Payhip vs Kajabi in 2026: Payhip Tops Out at $99, Kajabi Starts at $143

For digital downloads and simple courses, Payhip is the cheaper pick. Its 3 plans run $0 plus 5% a sale, $29 plus 2%, or $99 with no cut, and the right one costs less in platform fees than any plan on Kajabi’s pricing page. That page starts at $179 a month, or $143 billed yearly.

Payhip vs Kajabi turns on the bundle: Kajabi adds email, a website and a community. Payhip files tax on digital sales to EU, UK, US and Canadian buyers, which Kajabi does not. CartMango (free right now, from $10 a year once paid plans start in November, 0% a sale plus card fees) handles checkout and upsells. This guide compares all 3 on 5 seller jobs.

You’re picking between a shop and a whole business setup. Payhip sells your digital downloads, courses and memberships. Kajabi sells them too, then adds the email list, the website and the community space around them.

Kajabi too early means $1,716 a year before a single sale. Payhip for too long can mean adding an email tool, a community app and more, each with its own bill.

So I split the choice into the 5 jobs you need a platform to do, like getting paid and filing sales tax. For each job you’ll see which tool does it best and what it costs at your sales level.

Key Takeaways

• Payhip is cheaper in platform fees. The right Payhip plan never passes $99 a month, below Kajabi Basic at $143 billed yearly or $179 monthly.
• Kajabi sells the bundle. Basic includes email marketing for 2,500 contacts, a website and a community, but only 5 products before you need Growth.
• Payhip files your sales tax. It pays digital EU and UK VAT plus US and Canadian sales tax for you. Kajabi only collects tax, for $0.15 a US sale.
• Kajabi Basic now costs $179 a month. Or $143 billed yearly. Google’s AI summary and 4 other first-page results still quote $149 or less.
• CartMango handles checkout and upsells. Free right now, from $10 a year once paid plans start in November, 0% a sale plus card fees, no course hosting yet.

Payhip vs Kajabi on the bill while sales are small

Payhip is the cheaper bill while sales are small, because its free plan charges nothing until you sell and then takes a 5% transaction fee on each sale. Kajabi charges $179 a month once its 14-day free trial ends, or $143 a month if you pay $1,716 for the year up front. Kajabi also has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Not sure yet what to sell, or at what price? The Online Selling Mistakes Challenge covers 5 common online selling mistakes over 5 days, free.

At $2,000 a month in sales, Payhip Plus costs $69 in plan fee and cut, Kajabi Basic costs $143 a month billed yearly, and CartMango, the checkout I run, costs about $0.83 to $2.50 a month billed yearly once paid plans start, with card fees on top of all 3. Payhip has no yearly plan, so its prices are monthly.

CartMango only does the payment job here, with no course or video hosting yet. Next to Payhip’s free plan, its $10 a year comes out ahead once you sell more than $200 in a year.

Old Kajabi prices are all over this search. Google’s AI summary quotes $149 a month, or about $119 billed yearly, with no transaction fees. Payhip’s own comparison page also says $149, and 3 other first-page results quote $55, $119 or $149. $149 was Kajabi Basic’s price until January 2026, when Kajabi raised its prices for the first time in 10 years, by its own account.

Google’s AI summary for “payhip vs kajabi”. Read the Pricing row on the Kajabi side: the live price is $179 a month, or $143 billed yearly.

On Payhip’s 3 plans, move from Free to Plus once you sell about $967 a month, and from Plus to Pro at $3,500. At $500 a month you’d pay $25 on Free, and at $5,000 you’d pay $99 on Pro. Switch at those points and your Payhip plan plus cut never goes above $99 a month. The cheapest plan on Kajabi’s pricing page is $143 a month billed yearly, so before card fees Kajabi never catches up, whether you sell $300 a month or $30,000.

Card fees sit on top of every row. Payhip passes on your payment processor’s normal rate. A payment processor is the company that actually charges the buyer’s card, and Stripe charges 2.9% + 30¢ per US card sale. Kajabi has its own processor, called Kajabi Payments, which charges US sellers 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.8% + 30¢ on Growth and 2.7% + 30¢ on Pro.

