Kajabi Alternatives (2022): Where Should You Host Your Online Courses?

In this digital era, sharing your knowledge and expertise with the world has never been easier. Once you’ve packaged your knowledge into a course, online course content platforms like Kajabi let you conveniently set up, sell, and deliver your courses to your students. While Kajabi is among the most recognizable LMS (learning management system), its premium price point and missing features may make other course creators look for alternatives. We narrowed down the best Kajabi alternatives to the following LMS (in no particular order): Thinkific, Teachable, Podia, and LearnDash.   

Kajabi Alternatives Comparison Chart

Name	Kajabi	Thinkific	Teachable	Podia	LearnDash
Price	Check Price on Kajabi	Check Price on Thinkific	Check Price on Teachable	Check Price on Podia	Check Price on LearnDash
Standout Features	All-in-One platform	Feature-packed, Offers a completely free plan	Feature-packed, Offers more budget-friendly plans	Supports selling digital products, Affordable plans	Best LMS for WordPress sites
Transaction Fees	o%	0%	5% for Basic, 0% for higher-tier plans	0%	0%
Number of Courses	3 to 100	3 to unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Students	Up to 20,000	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Automation	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Affiliate Program	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Native Certification	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Discount Coupons	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Free Trial	14 days	Forever free plan available	14 days	14 days	No, just a 30-day money-back guarantee

Thinkific

Thinkific is a great Kajabi alternative that offers a completely free plan

Just like Kajabi, Thinkific provides a convenient way to upload, organize, sell, and deliver your courses. Among its features that Kajabi doesn’t offer are native certification and coupon codes. Whenever your student completes your course, Thinkific lets you award certificates to your students automatically. With Kajabi, you’ll need third-party software to accomplish this. 

Depending on your plan, Thinkific lets you hold live lessons through Zoom should you want to host live classes and coaching calls for your members. You can also offer memberships, accept recurring payments, and offer an affiliate program to your loyal members. If you want to build a community for your course students, Thinkific lets you do so within its platform, thus alleviating the need for a separate Facebook group just for this purpose.  

Thinkific allows integrations with major third-party tools such as ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, InfusionSoft, Zapier, Google Analytics, and similar solutions as well. 

Pricing Plans

One of the most attractive points of Thinkific for beginners is its forever free plan. This free plan includes all of Thinkific’s standard features, including unlimited students and up to three courses. For new course creators who do not offer a lot of courses yet, Thinkific offers a great way to test the waters at no cost. 

Thinkific’s paid plans are Basic ($49/month), Pro ($99/month), and Premier ($499/month). If you opt for annual billing, you’ll save 20% off the regular monthly cost. The Basic plan lets you schedule content, offer discount coupons, and connect with leading third-party tools. The higher the tier, the more advanced the customization options you have and the more user accounts you can create.

Thinkific lets you try its Pro features for free for 14 days here. 

Teachable

The most popular Kajabi alternative

Teachable is the most popular Kajabi alternative to date. It can do what Kajabi can, and more, at a much lower cost. For one, it doesn’t have a cap on the number of courses, and students you can have even if you’re just on the core plan. Having said that, Teachable’s features are more similar to Thinkific’s. Teachable also lets you use coupon codes, automate content, and award certificates to students in addition to the standard online course and coaching features.

Teachable’s higher-tier plans also provide advanced quizzes, group coaching call tools, and affiliate marketing management. You can reward your students and members who promote your course or services through its onboard affiliate management program. 

Pricing Plans

Teachable’s monthly plans are significantly more affordable than Kajabi’s, one of the reasons why it’s such a popular alternative. Do note though that if you’re opting for its lowest tier plan, Teachable charges a 5% fee on top of your payment provider’s processing fees. If you want to avoid this, you’ll have to opt for its higher-tier plans. 

The pricing above reflects Teachable’s fees when billed monthly. If you opt for an annual plan, the cost of the Basic, Pro, and Business plans gets reduced to $29, $99, and $259 each month, respectively. Each plan varies in terms of branding customization, the number of admin users, and support for affiliate marketing and group coaching call.

