home / Best Course Platforms /Kajabi Review
The best online course platforms can make all the difference in creating and selling online courses. They can also save you time and money. But with so many options out there, how do you know which is the best online course platform for you?
That’s where we come in! We’ve tested over 30 course builders and evaluated them on 60+ key aspects to identify 2024’s best course platforms. Below, you can find our top picks, their pros and cons, and compare them side by side to make an informed decision.
Thinkific is the best overall online course platform for 2024. It gets the highest score (4.7 out of 5) among all evaluated platforms, excelling in ease of use, features, pricing plans, and customer support.
It is a hosted platform, meaning you don’t have to worry about the technical aspects of course hosting and delivery. Thinkific lets you host your content, create structured courses, sell them, deliver your content, and manage your students.
What We Like: Thinkific is among the most feature-rich online course platforms with powerful tools for course creation and learner engagement. It’s also the only hosted course platform with a dedicated app store, making it quite extendable. Still, the platform is easy to use and comes at an affordable price.
What We Don’t Like: While Thinkific’s website builder is decent, it’s not as customizable as some other platforms. It also doesn’t include a native blogging tool. Additionally, the community feature needs improvements.
Who Should Use It: Thinkific is suitable for all types of users, from solopreneurs to eLearning businesses and from those starting out to established creators. It can also cater to different types of knowledge products, from assessment-based courses to simple video ones and membership sites.
Ease of Use
Thinkific is pretty easy to use, even for beginners. The user interface is clean, and the individual tools are smartly divided into different sections, making it easier to find them. It can get accustomed to the platform and start creating your courses in no time.
Building a course is also straightforward. You can create your curriculum quickly using the drag-and-drop course builder and set a price, and the platform will take care of the rest.
A walkthrough of Thinkific’s user interface
Key Features
Thinkific Pricing
Thinkific’s paid plans start from $49/month and support unlimited courses and students. The most popular plan among course creators costs $99/month, while the most expensive plan costs $499/month, which is more suitable for bigger businesses and organizations.
Thinkific also has a free plan where you can create one course and one community. You also get access to the eCommerce tools and the website builder.
Additional Info
Kajabi is the best all-in-one platform for course creators. From creating courses and memberships to building websites and sales funnels, Kajabi has everything you need to run your course business.
It has the most extensive set of features among all the platforms we’ve reviewed, and it gets a pretty high score in our evaluation (4.6 out of 5).
What We Like: Kajabi is truly an all-in-one platform. Its individual tools rival specialized solutions, making it possible to run your entire business from one platform. However, at its core, it remains a course platform, and it offers top-notch features for course creation and engagement.
What We Don’t Like: While Kajabi offers good value for money, it is on the pricier side compared to other course platforms. Plus, it limits the number of products and students you can have on all of its plans.
Who Should Use It: Kajabi is ideal for course creators who don’t want to use multiple tools to run their online business and have the budget for a premium platform. It is also suitable for membership site owners, coaches, and other knowledge-based businesses.
Ease of Use
Kajabi has a clean and well-organized interface. All the tools are drag-and-drop and user-friendly, ensuring ease of use even for non-tech-savvy users. Additionally, the tighter integration between the individual tools eliminates the need to juggle between different tabs or windows.
However, since the platform has so much to offer, it may take some time to get familiar with all the features and use them effectively.
Key Features
Kajabi Pricing
Kajabi offers four pricing plans: Kickstarter, Basic, Growth, and Pro. The Kickstarter plan costs $69 per month, while the Basic and Growth plans cost $149 and $199 per month.
There’s no transaction fee on any of the plans, and they don’t differ much regarding features. However, the Kickstarter plan limits you to one product and 50 active members, while the Basic and Growth plans have higher limits.
Kajabi’s pricing is steep compared to other course platforms, but it’s worth it for the all-in-one nature of the platform.
Additional Info
New Zenler is a relatively new course platform that has quickly made a name for itself in the industry. It aims to be an all-in-one platform, just like Kajabi, but at a fraction of the cost.
Apart from course creation and selling tools, New Zenler has features for blogging, sales funnels, and webinars, making it a comprehensive option for course creators.
What We Like: New Zenler offers robust features for course creation and engagement. On top of that, it provides marketing tools to help you promote and sell your courses. Plus, all of this is available at an unbeatable price of just $67 per month.
