Kajabi is one of the most recognized online course builders. This comprehensive, all-in-one platform provides various tools to help online course builders create and sell courses in one place. However, users consistently complain about its high pricing.
GetResponse, on the other hand, is better known for its email marketing and marketing automation features. However, the platform also provides an online course builder as well as a knowledge monetization solution that allows experts to sell their knowledge through premium newsletters and membership sites.
GetResponse is, without a doubt, cheaper than Kajabi. But can it really replace Kajabi? That’s the question we’ll answer in this article.
Overview of GetResponse vs Kajabi
| Feature | GetResponse | Kajabi |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Marketing automation + content monetization. | Advanced course creation + sales funnels. |
| Course Features | AI feature, course creation, and mobile app for students. | AI assistant, cohort/self-paced, mobile app. |
| Email Marketing | A/B testing, segmentation, detailed analytics. | Limited automation, basic analytics. |
| CRM | Lead scoring, segmentation, automation integration. | Tags, filters, and basic automation for student management. |
| Pricing | From $48.30/month (500 students, unlimited courses). | From $55/month (1 course, 250 students). |
| Support | 24/7 live chat, webinars, docs. | 24/7 only on $159+ plan; webinars, docs. |
| Integrations | Stripe, PayPal, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and more. | Stripe, PayPal, Zapier, Quickbooks, and more. |
GetResponse is a marketing automation platform. Our solution provides several marketing tools, including an email marketing software tool, an autoresponder, a landing page builder, a website builder, and conversion funnels.
In addition to the marketing tool, GetResponse provides a content monetization platform. This platform helps creators monetize their expertise through online courses, paid or premium newsletters, and membership websites.
Meanwhile, Kajabi is tailor-made to create and sell online courses. Therefore, besides the course creation tools, it also comes with a few marketing tools, such as a sales funnel builder, a landing page builder, a no-code website builder, and some automation. The goal is to help online course creators find all the tools they need to build successful online course businesses.
Besides course creation, Kajabi has also introduced a few other creator-focused tools. For example, you can build and launch a podcast from the platform, create communities, provide coaching services, and make a premium membership site.
Both GetResponse and Kajabi target small to mid-sized businesses, but their capabilities vary. So, let’s compare the key features next.
Key features comparison
Here is how the course-building and marketing features of these two platforms compare.
1. Online course features
GetResponse is designed to help you build and host simple online courses. Our AI-powered course creator helps you create interactive courses featuring text, audio, and video.
You can also integrate interactive quizzes and assignments throughout the course to test your student’s understanding. Once the students have completed the course (or passed your test), you can issue them a certificate.
Our platform also supports community features like commenting and ratings. Students can share their feedback, which you can use as social proof to market your online course.
Lastly, the GetResponse platform allows online course creators to create profiles showing their expertise and published courses. These profiles are great for enhancing discoverability. They allow more potential students to learn about you and your course.
GetResponse also offers a mobile app to allow your students to access the courses and learn while on the go.
Kajabi, on the other hand, is one of the best online course builders, so it has more advanced features for this particular purpose than GetResponse. For example, it has more advanced gamification options and video management features.
In terms of the course creation process, Kajabi provides a decent selection of templates to get you started. These templates are designed to help anyone, including newbies, build their first online courses quickly and easily.
You can use the templates to create a mini-course or even an entire program without doing any coding or designing.
But you don’t have to use the templates if you don’t want to. The platform also lets you build your own course from scratch or import one from existing materials. This is a great option for any expert or creator who prefers more freedom and wants maximum customization options.
Kajabi lets you create two types of courses:
- Cohort-based online courses – These courses are built for group learning where several students learn and progress together. It supports scheduled live sessions, calendar integrations, and community features like commenting.
- Self-paced online courses – This is for individual students who want to learn at their own pace. The course lets you include video content and has live rooms to interact with students. It also supports community integration.
Both cohort-based and self-paced online courses support downloadable resources, so your students can download learning materials and access them offline. You can also include quizzes to assess your students and issue certificates of completion.
Another great thing about Kajabi is the AI assistant. This tool lowers the barrier to entry even further by helping you generate online course outlines based on your description and title. It goes as far as creating modules and lessons. And, of course, you can customize the suggested online course structure.
Kajabi provides a mobile app, too, so your students can learn on the go.
2. Email marketing features
This is where GetResponse really shines. Remember, GetResponse is, first and foremost, a marketing platform, with email marketing being one of its core offerings.
As such, GetReponse’s email marketing capabilities are far more advanced than Kajabi’s. That means creators have endless possibilities for promoting and marketing their online courses.
Besides the basic email marketing features (like a drag-and-drop email builder, tons of professionally designed templates, and advanced segmentation), our solution also supports A/B testing.
These split tests are valuable for optimizing your email conversion rate campaigns. You can A/B test your email subject line, call-to-action buttons, images, and email layouts. A powerful AI-enhanced A/B testing feature is also in the works!
