Thinkific, Teachable, and Kajabi are the three most searched course hosting platforms in 2026. They are not interchangeable. Thinkific is the best value if the product is a course. Entry paid plan is about $40/mo billed annually after the 13 August 2026 increase. Platform fee is 0% on Thinkific Payments. The course builder, assessments, communities, and student analytics are the reason educators pick it. Teachable is the fastest launch. Starter is $29/mo annually ($39 monthly) with a 7.5% platform transaction fee…
Short answer
Thinkific, Teachable, and Kajabi are the three most searched course hosting platforms in 2026. They are not interchangeable.
- Thinkific is the best value if the product is a course. Entry paid plan is about $40/mo billed annually after the 13 August 2026 increase. Platform fee is 0% on Thinkific Payments. The course builder, assessments, communities, and student analytics are the reason educators pick it.
- Teachable is the fastest launch. Starter is $29/mo annually ($39 monthly) with a 5% platform transaction fee. Builder is $69/mo annually ($89 monthly) with 0% platform fee. Checkout, Apple Pay / Google Pay, and Teachable Payments tax handling are the strengths.
- Kajabi is the all-in-one course platform. Basic is $143/mo annually ($179 monthly). You pay more so you do not also buy Kit, a funnel builder, a website, and a landing-page tool. Caps are on products and contacts, not on email sends.
For most creators whose job is teaching, Thinkific is the default. For a first course this week with no stack, Teachable Builder (skip Starter if you expect volume). For a multi-offer expert business that wants one login, Kajabi.
A sales page still converts in the 5–10% range for cold traffic. Sending a tracked checkout link in a comment-triggered DM is a distribution choice, not a platform feature. The course host still owns payments, access, and certificates.
Thinkific vs Teachable vs Kajabi: quick comparison (2026)
| Thinkific | Teachable | Kajabi | |
| Best for | Course quality, curriculum, value | Fast first launch, simple checkout | All-in-one marketing + site + courses |
| Entry paid (annual) | Basic $40/mo | Starter $29/mo | Basic $143/mo |
| Entry paid (monthly) | $54/mo | $39/mo | $179/mo |
| Free plan | No (30-day trial) | No (short trial; free-forever retired) | No (14–30 day trial) |
| Platform transaction fee | 0% on Thinkific Payments; surcharge if you use your own Stripe/PayPal | 7.5% on Starter; 0% on Builder+ | 0% revenue share; processing + possible Stripe surcharge |
| Course builder | Strongest assessments, drip, Zoom, certificates on Start+ | Simple video + quiz + checkout | Structured products + pipelines |
| Native email marketing | Basic automation / student mail; serious broadcasts usually need Kit or similar | Student announcements + light marketing on paid plans | Full broadcasts, visual automations, contact CRM |
| Website / blog | School + sales/landing pages; not a full CMS | School + sales/checkout pages | Full site, blog, landing pages, funnels |
| Community | Native spaces on paid plans | Higher-tier / limited vs Thinkific and Kajabi | Kajabi Communities + access groups |
| Custom domain | Paid plans | Paid plans | All plans |
| Student / contact caps | Courses usually unlimited; some lower-plan student/bandwidth caps | Product + student caps on lower plans | 2,500 / 25,000 / 100,000 contacts |
| Who should start here | Educators, cohort + evergreen courses | First-time digital educators | Coaches and multi-product operators |
Who should use which course platform
Choose Thinkific if you
- Care more about the learning experience than a built-in funnel builder
- Want 0% platform fees on native payments from the first paid plan
- Need quizzes, assignments, drip, certificates, Zoom, or cohort structure
- Already have (or will buy) Kit, MailerLite, or ActiveCampaign
- Want a native community tied to the course without adding Circle on day one
Choose Teachable if you
- Need the course live this week with almost no design work
- Want a checkout students already recognize, including Apple Pay and Google Pay
- Sell in many countries and want Teachable Payments to calculate VAT/GST
- Will move off Starter as soon as fees exceed the jump to Builder
- Are testing one simple video course or a coaching package
Choose Kajabi if you
- Want the all-in-one course platform: site, email, funnels, checkout, community
- Are tired of Zapier between a course host, an ESP, and ClickFunnels/Leadpages
- Have or will have enough revenue that $143–$199/mo replaces three other tools
- Run courses + memberships + coaching + lead magnets as one business
- Accept contact and product caps as the thing you watch, not student count
Thinkific pricing 2026
Thinkific raised Basic, Start, and Grow by about 10% from 13 August 2026. Annual billing is still the number to use in a course platform comparison.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (per month) | What you actually buy |
| Trial | $0 for 30 days | — | Test the course builder and checkout |
| Basic | $54 | $40 | Unlimited published courses on the public grid, custom domain, 1 community, coupons, abandoned-cart email, eCommerce basics. Certificates, payment plans, memberships, and Zoom are limited or missing. |
| Start | $109 | $82 | Certificates, assignments, live Zoom, payment plans, bundles, memberships, HTML/CSS on the school. This is the real working plan for most course businesses. |
| Grow | $219 | $164 | Remove Thinkific branding, more communities, group/B2B orders, API/webhooks, phone + priority support, deeper analytics. |
| Plus | Custom | Custom | SCORM, SSO, learning paths, branded app options, dedicated success. Enterprise and compliance training live here — not on Basic. |
Fees to model
- Thinkific Payments (TCommerce): no extra platform cut on top of card processing.