What We Don’t Like: New Zenler’s marketing tools, including the funnel builder and email marketing tools, need significant improvements to be on par with specialized solutions. Additionally, the user interface has aesthetic issues, making it less user-friendly for creators and end-users.
Who Should Use It: New Zenler is suitable for course creators who want a budget-friendly course platform with built-in marketing tools and don’t mind compromising a bit on features or user experience.
Ease of Use
New Zenler’s interface is well-organized, making it easy to navigate and find the tools you need. The individual tools are user-friendly and intuitive, so you can quickly start creating your courses.
However, the user interface has aesthetic issues related to smaller font size and color contrast, making it challenging to use sometimes.
A quick walkthrough of New Zenler’s user interface
Key Features
New Zenler Pricing
New Zenler offers two paid plans: Pro and Premium. The Pro plan costs $67/month while providing all the important features, unlimited courses and students, and zero transaction fees.
The Premium plan costs $197/month and supports API access and increased limits on the number of sites and contacts. However, most creators would find the Pro plan sufficient.
Additionally, New Zenler has a limited free plan that charges a 10% transaction fee and is good for beginners and those who want to try out the platform before investing in a paid plan.
Additional Info
Teachable is a pioneer in the course hosting platform space. It has been around since 2014, and tens of thousands of creators use it for their courses.
The platform prides itself on user-friendliness and the ease of setting up your course website. It also offers various course creation and engagement features, along with essential sales and marketing tools.
What We Like: Teachable is the most user-friendly course platform, in our opinion. The online course builder is flexible yet easy to use. The platform also ticks pretty much all the boxes regarding learning tools.
What We Don’t Like: Teachable’s site-building features are limited. It lacks site themes, and the page builder is basic. Moreover, Teachable’s pricing is high compared to other platforms and limits the number of courses on all plans.
Who Should Use It: The platform is suitable for course creators who prioritize user-friendliness and ease of use and don’t mind paying a bit more for it. As long as the platform meets your needs, it can work out for both beginners and established creators.
Ease of Use
Teachable’s admin interface is straightforward to navigate. The option to create new products is available right on the dashboard. Creating a new course is simple, thanks to the user-friendly course builder.
The platform has smartly placed all the related features under the individual course. So you can manage everything from the curriculum to pricing and pages in one place.
A quick walkthrough of Teachable’s user interface
Key Features
Teachable Pricing
Teachable has four paid plans. The Basic plan costs $59/month with a 5% transaction fee, while the Pro plan and Pro+ plan cost $159/month and $249/month with a 0% fee.
Apart from features, the plans vary in the number of courses. The Basic plan lets you create five courses, while the Pro plan allows 50 courses. There’s no limit on the number of students on any plan.
Additionally, Teachable has a free plan ($1 + 10% fee) that lets you create one course with up to ten students. So, it’s good only to try out the platform.
Additional Info
Podia is the simplest online course platform. It offers decent features while keeping the platform extremely easy to use and affordable, making it an excellent choice for beginners.
The platform allows you to create and deliver online courses and other digital products. While it also offers a range of site-building and marketing features, it’s not really an all-in-one platform.
What We Like: Podia is among the easiest-to-use platforms we have reviewed. Everything from creating a course to customizing your sales pages is straightforward and doesn’t take much time. The platform offers a range of sales and marketing features. Also, the pricing is flexible and affordable.
What We Don’t Like: Podia misses out on important learning and delivery features like graded quizzes, live lessons, and mobile apps. Many of its features (e.g., coaching and webinars) are incomplete. Additionally, Podia has a few paid add-ons, which can add up quickly.
Who Should Use It: Podia is suitable for creators who want to create and sell online courses and membership sites quickly and easily. However, it may not be the best choice for educators or businesses requiring advanced teaching and learning features.
Ease of Use
Podia has a clean and organized user interface, with all features accessible from the top navigation menu. The platform takes a layered navigation approach to reduce the learning curve, offering top-level options upfront while progressively leading to specific features.
Creating courses is also straightforward, thanks to the drag-and-drop course builder. All other tools, including the page builder and email marketing, are also user-friendly.
