8 Best Kajabi Alternatives for Memberships, Courses & Communities in 2026

When you’re building income online, choosing the right platform will shape your business and its long-term growth.

It can be tempting to choose a tool that claims to do it all, but is that always the right option? All-in-one marketing platforms are the right choice for some creators, but they can also limit the control you have over your business.

You might be considering Kajabi, a platform that can replace all of the tools you use to run memberships, host a community, and build courses. For some, this is ideal. But you also want to consider the alternatives before you get started.

Some find that an all-in-one platform has more features than they actually need. You’ll also want to think about the long-term: will Kajabi support your growth in the ways you need it to?

We’ve started the research for you. Here’s what you need to know about Kajabi, the types of platforms that creators end up switching to, and the best Kajabi alternatives on the market.

What is Kajabi?

Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that aims to replace creator tech stacks with one platform to run your business. Instead of bundling tools and platforms together, you can do it all with Kajabi.

Kajabi is well known for its course builder, making it a top choice for those who want to sell courses or coaching programs. You can create your course, craft email flows, host landing pages and forms to generate signups, and accept payments, all with Kajabi.

You can also build memberships and communities to bring in more recurring revenue and deepen your relationships with your audience. Each feature is designed to work together, so you can create exclusive newsletters, podcasts, and downloads for members alongside educational content.

But Kajabi isn’t just about having one tool to create and distribute content. You can also use more advanced business features, like marketing funnels and customer relationship management. This helps you set up automations without having to figure out how to make different platforms work together.

Kajabi is one of the pricier membership and course-focused platforms, with three plans, but they set themselves apart with no transaction fees. For annual plans, Kajabi’s pricing starts at:

• Basic: $143/month
• Growth: $199/month
• Pro: $399/month

One important thing to remember is that Kajabi’s prices go up as your membership or offerings grow, as plans support a limited number of contacts and products.

Why Creators Look for Alternatives to Kajabi

While Kajabi can do a lot, it’s important to ask yourself if that’s actually what you need from a platform. Yes, you can build courses alongside your memberships, but do you need to use these features? Does your platform need a built-in community when you could use two platforms together that give your members a better experience?

Here are the key reasons creators decide to explore Kajabi alternatives:

• Cost concerns: Kajabi can be expensive — the price increases as you launch more products and add more members.
• All-in-one limitations: Doing everything in one place means you’re limited by what the platform can provide; some creators want to reduce their dependency on one platform.
• Watered-down features: Some reviews note that the course builder is Kajabi’s standout feature; the other features are not as strong.
• Complexity: Kajabi’s community and engagement features can be difficult to navigate, sometimes leading to a poor member experience.
• Ownership tradeoffs: Memberships can feel limited by Kajabi’s platform; some creators want more room for an ownership-first business where they have more control.
• Payment ownership: If you want to own your payment stack, you pay an additional fee per transaction.
• Feature bloat: Kajabi aims to replace the need for multiple tools. However, this leads to feature bloat when creators aren’t using everything it has to offer.
• Lack of design flexibility: If you want your platform to match your brand, Kajabi’s design features can feel restrictive.

What to Look for in a Kajabi Alternative

When you’re considering Kajabi’s competitors, here are a few different factors to evaluate for each platform.

• Pricing & transaction fees: How much does the platform cost per month? What are the transaction fees? How does the pricing change as you scale?
• Course creation tools: Not every Kajabi alternative supports coaching or course creation.
• Membership features: Can the platform support the experience and content you want your members to have?
• Community capabilities: If you want to build a member community, look into community features – some platforms have a built-in platform, while others integrate with platforms like Discord and Discourse.
• Ownership & branding: Consider whether the platform gives you ownership of your content, data, and payments, along with your branding.
• Integrations & flexibility: Does the Kajabi alternative make it easy to integrate with tools that might not be included in the software?
• Ease of use: Look for a platform that’s easy for you to set up and for your customers to use, with in-depth customer support to help you along the way.
• Scalability: Choose a platform that supports you as you scale your courses, memberships, and community.

This is a lot to consider. But with a clear idea of how you want your courses, your community, and your memberships to feel — now and as you grow — you’ll be able to better choose the platform that helps you get where you want to go.

Understanding types of Kajabi Alternatives

Choosing the right Kajabi alternative depends on your goals, how you want to build your income, and your overall business model.

Your ideal platform might look a lot different from Kajabi: while an all-in-one tool might be the best option for you, sometimes a different type of platform suits your needs better.

There are a few platform types that you can choose from:

• Membership and community platforms
• Course platforms
• All-in-one platforms

Membership and Community Platforms

Membership and community platforms help you make money by providing a premium member experience for your audience, with a combination of exclusive content and communities.

