Kajabi

All-in-one platform for courses, communities, email, funnels, and payments

KINDA · partial replacement
price $179/mosubscription / year $2,148estimated build time multi-dayreplaced by 0 people

You can build one course checkout or landing funnel, but Kajabi bundles site, course, community, email, automations, payments, analytics, and support.

Build verification: not recorded. How we judge buildability

What you give up

  • all-in-one stack
  • funnels
  • email automations
  • communities
  • course delivery
  • analytics
  • customer support

Why people still pay

They pay to avoid stitching and maintaining a dozen creator-business tools.

Your build guide

The stack, security requirements, and agent rules for a focused replacement.

Before you start

  • Runtime and tools: TypeScript, React, Node and PostgreSQL with workspace membership enforced on the server.
  • Before starting: A PostgreSQL database, session authentication, two isolated example workspaces and private attachment storage.
01
TypeScript, React, Node and PostgreSQL with workspace membership enforced on the server
02
Data design: Store Offer, CourseVersion, Lesson, Enrollment, PaymentEvent and EmailStep; access follows verified entitlement events and a refund revokes future access under the stated policy.
03
Setup: A PostgreSQL database, session authentication, two isolated example workspaces and private attachment storage
engineering roadmap

Implementation plan

1

Phase 1

Pin the working slice and create its example input: Build one creator's offer page, paid course access, lesson progress and a small consented welcome-email sequence. Confirm setup: A PostgreSQL database, session authentication, two isolated example workspaces and private attachment storage.

2

Phase 2

Implement persistence and write-time invariants before decorating the UI: Store Offer, CourseVersion, Lesson, Enrollment, PaymentEvent and EmailStep; access follows verified entitlement events and a refund revokes future access under the stated policy.

3

Phase 3

Connect the working view to real saved state. Check membership on reads, mutations, attachments and exports. Keep activity history separate from editable current state; do not make private records public through search.

4

Phase 4

Expose the app-specific limits and recovery path in context: Use hosted checkout and private media delivery with server-side authorization. Funnels, affiliates, community and email deliverability are separate products; do not start with an all-in-one platform clone.

5

Phase 5

Walk through this concrete acceptance case and preserve its exported evidence: Replay a checkout event, refund the purchase and retry a welcome email; create one enrollment, revoke it consistently and avoid duplicate welcome messages. Finish the README and backup/restore instructions; report unfinished capabilities explicitly.

the pro prompt
download AGENTS.md
Build the following focused alternative to Kajabi. This is a deliberately limited personal or small-team substitute, not parity with the paid service.

WORKING SLICE
Build one creator's offer page, paid course access, lesson progress and a small consented welcome-email sequence.

SETUP AND ARCHITECTURE
Use TypeScript, React, Node and PostgreSQL with workspace membership enforced on the server. Prerequisites: A PostgreSQL database, session authentication, two isolated example workspaces and private attachment storage. Before integrating anything, record actual versions and permissions, plus model files or provider limits only where used, in the README; make unavailable dependencies visible rather than simulating success.

DOMAIN MODEL AND INVARIANTS
Store Offer, CourseVersion, Lesson, Enrollment, PaymentEvent and EmailStep; access follows verified entitlement events and a refund revokes future access under the stated policy.

IMPLEMENTATION CONTRACT
Check membership on reads, mutations, attachments and exports. Keep activity history separate from editable current state; do not make private records public through search. Provide an input/setup view, the main work view, and a review/export view appropriate to this workflow. Preserve the last saved state if a job or save fails. Include empty, loading, permission-denied, partial and retryable-error states. Log identifiers and error categories without secret values or unnecessary private content.

APP-SPECIFIC BOUNDARY AND RECOVERY
Use hosted checkout and private media delivery with server-side authorization. Funnels, affiliates, community and email deliverability are separate products; do not start with an all-in-one platform clone.

ACCEPTANCE SCENARIO
Replay a checkout event, refund the purchase and retry a welcome email; create one enrollment, revoke it consistently and avoid duplicate welcome messages. Also reopen the app after an interrupted operation, confirm the saved record/export remains inspectable, and document the recovery action. These are implementation acceptance requirements, not a claim that this guide has been tested.

