In today’s creator economy, more people than ever are turning their knowledge into online courses, coaching, and digital products. Platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, and Kajabi have become household names in the online learning space, each promising to help you launch, scale, and monetize your expertise.
But here’s the big question: Which platform should you actually choose?
While they may seem similar on the surface, each platform caters to different types of creators and business owners. We’ve tested all three and in this in-depth guide, we’ll break down their features, pricing, ease of use, and who they’re best for.
By the end, you’ll have a clear picture of which tool makes the most sense for your goals.
Brief Overview
Teachable is one of the most well-known course platforms, built to make launching online courses simple and fast. It focuses primarily on course hosting and monetization without overwhelming users with too many extras.
Thinkific positions itself as a middle ground, easy enough for beginners but with more customization and educational tools than Teachable. It’s popular among teachers, trainers, and creators who want more control over the student experience.
Kajabi is the all-in-one powerhouse. Unlike Teachable and Thinkific, which mainly focus on course hosting, Kajabi goes much further by including email marketing, sales funnels, landing pages, websites, and even podcast hosting. It is built for entrepreneurs who want to run their entire digital business from one platform.
Comparison Table
User Experience
Teachable
If you want to create a course and start selling quickly, Teachable is the easiest option. The setup is simple, you upload your videos or materials, organize them into modules, set a price, and publish. The dashboard is clean, and beginners will appreciate that they don’t need any tech skills.
The downside? Customization is limited. You won’t get as much control over the look and feel of your school compared to Thinkific or Kajabi. Teachable works best for creators who want to prioritize speed and simplicity over design flexibility.
Thinkific
Thinkific offers a slightly more advanced user experience. Its drag-and-drop builder makes creating structured courses intuitive, and you get more freedom to customize your course site’s branding. While it’s still accessible to non-techies, there’s a bit more of a learning curve compared to Teachable.
Where Thinkific shines is in the student experience. You can build more engaging courses with quizzes, assignments, and community features. If you want to run a more “educational” style business, Thinkific feels tailored for that.
Kajabi
Kajabi is much more complex. Because it’s an all-in-one system, there’s a lot more to set up, your website, email funnels, automations, products, and community spaces. This can feel overwhelming at first.
That said, once you get comfortable, Kajabi’s experience is incredibly powerful. You can manage your entire business from one dashboard without needing multiple tools. It feels less like just a course platform and more like a full business management tool.
Winner: Depends on your priorities
- Teachable: Best for speed & simplicity
- Thinkific: Best for course customization & student experience
- Kajabi: Best for running your entire online business using one tool
Types of Products You Can Sell
Teachable
Teachable focuses mainly on courses. You can also sell coaching packages and digital downloads like PDFs or templates. It is a solid choice if courses are your main product, but it doesn’t expand much beyond that.
Thinkific
Thinkific allows you to sell courses, memberships, and community access. It gives you slightly more flexibility if you want to create a learning hub with recurring memberships or private communities alongside your courses.
Kajabi
Kajabi offers the widest variety. You can sell courses, memberships, coaching programs, digital downloads, and even podcasts. It is also the only one of the three that allows you to build advanced sales funnels and websites, making it a true all-in-one product suite.
Winner: Kajabi
Marketing & Automation
Teachable
Marketing tools on Teachable are limited. You get coupons, upsells, and a decent checkout flow, but if you want advanced email marketing, you’ll need to connect with tools like ConvertKit, Mailchimp, or ActiveCampaign.
Thinkific
Thinkific offers similar promotional tools to Teachable but adds stronger integrations with marketing software. It doesn’t include full automation natively, so again, you’ll likely need third-party tools for advanced funnels or segmented email campaigns.
Kajabi
Kajabi is built for marketing. It includes full email marketing, landing pages, sales funnels, and automations. You can create behavioral email sequences, upsells, and nurture campaigns directly within the platform, no extra integrations required. For marketers and entrepreneurs, this is a game-changer.
