Kajabi vs Podia: Expert Comparison 

Before getting into the comparison, let's take a quick look at where both platforms stand in the categories of platforms to host your online course or membership.

Both Podia and Kajabi are all-in-one platforms.

That means that they are both promising that you could be using them and only them for everything from designing your online course to marketing and selling your online business. 

Their services include designing and hosting your product, building an effective marketing funnel, taking payment, and helping you create email campaigns. 

However, just because they both promise the same features doesn’t mean that Kajabi and Podia are equal. We'll see in this review that there are some stark differences between the two platforms.

But let's first take a quick look at their pricing.

Kajabi is on the higher-end for cost on the all-in-one platforms, while Podia is on the more affordable side.

However, the cost is not the only factor in choosing a platform. So, throughout this review, consider what you’re getting for your money and which platform will be worth it to you. 

Let's start with what Kajabi and Podia likely differ the most on: page and funnel building. 

A key component of selling your online courses and sometimes one of the first touching points with a prospective student is how your page is built and how it is designed to funnel students to the checkout. 

Unfortunately, there isn't much control over page and funnel building with Podia.

When creating a page in Podia, you can choose from a range of pre-made sections.

However, they are not very customizable, and you'll hardly be able to build a highly converting sales page with them. 

If you've ever used Teachable, you will be familiar with this very blocky page-building capability that only really allows you to build basic designs and give some information about your courses. 

On the other hand, creating a page on Kajabi gives you more control and customization.

In Kajabi, you can first pick a page template so that you don't have to start from scratch.

Then you can build customizable sections and pick from a wide range of blocks to add anywhere. 

Admittedly, Kajabi’s page builder is still not a front-end drag and drop page builder, but it's still much superior to Podia's.

For instance, in Kajabi, you can create multiple columns, whereas you can only have up to two in Podia. Kajabi allows you to create interesting designs, and even animations to give some dynamism to your page.

On top of that, you can build a proper funnel in Kajabi, but Podia doesn’t have the same capability. 

You can't really build an options page (see more details in the email section below) or anything fancy in Podia. That makes it only usable for beginner course creators unless you're planning on using a separate external funnel builder. 

Funnel builder: Conclusion

For building pages and funnels, Kajabi is a clear winner. 

I'm almost tempted to retrograde Podia and say it’s not an all-in-one platform because of the lack of a robust page builder, which in my opinion, makes it almost impossible for any serious course creator to use it. 

However, Kajabi isn't perfect with that feature either, and several other platforms do better (check out GrooveFunnels, New Zenler, or Kartra). But, Kajabi is still a long way ahead of Podia on-page and funnel builders.

The integrated cart is a key part of your all-in-one platform; it’s where you make the sale, so you want it to go smoothly for your end-users. 

Both Podia and Kajabi integrate with Stripe and PayPal to help you handle payments and give proper access to your digital products post-purchase. But, their integrations work slightly differently. 

In Podia, you will add pricing directly in the settings of your course and can then create memberships to bundle different products with the community.

Pricing can then display on a sales page (vs. a standalone checkout page for Kajabi). 

But, Podia's design limitations can limit conversions as the payment will occur without a popup.

On top of that, pricing options for your products inside Podia are limited; you can only have monthly or yearly subscriptions and paid trials are not possible. 

But to be fair, you are able to display two pricing options on the same checkout page with Podia, whereas you'll need to link out and create two offers to do this in Kajabi. 

Podia also has different types of products you can create including, online courses, digital downloads, and webinars. You can reproduce these same things in Kajabi, but Podia does make the creation process a little more intuitive.

Affiliate

Both platforms have an affiliate program, and they are rather similar in my opinion. In both Kajabi and Podia, you can pick affiliate commissions and set payouts. Affiliates will then get access to a dashboard where they can get their affiliate links and see a few analytics on their affiliate campaigns.

However, to get the affiliate functionality with Kajabi, you'll need to be on the Growth plan (starting at $139/month), whereas Podia has it from the Shaker plan on (at just $79/month).

Upsells

Both platforms have an upsell feature. They are both one-click upsells that happen after the first purchase and allow you to increase a basket's value.

In Kajabi, you can add as many upsells and downsells as you want! 

I also found them to be a lot more customizable and well-designed than Podia's upsells (which you can't have more than one of).

