Selecting a suitable learning management system (LMS) is a critical decision while creating an online course. The choice of LMS directly affects the learning experience of your students, making it imperative to choose carefully. It is essential to ensure that the LMS integrates seamlessly with your website and other platforms used, while also weighing the costs against the features provided.
Kajabi is a popular company in the online course industry that you might have come across while researching LMS options. This article provides an in-depth review of Kajabi, including a comprehensive analysis of its updated features, pricing, pros and cons, and a step-by-step guide to setting up a course on this platform.
What is Kajabi?
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that offers a complete learning management system (LMS) for hosting online courses. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools that includes website hosting, analytics, and student engagement features, resulting in a powerful and seamless learning experience.
Kajabi's higher price point is justified as it is designed explicitly for hosting online courses, making it an excellent choice for businesses that require an all-in-one platform for online teaching.
With a global reach, Kajabi has helped over 50,000 entrepreneurs in more than 120 countries deliver their courses to over 60 million students, generating revenue of over 3.5 billion through their courses.
Kajabi Features
Kajabi is a powerful all-in-one platform designed to help entrepreneurs and businesses host and market their online courses with ease. It offers an extensive range of features that make the process of creating and selling digital content seamless and straightforward. From website hosting to marketing tools and student engagement features, Kajabi provides a comprehensive solution that caters to all aspects of online course creation and delivery. This platform's intuitive interface and user-friendly tools make it a popular choice among online educators who want to focus on delivering quality content to their students, without the hassle of managing multiple tools and platforms.
Let's explore some of the key features of Kajabi and how they can benefit course creators and educators.
Online Course Builder
Kajabi's core function is to provide a Learning Management System (LMS) for online courses. It offers a variety of features that support the creation and delivery of digital content. Let's start by exploring Kajabi's LMS.
Depending on the subscription plan, you can host a limited number of online courses and have a cap on the number of active students you can take on. Each online course created counts as a product. Kajabi allows course creators to teach using different mediums such as text, downloadable documents, audio, and video. However, videos are limited to 4GB per lesson as Wistia hosts them. Thus, it's best to split longer videos into segments to create multiple lessons.
Your online course content can be released in several ways. Course creators can drip content based on a set schedule, make each lesson or module locked until the previous ones are completed, or release all content at once for students to choose which lessons to go through first.
Kajabi also offers live video conferencing through webinars and pre-recorded events. Course creators can sell tickets to access online events using Kajabi's automation tools. If an event is part of the online course, course creators can connect recordings to it.
For courses that require assignments, Kajabi offers different options. Course creators can create quizzes and tasks that students complete online, or they can have students upload their work. Students can upload Word Docs, PDFs, videos, or MP3s depending on the course's requirements.
Kajabi allows course creators to create quizzes and surveys easily. Surveys enable course creators to obtain clarification from students on particular course-related issues, while quizzes help assess their learning. Course creators can determine whether these assessments are graded.
There are four types of questions course creators can ask students in their assessments – multiple-choice, multiple-selection (choose all that apply), paragraph (type in your answer), and upload a document. Kajabi automatically grades multiple-choice and multiple-selection questions, while paragraph questions and uploaded documents require manual grading by the course creator.
As a educator, you can track your students' progress and grades. Students can earn badges for completing milestones and receive a certificate for completing the course.
Community
In addition to the standard features of an online course platform, communities are becoming increasingly popular as a way to enhance the student learning experience. While Facebook groups are a common choice for hosting these communities, Kajabi offers its own built-in community feature as an alternative. The community is treated as a separate product that can be offered to students as a bonus or sold separately.
Kajabi's community feature provides a central location for students to connect and engage with each other and the instructor. This can help keep everything related to the course in one place and minimize distractions from external social media platforms. The community allows users to post announcements, videos, images, and links, and interact with each other through likes and comments. All of these posts appear on the community feed, which can be easily navigated like any other social media platform.
Email Marketing
Kajabi offers the option to grow your email list, depending on your subscription plan. You can use Kajabi's built-in email marketing platform, or you can connect with third-party email service providers like MailChimp, Drip, ConvertKit, Segment, ActiveCampaign, ClickFunnels, and Aweber. Under the pipelines tab, Kajabi offers various templates for creating email sequences that you can utilize.
Kajabi simplifies the process of implementing these templates into an effective email marketing strategy. To gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns, you can monitor essential metrics like open rates, bounce rates, and click-through rates.
Payment Process
Kajabi's integration with payment platforms such as PayPal and Stripe simplifies the payment collection process for your online course. Moreover, you can utilize third-party applications like Zapier to handle more intricate payment-related automations.
With Kajabi, you can set up different payment structures depending on your course offerings. You can create subscription plans, payment plans, or accept one-time payments for products. Additionally, during sales, you can offer discounts through coupons, bundle pricing, or limited-time offers with seasonal discounts.
