Choosing between Kajabi and Thinkific? Here's the real difference — and a third option most creators don't know about.
The Quick Verdict
If you've spent any time researching course platforms, you've probably landed on the same two names: Kajabi and Thinkific. They're the heavy hitters. But they're built for fundamentally different things.
Here's the simplest way to think about it:
- Kajabi is a marketing-first platform. It wants to help you sell your course.
- Thinkific is a product-first platform. It wants to help you deliver your course.
Neither is "better." The right choice depends on where you are in your business and what problem you're actually trying to solve.
| Kajabi | Thinkific | CustomerHub | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Selling & marketing courses | Building & delivering courses | Post-sale delivery, onboarding & community |
| Starting price | $71/mo (annual) | $74/mo (annual) | $40/mo (annual) |
| Free plan | No | No | 30-day free trial |
| Courses | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Community | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Website builder | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ (plugs into your existing site) |
| Email marketing | ✅ Built-in | ❌ Requires integration | ❌ (works with your existing email tool) |
| Sales funnels | ✅ Built-in | ❌ Requires integration | ❌ (not a marketing tool) |
| Client portal | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ Branded portals |
| Onboarding flows | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ Built-in |
| Integrations approach | Wants to replace your stack | API & webhooks | Full REST API + webhooks, plus native connectors for Stripe, Zapier, HighLevel, Keap & more |
| Philosophy | All-in-one | Course-focused | Post-sale focused |
Head-to-Head Breakdown
1. Course Creation & Delivery
Kajabi gives you a solid course builder with multimedia lessons, drip content, and assessments. It gets the job done, but course building isn't where Kajabi shines brightest. Marketing is. The course builder is functional, not exceptional.
Thinkific is where course creation gets serious. The builder is more intuitive, supports more content types (SCORM, multimedia, assignments, certificates), and gives you finer control over the learning experience. If your course content is complex (multiple modules, quizzes, completion tracking), Thinkific handles it better out of the box.
CustomerHub takes a different approach entirely. Instead of traditional "course builder" thinking, it delivers content through branded portals with structured learning paths. Courses, digital products, and resources all live in one clean, distraction-free member experience. It's less about building a course and more about guiding someone through a transformation.
Winner: Thinkific for raw course building. CustomerHub for guided content delivery.
2. Marketing & Sales
Kajabi dominates here. Built-in email marketing, landing pages, sales funnels, pipeline automations, and checkout pages, all under one roof. If you don't have a marketing stack yet, Kajabi gives you everything from day one. No integrations needed.
Thinkific is bare-bones on marketing. You'll need external tools for email (ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign), landing pages (Leadpages, Carrd), and funnels. Thinkific handles payment processing and basic sales pages, but the marketing muscle comes from third-party tools.
CustomerHub takes the opposite approach, and it's intentional. Instead of replacing your marketing stack, CustomerHub plugs into it. Already using ActiveCampaign for email? Keep it. Running funnels through HighLevel? Keep those too. Selling through Stripe? CustomerHub connects natively.
The philosophy is simple: you've already invested time and money building a marketing engine that works. Why rip it out? CustomerHub handles everything after the sale: onboarding, content delivery, community, engagement. Your existing tools keep doing what they do best. You get a purpose-built delivery layer without starting over.
Winner: Kajabi for built-in marketing power. But the real question is whether you want your course platform to be your marketing platform too. If you already have tools you love, forcing everything into one platform means paying for features you won't use, and losing the flexibility of tools built to do one thing really well.
3. Community Features
Kajabi added community spaces that integrate directly with your products. You get topic-based spaces, threaded discussions, and activity feeds. It works well because access is tied to your Kajabi products, no syncing across platforms. However, the community features are still relatively new and less mature than dedicated community platforms.
Thinkific offers learning communities built into the platform: profiles, @mentions, notifications, reactions, and threads. Available on mobile. It's solid for course-based discussion but more limited for standalone community building.
CustomerHub treats community as part of the member experience, not a bolt-on. Private feeds, discussion, Q&A, and events are integrated alongside your courses and onboarding flows. Members don't switch between "the course" and "the community." It's all one cohesive experience inside their branded portal.
Winner: Tie. All three are adequate. None replace Circle or Skool for pure community play. But if community is part of your program (not the whole thing), all three work.
4. Client Onboarding
Kajabi doesn't have dedicated onboarding features. You can cobble something together using automations and drip content, but there's no structured onboarding flow builder.
