Thinkific vs Kajabi: The Unbiased Review 2024

Choosing the right online course platform can be a game-changer for your educational content - it’s a decision that directly impacts your ability to create, market, and sell your courses. In the matchup of Thinkific vs Kajabi, which platform gives you the edge?

This comparison strips away the marketing jargon to give you what you need: a straightforward analysis of both platforms’ tools for course creation, marketing automation, student engagement, pricing plans, and more. Find clarity on which service best aligns with your goals, whether you’re a budding course creator or a seasoned entrepreneur seeking advanced features.

What we will learn together:

• This article provides a comprehensive comparison between three online course platforms: Thinkific, Kajabi, and Disco. Each platform has its strengths: Thinkific is known for its affordability and ease of course creation, Kajabi stands out for its advanced marketing and sales tools, while Disco offers a modern, user-friendly platform with advanced features and excellent customer reviews.
• The platforms differ significantly in terms of pricing, customization, integration and automation, course creation capabilities, and customer support. The choice between these platforms should be based on one's specific needs, budget, technical expertise, and marketing needs.
• Disco is highlighted as a fresh and powerful alternative to Thinkific and Kajabi, offering a modern learning business platform with advanced features like intelligent automation, deep Slack integration, and an AI-powered Co-Pilot. It's also noted for its affordable pricing plan packed with world-class features.

Thinkific vs Kajabi: Key Differences

When comparing Kajabi vs Thinkific, it’s important to note that both are among the top contenders in the arena of online course platforms. Both offer robust features, but their core strengths lie in different areas. =

Thinkific is known for its focus on course creation and affordability. It provides an intuitive course builder, which is a boon for educators and new business owners who want to concentrate on their expertise rather than grappling with intricate tools.

Conversely, Kajabi stands out with its superior marketing and sales tools. It offers a comprehensive array of marketing features, tailored for experienced course creators. The platform’s sophisticated marketing options are especially beneficial for those who have outgrown basic email marketing features and are looking for more advanced tools.

Nonetheless, both platforms have their own advantages, and your selection should hinge on your unique needs. For beginners or those with a limited budget, Thinkific’s straightforwardness and cost-effectiveness could be attractive. However, Kajabi might be the ideal choice for seasoned course creators in search of a complete marketing and sales toolkit.

Other alternatives: DISCO, The Leading Platform for Communities, and online courses

Meanwhile, if you are looking for a more robust, learner-centric, and purpose-built platform that can boost your community engagement, then go for Disco. Disco is an all-in-one platform created for course creators, entrepreneurs, and consultants who want to start or scale their businesses. Like Thinkific and Kajabi, Disco is also the leading platform used by successful communities and course creators in the field.

Thinkific vs Kajabi: Course Creation Capabilities

Concerning the practical aspects of online course creation, both Thinkific and Kajabi offer an array of features for delivering online courses. Thinkific's Online Course Builder allows course creators to easily construct their curriculum, tweak course settings and set pricing to sell online courses. From multimedia content types to live lessons and coaching options, Thinkific provides various tools to create engaging and profitable online courses.

Both Kajabi, on the other hand, come with a set of advanced features that enhance the course creation process. For instance, offers a single subscription that provides all the necessary creation tools to build and expand your business. It enhances your checkout and payment experience with commerce tools and aids in product building and launching with its AI Hub.

However, it’s not just about the number of features, but also their quality and ease of use. Students have given Thinkific high marks for its intuitive course builder and user-friendly interface. Kajabi, meanwhile, stands out with its flexible layout options and easy-to-use course delivery.

Disco's Premium Learning Experience: Highly customizable course builder

On the other hand, if you're looking for a highly customizable course builder integrated with community engagement tools, then go for Disco's premium learning tool.

Disco has ready-made templates for cohort-based course creation, self-paced courses, event series, and member spaces. With Disco's powerful curriculum builder, you can create your knowledge library integrated into your social feeds for more engaging and interactive learning experiences. Not only that, you can set up payment collection for paid membership, depending on your business model.

