Best Kajabi Alternatives To Create Quality Courses

espite its price tag, we do understand why Kajabi is such a popular platform among single course creators. It’s an effective LMS, making creation and selling much easier. 

However, what if your course creation needs more? For instance, an advanced solution that suits your teaching style and beliefs.

The chances are that Kajabi won’t help here, even with all its capabilities and features. It does many things and does well, but not great. 

Let’s see what Kajabi lacks and explore effective Kajabi alternatives that better suit your teaching flow or sales goals.

Should you Look for Kajabi Alternatives?

First of all, in terms of online course development and selling, Kajabi is one of the best options on the market. 

The advantages are vivid: multiple products for selling, a decent online course builder, a helpful landing page editor, a mobile app, excellent marketing tools, and proper integrations. 

And here's what Kenny Reuter, co-founder of Kajabi, says about Kajabi’s goal in a Tidemark interview: their product enables entrepreneurs'  journey, removes “some of the tech headaches…and delivers some best practices on how to start a business online.”

Yet, why would you require an alternative to Kajabi? 

The key Kajabi disadvantage is that it does everything, but isn’t the best at it. 

Some of the platform’s tools and apps simply don’t suit the needs and teaching style of the creators. Simultaneously, many of them look toward Kajabi competitors as they see downsides. 

What are they?

Lack of engagement tools

After acquiring Vibely, a former community platform, in 2022, Kajabi now has a well-awaited solution to create communities of learners.  

Yet, if you want to link it to your online course, you should know that Community counts as a Product. It means that you either will: 

1. Use “circles” and “challenges” to create a program there 
2. Use third parties or a simple comment section to support engagement within an online course.

That way, the absence of in-built engagement tools may impede the learning process or the launch of advanced courses. 

Kajabi now offers some templates for online courses with gamification elements. However, these interactive options are too simple and require some effort to set it right.

Kajabi pricing

Kajabi reviews tell us that adequate plans are pretty expensive for some creators or even organizations, considering available tools. Kajabi pricing for the Basic Plan is $149/mo with 3 products only and no advanced options, while the Growth Plan is $199/mo, yet offers no custom code editor.

Limited management and reporting

You may have already thought of the management and reporting of the platform. For instance, the Student Progress Report is basic enough, showing only completion rates and the last login time of users. At the same time, the product lacks a dashboard where one can manage courses and activities. In terms of content management, it doesn’t support the SCORM format.

Besides, some customers criticize the platform for non-intuitive editors and a steep learning curve.

Customization options

Lastly, being a universal platform, Kajabi relies on templates and pre-built options. Unfortunately, it brings less room for advanced customization of pages and forms. 

Kajabi Alternatives for Advanced Courses and Better Engagement (not sales)

• #1. EducateMe: Flexible LMS to create engaging an quality courses
• #2. Disco: Dynamic-feed software for communities of learners
• #3. Pathwright: Software with unique “paths” for active learning
• #4. Circle: Solid platform for growing communities and memberships
• #5. Maven: Intuitive software with a focus on group learning and networking

So, Kajabi is excellent for starting a course creator’s journey. However, you may consider other tools to provide a more profound and compelling learning experience.   

Which ones? Those that contribute to the interaction between students and management of the course, allowing active learning.

Here are the Kajabi alternatives that give you plenty of options and higher control over the teaching flow:

#1. EducateMe: Flexible LMS To Create Engaging and Quality Courses

To begin with, despite offering no sales funnels and marketing tools, EducateMe is the best Kajabi alternative for creating advanced and effective courses with no hassle. 

EducateMe is a flexible solution focusing on course creation, collaboration, and learning management. Thus, it should be your option if you put quality learning with communication and insights at the center.

Compared to Kajabi, EducateMe offers a more intuitive course builder with a variety of formats and content to embed. Its powerful management features are ideal for multiple courses, cohort learning, and program scaling. 

Notably, EducateMe can support and optimize your workflow with smooth integrations, including Loom, Notion, Slack, and Zoom. 

Interesting fact. EducateMe has been growing really fast, having doubled the number of learners on the platform (from 10,000 to 20,000) in just 4 months.

Powerful EducateMe features:

• Engagement kit. EducateMe offers a built-in messenger linked to the courses. Other tools include Slack-like channels, peer reviews, and comment sections.
• Advanced reporting. This alternative to Kajabi offers a dashboard to track students’ activity, course completion, and attendance by tags. With it, you can valuable insights, leave notes, and see who is falling behind.
• Progress tracker. Use the Kanban method, allowing instructors to see, react, and administer the statuses of the assignments.
• White label LMS. With a solid branding option, you can customize forms and course appearance, adjusting colors, fonts, logos, and shapes.

