Which is better for beginners, Kajabi or Teachable?

Teachable is better for beginners. You can have a course live within a few hours of signing up. The 7-day free trial is enough to build and publish a first product. Kajabi's full feature set takes days to configure. For someone validating a first course idea, Teachable's simplicity and lower entry cost ($39/month vs $71/month) reduce risk.

Kajabi vs Teachable 2026: Full Comparison

The Verdict: Kajabi vs Teachable in One Paragraph

Kajabi wins for established course creators making over $1,500/month who want email, funnels, and courses in one subscription. Teachable wins for new creators launching their first course who need a low entry point and automatic global tax compliance. The breakeven sits at roughly $1,520/month in course revenue, after which Kajabi’s zero transaction fees make it cheaper despite its higher sticker price. (Kajabi Pricing Page, 2026; Teachable Pricing Page, 2026)

TL;DR: Kajabi starts at $71/month with zero transaction fees. Teachable starts at $39/month but takes 7.5% of every sale on its cheapest plan. At $1,520/month in revenue, Kajabi becomes cheaper. Below that, Teachable’s lower sticker price holds. Choose based on your current revenue level, not the headline price. (Kajabi, Teachable, 2026)

What Is Kajabi?

Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for digital product creators. It launched in 2010 and has since processed over $8 billion in creator revenue (Kajabi About Page, 2026). One subscription covers courses, coaching, communities, websites, email marketing, sales funnels, and a student mobile app. You don’t need external tools to run a complete online education business.

Kajabi targets experts and educators who want everything connected. The trade-off is price. It costs more upfront than any Teachable plan. But the included tools replace subscriptions that would otherwise cost $200+ per month separately.

Kajabi added a new Starter tier in 2026 at $71/month — a lower entry point than the old $143 Basic plan. That shifts the comparison slightly. We’ll cover that in detail below.

What Is Teachable?

Teachable is a course hosting platform with a simpler, narrower feature set. Founded in 2013, it hosts over 100,000 creator schools and has helped course creators earn over $1 billion in sales (Teachable About Page, 2026). The platform focuses on what course creators actually need to launch: a course builder, checkout, certificates, and basic analytics.

Teachable’s biggest differentiator isn’t price. It’s tax compliance. Teachable acts as Merchant of Record — it handles US sales tax, EU VAT, and GST automatically across all plans. That one feature alone saves international creators significant time and legal exposure.

The platform doesn’t include email marketing or funnels. You connect external tools via Zapier or native integrations instead.

How Does Kajabi Pricing Compare to Teachable?

Kajabi now has four tiers starting at $71/month on annual billing. Teachable has four tiers starting at $39/month. The sticker price favors Teachable — but Teachable’s Starter plan adds a 7.5% transaction fee on every sale, which erases that advantage at modest revenue levels. (Kajabi Pricing, 2026; Teachable Pricing, 2026)

Full Pricing Table: Kajabi vs Teachable 2026

	Kajabi Starter	Kajabi Basic	Teachable Starter	Teachable Builder
Monthly (annual billing)	$71/mo	$143/mo	$29/mo	$69/mo
Monthly (no commitment)	$89/mo	$179/mo	$39/mo	$89/mo
Transaction fee (own processor)	5% surcharge	2% surcharge	7.5% on all sales	0%
Products	1	5	5	10
Contacts/Students	250	2,500	100	1,000
Email marketing	Included	Included	Not included	Not included
Funnels	Included	Included	Not included	Not included
Community	Included	Included	Basic	Basic
Student mobile app	Shared app	Shared app	Shared app	Shared app
Tax compliance (VAT/GST)	Your responsibility	Your responsibility	Included	Included
Free trial	14 days	14 days	7 days	7 days

The Transaction Fee Math

Here’s where the comparison gets real. On Teachable Starter, you pay $29/month (annual) plus 7.5% of every sale.

At $500/month in revenue: $29 + $37.50 = $66.50 total platform cost. At $1,000/month: $29 + $75 = $104/month. At $1,520/month: $29 + $114 = $143/month — exactly Kajabi Basic territory, but without email or funnels.

The breakeven point sits at $1,520/month. Above that, Kajabi Basic at $143/month is cheaper. And it includes email marketing, funnel pipelines, and a community that would cost $150-$200/month in separate tools on Teachable.