- Your own Stripe or PayPal: Thinkific has historically added a plan-based surcharge (commonly described as about 5% Basic / 2% Start / 1% Grow). If you must use your own merchant account, Start or Grow plus native payments is usually cheaper than Basic + external Stripe.
- Card networks still take ~2.9% + $0.30 (US) on every platform.
Thinkific is no longer “free forever.” Budget the Basic or Start subscription from month one.
Teachable pricing 2026
Teachable rebuilt plan names around Starter, Builder, Growth, and Custom. The old “Basic / Pro / Business” labels should not be used in 2026 copy.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (per month) | Platform fee | Typical limits |
| Trial | Short trial | — | — | Validate the builder |
| Starter | $39 | $29 | 7.5% | Few products (about 5), tight student/admin caps |
| Builder | $89 | $69 | 0% | More products, affiliates, 0% platform fee — default paid plan |
| Growth | $189 | $139 | 0% | Higher product/admin caps, branding controls, more support |
| Custom | Sales | Sales | 0% | Teams, SSO-style needs, volume |
The Starter trap. On a $197 course, 7.5% is $14.78 before Stripe. At $2,000/mo in sales, Starter’s fee is about $150 — more than the gap between Starter and Builder. If the course will sell, start on Builder or use Thinkific Basic.
Teachable Payments is the reason many international sellers stay: automated VAT/GST collection across a wide country list, plus a checkout that supports wallets. That tax layer is a real Teachable advantage versus “$0 platform fee” headlines.
Kajabi pricing 2026
Kajabi’s January 2026 overhaul removed the old cheap Kickstarter story for most new accounts and raised list prices. Public plans in September 2026:
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (per month) | Products | Contacts | Sites / communities / admins |
| Basic | $179 | $143 | 5 | 2,500 | 1 / 1 / 2 |
| Growth | $249 | $199 | 50 | 25,000 | 1 / 1 / 11 |
| Pro | $499 | $399 | Unlimited | 100,000 | 3 / 3 / 26 |
All plans: unlimited landing pages and marketing emails on the contact cap, funnels/pipelines, course + coaching + community product types, 0% revenue share. Processing still applies (Kajabi Payments is typically in the high-2% + 30¢ range in the US). Using your own Stripe can add a 2% / 1% / 0.5% platform surcharge by tier.
Kajabi is priced on contacts and products, not students. A 20,000-person list with two courses is a Growth problem even if only 400 people are enrolled.
A lower Starter-style tier still appears in some Kajabi marketing (about $71–$89/mo, 1 product, 250 contacts). Treat that as region- or promo-dependent. Do not build a financial model on it until it is on your checkout screen.
