The best Kajabi alternative depends on which part of Kajabi you use. For the course itself, Teachable and Thinkific are the closest matches for less money. For community, Mighty Networks. For assessments and certificates, LearnWorlds. For the cheapest start, Systeme.io's free plan.
If you sell your course with paid ads, ElasticFunnels puts the funnel, checkout, split tests and a members area on one account. I'd pick the tool for where your sales come from, and let the course hosting follow.
Kajabi is a good product, and a lot of people who search for an alternative end up staying. It hosts the course, runs the community, sends the emails and even gives your students a branded app. The trouble starts when you look at what you pay for that and how much of it you use.
I spent nine years as CTO of a direct-response company before I started ElasticFunnels, and the question I learned to ask of any platform was where the money comes in. For most course creators on Kajabi, the answer is their list and their content, and Kajabi is built for exactly that. For creators who buy traffic, the money comes in on a sales page and a checkout, and that's the part Kajabi does least. This list covers both kinds of creator. We make one of the tools on it, so read it knowing that.
Why course creators look for a Kajabi alternative
Almost every reason comes back to Kajabi's own pricing page. As of 29 September 2026:
- The entry price is high. Basic is $179 a month on monthly billing ($143 a month billed annually), Growth is $249 and Pro is $499. There is no free plan, and the trial runs for up to two weeks, with a $149 authorization hold that Kajabi's help center explains.
- The limits sit low on Basic. Basic allows 5 products, 2,500 contacts, 2 admin users and 1 community. The next step up is Growth at 50 products and 25,000 contacts.
- Features you might expect are an upgrade. The affiliate program, the branded mobile app and the API start on Growth. Webhooks are on Pro.
- Your own processor costs extra. Kajabi Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic. If you use your own Stripe or PayPal instead, Kajabi adds a 2% fee on Basic and 1% on Growth, on top of the processor's own fee.
- Testing is limited. Kajabi's A/B tests cover landing pages. Visitors are randomly assigned, a test runs for 1 hour to 30 days, and it "cannot be canceled once started". Split testing checkout or sales pages is not publicly stated.
That third-party fee is the one people underestimate. Say you sell $10,000 of courses in a month through your own Stripe account on Basic: that's $200 to Kajabi on top of Stripe's fee and the $179 plan, every month you sell that much. It's a fair price for some businesses. It's worth doing the arithmetic for yours before you decide either way.
The best Kajabi alternatives at a glance
Entry prices are monthly on monthly billing, taken from each vendor's pricing page on 29 September 2026. Most are cheaper billed annually, and most cap products, contacts, students or admin seats per plan.
| Tool | Best for | Starts at | Free plan or trial | Key strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ElasticFunnels | Courses sold with paid ads | $97 a month | 14-day trial | Funnel, checkout, split tests and members area in one |
| Teachable | A simple course business | $39 a month, plus a 7.5% fee | 7-day trial | Student apps on every plan |
| Thinkific | A growing course catalogue | $54 a month (US) | 30-day trial | Unlimited courses on every plan |
| Podia | Small creators on a budget | $49 a month, plus a 5% fee | 14-day trial, no card | Store, community and email in one |
| LearnWorlds | Structured training | $29 a month, plus $5 per paid enrollment | 30-day trial | Assessments and certificates |
| Mighty Networks | Community-first courses | $79 a month, plus a 2% fee | 14-day trial, no card | Community, courses and events together |
| Systeme.io | The tightest budget | Free, then $17 a month | Free plan | A free plan that includes a course |
| ClickFunnels | Funnel-first with courses | $97 a month | 14-day trial | Funnels, email and courses on one login |
| Kartra | Coaches who want every tool | $59 a month, plus a 5% fee | 14-day trial | Email, SMS, helpdesk and webinars |
| Kajabi, for reference | Courses, community, app | $179 a month | Trial of up to two weeks | Courses, community and email in one |
How we picked these tools
We did not score or star-rate anything, and we're not going to pretend we ran nine businesses on nine platforms. What we did was narrower, and you can check every bit of it.
