What it means for the future of the digital creator economy

There’s a plethora of online course platforms out there to host and sell your content online. Despite being one of the largest and most popular platforms out there, Kajabi just underwent a major rebrand. But why? 

Here’s what Kajabi changed about its platform, and the implications for what it means for your current (or future) online business!

Watch the video or read the summary below:

What’s Kajabi?

In case you’re not familiar, Kajabi is an all-in-one course platform that enables creators to market, host, and sell their online courses, podcasts, coaching, and communities. 

And I’m not just a casual—I’ve been using Kajabi for years for my online screenwriting courses, and I’ve also purchased other folk’s courses on Kajabi and a variety of other platforms.  

That, combined with my day job in the world of User Experience (UX), gives me a unique insight into the mindset behind this shift at Kajabi HQ.

What Did Kajabi Change?

I mean, what did they change besides their logo, colors, and font?

The platform itself hasn’t been changed radically—but Kajabi’s focus moving forward has.

Here’s what it means for you.

Brand Message

Kajabi’s unique selling point has always been that it’s an “all-in-one” course platform, and that ain’t changing. Instead, this rebrand signals how Kajabi is expanding into different types of products that you’re able to monetize. 

They’re helping to redefine what it means to be part of the “creator economy.” Their new language on their public-facing website reflects this. No longer is it about “course creators,” but simply “creators:”

New Features

Kajabi has introduced new monetization methods making it easier for creators to continue to provide value and drive revenue online. There are four main features that are part of this rebrand, making it in fact more than just a reskin of the existing platform. Here they are:

• Online Newsletters
• Digital Downloads
• Proprietary Invoicing
• Internal Payouts

I’ll break them down one-by-one:

Online Newsletters as a Product

While Kajabi has had email marketing as a core feature for years, this Newsletters feature is different. 

Using Kajabi Newsletters, subscribers can pay to have a newsletter delivered to their inbox. It’s more than just a blog article or email; it’s actually something that can be highly polished and designed to fit your brand identity and be locked behind a paywall. I see this as Kajabi trying to go after Substack and maybe even Medium’s business model of premium written content.

Any kind of post that I created in the Newsletter is going to be pre-branded as you see above. So, right off the bat, it fits all of the brand guidelines that I’ve already set within Kajabi, including: 

• Background image
• Colors
• Heading and body typeface
• Menu
• Logo

Not only foes this save me time, but it’s a learning experience that feels more connected to me and to my brand than if I just had just created a Substack account or shared another article on Medium.

Kajabi continues to prove that it’s in it for the long haul to make online creators’ workflows and revenue generation easier and simpler.

Digital Downloads as Standalone Products

Next, Kajabi has added the ability to sell digital downloads as their own products. 

Kajabi has made it easy to offer digital downloads in the past, but they were usually either A) a free lead magnet or B) part of a larger online course. As a digital strategist, I think Kajabi is mimicking Etsy’s and especially Gumroad’s business model. 

This is evident even in the pricing structures that are offered when you create the digital download:

Similar to Gumroad, Kajabi also has the option where you can “let customers pay what they want.” That sales strategy is something that Gumroad is known for, and the fact that Kajabi is trying to make their own version of it to keep everything in-house is really interesting from a business strategy perspective. 

As a creator using Kajabi, it gives me even more opportunities to monetize all of my knowledge and content in ways that weren’t available before in Kajabi. Exciting!

Proprietary Invoicing

The next two features have to do with collecting payment for your products. Now I can track my payouts and invoices directly within Kajabi, and I’ll explain why this is a game-changer. It shows Kajabi’s commitment to supporting you as a course or content creator and makes Kajabi even more valuable than before.

If I need to send an invoice to a customer — say, when they pause a payment plan or need to update their credit card information — I used to have to dig through Stripe’s menus to find everything and send the invoice. Now, I can handle it right in Kajabi, where all their customer information is already stored!

Internal Payouts

The same with payouts. In the past, if I wanted to check my payouts, I had to go to the platform where they were sent — usually PayPal or Stripe, depending on the option chosen by the student. 

But now, I can manage everything right there in Kajabi. All my bank account information is stored, so I don’t necessarily have to visit PayPal or Stripe anymore.

Kajabi continues to prove that it’s in it for the long haul to make online creators’ workflows and revenue generation easier and simpler. Reason #12,789 that I’m glad I chose Kajabi for my online business!

Why Kajabi Pivoted

As technology changes, so do users. This is true of any online economy, and applies equally to the creators as it does to their customers. 

Kajabi is aware of this, and wants to make sure that its users—both the “teachers” and their “students”—have the best experience possible. Kajabi explains how many creators, despite having substantial followings online, often make only a fraction of the money they could because of the revenue-split models used by large social platforms:

Kajabi puts it this way: 

"Social platforms make billions from revenue sharing. Yet, most creators earn less than $1,000 a month. Something’s off. Creators are chasing algorithms to chase views to chase ad revenue. The reality is, views don’t grow a business — customers do."

As a creator who has several monetized YouTube channels, I fully embrace this realization. Social media platforms like YouTube, Medium, or LinkedIn are still valuable ways to generate leads and grow an audience, but they’re not the best platforms to turn that audience of fans into customers or clients. 

Central to this is Kajabi’s long-standing policy of never taking a cut of any sale you make. 0%! That’s not changed, and that’s another reason I’m sticking with Kajabi.

Essentially, Kajabi makes the apt point that any social platform one finds success on is ultimately rented space. You can be de-platformed or your social account can be hacked at any time, but having a monetization system in place on a secure platform like Kajabi means you have more control over your content and how you make money from it.

Summary

Kajabi’s rebrand enhances its platform by introducing new features like newsletters, downloads, and invoicing, focusing on supporting content creators in monetizing their work in a myriad of modalities, not just online courses. 

Kajabi shows itself to be the platform of choice for creators who want to keep their content and profit while educating and bringing value to their customers. I’ve been using Kajabi for years, and I’ll continue to do so.

Try Kajabi today and get 50% OFF for the first year using my affiliate link! 

Choose the plan that fits you best: Kickstarter, Basic, Growth, or Pro. 

[LIMITED TIME ONLY  —  ENDS NOV. 11th, 2024!]