Kajabi vs. Thinkific – Which Is Better?

Should you use Kajabi or Thinkific?

You’re probably considering launching your own online course and asking yourself this question. The great thing is that both course creation platforms offer a free trial so you can test them out for yourself before making a decision.

However, I’ve already tried both so if you want to know more about these two platforms, you can read this entire post where I compare them. Then you can decide which one you would like to build your business with.

Finding the right learning management system is very important especially if you’re just starting out. Kajabi and Thinkific are two of the best and most highly rated course creation platforms where they offer more than just course creation.

After trialing both, you’ll be satisfied with either one in terms of what they can do. It’s quite understandable though, that one factor can influence your decision.

Whether it’s the pricing or having the ability to integrate with other systems or even the amount of learning resources available, your decision could come down to just one of these.

Read on to find out how Kajabi compares to Thinkific.

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Table of Contents

What is Kajabi?

Kajabi is seriously one of the best course creation platforms available for creators who want to have everything in one place.

Their plans are built for scaling your business. Each plan has a limited amount of contacts and members you can manage as well as limits on how many products and pipelines you can create.

The platform lets you create different types of products from courses to podcasts and membership sites or you can offer coaching services. They boast that you don’t need integrations as they have everything built into their platform. External tools for CRM, email marketing and analytics aren’t necessary as you can do everything from your dashboard.

Prices for Kajabi start at $149/month (or $119 when billed annually) for the Basic plan and go to $399/month on their Pro plan. To get started, they give you a 14-day free trial of their most popular plan, the Growth plan. They do not offer a free plan.

In terms of support and education for creators, Kajabi has a lot to offer. With daily webinars that teach creators the ins and outs of using Kajabi as well as the Kajabi University, users have a lot of learning resources to master course creation using this platform.

There is also a private Facebook community for Kajabi users where you can get support, connect and create discussions with other creators.

Kajabi is a very good platform for creators and they’ve been improving what they offer. While writing this blog post, they’ve made an update to the user interface which is a welcomed improvement.

There isn’t much to dislike although their landing page builder could use some improvements and unlike Thinkific, you cannot integrate the platform into your own website. The plans are more costly than those of Thinkific which may be a big deciding factor for some creators.

What is Thinkific?

Thinkific is also one of the very best choices you can make when choosing a course creation platform.

Huge companies like Fiverr, Later and Hootsuite trust Thinkific and use its service to educate their customers. Even though Thinkific paid plans start at $49/month, they offer an enterprise-level service from their free plan right up to their Thinkific Plus plan.

The platform has everything you need to create and sell courses online. Though not all-in-one like Kajabi, there are many integrations available and some pretty great built-in features that make this a solid choice for course creators.

You can start using Thinkific for free with a free account or get on their Start or Grow plans with a full 30-day free trial.

Thinkific’s support is also top-notch with a private Facebook community and support team that’s always ready to help. Thinkific Academy is where you can go to learn how to do everything from using the platform, building funnels, pricing your course, creating content, using Facebook ads, and more.

They have a very solid infrastructure in place for anyone who wants to create and sell their course online to do so and succeed.

Kajabi vs Thinkific

Kajabi and Thinkific are probably the top two choices you have when considering a course creation platform. There are other great alternatives but these two are unbeatable in what they offer when it comes to features, support, and education.

To help you compare them, I looked at some of the most important factors that could help you decide which one to go with.

Again, both platforms have free trials that you can use to test and help you decide on your own.

Here’s a breakdown of what Kajabi looks like against Thinkific.

Free Trial Length

Kajabi offers a 14-day free trial to test their platform. By default, you’ll be placed on the most popular plan, the Growth plan, but you can choose any plan to free trial if you go through the pricing page.

There is a way to extend your free trial and get up to 28 days free. Check out the Kajabi free trial page to see how.

Thinkific has a much longer trial of 30 days free. They let you try their most popular plan, the Pro plan but you can change your plan inside the dashboard once signed up. Like Kajabi, you can get an extended trial. Thinkific’s extended trial though is up to 2 months free. Check the Thinkific free trial page to see how.

Thinkific also has a free plan so you can also use this to try the platform and also to get things going before you start paying. Kajabi does not have a free plan.

