Kajabi Review: A Course Creators Dream Software (2023)

Online courses are a firm reminder of the “knowledge is power” approach. When you sell anything, the more you know, the better you are at selling. Kajabi seems to agree with this approach, providing a platform most often marketed as an online course creation tool.

Those who have an expertise on any subject can sell that knowledge through the use of online course platforms. There are many out there that include Udemy, Skillshare, and Coursera. But Kajabi does this differently by allowing you to create your own version of these alongside an all-in-one marketing platform.

In this Kajabi review, we will test their claims of turning your knowledge into income. By the end of this article, you’ll have a good idea of whether you can use Kajabi for extra income.

What is Kajabi?

Kajabi is a knowledge-based platform that’s been around since 2010. Since this time, it has supported over 50 thousand people in 120 countries, producing $3.9 billion in sales.

Kajabi is an aboriginal term that means “to take flight.” So this creates the inspirational vision of your business soaring into the clouds, meeting new realities not before explored.

Despite having fewer users than alternatives (like Keap), Kajabi is one of the top providers for those seeking marketing tools. Much of this comes from its cloud-based software and focus on knowledge-based sellers.

Who is Kajabi best for?

Kajabi is best for serious business owners who have a plan of action related to online course creation. If you don’t plan on building a course, Kajabi won’t be useful to you.

Kajabi might also be useful if you run a coaching business. Coaching businesses can benefit from having a lot of pre-made content.

Many businesses can benefit from online idea marketing. So, if you can build your business into a useful set of online courses, Kajabi can be an outstanding tool.

If you just want sales pipelines or tools for product sales, consider alternatives like Keap or ClickFunnels.

Kajabi Pros and Cons

Kajabi pricing – How much does it cost?

Much of the reason Kajabi isn’t for people who don’t have a plan comes down to the cost. Kajabi starts at $119 per month, going to $150 if you don’t want to pay for an entire year upfront. So, Kajabi is pretty expensive, especially if you don’t know how you are going to use their features.

Thankfully, Kajabi provides you with a 14-day free trial for testing out these features. When signing up, you need to provide card information.

For pricing options, Kajabi provides three unique plans:

• Basic
• Growth
• Pro

Below, we will break down the features you get with each plan.

Basic Plan

The Kajabi Basic Plan includes these features:

• Three products and funnels
• Unlimited landing pages and marketing emails
• Up to 10 thousand contacts
• Up to one thousand active customers
• One website and admin account
• A welcome and check-in call from customer service
• 24/7 chat support
• Templates
• 0% transaction fees
• Creating webinars and events
• Assessments (quizzes and surveys to get through your course)
• Basic automations

With all plans, you also get access to Kajabi’s learning program: Kajabi University.

Growth Plan

The Growth Plan includes everything above and bumps up a few unique features:

• Creating of up to 15 products and funnels
• Support for up to 25 thousand contacts and 10 thousand active customers
• Ten admin users
• Advanced automations
• Can remove Kajabi branding
• Affiliate program

It’s interesting that Kajabi only allows you to remove their branding on the second pricing level. Given that the minimum cost of Kajabi starts over $100, you imagine that would be enough for you to take their branding off. Similar platforms allow you to do this at much lower pricing points.

Pro Plan

The Kajabi Pro Plan is for those who have large-scale operations:

• 100 products and funnels
• 100 thousand contacts and 20 thousand active customers
• Three websites
• 25 admin users
• Access to their code editor

Most people will be fine with the Growth Plan, but the Basic Plan leaves a lot to be desired. To find out how, continue reading through our review.

Creating your Kajabi account

To create your account, click the “start a free trial” button found in the upper-right corner. You can also select a plan on the pricing page. After, the system will bring you through a series of questions to direct you as a new user.

After filling in the questions, you’ll go to the Kajabi dashboard.

Because we have no products or payments setup, you’ll see a getting started screen.

For new users, Kajabi also offers free live training videos, which you can join by clicking the link in the upper-right corner.

Under the help & feedback link in the bottom-left corner of the system, you can find Kajabi University. For those who prefer self-guided or live learning experiences, Kajabi supports both.

Kajabi features – a walkthrough of how you can use it

Much like in our prior reviews, we will bring you through the dashboard navigation step-by-step. This way, you can understand how to use Kajabi on a section-by-section basis.

To start, we will look at their product creation tools.

Creating a product using Kajabi

Kajabi’s course creation tools are its major feature. Under this category, you can create four different categories of products:

• Online courses
• Podcasts
• One-on-one coaching
• Community access (for your audience to share ideas and thoughts with each other)

Below, you’ll find out how each creation process differs.

