Thinkific vs Kajabi vs Teachable, which course creation platform is best for you? In this complete comparison review, we’ll be looking at some of the most important features of each platform, to help you make the right choice.
I’ve experimented with each platform, and assessed the user reviews of other online educators to provide you with a comprehensive insight into the services on offer. Read on for my behind-the-scenes look at what each course creator can do.
The Quick Verdict
While all three platforms are easy to use with no coding knowledge required, there are some major differences between them. Here’s a quick insight into when you should choose each service.
When to Choose Thinkific
If you’re looking for a low-cost service with comprehensive course creation, website building and community tools, Thinkific is an excellent choice. It’s a simple and scalable platform, with some excellent ecommerce features, and you can even create your own branded app.
When to Choose Kajabi
Kajabi is an excellent choice for online educators looking to sell a range of products, including coaching services. You can create communities, memberships, and powerful courses. Plus, there are some fantastic tools for building landing pages, mobile apps, and sales funnels.
When to Choose Teachable
Teachable is an excellent all-rounder for course creation, website building, and selling digital downloads. It stands out for its intuitive AI solutions, which help users generate course outlines and quizzes in seconds, with minimal effort. Plus, there are built-in affiliate marketing tools.
Key Pros And Cons
| Pros | Cons | |
|---|---|---|
| Kajabi | ✔️ Easy to use platform ✔️ Excellent sales funnels for increasing revenue ✔️ Great landing page and website layouts ✔️ No transaction fees on any plan ✔️ Course completion certificates | ❌ Expensive pricing for beginners ❌ Limited customer support options on some plans ❌ Not many integration options |
| Thinkific | ✔️ Lots of options for selling different kinds of content ✔️ Powerful website design tools ✔️ Comprehensive app hub for integrations ✔️ Options to build your own branded app | ❌ No built-in sales funnel toolsNo certification options ❌ Limitations on PayPal payment processing |
| Teachable | ✔️ Affordable pricing for beginners ✔️ Powerful page builder and website building toolsUnlimited content and video hosting ✔️ Access to a wide range of integrations ✔️ AI solutions for enhancing the learning experience. | ❌ No sales funnel builder included ❌ Limitations on site and page building ❌ Basic customer support |
Summary Table
| Kajabi | Thinkific | Teachable | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Course creation | Excellent course creation tools with templates, and support for multi-media content. Certifications are also available. | Comprehensive course builder with excellent template. Host live lessons and webinars as well as cohort courses and communities. | Extensive course building solutions with built-in AI capabilities. You can also build a wide range of coaching products to accompany courses. |
| Pricing | Prices start at $149 per month with a 20% discount on annual plans. No transaction fees. | Free plan with paid plans starting at $49 per month. Discounts available on annual plans. | Free plan with expensive transaction fees. Paid plans start at $39 per month with a 5% transaction fee. |
| Website design | Lots of templates, coding options, and powerful solutions for building landing pages. | Fantastic site builder with coding access, templates, and customizable checkout components. | Basic website building features, with built-in SEO tools and drag-and-drop editing. |
| Ecommerce | Comprehensive payment processing with Stripe and PayPal integrations. | Easy payment processing with Stripe and limited PayPal integrations. | Support for more than 130 currencies and a wide range of payment options, including Google Pay and Apple Pay. |
| Sales funnels | Included sales funnel builder with one-click automation, triggers, and unique sales tools. | No integrated sales funnels, though you can create sales pages and branded apps. | No sales funnels, although you can design sales strategies, upsells, and your own affiliate program. |
| Apps and integrations | Integrations with a handful of sales, marketing, and analytical tools, as well as Zapier. | Comprehensive app market with dozens of integrations to leading third-party tools. | Complete app hub with one-click integrations for a range of analytics, sales, and marketing tools. |
| Customer support | Email and self-service support, with dedicated account managers on more expensive plans. | Email and self-service customer support with a comprehensive online community. | Self-service and email support with some options to increase priority support on paid plans. |
In this article:
- The Quick Verdict
- Key Pros And Cons
- Summary Table
- Thinkific vs Kajabi vs Teachable: Course Creation Features
- Thinkific vs Teachable vs Kajabi: Pricing Options
- Website Design and Templates
- Ecommerce and Payment Processing
- Sales Funnels and Revenue Tools
- Apps and Integrations
- Customer Support
- Finishing Thoughts
Thinkific vs Kajabi vs Teachable: Course Creation Features
Quick Verdict: Teachable is the top option for overall course creation features, thanks to its wide range of options, and it’s integrated AI tools. However, Thinkific follows closely behind, offering certifications, coaching, and course solutions.
