Kajabi was originally an idea by Kenny Reuter, who wanted to start a side-business teaching people how to make toys online. He was not passionate about teaching online but he was passionate to make it easier for people who wanted to share their knowledge online.
The vision was simple. The Kajabi founders, Kenny Rueter & Travis Rosser, knew that they wanted to help others monetize their knowledge online. They needed a platform that made it easy for entrepreneurs to do this.
Kajabi is a popular online course creator. It is one of the most popular online learning platforms today. Since its launch in 2010, Kajabi grew to become the powerhouse that it is today. It has empowered thousands to escape the jobs that no longer fulfill them and help them realize their dreams.
This overview will provide a basic understanding of Kajabi. This includes online course creation, marketing, pricing, and so much more. This will give you a clear idea of the benefits you’ll get if you choose Kajabi.
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Lane Sebring’s YouTube channel. Do check out our article below, however, because it has a comprehensive overview of Kajabi.
General Overview Kajabi Icon
Pros
- A highly integrated platform featuring a lot of built-in tools
- Intuitive marketing tools that help you promote and sell your products.
- User-friendly
- Great customer support
- Intuitive course builder and highly customizable themes
- Wistia is used as a video host
Cons
- Kajabi prices are higher than average
- Users cannot create custom certificates of completion for students on the platform
- Assessment customization is limited.
What is Kajabi?
Kajabi is an online platform for creating courses that allow users to manage their businesses from one location. From course creation to marketing and so much more, Kajabi will take care of it for you.
How does Kajabi work?
Kajabi is built to sell. It boasts how simple it is to use. The first thing you can do is to purchase a plan. There are three options available: Pro, Growth, or Basic. We will discuss them later in this review.
After you’ve selected a plan, you can set up an account and upload your content. Using the lesson editor, you can upload your video lectures and give the lesson description and titles.
You can easily complete assessments by simply typing the questions and selecting the options (if you’ve chosen the multiple-choice option).
Now you can market your products. You can create pipelines in Kajabi. You can use these mechanisms to increase conversion rates and turn prospects into potential students through efficient marketing channels. Landing pages can be added, as well as freebies to get leads to submit their email addresses. Video marketing is another option.
When the prospect becomes a student, you can process payments through the site. All without having to leave Kajabi. Kajabi Icon
Now, some features make Kajabi an almost “all-in-one” platform. These features will be discussed in the next sections. Kajabi is able to compete with most online courses platforms, thanks to the many features and benefits it provides.
Why should you choose Kajabi:
You want to maximize your investment as an entrepreneur. If you have valuable content that you would like to market, Kajabi provides excellent support for your needs. It includes what you need to jumpstart your business, keep it running and growing.
It’s more than simply uploading course content and waiting for students sign in. It requires you to build out a curriculum, develop assessments or goals for your students, design your course website, and market it to your target audience. Kajabi allows you to do all of these things and more.
- Build a website
- Make course offerings
- Track student progress
- Manage subscriptions/payments
- Run email marketing campaigns
One criticism Kajabi has is on its price. It is more expensive than other alternatives, but that’s okay. But, take into account that this takes away the hassle of using expensive plug-ins for your business. There is also the added stress of figuring out how to seamlessly make these plug-ins work with each other. This takes time, effort, and money. All this could be avoided by using one platform.
Good platforms think of what their users want and need. These platforms can be used to create sales pages, email your students, or do all kinds of marketing activities.
If you are a professional looking for ways to market your knowledge, Kajabi is the right choice. It’s a powerful all-in-one solution for creating, marketing, and selling online courses.
Kajabi: A Beginner-Friendly Tool
Not all great teachers are technologically inclined enough to share their knowledge and information online. Even with the willingness of some to learn, the process can be complex and confusing too. That is why the Kajabi creators designed the platform to be accessible and understandable even to those who have a problem with computer work.
The platform utilizes a visual layout that makes it intuitive and super simple to use. Kajabi’s drag-and-drop editor will make it easy to start an online business, even if you don’t know how to code.
> > Click Here to Check Out Kajabi < <
Almost “all-in-one”
Kajabi can be used for most things, with the exception of a few features that are still being developed by developers. As mentioned earlier, you would not need to spend a lot of time finding out which plug-ins or extensions work together well. Imagine, one update could cause these plug-ins to disrupt your business processes.
