Kajabi vs Teachable vs Podia: 2026 Founder Guide
If you sell a course, a coaching offer, or a paid newsletter, the platform you pick decides how much of every dollar actually lands in your account. Pick wrong and the fees quietly eat more than your ad spend. Pick right and the same product ships in a weekend instead of dragging through a quarter.
I dug into Kajabi, Teachable, and Podia this week. Pricing pages, the docs, G2 and Capterra reviews, Reddit threads where founders vent about chargebacks and surprise fees. That’s the extent of it. No live accounts on my end, no real courses running through any of them. Just the homework I’d want done before locking in a year-long contract.
Quick note before we start: none of these are bad. They’ve all shipped real courses to real students. The real differences come down to pricing structure and how much feature bloat you can stomach. Most solo founders overbuy on features and underbuy on the email tool, at least that’s the pattern I keep seeing across founder communities.
Here’s what I found.
The Quick Answer
Short version first, then I’ll explain why.
- Podia is the cheapest way to go from nothing to a live product. You’ll pay a 5% transaction fee on the bottom plan, nothing on the tier above it, and courses, downloads, and webinars all live in one dashboard.
- Teachable does one thing and does it well. It’s built for course creators who don’t want funnels, email sequences, or community features bloating the interface. It’ll cost you more than Podia once sales actually pick up.
- Kajabi replaces a stack of tools. Email, landing pages, checkout, community — all under one bill. Expect to pay roughly four to five times what the others charge at the entry tier.
One thing that trips people up: the cheapest plan on any of these is rarely the one you end up on. Most founders outgrow it within a few months. Worth knowing before you commit to a year upfront.
Pricing pulled straight from each vendor’s page in August 2026, annual billing. No promo codes, no grandfathered rates, just what a new founder pays today.
| Plan | Annual Price | Transaction Fee | Products | Students / Contacts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kajabi Basic | $143/mo | 0% (Kajabi Payments) | 5 | 2,500 contacts |
| Kajabi Growth | $199/mo | 0% (Kajabi Payments) | 50 | 25,000 contacts |
| Kajabi Pro | $399/mo | 0% (Kajabi Payments) | Unlimited | 100,000 contacts |
| Teachable Starter | $29/mo | 7.5% | 5 | 100 students |
| Teachable Builder | $69/mo | 0% | 10 | 1,000 students |
| Teachable Growth | $139/mo | 0% | 50 | 5,000 students |
| Podia Mover | $42/mo | 5% | 50 | 100 email subs |
| Podia Shaker | $84/mo | 0% | 150 | 500 email subs |
| Podia Earthquaker | $150/mo | 0% | Unlimited | 1,000 email subs |
Two patterns jumped out when I laid this out. Transaction fees only show up on the cheapest tier of each platform, then they vanish once you upgrade. Kajabi’s 0% only applies if you use Kajabi Payments, which isn’t available everywhere. If you’re selling outside the US, check that first.
The other trap: Teachable counts “students” (people who actually bought a course), Podia counts “email subscribers” (your whole list, freebies included). Same column in a comparison table, totally different things underneath. That one matters a lot when you’re sizing plans.
What Kajabi Actually Costs in 2026
Kajabi raised prices in January 2026 and didn’t grandfather anyone. The $89/mo Kickstarter plan is gone from their public pricing page. Now you’re looking at Basic at $143/mo on annual billing, which gets you five products, 2,500 contacts, and no transaction fees if you use Kajabi Payments.
The headline price isn’t the real number.
Two things will push your bill higher. The branded mobile app runs $199/mo extra on Basic. So if you want a mobile app at launch, you’re paying $342/mo on Basic, which is already more than Growth at $199/mo where the app is bundled in. And if you bring your own Stripe instead of using Kajabi Payments, they tack on a 1-2% surcharge on top of whatever Stripe charges. PayPal skips the surcharge, so it’s the cheapest route if you’re moving real volume.
I never budget against the sticker price on tools like this. I always add 20-30% before I commit. That’s saved me from a few bad renewals over the years, especially with SaaS that bolts on “optional” features that aren’t actually optional once your customers start expecting them.
What you’re paying for: email marketing, sales funnels, landing pages, a site builder, the course player, community, and checkout. All in one dashboard. No Zapier wiring. No bouncing between tabs. For a solo founder who’d otherwise stack ConvertKit or beehiiv for email, plus Leadpages, plus Stripe for checkout, the math starts working once you’re at $500/mo in course revenue.
What Teachable Actually Costs in 2026
Teachable killed the old Basic/Pro labels back in mid-2025. Now it’s Starter, Builder, Growth, Advanced, plus a custom Enterprise tier on top. Pay annually and you knock about 22% off every self-serve plan.
The Starter tier at $29/mo annual looks cheap on paper. Then you read the small print and find Teachable charges 7.5% on top of standard card processing (2.9% + $0.30). At $1,000/mo in revenue, that’s $75 gone to fees, already more than the price gap between Starter and Builder. By $3,000/mo you’re paying close to double just to stay on the bottom plan.
