Kajabi vs Thinkific (September 2026)

Kajabi changed its plans in January 2026, its first price increase in about a decade. Basic is now $179 a month for five products and 2,500 contacts, Growth is $249 and Pro is $499. The old $89 Kickstarter plan is no longer sold. Kajabi Payments charges 2.7% to 2.9% plus $0.30, and using a third-party payment processor adds a fee of 0.5% to 5% depending on tier.

Thinkific is Basic at $49 a month with one community, Start at $99 with one community and ten spaces, Grow at $199, Expand at $499 and Plus custom. With Thinkific Payments there is no transaction fee; bringing your own Stripe adds a surcharge of 0.5% to 5% by tier. On the entry tier, Kajabi costs more than three and a half times Thinkific. At the top of the ladders, Kajabi Pro and Thinkific Expand are both $499. Math example, not a customer outcome.

Thinkific is the deeper LMS. Quizzes, certificates, drip schedules, completion tracking, assignments and a mature course player are its core, and it shows. Kajabi's course builder is very good and covers most of the same ground, but assessment and student progress tooling are lighter because they are one feature among many.

For a creator whose product is a structured course with a certificate at the end, Thinkific is the safer choice on the learning side alone. For a creator selling a coaching programme or a membership where the course is one asset, Kajabi's builder is more than enough.

This is Kajabi's territory. Email campaigns, automations, landing pages, funnels and a website builder are native, and they are the reason agencies and established creators pay the premium. Replacing them means paying for an email tool and a page builder elsewhere, which is a real cost that should be in any comparison. Thinkific has basic email and site pages and expects you to integrate with a marketing platform. If you already run one and like it, Thinkific's approach costs you nothing. If you do not, Kajabi consolidates.

Neither is a community platform first. Kajabi's community module has improved and includes challenges and live rooms, but it is lighter than the dedicated community products. Thinkific's community is newer and thinner still: one community on Basic, ten spaces on Start, and no gamification. A creator who needs a community members open daily usually adds a second tool with either platform, which is the seam most creators complain about.

Worth knowing before you commit. Thinkific exports student and course data in standard formats. Kajabi has no automated full export, and creators who have moved describe rebuilding pages and emails by hand. The more of your business Kajabi runs, the more work it is to leave, which is both its strength and its lock-in. This comes from individual creators' accounts and experiences vary.

An established creator or agency that wants courses, email, funnels and a website in one login and is willing to pay $179 a month or more for the consolidation. The marketing suite and brand recognition are real advantages, and if you would otherwise pay for two or three marketing tools, the premium can be justified.

A creator whose course is the product, who wants the deepest assessment and certificate tooling, who already has a marketing stack, and who wants no transaction fee on top of a modest subscription.

HiveLearn is for the creator who wants Thinkific's learning depth with the community neither platform leads on, at a price that starts at zero. The classroom is a full LMS with quizzes across six question types, verifiable certificates, progress tracking and an AI course builder that drafts a structured course from an outline. Around it sit a member feed, direct messages, events with RSVPs, ticketing, QR check-in and automatic reminders, and gamification with points, levels and leaderboards. Starter is $0 a month with a 6% revenue share and no monthly fee until you monetize; Growth is $39 with 4% capped at $2,000 a month; Pro is $99 with 2% capped at $3,000. Growth, Pro and Scale start with a 14-day free trial, Enterprise 30 days, no credit card. It does not replace Kajabi's email and funnel tools, and it is not trying to. The full comparisons with each platform are linked below.

At $2,000 a month in sales, Kajabi Basic costs $179 plus Kajabi Payments processing, and Thinkific Basic costs $49 with no platform fee plus Thinkific Payments processing. At $10,000, the platform lines are still $179 and $49, because neither charges a percentage when you use their payments. At $30,000 with more than five products, a Kajabi creator is likely on Growth at $249, and a Thinkific creator on Start or Grow at $99 or $199. The difference at every level is what you would otherwise pay for an email and funnel tool, which is the real comparison. Math example, not a customer outcome.

Kajabi Basic is capped at five products and 2,500 contacts, and those caps are the reason many creators end up on Growth. Thinkific's tiers are shaped around communities and spaces rather than product counts: one community on Basic, one community with ten spaces on Start. Map your catalogue and your list against both before you pick, because the entry price is not the price you will pay if you outgrow the tier in six months.

Kajabi's brand recognition brings a large ecosystem of templates, agencies and consultants, and its support is generally regarded as responsive. Thinkific has a strong app store and a developer-friendly API, which suits creators who integrate their own tools. Neither is a bad choice on support. The thing to weigh is whether you want a platform that does a lot with a big community of people who will help you configure it, or one that does one thing deeply and plays well with the rest of your stack.