Kajabi Pricing 2026: What the January Hike Really Costs You

If you run your courses on Kajabi, January 2026 already changed your bill — and if you’re thinking about joining now, the cheapest way in costs a lot more than the old guides say. Kajabi raised every plan in its first major price restructure in nearly a decade, removed the $89 Kickstarter plan from its public pricing page, and cut the Basic plan’s contact cap by 75%. Existing customers were not grandfathered.

Here’s the short version: Basic now costs $143 a month billed annually ($179 month-to-month), Growth is $199 ($249 monthly), and Pro is $399 ($499 monthly). But the sticker price is only part of the story. Payment-processing surcharges stack on top, and the contact cap — not the monthly fee — is what forces most creators into the next tier. This guide works out the true cost at each level, so you can decide whether to stay, upgrade, or leave before your next renewal.

What Actually Changed in January 2026

Kajabi announced the restructure in late 2025, and the new prices reached existing customers on their first billing date on or after January 13, 2026. Founder and Beta Invite plans were the exception — they kept their old prices. Everyone else moved to the new rates, like it or not.

Here’s the before-and-after on annual billing, the way most creators pay:

On monthly billing the jump looks even steeper: Basic went from $149 to $179 a month, Growth from $199 to $249, and Pro from $399 to $499. Annual billing saves $432 a year on Basic, $600 on Growth, and $1,200 on Pro — which is why Kajabi pushes the annual option so hard on its pricing page.

The price rise itself wasn’t the part that made creators angriest. A 20% increase on Basic and a 25% increase on Growth are painful, but they’re the kind of thing a growing business can absorb. What stung was the combination: higher prices, a smaller contact allowance, and no grandfathering for people who had been paying for years.

The Contact Cap Cut Is the Real Price Hike

Buried in the restructure was a change that cost some creators far more than the $24-a-month Basic increase. Kajabi cut the Basic plan’s contact cap from 10,000 contacts to 2,500 — a 75% reduction. At the same time, it raised the product limit on Basic from 3 to 5, which looks generous until you realize contacts are the constraint that actually matters.

Think about what that means in practice. If you had 3,000 email subscribers on Basic in December 2025, you were comfortably inside your limit. In January 2026, you were suddenly 500 contacts over it — and Kajabi gives you 30 days to delete contacts or upgrade once you hit 100% of your limit. Your options were to trim your list (throwing away subscribers you paid to acquire), buy extra contact blocks at $125 a month per 25,000, or jump to Growth at $199 a month.

That’s a $56-a-month jump on top of the price rise, for the same list you already had. For a creator who was on the old Kickstarter plan at $89 a month with a growing list, the path was even worse: Kickstarter gone from the pricing page, Basic at $143 with a 2,500 cap, and Growth at $199 if the list was already past 2,500.

The current limits, confirmed against Kajabi’s pricing page in October 2026:

Growth also adds 11 admin users (Basic has 2), 500 AI credits, and features Basic doesn’t get at all: affiliates, advanced automations, webhooks, cohort courses, Comment-to-DM, and branding removal. That last one matters more than it sounds — several creators who upgraded to Growth just to remove Kajabi’s branding from their pages were paying $480 a year extra for a feature they thought came standard.

Jeff Cobb at Learning Revolution, who advises course creators for a living, put it plainly after the restructure hit: several of his clients called in a panic, some facing effective increases of $1,200 or more a year. His first question in every conversation was how much of the platform they were actually using — and that question, he wrote, “settled almost everything.” One client was paying over $1,200 a year more to keep access to branding removal, a Growth-only feature, while never touching the automations or affiliate tools that Growth also includes.

The True Cost: Surcharges Stack on Top of the Subscription

Kajabi advertises 0% transaction fees on its own payment system, Kajabi Payments. That’s true — and it’s also incomplete. Here’s what actually comes out of every sale.

If you use Kajabi Payments: there’s no platform transaction fee, but Kajabi Payments adds 0.7% on subscription and payment-plan transactions, and 1.5% on international cards. Those sit on top of the standard card-processing rate.