Online Course Creation with Kajabi

By clicking the “get started” button on the bottom left, you’ll go to the course creation tool. After some simple naming, you have the option to create one of four course types:

• Online course – the most popular builder for standard online courses similar to what you see on Udemy
• Blank course – if you don’t want to start with any template
• Drip courses – If you want to release your content overtime
• Membership courses – If you want your courses to be hidden behind a membership site

In our case, will stick with the standard course, which will quickly ask us how we want to receive payments.

Kajabi works with two major payment providers: Stripe and PayPal. You will need to connect your Kajabi account with one of the two before you can sell a paid course.

In our case, we want to offer a free course to get people interested. As a marketing strategy, it’s best to offer free content to start, as that will give people an idea of what you offer.

Once you’ve gone through the simple creation process, you’ll go to a course details page. From here, you get a better idea of how your course will look.

Kajabi will start with a standard structure for the course. It’s broken down into two general sections:

• Modules – These are the titles for different lessons grouped together (e.g., course introduction)
• Lessons – These are the breakdown of modules into different topics for each module (e.g., welcome to the course, about your instructor, etc.)

When you click on the module titles, it will allow you to add a general description, image, and change the title. Alternatively, lessons actually contain your content, so clicking on those titles will bring up a new window.

The course allows you to upload two different media types: video and audio. Selecting “none” will just have the description there. Meanwhile, media option four refers to assessments.

Kajabi’s online course platform works in such a way where you can use these tests in several ways. For example, you might lock off later modules in the course, waiting for your student to learn the details of the prior lesson before they move on.

You get all the standard test formats that will bring you flashbacks to school. These include multiple choice and paragraph-based questions. If your course only operates on multiple choice, you can even have Kajabi review the results for you.

Going back to the general menu, the system also allows you to select various course templates. By clicking on the customize tab, you’ll get the option to edit your current template or install new templates.

There are four different templates available for the course builder. If you have the design skills, you can also choose to upload your own templates.

The detailed page editor is something we will revisit in our website building section.

Creating your coaching program with Kajabi

Creating a one-on-one coaching program starts like creating a series of lessons. What makes it unique is the last step, where you can set a session duration and a location: either custom or built-in live video.

Custom implies you have some sort of off-site link. From there, selecting “session” will allow you to edit what people see with the coaching. In the links below, you can provide details on your agenda (what you plan to talk about) and resources related to what you are talking about.

Because it’s only one session type per creation, you’ll need to create new coaching templates from the beginning for differing times. The time options include 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes.

Community building with Kajabi

Kajabi lets you build communities similar to Facebook. Unlike Facebook, you can choose to make these communities a free feature or a paid feature. You can also limit access to these communities to site members.

The sidebar message you see on these communities is a great place to put guidelines, social links, and a bit about yourself. There isn’t much here, but it is a great way for your site members to get to know each other.

Creating podcasts with Kajabi

One of the more interesting parts of Kajabi is its podcast creation features. Much like the other product creation features, you can choose to make the podcast a private or public.

Private podcasts are ideal if you want to sell your content. Meanwhile, the podcast distribution tab lets you upload a public podcast to three different major platforms: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. You also get an RSS feed URL, which is ideal for listeners who have none of these.

Creating your first offer with Kajabi

Whenever you create a new product, it appears under the offers tab on Kajabi. This is found under sales, which is just under the products tab.

Under the default offers tab, you’ll get a high level view of your website results. This starts with the number of purchases and revenue for the past 30 days. It leads to the net revenue of all time.

Scrolling down, you’ll see a breakdown of the number of sales that come from your efforts. From here, you can decide whether to remove underperforming offers. You can also choose to change their status so that they are in draft mode, removing them from your public website.

There are also three other sections worth noting:

• Coupons – Allows you to create a coupon for your products
• Payments – Allows you to set up your preferred payment provider
• Affiliates – Allows you to establish an affiliate marketing program

Creating your first coupons with Kajabi

The coupons tab allows you to set discounts for your business. It’s up to you whether you want it to be a single coupon or a collection through bulk codes.

Below that, you can set the duration, the discount type (percent off or amount off) and the expiration date. You can also set whether the coupon repeats a few times or lasts forever.

The coupon is something customers might apply at the checkout page. You can set the code to whatever you want it to be, providing another incentive for people to access your course programs.

The Kajabi Affiliate program

One of Kajabi’s major tools for lead generation is the affiliate dashboard. Above, you’ll see the dashboard, where you can provide people with a URL where they take a commission each time you make a sale.

