Comparison · library vs room · USD

Kajabi vs Skool — course business vs community business

Updated August 29, 2026 · Official product and pricing pages fetched this evening. If a number is missing below, we could not cite it.

You already have a method. The fork is not “which LMS has more features.” It is library vs room: a course business you sell, or a community people pay to stay in.

Who this page is for

Experts who have one method and are staring at two tabs. Kajabi looks like the grown-up course stack. Skool looks like the cheaper room. They are not substitutes. One is a business OS with a community bolted to products. The other is a community platform with courses and live calls inside the group.

This page does not tell you how to build an audience or extract a methodology. If you wanted Teachable or Thinkific as a school LMS, start at Kajabi vs Teachable vs Thinkific.

The short version

Library vs room

Library (Kajabi). Official course page: evergreen or cohort courses, drip, quizzes, certificates, checkout, email, funnels. Community is a product you attach — access groups, channels inside a course, Meetups with a built-in live room. Coaching is a first-class product with native live video. The member list, emails, and checkout are yours inside Kajabi Payments (or a 3rd-party processor with an extra percentage on new plans).

Room (Skool). Official about page: discover or create communities; some free, some paid; build a community, courses, and events; charge subscription memberships or one-time course purchases. Pricing cards: unlimited members, courses, videos, live calls on Hobby and Pro. Payments FAQ: Skool is merchant of record, handles EU VAT, you cannot use your existing Stripe. The group is the store.

If the method is something people buy once and take, Kajabi (or Thinkific) is the category. If the method is something people stay in, Skool is the category. A Kajabi community is still a course-business feature. A Skool course is still a community feature.

Cited numbers, August 29, 2026

USD. Monthly is month-to-month. Annual is the advertised per-month rate when you pay yearly, except Skool yearly dollars (omitted). Platform fee is the vendor’s cut, not card processing.

Sources: kajabi.com/pricing, Kajabi online courses, Kajabi communities, skool.com/pricing, skool.com/about, Skool Payments FAQ. Full list at the bottom.

What the fees do to the same sale

Card processing sits on Kajabi Payments. On Skool the published cut is the processing. Three prices:

• $97. Kajabi Payments, US card, Basic rate: 2.9%+$0.30 = $3.11. No extra platform percentage. Skool Hobby: 10%+$0.30 = $10.00. Skool Pro: 2.9%+$0.30 = $3.11. Hobby’s extra $6.89 is the cheap-plan tax on a small course.
• $497. Kajabi Payments Basic: $14.71. Skool Hobby: $50.00. Skool Pro: $14.71 (under the $900 line). Hobby is $35.29 more than Pro on one sale — already more than a month of Pro ($99) after three such sales ($105.87 extra vs $14.71 × 3).
• $2,000. Kajabi Payments Basic: $58.30. Keep Stripe on Kajabi Basic: add 2% = $40.00 on top of Stripe’s own fee (Stripe’s schedule is not Kajabi’s; omitted here). Skool Hobby: $200.30. Skool Pro: 3.9%+$0.30 = $78.30 because the charge is above $900. Pro’s public “2.9%” card is not the rate on a $2,000 invoice.

Kajabi subscriptions and payment plans add 0.7% on Kajabi Payments (US help page), on every installment including the first. Skool’s FAQ examples are membership prices in USD. We are not publishing a break-even month — refunds, tax on Kajabi Sales Tax offers, Skool VAT on top of price, and Growth Boost change the dollar.

Arithmetic only: the monthly gap between Kajabi Basic ($179) and Skool Pro ($99) is $80. That gap is not “Skool is cheaper.” You are not buying the same machine. If you still need email, funnels, and a sales page, Skool’s $99 does not replace those tools; it replaces the room.

Who should not pick which

Skip Kajabi if

The offer is a feed and you will not use landing pages, email, or funnels. You are paying $179/mo for a business OS. Also skip if you need unlimited separate communities — Pro stops at three. Skip keeping Stripe on a new plan unless you have priced 2/1/0.5%.

Skip Skool if

The offer is a course business: sales page, email sequence, checkout, player. Skool is a community with courses inside it. Also skip if you need your own Stripe, a high-ticket checkout above $900 on Pro’s 2.9% card, or you did not intend to leave Growth Boost on (30%, default ON). Skip Hobby once a $97–$497 product is actually selling — the 10% is the product.

Visit the hosts

Kajabi’s trial box and visit button use the 30-day trial affiliate, justinwise.net/kajabi. Official Kajabi pricing remains the source for numbers. Visit Skool uses the Skool signup affiliate. Official skool.com/pricing remains the source for Skool numbers.

Omitted on purpose

• Kajabi legacy dollar table and Kickstarter as a buyable public price. Not on kajabi.com/pricing as a current card. JSON-LD on product pages still exposes a $69 lowPrice; that is not a public plan card.
• Skool yearly dollar amounts ($7.50 / $82-style recaps). Official page: “2 months free.” No yearly dollar extracted this fetch.
• Skool email / landing-page / funnel feature list. Not on the public pricing page as a comparable grid. About-page “all-in-one” copy is not a substitute for Kajabi’s feature grid.
• Exact Stripe card rates you would pay if you keep Stripe on Kajabi. Only Kajabi’s 3rd-party percentage is cited. Stripe’s own schedule is Stripe’s.
• Circle, Mighty Networks, Discord. Community section pages, not this two-host fork.
• Keyword volumes, “Skool is overpriced” threads as pricing sources, and anything that documents your method for you.

Sources

1. Kajabi pricing — public plans, JSON-LD prices ($143/$179 Basic, $199/$249 Growth, $399/$499 Pro), product/contact/community limits, Kajabi Payments rates, 3rd-party 2%/1%/0.5%, 30-day trial, Cohorts Courses, unlimited emails/funnels/landing pages. Fetched August 29, 2026.
2. Kajabi online courses — evergreen vs cohort; drip; quizzes; certificates; no lesson cap; not SCORM.
3. Kajabi communities — access tied to products; Access Groups; channels inside a course; Meetups with a built-in live room; standalone or bundled.
4. Kajabi coaching — 1:1 and group; built-in live video; group room up to 200 + 20 breakout rooms of 10.
5. Kajabi Payments fees: United States — 2.9%+$0.30 cards, +1.5% international, +0.7% subscriptions and payment plans, Kajabi Sales Tax $0.15 per transaction when enabled.
6. Upcoming changes to your Kajabi plan — first increase in ~10 years; existing Heroes, first billing date on or after January 13, 2026; 3rd-party fee does not apply if you stay on a legacy plan.
7. Skool pricing — Hobby $9/mo, Pro $99/mo, 10% vs 2.9% on the cards, unlimited members/courses/videos/live calls, “2 months free” yearly toggle. Fetched August 29, 2026.
8. Skool about — community platform; community, courses, and events; subscriptions or one-time course purchases; all-in-one, no integrations required (vendor copy).
9. Skool Payments FAQ (updated August 18, 2026) — Hobby 10%+30¢; Pro 2.9%+30¢ to $899 / 3.9%+30¢ above $900; cannot use existing Stripe; merchant of record; EU VAT; USD prices; Wednesday payouts; Growth Boost 30% default ON.
10. Skool payment terms and policy (updated February 19, 2026) — 14-day free trial, then Hobby or Pro; monthly or annual billing.