Kajabi is a well-known course platform with strong features for asynchronous courses and marketing funnels. It has integrated website building, email marketing, and an option to get branded apps.

However, Kajabi has some limits. And it's not right for every course creator.

Its community and live teaching features were a late addition to the platform, and in our testing, these still feel like separate products. Kajabi's AI is content-creation focused (course outlines, landing pages, copy), which means it's missing advanced member engagement or matching AI that comparable platforms have. And while the marketing automations are strong, the in-platform automations aren't. It's difficult to move members through an experience across the platform's seams.

All this means Kajabi has limits for some kinds of course and membership creators. And since the Basic plan starts from $143/mo, you might be looking for an alternative.

In this article, we'll cover:

• What Kajabi is

• What Kajabi does well

• Disadvantages of Kajabi

• What to look for in an alternative

• The best Kajabi alternatives on the market

It's an online course and marketing platform. Kenny Rueter created it in 2010. He wanted to sell a lawn sprinkler he'd created for his son. But he couldn't find the digital sales infrastructure he liked.

Today, Kajabi is a well-known online course platform. Importantly, it's part of a movement of hosted course platforms that let creators own their work (unlike a course marketplace).

This chart is a reference for all the Kajabi alternatives we talk about in this post. Click on an option for more in-depth analysis.

• Pre-recorded course. Build-it-and-leave-it courses (AKA asynchronous courses) are what Kajabi's LMS does well, with flexible delivery options for building different kinds of content, AI outlines, dripping material, and adding evaluations.

• Marketing funnels. Pre-made funnel templates to run sales and promotions, email with customer tags, and up- and down-sells. Integrate landing pages with sales, track customer behavior, and send emails.

• Build a course website. Lots of website templates, hosting, drag-and-drop customization, and AI course material.

• Sell memberships and subscriptions, charge a one-time fee, or bundle your digital products for sale in multiple currencies.

• All-in-one functionality. For creators building async courses, Kajabi works as an "all-in-one", handling marketing, sales, and delivery in one place.

• Its weakness for community & live experiences. Kajabi acquired a community platform to add functionality like livestreaming, but it feels like a separate product. Reviewers point to this limit, and that community doesn't integrate well into the async course platform.

• Community scale is limited. Reviewers note Kajabi's community doesn't replicate the feel of dedicated social-style platforms; it's not great for organizing large communities with complex conversations.

• More limited in-course engagement than community-first platforms. Kajabi supports quizzes, lesson comments, and live cohort course sessions, but it has fewer tools for ongoing member-to-member engagement within the learning experience.

• Weak customization. Reviewers commonly point to weak customization across the platform, from being stuck with email templates to static checkout and landing pages to rigid assignments.

• Branded apps require some app-store setup. Kajabi builds and maintains the app, but customers still need developer accounts and participate in parts of the Apple and Google publishing process.

• High cost. Kajabi is quite expensive relative to similar platforms.

With any Kajabi alternative, the best platform will be the one that fits your needs. Some are designed for set-it-and-forget-it courses while others for daily community engagement. Some for advanced brand customization and others you teach under someone else's brand.

For each option below, we'll give you a "best for" frame to help you figure out if that platform is right for you.

Here's how we're comparing:

• LMS functions. For teaching courses, evaluating students, and automating learning.

• Live teaching, events, and engagement: We look at different ways to build courses and related experiences, and tools to keep members returning.

• Apps & branded apps: We looked for flexible apps that are intuitive, and considered a range of branded apps from self-serve to premium (done for you).

• Marketing tools. Kajabi's funnels give you a lot, so we looked at integrated marketing, funnels, landing pages, websites, and sales infrastructure.

• All-in-one power. We looked for options that let you handle a lot with one platform, mixing things like courses, community, email, websites, and events. Note that "all-in-one" means different things for different creators.

• Integrations. If you need one, make sure your alternative has it. Watch for native and built-in integrations where possible.

Whether you’re simply looking for a different course platform than Kajabi, you want an online marketplace, or you’re ready to bring your online courses and community together in the same place under your own brand, you have options.

Best for courses and community together

Mighty Networks is a community software with courses built-in that can teach in a few different ways:

• Async courses: Record your material in advance and use the LMS to build lessons on an outline. Drip content, have discussions under modules, and customize the learning experience.

• Live courses: Use native livestreaming and engagement tools to pre-sell and teach a cohort course.

• Building course communities: Your course lives in G2's top-rated community management software and you can integrate discussions.

• Teaching live and selling the recording: Many creators choose to teach live and then to sell a recording after.

Here are a few key design factors that make Mighty a great Kajabi alternative for courses and communities together.

• Mighty uses Spaces to organize content, meaning that courses and communities are fully integrated. You can toggle in features like live events, discussion forums, member profiles, and video and written content.

