As per numerous prominent course creators, selecting an appropriate platform to host and market your online course is crucial in determining its success or failure.
Kajabi and Thinkific are both extensively utilized online course platforms, enabling individuals to develop high-earning online course ventures without requiring technical expertise.
This article will closely examine the features contributing to their widespread popularity.
Kajabi Vs Thinkific: An Intro To Both Platforms
What Is Kajabi?
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for launching and expanding an online course business. It is also a marketing platform for creating, managing, marketing, and selling digital products.
Kajabi's eLearning features also include online classrooms and membership sites. Its key strengths are sales funnels, course websites, and email marketing.
Moreover, Users do not require separate email marketing, landing page, or lead generation tools. Kajabi has helped over 40,000 entrepreneurs generate over $2 billion in sales in 160 countries. It also offers a course builder, content support, landing pages, analytics, and a mobile app.
What Is Thinkific?
Thinkific is a well-known course platform that enables the creation of profitable courses. Founded in 2012, it helped over 50K entrepreneurs sell $650M+ of 100M+ courses to students in 160+ countries.
It’s famous for its user-friendly interface, onboarding, and affordability. Also, famous entrepreneurs use it.
However, features include course builders, memberships, content types, scheduled lessons, templates, landing pages, quizzes, certificates, and integration with business tools. In short, Thinkific is a complete solution for a profitable online education business.
Kajabi vs Thinkific – Comparison of features
Let's take a closer look at Kajabi and Thinkific to determine which one comes out on top.
1. Course creation
The course content features are critical for any online course platform. Now, let's compare how these two platforms perform in this regard.
Thinkific
Thinkific's course builder is user-friendly and focuses on essential options. You can create or edit courses, chapters, and lessons with a single click. However, lesson formats include video, quiz, text, survey, presentation, or assignment, and you can add a title and description and upload files from the course editor.
There are also options, including allowing comments or making it a free preview. Thinkific's interface is intuitive and suitable for new course creators.
Kajabi
Kajabi offers templates for courses, memberships, coaching programs, etc., to begin course creation. Courses have modules with video, audio, text, downloads, or assessments.
Actions can also be applied based on student interaction. Moreover, branding options include logos, images, colors, instructor pictures, and unique URLs. Host courses on custom domains. Kajabi's automation features make it better than Thinkific for course creation.
Winner: Kajabi
2. Course website builder
Compare Kajabi and Thinkific website builders for engaging and converting target audiences into customers.
Thinkific
Customize your course website easily using Thinkific's drag & drop site builder. All pages, including the homepage, are fully customizable with different content blocks, and there are default pages for user sign-up, check-out, etc.
Three themes with seven styles are available. The site builder can also create landing and opt-in pages. Thinkific also offers robust features and complete control over your site's appearance.
Kajabi
Kajabi's site builder offers robust features and complete editing ability for landing pages and course websites. Fourteen themes and templates are also available and customizable, and the drag & drop blocks make it easy to edit pages. However, Kajabi's diverse website themes give it an edge over Thinkific.
Winner: Kajabi
3. Teacher features
Below are the teacher features of Kajabi and Thinkific for student management, evaluation, grading, and rewards.
Thinkific
Thinkific provides tools for instructors to manage and assess their students, including quizzes, surveys, and assignments. It also offers customization options for course certificates, drip courses, and lessons schedule. Additionally, it has features to promote content consumption and provides detailed student analytics.
Kajabi
Kajabi's post/lesson creator lets you make quizzes and assignments and add downloads. Although there's no built-in survey, you can use embedded forms for feedback. However, course completion certificates have yet to be made available.
Winner: Thinkific
Read also: Which is the Best Free Online Education Platform in 2023?
4. Course marketing
Effective marketing is crucial to attracting customers to your online course. Here are the key marketing features of Thinkific and Kajabi.
Thinkific
Thinkific offers tools for course promotion through various channels, including discount coupons, upsells, and dedicated landing pages. Moreover, it integrates with email marketing, automation tools, and other business apps for better marketing campaigns. Thinkific also has an affiliate program to leverage other marketers' networks.
Kajabi
Kajabi excels in marketing with native email marketing and fully integrated sales funnels. You can also segment students and use ready-to-use pipeline templates. It also offers other standard marketing features such as landing pages, A/B testing, and coupons.
Winner: Kajabi
5. Student experience of Kajabi vs Thinkific
The student experience is crucial to course success. Here's what it looks like with Kajabi and Thinkific.
Thinkific
Thinkific's classroom experience is clutter-free, professional, and content-focused, with a lesson video taking up most of the space. Moreover, it has a progress bar that helps students track their learning.
Kajabi
Comparatively, Kajabi provides an impressive, distraction-free student experience with a professional design emphasizing course content. Lesson appearance varies, as in this example of a Kajabi video lesson.
Winner: Draw
Read also: 5 Essential Features for Cohort-Based Course Platforms
6. Onboarding experience
The process of customer onboarding is critical in maximizing the benefits of a product. Let's examine and compare the onboarding experiences of these two platforms.
Thinkific
Thinkific's sign-up process is straightforward, requiring only basic information. Users can upgrade later and are guided through a questionnaire to customize their experience. The dashboard features a progress bar and a brief introductory video, but new users may desire more guidance.
Kajabi
Comparatively, Kajabi's sign-up process is smoother, requiring credit card details for a free trial. A quick wizard in the dashboard educates users about features, making its onboarding experience better than Thinkific.
Winner: Kajabi
7. Payment management
What payment methods are available for students, and how do these platforms pay you? Let's check.
Thinkific
Thinkific accepts credit card and PayPal payments. However, only credit cards can be used for regular payments, subscriptions, and installments. Stripe or PayPal can be used to receive payments, and payment processing fees apply, but no transaction fees.
Kajabi
Comparatively, Kajabi offers PayPal or Stripe for student payments. Monthly and subscription payments are available for Stripe users.
Winner: Draw
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Pricing
The pricing model of your course platform affects your course's cost and profit. Here's what Thinkific and Kajabi charge.
Thinkific
Thinkific has four plans.
Kajabi
Kajabi has three plans.
Read also: 5 Best Online Coaching Platforms of 2023
Kajabi vs Thinkific: Final verdict
Kajabi and Thinkific provide all essential eLearning features for profitable businesses but for different users. Thinkific suits new creators with a tight budget and no email marketing needs, while Kajabi is best for experienced course sellers scaling up. It's highly recommended to try their free trials before choosing.
Looking for something unique?
Teachfloor is a platform for online course creation and hosting. It offers various features for live, asynchronous, and blended learning. It also provides advanced features like white labeling, student reports, and analytics.
Moreover, there are no hidden charges, and non-profit organizations receive special discounts. There is also a free 14-day trial, and pricing options are Pro ($59/year), Business ($299/year), and Enterprise (customized quotes). Teachfloor is suitable for anyone creating and delivering online courses.
Read also: 10 Best Kajabi Alternatives Reviewed for 2023