Dornubari Vizor November 20, 2022
5 Reasons Why You No Longer Need Kajabi Membership Site
The Kajabi membership site allows business owners to share their online courses with groups of people who are interested in their field. It can help them build a stable online business, which they can later scale up while providing real value to their followers.
This honestly sounds amazing. The Kajabi platform, despite its downsides, is an established powerhouse with a large share of satisfied users.
If you are using Kajabi to share your knowledge — stop!
If you are looking for an online platform to help you create and sell courses and create an active online community — use GroupApp!
This article will show you how the Kajabi membership site works and why GroupApp is better for your online business.
What is a Kajabi Membership Site?
A membership site is a group or a community section where your members gather. Based on your offer, your members can be students, colleagues, or people who share the same interests and want to expand their knowledge on a given topic.
Think of it as any other membership — gym, library — but online. Users get access to exclusive content as they pay for it. Some use a membership site as their primary source of income, but this can also be used for passive income, mainly if you sell an affiliate program and educate people in affiliate marketing.
Kajabi makes creating membership sites and participating in these online communities easy. As a creator, you don’t need prior programming or web design knowledge to build a membership site on Kajabi.
You can use the platform to
- Create online courses
- Sell digital products
- Exchange ideas with like-minded people
- Sell physical merchandise through Shopify integration.
Membership Content on Kajabi
The beauty of creating a Kajabi membership site is that it gives you all the tools you need to prepare and share your content. You don’t have to worry about technical skills but focus on ideas.
There aren’t restrictions on how to share and present your content. The membership content that the membership site provides can be:
- Written content (blog posts)
- Live Webinars
- Mini-Courses
- Screencasts
- Podcasts
- Videos
It is up to the membership site owners to decide which content they want to share with their audience.
For example, you can inform your readers through blog posts and video content, use podcasts to talk to experts in-depth, or organize webinars to present valuable information about your business and convert people. It is entirely up to you how your membership website will look.
How to Build a Membership Site on Kajabi vs. GroupApp
Kajabi makes it easy for users who want to create membership sites and expand their online business.
You need to go to the product dashboard and come up with different offers corresponding to different member levels. From the technical point of view, this part is easy, but you will have to navigate through your product list and assign each product to a membership offer.
Establish Your Niche and Type of Content
You need to have a clear direction for your membership site. Once you select a niche, you can create exclusive content for your members. Before you get the first members, we advise you have ten videos lasting 10 minutes each if you provide video courses.
On the other hand, if you focus on written content, prepare ten longer articles your community can read. The first paying members need to have some exclusive content to consume before you start posting regularly.
Imagine if they paid and entered the blank membership site. That would be disappointing, wouldn’t it?
What’s Your Audience?
You need to understand your audience to know which content works best. If you know who you are targeting, you can create a membership site with the proper pricing and focus on the content.
How to know who your audience is? Before you start putting out content on your membership site, make sure you conduct target audience research.
Provide Value
Once you know your audience, providing value through your posts will be much easier. If your audience is familiar with finances, you will write and share some in-depth content instead of the basics.
Don’t be afraid to share stories about your journey, too.
Asking your members for feedback is also a great way to deliver premium content. When you identify what your members struggle with, you can create online courses to solve that issue.
Such an approach will help you earn more money and gain new members, but they will also appreciate the community they are in and participate in the future.
Consider Different Models
You can use different membership models for your Kajabi site. Choosing a model depends on what your online business is about.
Meanwhile, Kajabi product themes allow you to customize your page and courses, yet another benefit.
Here, we will list the membership models used:
- Online Courses
- Personal Coaching
- Content Library
- Content Feed
- Group Education and Community
- Product or Digital Download
- Software.
Each of these is aimed at a specific type of business. For example, fitness instructors will opt for personal coaching, whereas the content feed is more diverse.
You can combine monthly coaching sessions with videos and written content.
How Does This Work on GroupApp?
GroupApp was created to solve the problem Kajabi and other course-selling platforms have. And that is to have your courses and build an independent, thriving community all in one place.
Although the Kajabi offer is extensive, it is also limited. It does allow a group of people to unite around one idea and engage, but only up to one point. Online businesses that built a successful membership site in Kajabi commonly have their communities as Facebook groups.
GroupApp allows you to get rid of this disintegration and puts everything in one place. That’s easier for both the users and the creators. As a creator, you no longer have to manage two places simultaneously. Meanwhile, users can access your content and engage without leaving one platform and going to another.
