Circle vs Kajabi: community first or marketing first?

Circle has three plans. Professional is $89 a month with a 2% transaction fee, Business is $199 a month with 1%, and Plus is custom-priced at 0.5%. The percentage has no monthly cap, and card processing is charged on top.

Kajabi has three plans since its January 2026 restructure. Basic is $179 a month for five products and 2,500 contacts, Growth is $249 a month and Pro is $499 a month. The legacy $89 Kickstarter plan is no longer sold. Kajabi Payments charges 2.7% to 2.9% plus $0.30 per sale, which is processing, not a platform cut. If you use a third-party payment processor instead, Kajabi adds a fee of 0.5% to 5% depending on tier.

So the two charge in opposite ways. Circle starts lower and takes a share of every sale. Kajabi starts higher and, on its own payments, takes no extra share.

Leave card processing aside, since both pass it through at similar rates. At $1,000 a month in sales, Circle Professional costs $89 plus $20, or $109, and Kajabi Basic costs $179. At $5,000 a month, Circle Professional is $89 plus $100, or $189, and Kajabi Basic is still $179. At $20,000 a month, Circle Professional reaches $489 and Circle Business is $199 plus $200, or $399, while Kajabi is $179 on Basic or $249 on Growth if you have outgrown five products or 2,500 contacts. Math example, not a customer outcome.

The crossover to screenshot: Circle Professional and Kajabi Basic cost the same at about $4,500 a month in sales. Below that, Circle is cheaper. Above it, Kajabi's flat price wins on the platform line, as long as you stay on Kajabi Payments and inside its plan limits. Math example, not a customer outcome.

Then add what each one leaves out. A Circle creator who also wants email marketing and landing pages pays for those separately, typically an email tool such as Kit or Mailchimp plus a page builder. A Kajabi creator who wants a richer community than Kajabi's module may add a second tool too. Price the full stack, not the plan.

Circle's strength is a polished member experience organized into spaces. Each space can be a discussion board, chat, events list or course, and you can split them by topic, cohort or tier. Member profiles, a directory, roles and moderation tools are mature, and that admin depth is why brand and team-run communities choose it.

Kajabi's community module has improved, with challenges and live rooms, but it is lighter than a dedicated community product. If members are meant to open the community every day, Circle is the safer pick. If the community is a bonus for course buyers, Kajabi's is enough.

Kajabi's course builder is polished and sits inside a full marketing suite: email campaigns and automations, sales funnels, landing pages and a website builder, all tied to one contact list. A buyer can move from an opt-in page to an email sequence to a checkout to a course without leaving Kajabi, and that single path is what its premium buys.

Circle's course builder handles lessons, sections and drip, and it looks good, but quizzes are basic and there is no native verifiable certificate. Kajabi has its own assessment tools; check its current documentation for quiz types and certificates before building a graded program on either. Neither is a full learning management system (LMS, software built to deliver, assess and track courses).

Circle is strong on live: native live streams, event pages with RSVPs and recordings are part of the product, which suits cohort programs with weekly calls. Kajabi offers live events and coaching sessions, which fits a creator selling calls or workshops to a list. Test the exact event you run on each, especially if it is paid.

Neither platform leads on gamification. Circle has a basic points layer, and Kajabi's challenges add some structure to engagement. If a leaderboard is central to how you keep members active, compare Skool, whose points and levels are the best-known in the category.

Kajabi's checkout is part of its funnel system, with upsells and order bumps, which matters if you run launches with several offers. Circle sells memberships and course access through its own paywalls and is simpler to set up for a single membership.

The fee model also changes how each feels as you grow. On Circle, a good month means a bigger platform bill. On Kajabi, the bill only moves when you outgrow a plan's product or contact limits, so map your catalog and list size against Basic before you assume $179 is your price.

Pick Circle if the community is what members pay for, you run several spaces and regular live events, you have moderators, and you already have an email tool you like. It suits brands, agencies and team-run communities.

Pick Kajabi if your sales come from email sequences and funnels, you sell several products, and you would otherwise pay for an email tool and a page builder. It suits established creators who want one login for the whole marketing business.

A one-line rule: if members would cancel because they lost the people, pick Circle. If buyers would never have found you without the email sequence, pick Kajabi.

HiveLearn is for the creator who wants Circle's community and a deeper LMS than either, without paying Kajabi's entry price. Courses, community, events and payments sit in one place: threaded discussions, direct messages and a members directory; quizzes with six question types graded on the server and certificates with a public verification page; events with RSVPs, paid tickets, QR check-in and reminders; points, levels and leaderboards. It is not a marketing suite like Kajabi's. It has broadcast email to members, a marketing funnel and UTM tracking, but no email automation builder to match Kajabi's.

Starter is $0 a month with a 6% revenue share, so there is no monthly fee until you monetize. Growth is $39 a month with 4%, rev share capped at $2,000/month. Pro is $99 with 2%, rev share capped at $3,000/month. Stripe processing (2.9% + $0.30) is always on top. At $1,000 a month, Growth costs $39 plus $40, or $79, below both Circle and Kajabi; at $20,000, Pro costs $99 plus $400, or $499, above Kajabi Basic. Math example, not a customer outcome. Growth, Pro and Scale include a 14-day free trial, no credit card.