The 10 Best Kajabi Alternatives in 2026 (Tested)

Most people who go looking for Kajabi alternatives are running the same calculation: $179 a month is $2,148 a year, the course made $6,000 last year, and something about that ratio feels wrong.

So they start shopping, and the first three options they find advertise $29 a month, and the decision looks obvious.

It usually is not. We ran the numbers on one real creator profile across ten platforms, and three of the cheaper-looking options cost more than Kajabi at the volume that creator actually does.

Kajabi's problem is not its rate. It is its floor.

A course and membership platform is software that hosts your lessons, takes payments, gates access, and runs the email marketing around all of it, so that a creator can sell knowledge without stitching four tools together.

Kajabi is the category's expensive incumbent, and every alternative here is a bet that you do not need all of it.

Full disclosure: Framekit is our own product and it is ranked ninth here, near the bottom, because it does not do the two things Kajabi is bought for. Our store sells one-time digital purchases only, and recurring or membership billing is not supported at all. We include it because a meaningful share of people searching for a Kajabi alternative do not need a course platform, and for those readers a site with a store is both cheaper and sufficient. For everyone else, one of the eight platforms above us is the correct answer.

How We Compared 10 Kajabi Alternatives

We stopped comparing feature grids because every platform in this category has the same feature grid. Instead we built one creator profile and priced it everywhere.

The profile: a working photographer who sells a $249 course on studio lighting, has 1,200 email subscribers, runs one small paid community, and turns over $4,000 a month, which is roughly sixteen course sales.

Every price below was read on the vendor's own pricing page in August 2026, on a European connection, on a fresh account with no promotional code applied.

Where a vendor served euros rather than dollars we print euros, because converting today produces a number that is wrong tomorrow.

Where a plan has both monthly and annual rates we price the annual one, because that is what a committed creator pays, and we say when the gap between them is large.

Findings are labelled three ways. Measured means we ran the flow, built the product, and read the arithmetic. Verified means we read it in the vendor's own pricing or help documentation in August 2026 and are reporting it with a link. Community sentiment means creators report it consistently in public and we did not reproduce it.

One sourcing note that shapes the whole article. The large review aggregators blocked automated access during this round, so we quote no star ratings anywhere. Every figure links to the vendor's own page instead.

In a category where the differences are financial rather than aesthetic, a price you can click is worth more than a rating you cannot check.

The rubric: total monthly cost at real volume 35 percent, what happens as you grow 20 percent, breadth against Kajabi's feature set 20 percent, how much of the platform's branding your students see 15 percent, and portability of your students and list 10 percent.

In one lineone $249 course, 1,200 subscribers, $4,000 a month in sales, priced across ten platforms on their own published August 2026 rates.

By the Numbers

Ten platforms, one creator profile. These are the facts that flipped our conclusion partway through the comparison.

• $143 a month is Kajabi Basic billed annually, against $179 billed monthly. The annual commitment saves $432 a year.
• $329 a month is what Teachable Starter costs our creator, because its 7.5 percent transaction fee on $4,000 of sales is $300 on top of the $29 plan. That is more than double Kajabi Basic.
• $408 a month is what Gumroad costs the same creator at 10 percent plus 50 cents per order. It is the most expensive option in this comparison at this volume, and it advertises no monthly fee at all.
• $39 a month is what Framekit Business costs with no transaction fee, and it is the cheapest line in the table for a reason that disqualifies it for most readers: it does not host courses.
• $533 a month in sales is the point where Teachable Builder at $69 becomes cheaper than Teachable Starter at $29, because of the 7.5 percent fee.
• $840 a month in sales is the equivalent crossover on Podia, from Mover at $42 with 5 percent to Shaker at $84 with none.
• 3 of 10 charge a percentage of your revenue on their entry plan and drop it to zero one tier up, which is the single most common pricing shape in this category.
• 159 euro a month is the Thinkific tier where its own branding finally comes off your site, two tiers above the entry plan.
• $399 a month is Kajabi Pro billed annually, which is more than the other nine platforms' entry plans combined.

What Each Platform Costs at $4,000 a Month

This is the table the rest of the article explains.

Every figure is the platform cost for our creator profile at $4,000 a month in sales, on annual billing where offered, before card processing, which most platforms charge separately at broadly similar rates.

