# ThriveCart vs Kajabi · CheckoutScale > Source: https://checkoutscale.com/compare/thrivecart-vs-kajabi ## ThriveCart vs Kajabi Head-to-head [All head-to-heads →](/compare) Pick ThriveCart if you sell through funnels or paid offers and want bumps, one-click upsells, and split-tested checkout without Kajabi-scale monthly fees; pick Kajabi if you want courses, community, email, and checkout under one login for a coaching or membership business. By [Marcus Reyes](/authors/marcus-reyes), Editor. Updated 10/23/2026. **Disclosure:**We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. It never affects our rankings. Quick answer **ThriveCart** is our top pick for most people. Use it when checkout is the priority: order bumps, upsells and checkout tests, on a monthly plan or a lifetime license, while the course stays where students already watch. * **ThriveCart.** Best for bumps and upsells on a monthly plan or a lifetime license. From $37/mo. * **Kajabi.** Best for established coaches and creators running their whole business from one dashboard. From $179/mo. Pick ThriveCart if you sell through funnels or paid offers and want bumps, one-click upsells, and split-tested checkout without Kajabi-scale monthly fees; pick Kajabi if you want courses, community, email, and checkout under one login for a coaching or membership business. [Read the ThriveCart review](/reviews/thrivecart) ### Side by side | | ThriveCart | Kajabi | | --------------------- | ---------------- | --------------------- | | From | $37/mo | $179/mo | | Same-URL split test | No | No | | Multi-MID routing | No | No | | Order bumps & upsells | Yes | Yes | | Platform fee | 0% on sales | No share | | Checkout test | On Standard | — | | Courses | Academy included | Courses and community | | Affiliates | Higher plan | Growth plan | | Free trial | 30 days | — | ### ThriveCart: strengths and trade-offs ##### What works * The cart's job is order bumps, one-click upsells, downsells, and split tests on the checkout and the funnel. The homepage states 0% platform fees on sales. * New plans include a 30-day trial. ThriveCart still offers a monthly subscription and a lifetime Standard license. * Standard includes ThriveCart Academy Starter, with unlimited courses and students. ##### What to watch * The affiliate center, subscription dunning, and custom domains are on the higher plan. Standard is the checkout plan. * Course creators who tried the video hosting say it handled video poorly. Charges go through one processor, and each sale stays on that processor. ### Kajabi: strengths and trade-offs ##### What works * Genuinely one platform for the whole business. Courses, coaching, a community, memberships, email, landing pages and a checkout run under one login, so you stop paying for and wiring together five or six separate tools. * Kajabi takes no cut of your sales. You pay the plan fee and card processing, and the checkout handles order bumps, one-click upsells and subscriptions, so a higher-ticket coaching or course business keeps more of its revenue than on a percentage-fee storefront. * It is established and well-funded. Kajabi has been operating since 2010 and says more than 100,000 businesses have earned over $12 billion through it, so a disappearance mid-launch is unlikely. * The pages, checkout and student experience look polished out of the box, with a large template library, so a solo creator can ship a professional-looking course or membership without a designer. ##### What to watch * It is expensive, and prices rose again in January 2026\. Plans start at $179 a month, and the popular Growth plan is $2,388 a year before processing fees, which is hard to justify until you are already selling consistently. * Support is the most common long-term complaint. Customers who have been with Kajabi for four years say the first chat replies are mostly automated, and that a complex issue can take hours or days to resolve. * The checkout charges through one payment processor. Same-URL split testing and multi-MID routing are not included, so media buyers who rotate checkouts or spread sales across merchant accounts need a different tool for that work. A coach selling to a warm audience rarely needs either feature. * Running the whole business inside one platform is its own risk. An outage or an account issue can take your site, courses, email and checkout down at once. Long-term users point to that risk. ### Kajabi vs ThriveCart Two products remain, and they serve different purposes. ThriveCart takes the payment, offers an order bump, and can show another offer after the buyer pays. Kajabi can host the course, run the community and handle email from the same account. Your monthly bill depends on which of those you still need. [ThriveCart's homepage](https://thrivecart.com/) presents a checkout and funnel stack, with subscriptions and ThriveCart Academy bundled in, and