Tool A

Kajabi

Score · 8.9 / 10

Visit Kajabi

Tool B

Teachable

Score · 8.5 / 10

Visit Teachable

vs.

BestStacked · Head-to-Head Comparison

Kajabi vs Teachable: Which Is Better in 2026?

Course platform showdown — compared on course delivery, marketing and pricing, ranked by stage of business.

Reviewed by Carlos Gil·Published January 15, 2026·Last updated October 21, 2026·How we scored this →

Visit Kajabi Visit Teachable

The Short Answer

Bottom line: Kajabi wins on all-in-one (courses + email + funnels + community + commerce in one platform) and is the right pick for serious course businesses doing $10K+/month. Teachable wins on simplicity, price, and time-to-first-launch — it's the right pick for first-time creators and side hustlers under $5K/month. The split is brutally clean: if you're below the threshold, Kajabi is overpriced. If you're above it, Teachable is too thin to scale on.

Cost at your sales level · arithmetic

Teachable vs Kajabi: which costs less at $1k, $5k and $20k a month in sales?

Teachable Builder costs less at all three sales levels. It is $69 a month billed yearly with a 0% Teachable transaction fee, against $143 for Kajabi Basic on Kajabi Payments, which also takes no transaction fee. That is a $74 monthly gap on yearly billing, or $90 on monthly billing ($89 vs. $179), and it doesn't change with sales because neither plan takes a percentage.

Teachable Starter ($29 billed yearly) is the cheapest option only below about $533 a month in sales. Its 7.5% fee then costs more than the $40 step up to Builder ($40 ÷ 7.5%). On Kajabi, if you sell through a third-party processor such as Stripe instead of Kajabi Payments, Basic adds a 2% Kajabi fee and Growth 1%, so Growth becomes the cheaper Kajabi plan above $5,600 a month ($56 ÷ 1%). That is the same break-even method as our Kajabi review's Basic-vs-Growth FAQ.

Teachable vs Kajabi: which costs less at $1k, $5k and $20k a month in sales?
Monthly sales	Teachable Starter ($29 + 7.5%)	Teachable Builder ($69, 0%)	Kajabi Basic ($143)	Kajabi Growth ($199)
$1,000	$104	$69	$143 ($163)	$199 ($209)
$5,000	$404	$69	$143 ($243)	$199 ($249)
$20,000	$1,529	$69	$143 ($543)	$199 ($399)

This is arithmetic, not a measured result: the plan price billed yearly plus each platform's own transaction fee at that sales level. Brackets show Kajabi with a third-party payment processor (2% on Basic, 1% on Growth; Kajabi says this excludes PayPal). On monthly billing the plan prices are Teachable $39, $89 and $189 and Kajabi $179, $249 and $499, so Starter costs $114, $414 and $1,539 at the three levels.

Card processing is left out on both sides. Kajabi publishes Kajabi Payments rates for US entities (2.9% + $0.30 on Basic, 2.8% + $0.30 on Growth); Teachable's pricing page says standard payment processing fees may still apply but doesn't list a rate.

Plan limits still matter: Kajabi Basic includes 5 products and 2,500 contacts, Teachable Builder 10 products. Kajabi's price also covers marketing emails, funnels and a website, which this table doesn't price for Teachable. Teachable's pricing page also invites schools selling more than $12k a year to contact sales for special conditions, which aren't published.

Sources checked October 21, 2026: kajabi.com/pricing; teachable.com/pricing.

The Scorecard

Side by side, scored against the same rubric

BestStacked Score

8.9/ 10

Kajabi

Ease of use (20%)9.0

Features (25%)9.5

Pricing (20%)8.0

Support (15%)9.4

Integrations (20%)8.7

Best atAll-in-one — courses, email, funnels, community, payments.

Weakest atEntry-level price and beginner-friendly setup.

BestStacked Score

8.5/ 10

Teachable

Ease of use (20%)9.2

Features (25%)8.4

Pricing (20%)8.0

Support (15%)8.5

Integrations (20%)8.6

Best atSimplicity, low price, fast launch for first-time creators.

Weakest atEmail marketing, funnels, and serious-business depth.

Each score is the tool's BestStacked review score: five weighted sub-scores, explained in our methodology.

The 5 Rounds

Where each tool actually wins

Round 1 / Core Function

Round 1: Course delivery: where each one shines

Round called a tie

Both platforms host video, deliver lessons, gate access, and process payments — table stakes in 2026. The interesting differences are everywhere except the actual course-delivery layer.