Website Builder
Kajabi's website builder is a popular tool among its users, particularly for those who find website construction intimidating. Even without technical expertise, you can easily build your website using Kajabi's blocks, which stack together like legos. Moreover, Kajabi offers numerous templates that you can customize by modifying the text, images, and colors to suit your branding needs. Additionally, you can optimize your website for mobile devices such as phones and tablets, and your students can access your course using the Kajabi app.
Sales Page
To attract students to your online course, you need to have a well-designed sales funnel. And this is where Kajabi can be of great help with its customizable sales pages, opt-in forms, and lead magnets.
Kajabi offers a variety of templates for creating attractive sales pages that can capture the attention of potential students. By selecting one of these templates and customizing the branding and copy to match your business, you can quickly create a compelling offer that will help you convert visitors into paying students.
To utilize these templates, navigate to Kajabi's pipelines section, select a template that aligns with your requirements, and tailor it to match your course and brand.
Analytics
Kajabi provides a seamless integration with Google Analytics to help you track website visitors and their activities. This valuable data can be used to gain insights into your target audience and optimize your website for increased traffic. However, it's important to note that Kajabi currently only supports Universal Analytics, which will be discontinued by Google on July 1st, 2023. To ensure accurate metrics, Google encourages businesses to migrate to the newer Google Analytics 4 (GA4). While Kajabi has yet to update their integration to GA4, they plan to offer it around July 2023 when Universal Analytics is phased out.
Additional Support
Kajabi provides multiple support options if you encounter any difficulties. Firstly, Kajabi University, a collection of courses, helps you to develop your online course in the best way possible, covering all Kajabi elements from website creation to email marketing, online course building, and Google Analytics.
In addition, the Official Kajabi Hero Community Facebook group is an excellent resource with over 33,500 members. Here, you can ask questions, obtain quick assistance, and gain inspiration for your course.
Kajabi's chat support service is another option available for technical and billing support.
Kajabi Pricing Plans
Kajabi offers three pricing plans, each with different features and prices to suit different business needs.
The basic plan is called the “Basic” plan and costs $149 per month when billed monthly, or $119 per month when billed annually. It includes features such as one website, three products, unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, and 10,000 contacts.
The second plan is called the “Growth” plan and costs $199 per month when billed monthly, or $159 per month when billed annually. It includes features such as 15 products, one website, unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, 25,000 contacts, and advanced automation.
The third and most advanced plan is called the “Pro” plan and costs $399 per month when billed monthly, or $319 per month when billed annually. It includes unlimited products, three websites, unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, 100,000 contacts, and advanced features such as affiliate marketing, code editor, and the ability to remove Kajabi branding.
Each plan also offers a 14-day free trial, giving users the opportunity to test out Kajabi's features before committing to a paid plan. Kajabi also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, which ensures customer satisfaction. Overall, Kajabi's pricing plans offer flexible options that can fit the needs of different businesses and budgets.
Pros
- Kajabi's all-in-one platform eliminates the need to search for different integrations for your online course business. Its tools for email marketing, analytics, website building, and more are all compatible and work with third-party platforms.
- Course creators can easily create professional-looking pages with Kajabi's page builders and templates, making it accessible for those without technical expertise. This is particularly helpful for those who cannot afford to hire a third party to create a complex website or marketing funnel.
- Kajabi's online course builder allows you to create high-quality courses for your students. Uploading your lesson videos and audio recordings on Kajabi is hassle-free, and your students can easily access them on their phones or tablets at any time and from anywhere. With graded assessments, you can save time grading and focus on helping your students succeed.
Cons
- Kajabi is a premium course-building platform that does not offer a free plan, which may not be suitable for entrepreneurs who have limited capital. The basic plan costs $119/month if paid annually, totaling to $1,428 per year.
- Customizing pages on Kajabi requires some technical knowledge of HTML, CSS, and Liquid (the coding language used by Kajabi). While the website builder does not require coding knowledge, specific adjustments may require hiring a third-party Kajabi expert.
- Kajabi may not be the best option for email marketing, as it lacks some functionality and deliverability compared to other third-party email marketing platforms. Kajabi's email deliverability is lower, resulting in lower open rates, and it does not integrate with Google Analytics 4.
- Kajabi's analytics are somewhat limited and do not track some metrics that Google can measure, such as the number of unique views of a post. This makes it difficult to measure the performance of blog posts.
Beginner's Guide to Starting with Kajabi
Now that you have an understanding of Kajabi's pricing, features, and advantages and disadvantages, let's explore how to get started on the platform.
Create your Account
Before you can start using Kajabi, you'll need to create an account. Begin by selecting a subscription plan that suits your business requirements and registering. After creating your account and verifying your email address, Kajabi will prompt you to complete a brief questionnaire to gain a better understanding of your needs and provide you with relevant resources.
After completing the questionnaire, you'll be taken to your dashboard. There, you'll see several sections, including website, products, sales, marketing, students, and analytics, on the left sidebar. Towards the bottom of the sidebar, you'll find your account and profile settings.
