Kajabi vs Circle 

In 2023, Kajabi made a bold move in acquiring a community platform called Vibely and decisively stepped into the industry.

Circle on the other hand has always established itself as a community specialist platform before adding more features such as course creation.

Both platforms are trying to appeal to course and content creators and help them sell their digital products and membership.

Overall, Kajabi is more of a one-stop-shop platform with features ranging from website and funnel building, to coaching and course hosting and email marketing.

Whereas Circle is mostly focused on the community aspect of its platform.

But today we review and compare exactly what could make either of these the best solution for you.

Starting with a very important factor for any platform to consider and the budget to plan.

Kajabi has a standard 14 days free trial that can be extended to 30 days with a partner's link.

Circle has a 14 days free trial to get you started.

After that, you can either get on the “starter” plans, which will give you a limited set of the platform’s features.

Or get into one of the main plans:

The layout of the course itself is also something you can customize through several built-in templates.

This is done through the front-end visual editor to see exactly what it will look like to the end-user.

Circle does also allow for file hosting and a nifty course builder but things are a lot more limited on the design side of things.

You won’t really be able to influence the layout of the course.

Circle also doesn’t have as many learning tools as Kajabi with things like quizzes, automations and certificates.

Furthermore, Courses is only 1 type of “Product” Kajabi has to offer, you can also use the Coaching (which includes group coaching and cohorts, Podcast, Newsletter or Newsletter products.

In Circle, courses are mostly meant to be an add-on to your Community and maybe a way to monetize it further, rather than a deep learning experience.

Both platforms have a Live Video feature to run zoom-like live broadcasts directly inside the platform.

Overall, Kajabi is a clear winner here if you’re looking to create a real learning experience. But if you’re not needing courses to be a central part of your site then this might not be a deal-breaker.

Community Feature

Circle’s community feature, on the other hand, is anything but bare.

It’s the central piece of the platform and has a lot of layers to it.

At its core, the community looks very much like a Facebook group.

You can create different threads, each with their post topics and posts. Posts will also appear on the Feed.

The interface is very clean and sleek, and also very customizable.

The user experience is simple and intuitive, although you can also get fancy and create a multi-layer experience too.

Kajabi’s community is almost as good.

You’ll have a very similar way to organize the different threads and posts with a sidebar and feed:

You will lack a little bit on the customization side with fewer options to make your community stand out.

The user experience is also a little more clunky.

Another aspect that Kajabi doesn’t quite handle as well is the internal messaging and profile management.

Circle enables user profiles to be a much better way to network with other members.

Something else that’s just better in Circle is Gamification.

Both platforms have a Leaderboard where active members can start building authority in the community.

But Circle makes it a lot more engaging by enabling different Levels, each of these can unlock rewards and different goodies.

This is a way to keep your members engaged and coming back.

Note that both platforms have a mobile app, available on any pricing plans. You can see our dedicated article on these apps: here for Kajabi and here for Circle.

These can be accessed from both the Apple and Google Store.

Checkout & Payments

The last core feature to break down is the payment system and integrations Circle and Kajabi offer.

Kajabi can integrate with Stripe and Paypal or you can also use Kajabi Payments which will give you access to Apple and Google pay or buy-now-pay-later solutions like Klarna.

Circle only offers their own native payment system, which does have higher fees than Stripe.

Transaction fees depend on your pricing plan, for more information on that, see our dedicated article.

The main thing to understand here is that overall Kajabi does offer more flexibility here.

Checkouts in Kajabi are also more customizable.

That being said, Circle is a lot better at helping you sell memberships.

For example you’ll be able to display different Tiers on the same checkout (not possible with Kajabi).

Members can also easily upgrade or downgrade on their own from one tier to another very easily.

Again this isn’t quite as smooth in Kajabi.

The last thing to mention is that both platforms give you the ability to create an affiliate program.

Payouts are manual, and each affiliate gets their own dashboard and unique link.

This is also where they can track the result of their affiliate campaigns:

These features are relatively similar in Kajabi and Circle.

Others features

Now, here are a few highlight of other features either Kajabi or Circle has to give you an overview of each:

Kajabi - Website & funnel builder: This is something Kajabi offers with a decent visual builder to help you design any website or sales page. You can also create a Blog. This is not something that Circle has.

Kajabi - Email Marketing & automation: This includes Broadcasts and automated email campaigns. Although it’s not as extensive as a full CRM system it’s plenty enough for most creators and a must for your marketing. Circle does have a similar feature

Circle - Events: Circle does offer a handy calendar that your members can view where you’ll be able to lay out upcoming and recurring events. Whether these are timely challenges or live calls.

Kajabi VS Circle: The Bottom Line