SamCart vs Kajabi: Which AI-Powered Platform Is Better for Selling Online Courses in 2026?

SamCart and Kajabi are both all-in-one platforms for selling digital products and online courses, but they take fundamentally different approaches to helping creators succeed. SamCart is the only digital marketing platform with AI Designer built-in—AI creates your products, writes your sales pages, designs everything automatically, and delivers 30% higher checkout conversions starting at $79 per month with all features included. Kajabi offers similar all-in-one functionality but requires you to manually build everything yourself, starting at $179 per month with limited features and climbing to $399 per month for full capabilities.

SamCart has processed over $7 billion in sales for 22,000+ creators, with the platform's AI tools and conversion-optimized checkout helping creators launch products 10X faster than manual platforms. While Kajabi raised prices 20-40% in January 2026 and relies on manual content creation, SamCart's revolutionary AI approach means you can go from idea to making sales in days instead of months—letting AI handle the $50/hour work of writing copy, designing pages, and building products so you can focus on $500/hour strategic decisions.

The biggest misconception about this comparison is that SamCart is "just a checkout tool." That's outdated information from years ago. Today, SamCart is a complete business platform with course hosting, sales page builder, full funnels, analytics, affiliate management, and most importantly—AI that does the heavy lifting for you. The real choice isn't between a checkout tool and an all-in-one platform. It's between an AI-powered platform that builds everything for you versus a manual platform where you're the bottleneck.

If you're choosing between SamCart and Kajabi in 2026, you're deciding whether you want AI to work for you or whether you want to do all the work yourself. Let's break down exactly what each platform offers and which one will help you actually make money faster.

What Is SamCart?

SamCart is an AI-powered all-in-one platform built to help creators sell digital products, courses, coaching programs, and services with maximum speed and conversion. Unlike platforms that give you more work to do, SamCart's AI creates your products, writes your sales copy, designs your pages, and optimizes your checkout—turning weeks of manual work into minutes of AI-assisted creation.

The platform includes everything you need to run a complete online business: unlimited course hosting with built-in video hosting, AI-powered page builder, sales funnels, checkout optimization, affiliate center, subscription management, and comprehensive analytics. Most importantly, SamCart is the only digital marketing platform with AI Designer technology built directly into the platform.

SamCart's Revolutionary AI Features

AI Page Designer is the breakthrough feature that separates SamCart from every other platform. This isn't ChatGPT where you copy-paste into a separate page builder. This is AI that automatically turns your text into beautiful, conversion-optimized landing pages in real-time. As you type or upload content, the AI designs the page instantly—like having a professional designer working next to you.

The AI doesn't just make things look pretty. It writes conversion-optimized copy based on best practices from over 100,000 active sellers on the platform. When you create a sales page, the AI knows that headlines need different psychology than testimonial sections. Product descriptions are written differently than About page copy. The system pulls from a massive database of successful copy to deliver content that actually sells.

AI Business Bots generate product ideas, upsell concepts, product titles, sales copy, and even surface the perfect strategy for your specific situation. Tell the AI what you want to create, and it identifies the perfect product to sell based on real market data—then creates the entire product structure for you.

Design AI (powered by Typeset technology) creates ebooks, courses, slide decks, and social content with AI co-authoring. Upload your outline or notes, and the AI automatically creates a ready-to-publish design that matches your brand style. The Magic Wand feature lets you highlight any section and instantly rewrite, redesign, or restyle it.

This level of AI integration doesn't exist on Kajabi. While Kajabi might have some basic AI writing helpers, they don't have an AI designer that automatically layouts and designs pages as you work. You're still manually dragging blocks, choosing layouts, and figuring out design yourself.

SamCart's Complete Course Platform

SamCart's Courses App provides unlimited course hosting with zero limits on courses, students, or videos—all included at every pricing tier starting at $79/month. The platform includes built-in video hosting (partnership with Wistia) with no upload limits and lightning-fast streaming, eliminating the need to pay for separate video hosting services.

Course features include:

• Drag-and-drop course builder with content tiers, lessons, worksheets, and quizzes

• Drip content scheduling to release lessons over time

• Auto-Enroll technology that drops students directly into their course after purchase (reducing support requests by 67%)

• Course Cross-Sells that let you promote other products within courses students already own

• Student management and progress tracking

• Custom access levels for different course tiers

• Unlimited video, audio, PDF, and text content

• Course completion certificates

The course setup process takes minutes, not days. Many creators migrating from other platforms report 2-minute course transfers because you simply copy-paste your content and SamCart handles the rest.