If you use your own Stripe account instead: Kajabi charges a third-party processor surcharge — 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth, and 0.5% on Pro — on top of Stripe’s own 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

So what does a real month look like? Here’s the all-in cost at three revenue levels, assuming US card payments through Kajabi Payments on annual billing, with a typical mix that includes some subscription payments:

(The processing estimate uses roughly 3.6% blended — standard card fees plus the 0.7% subscription add-on on the portion sold as payment plans. Your exact number depends on your mix of one-time vs. subscription sales and how many buyers pay with international cards.)

Now compare that with using your own Stripe account on Basic: the same $5,000 month costs $143 in subscription plus about $145 in Stripe fees plus a 2% Kajabi surcharge of $100 — roughly $388 total, about $65 more than using Kajabi Payments. On Growth the surcharge drops to 1% ($50 on $5,000), and on Pro it’s 0.5% ($25). The math is clear: if you’re on Kajabi, use Kajabi Payments unless you have a specific reason not to. The surcharge is designed to make that choice for you.

One more cost that catches people: AI credits. Basic includes zero AI credits, Growth includes 500, and Pro includes 1,000. Extra credits cost $15 a month per 500. If you use Kajabi’s AI tools for video transcriptions or content generation, that’s another line on the bill.

The Kickstarter Plan: Gone, but Not Quite Dead

The $89 Kickstarter plan was Kajabi’s entry point for new creators: 1 product, 250 contacts, 1 website. In January 2026 it vanished from the public pricing page, and the cheapest public option became Basic at $143 a month billed annually — the highest entry price in the course-platform market.

But Kickstarter isn’t entirely dead. Multiple pricing guides that checked Kajabi’s pages through 2026 report that it still surfaces in some trial flows and through direct contact with support, and Kajabi’s own help documentation still recognizes Kickstarter for existing customers. Existing Kickstarter accounts kept their $89 price.

If you’re a new creator and $143 a month is a stretch, it’s worth asking Kajabi support directly whether Kickstarter is available to you — but treat it as unofficial. Don’t build your business plan around a plan Kajabi doesn’t advertise, and don’t assume it will still be there when you need to renew. The safer way to think about it: the real entry price for Kajabi in 2026 is $143 a month, and if that doesn’t work for your revenue yet, another platform is probably the better call.

What Creators Actually Said

The backlash was immediate and loud. Reddit threads filled up in January, a Change.org petition titled “Don’t leave your loyal users behind” circulated, and Trustpilot one-star reviews spiked in January 2026 — the most concentrated single-month pattern in the platform’s recent history, according to a review of Trustpilot, G2, Capterra, and Reddit feedback.

One Redditor, quoted in a roundup of the community reaction, put the math the way a lot of creators felt it: “This platform is raising prices by $1,200 annually. That’s a 25% increase for the same exact plan I had before.” Another wrote: “Kajabi just shared their first-ever price increase! New customers are paying the higher prices starting today, and if you’re already a customer, your prices go up in January.”

A Trustpilot reviewer in May 2026 was blunter about the outcome: “There was also a significant recent price increase, and at that point I decided it was no longer practical for me to continue.”

Not everyone left. The recurring theme in the reviews from creators who stayed is the same one that keeps people on any all-in-one platform: migration is painful. Moving courses, email lists, automations, and landing pages to a new system takes weeks, and several reviewers described absorbing a $1,200-a-year increase rather than facing the switching costs. That’s a real cost to factor in — if you’re already on Kajabi, the question isn’t just “is this expensive?” but “is it $1,200-a-year more expensive than the disruption of leaving?”

Kajabi vs. the Cheaper Alternatives

If the new pricing doesn’t work for you, the two names that come up most in migration discussions are Thinkific and Podia — and both had their own pricing news in 2026, so check their current pages before you move.

Thinkific raised its own prices on August 13, 2026 — its first increase since 2022. Its Start plan now costs $109 a month ($82 billed annually), and Grow is $219 ($164 annually). That’s still meaningfully cheaper than Kajabi’s Basic, and Thinkific takes 0% in platform fees when you use Thinkific Payments. But note the same surcharge pattern: use your own Stripe and Thinkific adds 5% on Start, 2% on Grow, and 1% on Expand.

Podia’s entry plan runs about $33 a month billed annually with a 5% platform fee, which makes it the cheapest of the three for a creator just starting out — though the 5% fee adds up fast once you’re selling real volume. At $5,000 a month in sales, that 5% is $250, which wipes out the subscription savings against Kajabi Basic.

