Teachable vs Kajabi: Full 2026 comparison

TL;DR: Our Builder plan starts at $69/month on annual billing with 0% platform fees and automatically remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries through Teachable Payments, removing international tax compliance from your workflow entirely. For creators under $5K monthly revenue, we consistently deliver higher take-home pay through lower subscription costs and zero transaction fees. Kajabi starts at $143/month on annual billing and bundles email automation, sales funnels, and a CRM into one dashboard, a premium that makes sense only if you're already paying for four separate tools and your combined bill exceeds that subscription cost. This article runs the fee math at $2K and $10K monthly revenue, shows exactly what you're paying for at each tier, and names where each platform's cost structure works in your favor.

Understanding what you're paying for matters more than the sticker price. Transaction fees, tax handling requirements, and software subscriptions determine your actual net revenue, and most platform comparisons skip the detailed math, leaving you to discover the real cost on your first payout statement. This one does not. If you're actively shortlisting platforms for your online courses business, we offer a course-first model with built-in tax handling and lower overhead starting at $69/month with 0% platform fees. Kajabi takes a different approach: it bundles email automation, CRM, and sales funnels into one dashboard at $143/month, consolidating your marketing stack at a higher base cost.

Which platform fits your business model best?

Before comparing pricing tables, narrow your requirements with three direct questions.

1. Is your primary focus building high-quality courses, or building complex marketing funnels? We handle drag-and-drop course creation with built-in checkout and tax handling out of the box, which fits most course creators who want to launch quickly without wiring together multiple systems. If your primary business model depends on multi-step email sequences, lead tagging, and conversion pipelines wired together in one native dashboard rather than through integrations, then Kajabi's bundled approach may justify its higher subscription cost, though G2's aggregated user feedback on Kajabi notes it lacks the pipeline stages, lead scoring, and forecasting found in standalone CRM platforms, functioning closer to contact tagging than a sales CRM, so it's worth confirming that native CRM actually covers your pipeline needs before treating the bundle as equivalent to a dedicated CRM tool.
2. Do you sell to international students and want automated tax handling? Teachable Payments automatically calculates, collects, and remits sales tax, VAT, and GST across 45+ countries so you never file those taxes yourself, removing the entire compliance burden and accountant cost for cross-border sales. Kajabi does not remit sales taxes on the creator's behalf, and you remain responsible for registering, filing, and remitting in every applicable jurisdiction.
3. Do you already use external email tools, or do you want everything in one dashboard? We offer direct integrations with popular email service providers on paid plans, letting you choose the exact tool that fits your workflow and switch providers later without migrating your course content or student data. If consolidating all email and marketing into one subscription is worth a higher monthly base cost, Kajabi is built for that consolidation, and its pricing reflects it.

The answer to those three questions determines which platform's cost structure works in your favor.

Teachable vs Kajabi: Key differences side-by-side

Both platforms host and sell courses, but their core architectures serve different operational needs. We focus on fast course creation, built-in tax compliance, and low platform fees. Kajabi wraps course delivery inside a broader marketing suite. The table below uses verified pricing from our pricing page and Kajabi's pricing page as of August 2026.

One clarification before the comparison: our 1,000-student cap counts enrolled students who have purchased a course, while Kajabi's 2,500-contact cap counts all contacts including non-buyers, email subscribers, and leads who have never purchased. The direct comparison is misleading at face value: our limit applies only to paying customers, while Kajabi's limit includes your entire contact database.

Real costs: Teachable vs Kajabi fees compared

The subscription price is the sticker price. The receipt includes transaction fees, payment processing fees, and for non-USD creators, currency conversion fees. Running those numbers before committing to a plan is the most useful thing you can do at this stage.

Base plan costs for Teachable vs Kajabi

Our Builder plan at $69/month on annual billing removes the 7.5% platform transaction fee entirely and includes affiliate tools, email integrations, and native mobile delivery. The Starter plan at $29/month on annual billing is a low entry point, but it carries a 7.5% transaction fee on every sale that stacks on top of standard processing costs.

Kajabi's Basic plan at $143/month on annual billing charges no platform transaction fee when using Kajabi Payments, though Kajabi Payments itself charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, plus 0.7% on subscription or payment plan transactions and 1.5% on international cards. That is a $74/month subscription difference at entry, which matters most before revenue scales.