Pricing: 14-day free trial; Starter Plan contemplates $100 (for 40 students); EducateMe applies seat-based model charging 2.5 for an active user. 

💡Highlight: If you value collaboration, control, and flexibility for advanced learning provision, EducateMe can grant you that with its engagement and management tools.

Read more: How Projector Institute Accelerated Course Launches with EducateMe

#2. Disco: Software to Create a Community of Learners

Disco is a different online learning platform that uses dynamic chats and feeds for the building of communities of learners. It can be the best option for learning providers preferring a community-centered approach or selling memberships. 

First of all, Disco is better than Kajabi regarding online community creation.

It has a fresh, vivid design with a pretty easy-to-use course builder. Disco allows virtual spaces where users can add apps referring to content, curriculum, events, and feeds and support them with channels.

On the other hand, it organizes everything under one board, offering an online course builder and quick access to reporting and communication. Nevertheless, the significant disadvantages are basic reporting and analytics and overreliance on community format.

Interesting fact. Being a partner to different schools and academies like Dribble, Disco offers insightful pieces and interviews with experts on how to build communities.

Essential features of this Kajabi alternative:

• Automation. With it, you can create templates for automation for specific triggers or events. For instance, upon each registration, you can send a welcome message or add a person to the group.
• Space customization. Importantly, Disco allows customizing domains, spaces, labels, and colors.

Disco pricing

There is a 14-day free trial.

💡Highlight: With community tools and an appealing look, Disco can be a great option for creators looking for a space to build an online community of learners. 

#3. Pathwright: Simple Software with Unique “paths” for Active Learning

Another alternative to Kajabi that underscores the teaching needs is Pathwright. Pathwright is a very intuitive and learner-oriented platform that offers “paths” to create courses. 

To start with, it offers an innovative and clean design that adds to the user experience on any device. Pathwright uses a ‘path’ approach for instructors to build steps and define which turn the learning will take. It’s possible due to a smooth drag-and-drop course builder.

Also, Pathwright pays a lot of attention to active learning and allows teachers to engage instantly with students. That is why each path can be supported by discussion threads; you can use a community space as well. 

This Kajabi alternative offers basic e-commerce options, like preview access and discounts. The major downturns are limited reporting, the need to download reports, and poor content formats.

Interesting fact. More than 43% of the Pathwright team are active or former teachers.

Important Pathwright features:

• Intuitive content blocks. They allow adding interactive pieces, like annotated images, videos, flashcards, and questions.
• Brand and course customization. Due to the design, you can customize the brand page and course blocks by adding custom CSS code or changing the background colors and fonts.  

Pricing: free plan, Starter Plan is $99/mo (unlimited paths); Essentials Plan is $199/mo (3 cohorts per path, 5 mentor groups, custom domain); Complete Plan is $499/mo (unlimited cohorts, 20 mentor groups, certificates); Enterprise Plan is available upon the request.

💡Highlight: Being an uncommon solution with a clean design and smooth content provision, Pathwright is excellent for organizations that are underscoring learner-oriented and active learning.

#4. Circle: Solid Software for Growing Communities and Memberships

Circle is a comprehensive and customizable community platform that offers powerful engagement tools and an intuitive approach to creating virtual learning spaces. Like Disco, it has better community and course creation tools than Kajabi.

This Kajabi competitor offers a well-organized community builder where you can create virtual spaces and send videos, comments, and even voice messages. Even though it’s simple, you can add posts, chats, and events. There, you can use spaces to add primary content and create different courses depending on the access to the content. 

The software offers good flow automation and basic reporting features similar to other Kajabi competitors. Interestingly, Circle Plus offers app creation, allowing students to browse courses, engage, and attend live streams.

The major downturns are limited reporting and interactive course-building options.

Interesting fact. Circle issues monthly product updates, paying significant attention to product development and improvement of available functions.

Exciting Features of Circle

• Live streaming. The platform offers a practical built-in live-stream feature to organize Q&A, discussions, or simply go live. 
• Search bar. This function is helpful if you have a lot of courses and communities, allowing you to look for keywords within posts, courses, and comments.

Circle pricing

A free plan (trial) is available.