it states 0% fees on sales. The card processor still charges its own rate. [Kajabi's homepage](https://www.kajabi.com/) describes products, payments and marketing as one connected system: courses, coaching, communities, memberships, newsletters and podcasts, with upsells, downsells and order bumps on the checkout. ### The plan bills, side by side The cart rows come from [ThriveCart's pricing post](https://thrivecart.com/blog/new-monthly-pricing-model/). The account rows come from [Kajabi's pricing page](https://www.kajabi.com/pricing). ThriveCart still offers a lifetime Standard license next to the monthly plans. | Plan | Monthly | Annual rate | Year total | What that row includes | | ------------------- | ------- | ----------- | ---------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ThriveCart Standard | $47 | $37 | $444 | Checkout plus Academy Starter, with unlimited courses and students. New plans include a trial. | | ThriveCart Pro+ | $87 | $67 | $804 | Affiliate center, subscription dunning and custom domains. | | Kajabi Basic | $179 | $143 | $1,716 | 5 products, 2,500 contacts, 1 website and 1 community. | | Kajabi Growth | $249 | $199 | $2,388 | 50 products, 25,000 contacts, advanced automations and affiliate programs. | | Kajabi Pro | $499 | $399 | $4,788 | Unlimited products and a 100,000-contact allowance. | The annual total is a full year at the annual rate, before card fees. Compare Standard with Basic while you are still on Kajabi's first row. Growth is the next row up. ### What each sale costs after the subscription The subscription is the first bill. Processing is the bill on every sale after that. ThriveCart's homepage puts the platform's own fee at zero percent of sales. Your processor bills its own rate on top. Kajabi's pricing page says there is no revenue sharing. On Basic, Kajabi Payments lists US cards at 2.9% plus 30 cents. A third-party processor on that same plan adds 2% on top of the processor's own charge. ### Leave the course in Kajabi and take payment in ThriveCart [ThriveCart's Kajabi article](https://support.thrivecart.com/help/integration-with-newkajabi/) describes sellers who already divide the work. Kajabi hosts the course. ThriveCart runs the funnel and the checkout, and it can manage an affiliate program. Zapier can trigger on a purchase, a refund or a cancelled subscription, and grant or revoke access to the Kajabi offer. The left path is the ThriveCart checkout. The right path keeps the course, email and the community together. You pay two subscriptions to run it that way. Students still open the lessons where they already sign in. Order bumps and post-purchase offers are handled in ThriveCart. The article puts affiliate management on the higher cart plan. [The Pro+ page](https://thrivecart.com/products/proplus/) names the affiliate center and automated payouts, which is the same tier as dunning and a custom domain. ### Where the lessons actually live Standard includes Academy Starter. The homepage lists unlimited courses and students with that bundle. Course creators who tried the video hosting say it handled video poorly. Sellers who use it to take payments describe the checkout as solid. Kajabi fits a coaching or membership business that wants the lessons, the community and email in one account. Some sellers who already pay for Kajabi still use ThriveCart for checkout. Others call the Kajabi subscription expensive. They pay it when the whole business runs in that account. Basic's product and contact caps are in the table above. A larger catalog or a larger list means Growth or Pro. ### When the ad URL has to stay the same A checkout that changes while the ad URL stays the same, or a first sale split across merchant accounts you control, calls for a different product. The [checkout split testing guide](/best/checkout-split-testing) explains that case. ### My take If students should access the course, the community and their email in the same account that took the payment, I would use Kajabi and its order bumps. If the lessons already live somewhere else, and you want order bumps plus an offer after payment, I would use ThriveCart for the checkout and leave the lessons where they are. The cart subscription is the smaller of the two bills in the table. The [ThriveCart review](/reviews/thrivecart) covers the two cart plans. Shoppers still comparing carts can read [SamCart vs ThriveCart](/compare/samcart-vs-thrivecart). If the other option also hosts the course and the email, read [ClickFunnels vs Kajabi](/compare/clickfunnels-vs-kajabi) or [Checkout Champ vs Kajabi](/compare/checkout-champ-vs-kajabi). Our pick ### ThriveCart Use it when checkout is the priority: order bumps, upsells and checkout tests, on a monthly plan or a lifetime license, while the course stays where students already watch. [Visit ThriveCart (opens in a new