Take-home pay: $2,000 monthly breakdown

At $2,000 in monthly revenue across 20 transactions of $100 each, standard US card processing on both platforms runs at approximately 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, totaling roughly $64 in processing fees across those 20 transactions.

At this volume, our lower subscription cost translates to approximately $74/month or $888/year in estimated savings compared to Kajabi, before any additional tool costs.

Total monthly costs at $10k revenue

Here is where the honest math matters most. At $10,000 in monthly revenue across 100 transactions of $100 each, processing fees total approximately $320 on both platforms. The subscription gap narrows and then reverses once you add a separate email tool alongside Teachable.

At $10,000/month, adding Kit's Creator plan at 8,000 subscribers ($100/month on annual billing) puts the total Teachable stack at roughly $489/month, about $26/month more than Kajabi Basic. That comparison assumes Kajabi stays on Basic, which caps at 2,500 total contacts, not students, counting every lead, free subscriber, and past buyer.

A $10,000/month business actively running the email marketing and funnels Kajabi is built for is a realistic candidate to cross that 2,500-contact ceiling well before this revenue level, which forces an upgrade to Growth at $199/month and erases the $26/month gap entirely. Model your actual contact count, not just your student count, before assuming Basic holds at this stage. We still lead on tax handling and mobile delivery either way, both of which Kajabi requires additional plan spend to match.

For international creators, the gap can shift further: Stripe charges 3.9% + $0.30 for international card transactions plus a 0.95% currency conversion fee where currency conversion is required. UK and non-USD creators should model that full fee stack against their transaction volume before choosing either platform.

Breaking even on platform tiers

Break-even at $533/month: The gap between Teachable's Starter and Builder plans on annual billing sits at $533/month in course revenue. The $40/month price gap between Starter ($29) and Builder ($69) equals the 7.5% Starter transaction fee at exactly that revenue level. Any creator earning above $533/month on annual billing pays more in transaction fees on Starter than they would by upgrading to Builder. On monthly billing, the break-even moves to approximately $667/month given the $50 gap between Starter ($39) and Builder ($89).

Why creators prefer us for their courses

Automatic VAT and sales tax remittance

Teachable Payments automatically calculates, collects, and remits VAT, GST, and US sales tax on every sale across 45+ countries. Creators using our native gateway are removed from the tax filing loop entirely: no jurisdiction tracking, no tax returns, no filing deadlines for those countries. Kajabi does not file or remit sales taxes on your behalf, and the creator is responsible for filing and remitting any sales tax collected. For a creator with students in Germany, Australia, and Canada, that means three separate VAT/GST regimes to register for and manage manually, or an accountant cost to outsource them.

Lower entry price with zero platform fees

The Builder plan at $69/month on annual billing removes the 7.5% transaction fee and adds affiliate tools and full third-party email integrations. For a creator earning $2,000/month, that puts $74 more per month in their account compared to Kajabi Basic, as shown in the fee model above. Our success stories and case studies document creators at various revenue levels who built profitable course businesses within these plan structures.

"After testing several different options, I found this to be the most intuitive for creating ecourses [sic]." - Caryn P. on G2

Mobile app access on every plan

Our native iOS and Android apps are included on all plans at no additional cost. Students get offline playback, automatic progress sync, and a real app experience rather than a mobile web wrapper. Kajabi's branded mobile app requires a higher-tier plan or is available as a paid add-on on lower tiers, making it a meaningful extra cost at those tiers. For a creator whose students commute or learn on the go, native app access at no additional charge changes how often content actually gets consumed. The Made on Teachable resources show how creators structure their courses for mobile-first student experiences.

Course delivery depth built for teaching, not just marketing

Our course-specific tooling, gradebook, compliance settings, minimum watch-time enforcement, and per-student progress tracking, goes deeper than Kajabi's at the same price point. Kajabi's strength is the marketing stack wrapped around the course, not the course delivery mechanics themselves. That gap matters most for creators whose students need structured progress tracking, watch-time enforcement, and compliance-grade completion records, not just a purchase funnel. Our quizzes currently support multiple-choice with tier-based grading. Kajabi adds open-ended and file-upload answers on every plan, a difference worth checking if your course depends on written or submitted assignments.