Besides testing, we also have autoresponders, which will help you connect with, nurture, and convert potential students on autopilot. Set the triggers you want and have the autoresponder send a relevant email to the user when they’re most engaged.
Finally, GetResponse gives you insightful analytics into the performance of your email campaigns. This should help you track what campaigns resonate with your students and where some improvements are necessary.
Kajabi does have an email marketing tool, but its capabilities are fairly limited. In fact, one of the major complaints from users is that their email capabilities are very lackluster.
Still, they have a visual email editor that is pretty easy to work with and a good selection of templates. The tool also supports some basic automation features, like deploying triggered emails based on customer behavior.
The platform also doesn’t provide the most detailed analytics. Luckily, it integrates with several email marketing tools, including GetResponse.
3. Customer relationship management (CRM) features
GetResponse outperforms Kajabi once more when it comes to custom relationship management.
GetResponse offers more advanced CRM features that integrate directly with our email marketing and marketing automation features. Our solution offers powerful contact management, which can help with segmentation and personalizing interactions.
In addition, there’s a lead-scoring feature that you can use to enhance your lead-generation efforts by identifying which potential customers or students are almost ready to convert. This lets you focus on leads most likely to buy your course as you nurture the rest.
Kajabi’s CRM features offer essential tools for managing student relationships and sales. Since online courses and digital products are Kajabi’s primary offerings, the CRM tools are specifically designed for these.
It lets you tag, filter, and segment your contact list based on specific criteria. You can also automate some key interactions with your students to stay in touch throughout their learning journey.
4. Pricing and plans
Both GetResponse and Kajabi have different pricing tiers for different user limits and features. But all things considered, GetResponse is the more affordable of the two.
GetResponse’s content monetization platform starts at $48.30 per month. This gives you access to the course creator, where you can build unlimited courses! You’ll also gain unlimited access to our marketing solutions, including email marketing, autoresponders, landing page and website builders, and marketing automation.
The plan has no transaction fees, plus you get 24/7 live chat support. It supports up to 500 active students. The price increases with the number of students.
Kajabi’s basic plan, Kickstarter, starts at $55 per month. This plan limits you to only one product (i.e., just one course) and 250 contacts (so 250 students). The plan also supports a maximum of 50 landing pages, 1250 marketing emails, and just one website. It does have a 0% transaction fee, though.
For more capabilities, you’ll need to spend at least $119. That allows you to host three products, have 10,000 contacts, and get unlimited landing pages and marketing emails.
Note that the quoted prices above are for annual plans. Both platforms will charge more if you go with a monthly subscription. Both of them also provide a free trial.
Support and training
GetResponse provides 24/7 live support. The platform also has a tone of educational resources, including webinars and online documentation.
You’ll find GetResponse’s support and training materials especially useful when it comes to email marketing and marketing automation. But we’re also working on building more learning resources for online course creation and overall content monetization.
Kajabi, on the other hand, has a lot of educational resources for creating online courses and building marketing funnels. They provide phone support as well as webinars and online documentation.
However, the 24/7 support option is only available for users on the Growth plan, which costs $159 monthly.
Integrations and API
Both GetResponse and Kajabi support a range of integrations to help you get the most out of these platforms.
For example, they integrate with Stripe and PayPal for a seamless payment gateway. You can also easily set both one-time and recurring payments depending on the product you’re selling.
GetResponse also integrates with third-party software like Facebook Leads ads, Google Ads, ZeroBounce, etc.
Kajabi doesn’t support as many integrations as GetResponse, but it does connect with Xero and Quickbooks to help with your accounting. It also integrates with Meta Pixel, Zapier, and Google Tag Manager.
For the API, the GetResponse API is more advanced, with features for custom integrations and automation. Meanwhile, Kajabi’s API is fairly limited but good enough to support integrations with third-party tools.
Reviews and ratings
What do users have to say about these two platforms?
Well, both platforms have a G2 rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars. Users praise GetResponse for its powerful, easy-to-use email marketing and marketing automation tools, while Kajabi is praised for its sales funnel building and course creation features.
In terms of complaints, most of the issues reported by GetResponse users are around the learning curve and a few limited features for stuff like team collaboration on emails.
Meanwhile, Kajabi’s complaints revolve around its steep pricing, limited customizations, and poor customer support.
Kajabi vs GetResponse: Choosing the right platform
So there you have it. Which one is right for you, Kajabi or GetResponse?
Kajabi is a decent option for course creators or businesses that want a dedicated online course platform with features for both course creation and sales funnel building. You’ll also need a good budget because the platform is quite expensive.
GetResponse is the better choice for both big and small businesses as well as course creators who need advanced email marketing and marketing automation features alongside their course-building platform. The solution gives you a decent course builder to create simple online courses and advanced marketing tools to help you sell those courses and build a successful online business.
That said, both platforms offer free trials, so feel free to test them out and identify the right solution for you.