Kajabi vs. Podia: a comparison

When it comes to selecting LMS and membership platforms, there is a lot to consider and it can be pretty overwhelming to review software functionality, design limitations, integration options, and pricing models.

In this comparison of Kajabi vs. Podia, we break down all the important considerations for you, so you can find the perfect software for you and your business.

Simply put, Kajabi tries to do everything: host your website, take payments, deliver courses, handle marketing automation pipelines, send marketing emails, and design landing pages.  

Similarly, Podia offers everything you need to sell your online courses, host webinars, downloads, and memberships. On their platform, you can build a storefront, add website pages and products, and start taking payments without needing to be a tech expert. 

These all-in-one approaches can be very appealing for new online business owners who want to keep operating budgets low and be able to see and edit all (or most) aspects of their business on the same platform. 

With both Kajabi and Podia, it’s important to realize from the beginning that you will likely outgrow these all-in-one platforms.

Depending on your business, you’d likely outgrow Podia before Kajabi due to lack of customization, email marketing automation, and the ability to offer a fully functional membership site.

For that reason, if you choose either of these SaaS, hosted solutions, we recommend budgeting time and money for a system migration in the future.

Kajabi has different pricing tiers with limits on products, pipelines, marketing emails, contacts, active members, number of websites, and admin users. 

For example, on the lowest level tier you’re limited to 1000 active members. That means if you wanted to offer a free course opt-in on your website as a lead magnet, or share this offering with your existing email list, you’d be forced to upgrade as soon as you reach the 1000 member limit. . 

If you already have 200 active members, that caps your growth to only 800 opt ins on this bottom tier. The lowest tier, named their Basic plan is $149/month. You’d need to upgrade to the 199/month, Growth plan to have up to 10,000 active members. 

Also note that there are limits for each tier. For example, on the $199/month, mid-level Growth plan, only three products, 10,000 contacts, and 3 pipelines are allowed.

In short, you’ll likely run into limitations early on with your offers using Kajabi and need to upgrade to the mid-level Growth plan at $199/month, or even the upper level Pro plan at $399/month. This could make budgets tighter than anticipated simply to support email list growth and nurturing your audience. Meaning you may not see a return on your investment right away. 

Podia, on the other hand, has only two pricing tiers for you to choose from when building your online course business. Podia is less expensive than Kajabi and they don’t have limits on members, products, or courses. Podia’s tier differences  are based on features. 

Podia’s lower tier, their Mover plan at $39/month doesn’t support memberships, blogs, off-site buy buttons, affiliate marketing, or third-party code. If you want to take advantage of Podia’s full suite of features, you’ll need to opt for their upper tier Shaker plan at $79/month.

As you adopt a new software and setup of any kind, you’re bound to have questions. And even after using it time and time again, you’ll likely have more advanced inquiries, features requests, or implementation setup questions. Having access to support is imperative, no matter which software you choose. 

Both Podia and Kajabi offer 24/7 support for clients. 

Podia has live chat hours, and will respond 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even outside of their live chat hours. You’ll just need to email them or leave a message on their chat feature to get a response outside of their designated hours. They also offer opportunities to learn independently with their Help Center, which are questions and topics answered by the Podia team and the customer community. Podia also does a good job introducing you to their support team on their website so you know who you’re talking to.   

Similarly, Kajabi offers support via email and live chat. Annual plan subscribers also gain access to two separate 1:1 sessions with Kajabi team members, so you can get live answers to your unique setup questions in real-time. In addition, Kajabi University has hours of detailed training videos, and a customer based community that offers support. 

When onboarding with Podia, they offer free migrations depending on your tier selection to help bring over existing content. Kajabi does not offer free migrations.  

LMS-style learning becomes more effective with reinforcements such as quizzes, tests, progress tracking, and certificates. 

Neither Kajabi or Podia offer expansive LMS features. If you know you want (or know you’ll eventually want) these features to make learning for your students more effective and increase retention, there are more advanced options on the market. 

Both Kajabi and Podia offer entry-level reinforcement options. Kajabi offers assessments and progress tracking while Podia offers quizzes, comments, and messaging.  

Both Podia and Kajabi integrate with Stripe and PayPal and offer coupon features to help you increase sales conversion. Neither charge any additional transaction fees on your sales. 

There is one caveat though: neither Kajabi or Podia can support recurring payments or run payment plans through PayPal. Any such payments would have to be accepted through Stipe. 

Podia and Kajabi also both support affiliate program management, but be sure you’ve budgeted for the correct tier to get this feature. 

In Kajabi’s affiliate feature, you can add announcements and share links through the affiliate dashboard. Affiliates can also see their clicks, form submissions, and conversions. There’s not, however, a way to share swipe copy, banners, or other assets with your affiliates through the platform. You’ll have to think outside the box for the best way to share these assets and information with your affiliates. 

Similarly, the affiliate dashboard in Podia displays the number of sales, commissions made, clicks, and conversion rates. Affiliates can use the affiliate dashboard to find their personal tracking links. 

With Podia though, similarly to Kajabi, there’s no seamless way to share content and assets with your affiliates from the dashboard. You’ll need to think of a creative way to share assets with your affiliates that is easy to manage.

• You want a basic course-website and have no plans of expanding your offerings in the future
• You’re not attached to a specific design and willing to flex your vision when met with system limitations
• You don’t have a CRM setup and have no plans of setting one up in the future
• You won’t mind setting up your business on ‘rented land’ and manually migrating when your business grows

• You’re a creator looking for a simple course website
• You have offerings like free and paid webinar, digital downloads, or simple courses with no plans to expand to a fully functional and integrated membership site
• You don’t have a CRM and plan to keep automation and interaction with your customers simple
• You’re willing to migrate off the system when your business grows