Teachable vs Kajabi vs LearnDash LMS Comparison

When choosing a Learning Management System (LMS) for your online course business, the platform you pick shapes not just how your courses look but who controls your student data and how much of each sale you actually keep. This comparison of Teachable vs Kajabi vs LearnDash LMS breaks down the features, pricing, and ownership terms honestly, and also covers Learnomy, a free WordPress LMS that removes platform fees from the equation entirely.

LearnDash | Teachable vs Kajabi vs LearnDash LMS

LearnDash is a WordPress LMS plugin that gives course creators direct control over their content, student data, and business model. It is one of the most widely adopted LMS plugins in the WordPress ecosystem, and it integrates cleanly with the Reign theme and the LearnDash Dashboard built by Wbcom Designs, which means you get polished course interfaces and learner dashboards without hiring a developer to build them from scratch.

Overview of LearnDash

LearnDash runs inside your own WordPress installation. You own the codebase, the database, and every record your students generate. There is no middle platform taking a cut of your revenue, and no risk of a price hike forcing you to rebuild elsewhere. It is designed to scale with your course catalog, whether you are running a single flagship course or a library of hundreds.

Features and benefits of using LearnDash

LearnDash covers the core requirements of a serious course platform and goes further with features that SaaS platforms typically lock behind higher tiers. Key features include:

• Drag-and-drop course builder with support for lessons, topics, and multi-section course structures
• Advanced quizzing with multiple question types, time limits, and configurable retake rules
• Drip-feed content scheduling to control student progress through material
• Multi-tier course access for cohorts, memberships, and subscription models
• Gamification via badges, certificates, and point systems that enhance student engagement and motivation
• Built-in enrollment and payment management, with WooCommerce and Stripe integrations available

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Pricing and plans for LearnDash

LearnDash starts at $199 per year for a single site license covering all core features, including the ProPanel reporting addon. The LearnDash Cloud plan is $299 annually and includes managed hosting with a preconfigured LMS site and ProPanel. Compared to the SaaS platforms in this comparison, LearnDash is the only commercial option where you pay a flat annual fee and keep your revenue without transaction fees.

Ease of use and user experience

LearnDash has a steeper initial setup than a hosted SaaS platform because you need a WordPress site first. Once installed, the course builder is straightforward and documentation is thorough. The LearnDash Dashboard from Wbcom Designs significantly improves the out-of-the-box student experience, replacing the default interface with a purpose-built design that works well without additional customization.

Customization options for LearnDash

Because LearnDash runs on WordPress, every customization option in the WordPress ecosystem is available to you. The Reign theme is specifically built to work with LearnDash, providing pre-designed course layouts, learner dashboards, and community features that pair cleanly with BuddyPress. You can also extend the look using custom CSS and HTML, page builders, or a fully custom child theme. For an overview of reporting tools you can layer on top, see the best LearnDash reporting tools.

Pros and cons of using LearnDash

Pros:

• You own your data, your code, and your course content outright
• No transaction fees on any plan
• Integrates with WordPress plugins and themes including the Reign theme and LearnDash Dashboard
• Annual flat fee with no per-seat or per-course limits
• Multi-tier course structure allows different access levels and pricing

Cons:

• Requires a WordPress site and some initial configuration
• Payment processing and membership site features need additional plugins or add-ons

LearnDash is the right choice for course creators who want full ownership of their platform and the flexibility to build exactly what their students need. Pair it with the Reign theme and the LearnDash Dashboard from Wbcom Designs and you get a professional LMS without the SaaS price tag or data tradeoffs.

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Teachable | Teachable vs Kajabi vs LearnDash LMS

Teachable is a hosted course platform that handles infrastructure for you in exchange for monthly fees and, depending on your plan, a percentage of every transaction. It is easy to get started with, which is its main selling point, but there are real tradeoffs to understand before committing your course business to it long-term.

