Building and selling online courses for a living is exciting, but choosing the right platform to create and host them can be overwhelming. Among the many options, Thinkific and Kajabi are two popular course creation software programs that many people struggle to decide between. 

Thinkific relies mainly on course creation and delivery with tools like course builders and email automation. Whereas, Kajabi offers tools for course creation, blogging, and podcasts. 

In this Thinkific vs Kajabi guide, we have compared their features, pricing, and integrations to help you choose the right software for your needs. 

Thinkific Vs Kajabi: At A Glance

Features  

Thinkific 

Kajabi 

Course Creation 

AI-powered outline generator and 

drag-and-drop feature  

AI assistant and  

pre-built course templates  

 

Landing Pages 

In-line editing tools and 

built-in lead generation forms  

 

landing page templates and 

analytics tools  

 

Communities 

Notifications, event scheduler, and dedicated rooms 

Channels, video uploading capabilities, leaderboards 

 

Pricing 

Offers four plans starting from $49/month, plus a 30-day free trial 

Offers four plans starting from $89/month 

Integrations 

Supports multiple integrations, including Mailchimp, Shopify, and Zoom 

Offers integrations with several platforms, including Mailchimp, Drip, and Segment 

What Is Thinkific?

Thinkific is an online course creation platform that aims to help individuals and businesses leverage their knowledge. It offers a range of tools, including customizable course websites, landing pages, and email automation tools. It is a great tool for organizations and creators alike, as it allows users to select plans based on their specific requirements. 

Unique Features Of Thinkific 

  • SEO-Optimized Landing Pages: Helps optimize landing pages to rank higher in the search rankings, and improve visibility
  • SCORM Compliant: Allows seamless integration with interactive content from various authoring tools
  • Abandoned Cart: Sends automated emails to people who leave at the checkout stage, helping businesses increase sales and retain customers
  • Order Bumps: Recommends relevant products and courses at the checkout stage to increase the average order value

Pros And Cons Of Thinkific 

Pros: 

  • Allows users to create a course bundle with multiple modules, where each course unlocks only after the previous one’s been completed 
  • Its customization tools are helpful in creating branded courses 
  • Managers can assign roles to users, ensuring they have the relevant permissions to perform the assigned tasks 

Cons: 

  • There’s not enough information on how to use and navigate most of the platform’s features 
  • The course player function isn’t very smooth when used on a mobile browser 

What Is Kajabi?

Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for creating and selling online courses. The software offers numerous tools, including course builders, landing pages, newsletters, and live calls to help creators and organizations boost their income and reach a larger audience in a more effective manner. The platform also offers tools for creating podcasts, making it valuable for people who want to publish long-form content. 

Unique Features Of Kajabi 

  • Coaching: Allows users to create, schedule, manage, and market coaching sessions using a range of tools like live sessions and content hosting
  • Custom Code Editor: Enables users to add custom modules on their websites for better personalization
  • Affiliate Programs: Allows businesses to run an affiliate program where other people sell courses on the user’s behalf and get a commission
  • Webhooks: Lets users send data to external applications when specific events occur in Kajabi

Pros And Cons Of Kajabi 

Pros: 

  • Allows users to create landing pages with ease 
  • Creating websites and sales pages, and using membership modules is easy 
  • Centralizes sales funnels, online courses, email marketing, and sales cart all in one integrated platform 

Cons: 

  • It’s not very good at tracking stats for emails 
  • The checkout pages lack customization and configurability capabilities 
Thinkific Vs Kajabi – Key Features Comparison

Course Creation

Thinkific offers an AI-powered outline generator that helps creators structure content and enhance employee engagement. Users can choose from a wide range of course templates or create new ones from scratch. Its drag-and-drop feature makes it easy for creators to customize specific sections of the courses. This helps them tailor the material to meet learning objectives and provide a branded experience. Users can also incorporate images, PDF files, audio, videos, and presentations to make these courses more engaging.