How Teachable's open architecture performs at scale

Credibility in this comparison requires naming exactly where the integration-first model creates trade-offs. Three areas matter most as revenue scales.

Email flexibility: Integrations vs. lock-in

Our direct integrations with email service providers on paid plans let you choose the exact email tool that fits your workflow, and switching email providers later never requires migrating your course content or student data. You own the architecture and avoid vendor lock-in: your course delivery, student records, and tax remittance run independently of which email tool you connect upstream. The trade-off is a separate subscription for your chosen email tool, which narrows our cost advantage at higher revenue levels, though whether it actually flips in Kajabi's favor by $10,000/month depends on whether Kajabi still fits on Basic at that stage, see the contact-cap note in the breakdown above.

Kajabi bundles email marketing and CRM functionality directly into its platform, consolidating your stack into one login at a higher base subscription cost. That bundling limits your tool choice: you're locked into Kajabi's native email features regardless of whether a different tool would better fit your workflow.

Sales funnels: Flexibility vs. built-in lock-in

We handle sales funnels through Zapier connections to third-party tools on paid plans, connecting to 10,000+ third-party applications. That open architecture means you can swap funnel tools without rebuilding your entire course library, and Teachable Payments's automatic tax remittance still runs regardless of which funnel tool sits upstream. Your course infrastructure remains stable even as your marketing stack evolves.

Kajabi includes built-in funnel-building features that connect landing pages, email sequences, and checkout inside one dashboard, eliminating the need for third-party tools at that stage. That consolidation simplifies your stack but locks your funnel workflows into Kajabi's native tooling. Switching to a different funnel builder later requires migrating your course content and reconfiguring your entire setup.

Costs and flexibility past $10k per month

At $10,000/month, a creator on Teachable Builder ($69) plus Kit's Creator plan at 8,000 subscribers ($100 on annual billing) spends roughly $26/month more than Kajabi Basic ($143), assuming Kajabi still fits on Basic's 2,500-contact cap at that revenue level, which an actively marketed funnel-driven business may already have outgrown. That narrow margin, even if it holds, doesn't account for the continued advantages Teachable delivers at this revenue level: Teachable Payments still eliminates the entire VAT/GST compliance burden and accountant cost for international sales, native mobile app delivery remains included on every plan at no extra charge (while Kajabi requires a higher-tier plan or paid add-on), and you retain the ability to upgrade or replace your email tool independently without touching your course infrastructure, student data, or tax remittance settings.

Kajabi consolidates the entire stack into one login and one support contact, which simplifies operations but locks your course delivery, marketing, and student relationships into a single vendor. We keep course delivery and marketing separate, preserving your flexibility to evolve each layer of your business independently.

How platform transitions impact your launch

Migrating your student list and content

When switching platforms, you can typically export student email lists, but active subscription relationships are tied to the payment gateway on the originating platform and generally cannot be transferred silently. Neither platform provides automatic migration services.

What requires manual setup during a move

Three steps cover the majority of migration work:

1. Re-upload course content: You'll typically re-upload video assets, PDFs, quizzes, and text lessons to the new builder.
2. Rebuild email sequences: Any automation workflows configured in a third-party email tool continue running from that tool, but you'll need to rebuild platform-native automations and integration configurations from scratch on the destination platform.
3. Reconfigure checkout and upsells: Order bumps, one-click upsells, and coupon codes typically need manual recreation after the move.

The product updates and our blog tools section cover current platform capabilities that affect these workflows.

Custom domains and migration SEO

Set up 301 redirects from every old course sales page URL to the corresponding new URL before taking the old domain offline. Without them, any search ranking your course pages have built transfers to a dead URL and you'll need to rebuild it from zero. Teachable's launch strategy resources cover custom domain configuration in more detail.

Migration logic: When to switch or stay put

Choose Teachable if you're under $5K monthly

At revenue below $5,000/month, our fee structure consistently outperforms Kajabi's on net take-home. The Builder plan at $69/month removes platform fees, a separate email tool stays well below Kajabi's $143/month base cost at list sizes typical for this stage, and Teachable Payments removes the entire VAT and GST compliance burden for international sales without a separate accountant. The audience building resources and business operations guides we publish help growing course businesses reach that $5K threshold faster.

