Circle vs Kajabi (2026): The Honest Comparison

Most circle vs kajabi articles are written by affiliates of one platform or the other. This one is not. We build a competing platform at Kourses, so we have no incentive to push you toward either. What we do have is a calculator and the patience to read both pricing pages line by line.

Here is the false symmetry that trips up most creators. Kajabi’s Starter plan is $71 per month on annual billing. Circle’s Professional plan is $89 per month on annual billing. So Kajabi looks $18 cheaper. Now add transaction fees. Kajabi Starter charges 5% on third-party Stripe payments. Circle Professional charges 2%. Run $5,000 of monthly revenue through each and the picture flips. Kajabi Starter costs you $321 per month total. Circle Professional costs you $189. The cheaper sticker becomes the more expensive plan once a real business runs through it.

This guide walks through the kajabi vs circle decision the way a finance-literate creator would. Verified 2026 pricing, real fee math, and the honest verdict on what each platform actually does well. If you are already weighing alternatives, our Kajabi alternatives and Circle.so alternatives lists cover the wider field.

Circle vs Kajabi at a glance

The headline difference is product DNA. Kajabi was built as a marketing and course platform that later added a community layer. Circle was built as a community platform that later added courses and payments. Each one is stronger in the half it started with.

Kajabi vs Circle pricing in 2026 (the real fee math)

Sticker prices lie. Here is what each platform actually costs once you account for transaction fees, processor fees, and the plan tier you will realistically need. All numbers are pulled directly from kajabi.com/pricing and circle.so/pricing on June 3, 2026.

Kajabi’s 4-tier pricing and where the 5% Starter fee hurts

Kajabi runs four plans. On annual billing the effective monthly rates are:

• Starter: $71/mo (3 products, 1 community, 2 admin users, 5% fee on third-party Stripe).
• Basic: $143/mo (2% fee).
• Growth: $199/mo (1% fee, 500 AI credits per month, 5 admins, marked as Most Popular).
• Pro: $399/mo (0.5% fee, 10,000 contacts, 3 websites, 3 communities, 26 admins).

Month-to-month billing is more expensive: $89, $179, $249, and $499 respectively. Kajabi also runs a “50% off for 6 months” promo on the pricing page, which softens the first half-year but does not change the long-term math.

Then there is the processor layer. If you take payment through Kajabi Payments (their bundled Stripe wrapper), you also pay card processing on top of the platform fee. That is 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction on Starter and Basic, 2.8% plus $0.30 on Growth, and 2.7% plus $0.30 on Pro. These are the same kind of rates you would pay Stripe directly, so they are not a Kajabi penalty. The penalty is the platform fee stacked on top.

The Starter plan’s 5% transaction fee is the single most punishing line item in the Kajabi catalogue. It exists to push you up to Basic or Growth. If you intend to do any meaningful revenue, treat the $71 Starter as a marketing number, not a real plan.

Circle’s 3-tier pricing and the tiered fee structure

Circle keeps things simpler with three plans, all priced annually:

• Professional: $89/mo (custom domain, paid memberships, 200GB storage, 10 moderators, 20 spaces, 2% fee).
• Business: $199/mo (workflows, branded email, removes Circle branding, 500GB storage, 15 moderators, 30 spaces, 1% fee, marked as Most Popular).
• Plus: Contact sales (AI Agents, custom SSO, highest limits, 10k Email Hub contacts, 1TB storage, 0.5% fee).

Circle does not advertise a monthly-only price tier on its public page, so the figures above are the annual-effective monthly rates. All paid plans come with a 14-day trial.

What is notable here is the floor. Circle’s cheapest paid plan still includes paid memberships and a custom domain. Kajabi’s cheapest plan caps you at three products. Different design philosophies, different early-stage experiences.

Real-cost example: $5,000/mo creator on each

Sticker price means nothing in isolation. Let us run a working creator through both platforms. Assume $5,000 in monthly revenue, paid via third-party Stripe (not the bundled processor, so we can isolate the platform fee).