We’ve found that most creators who move from Teachable to Kajabi do so between $1,500 and $2,500/month in revenue — right when the third-party tool pile-up becomes both expensive and chaotic to manage.

Which Is Cheaper: Kajabi or Teachable?

Teachable is cheaper at low revenue — its Starter plan at $29/month annual beats Kajabi’s $71/month Starter when you’re making under $560/month. But Teachable Starter’s 7.5% transaction fee flips this advantage by $1,520/month in revenue. Teachable Builder at $69/month has no transaction fee, but also has no email or funnels. (Teachable Pricing, 2026; Kajabi Pricing, 2026)

The “cheap” comparison breaks down fast when you account for tools. A Teachable Builder creator who adds ConvertKit for email ($29/month), Systeme.io for funnels ($27/month), and Circle for community ($49/month) pays $174/month. Kajabi Basic at $143/month includes all three.

At feature parity, Kajabi Basic is $31 cheaper than an equivalent Teachable Builder stack.

The real cost difference isn’t the subscription fee — it’s context-switching. Managing three platforms with Zapier connections adds 3-5 hours per month in maintenance that never shows up in a pricing comparison table.

Which Is Better for Beginners?

For absolute beginners launching a first course, Teachable wins on simplicity and risk. You can have a course live in a few hours. The 7-day free trial is enough to build and publish your first product. If it doesn’t sell, you’ve spent $39 — not $71. (Teachable Pricing, 2026)

Kajabi’s Starter plan at $71/month is genuinely competitive now. But the platform still has a steeper learning curve. Setting up email automations, pipelines, and a community properly takes days, not hours. For someone validating their first course idea, that complexity is wasted setup time.

That said, Teachable Starter’s 100-student limit is a real constraint. You hit that ceiling fast if your launch gains any traction. Upgrading to Builder at $89/month eliminates the fee, which changes the economics entirely.

Course Building: Which Platform Has Better Lesson Tools?

Teachable wins the course building comparison. It lets you mix video, audio, PDF, text, and quizzes inside a single lesson. Kajabi forces a one-media-per-lesson structure — one video or one audio file per lesson, with quizzes as separate entities. Teachable also supports bulk uploads for large course libraries. (Teachable Feature Page, 2026)

Kajabi fights back on design. It offers professionally designed course themes versus Teachable’s templates, with product-level customization so each course can look different. Teachable applies design changes at the school level — every course shares the same template.

For student engagement, Teachable supports time-stamped notes so students can bookmark moments in a video. Kajabi counters with native gamification: badges, points, and leaderboards. Different approaches to the same retention problem.

Does Teachable Have Email Marketing?

Teachable does not include email marketing on any plan. You get purchase confirmations, abandoned cart emails, and basic broadcast emails — that’s it. For real email sequences, drip campaigns, and behavioral automations, you need a third-party tool like Kit (formerly ConvertKit) or Mailchimp. (Teachable Feature Page, 2026)

Kajabi includes full email marketing on every plan. That means broadcast emails, drip sequences, and behavioral automations — all connected to student activity inside your course. A student who fails a quiz can auto-enter a remedial sequence. A student who hasn’t logged in for 14 days gets an automated re-engagement email. None of that is possible on Teachable without a third-party integration.

Kajabi’s 2026 Creator Studio update takes this further. One long-form video can become 40+ content pieces across LinkedIn, blogs, and email sequences. That feature alone has no equivalent on Teachable.

Which Has Lower Transaction Fees?

Kajabi has lower effective transaction fees for most creators. Kajabi Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic — the same rate as Stripe directly. Teachable’s Starter plan charges an additional 7.5% transaction fee on top of standard processing fees. Teachable Builder and above have 0% transaction fees. (Kajabi Pricing, 2026; Teachable Pricing, 2026)

The comparison gets more nuanced if you want to use your own payment processor.

Kajabi’s surcharge for using a third-party payment provider (not Kajabi Payments):

Starter: 5% surcharge
Basic: 2% surcharge
Growth: 1% surcharge
Pro: 0.5% surcharge

Teachable charges 0% on Builder and above when using teachable:pay or a monthly payment gateway. Standard processing fees (2.9% + $0.30 for US cards) still apply on both platforms.

If you’re on Kajabi Basic using your own Stripe account, you’re paying 2% surcharge plus Stripe’s 2.9% + $0.30. On $5,000/month in sales, the Kajabi surcharge alone adds $100/month — more than two-thirds of Teachable Builder’s subscription cost.