01Course player UX is roughly equivalent. Both support video hosting, transcripts, completion tracking, quizzes, and assignments. Teachable's player feels slightly cleaner; Kajabi's is denser.
02Drip schedules, prerequisites, and certificate generation work in both (Teachable certificates start on its Growth plan). Both can run cohort-style programs alongside self-paced courses, though Kajabi's Cohort Courses feature is Growth and Pro only.
03Community is where Kajabi pulls ahead with native Communities on every plan (one on Basic and Growth, three on Pro). Teachable's support center says its Community feature is in maintenance mode and closed to new schools, even though its pricing table still lists Community on Builder and up, and Teachable points creators to Discord or Slack instead.
04On the actual student experience for a single course, you're not picking between these on quality. The pick happens around what surrounds the course.

What the other tool still got right

Both nail the core. Whichever one you're already on probably feels sufficient for the courses themselves. The migration question is almost never about course UX.

Round 2 / Ease of Use

Round 2: Which is faster to launch on?

Winner — Teachable

01Teachable's onboarding is genuinely 1-day. New course creators upload a video, set a price, hit publish, and have a working sales page in an afternoon. The defaults are all sane.
02Kajabi's onboarding is closer to a week. You're not just launching a course — you're configuring email, funnels, community, payments, and pages. The breadth that's an asset later is an obstacle on day one.
03Teachable's page builder is constrained but predictable. Kajabi's is more flexible but more decisions per page.
04On templates: Teachable templates feel like 'fill in the blank.' Kajabi templates feel like 'configure your business model.' Both work — different speeds.

What Kajabi still got right

Kajabi's onboarding pain is the price of one platform replacing five. Once configured, Kajabi runs the entire course business. Teachable users typically end up running Kit + Stripe + Circle + a landing page tool alongside it — adding their own version of Kajabi's onboarding pain in pieces.

Round 3 / Marketing Depth

Round 3: Email, funnels, and selling

Winner — Kajabi

01Kajabi's email marketing is full-featured: visual automation builder, behavior-triggered sequences, broadcasts, segmentation, A/B testing. It's a real ESP, not a stripped-down add-on.
02Teachable's email is rudimentary, and it isn't on every plan: built-in email marketing starts on Builder, so Starter has none. Most serious creators run Kit alongside Teachable. That's an extra monthly line item Kajabi users avoid.
03Kajabi's funnel builder is comparable to ClickFunnels: opt-in funnels, sales funnels, webinar funnels, upsell flows. Teachable has no funnel builder: you get sales pages and checkout with coupons, upsells, order bumps and abandoned-cart emails, but not multi-step funnels.
04Affiliates: both have native affiliate programs, but neither includes one on the entry plan. Kajabi's starts on Growth; Teachable's starts on Builder.

What Teachable still got right

Teachable's marketing thinness is also its simplicity. If you already use Kit, ManyChat, and a landing page tool, Teachable plays nicely as the course-delivery piece without trying to replace your stack.

Round 4 / Pricing & Value

Round 4: Which one is the better deal?

Winner — Teachable

01Teachable's entry tier is Starter at $39/month ($29/month billed annually). Kajabi's entry tier is Basic at $179/month ($143/month billed annually); Kickstarter is no longer on Kajabi's pricing page. For a creator just starting, that's a real gap: $1,680/year on monthly billing, $1,368/year on annual.
02Neither has a free plan in 2026. Teachable's plan cards list a 7-day free trial, and Kajabi's pricing page offers a free trial without stating its length. Both have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
03On total cost-to-run a course business: Teachable + Kit + a landing page tool, versus Kajabi standalone at $143-199/month billed annually ($179-249 monthly) for Basic or Growth. Kajabi often wins on total stack cost once you're serious — but loses badly at the entry point.
04Kajabi takes no revenue share, but card processing applies: Kajabi Payments is 2.9%, 2.8% or 2.7% + $0.30 per US transaction on Basic, Growth and Pro, and a third-party processor (other than PayPal) adds a 2%, 1% or 0.5% Kajabi fee where Kajabi Payments is available. Teachable Starter charges a 7.5% transaction fee; Builder and above are 0% with Teachable Payments, plus processing fees. For high-revenue creators, that fee math matters.

What Kajabi still got right

Kajabi's higher price is the cost of consolidation. Once you're spending $200+/month on tools that Kajabi replaces, the gap inverts. The question is when (not if) that crossover happens for your business.

Round 5 / Scaling & Future-Proof

Round 5: Where each one breaks at scale

Winner — Kajabi

01Kajabi handles 6- and 7-figure course businesses without breaking a sweat. The platform was built for serious creators and the feature set scales with revenue.
02Teachable hits a wall around $10-30K/month. Email becomes the bottleneck (you've outgrown the native tools), funnels need a separate platform, and community becomes a third tool.
03Both now ship AI tools: Kajabi lists AI features on every plan, with AI credits on Growth (500) and Pro (1,000), and Teachable includes Create with AI on every plan. Neither should be the deciding factor yet.
04On team features: Kajabi includes 2, 11 and 26 admin users on Basic, Growth and Pro, with 50 products on Growth and unlimited on Pro. Teachable includes 1 admin on Starter and Builder and 5 on Growth; more seats require its Custom plan.

