Kajabi or Podia: which one fits a growing knowledge business?

Who is actually choosing between these two

Kajabi and Podia both sell courses, coaching, downloads and communities from one account with a built-in website. The choice between them is not about features, both cover the same core journey, it's about scale. Kajabi's plan ladder assumes the catalog and the list will grow past a handful of products and a few thousand contacts. Podia's plan ladder assumes a smaller, simpler operation: fewer products, a smaller list, and a lower starting price. If you're not sure which describes you, the deciding factor is usually the size of the email list you already have or expect to build within the first year, not the number of products you plan to launch on day one.

Contacts and products: the numbers aren't on the same scale

Per the official pricing pages, the entry tiers diverge sharply. Kajabi's Basic plan includes 2,500 contacts and 5 products. Podia's Mover plan includes 100 email subscribers and 50 products. That means Podia's entry tier is generous on product count but tight on list size, while Kajabi's entry tier is the reverse.

• Kajabi contacts by plan: 2,500 (Basic), 25,000 (Growth), 100,000 (Pro).
• Podia email subscribers by plan: 100 (Mover), 500 (Shaker), 1,000 (Earthquaker).
• Kajabi products by plan: 5 (Basic), 50 (Growth), unlimited (Pro).
• Podia products by plan: 50 (Mover), 150 (Shaker), unlimited (Earthquaker).

Podia's top plan caps out at 1,000 subscribers, below Kajabi's entry plan. If your list is likely to pass a few thousand contacts, verify Podia's current subscriber terms before committing, since that ceiling is the platform's hardest structural limit.

Podia's transaction fee vs Kajabi's flat pricing

Podia's Mover plan carries a 5% transaction fee on sales, charged by Podia itself. Shaker and Earthquaker remove that Podia fee entirely, per the official pricing page. Standard card processing (commonly cited around 2.9% + 30 cents per charge, varying by country) applies on every Podia plan on top of that, see Podia's current pricing and fee details.

Kajabi's pricing page does not list a separate per-sale transaction fee at any tier; treat that as the documented default and confirm current terms on Kajabi's own pricing page before quoting it to a client. In practice, a seller doing meaningful volume on Podia's Mover plan is paying two costs at once, the subscription and the 5% cut, until they upgrade.

Side by side

Amounts come from each provider's official pricing page and can change: the official Kajabi pricing page · the official Podia pricing page.

Full plan detail: the Kajabi guide and the Podia guide.

The tipping points that force an upgrade

Two thresholds decide which platform stays cheap longer:

• List size: once your active list passes roughly 1,000 contacts, Podia's Earthquaker ceiling is already reached and Kajabi's Basic plan (2,500 contacts) is still comfortable.
• Catalog size: a single flagship course with modules stays inside either platform's entry tier easily. A catalog of five or more distinct paid products pushes Kajabi to Growth sooner, since Basic caps at 5 products.

Run your actual numbers, list size and product count, through the cost calculator before assuming either plan will hold for a year.

Verdict by case

Choose Podia if you're launching one or two products to a list under a few hundred people and want the lowest possible entry cost, accepting the 5% fee until you can justify Shaker. Choose Kajabi if you already have, or expect to build, a list in the low thousands, or plan a catalog beyond a handful of products; the higher entry price buys headroom you'd otherwise hit within months on Podia. If the deciding factor is funnel and email automation depth rather than catalog size, compare both against ClickFunnels vs Kajabi as well.

What the two products actually look like