Thinkific is similar. No built-in onboarding. You'd need to create a "Welcome" module in your course or use external tools.
CustomerHub was built for this. Structured onboarding flows, clear next steps, automated access, faster activation. This is one of the clearest differentiators. If your business involves getting clients up to speed quickly (coaching programs, consulting engagements, agency onboarding), CustomerHub handles it natively.
Winner: CustomerHub. Not close.
5. Pricing & Value
Kajabi:
- Starter: $71/mo (annual). 1 product, 250 contacts
- Basic: $143/mo (annual). 5 products, 2,500 contacts
- Growth: $199/mo (annual). 50 products, 25,000 contacts
- Pro: $399/mo (annual). Unlimited products, 100,000 contacts
Kajabi is the most expensive option. You're paying for the all-in-one stack. If you'd otherwise need separate tools for email, funnels, website, and courses, the math can work out. But if you already have tools you like, you're paying for features you won't use.
Thinkific:
- Start: $74/mo (annual). Unlimited courses, 1 community
- Grow: $149/mo (annual). 3 communities, remove branding, analytics
- Expand: $374/mo (annual). 10 communities, white labeling, revenue sharing
Thinkific's mid-tier pricing is more accessible, but costs add up fast when you factor in the external marketing tools you'll need. The Start plan is solid for getting launched, but you'll likely move to Grow once your business takes off.
CustomerHub:
- Onboard: $40/mo (annual). Onboarding flows, filebox, digital products, community
- Educate: $65/mo (annual). Full course delivery + everything in Onboard
- Engage: $107/mo (annual). Full community features + everything in Educate
CustomerHub is the most affordable of the three, and the pricing model is simpler. No contact limits. No product caps on the higher tiers. You're paying for capabilities, not scale penalties.
Winner: CustomerHub on price. Kajabi if you need everything included. Thinkific if you want a mid-range course-first option.
6. Ease of Use
Kajabi is polished but complex. There's a lot going on: courses, funnels, emails, communities, automations, website. The learning curve is real. Expect to spend weeks getting comfortable. Kajabi University helps, but "all-in-one" also means "a lot to learn."
Thinkific is simpler because it does less. Course creation is straightforward. New creators can go from idea to published course faster on Thinkific than on Kajabi. The tradeoff is you'll be setting up and managing external tools alongside it.
CustomerHub is designed to be dead simple. Launch in minutes, not weeks. Templates, drag-and-drop, no coding. The scope is intentionally narrower (post-sale only), which keeps the experience clean and focused.
Winner: CustomerHub for speed to launch. Thinkific for course creation simplicity. Kajabi requires the most investment upfront.
7. Integrations & Flexibility
Kajabi wants to be your entire stack. It integrates with Stripe and PayPal for payments, plus Zapier for external connections. But the philosophy is "use Kajabi for everything." If you love your current email tool or funnel builder, Kajabi doesn't make it easy to keep them.
Thinkific is more open. API access, webhooks, and native integrations with tools like Zapier, ActiveCampaign, and Mailchimp. The Grow plan unlocks third-party integrations via API and webhooks. It plays nicely with an existing stack, though the deeper integrations require technical setup.
CustomerHub is where integration gets serious. Out of the box, it connects to Stripe, Zapier, Keap/Infusionsoft, HighLevel, and ActiveCampaign — so your CRM, email, and payments just work. But the real story is the CustomerHub Web API: a full REST API covering 20+ endpoint groups: pages, products, collections, onboarding, community feed, comments, goals, completions, analytics, search, media, and more.
What does that mean in practice? You could build a completely custom front-end on top of CustomerHub if you wanted to. Or sync real-time events (login, video watched, onboarding completed) to your CRM, analytics, or internal systems via webhooks. Or integrate it with any platform your business runs on. Most course platforms give you a Zapier connection and call it a day. CustomerHub gives you the building blocks to make it yours, whether that means a simple Stripe + Zapier setup or a fully custom, headless integration with your proprietary systems.
Winner: CustomerHub. Native integrations for the common tools, plus a full API and webhooks for anything custom. Thinkific has decent API access. Kajabi keeps you in its walled garden.
8. Content & Digital Product Delivery
Kajabi handles courses, coaching, podcasts, and digital downloads. Products are tied to offers, which connect to your marketing funnels. Good for knowledge entrepreneurs selling multiple product types.
Thinkific focuses on courses, communities, memberships, and live events. Digital product delivery is more limited; it's really a course and training platform at heart.
