is a very reasonable $49/month. This pricing plan includes all of the features from the free plan, as well as unlimited courses, coupons, email students individually, drip content, affiliate reporting, custom domains, email integrations, and zapier triggers. 

Next up is the ‘Pro’ plan, which is the most popular option, and costs just $99/month. This plan includes everything in the free and basic plans, as well as private and hidden courses, memberships and bundles, certificates, advanced customizations, additional admins and authors, and assignments. Keep in mind that Thinkific Pro is the most popular plan.

Finally, we have the ‘Premier’ plan, which is $499/month. This plan includes everything from the other plans, as well as 5 site admin accounts, 15 group analysts, 50-course admins/authors, single sign-on, onboarding package, and the unlimited growth package which gives you access to lots of extra cool features for creators such as an inbuilt email automation provider (email marketing) and much more (includes unlimited courses, etc…). 

The Growth Package is an ‘add on’ which can be added to the ‘Pro’ plan. It’s free for the first 100 students and then costs $10 for every 100 students above that. 

Sign up for Thinkific’s free plan now to test out all the core feature functionality of the course builder! 

Kajabi Pricing 

kajabi pricing

 

Kajabi has three pricing plans to choose from. Basic, Growth, and Pro. The Basic pricing plan costs $149/month and allows you to create 3 products and 3 pipelines.

You can create unlimited landing pages  and emails and have 10,000 contacts, 1000 active members, one website and 1 admin user. The other features included with this plan are Hero University, 0% transaction fees, webinars, and events, ready to use templates, quizzes, and surveys, chat customer support, and automation. 

The next plan is the ‘Growth’ plan, which is the best value at $199/month. This plan includes everything from the basic plan, as well as 15 products, 15 pipelines, 25,000 contacts, 10,000 active members, 1 website, and 10 admin users. It also offers advanced automation, the affiliate program, and the ability to remove the Kajabi branding. 

Finally, we have the ‘Pro’ plan, which includes everything from the ‘Growth’ plan, as well as 100 products (not quite unlimited courses), 100 pipelines, 100,000 contacts, 20,000 active members, 3 websites, and 25 admin users. There is also a code editor if you need to do any advanced coding on your courses or websites. 

Kajabi offers a free 14-day trial, so you can try all the features before you decide whether it’s the right option for you or not and/or contingent on how many users sign up. Sign up for free here. 

Thinkific vs Kajabi Compared: Which one is Better? 

After comparing Thinkific vs Kajabi, it is clear to see that both platforms has its own benefits, as well as its own pros and cons, so which one is the winner from the two?  

Drumroll, please… 

The winner here is Thinkific!

Kajabi is a great all-in-one (one-stop shop) marketing solution for creators, but I think it tries to do TOO MUCH and is much more EXPENSIVE.

The price does seem expensive when you compare it to Thinkific, and other cheaper online learning platforms such as Teachable and Udemy, but you have to think of all of the other areas where you are saving money.

Thinkific is a great platform for anyone who wants to test the waters with online courses, or anyone who is bootstrapping their business, because there is a completely free plan which gives you access to all of the core features. 

Bottom Line: Yes, Kajabi offers an all in one marketing suite. If you are a professional internet marketer I think there’s value in that. BUT, for the average online course creator, Thinkific just does a better job at the actual building of courses. Isn’t that the point, afterall? 

You can try Kajabi for free for two weeks by clicking here

And if you would like to give Thinkific a go, then try their FREE plan now. 

Our Pick
Why Go With Thinkific?

Thinkific is the best platform if you are looking to replicate a CLASSROOM experience ONLINE. Of all the options, it's the most SCALABLE for multiple instructors, admins, and support staff. In short, ideal for building an education empire!

Get 30 Days FREE Here See Black Friday / Cyber Monday Deal!
We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

FAQs About Thinkific vs Kajabi

I would like to switch over to Thinkific from another online learning platform, how can I do this?

When you are transferring your course and student data to Thinkific from another platform you can use the bulk enrolling tool to ensure a smooth transition for you and your students.

The Thinkific team is always on hand to help ensure there is a seamless transition for you, and you can be sure that all vital information such as student enrollment dates, student progress, and logins, are all the same once they are transitioned onto the Thinkific platform, so there is nothing to worry about.

Does Kajabi offer a money-back guarantee if I am not happy with the service?

Yes, Kajabi offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if you are not happy with the service, you can simply contact the customer support team and they will process the refund for you.

Can I build my entire website on Thinkific?

Yes, Thinkific has all the logistical and marketing tools you need to build your website and start creating online courses. There are also tools to enable you to effectively market your online course creation business such as creating landing pages, email marketing, and pipelines.

Can I use my own domain name with Kajabi?

Yes! Kajabi provides you with a free mykajabi.com domain (yourdomain.mykajabi.com), but you can easily add your own domain if you wish to.

Does Thinkific take a cut of my course sales?

No. Thinkific doesn’t take any commission from your sales or charge any transaction fees. The only thing you need to pay for is your monthly plan (not sales-based).

Do I need to pay for web hosting with Kajabi?

No, all plans include unlimited secure hosting so there are no extra fees to pay.

Our Pick
Why Go With Thinkific?

Thinkific is the best platform if you are looking to replicate a CLASSROOM experience ONLINE. Of all the options, it's the most SCALABLE for multiple instructors, admins, and support staff. In short, ideal for building an education empire!

Get 30 Days FREE Here See Black Friday / Cyber Monday Deal!
We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

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