There are numerous Learning Management Systems available these days and it can get quite tough to choose from the plethora of LMS to begin your online course. Not just learners, but also the creators of courses are faced with too many options to choose from. So how does one actually decide which platform is suitable for them? There are reviews on various platforms that can be read before you freeze on the platform that you intend to be a part of.
Here, direct comparison and evaluation are done between two popular platforms - Kajabi and Teachable, on various factors, thereby making it easier for you to understand which platform is more apt for you based on your requirements. These two LMS platforms are market leaders and each platform differs on the basis of what they offer, how they are priced, and many other factors.
Kajabi Vs Teachable 2020: Which Is Better? (In-Depth Comparison)
Kajabi Vs Teachable: Overview
KajabiKajabi is an online learning platform that enables people to host their online programs as well as deliver them in a professional way to the students. Furthermore, it can be used to create a website that is completely developed, creates a blog, develops marketing funnels, along with automating email marketing. This ensures that one need not make use of many services of the plugin to create and run their online course business.
It is essential to remember that Kajabi isn't a marketplace like other platforms like Udemy and this gives you total control over the pricing, policies, and data of students. This site helps in creating a beautiful website inclusive of blogs for your brand.
TeachableTeachable is also a Learning management system provider. It is a good platform for bloggers, online educators, as well as other creative people who wish to develop and sell courses. Ankur Nagpal founded this LMS provider and it was known as Fedora previously.
Teachable can be used to create membership sites. Around 22,000 teachers are part of this platform and have created more than 34,000 courses for students across the world. Teachable enables people to create professional online courses that can be taught to people. Through Teachable one can create beautiful websites with the numerous options offered - video courses or PDF training.
Kajabi allows the creator to add audio, text, video, pdfs, quizzes, and the like, to the courses. The content can be uploaded easily and it can be structured into a course with the help of course builder. This enables the creator to add posts - lessons, as well as modules -categories to the course, and this, can be rearranged easily just by the feature of drag and drop. The third level of sub-categories also can be added and this makes the course structure more flexible.
Content can be added individually or in bulk, either from your desktop or even from Google Drive or Dropbox. On clicking the lesson title which is on the page of the curriculum, you are led to the lesson page wherein videos or assessments can be added, you can add download files, modify the comments area, etc. Also, the settings for publishing can be changed, a drip schedule can be defined, prerequisite lessons can be set, etc. through the course builder.
Teachable also has unlimited video hosting. It comes with a course builder wherein you can drag-and-drop the lessons as well as modules to the course structure. In contrast to Kajabi, here you can add just two levels to the course. The lessons can be added individually or even in bulk. The course builder on Teachable is user friendly than Kajabi. So, lessons can be selected in bulk in the curriculum area, settings for the downloads can be modified easily, etc. or they can also be deleted on your curriculum page, in contrast to Kajabi, where you have to visit individual lesson pages so as to change the settings and delete lessons.
You can also add different types of content like pdf, video, quiz, etc, to any lecture and in any order, in contrast to Kajabi, which does not have such flexibility as you cannot add 2 videos in a lesson either can you add a video and quiz in one lesson.
The best thing regarding the course player design on this platform is that about 10+ course themes are offered and a unique theme can be chosen based on your offerings. Irrespective of your site being a membership one or a library of some standalone content or an online course, there is a theme for everything. The themes are designed very well and the Premier Theme is one of the best course player themes amongst all online course platforms in the marketplace. The design is clean and video thumbnails can be displayed in your curriculum area which gives it an elegant look. Navigation between lessons and modules is quite easy.
Overall your courses get a very premium appearance and feel. Another theme worth considering is the Momentum theme - it has a traditional design and the navigation is on the left, whereas the content area lies on the right. Any element in the theme can be customized as well which is appreciated. This platform enables users to access the course on their mobile devices. Kajabi supports Android as well as iOS.
The course player of Teachable is quite user-friendly, navigation is easy and lies on the left. Users can check their progress easily. The actual content will appear on the right. But, the course player here has just one default theme and this might not be applicable in case you are creating a membership site
where you do not wish to have the same these as your evergreen online course. The theme elements cannot be customized. Though users can access Teachable on a web browser on their phone, the Teachable app is just for iPhone users.
