Teachable vs Thinkific vs Kajabi vs a Custom Course Platform

Teachable, Thinkific and Kajabi will all get a course on sale without code; they differ on fees and ceilings. Teachable's Starter plan charges a 7.5% transaction fee, Thinkific Basic is $54 a month, and Kajabi starts at $179 a month. Go custom when you need full white-label, B2B seat licensing, deep integrations or local payment methods none of them support.

If you would rather have a custom platform built, see how RAITHub would build this below.

This is a comparison for course creators and education businesses who have outgrown, or are about to outgrow, a hosted course platform. Every price below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checked on 2 October 2026; plans change, so confirm before you decide. For the wider market, see our EdTech software development guide.

How do Teachable, Thinkific and Kajabi compare on price and fees?

On the entry plans, Teachable has the lowest published price both monthly and annually, Thinkific is next, and Kajabi costs more but bundles marketing tools. The bigger difference is what each charges per sale and what each plan locks away.

	Teachable	Thinkific	Kajabi
Entry plan, monthly / annual (per month)	Starter: $39 / $29	Basic: $54 / $40	Basic: $179 / $143
Mid plan	Builder: $89 / $69; Growth: $189 / $139	Start: $109 / $82; Grow: $219 / $164	Growth: $249 / $199
Top published plan	Custom: contact sales	Plus: contact sales	Pro: $499 / $399
Platform transaction fee	7.5% on Starter; 0% on Builder and up with teachable:pay	Processing on Thinkific Payments is 2.9%; a third-party gateway fee applies with Stripe or PayPal and varies by plan	Third-party processor fee listed at 2% (Basic), 1% (Growth), 0.5% (Pro)
Card processing	2.9% + 30¢ US cards, 3.9% + 30¢ international	2.9% on Thinkific Payments	Kajabi Payments, US: 2.9%, 2.8% or 2.7% + $0.30 by plan
Product limits	5 / 10 / 50 products (Starter / Builder / Growth)	Up to 10,000 current students on Basic to Grow	5 / 50 / unlimited products; 2,500 / 25,000 / 100,000 contacts
Admin seats	1 / 1 / 5	1 / 2 / 6	2 / 11 / 26
Remove platform branding	Builder and up; white-label support on Custom	Grow and Plus	Growth and Pro
API access	Growth and up: 10,000 requests a month, 100 a minute	Grow and Plus: API and webhooks	Pro
B2B and groups	Not listed as a plan feature	Group orders and B2B sales on Grow and Plus; SSO on Plus only	Not listed as a plan feature

Sources: Teachable pricing, Thinkific pricing and Kajabi pricing, all checked 2 October 2026. Kajabi's page also says it does not take a revenue share as a platform; the per-plan figures above are what it lists for third-party processors, so ask Kajabi how they apply to your setup.

Which is better for a solo creator: Teachable, Thinkific or Kajabi?

It depends on what you sell besides the course, not on the course player, which all three do well.

• Teachable suits a creator starting small who wants the lowest annual entry price, accepting the 7.5% Starter fee until revenue justifies Builder.
• Thinkific suits a creator who expects to sell to teams or companies later, because group orders and B2B sales arrive on Grow without changing platform.
• Kajabi suits a creator whose business is the funnel: email, landing pages, communities and coaching in one bill, with more admin seats per plan.

Run the fee arithmetic on your own numbers. As an illustration, a creator selling $5,000 a month on Teachable Starter pays $375 in platform transaction fees on top of card processing, which is more than the $50 monthly difference to Builder on monthly billing. The upgrade pays for itself well before that revenue level.

When does a course business outgrow Teachable or Thinkific?

Usually at one of four limits. None is a flaw in the platforms; they are built for creators selling to individuals, and these needs sit outside that model.