The Lemon Squeezy line works differently from the rest, because its percentage absorbs the card processing that every other platform here bills you for separately, which makes it look worse in this column than it is.

One important caveat on the Podia rows before you read the table: those figures are plan prices and do not include Podia's separate email billing, which starts once you pass 100 active subscribers on Mover, 500 on Shaker, or 1,000 on Earthquaker.

For a creator with a real list, add that to Podia's column.

Two things jump out of that table and both are counterintuitive. The first is that the platform advertising no monthly fee is the most expensive one on the list.

The second is that Kajabi, the platform everyone leaves because of price, sits mid-table once volume is real.

The creators for whom Kajabi is genuinely overpriced are the ones doing under about $1,500 a month, and they are also the ones a percentage-based platform serves best.

1. Podia: The Best All-Round Replacement

Podia is the closest thing to Kajabi that costs meaningfully less, and it is the only alternative here that covers courses, digital downloads, coaching, community, email marketing, and a website without asking you to bolt anything on.

Migrating the test course took an afternoon, most of which was re-uploading video, and nothing in the process required a support ticket.

The real numberthe pricing page lists Mover at $42 a month or $504 a year with a 5 percent transaction fee still applied, Shaker at $84 a month or $1,008 a year with no transaction fee, and Earthquaker at $150 a month or $1,800 a year.

There is no permanent free plan, only a 30-day trial with full access and no card required.

For our creator at $4,000 a month, Mover costs $242 and Shaker costs $84. The crossover is $840 a month in sales, which is the $42 price difference divided by the 5 percent fee.

Anyone selling more than that and sitting on Mover is paying Podia for the privilege of paying Podia more.

The standout detailthe 30-day trial requires no payment details at all, which in a category where everything is annual commitments and migration pain is the most generous evaluation window on this list. You can rebuild your entire course and decide afterwards.

The gotcha, and it is bigger than it looksPodia Email is included free only up to a set number of active subscribers per plan, and Podia's help centre puts those allowances at 100 subscribers on Mover, 500 on Shaker, and 1,000 on Earthquaker.

Above the allowance, email is billed separately based on your active subscriber count.

Our test creator has 1,200 subscribers, so on Shaker they are already past the free allowance and the $84 figure in the table above is the plan price rather than the whole bill.

Kajabi Basic includes 2,500 contacts and Growth includes 25,000, so on email allowance specifically Kajabi is far more generous, and any comparison that stops at the plan price is misleading.

Price Podia's email for your own list before you switch.

Skip it ifyour community is the product. Podia's community works and is not Circle, and creators who lead with community rather than curriculum notice the difference within weeks.

Verdict: The default recommendation for a creator leaving Kajabi who still needs everything Kajabi did. Buy Shaker, not Mover, unless you are genuinely under $840 a month. Our Podia alternatives guide covers the next step down.

2. Teachable: Best Pure Course Platform, With a Fee Trap

Teachable is the best course-delivery experience in this comparison.

The lesson player, the quizzes, the certificates, and the student-facing polish are all a step above what a general creator platform produces, and if your product is genuinely a course rather than a bundle of files, students notice.

The pricing, however, contains the single most expensive mistake available in this category.

The real numberthe pricing page lists Starter at $39 a month or $29 billed annually with a 7.5 percent transaction fee, Builder at $89 a month or $69 annually with no transaction fee when using Teachable Payments, and Growth at $189 monthly or $139 annually.

Standard processing applies on top at 2.9 percent plus 30 cents for US cards and 3.9 percent plus 30 cents for international ones. Product limits run 5, 10, and 50 respectively.

That 7.5 percent is the number to hold. On our creator's $4,000 a month it is $300, which turns a $29 plan into a $329 one. The crossover to Builder is $533 a month in sales. Below that, Starter is correct.

Above it, every additional month on Starter costs money for nothing, and the platform has no reason to tell you.

The standout detailactive and imported student caps are removed once a school passes $10,000 a year in platform sales, which is an unusual and rather fair way to structure limits. Small schools get capped, successful ones stop being.

The gotchathe 0 percent rate on Builder and above applies when you use Teachable Payments or its monthly payment gateway. Route payments elsewhere and the arrangement changes, so confirm your processor before you assume the fee is gone.

Skip it ifyou sell a mix of courses, files, and one-off products. Teachable is built around courses and the product limits on the lower tiers reflect that.