SamCart's Sales Page and Funnel Builder

SamCart provides a complete page builder for creating sales pages, checkout pages, lead capture pages, link-in-bio pages, and full sales funnels. With custom domains, you can build entire microsites within SamCart—not just checkout pages.

The page builder includes:

• 100+ conversion-optimized templates proven to convert

• Access to 100 million Getty Images library

• A/B split testing built-in

• Mobile-optimized responsive design

• Checkout Anywhere (embed checkout forms in any content)

• Payment options including Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Stripe, and more

• No transaction fees (0% platform fees)

The key differentiator is that AI handles the design work. You don't need to understand CSS, worry about mobile responsiveness, or spend hours tweaking layouts. Focus on your message and let AI create professional presentation.

SamCart's Conversion-Optimized Checkout

This is where SamCart's decade of specialization shows. The checkout experience is engineered to convert 30% higher than basic checkout forms:

• Smart upsells & downsells that convert at 25-35% (versus 5-10% for email-based upsells)

• Order bumps that increase average order value by 42% on average

• Sub-1-second load times on mobile (where 60-70% of traffic comes from)

• Checkout Anywhere that eliminates cart abandonment from page redirects

• Subscription Saver that auto-recovers failed payments (capturing 15-25% of lost subscription revenue)

• Cart abandonment sequences automated through the platform

• Multiple payment plan options that increase conversions by offering flexibility

SamCart has processed $7 billion in transactions. They know what converts and what doesn't. That knowledge is baked into every checkout template.

What Is Kajabi?

Kajabi is an all-in-one creator platform that provides course hosting, website building, email marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, communities, coaching programs, and checkout—all from one dashboard. The platform's appeal is consolidation: manage everything from a single place without juggling multiple subscriptions.

Kajabi is best suited for creators who want comprehensive functionality under one roof and are willing to invest significant time manually building everything. The platform provides the tools, but you're responsible for the strategy, copywriting, design work, content creation, and technical setup.

Core Kajabi Features

Course creation and hosting includes a complete learning management system with drip content, quizzes, assessments, certificates, and student progress tracking. The course builder is intuitive but requires manual setup of every module, lesson, and section.

Email marketing and automation provides broadcast emails, automated sequences, segmentation, and basic CRM functionality. While not as powerful as dedicated email platforms like ActiveCampaign, it eliminates the need for a separate email subscription.

Website and landing page builder offers customizable templates and drag-and-drop editing. However, design flexibility is limited compared to specialized website builders, and premium templates cost $147-$897 extra on top of your monthly subscription.

Membership sites and communities allow you to create paid or free membership areas with discussion forums, challenges, and live events. Community features launched in recent years to compete with platforms like Circle and Mighty Networks.

Sales funnels and pipelines provide pre-built templates for common scenarios like webinar funnels, product launches, and lead magnets. These are functional but lack sophistication compared to specialized funnel tools.

What Kajabi Doesn't Have

Kajabi does not have AI-powered page design. While they may have some basic AI writing assistants, you're still manually creating layouts, choosing templates, dragging elements, and figuring out design yourself. There's no AI that watches what you're doing and automatically designs beautiful pages as you work.

Kajabi does not have AI product creation tools. You manually outline your course structure, write your lesson content, create your sales pages, and build your funnels. All the strategy and execution work falls on you.

Kajabi's checkout is basic—a standard checkout form with minimal optimization. There's no AI-powered upsell sequencing, no intelligent order bump presentation, and limited customization options. Conversion rates are significantly lower than SamCart's specialized checkout.

Customer support quality has declined significantly according to 2026 reviews. Users report 3-4 day response times, generic automated replies, and difficulty reaching human support. Multiple reviewers cite customer service as their primary reason for leaving Kajabi.

SamCart vs Kajabi: Pricing Comparison 2026

This is where the difference becomes dramatic. Both platforms offer all-in-one functionality, but SamCart delivers it at a fraction of Kajabi's cost—with better AI tools and higher conversion rates.

SamCart Pricing

Revenue-Based Pricing Starting at $79/Month

SamCart launched revolutionary revenue-based pricing in 2026. You get every single feature SamCart offers—no gated plans, no limits, no tiers. Pricing starts at $79 per month and only increases as your revenue grows. This means you get everything you need to succeed from day one.