What you actually pay: subscription vs full stack
At $0, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 monthly course revenue, the subscription barely moves on Thinkific and Teachable Builder. The stack does.
| Monthly course revenue | Thinkific Start ($82) | Teachable Builder ($69) | Kajabi Basic ($143) |
| $0 | $82 + ESP | $69 + ESP | $143 (email included) |
| $1,000 | $82 + ~$29–49 ESP | $69 + ESP (Starter would add ~$75 in 7.5% fees — don’t) | $143 |
| $5,000 | $82 + ESP + optional pages | $69 + ESP + optional pages | $143 |
| $10,000 | Same, plus maybe Grow ($164) | Same, or Growth if you need team seats | Often Growth $199 once contacts pass 2,500 |
Add a realistic creator stack if you stay off Kajabi:
- Email: Kit / MailerLite / ActiveCampaign — $29–$119/mo at 2,500–10,000 subscribers
- Landing pages or funnels: $0 if you use the school sales page; $49–$149 if you add Leadpages or ClickFunnels
- Community extra (Circle): $49–$99/mo only if native community is not enough
- Zapier/Make: $20–$50/mo
Break-even rule of thumb: if you already pay for a serious ESP + a page builder, Kajabi Basic can match or beat the combined bill. If you only need a course player and checkout, Kajabi is an expensive LMS.
Course builder: Thinkific vs Teachable vs Kajabi
All three host video on a CDN. Students can watch on phones. Differences are pedagogy and ops.
Video and lessons. Thinkific and Kajabi give more lesson types (video, text, download, quiz, embed). Teachable is the least cluttered uploader — video, text, quiz, done.
Quizzes and assignments. Thinkific wins for question banks, passing gates, file uploads, and grading. Teachable covers multiple choice / true-false; graded extras sit on higher plans. Kajabi assessments can trigger automations (score → tag → email), which is a marketing advantage more than an instructional-design advantage.
Certificates. Thinkific: Start+ (Accredible-class options on higher/Plus). Teachable: available on current paid plans. Kajabi: native completion certificates + webhooks.
Drip and cohorts. Thinkific: date, days-after-enrollment, or milestone. Teachable: standard drip from signup. Kajabi: drip inside pipelines, so “finished module 2” can open module 3 and a sales email.
SCORM / compliance. Thinkific Plus. Not a reason to buy Thinkific Basic. Teachable and Kajabi are not the SCORM platforms.
Live teaching. Thinkific Start+ has native Zoom in the module. Teachable usually embeds or links out. Kajabi supports live sessions and coaching inside the product.
Coaching and memberships. All three can sell coaching and recurring access. Kajabi’s coaching object (agendas, notes, pipelines) and membership-as-product are the most complete. Teachable is strong at packaging a coaching offer next to a course. Thinkific memberships pair well with communities on Start+.
Communities. Thinkific Communities are good enough for course discussion without Circle. Kajabi Community 2.0 adds feeds, challenges, and a mobile-first member app story. Teachable comments are not a community product; plan an integration or a higher tier if community is the offer.
Email marketing, landing pages, and website
This is where Kajabi vs Thinkific (and Kajabi vs Teachable) is decided.
Email. Kajabi replaces Kit for many operators: broadcasts, visual automations, wait steps, tags from product events. Thinkific and Teachable send receipts, welcome mail, and student announcements. You can run light automation on current Thinkific paid plans, but a 10,000-person launch list still belongs in a dedicated ESP unless you are on Kajabi.
Landing pages. Kajabi: opt-in, webinar, VSL, and pipeline pages are the product. Thinkific and Teachable: course sales pages and checkout. Fine for “buy this course.” Weak for a 5-step lead magnet funnel.
Website and blog. Kajabi is the only one of the three that is a real small-business CMS (nav, blog, multiple pages, theme control). Thinkific and Teachable are schools with storefronts. SEO articles usually live on WordPress, Webflow, or Ghost next to those two.
Integrations. Thinkific and Teachable are built to talk to Kit, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Zapier, GA4, and Meta Pixel. Kajabi can integrate, but the pitch is that you stop doing so.
Payments, tax, affiliates, and mobile
| Need | Thinkific | Teachable | Kajabi |
| One-time + subscriptions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Payment plans / order bumps | Start+ for plans; bumps on paid commerce | Yes on paid plans | Yes |
| PayPal | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Apple Pay / Google Pay | Via payments stack | Strong, widely cited | Via Kajabi Payments |
| VAT / GST / sales tax | Improving via Thinkific Payments; still a research item for your countries | Teachable Payments is the usual winner for multi-country tax calc and remittance | Tax tools exist; coverage is narrower than Teachable’s public claim set |
| Affiliates | Reporting on paid; depth grows with plan | Native affiliate program is a Teachable headline from Builder up | Native from Growth (not the reason to buy Basic) |
| Student mobile app | Yes; white-label is Plus / add-on territory | Native iOS/Android student apps | Strong; branded app included on higher plans, add-on below |
| White label | Grow removes Thinkific badge; full brand app is Plus | Growth-style branding removal | Growth+ removes Kajabi badge |
Refunds, chargebacks, and payout timing follow the payment product you pick (platform payments vs your Stripe). Read that page before a launch, not after the first dispute.
