What is Kajabi and how does it work?

Everything below comes from Kajabi's own site and help center, read on the day this was written. If you are here because you want to sell a course, Kajabi is built for that, and Stakk does not host courses. If you mostly sell downloads, the parts on products and payments are the ones to read closely.

What is Kajabi used for?

Kajabi is used to run a business that sells knowledge, from one login. Its features page calls it "The Operating System for Human Expertise," and the pitch is that you should not need a separate course host, email tool, website builder and checkout. Kajabi wants to be all of them.

In practice, creators and coaches use Kajabi to:

• host a course or a coaching program
• run a community or a membership
• publish a newsletter or a podcast
• sell digital downloads
• build a website, landing pages and sales pages
• send email broadcasts and automated email sequences

Kajabi was founded in 2010. Its co-founder Kenny Rueter had made a sprinkler toy for his sons out of PVC pipe, and tried to sell how-to videos showing other parents how to build one. Selling those videos was hard enough that it turned into a company.

Kajabi expects you to build your site on it. If your buyers come from a social profile instead, a lighter tool may fit better, and our look at link in bio tools with a real checkout covers that route.

There is no free plan. The three plans run from $179 to $499 a month, and our breakdown of Kajabi pricing covers what each plan limits, what Kajabi charges on each sale, and when the monthly fee is worth it. For a cheaper all-in-one with the same shape, see Kajabi vs Podia.

How does Kajabi work?

You build a product, attach it to an offer, and share the offer. The product is the thing the buyer gets. The offer is how you put a price on it and sell it. Here is how a download sale moves through Kajabi, from its products overview and its article on selling downloads.

1. The product. In the Products tab, you pick a type, such as Downloads, then add a title, a description, a thumbnail and your files.
2. The offer. Kajabi's downloads article says "Price your download by creating a new Offer." You can then share the offer's link or put it on a sales page.
3. The checkout. The buyer pays by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link, Afterpay or Klarna. Order bumps sit here.
4. The upsell. If you have set one up, it shows straight after checkout.
5. Access. "Customers access purchased Products from their Member Library on your website, the Kajabi mobile app, or your branded mobile app."

So the buyer goes to a library on your site, or opens an app, to get what they bought.

What can you sell on Kajabi?

Kajabi's products overview lists eight product types:

• Courses: multimedia lessons, either evergreen or run as a cohort.
• Coaching: a program for one-on-one or group sessions.
• Communities: a space for your customers to talk to each other on your site.
• Downloads: "worksheets, templates, guides, and other digital files behind a secured paywall."
• Newsletters: regular written content.
• Podcasts: audio in seasons and episodes, which can be kept private to paying customers.
• Backstage, in beta: a private space for each one-on-one client.
• Expert Agents, in beta: AI helpers trained on your Kajabi content.

Downloads have one detail worth knowing. Kajabi's downloads article says "All Download Products count as a single Product toward your Kajabi Plan limit." So a shelf of templates uses one product slot, which matters on Basic, where you get five. Kajabi keeps the files for you, behind the paywall.

Physical goods are not really what it is for. The products overview says "Products are designed for digital delivery." For physical items, Kajabi's help center points you to Shopify's Buy Button on your Kajabi pages, or to a fulfillment service connected through Zapier.

How do you get paid on Kajabi?

Through Kajabi Payments, Kajabi's own processor, or through Stripe or PayPal connected to your account. Kajabi's payments overview says Kajabi Payments is "powered by Stripe on the backend," and you do not need a Stripe account to use it. It is open to businesses registered in the US, Canada, Australia, the UAE, the UK and some European countries.

Kajabi Payments takes all major cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Link, plus Afterpay and Klarna for buyers who want to pay later. You can still connect Stripe and PayPal. On any one offer, cards go through either Kajabi Payments or Stripe, not both, and PayPal can sit alongside either.

Kajabi takes no revenue share as a platform. You pay card processing on each sale, 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic for a US business, and Kajabi adds 2% on Basic if you use another provider instead.

Payouts start slow. Kajabi's payouts article says a new account "is set to Monthly with a T+7 transaction delay," which means each sale waits seven business days before it can be paid out, and payouts go once a month. Other schedules "may become available 1-2 business days following your first sale." If you need money sooner, Instant Payouts typically arrive "within 30 minutes," for a service fee that varies by region.

Does Kajabi have order bumps and upsells?

Yes, both. Kajabi's article on adding order bumps says "Order bumps are available on all offers," and it names no plan. The upsells article does not name one either.

The order bump is an extra offer the buyer can tick on the checkout, and it is charged together with the main offer in a single transaction. With Kajabi's Enhanced Checkout, one offer can carry up to six bumps. The pop-up checkout takes one, and so do subscriptions, payment plans and free offers.

The upsell shows "immediately after checkout." If the buyer takes it, Kajabi charges it "as a separate transaction from the original purchase, using the same payment method." If they say no, you can show a downsell. One upsell can only appear once in a funnel, and a buyer who already owns the offer does not see it. The article does not say whether the buyer types their card in again.

If a checkout with a bump and an upsell is most of what you need, and a full course platform is more than you need, checkout tools are the other common route. Our walkthrough of how SamCart works follows the same steps as this one.

When would I send you somewhere else?

If you sell courses, coaching, a community or a membership, Kajabi is the better pick and Stakk is the wrong choice. Stakk has no course hosting, no communities, no call booking, no email marketing and no subscriptions or recurring billing. It sells in US dollars only and caps prices at $999. It also does not store your files: you paste a link to where your file lives, and Stakk emails that link to the buyer once they pay. Kajabi does all of that in one account. And if the cost of each sale is what decides it, use Systeme.io or Whop instead. Systeme.io has a free plan with 0% transaction fees, and Whop charges 2.7% + $0.30 on a domestic card with no monthly fee. Both take less per sale than our 10% + $0.50.

What Stakk does is the checkout, for people who sell downloads. There is no monthly fee and no plan to pick. The order bump rides the same charge as the product, so it carries one fee rather than two. The upsell after payment is one tap against the card the buyer just used. It is a second charge, so our fee applies to it again. Both are on every account. The money goes straight into your own Stripe account, so there is no balance sitting with us. The layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.

Selling downloads rather than courses?

If your products are templates, ebooks, presets or other files, you may not need a course platform at all. On Stakk you connect your own Stripe account, paste the link to your file, and add a bump and an upsell to any product. It is 10% + $0.50 a sale with card processing included, and a month with no sales costs nothing.

Start selling on Stakk, free