LearnWorlds vs Kajabi (2026): Different Products

Last updated: August 2026. Written by Josh Hutcheson, OnlineCourseing editor. See our review methodology.

QUICK VERDICT

Disclosure: we have an affiliate relationship with LearnWorlds and none with Kajabi. Kajabi is the more expensive product and, for a particular kind of business, the better buy — that section is below and we have not softened it.

TRY LEARNWORLDS FREE →

The short answer

Comparing these two on price alone produces a misleading answer, because they are solving different problems and only overlap in the middle.

LearnWorlds sells depth of instruction: interactive video, question banks, graded assessment, certificates, SCORM, branded academies for client organisations. Its metering is built around learners — 1,000 a month on the entry plan, 2,000 on the two above it.

Kajabi sells the machinery of an online business: unlimited landing pages, unlimited funnels, unlimited marketing emails, a website, communities and courses, all in one subscription. Its metering is built around contacts — 2,500 on Basic, 25,000 on Growth, 100,000 on Pro. That is the metering model of an email marketing platform, and it tells you what Kajabi actually is.

So the real question is not “which is better” but “how many other subscriptions would Kajabi replace?” If the answer is several, its price stops looking unreasonable. If the answer is none, it is very expensive indeed.

LearnWorlds vs Kajabi at a glance

Kajabi’s pricing, and the fee that surprises people

Kajabi publishes three tiers on annual billing: Basic at $143 a month, Growth at $199 and Pro at $399. Paying monthly costs $179, $249 and $499 respectively, so annual billing saves 20%. There is no free plan; Kajabi offers a one-month trial.

The pricing page leads with “No hidden fees. No revenue sharing,” and for most customers that is accurate: use Kajabi Payments and Kajabi takes no cut of your sales, only the card-processing rate of 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic, 2.8% on Growth and 2.7% on Pro for US entities.

There is a caveat worth knowing before you plan around your existing Stripe account. Kajabi’s own feature table lists a charge for “Any 3rd Party Payment Provider” of 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth and 0.5% on Pro — excluding PayPal and Kajabi Payments, and on top of whatever that provider charges you. So bringing your own processor costs extra, and it costs most on the cheapest plan. On $50,000 of sales, that 2% is $1,000 a year, which is more than half the Basic subscription.

This is not a gotcha so much as a design choice — Kajabi would rather you used its own payment rails, and prices accordingly. But if you have an established processor relationship, or you sell in a country where Kajabi Payments is not the best option, factor it in. LearnWorlds has no equivalent charge: you connect your own Stripe or PayPal on every plan and LearnWorlds takes nothing beyond the Starter enrollment fee.

The price gap, and what closes it

On raw subscription, this is the widest gap in the category. LearnWorlds Pro Trainer costs $948 a year. Kajabi Basic costs $1,716 — 81% more — and Kajabi Basic is the bottom of its ladder.

The gap closes when you count what else you are paying for. A typical course business running on LearnWorlds also pays for an email marketing platform, and often a landing-page or funnel tool on top. Email tools alone commonly run $30–$100 a month once your list passes a few thousand subscribers. Add that to LearnWorlds’ $79 and the two land much closer together than the headline suggests.

So the honest test is a subtraction, not a comparison. Write down what you currently pay for email, landing pages, funnels and website hosting. If that total is $60 a month or more, Kajabi Basic is roughly cost-neutral against LearnWorlds plus your stack, and you get one login instead of four. If it is near zero — because you are early, or because your audience arrives from search rather than from funnels — Kajabi is simply the more expensive option and the money buys you capability you are not using.

Two businesses, costed

The credential provider. A training company issuing certificates, with SCORM material and 1,500 monthly-active learners. LearnWorlds Pro Trainer at $948 a year covers it: SCORM, certificates, five admins, interactive video. Kajabi is not built for this work — certification and SCORM are not what it sells — so the comparison barely runs. LearnWorlds, comfortably.

The creator business. A coach with a 20,000-person email list running paid funnels into a $997 programme. Kajabi Growth at $2,388 a year holds 25,000 contacts and includes unlimited emails, funnels and landing pages. The LearnWorlds equivalent is $948 plus a serious email platform for a 20,000-person list, which will not be cheap, plus funnel tooling. Kajabi, and it is not especially close once the list is that size.

Those two cases are the whole comparison in miniature. The size of your list pushes you toward Kajabi; the seriousness of your teaching pushes you toward LearnWorlds.

What LearnWorlds does better

Everything to do with instruction. Interactive video with in-timeline questions and branching, question banks, graded assignments, certificates and up to 20 SCORM uploads from $79. Kajabi hosts courses competently; it does not do this.

Price, straightforwardly. $24 to start against $143, and $79 for a well-specified business plan against $143 for Kajabi’s entry tier.

Client academies. Up to ten separately branded client groups at Learning Center. Kajabi gives you one website on Basic and Growth, three on Pro — a different shape entirely, and not one that serves a training provider with multiple clients.

Bringing your own payment processor. No extra charge on any LearnWorlds plan, against Kajabi’s 2%/1%/0.5% for third-party providers.

What Kajabi does better

Replacing your whole stack. Unlimited marketing emails, landing pages and funnels on every plan, plus website, community and courses. If you are currently paying four vendors, this is the genuine argument for Kajabi and it is a strong one.