What Teachable still got right

Teachable doesn't try to scale into a full business platform. For a creator who wants their course business to stay one product and a list of 5K subscribers, that constraint is fine. Not every business needs to be Kajabi-shaped.

The Numbers

Pricing: Kajabi vs Teachable

Pricing: Kajabi vs Teachable
Tier	Kajabi	Teachable	Notes
Free	No free plan (free trial; length not stated on the pricing page)	No free plan (7-day free trial)	Both offer a 30-day money-back guarantee
Entry	Basic $179/mo ($143/mo annual)	Starter $39/mo ($29/mo annual)	Teachable about 78% cheaper at entry, but Starter has a 7.5% fee
Standard	Growth $249/mo ($199/mo annual)	Builder $89/mo ($69/mo annual)	Teachable cheaper, narrower features
Pro	Pro $499/mo ($399/mo annual)	Growth $189/mo ($139/mo annual)	Kajabi Pro adds the branded mobile app and API
Business	No custom tier listed	Custom (contact sales)	Teachable Custom adds priority support and migration help

Pricing last verified October 21, 2026. Vendors change prices frequently — see our pricing change log.

Visit Kajabi Visit Teachable

Know the tradeoffs

Limitations of each tool

Where Kajabi falls short

A high entry price. Basic is $179/month ($143/month billed annually), and Kickstarter is no longer on Kajabi's pricing page, so a creator testing one course pays far more than on Teachable Starter.
Slower to launch. Email, funnels, community, payments and pages all need configuring, so getting live is closer to a week than an afternoon.
Key features sit on higher tiers. Cohort Courses and the affiliate program start on Growth, and the branded mobile app and API are on Pro ($499/month, $399 billed annually).
Fees still apply. There is no revenue share, but Kajabi Payments charges 2.9%, 2.8% or 2.7% + $0.30 per US transaction by plan, and most third-party processors add a Kajabi fee of 2%, 1% or 0.5% where Kajabi Payments is available.

Where Teachable falls short

Thin marketing tools. Built-in email starts on Builder (Starter has none) and is basic when you get it, and there is no multi-step funnel builder, so many creators add Kit and a landing-page tool.
Community is effectively closed. Teachable's support center says the Community feature is in maintenance mode and closed to new schools, and points creators to Discord or Slack.
Starter carries a 7.5% transaction fee; Builder and above drop to 0% with Teachable Payments (processing fees still apply).
Few admin seats. Starter and Builder include 1 admin and Growth includes 5; more requires the Custom plan.

Who Should Pick What

A decision matrix

Pick Kajabi if

You're doing $10K+/month from courses
Kajabi consolidates 4-5 tools into one. The math flips in your favor and the operational simplicity matters at scale.
You sell multiple products and funnels
Native funnel builder, opt-ins, upsells, and email automation make Kajabi an actual platform vs Teachable's course-only tool.
You run a community alongside courses
Kajabi Communities (native, included on every plan) replaces Circle/Mighty Networks for many creators.
You want one bill, one login, one team
Operational simplicity. One platform to train your VA on, one place where everything lives.

Visit Kajabi

Pick Teachable if

You're launching your first course
$39/month ($29 annual) and 1-day setup vs $179/month ($143 annual) and 1-week setup. Teachable removes friction when you don't yet know if the course will sell.
You already have an email and marketing stack
If Kit + your landing page tool + Stripe already work, Teachable slots in cleanly without replacing them.
You're price-sensitive and below $5K/month
Kajabi's entry pricing punishes pre-product-market-fit creators. Teachable lets you keep more revenue while you figure things out.
You sell one or two courses, not a business
If your goal is a side income from a single course, Teachable's simplicity matches the ambition. Kajabi's breadth is overhead you don't need.

Visit Teachable

The Verdict

Overall winner: Kajabi

Kajabi wins this comparison 8.9 to 8.5, but the gap is misleading because the right pick depends almost entirely on revenue stage. Below $5K/month from courses, Teachable wins clearly — Kajabi is overpriced, overbuilt, and a daily reminder that you're paying for capability you're not using. Above $10K/month, Kajabi wins clearly — Teachable's marketing thinness becomes the ceiling on your business, and the workarounds (Kit, Circle, ClickFunnels alongside it) end up costing more than Kajabi anyway. In the $5-10K/month gray zone, the choice depends on direction. If you're growing into a serious course business, switching to Kajabi sooner saves migration pain. If you're plateauing happily at one course, staying on Teachable saves money. The wrong move is picking on aspiration alone — Kajabi at $143/month (annual) doesn't make you a 7-figure creator, and Teachable at $39/month ($29 annual) doesn't doom you to a side hustle.

