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.
It was easy to see the vision. 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.
Kajabi is a popular online course creator. It is one of the most widely used online learning platforms. 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 review will cover the basics of what you need to know about Kajabi. These include marketing, pricing, online course creation, and 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 Substitute
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
- Wistia is used as a video host
Cons
- Kajabi pricing is higher than average prices
- Users cannot create custom certificates of completion for students on the platform
- Assessment customization is limited.
What is Kajabi?
Kajabi, in a nutshell, is an online course platform that allows its users to take care of their business using only one site. 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. The platform boasts of how easy it is to use. The first thing you can do is to purchase a plan. You have three options: Basic, Growth, and Pro. These options will be discussed later in this review.
After you’ve selected a plan, you can set up an 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).
Assuming this is all done, you’re now ready to market your products. In Kajabi, you can build pipelines. These mechanisms allow you to achieve high conversion rates by turning prospects into potential students by giving efficient marketing funnels. 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 without having to leave Kajabi. Kajabi Substitute
Now, some features make Kajabi an almost “all-in-one” platform. I will talk about them in the later sections of the review. Kajabi is able to compete with most online courses platforms, thanks to the many features and benefits it provides.
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. You can do the following and more with Kajabi.
- 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. 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. You also have to figure out how to make the plug-ins seamlessly work together. This takes time, effort, and money. All of which could be avoided under one single platform.
Good platforms think of what their users want and need. 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. Kajabi is a powerful, all-in-one tool for creating, marketing and selling online courses.
Kajabi: A Beginner-Friendly Tool
Many great teachers don’t have the technology skills to share their knowledge online. The process can be complicated and confusing, even for those who are willing to learn. 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.
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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. 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.
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 Substitute
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 offers a lot of support to its users. The Kajabi Assistant Bar gives you access to many searchable tutorials. Simply head over to the top and type out whatever query you might have. It will display 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.
The third and most important feature of the onboarding process, is the 28-day Hero Challenge. It is basically a month-long crash program to help you launch your website and make your first sale. This challenge will teach you everything about the platform and give you strategies to market your products.
If your queries aren’t answered, Kajabi has one of the best customer support out there. If you are a member of the Growth or Pro Plan you will have access to live chat support 24 hours a day. With a Basic Plan, customer chat support is available at limited times during the day. Despite this, the support team responds very quickly. I have had no problems so far with their handling of things.
Lastly, there’s a rewards program in Kajabi that is designed to provide incentives for creators who reach their revenue levels and offers 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 Substitute
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. Although it functions as a ticket system you will receive an answer within one day. Even with this, they always reply promptly. 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:
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 also have the option to create a custom listing. Let’s take a look at each 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
- These are full-blown courses your students can take, from workshops to seminars and lectures about your expertise.
- Evergreen Training
- The Evergreen Course allows you to keep your product advertised and constantly making sales. Essentially, after you launch it, it will keep creating passive income for you. 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.
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To upload your courses, you can use Kajabi’s intuitive editor. 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 Substitute
How to Upload Your Content
Videos
Kajabi offers built-in streaming via Wistia as an 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.
Once your files have been uploaded, Kajabi can automatically transform these uploads into articles that you can edit later on. This saves you the hassle of going through the posts and uploading videos one by one.
With Wistia being the video host, your subscription will be worth it. A standalone Wistia subscription can set you back at $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. When they can see how well they are doing with their lessons, the students can determine whether or not they understand the course material. It can also aid in motivating 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. Open the People tab in the Dashboard to create assessments. 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.
There are some limitations. 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
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
Kajabi is almost an “all-in” platform. This is due to its inability to provide certificates to students who have completed the courses. Kajabi allows creators to issue certificates of completion but they cannot be issued onsite.
To create these certificates, you would have to rely on third-party services like Canva, Google Slides, Accredible, or SmartDraw.
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
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.
Your students will be able to download whatever material you place there while they are on that specific lesson.
Body
You can choose to add a description or even a transcript for your videos. Students may prefer to review transcripts over watching the entire video.
It is best to add a brief description. This will allow students to understand the content of the lesson and the topics that will be covered in the video. Kajabi Substitute
Student Interactions
Community
With eLearning, it would be great for platforms to provide an avenue where students and members can engage with each other and discuss subjects in their course materials, similar to how they would do if they were in a traditional 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 difficult to understand your audience and listen to 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. This feature is very beneficial to entrepreneurs who run an online school.
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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 Substitute
Dripping Course Content
Instead of giving your students everything at once, drip-feeding your courses can be an option.
