When it comes to online course creation, Podia and Kajabi are two of the most well-known and established options.
Both are excellent platforms with an all-in-one style that allows those looking to create their online courses to find everything they need in one place.
That being said, both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses that are sure to make a difference when it comes to choosing which online course platform you would rather use.
In this article, we are going to be comparing both Kajabi and Podia so that you will be able to decide as to which online course creation platform is best suited for you!
Let’s begin with a quick overview of what Podia Vs Kajabi are and how they work.
What Is Podia?
Podia is an all-in-one platform for selling online courses, memberships, and digital downloads.
It allows creators, entrepreneurs, and small business owners to create and sell their products online without the need for any technical or design skills.
The Main Features Of Podia
- Online courses: Create and sell online courses with videos, text, and multimedia.
- Memberships: Offer exclusive content and resources to members through a membership site.
- Digital downloads: Sell digital products such as e-books, printables, and software.
- Landing pages: Create custom landing pages with no design or coding skills required.
- Email marketing: Build and manage email lists, create automated email campaigns, and send newsletters.
- Payment processing: Accept payments from customers through multiple payment gateways, including PayPal and Stripe.
- Integrations: Connect with other course creation tools and online course platforms, such as Zapier, ConvertKit, and more.
- Customer management: Manage customer information and keep track of sales with the built-in CRM system.
- Site builder: Create and customize a website for your online business with the drag-and-drop website builder.
What Is Kajabi?
Much like Podia, Kajabi is also an all-in-one platform for creating, marketing and selling online courses.
It provides tools for building custom landing pages, email marketing, and payment processing, making it a complete solution for online businesses.
The Main Features Of Kajabi
- Course creation: Create, upload, and sell courses with video lessons, multiple-choice quizzes, and other interactive elements.
- Landing pages: Build custom landing pages with drag-and-drop tools to promote and sell your courses.
- Email marketing: Automate email marketing campaigns and trigger messages based on user behavior.
- Membership sites: Create and manage member-only content and community forums.
- Customizable design: Choose from pre-designed themes and templates, or use CSS and HTML to create a unique look for your site.
- Marketing integrations: Integrate with popular marketing and payment tools, such as Google Analytics, Zapier, and Stripe.
- Analytics: Track student progress and measure the success of your courses and marketing campaigns with detailed analytics.
The Similarities Between Podia And Kajabi
Now that we have an idea of what Podia and Kajabi are and how they function as online course creation platforms, let’s take a look at the similarities between the two platforms.
- Course creation and hosting: Both allow you to create and host your online courses and digital products. The platforms offer drag-and-drop course builders, making it easy for users to create and organize their course content. Users can upload video, audio, and written content, and include quizzes, surveys, and discussion forums to increase student engagement.
- Product creation: Both platforms allow users to create and sell digital products, such as e-books, software, and printables. Users can upload files and set prices for their products.
- Marketing and sales tools: Both platforms provide marketing and all the tools to help you promote and sell your offerings.
- Membership sites: Both Podia and Kajabi have marketing features to create and manage a membership site.
- Email marketing: Both platforms offer email marketing tools to communicate with your audience and promote your courses.
- Integrations: Both Podia and Kajabi integrate with a variety of third-party tools and services to enhance their capabilities.
- Customization: Both platforms offer customization options to make your website look and feel like your own. That being said, Kajabi has a wider range of customization options for the course and product creation. Podia is more limited but has a more streamlined and user-friendly experience.
The Differences Between Podia And Kajabi
Whilst there are various similarities to be had between these two platforms, they also have certain differences, with two particular differences being the most notable.
- Features: Kajabi offers a wider range of features, including email marketing, landing pages, webinar capabilities, and a CRM system. Podia, on the other hand, focuses mainly on digital product and course creation and doesn’t have as many built-in marketing tools.
- Price: Kajabi is generally more expensive than Podia, with plans starting at $149/month compared to Podia’s $39/month or their free option.
Let’s break down both of these key differences to determine the major differences between Kajabi and Podia.
Features
Podia
Five steps are taken when setting yourself up on Podia, with each step having different features to help make the process as smooth as possible.
Step One
The first step allows you to set up your online store and has the following features:
- Integrations such as Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics.
- Customer support
- Free Migration
- Custom URLs and website building
- 22 currency choices
- 11 language choices
- Unlimited Hosting
Step Two
This is the customization section, wherein you can add your logo as well as videos, photos, and testimonials to name a few. The features here include:
- Flexible layout
- Desktop friendly layout
- Tablet and mobile-friendly layout
- Live previews that display the changes you make and how it will look for your student.
Step Three
You will start adding your products during this stage, which will mean either adding brand-new content or migrating your existing continent.
Some of the most noteworthy features of Podia can be found in this step, including the following:
- Membership options
- Unlimited products such as audio and video files, e-books, PDFS, and cheat sheets to name a few.
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Easy migration of content
Step Four
This is where you will begin marketing your course, with the following features included with Podia:
- Live chat support
- Build sales and marketing funnels
- Create marketing lists
- Migrate existing student lists
- Access to a completely customizable sales page
- The option to send newsletters
- The option to offer integrated real-time chat options for customers
- Metrics that analyze performance.