Builder at $69/mo annual drops the transaction fee and bumps the student cap from 100 to 1,000. That’s the real entry point if you’re trying to run a working business.
One thing I caught going through Teachable’s docs: once your school clears $10,000/year in direct on-platform sales, the active-student and imported-student caps disappear. Fees don’t change. You just stop hitting walls.
Teachable doesn’t bundle email or funnel tools. If you want those, you’re wiring Teachable into something else like ConvertKit or beehiiv. Extra cost, extra moving parts. The flip side is the dashboard doesn’t feel bloated. Real tradeoff, and which way it cuts depends on what you’re already running.
What Podia Actually Costs in 2026
Three plans, billed annually: Mover at $42/mo, Shaker at $84/mo, Earthquaker at $150/mo. The 30-day free trial (no card required) is longer than Teachable’s 7 days or Kajabi’s 14. That’s the headline.
Mover is where the math gets weird. The subscription looks cheap at $42/mo annual, but there’s a 5% transaction fee on top of standard card processing. At $500/mo in sales, that’s $25/mo in fees. Fine. At $5,000/mo, it’s $250/mo, more than the price jump to Shaker. The breakeven sits somewhere between $1,500 and $2,500/mo in revenue, and most course founders blow past that without noticing until they check their statements.
Shaker at $84/mo kills the transaction fee and lifts email subscribers from 100 to 500. That subscriber cap is the real gotcha. Podia counts email list size, not paying customers, so a popular freebie can eat your cap without generating a cent in sales. This comes up all the time in founder threads on Reddit and Indie Hackers: someone offers a free checklist, the list grows fast, and suddenly they can’t send emails until they upgrade.
Earthquaker at $150/mo pushes the cap to 1,000 and unlocks unlimited products. Podia bundles courses, digital downloads, coaching, webinars, community, and email into one dashboard. The email automation isn’t as deep as Kajabi’s, but it’s built in and doesn’t need a separate tool. For a solo founder who wants one bill and one login, that’s the pitch. I use Buttondown for email myself, so if I were setting up Podia I’d just need the courses and checkout side, not the full email suite. Whether the built-in email tools are “good enough” depends on how much marketing automation you actually run.
My honest read after going through Podia’s docs, their pricing page, and a stack of G2 and Reddit threads: the pricing looks simple on the surface, but the transaction fee on Mover and the email subscriber cap on Shaker are the two spots where people get surprised. Plan around both before you commit.
The Real Cost Comparison at Three Revenue Levels
Subscription price is the easy comparison. Total cost is the one that decides what you actually keep. That’s subscription plus transaction fees plus card processing, all of it.
| Monthly Revenue | Kajabi Basic | Teachable Builder | Podia Shaker |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | $157.50 (subscription + 2.9% + $0.30 × sales) | $104.25 ($69 + 2.9% + $0.30) | $98.50 ($84 + 2.9% + $0.30) |
| $2,000 | $215.00 | $134.50 | $148.00 |
| $5,000 | $307.50 | $222.50 | $241.00 |
At $500/mo, Podia wins on total cost. That’s the bit that surprises most new course creators. They see Kajabi’s name everywhere and assume it’s the budget option. It isn’t.
At $2,000 and up, Teachable Builder pulls ahead. No platform transaction fee, plus the cheapest subscription of the three zero-fee tiers. Kajabi’s monthly bill never comes down. You pay for the bundled email, landing pages, and checkout whether you use them or not.
The math flips if you’re already paying for those tools separately. Subtract what you spend on email, a landing page builder, and a checkout, and the Kajabi premium narrows or vanishes. I’ve watched a few founders run this comparison and miss that point. They compare sticker prices instead of stacked bills.
Most solo founders aren’t running those tools yet though. They want one login. One bill. Something simple to learn. That’s exactly why Kajabi ends up as the most expensive pick for a brand-new course business. Not by a little either. By a lot.
Which One Should a Solo Founder Pick?
Short answer: it depends on your stack, not your goals. I went through all three platforms’ docs and read enough G2 and Capterra reviews to find where each one stumbles for new founders. Here’s what I landed on.
- Pick Podia if you’re launching your first paid course, coaching offer, or download and want the shortest path from zero to a live product. The 30-day trial costs nothing, and Shaker at $84/mo annual is the cheapest zero-fee plan of the three. The tradeoff: the feature set stays thin by design, so you’ll bump into a ceiling on quizzes or deeper automation.
- Pick Teachable if your business is course-only and you’ve already got an email tool you like. Builder at $69/mo annual is the right entry tier once you’re doing more than a handful of sales a month. It won’t run your newsletter or build your community. That’s a feature, not a bug.
- Pick Kajabi if you’re trying to replace four or five tools at once (email, landing pages, checkout, community, courses) and you want one dashboard instead of five logins. The math starts working once course revenue clears $500/mo, or if you’d be paying that much across separate tools anyway. Sticker shock is real. This one’s the most expensive of the three.
