We make Drry, one of the alternatives below, so read accordingly. Most "best alternatives" posts are written by one of the vendors and pretend otherwise; we would rather tell you in the first line and then earn your trust with the rest of the page. Every claim here is qualitative on purpose, prices and fee structures change, so verify current terms before you commit to anything, including us.
First, credit where due: Kajabi is a genuinely capable all-in-one course-and-marketing suite. Funnels, email sequences, a website, a blog, a podcast, and courses all live under one roof, and for an established course business that actually uses all of it, that consolidation is the whole point. If people are searching for alternatives, it is usually for structural reasons: Kajabi has a high entry price and no free plan, community is a bolt-on rather than the heart of the product, and payments come with a catch. Kajabi's 0% transaction-fee claim requires its in-house processor, which keeps your billing locked inside Kajabi; bring your own processor and you pay a platform fee instead. If those are your frustrations, here is the honest field, including us. For a feature-by-feature look at just the two of us, see Drry vs Kajabi.
Drry: the fee-free, community-first one (ours)
Our product, so treat this section as a pitch with the numbers you can check. Drry is a paid-community platform for coaches: community feed, video courses, audio, member emails, and funnels in one branded space, at your own address like grace.drry.com or your own custom domain on paid plans. Where Kajabi puts marketing at the center and treats community as a feature, we do the reverse.
- Best for: coaches who want a living community with courses and email built in, without paying a suite-level bill for a website builder, blog, and podcast host they will barely touch.
- Pricing structure: a genuinely free plan (100 members, 5 GB, unlimited courses, one funnel, no card), then flat subscriptions at $29 (Creator) and $99 (Growth) a month. 0% of member payments on every plan; money flows through your own Stripe account, so your billing is never locked to us.
- What you give up:Kajabi's heavyweight marketing surface. There is no sprawling website builder, no blog, and no podcast hosting; the ecosystem is younger with fewer third-party integrations. If your business is a full marketing machine, not a community, we are the wrong tool.
Skool: the focused-community one
Skool went the opposite direction from Kajabi: one community, one course area, one calendar, strong gamification, and almost no feature sprawl. If Kajabi feels like too much surface area, Skool is the minimalist answer, and its leaderboards and points are genuinely good at driving engagement.
- Best for: coaches who want a dead-simple community plus courses with built-in gamification and no interest in funnels or a marketing stack.
- Pricing structure: a single flat monthly fee, but with a transaction fee on every member payment on top, and no free plan.
- What you give up: landing pages and funnels (you bolt on a page builder), native email marketing, and your own brand, since everything lives on skool.com rather than your domain.
Teachable: the course-first one
Teachable is what most people picture when they think "online course platform": a clean course builder, checkout, and student management, simpler and cheaper to start than Kajabi. It is course-centric to its core, which is both the appeal and the limit.
- Best for: creators whose product really is the course, who want to publish and sell without learning a whole marketing suite.
- Pricing structure: paid plans that start below Kajabi, with a limited free tier and transaction fees on the cheaper plans that fall away on the pricier ones.
- What you give up:community. Teachable's community and discussion tools are thin next to a real feed, so if member connection is the point rather than the content, it will feel bolted on.
Podia: the friendly all-in-one one
Podia is the approachable, lower-cost take on Kajabi's everything-in-one pitch: courses, digital downloads, a simple website, email, and checkout, wrapped in an interface that does not intimidate. It trades depth for calm, and for many solo creators that is exactly right.
- Best for: solo coaches and creators who want a gentle all-in-one that is cheaper and simpler than Kajabi and are fine trading power for ease.
- Pricing structure: flat monthly plans that undercut Kajabi, with a free-to-start option and transaction fees on the lowest tier that disappear as you move up.
- What you give up:a real community layer and marketing horsepower. The community and email tools are light, and the funnel and automation depth is nowhere near Kajabi's.
Circle: the polished-community one
Circle is probably the most refined community product in this field: clean spaces, events, courses, and a professional feel that suits established brands. If your Kajabi frustration is specifically that community is an afterthought, Circle is the premium fix.
- Best for: creators and companies who want a premium, design-forward community and are happy to pay a real subscription for it.
- Pricing structure: paid plans only (after a trial), with a platform transaction fee on member payments on every plan that shrinks on the pricier tiers, and no free plan.
- What you give up:a free entry point and, because of the fee, a platform that grows its cut alongside your revenue. Seeing each member's activity and the deepest analytics sit on the top tier.
Mighty Networks: the events and cohort one
Mighty Networks bundles communities, courses, and a notably strong live-events layer, with its own mobile apps and a philosophy built around member connection and cohorts. If Kajabi's webinars and events feel secondary, Mighty puts gatherings front and center.
- Best for: coaches whose model centers on live events, cohorts, and challenges rather than a static content library.
- Pricing structure: paid plans only (after a trial), with a platform transaction fee on every plan that shrinks on pricier tiers.
- What you give up: simplicity. The surface area is large and takes real setup, member email leans on a built-in integration on higher plans rather than fully natively, and the deeper analytics sit on higher tiers.
How to actually choose
If you want the side-by-side version of this with every dimension laid out, our comparison hub covers each of these platforms against Drry in detail, and Drry vs Kajabi is the head-to-head on price, community, and payment portability. Same disclosure, same rules: qualitative claims, verify current terms.
Questions coaches ask
Is Kajabi worth it?
If your business genuinely runs on Kajabi's whole marketing suite, funnels, email automation, a website, a blog, a podcast, and courses, in one place, then the price can pencil out because you are replacing several tools. If you mostly want a home for members and a place to sell a course or two, you are renting a lot of machine you will not use. The suite is the value; if you would leave most of it switched off, an alternative will almost always cost less and feel lighter.
What is the cheapest Kajabi alternative?
Among real platforms, Drry is the only one on this list with a genuinely free plan (100 members, 5 GB, unlimited courses, one funnel, no card), and we make Drry, so verify that claim yourself rather than taking our word. Podia and Teachable both start well below Kajabi's entry price, and Skool is a single low monthly fee. The catch on several of these is a transaction fee on member payments, so the sticker price is not the whole story: a percentage or per-payment cut can cost more than a higher flat subscription once you are actually earning.
Can I move my Kajabi courses to another platform?
There is no one-click export that recreates a Kajabi site somewhere else. In practice a move means downloading your videos and assets, rebuilding your courses and pages on the new platform, and pointing your domain and email list at the new home. The bigger friction is payments: if you used Kajabi's in-house processor your billing lives inside Kajabi, so moving means re-subscribing members through your own processor. Communities and course libraries under a few hundred members usually complete a move in a week or two.
Does Drry really take 0% of member payments?
Yes, on every plan including free. Member payments run through your own Stripe account, so only Stripe's standard processing fee applies and the customer relationship belongs to you, not us. That is our business model being different, not us being charitable: we charge a flat subscription ($0, $29, or $99 a month) instead of a cut of your revenue, and your billing is never locked to us because it never left your Stripe account.