The honest comparison isn’t subscription vs. subscription. It’s total monthly cost at your actual revenue, including processing surcharges and the features you need. A creator selling $2,000 a month who needs affiliates and automations will pay less on Thinkific Grow than on Kajabi Growth. A creator selling $10,000 a month who uses Kajabi Payments and actually uses the built-in email, funnels, and community tools may find Kajabi’s $199 Growth plan cheaper than stitching together separate tools.

Stay, Upgrade, or Leave: A Decision Framework

Stay on Basic if: your list is under 2,500 contacts, you sell 5 or fewer products, you don’t need affiliates or advanced automations, and you use Kajabi Payments. At $143 a month, it’s expensive but defensible if you’re actually using the website, email, and course tools in one place.

Upgrade to Growth if: your list has passed 2,500 contacts, you need more than 5 products, you want affiliates or branding removal, or you sell enough that the surcharge drops from 2% to 1% on your own Stripe account. The $56-a-month jump from Basic buys 22,500 more contacts — the best value in the lineup if you need the room.

Consider Pro if: you’re running multiple brands or need 3 websites, you have more than 25,000 contacts, or you want the branded mobile app and API access. For most solo creators, Pro’s $399 a month is hard to justify until revenue is well into five figures a month.

Leave if: you’re paying for Growth features you never touch, your list is small and your revenue is under $1,000 a month, or the January increase pushed your platform cost above 10% of your revenue. That’s the rule of thumb worth applying: if Kajabi costs more than a tenth of what you earn from it, the platform is eating too much of your business. At $143 a month on Basic, that means you need roughly $1,430 a month in course revenue for the math to work. Below that, a cheaper platform — or a simpler stack — leaves more money in your pocket.

And if you’re choosing a platform for the first time, don’t pick Kajabi because the marketing looks polished. Pick it because you’ve checked the contact limit against your real list size, added up the processing surcharges at your real revenue, and confirmed you need the features that only come on the plan you’re buying. The January 2026 restructure made one thing clear: on Kajabi, the plan you need is decided by your contact count, not your ambition.

If you’re weighing how course income fits into your wider creator revenue — ad revenue, affiliate income, and platform payouts — it’s worth mapping the whole picture first. Our guide to Facebook’s content monetization program breaks down how platform payouts actually work, and the Google AdSense approval requirements for 2026 cover what it takes to monetize a content site alongside your courses.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Kajabi cost in 2026?

Basic is $179 a month, or $143 a month billed annually. Growth is $249 a month, or $199 billed annually. Pro is $499 a month, or $399 billed annually. There is no free plan, though a 14-day free trial is available.

Did Kajabi raise prices in 2026?

Yes. In January 2026 Kajabi raised prices for the first time in nearly a decade — Basic went from $119 to $143 a month on annual billing, Growth from $159 to $199, and Pro from $319 to $399. Existing customers were not grandfathered, and the increase reached them on their first billing date on or after January 13, 2026.

What happened to the Kajabi Kickstarter plan?

Kajabi removed the $89-a-month Kickstarter plan from its public pricing page in January 2026. Existing Kickstarter customers kept their $89 price, and the plan reportedly still surfaces in some trial flows or through support — but new customers can’t sign up for it from the pricing page.

How many contacts does Kajabi Basic include?

Basic includes 2,500 contacts, Growth includes 25,000, and Pro includes 100,000. The Basic cap was cut from 10,000 to 2,500 in the January 2026 restructure, which forced many creators to upgrade to Growth. Extra contacts cost $125 a month per block of 25,000.

Does Kajabi charge transaction fees?

Kajabi charges 0% in platform transaction fees when you use Kajabi Payments, but adds 0.7% on subscription and payment-plan transactions and 1.5% on international cards. If you use your own Stripe account, Kajabi adds a surcharge of 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth, and 0.5% on Pro, on top of Stripe’s own fees.

Is Kajabi worth it after the price increase?

It depends on your revenue and how much of the platform you use. If your course revenue is above roughly $1,430 a month and you use Kajabi’s website, email, funnels, and community tools together, Basic at $143 a month is defensible. If your revenue is lower, or you only use the course hosting, a cheaper platform like Thinkific or Podia will leave more money in your pocket.