What Each Platform Does Poorly
Every one of these tools has rough edges. Here’s where they actually sting.
Kajabi costs more than most founders need on day one. You’re paying for the all-in bundle, but the contact ceiling means you outgrow the Basic plan faster than the sticker price suggests. Pricing scales with bundle usage, and the 2026 bump landed hard on existing customers. The G2 reviews reflect that frustration. The Basic plan caps at 2,500 contacts, which feels fine until you run lead magnets or webinar funnels and watch that ceiling close in.
Teachable does one thing and that’s it. No email. No landing pages. No community. You need at least one more subscription to run a real launch, and that second bill adds up fast. The Starter tier’s 7.5% transaction fee is the worst part of the deal. It’s a a trap that costs more than the upgrade it pushes you toward. I’d flag that fee before anyone signs up. Community threads are full of people caught mid-launch.
Podia counts email subscribers instead of customers, so your tier tracks list size, not what you actually sell. The 5% Mover fee acts like a growth tax where earning more makes the next plan look better by design. Email automation exists but it isn’t ConvertKit-deep or Kajabi-deep.
How to Decide in 30 Minutes
You probably already know the basics. Skip the deep dive. Three questions, that’s it. Answer them honestly and the right platform usually picks itself. I went through the pricing pages and docs for all three, and the answer really does come down to your stack and where this is headed.
- Tally up what you’re paying for email, landing pages, and checkout right now. Over $143/mo? Kajabi Basic is worth testing, though it’ll lock you in tighter than the others. Under that, don’t fix what isn’t broken. Run Teachable or Podia for the course piece and keep your existing stack.
- Where does the course actually fit in your business? Pure course business, Teachable works. Courses plus coaching, downloads, and community, Podia handles that mix. Courses as one piece of a multi-product brand, Kajabi’s built for that.
- Hitting 1,000 customers in the next 12 months? If not, Podia Mover or Teachable Builder is plenty. If yes, eyeball the growth tiers now and price the upgrade before you actually need it.
Key Takeaways
- All three platforms moved pricing in the last 18 months. Kajabi raised rates in January 2026, Teachable restructured mid-2025, and Podia kept its list price but tightened subscriber caps.
- The cheapest tier on any of them is a starter pack, not somewhere you’ll stay. Budget to upgrade within six months of launch.
- Sticker price misleads. Teachable’s Builder is the cheapest zero-fee play for course-only founders. Podia’s Shaker wins when you want email bundled in. Kajabi’s Basic is the cheapest path if you want the whole marketing suite under one roof.
- Pick what fits today, not what you’ll “need” at 10x revenue. I’ve watched founders overpay for two years on features they never opened. Migration’s annoying, but cheaper than the alternative.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Kajabi really take 0% on transactions?
Mostly. Kajabi Payments is the 0% path. Hook up your own Stripe and you’ll get hit with a 1-2% surcharge depending on your plan. PayPal dodges it. I dug through their pricing docs to confirm because that “0%” line gets thrown around a lot without the asterisk.
Can I move my course from Teachable to Podia or Kajabi?
Yeah, you can move it. Just don’t expect a clean handoff. Videos, student rosters, product structure come over. Quizzes, completion tracking, certificates mostly don’t. Budget a week of cleanup for anything mid-sized. That tracks with what creators say on Reddit and the Teachable community forum.
Is Podia’s 5% transaction fee really a problem?
Depends on your revenue. Under about $1,500/month, the fee costs you less than the price gap between Mover and Shaker, so upgrading doesn’t pay off. Above that, you’re handing Podia money for nothing. The fee stings either way, but the math only really flips once you’re past that threshold.
Do I need a separate email tool if I pick Teachable?
Unless “post on social and pray” is your launch plan, yeah. Teachable gives you basic sales emails and that’s about it. No automations, no broadcasts, no segmentation. ConvertKit and beehiiv are the usual pairings for creators running real launches.
The Stack I’d Build Today
If I were launching a paid course from scratch this month, I’d grab Podia’s 30-day free trial, push the first module out before the clock runs out, and only pay once a launch date is actually on the calendar. Sounds obvious. Most people do the opposite. They pay upfront, then feel stuck with a half-finished course build they never wanted that badly.
If the course hits $1,000+/mo within three months, I’d stay on Shaker. Cross $5,000/mo and Teachable Builder becomes interesting purely as a cost move. The lower subscription matters more once volume is real, not before.
Already paying for an email tool, a landing page builder, and a checkout platform separately? Do the math. If it crosses $150/mo, the Kajabi Basic plan is worth a serious look. Not before.
I’m a DevOps guy. I like boring infrastructure that doesn’t need babysitting. Kajabi fits that. Podia fits that. Teachable mostly fits that. Pick the one that fits your business today, not the one you think you’ll need in two years.
You can always migrate later. Migrations are annoying but survivable. I’ve done worse. The right platform is the one that gets you back to teaching, not the one with the slickest demo. Ship the thing.
