Consultants · one method, one offer · USD

Best course platform for consultants with one methodology

Updated August 29, 2026 · Official product and pricing pages fetched this evening. If a number is missing below, we could not cite it.

You already have a method. One of them. The question is not how to turn the work into a product — it is where that one offer lives: a recorded library, a dated cohort, or a room people return to.

Who this page is for

Consultants with a decade in the work, a named method that already exists, and a single flagship offer. Not a catalog. Not a 40-course school. You are Google-ing a host because the method is done and it needs a door.

This page does not extract your methodology, name your offer, or generate leads. It names which host matches the one product you already intend to run.

Pick by the shape of the one offer

One method does not need a school

Teachable’s public page is built as a school: 5 / 10 / 50 published products, active-student caps, a catalog. A consultant with one methodology will not hit those product caps. The mismatch is the framing and the Starter fee, not the ceiling.

Kajabi Basic already allows 5 products and 2,500 contacts. That is more than one flagship offer needs. You are paying for landing pages, email, funnels, checkout, and a community whether the catalog exists or not. Thinkific publishes unlimited courses on every named plan — surplus for one method; useful if you want a player without Kajabi’s floor.

If the work is still mostly 1:1 with a recording on the side, the coaches page is closer: best course platform for coaches. This page assumes the method is the offer.

What each host actually is, for one offer

Kajabi — the business OS for one flagship

Official course FAQ: two formats — evergreen (self-paced on purchase) and cohort courses (scheduled groups with live video). Drip, quizzes, certificates, no lesson cap. Coaching is a separate product type: 1:1 and group, built-in live video, group room up to 200 plus up to 20 breakout rooms of 10. One community on Basic and Growth, three on Pro. Community can be sold standalone, bundled, or tied to a course channel.

You pay for the bundle. Public starting price is the highest of the course hosts: Basic $179/mo month-to-month, $143/mo billed annually. Kajabi Payments: no extra platform percentage. US cards on the public grid: 2.9%+$0.30 Basic / 2.8%+$0.30 Growth / 2.7%+$0.30 Pro. Keep Stripe on a new plan where Kajabi Payments is available: 2% / 1% / 0.5%. PayPal excluded. 30-day trial on the pricing page.

Honest fit: the consultant who will run sales page, email, checkout, and the one method in one place. Not a cheap first experiment, and not a reason to invent a 40-course catalog so the price “feels used.”

Teachable — a school. Builder, not Starter, if the offer is real

One published course, coaching offering, or download counts as one product. Memberships and bundles do not count. Unpublished drafts do not count. Starter’s five-product cap is plenty for one methodology. That is not the number that matters.

Starter is $39/mo ($29/mo annual, 22% off) with a 7.5% platform cut on every sale — Teachable Pay: 7.5% of total transaction value (product price including taxes). Builder is $89/mo ($69/mo annual) and drops that cut to 0% if you stay on teachable:pay or Monthly Payment Gateway. US card processing 2.9%+$0.30 on top, all plans. Dollars at $97 / $497 / $2,000 are on the Teachable transaction fees page.

Honest fit: only if you actually want a school, or you will start on Builder. A single paid method parked on Starter is how “$39/mo” becomes the expensive host.

Thinkific — course LMS; live cohort is a plan fork

Unlimited courses on Basic, Start, and Grow. Basic includes 1 community and 5 coaching/webinar products. Live cohorts and coaching — unlimited Zoom sessions, bookable calendars, attendance — sit on Start, not Basic. Paid memberships are not on Basic. You connect your own video-conference tool; Thinkific does not host the live video.

Public prices after the August 13, 2026 increase: Basic $54/mo / $40 annual; Start $109/mo / $82 annual; Grow $219/mo / $164 annual. 10,000 current students on those named plans. 30-day trial. No free plan on the public page.

Honest fit: one recorded method on Basic if you will keep email and funnels elsewhere. A dated group of the method on Start. Course-first, not funnel-first. Keep Stripe only after you have priced the third-party gateway fee (5% / 2% / 1% on Basic / Start / Grow in the US, Canada, UK, and EU, first $1M/year).

