Kajabi vs Teachable Comparison: Choosing the Online Course

Stacey M. November 10, 2023 149 0

If you’re an online educator or entrepreneur looking to create and sell online courses, you’ve likely encountered two popular platforms: Kajabi and Teachable. In contrast to massive open online course platforms that list your course on an open marketplace, these solutions allow you to offer online courses under your brand with total control over your pricing.

Kajabi or Teachable? Both platforms provide a range of features to help you create, market, and sell your courses. In this comparison, we’ll explore the differences and similarities between Teachable and Kajabi to help you decide which platform best suits your needs.

Bottom Line: What Is Better

When choosing Kajabi or Teachable, the decision ultimately depends on your specific requirements and preferences. Kajabi is an all-in-one platform providing comprehensive course creation, marketing, and sales features. On the other hand, Teachable offers a user-friendly interface and is better suited for beginners or those with limited technical knowledge.

If you prioritize a robust all-in-one solution and are willing to invest in a higher-priced platform, Kajabi will be the better choice. However, if you’re on a budget and prefer simplicity, Teachable can be an excellent option.

Kajabi vs. Teachable Comparison Table

	Kajabi	Teachable
Pricing	Basic – from $119/mo.Growth – from $159/mo. (14-day free trial)Pro – from $319/mo.	Free plan – $0Basic – from $39/mo.Pro – from $119/mo.Business – from $499/mo.
Transactions fees	No transaction fees	$1 + 10% per transaction (Free plan);5% per transaction (Basic plan)
Mobile App	iOS and Android app for students +Creator app	Only iOS app for students
Product types	Courses, coaching, digital downloads, podcasts, and community products	Courses, coaching, and digital downloads
Payment gateways	Integrations with Stripe and Paypal	Native payment gateways
Tax handling	No	Yes
Learning curve	Steep	User-friendly
Customization options	Variety of customizable themes and branding options	One school theme, limited branding options
Course structure	Fewer attachment files types, assessments can’t be attached to the lessons	More organized, allows to attach more file types
Assessment types	Multiple-choice and open-ended questions, fill-in-the-blank statements, and images as questions	Limited to multiple-choice questions
Course compliance	You can enforce lecture order, video watching, and graded quiz completion.	You can lock the category until a specific lecture is completed.
Course completion certificates	Yes	Yes
Communities	Built-in communities as separate products	Natively supports only comments but can be integrated with Circle.co to build communities
Student communication	Via communities, email, and comments for teachers.	Via comments and email. Limited feedback options.
Marketing and sales tools	Prebuilt funnels, landing pages, automated marketing campaigns, and email marketing capabilities	Relies on third-party marketing tools
Customer support	24/7 live chat	Live chat only Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. EST.

Differences Between Platforms

To understand the distinctions between Kajabi and Teachable, let’s explore their key differences:

All-in-one solution vs. user-friendly course platform: Kajabi offers a comprehensive suite of features, including website building, email marketing, and automation tools, all within a single platform. Teachable focuses on simplicity, making it easy for beginners to create and sell courses without additional tools.
Pricing: Kajabi’s pricing is higher than Teachable’s but includes more advanced features and capabilities. Teachable provides more affordable options and is appropriate for anyone starting their online course business.
Customization: Kajabi offers various customization options to design an exceptional branded experience. Teachable has pre-designed templates with little room for personalization, making setup quicker but limiting design flexibility.
Marketing: Kajabi includes sophisticated marketing automation features, sales funnels, and email marketing tools. Teachable provides some fundamental marketing capabilities, but it lacks sophisticated automated features.

Similarities between Kajabi and Teachable

Teachable and Kajabi also have a few things in common.

Course creation and management: Both platforms offer straightforward interfaces for managing and creating courses. You can add videos, set up courses with modules and lectures, and create quizzes or evaluations.
Drip content: Both platforms support content dripping, allowing you to release course content gradually over time.
Student engagement: Kajabi and Teachable offer features that promote student interaction, such as discussion forums and comments sections.
Certificates: Both platforms allow you to issue certificates of completion to students who successfully finish courses.

Kajabi Pros & Cons

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of Kajabi or Teachable can help you make an informed decision. Let’s explore the pros and cons of using Kajabi for your online course business.