We organized GroupApp to allow you to:
- Share your expertise
- Build an engaging learning community
- Get paid for your knowledge
Unlike the Kajabi membership site, GroupApp doesn’t have specific models — you can create content in whatever form you see fit and save all your resources in the Library. Here, you will store your PDFs, e-books, videos, and recordings from webinars, meetings, and workshops.
The community discussion is much more profound on GroupApp. It allows you to organize your communication channels, have access levels based on the subscription plans and moderate what gets shared in each channel.
3 Examples of Kajabi Membership Sites
We will offer several membership site examples so you can get a grasp of what a successful Kajabi membership site looks like. Remember that membership management plays a big role in the success of a website. Thanks to some automation on Kajabi, you will receive data such as churn rate and revenue streams that will help you create your future strategy.
It is not enough just to show up on Kajabi, create a membership site and hope for the best. Below are some websites that made it work:
Brandon Buchard
Heard of Brandon yet? Yep, he’s pretty famous. He is one of the best-selling authors and was named the most influential leader in personal development, with more than just one successful online course. But more importantly, he’s one of the first people who joined Kajabi and saw the potential of membership sites.
Before you start your own business on Kajabi, you should definitely check out his website. He showcases all the strengths Kajabi has and how you can combine free and premium content and use other Kajabi features to reach over 2 million students. It is one of the best membership sites for a reason.
The Empowered Entrepreneur
As you can conclude from the name, the Empowered Entrepreneur is a membership site aimed at helping entrepreneurs reach their goals. Their slogan is “work smarter, not harder.” They want to show you how to reduce stress in the lives of entrepreneurs worldwide while keeping them in the game.
There’s more than one online course with various brain exercises to help you unwind while staying in the zone. Membership in this group is valuable for everyone who runs or wants to run a business.
Alla’s Yummy Food
If you find it too hard to work out but enjoy food (as we all do), you can get a glimpse of Alla’s Yummy Food — one of the best Kajabi membership sites.
She offers over 600 videos and launches new recipes, but she also created separate online courses outside Kajabi for those who aren’t ready to become members. Membership here isn’t expensive, yet all the foodies can enjoy the valuable content Alla provides regularly.
This is one of the membership site examples you must check out if you want success on Kajabi or just try some tasty dishes.
3 Examples of GroupApp Communities
These are all great membership site examples on Kajabi. Now, we will display some examples of GroupApp clients and see why they joined and what we did for them.
Wealth Nation
Wealth Nation founders Carmen and Darius Britt were with GroupApp from the beginning and are an excellent example to illustrate the power of GroupApp.
Their community is called Wealth Nation Money School, and they unlocked the potential that GroupApp has to offer, but there’s still a long way to go.
Despite some mistakes in the very beginning, we helped build a $100,000 community in just one year. They were looking for a platform that would allow them to share their knowledge and have members interact with the content and each other.
The number one thing Wealth Nation was after before they joined GroupApp was a strong community, and this is what they get, raising their business to a whole new level.
National Business Education Association (NBEA)
NBEA is one of the largest associations in the world and has existed for over 100 years. We could not be more thrilled to host them at GroupApp and help them achieve their goals. Their mission is to empower educators in different walks of life, such as business, entrepreneurship and personal finance.
Before they joined GroupApp, NBEA tried and tested more than four different communities, but they never seemed to get what they needed. And what they needed was simplicity.
Usually, Kajabi and some other platforms require you to hire additional staff to manage the membership site and oversee what’s happening in the community. A majority of other learning and course-selling platforms require knowledge in some areas, such as HTML or Java, but our goal is to make the site as simple as possible.
NBEA found great value in simplicity and usability for their team and members. Furthermore, they wanted to create different membership tiers and provide limited access to each, but have some content for people who aren’t ready to become members. They got it all with GroupApp.
Little Flower Yoga
Little Flower Yoga makes yoga and mindfulness available for kids and adolescents. Although they have been on GroupApp for about three months, they’ve already seen the benefits of our platform.
Some of the issues they faced before was a disjointed community. They tried using email threads and Facebook groups, but these options didn’t help them achieve the desired results. Sending emails feels distant and cold, while Facebook can easily distract you with other things that are constantly popping in front of your face.
Also, some users were unwilling to create Facebook profiles just to join one group, which is more than reasonable.
Another goal they wanted to achieve was to put the entire certification program online and make it engaging and ethical. Before, this was a bit hard to find, but with GroupApp, everything is in one place.
Little Flower Yoga founder Jennifer Harper said that onboarding on the platform has been effortless and the platform is user-friendly for everyone participating.
She made a great point that not all people are willing to use technology and feel angst, but GroupApp helped them overcome this anxiety because of its simple features.
Little Flower Yoga is beginning its journey with GroupApp and its community is already one of the most joyful and engaging communities we host.