To set up for affiliate commissions, all you need to do is go to the commission setup tab. From there, click the pill button to turn on the commission, setting it up as a percentage of your earnings.

You can also use the dashboard to make bulk announcements to members of your affiliate program. To spread your service easily, it’s a great tool for your sales and marketing suite.

Using the Kajabi website builder

Instead of focusing purely on the sales funnel benefit, one of the key features behind Kajabi is a full-fledged website builder. But because it focuses on course platforms, it’s far simpler than managing a WordPress site.

To get started, select from one of the many templates above. At the time of me writing this, there are about 11 total templates, which is what you would expect from your average page builder.

Editing your site settings

Once you create it, it will bring you to a basic dashboard. For now, click on “edit details” to view what you have. You can choose simple aspects that include site colors, your logo, and the name of your sub-domain.

Recall earlier that you will need to pay for the second plan to remove the Kajabi branding. This situation also applies to changing your domain.

You also have unique site aspects like the instructor’s names and titles, page scripts, and SEO settings. Rather than scatter them randomly throughout the page builder, Kajabi keeps most of what you need for your course-based website in one spot.

Once you are done with the settings, go back and click the “customize” button to look at your site.

Using the Kajabi drag-and-drop page builder

Kajabi’s page builder handles most of the building process for you. Those who aren’t technically minded will appreciate it. However, it isn’t as direct as some other page builders, like through HubSpot of ClickFunnels.

This is because the site builder has three different important sections we need to draw attention to:

• The page view allows you to edit simply by clicking. This is standard for most page builders
• The left side of the page allows you to view different sections
• The drop-down menu below these sections allows you to view different website pages

So, unlike other platforms that stick you with sales funnels or landing pages by themselves, you get to build an entire website. If running an online course business, the cost suddenly seems pretty justifiable.

You can still build a sales funnel or landing page alongside your website, which is something we will revisit under the marketing section of our review.

Detailed edits using the kajabi page builder

Whenever you click on elements of a page, the left-hand controls will change. These controls change depending on where you click. Clicking the edit button in the center of the page will pull up settings for the entire section, which you can see above.

They break different sections down into content blocks. For example, the one content block in this section is the text block.

Clicking the “add content” button will allow you to view all the different content types. There are many content types to review, all referencing the standard group of videos and images. You can also upload audio files, as Kajabi is a podcast platform.

If you want to edit the current content blocks, you can click on them either on the left-hand menu or on the page itself. Clicking the text box reveals this page:

This revealed a pretty glaring error behind the text editor. If you have white text, you won’t be able to see what you are writing. Given one of their default templates includes white text, this feels like a big miss.

When selecting the text, it also reveals a lot of other editing options. For example, there is a call to action (CTA) just below there, which has its own setting.

The Kajabi platform has a lot of different block settings here. This includes everything from general font settings to animations to desktop vs mobile layouts. It isn’t as easy as other page builders because you aren’t just building a page. Kajabi offers more, but at the cost of how easy the platform is to use.

Of course, if you are one of those course creators, you’ll find that a landing page isn’t enough. You’ll need a platform for your digital products that can handle video. Given Kajabi includes hosting and managing the technical aspects of your website as well, the overall package has insane value for a bit of extra effort.

Adjusting website pages and navigation

Beyond the design elements of each page, you can return to your dashboard to access the pages tab. This tab allows you to control access levels to different pages.

Course creators might want to have specific pages that only members can access. You can see this example above, as the images are locked instead of a sample of the website.

To change the access, you can click on the three-dot menus to the right of each page. Next, there will be a pill button that shows member visibility. You can also use this section to change other aspects of your pages, such as the SEO title.

Just below this is navigation, which allows you to change the navigation elements on the top of your page. From here, it’s easy to set up menus with submenus, similar to any other website. You can also set up footer menus and member-only menus.

The backend process for managing pages and navigation is simple. You will jump between these pages often when you first build your website.

Creating a blog using Kajabi

Similar to WordPress, Kajabi has a blogging platform. You’ll find that it has its benefits and drawbacks, especially if you’ve ever had experience with a WP blog before.

First, the blogging system is simpler. This means you are less likely to experience system slowdowns, which is a common issue if you have an older computer on WP’s newer system.

However, you’ll also find a lot fewer tools for improving your blog. For example, WP’s Yoast is an excellent tool for improving your blog.

Of course, Kajabi has integrations, just no website plugins. After all, it isn’t a pure website builder like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress.

Using Kajabi’s marketing tools and automation features

Kajabi’s marketing tools include a vast range of options on paper. But do they have the depth of comparable tools? Let’s find out by digging into them.

