Independent review · Pricing checked 14 August 2026
Kajabi: the premium option, and there's no way to reach 0% fees
We have no affiliate relationship with Kajabi, and nothing on this page earns us a commission from Kajabi. Where this page sends you elsewhere — including the comparison linked at the bottom — some of the tools we name do pay us, and we say so wherever that happens.
Kajabi is the premium end of this category — courses, memberships, email marketing, funnels, a website and a community in one platform, with a reputation for the most polished student experience among the course platforms here. It's built for creators who are already earning and want to stop assembling a stack.
It's also the highest entry price of any tool we cover, it restructured pricing in January 2026 in a way that upset a lot of existing customers, and — unlike Thinkific — there is no configuration where you pay Kajabi nothing per sale.
- Best for
- Established creators consolidating a whole stack
- Free plan
- None — 14-day trial (30 via some partners)
- From
- USD $143/mo annual ($179 monthly)
- Contacts on entry
- 2,500 — cut from 10,000 in the 2026 restructure
- Watch for
- Processing fees on every plan, no 0% path
Plans
| Plan | Annual | Monthly | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $143 | $179 | 1 website, 5 products, 2,500 contacts, custom domain |
| Growth | $199 | $249 | 25,000 contacts, affiliate tools, advanced automations, cohorts, webhooks, 24/7 support, branding removal |
| Pro | $399 | $499 | 100,000 contacts, custom code editor, branded mobile app, multiple websites |
All prices in US dollars per month. Annual billing saves roughly 20%. Checked 14 August 2026. The old $89 Kickstarter tier was withdrawn and is no longer offered to new customers.
There is no 0% path
This is the structural difference between Kajabi and Thinkific, and it's the thing to understand before you commit.
Using your own Stripe account? Kajabi adds a platform surcharge on top of Stripe's own fees — reported at around 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth and 0.5% on Pro. On Basic that means roughly 2.9% (Stripe) + 2% (Kajabi) = about 4.9% per sale.
Using Kajabi Payments instead? You avoid the surcharge but pay Kajabi's own processing rates: around 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.8% on Growth, 2.7% on Pro — and your billing lives inside Kajabi rather than in an account you control.
Either way, Kajabi takes a cut. A creator on Basic doing $10,000/month with their own Stripe pays roughly $2,400 a year in surcharges alone, on top of a $1,716 subscription.
The January 2026 restructure
Kajabi changed its pricing for the first time in nearly a decade, and the changes went in one direction:
- Growth rose from around $159 to $199/month annual — roughly a 25% increase
- Pro rose from around $319 to $399/month annual
- The $89 Kickstarter entry tier was withdrawn from public pricing
- Basic's contact limit was cut from 10,000 to 2,500 — a 75% reduction, while product limits rose from 3 to 5
- The third-party processor surcharge was introduced
Existing customers were not grandfathered at the old rates, which drove real backlash in creator communities. Worth knowing both as a cost signal and as a signal about how the company treats long-term customers.
It also means any review or comparison written before January 2026 is quoting prices that no longer exist — and a lot of them are still circulating.
The contact cut is the practical problem
2,500 contacts on a $143/month plan is tight for a platform sold on consolidating your whole business. If you're running email marketing through Kajabi — which is the point of using it — you'll cross 2,500 faster than you'll outgrow 5 products.
That pushes you to Growth at $199, which is probably where Kajabi expects most people to land. Price the tier you'll actually need in twelve months, not the one that gets you started.
Who it suits
- Established creators earning enough that a $143–$199 monthly platform cost is a rounding error against revenue
- Anyone genuinely replacing a course platform, an email tool, a funnel builder and a website host at once — the consolidation maths can work
- Coaches running cohort-based programmes and communities, which Growth handles natively
- People who want the most polished student-facing experience in this category, which is what Kajabi is generally reputed to offer
Where it's weaker
- The highest entry price in the category, by a wide margin
- No free plan and no 0% fee option, however you configure payments
- 2,500 contacts on the entry tier after the 2026 cut
- Existing customers moved onto higher prices without grandfathering
- Affiliate tools, advanced automations, cohorts and branding removal all require Growth or above
- The branded mobile app is Pro-only; lower tiers get the generic Kajabi app
Probably not for you if
- You're launching your first course — this is several times the price of platforms that will do the job
- You want your own Stripe account with no platform cut, which Kajabi doesn't offer at any tier
- You're happy with your current tools — the migration cost rarely pays for itself if nothing is broken
- Predictable pricing matters; the 2026 changes showed how quickly terms can move
Questions
Is there a free plan?
No, and no freemium tier. The standard trial is 14 days, sometimes extended to 30 through partner links. Every plan is paid, starting at $143/month annual.
Are there really transaction fees?
Yes, in one form or another. Use your own Stripe and Kajabi adds a surcharge on top (around 2% on Basic, falling on higher tiers). Use Kajabi Payments and you pay their processing rates instead. There's no configuration where Kajabi takes nothing — which is the clearest contrast with Thinkific's 0% platform fee.
Which plan will I actually need?
Probably Growth at $199. Basic's 2,500-contact limit is the binding constraint for anyone running email through the platform, and affiliate tools, advanced automations and branding removal all sit above it too.
Kajabi or Teachable/Thinkific?
Kajabi is doing a bigger job — it replaces your email platform and website as well as hosting courses. The honest question is whether that's worth roughly three times a dedicated course platform plus a cheap email tool. For an established creator consolidating, often yes. For a first course, almost never. Note that none of the three course platforms pays us anything, while some of the email tools we'd point you at do — each one says so on its own page.
Why did the price go up?
Kajabi restructured in January 2026 after nearly a decade of stable pricing — raising tiers, cutting Basic's contact allowance and adding a processor surcharge. Existing customers weren't grandfathered, which is unusual and generated significant pushback.
If it fits, start here
Do the consolidation sum before the trial: add up what you currently pay for course hosting, email, funnels and your website. If that total is close to $199, Kajabi is a fair trade. If it's under $100, you're paying for consolidation you don't need yet — and the fee structure means the gap widens as you sell more.
This link earns us nothing. We have no affiliate relationship with Kajabi.
Read next: Kajabi vs Teachable — premium consolidation against a focused course platform, and where the price gap stops being worth it.