What Kajabi Is (From Someone Who's Paid The Bill)
I've run a paid course and a small membership on Kajabi, so this is field notes, not a brochure. Kajabi is the all-in-one box for selling knowledge: it hosts your course, sends your email, builds your funnel, serves your site, and runs your community, all from one login. The pitch is simple — stop paying for five tools and write one bill instead.
Where it clicked for me: I was paying for a course host, an email app, and a landing-page builder, and they never talked to each other. A sale in one didn't tag the contact in the other. On Kajabi, the sale, the email, and the funnel are the same record. That alone saved me a weekly 'why didn't this automation fire' session.
How People Actually Make Money On Kajabi
The platform is neutral. The income comes from what you sell. What works:
1. Paid Courses (The Core)
Package a skill into video modules with quizzes and a completion certificate. Price it $99–$499 one-time or $20–$80/mo. A 200-student course at $199 is ~$40k, and you deliver it once. The margin beats trading hours for dollars.
2. Memberships and Communities
Recurring access to a group, a library, or coaching calls. Set a monthly price, Kajabi gates the community, and cancels cut access automatically. A 100-member group at $29/mo is $2,900 in steady revenue — if you keep showing up.
3. Coaching and Hybrid Offers
Sell one-on-one or group calls through Kajabi's scheduling, bundled with a course. Good for high-ticket: a $1,500 coaching package with a $200 course attached feels like a deal and lifts your take.
4. Funnels and Order Bumps
Build a free quiz or lead magnet, then a sales page with an order bump and an upsell. Kajabi's pipelines do this without a separate funnel tool. The bump alone often covers the monthly fee.
5. Affiliates
Turn buyers into referrers on Growth and up. They get a link, you set the cut, Kajabi tracks and pays. Cheap word-of-mouth at scale.
The Features That Earn Their Keep
- Course player with certificates. Video, quizzes, progress tracking, and a completion cert — enough for most paid academies.
- Email under the same roof. Broadcasts and sequences tied to purchases. No Zapier bridge to a separate app.
- Pipelines. Prebuilt funnel templates with upsells and one-click checkout. Launch in an afternoon.
- Site and blog builder. A real homepage and blog, so you don't also need WordPress.
- Branded app + no Kajabi logo on Growth and up. Your business looks like yours.
The Honest Downsides
I won't soften these, because they cost real money:
- No free tier, and the real plan starts near $179/mo. If you're pre-revenue, that's rent on an empty shop. Kajabi only makes sense once sales cover the bill.
- The '0% fee' has an asterisk. Zero platform fee only on Kajabi Payments. Wire your own Stripe and a 2% surcharge stacks on top of card processing (~2.9% + $0.30), so a Basic-plan sale runs about 4.9% + $0.30. Use Kajabi Payments, or price the surcharge in.
- Caps push you up tiers. Basic allows 5 products and 2,500 contacts. A modest email list and a few offers, and you're shopping for Growth at $249/mo.
- You pay for the whole bundle even if you use half. Solo sellers who only need a course host often overpay versus Teachable or Podia.
- You live in their walls. Leave Kajabi and you rebuild funnels, email, and member data elsewhere. Keep a list export on hand.
- Prices moved in 2026. Kajabi raised several tiers and added metered AI credit add-ons. The number you see today may not be the number next quarter — verify before you commit.
Kajabi vs the Others
| Tool | Best for | Weak spot | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kajabi | Full course + email + funnel stack | Pricey, no free tier | From ~$179/mo |
| Teachable | Course hosting, cheaper entry | Thin email/funnel tools | From ~$39/mo |
| Podia | Simple courses + downloads | Lighter automation | From ~$39/mo |
| Whop | Gated communities, free start | Thin courses, 30% marketplace fee | 3% direct |
| Gumroad | One-file downloads | Weak community | ~10% |
Pick Kajabi when you want one dashboard and you can cover the bill from day one. Pick Teachable or Podia when you're earlier and price matters more than the bundle.
Starting Without Burning Cash
- Take the 14-day trial. Build one course and one funnel. Don't migrate everything yet.
- Price to clear the fee. At $179/mo you need ~$200+ in course revenue before you break even. Charge enough.
- Use Kajabi Payments to keep the 0% platform fee; avoid the Stripe surcharge unless you have a reason.
- Turn on the affiliate program the day you launch. Happy buyers are your cheapest ads.
- Keep your list exported. Own your audience data outside Kajabi.
- Start with one paid offer you can deliver today — not a 12-module mega-course.
The Bottom Line
Kajabi is the most complete single dashboard I've used for selling courses, memberships, and coaching. It replaces three or four subscriptions and the glue between them, and the 0% fee on its own processor is real.
The catch is the bill: no free tier, a steep entry, and tier caps that pull you upward as you grow. It pays off once you have an audience and steady sales — not before. If you're pre-revenue, start on Teachable or Podia and move up when the income justifies it. If you're already selling, Kajabi is one of the cleaner ways to run the whole machine from one place.