Skool — only if the method lives in a feed

Official about page: a community platform. You build a community, courses, and events; charge subscriptions or one-time course purchases. Courses are inside the room.

Hobby $9/month with a 10% transaction fee; Pro $99/month with a 2.9% transaction fee on the pricing cards. Payments FAQ (updated August 18, 2026): Hobby is 10%+$0.30 on every transaction; Pro is 2.9%+$0.30 up to $899, and 3.9%+$0.30 above $900. You cannot use your existing Stripe — Skool is merchant of record. Prices USD. Payment terms (updated February 19, 2026): 14-day free trial, then Hobby or Pro. Yearly toggle advertises “2 months free”; yearly dollar amounts were not extracted as text this fetch, so they are omitted.

Honest fit: the community is the offer. A poor home for a $2,000 method checkout on Pro (that charge is the 3.9% tier). Growth Boost is a separate 30% on members Skool brings; default ON per the payments FAQ.

Cited numbers, August 29, 2026

USD. Monthly is month-to-month. Annual is the advertised per-month rate when you pay yearly, except Skool yearly dollars (omitted). Platform fee is the vendor’s cut, not card processing.

Sources: kajabi.com/pricing, Kajabi online courses, teachable.com/pricing, thinkific.com/pricing, skool.com/pricing, Skool Payments FAQ. Full list at the bottom.

What the fees do to one offer

Card processing sits on almost every stack. The extra question is the vendor’s own cut. Three prices a consultant actually writes:

• $97 recorded method (or a small course next to retained work). Teachable Starter takes 7.5% before the card network is paid — $7.28 on $97, plus 2.9%+$0.30 on a US card ($3.11). Combined $10.39. Kajabi Payments and Thinkific Payments do not add that extra percentage. Skool Hobby takes 10%+$0.30 ($10.00 on $97). Builder is the Teachable plan that drops the 7.5%.
• $497 cohort seat. Teachable Starter’s 7.5% is $37.28 before cards. Skool Hobby is $50.00. Skool Pro (under $899) is 2.9%+$0.30 = $14.71 — the same US-card arithmetic as Kajabi Payments on Basic, with Skool as merchant of record.
• $2,000 package (common consulting ticket). Teachable Starter’s 7.5% is $150.00 before cards. Skool Pro’s rate above $900 is 3.9%+$0.30 = $78.30. Kajabi Payments: no extra platform percentage; US card on Basic is $58.30. Thinkific Payments: no third-party gateway fee; public native headline is 2.9%. We are not publishing a break-even month — refunds, tax-inclusive bases, and payout reserves change the dollar. The fee page does the rest of the Teachable arithmetic.

If the next twelve months are a $97 library on Teachable Starter, the 7.5% is the number that matters, not “$39/mo.” If they are $2,000 invoices, Skool Pro’s $900 threshold is the number that matters, not “2.9%.”

Who should not pick which

Skip Kajabi if

You want the cheapest player for one recording and you will keep email and checkout somewhere else. Public Basic is $179/mo. You are paying for the bundle. Also skip if you need SCORM — official course FAQ: Kajabi Courses are not SCORM compliant.

Skip Teachable if

You will sit on Starter while the one offer sells. The 7.5% is the product. Also skip if you expected Thinkific-style cohort tooling on the public page — it is not advertised that way. A school catalog is a different page.

Skip Thinkific if

You need Kajabi-style native live video, funnels, and email as the marketing system. Thinkific’s live events need your own conference tool. Also skip Basic if the program is a live cohort — that starts on Start. Skip keeping Stripe unless you have priced 5/2/1%.

Skip Skool if

The offer is a recorded library or a high-ticket checkout you want on your own Stripe. Skool is a community with courses inside it. A $2,000 charge on Pro is billed at the 3.9% tier. Turn Growth Boost off if you did not ask for a 30% discovery cut.

