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kajabi-review

Kajabi was originally an idea by Kenny Reuter, who wanted to start a side-business teaching people how to make toys online. Although he was not that passionate about teaching people online, he was passionate about making it easier for people to sell their knowledge online.

The vision was simple. Kajabi founders Kenny Rueter and Travis Rosser knew they wanted to help people monetize their knowledge and premium digital content online. They needed a platform that made it easy for entrepreneurs to do this.

If you’re an online course creator, you have probably heard of Kajabi before. It is one of the most popular online learning platforms today. Since its launch in 2010, Kajabi grew to become the powerhouse that it is today. It has empowered thousands to escape the jobs that no longer fulfill them and help them realize their dreams.

This review will cover the basics of what you need to know about Kajabi. This includes online course creation, marketing, pricing, and so much more. This will give you a clear idea of the benefits you’ll get if you choose Kajabi.

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For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Lane Sebring’s YouTube channel. To get a comprehensive overview of Kajabi, you may still want to check out our article below.

General Overview Help Kajabi

Pros

  • A highly integrated platform featuring a lot of built-in tools
  • Intuitive marketing tools that help you promote and sell your products.
  • User-friendly
  • Great customer support
  • Intuitive course builder and highly customizable themes
  • Wistia is used as a video host

Cons

  • Kajabi pricing is higher than average prices
  • Students cannot be issued custom certificates of completion by users on the platform.
  • Assessment customization is limited.

What is Kajabi?

Kajabi is an online platform for creating courses that allow users to manage their businesses from one location. Kajabi can take care of everything, from course creation to marketing and much more.

How does Kajabi work?

Kajabi is built to sell. It boasts how simple it is to use. You can start by purchasing a plan. You have three options: Basic, Growth, and Pro. These options will be discussed later in this review.

After you’ve selected a plan, you can set up an account and upload your content. You can upload your video lectures, give lesson titles and descriptions using the lesson editor.

Assessments are easily done by typing the questions and giving options (if you have chosen the multiple-choice type ).

Assuming this is all done, you’re now ready to market your products. You can create pipelines in Kajabi. You can use these mechanisms to increase conversion rates and turn prospects into potential students through efficient marketing channels. You can add landing pages, freebies that get leads to enter their email addresses, video marketing, and so on.

When the prospect becomes a student, you can process payments through the site. All without having to leave Kajabi. Help Kajabi

Now, some features make Kajabi an almost “all-in-one” platform. These features will be discussed in the next sections. But, Kajabi can go head-to-head and over most online course platforms with the features and benefits it offers.

Why should you choose Kajabi:

As an entrepreneur, of course, you would want to make sure that you make the most out of your investment. Kajabi can help you market valuable content. This guide will help you launch your business and keep it growing.

The business is more than just uploading your course content and waiting for students to sign in. You will need to create a course curriculum, set goals and assess your students, make sure your website is attractive to your target audience, and market it. Kajabi allows you to do all of these things and more.

  • Build a website
  • Create course offerings
  • Keep track of student progress
  • Manage subscriptions/payments
  • Run email marketing campaigns

Kajabi’s price is one thing that has been criticized. Admittedly, it is pricier than some alternatives. But, take into account that this takes away the hassle of using expensive plug-ins for your business. There is also the added stress of figuring out how to seamlessly make these plug-ins work with each other. This takes time, effort, and money. All of which could be avoided under one single platform.

Good platforms think of what their users want and need. These platforms can be used to create sales pages, email your students, or do all kinds of marketing activities.

So, if you’re a professional looking to sell your knowledge, I would say, with Kajabi, you will be in safe hands. Kajabi is a powerful, all-in-one tool for creating, marketing and selling online courses.

Kajabi: A Beginner-Friendly Tool

Not all great teachers are technologically inclined enough to share their knowledge and information online. The process can be complicated and confusing, even for those who are willing to learn. Kajabi creators created the platform so that it is accessible and easy to understand even for those with problems with computer work.

The platform utilizes a visual layout that makes it intuitive and super simple to use. Kajabi’s drag-and-drop editor will make it easy to start an online business, even if you don’t know how to code.