Overview of Teachable

Teachable is a cloud-based platform where your course content, student records, and payment history live on Teachable’s servers. You do not own the infrastructure. If Teachable changes its pricing, changes its terms of service, or experiences an outage, your business is directly affected. The simplicity of setup comes with the constraint that the platform is ultimately controlled by a third party whose interests may not align with yours.

Features of Teachable

Teachable covers the basics of course creation and delivery, and the setup process is beginner-friendly. What it includes:

• Simple course builder with video hosting and multimedia content support
• Built-in payment processing via Stripe and PayPal
• Drip content scheduling and basic quiz functionality
• Basic marketing tools including affiliate programs and coupon codes
• Student management and basic analytics

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Pricing and plans for Teachable

Teachable’s Basic plan starts at $39 per month billed annually, totaling $468 per year. The Professional plan runs $119 per month ($1,428 per year), and the Business plan is $375 per month ($4,491 per year). On top of those fees, Teachable charges transaction fees on the Basic plan, meaning they take a percentage of every course sale at the entry tier. That ongoing fee compounds as your revenue grows and is money that does not go to you.

Ease of use and user experience

The setup experience on Teachable is genuinely fast. You can upload a course and go live within hours without touching any server configuration. The course builder is clean and the interface is well-organized. The tradeoff appears when you hit the limits of what their templates and integrations allow, at which point you have no way to extend the platform further.

Customization options for Teachable

Teachable allows some template customization and basic branding, but you are working within a system designed for simplicity over flexibility. You cannot change the fundamental structure of your school, swap payment processors outside their supported list, or extend the platform with third-party tools the way you can on WordPress. Customization options are constrained by design.

Pros and cons of using Teachable

Pros:

• Fast to set up with no server configuration required
• Built-in video hosting and payment processing
• Good support documentation for complete beginners

Cons:

• Transaction fees on the Basic plan reduce earnings per sale
• Student data lives on Teachable’s servers, not yours
• Monthly fees run indefinitely with no ownership stake in the platform
• Limited customization compared to self-hosted options
• Migrating away means extracting your entire course catalog and student records from a system you do not control

Teachable makes sense for someone who wants to launch a single course quickly and is comfortable paying ongoing platform fees for that convenience. It is not the strongest fit for course creators building a long-term business who need full control over revenue and student data.

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Kajabi | Teachable vs Kajabi vs LearnDash LMS

Kajabi is the most expensive platform in this comparison by a significant margin. It positions itself as an all-in-one business platform for online educators and bundles email marketing, landing pages, and automation alongside course creation. Whether the price is justified depends entirely on whether you need all of that under one roof.

Overview of Kajabi

Kajabi is a cloud-based platform that combines course hosting, a website builder, marketing automation, email marketing, and membership management into one subscription. Like Teachable, your student data and course content live on Kajabi’s servers. If you decide to move off the platform, you face the same migration challenge: extracting your data from infrastructure you never owned.

Features and benefits of using Kajabi

Kajabi’s primary strength is consolidation. Instead of connecting multiple tools, you manage most of your business from one dashboard. Notable features include:

• Course creation with video hosting and structured content delivery
• Built-in website and landing page builder
• Email marketing and marketing automation integrated into the platform
• Membership and community management
• Built-in payment processing and subscription management
• Analytics and revenue reporting

Pricing and plans for Kajabi

Kajabi’s Basic plan starts at $119 per month billed annually, which is $1,428 per year just to get started. The Growth plan runs $159 per month ($1,908 per year), and the Pro plan is $319 per month ($3,828 per year). There are no transaction fees, but the baseline cost is nearly three times what Teachable charges at entry level and more than seven times the annual cost of LearnDash.

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Ease of use and user experience

Kajabi’s interface is polished and the onboarding flow is guided. If your goal is to go from zero to a live course with an email sequence and a landing page without configuring any external tools, Kajabi delivers that experience. It is built for non-technical users and does not require any WordPress knowledge.

