Kajabi pricing explained: What creators actually pay in 2026

TL;DR: Teachable Payments calculates, collects, and remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries automatically with no third-party tool required. Kajabi's pricing ranges from $143/month to $399/month on annual billing. The headline subscription covers email marketing, landing pages, funnels, and CRM, but Kajabi's Sales Tax feature calculates and collects VAT and sales tax at checkout only for sellers registered in a specific set of eligible countries, and does not file or remit on the seller's behalf. Third-party tools like Quaderno or TaxJar are required to close that gap. For creators primarily hosting courses and selling to a global audience, the cost and compliance gap between the two platforms is worth calculating before signing up.

Most platform pricing pages show you the subscription cost. They rarely show you what that subscription actually covers at your current revenue volume, which tools you'll use versus pay for unused, or what a full international sale costs after processing fees and tax compliance are factored in. Our Builder plan at $69/month on annual billing is the benchmark used throughout this breakdown, because it represents the point where platform fees drop to 0% and automated tax remittance is built in at the subscription level. This breakdown covers every current Kajabi tier, models the real cost at $2,000 and $10,000 in monthly revenue, and flags the one compliance gap that catches international sellers off guard most often.

What Kajabi's subscription price actually covers

Kajabi's pricing includes hosted courses, a website builder, email marketing, and checkout in one subscription. Whether that bundled price is competitive depends entirely on how many of those tools you use regularly. A creator who runs active funnels and email sequences through Kajabi natively gets measurable value from the bundle. A creator who primarily hosts courses and manages payments is paying for marketing infrastructure that may go unused.

Choosing annual billing saves money across every tier compared to monthly billing, and that gap is material on the higher plans. That saving requires paying the full annual amount upfront, so the trade-off is cash flow flexibility versus cost efficiency.

Here's the core pricing structure:

Funnels and landing pages are unlimited on all three plans.

The entry-level plan is where the "all-in-one" promise meets its tightest capacity limits. Creators comparing platforms by subscription price often start here and discover within months that contact and member caps fill faster than expected.

Kajabi plan limits at each price tier

Core functionality for new creators

The Basic plan costs $143/month on annual billing and $179/month on monthly billing. The plan includes 2 admin users.

A creator approaching the 2,500 contact cap must upgrade to the Growth plan regardless of whether any other feature is needed. That upgrade adds $56/month on annual billing. Our Builder plan at $69/month on annual billing includes no contact cap and no forced upgrade path tied to list growth.

Growth plan features and limits

The Growth plan unlocks affiliate marketing and the ability to remove Kajabi branding from course pages.

Moving from Basic to Growth adds $56/month on annual billing. For that increase, the Growth plan adds affiliate marketing and the ability to remove Kajabi branding. Our Builder plan includes affiliate tools at $69/month on annual billing, without requiring a contact-driven upgrade to unlock them.

Pro plan costs and usage limits

The Pro plan costs $399/month on annual billing and $499/month on monthly billing, totaling $4,788 per year on annual billing. The Pro plan supports unlimited products, unlimited funnels, 100,000 contacts, and 3 websites. At $4,788/year on annual billing, Pro is built for high-volume operations where the contact database and multi-site management are actively used.

What Kajabi's subscription does not include

Built-in email marketing

Kajabi includes email marketing on every plan with unlimited sends. For creators running straightforward broadcast emails and basic automation, this covers the core use case. Creators who need advanced conditional logic or deep segmentation will find the native builder limited. We pair with dedicated email platforms through Builder-tier integrations, keeping specialized email capability separate from course delivery without inflating the course platform subscription.

Sales pages and checkout funnels

Kajabi's Pipeline builder handles landing pages, sales pages, and checkout flows natively on all plans. For most course launches this covers the core need. Where creators hit limits is in design precision and checkout customization. When the brand demands a specific visual standard or the checkout experience needs structural changes beyond what the native templates allow, some creators add external design assets that increase costs outside the subscription.

CRM and behavioral triggers

Kajabi's CRM covers contact records, tagging, purchase history, and basic behavioral triggers. For a creator managing a course business under $10,000/month, this is typically sufficient. The gap appears when a creator needs lead scoring, advanced pipeline management, or deep sales process automation. In those cases, a dedicated CRM tool may still need to run alongside Kajabi, which directly undermines the bundled pricing value proposition and adds to the monthly cost stack.

Course structure and learning management

Kajabi's course builder covers video, text, and quiz content, but the tooling stays close to what's needed to deliver a purchase, not to run a structured learning experience. Gradebook functionality, minimum watch-time enforcement, and per-student progress tracking go deeper on our platform at less than half Kajabi Basic's price, which matters most for creators whose students need to demonstrably complete material, not just buy access to it.