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Almost “all-in-one”

Kajabi is suitable for almost everything, save for a few minor features that developers are still working on. You don’t need to spend too much time trying to find the right extensions or plug-ins. Imagine, one update could cause these plug-ins to disrupt your business processes.

If you want to save yourself the headache, Kajabi already has excellent tools for creating landing pages and sales funnels and converting visitors into customers. This platform allows you to create courses and market them. To entice students to your courses, you can offer discounts, follow up leads, and manage payments from the Kajabi website.

As a busy entrepreneur with not a lot of free time on my hands, I enjoy the email marketing and funnel creations of Kajabi. It was easy to automate my follow-ups and it is very simple. Help Kajabi

Overall, Kajabi fulfills more than other platforms can do with what it offers.

Tutorials

For people who are complete beginners, there could be some doubt on the truthfulness of this “easy-to-use” claim. But they will be pleasantly surprised to find out that it is indeed true.

Kajabi provides a lot to its users. The Kajabi Assistant Bar gives you access to many searchable tutorials. Simply head over to the top and type out whatever query you might have. It will display related tutorials.

You can also find videos and tutorials on the Kajabi University to help you get started in creating and growing your business. These topics include creating online courses, marketing on social media, setting up payments, and creating your product pages.

These tutorials are available in video and text formats for your convenience.

The third and most important feature of the onboarding process, is the 28-day Hero Challenge. It is basically a month-long crash program to help you launch your website and make your first sale. This challenge will teach you everything about the platform and give you strategies to market your products.

If your queries aren’t answered, Kajabi has one of the best customer support out there. If you are a member of the Growth or Pro Plan you will have access to live chat support 24 hours a day. With a Basic Plan, customer chat support is available at limited times during the day. Despite this, the support team responds very quickly. I have had no problems so far with their handling of things.

Lastly, there’s a rewards program in Kajabi that is designed to provide incentives for creators who reach their revenue levels and offers some exclusive perks.

Customer Support

If you have got a query that cannot be found in the Kajabi online guides, the next thing you can do is contact customer service. If you have any questions, they can help you. Help Kajabi

With the Growth and Pro Plan, you can access the 24/7 Kajabi customer support team live chat.

The Basic Plan does not have 24/7 customer support if you choose to opt for it. However, staff members will only be available Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 7 PM. It functions as a ticket system, but you will find an answer within the day. They always respond promptly, even with this. They never take too long to reply.

If you’re not confident in your computer skills, the more expensive plans can be worth it. The other two Kajabi plans offer around-the-clock access to support, while the Basic Plan does not.

How to use Kajabi:

Creating a Class:

Kajabi’s course creation is quick, easy, and customizable. After you have given a name to your product, you will see “New Product” in the upper right corner of your screen. There are three pre-built product blueprints that can be used for different digital products. You can also create your own listing. Let’s go through them one by one:

  • Mini-course
    • A mini-course contains lesser material than the Online Course, but it is pretty easy to complete. This can be used to gauge customer interest as well as build your brand’s value.
  • Online course
    • From short workshops to seminars to lectures about your area of expertise, these are full-blown courses that your students can avail.
  • Evergreen Training
    • The Evergreen Course allows you to keep your product advertised and constantly making sales. It will generate passive income for you even after it is launched. Marketing aside, this option allows you to trickle feed your content to your students and keep them interested.
  • Blank
    • If you’re an advanced user and want to fully customize your content, this is a good option for you.

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To upload your courses, you can use Kajabi’s intuitive editor. These can be uploaded from your computer, Dropbox, or Google Drive.

Kajabi supports many file types. You can add audio, video, pdf and text files to your lessons. Wistia offers video hosting for Kajabi. You can also upload bulk files. Help Kajabi

How to Upload Your Content

Videos

Kajabi provides built-in streaming through Wistia as a video host. You will see an icon and be asked to upload a video or assessment.

As mentioned earlier, you will be able to upload your videos in bulk without worrying about bandwidth. In all the Pricing Plans of Kajabi, you are provided with unlimited bandwidth. Uploads can be made from your computer, Dropbox or Google Drive. You can also upload via URL links. However, take note that it would not accept URLs from Youtube or Vimeo as the uploader looks for the file type in the URL.

Once your files have been uploaded, Kajabi can automatically transform these uploads into articles that you can edit later on. This saves you the hassle of going through the posts and uploading videos one by one.