• Good live learning & event functions with native live streaming, integrated course events with RSVP, both native-and off-platform event hosting, and event chats.

• AI built for engagement; It can generate discussion questions, introduce members, start discussions with a click, identify lapsed members and prompt them, or help with content and course outlines.

• Collaborative gamification includes leader boards, recognitions and community values, custom badges, and unlocks.

Pros

• Integrated community and course platform with AI tools.

• Online course engine with video lessons, audio and downloads, chat & messaging, Q&As, discussion forums, and more.

• Livestreaming is built-in. Go live to every platform and even teach your course live.

• Live, robust, and branded mobile app /or web access (iOS & Android).

• Premium branded apps done for you

Cons

• No complex marketing funnels like Kajabi

• No website building or native email

Best LMS for asynchronous courses

LearnWorlds is a Kajabi alternative that offers a solid course platform with many of the same features Kajabi has. It comes with a website builder that combines with a SCORM-compliant LMS to create lots of different course options.

Like Kajabi, LearnWorlds also integrates marketing tools so that you can incorporate basic email, sales funnels, or affiliate programs. LearnWorlds also has a mobile app option and includes a cohort teaching option, meaning you can host your course live.

While LearnWorlds is missing advanced marketing systems and the email platform isn't much to work with, it does have the same set of strengths Kajabi has--and the actual course platform is excellent.

LearnWorlds has community features, but they're course-adjacent rather than community-first. Discussions live outside the course experience, and member-led interaction is admin-gated. Like Kajabi, it's best for asynchronous courses.

And although there's a low-cost plan to start with, to get the full effect of LearnWorlds, you need to choose a more expensive plan.

Pros

• Course builder and LMS for async courses (and the option to teach live).

• Website builder with built-in marketing features like Kajabi.

Cons

• Very basic community features and no engagement features.

• Email and marketing tools are clunky and simple, and only available on more expensive plans.

Best cohort course marketplace

Maven is a unique online course platform; it focuses on teaching virtual instructor-led courses (cohort courses) with a marketplace feel.

Maven hand-selects instructors it feels can offer value to its followers, then it offers a live course that people pay for. Cohort courses can have a higher price tag (because of the live experience) and Maven's choice of industry pros makes for good quality courses.

Note that Maven skews heavily towards tech and professional skills. You can apply to teach a course on Maven's website, and courses usually sell for anywhere between $500 - $3,000.

Pros

• Unique learning platform that curates courses from experts.

• Potentially higher margins from a live course and better engagement for students.

• Lots of support if you're selected and your course is listed in a course catalog.

Cons

• You need to apply and be selected.

Best Kajabi marketing alternative

ClickFunnels is a marketing platform, not a course platform. So if you're interested in Kajabi's course marketing features, ClickFunnels is a good alternative. It gives users pre-built sales funnels to choose from for selling pretty much anything--including a course funnel. It also builds sales web pages and infrastructure like Kajabi, with lots of customization power for the specific sales processes.

ClickFunnels used to focus solely on landing pages, but they've now added a simple course platform too. As a result, you can build modules, add lessons, drip content, host videos, and award certificates.

But a few things to know about course building on ClickFunnels. Courses feel a bit like a funnel, you progress through the learning experience. There are no in-course evaluation tools or live learning options.

Pros

• Tons of research-based sales funnels from a company that focuses ONLY on selling stuff.

• It's easy to use: quickly build landing pages, add upsells, connect emails, etc.

Cons

• The course platform is quite simple compared to alternatives.

Best course marketplace alternative

For course creators who want to host their course on a marketplace, Udemy is a good alternative to Kajabi. Course marketplaces give you a very specific trade-off: they take a portion of creators' earnings in exchange for having your course listed on their marketplace. They do all the hosting, you list for free, and you get exposure and their audience. However, you do not get the same level of customization or ownership as building on your own platform.

Udemy is one of the best options for marketplace platforms, and it stems from its payment structure.

• You keep 97% of the revenue you bring to the platform (e.g. through direct links). But you only keep 37% of revenue from students who find you on Udemy.

• Udemy doesn't put many restrictions on who can teach, and they let you set your own pricing (from free to $299).

• You can choose to have your course boosted in Udemy promotions (although they also reserve the right to cut your price).

Udemy doesn't require any upfront payment on your part, they take it all out of the back-end earnings. But Udemy has 84 million students and 250,000+ courses. So like any course marketplace, there are lots of potential students but it can be tough to be seen.

Pros

• Course marketplace with lots of existing users to (potentially) find your course.

• No upfront payment, customer support, design, or customization work. Udemy handles it all.

• Fairly flexible monetization models with options for direct sales.

