For the coach, consultant or founder deciding between Kajabi and KBD right now
The platform that arrives already written — not another blank page to fill
Every builder in this category hands you empty funnels and a blinking cursor. See exactly which jobs actually leave your desk — and which ones don't.
- ✓What each platform truly does FOR you vs. what you still build alone
- ✓Where the real work — the writing, the offer, the follow-up — actually lands
- ✓The questions to ask before you commit a single evening to setup
The Platform Comparison Checklist — What Actually Gets Done For You (And What Doesn't): a plain, checkable side-by-side of which platform jobs stay on your desk and which ones leave, so you know what you're really signing up for before you commit.
Or apply to run KBD in your business nowAn early application, unpaid, honest feedback only, not for everyone
You tell it about your business, once
Who you serve, what you sell, how you talk — captured a single time. Not a template to fill in, but the raw material everything else is written from.
It writes the actual work, in your voice
The landing pages, the emails, the follow-up, the launch — assembled end to end from your own business, not from a blank builder waiting on you to be the copywriter.
You approve; it ships
The next move is already drafted when you open the laptop. You read it, you approve it, it goes out. That's the whole interaction.
The business runs while you live
Attracting people, selling to them, delivering what they bought, getting paid, keeping them — carried on your passion and a proven structure, not on your evenings.
Kajabi and KBD, side by side — what's really left on your desk
Kajabi is a course, membership and digital-product platform with marketing, email and checkout built around it, sold to creators and coaches. It gives you the rooms and the tools to run a business online. What it does not do is write the pages, the emails, the offer or the follow-up — those arrive as blank templates, and the blank page is the part everyone is actually stuck on.
| Kajabi plan | Published allowances | Monthly | Annual /mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| BasicThe cheapest tier shown on their pricing cards. | Products: 5 · Contacts: 2,500 · Websites: 1 · Communities: 1 · Admin users: 2 · Marketing emails: Unlimited · Funnels: Unlimited · AI credits: 0 | $179 | $143 |
| GrowthThe tier their page marks as the common choice. | Products: 50 · Contacts: 25,000 · Websites: 1 · Communities: 1 · Admin users: 11 · Marketing emails: Unlimited · Funnels: Unlimited · AI credits: 500 | $249 | $199 |
| ProAdds the branded mobile app and API access. | Products: Unlimited · Contacts: 100,000 · Websites: 3 · Communities: 3 · Admin users: 26 · Marketing emails: Unlimited · Funnels: Unlimited · AI credits: 1,000 | $499 | $399 |
Prices read from kajabi.com/pricing on 6 August 2026. A “—” means Kajabipublishes no figure — we don’t estimate. Billed on top: A payment-provider fee on your sales if you do not use Kajabi Payments — 5% on Starter, 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro, on top of that processor's own fee (PayPal excepted); Kajabi Payments card processing, US entities: 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic, 2.8% + $0.30 on Growth, 2.7% + $0.30 on Pro; Capacity, bought in increments: +5,000 contacts $25/mo, +10 products $50/mo, +1 website $49/mo, +1 admin user $5/mo, +500 AI credits $15/mo; Branded mobile app with community, $199/mo, on any plan below Pro. Transaction fees: 0% if you take payment through Kajabi Payments. 0.5%–5% of your sales, by plan, if you use another processor.
What KBD Systems does that Kajabi doesn’t
- KBD arrives already written from your own business — the pages, emails and campaigns are drafted from your voice and your offer, not handed to you as empty builders waiting on you to become the copywriter.
- It's done FOR you, not done WITH you: you approve finished work instead of assembling it after hours.
- It runs the whole business between a stranger and a paying customer and everything after — attracting, selling, delivering, getting paid, keeping people — not just the course-and-checkout slice.
- The writing is grounded in what only you know and how you talk, captured once, so it sounds like you across every email and page.
- The follow-up fires off what people actually do, built end to end, rather than left as automations you still have to design and populate.
- One system carries the work, so you're not the strategist, the copywriter and the operator on top of doing the job you're known for.
What Kajabi does
- Kajabi is a course, membership and digital-product platform: it hosts your courses, communities and memberships and delivers what you sell.
- It includes marketing emails, funnels and landing pages as builders on every plan, plus owned payments infrastructure and a checkout.
- Capacity is bought in increments, and card processing and payment-provider fees apply per its published pricing — read the live figures below straight from their own page.
If you're an expert who already built a real business and is tired of being the one who writes every email and builds every funnel after the kids are down, KBD is the one for you — because it arrives already written, and you approve the work instead of doing it.
The blank page was always the real work
Every platform in this category sells a builder: an empty funnel, an empty email, a library of templates that are still blank pages. The job you're actually stuck on — knowing what to say, building the offer, writing the follow-up — no builder has ever done. KBD starts loaded, from your own business, so you're approving finished work instead of facing a cursor.
It sounds like you because it came from you
The worry with anything automated is that clients can tell. KBD writes from what only you know and how you actually talk — captured once, then carried through every page and email. It's not a stranger guessing at your voice; it's your business, put into words for you.
The evening comes back
This is what actually changes: the laptop closes at a normal hour and you're present at the table instead of half-checked-out fixing a funnel. The craft gets your sharp hours again. The business keeps growing while you're living your life, not grinding at midnight to keep it alive.