Limit	What it looks like	Can the platform stretch?
White-label	A training company resells your courses under its own brand, or you run several branded academies from one catalogue	Branding removal is available on higher tiers; separate branded academies for many clients, each with its own data, is a multi-tenant product
B2B seats	A company buys 200 seats, assigns them to staff, reassigns leavers, and wants a manager dashboard and an invoice instead of a card payment	Thinkific Grow and Plus cover group orders and B2B sales; seat reassignment, approval flows and per-company reporting beyond that are custom work
Integrations	Enrolments must sync with an HR system, a CRM, a school's records or a certification body, both ways	The APIs help (Teachable Growth allows 10,000 requests a month); heavy two-way sync often outgrows a rate-limited API
Local payments	Buyers pay with bKash, M-Pesa, UPI or bank transfer, or in local currency, and cards convert poorly	The pricing pages list built-in payments plus Stripe and PayPal; a method none supports needs your own checkout

Two smaller signals also show up: learning features the platforms do not offer, such as adaptive assessment or an AI tutor (see our guide to building an AI tutor), and fees that, at your revenue, add up to a developer's salary.

Can you extend Teachable or Thinkific instead of leaving?

Often, yes, and it is worth trying first. Keep the platform for courses, checkout and the player, and build only the missing piece beside it, connected through the API and webhooks on Teachable Growth, Thinkific Grow or Kajabi Pro.

Good candidates for this middle path are a B2B seat portal that enrols staff through the API, a sync job to your CRM, or a reporting dashboard for corporate buyers. It costs far less than a full platform, and you can stop at any point. It stops working when the missing piece is the checkout itself, as with local payment methods, or when API rate limits and webhook gaps mean your side is constantly out of step with theirs.

Should you buy a course platform, use a template, or build custom?

Option	Example and cost	Choose this when	The catch
Hosted course platform	Teachable from $29 a month billed annually (pricing); Thinkific from $40 (pricing); Kajabi from $143 (pricing)	You sell courses to individuals and want to be selling this week	Fees per sale on some plans, features locked to tiers, their brand and payment options
WordPress plus an LMS plugin	LearnDash from $259 a year, with no per-student fees (LearnDash pricing), plus hosting and a payment plugin	You already run WordPress and want ownership without a custom build	You maintain hosting, updates, plugin conflicts and security yourself
Custom platform	Your own code and database; see our LMS development cost breakdown	White-label for many clients, B2B seats, deep integrations or local payments are the business	Build time and ongoing ownership; you now run the software

If the choice is between open-source and custom, our custom LMS vs Moodle comparison covers it.

How do you migrate from Teachable or Thinkific to a custom platform?

In stages, with the old platform running until the new one is proven. The steps:

1. Inventory. List courses, lessons, videos, quizzes, certificates, coupons, active subscriptions and payment plans, and every URL that gets traffic.
2. Export data. Students, enrolments, progress and purchase history. Check what each platform's export and API actually include before you commit to a date; progress data is the piece most often missing.
3. Move video. Re-upload to a video host you control, and confirm you have the original files, not only the platform's copies.
4. Plan recurring payments. This is the hardest part. Card details belong to the payment processor, not to you; if you used your own Stripe account, subscriptions can often stay where they are, but with a platform's built-in payments you need to ask the vendor what it can transfer. Otherwise subscribers re-enter their card on the new site, and some will not.
5. Run in parallel. New students on the new platform, existing ones on the old one until their access moves; send a login email or a password reset, never ask people to re-register.
6. Redirect. 301-redirect old course and sales URLs to their new equivalents so search traffic and old links keep working.

Also check who collects sales tax or VAT on digital sales once you leave a platform, because that responsibility may move to you. This is general information; confirm with your adviser.

As a do-it-yourself estimate, a technical creator moving a small catalogue to a WordPress plugin can expect several weeks of part-time work. The main risk is the recurring revenue: a subscription migration done badly loses paying students quietly, so count active subscribers before and after.