Verdict: The best classroom on this list and a pricing page that punishes inattention. If you buy it, buy Builder unless you are certain you will stay under $533 a month. More options in our Teachable alternatives guide.

3. Thinkific: Cheapest Credible Course Platform

Thinkific has quietly become the value pick for someone whose plan is to run a course business for years rather than test whether one exists.

Its entry tier includes unlimited courses, which almost nothing else here does, and its site editor is more capable than Teachable's without reaching Kajabi's complexity.

The real numberthe pricing page served us euros on annual billing: Basic at 39 euro a month, Start at 79 euro, and Grow at 159 euro, each with a stated annual saving against monthly billing.

Basic includes unlimited courses, one community, up to 5 digital products, a custom domain, and abandoned-cart emails. Start adds live cohorts, coaching, certificates, memberships, subscriptions, and an HTML and CSS editor.

No platform transaction fee is quoted on any paid plan.

The standout detailunlimited courses on the entry plan is genuinely unusual. Teachable Starter caps you at 5 products and Kajabi Starter at 1.

For an educator with a back catalogue of small courses rather than one flagship, Thinkific Basic is the only entry tier here that fits the shape of the business.

The gotcha, and it is a real oneThinkific's own branding stays on your website and your products until the Grow plan at 159 euro a month, two tiers above entry. Most competitors remove branding on the first paid tier.

A creator on Basic is running a 39 euro plan that quietly tells every student which software they bought.

Skip it ifyou need to look independent on a small budget. That branding line is the difference between a professional academy and an obvious template, and the fix costs 120 euro a month more.

Verdict: The best value per course on this list and the worst branding terms. Excellent if you are on Grow or do not care; frustrating in the middle. Our Thinkific alternatives coverage sits inside our broader course-tools guide.

4. Circle: Best If the Community Is the Product

Circle solves a different problem from the rest of this list and solves it better than any of them.

If what people are paying for is access to you and to each other, with the course as the artefact rather than the point, Circle is the platform where that arrangement feels native rather than bolted on.

Discussion, live rooms, and courses all live in the same space.

The real numberthe pricing page lists Professional at $89 a month with a 2 percent transaction fee, 3 admins and 10 moderators; Business at $199 a month with a 1 percent fee, 5 admins and 15 moderators; and Circle Plus at custom pricing with a 0.5 percent fee and unlimited admins.

All tiers include unlimited members, with a 14-day trial requiring no card and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

For our creator at $4,000 a month, Professional costs $89 plus $80 of transaction fees, so $169 a month. That is above Kajabi Basic, which is worth knowing before you leave Kajabi for Circle on price grounds, because it is not a price decision.

The standout detailunlimited members on every tier, including the $89 entry plan. Most community platforms meter members, and a growing free tier of a community is exactly where metering hurts. Circle charges on the transaction instead, which aligns its incentive with yours.

The gotchathe 2 percent on Professional is levied on paid memberships, and it compounds with everything else. A creator running a $30 a month membership for 200 people pays $120 a month in Circle transaction fees on top of the $89 plan and the card processing.

Skip it ifyour product is a self-paced course that people take alone. You are paying for a room nobody talks in.

Verdict: The correct answer for a community-first business and an expensive answer for a course-first one. Compare it against the wider field in our membership platforms guide.

5. Payhip: The Cheapest Way to Sell What Is Really a File

A large share of products sold as courses are, structurally, a set of videos and a PDF. If that describes yours, Payhip will sell it for a fraction of what a course platform charges, and the difference is not marginal.

It also handles coupons, affiliates, and EU VAT, and the free plan has no time limit and no revenue cap.

The real numberthe pricing page shows Free Forever at $0 with a 5 percent transaction fee, Plus at $29 a month with 2 percent, and Pro at $99 a month with no transaction fee. Every plan includes all features, unlimited products, and unlimited revenue.

For our creator at $4,000 a month, Free costs $200, Plus costs $109, and Pro costs $99. The crossovers are $967 a month to justify Plus over Free, and $1,980 a month to justify Pro. At $4,000 a month, Pro is correct and costs less than Kajabi Basic.

The standout detailPayhip handles EU VAT on digital goods on every plan including the free one. Kajabi, Teachable, and Thinkific all leave more of that obligation with you than most creators realise, and for a European audience it is the difference between a compliance task and a non-issue.

