CRM and email marketing for coaches

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You are being sold a platform for a business you do not have yet

Coaching software marketing is unusually aggressive, and it is almost all aimed at one purchase: the all-in-one platform that replaces six tools with one. Courses, funnels, email, scheduling, payments, a community, a website.

It is a real product and it works. The problem is the price is set for a coach running several offers to a list of twenty thousand, and it is being sold to a coach with one offer and a list of four hundred.

Verified from Kajabi’s pricing page, 2026. Basic includes 2 admin users, 1 website and 1 community; Growth 11 admins; Pro 26 admins and 3 websites. Marketing emails, funnels and landing pages are unlimited on every tier. 30-day free trial.

Ask yourself honestly how many of the five product slots on Basic you will fill this year. For most coaches the answer is one.

The 2% you pay for using your own payment processor

This is the part that is easy to miss and expensive to discover.

Kajabi charges card processing when you use Kajabi Payments — 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, falling to 2.7% on Pro. That is a normal rate.

But if you use your own processor instead, Kajabi charges its own fee on top of whatever Stripe charges you:

Kajabi’s published rates. The third-party fee excludes PayPal. Stripe’s own standard rate is added on top.

On $100,000 of coaching sales, that third-party fee is $2,000 a year on Basic — more than the entire annual subscription you were comparing. It is not a processing cost; it is a fee for not using their processor.

It also falls as you pay more. The fee is 2% on the $1,716 plan and 0.5% on the $4,788 plan, which means Kajabi collects either way — through the subscription or through the transactions.

By contrast, Systeme.io charges 0% transaction fees on payments through Stripe or PayPal, on every plan including the free one.

What the alternatives cost

Verified from each vendor’s pricing page, 2026. Systeme.io annual billing gives two months free. Kit paid pricing scales with subscriber count; figures shown at 1,000.

Read the two free columns against Kajabi Basic.

Systeme.io’s free plan holds 2,000 contacts, three sales funnels, one course, unlimited emails and unlimited students, on your own custom domain, permanently. Kajabi Basic gives 2,500 contacts and five products for $1,716.

Kit’s free plan runs to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts, and lets you sell digital products. For a coach whose business is a list and a calendar rather than a course library, that is the entire stack at zero.

The number that beats all of them

Software gets compared against software. For a coach it should be compared against the thing that actually determines income: unsold capacity.

A coaching hour that goes unbooked cannot be sold later. It is gone, exactly like a restaurant table or a therapy slot.

The formula

Empty slots per month × your rate × 12.

Ten empty slots a month costs fourteen times the platform everyone is arguing about. So the question is not which platform — it is which tool fills the calendar.

And the honest answer is that a course-hosting platform does not fill a calendar. A list does. People book coaching because they have been hearing from you for months and decided you are the person. That is email and nurture, not video hosting.

Which is why the recommendation below is the cheap one: for most coaches the highest-leverage tool is the one that keeps you in front of a few hundred people consistently, and that is free.

When the all-in-one is genuinely right

We are not arguing that Kajabi is a bad product. It is a good one, bought too early. It becomes the right purchase at a specific point:

• You have several products, not one. Five product slots matter when you have a signature course, a group programme, a mini-course and a membership. They are irrelevant when you have one offer.
• You have a team. Basic includes two admin users, Growth eleven. If you have a VA, a community manager and a course producer, seat counts start mattering.
• A community is core to the offer. Hosting it inside the same platform as the course is genuinely simpler than bolting on a separate tool.
• Your list is past a few thousand and consolidation saves real time. At that size the admin overhead of four tools is a real cost.

If you are running one offer to a list under 2,000, none of those apply, and the $1,716 is buying capability you will not use for at least a year.

What to buy

Systeme.io is the closest thing to Kajabi at a fraction of the price, and the free plan is not a trial — it does not expire. The 0% transaction fee matters most if you sell high-ticket packages, where a two-point difference is real money. See our Systeme.io review.

Kit is the better tool if your coaching comes from writing — a newsletter, a nurture sequence, a launch. Ten thousand free subscribers covers most coaches outright. Note the 3.5% commerce fee if you sell digital products through it; for one-to-one coaching billed by invoice, it does not apply. See our Kit review.

Only relevant once you are buying traffic and booking discovery calls at volume — then the speed-to-lead tooling earns its keep. It is overkill for a coach filling a calendar through referrals and a newsletter. See GoHighLevel pricing.

The verdict

Start free and stay free until something specific breaks. Systeme.io’s free plan or Kit’s free plan runs a one-offer coaching business properly, and between them they cover funnels, a course, landing pages, unlimited email and up to ten thousand subscribers at zero.

If you do buy Kajabi, use Kajabi Payments. The 2% third-party fee on Basic costs $2,000 a year on $100,000 of sales — more than the subscription.

And measure the platform against the empty slots, not against the other platforms. Ten unbooked hours a month is $24,000 a year, which is fourteen Kajabi subscriptions, and no platform fixes it. A list does.

We earn no commission from Kajabi. We do earn from Systeme.io, Kit and GoHighLevel, and those links are marked — including the two free plans that pay us nothing.

Common questions

What is the best CRM for coaches?

For most, none of the expensive ones. Systeme.io’s free plan holds 2,000 contacts with funnels, a course and unlimited email; Kit’s free plan runs to 10,000 subscribers. Buy an all-in-one when you have several products, a team, or a community central to the offer.

How much does Kajabi cost?

$143 a month on annual billing for Basic, $199 for Growth and $399 for Pro — $1,716, $2,388 and $4,788 a year. Monthly billing is $179, $249 and $499. There is a 30-day free trial.

Does Kajabi charge transaction fees?

Yes, and in two ways. Kajabi Payments is 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.8% on Growth and 2.7% on Pro. If you use your own processor instead, Kajabi charges 2%, 1% or 0.5% by tier on top of your processor’s own rate — roughly 4.9% all in on Basic with Stripe.

Is Systeme.io really free?

Yes, permanently and without a card. The free plan includes 2,000 contacts, three sales funnels, one course, unlimited emails, unlimited students, a custom domain and a blog, with 0% transaction fees. Contacts above 2,000 are archived rather than deleted if you exceed it.

Is Kit free for coaches?

Up to 10,000 subscribers, with unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts, plus the ability to sell digital products. Paid plans start at $33 a month at 1,000 subscribers and add automations, SMS and branding removal. Commerce sales carry a 3.5% + 30¢ fee.

Systeme.io or Kajabi?

Systeme.io for anyone under a few thousand contacts running one or two offers — it does the same core jobs at $0 to $204 a year with no transaction fee. Kajabi once you have several products, a team needing multiple admin seats, and a community you want inside the same platform.

Do I need a course platform at all?

Only if you sell courses. A coach selling one-to-one time needs a way to be found, a way to be booked and a way to stay in touch — a list, a scheduler and an invoice. Course hosting is a different product for a different business model.

What actually fills a coaching calendar?

Consistent contact with a small audience. Ten empty slots a month at $200 is $24,000 a year, fourteen times the cost of the platform most coaches are comparing. Spend the attention on the list, not the software.

What about Kartra or ClickFunnels?

Both sit in the same all-in-one category as Kajabi and carry the same caution: capable, and priced for a stage most coaches have not reached. See our Systeme.io vs ClickFunnels comparison for how the cheaper option holds up.