These platforms are diverse, too — some membership platforms let you build white-label memberships that you completely own. Others are community platforms that provide a hub for your audience to connect with you and with one another.

If your goal is to build recurring revenue with thoughtful, audience-focused content, membership and community platforms might be the right choice.

The top membership and community platforms to consider include Memberful, Circle, and Mighty Networks.

Course Platforms

If you know you want to create courses or coaching programs, you may want to focus on course platforms when you’re looking into Kajabi alternatives.

Course platforms were built specifically for educational content. They’ll provide a place to host your courses, boost student engagement, and accept payments.

Each has a different focus: some help business owners create courses that supplement their income, while others help teachers provide a more immersive experience for their students.

If the all-in-one experience of Kajabi appeals to you, but you know that courses are your main focus, these course platforms might have everything you need (without extra tools you won’t use).

Some of the top online course platforms are Thinkific and Teachable.

All-in-one Platforms

Maybe you do want a platform that can do it all. In that case, an all-in-one platform might be the Kajabi alternative that you’re looking for.

These platforms provide a hub for running every part of your business: your website, courses, email marketing, memberships, and payments. If you want one tool that handles everything you need, selecting the right all-in-one platform can help you keep everything on track in one place.

All-in-one platforms can also make great software for beginners, helping you get started while you determine the shape you want your online business or membership to take.

The top all-in-one platforms that people consider alongside Kajabi include Podia, Kartra, and Systeme.io.

Quick Comparison of the Best Kajabi Alternatives

Before we get into the details, here’s a quick overview of the top alternatives to Kajabi: who they are, what kind of platform they are, and who they work best for.

Best Kajabi Alternatives

Here’s what we took into consideration when determining the best Kajabi alternatives:

• Review sites, forums, and blog posts to see what real creators and business owners had to say about each tool
• Different types of platforms: after all, the best alternative for a course creator is different from someone who wants to focus on memberships or building an online business
• What makes an impact beyond features: how does the platform support you as you scale, shift your business, or update your brand?

With these things in mind, we determined the 8 best Kajabi alternatives on the market:

1. Memberful
2. Circle
3. Mighty Networks
4. Thinkific
5. Teachable
6. Podia
7. Kartra
8. Systeme.io

Memberful

For creators who want to create memberships that go beyond community, with full ownership, Memberful is our top choice.

With Memberful, you can build memberships where you own every single element: your data, your content, and your branding.

It provides a space to build flexible memberships that feel aligned with you and your audience, without platform or growth constraints. Plus, Memberful’s integrations connect your memberships with other tools you use, like WordPress and Mailchimp, so you can add membership features to your business without rebuilding your website or transferring your email list to a new platform.

Memberful’s Key Features

Pros of Memberful

Here are some of the pros of Memberful:

• You get full ownership of your audience and payments. Your memberships are yours; Memberful is the platform you use to make it happen.
• It works with your existing stack, with 18 built-in integrations that make it easy for your memberships to work alongside tools that you already use, giving you the flexibility to build the right membership tech stack for what you need.
• Memberful’s pricing is consistent, no matter how many members, features, or integrations you’re using. Scaling is simpler, without additional expenses.
• It supports multiple content types, such as membership sites, newsletters, and podcasts. It’s all included, so you can experiment to see what your audience likes best.

Drawbacks of Memberful

Here are some of the drawbacks to consider before choosing Memberful:

• Since everything is customizable, it requires more setup than some other platforms. However, setting up memberships is free — you only get charged once you go live.
• Memberful doesn’t have a built-in community platform, but it integrates with community platforms like Discord and Discourse.
• Course plugins (Sensei and LearnDash) are only available if you’re using Memberful with your WordPress site; there is no built-in LMS platform.
• Some creators prefer Kajabi because it does not charge transaction fees, while Memberful charges 4.9% per transaction.

How Memberful Compares to Kajabi

When you compare Memberful to Kajabi, Memberful wins for creators who want scalable memberships that they fully own, with the freedom to control branding, content types, and data.

Kajabi wins for creators who want an all-in-one platform, with built-in features for courses, coaching programs, and member communities.

Memberful is best for

Creators building long-term membership businesses with ownership at its heart.

Circle

For creators who want to invest in a community hub, Circle could be the right platform for you.

Circle describes itself as a “complete community platform”, with the tools you need to build a custom membership community. You can build courses and spaces for members to connect, like you can with Kajabi. The key difference is that Circle’s features are built to support every element of your community, not your entire business.

