Kajabi and Systeme.io both let you sell online courses. That’s about where the similarity ends — because one starts at nothing and the other, since its 2026 price rise, starts at $179 a month.
That’s not a typo. Kajabi restructured its pricing in January 2026, and its entry plan is now $179/month ($143 if you pay annually). Systeme.io has a permanent free plan, with paid tiers from $17/month. So the honest question isn’t really “which is better” — it’s “is Kajabi ten times better?” Let me lay it out.
The headline difference: price
Kajabi has no free plan. You’re in at $179 a month before you’ve sold anything. Systeme.io lets you build your course, your funnel and your email list for free, and upgrade to $17 a month only when you outgrow the free limits.
Over a year, that’s the difference between roughly $2,150 and either nothing or a couple of hundred pounds. For an established business, $179 a month is a rounding error. For someone launching their first course, it’s a serious bet placed before the first sale.
What Kajabi genuinely does better
I’m not here to pretend Kajabi is a rip-off. It isn’t — it’s a premium product, and it earns its reputation.
Kajabi is polished in a way Systeme.io isn’t. The course and membership experience is slicker, the templates are more refined, the community and website features are more mature, and the whole thing feels built for people running a serious, established creator business. If your brand image matters, your course is your main product, and the monthly fee is comfortably covered by revenue, Kajabi is a genuinely lovely place to run it.
You’re paying for polish and depth. If you’ll use them, they’re worth paying for.
What Systeme.io does better
Value, and the barrier to starting. It’s not close.
Systeme.io gives you the whole toolkit — courses, sales funnels, email marketing, an affiliate program, checkout — for free to start and $17/month when you scale. It’s less polished than Kajabi, but it does the core jobs a course business needs, and it lets you prove the course sells before it costs you anything. That “prove it first” bit is the whole game for anyone who isn’t already established.
There’s also no transaction fee on any Systeme.io plan, including free — worth knowing, because platform fees quietly eat into course revenue.
So which should you pick?
Pick Kajabi if you’re an established creator, your course is your core business, the monthly fee is easily covered, and you want the most polished course-and-community experience money can buy.
Pick Systeme.io if you’re starting out, launching your first course, watching your costs, or you simply don’t want to pay $179 a month to find out whether people will buy. You can start free, launch a real course, and only pay once it’s working.
The most expensive course platform isn’t the one with the biggest monthly fee. It’s the one you paid for months before you had anything to sell on it.
If Systeme.io sounds like your side of that line, here’s exactly how to sell a course on it for free.
Frequently asked questions
Is Systeme.io cheaper than Kajabi?
By a wide margin. Systeme.io has a free plan and paid tiers from $17/month. Kajabi has no free plan and starts at $179/month ($143 billed annually) after its 2026 price change.
Is Kajabi worth the extra cost?
If you’re an established creator who’ll use its polish, depth and community features — and the fee is easily covered by revenue — yes. If you’re starting out and just need to sell a course, the extra cost is hard to justify over Systeme.io.
Can I sell an online course for free with Systeme.io?
Yes. The free plan includes one course, 2,000 contacts, unlimited emails and zero transaction fees, so you can launch and sell a course without paying anything.
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