Why I switched to Kajabi (From Teachable, WordPress, and Convertkit)
Jul 21, 2019
With so many options for hosting online courses & memberships, many people end up changing platforms at some point. This is not without careful consideration since bringing over content to a new platform isn't exactly simple. This is my story of moving over to Kajabi from Teachable and Wordpress.
Disclaimer: I'm an affiliate of Kajabi, and Teachable, and many other services I use. This post is my honest story about Kajabi and is not written to sell you on it and collect my commission. I get asked every week about why I use Kajabi.
If you decide to try Kajabi, please use this link for an extended 30-day trial.
Why I didn't start on Kajabi
I started my first course on Teachable over three years ago for one reason: price. I was scared to have to pay monthly for something I wasn't even sure would sell.
Next, I started building my membership on Wordpress early 2019. I love how Wordpress looks, and how much you can customize it. I wanted a beautiful, complex membership site. I chose MemberPress as my membership plugin and had no problem setting it all up myself using a membership theme. Thinking back, this process sucked up an entire month that I could have been working on content.
How I ended up on Kajabi
In March, my membership site was ready for beta testers. I had tested it extensively and hired a developer, who was impressed at how I had set it all up. "I'm a hardcore Wordpress fan," I told him.
The moment my beta testers joined, we started having Amazon S3 issues. I've hosted on S3 for a long time without issue. Despite our permissions being exactly the same, a file would become randomly inaccessible. Then, another would act up. It was quite the head-scratcher to all four of the developers I hired to look into it.
Then, a week in, half of the beta testers started having login issues. A fight ensued between my Wordpress host and Memberpress, blaming each other for issues. Many people successfully had much larger Memberpress memberships hosted with them.
I was starting to get physically sick. We were still a few months from launching, but I could just imagine how many of these stressful situations would come up with hundreds more members. I actually ended up at the cardiologist because I was having heart palpitations.
By mid-April, I had built my membership on Kajabi. It took me less than a day to move my content over from Wordpress. I stopped having heart palpitations.
No, it wasn't as custom as my Wordpress membership site was. But, it worked. And when it didn't, that's what their customer service was for.
Moving from Teachable
Once I got into Kajabi, I fell in love.
I went all in.
I moved over my course fully from Teachable. My old Teachable sales page, which I hadn't updated in years because of what a pain it is to customize their pages, turned into a beautiful Kajabi landing page with all of the elements I'd always wanted.
In less than 20 minutes, I exported my contacts from Teachable, and Kajabi customer support helped me format the spreadsheet properly to upload it to Kajabi and instantly create new customer accounts and generate emails to all of my old course members.
Luckily, we didn't have to carry over any payment plans, since I closed the course to new sales in anticipation of moving it over. I left the Teachable site open for another two months, but all past members were able to access their content on their new Kajabi account.
Why it's working for me
Let's address the main concern most people have about switching - the price. I've often been asked, "Why would you pay that much when you can pay $20 for Teachable/Other Platform?"
Well, Kajabi does way more for me than those other platforms.
All-in-One Capabilities
It allows me to build beautiful landing pages, opt-ins, and sales pages. I don't need any other service for this. And it's so easy that I can crank out a quality sales page in less than an hour. No custom coding is necessary.
Their pipeline tool allowed me to create a video series funnel to sell the course on automation. The setup included the opt-in page, the video pages, and sales page were included in the pipeline I choose (I used the product launch template). Oh, and the emails were all set up within it as well. I just had to customize it.
I even hooked it into Deadline Funnel and made an evergreen funnel with a
I also love it for my membership. It's easy to navigate and find content. I'd definitely love to see more flexibility with the membership templates when it comes to displaying content, my members love it.
Customer Service
I launched in July with the confidence that their 24-hour customer service would be there if I had any issues.
And after 500 members joined in under two weeks, I'm very glad I did. There were a whopping two technology issue emails those weeks, and they were both user errors.
Their chat support is amazing. Their help documents are also very detailed and easily searchable. I even love the search tool
Time-Savings
It's also important to note that switching to Kajabi has saved me a lot of time.
I have not fallen into the Wordpress plugin black hole once.
I have not had to hire a developer once.
I no longer have to DIY some sort of coding to do something on the Teachable sales page that's drag and drop on Kajabi.
I am spending less time dealing with customer service tickets that were way more prevalent when we used Teachable for the course.
I was able to easily get my team onto Kajabi to help, with the proper permissions.
Switching From Convertkit
For years, I've been paying between $500+ a month for Convertkit because the features and deliverability were "the best". Convertkit hasn't made many improvements over those years. Although I was nervous about making the switch, my deliverability has been exactly the same, if not higher during launches. This alone more than pays for my Kajabi subscription.
Segmented Webinar Email
Gamification
Obviously, selling your course or program is a reward in itself. I love that Kajabi recognizes your sales goals, even though they don't really make a difference to their bottom line (there are no transaction fees on Kajabi). I made less than $1,000 when I was hosting on Teachable because I felt like I couldn't optimize my sales funnel, but I got my 10K Kajabi Hero pin within my first 30 days after setting up my Kajabi site.
The day my final 1 million pin came two years later was exciting, to say the least.
Kajabi sends you pins when you meet sales milestones.
When to switch to Kajabi
If you're setting up your first program and don't yet have a course or membership service, I suggest starting on Kajabi. I hear many people say that they will start on a cheaper service, then move when they've made enough money.
Start where you want to end up. You will sell enough to pay for your subscription. It's pretty motivating when you pay a premium price for the service, right?
I doubled my Teachable earnings in my first two months on Kajabi on my existing course because I had a better tool to streamline my launches with.
If you are already on another service, I recommend switching when you have the time to. You're obviously reading this because your current platform is not doing what you want it to.
When you're ready, definitely reach out to Kajabi for help moving everything over. They saved me a lot of time when I moved my course.
Final Thoughts
We're all at different points in our businesses, so the concern over the price is definitely legitimate for most people. But for many who already have an established audience, there should be no hesitation to pay more for something that has advanced capabilities, ease of use, and great customer service.
If you decide to try Kajabi, please use this link for an extended 30-day trial.