A quick walkthrough of Podia’s user interface
Key Features
Podia Pricing
Podia’s paid plans start at $9/month and let you create a website and a community in your own domain. To create online courses, you’ll need the Mover plan, which costs $39/month + 5% fee, or the Shaker plan, which costs $89/month with no transaction fee.
Podia also has a free plan (10% transaction fee) where you can create products in the draft mode. Apart from this, there’s an additional cost for using its email feature and adding team members.
Additional Info
TrainerCentral, a member of the Zoho product family, provides an affordable course-building solution for trainers and course creators.
Though relatively new, it has rapidly evolved into a comprehensive course builder with robust content creation and delivery capabilities.
What We Like: TrainerCentral offers robust course creation features, including powerful assessment tools and native live classes. The platform also provides free and branded mobile app options. However, the biggest advantage is its affordable pricing.
What We Don’t Like: The platform’s sales and marketing tools are subpar. The 2-step checkout requires students to create an account to complete the purchase. The platform lacks features like 1-click upsells and affiliate marketing. Plus, the page builder offers limited flexibility and customization.
Who Should Use It: TrainCenrtal is ideal for trainers and course creators who need a platform primarily for course hosting and delivery. It’s also a good choice for those on a budget, as the pricing plans are affordable.
Ease of Use
TrainerCentral is user-friendly, making it easy for even beginners to create and deliver courses. The interface is clean and intuitive, so there’s a little learning curve.
Individual tools like the course builder are also easy to use, with drag-and-drop functionalities. While there is room for improvements, the platform overall is easy to work with.
A quick walkthrough of TrainerCentral’s user interface
Key Features
TrainerCentral Pricing
TrainerCentral offers a free plan with limited features and up to three courses, though you can’t create paid courses.
The Starter plan, priced at $20/month, lets you create and sell unlimited courses. It supports unlimited students, and there’s no transaction fee, but it doesn’t support custom domains.
The Professional plan, priced at $50/month, comes with all the platform’s features, making it the most affordable top tier for any course platform.
Additional Info
LearnWorlds is a mid-tier online course platform that offers interactive video and eBook capabilities and a powerful quizzing tool. It also has built-in funnels and landing pages, making it easier to market your courses.
While the platform receives a high rating for its features, usability is a major issue, pulling down its overall score.
What We Like: LearnWorlds stands out for its learning and engagement features, especially the unique ones like interactive videos and eBooks. The platform also boasts a flexible website builder along with features for blogging and landing pages.
What We Don’t Like: The biggest issue with LearnWorlds is its poor usability. The user interface is cluttered, and individual tools like the course builder aren’t user-friendly. Plus, the pricing can be steep if you need the stand-out features.
Who Should Use It: LearnWorlds is a good option for established educators and eLearning businesses who want to create interactive learning programs but don’t mind the complicated user interface.
Ease of Use
LearnWorlds’ user interface is quite cluttered. You’ll see too many elements and options on the screen, and it’s not always clear what they do.
Individual tools aren’t user-friendly as well. Take the course builder, for example. Adding content to your lessons isn’t as easy as other platforms on this list. Creating a video lesson requires multiple steps, as you can’t simply upload a video directly to a lesson.
The same is true for other tools, such as the page builder. All in all, LearnWorlds’ interface could use some improvements to make it more intuitive and easier to use.
A quick walkthrough of LearnWorlds’ user interface
Key Features
LearnWorlds Pricing
LearnWorlds pricing is suitable for different needs and budgets. The Basic plan ($29/month + $5 per sale) is great for those just starting, while the Pro Trainer ($99/month) offers the best value for money.
Its most popular plan is the Learning Center plan ($299/month), which includes the platforms’ unique features like interactive videos and copyright protection.
Additional Info
Xperiencify is a gamification-focused online course platform that aims to make learning more engaging and fun. It offers a range of gamification features such as points, badges, leaderboards, and Experience Engine.
However, it’s not just another course platform with gamification elements. Instead, it puts these at the center of its platform, allowing course creators to design fully gamified learning experiences.
What We Like: Xperiencify offers the best-in-class gamification features. Its Experience Engine let. It also has a flexible page builder that can customize all aspects of the checkout process, making it easy to upsell and cross-sell courses.