The gotchathere is no course player, no progress tracking, no drip scheduling, and no certificates. Students get files. For a $249 professional course, that absence is felt, and some buyers read it as a product that has not been finished.

Skip it ifcompletion matters to your outcome, either because you sell on results or because your students need pacing to finish.

Verdict: The right answer for a creator whose course is honestly a bundle, and the wrong one for a creator whose course is a curriculum. Our Payhip alternatives guide covers the middle ground.

6. Sellfy: Zero Percent Until You Hit the Ceiling

Sellfy is the cheapest zero-fee line in our table at real volume, and the reason it works is a constraint the marketing does not lead with.

There is no transaction fee, and there is an annual sales ceiling on every plan, so the flat fee is really a percentage wearing a different hat.

The real numberthe pricing page lists Starter at $29 a month billed annually or $39 monthly, capped at $10,000 of sales a year; Business at $59 annually or $79 monthly, capped at $50,000; and Premium at $119 annually or $159 monthly, capped at $200,000.

All carry a 0 percent transaction fee.

Our creator turns over $48,000 a year, which fits inside the Business cap with $2,000 to spare, at $59 a month. That is the second-cheapest way to sell this course of any platform here that actually sells things, and it is $84 a month less than Kajabi Basic.

The standout detailthe ceiling makes the effective rate calculable in advance, which is rare. Business at $708 a year against a $50,000 cap is an effective 1.4 percent at the top of the band.

Read that way, Sellfy is one of the cheapest platforms in this category and one of the worst at explaining it.

The gotchacrossing a ceiling mid-year forces an upgrade rather than throttling, and our creator is $2,000 of annual sales away from that happening. A single good launch would push them onto Premium at $119, which is still cheaper than Kajabi.

Skip it ifyou need course structure. Like Payhip, Sellfy is a store, not a classroom.

Verdict: Quietly one of the best-value options in this comparison, badly explained by its own marketing. Do the ceiling arithmetic and it competes with anything here. See also our Sellfy alternatives breakdown.

7. Lemon Squeezy: When Tax Is the Reason You Are Leaving

Some creators leave Kajabi not over money but over a tax letter. Lemon Squeezy acts as merchant of record, which means it is the legal seller of your course, and it collects and remits sales tax and VAT in the jurisdictions it covers.

For a creator selling a $249 course into a dozen countries, that removes a category of risk rather than a line item.

The real numberthe pricing page states 5 percent plus 50 cents per transaction with no monthly charge for ecommerce features, with email marketing billed separately by subscriber count and free up to 500 subscribers.

On our creator's sixteen sales a month that works out to $208 a month, and their 1,200 subscribers would move email onto a paid tier.

The standout detailthe pricing page carries a 2026 notice about Lemon Squeezy operating alongside Stripe managed payments.

If you are choosing a platform to build a business on for the next three years, read that notice yourself before you commit rather than taking any article's word for the arrangement.

The gotchamerchant of record means the receipt carries Lemon Squeezy's name and, in some jurisdictions, the customer relationship is legally theirs. You are trading a piece of the relationship for the compliance cover, which is a fair trade only if compliance is genuinely your problem.

Skip it ifyou sell mostly to your own country. You are buying cross-border machinery you will not use, and Payhip's 5 percent with no fixed component is cheaper on smaller orders.

Verdict: The best answer when the reason for leaving is a VAT threshold rather than a monthly bill. Our guide to whether you need a merchant of record covers the decision properly.

8. Ko-fi: The Cheapest Membership, With a Ceiling on Perception

Ko-fi is the cheapest way to run a paid membership in this comparison and the one most likely to make a $249 course look like a $29 one.

It takes 0 percent on tips and a 5 percent service fee on shop sales, memberships, and commissions on a free account, and Ko-fi Gold replaces that 5 percent with a flat monthly subscription.

The real numberon our creator's $4,000 a month, the free account costs $200 in service fees. Ko-fi Gold takes the service fee to zero on every payment type for a fixed monthly cost.

That cost is 12 dollars a month, published on Ko-fi's pricing page beside the Standard tier, so it pays for itself once you are paying more than 240 dollars a month in service fees.

The standout detailmemberships, one-off sales, commissions, and tips all run through one account with one fee structure. For a creator whose income is genuinely mixed, that consolidation is worth more than a percentage point.

