Kajabi vs Teachable: Which One Actually Fits Your Budget?

Kajabi starts at $179 a month. Teachable starts at $39.

That gap alone decides this for a lot of people before they’ve even looked at features. Teachable wins this fight for almost everyone starting out, because its entry plan costs a fraction of Kajabi’s and doesn’t force you into contact limits you don’t need yet. Kajabi earns its price back only once you need it to replace three other tools you’re already paying for.

The problem: you don’t know if you can afford to start

Here’s the exact number that stops people cold. Kajabi’s cheapest plan, Basic, runs $179/month billed monthly, or $143/month if you commit to a year. Teachable’s cheapest, Starter, runs $39/month monthly or $29/month annually. That’s not a rounding difference — it’s the gap between “I’ll try this” and “I need to think about this.”

Kajabi’s Basic plan gives you 5 products, 2,500 contacts, and 2 admin users. Teachable’s Starter gives you 5 products too, but doesn’t cap your contacts the same way, it caps admin users at 1 and gives students unlimited enrollment through Teachable checkout. If your worry is “what if this course actually works and I get a lot of people,” Teachable’s structure doesn’t punish that success on its bottom plan. Kajabi’s does, eventually, once you cross 2,500 contacts.

Prices verified September 2026.

What each one actually costs once you’re selling

This is where it gets less simple, and where Kajabi partisans have a real point. Kajabi charges 0% platform fee through Kajabi Payments, you just pay processing (2.9% + $0.30 on Basic, dropping slightly on higher tiers). Teachable charges a 7.5% platform fee on Starter specifically, on top of payment processing that runs 2.9% + 30c for US cards. That fee disappears entirely on Builder, Growth, and Custom when you use teachable:pay or the Monthly Payment Gateway.

So the cheap Teachable plan isn’t cheap once you’re actually making sales. A $39/month plan that takes 7.5% of every transaction is a different product than the $89/month Builder plan that takes 0%. Do the math on your own numbers before you commit, the crossover point depends entirely on your revenue, and I’m not going to fake a formula for it.

Kajabi has its own sting if you don’t use its own payment system: a surcharge of 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro for using a third-party processor instead of Kajabi Payments or PayPal. It’s a smaller bite than Teachable’s Starter fee, but it exists, and Kajabi’s marketing doesn’t lead with it.

Where Kajabi quietly wins

Here’s the surprising part. If you outgrow Kajabi’s contact limit, you’re not automatically forced up a whole pricing tier. You can buy an extra block of 25,000 contacts for $125/month on any plan instead. That’s a genuinely creator-friendly move buried in a pricing structure that otherwise looks punishing at the entry level, and it’s the kind of detail Kajabi doesn’t put in its headline pitch.

Teachable has no equivalent contact-based ceiling to worry about in the same way, because its limits are structured around product count and admin seats, not contacts. Different problem, same message: read the limits column, not just the price column.

Who should NOT choose Teachable

Skip Teachable if you want unlimited funnels, landing pages, and marketing broadcasts as the foundation of the product rather than an add-on. Teachable does have email marketing built in, and Builder and up add a community, so it isn’t feature-blind here. But it’s built first as a course platform, while Kajabi’s plans all include unlimited funnels and marketing tools as core infrastructure, not an upsell, and that difference matters if marketing automation is the whole reason you’re buying software.

Skip Teachable Starter, specifically, if you’re going to sell enough volume that the 7.5% fee will cost more monthly than just paying for Builder at $89/month outright; run that math before your first sale, not after. If you want daily payouts, Teachable offers that via teachable:pay, but if you’re on Starter, remember the 7.5% is still coming off the top either way.

Who should NOT choose Kajabi

Skip Kajabi if $179/month (or $143 annual) is a stretch before you’ve validated the course sells at all, that’s real money to commit on a hunch. Skip it if you only need 5 products and a handful of students; you’re paying for a business-in-a-box (funnels, email automation, community) you may never touch. And if your contact list is small and staying small, you’re subsidizing infrastructure built for scale you don’t have yet.

Reader scenarios

A teacher with one course and 40 students, testing the idea before investing real money: Teachable Starter, and revisit the fee question once sales pick up. A coach running a paid community plus a course plus a weekly email newsletter, tired of stitching four tools together: Kajabi Growth, because the $249/month (or $199 annual) starts looking cheap next to four separate subscriptions. A creator scaling past 25,000 contacts who’s already committed to Kajabi’s ecosystem: stay, and use the $125/month contact block instead of jumping straight to Pro at $499/month.

If you’re still deciding between Kajabi and a leaner competitor rather than Teachable specifically, the breakdown in Kajabi vs Podia: Which One Is Worth the Monthly Bill? covers that fork. And if you want the deeper dive on whether Kajabi’s all-in-one pitch is worth it at all, Kajabi Review: Who Should Actually Pay for This is the place for that.

The switching cost, briefly

Moving off either platform later means exporting your student list, rebuilding your checkout, and losing whatever reviews or course-page SEO you built up. Kajabi’s deeper ecosystem (email sequences, community, funnels) makes leaving hurt more the longer you stay, simply because you built more inside it. Teachable’s narrower scope means less to untangle if you switch later, one more reason it’s the lower-risk starting point.

The verdict

Teachable for most first-time creators, because the entry cost is honest about what you’re getting and the risk of overpaying before you’ve made a sale is low. Kajabi if you’re past the “will this work” stage and need to replace an email tool, a community platform, and a course host with one bill, the price stops looking steep once you count what it’s replacing. Don’t choose Kajabi because it sounds more complete; choose it because you’ve already priced out the alternative of running four tools separately and Kajabi came out ahead.

FAQ

Does Teachable’s Starter plan really charge a fee on top of processing? Yes, 7.5% platform fee on Starter specifically, separate from the 2.9% + 30c processing fee on US cards. That’s the detail that changes the math once you’re past a handful of sales a month.

Can I avoid Kajabi’s third-party payment surcharge? Yes, by using Kajabi Payments or PayPal, both are exempt from the surcharge that otherwise applies to other processors (2% on Basic, 1% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro).

Is annual billing worth it on either platform? Kajabi’s annual pricing saves you real money per plan, and Teachable’s annual plans are also billed a year upfront at a lower monthly rate. Don’t commit annually until you’re sure the course sells, that money-back guarantee window (30 days on both) is your real test period, not a marketing footnote.

What happens if I go over Kajabi’s contact limit? You can add a block of 25,000 extra contacts for $125/month rather than jumping to the next tier, which is worth knowing before you panic-upgrade to Growth or Pro.

Which one is cheaper for someone selling a single low-priced course? Teachable Starter at $39/month monthly, but weigh that 7.5% fee against Kajabi Basic’s $179/month with no platform fee via Kajabi Payments, at very low sales volume, Teachable still tends to come out ahead.

Is there a genuinely free plan on either? No. Both offer trials and a 30-day money-back guarantee instead of a free tier, use the trial period hard before your first paid month starts. For a side-by-side against a third option entirely, Podia vs Teachable: Which One Actually Saves You Money? is worth a look before you commit.

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How we got these numbers. Prices and fees come straight from the official pricing pages of Kajabi, Teachable, checked in September 2026. Where a value wasn’t published, the table shows “—”. Prices in this space change often — confirm on the provider’s site before you buy.