If you want to save yourself the headache, Kajabi already has excellent tools for creating landing pages and sales funnels and converting visitors into customers. This platform allows you to create courses and market them. To entice students to your courses, you can offer discounts, follow up leads, and manage payments from the Kajabi website.
Kajabi’s email marketing and funnel creations are a great fit for me as a busy entrepreneur. It was easy to automate my follow-ups and it is very simple. Kajabi Icon
Overall, Kajabi fulfills more than other platforms can do with what it offers.
Tutorials
For people who are complete beginners, there could be some doubt on the truthfulness of this “easy-to-use” claim. But they will be pleasantly surprised to find out that it is indeed true.
Kajabi provides a lot to its users. First, the Kajabi Assistant Bar provides access to a lot of searchable tutorials. Simply head over to the top and type out whatever query you might have. It will show you related tutorials.
Second, under the Kajabi University, you can check out a catalog of tutorials and videos to get you started with creating and developing your business. These topics include creating online courses, marketing on social media, setting up payments, and creating your product pages.
These tutorials come in both video and text format for your convenience.
Third, one unique feature about the onboarding process is the 28-day “Hero Challenge.” It is essentially a month-long crash course to help you get your website launched and your business making its first sale. The challenge covers all you need to know about the platform, as well as some strategies for successfully marketing your products.
Kajabi offers one of the best customer service in the industry. Now, if you have the Growth or Pro Plan, you get access to 24/7 round-the-clock customer chat support. With a Basic Plan, customer chat support is available at limited times during the day. Despite this, the support team responds very quickly. So far, I have not had any problems with how they handle things.
Kajabi also offers a rewards program that provides incentives to creators who achieve their revenue goals and includes some exclusive perks.
Customer Support
Contact customer service if you have a question that is not covered in the Kajabi online guides. So, if you are stuck on an issue, you can always rely on them to provide you with the answers. Kajabi Icon
The Growth and Pro Plan gives you access to the Kajabi customer service team 24/7 via live chat.
Although, if you opt for the Basic Plan, the staff will only be available on Mondays to Fridays from 9 am to 7 pm. It functions as a ticket system, but you will find an answer within the day. They always respond promptly, even with this. I do not have to wait too long for my answers.
If you’re not confident in your computer skills, the more expensive plans can be worth it. The other two Kajabi plans offer around-the-clock access to support, while the Basic Plan does not.
How to use Kajabi:
Creating a Class:
Course creation in Kajabi is fast, efficient, and customizable. After you have given a name to your product, you will see “New Product” in the upper right corner of your screen. There are three pre-built product blueprints that can be used for different digital products. You can also create your own listing. Let’s go through them one by one:
- Mini-course
- A mini-course contains lesser material than the Online Course, but it is pretty easy to complete. This can be used to gauge customer interest as well as build your brand’s value.
- Online course
- From short workshops to seminars to lectures about your area of expertise, these are full-blown courses that your students can avail.
- Evergreen Training
- The Evergreen Course will help you keep your product in front of people and make sales. It will generate passive income for you even after it is launched. This option, aside from marketing, allows you to drip feed your content to students to keep them interested.
- Blank
- If you’re an advanced user and want to fully customize your content, this is a good option for you.
> > Click Here to Check Out Kajabi < <
You can use Kajabi’s intuitive editor to upload your courses. These can be uploaded from your computer, Dropbox, or Google Drive.
Kajabi supports many file types. You can add audio, video, pdf and text files to your lessons. Wistia provides video hosting for Kajabi, and it is great because you can upload in bulk too. Kajabi Icon
How to Upload Your Content
Videos
Kajabi provides built-in streaming through Wistia as a video host. You will see an icon and be asked to upload a video or assessment.
As mentioned earlier, you will be able to upload your videos in bulk without worrying about bandwidth. All Pricing Plans at Kajabi include unlimited bandwidth. You can choose to upload from your computer, Dropbox, Google Drive, or by URL links. However, take note that it would not accept URLs from Youtube or Vimeo as the uploader looks for the file type in the URL.
