Comparison · player vs OS · USD

Kajabi vs LearnWorlds — course-player quality vs Kajabi business OS

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. The fork is not “which LMS has more features.” It is course-player quality vs Kajabi’s bundle: LearnWorlds sells an interactive video school with a $5 Starter enrollment fee. Kajabi sells the business OS at $179/mo public Basic — email, funnels, checkout, coaching, and a community — whether the player is the reason you opened the tab or not.

Who this page is for

Experts who have one method and are staring at two course tabs. LearnWorlds looks like the serious player. Kajabi looks like the grown-up stack. They both sell courses. They are not the same machine. One is an LMS built around interactive video, SCORM, and a school. The other is a business OS with a course product inside it.

This page does not tell you how to build an audience. If you wanted Teachable or Thinkific as a school LMS, start at Kajabi vs Teachable vs Thinkific. If the offer is a feed, start at Kajabi vs Skool.

The short version

Course-player quality vs the business OS

Business OS (Kajabi). Official line: the operating system for human expertise. Pricing FAQ: courses, coaching, digital products, memberships, communities. Public feature grid: unlimited marketing emails, landing pages, funnels, and access groups on every named plan. Community cap 1 / 1 / 3. Coaching is a first-class product with built-in live video. Course FAQ: evergreen or cohort, drip, quizzes, certificates, no lesson cap, not SCORM. You pay $179/mo month-to-month for Basic whether the player is why you searched or not. Existing customers hit new rates on the first billing date on or after January 13, 2026.

Course player (LearnWorlds). Official homepage: the #1 AI-powered LMS built for learning businesses; interactive videos that convert watching into quizzes, transcripts, and tables of contents; community and cohorts. Pricing cards tonight: Starter $29/mo or $24/mo billed annually, $5 per paid enrollment, 1,000 active learners / month, 1 admin. Pro Trainer $99 / $79, no enrollment fees, 2,000 active learners, 5 admins, subscriptions/memberships/payment plans, certificates, up to 20 SCORM uploads. Learning Center $299 / $249, full white-label, 25 admins, automations. Corporate is custom. Interactive video product page: full Interactive Video Editor features start at Learning Center; Starter and Pro have some interactive video features. Checkout FAQ: sell with your own Stripe or PayPal; processor fees are separate; example cited is 2.9% + $0.30. 30-day trial. Built-in community and social network is on the “included on every plan” grid. Community update page: unlimited Community Spaces; course discussions generate a private space.

The honest comparison is not “LearnWorlds is Kajabi for $29.” Starter’s $5 per paid enrollment is the cheap-plan tax. Pro Trainer at $99/mo is the first named plan that drops the platform cut — still $80 under Kajabi Basic — with 2,000 monthly active learners and 5,000 mass-email credits against Kajabi’s 2,500 contacts and unlimited marketing emails. Learning Center at $299/mo is above Kajabi Basic, and that is the plan the interactive-video page names for the full editor. If you wanted the player, price the plan that actually has it. If you wanted the OS, LearnWorlds’ email credits are not Kajabi’s funnel stack.

If the method is a feed people stay in, stop and go to Skool. If it is a school catalog without the interactive-video thesis, go to Teachable or Thinkific. This page is player vs OS.

Cited numbers, August 29, 2026

USD. Monthly is month-to-month. Annual is the advertised per-month rate when you pay yearly. Platform fee is the vendor’s cut, not card processing. LearnWorlds prices exclude VAT.

Sources: kajabi.com/pricing, learnworlds.com/pricing. Full list at the bottom.

What the fees do to the same sale

Card processing sits on both stacks. The extra question is LearnWorlds’ $5 on Starter. Three prices. Arithmetic only. Refunds, tax, and Kajabi Sales Tax change the dollar. We are not publishing a break-even month.

