For entrepreneurs seeking to build awesome online courses, Kajabi and Thinkific are popular choices. But which one is best for your business? Let’s find out.

The interest in online learning has exploded over the last year. And now, more people than ever are looking to build online courses.

Online courses platforms have given many people an opportunity to jump into the world of online learning and share their perspectives and expertise with others. Two of those platforms—Kajabi and Thinkific—have drawn a great number of creators and entrepreneurs looking for a robust online course building tool. Which, of course, begs the question: Which one is right for your business?

Ahead, we’re walking through what online course platforms are and comparing Kajabi vs. Thinkific to see which is best for your aspirations.

What is an online course platform?

An online course platform is a software service that you pay a subscription fee for to gain access to powerful pre-built tools and features to build and deploy online courses.

Online course platforms are becoming increasingly popular because they are easy to use and much more affordable than building something on your own. They also provide many features that would otherwise be hard to develop yourself (even with programming knowledge). By using one of these course creation platforms, you’re giving yourself more time to focus on creating quality content and real bonds within your community.

So, with the basics out of the way, we can begin to answer the question: Kajabi or Thinkific?

Kajabi vs. Thinkific: Who are they?

Both Kajabi and Thinkific offer creators and entrepreneurs powerful solutions for building online courses, but their approaches are very different. So before we go too far in-depth into our analysis, let’s take a moment and explain what these platforms are known for.

Kajabi

Kajabi is an online course platform that heavily focuses on the marketing and selling of online courses. Their platform has developed powerful marketing and sales tools to couple with their online course builder so creators can make informed decisions about their business. This means that Kajabi has put a lot of resources into developing tools for email creation and delivery, landing page design, sales, and monetization, so more people lay eyes on your work.

Thinkific

Thinkific is an online course platform that has doubled down on content creation tools. When you build an online course on Thinkific, you’ll have access to a wide array of third-party integrations to create content. You’ll also have some options for how you deliver your courses, whether it’s through a drip method (where you release material as you create it) or all at once.

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Kajabi vs. Thinkific: Judgement criteria

As you’re thinking about which online course platform is the best fit for your business, think about what you’re looking for in a platform. Whether you choose Kajabi or Thikific or some other platform, your job is much easier when you have a clear idea of what you’re looking for and how your options stack up.

A robust set of features and customization options

If you’re considering an online course platform to build your courses, a major aspect to be aware of is the kinds of native features the platform has and how customizable it is. Everyone’s online courses will have different needs associated with them as well as approaches for teaching others how to achieve the course goals.

So, when comparing Kajabi vs. Thinkific, think about the content you’re hoping to create and if their tools support it. When you have the right set of native features, you won’t need to juggle multiple platforms to create the courses you want. On top of that, the best online course platforms will provide you with other opportunities to expand your business, like adding a dedicated online community, and the ability to host virtual events.

Monetization options

Choosing an online course platform with effective tools to monetize your course is an important piece of the puzzle. A big aspect of monetization isn’t just making people pay for your content though. It’s also providing multiple avenues for them to pay. The reason this is so important is that it allows your potential members to engage with your work on their terms, and provides a gateway for you to appeal to different demographics.

An example of this would be offering multiple ways to pay for your online course whether it’s a one-time, monthly, or annual fee. You could also create a dedicated online community space for your course that members who’ve completed your course can join (and continue paying for). However you choose to monetize your course, it should not only be easy for you to implement, but it should be a simple and easy process for your members to actually pay as well.

A native mobile app

Finally, when you’re contemplating Kajabi or Thinkific, make sure to look for where or not they offer a mobile app (and better yet, if you can create a white-label app!).

Gone are the days where people interact with the internet primarily from a desktop computer. Today, the most engagement happens from people using their phones and other mobile devices. We live in an increasingly fast-moving society where having easily available options for your business reign supreme.

Choosing an online course platform that offers a web, iOS, and Android app is crucial. You’ll be able to have more control over your business, and fewer outside distractions.

Now, with those key features outlined, let’s see how Kajabi and Thinkific stack up and which one is right for you.

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Kajabi vs. Thinkific: Features and customization

Here we’ll compare Thinkific vs. Kajabi’s features and customization to determine which one offers you more.

Kajabi

Kajabi became an incredibly popular platform because of its powerful online course creation tools and sales functionality. If you’re a creator or entrepreneur with a good mind for creating aggressive marketing and sales tactics for your online courses, Kajabi comes equipped with the tools to achieve the goal you set forth.

On Kajabi, you’ll be able to design landing pages, sales pages, email drip campaigns, and much more. And between Kajabi and Thinkific, Kajabi’s platform offers many more integrations. It should be noted, however, that integrations aren’t ideal as they will force you to be an expert on multiple platforms in order to manage your online courses.

