Kajabi vs a Coaching App: Where Should Your Program Live?

Keep your program on Kajabi if you mainly sell self-paced courses and want your website, funnels, email and checkout in one tool. Move it to a dedicated coaching app if your clients get results only when they follow your method every day, on their phone, under your name. You can also run both: Kajabi to sell, the app to deliver.

I'm Alfonso, founder of Tribed. Tribed is coaching infrastructure that gives a coach their own branded app: member accounts, programs delivered day by day, progress tracking, community, payments, App Store distribution and an AI trained on the coach's method. So I have a side in this question. I'll still show where Kajabi is the better choice, using Kajabi's own pages, which I checked on 16 October 2026.

What is the real difference between Kajabi and a coaching app?

Kajabi is a website and sales platform for courses, coaching, memberships and email marketing, with mobile apps added on top. A coaching app starts from the phone. The client opens it each day to do the next step of your method, and the sales pages can live somewhere else. The real difference is where your client spends their time.

Here is how the two compare on the points that decide where a program should live:

• What it is built for. Kajabi: selling, with landing pages, funnels, marketing emails and checkout. A coaching app: daily delivery, with today's step, check-ins, progress and push notifications.
• Where the client starts. Kajabi: a web library, the shared Kajabi app, or a branded app if you pay for one. A coaching app: your icon on their home screen.
• What it measures. Kajabi: lesson and course completion. A coaching app: whether the client did today's action.
• Who it suits best. Kajabi: coaches with a catalog of courses and an email list to sell to. A coaching app: coaches whose method is a daily practice, such as training, nutrition, habits or recovery.

How much does Kajabi cost in 2026?

Kajabi's pricing page lists three plans in October 2026. Billed monthly, Basic is $179, Growth is $249 and Pro is $499 a month. Billed annually, they drop to $143, $199 and $399 a month. That is $1,716 to $5,988 a year before payment fees.

The limits matter as much as the price:

• Basic: 5 products, 2,500 contacts, 1 community, 0 AI credits.
• Growth: 50 products, 25,000 contacts, 1 community, 500 AI credits.
• Pro: unlimited products, 100,000 contacts, 3 communities, 1,000 AI credits.

Kajabi Payments in the US costs 2.9% + $0.30 per sale on Basic, 2.8% + $0.30 on Growth and 2.7% + $0.30 on Pro. If you use a third-party payment provider instead, Kajabi adds its own fee of 2%, 1% or 0.5%. The same page marks its Expert Agents feature as "coming soon".

How much does Kajabi's branded app cost?

A Kajabi branded app, listed under your own name, is included on the Pro plan and costs $199 a month on Basic or Growth. The pricing page lists "Branded Mobile App: Included ($199/mo value)" only in the Pro column and shows no add-on price for the other plans. The add-on price comes from Kajabi's Branded App FAQ.

So the cheapest Kajabi route to an app under your name is Basic plus the add-on: $143 + $199 = $342 a month billed annually, or $179 + $199 = $378 billed monthly. Pro at $399 a month billed annually costs $57 more and includes the app.

Three details from the FAQ are worth knowing before you buy:

1. You create your own Apple and Google developer accounts. Kajabi says this lets you manage in-app purchases, answer reviews and build App Store visibility under your own brand.
2. Launch "typically" takes 6 to 8 weeks after you buy the add-on, depending on Apple and Google review.
3. Kajabi does "not support coding customizations of the app", and you cannot block specific courses from appearing in the Courses tab.

What does Kajabi's mobile app do for coaching clients?

Every Kajabi creator's members can use the free Kajabi Mobile App to watch their courses on the go. That app is listed under the Kajabi name, and Kajabi's help page describes it as a way to "access all of your Kajabi Courses in one convenient place, no matter which expert you are learning from."

For coaching specifically, the docs disagree. Kajabi's coaching product overview says "the coaching feature is not currently available inside the Kajabi mobile app," so clients join sessions in a mobile browser. The Branded App FAQ lists coaching programs among the content the branded app opens. If your 1:1 or group sessions are the core of your offer, ask Kajabi which app supports them on your plan before you commit.

The coaching product itself is solid on the web. It supports 1:1 and group coaching, private notes per client, and Kajabi Live video for up to 200 participants. One catch from the same page: if you schedule with Calendly or a custom link, the product loses Kajabi's built-in video.