The first thing you’re going to want to examine when choosing between Kajabi, Thinkific, and Teachable are the course creation features. All three of these platform have similar functionality in this area. They all come with the crucial capabilities course creators need, such as:
- Limitless video and content hosting
- Downloadable content
- Embeddable modules
- Private, paid, and free courses
- Drip feeding for courses
- Basic quizzes and exams
What is Kajabi?
Kajabi is a powerful all-around tool for course creation and online learning. Users can sell coaching sessions, community memberships, podcasts, and comprehensive online courses. The platform offers access to a range of templates to get you started, allowing you to upload and implement various types of content such as videos, and digital products.
There’s a mobile app, so customers can access your course instantly from anywhere. Plus, you can automatically integrate your courses with your website, emails, marketing campaigns, CRM, and other tools. However, there are no options for issuing certificates, and the assessments available are somewhat limited. However, you can create a range of mini and complete courses.
What is Thinkific?
- Free plan available
- Pricing from $39/month
- Website builder
- 0% transaction fee
- Course quizzes and surveys
Thinkific allows companies to sell community memberships and comprehensive courses, although there’s no option for coaching. You’ll be able to create your courses using a variety of pre-built templates, and there’s a handy drag-and-drop course builder for non-coders.
Thinkific also allows you to bulk import a range of courses, create self-paced, scheduled, and cohort sessions, and host live lessons and webinars. Unlike Kajabi, you can also create your own branded mobile app with Thinkific (for an extra fee) and deliver certificates to students.
What is Teachable?
- Easy to use interface
- Multiple currency options
- Free plan available
- Pricing from $39/month
Teachable allows users to sell coaching, online courses, and digital downloads, giving you excellent opportunities to build out your product portfolio. The course creation tools are extremely easy to use, with convenient templates and support for all kinds of content. Plus, there’s a fantastic AI system available, which can automatically generate outlines and quizzes for you.
The AI tools can also translate and transcribe audio content automatically for international students. As an added bonus, Teachable’s courses can automatically integrate with all the tools you already use for marketing. Alternatively, you can set up affiliate campaigns within the platform.
Thinkific vs Teachable vs Kajabi: Pricing Options
Quick Verdict: Teachable is the cheapest option on this list. You can start with a free plan, although the transaction fees are quite high. Basic plans also start at $39 per month, which is quite affordable for all the features you get.
Thinkific Pricing
While all three platforms offer a free trial, they’re vastly different in terms of overall pricing. Thinkific offers a “forever free” plan for beginners.
However, the free version of the platform is somewhat limited, offering access to only 1 community, 1 course, 2 spaces per community, and 1 admin account. You do still get access to all of the website builder tools, course creation solutions, and ecommerce features for unlimited students, though.
Paid plans include:
- Basic: $49 per month: All the free plan features, unlimited courses, 5 spaces per community, a custom domain, coupons and discounts, affiliate selling, and Accelerator program access.
- Start: $99 per month: The features of Basic, plus 10 spaces per community, bundles, assignments, memberships, payment plans, live lessons, website code editing, and advanced course building tools.
- Grow: $199 per month: The features of Start, plus 3 communities, 20 spaces per community, no Thinkific branding, 2 administrators, bulk student emailing, priority support and API access.
- Expand: $499 per month: All the features of “Grow” plus 10 communities, 5 administrators, unlimited community spaces, customizable checkouts, and priority support.