- The field. We started from the tools that show up again and again in "Kajabi alternative" searches and roundups, and kept the ones a course creator could realistically move to.
- The sources. Each vendor's own pricing page and help center, read on 29 September 2026. Where a vendor doesn't state something publicly, we say so instead of guessing.
- The criteria. What it costs at the plan you'd actually need, what it takes per sale, how it hosts and delivers a course, what the checkout can do (order bumps, upsells, subscriptions), whether it can split test the pages that sell, and whether it has a community or a mobile app.
The tools fall into three groups, and knowing which group you need saves most of the research.
- Course platforms (Teachable, Thinkific, LearnWorlds, Podia) do the learning side well and keep the selling simple.
- Community platforms (Mighty Networks) put the members first and the course inside the community.
- Funnel platforms that host a course (ElasticFunnels, Systeme.io, ClickFunnels, Kartra) start from pages, checkout and follow-up, and add course delivery.
The nine alternatives, one by one
ElasticFunnels comes first because it is our site. It is not the right pick for most people reading this, and the section says who it's for. If anything below is out of date, email [email protected] and we'll fix it.
1. ElasticFunnels: best for courses sold with paid ads
ElasticFunnels is a funnel and checkout platform for people who buy traffic, with courses and a members area built in. The course sits at the end of the funnel. Buying a product that's linked to a course enrolls the buyer on the spot, and the checkout logs them straight into the members area, so there's no second account to create and no password to forget.
Best for: creators who sell a course, a program or a membership with Meta, Google or TikTok ads, and who care about the conversion rate of every page between the ad and the purchase.
Standout features:
- Courses with modules, lessons and materials, ready-made course and player pages, and a copy button to clone a whole course for a new offer.
- A members area with passwordless login by magic link or code. Students see their orders, subscriptions, course progress and bonus downloads, and can manage or cancel a subscription themselves, with a retention offer before they go.
- Split tests on any page, the checkout included, under the URL the ad already points at. The ad never has to change, so its learning phase isn't reset. See our guide to split testing landing pages.
- A custom checkout with order bumps, one-click upsells and downsells after the sale, subscriptions and dunning.
- Server-side conversions to Meta, Google Ads and TikTok, with each sale tied to its ad, UTM and page variant.
- An AI page builder that builds any page you describe, a page cloner, a built-in CRM and your own affiliate program.
Pricing (September 2026): Starter is $97 a month, Growth $197 and Scale $497, with a 14-day free trial and no free plan. Every plan includes every feature; plans differ only by usage limits such as visits, brands and team seats. A 0.5% fee applies only to revenue through the ElasticFunnels-hosted checkout. Details on the pricing page.
Pros:
- The whole sales path, from presell page to upsell, is testable without touching the ad.
- Buyers are enrolled and logged in the moment they pay.
Cons:
- No community feature and no branded mobile app.
- Marketing email runs through an integration such as Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp or Kit. Order and course emails are built in.
- More than most course creators need if the list, not ads, does the selling.
Consider it if… you already know your course sells, and the job now is to make paid traffic profitable. The side-by-side is on Kajabi vs ElasticFunnels, and the course setup is on funnels for course creators.
Here's why I put the funnel ahead of the course hosting for ad-driven creators. Picture a course sold on Meta at a cost per purchase close to its price. One extra point of conversion on the checkout, or an upsell that one buyer in five takes, is the difference between an ad account you can scale and one you switch off. The lesson player doesn't move that number. The sales path does.
2. Teachable: best for a simple course business
Teachable is one of the best-known course platforms, and it keeps things straightforward: build the course, sell it on Teachable's checkout, and let students learn on the web or in its iOS and Android apps.
Best for: creators with a small number of courses or coaching products who want a clean student experience without running a funnel.
Standout features:
- iOS and Android student apps on every plan.
- Drip content and auto-graded quizzes, with course certificates on Growth.