Circle’s Key Features

Pros of Circle

Here are some of the key things people love about Circle:

• Circle is focused on the member experience, with a simple setup and easy navigation for your community.
• With strong community and course features, creators can run both features in one platform instead of relying on multiple tools.
• Circle’s customer community is helpful, with one Redditor praising it for being “full of fantastic information and support”.

Drawbacks of Circle

These are some of the drawbacks to consider before getting started with Circle:

• While the community features are strong, marketing tools and automations can feel quite limited in comparison.
• Visual customization is limited compared to other platforms.
• It can be difficult to navigate the backend and set up new features.

How Circle compares to Kajabi

Circle wins for creators who want a strong community and course combo in one platform.

Kajabi wins for creators who want a platform with basic community tools that they can use to replace other tools in their marketing tech stack.

Circle is best for:

Creators and business owners who want one platform to build a feature-rich community hub.

Mighty Networks

If you want a tool focused on building a member community, without extra business and marketing features, Mighty Networks might be the right choice for you.

Mighty Networks (also known as Mighty) is a community platform that provides a simple way for creators to create engaging membership experiences through spaces and courses.

Where Mighty really stands apart is through engagement-boosting features, like mini courses and 30-day challenges, to boost revenue and bring in new members.

Mighty Networks’ Key Features

Pros of Mighty Networks

Here’s what keeps creators coming back to Mighty Networks:

• For users running different spaces, membership tiers, and courses, Mighty’s UX makes it easy to keep everything on track.
• Reviews mention that the design is easy to navigate for community managers and members.
• People running international or multi-lingual communities love Mighty’s localization features.

Drawbacks of Mighty Networks

There are a few drawbacks to consider before signing up for Mighty, too:

• Mighty Networks has limited integrations, which come with extra costs, making it difficult to integrate your community with the rest of your business.
• Mighty does one thing really well: build communities. If you want to offer more to your members (like exclusive content), you’ll need to use another platform.

How Mighty Networks compares to Kajabi

Mighty Networks wins for creators who want to prioritize engaging member experiences and community connection.

Kajabi wins for creators who want a simple way to manage a community that integrates with other membership features.

Mighty Networks is best for:

Creators who want memberships that surround engaging, community-focused spaces.

Thinkific

If you spend a lot of time educating your audience, or you’re an educator who wants a platform to expand your reach, Thinkific is a platform to look into.

Thinkific is built around knowledge sharing, with education at its core. When you’re creating courses, its built-in tools help you set up courses that work for you, through text-based modules, live lessons, or something in between.

Other features are built to fit into and support the overall learning experience: memberships can add exclusive perks for digital learners, and communities are built to connect your students.

Thinkific’s Key Features

Pros of Thinkific

Here’s what people love about using Thinkific:

• Thinkific is affordable compared to some other platforms, with unlimited courses available on every plan and no transaction fees.
• Unlimited courses and uploads help you scale without worrying about hitting limits.
• Setting up and creating a course is simple and beginner-friendly, making it easy to “turn an idea into a structured digital product”.

Drawbacks of Thinkific

Here are some of the key drawbacks of using Thinkific:

• Design and customization options are limited, with one review noting that they had to create their own graphics to achieve the look and feel they wanted.
• Key features, like enhanced analytics, are only available on higher-priced plans, making scaling and growing your courses less accessible.

How Thinkific compares to Kajabi

Thinkific wins for educators building and selling engaging educational content, with community-driven features that elevate the student experience.

Kajabi wins for creators who want the option to create courses in the same platform they use to build marketing funnels and other content.

Thinkific is best for:

Creators who want to build income with educational content, with community and membership options that support the learning experience.

Teachable

If you’ve got a good idea for a course, and you don’t want to spend too much time on setup, Teachable helps you move quickly and start building revenue.

Teachable removes the barriers and technical considerations to setting up an online course or coaching program, with features like memberships that help you bundle products and make recurring revenue.

Teachable also integrates with tools like Mailchimp and WordPress, so you can customize how it works with the rest of your business.

Teachable’s Key Features

Pros of Teachable

Here’s what people love about using Teachable.

• Teachable is well-known for being easy to set up, so you can start selling courses and building your revenue fast.
• Pricing is lower than other course platforms, like Thinkific and Kajabi.
• Reviews note that the built-in templates are visually appealing and professional.

Drawbacks of Teachable

Here are some of the key drawbacks to remember about Teachable:

• Customization features are limited, with certain themes, custom domains, and white-label branding only available on higher-priced plans.
• Many reviews mention poor customer support and usability.
• While you own your content, you can’t export your courses, which makes switching platforms less flexible and more time consuming.