"Classes are easy to create and navigate." - Verified user on G2

When you're already paying for four separate tools

If you're currently paying for a standalone course platform, a separate email marketing tool, a funnel builder, and a CRM, and that combined bill already exceeds $150/month, an all-in-one platform can reduce your operational overhead by consolidating your stack into one subscription and one support relationship.

That consolidation is a cost-management question rather than a feature question: you're trading tool flexibility and vendor independence for billing simplicity. Before consolidating, model whether the subscription gap narrows enough to justify losing the ability to swap individual tools without migrating your entire course business.

Starting on Kajabi makes leaving later more expensive

If you start on Kajabi and later decide the bundled model isn't the right fit, migrating away carries a real cost. Email automation logic, pipeline structures, branded mobile app configuration, and client portal history all need manual reconstruction, none of it exports cleanly to another platform, and the time required scales with how deeply you've built into Kajabi's native tools. That's a switching cost worth weighing against the monthly price before committing to the bundled model. Kajabi's consolidation cuts both ways: convenient to run, expensive to leave.

Don't migrate during an active launch

A platform migration close to a live launch window creates risk to revenue and audience trust. Broken checkouts, misconfigured email triggers, and missing course content during a launch window cannot be recovered once that window closes. Complete the migration well outside any planned launch, run the full checkout flow through a test purchase, confirm email sequences fire correctly, and verify the custom domain resolves before any promotional emails go out.

Solving global tax for cross-border sales

If you have students in multiple countries and don't want to hire an international tax accountant, Teachable Payments is the specific feature that removes that burden entirely. Our news updates cover updates to the tax remittance infrastructure as new jurisdictions are added. Kajabi requires manual registration and filing for each VAT/GST jurisdiction where your sales create a tax obligation, and that workload scales directly with your student geography.

Start a 7-day trial and build your first course before committing to a plan. Compare the full cost stack across Teachable plans, including processing fees.

FAQs

How long does it take to go live on Teachable vs Kajabi?

Our no-code builder with built-in checkout and payments lets creators go live without configuring separate tools. Custom funnel configuration with your own email sequences and landing pages takes longer for first-time users.

Does Kajabi handle sales tax like Teachable does?

No. Kajabi does not remit VAT or GST on the creator's behalf, meaning you must register and file those taxes manually in each applicable jurisdiction. We automatically calculate, collect, and remit international taxes across 45+ countries through Teachable Payments, with no filing action required from the creator.

Can I use my own email tool with Teachable?

Yes. We integrate directly with popular email service providers on paid plans, and Zapier connections to 9,000+ third-party applications are available on paid tiers.

Which platform is better for student completion rates?

We support video, quizzes, and drip content, and our native iOS and Android apps on every plan give students offline access and progress sync that improves completion for mobile learners, while Kajabi's branded app costs extra on lower-tier plans.

How do the free trials compare between Teachable and Kajabi?

We offer a 7-day free trial with a credit card required and a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans, the money-back guarantee is the stronger commitment signal for creators who need more time to build and evaluate a full course before deciding. Kajabi offers a 14-day free trial, also requiring a credit card to activate.

Key terms glossary

Teachable Payments: Teachable's native payment gateway that automatically calculates, collects, and remits sales tax, VAT, and GST across 45+ countries on the creator's behalf.

Platform fee: A percentage Teachable charges per sale on top of payment processing. The Starter plan charges 7.5%. Builder tier and above charge 0%.

VAT remittance: The act of filing and paying collected value-added tax to the relevant tax authority in each applicable country. We handle this automatically through Teachable Payments. Kajabi leaves this to the creator.

Break-even point: The monthly revenue level at which upgrading from Teachable's Starter to Builder plan costs less than staying on Starter and paying the 7.5% transaction fee. On annual billing, that point is $533/month in course revenue.

Currency conversion fee: A 0.95% fee charged by Stripe when a non-USD transaction requires currency conversion, applied on top of standard international processing fees. Relevant for UK and other non-USD creators modeling their true take-home.

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