TL;DR
Beacons is free to start: a link in bio, store, email, a media kit and Beam, an AI assistant that builds and runs them with you on every plan. Creator Plus ($30 a month) adds unlimited courses with video hosting, memberships, email with no monthly send limit and 0% Beacons fees. Kajabi is built for businesses where the course is the product: deep course tools, coaching, communities and funnels, with no free plan. Billed annually, Kajabi runs $143 to $399 a month ($179 to $499 month-to-month), with product and contact caps by tier and no revenue share.
Courses first
Kajabi is the deeper course platform: evergreen and cohort courses, drip, quizzes, certificates, communities and live coaching. A Beacons course is a bundle of video, image and document lessons; Creator Plus adds unlimited courses with hosted video and memberships. No drip, quizzes or community on Beacons; 1:1 appointments are on every plan.
Where Kajabi wins: when a student would notice the difference. Where Beacons wins: courses and memberships for $30 at 0%, on the same page as your products and media kit, set up with Beam.
At a glance
| Beacons | Kajabi | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes: link in bio, store, media kit, 50 email sends/mo, Beam; 9% fee | No; 14-day trial, 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Paid plans (monthly) | Creator $10 / Creator Plus $30 / Creator Max $100 | Basic $179 / Growth $249 / Pro $499 |
| Billed annually | $8.33 / $25 / $83.33 per month | $143 / $199 / $399 per month |
| Platform fee on sales | 9% on Free and Creator; 0% on Creator Plus and Max | 0% with Kajabi Payments; 2% / 1% / 0.5% by plan with a third-party processor |
| Products | Unlimited digital products on every plan | 5 / 50 / unlimited by plan |
| Courses & memberships | One course (no video hosting) on Free and Creator; unlimited courses with video plus memberships on Creator Plus | Courses, coaching and communities on every plan; cohorts on Growth and Pro |
| Email marketing | 50 sends/mo Free, 500 Creator, no monthly limit on Creator Plus | Unlimited sends; contacts capped at 2,500 / 25,000 / 100,000 |
| Media kit / brand deals | Media kit on every plan; affiliate marketplace with 12,000+ brands | Not offered |
| Custom domain | From Creator, free for the first year | Every plan |
Prices in USD, checked Nov 2, 2026. Sources: Beacons pricing; Kajabi pricing; Kajabi products overview.
What it costs you each month
Kajabi charges a subscription and takes no cut with Kajabi Payments. If Kajabi Payments is available in your region and you use another processor (not PayPal), Kajabi adds 2%, 1% or 0.5% by plan.
| Plan | Plan price | Platform fee | You keep on $1,000/mo in sales | You keep on $5,000/mo in sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beacons Free | $0 | 9% | $878 | $4,390 |
| Beacons Creator Plus | $30/mo | 0% | $938 | $4,810 |
| Beacons Creator Max | $100/mo | 0% | $868 | $4,740 |
| Kajabi Basic | $179/mo | 0% | $789 | $4,661 |
| Kajabi Growth | $249/mo | 0% | $720 | $4,596 |
| Kajabi Pro | $499/mo | 0% | $471 | $4,351 |
You keep = sales minus plan price, platform fee and processing (Stripe's 2.9% + $0.30 on Beacons; Kajabi Payments' rate by plan), with monthly billing and $100 orders.
Once a course sells, Creator Plus is the cheapest 0% option here; it pays for itself over Beacons Free at about $333 a month. Kajabi's price follows products and contacts, not revenue, so at the sales levels shown, Creator Plus stays cheaper. Creator Max ($100 a month, or $83.33 billed annually) adds white-glove onboarding, prioritized support, Google Workspace on your custom domain, an NFC card and VIP events.
Sell courses and memberships at 0% for $30 a month, not $179.
How we compared
We used official pricing pages and Kajabi's help center (Nov 2, 2026). We make Beacons, so where Kajabi fits better, we say so. I don't work on the course builder, so I let Kajabi's help center speak for it.
Link in bio and store
Every Beacons plan gives you a page with links, a store, email signup, a media kit and Instagram auto-DMs, and Beam can build it for you. Kajabi is a website-and-funnel product; its Link in Bio templates are landing pages inside a paid Kajabi site.
Kajabi's checkout is the stronger launch tool, with one-time, recurring and payment-plan offers plus unlimited funnels. Beacons has discount codes, order bumps and limited-quantity offers on every plan, and buy now, pay later and installments on Creator Plus, with no product cap where Kajabi caps Basic at 5 and Growth at 50.
Email and audience
Beacons includes 50 sends a month on Free, 500 on Creator and no monthly limit on Creator Plus, with a welcome automation on every plan and longer sequences on Creator Plus; Beam can write and schedule them. Kajabi gives unlimited sends but caps contacts at 2,500, 25,000 and 100,000. A 30,000-person list needs Kajabi Pro, or Growth plus a $125-a-month contact block; on Beacons it's $30.
Brand deals and media kits
Kajabi has no media kit; its affiliate program on Growth and Pro recruits others to sell your products. Beacons' media kit is on every plan and refreshes daily. Brands reach you through its "Work with me" form, Beam can find brands and draft pitches that go out only after you approve them, and invoices to brands carry no Beacons fee.
Would you still need a second tool?
On Kajabi, yes if sponsorships matter, or if you want a free-standing link-in-bio page with a store and media kit. Kajabi's Link in Bio templates are landing pages inside a paid Kajabi site, not a separate free bio tool. On Beacons, only if your students need drip schedules, quizzes, certificates or a community space, which Beacons doesn't offer.
Switching from Kajabi to Beacons
There's no Kajabi importer. Download your videos, rebuild courses and products on Creator Plus, and import contacts as a CSV (each gets an opt-in email first). Active subscriptions don't transfer, so run both for one billing cycle while members re-subscribe. On Creator Max, a Beacons support person helps with setup.
When to choose Kajabi vs Beacons
Choose Kajabi if:
- Courses, coaching or a community are most of your revenue.
- You run launches with funnels, upsells and an affiliate program.
- $143 to $399 a month billed annually ($179 to $499 month-to-month) is small against your course revenue.
Choose Beacons if:
- A course is one income stream next to products and brand deals.
- You want to start free, then pay $30 for 0% fees and more email.
- You sell lots of small products and don't want a product cap.
Start free, then pay $30 a month for 0% fees and email with no monthly send limit.
Our data: how Beacons creators sell courses
- Half the creators who sold a course on Beacons also sold something else, and courses were about a quarter of those sellers' revenue.
Source: Beacons sales data (PostHog), Sep 28 to Oct 27, 2026: creators with a paid course sale; revenue after Beacons fees, in USD.