Sales funnels and squeeze pages

Kajabi starts you off on its funnel path by providing a lot of different templates. These are based on popular formats in the past, such as free book giveaways. In our case, we will use the project launch funnel as an example.

Kajabi’s automation features are a huge part of this tool, as you’ll quickly identify a format similar to Keap’s automation procedures.

What makes Kajabi’s builder a bit more dynamic is the included page editor. Scrolling down a bit and clicking customize will bring you to the new page.

Amazingly, the difficulties of the overall website builder melt away when you look at the funnel builder. Because there is less to worry about on these funnel pages, you don’t need the same overwhelming number of tools.

The visualization of bringing people through emails and different pages also makes it incredibly easy to manage. Overall, the funnel builder is one of Kajabi’s strongest features.

email marketing tools

Kajabi’s email campaigns come in two forms: broadcast and sequences. Sequencies refer to the part that automatically gets sent out as a customer goes through steps. Email broadcasts are sent to an entire group in your contact list.

You can group contacts into different segments, allowing you to target those groups. Automation can also help you move these people between different groups (from visitors to members).

The email building system is identical to what you get through the web page builder. This puts it fairly close to Sendinblue’s quality, but it has fewer templates.

forms and landing pages

Kajabi’s website builder is a staple across the system, as you’ll see through the landing page builder. Kajabi is the one platform out of all of them that combines so many features and sorts them for you.

In reality, Kajabi duplicates its tool across multiple fronts. However, this isn’t a problem, as you’ll find yourself easily transition between different areas. The only thing that makes landing pages different from funnel pages on Kajabi is that it’s one page over many.

Kajabi’s form tools also integrate well with its landing pages and funnels. They connect with automation features to push people through the sales pipeline. Kajabi’s complete package works as an overall pipeline builder.

Events

Kajabi’s event builder allows you to set up in person or digital events for future release. What makes this interesting is the countdown tools that you can integrate with your website, funnel pages, and landing pages.

The countdown features through sites like ClickFunnels aren’t associated with any specific event timing. In this Kajabi does better by using these events as a means to have a combined notification platform.

This way, you can set up your automation to notify people of events ahead of time. It’s a great way to build up hype for your new releases.

Kajabi contact management

Kajabi’s contact management features are fairly weak compared to others. Namely, because it doesn’t allow you to include custom fields.

When adding new contacts, it allows you to group them into different areas and sign them up for marketing material. You can also input contacts in bulk through csv files, but you can’t import those contacts from existing marketing platforms.

Keap, by comparison, is the king of contact management in the marketing tools world. After all, it is the only one that allows you to insert custom fields, which might be useful in specific sales situations.

Using Kajabi’s analytics tools

Kajabi’s analytics tools provide insights that break things down by overall looks and specific funnels. These tools are handy to use when you need to gain insights on how far your customers go through your sales pipeline.

As a course platform, Kajabi has great potential to help you understand the overall perspective. However, this is another field where Keap does generally better, as it provides an incredibly large amount of data.

Kajabi user review – what do they have to say about it?

According to public user reviews, Kajabi is beloved. After all, a 4.6 out of 5 is nearly perfect, putting it up there with companies like HubSpot and ClickFunnels regarding quality.

Much of this really comes down to its easy-to-use features. Kajabi has a lot of value packed into $200 per month, but combines multiple tools to justify this approach.

According to fellow users, Kajabi’s customer support team is also known for good things, often resolving issues through the platform.

The one thing it lacks is a built-in method for getting out to the customers. There are a few platforms that have integrated affiliate programs and ad managers. Kajabi does have an affiliate program, but you still have to find people to use it.

Most other complaints deal with Kajabi’s steeper than usual learning curve. Much of this issue is built into the website builder, as the funnel and landing page builders are both simple.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Wrap up – is Kajabi worth the money?

When you consider everything Kajabi has to offer, it is a monster platform. As a tool that mainly is used to build online courses, it is ideal for those who have a strong knowledge base aspect to their business. Those who deal and manage info products and knowledge will find Kajabi to be an excellent extension to their system.

Because of this focus on course building, many users who focus on selling physical products or some digital products will find Kajabi not suitable. Kajabi is better for membership sites and learning platforms, making you into what could be the next Udemy.

With this in mind, Kajabi could feasibly be an absolute monster in this field with a few tweaks. With a bit more emphasis on product sales, Kajabi could be something useful for everyone. However, in its current form, you should look out for Kajabi if you need a solution for your consulting business, coaching business, or have a huge content creation aspect of your business.