Skool vs. Kajabi: What Is Right For You?
Running an online community is a gratifying and endearing way to run a business. The challenge is finding the right tool to work with. With so many options to consider, it can be tough to know where to start. Over the years, I have used a combination of different platforms. Finding the right community software, though, is challenging due to the sheer number of options on the market. Two of the most popular today include Skool and Kajabi.
Having had personal experience with both, especially Skool, I wanted to create a comparison to help my readers understand the main differences. Kajabi and Skool are similar but not identical by any means. This guide will break down the essential factors one must know before deciding to use one or the other.
In this guide, I will help you to understand:
So, let me share my experience with both so that you can understand why Skool vs Kajabi is a worthwhile discussion – and also why, in my experience, there is a clear winner.
This guide focuses primarily on my experience with both platforms. However, to help further illustrate these points, I want to provide insight from others who have used Kajabi and Skool.
The typical user ratings found online for Skool are, in the main, very positive. Users like Jesse Kroon noted that Skool is uncomplicated and uncluttered regarding features. At the same time, it is easy to combine a course with a community. Major praise across various users I have read – and in my own experience – comes from the fact that Skool lacks the technical confusion of comparable platforms.
As such, it is easy for users to sign up, use the community to their advantage, and feel involved. This can be advantageous for those running communities for seniors or those who are not as technically skilled. The main negatives of Skool, though, focused on the lack of assessment tools and a built-in checkout, making it more challenging to run paid courses.
When looking at Kajabi, the platform tends to score highly across numerous review platforms. Ratings from users averaged out at around 4.4 stars, according to users on the review platform Capterra. Users noted in their experience that they found Kajabi easy to use and for setting up courses for their members.
There was also a lot of praise for the user-friendly nature of the back end of Kajabi. However, the primary complaint focused on how Kajabi is extremely expensive. As noted in the ‘Pricing’ section below, Kajabi is a dearer prospect than Skool. Unlike running a platform through Skool, users will tend to run into roadblocks when using Kajabi and only Kajabi – it is not the ‘all-in-one’ platform that Skool is.
Pricing is one of the most important features of a community-building platform. I prefer how Skool manages the cost, but why? Let me explain why I have found Skool to be the ‘better’ option in terms of pricing – and not simply because it is cheaper!
Regarding pricing, I have always found Skool to be easier to understand. Why? Because they use a simple one-tier pricing plan. Skool offers you a simple $99/month pricing plan. For that fee, you get access to unlimited course creation and unlimited student numbers; no limits are imposed on you. There is no higher tier needed to break through those limits.
Every feature is unlocked for that price, too. Check out the ‘Important Features’ section to get a better handle on what your $99 per month gets you. Suffice it to say, though, it is pretty diverse!
On top of this, you get a 14-day free trial, so you get plenty of opportunities to browse features and functionalities. Add in the fact there are no hidden extra fees or costs, and you only need to worry about that $99/month fee. Great, right?
One of the other major benefits of Skool that I love is the fact that bringing in new members makes you additional income. If another community member creates a group, you receive as much as 40% of their monthly subscription revenue. This is great for affiliates and those looking to increase side income through education.
By contrast, Kajabi will cost you around $149/month for the starting rate and as much as $399/month for its highest pricing tier. The starting pricing tier allows for three products/courses to be active and for up to 1,000 students. The Pro tier provides up to 100 courses/products to be available and up to 20,000 students. You do, though, benefit from a 20% discount if you take the annual rate.
Kajabi, then, is the much more expensive of the two systems. When you factor in the overall experience and functionality, budget-conscious course creators might find a clear winner here in Skool. I found that the limitations on student and course numbers meant that Kajabi came out second best comfortably for value for money alone.
When comparing products like this, I find looking at the overall user experience vital. What kind of experience does a course creator get? How easy is it to resolve issues with your course(s) or get support when you cannot find a solution? Let’s investigate.
One of the main benefits of Skool is the Skool Community. This is loaded with useful information from other course creators. This can help you work out problems that might have passed you by. You can learn a lot from the experiences and solutions other Skool users have covered.
Skool also offers a very useful customer support platform. This includes email support and a troubleshooting knowledge base. This allows for personal and professional support, though you will be waiting for an answer: there is no live support for immediate assistance.