What Can We Learn From These Examples?
Kajabi and GroupApp have their benefits and approaches to their respective business models.
While Kajabi provides an option for the user to create a membership website that isn’t difficult to make, GroupApp has made it simple and focuses more on thriving communities rather than just learning and selling courses.
But these aren’t the only differences. Let’s see some of the problems Kajabi has that will make you switch to GroupApp.
Kajabi is Expensive
Kajabi is one of the more expensive options. There are definitely cheaper alternatives. Kajabi offers four plans for beginners and three for those who previously used Kajabi.
- Build Mode — free and for beginners only
- Basic Plan — $149/mo
- Growth Plan — $199/mo
- Pro Plan — $399/mo
Build Mode
The build mode is for new members only. They can create a membership site free of charge and test it. Even though this mode starts at $0 and no credit card is needed, you have 45 days to set up shop and create content.
However, in Build mode, you will have limited access to the platform. After 45 days, you can only proceed using Kajabi once you pay. Otherwise, your website will be suspended and you will lose access to the content you created up to that point.
If you are a first-time visitor, the pricing page on Kajabi will look like this:
Other users will have only the following plans offered:
Basic Plan
This plan costs $119 per month, and it allows for three products and three funnels to be created but only one website.
However, you will have unlimited landing pages and marketing emails. Once you go over 1,000 active members, you will have to upgrade. Also, you can have up to 10,000 contacts but 1 admin user.
Growth Plan
The growth plan starts at $199 per month, offering 15 products and funnels, unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, and one website.
However, you can have 10 admin users and 25,000 contacts, but you will have to upgrade once you reach 10,000 members.
Pro Plan
Pro Plan costs $399 per month, making a huge difference in what you can do. However, this plan is for already established and profitable businesses looking to increase their revenue further and have the means to support it.
With the Pro package, you will get 100 products and 100 funnels, unlimited landing pages and marketing emails, and up to 3 websites. You can assign admins to 25 people to run it, while the plan supports 20,000 members and 100,000 contacts.
Their pricing page will look like this:
Each of these plans comes with Kajabi University, which offers onboarding, support, automation, and other perks. Also, you will get a two-week free run for each package other than build mode.
If you pay annually, the monthly subscription will be lower, with $119, $159, and $319 per month for Basic, Growth, and Pro plans, respectively.
You can estimate a membership subscription and definite membership tiers based on the pricing.
GroupApp Pricing
The Kajabi offer is expensive, especially for lower tiers. That’s why we created a pricing system that suits smaller businesses that want to integrate their learning and communities.
We offer four different plans:
- Free — /
- Basic — $39/mo
- Pro — $99/mo
- Premium — $499/mo
Free
You can start on GroupApp free of charge and set up your community platform, manage membership subscriptions and create online courses and events to start with.
Unlike Kajabi, we’ve introduced no time limit, and you can familiarize yourself with the platform and start when you are ready. The option to create three different communication channels and have up to 100 members is great to start with.
Basic
This plan is great for people serious about online communities and those with an online course they are ready to show to their members.
The plan includes everything from ‘Free’ with the addition of online courses, a custom domain, Zapier Integration and email support. You get all of this for just $39 per month. Basic offers up to 10 channels and 1,000 members.
Pro
Pro is the next plan in our list which offers everything from ‘Basic’ with the addition of drip schedule, post and email scheduling, segments, and Single Sign-on.
The price of this plan is just $99 per month, but you have all the components necessary to build an engaging community. Over 30 channels and up to 10,000 members are a part of the plan.
Premium
Lastly, our premium is priced at $499 per month, but there’s so much you get. The Pro package is upgraded with custom API integration, Custom Oauth, 1:1 setup, onboarding, and an account manager.
Up to 100,000 people can join your community and exchange ideas, while you can create 100 different channels with limited access.
Every payment plan on GroupApp comes with a 14-day free trial where you can share free content or explore how to do different things within your community. Although we made GroupApp affordable, it is designed for people who are serious about their business and ready to invest.
If you opt for a yearly payment instead of a monthly one, the price is lowered by $10 for each month.
We offer much more in our pricing plans, so check all the tools and features before proceeding.
Integrations on Kajabi Are Difficult
There’s no software that offers everything course creators need. Even though Kajabi is created as an all-in-one platform, you will need to integrate third-party websites and tools.
Contrary to creating membership sites, integrations in Kajabi aren’t simple. This is a significant downside for a platform of this quality and reach. For example, Kajabi works with many large names in the online industry, yet, it allows them to integrate only two payment options: PayPal and Stripe.