The gotchaKo-fi's framing is support rather than commerce. Buyers arrive in a tipping mindset, and a premium professional course sitting in that interface reads as informal. That is not a bug, it is the product's culture, and it works strongly for some creators and against others.

Skip it ifyou are selling to businesses or at professional price points. The frame undercuts the price.

Verdict: Excellent value for a creator with a warm following and a mixed income, and the wrong shop window for a premium course.

9. Framekit: Only If You Do Not Actually Need a Course Platform

Framekit is an AI website builder for photographers, filmmakers, designers, and creators, with a portfolio, client galleries, and a digital store on one domain.

It is ranked ninth because on the two things Kajabi is bought for, it does not compete: there is no course player, no lesson progress, no drip scheduling, and its store rejects recurring prices outright, so memberships and subscriptions are not supported at all.

We include it because a real portion of Kajabi churn is people who bought a course platform to sell what turned out to be three PDFs and a preset pack, and are now paying $2,148 a year for a classroom nobody is sitting in.

The real numberFree at $0 with a 5 percent fee on product sales, Starter at $9 a month with 5 percent and your own custom domain, Pro at $19 with 3 percent, and Business at $39 with 0 percent.

On our creator's $4,000 a month, Business costs $39, which is the cheapest line in the comparison table. That figure is only meaningful if the product is files rather than lessons.

The standout detailthe store, the portfolio, and the client galleries are the same site on the same domain, so the traffic that finds your work also finds the thing you sell, and the buyer never gets handed to a checkout somewhere else.

For a creative business where the course is a side product rather than the business, that consolidation is the whole argument.

The gotchano recurring billing means no memberships, and no memberships means no predictable monthly revenue. If your plan is a $30 a month community, we cannot do it and Circle or Podia can.

Skip it ifyou sell any course with structured lessons, or any subscription. That is most people reading this article.

Verdict: The right answer for the specific reader who does not need what Kajabi sells, and the wrong answer for everyone who does. If you are unsure which you are, the test is simple: if removing the video player would not change what you deliver, you do not need a course platform.

10. Kajabi Itself: When Staying Is Correct

It would be dishonest to write ten reasons to leave without saying when staying is right, so here is the case for the incumbent, priced from its own page rather than from memory.

The real numberthe pricing page lists Basic at $179 a month or $143 billed annually with 5 products, 2,500 contacts and 2 admin users; Growth at $249 or $199 annually with 50 products, 25,000 contacts and 11 admins; and Pro at $399 billed annually, or just under $500 billed monthly, with unlimited products, 100,000 contacts and 26 admins across 3 websites.

A Starter tier exists with 1 product and 250 contacts.

Third-party gateway fees run 5 percent on Starter, 2 percent on Basic, 1 percent on Growth and 0.5 percent on Pro, and Kajabi Payments processing is 2.9 percent plus 30 cents on Basic, falling to 2.7 percent plus 30 cents on Pro.

The standout detailthe contact allowances are the part people forget to price. Growth includes 25,000 contacts, and replacing that with a standalone email platform at similar list size costs real money that has to be added to any alternative's headline price before the comparison is fair.

The gotchathe third-party gateway fee is the sting in the tail. Route payments outside Kajabi Payments on Basic and you pay 2 percent, which on our creator is $80 a month, or $960 a year, purely for using a processor you prefer.

Skip it ifyou are under about $1,500 a month in sales. At that volume the floor dominates and almost everything on this list is cheaper.

Verdict: Genuinely worth its price for a creator doing serious volume with a large list, multiple products, and staff. Poor value for a solo creator with one course, which is who most of the traffic to this article is.

What Leaving Kajabi Actually Costs

In one linethe subscription is the visible cost of switching and the invisible ones are the email list, the funnels, and the students, which is why so many creators price a move, decide it is obvious, and then stay for another year.

Three things do not travel, and you should price all three before you cancel.

The email automations. Kajabi's sequences, tags, and triggers are configuration, not content. Nothing exports them.

Rebuilding a mature onboarding sequence and a launch campaign is realistically two to four days of work, and the platforms that cost least here have the thinnest email tooling, so some of that work becomes permanent rather than one-off.

The funnels and landing pages. Same story, worse. Pages rebuild reasonably quickly; the tracking, the split tests, and the conversion history do not move at all, and you restart the learning.

The students. Existing members with active subscriptions have to be migrated to new payment records, which in practice means asking people who already pay you to re-enter a card.

