Podia vs Kajabi
Both bundle courses with email and a site, and neither takes a cut of sales on paid plans. Podia is cheap, quick to set up and plain, with basic email and site tools. Kajabi is the priciest product in the category and adds real funnels and landing pages. Solo creators start on Podia, established sellers move to Kajabi.
Niels AbrahamsenAnalyst, Security & Infrastructure
Tomasz Wierzbicki
Elena MarchettiVendors can pay for visibility on this site; it never changes what we say about a product. How that works.
Choose Podia ifyou are one person selling a few courses and downloads, want to be taking payments within an afternoon, and do not need advanced funnels or email.
Choose Kajabi ifyou have an audience and steady revenue, have outgrown basic email and site tools, and want funnels, landing pages and courses managed together.
Podia and Kajabi side by side
| Podia | Kajabi | |
|---|---|---|
| Our online course platform rank | #1 of 14 | #6 of 14 |
| Established in | United States | United States |
| Pricing | Free plan takes a cut of sales; paid monthly plans published, no cut | Per month, published tiers by products and contacts, from $179; a 2% to 0.5% fee on sales through third-party processors |
| Free tier | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Self-hostable | — | — |
| Built for | A solo creator who wants one bill and no sales cut | An established seller consolidating funnels, email and courses in one place |
| Not for | Structured training that needs assessment, certificates and completion reporting | A first course with no audience and no revenue yet |
Both are reviewed in full in our online course platform ranking: Podia and Kajabi.
Where they differ
Podia 2 · Kajabi 1 · open 1- 01
Price of getting started
Podia has a free plan that takes a cut of sales, then published paid plans with no cut. Kajabi takes no cut either but has the most expensive entry plan in the category by a wide margin. For a first course with no proven audience, Podia lets you test demand at a far lower cost.
Edge: Podia
- 02
Depth of email and funnels
Podia's built-in email is basic and is the first thing most of its sellers replace, and its site builder is limited. Kajabi replaces the email tool, landing pages and funnels in one system, even if its email deliverability is nobody's specialism. For anyone whose sales depend on multi-step campaigns, Kajabi offers considerably more.
Edge: Kajabi
- 03
Time to launch
With Podia, everything needed to take money is already switched on and setup takes an afternoon. Kajabi asks you to build pages, funnels and email inside its own structure, which is the point of buying it but is more work. For speed from sign-up to first sale, Podia is documented as the quicker route.
Edge: Podia
- 04
VAT and who the seller is
There is no difference here. Both Podia and Kajabi connect your own Stripe account, which means the sale is made in your name, the rates are yours to apply and the OSS return for EU consumer sales is yours to file. Neither platform acts as merchant of record in our data.
Depends on the buyer
When neither fits
Neither is right for a seller who wants the platform to take over VAT on sales to EU consumers, because both sell through your own Stripe account. elopage can act as merchant of record in reseller mode, and Payhip handles EU VAT on its side.
Podia or Kajabi: questions
3 answersIs Podia a cheaper alternative to Kajabi?
Yes. Podia has a free plan, which takes a cut of sales, and paid plans on one published monthly price with no cut.
Kajabi has the most expensive entry plan in the category. The trade is depth: Podia's email, site builder and course player are plainer.
Do Podia and Kajabi take a percentage of sales?
Kajabi takes no cut of sales on any tier. Podia takes none on its paid plans, but its free plan does take a cut. Payment processing charges come on top with both, as they do on every platform in this category.
When does it make sense to switch from Podia to Kajabi?
When the catalogue and the audience have grown past what Podia's basic email, drip sequences and site builder can do, and revenue comfortably covers Kajabi's fee. Be aware that Kajabi then holds pages, emails, funnels and video, so a later move away is a rebuild.