Marketing Tools: Which Platform Gives You More?

Kajabi’s marketing tools are the platform’s core competitive advantage. Visual funnel templates, behavioral email automations, a full CRM, and AI content repurposing come standard on every plan. Teachable provides coupons, upsells, order bumps, and affiliate programs — but no funnel builder and no behavioral email system. (Kajabi Feature Page, 2026)

Matching Kajabi’s marketing feature set on Teachable requires adding:

ConvertKit for email: $29/month
Systeme.io for basic funnels: $27/month
Or ClickFunnels 2.0: $147/month

That’s $56-$174/month in additions to a plan that already costs $69/month. Most Teachable creators who need real marketing infrastructure eventually consolidate on Kajabi or move their email to a dedicated platform and live with the fragmentation.

Mobile App: Which Platform Has a Better Student Experience?

Kajabi offers a branded mobile app on Growth and Pro plans ($199+/month annual). Your school appears in the App Store and Play Store under your brand name — not Kajabi’s. Students get custom push notifications. Teachable has a shared student app where all enrolled schools appear together with no brand isolation. (Kajabi Mobile App Page, 2026; Teachable Mobile App Page, 2026)

Over 70% of course consumption happens on mobile devices in 2026, according to industry data from multiple LMS providers. Platform-level mobile data matters for completion rates and retention.

On Kajabi Starter and Basic, students use the shared Kajabi Customer App — functional, but your brand competes for attention alongside every other Kajabi school the student has enrolled in. The branded app is a Growth-plan-and-above feature worth noting if mobile experience is a priority.

Tax Compliance: Who Handles VAT and Sales Tax?

Teachable acts as Merchant of Record on all plans. It calculates, collects, and remits US sales tax, EU VAT, and UK VAT automatically. Kajabi makes you the Merchant of Record — you’re responsible for international tax compliance, with TaxJar and Quaderno available as integrations. (Teachable Pricing Page, 2026; Kajabi Help Center, 2026)

For solo creators selling globally, this difference is significant. Teachable’s Leila Gharani of XelPlus Academy, who has students in 188 countries, cited tax handling as the reason she stays on Teachable despite the platform’s limitations (Teachable Success Stories, 2026).

Kajabi’s approach works fine if you use TaxJar or operate primarily in the US. But it adds recurring admin overhead that Teachable eliminates entirely.

Community Features: Which Platform Builds Better Member Communities?

Kajabi’s community features include challenges, assessments, tier-gated access groups, and 2026 community automations. Teachable added community features but they’re still considered basic by most creators — polls, discussions, and shared spaces without the depth of engagement tools. Most serious Teachable creators still push their community to Circle or Discord. (Kajabi Product Page, 2026)

Neither platform matches a dedicated community platform for engagement-driven businesses. But for creators who want courses and community in the same ecosystem, Kajabi is the stronger option of the two.

One real-world note: if community engagement is your primary business model (not just a retention tool), a dedicated platform handles it better than either of these.

Real Cost Breakdown: Teachable vs Kajabi at Feature Parity

Here’s what you actually pay when you match features side by side. Teachable Builder at $69/month (annual) doesn’t include email, funnels, or strong community tools. Adding those brings the true cost well above Kajabi Basic’s $143/month. (Kajabi Pricing, 2026; Teachable Pricing, 2026)

Teachable Builder equivalent stack (annual billing):

Teachable Builder: $69/month
Kit (ConvertKit Creator): $29/month
Systeme.io Basic: $27/month
Circle Basic: $49/month
Total: $174/month

Kajabi Basic (annual billing):

Email marketing: included
Funnel pipelines: included
Community: included
Student app access: included
Total: $143/month

At feature parity, Kajabi Basic is $31 cheaper per month than the equivalent Teachable Builder stack. The only scenario Teachable stays cheaper: you already have email and funnel tools you’re paying for, you don’t need community features, and you specifically need the Merchant of Record tax compliance that Kajabi doesn’t provide.

Most comparison articles miss that Teachable Builder has a 1,000-student cap. If you’re running a live challenge or summit launch, you can hit that ceiling in a single campaign week. Kajabi Basic supports up to 2,500 contacts with no student enrollment limit per course.