Regarding course creation, since everything takes place within Skool, the level of user control is excellent. The easy design of courses – though lacking in templates – does allow for thorough, detailed courses to be developed easily. The addition of leaderboards and gamification, though, is a great touch that encourages users on the course to work harder to stay at the top.
Skool is, in my opinion, the most beginner-friendly course management platform out there. It makes course creation simple, even without templates, and the excellent community makes solving advanced issues easier than other competitor platforms.
Skool might lack the depth of Kajabi when it comes to course creation. However, its simplicity and everything happening under one platform makes Skool an easier user experience for beginners and veterans.
I have found that one of Kajabi’s main strengths is the access to its Live Room feature. This is useful for running a video conference, allowing you to share your camera, audio, and screen with those who are live. You can also record meetings and have these available for those who could not attend. These virtual meetings are excellent and can improve your ability to keep the community together.
Adding templates, which Skool does not have, is also a great feature. This can make quickly throwing together courses much easier – you only need to fill in the placeholders as you go. For beginners, this can make creating high-quality courses simpler. Automation is excellent, too, with features like automated unsubscription for lapsed customers a very useful feature.
Kajabi also offers great user education tools for creators and community members. For example, I learned a lot from its excellent knowledge base. There is also a great live chat support system, though you only get it as part of the more expensive plans. This, though, can be great for resolving technical hiccups or working out how to use a specific feature.
The main limitation that I and other users have run into with Kajabi is hitting a brick wall in terms of progress. For example, Kajabi leaves limited growth space in a community setting thanks to the limits imposed on student numbers.
On top of that, the app is pretty barebones. Compared to Skool, Kajabi has a much weaker app interface. The course app that is provided is pretty limited, and there is no option to create ‘white label’ course apps that you can then have on the Google Play Store/Apple Store.
For the price that users pay, Kajabi tends to fall once you expand beyond a certain size.
While both platforms provide a wealth of useful features, they differ in key ways. Here are, in my opinion, the most important features that both provide that make them unique.
Skool has many useful key features, including:
Some of the key features provided by Kajabi include:
Yes! Skool is an excellent service for delivering more or less anything you need to run a community. From its founder, Sam Ovens, being a best-in-class expert on the matter to easy access to elite vertical solutions such as Mailchimp and Webflow, Skool offers more or less everything one needs to build a thriving community.
The best thing about Skool, in terms of its cost, is that it does not involve tiered pricing schemes. There is a single pricing structure of $99 per month. This gives you access to all of the features. Compared to alternatives, where tiered pricing exists, this is generally easier to manage.
I found Skool's main limitation was that you could not charge for courses. The lack of a built-in checkout system was a negative that I had to work around. Other reviews have noted, too, that there is no native format for video hosting. That is a little disappointing, but it is a minor drawback compared to the positives.
Kajabi might seem easier to use initially, but I found getting to grips with Skool easier. Once I got a handle on its features, thanks to the excellent built-in tutorials, I found Skool a more intuitive, powerful service.
Based on other users' feedback and my experience, I would say Skool is the easiest of the two. It combines more important features in one place, making it easier for community owners and community members to interact.
Yes, there are various other services like Skool and Kajabi that I recommend you evaluate. Check out this article's ‘Alternatives’ section for other related services to consider.
My verdict is pretty simple: if you are a newbie who likes to run a course and community from one place, choose Skool. If you are a course creator who wants access to rapid templates and advanced automation, Kajabi might be your preferred option.
Both are quality, high-end products. However, choose Skool if you want to swap dedicated website building, automation and templates for gamification, ease of use, and simplicity. I prefer Skool over Kajabi, though Kajabi is still a fantastic resource.
What Skool lacks in templates and marketing/automation makes up for in exceptional simplicity. Add the reduced cost and the lack of limits on course and student numbers, and Skool offers the simpler, easier option. For most course creators, Skool offers everything you need to build a dedicated place to run your community.
There are, of course, many other alternatives to Skool and Kajabi out there. I have experience using several of these, including Mighty Networks, Circle, ClickFunnels, Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, Slack, Discord, and Facebook Groups.
Each of these will vary in usage and process from both Skool and Kajabi. I would highly recommend that you check out each of these products. You can also find more comparisons of mine, comparing each of the above tools to Skool and other comparable services.
INFINITE DISRUPTION GmbH, ℅ Cludea Capital, Schauenburgerstr. 10, 20095 Hamburg