Pricing

Thinkific’s pricing is more affordable than Kajabi’s. With Thinkific, you can use a free plan if they fall in line with your needs. Many other course platforms have free plans also. Kajabi does not have a free tier so the only time you’re ever using Kajabi for free is when you take their free trial.

Kajabi plans start at $149/month ($119 if you choose annual billing) and this comes with some limitations. Each plan has a cap on how many products and pipelines you can create. You also have limits on the number of contacts and active members you can manage.

There are a lot fewer limitations with Thinkific plans. With the exception of the free plan where you can only create a limited amount of courses, all Thinkific plans have unlimited courses, students, and content. There are limitations on how many communities you can have, the number of spaces within those communities, and also the number of site admins increase on higher plans.

Kajabi plans are built for scaling your business while Thinkific plans offer additional features on higher tiers.

Thinkific paid plans start at $49/month ($36 when you pay yearly) and go up to $499/month.

Integrations

Kajabi boasts that you do not need integrations because they’re an all-in-one platform that has everything you need to run your business. This may or may not matter depending on how you would like to run your business.

If you’d like to use Kajabi systems for your email marketing then it’s a good thing. If you’d rather have the flexibility of using your favorite email automation provider then you’d probably rather Thinkific.

Thinkific works a lot differently when it comes to integrations. They have an apps store where you can install apps made by the platform to integrate with essential services like Google Analytics and various email automation providers. You can also add lots of third-party apps that provide features that aren’t mentioned in any Thinkific feature list.

Both course platforms offer necessary integrations with Stripe and PayPal for payments.

Website Builder

Both platforms offer a drag-and-drop website builder that comes with beautiful responsive themes. You can easily build an attractive website to market your courses with either platform.

With Thinkific, you have the option to use your own existing website and integrate the service. Kajabi doesn’t let you do the same. You have to build your site using the platform’s website builder.

Both services let you remove branding on their most popular plans although with Thinkific you have to purchase the Growth addon package.

Kajabi lets you add a blog to your website which is missing natively on Thinkific. However, because the app store on Thinkific has so many integrations, you can use one called DropInBlog to add a blog to your website.

Education

Educating creators is a big part of retention for course platforms. Kajabi University and Thinkific Academy are the respective educational platforms for both of these services.

Both provide a solid education on how to use the service for creating and marketing courses and building a successful business.

I was more drawn to Kajabi’s offering because they have a daily webinar every single day to help creators with different aspects of building their businesses and using the platform.

Course Creation

As two of the best course creation platforms, both services offer a great course creation experience and creators can do everything from offering coaching, scheduling courses, offering memberships, and more. With Kajabi you can offer podcasts which is something I haven’t seen with Thinkific.

Thinkific lets you offer completion certificates to students who have completed your courses. This is a great touch.

Sales

Kajabi and Thinkific both let you manage affiliates who can help you sell your courses. You can also offer coupon codes or bundle your courses and offer flexible pricing.

Thinkific has order bumps on the order page so that you can sell more during the order process.

See the chart below for a quick comparison of both services.

Compare	Kajabi	Thinkific
Free trial	14 days	30 days
Pricing	$149 – $399/month	Free – $499/month
Integrations	All-in-one / Stripe & PayPal	Allows multiple integrations / Stripe & PayPal
Website builder	drag-and-drop / lots of themes	drag-and-drop / can use your existing website
Blogging	built-in	available through a third-party app
Course creation	drip courses/podcasts/membership sites	drip courses/completion certificates
Sales	affiliate program	affiliate program/order bumps

Conclusion

So which course creation platform is better – Kajabi or Thinkific?

Both platforms are really good and represent two of the very best in this industry. Personally, I love Thinkific because they offer a free tier, and much more affordable pricing, and their app store offers endless features. The longer free trial is another good reason to try them but free trials only last for so long.

Both are solid options for course creation features, marketing, and managing your students, contacts, and business in general.

You do not have to take my word for it. You can test both of these platforms with the free trials that they offer and then make your decision from there.

Check out the Kajabi page and see how to get an extended free trial and check out the Thinkific page to see how to get up to 2 months free.