How to Migrate from Teachable to Kajabi

Migrating from Teachable to Kajabi takes 1-4 weeks and doesn’t carry over student progress, quiz scores, certificates, or order history. Course videos and email lists export cleanly. Drip sequences, tax compliance setup, and community structure need to be rebuilt from scratch. (Kajabi Help Center, 2026)

What carries over:

Course video files — download from Teachable’s media library, re-upload to Kajabi
Student email list — CSV export from Teachable, import into Kajabi contacts
Basic course structure — rebuild manually in Kajabi’s product builder

What doesn’t carry over:

Student progress, lesson completions, quiz scores, and certificates
Order history — Teachable sales records stay in Teachable
Email automations — drip sequences need rebuilding in Kajabi’s automation system
Tax compliance setup — you become Merchant of Record on Kajabi

Time estimate: 1-2 weeks for a single course with a small student list. 3-4 weeks for a multi-course library with established email sequences.

Who should migrate: creators earning $1,500+/month on Teachable who are also paying for a separate email tool. The consolidation typically saves $50-$100/month and eliminates platform-switching overhead.

Who should stay on Teachable: creators with significant global sales who rely on automatic VAT and sales tax compliance. Moving to Kajabi means taking on that burden.

Teachable vs Kajabi: Verdict by Use Case

The right choice depends on your revenue level, audience geography, and whether you want bundled tools or best-in-class specialists. Kajabi wins on consolidation above $1,500/month. Teachable wins on entry cost, tax compliance, and course-building flexibility. Neither is universally better. (Kajabi, Teachable, 2026)

Pick Kajabi if:

You’re earning over $1,500/month and want to consolidate email, funnels, and courses into one subscription
You need behavioral email automations triggered by student activity
You want a branded mobile app for students (Growth plan and up, $199/month annual)
You sell primarily in the US and prefer managing your own Stripe account

Pick Teachable if:

You’re launching your first course and want the lowest possible entry cost to validate demand
You sell globally and want automatic VAT, GST, and US sales tax handled with zero setup
You prefer mixing media types inside a single lesson (video + text + quiz on one page)
You want bulk upload workflows for large course libraries

Pick neither if:

Community retention and peer-to-peer engagement are the core of your product — both platforms treat community as a bolt-on, not the primary experience

FAQ

Is Kajabi worth the higher price?

If you’re making over $1,500/month in course revenue, yes. The built-in email marketing, funnels, and automation tools replace $150-$200/month in separate subscriptions. Kajabi Basic costs $143/month and includes everything Teachable Builder plus ConvertKit plus Systeme.io would cost combined. Below $1,500/month in revenue, you’re paying for infrastructure you’re not fully using yet. (Kajabi Pricing, 2026)

Does Kajabi charge transaction fees?

Kajabi charges 0% transaction fees when you use Kajabi Payments. If you use a third-party processor like Stripe directly, surcharges apply: 5% on Starter, 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro. Standard processing fees (2.9% + $0.30) still apply regardless of which processor you use. (Kajabi Pricing Page, 2026)

Which platform is easier to set up?

Teachable. You can have a course live within a few hours. Kajabi’s full feature set — automations, pipelines, community, email sequences — takes days to configure properly. The trade-off is depth vs. speed. For rapid validation, Teachable wins. For a complete business infrastructure, Kajabi’s longer setup time pays off long-term.

Can Kajabi replace ConvertKit or Mailchimp?

For most course creators, yes. Kajabi handles broadcasts, automated sequences, and behavioral triggers based on student activity. It doesn’t have Kit’s Creator Network or affiliate growth tools. But for standard email marketing to a course audience, Kajabi’s built-in system is solid and eliminates a separate monthly subscription.

Does Teachable have a free plan in 2026?

No. Teachable retired its permanent free plan. You get a 7-day free trial on paid plans, then pay starting at $39/month (or $29/month annual) for the Starter plan with a 7.5% transaction fee. A 30-day money-back guarantee is available on all plans. (Teachable Pricing Page, 2026)

Which platform is better for coaching programs?

Kajabi wins for structured coaching programs. It combines courses, live calls, community, and behavioral automations in one system. Teachable offers coaching as a product type, but the integration between courses, community, and follow-up automations is more fragmented. For high-ticket group coaching programs, Kajabi’s workflow is significantly tighter.

Kajabi vs Teachable 2026: Full Comparison

⚡ Quick Verdict

The Verdict: Kajabi vs Teachable in One Paragraph

What Is Kajabi?

What Is Teachable?

How Does Kajabi Pricing Compare to Teachable?