What We Don’t Like: Xperiencify has a steep learning curve, which can be attributed partly to the subpar user experience design. It also lacks essential tools like quizzes, a traditional course player, and course reporting features. Additionally, it misses key selling tools like upsells, sales taxes, and affiliate marketing.
Who Should Use It: Xperiencify is best for course creators who want to design gamified learning experiences for their students. It will work best for certain courses requiring a higher level of interactivity, such as cohort courses, challenges, and memberships.
Ease of Use
Xperiencify’s user interface is clean and intuitive. The course builder is drag-and-drop, and the course creation process is straightforward.
However, the platform has a bit of a learning curve because you need to familiarize yourself with new concepts like experience points and training actions. There are some user experience issues as well that can make navigation and setup confusing.
A quick walkthrough of Xperiencify’s user interface
Key Features
Xperiencify Pricing
Xperiencify’s pricing is on the higher side. There are three pricing plans with no transaction fees and most features included. However, the plans differ in the number of students and courses allowed.
The Growth plan costs $99/month and supports ten published courses and 1,000 active monthly students, while the Pro plan costs $199/month and allows 20 published courses and 5,000 active students.
Additional Info
Circle (or Circle.so) is an online community builder that allows creators to build engaged communities. It also offers a simple course builder and the ability to charge for courses.
While Circle isn’t a traditional course platform, you can host online courses in a community-led format, such as live cohort courses.
What We Like: Circle provides best-in-class community features for discussions, live events, and member chats. The course feature is straightforward and integrates well with its community tools. Additionally, the platform is quite flexible and extendable.
What We Don’t Like: Circle’s community-first approach won’t work for creators looking to sell standalone courses or deliver a more traditional course experience. The platform lacks important learning tools and doesn’t include a website builder.
Who Should Use It: Circle is perfect for creators who want to build community-powered online course experiences. It’s also great for creating membership sites or hosting group coaching programs.
Ease of Use
Circle offers an intuitive admin interface with easy navigation and essential actions readily accessible. The platform doesn’t require technical skills; you can get your community up and running in minutes.
Additionally, Circle’s course builder is drag-and-drop, making it easy to create sections and lessons and add content.
Key Features
Circle Pricing
While Circle pricing starts at $49/month, you’ll need the Professional plan ($99/month) to access the course feature. On top of the monthly plan, there’s a 2% transaction fee.
The higher tiers, Business and Enterprise, cost $219/month and $399/month, respectively. However, the Professional plan provides all the essential features course creators need.
Additional Info
LearnDash is the most popular WordPress LMS plugin creators, training organizations, and educational institutions use for their online courses. It’s a robust option with tons of features and integrations.
However, remember that it’s a self-hosted option, so you’ll need a WordPress site. You’ll also need to handle things like hosting, security, and updates on your own.
What We Like: The LearnDash plugin is robust and includes important features like a drag-and-drop course builder, assessment tools, certificates, content dripping, and gamification tools. However, its biggest strength is the vast library of third-party integrations and add-ons that allow you to extend its functionality even further.
What We Don’t Like: We’re not big fans of using WordPress for online courses as it requires more work and tech skills to set up and maintain than hosted platforms. Regarding LearnDash specifically, it isn’t the most beginner-friendly choice, and some might struggle with the learning curve. Also, the built-in monetization tools are very basic.
Who Should Use It: LearnDash is ideal for advanced users who want complete control over their eLearning website. However, you must be a WordPress pro or have a team to help you set things up and maintain them.
Ease of Use
First, setting up a course on WordPress has a steep learning curve. Second, LearnDash has lots of features and options, so you’ll take some time to get familiar with everything.
The course builder is straightforward to use, and you can easily add and rearrange sections and lessons. However, the user interface looks outdated and could use an improvement. Plus, it relies on the Gutenberg editor for adding lesson content, which can be unintuitive for some users.
Similarly, some other features, such as the certificate builder are also Gutenberg-based, which isn’t the best suited for this type of task.
Key Features
LearnDash Pricing
LearnDash has a couple of pricing options. The core LMS plugin costs $199/year for a 1-site license and $399/year for a 10-site license. It also offers paid add-ons for features such as notes, groups, and reports, ranging from $49 to $120 per year for each add-on.
