Alternatives
Kajabi Alternative: Courses Plus a Full CRM in One Plan
By Marnix Geerkens. Published 2026-07-21. Updated 2026-07-21.
In short
The strongest Kajabi alternative for most coaches and course sellers is GoHighLevel. Kajabi is a polished course platform, but it charges $149 a month or more and its CRM is thin. GoHighLevel runs courses, a real CRM, email, funnels, and booking in one flat plan from $97 a month. Agencies can white-label it at $497 a month.
- Kajabi starts around $149 a month and is built course-first, with a light CRM.
- GoHighLevel bundles courses with a full CRM, email, funnels, and booking from $97 a month.
- Agencies can rebrand GoHighLevel as their own tool at the $497 a month tier.
What is Kajabi and who is it for?
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform for selling online courses, coaching, and digital products. It hosts your videos, builds your course pages, runs the checkout, and gives students a clean place to log in and learn.
It is built for creators whose main product is knowledge. Course sellers, coaches, and membership hosts pick Kajabi because the student experience looks great out of the box and the course builder is simple to use. If your whole business is teaching, Kajabi feels made for you.
The catch is price and reach. Kajabi starts around $149 a month, and the tools around the course, like the CRM and the sales pipeline, stay basic. It sells and delivers the course well. It does less to find the lead, follow up by text, book the call, and run the rest of your business.
GoHighLevel vs Kajabi, side by side
Kajabi does one thing very well: package and sell a course. GoHighLevel does that and then keeps going, because a course is one product inside a business that still needs leads, follow-up, and bookings. Here is how the two stack up.
The short version: if all you sell is a course and you want the prettiest student experience with the least setup, Kajabi is built for that. If you want the course to sit inside one tool that also runs your leads, your email, your texts, and your bookings, GoHighLevel covers a lot more ground for one flat price.
Who should switch, and who should not
You are a good fit to switch to GoHighLevel if you are a coach or course seller who also needs to find leads, book calls, and follow up, not just deliver lessons. You get the course plus the CRM and automations that actually turn interest into paid students.
Agencies are an even clearer fit. With GoHighLevel you can put courses, a CRM, email, and SMS under your own brand and resell it to every client from one $497 a month account. You stop stacking a course tool on top of a separate CRM, and your clients only ever see your logo.
You should probably stay on Kajabi if your entire business is the course, you love the student experience, and you do not need a real sales pipeline or text follow-up. If teaching is the whole product and the polish is why you pay, a tool built around courses will feel smoother.
Be honest about what you actually need. Many coaches pay for a course platform and then bolt on a second tool for the CRM, the emails, and the booking. If that is you, one flat platform that does all of it is usually the better deal.
Where Kajabi still wins
A fair comparison says where the other tool is stronger, so here it is.
Course-first polish. Kajabi is built around the course, so the student experience, the lesson layout, and the checkout feel refined with almost no setup. If your product is the course and you want it to look premium on day one, Kajabi gets you there faster.
Simplicity for a pure creator. If you only sell knowledge and do not want a CRM, pipelines, and automation staring at you, Kajabi is a tighter, simpler tool. Fewer moving parts can be a feature when teaching is all you do.
Community and app features. Kajabi has leaned into community spaces and mobile access for students. A creator who wants a self-contained home for lessons and a member community may find it a cleaner single home.
None of this is small. If your whole business case is a beautiful course with the least possible setup, Kajabi earns its price. The question is simply whether that is all you are buying it for.
How it works in GoHighLevel
Running a course business in GoHighLevel is built around one idea: keep the course and the sales machine in the same place, so a lead flows straight into a student.
Here is the flow. Someone lands on a funnel you built in GoHighLevel. They opt in, and their contact record is created in the CRM right away. You can follow up by email and text automatically, so warm leads do not go cold while you sleep.
When they buy, they get access to your course, hosted in the same tool. Lessons can drip on a schedule, and a members area keeps the content behind a login. You see the lead, the sale, and the student in one dashboard.
Because the CRM, the email, the SMS, and the booking calendar all live in the same place, you can run a whole coaching business from one login instead of paying for a course tool and a CRM and an email tool separately.
You can see the course tools and the rest of the platform running on the live demo. It is the same GoHighLevel you would get on the trial, set up the way we run it.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a cheaper alternative to Kajabi?
Yes. GoHighLevel is a flat, published price starting at $97 a month, and it includes courses plus a full CRM, email, SMS, funnels, and booking. Kajabi starts around $149 a month and its CRM is basic, so for a coach who needs more than just course delivery, GoHighLevel is usually both cheaper and broader.
Can GoHighLevel host online courses like Kajabi?
Yes. GoHighLevel builds courses, drips lessons on a schedule, and gates a members area behind a login, all from one dashboard. The student experience is not quite as polished out of the box as Kajabi, but it covers the course hosting and delivery most coaches need, and it sits next to your CRM and email.
Does GoHighLevel have a real CRM and Kajabi does not?
GoHighLevel includes a full CRM with contacts, pipelines, tags, and deal stages. Kajabi has a contact list and basic email marketing, but it is not a true sales pipeline CRM. If you want to track leads through stages and follow up by text, GoHighLevel does that and Kajabi mostly does not.
Can I move my course from Kajabi to GoHighLevel?
Your lessons and videos do not transfer automatically, so you rebuild the course structure in GoHighLevel and re-upload your content. It is manual, but it is a one-time job. Once it is set up, your funnels, CRM, email, and course all run from one place instead of a course tool plus separate marketing tools.
Is Kajabi worth it?
For a creator whose entire business is a course and who wants the most polished student experience with the least setup, Kajabi can be worth the price. For a coach or agency that also needs a real CRM, text follow-up, and booking, a flat all-in-one platform usually delivers more for less.
Can an agency white-label GoHighLevel for courses?
Yes. At the $497 a month tier you can rebrand the whole platform, including the course and membership tools, as your own product and resell it to every client from one account. Kajabi does not offer a platform white-label, so this is a clear edge for agencies that serve coaches.
How long is the GoHighLevel free trial?
Through our link you get a GoHighLevel 30-day free trial, which is double the standard 14 days. That gives you a full month to build a course, test the CRM and email, and decide if the all-in-one platform fits before you pay anything.