After your files are uploaded, Kajabi will automatically convert them into articles you can edit later. This saves you the hassle of going through the posts and uploading videos one by one.
Now, with Wistia as the video host, rest assured that alone makes your subscription worth it. Wistia standalone subscriptions can cost $99 per month. You can get Kajabi’s Basic Plan for $119/year if you add $20. This is a fantastic deal.
Assessments
Assessments can be a great tool to measure student engagement and learning. Students can gauge their understanding of the material by seeing how they do with lessons. It can also aid in motivating them to work harder. This feature can be used to receive feedback from students on your products, and for content locking.
It takes less than two minutes. Open the People tab in the Dashboard to create assessments. Select Assessments, then +New Assessment, and follow the prompt to start customizing.
One of the coolest features is the ability to set it to automatically send additional materials to students if they fail to complete their assessments.
Now there are some drawbacks. First, I have observed that the user cannot include both a video and an assessment under the same category.
It does not support randomizing questions, nor question banks. It does however support assessment such as multiple-choice and paragraph-style questions.
Your students can also upload files for you to check through its assignment submission feature.
Photos
For your lessons, you can upload a poster photo. Having pictures help set the tone of your website and gives your student a visual preview of what you have to offer.
Click on the Pick File button to upload images.
Certificates
I would consider Kajabi as an almost “all-in-one” platform because of its inability to natively provide certificates to students who complete the courses. While Kajabi does allow creators to give out certificates of completion, you cannot make them onsite.
These certificates can only be created using third-party services such as Canva, Google Slides and Accredible.
This is something I don’t mind doing for my business. However, it would be a hassle for some.
Another thing, Kajabi does not indicate the amount of time spent studying the courses or any continuing education credit. This can be a huge deal for people who wish to choose eLearning to earn credit. This should be something that Kajabi creators ought to seriously consider.
Downloads
Some students are not always able to stay online, even if they are called online students. Others opt to download the course materials and do the tasks offline. This feature was added by Kajabi to make things easier for students. This can be found in the Downloads section on the right side of the page.
Students will be able download any material that you have placed while they are in a lesson.
Body
You have the option to add a description, or even a transcript to your videos. Some students prefer to read transcripts rather than watching entire videos when they review.
If you choose to only add a description, it will help students know what the lesson is all about and what topics will be discussed in the video. Kajabi Icon
Student Interactions
Community
It would be wonderful for eLearning platforms to allow members and students to interact with one another and discuss topics in their course materials. This is similar to what they would do in a classroom setting. Over the years, some have utilized Facebook groups, but that would require you to join Facebook and apply for the group membership.
You don’t need to leave Kajabi in order to interact with your students or with each other. Kajabi offers a fully integrated feature called Community. This is one of their student engagement tools.
You can even set your Community behind a paywall for patrons to gain access. This Community will allow you to directly address student queries and give students the chance to do the same with each other.
Because the Community can be used as a standalone product. You can also buy access to the discussions for those who don’t want to purchase the whole course.
Organizing Your Topics
One problem that forums have is the lack of organization. It may be hard for both the creator and the students to keep track of specific topics. This is what I observed in a lot of Facebook groups. This makes it hard to listen to your audience and understand them.
Kajabi allows the administrator to organize and reorganize feeds. They can organize the posts by topic or pin specific posts to improve viewability.
Overall, the Community feature is one advantage Kajabi has over its competitors. It is beneficial for entrepreneurs with an online course business.
> > Click Here to Check Out Kajabi < <
Content Access
Depending on your style, Kajabi gives you the option of how your students receive your courses. You can either allow them to receive all the classes and resources at once, drip-feed them on a schedule, or lock your content. The last one tends to increase student engagement as there is a requirement to finish the lesson first before accessing the next one. Kajabi Icon
Dripping Course Content
Instead of giving your students everything at once, drip-feeding your courses can be an option.
You can keep your students coming back to your page to see new content by drip-feeding it. This will also prevent your student from skipping important parts of the course.
Third, it is a valuable feature for when you decide on a membership type.
Content Locking
Your student must complete a lesson before they can access the next. You can end your lessons with an assessment to be completed. You can increase their participation and keep track of how they understand the lesson material.