Those lower Kajabi rates take a long time to pay off. Counting card fees, Kajabi Growth billed yearly only draws level with Payhip Pro at $100,000 a month in sales, and Kajabi Pro billed yearly at $150,000. Cards from abroad add 1.5% on both Stripe and Kajabi Payments, so that part cancels out.

Kajabi’s pricing page says it takes no revenue share, meaning no percentage of your sales, and on a one-off card sale through Kajabi Payments that’s true. 2 costs sit outside that line. If you connect your own Stripe account instead of using Kajabi Payments, Basic adds 2% a sale (1% on Growth, 0.5% on Pro, PayPal excluded). And every subscription or payment-plan charge through Kajabi Payments carries an extra 0.7%, per Kajabi’s US fee page, the same rate Stripe Billing charges on recurring billing. Our Kajabi pricing breakdown lists every other surcharge.

Hosting the course, the videos and the members

Kajabi is the stronger course platform, because every plan includes courses with video, a community and an app your customers can use on their phones. Basic gives you 1 community with as many private groups as you like. Growth adds live cohort courses, where everyone starts on the same date. Pro adds your own branded app in the App Store.

The catch is the product cap. Kajabi Basic lets you sell 5 products, and courses, coaching, memberships, downloads and podcasts all count toward it. Product 6 means Growth, at $199 a month billed yearly or $249 month to month.

Payhip hosts courses too, with its own course player. Lessons can be videos, text, quizzes, downloads, surveys, assignments or embeds. You can drip lessons out over time, hand out certificates and let students comment on each lesson. Payhip sells unlimited products on every plan, including the free one.

Video costs extra on Payhip. Hosting your videos with Payhip is a flat $5 a month, or you can embed them from YouTube, Vimeo or Wistia at no cost. What Payhip lacks is a community area, so members who want to talk to each other need a separate tool.

CartMango hosts no courses or videos. Course hosting and a community are being built for its $30 a year Platinum plan, not live yet.

Selling to the same buyer a second time

Kajabi does more to sell to the same buyer again. Basic includes email marketing for 2,500 contacts with unlimited sends, and past that you move up a plan or add contacts in blocks of 25,000 for $125 a month. Kajabi’s checkout also supports order bumps (a small add-on offered right on the checkout page), upsells (a bigger offer shown after payment) and downsells (a cheaper offer if the buyer says no). Affiliates, people who promote your product for a commission, start on Growth at $199 a month billed yearly.

Payhip’s own email feature sends updates to people who already bought from you. To build a list of people who haven’t bought yet, it adds each buyer to an email tool such as Kit (formerly ConvertKit), MailChimp or EmailOctopus. 10 tools connect directly, and Zapier, a tool that links apps together, covers the rest.

For a second sale, Payhip has a cross-sell, a discounted add-on shown in the cart, with an optional pop-up. It also has an upgrade discount, an offer shown after purchase that needs a second, separate checkout. There’s no 1-click upsell or downsell, where the buyer adds an offer after paying without typing their card in again. Affiliates and referral discounts come on every Payhip plan, including the free plan.

CartMango has no email tool of its own, so it sends each buyer into the one you use, such as Kit or BirdSend, the email tool I also run. Order bumps come on every plan, and upsells and downsells start on the $20 a year Gold plan.

Who files the sales tax

Payhip files it for you: it collects, reports and pays digital EU and UK VAT, which is the sales tax Europe and the UK charge, plus US and Canadian sales tax.

Kajabi does half of the job. Kajabi Sales Tax works out the tax and collects it at checkout, for $0.15 a transaction in the US. Then Kajabi’s sales tax guide says plainly: “It does not file or remit sales taxes on your behalf.” It also only works with Kajabi Payments, which runs for businesses registered in the US, Canada, Australia, the UAE, the UK and select European countries.