Why RAITHub for this

• Local payments, done before. PadhAI, the AI tutoring platform RAITHub built, has 9 payment gateways behind one abstraction. TheSkinProof, the founder's own venture, takes bKash, Nagad, SSLCommerz and cash on delivery; our bKash and SSLCommerz guide shows the approach.
• B2B roles and pricing. Sundor Skin, a B2B wholesale platform, has 12 staff roles, 88 permission codes, tier pricing and credit, the same building blocks as company seat licences and manager dashboards.
• Multi-tenant products. BlockEstate, a multi-tenant listing platform, shipped as an MVP in 6 weeks; white-label academies need the same tenant isolation.
• Learning features. PadhAI's Socratic tutor with math verification and RAG, and its 70/20/10 LLM router, are the kind of features a hosted course platform will not let you build in.

RAITHub has not built a course platform for a creator; the projects above are where the relevant pieces were proven. See the work page.

When you don't need us

• You sell courses to individuals and the fees are tolerable. Stay on your platform and upgrade a tier; it is lower-cost than any build.
• You need one missing feature. A small integration through the platform's API, or an automation tool, may be enough.
• You have not validated demand. Prove the course sells on a hosted platform first; a custom platform is for a business that already works.
• You need course content or instructional design. RAITHub builds the platform, not the curriculum.

How RAITHub would build this

• Scope: course catalogue, lesson player with progress tracking, quizzes and certificates.
• Scope: checkout with your local payment methods alongside cards, plus subscriptions and coupons.
• Scope: B2B accounts with seat purchase, assignment and reassignment, manager reporting and invoicing, or white-label tenants if that is your model.
• Scope: a migration plan and import scripts for students, enrolments and progress from your current platform, with redirects.

Timeline: a fixed-scope course platform MVP is typically 4–6 weeks; a deep integration or migration layer on its own is backend work in the 6–12 week range. Rough numbers for your scope are in the MVP cost estimator, and the MVP development service explains how fixed scope works.

You receive: automated tests and CI, handover docs and runbooks, and full IP under NDA. Production and student data stay in your own cloud account; development uses synthetic data.

Next step: a free 15-minute technical audit, then a written fixed quote. Book the audit and bring your current platform, plan, monthly fees and the limit you are hitting. What RAITHub builds for learning businesses is on the EdTech page.

Last reviewed: 2 October 2026. Pricing checked on the vendors' pages on 2 October 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Is Teachable or Thinkific cheaper?

On published entry prices, Teachable Starter is $39 a month or $29 billed annually, and Thinkific Basic is $54 or $40. Teachable Starter adds a 7.5% transaction fee, so at meaningful revenue the comparison can flip.

Does Kajabi charge transaction fees?

Kajabi says it takes no platform revenue share. Its pricing page lists Kajabi Payments card rates of 2.7–2.9% + $0.30 in the US, and fees of 0.5–2% for third-party processors depending on plan.

Which course platform supports B2B or team sales?

Thinkific lists group orders and B2B sales on its Grow and Plus plans, with SSO on Plus. Seat reassignment, approvals and per-company invoicing beyond that usually mean custom work.

Can I white-label Teachable, Thinkific or Kajabi?

You can remove platform branding on higher tiers of all three, and Teachable lists white-label support on its Custom plan. Running many separately branded academies for different clients is a multi-tenant product.

Can I accept bKash, M-Pesa or UPI on a course platform?

Not natively from what the pricing pages list, which centre on built-in payments, Stripe and PayPal. Local methods usually need your own checkout, either beside the platform or on a custom one.

How hard is it to leave Teachable or Thinkific?

Content and student lists move with work; recurring subscriptions are the hard part, because card details sit with the payment processor. Ask your platform what it can transfer, and run old and new in parallel.

How long does it take to build a custom course platform?

A fixed-scope MVP with courses, progress, checkout and B2B seats is typically 4–6 weeks with RAITHub, after a free 15-minute audit and a written fixed quote.