Kajabi vs Stan: which one fits the stage your business is at

Editorially reviewed by Carlos Gil. Prices and features checked on Kajabi's and Stan's official pricing pages, blog and help centers on 2026-10-08. This page contains two affiliate links (Kit and LearnWorlds), labeled where they appear. Kajabi and Stan links earn us nothing. How we make money.

Stan is a link-in-bio storefront that costs $29 a month (or $300 a year) and takes 0% of your sales. Kajabi is a full business platform (courses, website, funnels, email, community, checkout) that starts at $143 a month billed annually, or $179 month to month, and also takes no revenue share. If you sell a handful of products to followers who tap your bio link, Stan does that job for about a fifth of the price. If you need a real course with quizzes and certificates, unlimited email marketing and sales funnels on your own domain, Stan's Creator plan doesn't cover it, and you'll be comparing Kajabi with Stan Creator Pro ($99/mo) or with Stan plus a separate email tool.

They're built for different stages, and this page shows where the line falls. Full write-ups: Kajabi review and Stan review.

The short version

• Pick Stan if your sales start on Instagram or TikTok, you sell a few products (a guide, a mini course, coaching calls, a membership), and you want to be selling this week.
• Pick Kajabi if courses are the core product, you want email, pages and checkout sharing one contact record, and you'd otherwise pay for three or four separate tools.
• Watch the middle. Stan Creator Pro at $99/mo adds email, funnels, upsells and payment plans. Once you need those, the gap to Kajabi Basic narrows to $64 a month on annual billing ($80 month to month).

Pricing at a glance

All prices USD, per Stan's pricing article and help center and Kajabi's pricing page, checked 2026-10-08.

What it actually costs at $1k and $10k a month

Example. Assumptions: every sale is a $50 one-time purchase on a US card, so $1,000 a month is 20 sales and $10,000 is 200 sales. Card processing at 2.9% + $0.30 per sale for Stan (Stripe's US rate as listed in Stan's help center) and Kajabi Basic (Kajabi Payments US rate); 2.8% + $0.30 on Kajabi Growth. Stan's help center lists a Stripe payout fee of 0.25% + $0.25 per payout (minimum $1); we assume four cash-outs a month. Kajabi's payouts documentation we read doesn't list a payout fee, so we assume none. No refunds, disputes, sales tax, international cards, PayPal, Afterpay or Klarna. Plan fees on annual billing, shown per month (monthly billing in brackets). No separate email tool included.

What the numbers say:

• At $1,000 a month, the plan fee is the story. Kajabi Basic eats almost 18% of revenue on annual billing. Kajabi's own pricing FAQ says Basic is the right plan "if you haven't sold anything yet," but a $25 to $29 tool is a cheaper way to find out whether the offer sells.
• At $10,000 a month, the gap shrinks to under $100. Processing is the same on both, so the difference is mostly the subscription. At this point you should choose on features, not price.
• Kajabi Basic may not hold at $10k. 200 buyers a month adds up to 2,400 a year before you count free leads, and Basic caps contacts at 2,500 and products at 5. That's why we priced Growth too.
• Stan Creator's total leaves out email. Add your email platform's price to that row. Creator Pro includes email, so it's closer to like-for-like.

Want the same math across 18 creator platforms at $1k, $5k and $20k a month? See the Creator Platform Fee Index.

Head-to-head on ten criteria

Course depth

This is the clearest split. Kajabi's help center documents graded quizzes (including file uploads and manual grading) and automatic completion certificates. Stan's eCourse product covers the basics well (modules, lessons, drip, supporting materials, a branded course homepage), but we found no documentation of quizzes or certificates. If your students need to prove they finished something, that's Kajabi's ground. Our best tools for course creators guide covers platforms that go deeper still.

Community

Both include a community on their entry plan. Stan's sits inside the same storefront, so buyers see their purchases there. Kajabi's has gamification and more spaces on Pro. If the community is the product rather than a bonus, read Skool vs Circle vs Kajabi before choosing either.

Email marketing

Kajabi includes unlimited marketing email on all plans, limited by contacts. Stan puts broadcasts and flows on Creator Pro and says that's because it pays a fee for every email sent. On Stan Creator, the practical setup is to send each new buyer into an email platform you control through Zapier, such as KitAFFILIATE (affiliate link). Our sister site BestSends compares email platforms.

Link-in-bio storefront

Stan was built for this, and it shows in the feature list: AutoDM for Instagram on the $29 plan, one-tap checkout pages, and 11 storefront templates per Stan's pricing article. The trade-off is that your URL is Stan's. Kajabi gives you your own domain but no purpose-built bio page. See our best link-in-bio tools for creators for the wider field.

Payments and who controls them

Both take 0% of your sales; what you pay above the subscription is card processing. The difference is the account behind it.

Stan creates a Stripe Custom account for you inside its own setup flow. Stan's help center says you can't connect an existing Stripe account, and you can't log into this one at stripe.com; you manage it from Stan's Income tab and cash out manually. PayPal is the alternative, and PayPal sales go straight to your PayPal account.

Kajabi Payments is Kajabi's own processor. You can use a third-party processor such as Stripe instead, but Kajabi charges 2% on Basic for that (1% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro). That fee is the price of keeping the billing relationship in an account you control directly.

Migration effort if you switch

Stan to Kajabi (the common direction). Download your customers from Stan's Customers or Income tab and import the CSV into Kajabi, which allows up to 40,000 contacts a day once you're on a paid plan (not during the trial). Kajabi's help center says courses can't be imported automatically, so plan to rebuild modules and re-upload videos. Recurring members are the hard part. Kajabi will migrate subscriptions that live in a Stripe account you can log into, including ones created outside Kajabi. Because Stan's Stripe account isn't one you access at stripe.com, we found no documented path to move Stan subscriptions, so plan for members to re-subscribe before a cutover date.

Kajabi to Stan. Export contacts (the emailed link expires after 3 days), export course templates and keep your own copies of videos. Stan caps manually imported contacts at 5,000 per store in total, which matters if your Kajabi list is larger. Kajabi doesn't document moving active Kajabi Payments subscriptions to another processor, so again, expect a re-subscribe campaign.

Our house rule for both: keep every buyer's email in a platform you control from day one, and keep your own copies of course videos.

Who each one fits

Stan fits if:

• most buyers find you through a bio link and buy on a phone
• you sell a small number of products and don't need graded quizzes or certificates
• you're under roughly $1,000 to $3,000 a month and the plan fee is a big share of revenue
• you're fine with a stan.store URL and Stan's managed payment account

Skip Stan if you need a branded website on your own domain, certificates, or a contact list over 5,000 that you want to import.

Kajabi fits if:

• courses are the main product and students need quizzes, certificates or cohorts
• you'd otherwise pay separately for email, a site builder, funnels and a community
• you're past a few thousand dollars a month, where the plan fee is a small share of revenue
• you want your own domain and, on Pro, a branded app

Skip Kajabi if you only need a storefront and checkout, or if you already have an email platform and website you like. You'd be paying for duplicates.

If you outgrow both: creators who need deeper course tools (interactive video, assessments, SCORM, a branded academy) and want to use their own Stripe or PayPal account often look at LearnWorlds. See our LearnWorlds review or try LearnWorldsAFFILIATE (affiliate link).

What would change our read

If Stan added a custom domain, quizzes and certificates, or let creators connect an existing Stripe account, it would cover more of Kajabi's ground at a fraction of the price. If Kajabi lowered Basic or raised its 5-product cap, the case for starting on Stan would weaken. For other options at every price point, see more Kajabi alternatives, with fees counted.