- Coupons, upsells, order bumps and abandoned-cart emails listed in its feature grid, with an affiliate program from Builder.
Pricing (September 2026): Starter is $39 a month with 5 products and a 7.5% transaction fee. Builder is $89 with 10 products and no Teachable fee, and Growth is $189 with 50 products and 5 admin users. Annual billing brings them to $29, $69 and $139. There's a 7-day free trial and a 30-day guarantee, and no free plan.
Pros: an easy start, student apps included, and no platform fee from Builder up.
Cons: products are capped per plan, and the 7.5% fee on Starter adds up quickly once you sell.
Consider it if… you want the closest thing to Kajabi's course side at a lower price, and a handful of products covers you.
3. Thinkific: best for a growing course catalogue
Thinkific is a course platform that doesn't cap how many courses you publish. It adds communities and a set of selling tools, and it has the longest trial in this list.
Best for: educators who plan to build a catalogue of courses and want room to grow without changing plans for every new product.
Standout features:
- Unlimited courses on every plan.
- Order bumps and an affiliate program from Basic; bundles, upsells and payment plans from Start.
- Communities (1 on Basic and Start, 3 on Grow), and a standard API with webhooks from Grow.
Pricing (September 2026): Thinkific shows local prices. From Europe its page lists Basic at €53, Start at €107 and Grow at €213 a month on monthly billing. After Thinkific's August 2026 price change, published US prices are $54, $109 and $219 a month, or $40, $82 and $164 billed annually. Thinkific Payments processes at 2.9%. There's a 30-day free trial and no free plan. A branded mobile app is a $199-a-month add-on on its custom Plus plan.
Pros: no course cap, a long trial, and selling tools on the entry plan.
Cons: the branded app is expensive and limited to Plus, and the API waits until Grow.
Consider it if… your plan is more courses, not more funnels.
4. Podia: best for small creators on a budget
Podia bundles a website, an online store, courses, a community and email marketing into one simple account. It's built for solo creators who sell a mix of courses, downloads and coaching.
Best for: creators starting out who want one tidy place for everything and don't need advanced funnels.
Standout features:
- Courses and community on every plan.
- Email marketing included, with subscriber limits by plan.
- Affiliate marketing and upsells from the Shaker plan.
Pricing (September 2026): Mover is $49 a month with a 5% transaction fee, 50 products and up to 100 email subscribers. Shaker is $99 with no fee and up to 500 subscribers, and Earthquaker is $179 with unlimited products and up to 1,000 subscribers. Annual billing brings them to $42, $84 and $150. The trial is 14 days with no card.
Pros: simple, fairly priced, and community is included from the first plan.
Cons: the included email lists are small, and the 5% fee on Mover makes it expensive once you sell regularly.
Consider it if… you're early, your audience is small, and simplicity matters more than conversion tools.
5. LearnWorlds: best for structured training
LearnWorlds leans into the learning experience: interactive video, assessments, certificates and learning paths. It serves both creators and training teams.
Best for: course creators and trainers whose students need to be tested, certified or tracked through a program.
Standout features:
- Advanced assessments and course certificates from Pro Trainer.
- Subscriptions, memberships, payment plans and a community from Pro Trainer.
- A branded mobile app as an add-on.
Pricing (September 2026): Starter is $29 a month plus $5 per paid enrollment, capped at 1,000 active learners a month. Pro Trainer is $99 with no enrollment fees, and Learning Center is $299. Annual billing brings them to $24, $79 and $249. There's a 30-day free trial.
Pros: the deepest assessment and certification tools here, and a low entry price.
Cons: the $5 enrollment fee on Starter adds up fast on a low-priced course, and community is not on Starter.
Consider it if… the learning outcome is what you sell. This is where "Is LearnWorlds better than Kajabi?" usually lands: for training, yes; for marketing, Kajabi does more out of the box.