Kajabi enables you to add the native comment area in your lessons. It sits right below your content in any lesson and this area can be used by students to ask you any questions or even leave some feedback. Also, you can create a community forum on this platform. Your members are able to access those communities that they are associated with. The community forum has a very modern, clean, and unique design.
The members can also take part in an ongoing discussion or they could begin a new discussion. Private messages can be sent by members to other members or the admin. As an admin, you can keep creating topics for discussion which appear on the members' feed, and you could pin any post or even send announcements to the members.
Now, this platform does not have the option to create community forums. You will have to make use of external solutions such as Mighty Networks, wherein students have to sign up, create logins, and this not a great experience.
The admin has the option of adding a comment area in the lessons where the members can leave feedback or ask questions.
Price is a very important factor that aspiring course creators focus on when they choose any LMS. Let us look into the pricing of both these platforms.
Now, this platform is expensive than Teachable. The reason behind this is that it offers more marketing tools, many customizable options and it has a very robust nature. The cost includes many features that one would be paying for individually on other platforms and this makes the pricing of Kajabi appear to be a little deceptive. This platform offers you a 14-day trial.
Mentioned below is the monthly vs. annual price of Kajabi
This is for those who are conscious regarding their budget. However, while comparing platforms, make sure you include the costs which must be paid extra for various marketing tools. Teachable offers a long-term plan free as well
Pro: Cost is $4,788 which comes to $399/month Price structure when you opt for annual payment: Basic: Cost is $1,428 which comes to $119/month
Kajabi has Assessments which enable the creator to design quizzes and surveys related to the courses. You could opt for multiple-choice questions, paragraph style questions, or the like. This also comes with file upload question which is used for accepting students assignments.
Professional: Cost is $1,188 which comes to $99/monthThe best part is that images can be added to questions and basic formatting is possible. Furthermore, the passing grade can be set for the students and their responses can be automatically evaluated. With the Assessment feature, marketing quizzes can be created based on which lead can be collected and website visitors can be segmented. This feature is very flexible. It does not support any advanced features of quizzing such as randomization, importing questions, etc. Kajabi is more elegant in contrast to Teachable.
Business: Cost is $5,988 which comes to $499/monthTeachable also enables the creator to create quizzes along with grading the students automatically. But, quizzes can consist only of multiple-choice or multiple-option questions. There is no feature of file upload and hence you will not be able to accept student assignments or survey them. One more limitation here is that the questions can only include text, and no formatting is possible, and no images can be added. This platform too doesn't support advanced features related quizzing like randomization or importing questions.
Price structure when you opt for annual payment:At present, Kajabi doesn't enable the content creator to create any completion certificates and hence you cannot send across certificates of completion to your students. You may have to make use of external solutions such as Accredible or Google Slides to create certificates, post which you need to automate the process by using Zapier.
Basic: Cost is $348 which comes to $29/monthOn the other hand, Teachable enables the creator to develop certificates of completion inherently on its platform. A certificate can be added to a particular course and once your students complete the course they will automatically receive the certificate. At present, it offers 3 certificate templates, each one having a very professional design. Also, many elements on the templates can be modified and customized. In case you are well-versed with liquid or HTML coding, you could build a personal template as well.
Professional: Cost is $948 which comes to $79/monthThis platform lets you set some prerequisite lessons for a module, wherein unless the user completes this pre-requisite lesson, they will not get access to that module. In case the pre-requisite lesson also has an Assessment that needs a specific passing grade, then the student has to pass the quiz prior to accessing the module.
Business: Cost is $4,788 which comes to $399/monthIn case they fail to clear the quiz, they cannot access the module. Content can be dripped on a specific date or as per student enrollment. Emails can be sent to students automatically regarding the availability of new content and Kajabi enables customization of default time to drip the content.
Teachable enables the creator to lock their content, however, it works differently. Compliance is being enforced at the course level and there are three options to select from. For instance, if you choose the 'Enforce Lecture Order', then the user has to progress through all lectures that are part of the course in a specific order. Even quiz completion compliance can be enforced. The interesting part is the 'Enforce Video Watching' which is offered on Teachable wherein students must watch about 90% of the videos created by you before they get marked as complete. Teachable has restrictive course compliance.
