Kajabi is one of the new generation of integration platforms for business software, the goal being to allow users to ditch dozens of different apps, plug-ins, and tools – which rarely integrate effectively – in favour of a unified platform that covers all business processes, from website and blog management, to accounting, and email marketing.
How does Kajabi compare to more established products, such as HubSpot?
In this article, we compare the two applications and ultimately make a case for why we feel HubSpot is the better all-round choice, but, to be fair to Kajabi, it isn’t a straight comparison, as we will see.
Kajabi
Before we talk about the pros and cons of Kajabi and how it compares to HubSpot, there is something important to bear in mind. Kajabi is designed specifically and exclusively for businesses selling online courses and coaching services. If this is what your business does, then there is a valid comparison, but if not, Kajabi isn’t for you. Proceed directly to the next section!
Pros
- Kajabi has a range of integrated tools to help coaching businesses stratify leads, and nurture prospects through the sales and marketing tunnel through email marketing. The platform’s Sales Pipeline Builder, in particular, is a very good lead segmentation tool, enabling users to send targeted campaigns to different prospect groups.
- Comes with a range of customisable email marketing themes
- Good engagement and marketing tools, including quizzes, gated incentive content, and customisable email and landing page templates
- User-friendly interface
- Good aftersales support and training information from the vendor
Cons
- Kajabi is only intended for online courses, classes, and training services
- More expensive than many competing platforms.
- The ability to publish and edit images is very limited – coding knowledge is required for this
- Predominantly focused on sales and marketing.
- Kajabi is not the best CMS, CRM, or website management platform.
HubSpot
HubSpot takes all the functions you require to run an efficient sales and marketing department – from an intuitive blog platform, to email marketing, landing page creator, web designer, and sales CRM – and combines them into one easy-to-use package. HubSpot has a depth of features that can be configured to businesses in any sector, and scaled up or back to accommodate any marketing and sales strategy.
Pros
- Centralises all your customer service, sales, and marketing data in one platform, increasing transparency and visibility, and facilitating better collaboration among your sales team.
- Extensive integrations with third-party platforms enables HubSpot to talk to your CRM, ERP, accounting package, and other business software.
- The HubSpot Academy and regularly updated blog contain a huge wealth of training information, helping users get up to speed quickly.
- HubSpot is available as a managed service through certified partner agencies, such as JDR, which can help businesses configure HubSpot to their specific needs and get better value from their investment.
- Seamless integration with social media, letting you create social media content directly from the platform.
- Advanced lead tracking, monitoring, and analytics tools help you refine your marketing campaigns and improve your ROI.
- All the tools you need under one roof – with HubSpot there is no need to use a third-party application.
Cons
- HubSpot can be expensive, with fixed term contracts that aren’t suitable for all businesses.
- Despite the diversity of training materials, how spot is known to have a steep learning curve, and you’ll benefit from having a third-party training partner to bring you up to speed.
- Lower-priced packages lacks some of the advanced features that make HubSpot valuable, including A/B testing and customisable reports.
- Email marketing and landing page templates can be difficult to modify.
Next Steps
JDR group are accredited HubSpot partners and, through many years of working with the platform, have seen the results it can deliver for a wide range of businesses, by increasing revenues and bringing in more sales. This isn’t to discredit Kajabi and other independent, more specialised platforms, but for the maximum ROI possible from a marketing automation platform, we strongly recommend trying HubSpot.
The best results from any marketing automation service frequently come by working in tandem with an experienced agency, such as JDR, so for an initial assessment of your needs, and for more information about the tools and software platforms that can help you achieve your targets, please give us a call today.
Image source: Unsplash