Kajabi Starter: $71 plan + 5% of $5,000 = $71 + $250 = $321/mo total.
Kajabi Basic: $143 plan + 2% of $5,000 = $143 + $100 = $243/mo total.
Kajabi Growth: $199 plan + 1% of $5,000 = $199 + $50 = $249/mo total.
Circle Professional: $89 plan + 2% of $5,000 = $89 + $100 = $189/mo total.
Circle Business: $199 plan + 1% of $5,000 = $199 + $50 = $249/mo total.

At $5,000 monthly revenue, Circle Professional is the cheapest option by a wide margin. Kajabi Growth and Circle Business are level-pegging. Kajabi Starter is by some distance the worst value despite having the lowest sticker price.

Now scale the same comparison to $20,000 monthly revenue. Kajabi Growth becomes $199 + $200 = $399. Circle Business becomes $199 + $200 = $399. They tie. Above $20,000 you have to start thinking about Kajabi Pro ($399 + 0.5% = $499 on $20k) versus Circle Plus (custom pricing, 0.5% fee). At that scale, fee percentages matter more than plan price, and both platforms still take a meaningful cut. This is one reason creators eventually move to 0% fee platforms. We cover that math in our guide to 0% transaction fees.

What Kajabi does better

Kajabi is older, broader, and more polished as a marketing system. If you came from a launch-and-funnel background, you will feel at home almost immediately.

The funnel builder is the killer feature. Kajabi calls it Funnels, and it is a native page-by-page workflow for landing pages, opt-ins, sales pages, upsells, and thank-you pages. Circle has nothing equivalent. If you run launches with sequenced emails and conversion pages, Kajabi removes the need for ClickFunnels, Leadpages, or a Webflow stack.

Email marketing is genuinely full-featured. Kajabi’s email engine handles broadcasts, automations, segmentation, and pipelines. You can send a 30-day welcome sequence without a Mailchimp or ConvertKit subscription. Circle has email tooling on Business and Plus, but it is lighter and more focused on community notifications than on marketing nurture.

The course builder is more refined. Both platforms let you upload videos and gate them behind a paywall. Kajabi’s course player feels more like a polished consumer product, with completion tracking, comments, and quiz logic built in. Circle’s course interface improved sharply in 2025 but still feels like an extension of the community surface rather than a flagship feature.

Affiliate management is included. Kajabi has a built-in affiliate program manager on Growth and Pro. Circle does not. If you want partner-led growth, this matters.

Pre-built templates. Kajabi ships with templates for almost every common page and product type. Coaches, course creators, podcasters, and membership owners can launch in a weekend without touching a designer.

The shorthand: Kajabi is what you pick if you sell a course or program first and use community as a wrapper.

What Circle does better

Circle was built to be the place where members actually want to spend time, and it shows in the texture of the product.

True community-first feature set. Spaces, threads, members directory, direct messages, events, live streams, and a member feed all feel native rather than bolted on. Kajabi has a community tab. Circle is a community platform.

White-label and branding control. On Business and Plus, Circle removes Circle branding entirely, supports custom domains, branded emails, and on Plus it offers custom SSO. You can build a closed paid space that does not visibly say “Circle” anywhere. Kajabi’s branding controls are thinner.

Workflow automation and tagging. Circle’s Workflows engine lets you trigger actions based on member behaviour. New paid member joins, tag them, send a DM, add them to a space. This is the kind of operational tooling that makes a paid community feel curated rather than chaotic.

Real-time engagement. Circle does events, RSVPs, live streams, and live rooms natively. Kajabi added events but the experience is less polished. If your community runs weekly calls, AMAs, or live workshops, Circle handles it more cleanly.

Mobile experience. Both offer branded mobile apps on higher plans, but Circle’s native iOS and Android apps feel like consumer-grade community apps rather than course viewers. Members open them daily. This is closer to how a community platform should feel.

The shorthand: Circle is what you pick if you sell community access first and the course is the bonus inside.

Features compared side by side

Kajabi or Circle: who is each best for?

This is the part where most reviews go vague. We will not.