Teachable versus Kajabi: The real monthly cost

The case for Kajabi's pricing depends on whether the alternative stack actually costs more. Here's a realistic comparison of Kajabi Basic against a stacked model using Teachable and standalone tools:

Our Builder plan at $69/month on annual billing covers course hosting, payments, automated VAT and GST remittance across 45+ countries, a native mobile app on iOS and Android, and affiliate tools with no contact cap. Adding a dedicated email tool to that stack typically lands between $98 and $148/month total, still below Kajabi Basic at $143/month, and each tool can be upgraded or replaced independently. With Kajabi, every tool in the bundle is tied to a single vendor and a single upgrade path driven by contact or product limits rather than feature need.

The full Kajabi cost stack

How Kajabi handles payment fees

Kajabi charges 0% platform transaction fees on every plan when using Kajabi Payments, but the processing fee structure is more layered than the headline suggests. The base processing rate is 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic, dropping to 2.7% + $0.30 on Pro. If you use your own Stripe account instead of Kajabi Payments, Kajabi adds a 2% surcharge on Basic, 1% on Growth, and 0.5% on Pro on top of Stripe's standard fees.

Our Builder plan also charges 0% platform fees at $69/month on annual billing, at less than half the subscription cost of Kajabi's Basic tier. What both platforms share is that payment processing fees from Stripe or PayPal apply on every transaction regardless of plan. Stripe's standard rate is 2.9% + $0.30 for US card transactions, with international cards adding 1.5% more and bringing the effective rate to 4.4% + $0.30 for non-US buyers.

On $10,000/month in revenue with a mixed international card base, payment processing can represent a material portion of your revenue on top of the subscription, and that fee is invisible on the Kajabi pricing page until the first payout statement arrives.

When to upgrade your Kajabi plan

A creator who reaches the contact cap on their current plan must upgrade, even if the only thing they needed was more headroom. That upgrade increases monthly costs substantially on both annual and monthly billing. Product limits work the same way: five products on Basic covers a lean catalog, but a creator adding a standalone coaching offer, a second course, a members-only resource library, a bundle product, and a mini-course fills the Basic cap quickly. The capacity ceiling, not a feature need, is almost always what forces the upgrade decision.

Comparing annual and monthly Kajabi costs

The 20% annual discount is consistent across all plans, but the dollar savings vary significantly:

If revenue is inconsistent or you're still testing the platform, that upfront commitment carries real risk.

What you pay earning $2,000/month

A creator earning $2,000/month with a small product catalog and member base would likely fit within the Basic plan. Here's an estimated cost model:

• Basic plan (annual): $143
• Stripe processing on $2,000 at 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (estimate 20 transactions at $100 average): approximately $64
• Total monthly cost: approximately $207

Take-home after platform and processing: approximately $1,793 That represents an effective cost rate of approximately 10.4% of revenue, which is worth modeling before committing to a plan.

What you pay earning $10,000/month

A creator earning $10,000/month with a larger product catalog and higher member count would likely need a higher-tier plan. Here's an estimated cost model:

• Growth plan (annual): $199/month
• Stripe processing on $10,000 at 2.8% + $0.30 per transaction (estimate 80 transactions): approximately $304
• Total monthly cost: approximately $503

Take-home after platform and processing: approximately $9,497 At this revenue level, the effective cost rate drops to approximately 5.03%, and the Growth plan's bundled marketing tools start to justify their cost if you're actively running funnels and email sequences to maintain that volume.

Who Kajabi's pricing works for and where the math breaks down

Kajabi works best for an established creator earning over $10,000/month, and only when the funnel builder, email automation, and CRM are all in regular, active use, not sitting idle behind the course. The platform's value is proportional to utilization: every feature you use regularly is a tool you're not paying for separately, and every feature you don't is dead weight on the subscription.

A practical checklist for launch readiness on Kajabi:

1. Payment gateway setup: Stripe or PayPal connected and tested with a real transaction.
2. Email sequence testing: Automated welcome series and sales sequences verified end-to-end.
3. Checkout flow audit: Full purchase experience tested as a student, including upsell steps and confirmation emails.

If all three are operational and you're running regular launches with active funnel work, Kajabi's subscription cost is defensible. If any of those three tools go unused after the first quarter, the math shifts fast. For creators who do not run regular funnels or email sequences through Kajabi natively, our Builder plan at $69/month on annual billing covers course hosting, payments, and automated VAT remittance across 45+ countries without paying for a marketing suite that goes unused.

Kajabi's international tax gap and what it costs

This is the section most Kajabi pricing guides omit: international tax compliance. Kajabi does not natively apply VAT to your offers, so you must either manually add it to your offer price or use third-party software. Kajabi's Sales Tax feature, powered by Quaderno, calculates and collects VAT and sales tax at checkout for sellers registered in Kajabi Payments-eligible countries (US, Canada, Australia, UAE, UK, and select European countries), but does not file or remit on the seller's behalf. That responsibility stays with you. That's the same footprint as Kajabi Payments generally. For creators outside those markets or selling broadly to international buyers, you must either manually configure tax rates or integrate a third-party tool like Quaderno or TaxJar.

Quaderno starts at $29/month for its Hobby plan, scaling by transaction volume. TaxJar starts at $39/month, with AutoFile fees of $50 to $55 per filing on top of that. Adding tax automation tools to your Kajabi plan increases your monthly software costs before payment processing is factored in.