💡Highlight: Circle is a powerful community learning platform, and if discussions and live sessions take a significant part in your courses, it should be your choice.

#5. Maven: Intuitive Software with a Focus on Cohort Learning

Maven is an online learning platform offering a marketplace and organizing learning provision around cohort-based learning and networking for influencers and creators. Just like Kajabi, Maven brings marketing options to the table. Simultaneously, it offers a powerful community to help learning providers.

With Maven, course creators can create online courses, events, and projects (assignments) for cohorts via a user-friendly content editor. The app is pretty easy to use and allows uploading files for sharing. At the same time, it offers basic communication options, particularly channels and DMs, to start a discussion.

Besides, Maven allows surveying students before and after the course to organize courses better. Yet, the platform lacks integrations, reporting and assignment capabilities, and a diversity of formats.

Interesting fact. The co-founder of Maven, Wes Cao, left the company in September 2023. Such an event can affect the company’s vision and leadership.

Essential Maven features

• Marketplace and marketing. The platform attracts some creators with the marketplace it offers. Creators can launch an email marketing campaign, create lead magnets and alumni referrals, or develop a landing page. 
• Community. Maven has a robust community supporting influencers and creators. Besides, the Maven Accelerator program is pretty effective for new users.

Pricing: free trial; 10% of the learner fee, not considering transaction fee taken by Stripe (2.9% +30 cents per transaction).

💡Highlight: Being a synergy between the marketplace and easy course creation software, Maven suits influencers and experts with an audience best.

Kajabi Alternatives To Create and Sell Courses

• #6. LearnWorlds: Powerful LMS with a variety of interactive content options
• #7. Podia: Popular Kajabi alternative with solid email tools
• #8. Teachable: Alternative to Kajabi with greater content and format flexibility
• #9. Thinkific: A more affordable LMS with a focus on courses and tax support
• #10. Kartra: Powerful lead gen platform with membership option for course selling
• #11. Learndash: Kajabi Alternative for WordPress Users
• #12.Clickfunnels: Course platform with funnels at its core

Sure, we do understand that not all learning providers want to sacrifice the marketing and sales benefits of Kajabi. Its features simply are one of the best on the market. 

Yet, some options are cheaper, while others bring more in terms of course-building or flexibility.

#6. LearnWorlds: Powerful LMS with a variety of interactive content options

LearnWorlds is a bit complex but decent LMS, offering content variety and a solid function for setting sales and marketing. Compared to Kajabi, it brings better content format variety and offers good reporting.

Notably, just like Kajabi, it provides marketing and sales support. You can create a website with a blog and use an app for courses. 

Regarding content and assignments, LearnWorlds has multiple options with interactive videos and other elements. It allows better immersion of the students into the learning. Besides, the instructor can organize community discussions, hold exams, and issue course completion certificates.

Interesting fact. The co-founders of LearnWorlds, Panos Siozos, Fanis Despotakis, and Giorgos Palaigeorgiou, have years of education research experience and got a Ph.D. in Educational Technology in Greece before launching LearnWorlds.

Yet, such a devotion to content options results in disbalance. Because of multiple functions, there is certain complexity; while the design is outdated and can be hard to follow, bringing issues for operation. 

Powerful LearnWorlds features

• Interactive video editor. Add simple and interactive pieces and elements to your uploaded video content, including texts, images, questions, buttons, or subtitles.
• Reporting. Learnworlds provides a separate space for analysis of the enrollment, participation, and performance of students. It also presents primary sales data.

LearnWorlds pricing

A free trial is available. 

💡Highlight: LearnWorlds is a great alternative to Kajabi regarding content and task options; it may be suitable if you rely on pre-recorded materials, videos, and students' autonomy.

#7. Podia: Popular Kajabi Alternative with Powerful Email Marketing

Podia claims to be an all-around platform that allows you to create and sell courses and various digital downloads. This solution is a good alternative if you are looking for excellent email marketing capabilities. Other functions are similar to Kajabi functions.

Except for an in-built powerful email solution with segmentation and tags, it offers an online course builder that supports all primary content formats. Thus, there is no need to rely on templates. Importantly, you may use appropriate community tools. 

Coaching sessions and webinars (under the advanced plan) are other products you can create and sell. Nonetheless, this software lacks advanced features for engagement with students, content creation, and task management. Yet, compared to Kajabi, it’s more affordable.