6. Mighty Networks: best for community-first courses
Mighty Networks starts from the community and puts courses, events and live sessions inside it. It suits creators whose members stay for each other as much as for the content.
Best for: memberships and cohort programs where discussion and events are the product.
Standout features:
- Community, courses and live events on every plan.
- An AI assistant it calls AI Cohost on every plan.
- Branded apps through Mighty Pro.
Pricing (September 2026): Launch is $79 a month, the next tier $179 and Growth $354, with transaction fees of 2%, 1% and 0.5%. The trial is 14 days with no card, on Growth features. Branded apps are on custom Mighty Pro pricing.
Pros: the strongest community experience in this list.
Cons: a transaction fee on every plan, and the funnel and checkout side is basic next to a funnel tool.
Consider it if… Kajabi's community is the part you'd miss most.
7. Systeme.io: best free Kajabi alternative
Systeme.io is the low-cost all-in-one: funnels, email, courses, a blog and an affiliate program in one account, with a genuinely free plan.
Best for: first-time course creators who want to launch without a monthly bill.
Standout features:
- A free plan with 2,000 contacts, 3 sales funnels and 1 course, and no card or expiry.
- Unlimited email sends, and no transaction fee on any plan.
- A/B tests, one-click upsells and order bumps from the $17 plan up.
Pricing (September 2026): free, then Startup at $17 a month (5 courses, 5,000 contacts), Webinar at $47 (unlimited courses) and Unlimited at $97.
Pros: the cheapest way to run a real course business, with email included.
Cons: courses are capped on the lower plans, and the design and testing tools are simpler than a dedicated funnel builder.
Consider it if… budget is the deciding factor. Full comparison: Systeme.io vs ElasticFunnels.
8. ClickFunnels: best funnel-first alternative with courses
ClickFunnels bundles funnels, email, courses, a community and a store under one login. It's built around selling one offer through a funnel, with the course delivered afterwards.
Best for: creators who think in funnels and want their course hosted in the same place.
Standout features:
- Funnels, email and courses on one account.
- A/B testing from its second plan.
- An Affiliate Center on Dominate.
Pricing (September 2026): Launch is $97 a month with 3 courses and no A/B testing, the next tier is $197 with 6 courses, and Optimize is $297 with 10. Dominate is $5,997 a year. There's a 14-day trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Pros: strong funnel tooling with courses included.
Cons: courses are capped by plan, and A/B tests and the affiliate center are upgrades.
Consider it if… you want a funnel builder first and a course platform second. Compare it with Kajabi on ClickFunnels vs Kajabi.
9. Kartra: best for coaches who want every tool
Kartra bundles pages, email, SMS, courses and memberships, a helpdesk, calendars and webinars. It's the closest to Kajabi's everything-in-one approach, with more marketing channels.
Best for: coaches and consultants who want email, SMS and support on the same account as the course.
Standout features:
- Unlimited email and SMS from Starter.
- Affiliate management, surveys and quizzes and a helpdesk from Growth.
- Unlimited courses and memberships from Starter.
Pricing (September 2026): Essentials is $59 a month with 500 contacts, 1 course and a 5% transaction fee. Starter is $119, Growth $229 and Professional $549, with no transaction fee. There's a 14-day trial.
Pros: a very wide toolset on one login.
Cons: Essentials is limited, and the useful plans cost about what Kajabi does.
Consider it if… you like Kajabi's model and want SMS and a helpdesk in it. Full comparison: Kartra vs ElasticFunnels.
