Systeme.io vs Kajabi: $170 or $1,716 a Year to Sell a Course

Short answer: if you sell one to five courses or coaching programs to fewer than 5,000 people, Systeme.io Startup at $17 a month covers what Kajabi Basic charges $179 for. Both list unlimited email sends, courses, a community, funnels and a way to take payments, with no revenue share. The difference that decides it is price: Kajabi Basic is $1,716 a year billed annually, Systeme.io Startup is $170 (both pricing pages, read 4 October 2026 and 20 September 2026). Kajabi earns its price if you want a polished app your students download, live cohort courses or one vendor's support behind every piece. If you want the cheapest place to sell a course without a revenue share, it is Systeme.io, and the only real question is when you leave its free plan.

This is a source roundup plus one live account, and we keep the two apart. We run a real Systeme.io account, created 16 September 2026, and the plan limits below marked "our account" we read inside it ourselves. We have never opened a Kajabi account, trial or otherwise. Every Kajabi statement on this page comes from kajabi.com/pricing, captured on 4 October 2026. That is why this page has no rating. How we draw that line: how we test.

What we ran and what we only read

We did not publish a course, enroll a student or take a payment on either platform. We cannot tell you how Kajabi's course player, community or app feel to a student, because nobody on our side has used them.

The number that decides it: a year on the entry paid plan

Here are the two cheapest paid plans side by side, from each vendor's own page.

On annual billing the gap is $1,546 in the first year. Kajabi's own FAQ answers the obvious objection itself: "If you are just looking at a course delivery platform, yes" it is expensive, and its case is that it replaces your email tool, website, community and checkout. Systeme.io makes the same all-in-one claim at a tenth of the price, which is why this comparison exists.

Two rows in that table cut against Systeme.io's favour on first read and are worth a second look. Kajabi Basic counts products, and a product can be a course, a coaching program or a membership; Systeme.io counts courses only. And contacts run the other way: Systeme.io Startup holds 5,000, Kajabi Basic 2,500.

Where Systeme.io's free plan stops for a course seller

The free plan is where most coaches will start, so here is exactly where it ends. These are from the plan screen inside our own account on 16 September 2026, and today's public table matches them:

• 1 course and 500 students.
• $10,000 in sales. This row is not on the public pricing page; we only saw it inside the account, as "Sales revenue limit 0 / 10000 USD", with Unlimited ($97) showing no cap. The Startup and Webinar columns of that row showed no number we could read, so check it in your own plan screen before you count on Startup lifting it.
• 1 automation rule, 1 tag and 1 email campaign. One welcome sequence works. A second automation does not.
• 2,000 contacts and 3 sales funnels.

One thing to know before you rely on the marketing copy: on the same pricing page, on the same day, the "All plans include" block says "Unlimited students" while the comparison table above it says 500 on Free. Our own account showed 500. Plan around the table.

Startup at $17 lifts the rest: unlimited students, 5 courses, 10 automation rules, 10 tags, 5,000 contacts. That is the realistic upgrade moment, and it lands well before you would ever consider a $179 plan. If you want to see what the free account does in practice before paying anything, our systeme.io free plan review walks through it screen by screen.

What you pay on every sale

Neither platform takes a revenue share, and both say so on their pricing pages. The fees that are left work differently.

Systeme.io lists 0% transaction fees on all four plans. You connect Stripe or PayPal and pay their normal processing fee; Systeme.io adds nothing on top.

Kajabi has its own processor, Kajabi Payments, at 2.9% + $0.30 on Basic, 2.8% + $0.30 on Growth and 2.7% + $0.30 on Pro (US rates on the pricing page). If you use a third-party processor instead, Kajabi adds 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth and 0.5% on Pro, on top of that processor's own fee (PayPal excluded).

The arithmetic on that 2%: on $10,000 of course sales through Stripe on Kajabi Basic, Kajabi's extra cut is $200 for the year. That is a calculation on Kajabi's published percentage, not a payout we measured.

What Kajabi's extra $162 a month actually buys

The gap is not all padding. On 4 October 2026 Kajabi's pricing page listed these, and Systeme.io's did not:

• A customer app. Kajabi says your courses and community are on iPhone and Android "day one", on every plan. A branded app in the App Store under your own name is a Pro feature ($499 a month), which Kajabi values at $199 a month.
• Live cohort courses, comment to DM and advanced automations, all from Growth ($249) up.
• Kajabi Cofounder, its AI assistant, plus AI credits: 0 on Basic, 500 on Growth, 1,000 on Pro.
• Coaching as a product type, sold next to courses and memberships inside the same 5-product limit.

And the reverse list. Systeme.io includes these at a price Kajabi does not match:

• A free plan with no card, where Kajabi has a 14-day trial.
• Your own affiliate program on every plan, including Free. On Kajabi it starts at Growth, $249 a month.
• Evergreen webinars from the $47 Webinar plan (10 of them), and a booking calendar with unlimited bookings on every plan (1 event type on Free, 5 on Startup).
• Unlimited sub-accounts on every plan, which matters if you build course sites for clients. We have not created one; that is the vendor's table, not our test.

Kajabi Basic also keeps its own branding on your site: removing it is listed as a Growth feature.

Which plan to pick, by where you are

You have not sold a course yet. Start on Systeme.io Free. It costs nothing and asks for no card, and it holds one course and 500 students, which is more than a first launch needs. Kajabi's own advice for this stage is its $179 Basic plan.

You are past 500 students or need a second course. Move to Systeme.io Startup, $17 a month or $170 a year. That lifts students to unlimited and gives you 5 courses, 5 communities and 10 automation rules. This is the plan most solo coaches will sit on for a long time.

You run evergreen webinars as your sales engine. Webinar, $47 a month: 10 evergreen webinars, 20 courses, 10,000 contacts.

You want a premium student app, live cohorts and one support desk for everything, and the margin to pay for it. That is Kajabi's pitch, and it is a real one. Growth at $249 is where the features most people buy Kajabi for (cohorts, affiliates, no branding) actually start. Check kajabi.com/pricing for your country's payment rates before you decide.

Who should skip Systeme.io

Be honest about the one case where it is the wrong pick. If your students expect to learn inside a native mobile app with your name on it, or you sell high-ticket cohorts where a polished live experience is the product, Systeme.io's pricing table does not list either, and Kajabi does. Also know that Systeme.io rolled out a redesigned dashboard on 1 October 2026; we have not re-tested its screens since, so what you see will not match older walkthroughs, including some of ours.

If the question behind your search is really "which all-in-one tool for a coaching business", the other comparison worth reading is gohighlevel vs systeme.io, where the trade-off is a phone and SMS system instead of a course app. For bookings specifically, see best booking system for coaches, and for what each Systeme.io tier unlocks, systeme.io pricing.