The more significant burden is administrative: even with Quaderno or TaxJar automating calculation and collection at checkout, filing and remitting to each jurisdiction remains your responsibility. That is not a small burden for a solo operator managing launches, content creation, and student support at the same time.

Teachable Payments, our native payment gateway, automatically calculates, collects, and remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries. No third-party tool is required and no filing responsibility falls on the creator. Teachable Payments also accepts payments in 130+ currencies, so international buyers pay in their own currency without separate pricing configuration. For any creator with meaningful international sales, that is tax compliance built into the platform subscription at a cost that Kajabi's current architecture does not match without adding Quaderno or TaxJar on top.

Teachable versus Kajabi: Where the cost gap is largest

The table below compares entry-level annual pricing, platform transaction fees, and tax handling across Kajabi and Teachable:

Our Builder plan at $69/month on annual billing is approximately 51.7% cheaper than Kajabi Basic at $143/month. It includes 0% platform fees, built-in affiliate tools, a native iOS and Android app on all plans, and automated VAT and GST remittance across 45+ countries through Teachable Payments. Kajabi matches on the 0% platform fee but requires third-party tools to reach the same tax compliance coverage, adding $29 to $39/month or more before filing costs are included.

If you're costing a platform decision right now, the right question is not "which plan is cheapest?" but "what does each platform cost per dollar of revenue at my current volume, including processing fees and any third-party tools I'd need to add?" For Kajabi, the honest answer depends on how much of that marketing suite you'll actually use.

Compare the full cost stack across our plans, including processing fees, at teachable.com/pricing. A 7-day trial is available with no sales call required, and a 30-day money-back guarantee applies after you commit.

FAQs

Does Kajabi charge transaction fees?

Kajabi charges 0% platform transaction fees on all plans, but you must still pay standard payment processing fees to Stripe or PayPal at 2.9% + $0.30 per US card transaction, with international cards adding 1.5% more. On a mixed international card base, processing typically costs 3% to 5% of gross revenue depending on your buyer geography. Our Builder plan at $69/month on annual billing also charges 0% platform fees and includes automated VAT and GST remittance across 45+ countries, at less than half the subscription cost of Kajabi Basic.

How do I calculate whether Kajabi is worth the cost?

Compare Kajabi's monthly subscription against the combined cost of the separate tools it replaces, specifically email marketing, funnels, and CRM. If you do not actively use those marketing tools, a dedicated course platform like our Builder plan at $69/month paired with a standalone email tool will typically cost less and offer more specialized functionality in each category.

What is the cheapest Kajabi plan?

Basic, at $143/month annually or $179/month monthly, is the cheapest plan generally available to new signups. Kajabi has previously offered a lower-cost entry tier with more selective availability, but it is not shown on the current public pricing page. The Basic plan supports a limited number of products, unlimited funnels and landing pages, and contact limits that most growing creators outgrow within a few months of a successful launch.

How much can I save with annual billing on Kajabi?

Annual billing saves you 20% compared to monthly billing across all plans. For example, the Growth plan drops from $249/month to $199/month on annual billing, saving $600 per year, but requires paying $2,388 upfront, so the saving comes with a cash flow trade-off.

Does Kajabi handle VAT or international sales tax automatically?

No. Kajabi does not natively apply VAT to your offers, though Kajabi's Sales Tax feature calculates and collects VAT and sales tax at checkout for sellers registered in Kajabi Payments-eligible countries, and filing and remitting to each jurisdiction remains the seller's responsibility. That's the same footprint as Kajabi Payments generally. Creators outside those markets or selling broadly internationally must configure tax rates manually or add a third-party tool like Quaderno starting at $29/month for the Hobby plan or TaxJar starting at $39/month to handle collection and reporting. Teachable Payments, our native payment gateway, calculates, collects, and remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries automatically with no third-party tool required and no filing responsibility left with the creator.

Key terms

Platform fee: A percentage of each sale charged by the course platform itself, separate from payment processing fees. Kajabi charges 0% on all plans when using Kajabi Payments. We charge 7.5% on the Starter plan and 0% from Builder upward.

Payment processing fee: The per-transaction fee charged by a payment gateway such as Stripe or PayPal. The standard Stripe rate is 2.9% + $0.30 for US card transactions, rising to 4.4% + $0.30 when the buyer uses a non-US card.

VAT (value-added tax): A consumption tax applied to digital product sales in countries including EU member states, the UK, and Australia. Responsibility for collecting and remitting VAT falls on the seller unless the platform handles it natively.

Annual billing: Paying the full year's subscription cost upfront in exchange for a reduced effective monthly rate. Kajabi's annual discount is 20% across all plans, but the full amount is charged at the start of the billing period.

Teachable Payments: Our native payment gateway, included on all plans, which automatically calculates, collects, and remits VAT and GST across 45+ countries, removing the creator from the tax filing loop entirely.

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