Course Analytics
Kajabi prides itself on providing the best tools to help entrepreneurs handle their business with the course analytics. What it does is create heatmaps and video stats. It will give you insights into which parts of your courses are performing well and which need to be improved.
It also provides information about your affiliates, students, sales transactions, and other relevant information that could help you optimize your products.
Play Rate
The play rate gives data on how many people have watched a specific video. Early on, I mentioned how some students opt to read the transcript of the video and download the course material rather than watching.
Average Engagement
This data shows you the average percentage of video your students watched. Since some students prefer to skip some segments of the video, you can get an idea of how well you can keep your students engaged in what you need to say.
Visual Engagement Viewer
This will create a graphic overlay for your video. I find this quite handy as a visual learner myself. Information presented in text blocks is not the best way to process it. I prefer having my data in graph form.
The Visual Engagement Viewer displays a report on your students’ engagement with specific parts of the video. There is usually a downhill trend in which people stop watching the video at the beginning of the outro.
Viewer Heatmaps
Now just because your students opened your videos does not mean that they are watching them. It could have been running in the background, while they did something else. Kajabi Icon
With the Viewer Heatmap, you can now check which segments of the viewers were not that interesting to your students and which parts they repeatedly watched. It could mean that these are parts that they found interesting or they found difficult. Thus, there was a need to rewatch to review.
You can trust that Kajabi will provide you with a valuable array of analytic tools to better your content. The best thing to do with your data is to help you develop a strategy to guide your business decisions.
Blogging
Strong blogs can make a big difference in promoting your company. Students can get updates and additional information about your products, while new customers are introduced. Having a solid blog boosts traffic for you and generates leads that would transform visitors into potential students.
Kajabi still has a lot to do in this area, however. It is not on the same level as what you would have with something like WordPress. Despite its limitations, Kajabi’s ability to store everything in one place makes up for them.
Basic HTML Know-How
It is unnecessary for you to code to build your website and customize most things in Kajabi; it is still a good idea.
You will need to learn basic programming to personalize your Kajabi blog’s photos. Uploading a photo to a blog post will display it in the recommended size. Kajabi works with HTML. To change certain dimensions, you would need to play with HTML. Of course, this is not too much of a problem. You can find many tutorials for basic coding by doing a quick internet search.
> > Click Here to Check Out Kajabi < <
Another thing that would probably concern you is text wrapping. You cannot edit the way the text wraps around a picture in the body of your blog unless you deal with the HTML.
Lastly, there is a lack of an image bank in Kajabi. You would have to upload a photo you’ve used previously in another article. Hopefully, Kajabi will focus on these things in their subsequent updates.
Tagging
While I enjoy most of Kajabi’s features, one thing that gripes me is the hassle of being unable to pick from existing tags in my post. The tags don’t show up as suggestions, unlike other blogs that allow you to refer to past tags.
When you need to add a tag to a post you’re making, it is a pain having to remember which tag you used or put it on a separate list each time you make a blog post. Kajabi Icon
Marketing Tools
These are Kajabi’s most important support for its customers. Kajabi is built to sell. With so many marketing features, your business will be in safe hands. You have pipelines, automation, and so much more. In this section, we will discuss a few features.
Pipelines
Kajabi has developed a platform that makes it easy to sell and market. The name itself refers to Kajabi’s goal of transforming the same number of leads to the same number of paying customers. Depending on what Price Plan you chose, you can have 3, 15, or 100 pipelines.
Kajabi will provide you with a visual representation for your schematics. Editing is simple and intuitive. You can add videos, images and offers using the drag-and-drop editor. This will help you increase your conversion rates. There are suggestions if you don’t know where to start.
Kajabi provides blueprints to help you start your pipelines. Your chosen blueprint will guide you through the setup of funnels, including landing pages, email automation, offers, and much more. This template was carefully crafted by Brendon Burchard, one of the world’s leading high-performance coaches.
With the Pipeline Stats feature, you can monitor the progress of your marketing plans and use it to evaluate the areas that are lagging. This feature allows you to see each page and email of the pipeline and data on your earnings per view.
Affiliate Program
The Growth and Pro Plans are required to access the affiliate program. Now, you and your partners can efficiently market your goods and with the program. It becomes easier for you to give them the agreed-upon commission. You will have access to a private affiliate dashboard. In it, you can see statistics of clicks, conversions, and other pertinent data to help you market your business.