Additionally, Kajabi’s platform doesn’t offer a great solution for online community building. They do have options for connecting your students together through discussion board-type spaces, but it’s not as robust as some of the other options on the market.

Thinkific

With Thinkific, you have the option to start out on a free plan and start building your online course. They have some solid tools such as quiz creation options, feedback surveys, and the ability to post both text and video content. Additionally, you can create discussion boards, a course website, and even some sales pages to entice customers to try your online course.

On top of these good content creation tools, Thinkific does offer you a few different options for creating a community space to tie together with your course. Your community can have your own colors, imagery, and a custom domain.

The winner: Overall, between Thinkific vs. Kajabi, both platforms offer good options for customization and features. If you’re more invested in awesome marketing tools to go with your online course offerings, then Kajabi might be the better fit. Thinkific has more going on in terms of it’s community tools, however, so if that’s important to you, they are great, as well.

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Kajabi vs. Thinkific: Monetization options

Another important category to consider with online course platforms is how you can monetize your content.

Kajabi

Another aspect that will influence your decision between Kajabi vs. Thinkific will be the monetization offerings (and, in turn, the pricing of the platform). Kajabi offers a great array of features for creators and entrepreneurs to sell their content, but the platform subscription is pricey.

Kajabi’s cheapest plan starts at $150/month and is limited in terms of what you can do. Their most popular plan is the “Growth” tier which is $200/month and gives creators access to unlimited landing pages, marketing emails, Kajabi University (a resource center where you can read articles and guides), and more.

In terms of monetization, Kajabi has a large assortment of options to choose from. Online courses can be sold at a one-time, monthly, or annual fee. They also provide options for recurring payments in the form of subscriptions and memberships.

Thinkific

Monetization will be a major factor in deciding between Thinkific or Kajabi. Luckily, Thinkific gives its creators a solid set of options for figuring out the best way to price your course. On their platform, you’ll be able to charge subscription fees and offer paid memberships, in addition to supplementing your sales offering with coupons, and discounts for new and old members.

Thinkific is also much more affordable than Kajabi with their most popular plan being $150/month. You can also sell your knowledge to your members in the form of digital downloads, full course bundles, and more. To make the deal a bit sweeter, Thinkific doesn’t charge a transaction fee either and accepts 100+ currencies.

The winner: Kajabi and Thinkific both offer interesting yet similar takes on their monetization offerings. Kajabi has stronger sales tools but their pricing is fairly expensive and will ultimately be a major fact in your decision.

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Kajabi vs. Thinkific: Native mobile app

Finally, choosing an online course platform with a native mobile app will be critical to keeping your business relevant as time goes on. Let’s unpack how these two platforms compare.

Kajabi

Kajabi has a mobile app that is available on both iOS and Android. This is great because it will allow all of your members to access your online courses in whatever way suits them. You’ll be able to alert members of new activity on your course too through push notifications.

Creators can respond and react to posts right through the app, and anyone who is enrolled will be able to engage with course content through their mobile devices as well.

Thinkific

Thinkific, unfortunately, doesn’t offer a mobile app. This is a pretty big omission and one that shouldn’t be considered lightly in your decision-making process.

The winner: Between Kajabi vs. Thinkific the answer is clear for who wins this category: Kajabi. They offer a mobile app that is fairly easy to use and available to many.

Kajabi vs. Thinkific: The winner

While both platforms offer a lot of great features for creators to build online courses, it seems that outside of pricing, Kajabi is the better of the two choices. You will get great customization options and features as well as some good monetization tools. A downside, however, is that your course and community space won’t be as intertwined as they could be on other platforms.

Their pricing is very expensive though, and in order to get the extra support you may end up spending even more. But compared to Thinkific, you’ll most likely have a better experience.

But with all of that being said, there is a better platform on the market already and we have to ask, why not go with that one? Mighty Networks is an all-in-one SaaS platform that ties together community, courses, and events all under one roof, so you should check us out.

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Mighty Networks is the best online course platform

We’ve covered the ins and outs of Kajabi vs. Thinkific’s offerings for online course creators. They have good content creation features and subpart community building options, and in Thinkific’s case, no mobile app. Why settle for less when you can have it all?

At Mighty Networks, we’ve built the best online course experience out there and offer you a robust set of tools for community building. When you choose to build your course on Thinkific or Kajabi, you’re just restricting yourself. Here are just a few of the many things you can do with Mighty Networks:

Offer paid memberships.

Have your own branded app that is accessible in the App Store and Google Play store.

You can post videos, images, and audio clips.

Natively livestream and store video within your Mighty Network.

Create polls, discussion boards, quizzes, and Q&As.

Build fully customizable online courses with dedicated community spaces.

That’s a lot of features, and on top of all of the things you build on your Mighty Network are available across the web, iOS, and Android. More customization, flexibility, and mobility sounds pretty great, right?

Time to start building!