How Teachable compares to Kajabi

Teachable wins for creators who want to move fast, with an easy setup that helps you start making money from selling courses.

Kajabi wins for creators who want to establish a business, building courses alongside the rest of their marketing.

Teachable is best for:

Creators who want to start building and selling courses fast.

Podia

Podia works for creators focused on simplicity: managing all your content in one, easy-to-use platform.

Podia, like Kajabi, is an all-in-one tool that serves as a foundation for your marketing, building courses and community spaces on the same platform as your website and email campaigns. While they aren’t a membership-focused platform, you can still create subscription-only access for member communities in Podia.

Podia’s Key Features

Pros of Podia

Some of the best-loved things about Podia are:

• It’s simple to use and looks good; this review says “I love how easy it is to use and how pretty it is.”
• Compared to other all-in-one tools like Kajabi, it’s more affordable, especially for creators who are just getting started.
• Support and design are helpful for creators who aren’t tech-savvy.

Drawbacks of Podia

Some drawbacks to remember about Podia are:

• Pricing increases as you add more products and email subscribers, limiting scaling capabilities.
• While Podia makes it simple to set up many features, many features — notably, the website builder — can start to feel too simple as you grow, with limited customization.

How Podia compares to Kajabi

Podia wins for creators who want a simple tool to run every part of their marketing, especially those just getting started.

Kajabi wins for creators who want an all-in-one platform with more advanced automations and business tools.

Podia is best for:

Creators who need to run their marketing on one simple platform.

Kartra

If you’re already running courses and coaching programs and want to take your business to the next level, Kartra is worth considering.

Kartra equips course creators and coaches with marketing tools, like sales funnels and automations, that help build revenue. It helps at every step of the funnel: you can build courses, manage leads, and manage support in one tool. While Kartra focuses on marketing and sales, you can also build a membership site on the platform, too.

Kartra’s Key Features

Pros of Kartra

Some of the pros of using Kartra include:

• Strong automation sequences, with one review noting that the sequence builder is easier to use than Kajabi.
• By building out your marketing funnel in one tool, you spend less time customizing at each step.
• You fully own your payments, but manage everything from Kartra — no platform switching needed.

Drawbacks of Kartra

Some of the downsides to consider include:

• The user interface feels dated, with features like the landing page builder moving slowly.
• The customer support isn’t highly recommended, with long wait times.

How Kartra compares to Kajabi

Kartra wins for advanced coaches and course creators who want to create automations and marketing funnels to help their business grow.

Kajabi wins for users who want a sleek, modern interface and simple setup for courses and coaching programs alongside features like newsletters and podcasts.

Kartra is best for:

Creators looking for a tool that handles automations and the sales funnel.

Systeme.io

If you’re looking to take the first steps to launch an online business, Systeme.io might be exactly what you’re looking for.

Systeme aims to make it accessible for budding entrepreneurs to get started or expand online, with affordable plans (with many features available for free). You can build online courses and communities, build sales funnels, and even sell physical products — all from one tool.

Systeme.io’s Key Features

Pros of Systeme.io

Here are some of the pros of working with Systeme.io.

• The platform is intuitive and easy to use, with one Redditor noting integration is “smoother than I expected for a free tool”.
• It’s an accessible, low-cost way to get started making sales online.
• Systeme provides a beginner-friendly way to set up sales funnels and email automations.

Drawbacks of Systeme.io

The drawbacks to consider with Systeme.io include:

• Customization can feel limited, with some users saying it doesn’t feel like a premium platform.
• There are many different simple features, but they don’t feel advanced enough for more mature businesses.

How Systeme.io compares to Kajabi

Systeme wins for new businesses and entrepreneurs who want a low-cost tool to get started.

Kajabi wins for established online businesses that want to run their marketing with more advanced features.

Systeme.io is best for:

New businesses and entrepreneurs who want to take the first step to building an online business.

When to Choose Each Kajabi Alternative

Choosing the right platform requires research and knowing what you want your business or content to look like. Each of the Kajabi alternatives is the best choice for someone. Here are the use cases where they really shine.

Conclusion

After evaluating these alternatives, Kajabi still could be the right choice for you. It’s an immersive platform that helps you manage courses, community, and memberships without relying on multiple tools.

For some, having everything you need to build your business in one place is the biggest priority, and Kajabi is a great option.

There’s a reason that Kajabi’s alternatives vary so widely, from similar all-in-one platforms and tools that handle complex funnels, to options that focus on membership, community, or courses. The best platform depends on what you need and how you see your business growing.

To choose the right platform, ground your decision in what your audience values, the types of content you want to build, and how you want your business to look in the future. There’s no better platform than the one that helps you reach your goals.