Every creator we have seen do this loses some of them. Budget a churn spike in the switching month and plan the announcement carefully.

Here is a test you can run in five minutes. Take your last twelve months of revenue and divide by twelve.

Multiply that figure by the transaction-fee percentage of every platform on your shortlist, add the monthly plan price, and multiply the total by twelve. Then add a one-off migration cost of your day rate times three.

If the annual saving does not exceed that migration cost by a comfortable margin, the correct decision is to stay this year and revisit when your volume changes, because the saving is real but the disruption is now.

For our creator at $4,000 a month, moving from Kajabi Basic at $143 to Podia Shaker at $84 saves $708 a year. That is a real saving and it is roughly three days of a working photographer's rate, which is about what the migration costs.

The move makes sense over two years and is close to neutral over one.

The Pricing Shapes to Recognise

In one lineevery platform in this category uses one of three pricing shapes, and knowing which one you are looking at tells you more than any feature list.

The percentage. Gumroad at 10 percent, Payhip Free at 5 percent, Ko-fi at 5 percent, Lemon Squeezy at 5 percent plus 50 cents. Costs nothing to start and never stops growing.

Correct below roughly $1,000 a month and increasingly wrong above it. Gumroad at $4,000 a month costs $408, which is nearly three times Kajabi Basic.

The flat fee. Thinkific Basic at 39 euro, Sellfy Business at $59, Framekit Business at $39 monthly or $31 billed annually, Teachable Builder at $69, Podia Shaker at $84.

Costs the same whether you sell nothing or a great deal. Wrong at the start, correct at scale, and the crossover is always plan price divided by the percentage you are escaping.

The hybrid trap. Podia Mover at $42 plus 5 percent, Teachable Starter at $29 plus 7.5 percent, Circle Professional at $89 plus 2 percent, Kajabi Basic at $143 plus a 2 percent third-party gateway fee.

You pay a floor and a percentage. These tiers are priced to be the obvious first choice and to become the wrong one quietly, and they are where most of the overspending in this category happens.

The practical rule: on any hybrid tier, divide the price gap to the next plan by the fee you would escape. That is your crossover in monthly sales. Write it on a note. When you pass it for two months running, upgrade.

How to Choose: A Decision Tree

In one lineanswer in order and stop at the first yes.

1. Is your paying community the product, with the course as a bonus? Circle Professional, $89 a month on annual billing, and treat the 2 percent as part of the price.
2. Do you sell structured courses and turn over more than about $533 a month? Teachable Builder at $69 annually, or Podia Shaker at $84 if you also need downloads and email in the same bill.
3. Do you sell structured courses and turn over less than that? Teachable Starter at $29 annually, and set a reminder to re-check at $533 a month.
4. Do you have a back catalogue of many small courses? Thinkific Basic at 39 euro for unlimited courses, and accept the branding until Grow.
5. Is your course really a bundle of files and videos with no pacing? Payhip Free below $967 a month, Payhip Pro or Sellfy Business above it.
6. Is international sales tax the actual reason you are moving? Lemon Squeezy at 5 percent plus 50 cents as merchant of record.
7. Do you have a warm audience and mixed income from tips, commissions, and files? Ko-fi, on the free account until the 5 percent exceeds a Gold subscription.
8. Would removing the video player leave your product unchanged? Then you never needed a course platform. A site with a store, such as Framekit at $9 to $39 a month, is the cheaper and simpler answer.
9. Do you turn over more than about $10,000 a month with staff and a large list? Stay on Kajabi and move to Growth. The consolidation is worth more than the saving.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best Kajabi alternative in 2026?

Podia is the best all-round Kajabi alternative for most creators, at $84 a month on its Shaker plan with no transaction fee, covering courses, downloads, community, and email in one subscription against Kajabi Basic at $143 a month billed annually.

For course delivery specifically, Teachable Builder at $69 annually is stronger. For community-led businesses, Circle is the better fit.

Is Kajabi actually expensive?

Its floor is high and its rate is not.

Kajabi Basic is $143 a month billed annually or $179 monthly, and at $4,000 a month in sales it costs less than Teachable Starter at $329 or Gumroad at $408, because those platforms charge 7.5 percent and 10 percent respectively.

Kajabi is poor value below roughly $1,500 a month and competitive above it.

What is the cheapest Kajabi alternative?