Customization options for Kajabi

Kajabi offers customizable templates, branding controls, and CSS access for styling adjustments. However, you cannot step outside the boundaries Kajabi sets for page structure or payment flow. Third-party integrations are limited to what Kajabi officially supports, which is a meaningful constraint if your tech stack includes tools that are not on that list.

Pros and cons of using Kajabi

Pros:

• Comprehensive all-in-one platform that replaces multiple tools
• Clean, guided setup experience with no server required
• No transaction fees on any plan
• Built-in email marketing and automation reduces need for external integrations
• Integrations with popular payment gateways

Cons:

• Starts at $1,428 per year; the most expensive option in this comparison by a wide margin
• Student data lives on Kajabi’s servers, creating the same ownership risk as any SaaS platform
• Limited design flexibility outside of provided templates
• Limited third-party integrations compared to WordPress-based options
• High switching cost if Kajabi raises prices or changes its terms

Kajabi is worth its price for creators who genuinely use the email marketing and automation features and who want to consolidate their toolset under one subscription. If you need a course platform with solid design and no interest in Kajabi’s bundled marketing stack, you are paying for a lot of functionality you may never use.

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Learnomy: The Free WordPress LMS Option

Learnomy is a free WordPress LMS plugin from Wbcom Designs. It charges 0% platform fees, stores all student data in your own WordPress database, and includes a built-in course importer for LearnDash, Tutor LMS, and LifterLMS. For course creators who want the ownership advantages of WordPress without a license fee, it is a direct path in.

Overview of Learnomy

Learnomy runs on your WordPress installation the same way LearnDash does. You control where it is hosted, what data it collects, and how it connects to the rest of your site. There is no monthly SaaS bill and nothing routes payments through a platform that takes a cut. Visit learnomy.app for a full overview of what the plugin covers, or try the live demo on a real site without creating an account.

Features of Learnomy

Learnomy covers the features that matter for most course businesses. What it includes:

• Course builder with lessons, quizzes, and drip content scheduling
• Student progress tracking and completion certificates
• Stripe-powered payment processing with direct payouts to your account
• Course importer from LearnDash, Tutor LMS, and LifterLMS
• All student records, enrollments, and quiz results stored in your own database
• Compatible with WooCommerce for extended product and selling options

Pricing and platform fees

The core Learnomy plugin is free. There are no platform fees and no transaction fees taken by Learnomy. Stripe processes payments at standard Stripe rates and pays directly to your account. For organizations that need cohort management, learner journey reporting, or advanced access controls, Learnomy Pro adds those capabilities on top of the free base plugin.

Data ownership and privacy

Every student record, quiz result, enrollment log, and payment reference that Learnomy generates lives in your WordPress database on the server you choose. No third-party analytics platform receives your student data by default. That matters for GDPR compliance and for any organization with data residency requirements. Schools, healthcare trainers, legal continuing education providers, and corporate L&D teams get a concrete compliance advantage over SaaS-hosted platforms where data location is determined by the vendor, not the customer.

Migrating from LearnDash, Tutor LMS, or LifterLMS

If you are already running a LearnDash site and want to try Learnomy, the built-in importer handles course structure and student enrollment data. You do not need to rebuild your course catalog from scratch. The same import path works for Tutor LMS and LifterLMS sites, making Learnomy a practical option for teams consolidating LMS tools.

Pros and cons of using Learnomy

Pros:

• Free core plugin with 0% platform fees and no transaction cut
• Full data ownership; everything stays in your own database on your chosen host
• Course importer for LearnDash, Tutor LMS, and LifterLMS
• No vendor lock-in; you can move to any WordPress host at any time
• Stripe direct payouts with no middleman

Cons:

• Requires a WordPress site and basic familiarity with plugin setup
• Fewer built-in marketing tools than all-in-one platforms like Kajabi
• Advanced reporting and cohort management require Learnomy Pro

Get started free at wbcomdesigns.com/downloads/learnomy/, review the full feature set at learnomy.app, or launch the live demo to see it running on a real WordPress install.