Now, with Wistia as the video host, rest assured that alone makes your subscription worth it. A standalone Wistia subscription can set you back at $99 per month. If you take a look at the cost, with $20 more, you can already get Kajabi’s Basic Plan at $119/year with its features. This is a great bargain.

Assessments

Assessments are great tools to gauge student learning and engagement. Students can gauge their understanding of the material by seeing how they do with lessons. This can motivate them to work harder. You can also use this feature to get feedback from students about your products and if you opt for content locking.

It takes less than two minutes. You can create assessments by opening the People tab from the Dashboard. Choose Assessments and then +New Assessment and finish the prompt to begin customizing.

One of the coolest features is the ability to set it to automatically send additional materials to students if they fail to complete their assessments.

Now there are some drawbacks. First, I have observed that the user cannot include both a video and an assessment under the same category.

Second, it does not allow users to randomize the questions or have question banks. Although, it does support assessments such as multiple-choice questions and paragraph-style questions.

Students can also upload files to be checked through the assignment submission feature.

Photos

You can upload a poster photograph for your lessons. Having pictures help set the tone of your website and gives your student a visual preview of what you have to offer.

Click on the Pick File button to upload images.

Certificates

Kajabi is almost an “all-in” platform. This is due to its inability to provide certificates to students who have completed the courses. Kajabi allows creators to issue certificates of completion but they cannot be issued onsite.

To create these certificates, you would have to rely on third-party services like Canva, Google Slides, Accredible, or SmartDraw.

This is something I don’t mind doing for my business. However, it would be a hassle for some.

Another thing, Kajabi does not indicate the amount of time spent studying the courses or any continuing education credit. This is a major problem for those who want to use eLearning to earn credit. I think that the Kajabi creators should highly consider this.

Downloads

Even if we call it online students, some do not necessarily stay online for the whole duration of the course. Others opt to download the course materials and do the tasks offline. This feature was added by Kajabi to make things easier for students. This can be found in the Downloads section on the right side of the page.

Your students will be able to download whatever material you place there while they are on that specific lesson.

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You have the option to add a description, or even a transcript to your videos. Students may prefer to review transcripts over watching the entire video.

If you choose to only add a description, it will help students know what the lesson is all about and what topics will be discussed in the video. Help Kajabi

Student Interactions

Community

It would be wonderful for eLearning platforms to allow members and students to interact with one another and discuss topics in their course materials. This is similar to what they would do in a classroom setting. Some have used Facebook groups over the years. To join the group, you will need to be a member of Facebook.

You don’t need to leave Kajabi in order to interact with your students or with each other. Kajabi has a fully integrated feature called the Community. This is one of their tools for student engagement.

You can even set your Community behind a paywall for patrons to gain access. This will enable you to address student questions directly and allow students to share their experiences with one another.

Because the Community can be used as a standalone product. Those who are not too keen on purchasing the entire course could just buy access to the discussions.

Organizing Your Topics

One problem that forums have is the lack of organization. Both the students and the creators may find it difficult to keep track of particular topics. This is something I noticed in many Facebook groups. This makes it hard to listen to your audience and understand them.

In Kajabi, the page administrator is allowed to organize and reorganize the feeds. They can sort the posts by topic and also ‘pin’ specific posts for better viewability.

Overall, Kajabi’s Community feature is a significant advantage over its competition. This feature is very beneficial to entrepreneurs who run an online school.

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Content Access

Depending on your style, Kajabi gives you the option of how your students receive your courses. You can either allow them to receive all the classes and resources at once, drip-feed them on a schedule, or lock your content. This last option tends to increase student engagement because they must complete the lesson before accessing the next. Help Kajabi

Dripping Course Content

Instead of giving your students everything at once, drip-feeding your courses can be an option.

You can keep your students coming back to your page to see new content by drip-feeding it. This will also prevent your student from skipping important parts of the course.

It is also a useful feature when choosing a type of membership.

Content Locking

Content locking forces your student to finish a lesson before they can gain access to the next one. You can end your lessons with an assessment to be completed. This way, they increase their participation, and you can keep track of their progress in understanding lesson materials.