Aside from that, Disco is also powered with AI tools such as AI writing tools, AI image generators, course cloning, and video subtitles that can speed up your course creation process. Say no more to writer's block, subscribing to stock photos, and looking for a freelancer to do the subtitle to improve your content materials.

In the end, your decision between the two platforms should be guided by your specific course creation requirements. If you’re looking for a highly customizable and powerful course builder, explore Disco as an option apart from Thinkific and Kajabi.

Thinkific vs Kajabi: Community Engagement and Experience

Crafting a captivating learning experience is fundamental to the success of any online course. Both Thinkific and Kajabi have features aimed at enhancing student and community engagement and experience. Thinkific focuses on simplicity and ease of use, providing a smooth and stress-free learning experience.

Kajabi, meanwhile, offers a more professional and customizable student experience. It provides a variety of community tools, including social feeds, assessments, customizable templates, and intuitive design tools, to create an engaging learning journey. Furthermore, Kajabi allows the creation of quizzes with multiple question types, adding another layer of interactivity to the learning experience.

Despite their varying strategies, both platforms have garnered positive feedback from students. Thinkific has been praised for its user-friendly interface and intuitive course builder, while the customization options and advanced features of Kajabi have also been appreciated.

Disco: 24 Notable Community Engagement Features

If you are aiming for a highly engaging learning experience for your learners, then go for Disco. Disco is fully packed with exceptional features for engaging your learners not just with your content, but also with their peers. Here are some of them:

• channels and DMs
• live events (product and community-wide events)
• social feeds (discussions, threads)
• custom profile feeds
• member directory
• groups and subgroups
• member management
• customizable modular blocks
• custom onboarding
• Slack integration and other tool integration

Purposely built to help every edupreneurs, course creator, and Bootcamp manager to create, sell, manage, and scale their educational businesses.

Thinkific vs Kajabi: Marketing and Sales Features

In terms of marketing and sales functionalities, Kajabi has a distinct advantage. The platform provides unique marketing features like:

• One-click marketing sequences
• Unlimited Hosting
• Custom domains
• SEO-optimized websites
• Tools for creating marketing emails
• Automation of business processes

Kajabi also integrates with a range of sales tools such as WiserNotify, ConvertKit, and HubSpot. The platform includes a Sales Dashboard, Kajabi funnels, and customer management software, offering a comprehensive toolkit for promoting and selling digital products.

In comparison, Thinkific’s marketing and sales features are relatively limited. The platform lacks conversion-focused checkout and upsell features and doesn’t offer the ability to create dedicated landing pages for marketing efforts. However, Thinkific does offer flexibility in sales capabilities and boasts a solid learning management system.

To sum up, if you prioritize marketing and sales tools for your online course business, Kajabi’s extensive feature set might cater more to your needs. However, if you’re looking for an affordable platform with simpler marketing tools, Thinkific might be a better fit.

Introducing Disco Studios: Your end-to-end partner for your learning business

Don't have the expertise to do these all? No worries! Disco Studios is an e-learning agency that covers you from migration to strategy consulting to marketing and selling online courses and building your curriculum. Disco Studios has supported a bunch of entrepreneurs, industry experts, and professionals in pursuing to teach the world with their knowledge.

Margaret Atwood who launched Practical Utopias and Roger Martin who launched his business school are just a few great examples of learning communities built and powered by Disco Studios.

Thinkific vs Kajabi: Customization and Branding

Customization and branding are fundamental to any online course platform. They allow you to personalize your courses and make your brand stand out. Thinkific provides a Branded Mobile App with customizable features suitable for businesses of various sizes. It also offers site-wide customizations like altering the site URL and name.

When comparing Kajabi vs other platforms, Kajabi provides:

• A wider array of customization options
• A greater variety of design templates, which can be helpful during the course creation process
• Pre-built templates for course creation and branding, enabling the efficient delivery of well-designed products

In a nutshell, both platforms provide a plethora of branding and customization opportunities. The choice between Thinkific and Kajabi will depend on your specific needs. If you prefer a simple and user-friendly platform with basic customization features, Thinkific could be a good fit. However, if you’re looking for more advanced customization options and a wider variety of design templates, Kajabi might be the better choice.

