Kajabi vs Infusionsoft for your membership site content training courses is a question I get often and it's not a straightforward question that is easy to answer.
It's like trying to compare an upright freezer to a refrigerator.
Sure, both have a freezer, they are both 18 cubic feet, 30" wide, 30" deep, etc., but they are not the same.
So let's look at these two similar yet different platforms for your membership courses to see which is best for you.
Background on Kajabi vs Infusionsoft
Since early 2010 I've had many opportunities to work with clients and partners on Kajabi, but it is not my main membership platform.
I was fired up when the news broke that Keap CRM/Infusionsoft sold CustomerHub back to their founder, Kyle Leavitt.
I built out my first online course, "30 Day Sales Growth," on the CustomerHub platform in 2013 and I liked it.
Then Infusionsoft bought CustomerHub during a chaotic time and just didn't develop the platform like they could have.
So I began learning membership platforms that were being maintained and enhanced, which lead me to build out my second sales training program, Make Every Sale, on Wordpress + Memberium. (It helps that I know Micah Mitchell, the founder of Memberium, and I like him and his team.)
But what goes around comes around.
With Kyle Leavitt back at the helm of his CustomerHub baby, he immediately began cleaning house and updating the platform. (Check out his interview on The Sales Podcast.)
With all these changes, it forces me to do a major update to this "Kajabi vs Infusionsoft" post for two reasons.
- Kajabi is a lot more than just a membership site now.
- Infusionsoft/Keap CRM no longer has an in-house membership site component.
So let's look at how Kajabi and Infusionsoft (CustomerHub) compare to one another at the end of 2019.
As I mentioned earlier, Kajabi vs Infusionsoft is not a grapefruit to grapefruit comparison.
From Kajabi's own website they promote
All The Tools You Need To Build A Successful Online Business. Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that makes it easy to create online courses, launch marketing campaigns, build landing pages, and design the perfect website."
Back in the day, Infusionsoft was such a leader in the sales and marketing automation space for small businesses that even their eventual competitors were linking to them and bragging about how closely they worked together!!
Infusionsoft was so flexible, powerful, and ubiquitous in the online community that Kajabi once consideredInfusionsoft a premiere partner and "seamlessly integrates" with them.
(Check out the Infusionsoft Mastery page for more tips and tricks.)
Back then—and still today—Infusionsoft offers some powerful features that Kajabi does not.
- Deep API integrations to expand the platform
- Multi-media marketing automation including email, direct mail, voice broadcasts, and text/SMS via the API
- CRM
- Sales pipelines with automation
But to be fair, Kajabi offers some features that Infusionsoft does not, such as better, prettier, more responsive, and easier to build
- Landing pages
- Sales pages
- Webinar pages
- Event pages
- Video hosting
- Assessments/quizzes
- Multi-step checkout.
(To continue being fair, CustomerHub offers many of the same features as Kajabi at a lower price point BUT you must have Infusionsoft, so that essentially negates the price differential. However, if you already own Infusionsoft I'd recommend you start a trial of CustomerHub to see if it can meet your membership portal needs.)
Please understand, everyone with whom I have worked on Kajabi has had good things to say about the platform, especially its ease of use.
And I'm a big fan of
Buy and deploy whatever it is you will actually use!"
However, what I have learned after growing my own marketing agency since 2006 and working with thousands of entrepreneurs in dozens of countries is
What are your intentions?"
If what you offer is easy to replicate someone will steal it and sell against you.
Not good.
Not good at all.
But it happens every day.
Embrace Complexity
If your intentions are to go big then you need to embrace Dan Kennedy's recommendation to "embrace complexity."
What he and I mean by that is your system needs to be so complex under the hood that it is hard for someone to copy but it's easy for your employees / staff / contractors to run.
Apple is a great case in point. There is some magic-ninja-voodoo-mojo going on under that glassy exterior of the iPhone, iPad, iMac, etc.
It's not easy making something so elegant and functional, yet easy and intuitive to run. That's why Apple is the most valuable company in the world.
Infusionsoft has learned this the hard way over the last several years, which has lead to their re-branding efforts and the development of their new, simplified platform and them getting out of the membership portal space.
So Infusionsoft + CustomerHub or Memberium is for you if you're looking for:
- CRM & Sales Pipeline Management
- E-Commerce With Unlimited Products
- Storefront
- Custom order forms
- Invoices
- Quotes
- Subscriptions
- Affiliate Marketing
- Marketing Automation
- Landing Pages
- Tracking & Analytics
- Multiple Simultaneous Users
- Unlimited Email Marketing
- Unlimited Customization
Kajabi helps you embrace complexity with ease. Kajabi is for you if you're looking for:
- A Membership/Training Portal
- A Professionally-Hosted Website + Blog
- Video Hosting
- Limited Products
- Limited Domains
- Limited Pipelines
- Affiliate Marketing (Growth and Premium)
- Marketing Automation
- Landing Pages
- Assessments (Quizzes)
- Hosted Evergreen Webinars
Kajabi Basic lets you start for $149/mo ($119/mo on their annual plan) with reasonable pricing of $199/mo Growth or $399/mo Premium Plan.
All-in-all, Kajabi is a solid platform with nice features.
Deep Integration With Infusionsoft
"The first big difference is the level of integration with Infusionsoft.
"With Kajabi you get a one-way data push from Infusionsoft to Kajabi.
"This means the member data comes over but that is all—you are largely left to keep the two databases up to date on your own from there so if you're delivering on a subscription membership model be prepared for lots of manual updating.
"Memberium (and CustomerHub) on the other hand offers a bi-directional sync with Infusionsoft, which means that all of the information in both systems stays up-to-date all the time and both systems inform each other regarding changes (much more automated)!"
CustomerHub Allows For More Customization
"Second thing is related to the core functionality of the products.
"Kajabi is really set up to be a plug 'n play system, which is nice in many ways and can help pragmatist users get set up easier. Problem is that this also really limits what you can do with the product. If you can't do what you want out of the box you're kind of SOL.
"Memberium and CustomerHub are both pretty easy to use and set up but doesn't offer as much in terms of plug 'n play content creation (as least for now). This means that users have to put a little more effort into content creation but they have much more flexibility in terms of how they present that content to the end user."
Native Billing Portal
"Lastly, both Memberium and CustomerHub offer an out of the box billing portal.
"This means that your members can not only consume membership content but also manage their accounts, passwords, billing, etc. all in the same place!
"This was at first a unique benefit of Memberium that no other system offered.
"There are lots of other little differences but I think these are the main ones to be cognizant of as an Infusionsoft Certified Partner. Hope this helps!"
Kajabi vs Infusionsoft?
This is a tough call.
If you use all of the features of Kajabi you'll save money vs. piecing them together with Infusionsoft. While the integration between Infusionsoft and Memberium and CustomerHub is seamless, they are different companies.
If you need a full-blown CRM with enhanced e-commerce capabilities to build a big email list and manage bigger deals over time, Infusionsoft is the way to go.
If you're still not sure—and it's okay if that's the case—take The Best CRM For Me free quiz.
If you're still not sure after that, let's talk.
Now go sell something.