When Video Watching or the Quiz Completion compliance is enabled, Lecture Order one gets enforced automatically. Teachable allows you to drip content based on enrollment or on a certain date. Emails can be automatically sent to students on the availability of any new content, however, Teachable does not have the option of customizing the default time for content dripping.
Students' progress, as well as the performance of videos related to the course, can be tracked on Kajabi. Even metrics such as course completion rates, video engagement, quiz scores, play rate, etc. can be tracked. In Kajabi, the stats are available on individual videos and you have to check each video. Aggregated video stats for your whole course cannot be checked. You will have to visit different areas on the dashboard to check different information and reports. Completion rates can be checked only at the student or lecture level.
Teachable has extensive tools for course reporting in contrast to Kajabi. You can check the completion rates not just at the course level but also at the lecture level and student level. The tracking of the performance of all videos can be done on one page itself. Teachable enables you to see the aggregated video statistics for your entire course.
All the reports can be accessed on a single place on the course dashboard. Analyzing different course metrics, as well as viewing insights is much better on Teachable than on Kajabi.
Kajabi has a single step process of checkout wherein the personal data of the user is entered and the payment gets completed on just one page. Kajabi makes it easy to develop a checkout page that is highly converting for all your online courses. There are many options offered to build as well as customize the checkout page. You could add a logo, add an introductory video, testimonials, a badge depicting money-back guarantee, offer details, etc., to the checkout page. The creator will have total control of the information that you wish to collect from users.
There are plenty of handy conversion tools as well. The feature of an abandoned cart enables you to track those who have left the checkout page without finishing the purchase and send them an automated email on follow up. Currently, Kajabi does not handle EU VAT and external solutions on sales tax management such as Quaderno or external solutions on checkout pages such as ThriveCart will have to be used.
Teachable also has a similar checkout process like Kajabi where the payment is completed on one page. The checkout design is well-optimized and unique on Teachable. You can add customized elements to the checkout page like the badge on a money-back guarantee, testimonials, features or benefits in bullet points, etc. However, it isn't as flexible as Kajabi. You can't add any promo video or image to the checkout page.
You also do not have control over the information that you want to collect from users. You cannot add any order bump on the checkout page to your offer, unlike that on Kajabi. Teachable also does not have the feature of tracking abandoned carts. But, it offers inbuilt support to handle EU VAT digital tax, based on the location of the customer.
Student Experience
Kajabi Cons
KajabiTeachable Cons
TeachableSo, this article would have given you a clear picture of both these platforms and their offerings and how they could help your business. Kajabi is a good choice in case you wish to have all the tools required for your online course business under one roof, or if you wish to create a membership site or sell a subscription and when the budget is not a major issue for you. On the other hand, Teachable is a good option for you in case you have an existing website and just need a platform for hosting and delivering your courses.
It is also good for those who have a tight budget. It allows adding of authors, sharing of revenue, and also pays them automatically in case you use this gateway. Hope this guide helps you decide on the platform which will suit your business well.
- It offers more than 10 well-designed themes along with many customization options with respect to the course player.
- It offers very powerful engagement tools such as community, automation, assessment as well as assignments
- It has an app which is compatible with iOS and Android
- It enables the creator to create a full-fledged website and blog.
- It offers flexible pricing as well as payment options related to recurring subscriptions.
- It comes with a sales pipeline builder that is inbuilt and also has email marketing tools.
- It Offers live chat support 24/7
- It offers content dripping
- You can add 2 videos or a video and image in a single lesson on this platform
- The course player here has many themes
- You can create a community forum
- It has the feature of tracking abandoned carts
- It does not handle the EU VAT digital tax.
- You cannot create certificates of completion
- Completion rates can be checked at 2 levels only- lecture and student
- Aggregated video stats for your whole course cannot be checked
- It permits you to create completion certificates natively.
- The platform has its iOS app.
- It has good tools for course reporting as well as for analytics.
- It takes care of the EU VAT digital tax.
- It Supports Apple Pay as well as Google Pay
- It is very flexible and has a beginner-friendly pricing
- Completion rates can be checked at 3 levels- course, lecture, and student.
- The tracking of the performance of all videos can be done on one page itself.
- You see the aggregated video statistics for your entire course.
- All the reports can be accessed on a single place on the course dashboard.
- It does not support Android
- The course player here has just one default theme
- You cannot create a community forum
- there is no feature of tracking abandoned carts