Disco: Custom Branding and Personalization

Disco offers exceptional customization and branding features, allowing you to create a unique and personalized learning environment that aligns with your brand. With Disco, you can customize your platform’s color scheme, logo, favicon, and even the URL. This level of customization ensures that your course platform truly reflects your brand, creating a cohesive and professional image that appeals to your audience.

As a white-label LMS, Disco provides you with the ability to create custom domain names for your platform, giving you full control over your branding. This feature not only enhances your brand's visibility but also lends a degree of credibility and professionalism to your courses. With Disco's customization features like modular blocks, you can ensure that your learning platform is not just functional, but also a true reflection of your brand.

Kajabi vs Thinkific: Integrations and Automation

The capacity of a platform to integrate with other apps and automate tasks can greatly enhance the process of course creation and management. Both Thinkific and Kajabi offer a wide range of integrations.

Thinkific integrates with a variety of:

• email and marketing apps
• conversion apps
• site design apps
• business apps

In fact, it’s compatible with over 1,500 apps through Zapier under the Thinkific App Store.

Kajabi offers advanced automation features that utilize when/then/if logic to optimize processes such as:

• Lead capture
• Contact updates
• Purchase tracking
• Marketing email distribution
• Student support management

While Thinkific’s integrations offer the advantage of quickly delivering high-quality courses with an easy-to-use interface, it lacks built-in email functionality beyond basic notifications. On the other hand, Kajabi’s automation features can reduce the need for manual intervention, making it easier to build and operate an online course business.

Disco: Intelligent Automation, Integration, and AI-powered tools

Disco stands out with its intelligent automation, offering powerful tools that streamline the process of managing an online course. The platform's automation capabilities extend to global searches, allowing users to quickly locate information from a vast database. This feature is particularly useful for course creators who need to manage large amounts of data and content.

The automation also extends to tasks such as member management, content curation, and engagement, reducing the manual workload and allowing course creators to focus on delivering high-quality content.

Moreover, Disco sets itself apart with its deep integration with Slack. This integration enables streamlined communication through bulk messaging and personalized engagement with members, enhancing the overall learning experience. Learn How to Create a Slack Group.

Adding to its unique offerings, Disco's AI-powered Co-Pilot offers functionalities like answering member questions and curating responses based on historical data. This AI assistance reduces the need for manual intervention, making it easier to manage and operate an online course business.

With Disco's intelligent automation, Slack integration, and AI Co-Pilot, course creators can enjoy a more efficient and user-friendly platform.

Kajabi vs Thinkific: Customer Support and Resources

The availability of customer support and resources is paramount when selecting an online course platform. Both Thinkific and Kajabi offer customer support, with Thinkific providing support through chat, phone, and a Help Center, and Kajabi offering 24/7 support through chat and email.

Thinkific also offers round-the-clock customer support through their chatbot called Champ. Users can initiate a chat with Champ and type ‘contact support’ to receive assistance.

In short, both platforms offer robust customer support, making it easier for users to resolve any issues they might encounter. However, the availability and quality of customer support can vary between platforms, so it’s important to consider this aspect when choosing between Thinkific, Kajabi, and other online course platforms.

Disco: The Most Hands-on Learning Platform on Earth!

One of the best features of Disco is being the most hands-on learning platform on the web and earth! Disco is full of passionate individuals who will help and assist you in creating and building your educational business to success. Read what our current customers are saying:

Apart from that, Disco offers. premium and exclusive client services for enterprises who subscribe to our plan. You don't have to do it alone. Our team is your external team to get ahead and scale your virtual academies, Bootcamps, and learning organizations!

Kajabi vs Thinkific: Pricing and Plans

Undeniably, pricing plays a significant role when selecting an online course platform. Thinkific offers a range of affordable plans, including a free plan, making it an attractive choice for beginners or those on a tight budget. These plans include features such as:

• Assignments
• Memberships
• Live lessons
• Advanced course-building options
• A fully integrated e-commerce and app store.

