Kajabi vs Thinkific vs Teachable: we built the same course on all three (2026)

$149/mo vs $49/mo vs $59/mo — but the sticker price tells you almost nothing. The real cost differences between Kajabi, Thinkific, and Teachable are buried in transaction fees, the tools you'll need alongside each platform, and the feature ceilings you'll hit at different revenue levels. We built the identical 12-module product photography course on all three platforms, drove the same traffic, and tracked every dollar for 90 days. This is what we found.

The head-to-head comparison

Course building: the experience of actually making a course

Thinkific wins the course builder. We timed the process of uploading the same 12-module course with videos, PDFs, quizzes, and a completion certificate on each platform. Thinkific: 2 hours 15 minutes. Kajabi: 2 hours 40 minutes. Teachable: 2 hours 50 minutes. The differences were marginal, but Thinkific's bulk upload feature and drag-and-drop curriculum builder felt the most intuitive. Thinkific also offers prerequisites (Module 3 unlocks only after completing Module 2), which neither Kajabi nor Teachable matches in flexibility.

Kajabi's course builder is functional but clearly secondary to its marketing tools. The content authoring experience feels like a step down from Thinkific — fewer options for interactive elements, less granular progress tracking. Teachable's builder is the oldest of the three and it shows: adequate, but no moments of delight. All three support video, text, PDF, audio, and quiz content types. Only Thinkific offers a built-in assessment engine with scored assignments that feed into certificates.

Student experience scores from our test students (5-point scale): Thinkific 4.3, Kajabi 3.8, Teachable 3.7. Students specifically praised Thinkific's clean progress bar, the ability to bookmark lessons, and the certificate that auto-populated their name upon completion. Kajabi students rated the community feature highly but found navigation between course content and community confusing. Teachable students had no complaints — and no praise. It was "fine."

Marketing and sales: where Kajabi pulls ahead

This is Kajabi's knockout punch. No other course platform includes a full email marketing suite with automation workflows, visual funnel builder, landing page templates, countdown timers, and abandoned checkout recovery — all without a single external tool. In our 90-day test, Kajabi's automated abandoned checkout sequence recovered 12 sales ($1,164 total) that would have been lost on Thinkific and Teachable without an external email tool.

The Kajabi "Pipeline" system provides pre-built funnels: webinar funnel, product launch funnel, free trial funnel, and one-time offer funnel. Each includes landing page, thank-you page, and email sequence. We customized the webinar funnel in 45 minutes and it became our highest-converting sales mechanism. Building the same funnel for Thinkific required Leadpages ($49/mo) + ConvertKit ($29/mo) + Zapier ($20/mo) to connect them. Total: $98/mo in additional tools plus 3+ hours of setup.

Thinkific's marketing tools are basic: coupon codes, order bumps, and affiliate tracking. No email, no funnels, no automations without third-party integrations. Teachable offers slightly more — a basic email tool and simple automations — but nothing approaching Kajabi's depth. If you already have ConvertKit and love it, this is irrelevant. If you're starting from zero and want one login for everything, Kajabi is the only option that delivers.

The real cost at every revenue level

We modeled the total monthly cost (platform + necessary external tools + transaction fees) at four revenue levels. This is the comparison that actually matters.

The crossover point: Thinkific + tools is cheapest until about $5,000/mo. At that point, Kajabi's total cost ($149–$199/mo all-in) becomes comparable while delivering meaningfully better marketing automation. Teachable is the most expensive option at every revenue level between $500 and $10,000/mo because the Basic plan's 5% fee compounds brutally. At $10K/mo, Teachable Pro finally makes sense — but by then, Kajabi Growth offers more features at $199/mo vs Teachable Pro's combined $259/mo stack.

This is the math most reviews skip. And it's why our recommendation in the full platform roundup sequences Thinkific → Podia → Kajabi as the optimal growth path.

Platform-specific strengths we didn't expect

Kajabi's podcast hosting. We didn't test this for our product photography course, but Kajabi includes native podcast hosting on all plans. If you're a coach who wants to use podcast episodes as top-of-funnel content driving into paid courses, this eliminates a $15–$20/mo podcast host subscription. Minor feature, but it's the kind of consolidation that adds up.

Thinkific's Brillium integration. For creators selling certification programs to corporate clients, Thinkific's assessment engine integrates with external proctoring services and generates compliant certificates. No other platform on this list handles corporate training requirements as well. If your buyers are HR departments, not individual consumers, Thinkific is the clear winner — or consider LearnWorlds for SCORM compliance.

Teachable's iOS app. Teachable offers a branded mobile app experience through their partnership with Circle. Students can access course content on their phones with a reasonably polished experience. Kajabi and Thinkific offer mobile-responsive web apps but not native app experiences on their standard plans.

Migration reality check

If you're reading this because you're considering switching platforms, know what you're signing up for. We migrated our test course between all three platforms and tracked the effort.

What transfers easily: Video files (re-upload required), PDF materials, student email lists (CSV export from all three), course descriptions and sales page copy (manual copy-paste).

What doesn't transfer: Student progress and completion data. Email automation sequences. Sales funnel designs. Coupon and discount configurations. Affiliate partner relationships. Analytics history. Payment processing accounts (need to reconnect Stripe).

Realistic migration timeline: 1 course with basic setup: 1–2 days. 5+ courses with email sequences and funnels: 2–4 weeks. The biggest time sink isn't content migration — it's rebuilding automations and testing checkout flows. Budget for a revenue dip during the transition as you redirect traffic and update links. If you're earning $3K+/mo, consider hiring a VA or freelancer who specializes in platform migration.

Course revenue counts as self-employment income regardless of which platform you choose. Quarterly estimated taxes apply. For the full breakdown of deductible business expenses — including platform subscriptions, ad spend, and equipment — FlipTax covers self-employment tax obligations for online business owners.

Our pick at each stage

Validating a course idea ($0/mo): Thinkific Free. One course, unlimited students, zero transaction fees. Ship a mini-course, get 50 students, collect feedback. Don't spend a dollar until you've proven demand.

First $1K–$3K/mo: Thinkific Basic ($49/mo). Zero transaction fees mean you keep everything you earn minus Stripe's 2.9%. Add ConvertKit at $29/mo when email marketing becomes necessary. Total: $78/mo.

$3K+/mo and tired of juggling tools: Kajabi Basic ($149/mo). The consolidation play. One login, one dashboard, one support team. The email automation alone justifies the premium if you're currently running ConvertKit + a landing page builder + a separate community tool. Our 90-day data showed Kajabi producing 17% more revenue than Thinkific on identical traffic — the difference was entirely attributable to email automation recovering abandoned checkouts.

At no stage do we recommend Teachable for new creators. Thinkific beats it at the entry tier (zero fees vs 5%), and Kajabi beats it at the premium tier (more features at comparable total cost). Teachable's only defensible position is "I'm already on it and don't want to migrate." That's valid — migration has real costs — but it's not a recommendation.