tab) ](https://thrivecart.com/?utm%5Fsource=checkoutscale.com&utm%5Fmedium=affiliate&utm%5Fcampaign=comparison) ### Frequently asked questions Can ThriveCart and Kajabi run together? Yes. ThriveCart's help article treats Kajabi as the course home and sends a purchase, a refund and a cancellation through Zapier, so access can follow the payment. Does ThriveCart still offer a lifetime license? Yes. The pricing post still lists a lifetime Standard license next to the monthly plans. Does Kajabi keep a percentage of each sale? The subscription is the platform charge. Kajabi's price list says sales are not split with the platform. Card processing is extra, and on the first plan a processor other than Kajabi Payments adds 2%. Which subscription is smaller at the start? The From row is the cart's starting rate. Kajabi's first plan is the taller sticker in the plan table, and the year-total column is where the two annual bills separate. Can either one test checkouts on a single ad URL? Keeping one ad URL while the checkout changes, and splitting the opening sale across merchant accounts you own, takes a different product. Use the split-testing guide when the ad link cannot change. ### ThriveCart sources #### From ThriveCart * #### Other sources 11 discussions and reviews read for this page. Quotes are excerpts; open a link to read the original in context. 1. \[r1\] [Thoughts on ThriveCart ](https://www.reddit.com/r/digital%5Fmarketing/comments/1l8jeoj/thoughts%5Fon%5Fthrivecart/) Reddit 2. \[r2\] [Thoughts on ThriveCart ](https://www.reddit.com/r/digital%5Fmarketing/comments/1l8jeoj/thoughts%5Fon%5Fthrivecart/) Reddit 3. \[r3\] [Thrivecart vs Samcart decisions ](https://www.reddit.com/r/martechstacks/comments/1f64i9g/thrivecart%5Fvs%5Fsamcart%5Fdecisions/) Reddit 4. \[r4\] [Thrivecart vs Samcart decisions ](https://www.reddit.com/r/martechstacks/comments/1f64i9g/thrivecart%5Fvs%5Fsamcart%5Fdecisions/) Reddit 5. \[r5\] [ThriveCart reviews on Capterra ](https://www.capterra.com/p/234835/ThriveCart/reviews/) Capterra 6. \[r6\] [ThriveCart reviews on Capterra, page 2 ](https://www.capterra.com/p/234835/ThriveCart/reviews/?page=2) Capterra 7. \[r7\] [Thoughts on ThriveCart ](https://www.reddit.com/r/digital%5Fmarketing/comments/1l8jeoj/thoughts%5Fon%5Fthrivecart/) Reddit 8. \[r8\] [Do any of you really use thrivecart? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/digital%5Fmarketing/comments/13n9fw0/do%5Fany%5Fof%5Fyou%5Freally%5Fuse%5Fthrivecart%5Fif%5Fso%5Fare%5Fyou/) Reddit 9. \[r9\] [Do any of you really use thrivecart? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/digital%5Fmarketing/comments/13n9fw0/do%5Fany%5Fof%5Fyou%5Freally%5Fuse%5Fthrivecart%5Fif%5Fso%5Fare%5Fyou/) Reddit 10. \[r10\] [ThriveCart alternatives ](https://www.reddit.com/r/martechstacks/comments/1au0juj/thrivecart%5Falternatives/) Reddit 11. \[r11\] [Kartra vs ThriveCart ](https://www.reddit.com/r/EcommerceWebsite/comments/1j5nemr/kartra%5Fvs%5Fthrivecartwhich%5Fone%5Fshould%5Fi%5Fgo%5Ffor/) Reddit ### Kajabi sources #### From Kajabi * * Plan prices #### Other sources 3 discussions and reviews read for this page. Quotes are excerpts; open a link to read the original in context. 1. \[r1\] [What's kajabi like for selling? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/elearning/comments/1973c48/whats%5Fkajabi%5Flike%5Ffor%5Fselling/) Reddit, 13 Jan 2024 2. \[r2\] [Kajabi Customer Service ](https://www.reddit.com/r/kajabi/comments/1m906jw/kajabi%5Fcustomer%5Fservice/) Reddit, 1 Aug 2025 3. \[r3\] [Anyone else looking to get off Kajabi because of the price increases? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/kajabi/comments/1p7ec6m/anyone%5Felse%5Flooking%5Fto%5Fget%5Foff%5Fkajabi%5Fbecause%5Fof/) Reddit, 1 Nov 2025 [Read the ThriveCart review](/reviews/thrivecart) ### Related reading * [ThriveCart review](/reviews/thrivecart) * [Kajabi review](/reviews/kajabi) * [The full ranking](/best) * [ThriveCart pricing](/reviews/thrivecart/pricing) * [Kajabi pricing](/reviews/kajabi/pricing) * [SamCart vs ThriveCart](/compare/samcart-vs-thrivecart) * [ClickFunnels vs Kajabi](/compare/clickfunnels-vs-kajabi) * [Checkout Champ vs Kajabi](/compare/checkout-champ-vs-kajabi) * [ElasticFunnels vs Kajabi](/compare/elasticfunnels-vs-kajabi) * [Checkout split testing](/best/checkout-split-testing) * [Checkout cost calculator](/best/checkout-cost-calculator-what-each-platform-costs-at-your-monthly-revenue) * [How we evaluate checkout software](/methodology) * [All head-to-head comparisons](/compare) * [Own checkout: affiliates still get paid](/best/checkout-software-for-affiliate-offers) --- We rank the platforms that build the pages and host the checkout for teams running paid traffic: order bumps, one-click upsells, split-testing whole checkouts, different checkouts per traffic source, and payment routing for high-risk verticals. 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