Kajabi Developer for Hire

Migration from Kajabi to WordPress makes financial sense once you reach consistent monthly revenue.nnThe Kajabi Basic plan is $149/month ($1,788/year). The equivalent WordPress setup - hosting, LearnDash, MemberPress or WooCommerce Subscriptions, and an email platform - runs $400 to $700/year depending on which plugins you need.nnThat saving of $1,000 to $1,400 per year pays for a developer migration within 12 to 18 months.nnBeyond cost, reasons to move: full customisation control over your course experience without Kajabi template constraints, WordPress's superior SEO tools for content marketing, ownership of your student and customer data, and the freedom to choose your email platform, community tool, and checkout process independently.nnStay on Kajabi if you are pre-revenue or early-stage and value having everything in one subscription. The all-in-one convenience of Kajabi is genuinely useful when you are starting out.

Student migration is the most important part of any Kajabi transition and needs to be planned carefully.nnCourse access: you can export your student list from Kajabi as a CSV. The new WordPress LMS (LearnDash or LifterLMS) allows bulk user import, which creates WordPress accounts for all existing students and enrols them in the correct courses automatically.nnCourse progress: Kajabi does not export progress data in a format that LMS plugins can import. The practical options are: migrate progress manually for a small student base, give all migrated students full course access on day one (resetting the drip), or communicate transparently with students and offer to manually update progress on request.nnActive subscriptions: students on active Kajabi payment plans need to be transitioned. Contact them before migration, explain the platform change, and set up their subscription continuation in WooCommerce Subscriptions or MemberPress.

Migration cost depends on the number of courses, student volume, and whether community features are involved.nnSingle course, small student base (under 200 students): from $1,200 to $2,000.nnMultiple courses with active memberships and community: from $2,000 to $4,000.nnLarge operation with complex funnels, active email sequences, and 1,000+ students: from $4,000 upwards, scoped per project.nnThe WordPress platform running costs after migration are significantly lower. Hosting ($120 to $240/year), LearnDash ($199/year), MemberPress ($179/year), email platform ($100 to $300/year). Total: $600 to $1,000/year versus $1,788 to $4,788/year on Kajabi. The migration typically pays for itself in 12 to 24 months.

The best WordPress alternative to Kajabi depends on which Kajabi features you use most.nnFor online courses: LearnDash is the most feature-complete LMS plugin for WordPress. It supports drip content, quizzes, certificates, groups, and course bundles. LifterLMS is a strong alternative with a more generous free tier.nnFor memberships: MemberPress handles membership tiers, access rules, and subscription billing cleanly. It integrates with WooCommerce for payment processing.nnFor community: BuddyBoss is the premium option for online communities on WordPress. PeepSo is a lighter alternative.nnFor email marketing: Kajabi's email is replaced by ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, or Mailchimp - all of which have native WooCommerce integrations.nnFor sales funnels: CartFlows replicates Kajabi's funnel builder in WordPress with order bumps, upsells, and custom checkout pages.

Kajabi has limited export functionality.nnWhat you can export: your blog posts (via Kajabi's blog export), your contact and student list as a CSV, your products and offers list (structure only, not the course content).nnWhat you cannot export directly: course video content (hosted on Wistia or Kajabi's video hosting), course text lesson content (must be manually copied), quiz data and student progress, and community posts.nnThe practical approach for course content migration: download all course videos directly (they are your videos, you always own them), copy lesson text content from the Kajabi editor, and rebuild the course structure in LearnDash or LifterLMS.nnThis is the most labour-intensive part of a Kajabi migration for courses with many lessons. I estimate time based on total lesson count and content complexity when scoping the project.

Kajabi advantages: all-in-one convenience (courses, email, community, checkout in one dashboard), no technical maintenance required, built-in affiliate system, and 24/7 support.nnWordPress advantages: dramatically lower platform cost at scale, complete ownership of your content and student data, unlimited customisation of the course experience, WordPress's SEO tools for content marketing, and no percentage of revenue going to the platform.nnThe key consideration is time: Kajabi saves developer time by bundling everything. WordPress requires more setup but the tools (LearnDash, MemberPress, CartFlows) are mature and well-documented.nnAt under $3,000/year revenue, Kajabi's convenience may outweigh the cost. Above $3,000 to $5,000/month, the platform fee becomes meaningful enough that migration ROI is typically positive within 12 months.

Kajabi sites tend to have limited SEO investment because Kajabi's SEO tools are basic. Most Kajabi course pages are not indexed because they are gated behind login. Blog posts and sales pages are the main indexed content to preserve.nnThe migration process for SEO: export all indexed URLs from Google Search Console before migration, map Kajabi blog post and sales page URLs to their WordPress equivalents, set up 301 redirects via Rank Math before DNS cutover, and submit the new WordPress sitemap to Google Search Console after the cutover.nnWordPress actually improves SEO compared to Kajabi because you can add schema markup (Course schema, FAQPage, Review) that Kajabi cannot output. Most course creators see organic traffic increase 3 to 6 months after migrating once Google reindexes the improved site.

LearnDash is the most widely used premium LMS for WordPress and the closest feature match to Kajabi's course platform.nnLearnDash features: courses, lessons, topics, quizzes, certificates, drip content by date or number of days after enrolment, course groups, advanced quizzing (essay, fill-in-the-blank), and a REST API for headless or mobile app integration. Price: $199/year for one site.nnLifterLMS is the main alternative - comparable features with a more generous free tier. Its paid add-ons (for groups, private areas, advanced quizzes) are purchased separately. Good choice if you want to start without a large upfront cost.nnTutorLMS is a newer option with a clean interface and lower price point. Less mature than LearnDash but improving quickly.nnFor memberships without a full LMS, MemberPress handles access control, subscription billing, and content dripping without the course-specific features.

Yes. WordPress has several affiliate program plugins that replace Kajabi's built-in affiliate system.nnAffiliateWP is the most widely used WordPress affiliate plugin. It integrates natively with WooCommerce, MemberPress, and LearnDash, tracks referrals by cookie and UTM, handles affiliate payouts via PayPal or bank transfer, and generates affiliate dashboards your partners can log into. Price: $149/year.nnSliceWP is a lighter alternative at a lower price point for simpler affiliate programs.nnWhen migrating from Kajabi, existing affiliates need to be notified of the new affiliate system and issued new tracking links. Their pending commission balances in Kajabi should be paid out before the Kajabi subscription is cancelled.

Kajabi allows you to export your contact list as a CSV from Contacts > All Contacts > Export.nnThe export includes: name, email address, tags, and custom fields. It does not include email open or click history from Kajabi campaigns.nnImport the CSV into your new email platform (ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, or Klaviyo). Map Kajabi tags to your new platform's tags or segments during import.nnImportant: you need subscriber consent to move email addresses between platforms in GDPR-covered markets. If your list was built from European subscribers who opted in specifically to receive Kajabi emails, the safest approach is a re-confirmation email sent from Kajabi before migration asking subscribers to confirm they want to continue receiving emails on the new platform.nnFor US-based lists, re-permission is best practice but not legally required under CAN-SPAM.