CustomerHub is built specifically for content delivery. Courses, digital products, file libraries, resource portals, all in a branded, distraction-free environment. The Filebox feature lets you deliver any type of digital content. If you sell templates, toolkits, PDFs, or resource libraries alongside courses, CustomerHub handles it cleanly.
Winner: CustomerHub for diverse digital product delivery. Kajabi for multimedia versatility. Thinkific for structured courses.
The Gap Neither Fills
Here's what most comparison articles won't tell you: both Kajabi and Thinkific are built around the sale. Kajabi helps you market and sell. Thinkific helps you build and sell. But what happens after someone buys?
That's where most creators lose people.
- Members sign up and never log in
- Course completion rates sit below 15%
- Clients churn because they never got properly onboarded
- There's no structured path from "I just bought this" to "I'm getting real results"
This is the gap CustomerHub was designed to fill. It doesn't ask you to replace what's working — it fills the space that Kajabi and Thinkific leave open. Your marketing stack stays intact. Your sales process stays intact. CustomerHub adds the missing post-sale layer where onboarding, content delivery, and community come together in one cohesive, branded experience, so your customers actually complete, connect, and succeed.
That's the difference between a platform that helps you sell a course and one that helps your customers finish it.
If you already have a way to attract and sell to customers, but you're struggling with delivery, engagement, and retention, that's the signal to look at CustomerHub instead.
Who Should Choose What
Choose Kajabi if:
- You're starting from scratch and want everything in one place
- Marketing and funnels are your priority
- You don't have (or don't want) a separate email tool, website, or funnel builder
- You're willing to pay a premium for convenience
- Your business model is primarily selling courses and memberships online
Choose Thinkific if:
- Course quality is your top priority
- You want a focused, straightforward course builder
- You already have marketing tools you love and want to keep
- You need advanced course features like certificates, SCORM, or compliance
- You're price-sensitive but still want a professional platform
Choose CustomerHub if:
- You already have a way to sell (website, email, funnels in place)
- Your bottleneck is after the sale: onboarding, delivery, engagement
- You're a coach, consultant, or program creator who needs client portals
- You want a branded, distraction-free experience for your members
- Completion rates, retention, and client success matter more than marketing bells and whistles
- You want to keep your existing stack and add a purpose-built delivery layer
FAQ
Is Kajabi worth the price in 2026?
If you genuinely need an all-in-one platform and don't have existing tools, yes. The Starter plan ($71/mo) is reasonable for new creators. But if you already have an email tool, website, and sales process, you're paying for redundancy. Most established coaches find they use about 40% of what Kajabi offers.
Can I switch from Thinkific to Kajabi (or vice versa)?
Yes, but it's painful. Course content, student data, and membership structures don't transfer cleanly between platforms. Before you commit, be honest about what you actually need long-term.
What's cheaper than Kajabi?
Both Thinkific and CustomerHub are significantly cheaper. CustomerHub starts at $40/mo with no contact limits. Thinkific starts at $74/mo. Kajabi's cheapest plan is $71/mo but limits you to 1 product and 250 contacts.
Do I need a separate website with Thinkific or CustomerHub?
Thinkific includes a basic website/site builder, so technically no — though many creators still maintain a separate marketing site. CustomerHub does not include a website builder by design. It's a delivery portal that plugs into your existing web presence.
Can I use CustomerHub alongside Kajabi or Thinkific?
Yes. Some creators use Kajabi or Thinkific for course creation and marketing but use CustomerHub as the actual delivery portal for a cleaner client experience. CustomerHub integrates via Stripe and Zapier, so it works alongside other tools.
Can developers build custom integrations with CustomerHub?
Yes. CustomerHub's Web API provides full programmatic access to pages, products, onboarding, community, completions, analytics, and more (20+ endpoint groups in total). You can sync data with external systems, trigger webhooks on real-time events, or even build a fully custom front-end using CustomerHub as the back-end. It's a real developer platform, not just a Zapier connector.
Bottom Line
Kajabi and Thinkific are both excellent platforms, for different reasons. Kajabi is the Swiss Army knife. Thinkific is the focused course builder. But if your real problem isn't "How do I sell more courses?" and instead is "How do I make sure the people who buy actually succeed?" ... that's a different problem that needs a different tool.
CustomerHub is that tool. One hub for everything after the sale.
Ready to see the difference? Start your free 30-day trial of CustomerHub. No credit card required.