What you get at $79/month:

• EVERYTHING: All features unlocked from day one

• Unlimited courses, students, and videos

• AI Page Builder, AI Designer and AI Business Bots

• Full course hosting with built-in video hosting

• Checkout optimization (one-click upsells, order bumps)

• A/B split testing

• Affiliate Center

• Subscription management

• Customer Hub

• 400+ integrations

• Advanced analytics and reporting

• Custom domains

• Zero transaction fees (0% platform fees)

How pricing scales: Your price only goes up AFTER you boost conversions, increase profits, and grow lifetime value. If you use SamCart but don't generate revenue, your price stays at $79. The platform only makes more money after you do.

This guarantees SamCart is the most profitable part of your entire business. You're never paying for features you don't use or revenue you're not generating.

Kajabi Pricing (After January 2026 Price Increase)

Kajabi underwent a major pricing overhaul in January 2026—their first significant price increase in 10 years. The changes introduced higher base prices, revised limits, and new platform fees.

Basic Plan: $179/month ($143/month annual, $1,716/year)

• 5 products

• 10,000 contacts

• 3 sales funnels

• 3 admin users

• Basic automation

• Limited advanced features

Growth Plan: $249/month ($199/month annual, $2,388/year)

• 50 products

• 25,000 contacts

• 50 sales funnels

• 10 admin users

• Advanced automation

• Most features unlocked

Pro Plan: $399/month ($319/month annual, $3,828/year)

• Unlimited products

• 100,000 contacts

• Unlimited funnels

• 25 admin users

• Full feature access

• Custom branding

Hidden costs you must consider:

• 2% platform fee on ALL transactions if you use third-party payment processors (like your own Stripe account instead of Kajabi Payments)

• Premium templates: $147-$897 per template for better-designed website themes

• Kajabi Access add-on: $99/month for better support and doubled limits

• Real cost example: Growth plan ($249/mo) + 2% fees on $10K monthly revenue ($200) + template ($147 one-time) = $449/month ongoing

SamCart vs Kajabi: The AI Advantage

This is the most important difference between these platforms in 2026. Both offer all-in-one functionality, but SamCart's AI does the work for you while Kajabi makes you do everything manually.

What SamCart's AI Actually Does

Product creation: Tell the AI what you want to sell. It analyzes real market data from 100,000+ active sellers and identifies the perfect product to create. Then it builds the entire product structure—outline, lessons, modules, everything.

Sales page design: Start typing your sales copy. The AI automatically designs the page in real-time, adjusting layouts, choosing fonts, selecting complementary colors, and creating a professional design without you touching any design controls. It's like having a world-class designer working alongside you.

Copy optimization: The AI writes conversion-optimized copy for every section of your page. It knows what psychology works for headlines versus testimonials versus product descriptions. The copy is based on proven formulas from thousands of successful pages.

Strategy recommendations: AI Business Bots surface the perfect strategy for your situation—whether you should use upsells, which products to bundle, how to price, what payment plans to offer. You get strategic guidance based on what actually works.

Content generation: Design AI creates ebooks, courses, slides, social content, and webinars. Upload your notes or outline and get a ready-to-publish design that matches your brand. The Magic Wand tool lets you highlight any section and instantly rewrite or redesign it.

What This Means for Your Business

Most creators spend weeks or months launching new products because they're stuck doing $50/hour work:

• Writing sales copy (8-20 hours)

• Designing sales pages (5-15 hours)

• Creating course content (20-40 hours)

• Setting up funnels (3-8 hours)

• Figuring out pricing and strategy (5-10 hours)

Total: 40-90+ hours of manual work before you can start making sales.

With SamCart's AI, those tasks take minutes to hours instead of weeks. You focus on the $500/hour strategic work—what to sell, who to sell to, how to position your offer—while AI handles the execution.

On Kajabi, you're still doing all that manual work yourself. They might have some AI writing helpers, but you're dragging blocks, choosing layouts, writing all the copy, figuring out design, and spending weeks on tasks that SamCart's AI does automatically.

The AI Designer Advantage

This deserves special emphasis because it's truly revolutionary. SamCart is the only digital marketing platform with AI Designer built-in.