Other features of Podia

• Web page building. Podia offers a flexible web page builder to experiment with blocks, fonts, colors, and layouts.
• Affiliate marketing. This solution has a good affiliate management feature, allowing managing links and analytics.

Podia pricing

💡Highlight: Podia will suit creators or businesses that either focus on the email channel significantly for course distribution or consider diversifying their learning provision business.

Read more: Best Podia Alternatives

#8. Teachable: Alternative to Kajabi with greater content and format flexibility

Teachable is a well-known platform that many creators use due to its flexibility and decent content builder. Likened to Kajabi, it offers better content and format options for creators to develop programs. 

Yes, the central area of Teachable operation relates to course building. Nonetheless, it allows for creating and selling bundles and digital downloads. With its intuitive course editor, you can add audio, PDF files, videos, build quizzes, or embed media files. Notably, the editor is powered by AI, bringing more efficiency to curriculum building. Also, it recently added community feature, meaning you can use for group learning or development of membership model.

The main downsides of this Kajabi competitor are lack of branding options and high fees under specific plans (Pro Plan). 

Other Teachable features

• Web page and marketing. Teachable provides a simple website builder where you can use blocks to add content. At the same time, it brings essential marketing tools to the table, yet they are far from being advanced. 
• App. Lastly, Teachable offers an app that learners can use to access courses.

Teachable pricing

💡Highlight: Teachable content-oriented tools look fresh and are ideal for single creators and experts starting their creator journey. However, for business growth or advanced courses, this platform may not be enough.

Read more: Best Teachable Alternatives

#9.Thinkific: A More Affordable LMS with a Focus on Courses and Tax Support

Thinkific is a flexible learning solution for course creation and selling. It is a cheaper alternative to Kajabi, which has great course-builder and web page tools and brings some tax support to its users. Importantly, it puts course creation tools first, yet offers basic marketing options.

The good news is that it offers community options and a great content variety that can be inserted into the course. With the community, you can make posts and organize events. Simultaneously, you can add videos and links or quizzes for better immersion into the learning process.

However, it would be fair to note that Thinkific design and user interface look outdated, while there is still a lack of tools for proper student engagement and tracking. Besides, some advanced options can be accessed only within the high-tier plans.

Essential Thinkific features

• Integrations. Thinkific provides a wide range of integrations that can compensate for the limited engagement options. Thinkific can divide them into categories, in particular, learning experience (BeastNotes or Elai), engagement and assessment (Pointagram or Ding), connections and social (Bonjoro or Community Box).  
• Marketing and sales tools. Thinkific has no built-in email marketing but offers solid third-party options. Also, there are options to use sales widgets or create affiliate programs. Lastly, it provides a tax automation solution for creators.

Thinkific Pricing

Learning providers can use a free plan. Basic Plan is $34/mo, offering unlimited courses, 1 community and 5 spaces. Start Plan’s price tag is $74/mo, providing 1 community and 10 spaces as well as assignments. The pricing for Grow Plan is $149/mo, giving access to 3 communities, 20 spaces per each, and advanced customization.

💡Highlight: Thinkific can be an option for advanced courses and proper selling if you are ready to spend time and effort to set the right integrations.

Read more: Best Thinkific Alternatives

#10. Kartra: Powerful Lead Gen Platform with Membership Option for Course Selling

Lastly, there is Kartra, a comprehensive marketing platform that offers features for course development and the creation of digital products. Compared to all Kajabi alternatives provided here, Kartra has more advanced marketing and sales funnel management features. 

What are the options for creating an online course, then? Well, creators can use membership tools to organize curriculum with categories and add content. Moreover, it offers the ability to create quizzes and discuss issues via comments. 

Yet, Kartra has significant limitations concerning communication with students, their engagement, and course development. That way, isn't the best option for developing advanced courses. 

Essential Kartra features

• Solid builder tool to sales pages. Kartra offers good page-building capabilities thanks to numerous templates and the ability to change any element or block. Branding options are decent as well.
• Powerful lead generation options. Being a marketing platform, this alternative offers effective lead management (like tagging and scoring), multiple ways to generate leads (like affiliate and email marketing), and supports the lead’s journey with forms, pop-ups, and banners.

Pricing: no free plan but 30-day money-back guarantee; the Starter Plan costs $119/mo, providing 2 Membership sites, 20 products, 1 custom domain); Silver Plan costs $229/mo, granting unlimited products and sites, 3 custom domains; Platinum costs $559/mo and offers 10 custom domains.