DELIVERY
Deliver a runnable repository with migrations or project-format versioning, a non-sensitive example, environment/permission setup, the exact manual acceptance steps, and a backup/export-and-restore walkthrough. Implement the working slice before optional integrations; list any deferred paid-product capabilities honestly. Do not add capabilities outside the working slice just to resemble the original product.

PROJECT RULES FOR AGENTS.md
Keep the domain invariants above executable at the write boundary. Propose scope changes before adding providers or permissions. Never fabricate source evidence, publish results, identity matches or successful delivery. Preserve user originals and require an explicit confirmation for destructive changes or external publication.

$ open in your agent (prompt prefilled, you press enter), copy the prompt or copy or download AGENTS.md

share on X ↗

Alternatives to building your own

CourseLitCourses, downloads, pages, email automation and paid communities in one self-hosted product; bookings remain elsewhere.1.2kjul 2026open source↗systeme.ioOne course, three funnels, email, a community and 2,000 contacts for free; enough for a small business, not a growing empire.$0free↗

no votes, no pay-to-list · just what's real

Kajabi pricing

planmonthlyannual (per mo)what you get
basic$179/workspace$143/workspace5 products; 2,500 contacts; 1 website; 1 community; 2 admin users; 0 included AI credits.Annual price is $1,716.
growth$249/workspace$199/workspace50 products; 25,000 contacts; 1 website; 1 community; 11 admin users; 500 AI credits.Annual price is $2,388.
pro$499/workspace$399/workspaceUnlimited products; 100,000 contacts; 3 websites; 3 communities; 26 admin users; 1,000 AI credits.Annual price is $4,788; branded mobile app and public API are included.

free tierno free tier; 14-day trial

billingmonthly + annual (-20%)

hidden costsKajabi Payments rates are 2.9% + $0.30 / 2.8% + $0.30 / 2.7% + $0.30; third-party gateways add 2% / 1% / 0.5%. Basic/Growth pay $199/month for a branded app and $25/month for public API access; 500 AI-credit top-ups are $15; extra Backstage seats are listed at $20/seat/month on the detailed help page.

pricing sources checked 2026-08-14 · pricing source ↗

Questions about Kajabi

Can you build your own Kajabi with AI?

Partly. You can build one course checkout or landing funnel, but Kajabi bundles site, course, community, email, automations, payments, analytics, and support.

What does the Kajabi build prompt cover?

The prompt starts with this scope: Build one creator's offer page, paid course access, lesson progress and a small consented welcome-email sequence. Full-product capabilities excluded from the comparison include: all-in-one stack; funnels; email automations. Follow the implementation plan and its prerequisites before expanding the build.

How do I use the prompt, AGENTS.md and agent skills?

Start with the Kajabi prerequisites and stack, then copy the prompt into your coding agent. Save the project rules as AGENTS.md in the project root. Linked skills are optional packages or source instructions for specific tasks; review their current contents and install only those matching the chosen stack. A skill does not supply API credentials or verify the finished app.

How long will this Kajabi project take?

The catalogue estimate is multi-day for the limited scope. Setup, integration approvals, debugging, deployment and ongoing maintenance can add time. This is an estimate, not a delivery guarantee.

What would I give up by replacing Kajabi?

all-in-one stack; funnels; email automations; communities; course delivery; analytics; customer support. They pay to avoid stitching and maintaining a dozen creator-business tools.

What price is this guide comparing against?

The recorded Basic plan is $179/mo (monthly), checked 2026-07-30. Check the linked pricing source before buying. Building your own also has hosting, API and maintenance costs; the recorded amount is not a guaranteed saving.

What can I use instead of building Kajabi?

CourseLit: Courses, downloads, pages, email automation and paid communities in one self-hosted product; bookings remain elsewhere. systeme.io: One course, three funnels, email, a community and 2,000 contacts for free; enough for a small business, not a growing empire. Check each option's license, hosting needs and feature limits.

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