Furthermore, the platform enables bulk import, allowing creators to upload their existing course material and convert it into valuable, informative content.

Kajabi also offers an AI assistant that helps organize course material, creates outlines, suggests content improvements, and provides ideas to make training more interactive. Users can use pre-built course templates or create custom ones using its design tools. These courses can be made more engaging by adding audio, video, downloadable resources, and quizzes. Users also get the ability to create evergreen and cohort-based courses, enabling them to tailor courses for learners with varying paces and preferences.

Winner: It’s a tie as both software programs offer a range of reliable tools to create engaging courses.

Landing Pages

Thinkific offers an AI-powered landing page builder, enabling users to create and optimize landing pages that boost sales. Users can also use in-line editing tools to edit, personalize, and tailor content to their audience. It offers built-in lead generation forms to capture and grow email lists that can then be used to send promotional messages.

Additionally, it has an integrated checkout system that simplifies payment processing without the need for a third-party tool.

Kajabi offers a range of landing page templates, including sales pages, policy pages, and lead generation pages. These landing pages can be integrated with ongoing marketing campaigns, offers, emails, and products, ensuring every page shows accurate and updated data.

Furthermore, its integrated analytics tools provide relevant metrics to help organizations gauge their pages’ performance.

Winner: Kajabi is the winner as it offers more customization options for designing and optimizing landing pages.

Communities

Thinkific allows creators to create a community that’s integrated with their course offerings, eliminating the need for switching platforms frequently. Users can create dedicated rooms, which are essentially virtual rooms where members can collaborate and discuss topics. The platform sends notifications to community members, informing them of trending posts, which allows them to take part in the discussions. Moreover, it lets administrators schedule events and create posts using images and text.

Kajabi offers extensive features to help creators create communities. Users can create ‘Channels’ to segment their audience based on their interests and goals. This ensures community members are connecting only with like-minded people.

Users can host meetups, integrate courses, and incorporate coaching to further boost engagement. Apart from that, Kajabi equips users with native video uploading, livestreaming, group chats, private messages, badges, leaderboards, and a members directory, making it an extremely comprehensive and customizable platform for creating and managing communities.

Winner: Kajabi wins as it offers far more tools and customization options, making communities more interactive and engaging.

Pricing

Thinkific offers four pricing plans, including Basic, Start, Grow, and Thinkific+. These plans start from $49/month with Thinkific+ being offered at custom pricing. The plans include features like automation tools, analytics, and website builders. Additionally, the vendor offers a free 30-day trial, enabling users to try out the platform for their needs.

Kajabi offers four pricing plans, including Kickstarter, Basic, Growth, and Pro. These plans start from $89/month and are designed to meet the needs of creators who are at different stages in their journey. They include features like AI tools, custom domains, and marketing emails.

Winner: Thinkific wins as it offers a 30-day free trial to its customers.

Integrations

Thinkific offers integrations with numerous third-party applications, including Zoom, Mailchimp software, Shopify software, and ConvertKit. Users can use a filter to find applications based on different categories like email marketing, sales, and operations.

Kajabi supports multiple integrations with popular software and solutions, including Creator.io, Drip, Mailchimp, and Segment. Users can also use a search bar to find applications based on categories like sales, analytics, and marketing.

Winner: It’s a tie, again, as both offer a range of integrations for specific use cases.

Final Verdict – Which HR Software Is Better?

Comparing both software, we can see that they offer powerful tools for specific use cases, and one might find it difficult to choose one over the other. To help you make a decision, here’s a general guideline. 

Thinkific is a great choice if you want to try out your first course creation software, as it offers a 30-day free trial. Another thing that you will benefit from is that it’s SCORM-compatible, meaning your courses will be compatible with a range of devices. 

Kajabi is more suitable for you if you are a seasoned creator and want to use advanced tools for optimizing your landing pages and really just focus on selling as much as possible. 

The final decision is yours. We highly recommend you discuss both options with your team members and managers and get help from a consultant for an even better decision.