Kajabi was originally an idea by Kenny Reuter, who wanted to start a side-business teaching people how to make toys online. Although he was not that passionate about teaching people online, he was passionate about making it easier for people to sell their knowledge online.
The vision was simple. Kajabi founders Kenny Rueter and Travis Rosser knew they wanted to help people monetize their knowledge and premium digital content online. To do so, they would need a platform that makes the process painless and seamless for entrepreneurs.
If you’re an online course creator, you have probably heard of Kajabi before. 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 helped thousands of people escape from jobs that don’t suit them anymore and have enabled them to realize their dreams.
This overview will provide a basic understanding of Kajabi. This includes online course creation, marketing, pricing, and so much more. With this, you will have a good idea of what you will get should you choose Kajabi as your platform.
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Lane Sebring’s YouTube channel. To get a comprehensive overview of Kajabi, you may still want to check out our article below.
General Overview Kajabi Versus Teachable
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
- Amazing customer service
- Intuitive course builder and highly customizable themes
- Uses Wistia as a video host
Cons
- Kajabi prices are higher than average
- Students cannot be issued custom certificates of completion by users 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. Kajabi can take care of everything, from course creation to marketing and much more.
How does Kajabi work?
Kajabi is built to sell. The platform boasts of how easy it is to use. You can start by purchasing a plan. You have three options: Basic, Growth, and Pro. These options will be discussed later in this review.
Once you have selected a plan, you can easily set up your account and upload your content. You can upload your video lectures, give lesson titles and descriptions using the lesson editor.
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. You can add landing pages, freebies that get leads to enter their email addresses, video marketing, and so on.
When the prospect becomes a student, you can process payments through the site. All this without leaving Kajabi. Kajabi Versus Teachable
Kajabi is almost an “all-in” platform. I will talk about them in the later sections of the review. But, Kajabi can go head-to-head and over most online course platforms with the features and benefits it offers.
Why 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. This guide will help you launch your business and keep it growing.
The business is more than just uploading your course content and waiting for students to 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
- Keep track of student progress
- Manage subscriptions/payments
- Run email marketing campaigns
One criticism Kajabi has is on its price. Admittedly, it is pricier than some alternatives. This eliminates the need to purchase expensive plug-ins and saves you time. 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 of which could be avoided under one single platform.
Platforms that are well-designed consider what their users need and want. These platforms will provide valuable tools for creating sales pages, emailing your students, and doing all sorts of marketing activities.
So, if you’re a professional looking to sell your knowledge, I would say, with Kajabi, you will be in safe hands. 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. The process can be complicated and confusing, even for those who are willing to learn. Kajabi creators created the platform so that it is accessible and easy to understand even for those with problems with computer work.
It uses a visual layout which makes it easy to use and intuitive. Kajabi’s drag-and-drop editor will make it easy to start an online business, even if you don’t know how to code.
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Almost “all-in-one”
Kajabi is suitable for almost everything, save for a few minor features that developers are still working on. 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. You can create and market courses using this platform. To entice students to your courses, you can offer discounts, follow up leads, and manage payments from the Kajabi website.
As a busy entrepreneur with not a lot of free time on my hands, I enjoy the email marketing and funnel creations of Kajabi. It was easy to automate my follow-ups and it is very simple. Kajabi Versus Teachable
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. Just head to the top and enter any query. It will show you related tutorials.
You can also find videos and tutorials on the Kajabi University to help you get started in creating and growing your business. These topics include creating online courses, marketing on social media, setting up payments, and creating your product pages.
These tutorials are available in video and text formats 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.
If your queries aren’t answered, Kajabi has one of the best customer support out there. 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. If you have any questions, they can help you. Kajabi Versus Teachable
With the Growth and Pro Plan, you can access the 24/7 Kajabi customer support team 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.
This is one of the reasons why the more expensive plans are worth the extra money if you are not confident about your computer skills. 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:
Kajabi’s course creation is quick, easy, 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. You can use this to gauge customer interest and also build your brand value.
- Online course
- These are full-blown courses your students can take, from workshops to seminars and lectures about your expertise.
- Evergreen Training
- The Evergreen Course will help you keep your product in front of people and make sales. Essentially, after you launch it, it will keep creating passive income for you. Marketing aside, this option allows you to trickle feed your content to your students and keep them interested.
- Blank
- This is an excellent option if you are an advanced user who wants to customize your content.