CartMango leaves tax with you too, since you stay the seller of record, meaning the legal seller on each sale. On this job Payhip wins outright, and for a solo seller with buyers in several countries it can be the deciding one.

Paying for the tools around the store

Kajabi only makes sense on cost when its fee replaces tools you already pay for. Kajabi pitches itself the same way. Its pricing page promises “One subscription replaces five tools”, and its FAQ argues: “Price the pieces à la carte and Kajabi is the cheaper way to run the whole business from a few thousand contacts up.”

Kajabi’s own test is list size. A simpler one is your own bills. Add up what you pay now for an email tool, a website builder, a community app and a course host. If that total already sits near $143 a month, Kajabi mostly moves money you spend today into 1 bill and saves you wiring 4 tools together. If the total sits near zero, Kajabi is a brand-new $1,716 a year, set against Payhip’s $0 to $99 a month.

A Payhip seller in an r/onlinecourses thread described the second case: “I use Payhip + EmailOctopus – both are free (as in no monthly fees) and I haven’t had any issues and everything is pretty intuitive honestly.” The same person called Kajabi a platform “you upgrade to”, adding: “you shouldn’t start with it if you have $0 in your pocket.”

The poster who started that thread added the other side. Leaving Kajabi often means “stitching together courses + funnels + emails… just across different tools. So now it’s cheaper… but more complex.”

Payhip, Kajabi or CartMango, job by job

Payhip beats Kajabi on cost and wins the tax job, Kajabi wins course hosting and built-in email, and CartMango is the smallest bill but covers only payments and selling to the same buyer again.

FAQ

Is there anything better than Kajabi?

For digital downloads and a simple course, Payhip costs less and does the job, as the numbers above show. If you need courses and a community together but find Kajabi’s $143 to $179 a month too steep, our Kajabi alternatives guide compares 8 options, with the real monthly cost of the main ones.

What are the disadvantages of Payhip?

The free plan takes a 5% transaction fee on every sale, recurring billing only runs through Stripe, and there’s no 1-click upsell or downsell. Payhip has no community area, and members’ recurring payments stop if you move off Payhip. Most of its 1-star Trustpilot reviews come from sellers whose stores Payhip closed, as our Payhip review found.

Who are Payhip’s main competitors?

Gumroad, Sellfy, SendOwl and SamCart all sell digital products for solo sellers, each with a different fee setup, and CartMango, the checkout I run, is another. Our Payhip alternatives guide compares 7 alternatives side by side.

What are the downsides of Kajabi?

The price comes first: $179 a month, or $143 billed yearly, before you sell anything. Basic stops at 5 products and 2,500 contacts, adds 2% a sale if you use your own Stripe account, and leaves tax filing to you. Our Kajabi review sorts its recent Trustpilot reviews and covers billing complaints.

What happens to my subscribers if I leave Payhip or Kajabi?

On Payhip, members’ recurring payments stop when you leave, so you’d have to ask them to sign up again somewhere new. On Kajabi, students lose access to what they bought, and their subscriptions keep billing until you cancel each one, according to Kajabi’s cancellation guide.

Payhip, Kajabi, or a checkout on its own

So for digital downloads and a simple course, the Payhip vs Kajabi answer is Payhip, and its tax handling settles it. If you’d pay for an email tool, a website and a community app anyway, Kajabi earns its $143 a month by putting them in one place.

If what you mostly need is the checkout, with order bumps, upsells and every buyer sent to your email tool, CartMango does that for 0% a sale plus card fees. It’s free right now, and paid plans start in November from $10 a year. Your subscriptions keep paying you if you ever leave, and course hosting is still in development.

About the Author

👋 I’m Welly, founder of CartMango (the site you’re on), a checkout platform for digital product sellers. We’ve previously processed $179M+. I also run BirdSend (email marketing tool, 3.1B+ emails sent). On the side I show other non-techie digital sellers how I use AI workflows to automate 50%+ of my operations. Find me on LinkedIn.

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