Is Kajabi worth it for coaches in 2026?

Kajabi is worth it when you sell courses or memberships to an email list and the revenue easily covers $1,716 to $5,988 a year. It replaces a website builder, an email tool, a funnel tool and a checkout. It is weaker as the place where clients do daily work, because it was built around a course library.

Kajabi is the better choice when:

• Most of your income comes from self-paced courses or a content membership.
• You run launches, webinars and email sequences and want them in the same tool as checkout.
• You sell several products and need landing pages for each.
• Your clients learn once and apply on their own, without daily check-ins.

When is a dedicated coaching app the better home?

A coaching app is the better home when your client's result depends on doing something every day and you need to see who did it. Training plans, nutrition, habit change, recovery and accountability programs all work this way. A library of videos does not tell you who stopped on day four.

The renewal data shows why delivery matters. In Adapty's State of In-App Subscriptions 2026, which benchmarks 16,000 apps, Health and Fitness had the highest trial-to-paid conversion of any category at 35.0% and the lowest first-renewal retention at 30.3%. People buy fitness programs readily. Fewer than a third renew the first time. The fix is in what happens between purchase and renewal, which I wrote about in coaching app vs online course.

Before you pick any app, run the ownership test: whose developer account does the app ship from, and whose name shows as the seller? I explain the test in what is a white-label coaching app and apply it to each platform in the best white-label app platforms for coaches. Kajabi's branded app passes it, since you use your own developer accounts. The free Kajabi Mobile App does not, since it carries Kajabi's name.

A real example from our work: IFBB Pro Petar Klančir had his method spread across PDFs, YouTube and social media. We put it into one app his clients follow, in five languages. The full story is in the Petar Klančir case study.

What do Apple's rules mean for selling a program in an app?

Apple's rules apply to Kajabi's branded app and to any coaching app the same way. Guideline 3.1.1 says subscriptions and premium content unlocked inside an app must use in-app purchase. Guideline 3.1.3(d) lets real-time 1:1 services, with "fitness training" as an example, take payment another way. One-to-few and one-to-many live services must still use in-app purchase.

On commission, Apple's Small Business Program charges 15% on in-app purchases for developers who earn no more than 1 million USD in proceeds a year. Kajabi's FAQ describes the platform fee as "generally ranging from 15% to 30%." Price your in-app subscription with that cut in mind, whichever platform you choose.

Can you use Kajabi and a coaching app together?

Yes. A coach can sell well on Kajabi and still need a daily delivery tool. A split setup can work if you keep the roles clear:

1. Keep Kajabi for your website, sales pages, email list and course catalog.
2. Put the daily program, check-ins and progress in the app, under your name.
3. Decide where the client pays, so each client has one place to manage billing.
4. Point every new buyer from Kajabi to the app on day one, so the first action happens there.
5. Review after 90 days which tool clients open. If Kajabi only hosts sales pages, see if a lighter tool can do that job.

The cost of the split is two logins for the client and two bills for you. Member data also sits in two places, so plan how you export it.

FAQ

Does Kajabi have its own mobile app?

Yes. The free Kajabi Mobile App lets members open courses from many creators in one app under the Kajabi name. A branded app under your own name is included on Pro or costs $199 a month on other plans, per Kajabi's help center.

Is Kajabi's branded app published under my name?

Kajabi's FAQ says you create your own Apple and Google developer accounts, so the listing carries your brand. Kajabi then helps with submission. Launch typically takes 6 to 8 weeks, depending on store review.

Can clients join coaching sessions inside the Kajabi app?

Kajabi's coaching overview says the coaching feature is not currently available inside the Kajabi mobile app, so clients join in a mobile browser. Its Branded App FAQ lists coaching programs as included, so confirm with Kajabi first.

Is Kajabi or a coaching app cheaper?

Kajabi Basic costs $143 a month billed annually, and an app under your name adds $199 a month unless you are on Pro at $399. Compare that with the full yearly cost of a coaching app platform, including Apple and Google fees.

Should I leave Kajabi to launch an app?

Not always. If Kajabi sells your courses well, keep it for pages, email and checkout, and move daily delivery into an app. Leave fully when you pay mainly for features your clients never open.

If your program needs a home your clients open every day, you can start building your app at admin.tribed.io.