When you drip-feed your content, you can keep your student interested in returning to your page to check for new content. Second, this will prevent them from jumping too far ahead and skipping possibly essential parts of your course.
It is also a useful feature when choosing a type of membership.
Content Locking
Your student must complete a lesson before they can access the next. An assessment can be given at the end of lessons. You can increase their participation and keep track of how they understand the lesson material.
Course Analytics
Kajabi is proud to offer the best tools for entrepreneurs to manage their businesses with the course analytics. What it does is create heatmaps and video stats. Through it, you will get insights on which aspects of your courses are doing well and which ones need to improve on.
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. I am not able to process information well when it’s all presented in blocks of text. I prefer to have my data presented in graphic form.
The Visual Engagement Viewer presents a report of your students’ engagement in specific points 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 Substitute
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. Your data can be used to create a strategy that will guide your business decisions.
Blogging
A strong blog can do wonders for promoting your business. Students can get updates and additional information about your products, while new customers are introduced. A solid blog can increase traffic and generate leads that could lead to potential students.
Admittedly, Kajabi has plenty to improve on in this feature. It is not on the same level as what you would have with something like 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. Of course, this is not too much of a problem. You can find many tutorials for basic coding by doing a quick internet search.
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Text wrapping is another thing you should be concerned about. You cannot edit the way the text wraps around a picture in the body of your blog unless you deal with the HTML.
Kajabi does not have an image bank. 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
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.
It can be a hassle to remember the tag you used, or to put it on a separate list for each blog post. Kajabi Substitute
Marketing Tools
These are Kajabi’s most vital support for its users. Kajabi is built to sell. Your business will be safe with so many marketing tools. 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. You can have three, fifteen or 100 pipelines depending on which Price Plan you choose.
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. There are suggestions if you don’t know where to start.
Kajabi provides blueprints to help you start your pipelines. The blueprint you choose will help you set up funnels including landing pages, email automation and offers. 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
A disclaimer here: the affiliate program is only available with the Growth and Pro Plans. 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 makes it easy to start your own business. You can quickly launch email marketing campaigns depending on the schedules you have set. 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. Templates are also available to fit your email’s 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. 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 Substitute
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. Click on the Offers tab to the left and select ‘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. 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.
If you are worried about people not being able to afford your course, you can set it up in multiple ways:
- 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 and Paypal for payment processing. You will be able to customize checkout and create flexible payment options for your students. This comes with the convenience of not paying for transaction fees as Kajabi does not charge you. However, you will have to pay for the costs of its payment methods partners.
Partnering with Paypal makes it easy to pay affiliates via Paypal Mass Pay. This includes an exported list of all sales.
It is also easier to request refunds. Kajabi allows you to do refunds without needing to leave the site.
Kajabi Pricing
Kajabi’s pricing may appear to be higher than that of other sites as previously stated. Because of the platform’s cost, most individuals would undoubtedly be hesitant to use it.
Kajabi is a never-ending investment. Kajabi is not just a course-building platform. Even though it’s a bit more expensive than other platforms, keep in mind that you do not need to pay separately 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. But, Kajabi still provides the best value for money out of all other platforms.
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 Substitute
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Basic Plan
The lowest-priced plan starts at $149 monthly. You will only have to pay $119 if you are billed annually.
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. The Basic Plan might not contain some of the essential marketing tools you would like to use for your business. Despite Kajabi’s superb customer service, you’ll want to keep your questions to office hours. In contrast to the higher plans, who gets access to a live chat with customer care 24/7.
Growth Plan
You can subscribe to this tier for $50 extra and get five times the number of courses. The monthly price is $199, but if you pay it annually, it will just be $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.
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 – This allows you to remove the Kajabi branding from your website and completely customize it.
- 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 – As discussed earlier, automation makes it easier for you to follow up with your students. With this, the system automatically sends out the programmed response through a prompt. For example, if a student is lagging on assessments, you can set an automated response of an email with supplemental course materials for them. No need for you to keep track of their progress manually.
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 Substitute
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 keep in mind is that owing to a security issue, your members will need to reset their passwords. This is excellent news for you and your colleagues. Kajabi is concerned about the safety of your company. This means that after the switch is done, other platforms will no longer have access to their information.
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 Substitute
Frequently Asked Questions: Kajabi Substitute
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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?
- 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.
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Is Kajabi worth the money?
- This depends on your business needs and how you can optimize Kajabi’s features. Kajabi is well known for being user-friendly and having a variety of built-in integrations for smoother 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.