There’s also the “Thinkific Plus” plan, which includes a branded mobile app (available for an extra fee on other plans), and unlimited administrators. You also get bulk selling tools, SLAs, dedicated customer support, and email white labelling.
Teachable Pricing
Teachable also has a free plan, though there’s a $1 plus 10% transaction fee on all payments. With the free plan you get the course builder, student referrals, 1 published course, coaching, and download product, and 1 admin account. Paid plans include:
- Basic: $39 per month: All the features of Free, plus a 5% transaction fee, 5 published products of each type, integrated email marketing, custom domains, 1 membership tier, coupons, order bumps, live group coaching and Accelerator challenge access.
- Pro: $119 per month: All the features of Basic plus no transaction fee, 50 products of every type, unlimited membership tiers, affiliate marketing, live chat support, upsells, API access, removable branding, 5 admin and author seats.
- Pro+: All the features of Pro plus 200 products of every type and custom user roles.
- Business: Custom pricing starting at $499 per month for all the features of Pro+ plus bulk student enrolment, advanced theme customizations, and 20 admin/author seats.
Kajabi Pricing
Kajabi offers no free plan, though you can access a 20% discount if you choose to pay annually instead of monthly. Kajabi pricing is a little more expensive for beginners who want to sell courses online. Plans include:
- Basic: $149 per month for 3 products, 3 funnels, unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, 10,000 contacts, 1,000 customers, 1 website and 1 admin.
- Growth: $199 per month for all the features of Basic plus 15 products and funnels, 25,000 contacts, 10,000 customers, and 10 admin users.
- Pro: $399 per month for all the features of Growth, plus 100 products and funnels, 100,000 contacts, 20,000 customers, 3 websites, and 25 admin users.
Related resources 📚
Website Design and Templates
Quick Verdict: Kajabi and Thinkific’s website building tools are a little more comprehensive. Thinkific is excellent for infusing your site with upsell options and customizable checkouts. However, Kajabi offers slightly more advanced landing page tools.
While all three of these platforms will give you basic tools for creating a branded online presence, they don’t all allow you to build a full website.
Thinkific stands out with a comprehensive site builder, complete with customizable themes that include access to HTML and CSS coding options. You can create multiple pages for your site, such as bio pages and testimonial pages, and even choose your own custom domain.
You can even customize your checkout by adding timers, product images banners, videos, upsells and call to action buttons. As an added bonus, Thinkific has its own app store, where you can integrate various tools to make your site more impactful.
Kajabi is also pretty powerful when it comes to website and page building. You can create a site easily with the included templates, showcase all of your products and services, without the need for coding knowledge, and even create multi-page sites. Plus, you can choose your own custom domain to make it easier for customers to find you online.
Notably, Kajabi also allows users to build engaging landing pages, with powerful templates for lead generation and capture, sales, and more. You can control all aspects of the page design, and integrate your site or pages with marketing and sales tools.
Unfortunately, Teachable’s site building tools aren’t quite as advanced. While you can create a relatively simple website with a drag-and-drop editing tool, there are limitations on page options. On the plus side, you can use custom domains and code snippets on your site.
Plus, there are built-in SEO tools and apps to help you enhance your overall sales and marketing strategy. You can also build your website with Teachable for free, on the unpaid plan.
Further reading 📚
Ecommerce and Payment Processing
Quick Verdict: It’s neck-and-neck for the most part, with all three platforms supporting the same payment processors. However, Kajabi is the only service that doesn’t charge transaction fees on any plan, which could mean you can earn a higher profit.
Notably, all three of the online course platforms reviewed here focus on selling services and digital products, not physical items. This means entrepreneurs might be a little limited if they want to sell physical merchandise. However, they all include their own payment gateway tools.
With Kajabi, you can create a sales page or an entire website, with numerous options for taking payments. You can integrate PayPal or Stripe, and sell access to membership sites, courses, and coaching using any pricing plans you choose. There aren’t any transaction fees on Kajabi either, but you will need to pay the fees of your chosen payment processor.
Teachable supports more than 130 currencies, and a host of different payment options, including Google Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal. You can also create different types of payment options, exploring one-off sales, subscriptions, and more. Plus, you’ll be able to offer multi-day trial options to students who want to test out your courses.