Budget pick

Teachable Starter at $39/month ($29 annual) — the lowest-friction first launch, though Builder ($89/month, $69 annual) drops the 7.5% transaction fee.

If budget isn't the constraint

Kajabi Growth at $249/month ($199 annual) — replaces 4 tools and scales with you.

Visit Kajabi Visit Teachable

Go deeper

Want the full breakdown? Read our deep review:

Read the Kajabi review Read the Teachable review

Keep reading

More on Kajabi and Teachable

Common questions

Kajabi vs Teachable — FAQ

Teachable is mainly a course and checkout platform, while Kajabi bundles courses with email marketing, funnels, community, a website and payments. That's why Kajabi costs more: Basic is $143/mo billed yearly ($179 monthly) against Teachable Starter at $29/mo ($39 monthly). Teachable users usually add a separate email tool; Kajabi users usually don't.

It depends on how much of the business you want the platform to run. For a business selling several products that wants marketing emails, funnels, affiliates and community in one login, Kajabi Growth ($199/mo billed yearly) includes 50 products, 25,000 contacts, 11 admin users, an affiliate program and 500 AI credits. For a business that already has an email platform and mainly needs course delivery and checkout, Teachable Builder ($69/mo billed yearly) includes 10 products, an affiliate program and a 0% transaction fee with Teachable Payments, and Teachable Growth ($139) raises that to 50 products and adds certificates and custom admin permissions. On platform cost alone, Teachable Builder stays $74 a month cheaper than Kajabi Basic at $1k, $5k or $20k a month in sales, because neither charges a percentage on its own payments (prices checked October 21, 2026). Teams that need many admin seats should note Teachable Starter and Builder include 1 admin user and more seats sit on Custom.

Teachable Starter adds a 7.5% fee on each sale, so it costs more than Builder ($69/mo yearly, 0% fee with Teachable Payments) once you sell more than about $530 a month: 7.5% of $533 is the $40 price gap. Kajabi charges no transaction fee with Kajabi Payments (2.9% + $0.30 per US transaction on Basic), but Basic's $143/mo yearly price stays higher than Teachable Builder at any sales volume. Card processing applies on both.

On annual billing (checked October 19, 2026), Teachable costs $348 a year on Starter ($29/mo), $828 on Builder ($69/mo) and $1,668 on Growth ($139/mo). Kajabi costs $1,716 a year on Basic ($143/mo), $2,388 on Growth ($199/mo) and $4,788 on Pro ($399/mo). Paying monthly raises that to $468, $1,068 and $2,268 on Teachable and $2,148, $2,988 and $5,988 on Kajabi. Teachable Starter also takes 7.5% of each sale, and both platforms charge card processing on top.

Teachable, in most cases. Starter is $29/mo billed yearly against $143/mo for Kajabi Basic, it takes an afternoon rather than a week to set up, and you don't pay for email, funnels and community you may not use yet. Move up to Teachable Builder once monthly sales pass about $530, the point where Starter's 7.5% fee costs more than the $40 price gap. Kajabi makes sense for a first course only if you already have an audience and plan to sell several products from day one.

Yes, but most of it is manual. Kajabi lets you export contacts as a CSV from Contacts with Bulk Actions, then Export; the file arrives by email and the link expires after 3 days. Teachable's bulk CSV importer (name, email and an optional password column) is only on Growth and up, and imported users are not enrolled in a course unless you tick the enroll option during import. Students imported without a password get an email asking them to set one. Videos, lesson text and files have to be re-uploaded, and Kajabi email automations, funnels and community have no Teachable equivalent to move into. Teachable lists migration assistance on its Custom plan.

If you're consolidating Kit + ClickFunnels + Circle + a landing page tool, often yes — Kajabi can cost less than those tools combined at similar feature coverage. If you're a first-time creator without those tools yet, no — Teachable's price wins.

Yes. Course content and student lists can be moved over, but Kajabi's help center says importing an external course is a manual process that can't be automated, and email automations and funnels need to be rebuilt. Budget real time for the rebuild, not just the file transfer.

Yes, via Zapier, but most Kajabi users replace Kit with Kajabi's native email since they're paying for it. Kajabi's API is Pro-only, so plan on Zapier if you want to keep your list elsewhere on Basic or Growth.

Neither publishes response times on its pricing page. Teachable's Starter plan gets email support, Builder and above add real-time support, and Custom adds priority SLA-based support.

Teachable: 1-3 days to launch your first course. Kajabi: 1-2 weeks to configure the full platform. Match the curve to your ambition.

Neither Kajabi nor Teachable has a free plan; both offer free trials. Some lighter platforms offer free or pay-per-sale tiers for one-off products, so check their current pricing. None matches Kajabi's all-in-one or Teachable's polish for serious course businesses.

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