Step Five
Finally, you’re ready to start selling your course! The key features when it comes to selling your courses with Podia are:
- Embedding
- The option to create coupons for customers
- One-click upsells
- Tools to create various payment plans
- Tools for affiliate management
- The option for cross-selling products as well as pre-launching and bundling.
Kajabi
The features of Kajabi are split up somewhat differently from those of Podia, separating them into four different categories. These categories are as follows
- People
- Products
- Marketing
- Website
People
The people feature focuses on:
- Customer management tools
- Access to a comment moderation facility
- Multistep checkout page,
- Member dashboard, which allows for the individual monitoring of member activity and the viewing of customer lists
- Customer journey tracking
- The option to add new members in bulk
- Access to customer segmentation based on user behavior and “tagging”
- A facility wherein you can add new members in bulk.
Products
This section refers to the creation and/or uploading of products and with Kajabi, you get various features such as:
- The choice to upload video content that has automatic encoding
- Customizable themes (all compatible with tablets, mobiles, and desktops)
- A customer comment area
- The option to drip-feed content
- Various options when it comes to uploading content such as via Google Drive, Dropbox, or a URL.
Marketing
The marketing section offers the user the following:
- Access to customizable opt-in forms
- Analytic tools
- Email broadcasting
- Pre-made templates
- Landing page course builder
- Sales pipelines and pipeline blueprints
- The choice to host prerecorded or live webinars
- The option to set assessments for your students, which can include quizzes and homework.
Website
Last but not least, the website sections refer to everything you will need to start setting up your site and Kajabi gives you access to features such as:
- Site navigation
- Built-in blog
- Completely customizable URL, and website
- The option to migrate existing content
- Add images, logos, and more
- Generate analytics per day, per week, per month, or via promotional offers
- Unlimited number of static pages
- One log-in option for customers
- Site navigation
- Pre-built disclaimers, including a Privacy Policy and Terms of Use option, can be edited to your needs.
Pricing
Along with the general layout of the features available in both Podia and Kajabi, the other major difference is the pricing. Let’s go through the exact details when it comes to pricing with both platforms.
Podia
There are four different payment options with Podia, including a free option.
Here is what you get with each plan and how much it will cost you.
Free Plan
- Draft webinars
- Draft courses
- One download
- One coaching product
- A full website
- 8% transaction fee
- Email marketing
- Online Community
Mover Plan: $33 a month
- A full website
- Unlimited courses
- Unlimited download
- Unlimited coaching
- Chat support
- No transaction fees
- Online Community
- Email marketing
Shaker Plan: $75 a month
- A full website
- Unlimited courses
- Unlimited downloads
- Unlimited webinars
- Unlimited coaching
- Chat support
- Affiliates
- No transaction fees
- Online Community
- Email marketing
Earthquaker: $166 a month
- A full website
- Unlimited courses
- Unlimited downloads
- Unlimited webinars
- Unlimited coaching
- Affiliates
- Chat support
- Priority support
- Online Community
- Email marketing
As you can see, Podia does benefit from having a free plan (though you will still have to pay transactional fees) as well as offering tiers that each have more features than the last.
Podia offers a fair amount of content for every budget when it comes to its online course creation.
Kajabi
Kajabi is more expensive with its pricing, though what they offer is more significant in terms of content. Let’s check out the pricing plans.
Basic Plan: $149 a month
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited marketing emails
- One website
- One admin user
- 0% transaction fee
- Three funnels
- Three products
- 1,000 customers
- 10,000 contacts
Growth: $199 a month
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited marketing emails
- One website
- Ten admin users
- 0% transaction fee
- Fifteen funnels
- Fifteen products
- 10,000 customers
- 25,000 contacts
- Affiliate Program
- Advanced automation
- 24/7 chat support
- The ability to remove the Kajabi branding
Pro: $399 a month
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited marketing emails
- Three websites
- Twenty-five admin users
- 0% transaction fee
- 100 funnels
- 100 products
- 20,000 customers
- 100,000 contacts
- Affiliate Program
- Advanced automation
- 24/7 chat support
- The ability to remove the Kajabi branding
- Custom Code Editor
There is also the option of the “Enterprise” plan, which has higher limits but must be discussed with the Kajabi sales team to customize it to your needs (the price is likely to be quite steep, though!)
Final Thoughts
So there you have everything that you need to know about the main similarities and differences between Podia and Kajabi.
But how do we answer the question of which is better? Well, it all depends on your specific needs when it comes to creating your online course.
Podia is known for its ease of use and user-friendly interface, as well as for offering a wide range of customization options and integrations, making it a great choice for small businesses and individuals who want to set up a simple online store quickly and easily.
Podia’s free plan also provides a chance to set up an online course for those who would otherwise not be able to afford to do so.
Kajabi, on the other hand, is a more robust platform that offers a full suite of marketing and sales tools.
It’s ideal for businesses that are looking to scale their online operations and require a more comprehensive solution.
Kajabi is also a good choice for businesses that require more advanced features, such as email automation, lead generation, and integrations with third-party tools.
It is a more expensive choice, but it is understandable considering the nature of the platform.
Podia and Kajabi each have their strengths and weaknesses, and the best platform for you will depend on the size and complexity of your business, as well as your specific needs and requirements.
