What Is Kajabi® and What Is It Used For? A Simple Guide

But what exactly is Kajabi®?

The simplest answer is that Kajabi® is an all-in-one platform for people who want to build a business around their knowledge or expertise.

It can be used to create and sell online courses, run coaching programmes, build memberships and communities, host a website, send marketing emails, take payments and manage various other parts of an online business — all from one platform.

And that last part is important.

There are plenty of tools that can build a website. Plenty that can host a course. Plenty that can send emails or take payments.

Kajabi®'s main proposition is that you don't necessarily need separate tools to do all of those things.

Whether that's actually an advantage for your business is another question entirely.

Let's look at what Kajabi® does, what people use it for, and why someone might choose it rather than putting together their own collection of specialist software.

What is Kajabi®, in simple terms?

Kajabi® is software for creating, marketing, selling and delivering products or services based around your knowledge.

That could mean selling an online course.

It could mean running a coaching programme.

It could mean charging people for access to a membership or private community.

Or it could involve several of those things working together.

Kajabi® currently supports courses, coaching programmes, memberships, communities, digital downloads, newsletters, podcasts and websites, alongside the marketing and payment tools needed to sell them.

This is why simply describing Kajabi® as an online course platform doesn't really tell the whole story.

It certainly can be used as one.

But Kajabi® is designed to do considerably more than host course videos and lessons.

A better way to think about it is as an attempt to put much of the infrastructure required to run an online knowledge-based business in one place.

What is Kajabi® used for?

There isn't one single way people use Kajabi®.

Some businesses may use almost everything it offers. Others may use only a small part of it.

Here are some of its main uses.

1. Creating and selling online courses

This is probably what Kajabi® is best known for.

You can create an online course, organise the content into lessons and modules, upload videos and other resources, control when content becomes available and track a customer's progress through the course.

Kajabi® also supports assessments and knowledge checks, while payments, checkout, email communication and community features can be connected to the course.

That means you don't necessarily need one system to host the course, another to sell it and another to communicate with your students.

2. Running coaching programmes

Kajabi® can also be used by coaches and consultants working directly with clients.

Its coaching tools can handle areas such as programme structure, scheduling, payments, client resources and follow-up communication.

It can also connect a coaching programme with other parts of the platform — for example, providing clients with course material or community access alongside their coaching.

3. Creating memberships

If your business charges customers for ongoing access to content, support or resources, Kajabi® can be used to create a membership.

Memberships can include combinations of courses, communities, downloads and other content, with customers paying recurring subscriptions for access. Different membership levels can also be created.

For businesses trying to develop recurring rather than purely one-off revenue, this can be an important part of Kajabi®'s appeal.

4. Building an online community

Kajabi® has its own community functionality, allowing businesses to create private spaces where customers or members can interact.

These can be free, paid or incorporated into another product such as a course, coaching programme or membership.

The significant point is that the community isn't completely separate from everything else.

Access can be connected to purchases and memberships, while member profiles, billing and other elements remain within Kajabi® rather than being spread across separate systems.

5. Building websites and landing pages

Kajabi® can also host the public-facing side of a business.

You can build a website and create landing pages for particular products, offers or marketing campaigns.

That means somebody starting an online business doesn't necessarily need to build a separate WordPress, Squarespace or Wix website before they can start selling.

If organic search matters to your business, we've also looked specifically at whether Kajabi® is SEO friendly and the SEO controls and limitations you should understand.

6. Email marketing and automation

Kajabi® includes email marketing, so businesses can communicate with prospects and customers without necessarily needing a separate email platform.

More importantly, those emails can interact with other things happening inside Kajabi®.

For example, Kajabi® can automatically send particular emails when a customer takes an action — perhaps after they sign up, make a purchase or complete something. This allows businesses to create welcome emails, follow-up messages and other communications that are sent without somebody having to send each one manually.

7. Selling digital products

Kajabi® isn't restricted to courses and coaching.

It can also be used to sell digital products such as guides, eBooks, PDFs, templates and other downloadable resources.

It has also expanded into areas such as newsletters, including free and paid subscriptions and paywalled content.

