Systeme.io vs Kajabi for solo course creators (2026)

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Pricing side by side

All prices are in US dollars, taken from systeme.io/pricing and kajabi.com/pricing on 19 October 2026. Vendors change prices often, so check before you buy.

The headline difference is stark. Kajabi Basic billed annually costs $143 a month, which is $1,716 a year. Systeme.io Startup billed monthly costs $17 a month, or $204 a year, and gives you twice as many contacts (5,000 against 2,500). Even Systeme.io Unlimited, at $97 a month, costs less than Kajabi Basic on either billing option.

Payment fees: the part people miss

Neither platform takes a percentage of your revenue as a platform fee, but how you take payments still matters.

Systeme.io

You connect your own payment processor. Systeme.io lists Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Razorpay, Flutterwave, Mercado Pago, Xendit and cash on delivery, and says all plans have 0% transaction fees. You pay only your processor's own fees.

Kajabi

Kajabi pushes its own processor, Kajabi Payments. For US entities its card rate is 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.8% + 30¢ on Growth and 2.7% + 30¢ on Pro, and rates vary by country. If you're in a region where Kajabi Payments is offered but you use another processor instead, Kajabi adds its own fee on top of that processor's: 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth and 0.5% on Pro. PayPal is excluded from that extra fee, according to Kajabi's pricing page.

So on Kajabi Basic with, say, Stripe directly, $5,000 a month in sales would carry an extra $100 a month in Kajabi fees on top of Stripe's charges. Using Kajabi Payments avoids that surcharge, but ties you to Kajabi's processor. Our arithmetic, from the published rates.

Limits that matter for a solo business

Contacts

Contacts are usually the limit that pushes you up a plan. Systeme.io gives 2,000 free, 5,000 on Startup, 10,000 on Webinar and unlimited on Unlimited. Kajabi gives 2,500 on Basic, 25,000 on Growth and 100,000 on Pro, and sells extra contacts in blocks of 25,000 for $125 a month. If your list is growing fast but revenue isn't yet, Systeme.io stays cheap for much longer.

Courses and products

Systeme.io counts courses: 1 free, 5 on Startup, 20 on Webinar and unlimited on Unlimited. Its free plan also caps you at 500 students, according to its pricing FAQ. Kajabi counts products: 5 on Basic, 50 on Growth and unlimited on Pro. If you sell lots of small offers such as mini-courses or templates, Kajabi Basic's 5-product cap can bite early.

Websites, communities and team seats

Kajabi includes 1 website and 1 community on Basic and Growth, and 3 of each on Pro, with unlimited funnels, landing pages and access groups on every plan. Admin users go from 2 on Basic to 11 on Growth and 26 on Pro. Systeme.io handles extra brands differently: every plan lets you create unlimited sub-accounts, each with the same limits as your main plan at no extra cost. For a solopreneur testing a second niche, that's a very cheap way to run two businesses side by side.

What you get beyond the basics

Systeme.io

Systeme.io is built around sales funnels and email. Its pricing page lists:

• Sales funnels with 1-click upsells, order bumps, A/B tests and deadline funnels
• Email campaigns, newsletters, automation rules and workflows
• Online courses, communities and a blog
• A booking calendar with Google Calendar integration
• A mobile-friendly link-in-bio page
• Physical products and shipping management
• Evergreen webinars on Webinar and Unlimited
• Your own affiliate programme, plus 24/7 email support

The free plan is limited (1 automation rule and 1 email campaign, for example), but it's enough to build a lead magnet funnel, a small course and a welcome email.

Kajabi

Kajabi positions itself as a premium all-in-one for experts. Its plan comparison lists:

• Courses, cohort courses, communities and access groups
• Unlimited funnels, landing pages and marketing emails
• Video transcriptions and translations, and a Kajabi customer app
• Affiliate programmes for your own products, checkout pages and a custom domain
• Advanced automations, webhooks and third-party integrations
• AI features including a universal inbox and comment-to-DM, with 0, 500 or 1,000 AI credits a month on Basic, Growth and Pro
• A branded mobile app on Pro, which Kajabi values at $199 a month, plus an API

Kajabi's comparison table doesn't make every per-plan feature clear in its summary, so check the full table on kajabi.com if one feature decides it for you.

Which one fits your business?

Choose Systeme.io if

• You haven't sold much yet and want to validate an offer on a free or $17 plan
• Your business runs on lead magnets, funnels and email sequences
• Your list is growing faster than your revenue, since contacts are cheap here
• You want booking, a link-in-bio page or physical products in the same tool
• You'd like to run a second brand with a free sub-account

Choose Kajabi if

• You already earn enough that $143 to $179 a month is a small share of revenue
• Student experience and polish matter a lot to your premium programme
• You want built-in AI tools, cohort courses and comment-to-DM marketing
• You'll want a branded app in the App Store later (Pro plan)
• You value a 30-day money-back guarantee while you move over

Consider something else if

Courses are your only product and you want a dedicated course platform with lower fixed costs than Kajabi: compare Teachable vs Podia. If you mainly want a newsletter that sells a few products, Kit is the stronger email tool; see Systeme.io vs Kit. And if you sell mostly from social media, Beacons pairs a link-in-bio store with email.

How each fits into a lean solo stack

With Systeme.io: it can be the whole backbone at $0 to $17 a month: funnel, email, course and booking. Add a design tool such as Canva, a scheduler like Metricool to promote, and Descript for editing lesson videos. That's the core of our coach stack and the $0 and $50 budget stacks.

With Kajabi: it replaces several tools, so you mainly add content creation (video editing, design) and perhaps Make or Zapier for anything its integrations don't cover. The bill starts at $143 a month for Kajabi alone, so it fits our solopreneur tech stack only once revenue supports it.

Verdict

For most solo course creators and coaches, Systeme.io wins on value. Its free plan lets you launch without a bill, its paid plans top out below Kajabi's cheapest plan, and it charges no transaction fees. Kajabi is the better pick for an established expert who wants a premium student experience, AI features and a branded app, and who earns enough that the price is a rounding error. A practical path is to start on Systeme.io, prove your offer, and only move to Kajabi if you hit a limit that genuinely costs you sales.

Read more: Systeme.io review · Teachable review · Podia review

Sources: systeme.io/pricing (page dated April 2026) and kajabi.com/pricing, both checked 19 October 2026. Kajabi card rates are its published US rates. Fee examples are our own arithmetic from those published figures. We haven't been paid by either company for this comparison.