Comparison · USD · United States rates where noted

Kajabi vs Teachable vs Thinkific (2026) — who it’s actually for

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

You already have a method. You need a host. These three are the default Google result. They are not interchangeable.

Who this page is for

Experts with a decade or more in the work, a method that already exists, and a decision to make tonight: where does the course, the cohort, or the membership live? One simple offer is a different host than a catalog. A live cohort is a different host than a recorded library.

This page does not tell you how to turn expertise into a product. It tells you which of these three platforms matches the product you already have.

The short version

Simple one-offer vs catalog vs cohort

One simple offer. Kajabi is built as a business OS for that shape — landing page, email, checkout, one product. Teachable Starter looks cheaper until the 7.5% lands on every sale; Builder is the honest Teachable starting point if the offer is real. Thinkific Basic will host a recorded course and one community; live cohorts are not on Basic.

A course catalog. Thinkific publishes unlimited courses on every named plan. Teachable caps published products at 5 / 10 / 50 (memberships and bundles do not count). Kajabi caps products at 5 / 50 / unlimited. If the method becomes a library, product caps matter more than the homepage price.

Cohort / live. Thinkific lists “live cohorts and coaching” as a Start-plan add on top of Basic. Kajabi’s public feature grid lists “Cohorts Courses” as a platform feature (not broken out as a paid add-on on that grid). Teachable’s public pricing page is a course/school grid — memberships are included; it does not advertise a distinct live-cohort product the way Thinkific does. If the work is a dated group, read Thinkific Start and Kajabi before Teachable Starter.

Cited numbers, August 29, 2026

USD. Monthly price is month-to-month. Annual is the advertised per-month rate when you pay yearly. Platform fee is the vendor’s cut, not card processing.

Sources: kajabi.com/pricing (JSON-LD offers + feature grid), Kajabi Jan 13, 2026 update, Kajabi Payments US fees, teachable.com/pricing, Teachable Pay fees, thinkific.com/pricing, Thinkific Aug 13, 2026 update, Thinkific cost / third-party fees.

What the fees do to a simple offer

Say the offer is $97, you sell it yourself, and you are in the US paying with the vendor’s native card processor. Card processing sits on every platform. The extra question is the vendor’s own cut.

• Kajabi Payments: no extra platform percentage. US card rate on Basic is 2.9% + $0.30. Recurring subscriptions add 0.7% on Kajabi Payments (US help page). International cards add 1.5%.
• Teachable Starter: 7.5% of the transaction (price including taxes, per Teachable Pay help) plus 2.9% + $0.30 on a US card. Builder, Growth, and Custom drop the 7.5% if you stay on teachable:pay or Monthly Payment Gateway.
• Thinkific Payments: public FAQ states 2.9% as the native processing headline. No third-party gateway fee. If you keep Stripe, add 5% on Basic, 2% on Start, 1% on Grow, on the first $1M/year.

A $97 sale on Teachable Starter surrenders $7.28 to Teachable’s 7.5% before the card network is paid. That is why “$39/mo” is not the Teachable number that matters. Builder is $50/mo more on monthly billing ($40/mo more on annual: $69 vs $29). Dollars at $97 / $497 / $2,000 — and the Starter vs Builder gap in sales, not percents — are on Teachable transaction fees. We are not repeating a break-even month here: refunds, taxes, and whether the 7.5% base includes tax in your checkout still change the dollar.

Who should not pick which

Skip Kajabi if

You want the cheapest player for one recorded course and you will keep email and checkout somewhere else. You are paying for landing pages, email, funnels, and automation whether you open them or not. Also skip if you need a public Kickstarter-priced tier — it is not on kajabi.com/pricing today.

Skip Teachable if

You will sit on Starter while the offer sells. The 7.5% is the product. Also skip if you need unlimited published courses; Growth stops at 50 unless you go Custom. Live-cohort framing is weaker on the public page than Thinkific Start.

Skip Thinkific if

You need Kajabi-style funnels and native email as the marketing system. Thinkific is a learning platform with commerce. Also skip Basic if the program is a live cohort — that starts on Start. Skip keeping your own Stripe unless you have priced the 5/2/1% tax.

Visit the hosts

Teachable affiliate slot — not live Thinkific affiliate slot — not live

Kajabi’s trial box and visit button use the 30-day trial affiliate, justinwise.net/kajabi. Official Kajabi pricing remains the source for numbers. Teachable and Thinkific buttons are official product URLs only.

Omitted on purpose

• Kajabi legacy dollar table (old $149 / $199 / $399 style figures). The official January 2026 update page confirms a price increase across all plans and the January 13, 2026 effective date for existing Heroes. This fetch did not extract old-vs-new dollar amounts as text (likely images). Third-party recaps exist; they are not in the table.
• Kajabi Kickstarter as a buyable public price. Not listed on kajabi.com/pricing. The update page mentions the Kickstarter tier in plan-type copy. No public dollar amount cited here.
• Exact Thinkific Payments US schedule beyond the public 2.9% FAQ line. The country fee table at support.thinkific.com was Cloudflare-blocked on this fetch. Third-party gateway percentages above are from the official cost article, which did load.
• Teachable Custom Payment Gateway extra percentage. Comparison-blog pages quote 2% for US schools. It was not on teachable.com/pricing this fetch. Omitted from the table.
• Teachable Advanced as a current public card. June 2025 help lists Advanced at $399/mo or $309/mo annual. The live pricing page shows Starter / Builder / Growth / Custom.
• Thinkific public Expand plan card. The August 2026 increase article prices Expand at $499/mo, unchanged. The current pricing page plan cards are Basic / Start / Grow / Plus.
• Keyword volumes, “best of 2026” rankings, and anything that sounds like we will document 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%. Fetched August 29, 2026.
2. Upcoming changes to your Kajabi plan — first increase in ~10 years; existing Heroes, first billing date on or after January 13, 2026; migration not required; 3rd-party fee does not apply if you stay on a legacy plan.
3. Kajabi Payments fees: United States — 2.9%+$0.30 cards, +1.5% international, +0.7% subscriptions and payment plans.
4. Teachable pricing — Starter/Builder/Growth/Custom, 7.5% vs 0%, product and student caps, 22% annual discount, $10k/year cap lift, 7-day trial.
5. Teachable Pay (updated June 22, 2026) — US card 2.9%+$0.30; Starter 7.5%; Builder/Growth/Advanced/Business 0% on Teachable Payments.
6. New Teachable plans in June 2025 — plan rename and Advanced pricing, used only to flag the Custom vs Advanced naming drift.
7. Thinkific pricing — Basic $54/$40, Start $109/$82, Grow $219/$164, unlimited courses, 1 community on Basic, live cohorts on Start, 10,000 current students, 30-day trial, 2.9% native FAQ. HTML fetched August 29, 2026 (WebFetch was Cloudflare-blocked; curl from this machine returned 200).
8. Thinkific’s 2026 plan pricing update — ~10% increase August 13, 2026; Expand unchanged at $499/mo.
9. How much does Thinkific cost? and Third-party payment gateway fee FAQ — 5% / 2% / 1% / 0.5%; $1M/year cap; Thinkific Payments avoids the fee.