So what is the real attraction of Kajabi®?

Looking at that list, you might reasonably wonder:

Couldn't I do all of those things using other software?

Yes.

And that's really the point.

Kajabi® isn't unusual because it lets you send an email or create a webpage. There are specialist platforms capable of doing both.

Its attraction is that so many different parts of the business can operate within the same system.

Imagine someone running an online coaching business.

They might otherwise have:

a website platform,

an email marketing system,

a landing-page builder,

course-hosting software,

a payment or checkout system,

a scheduling tool,

and perhaps a separate online community.

Those individual tools might each be excellent.

But they also need to work together.

Kajabi®'s proposition is essentially to replace much of that patchwork with a single connected system. That's also how Kajabi® itself currently distinguishes its platform from using multiple specialist products.

Who is Kajabi® designed for?

Kajabi® is primarily aimed at people and businesses monetising knowledge, expertise or intellectual property.

That includes people such as:

• coaches;
• consultants;
• course creators;
• educators;
• practitioners;
• subject-matter experts;
• membership businesses; and
• creators selling digital products.

Kajabi® itself currently describes its audience as including coaches, educators, practitioners, clinicians, creators and service professionals.

What these businesses tend to have in common isn't necessarily what they sell.

It's that their expertise is the product — or forms an important part of it.

When does Kajabi® make the most sense?

Kajabi® starts to become particularly interesting when you need several of the things it provides.

Suppose you want to:

sell an online programme,

take payment for it,

give customers access to training,

send them automated emails,

provide downloadable resources,

invite them into a private community,

and eventually sell them another programme.

Using separate software for every stage is perfectly possible.

But it creates more moving parts.

An integrated platform becomes much easier to justify when you're genuinely benefiting from that integration.

There's another factor too.

Some business owners prefer choosing separate software for each part of their business so they can select what they consider the best tool for every particular job.

Others would much rather have fewer systems to learn, connect and maintain.

Kajabi® is likely to be more attractive to the second group.

When might Kajabi® be more than you need?

This is the other side of the argument — and one that's easily overlooked when researching an all-in-one platform.

Imagine that all you want is somewhere to host a small online course.

Do you need an entire online-business platform?

Perhaps not.

Or perhaps you already have a successful website, an established email marketing system and a checkout process that works perfectly well.

Again, the fact that Kajabi® could potentially replace them doesn't automatically make replacing them a sensible business decision.

This is actually fairly close to our own experience.

We use Kajabi®, but we don't run our entire business through it.

Our original reason for using the platform was relatively straightforward: we wanted to create a private client portal where our clients could access training, tools and useful resources.

Years later, that's still primarily what we use it for.

We don't use Kajabi® as our main email marketing platform, we don't run all of our marketing through it, and it isn't the technological centre of our business.

That's worth mentioning because it illustrates something that can get lost when evaluating software:

The question isn't simply what a platform can do. It's which of those things you actually need it to do.

Is Kajabi® an online course platform or an all-in-one business platform?

Technically, it's both.

Kajabi® has extensive online-course functionality and can absolutely be used primarily to create and deliver courses.

But describing Kajabi® purely as an online course platform understates its broader purpose.

Its real proposition is that creating your products, delivering them to customers, marketing them, taking sales and managing customer relationships can all happen within the same platform.

That distinction matters when comparing it with alternatives.

If all you're looking for is the best way to host a course, your shortlist may look one way.

If you're looking for one platform capable of running much of an online knowledge business, it may look completely different.

Is Kajabi® suitable for beginners?

It can be.

One potential advantage for somebody starting from scratch is that Kajabi® can reduce the number of separate systems they need to choose and connect.

But there's a difference between being able to use Kajabi® as a beginner and Kajabi® being the right investment for every beginner.

Someone who is still testing an idea and doesn't yet know whether anybody will buy their product may have very different requirements from an established consultant with an audience, several programmes and thousands of customers.

So we'd be wary of making a blanket recommendation based purely on experience level.

The more useful questions are what you're trying to build, which capabilities you genuinely need and what you're prepared to spend to get them.