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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 offers video hosting for Kajabi. You can also upload bulk files. Kajabi Versus Teachable
How to Upload Your Content
Videos
Kajabi provides built-in streaming through Wistia as a video host. There will be an icon that you can spot immediately, and it will ask you to upload either a video or an assessment.
As mentioned earlier, you will be able to upload your videos in bulk without worrying about bandwidth. In all the Pricing Plans of Kajabi, you are provided with 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 eliminates the need to go through each post and upload videos one at a time.
Now, with Wistia as the video host, rest assured that alone makes your subscription worth it. Wistia standalone subscriptions can cost $99 per month. If you take a look at the cost, with $20 more, you can already get Kajabi’s Basic Plan at $119/year with its features. This is a great bargain.
Assessments
Assessments are great tools to gauge student learning and engagement. Students can gauge their understanding of the material by seeing how they do with lessons. This can motivate them to work harder. You can also use this feature to get feedback from students about your products and if you opt for content locking.
It takes less than two minutes. You can create assessments by opening the People tab from the Dashboard. Choose Assessments and then +New Assessment and finish the prompt to begin customizing.
A nifty feature is that when students do not fully succeed on the assessments, it can be set to automatically send out additional materials to help them.
Now there are some drawbacks. First, I have observed that the user cannot include both a video and an assessment under the same category.
Second, it does not allow users to randomize the questions or have question banks. It does however support assessment such as multiple-choice and paragraph-style questions.
Students can also upload files to be checked through the assignment submission feature.
Photos
You can upload a poster photograph for your lessons. Having pictures help set the tone of your website and gives your student a visual preview of what you have to offer.
You can easily upload images by clicking on the Pick File button on the right side of the editor.
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. Kajabi allows creators to issue certificates of completion but they cannot be issued onsite.
These certificates can only be created using third-party services such as Canva, Google Slides and Accredible.
Personally, I do not mind this for my business, but some would find it a minor hassle.
Another thing, Kajabi does not indicate the amount of time spent studying the courses or any continuing education credit. This is a major problem for those who want to use eLearning to earn credit. I think that the Kajabi creators should highly consider this.
Downloads
Even if we call it online students, some do not necessarily stay online for the whole duration of the course. Some students download course materials and complete 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 Versus Teachable
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 tools for student engagement.
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
Forums have a problem with 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.
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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 Versus Teachable
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. Second, this will prevent them from jumping too far ahead and skipping possibly essential parts of your course.
Third, it is a valuable feature for when you decide on a membership type.
Content Locking
Content locking forces your student to finish a lesson before they can gain access to the next one. An assessment can be given at the end of lessons. This way, they increase their participation, and you can keep track of their progress in understanding lesson materials.
Course Analytics
Kajabi is proud to offer the best tools for entrepreneurs to manage their businesses with the course analytics. It creates heatmaps and videos 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
Play rate is a way to see how many people have viewed a particular 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. This is a great feature for visual learners like me. Information presented in text blocks is not the best way to process it. I prefer to have my data presented in graphic form.
The Visual Engagement Viewer displays a report on your students’ engagement with specific parts of the video. Usually, there is a general downhill trend wherein people tend to stop watching at the start of the outro.
Viewer Heatmaps
Now just because your students opened your videos does not mean that they are watching them. They could have kept it running in the background while they do something else, in the guise of multi-tasking. Kajabi Versus Teachable
The Viewer Heatmap allows you to see which parts of the viewers are not interesting to your students, and which ones they have viewed repeatedly. 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. Current students can receive updates and more information about your products and services while new customers are introduced to them. A solid blog can increase traffic and generate leads that could lead to potential students.
Kajabi still has a lot to do in this area, however. This is not as good as WordPress. But still, the fact that you can place everything in one place without needing to exit Kajabi makes up for its shortcomings.
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.
If you want to personalize the photos in your Kajabi blog, you need to do some basic coding. Uploading a photo to a blog post will display it in the recommended size. Kajabi works with HTML. You would have to fiddle with HTML to change some of the dimensions. This isn’t too difficult. You can find many tutorials for basic coding by doing a quick internet search.
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Another thing that would probably concern you is text wrapping. Without HTML, you cannot change the way text wraps around images in your blog.
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. These are the things Kajabi will hopefully focus on in his subsequent updates.
Tagging
Kajabi has many great features. However, I find it frustrating that I can’t pick the tags I want to use in my posts. The tags don’t show up as suggestions, unlike other blogs that allow you to refer to past tags.