See what actually gets done for you
Drop your email for the comparison checklist now, and one note the day KBD opens — nothing in between.
We never sell your information.
Or apply to run KBD in your business nowAn early application, unpaid, honest feedback only, not for everyone
Questions people ask about Kajabi
How much does Kajabi cost?
Read off kajabi.com/pricing on 6 August 2026: Basic is $179/month, or $143/month billed annually. Growth is $249/month, or $199/month billed annually. Pro is $499/month, or $399/month billed annually. There is no free plan. The free trial is 14 days.
Does Kajabi charge fees on top of the subscription?
Yes — on 6 August 2026 their own pages listed: A payment-provider fee on your sales if you do not use Kajabi Payments — 5% on Starter, 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro, on top of that processor's own fee (PayPal excepted); Kajabi Payments card processing, US entities: 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic, 2.8% + $0.30 on Growth, 2.7% + $0.30 on Pro; Capacity, bought in increments: +5,000 contacts $25/mo, +10 products $50/mo, +1 website $49/mo, +1 admin user $5/mo, +500 AI credits $15/mo; Branded mobile app with community, $199/mo, on any plan below Pro. On transaction fees specifically: 0% if you take payment through Kajabi Payments. 0.5%–5% of your sales, by plan, if you use another processor.
What does Kajabi do well?
Marketing emails, funnels, landing pages and access groups are unlimited on every plan, including the cheapest. There is no send cap anywhere on the page. The entry tier is not gutted: advanced automations, webhooks, affiliate programs, a custom domain, checkout pages and branding removal are ticked on every plan. Real owned payments infrastructure with rates that improve by plan, down to 2.7% + $0.30, plus ACH at 0.80% capped at $5. Capacity is elastic — you can buy 5,000 more contacts for $25/mo instead of jumping a whole tier. Course, community and membership delivery is the thing it was built for, and it shows. That is from their own pricing and product pages, read on 6 August 2026.
Where does Kajabi fall short for a small business owner?
The page says "no revenue sharing" in the same view as a 0.5%–5% fee on sales taken through any other processor. Kajabi Payments adds 0.7% to every subscription and payment-plan transaction — the exact business model it sells you on. Contacts are the binding limit: 2,500 on Basic, and at 100% you get 30 days' grace before the account locks. Basic, at $179/mo, includes zero AI credits. That is our reading of their published plans and limits as of 6 August 2026 — check kajabi.com/pricing before you decide anything on it.
What's a cheaper alternative to Kajabi?
Kajabi's lowest published tier is $179/month, read off kajabi.com/pricing on 6 August 2026. Of the 11 platforms priced on this site, these publish a lower entry tier: Systeme.io at $0/month, Skool at $9/month, Teachable at $39/month, Podia at $49/month, Thinkific at $54/month, Kartra at $59/month, GoHighLevel at $97/month, ClickFunnels at $97/month. Systeme.io publishes a permanently free plan. Read that carefully before switching on price alone: the entry tier is not the bill. Kajabi's own pages list these on top of the plan: A payment-provider fee on your sales if you do not use Kajabi Payments — 5% on Starter, 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro, on top of that processor's own fee (PayPal excepted); Kajabi Payments card processing, US entities: 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic, 2.8% + $0.30 on Growth, 2.7% + $0.30 on Pro; Capacity, bought in increments: +5,000 contacts $25/mo, +10 products $50/mo, +1 website $49/mo, +1 admin user $5/mo, +500 AI credits $15/mo; Branded mobile app with community, $199/mo, on any plan below Pro. On transaction fees: 0% if you take payment through Kajabi Payments. 0.5%–5% of your sales, by plan, if you use another processor. Several of the cheaper options above charge a percentage of your sales or per-message usage instead, and every one of those is listed per vendor, in their own words, at /data/platform-pricing — all of it read on 6 August 2026. The alternative this page is about is KBD Systems, which is priced at /pricing; the difference it is arguing is not the monthly figure but what you still have to do yourself after you have paid it.
Is Kajabi worth it?
That depends on who is going to run it, and their own pages make it answerable. Kajabi is a course, membership and digital-product platform with marketing, email and checkout built around it, sold to creators and coaches selling courses, coaching and memberships. What it genuinely does better: Marketing emails, funnels, landing pages and access groups are unlimited on every plan, including the cheapest. There is no send cap anywhere on the page. The entry tier is not gutted: advanced automations, webhooks, affiliate programs, a custom domain, checkout pages and branding removal are ticked on every plan. Where it is hardest on a small business owner running it alone: The page says "no revenue sharing" in the same view as a 0.5%–5% fee on sales taken through any other processor. Kajabi Payments adds 0.7% to every subscription and payment-plan transaction — the exact business model it sells you on. Its lowest published tier is $179/month. There is a 14-day free trial, so this is testable before it is decided. That is our reading of their published plans, limits and product pages as of 6 August 2026, not a rating — we publish no scores, and you should check kajabi.com/pricing yourself before deciding anything on the strength of ours.
See the direct comparison
This page covered what to use instead. Related pages put KBD directly beside this platform, show its full published prices, and walk through what the move itself involves.