To compare their prices or give Teachable a whirl for 14 days, click here.  

Podia

The best affordable Kajabi alternative

What makes Podia stand out among the rest of the platforms on our list is it lets you sell digital products conveniently. Kajabi, Teachable, and Thinkific are excellent platforms for online courses, but if you want to sell other digital products such as e-books, presets, and templates, Podia offers a seamless way to do so. It even lets you use an offsite button that you can embed in other websites or platforms so your customer can purchase directly without having to go to your site. As for Kajabi and the other alternatives on our list, this is also possible, but you’ll have to jump through more hoops. 

Podia’s cost is among the lowest as well. Unlike Teachable, Podia won’t charge you a 5% transaction fee if you’re subscribed to its core plan. 

Just like the other Kajabi alternatives on our list, Podia’s interface is intuitive and straightforward. Even setting up a blog on Podia is easy, and if you want to improve your SEO score, this is a must. Should you or your students encounter any issues, Podia’s customer support won’t disappoint. They provide topnotch support no matter which plan you’re on. Podia has live chat support during business hours that you or your students can reach out to, and you can expect a quick response to your concern. If you’re looking to switch from Kajabi, Podia offers free migration as well on both its plans. 

Pricing

Podia only offers two plans: Mover and Shaker. Subscribing to an annual plan will save you $78 USD on the Mover Plan and $159USD on the Shaker Plan. Both tiers include unlimited courses, students, digital downloads, webinars, email marketing, and free migration. If you want to offer memberships and coaching calls, you’ll have to upgrade to the Shaker Plan. Third-party integrations, blog, offsite shop buttons, and affiliate marketing are also only available on Podia’s Shaker Plan.

You can try Podia’s features for free here. 

LearnDash

Best Kajabi alternative for WordPress websites

If you already have a WordPress website and want to better streamline your process and lower your cost, LearnDash is the best Kajabi alternative for you. With LearnDash, you won’t need to go to a different platform to upload and manage your courses as this can be done within WordPress itself. This LMS is a premium WordPress plugin that you can easily install and activate. LearnDash offers unlimited courses, students, advanced quizzes, native certification, content automation, course forums, and third-party software integrations, just like the other Kajabi alternatives on our list. 

While this sounds more straightforward for some, it’s not the best route for complete beginners. First off, you need a hosted WordPress site and domain name for LearnDash. You’ll need to make sure your site is optimized for speed as well as the more courses, products, and students you have, the higher the tendency for your site to slow down. If you don’t know how to do all these yourself, you either have to spend hours on end Googling instructions or paying steep developer fees. Unlike LearnDash, the other Kajabi alternatives we recommend are more beginner-friendly and host all your content on their platform. 

Pricing Plans

LearnDash has three plans you can choose from and the higher-tier plans give you access to its ProPanel and more site licenses. Aside from these, its plans offer similar features across the board.

Of all the Kajabi alternatives on our list, LearnDash is the most affordable overall. However, it only offers annual plans and, unlike the other platforms, LearnDash doesn’t offer a free trial. What they do offer is a 30-day money-back guarantee.  You can compare its plans here.

Verdict

Podia is the best Kajabi alternative overall while LearnDash is the best alternative for those who already have a WordPress website

Podia

Best Kajabi alternative overall

LearnDash

The best Kajabi alternative for WordPress site users

While Kajabi is one of the most powerful learning management systems, course creators and businesses have other options that are also capable but won’t break the bank. Thinkific, Teachable, and Podia are all solid Kajabi alternatives that provide a user-friendly interface, reliable tools for training, marketing, and content management, and at an attractive monthly cost, too. Among the three, Podia strikes the best balance between features and affordability. Thinkific’s forever free plan, although limited, is a great option for those on a tighter budget, too.

Meanwhile, if you already have a WordPress website, LearnDash alleviates the need for you to set up your LMS on a different platform. It’s not as powerful or intuitive as the other stand-alone LMS we’ve mentioned, but it still does the job well. 

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