Choose Kajabi if

You sell a course, cohort program, or coaching package and the community is the wrapper around it. You run launches with email sequences and sales pages. You want one bill instead of stitching Kajabi Plus Mailchimp Plus ConvertKit Plus ThriveCart. You value affiliate management. Your audience expects a polished course player. You are comfortable spending $143 to $199 monthly on the platform layer alone. For deeper context on this trade-off, see our Kourses vs Kajabi breakdown.

Choose Circle if

The community is the product. Members pay you for access to other members, the discussions, the events, and the shared identity. The course (if there is one) is the on-ramp or the bonus. You care about branding control and want to remove the platform’s name from your space. You run frequent live events. You want a mobile app that members actually open. See also our Kourses vs Circle post.

Consider an alternative if

You looked at the fee math above and felt your jaw tighten. Both platforms tax revenue at every plan tier. If you are doing meaningful volume, the difference between 2% and 0% on $20,000 monthly is $400 a month, every month, forever. That is the gap we built Kourses to close. Honest disclosure: we do not yet ship a native mobile app, which Circle does. For some community builders that is a deal-breaker, and we would rather you know than discover it later. For others, the fee savings dwarf the mobile gap. Our Kourses pricing page lays out the trade.

If you are also weighing Skool in this decision, our Skool vs Circle breakdown and our wider Circle.so alternatives post are the next two reads.

Frequently asked questions

Is Kajabi cheaper than Circle?

On sticker price, yes. Kajabi Starter is $71 per month on annual billing versus Circle Professional at $89 per month. On effective cost once transaction fees enter the picture, Circle Professional is materially cheaper for most creators. Kajabi Starter’s 5% fee is the catch. At $5,000 monthly revenue, Circle Professional is $189 total and Kajabi Starter is $321 total. The cheaper plan loses by $132 a month.

Does Circle charge transaction fees?

Yes. Circle charges 2% on Professional, 1% on Business, and 0.5% on Plus. These are platform fees on top of standard Stripe processing. Many creators assume Circle is fee-free because the marketing leans community-first rather than commerce-first. It is not.

Can you sell courses on Circle?

Yes. Every paid Circle plan supports paid courses, drip content, and member-only spaces. The course builder is functional rather than feature-rich. If your course is the centrepiece of your offer, Kajabi’s player is more polished. If the course is one element of a community-first product, Circle is fine.

Can you build a community on Kajabi?

Yes. Kajabi includes a community on all plans (one community on Starter, up to three on Pro). It supports spaces, posts, and basic discussions. It will not feel as alive as Circle out of the box. Kajabi communities work best when the course is the gravity well and the community is the support layer.

Circle vs Kajabi vs Skool, the quick take?

Skool is the third name in this conversation. It is the cheapest of the three and the most opinionated. Skool charges $9/month on Hobby (10% fee) or $99/month on Pro (2.9% fee), but you get one community, basic courses, and a deliberately stripped-back feature set. Kajabi is the most full-featured. Circle sits between them in price and in scope, with the strongest community feel. Our Skool vs Circle piece goes deeper. Most creators who weigh all three end up choosing on the basis of which gap (Kajabi’s community, Circle’s funnels, Skool’s customisation) they can live without.

The bottom line

Circle vs Kajabi 2026 is not a fair fight on either side. They are different products solving overlapping problems.

Pick Kajabi if your business is launches, funnels, and a polished course experience. The 5% Starter fee is a trap, so plan on Basic or Growth from day one. Budget $143 to $199 monthly plus 1% to 2% of revenue.

Pick Circle if your business is the community itself, with course content as a supporting layer. Professional at $89 monthly plus 2% is the most plan-for-the-money in the three-way Skool, Circle, Kajabi market. Upgrade to Business when you want white-label and workflows.

Pick neither if the cumulative fee bill (and you should sit down and do this calculation) costs more annually than a fee-free alternative. At $50,000 in yearly revenue, a 2% fee is $1,000 you are paying for the privilege of charging your own customers. That is a real number. Whatever you pick, run the math, not the marketing.

Pricing accurate as of 2026. Verified from: https://kajabi.com/pricing, https://circle.so/pricing.