I get this question a lot, should I use Kajabi?
The answer is quite possible, but let’s make sure!
But before I dive into the detailed answer, let me tell you a little story….
It was not that long ago that I was where you are. Wondering if there was a better way to work smarter, not harder and help more people. This realization can to me when I began to notice that I was covering and doing a lot of the same things over and over again with new clients. Since I only take on a limited amount of clients per quarter and didn’t love disappointing people I had to turn away I began to look for a solution. The answer came to me as I drifted off to bed one night – online courses! That was it! I could take all that was in my brain and distill it into something that was effective and simple to go through at their own pace! So I said to myself this would be a cinch, right?! HA! Definitely not…reality check time.
The truth is when you decide to dive into knowledge economy you realize how much you don’t know about selling things online, at least that was where I was 3 years ago. I did my due diligence and I thought I made the right decision with a platform and it turned out that cheaper is not always better and I chose badly. So I did what any good entrepreneur does and I asked for help. Luckily my business mentor had found Kajabi shortly before my plea for help and rescued me before I got in too deep with the “wrong platform.” Have you ever been there? Weighed all your options, pulled the trigger, and then went son of a b*?! Well the good news is that you are not alone and my goal for today’s post is to help you illuminate the options so you can make the best decision for your business and decide if Kajabi is indeed the right choice for you.
For those of you who are not familiar with Kajabi it is the (in my opinion) premier platform for selling your knowledge online, but that doesn’t mean it is right for YOU so I am going to break it down by telling you the pros, the cons, and compare it to WordPress which is the best open source platform for websites and LMS (aka courses and membership sites)
The way I like to describe the difference between Kajabi and WordPress is through a food analogy.
Have you ever been to a brazilian restaurant? I hope so and if not, read this post and then find your closest one, I promise you will thank me! I digress… at these amazing restaurants, you can choose from a million and one combinations of salads, vegetables, and meat – oh the meat! Bottom line: the world, er the food is your oyster – that is how I think of WordPress. It is at its core, an open source platform that will let you do whatever your heart desires.
Now picture a chef’s menu at a top restaurant in town, you know those places, you get amazing food that tantalizes your tastebuds, but there’s basically no chance you can swap something out or add some flexibility to the food offerings unless the Chef says so – that is Kajabi. Amazing quality, but with its limitations.
At the end of the day, both of them enable you to get fed aka have a website, but one takes a bit more love and attention and the other can allow you to for lack of a better phrase, “set it and forget it.”
So now that you are hungry (sorry) here are the pros and cons of these two platforms:
Kajabi
Pros:
- Out of the box functionality
- Seamless integration with Stripe
- Easily allow for one time or recurring subscriptions
- Pipelines to help you go from landing page to opt in to engagement and or sale
- They just launched events pipeline to let you do webinars and even integrate with Zoom from within the platform (huge!)
- Monthly updates to improve and expand functionality
- Great 24/7 customer service
Cons:
- Has some limitations with rich text emails
- Has some limitations with build outs and sales funnels
- Can be a little bit pricy for someone who doesn’t have a cash cushion or money flowing in yet
Cost: Plans start at $129/month – but since I am a Kajabi Expert, you can test drive it for 28 days free here!
WordPress
Pros:
- Flexible. Unlimited in what you can do, integrate, and build
- A plethora of plugins for opt-in and membership sites or courses or really anything you would ever want or need
- Very SEO friendly (google and WordPress have a real and deep relationship)
Cons:
- You have to monitor it yourself or hire someone to do WP Maintenance.
- There are frequent updates to the core of WP as well as plugins, themes, etc. that must be managed, updated, and monitored
- You have to do the security stuff yourself
- In addition, you have to self host it (I recommend either Siteground or Dreamhost)
- You may have to buy plugins to get maximum functionality out of it for eBooks, courses, and white papers/guides. There are some free ones, but in my experience the Pro (paid) versions are best.
- Not particularly intuitive or user friendly
- No direct support, only forums, which is why I recommend you hire a professional or have some dev experience.
Cost: “Free” – you just pay hosting and for any plugins or themes you want (+ any cost to hire someone to help) so I would budget around $500/year to start.
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Now if you are wondering if I use Kajabi or if I am just blowing smoke up your you-know-what here’s the low-down.
I not only use Kajabi personally, but I am also a Kajabi Expert resource and work with many Kajabians to help them set up their own Kajabi ecosystem so they can focus on growing their business, not wasting time learning a new platform (insert our Kajabi Made Simple services).
I have a real and deep relationship with both Kajabi and WordPress. I use Kajabi for Golden Key University and I use WordPress for yours truly.
Why do I have two you might ask? The answer is simple. I love the flexibility of WordPress for my main website and I love the effortlessness of Kajabi for my Free Guides, eBooks, and online programs.
So here’s how you can decide if Kajabi is right for you:
Ask yourself which is more important, fully custom/flexible platform or streamlined with a few limitations.
Don’t get me wrong, both platforms have limitations, but the real deciding factor should be how much upkeep and flexibility do you want in your site, courses, etc. If technology and all of the moving parts makes your palms swear, then Kajabi is for you. If you love a challenge and don’t mind it taking a bit longer to get where you want to go, then wordpress may be your jam.
The bottom line is Kajabi makes running an online digital product business a breeze and the best all-in-one solution bang for your buck.
I highly recommend it to my clients, but only you can decide if it is ultimately the right fit for you!
If you need more help fleshing this out and deciding, you can always shoot us an email and we’ll see how we can help!
p.s. Kajabi does this amazing weekly webinar that I recommend for anyone who is getting into the digital product/program/course space! Check it out and register below.