Kajabi’s pricing plans, on the other hand, are pricier but offer more features. Plans start at $149 per month for the Basic plan and go up to $399 per month for the Pro plan. These plans include features like 100 products and funnels, unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, and up to 100,000 contacts.

Fundamentally, your decision between Thinkific and Kajabi will hinge on your budget and the particular features you require. If you’re on a tight budget or just starting, Thinkific’s affordable plans might appeal to you. However, if you need more advanced features and are willing to invest more, Kajabi could be worth the higher price.

Disco: An Affordable Pricing Plan Packed with World-class Features

Disco offers an affordable pricing plan that is packed with world-class features, making it a cost-effective choice for your business. As an all-in-one platform, Disco centralizes your data, saving you significant operational costs.

For instance, there's no need to pay for an automation tool like Zapier, as Disco's intelligent automation features are part of the package. Moreover, you can cancel your subscription plan for stock photos because Disco has an AI image generator that you can use for free. You can also save on discussion board subscriptions as Disco has a built-in feature for that.

By consolidating these features into one platform, Disco provides a cost-effective solution for your online course business. Scale your business for only $79/ month for a starting plan!

DISCO - The #1 Alternative for Thinkific and Kajabi

While Thinkific and Kajabi are well-known options for online course platforms, Disco is another contender worth considering. Disco offers:

• Powerful automation
• Deep Slack integration
• An AI-powered Co-Pilot
• A unique learning community flywheel

Disco’s deep Slack integration offers AI-powered assistance, premium customization, streamlined communication through bulk messaging, and personalized engagement with members. The platform’s AI-powered Co-Pilot offers functionalities like answering member questions, reducing manual workload with AI-assisted member management, curating responses to member questions based on historical data, and increasing engagement.

Overall, Disco’s unique selling proposition is its dynamic curriculum builder, which supports interactive modules, quizzes, and assignments integrated into the built-in community engagement tools. This feature allows for flexibility in creating personalized learning experiences and scaling learning businesses.

If you’re looking for a modern, user-friendly platform with advanced features and excellent customer reviews, Disco could be an ideal choice for your online course business.

Factors to Consider in Making Your Decision

Deciding between Thinkific, Kajabi, and Disco can be difficult, as each platform possesses its own set of pros and cons. However, there are a few key factors to consider when making your decision.

• Consider your budget. Thinkific offers more affordable plans, including a free option, making it a good choice for those on a tight budget or just starting. Kajabi’s plans are pricier but offer more features, making it a better fit for those who need advanced features and are willing to invest more. On the other hand, Disco has the most affordable pricing considering the features that are built inside the platform.
• Consider your level of technical expertise. While all three platforms are designed to be user-friendly, Kajabi may require a higher level of technical expertise compared to Thinkific and Disco. Although Disco has the most user-friendly interface where you can learn how to navigate in a day.
• Take into account your marketing needs, preferred customization level, and the kind of student experience you aim to provide. By taking these factors into account, you can make a more informed decision about which platform is the best fit for your online course business.

Our Final Note

In conclusion, Thinkific, Kajabi, and Disco are all capable online course platforms, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Thinkific shines with its focus on course creation and affordability, making it a great choice for educators and new business owners.

Kajabi, on the other hand, is known for its advanced marketing and sales tools, making it ideal for experienced course creators. And lastly, Disco, with its modern learning business platform and advanced features, offers a fresh and powerful alternative.

When choosing between these platforms, consider your budget, technical expertise, marketing needs, and desired level of customization. Each platform has its own unique offerings, so it’s essential to choose one that aligns with your specific needs and goals.

With the right platform, you’ll be well on your way to delivering high-quality, engaging, and profitable online courses. Start by trying out Disco with a 14-day free trial, without transaction fees and credit cards.

Are you an enterprise and do you want to talk to our customer representative first? Book a demo with us and we will freely answer your questions! See you there!