💡Highlight: Kartra isn’t a learning management system; however, it can be the right solution if you seek more powerful marketing and sales features to sell digital products.

#11. Learndash: Kajabi Alternative for WordPress Users

Already have a WordPress website for selling online courses? LearnDash LMS is a powerful plugin that will help course creators transform a site into a comprehensive learning management system. How? By adding essential LMS features, integrating tools, and providing options to sell courses.

You can use an intuitive drag-and-drop course builder to build courses, clone content, and embed different formats. It offers good opportunities for collaboration and engagement, while management tools are on-point as well. The separate add-ons for an extra fee allow using advanced reporting.

However, for full functionality, you will need multiple basic and advanced add-ons, resulting in hidden costs. Moreover, its implementation can be challenging for non-WordPress users.

Crucial LearnDash features

• Monetization features. LearnDash does not fall behind in terms of tools for selling courses. It provides powerful features for memberships, subscriptions, and course bundles. Also, It has an in-built payment system and integrations with WooCommerce and Stripe. 
• Assignments and gamification. LearnDash offers advanced assignment creation, great AI help in their creation, and badges and certificates to reward students.
• Progression and learning management. This Kajabi alternative offers pretty flexible course progression options. Besides, it aims to enhance the learning experience, bringing a student dashboard, course completions page, and focus mode to eliminate distractions.

Pricing: provides no free plan; LearnDash LMS is $199/year (for one website) and $399/year (for 10 websites); LearnDash Cloud starts at $29/mo. 

💡Highlight: LearnDash is ideal for course creators and academies using WordPress for creating and monetizing online courses.

Read more: Best LearnDash Alternatives

#12. ClickFunnels: Platform with Sales Funnels at its Core

ClickFunnels is a platform that has enough functionality to build simple online courses, whereas its main power lies in sales funnels and tools to market and sell them. Thus, it will be a great alternative to Kajabi, if you use courses to grow your business and attract leads or develop an online course business. 

What does it offer in terms of program creation and development? Selection of templates, drip content features, community features, and decent enrollment management. To sell courses, ClickFunnels allows you to set up a system of sales funnels and capture leads in different ways. 

Yet, this Kajabi competitor offers fairly basic course creation tools. Other disadvantages include a lack of streaming and engagement features and a steep learning curve.

Features of ClickFunnels

• Sales funnels. Course creators can benefit from a variety of options concerning sales funnel development and management. For example, you can add countdowns, use a page and funnel editor, or create an eCommerce-like store with the Buy-Now Funnel.
• Marketing features. ClickFunnels offers great email marketing automation to engage with and nurture leads. Also, it brings good options for building websites and landing pages or membership options. 
• Community. This alternative allows building a community that works greatly for membership, even though it is not as developed as Kajabi’s feature.

Pricing: offers a 14-day free trial; pricing starts at $97/mo with Startup Plan (3 workspaces and 3 team members; unlimited funnels and courses); Pro Plan is $297/mo (10 workspaces and 10 team members).

💡Highlight: ClickFunnels is a great Kajabi alternative for edupreneurs and business owners using courses to grow businesses, as it provides powerful sales and marketing features.

Conclusion: Which Alternative to Kajabi to choose?

If you want a course creation platform that will help you to provide deep learning and advanced programs, Kajabi is not the one. You must focus on alternatives offering engagement, reporting, and management tools. What are they?

• EducateMe is the best Kajabi alternative for advanced course creation, with powerful course-builder tools to optimize the flow and handle conversations. It works best for academies or online schools. Why not test it or book a demo just now?
• Disco and Circle are excellent community learning features ideal for creators and learning providers developing an online community of learners or having a membership site. 
• Pathwright is just a smooth and flexible solution with the best design that puts simplicity and learner needs in the center. Besides, there is Maven for experts and influencers that allows building programs for groups and selling them on the marketplace and LearnDash with powerful LMS plugins for website owners.

However, if you’re interested in a cheaper option or one that has more content opportunities, here are platforms like Kajabi that help with sales:

• Learnworlds offers worthy content and interactive videos but lacks engagement means. Podia has powerful marketing tools and easy-to-use builders, while ClickFunnels has strong focus on sales funnels.
• Teachable and Thinikfic are solid options with basic marketing but flexible and intuitive course editors. Notably, Thinkific offers great integrations for collaboration and learning experiences.
• Lastly, there is Kartra, which is more of a marketing platform but with the possibility to build a membership site and build courses.