It also offers LearnDash Cloud, starting at $29/month for 1,000 active learners and $49/month for up to 5,000. This includes the LMS plugin and also hosting for your site.
There are several other online course creation software that couldn’t make it to the top ten but may still be worth considering. These platforms belong to different categories, and their suitability depends on your needs.
Mighty Networks is similar to Circle in that it is a community builder first and a course platform second.
So, it offers powerful features for community building. Besides creating engaging posts, it supports livestreaming, member directories, group chats, personalized notifications, and free and branded mobile apps.
Regarding course creation, Mighty Networks offers a drag-and-drop course builder, native video hosting, and features for quizzes and content dripping.
What’s good is that you can combine your courses with community elements to create a more interactive learning experience.
Moreover, you can build landing pages, bundle your products together, and sell them for a one-time or recurring fee.
Mighty Networks’ pricing starts at $39/month, but the course builder is available only on the Courses plan, which costs $119/month and is on the higher side. Additionally, the platform charges a 2% transaction fee on this plan.
So, Mighty Networks is a great Circle alternative and a good option for creating membership sites and community-powered courses, such as cohort courses and challenges.
Additional Info
Teachery is a lightweight course creation platform with basic course creation and delivery features. It lets you structure your content into modules and lessons and deliver them to your students.
But that’s it. It lacks many essential features like video hosting, quizzes, certificates, and reporting tools. The end-user experience is also subpar.
Furthermore, Teachery’s page builder is quite basic, and the selling tools aren’t great.
Regarding pricing, there’s just one pricing plan that costs $49/month. There’s no transaction fee, and it supports all the platform’s features, including unlimited courses and students.
Additional Info
Tutor LMS is a beginner-friendly WordPress LMS plugin. The plugin offers a range of learning tools, including quizzes, assignments, gradebooks, certificates, and live classes.
It also boasts a drag-and-drop course builder that makes creating modules and lessons and adding content to them easy.
However, Tutor LMS doesn’t have any built-in monetization tools. So, you must use its integration with shopping carts like WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads to sell your courses.
Regarding pricing, Tutor LMS has a free version that supports selling basic online courses. However, many features, such as dripping, certificates, and third-party integrations, require Tutor LMS Pro. The Pro version costs $199/year for one site and $399/year for ten sites.
So, if you need a simpler and more affordable alternative to LearnDash, Tutor LMS is a good option to consider.
Udemy is a popular online teaching platform where anyone can create and sell courses. It’s the largest course marketplace, with over 200,000 courses and 70 million students.
You can use Udemy for free and create a course to share your know-how. Afterward, you can market your course on the marketplace or to your audience.
If you sell directly to your audience, you keep 97% of the profits, and Udemy takes 3%. If a sale comes through Udemy’s marketplace, you get 37%, and Udemy keeps the rest as the fee.
Besides the high fee, there are other downsides to selling on Udemy:
So, we recommend using Udemy as just one of your marketing channels, and not relying solely on it for selling your courses.
Additional Info
When choosing the best platform for online courses, you need to consider various factors.
First and foremost, you should choose a reputable course platform that will likely last long-term. You don’t want to set up your course only to have the platform shut down or stop receiving updates.
That’s why we only review platforms that have been on the market for a couple of years and have a minimum user base. We research the platform’s history, website metrics, popularity, and user reviews to ensure this.
Now, let’s dive into the key factors for choosing an online course platform.
All online course platforms can fit into a few categories. Each category caters to different needs, so determining the type of platform you’ll use is the first step.
Online course hosting platforms like Thinkific and Kajabi are built from scratch for course hosting and delivery. These are plug-and-play solutions, so you just need to create an account, add your content, and start selling. You don’t need to worry about technicalities like hosting, updates, or security.
On the other hand, plugins like LearnDash and Tutor LMS add course creation features to WordPress. They are more flexible and customizable but more complicated to set up and need technical knowledge. You also need to manage security and updates yourself.
Unless you’re a WordPress pro and have specific needs that can only be met by self-hosted options, a hosted platform is usually the better choice.
Specialized course creation platforms (e.g., Thinkific) focus on course creation and engagement. They also offer basic sales and marketing features, mainly essential eCommerce tools.
On the other hand, all-in-one course platforms offer additional features such as blog hosting, email marketing, sales funnels, and webinars, eliminating the need to learn and use multiple platforms.