Winner: Kajabi
Course Building & Delivery
Teachable
Teachable covers the basics well. You can create lessons with video, text, and quizzes, drip-feed content, and track student progress. It’s functional but fairly standard.
Thinkific
Thinkific steps it up with more advanced features like assignments, surveys, communities, student analytics and even enterprise features like SCORM and xAPI support. If you want to create a structured, interactive learning experience, Thinkific gives you more tools to work with.
Kajabi
Kajabi’s course builder is strong too, with drip scheduling, quizzes, assessments, and robust multimedia support. While it doesn’t go quite as deep as Thinkific in education-specific features, it makes up for it with seamless integration into funnels and marketing tools.
Winner: Thinkific
Pricing
Teachable Pricing
- Starter: $39/month (with 7.5% transaction fees)
- Builder: $89/month
- Growth: $189/month
- Advanced: $399/month
Teachable’s pricing is reasonable, but transaction fees on the lowest plan can eat into your revenue. Asides the Starter plan, all other pricing plans have zero transaction fees.
Thinkific Pricing
- Basic: $49/month
- Start: $99/month
- Grow: $199/month
- Plus: Custom pricing
Thinkific doesn’t charge transaction fees on any plan, which helps keep more revenue in your pocket.
Kajabi Pricing
- Kickstarter: $89/month
- Basic: $149/month
- Growth: $199/month
- Pro: $399/month
Kajabi also does not charge transaction fees but is significantly more expensive. Since it replaces multiple tools (website hosting, email marketing, funnel builders), it may be worth it. If you’re already paying for those separately, Kajabi can actually save you money long term.
Winner: Thinkific
Mobile Experience
- Teachable: Mobile-friendly course access through the responsive mobile website and mobile app.
- Thinkific: Offers mobile friendly content through a mobile app and mobile site.
- Kajabi: Has a dedicated mobile app in addition to a mobile site, making it easy for students to access both courses and communities on the go.
Winner: Tie
Community Features
One of the biggest shifts in online education is the demand for community-driven learning. Many students don’t just want access to videos, they want interaction, accountability, and a place to connect with peers. Let’s see how Teachable, Thinkific, and Kajabi handle community features.
Teachable
Teachable offers a community feature that you can enable in your course. You can engage students through community posts, comments and more. The community feature provides a built-in forum for members to interact, ask questions and get feedback.
Thinkific
Thinkific offers Thinkific Communities, which lets you create discussion spaces, groups, and engagement hubs directly inside your course platform. This allows students to interact without leaving the learning environment. While not as advanced as dedicated community platforms, it is a great built-in option for fostering connection.
Kajabi
Kajabi includes a full community product as part of its platform. You can create private or public groups, host discussions, run challenges, and integrate them directly with courses or memberships. The Kajabi app also makes it easy for members to engage on mobile, which increases participation. If community is a key part of your business model, Kajabi offers the most complete solution.
Winner: Kajabi
Analytics & Reporting
- Teachable: Basic revenue and student progress reports. Good enough for simple tracking.
- Thinkific: Stronger course analytics, including engagement, quiz performance, and membership data.
- Kajabi: Advanced analytics not just for courses but also for marketing campaigns, funnels, and revenue streams.
Winner: Kajabi
Final Verdict: Which Platform Should You Choose?
All three platforms are excellent, but they shine in different areas.
Choose Teachable if:
- You’re just starting out and want to launch a course quickly
- You don’t need advanced marketing tools
- You prefer a beginner-friendly setup
Choose Thinkific if:
- You’re an educator or trainer who values structured learning tools
- You’d like more customization for your course design
Choose Kajabi if:
- You want an all-in-one platform for courses, websites, and marketing
- You’re running a full digital business, not just courses
- You’re comfortable paying more for convenience and power
If you’re still unsure, try the free trial for each one of them to test things out and make a final decision based on which one works best for you.
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