Kajabi Pros

All-in-one solution: Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that offers a complete collection of tools in one place. You can manage your online courses on one platform without additional integration.
Advanced marketing features: Kajabi offers robust marketing automation features, sales funnels, and email marketing capabilities to help you create sophisticated marketing campaigns and nurture leads to drive conversions.
Customization: Kajabi provides expert templates and a robust website builder, enabling you to develop attractive and expert websites. You can alter the website design, branding components, and course layouts to reflect your brand identity.
Advanced analytics and reporting: Kajabi includes thorough reporting and analytics tools for valuable insights into your course success, student engagement, and sales information. You can track important metrics, spot patterns, and make data-driven decisions to streamline your online course business.

Kajabi Cons

Higher Pricing: Kajabi’s more expensive pricing compared to other platforms is one of its primary disadvantages. It can be a barrier for those on a limited budget or just starting their online course business.
Steep Learning Curve: Learning and adjusting to the platform are necessary to master Kajabi’s features and functionalities. It can take some time for a beginner to use all of Kajabi’s features fully.
A limited number of products per plan: Kajabi has limitations in the number of websites, products, and funnels, while Teachable offers an unlimited number of courses, coaching, and digital downloads for Pro and Business plans.
No Free Plan: When comparing Kajabi vs Teachable, the former doesn’t provide a free option. While Kajabi offers a 14-day free trial, the absence of a permanent free plan is a downside for individuals looking to test the platform before committing to a paid plan.

Teachable Pros & Cons

Now, let’s dive into the pros and cons of using Teachable vs Kajabi to help you determine if it aligns with your online course needs.

Teachable Pros

User-friendly interface: Teachable makes its interface accessible even for beginners or those with limited technical knowledge. Setting up courses, uploading content, and managing your online courses is quick and intuitive.
Well-organized course structure: Comparing Teachable vs Kajabi, the former has a well-organized course framework that enables hosts to add more file types from a sidebar, exams, and upsells. A bulk upload option is available for all paid plans.
Flexible pricing options: Teachable has flexible pricing plans, including a free plan, which makes it an attractive option for individuals who are just starting their online course journey or have budget constraints.
Reliable hosting and security: Teachable provides integrated video hosting, ensuring your course videos are securely stored and delivered to your students. It also covers hosting and maintenance, allowing you to focus on creating and delivering your courses.
Built-in course compliance: Teachable handles EU VAT compliance for course sales, saving time and effort navigating complex tax regulations.
Content import: Teachable offers content import options, allowing you to migrate your courses and content from other platforms, simplifying the transition process.

Teachable Cons

Limited Customization Options: Compared to Kajabi, Teachable’s customization options are more limited. While it provides pre-designed templates, the customization level could be more extensive. This limitation impacts your ability to create a fully branded experience.
Basic analytics and reporting: Teachable provides high-level information about student enrollments, completion rates, and revenue. However, its analytics capabilities fall short if you require in-depth data analysis and detailed insights into student behavior and course performance.
Fewer Integrations: Teachable integrates with popular payment processors and emails marketing services. Still, when comparing Kajabi vs Teachable, the latter’s integration options are more limited.
Less Advanced Marketing Automation: While you can create marketing campaigns and send email broadcasts in Teachable, the platform doesn’t offer the same level of automation and advanced marketing capabilities as Kajabi.

In-Depth Side-By-Side Comparison

In this section, we will compare the essential features of both platforms to help you decide whether Teachable or Kajabi meets your needs the most.

Online Course Creation

Both platforms allow you to create a digital product with different content types, including audio, video, digital workbooks, etc. Kajabi offers various product types to promote interaction, cooperation, and creativity among your students, such as mini-courses, online courses, evergreen training with overtime content release, start from scratch, membership content for subscribers, and communities to foster student communication.

Teachable has two major product types: coaching and courses. You can manage clients, schedule sessions, and upsell with coaching functionality. For courses, you can create sections and lectures, add content, write comments, embed forms, and provide certifications of completion.

Online Course Structure

Both platforms allow you to classify lessons into sections and lectures when creating the course structure. Students can easily follow along and learn from your course as it looks like an online curriculum. When comparing Kajabi vs Teachable, the former also lets you create subcategories, while the latter enables hosts to add more file types from a sidebar, exams, and upsells.