Course Analytics

Kajabi prides itself on providing the best tools to help entrepreneurs handle their business with the course analytics. What it does is create heatmaps and video stats. It will give you insights into which parts of your courses are performing well and which need to be improved.

Therefore, it shows you information on your courses, affiliates, students, and sales transactions that can help you optimize your products.

Play Rate

The play rate gives data on how many people have watched a specific video. I mentioned that some students prefer to download the course material and read the transcript rather than watch the video.

Average Engagement

This data shows you the average percentage of video your students watched. Since some students prefer to skip some segments of the video, you can get an idea of how well you can keep your students engaged in what you need to say.

Visual Engagement Viewer

With this comes a graphical overlay in your video. This is a great feature for visual learners like me. I am not able to process information well when it’s all presented in blocks of text. I prefer to have my data presented in graphic form.

The Visual Engagement Viewer displays a report on your students’ engagement with specific parts of the video. Usually, there is a general downhill trend wherein people tend to stop watching at the start of the outro.

Viewer Heatmaps

Your students may not be watching your videos just because they opened them. It could have been running in the background, while they did something else. Help Kajabi

With the Viewer Heatmap, you can now check which segments of the viewers were not that interesting to your students and which parts they repeatedly watched. It could mean that these are parts that they found interesting or they found difficult. This meant that they needed to watch the video again to make sure they understood what was going on.

Kajabi can provide valuable analytic tools that will help you improve your content. The best thing to do with your data is to help you develop a strategy to guide your business decisions.

Blogging

Strong blogs can make a big difference in promoting your company. Students can get updates and additional information about your products, while new customers are introduced. Having a solid blog boosts traffic for you and generates leads that would transform visitors into potential students.

Kajabi still has a lot to do in this area, however. It is not on the same level as what you would have with something like WordPress. But still, the fact that you can place everything in one place without needing to exit Kajabi makes up for its shortcomings.

Basic HTML Know-How

It is unnecessary for you to code to build your website and customize most things in Kajabi; it is still a good idea.

If you want to personalize the photos in your Kajabi blog, you need to do some basic coding. Uploading a photo to a blog post will display it in the recommended size. Kajabi works with HTML. To change certain dimensions, you would need to play with HTML. This isn’t too difficult. You can find many tutorials for basic coding by doing a quick internet search.

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Another thing that would probably concern you is text wrapping. You cannot edit the way the text wraps around a picture in the body of your blog unless you deal with the HTML.

Kajabi does not have an image bank. If you wanted to add a photo that you have previously used in other articles, you would need to upload it from your computer or sites like Google Drive again. These are the things Kajabi will hopefully focus on in his subsequent updates.

Tagging

While I enjoy most of Kajabi’s features, one thing that gripes me is the hassle of being unable to pick from existing tags in my post. The tags don’t show up as suggestions, unlike other blogs that allow you to refer to past tags.

It can be a hassle to remember the tag you used, or to put it on a separate list for each blog post. Help Kajabi

Marketing Tools

These are Kajabi’s most important support for its customers. Kajabi is built to sell. Your business will be safe with so many marketing tools. There are automation, pipelines and many other features. We will be discussing a few of these features in this section.

Pipelines

Kajabi has a pipeline built into platforms that will simplify sales and marketing. The name itself refers to Kajabi’s goal of transforming the same number of leads to the same number of paying customers. Depending on what Price Plan you chose, you can have 3, 15, or 100 pipelines.

Kajabi will give you a visual representation of your schematics, and editing is easy and intuitive. There is a drag-and-drop editor for you to add videos, offers, images, and other elements that can help you achieve high conversion rates. There are suggestions if you don’t know where to start.

Kajabi provides blueprints to help you start your pipelines. The blueprint you choose will help you set up funnels including landing pages, email automation and offers. This template was carefully crafted by Brendon Burchard, one of the world’s leading high-performance coaches.

With the Pipeline Stats feature, you can monitor the progress of your marketing plans and use it to evaluate the areas that are lagging. This feature allows you to see each page and email of the pipeline and data on your earnings per view.

Affiliate Program

The Growth and Pro Plans are required to access the affiliate program. You and your partners will be able to market your products and the program together. You can now give your partners the agreed-upon affiliate commission much easier. A private dashboard will be available to you. In it, you can see statistics of clicks, conversions, and other pertinent data to help you market your business.