Automation
Email Marketing
Kajabi is your business made easy. Depending on your schedules, you can launch email marketing campaigns quickly. This feature allows you to decide on the sequence of the mails, add multiple emails to be sent out in the set sequence, and upsell additional offers. You can also use templates to suit your email purpose. Not a lot of alternatives offer this much freedom.
Let’s say a visitor adds a product to their cart, but they have not made a decision to buy. Kajabi can send them an email reminding them about your offer. This allows you to track sign-ups automatically from your email campaigns. Just relax and see the improvement in your conversion rates.
You can also use Kajabi to integrate with other email platforms.
Marketing Partners
Kajabi integrations allow you to manage your entire business from one platform. Currently, Kajabi has 10 native integrations. To name a few, it has ConvertKit, Aweber, MailChimp, and Active Campaign. Kajabi Icon
How to Price Your Products
There are several factors that you need to consider when pricing your courses – time spent in planning the content and creating it, charging for your expertise, operational costs, and so on.
Once you have determined the price, Kajabi gives a simple method for pricing your products. Head over to the Offers tab found on the left side and click ‘Add New Offer.’
You can sell them individually or package them as a set. Once you make a new deal, you will receive a prompt to enter the title offers, product, and cost. You will now only be able choose one product. However, there will be many options available for bundles and payment options. You can also choose the currency for your product’s pricing.
You have several options if you’re concerned about people not being financially able to pay for your course.
- Free
- One-time Payment
- Multiple Payments
- Recurring Payments
You can also generate coupon codes, bulk coupons codes and special offers to apply to your coupon from this page.
Payment Methods
Kajabi uses Stripe or Paypal to process payments. You can customize your checkout to create flexible payment options and offer custom payment options for students. This comes with the convenience of not paying for transaction fees as Kajabi does not charge you. But, you do have to answer to the cost of its payment method partners.
Partnering with Paypal makes it easy to pay affiliates via Paypal Mass Pay. This includes an exported list of all sales.
Refunds are also made more straightforward. Kajabi makes it easy to request refunds from the site without leaving it.
Kajabi Pricing
As mentioned earlier, Kajabi’s pricing can seem higher than other platforms. \Most people would probably hesitate to use the platform because of its price.
Well, one thing I can say is that it is an investment that keeps on giving. Kajabi is not just a course-building platform. While pricing may be cheaper for other platforms, you may end up paying for three or more different tools for email services, blogs, and sales pipelines. All of these come with your Kajabi subscription. Because of the extensive tool set, prices are greater than those of competitors. However, of all the platforms, Kajabi offers the most value for money.
Unrestricted bandwidth, unlimited Wistia video hosting, and 0% transaction fees are included in all three pricing plans. It also has chat support and assessment features.
Below is a detailed breakdown of each pricing plan to see how they differ. Kajabi Icon
> > Click Here to Check Out Kajabi < <
Basic Plan
The lowest-priced plan starts at $149 monthly. If billed annually, you will only pay $119.
The basic plan is the most affordable option. Take note, it limits you to only 3 products, 1 website, 3 sales pipelines, and around a thousand members. The Kajabi logo branding will remain on all products.
However, landing pages and marketing emails are unlimited. Some of the crucial marketing tools you’d like to use for your business might not be included in the Basic Plan. Although Kajabi has excellent customer care, you would need to limit your queries to office times. Unlike with the higher plans, they have access to a 24/7 live chat with customer support.
Growth Plan
For $50 more, you can upgrade to this tier and get five times more courses. The monthly payment sets you back $199, but if billed annually, it will cost only $159.
Fortunately, though, even the basic pricing plan has a lot of features to play with. Most plans have the same basic suite of functions, but they scale according to the pricing plan. For example, the Basic plan only allows for 3 products and 3 pipelines, while the Growth plan allows for 15 products and 15 pipelines. So when you buy a higher-tier plan, you are not paying for new functions but expanding the ones you already have. Kajabi also doesn’t charge a transaction fee for any sales made on the site.
You can build new goods, pipelines, and members at the second level. White-labeling, affiliate marketing, and automation are just a few more reasons to acquire this plan.