Visit the hosts

Teachable affiliate slot — not live Thinkific affiliate slot — not live

Kajabi’s trial box and visit button use the 30-day trial affiliate, justinwise.net/kajabi. Official Kajabi pricing remains the source for numbers. Teachable and Thinkific buttons are official product URLs only. Visit Skool uses the Skool signup affiliate. Official skool.com/pricing remains the source for Skool numbers.

Omitted on purpose

• Kajabi legacy dollar table and Kickstarter as a buyable public price. Not on kajabi.com/pricing as a current card. JSON-LD on product pages still exposes a $69 lowPrice; that is not a public plan card and is not in the table.
• Skool yearly dollar amounts. Official page: “2 months free.” No yearly dollar extracted this fetch.
• Teachable Custom Payment Gateway extra percentage. Official help URLs returned 401 / sign-in this fetch. Not on teachable.com/pricing. Omitted.
• Exact Thinkific Payments US schedule beyond the public 2.9% FAQ line. Country fee table was Cloudflare-blocked this fetch. Third-party gateway percentages are from the official cost article cited on the August 29 comparison page; the cost URL itself was Cloudflare-blocked on this fetch and is linked, not re-scraped.
• How to document your method, how to package consulting, or anything that belongs to a methodology shop.

Sources

1. Kajabi pricing — public plans, JSON-LD prices ($143/$179 Basic, $199/$249 Growth, $399/$499 Pro), product/contact/community limits, Kajabi Payments rates, 3rd-party 2%/1%/0.5%, 30-day trial, Cohorts Courses on the feature grid. Fetched August 29, 2026.
2. Kajabi online courses — evergreen vs cohort courses with live video; drip; quizzes; certificates; no lesson cap; not SCORM compliant.
3. Kajabi coaching — 1:1 and group; built-in live video; group room up to 200 + 20 breakout rooms of 10; coaching not in the Kajabi mobile app.
4. Kajabi communities — access tied to products; standalone or bundled; channels inside a course; Meetups with a built-in live room.
5. Kajabi Payments fees: United States — 2.9%+$0.30 cards, +1.5% international, +0.7% subscriptions and payment plans.
6. Upcoming changes to your Kajabi plan — first increase in ~10 years; existing Heroes, first billing date on or after January 13, 2026.
7. Teachable pricing — Starter/Builder/Growth/Custom, 7.5% vs 0%, 5/10/50 products, 100/1,000/5,000 students, 22% annual, $10k/year cap lift, 7-day trial. Fetched August 29, 2026.
8. Teachable Pay (updated June 22, 2026) — US card 2.9%+$0.30; Starter 7.5% of total transaction value (product price including taxes); Builder/Growth/Advanced/Business 0% on Teachable Payments.
9. Thinkific pricing — Basic $54/$40, Start $109/$82, Grow $219/$164, unlimited courses, live cohorts on Start, 10,000 current students, 30-day trial, 2.9% native FAQ. HTML fetched August 29, 2026 (WebFetch was Cloudflare-blocked; curl from this machine returned 200).
10. Thinkific Coaching and Webinars — sellable 1:1 or group live product; requires your own video-conference tool.
11. Thinkific’s 2026 plan pricing update — ~10% increase August 13, 2026.
12. How much does Thinkific cost? — third-party gateway 5% / 2% / 1% / 0.5%; $1M/year cap. Cloudflare-blocked this fetch; cited from the same official URL used on the August 29 comparison page.
13. Skool pricing — Hobby $9/mo, Pro $99/mo, 10% vs 2.9% on the cards, unlimited members/courses/videos/live calls, “2 months free” yearly toggle. Fetched August 29, 2026.
14. Skool about — community platform; community, courses, and events; subscriptions or one-time course purchases.
15. Skool Payments FAQ (updated August 18, 2026) — Hobby 10%+30¢; Pro 2.9%+30¢ to $899 / 3.9%+30¢ above $900; cannot use existing Stripe; Growth Boost 30% default ON.
16. Skool payment terms and policy (updated February 19, 2026) — 14-day free trial, then Hobby or Pro.