Thinkific integrates with both PayPal and Stripe, although there are limitations on the PayPal service, for instance, you can only use it if you have a business account, and it’s only suitable for one-time payments. Like many of the best online course platforms, Thinkific also allows educators to choose how they charge learners for their course experience.
Sales Funnels and Revenue Tools
Quick Verdict: Kajabi has the most advanced funnel building tools already built in. They’re excellent for automating various parts of your marketing and sales strategy. Plus, you can integrate Kajabi with a variety of different third-party tools.
When growing your online business, sales funnels can be extremely useful for aligning all of your pages and strategies into a smooth workflow. All three user-friendly platforms have some funnel creation capabilities.
With Kajabi, you can either access pre-built funnel templates for ease of use, or create your own funnels using custom code within your LMS. Kajabi even offers help with creating funnel copy, so you can design powerful sales strategies in minutes.
The funnel builder is extremely easy to use, and allows you to access your email list automatically, so you can connect with customers regularly, introduce them to new course content, and send out notifications throughout the consumer journey. There’s even built-in analytics to show you how well your funnels are working.
Teachable’s funnel options are far more limited. You can’t create comprehensive automated funnels unless you integrate the service with another tool, like ConvertKit. However, you can create and offer lead magnets with digital downloads, and use tracking pixels for insights.
There are also built-in affiliate marketing tools, which can help you draw more attention to your courses and online learning resources.
Similar to Teachable, Thinkific doesn’t have a full built-in sales funnel creator. However, you can use Zapier integrations to send triggers from Teachable to an alternative funnel tool. You can also create learning communities, and a branded mobile app to help grow and scale your business.
Plus, there are advanced features on Thinkific, like the ability to create unique branded learning environments for stakeholders.
Apps and Integrations
Quick Verdict: Thinkific and Teachable offer the widest range of integrations through their app hubs and marketplaces. While you can expand on your course business with integrations on Kajabi, the options available are quite limited.
It’s much easier to run a comprehensive business as a course creator when you can combine various tools into an all-in-one platform. Fortunately, all three of the platforms covered here offer solutions to connect your course content with other systems.
Thinkific has a full app store, with dozens of connectors for tools like Zoom, Shopify, Google Analytics, Facebook and more. You can also use Zapier to automate a range of daily tasks. Plus, there are various free apps for budget-conscious creators.
Teachable also has its own “app hub”, with access to dozens of third-party tools, such as MailChimp, ConvertKit, Aweber, and Google Analytics. The app hub is extremely easy to use, and a lot of tools are available for free, though you may have to pay subscription costs for some.
Kajabi integrates with a handful of useful tools, including Drip, Stripe, ConvertKit, PayPal, and Google Analytics. However, you’ll need to use Zapier to create advanced automation workflows with the majority of your tools.
Customer Support
Quick Verdict: Thinkific and Kajabi offer a wider range of support options. However, Kajabi also offers dedicated account managers to people who pay for higher-priced plans.
If you need help with online course creation, or designing the ideal learning experience, Teachable, Kajabi and Thinkific have a range of resources available. All three platforms offer self-help resources, for guides on everything from video hosting, to optimizing layouts.
Thinkific and Kajabi also have AI tools available, to assist you with finding unique ways to enhance your content. Teachable offers support via email though there aren’t any chat or phone options. Thinkific and Kajabi support email and chat customer support.
However, if you choose a more expensive pro plan from Kajabi, you can also access dedicated customer support managers.
Finishing Thoughts
Kajabi, Thinkific and Teachable are all excellent platforms, with built in sales and marketing features, easy-to-use layouts for courses, and page builder tools.
They all serve slightly different purposes. Kajabi is ideal for creating extensive sales funnels, and selling a range of unique online learning products.
Thinkific is a simple and scalable platform, with comprehensive community building tools, and powerful website building capabilities.
Finally, Teachable is the cheapest option, with a free plan, and a comprehensive range of AI tools for accelerating course development.
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