Automation

Email Marketing

Kajabi is your business made easy. You can quickly launch email marketing campaigns depending on the schedules you have set. This feature lets you choose the sequence of emails, add multiple emails to the set sequence and upsell additional products. You can also use templates to suit your email purpose. Not a lot of alternatives offer this much freedom.

Suppose a visitor adds something to their cart but has not yet decided to make the purchase final; you can set up Kajabi to send an email to remind them of your offer. With this, you do not have to manually track the number of sign-ups from your email campaign. Just relax and see the improvement in your conversion rates.

You can also use Kajabi to integrate with other email platforms.

Marketing Partners

Kajabi integrations allow you to manage your entire business from one platform. Currently, Kajabi has 10 native integrations. To name a few, it has ConvertKit, Aweber, MailChimp, and Active Campaign. Help Kajabi

How to Price Your Products

Pricing your courses should take into account several factors, including the time you spent creating and planning it, your fees for expertise, and operational costs.

Kajabi provides a simple way to price your products once you have established the price. Click on the Offers tab to the left and select ‘Add New Offer’.

They can be sold individually or packaged together. Once you make a new deal, you will receive a prompt to enter the title offers, product, and cost. You will now only be able choose one product. However, there will be many options available for bundles and payment options. You can also choose the currency for your product’s pricing.

You have several options if you’re concerned about people not being financially able to pay for your course.

  • Free
  • One-time Payment
  • Multiple Payments
  • Recurring Payments

You can also generate coupon codes, bulk coupons codes and special offers to apply to your coupon from this page.

Payment Methods

Kajabi uses Stripe or Paypal to process payments. You can customize your checkout to create flexible payment options and offer custom payment options for students. This comes with the convenience of not paying for transaction fees as Kajabi does not charge you. However, you will have to pay for the costs of its payment methods partners.

Partnering with Paypal makes it easy to pay affiliates via Paypal Mass Pay. This includes an exported list of all sales.

It is also easier to request refunds. Kajabi makes it easy to request refunds from the site without leaving it.

Kajabi Pricing

Kajabi’s pricing may appear to be higher than that of other sites as previously stated. Because of the platform’s cost, most individuals would undoubtedly be hesitant to use it. 

Kajabi is a never-ending investment. Kajabi is not just a course-building platform. While pricing may be cheaper for other platforms, you may end up paying for three or more different tools for email services, blogs, and sales pipelines. All of these come with your Kajabi subscription. Because of the extensive tool set, prices are greater than those of competitors. But, Kajabi still provides the best value for money out of all other platforms.

Unrestricted bandwidth, unlimited Wistia video hosting, and 0% transaction fees are included in all three pricing plans. It also has chat support and assessment features. 

To check how the plans differ, below is a thorough discussion of each pricing plan. Help Kajabi

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Basic Plan

The lowest-priced plan starts at $149 monthly. You will only have to pay $119 if you are billed annually. 

The basic plan is the most affordable option. However, you are limited to having only 3 products, 1 website, 3 sales pipelines, and around a thousand members. The Kajabi logo branding will remain on all products. 

However, landing pages and marketing emails are unlimited. The Basic Plan might not contain some of the essential marketing tools you would like to use for your business. Although Kajabi has excellent customer care, you would need to limit your queries to office times. Unlike with the higher plans, they have access to a 24/7 live chat with customer support. 

Growth Plan

For $50 more, you can upgrade to this tier and get five times more courses. The monthly payment sets you back $199, but if billed annually, it will cost only $159. 

Fortunately, though, even the basic pricing plan has a lot of features to play with. Most plans have the same basic suite of functions, but they scale according to the pricing plan. For example, the Basic plan only allows for 3 products and 3 pipelines, while the Growth plan allows for 15 products and 15 pipelines. As a result, when you purchase a higher-tier plan, you are not paying for new features, but rather for the expansion of existing ones. In addition, Kajabi does not charge a transaction fee for any sales made on the platform.

You can build new goods, pipelines, and members at the second level. White-labeling, affiliate marketing, and automation are just a few more reasons to acquire this plan. 