Analytics, support, and lock-in
Analytics. Thinkific is best at learning analytics (progress, drop-off, quiz). Kajabi is best at business analytics (pipeline, email, page, purchase in one contact). Teachable is clean and basic: sales, completions, affiliates.
Support. Kajabi sells access: live chat on standard paid plans, 24/7 on higher tiers, Kajabi University. Thinkific: email/chat on paid, phone on Grow/Plus, Thinkific Academy. Teachable: ticket + chat on higher plans, TeachableU. None of them replace a VA for student support.
Export and migration. You own student emails and content files. You do not own the course player UX. Moving 2,000 students means CSV/API export, new logins, and rebuilt lessons. Budget days, not hours. There is no painless “switch LMS” button.
API. Thinkific Grow+/Plus, Teachable Builder+/Growth, Kajabi higher tiers. If you need a custom member site, do not buy the cheapest plan and assume the API is included.
How to sell the course once the platform is chosen
The course host is the checkout and classroom. Traffic still has to arrive.
- Build modules, pricing (one-time, plan, or membership), and a direct checkout URL with UTM tags (utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=dm).
- Put that URL on the sales page, in email, and in social.
- On Instagram, a keyword comment (“COURSE”) can trigger an automated DM that delivers the same checkout link. Tools in this category include ManyChat and InstantDM. The platform still processes the card and grants access.
- After payment, the host’s webhook or native enrollment creates the student and sends login credentials.
Treat conversion math as three different numbers, not one:
- Sales-page purchase rate on cold or paid traffic: often about 5–10%.
- DM click-to-checkout rate on a warm commenter who already asked for the link: much higher than a cold landing page.
- Comment-to-paid enrollment across a whole Reel: often low single digits to high single digits, not 15–30%, unless the audience is already hot and the offer is low-friction.
If the only “marketing site” you have is Instagram, do not overbuy Kajabi for a blog you will not write. Buy the course host, then put the pay link where attention already is.
- **In 2026, who is actually cheapest once fees and the rest of the stack are included?**Mixes: 2026 pricing, 0% fees, Thinkific August increase, Teachable 7.5%, Kajabi Kickstarter gone, Kajabi vs Thinkific + Kit
- **What should a beginner, a coach, or someone already on Kit pick?**Mixes: first course, coaches, Kit/ConvertKit users, all-in-one vs stack
- **Who wins the course builder, email, website, and SCORM?**Mixes: builder quality, Thinkific email 2026, Teachable blog/site, SCORM
- **Which platform is better for memberships, communities, and cohorts?**Mixes: Kajabi vs Thinkific community, memberships, cohort courses
- **Who handles VAT, GST, and Stripe the cleanest?**Mixes: international tax, native payments vs own Stripe, affiliates
- **Can I sell the course from Instagram without building a website?**Mixes: sell without a site, comment-to-DM + checkout link
- **Is Teachable still worth it, and how painful is a later migration?**Mixes: Teachable 2026 worth-it, Starter fee, migrate Teachable - Thinkific/Kajabi
Final pick
| Your situation | Platform |
| First course, launch this month, low volume | Teachable Builder (not Starter) or Thinkific Basic |
| Serious curriculum, quizzes, cohorts, community | Thinkific Start |
| Already paying for email + pages + funnels | Kajabi Basic or Growth |
| International tax headache | Teachable Payments first, then re-read Thinkific/Kajabi tax docs for your countries |
| SCORM / B2B academy | Thinkific Plus |
| Multi-product expert business, one team, one login | Kajabi Growth |
Thinkific vs Teachable vs Kajabi in 2026 is a business-model choice. Thinkific sells a school. Teachable sells a simple store. Kajabi sells an operating system. Buy the school if you teach. Buy the store if you need speed. Buy the operating system when the extra tools are already on your credit card.
If Instagram comments are already asking for the course, send the platform’s native checkout link in the DM — InstantDM is built for that last step without replacing Thinkific, Teachable, or Kajabi as the system of record.