Audience scale. 25,000 contacts on Growth and 100,000 on Pro. LearnWorlds’ published ceiling is 2,000 active learners. Different measures, but for a large-list business Kajabi is built for the volume and LearnWorlds is not.

A branded mobile app included on Pro, which Kajabi lists as a $199-a-month value. LearnWorlds sells apps as an add-on and does not publish the price — so on this specific point Kajabi is more transparent, not less.

Admin seats at the entry tier — two on Basic against LearnWorlds’ one on Starter, and eleven on Growth for $199 against LearnWorlds’ five at $79 and twenty-five at $249.

Choose LearnWorlds if

• Certification, assessment or SCORM is part of what you sell.
• Interactive video would genuinely improve your teaching.
• You already have an email platform you like and do not want to migrate it.
• You run academies for client organisations.
• Your budget is under $100 a month — Kajabi has nothing in that range.

Choose Kajabi if

• You are paying for email, funnels and landing pages separately and want one bill.
• Your list is large — tens of thousands of contacts rather than hundreds of learners.
• Marketing is your bottleneck, not teaching.
• A branded mobile app matters and you would rather it were included than quoted.
• You are happy using Kajabi Payments and will not be bringing a third-party processor.

If you are already on Kajabi and the bill is the problem

This is the most common reason people arrive at this comparison, so it is worth answering directly rather than in the abstract. Kajabi at $1,716 a year minimum is a real line item, and the instinct to replace it with something cheaper is reasonable. Whether it works depends on which part of Kajabi you actually use.

Audit your account before you price anything. Count the funnels you have live, the email automations that are genuinely running, and the landing pages receiving traffic. If those numbers are small — and for a lot of Kajabi accounts they are, because people buy the all-in-one and then use it as a course host — you are paying a marketing-suite price for a course platform, and LearnWorlds at $79 does that job better.

If those numbers are large, the move is more expensive than it looks. You would need to replace email, automation and funnels separately, migrate the list, rebuild the sequences and re-point every ad and link you have running. That is weeks of work plus new subscriptions, and the saving can evaporate entirely.

Two practical notes if you do move. Your contact list exports cleanly enough, but email automations do not transfer between platforms at all — they get rebuilt by hand. And course content has to be re-uploaded rather than imported, which on LearnWorlds means passing each video through the media library first, since it has no bulk import. Budget for that honestly; it is the step people underestimate.

The cheapest version of this decision is often not a migration at all: drop to the Kajabi tier your usage actually justifies, or move only the course delivery and leave marketing where it is. Running LearnWorlds for teaching alongside a cheaper dedicated email tool is a perfectly sensible stack, and it is what a lot of training businesses end up with.

How we compared these

Every price, limit and fee on this page was read in a browser from learnworlds.com/pricing and kajabi.com/pricing in August 2026, including Kajabi’s full feature-comparison table, which is where the third-party payment-provider charges are listed rather than on the plan cards. We quote Kajabi’s “No hidden fees. No revenue sharing” line as written and set the third-party charge beside it so you can judge; both statements are on the same page.

This is a desk comparison rather than a parallel hands-on build, and we would rather say so than imply testing we did not do. The email-platform costs used in the stack comparison are indicative market rates, not quotes — price your own tools before relying on the conclusion. We have an affiliate relationship with LearnWorlds and none with Kajabi.

Frequently asked questions

Is Kajabi better than LearnWorlds?
For a marketing-led creator business with a large email list, yes. For structured training, certification or SCORM, no — LearnWorlds does work Kajabi does not attempt, at roughly a third of the price.

How much does Kajabi cost?
$143 a month for Basic on annual billing, $199 for Growth and $399 for Pro. Monthly billing is $179, $249 and $499. There is no free plan, though Kajabi offers a one-month trial.

Does Kajabi charge transaction fees?
Not if you use Kajabi Payments — you pay only card processing, 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic falling to 2.7% on Pro for US entities. If you use a third-party payment provider other than PayPal, Kajabi’s table lists an additional 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth and 0.5% on Pro.

Why is Kajabi so much more expensive?
Because it is a different product. Kajabi bundles unlimited marketing emails, funnels and landing pages, so it is priced against your whole software stack rather than against a course platform. Whether that is good value depends on how many tools it actually replaces for you.

Can Kajabi issue certificates or run SCORM?
Certification and SCORM are not what Kajabi is built around. If credentialing is central to your offering, LearnWorlds includes certificates and up to 20 SCORM uploads from its $79 plan.

Which holds a bigger audience?
Kajabi, by a wide margin on its own terms — 25,000 contacts on Growth and 100,000 on Pro against LearnWorlds’ 2,000 active learners. The two count different things, but for a large-list business the direction is clear.

Does Kajabi have a free plan?
No. Neither platform does. Kajabi offers a one-month trial and LearnWorlds offers a trial without publishing its length on the pricing page.

Can I use both together?
Yes, and some training businesses do — running LearnWorlds for course delivery and certification while keeping a separate marketing platform for email and funnels. It costs more than one tool and less than Kajabi’s upper tiers, and it lets each product do the job it is actually good at. The main cost is that your learner data and your marketing data live in different places.

Related reading

• LearnWorlds review — the full verdict and honest weaknesses.
• LearnWorlds pricing — every tier and the $5 fee maths.
• LearnWorlds vs Teachable — flat fee against percentage.
• LearnWorlds vs Thinkific — the student cap and the SCORM gap.

TRY LEARNWORLDS FREE →