  • White-labelling – With this, you can remove Kajabi branding from your website and fully make it your own. 
  • Affiliate advertising – A popular online sales tactic. Through your affiliates, your products will receive a wider reach. Your affiliates will receive commissions for recommending your products to their audiences. 
  • Automation – Automation, as previously said, makes it easy for you to follow up with your students. The system then uses a prompt to automatically send out the predetermined response. If a student is falling behind on examinations, for example, you can send them an automatic email with extra course materials. There’s no need for you to manually follow their progress. 

As a creator, we are aware that you are not in the business to only make money. You want your products to be of value as well. Business-wise, this is valuable because if people are getting their bang for the buck, they will be more likely to return for more. It is a win-win situation. 

Pro Plan 

{This is the priciest plan Kajabi has to offer. But it does come with some pretty neat features. You can market up to 100 products, handle 3 sites and at most, have 20,000 members. Because of the number of courses you can market, you can have 25 admin users to help you manage. You also have access to round-the-clock customer support.|This is the most expensive plan offered by Kajabi. It does, however, have some interesting features. You can sell up to 100 products, manage three websites, and have a maximum of 20,000 members. You can have up to 25 admin users to assist you in regulating the amount of courses you can market. You also get access to customer service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

These features plus all features you would enjoy from both Basic and Growth Plans are included. While there are unlimited landing pages, the advertising emails are limited to two million. 

A bonus to getting the Pro Plan is access to the Experts Academy. In it, you will find more information on how to market your brand. Help Kajabi

You could schedule billing monthly for $399 or yearly for $319 if you picked Kajabi’s Pro Plan. Take notice that this is a significant investment that you must consider. This is the option that most large firms or those with a large number of courses to sell pick. But if you are just starting or your business does not warrant the need for a Pro Plan yet, then I would suggest the other two plans. Just my two cents in. You would still get to enjoy a lot of what Kajabi has to offer on the budget you set. 

Moving to Kajabi

For those who are not new to course-creating, you probably used other platforms. It is excellent that you are still considering options for your business and thinking of ways to improve. If you have decided to move to Kajabi, another concern would be how to move all of your data into the platform. 

Not to worry, though. Fortunately, you can simply import your members’ names and email using a .csv file. But, you can only do this 500 members at a time. So it would require you to do multiple importations if needed. 

Another thing to note is that your members will have to reset their passwords due to a security issue. This is good news for you and your members. Kajabi takes your business’ security seriously. This means that other platforms will not have access to their information once the move is made. 

Conclusion

For many creators, Kajabi is a popular choice, and it has a lot to offer for the price you choose to pay. It comes with exceptional customer service, a well-integrated system, and is extremely user-friendly. 

As stated earlier, Kajabi aims to help you streamline your business process in one site and make it profitable. With its many marketing features, it gives you the edge to push your products to new heights. 

Now that you’ve read this review, you have a better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of using Kajabi. Overall, I believe Kajabi is an excellent tool for managing your business, from conception to marketing. Help Kajabi

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Frequently Asked Questions: Help Kajabi

  • What does Kajabi mean?

    • According to its founders, it is an aboriginal word that means “to take flight.” 
  • Is Kajabi free?

    • Currently, Kajabi does not offer a free plan. However, it provides a 14-day trial for you to try out its features. 
  • Is Kajabi worth the money?

    • This depends on your business needs and how you can optimize Kajabi’s features. Kajabi is well known for being user-friendly and having a variety of built-in integrations for smoother business processes. You also receive excellent support. 
  • Is Kajabi easy to use?

    • Yes. Kajabi is easy to use. In fact, because of this, thousands of course creators have it as their platform of choice. 
  • Is Kajabi accessible via a mobile app?

    • Yes. Your students have the convenience of accessing Kajabi via a mobile app. It is available in both iOS and Google Play. 
  • Can you use your domain? 

    • Yes. You may establish a custom domain using Kajabi’s branding with the Basic Plan (yourdomaintitle.kajabi.com). You can choose to remove any traces of Kajabi’s branding and create a website that is purely focused on you with the Growth and Pro Plans. 
  • Does Kajabi have transaction fees?

    • No. There are no transaction fees, but you can still be subject to pay the standard Stripe merchant processing fee. 
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