Kajabi for Online Courses: How Does It Work?

If you're a course creator, Kajabi for online courses gives you one platform to host your content, manage your students, and run your entire business. Instead of juggling separate tools for your website, email, and course delivery, everything lives in one place.

This guide breaks down how Kajabi works for course creators, what you get when you sign up, and why it's the best option if you want to build a profitable and sustainable online business.

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What Is Kajabi?

Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for people who sell their knowledge online.

If you're a course creator, a coach, a membership site owner, or another type of knowledge entrepreneur, you can use Kajabi to run your business without needing multiple subscriptions or complicated integrations.

When you create online courses on Kajabi, you're getting a lot more than just a place to upload all your course content (that you then need to connect to your email system or CRM!). 

You get a full system, including course hosting, email marketing, payment processing, landing pages, analytics, and even your own Kajabi website.

Can You Use Kajabi for Selling Online Courses?

Yes, that's one of Kajabi's main features.

You can create courses with video lessons, PDFs, quizzes, and assignments. Students log in to access their content, you collect payments through the platform, and you can automate the entire customer journey from opt-in to purchase to course delivery.

You don't need a massive audience to make a meaningful income from selling online courses on Kajabi. The average six-figure Kajabi creator has between 1,000 and 10,000 followers, an email list of around 4,000 subscribers, and just 309 paying customers.

Learn more about what Kajabi is used for.

Kajabi for Online Courses: Top 5 Features

These 5 Kajabi features cover everything you need to build, sell, and deliver online courses from a single, highly-efficient platform.

1. Course Hosting

This is where you upload and organize all your course content.

You can create modules, add lessons inside each module, and include videos, audio files, PDFs, worksheets, or pretty much any other materials your students need.

Kajabi also lets you structure your course however you want. For example, you can drip content over time so students get one lesson per week, lock modules until previous ones are completed, or give immediate access to everything. It's completely up to you!

Your students can watch and download content without ever needing any third-party tools or plugins. 

2. Email Marketing

Kajabi's email system is built right into the platform. This means that you can:

• Send broadcast emails to your entire list
• Set up automated sequences that trigger when someone joins your course
• Segment your audience based on what they've purchased or which pages they've visited

Kajabi's interface also makes it easy to see what happens when someone takes a certain action. 

For example, when someone buys Course A, they can get automatically added to a welcome sequence, tagged as a customer, and removed from your sales emails for that product.

3. Community Spaces

This feature lets you create a dedicated space where your students can ask questions and connect. 

You can organize discussions by topic, post announcements, and moderate conversations without needing a separate community platform like Facebook Groups or Circle.

You also control who gets access based on which products they've purchased, so you can have different community spaces for different courses or membership levels.

Learn more about how Kajabi can help you streamline your tech stack.

4. Kajabi Website

Your course lives on a website you build inside Kajabi.

You can create a homepage, about page, sales pages for your courses, and landing pages for lead magnets or webinar registrations. Everything is mobile-responsive and hosted on Kajabi's servers, so you don't need any extra third-party tools.

5. Payment Processing

Kajabi handles all your transactions through their native Kajabi payments or a Stripe/PayPal integration. You can create payment plans on your Kajabi checkout page if you want to offer installments, which is a handy feature for course creators.

The system manages everything:

• Collecting payments
• Sending receipts
• Granting course access automatically when someone purchases
• Tracking who's paid versus who's on a payment plan

You can see all your revenue and transaction data in your Kajabi dashboard without logging into separate payment processors, too.

Kajabi Platform for Online Courses: Why It's the Best

The biggest advantage of using Kajabi for online courses is the automation that connects everything without a difficult setup.

For example, when a student buys your course, they automatically get added to your welcome email sequence and gain access to your community space. You don't need to spend your time on any manual steps or set up complicated (and fragile) Zapier integrations.

When I first started, I had a Wix website, Teachable for my course content, and Drip for my emails. Those three platforms didn't communicate with each other, so I paid someone $1,500 just to build integrations that would make them (barely) work together.

One of the biggest reasons I became a Kajabi expert is that you can easily make one action trigger another right on the platform. For example, your student completes Module 1, gets tagged, receives the next lesson, and moves to a different email sequence. All of that happens without you lifting a finger!

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using Kajabi?

Kajabi solves most of the tech headaches that come with running an online course business, but it's not perfect for everyone.

Pros:

• You only pay for one platform instead of five separate subscriptions.
• Your students get a professional experience because everything is branded and connected.
• Automation runs without third-party tools or workarounds.

Cons:

• The monthly price is higher than basic course platforms like Teachable.
• There's a learning curve when you first start setting things up.
• Advanced customization requires either tech knowledge or hiring a Kajabi expert.

For most course creators, the time savings and professional results outweigh the Kajabi cost. 

But if you're just testing an idea or only need basic course hosting, a simpler platform might make more sense until you're ready to get serious about your online business.

👉 Learn more about The Launch Lab and how I can help you get your Kajabi Website + Marketing Funnel done in ONE day!

FAQs

How Much Does Kajabi Cost to Host a Course?

Kajabi has three pricing tiers: Basic at $143/month, Growth at $199/month, and Pro at $399/month (when paid annually). This is one subscription that includes course hosting, email marketing, payment processing, community features, a website, and all other Kajabi features. You don't need to get anything extra to host a course. 

What changes is how many core features you get access to. For example, Basic only includes 5 products and 1 website, and Pro bumps you up to unlimited products and 3 websites.

What Percentage Does Kajabi Take?

Kajabi doesn't take a percentage of your sales. You pay your monthly subscription fee and keep 100% of your revenue minus standard payment processing fees. This is different from many other platforms that allow you to create an online course and then charge you a percentage of your revenue, so you're never "done" paying. On Kajabi, you pay the same fee regardless of how much money your course makes.

Which Is Better, Kajabi or Teachable?

Kajabi is much better if you want a complete business system that includes your website, email marketing, and sales funnels in addition to course hosting. Teachable is better if you only need basic course delivery at a lower monthly cost. But keep in mind that you'll likely need to invest in third-party tools to run your business, so that'll increase your overall subscription costs.

Which Is Better, Thinkific or Kajabi?

In my opinion, Kajabi. Thinkific can work fine for course creators who don't mind setting up third-party integrations for features that come standard in Kajabi. If you already have a website and email platform you're happy with, Thinkific might be enough. But if you want to consolidate everything into one system and automate your marketing, Kajabi is the smarter choice.

My Final Thoughts on the Kajabi Platform for Selling Online Courses

Kajabi for online courses works best when you're ready to treat your business like a serious business.

It gives you the tools to create professional courses, build sales funnels, automate your marketing, and deliver a polished experience to your students without needing any extra subscriptions. 

The platform isn't the cheapest option, but it saves you time and money in the long run.

As a Kajabi Expert and Designer, I build custom and high-converting course sites and marketing funnels.

Book a design discovery call, and let's get your course business running on a system that supports your growth.