The Stripe payment gateway has some issues with cancellations, whereas PayPal is a solid choice, but not everyone uses it, so you may be reluctant to make it just for your Kajabi account.
On the plus side, both Stripe and PayPal are capable of collecting recurring payments, which is great for a membership site.
Your options here are limited.
You can set up a third-party payment option and create a checkout page outside Kajabi. However, you may not be able to integrate it with the platform, which creates a disjointed experience for you and your users.
The simpler the payment is, the more time you will have to focus on content creation.
GroupApp Integrations Are Not Limited
Integrations on GroupApp are fairly simple. You can set up a single sign-on with JWT that allows users to automatically access your community without signing in. Also, you can set up a large number of actions with Zapier integration in just a few clicks.
As for payments, we offer a variety of payment options for users, including Visa, MasterCard, Stripe, and PayPal. You will never need a third-party tool to receive money in your bank account because we allow you to sell your courses and products inside your community.
Monetization
Speaking of money, the most important pages in your sales funnel are your checkout pages. Without crystal-clear checkout pages, your site will not reach its full potential. You can use the course builder outline to create landing pages for courses that will improve sales and conversions.
You can create a subscription plan for your users effortlessly. For example, you can make a monthly, quarterly, 6-month, or yearly membership. This will help you establish a monthly recurring revenue that you can use to improve your community further.
Of course, you can offer a free option for people not ready to pay and provide access to some parts of your community.
Another way to monetize your business is to sell courses directly on GroupApp. Once someone buys a course, they won’t become members but they will get access to certain channels.
Selling memberships should be defined at the start of your journey, but you can always modify your plan with us if you see things aren’t going the right way.
Kajabi Has No Central Media Library
Kajabi’s library is easy to use, and several customization options are just enough to make it look appealing to users. When the students join your membership website, they can enter the library and get access to all the courses and other materials you’ve created.
The older content gets “pushed down” as you upload your new content. While your recent stuff can be easily reused if necessary, you will not be able to reuse something you posted a while ago that may be relevant at this moment.
Many users with a membership site on Kajabi turn to Dropbox to save older content. This is yet another tool you need next to Kajabi, even though you only discover this as you take a deep dive into the platform.
GroupApp’s Library Is More Flexible
GroupApp’s library works similarly to Kajabi’s. You will keep all your resources here for the paying members to have access to, but you can always dig out some older content — podcasts, videos, webinars, or articles to reuse it.
And with the drip scheduling feature, you can control students’ access to course lessons. You can set up how many days after enrollment they can access certain lessons or posts. The reason for this feature is not to block students from accessing certain materials but to create a learning tempo.
Let’s say that you have a group of 30 students, and you want them to complete some tasks and give them time to do so. You can allow them to see the new topic every Monday and discuss it throughout the week before moving on.
Library navigation for the Kajabi platform and GroupApp is pretty straightforward, but tools such as Dropbox are unnecessary if you select GroupApp.
Kajabi is Old-Fashioned
Building a membership site on Kajabi can do wonders for your business. Having the entire website and space where you can share materials with your subscribers helps online entrepreneurs get to the next level.
When it comes to learning, it fails to follow the latest trends. You post courses and materials online, and it is up to the members to decide whether they will use them. Studies have shown that individuals who are working together on a problem can improve their knowledge and success.
On Kajabi, the interactions between the members are more scarce than they should be to achieve the best learning experience possible.
GroupApp Modernizes Online Learning and Increases Engagement
If you are looking for better engagement and a thriving community, GroupApp is definitely the answer. With the private community area, you can offer how-to guides, videos, and courses that intrigue people and make them work together.
The idea is to have members contribute and help each other. With engagement being the number one priority, the members will stay connected and talk about an online course, adding more value to it.
Rather than having a relation: course maker/owner → students/members, it is more interactive. Community owners will be able to work with their members to solve problems and ask for their feedback to provide even better content.
Likewise, the users will have a sense of belonging and actively contribute.
Such a membership model is proven to work more efficiently. Instead of creating Kajabi’s membership site, you can focus on the GroupApp community.
Scheduling posts and emails
One of the features we included to modernize the learning process and make it easier for owners is to schedule posts, messages, and emails without any third-party app. This way, you can maintain consistent engagement while you free up your time.
Final Words
Kajabi contributed massively to the world of course creators and has changed how online businesses are run. However, for the best learning experience and engagement between members, Kajabi isn’t the best solution.
Will people stop using Kajabi after reading this post? No, and we don’t ask them to. It is a great platform you should always consider.
But for those who need a simple and affordable platform that helps you organize a thriving community, GroupApp is unparalleled.
We may be biased, but you can always check it out and see for yourself.
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