Teachable vs Kajabi vs LearnDash LMS: The Verdict and Final Thoughts

Here is a side-by-side comparison that now includes Learnomy as a fourth option. The table covers the dimensions that actually affect your business: ownership, fees, and flexibility.

Feature	LearnDash	Teachable	Kajabi	Learnomy
Course creation	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Platform/transaction fees	None	Yes (Basic plan)	None	None (0%)
Data ownership	You own it (WordPress DB)	Teachable’s servers	Kajabi’s servers	You own it (WordPress DB)
Payment processing	Requires plugins/add-ons	Built-in	Built-in	Stripe direct
Membership sites	Requires add-ons/plugins	Built-in	Built-in	WooCommerce integration
Marketing tools	Via WordPress plugins	Basic	Advanced (built-in)	Via WordPress plugins
Annual cost	$199/year	$468+/year	$1,428+/year	Free (core plugin)
Course import	Limited	No	No	LearnDash, Tutor, LifterLMS

Summary of each platform:

LearnDash

Pros:

• Powerful course creation with deep customization
• Integrates with WordPress plugins and themes including Reign and LearnDash Dashboard from Wbcom Designs
• No transaction fees; flat annual pricing
• Full data ownership; your content stays on your server

Cons:

• Requires a WordPress site and some initial technical setup
• Payment processing and membership features need additional plugins

Teachable

Pros:

• Fast to set up with no server or hosting configuration needed
• Built-in payment processing and student management

Cons:

• Transaction fees on the entry plan eat into your earnings per sale
• Student data lives on Teachable’s servers, not yours
• Ongoing monthly fees with no platform ownership
• Limited customization and no ability to extend outside their supported integrations

Kajabi

Pros:

• All-in-one with built-in email marketing and automation
• No transaction fees on any plan
• Clean, guided setup with no technical requirements

Cons:

• Starts at $1,428 per year; the most expensive option here by a significant distance
• Student data lives on Kajabi’s servers
• Limited design flexibility and restricted third-party integrations
• High switching cost if prices change or terms shift

Learnomy

Pros:

• Free core plugin with 0% platform fees
• Full data ownership; everything stays in your WordPress database
• Course importer from LearnDash, Tutor LMS, and LifterLMS
• No vendor lock-in

Cons:

• Requires WordPress and basic plugin familiarity
• Fewer built-in marketing tools than all-in-one SaaS platforms

Which platform fits which situation:

• LearnDash is the strongest option for course creators who want full customization, a proven and active ecosystem, and the ability to pair the plugin with the Reign theme or LearnDash Dashboard for a polished student experience.
• Teachable suits someone launching a first course quickly who accepts the ongoing monthly fee and the data tradeoff that comes with a hosted platform.
• Kajabi fits established creators who genuinely use the built-in email marketing and automation and want to consolidate their entire business under one subscription.
• Learnomy is the right call for anyone who wants the WordPress ownership model at no license cost, especially if they are migrating from an existing WordPress LMS or need to keep student data on their own infrastructure.

Final Thoughts | Teachable vs Kajabi vs LearnDash LMS

The gap between SaaS platforms and self-hosted WordPress LMS tools has narrowed considerably on features. What has not changed is ownership. Teachable and Kajabi both hold your student data on their servers, and both charge ongoing fees that will keep rising as their business needs evolve. LearnDash gives you control of your data and your platform for a flat annual fee, and when you pair it with the Reign theme and LearnDash Dashboard from Wbcom Designs, you get a course experience that matches what the SaaS platforms offer visually without the lock-in. Learnomy removes the license fee entirely for teams starting fresh or migrating from another WordPress LMS.

When comparing Teachable vs Kajabi vs LearnDash LMS, the decision comes down to what you want to own. If you want the simplest possible launch and are comfortable paying ongoing fees for rented infrastructure, Teachable or Kajabi can work. If long-term ownership of your platform, control over student data, and favorable cost structure are what matter to your business, LearnDash and Learnomy are where the math works in your favor.

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