• $97. Kajabi Payments, US card, Basic: 2.9%+$0.30 = $3.11. No extra platform percentage. LearnWorlds Starter: $5.00 enrollment plus processor 2.9%+$0.30 ($3.11) = $8.11. LearnWorlds Pro Trainer: no enrollment fee; processor $3.11. Starter’s extra $5.00 is the cheap-plan tax on a small course — already more than Kajabi’s processing on that sale.
• $497. Kajabi Payments Basic: $14.71. LearnWorlds Starter: $5.00 + $14.71 = $19.71. Pro Trainer: processor $14.71. The $5 is flat. It does not scale like Teachable Starter’s 7.5%. On a $497 seat it is still extra; it is not a percent.
• $2,000. Kajabi Payments Basic: $58.30. Keep Stripe on Kajabi Basic: add 2% = $40.00 on top of Stripe’s own fee (Stripe’s schedule is not Kajabi’s; omitted here). LearnWorlds Starter: $5.00 + processor $58.30 = $63.30. Pro Trainer: processor $58.30. Starter’s $5 is cheap on a high ticket and expensive on a $97 stack of enrollments.

Kajabi subscriptions and payment plans add 0.7% on Kajabi Payments (US help page), on every installment including the first. LearnWorlds subscriptions, memberships, and payment plans are listed from Pro Trainer up — not as a separate platform percentage on the public cards.

Arithmetic only: the monthly gap between Kajabi Basic ($179) and LearnWorlds Pro Trainer ($99) is $80. The gap between Kajabi Basic and Starter ($29) is $150 — plus $5 per paid enrollment. Learning Center monthly is $299, $120 above Kajabi Basic, and that is the plan the interactive-video page names for the full editor. That is not “LearnWorlds is cheaper.” You are buying a different machine, and on Learning Center you are not buying a cheaper one.

Who should not pick which

Skip Kajabi if

You want the interactive player, SCORM, or in-video questions as the product, and you will keep marketing somewhere else. Public Basic is $179/mo. You are paying for the bundle. Official course FAQ: Kajabi Courses are not SCORM compliant. Also skip if you need more than one community on Basic or Growth, or more than three on Pro. Skip keeping Stripe on a new plan unless you have priced 2/1/0.5%.

Skip LearnWorlds if

You will sit on Starter while enrollments stack — the $5 is the product. Also skip if 1,000 monthly active learners will not hold, or if 2,000 mass-email credits will not hold the list. Skip Pro Trainer as a Kajabi substitute: 5,000 email credits and no Kajabi-style unlimited funnels grid. Skip Learning Center as “the cheap player” — it is $299/mo. Skip if you needed Kajabi’s documented group room of 200; LearnWorlds lists live sessions via Zoom/Meet/Teams/Webex, not that capacity number.

Skip both if

The offer is a feed. That is Skool. Visit button below; official pricing stays the citation. If the offer is a CRM/funnel agency stack, that is Kajabi vs GoHighLevel. If it is a branded community, that is Kajabi vs Circle.

Visit the hosts

LearnWorlds affiliate slot — not live

Kajabi’s trial box and visit button use the 30-day trial affiliate, justinwise.net/kajabi. The Kajabi pricing button is a pricing-page affiliate. Official Kajabi pricing remains the source for Kajabi numbers. LearnWorlds’ button is the official pricing URL 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.
• Homepage “Save 50%” / Cofounder promo as a Kajabi plan price. Marketing, not a cited tier.
• LearnWorlds Corporate / High Volume public dollar. Custom. Third-party recaps are not official cards.
• LearnWorlds extra email / extra AI-credit / branded-app dollars. Add-ons are listed on the pricing page; no public add-on card extracted this fetch.
• LearnWorlds native live-room capacity (attendees). Live sessions via Zoom/Meet/Teams/Webex are listed; a Circle-style live grid was not on the public pricing page.
• Older “unlimited learners” LearnWorlds recaps. Tonight’s official cards show monthly active learners 1,000 / 2,000 / 2,000.
• Exact Stripe card rates you would pay if you keep Stripe on Kajabi. Only Kajabi’s 3rd-party percentage is cited. Stripe’s own schedule is Stripe’s. LearnWorlds’ FAQ cites processor 2.9%+$0.30 as the current example.
• Teachable, Thinkific, Circle, Mighty Networks, Discord, GoHighLevel as this two-host fork. School LMS is Kajabi vs Teachable vs Thinkific. Room vs library is Kajabi vs Skool.
• Keyword volumes, “Kajabi vs LearnWorlds” listicles as pricing sources, and anything that documents your method for you.