By clicking on the settings tab, you can customize your account and website. In the middle of the dashboard, you'll see a task box with suggestions for the first things you should do, such as creating your first online course, setting up payment details, choosing your prices, and establishing your brand. Under the suggestions box, you can schedule a 1-on-1 Customer Success call. However, to schedule additional calls, you'll need to activate your subscription if you signed up using the 14-day free trial.
Setup your Website
If you don't have an existing website, Kajabi offers template websites that you can use to create your site. Simply click on the “Website” tab on the left sidebar of your dashboard. From there, navigate to the “Designs” subtab to choose a template that best fits your business needs. Once you've selected a theme, you can customize it by changing the text, images, and color schemes. If you've already set up your brand settings, some elements will automatically appear on your website design.
In the “Customization” tab, you can also change the URLs for your subdomain and add pages for your blog, sales letters, and links to your courses. If you currently have a website, you have the option to connect your Kajabi courses to it.
Creating Online Course
To start creating your online course on Kajabi, navigate to the products tab on the left sidebar. From there, choose one of the four course options available, or select the blank option to create a course from scratch. If you have a small course, choose the mini-course box, and for longer courses, select the online course option. If you prefer your students to work through your course material over a specific schedule, then a drip course is the best option.
Once you've selected your course template, fill in the basic information for your course. Then, you can start adding your lessons. The course material is separated into categories and posts, with categories representing a whole module of your course, and posts representing individual lessons.
To add more content, simply click on the “Add Content” button, which will allow you to add more categories, subcategories, and posts. You can also upload multiple videos at once to save time.
To manage your course, click on the three dots next to the “Add Content” button. From there, you can make announcements, manage comments, and view your students' progress. If you need to create a similar course, you can use the cloning feature to save time and effort. Cloning is useful for separating your main online course from products tailored to specific companies or audiences.
Once you've created your course, you can customize the theme under the “Customize” tab and start personalizing your students' learning experience. Now that your course is set up, you'll also have a website.
If you want to set up a coaching program, let's take a look at how to do that next.
Creating Coaching Program
To start creating your coaching program, navigate to the products tab on your dashboard and select coaching. Kajabi will prompt you to provide some basic information to get started, including whether you want to offer a single coaching session or a package, program details, and a thumbnail image.
After you've entered your information, you'll need to link your coaching program to a scheduling app. Kajabi integrates with Calendly, or you can use another app of your choice.
With your coaching program set up, you're ready to launch and begin accepting students.
Explore Kajabi University
If you encounter any obstacles or difficulties while using Kajabi, make sure to take advantage of their primary learning resource, Kajabi University. Accessing Kajabi University is as easy as clicking on your profile located on the left sidebar, which will open a menu with a tab dedicated to Kajabi University.
Once you click on the Kajabi University tab, a page resembling the one shown will appear. This platform offers a wide range of courses on how to establish and expand a prosperous online course enterprise through Kajabi.
Kajabi Competitors
Kajabi is a popular platform for creating and selling online courses, memberships, and digital products. While Kajabi is a well-known and highly-regarded platform, there are several competitors in the market that offer similar features and functionalities. Here are some of the top competitors of Kajabi:
- Teachable: Teachable is a cloud-based platform for creating and selling online courses. It offers a range of features, including customizable course websites, integrated payment processing, student management, and course analytics. Teachable also has a large community of users and offers a free plan, making it a popular choice for creators on a budget.
- Thinkific: Thinkific is another cloud-based platform for creating and selling online courses. It offers features such as custom branding, drag-and-drop course creation, and integration with various payment gateways. Thinkific also has a large library of integrations, making it easy to connect with other tools and services.
- Podia: Podia is an all-in-one platform for creating and selling digital products, including online courses, memberships, and digital downloads. It offers features such as customizable storefronts, integrated email marketing, and built-in payment processing. Podia also has a simple and easy-to-use interface, making it a popular choice for beginners.
- LearnDash: LearnDash is a WordPress-based platform for creating and selling online courses. It offers features such as drip content, advanced quiz options, and integration with various payment gateways. LearnDash also has a large library of third-party integrations, making it a flexible and customizable platform.
- Udemy: Udemy is a popular marketplace for online courses, with a vast library of courses across various topics. While Udemy is primarily a platform for course creators to sell their courses, it also offers features such as course analytics, student feedback, and course completion certificates.
You can view more by checking out our Kajabi Alternatives so that you can choose what's best for your business.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Kajabi is a comprehensive platform that provides all the necessary tools to create, market, and sell online courses, memberships, and coaching programs. Its user-friendly interface, extensive customization options, and powerful marketing tools make it a top choice for entrepreneurs and businesses looking to establish their online presence. Although it may not be the most affordable option on the market, its features and benefits make it a worthwhile investment for those serious about building a successful online course business. Overall, Kajabi offers a reliable and efficient solution for individuals and businesses looking to make an impact in the online learning industry.
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