Kajabi Alternatives for Developers: Cost at Real Revenue (2026)

If you want what Kajabi bundles (courses, funnels and unlimited email) for less, systeme.io is the closest match. Its $17/mo Startup plan covers 5,000 contacts and 5 courses with 0% transaction fees, against $179/mo for Kajabi Basic. If you’re selling a programming course, Teachable is the better pick for the course itself, because it has a built-in code block. Either way, budget for the parts of Kajabi’s bundle you lose.

We haven’t run a business on any of these. The numbers come from each vendor’s pricing page and help docs, fetched on 2026-10-12 and listed at the bottom. Kajabi isn’t an affiliate partner of ours. Its pricing page is here.

What Kajabi actually costs

From Kajabi’s pricing page:

Marketing emails, funnels and landing pages are unlimited on every plan. Kajabi Payments (US) costs 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, slightly less on higher plans. Extra contacts cost $125/mo per 25,000. Every plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

That’s the bar to beat: $179/mo for up to 5 products and 2,500 contacts, or $249/mo once your list passes 2,500.

How we chose

Developers and indie makers usually have a few products, a list in the low thousands, and revenue that’s real but not huge. So we priced every tool for one scenario: up to 5 products, about 2,000 contacts, at $2,000/mo and $10,000/mo in revenue, on monthly billing. Each platform uses its own payment processor, so card processing (about 2.9% + 30¢ everywhere) is roughly the same across the board and left out.

Cost at $2k and $10k a month

Two things stand out:

• Teachable Starter costs more than Kajabi at this revenue level. Its 7.5% fee passes Kajabi Basic’s flat price at about $1,867/mo in revenue. If you leave Kajabi for Teachable, go straight to Builder.
• The savings are real but modest in revenue terms. $1,000 to $2,000 a year matters to a solo maker. The catch is that you can lose features Kajabi includes, which the next section covers.

What you give up

These are the parts of Kajabi’s bundle that each alternative drops or limits:

The Podia email cap is the gotcha most Kajabi-alternative lists skip. With 2,000 contacts, even Podia’s top plan (1,000 email subscribers, $150/mo) doesn’t hold your list. In practice that means running Podia alongside a separate email tool, for example Kit, whose free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers but excludes automated sequences.

The alternatives, ranked

1. Our pick

systeme.io

Best for email, funnels and courses in one cheap tool

Pricing: Free up to 2,000 contacts; paid from $17/mo (Startup)

What we like

• Free plan with 2,000 contacts, 1 course and 1 custom domain
• 0% transaction fees on all plans
• Courses, funnels and email in one tool

Watch out for

• Free plan allows only 1 automation rule
• 10,000 contacts requires the $47/mo Webinar plan

Closest like-for-like replacement, at a fraction of the price. Funnels, unlimited email, courses and a custom domain are all in one tool, with 0% transaction fees on every plan. At 10,000 contacts it’s $47/mo (Webinar plan, which adds evergreen webinars), against $249/mo for Kajabi Growth. The Free plan (2,000 contacts, 1 course, 500 students) is enough to rebuild one funnel and see whether you’d miss Kajabi. The downside for developers is that the pricing page says nothing about custom code, video hosting limits or API rate limits. Check those before you migrate a course that depends on embeds.

2. Runner-up

Teachable

Best for selling online courses

Pricing: 7-day free trial; paid from $39/mo (Starter)

What we like

• 0% Teachable fee on Builder and up with Teachable Payments
• Built-in email marketing
• Public API with OAuth

Watch out for

• 7.5% transaction fee on Starter
• Community not included on Starter
• No free plan

Best for developers whose main product is a course, especially a programming course. Teachable’s Code Example block shows read-only code with a language dropdown that covers JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Java and more (not Rust, C/C++ or shell). Builder at $89/mo has 0% platform fees on Teachable Payments and up to 10 products. What it isn’t is a funnel or marketing suite. Expect to bring your own landing pages, or keep them on the site you already have.

3. Also great

Thinkific

Best for course businesses that want a full LMS

Pricing: 30-day free trial; paid from $54/mo (Basic)

What we like

• 30-day free trial
• Custom domain and email automation on every plan
• Communities included (1 on Basic)

Watch out for

• No free plan
• API and webhooks only on Grow ($219/mo) and up
• 5% fee on Stripe payments on Basic (2% Start, 1% Grow); 0% with Thinkific Payments

Cheapest fee-free course platform, with a 30-day trial to migrate in. Basic is $54/mo with Thinkific Payments, and the plan includes a community and email automation. Watch two costs. First, if you keep your own Stripe account, Thinkific adds a 5% gateway fee on Basic (2% on Start, 1% on Grow). Second, embedded interactive content, advanced HTML/CSS and the API sit on Start ($109/mo) and Grow ($219/mo).

4. Also great

Podia

Best for simple storefront for courses and downloads

Pricing: 14-day free trial; paid from $42/mo (Mover)

What we like

• Email marketing, community and custom domain on all plans
• No Podia transaction fee on Shaker and up

Watch out for

• 5% transaction fee on Mover
• Email capped at 100 subscribers on Mover
• No free plan

Simplest storefront for courses plus downloads, but a weak Kajabi replacement if email drives your sales. Shaker ($84/mo) removes Podia’s transaction fee and adds Zapier and an affiliate program. Its 500-subscriber email cap means most people leaving Kajabi will need a separate newsletter tool. Ranked last for that reason, not because the storefront is bad.

When to stay on Kajabi

Staying is the honest answer if most of these are true:

• Your list is past 2,500 contacts and you rely on email and funnels together. Rebuilding that across two tools costs time, and Kajabi Growth at $249/mo is all-inclusive.
• You want a branded app in the App Store. Kajabi’s FAQ points to Pro for that.
• You’d lose more than $1,000 to $2,000 a year of your time stitching tools together.

Migration gotcha: plan your next exit too

Whichever platform you move to, don’t expect to leave it easily later. Teachable says it has no “native feature that allows you to export a course as a single unit”. Thinkific says it doesn’t offer exporting “an entire course… as one file”, and has no bulk video download. Both export student lists as CSV, but lesson text is copy-and-paste. Keep lesson source in a git repo and master videos in your own storage, so the next move is a re-upload and not a rescue.

Decision rule

• Want Kajabi’s all-in-one setup for less? systeme.io.
• Selling a coding course and fine with a separate landing page? Teachable Builder.
• Lowest fee-free course platform, mostly video? Thinkific Basic on Thinkific Payments.
• Simple storefront and you already have an email tool? Podia.
• Heavy email plus funnels, 2,500+ contacts, and no time to stitch tools together? Stay on Kajabi.

FAQ

Is there a cheaper alternative to Kajabi with the same features? systeme.io is the closest. It bundles funnels, unlimited email and courses from $17/mo (free up to 2,000 contacts), against $179/mo for Kajabi Basic. Check custom code and video limits yourself, since its pricing page doesn’t cover them.

Does Kajabi charge transaction fees? On Kajabi Payments you pay processing only (2.9% + 30¢ in the US on Basic). If you use a third-party processor, Kajabi adds 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth and 0.5% on Pro.

Is systeme.io really free? There is a free plan: 2,000 contacts, 3 funnels, 1 course, 500 students, 1 custom domain and 1 automation rule. Paid plans start at $17/mo.

Can I move my Kajabi course to Teachable or Thinkific? Yes, but expect to re-upload videos and paste lesson text. Plan for the same manual work if you ever leave those platforms too.