Kajabi alternatives compared feature by feature
The five most-searched options next to Kajabi. "Not publicly stated" means the vendor's pricing and help pages don't say, not that the feature is missing.
| Feature | Kajabi | ElasticFunnels | Teachable | Thinkific | Podia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Course hosting and members area | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Enrolled and logged in right after checkout | Not publicly stated | Yes | Not publicly stated | Not publicly stated | Not publicly stated |
| Order bumps | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not publicly stated |
| Upsells after the sale | Yes | Yes, one click | Yes | From Start | From Shaker |
| Split tests | Landing pages | Any page, checkout included, one URL | Not publicly stated | Not publicly stated | Not publicly stated |
| Server-side conversions to ad platforms | Meta | Meta, Google Ads, TikTok | Not publicly stated | Not publicly stated | Not publicly stated |
| Built-in affiliate program | From Growth | Yes | From Builder | Yes | From Shaker |
| Built-in marketing email | Yes | No, via integrations | Yes | Not publicly stated | Yes |
| Community | Yes | No | Yes, on higher plans | Yes | Yes |
| Platform fee per sale | 2% or 1% with your own processor, below Pro | 0.5% on its hosted checkout | 7.5% on Starter | Not publicly stated | 5% on Mover |
When I compare course platforms, the row I read first is the fee per sale, because it grows with you and the plan price doesn't. The second is split tests, and only if you run ads.
How to switch from Kajabi
A move goes smoothly when students never notice it. Do it in this order, and keep Kajabi running until the last step.
- Export your data. In Kajabi, export your contacts (Contacts, then Bulk Actions, then Export), your offer purchases (from the Sales tab) and your transactions. Each export arrives by email as a CSV, and the download link expires after three days.
- Rebuild the course. Upload lessons and materials to the new platform and recreate the module structure. Keep the original video files; re-uploading is faster than trying to pull them back out.
- Rebuild the sales pages and checkout. Recreate each sales page, offer, bump and upsell. In ElasticFunnels you can paste a live page's URL into the AI page cloner and get an editable page back, then link each product to its course so buyers are enrolled automatically.
- Plan subscriptions separately. Saved cards and active subscriptions don't always move between processors. The low-risk route is to leave existing subscribers where they are and sell new ones on the new checkout; ask both vendors before you try to move cards.
- Give existing students access. Grant access on the new platform for everyone in your purchase export, and email them the new login link before anything changes.
- Move the domain last. Point your domain's DNS at the new platform only once pages, checkout and access all work, then send one ad or one email to the new funnel and compare it on sales.
You don't have to move everything. Many creators who run ads keep Kajabi for the course and community and move only the selling: pages, checkout, upsells and tests. Access is then granted in Kajabi through an integration or its API, which Kajabi includes from Growth.
Which Kajabi alternative is best for you?
- You sell to your own list and want a cheaper course platform: Teachable for a few products, Thinkific for a growing catalogue.
- Your students need tests and certificates: LearnWorlds.
- The community is the product: Mighty Networks, or Podia on a smaller budget.
- You want to spend nothing to start: Systeme.io's free plan.
- You think in funnels and want the course in the same place: ClickFunnels, or Kartra if you also want SMS and a helpdesk.
- You sell with paid ads: ElasticFunnels, for split tests under one URL, a checkout with bumps and one-click upsells, and buyers enrolled the moment they pay.
- You use Kajabi's community, email and app every day: stay on Kajabi. It's good at that combination, and moving costs time you could spend selling.
If you're still between two tools, these side-by-side pages go deeper: Kajabi vs ElasticFunnels, ClickFunnels vs Kajabi and GoHighLevel vs Kajabi. For the wider market, see our best sales funnel software guide, and for the checkout side, how to add an order bump and a one-click upsell and downsell.
- Price the plan you'd need at twice your current sales, fee per sale included. The entry price is the least useful number on a pricing page.
- If ads bring your buyers, the course platform matters less than the pages before it. I'd rather have a plain lesson player and a checkout I can test than the other way round.
- Don't leave Kajabi for a tool that makes you rebuild the community from scratch unless the community was never working.
- Don't move active subscribers in the same week you move everything else. It's the one step where a mistake costs you customers who were already paying.
Most people who leave Kajabi aren't unhappy with it. They've outgrown one part and are paying for five others. Work out which part that is, and the right alternative is usually obvious. Then use the trial to build one real offer, not a demo page, and let a little traffic tell you the rest.