Video Hosting

Both Kajabi and Teachable employ Wistia for back-end video hosting. It offers high-quality streaming, adapts the quality automatically to your audience’s Internet connection speed, and

ensures uninterrupted playback. This way, Teachable and Kajabi both offer limitless video hosting.

Student Progress

With Kajabi, you can access up-to-date progress reports with powerful analytics. Using lesson and video progress, you can monitor each student’s advancement in a single course (up to 1,000 students). Additionally, Kajabi enables you to categorize your students into segments depending on their overall progress, progress per lesson, etc.

Teachable also keeps track of the individual progress and video participation of each of their students. You can click on a student’s user profile to check their progress report and see details like quiz grades, completed lectures, and a video heat map to monitor how students engage with and advance through video courses.

Assessing via Testing, Surveys, and Assignments

Both Kajabi and Teachable offer built-in quizzes, surveys, and assessments. In Teachable, you can add multiple-choice quizzes to any lesson or unit. There are non-graded quizzes with the Basic ($39/mo.) and graded quizzes with the Pro plan ($119/mo.). Additionally, you can require students to pass a quiz with a specific score to move to the next lesson.

With Kajabi, you have more options for assessing students. They include multiple-choice and open-ended questions, fill-in-the-blank statements, and images as questions. Every plan includes free grading, and students can unload materials as PDFs, Word documents, videos, images, and audio files. You can also set a minimum score for an assessment before moving to the following lecture or select a passing grade of 0%.

Website Builder and Landing Pages

With a Teachable website builder, you receive a simple shop page that displays your online courses. You can add predesigned block layouts, such as a banner or pricing, and specific blocks, like an image, text, or button. However, there are no customizable templates available in the Teachable website builder. Teachable sites often resemble one another because the Teachable website builder offers little room for personalization.

On the other hand, Kajabi has several customizable layouts presets available in templates. You can use them to create a stunning website that is secure, stable, and safe. Simply choose your preferred preset layout, then add your branding and copy. The nice aspect is that all Kajabi plans make it simple to customize. You can quickly modify and move things around with Kajabi’s drag-and-drop editor.

Kajabi’s built-in landing page functionality allows you to select from many templates to build whatever type of landing page you require. They help expand your audience, deliver value, and sell your products. Teachable courses, by default, have sales, checkout, and thank you pages. However, they don’t include automated marketing capabilities, relying on cold traffic. It makes attracting attention and converting visitors into paying clients challenging without building a relationship.

Funnels, Automated Marketing Campaigns, and Email Marketing

Teachable does not offer sales funnels or automated marketing initiatives. You need to pay extra for separate integrations. The automated marketing campaigns and funnels in Kajabi connect your opt-in forms, landing pages, and email to help you sell your digital goods and online courses.

Teachable allows you to send course-related emails to existing students or a subset of students to notify them about updates. To send emails to prospective customers, you enlist a third-party email provider. Kajabi enables the creation of flexible email campaigns with various templates and automatic subject line validation. You can automate multi-touch sequences based on consumer behavior or send one-time email blasts.

Integrations

Kajabi and Teachable have essential in-built integrations such as Google Analytics, Zapier, MailChimp, Segment, and ConvertKit. Additionally, Kajabi has Drip, ActiveCampaign, ClickFunnels, AWeber, and Facebook Pixel. Compared to Teachable, Kajabi provides a more robust selection of integrations for built-in sales and marketing features for analytics, email marketing, and Facebook tracking.

Live Events and Live Streams

Teachable and Kajabi both provide support for webinars. While Teachable doesn’t allow natively adding live streams, you can host webinars for existing students by embedding a live video stream code into a lesson. With Kajabi, you can plan and promote any event, including live Zoom training, online conferences, and evergreen webinars. The platform provides editable registration, confirmation, sales page templates, four reminder emails, and five follow-up emails.

Analytics and Reporting

Kajabi and Teachable offer thorough analytics to help determine whether your courses are simple to understand, their performance, and students’ engagement. Additionally, both platforms provide video analytics to see which sections of the video students are watching and where they are losing interest.

Teachable offers student level reports for Pro and Business plans to view how many and which lessons the students have finished. Similarly, Kajabi shows the last action, login date, individual lesson completion rate, and percentage of the course that has been completed. You can also view the report for graded and ungraded assessments with Kajabi. By analyzing this data, you can improve the quality of your courses.