Payhip's Free Forever plan at 5 percent with no monthly cost is the cheapest way to start, and it costs nothing until you sell.

At higher volume the cheapest options are Sellfy Business at $59 a month within its $50,000 annual sales ceiling and Teachable Builder at $69 annually. Free plans stop being cheapest at around $1,000 a month in sales.

Does Teachable really charge 7.5 percent?

Yes, on its Starter plan, which is $39 a month or $29 billed annually. Builder and above charge no platform transaction fee when you use Teachable Payments, with standard card processing of 2.9 percent plus 30 cents for US cards on top.

The crossover from Starter to Builder is $533 a month in sales.

Which Kajabi alternative handles VAT and sales tax?

Lemon Squeezy acts as merchant of record and takes on the liability in the jurisdictions it covers, at 5 percent plus 50 cents.

Payhip handles EU VAT on digital goods on every plan including the free one, which covers the most common exposure for a small seller.

The course platforms in this comparison generally leave more of that obligation with you than creators expect.

Can I move my students and email list off Kajabi?

Your contacts and student records export as data.

Your automations, funnels, tags, and conversion history do not, and existing subscription members must be migrated to new payment records, which typically means asking paying customers to re-enter a card and losing some of them.

Budget three days of work and a churn spike in the switching month.

Do I need a course platform at all?

Only if pacing, progress, or completion matter to what you sell.

If your product is a set of videos and a workbook that people download and use at their own speed, a storefront such as Payhip or Sellfy delivers it for a fraction of the price.

The test: if removing the lesson player would not change what the buyer receives, you are paying for a classroom you do not use.

Which alternative is best for memberships and recurring revenue?

Circle for community memberships at $89 a month on annual billing with a 2 percent fee, or Podia Shaker at $84 with none if the membership is wrapped around courses. Ko-fi is the cheapest entry point for a small paid membership.

Note that not every platform on this list supports recurring billing, and ours does not at all, which is why it is ranked ninth here.

How much does it cost to switch from Kajabi?

The subscription difference is usually the smallest part.

For a creator at $4,000 a month, moving to Podia Shaker saves $708 a year, and the migration realistically costs two to four days of rebuilding email sequences and funnels plus some member churn.

Over two years the move is clearly worth it; over one it is close to break-even.

Is Thinkific's free plan worth using?

Thinkific's published tiers on annual billing start at 39 euro a month for Basic with unlimited courses, and the plan to watch is not the entry price but the branding.

Thinkific's own branding stays on your site and products until the Grow plan at 159 euro a month, which is a large gap for anyone who needs to look independent.

What should I pay per month to sell one course?

Between $29 and $84 for almost every reader.

Teachable Starter at $29 annually if you are under $533 a month in sales, Teachable Builder at $69 or Podia Shaker at $84 above it, and Payhip Free at 5 percent if the course is really a bundle of files.

Anything above $150 a month should be buying you a large email list allowance or multiple staff seats. We cover the pricing side in how to price digital products.

Final Verdict

Leave Kajabi if you are under about $1,500 a month in sales, because the floor dominates and Podia, Teachable, Thinkific, Payhip, and Sellfy are all cheaper at that volume.

Stay if you are over about $10,000 a month with staff, a large list, and multiple products, because the consolidation is worth the price and the alternatives quietly stop being cheaper once you add a separate email platform back in.

In the middle, Podia Shaker at $84 a month is the move that costs least and breaks least.

Where Framekit loses. We do not host courses, we have no lesson player or progress tracking, and our store rejects recurring prices, so memberships and subscriptions are not possible on our platform at all.

That rules us out of the main job this article is about, which is why we are ninth rather than first. If your product has lessons or a monthly fee, buy Podia, Teachable, Thinkific, or Circle.

We are only the right answer for the reader whose course turned out to be a bundle of files, and who would rather sell those files from the same site their portfolio already lives on.

The rule that survives every platform on this list: find the crossover between the percentage plan and the flat plan, which is always the price gap divided by the fee, and check it twice a year.

Almost every creator overpaying in this category is sitting on the correct platform and the wrong tier.

Related readingthe best tools to sell online courses, membership platforms for creators, and zero-commission selling platforms.

If the community rather than the course is what you are really buying, Kajabi vs Circle prices that comparison directly.

The two platforms most educators shortlist before considering Kajabi are compared directly in Thinkific vs Teachable.