Checkout: The Bottom Line

I would say both platforms are even on their checkout experiences.

I do like the fact that Kajabi has a dedicated entity (Offers) to set these up and optimize the checkout design, so maybe they are slightly ahead.

But, Podia has a simple, easy-to-use process for setting up an offer and product that could be a good fit for beginners. 

To run effective campaigns and communicate with your audience, building an email list is essential and having an integrated email marketing system is an upside of all-in-ones.

Optin & Forms

Unfortunately, Podia doesn't allow for multiple opt-ins. The only way you can capture emails in Podia is through the built-in newsletter form, or if students enroll in a course.

But that limits your ability to manage your contacts and to run email campaigns and sequences.

Kajabi, on the other end, has forms that you can create and customize to your liking, with automation and all the tools you need to simplify email!

The only way to achieve what Kajabi has for emails in Podia is by integrating a third-party marketing software like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, or Mailerlite, which kind of defeats the purpose of an all-in-one. 

Email and Sequence Builder

When it comes to writing and designing an email, both platforms have:

•  Broadcasts - one-off date based emails
• Sequences - autoresponders triggered by a selected event

When building emails, Kajabi has a superior builder with easy building blocks to create stunning emails.

Note that this is only for broadcast and not email sequences, where the builder resembles Podia's simple text area for writing your message.

You can also see a range of metrics on both platforms including, open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribes.

Automations

It is not easy to create automated flows with Podia, and you can only really do the basics. 

Kajabi, on the other hand, has advanced automation capabilities that you can use to create more intelligent systems.

For instance, you can create automated flows in Kajabi for:

• link clicked in emails, 
• inactivity time,
• a specific module in a course is completed, 
• and more

You can even create conditional logic rules to make your communication as relevant and contextual as possible.

Podia does have one notable email feature: internal messages. This feature allows you to start conversations with your users and replicate what you would do with a chatbot for support. Internal messages can make the difference for some course creators, in which case you should go with Podia.

Email/Automation: The Bottom Line

Kajabi is a clear winner here, with an email marketing system that allows for well-designed automation and funnels.

Kajabi has more ways to capture emails and communicate with your students, plus  powerful automation flows that are not available in Podia.

The last category to compare Podia against Kajabi is course design and delivery, or building a world-class program for your students inside the platform.

Course Design

Creating a course in Podia is fairly simple. After selecting the product type, you will add your content and structure your course. But, you can’t influence the layout and design from the student's point of view.

You can't even change the colors of the framework; all you can do is add a body of text to each piece of content you upload. 

If you're familiar with Teachable, Podia will look very similar on the front-end. 

Kajabi, on the other hand, has maybe the most advanced course builder for an all-in-one online course platform.

Kajabi allows you to pick a theme and layout and then edit both the front-end design and flow inside of your course. 

To manage content, you'll upload everything in the back-end, where you can structure everything and see all of the details of your course at a glance.

Course Content

With types of content, both platforms support text, images, digital downloads, and native video hosting. 

They also both allow you to build quizzes or assessments, although Kajabi does have a more powerful way to make these learning tools, whereas Podia's quizzes are limited to right/wrong questions.

Both platforms have a drip feature that allows you to release your content on a schedule based on the student's join date. But, you can’t schedule content itself for everyone to get it on a specific date.

Community

Both Kajabi and Podia have a native community feature, allowing your audience to connect in a forum-like experience, similar to a Facebook Group. 

A community section can be useful where having a group can be a deciding factor in retention and membership.

Kajabi has shown a real dedication to make course creators life better by acquiring a specialist platform in 2022 (Vibely) and provides an engaging community building tool to its users:

On both community pages, you can create posts that users can like and comment on. Posts can include text, images, and videos. 

But Kajabi's communities offer a lot more features: live video trainings, challenges, leaderboard, gamification ,etc.

Podia only allows you to create posts.

This move has made Kajabi stand up among pretty much all other all in one platforms!

Course Delivery: The Bottom Line

Kajabi wins again, as it is probably the best all-in-one platform when it comes to course design and creating an outstanding student experience.

Add to that the superior in-course automation, and there are some really interesting things you can do with Kajabi.

Podia remains simple and a little too basic on the design side.

Kajabi vs Podia: How To Choose