You should choose an all-in-one platform for convenience and everything in one spot. Otherwise, a specialized platform will be better if you already have a website and funnels.
Let’s start with some non-negotiables you should look for in an online course platform:
Additional features and tools will depend on your specific needs and goals.
For example, if you want to host cohort-based courses, your platform should support features such as community spaces and live classes.
Similarly, you may want a white-label course platform. You’ll need the option to use a custom domain and remove all platform branding from your website and emails.
Additionally, you may want mobile apps for students or gamification features to increase engagement. There can be so many other things, so assess your needs thoroughly.
The best way to see a comprehensive list of features and their availability on various platforms is to use our interactive comparison tool.
Your course platform should integrate and play well with other popular solutions, such as email service providers, analytics solutions, funnel tools, etc. Another must-have integration is Zapier.
Some platforms (e.g., Thinkific) also have dedicated app stores and advanced features like single sign-on and APIs.
You may not need these integrations now, but as your business grows, the ability to connect with other tools will be crucial for success. So, the more integrations, the better.
Everything sounds fantastic so far, but you should also think about your budget.
We prefer a “pay more as you grow” pricing model, letting you start with a more affordable plan and upgrade as your business expands. Some platforms limit features on lower-tier plans or charge transaction fees, so compare pricing and features carefully.
Moreover, there may be some hidden fees or paid add-ons that you may need to consider.
Some course platforms provide a free plan or a free trial period, which is an excellent opportunity to test the platform and see if it meets your needs.
We have compared various course platforms by looking at their features, usability, and pricing.
Thinkific emerges as the highest-rated platform in our research and gets the award for the best overall online course platform. It’s super easy to use, packed with features, and remains affordable.
On the other hand, Kajabi is our top choice for an all-in-one platform. It offers the most comprehensive solution with robust features for course creation as well as sales and marketing.
That said, the choice of the best online course platform depends on your needs and budget. We hope this guide helped you zero in on your perfect course platform.
Which platform do you think will work the best for you and why? Do you still have any questions? Either way, let us know in the comments below.
Course hosting platforms allow you to host and sell online courses on your own websites. These platforms provide the core features, such as course builder, content hosting, learning tools, and monetization features. More importantly, they are hosted options, meaning you don’t need to worry about technical things like security and updates.
While YouTube is great for delivering video content, it doesn’t work well for structured online courses. It doesn’t support any learning and engagement features and lacks the necessary monetization tools, all of which you can get with a course platform.
The best online course platforms should offer you tools to create awesome courses, engage your students, and deliver your content professionally. Plus, it should provide essential selling tools such as sales page builder and payment processing.
All-in-one course platforms go beyond the standard mandate of course creation and delivery to include additional features for blogging, sales funnels, and email marketing. They offer a fully integrated solution for all your course business needs in one place.
First and foremost, you should consider a reputable online course software that’s likely to last long. You then need to decide the right type of course platform for you and the features that are important to you. Finally, compare pricing plans to find the one that fits your budget.
There are quite a few options for cohort courses, but Kajabi and Thinkific are two popular choices. Apart from regular course creation tools, they support live lessons and community features that are essential for cohort-style courses.
Yes, there are some free online course builders available. Course creation platforms like Thinkific and New Zenler have free plans with limited features. You can also use online course marketplaces like Udemy to create and sell courses for free, but they take a significant percentage of your sales.
A WordPress LMS plugin lets you sell online courses through your existing WordPress site. It adds features for content management, course creation, and learning and engagement to WordPress.
Hey there! I'm Baidhurya, the brains behind SellCoursesOnline. I used to run a digital agency, where I helped course businesses launch their eLearning platforms. I also led the tech and marketing teams at StationX, helping it grow to 500K+ students. In addition, I created the popular supply chain network design course. With 8+ years of experience, I'm here to share my expertise and insights on course creation and platforms with you.
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Hey there! I’m Baidhurya, the brains behind SellCoursesOnline. I used to run a digital agency, where I helped course businesses launch their eLearning platforms. I also led the tech and marketing teams at StationX, helping it grow to 500K+ students. In addition, I created the popular supply chain network design course. With 8+ years of experience, I’m here to share my expertise and insights on course creation and platforms with you.
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