Cons

• You're competing with thousands of courses.

• Udemy takes 63% of your revenue in many cases.

• You don't own the customers.

• Not many ways to connect with your students and no live engagement

Best lower-cost option with similar features

Another alternative to Kajabi to consider if you're looking to create online courses is Thinkific. Thinkific is a course platform that also does website building, and has other digital product options. It has a similar feature set to Kajabi with a lower price tag.

Creators and digital entrepreneurs can create a wide range of content types for their online courses including quizzes, multimedia-based articles, videos, surveys, webinars, and more. And Thinkific has some automation tools which make onboarding students and sending mass emails much easier.

Thinkific has a basic native email. But its community tools are basic, it's missing the features for comprehensive engagement and fostering a learning community (no native livestreaming).

And Thinkific's apps have been poorly reviewed. While they can work for basic course delivery, they are known for UX and glitching issues, as well as feature gaps like quizzes, surveys, and in-app purchases which are only possible in the branded app.

Pros

• Good LMS with lots of options for an async course and flexible delivery.

• Drag-and-drop website builder with lots of templates and sales pages to choose from.

• Some Kajabi-style marketing tools like basic email, coupons, an affiliate program, etc.

Cons

• It's missing native livestreaming (for cohort courses) and built-in engagement and community features.

• The apps have low user ratings.

Best async AI evaluations

Teachable has all the features you need to create async courses, enroll students, and collect payments. It doesn't have integrated email nor does it offer the same kinds of complex marketing features Kajabi is known for.

Like Kajabi, Teachable has a good AI content creation engine for outlining curriculum, lesson writings, summaries, and sales pages. It can auto transcribe in 70+ languages. And AI is also built for creating quizzes, an innovative feature that can make it easier to test student retention. (Note it only scrapes text lessons and not video.)

Teachable has a forum feature for adding a simple community to a course, but this feature has been paused in development. Teachable has stated they won't be adding more features or actively fixing it. It's missing comprehensive community management tools; it's basically just a running discussion. And Teachable does not have native livestreaming.

Choosing Teachable means managing more services in different places, but it's still cheaper and simpler to use than Kajabi.

Pros

• Good LMS with comparable content options to the other course platforms on this list

• Some built-in marketing features to help sell a course: up- and down-sells, triggers, and an affiliate program

• Landing page builder and tons of integrations

• Good Teachable apps

Cons

• Limited engagement features for live learning and community

• No native livestreaming or live learning

• No branded apps

Best for membership communities & simple courses

Circle is a dedicated community platform with courses, live events, and membership, making a good community-first alternative.

Circle organizes content into Spaces: discussion rooms, courses, events, or resource libraries. From here, you can host calls or events, build an asynchronous course, or chat with members. Circle has some good workflows (business plan and up) to automate member onboarding, access, and re-engagement. And it has a branded mobile app option with Circle Plus.

Note that Circle Spaces are divided up by content type, so it has some of the UX challenges Kajabi has with courses and community in different places. Courses are modular, but basic and there are limited assessment options.

Circle has added email marketing for an additional cost, as well as basic website building.

Pros

• Strong community tools: spaces, discussion, live rooms, and events.

• Clean, modern UI that's easy to navigate

• Automation workflows for onboarding and re-engagement (Business plan)

• Branded apps

Cons

• Courses are basic

• Email marketing is a paid add-on, not included

• Automation requires the $199/mo Business plan

Best Kajabi alternative for course websites

Podia is website building software that specializes in creating multi-page sites from templates with drag-and-drop customization. On Podia, you can create different kinds of content and offer it all in one digital storefront, so it's easy to navigate and add new products. Some examples of what you can create are: online courses, digital memberships, one-off webinars, and digital downloads. They also offer solid 24/7 support to help you through your issues as they arise.

All said, Podia feels a bit like a more basic version of Kajabi and it has a similar focus. The website builder is multi-faceted, but the course builder is much more simple. While Podia lists memberships as an option, these are very limited and don't compare to a membership platform; it's more of a subscription for gated content. Podia also offers a built-in email with your first 100 contacts free.

Note that Podia does not offer mobile apps.

Pros

• A drag-and-drop website builder with lots of templates to choose from

• The option to include courses or coaching with the website

• Some of the same tools Kajabi has for marketing, email, etc.

Cons

• The LMS, course tools, email, and marketing are all less advanced.

• No mobile apps

The best Kajabi alternative will always depend on what you need to run your course business.

If you’re building courses and community together, why not try Mighty Networks? It lets you host any kind of course you want, whether cohort and/or async. Connect communities, forums, member profiles, events, live streams, and more. It's easy to sell and create bundles, and your network is available on native apps for all devices (or even branded apps).

It's free to try for 14 days, no credit card required.