- White-labelling – This allows you to remove the Kajabi branding from your website and completely customize it.
- Affiliate advertising – well-known online sales strategy. Your products will reach a bigger audience thanks to your affiliates. For suggesting your products to their audiences, your affiliates will be paid commissions.
- Automation – Automation, as previously said, makes it easy for you to follow up with your students. The system then uses a prompt to automatically send out the predetermined response. If a student is falling behind on examinations, for example, you can send them an automatic email with extra course materials. There’s no need for you to manually follow their progress.
We understand that you are not in the business solely to make money as a creator. You want your products to be worthwhile. This is beneficial from a business standpoint since if consumers are getting their money’s worth, they are more inclined to return for more. It’s a win-win situation for both parties.
Pro Plan
{This is the priciest plan Kajabi has to offer. But it does come with some pretty neat features. You can market up to 100 products, handle 3 sites and at most, have 20,000 members. Because of the number of courses you can market, you can have 25 admin users to help you manage. You also have access to round-the-clock customer support.|This is the most expensive plan offered by Kajabi. It does, however, have some interesting features. You can sell up to 100 products, manage three websites, and have a maximum of 20,000 members. You can have up to 25 admin users to assist you in regulating the amount of courses you can market. You also get access to customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
These features plus all features you would enjoy from both Basic and Growth Plans are included. While there are unlimited landing pages, the advertising emails are limited to two million.
Access to the Experts Academy is included as part of the Pro Plan. More information on how to sell your brand can be found there. Kajabi Icon
If you chose Kajabi’s Pro Plan, you could set billing monthly for $399 or yearly for $319. Take note, this is a massive investment that you would need to consider. Most big companies or those with a good amount of courses to sell choose this option. But if you are just starting or your business does not warrant the need for a Pro Plan yet, then I would suggest the other two plans. Just my two cents in. You would still get to enjoy a lot of what Kajabi has to offer on the budget you set.
Moving to Kajabi
For those who are not new to course-creating, you probably used other platforms. It is excellent that you are still considering options for your business and thinking of ways to improve. If you have decided to move to Kajabi, another concern would be how to move all of your data into the platform.
Not to worry, though. Fortunately, you can simply import your members’ names and email using a .csv file. But, you can only do this 500 members at a time. So it would require you to do multiple importations if needed.
Another thing to note is that your members will have to reset their passwords due to a security issue. This is good news for you and your members. Kajabi takes your business’ security seriously. This means that other platforms will not have access to their information once the move is made.
Conclusion
Kajabi is a popular choice for many creators, and it has a lot to offer to your business for the price you choose to pay. It has excellent support, a well-integrated system, and is highly beginner-friendly.
As previously said, Kajabi’s goal is to assist you streamline and profit from your business processes in one place. It gives you the advantage to take your products to new heights thanks to its numerous marketing capabilities.
Now that you’ve read this review, you have a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of using Kajabi. Overall, I believe Kajabi is an excellent tool for managing your business, from conception to marketing. Kajabi Icon
Frequently Asked Questions: Kajabi Icon
-
What does Kajabi mean?
- According to its founders, it is an aboriginal word that means “to take flight.”
-
Is Kajabi free?
- Kajabi does not currently have a free plan. It does, however, offer a 14-day trial period during which you can test out its features.
-
Is Kajabi worth the money?
- This is dependent on your business requirements and how you can make the most of Kajabi’s features. Kajabi is well-known for being user-friendly and for having a number of built-in integrations that help streamline business processes. You also receive excellent support.
-
Is Kajabi easy to use?
- Yes. Kajabi is easy to use. In fact, because of this, thousands of course creators have it as their platform of choice.
-
Is Kajabi accessible via a mobile app?
- Yes. Your students have the convenience of accessing Kajabi via a mobile app. It is available in both iOS and Google Play.
-
Can you use your domain?
- Yes. You may establish a custom domain using Kajabi’s branding with the Basic Plan (yourdomaintitle.kajabi.com). You can choose to remove any traces of Kajabi’s branding and create a website that is purely focused on you with the Growth and Pro Plans.
-
Does Kajabi have transaction fees?
- No. There are no transaction fees, but you can still be subject to pay the standard Stripe merchant processing fee.