It can be a hassle to remember the tag you used, or to put it on a separate list for each blog post. Kajabi Versus Teachable
Marketing Tools
These are Kajabi’s most vital support for its users. 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. We will be discussing a few of these features in this section.
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. There is a drag-and-drop editor for you to add videos, offers, images, and other elements that can help you achieve high conversion rates. If you do not know where to begin, suggestions are also provided.
Kajabi offers some blueprints for its pipelines so that you do not need to start from scratch. 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. You and your partners will be able to market your products and the program together. You can now give your partners the agreed-upon affiliate commission much easier. A private dashboard will be available to you. It will allow you to see statistics about clicks and conversions as well as other relevant data that can be used to market your business.
Automation
Email Marketing
Kajabi is your business made easy. You can quickly launch email marketing campaigns depending on the schedules you have set. This feature lets you choose the sequence of emails, add multiple emails to the set sequence and upsell additional products. You can also use templates to suit your email purpose. Not a lot of alternatives offer this much freedom.
Suppose a visitor adds something to their cart but has not yet decided to make the purchase final; you can set up Kajabi to send an email to remind them of your offer. With this, you do not have to manually track the number of sign-ups from your email campaign. 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 Versus Teachable
How to Price Your Products
Pricing your courses should take into account several factors, including the time you spent creating and planning it, your fees for expertise, and operational costs.
Kajabi provides a simple way to price your products once you have established the price. Head over to the Offers tab found on the left side and click ‘Add New Offer.’
They can be sold individually or packaged together. After you create a new deal you will be prompt to enter title offers, product and cost. Now, you will only be able to choose one product, but there will be some options for you to choose from in terms of bundles and payment options on the following pages. You can also decide on the currency of your product’s price.
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
From here, you may also create coupon codes or generate bulk coupon codes as well as special offers that apply to the coupon.
Payment Methods
Kajabi uses Stripe and Paypal for payment processing. You can customize your checkout to create flexible payment options and offer custom payment options for students. Kajabi doesn’t charge transaction fees so this comes with the convenience. But, you do have to answer to the cost of its payment method partners.
One convenient thing about partnering with Paypal is that it makes it easier to pay affiliates their commissions through Paypal Mass Pay with an exported list of all your affiliate sales.
It is also easier to request refunds. Kajabi allows you to do refunds without needing to leave the site.
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.
All three pricing plans offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited video hosting via Wistia, and 0% transaction fees. It also has chat support and assessment features.
To check how the plans differ, below is a thorough discussion of each pricing plan. Kajabi Versus Teachable
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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. As a result, when you purchase a higher-tier plan, you are not paying for new features, but rather for the expansion of existing ones. In addition, Kajabi does not charge a transaction fee for any sales made on the platform.
The second level allows you to create more products and pipelines as well as members. More reasons to get this plan: white-labeling, affiliate marketing, and automation.
- White-labelling – With this, you can remove Kajabi branding from your website and fully make it your own.
- Affiliate advertising – A popular online sales tactic. Through your affiliates, your products will receive a wider reach. Your affiliates will receive commissions for recommending your products to their audiences.
- 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.
A bonus to getting the Pro Plan is access to the Experts Academy. In it, you will find more information on how to market your brand. Kajabi Versus Teachable
You could schedule billing monthly for $399 or yearly for $319 if you picked Kajabi’s Pro Plan. Take notice that this is a significant investment that you must consider. This is the option that most large firms or those with a large number of courses to sell pick. 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
If you’re not new to course creation, you’ve probably utilized various platforms. It’s fantastic that you’re still researching company choices and looking for 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 stated earlier, Kajabi aims to help you streamline your business process in one site and make it profitable. With its many marketing features, it gives you the edge to push your products to new heights.
Now, this review has given you some insight into the benefits and downsides of choosing Kajabi. Overall, I can still say that Kajabi is a wonderful tool to manage your business from creation to marketing. Kajabi Versus Teachable
Frequently Asked Questions: Kajabi Versus Teachable
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What does Kajabi mean?
- According to its founders, it is an aboriginal word that means “to take flight.”
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Is Kajabi free?
- Currently, Kajabi does not offer a free plan. However, it provides a 14-day trial for you to try out its features.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Can you use your domain?
- Yes. With a Basic Plan, you can create a custom domain with Kajabi’s branding (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.
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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.