Sources

1. Kajabi pricing — public plans, JSON-LD prices ($143/$179 Basic, $199/$249 Growth, $399/$499 Pro), product/contact/community/website/admin limits, unlimited emails/funnels/landing pages/access groups, Cohorts Courses, Kajabi Payments US grid 2.9/2.8/2.7%+$0.30, 3rd-party 2%/1%/0.5%, 30-day trial. Fetched August 29, 2026.
2. Upcoming changes to your Kajabi plan — first increase in ~10 years; existing Heroes, first billing date on or after January 13, 2026; 3rd-party fee does not apply if you stay on a legacy plan. Cited from the August 29, 2026 Kajabi vendor-page fetch.
3. Kajabi Payments fees: United States — 2.9%+$0.30 cards, +1.5% international, +0.7% subscriptions and payment plans, Kajabi Sales Tax $0.15 per transaction when enabled. Cited from the August 29, 2026 Kajabi vendor-page fetch; US help page not re-opened as a new card tonight.
4. Kajabi online courses — evergreen vs cohort; drip; quizzes; certificates; no lesson cap; not SCORM. Cited from the August 29, 2026 Kajabi vendor-page fetch.
5. Kajabi communities — access tied to products; Access Groups; channels inside a course; Meetups with a built-in live room; standalone or bundled. Cited from the August 29, 2026 Kajabi vendor-page fetch.
6. Kajabi coaching — 1:1 and group; built-in live video; group room up to 200 + 20 breakout rooms of 10. Cited from the August 29, 2026 Kajabi vendor-page fetch.
7. LearnWorlds pricing — Starter $29/mo or $24/mo billed annually, $5 per paid enrollment, 1,000 active learners/month, 1 admin, 300 AI credits; Pro Trainer $99 / $79, no enrollment fees, 2,000 active learners, 5 admins, 500 AI credits, subscriptions/memberships/payment plans, certificates, 20 SCORM; Learning Center $299 / $249, 2,000 active learners, 25 admins, 1,000 AI credits, full white-label, 10 client groups, automations; Corporate custom; comparison grid: mass email credits 2,000 / 5,000 / 10,000, page funnels with AI 15 / unlimited / unlimited, built-in community on every plan; 30-day trial; prices exclude VAT; processor example 2.9%+$0.30. Fetched August 29, 2026.
8. LearnWorlds homepage — “The #1 AI-powered LMS built for learning businesses.” Interactive videos; community & cohorts; sell courses, bundles, and memberships; 30-day trial path. Fetched August 29, 2026.
9. LearnWorlds interactive video — Interactive Video Editor: questions, hotspots, buttons, transcripts, AI subtitles; full features from Learning Center; Starter and Pro have some. Plan recap $29 / $99 / $299. Last update May 15, 2026. Fetched August 29, 2026.
10. LearnWorlds checkout and payments — 0% commission on Pro Trainer and Learning Center; Starter $5 per course enrollment; Stripe, PayPal, Shopify; processor fees separate. Last update July 14, 2026. Fetched August 29, 2026.
11. LearnWorlds built-in community — unlimited Community Spaces; course discussions generate a private space; social learning activities. Fetched August 29, 2026.
12. Skool pricing — Hobby $9/mo, Pro $99/mo. Cited only as the one-feed room we are not comparing here. Fetched August 29, 2026.