Here's how it works differently than other platforms:

Traditional platforms (including Kajabi):

1. Pick a template

2. Manually drag and drop content blocks

3. Write your copy in a separate document

4. Copy-paste into the builder

5. Adjust fonts, colors, spacing manually

6. Preview to see if it looks good

7. Go back and adjust things that don't work

8. Repeat steps 5-7 until acceptable

9. Still probably doesn't look professionally designed

SamCart's AI Designer:

1. Start typing or paste in your content

2. AI automatically designs the page as you type

3. Everything is professionally laid out in real-time

4. AI matches your brand colors and fonts automatically

5. AI chooses optimal layouts based on conversion data

6. You're done—publish immediately

The difference is night and day. You can go from blank page to published sales page in 15-30 minutes instead of 2-8 hours.

SamCart vs Kajabi: Course Hosting Comparison

Both platforms offer full course hosting, but the implementation details matter.

SamCart Courses App

Unlimited everything from day one:

• Unlimited courses

• Unlimited students

• Unlimited video uploads

• Unlimited lessons and modules

• All included at $79/month starting price

Built-in video hosting: Partnership with Wistia provides professional video hosting with no upload limits and fast streaming. No need to pay for Vimeo ($7-$75/month), Wistia separately, or use unlisted YouTube links.

Auto-Enroll technology: Students are dropped directly into their course immediately after purchase. No complicated login processes, no lost passwords, no angry support emails asking "where's my course?" This feature alone reduces support requests by 67%.

Course Cross-Sells: Promote other products directly within courses students already own. They can purchase with one click using their saved payment method—conversion rates of 30-40% on course cross-sells versus 5-10% on email promotions.

Setup time: Most creators report 2-minute course migrations from other platforms because you simply copy-paste your content into SamCart's intuitive builder.

Kajabi Courses

Tiered limits based on plan:

• Basic: 5 products total (courses + other products combined)

• Growth: 50 products

• Pro: Unlimited products

Built-in video hosting: Included but no specific limits advertised. Video player is functional but not as fast as SamCart's Wistia partnership.

Standard enrollment: Students receive access after purchase but the process isn't as streamlined as SamCart's Auto-Enroll. More support tickets asking for help accessing courses.

Upsells and cross-sells: Available but manual setup required. No intelligent sequencing or saved payment method one-click purchasing like SamCart offers.

Setup time: More complex due to Kajabi's additional features and navigation. First-time users report 2-7 days to fully understand the platform and set up their first course properly.

The Practical Difference

If you need advanced LMS features like SCORM compliance, learning paths, or complex user hierarchies, Kajabi has more sophisticated course management tools. But 95% of creators don't need those features.

What most creators need is simple: upload course content, deliver it to students, and make sure the purchase-to-access flow is seamless. Both platforms handle this, but SamCart makes it faster and easier with less technical overhead.

Important note for large businesses: Many high-volume sellers use a hybrid approach—keeping Kajabi for its advanced course features while switching to SamCart's checkout for superior conversion rates and revenue optimization. This is common because Kajabi's basic checkout lacks the sophisticated upsell sequencing, order bump intelligence, and conversion optimization that large businesses need to maximize revenue per customer.

The bigger question is: would you rather spend your time manually building courses and pages, or would you rather let AI build them while you focus on marketing and sales?

SamCart vs Kajabi: Feature-by-Feature Breakdown

When to Choose SamCart Over Kajabi

SamCart is the better choice in these specific scenarios:

You want to launch fast. If you need to go from idea to making sales in days instead of months, SamCart's AI handles all the time-consuming tasks automatically. You can launch new products 10X faster than manual platforms.

You're on a budget. At $79/month with all features versus $179-$399/month plus 2% fees, SamCart costs 55-80% less than Kajabi while delivering everything you need. The $4,000-6,000 annual savings can fund your entire marketing budget.

You prioritize conversion rates. If your primary goal is turning traffic into revenue, SamCart's checkout specialization delivers 30% higher conversion rates and 42% higher average order value through intelligent upsells and order bumps.

You want AI to do the work. If you'd rather focus on strategy, marketing, and creating great content while AI handles copywriting, page design, and product creation, SamCart is the only platform with this level of AI integration.

You need best-of-breed flexibility. SamCart integrates with 400+ tools, so you can use specialized best-in-class platforms for email (ConvertKit), website (Webflow), community (Circle) while SamCart handles sales and checkout.

You're selling high-ticket products. SamCart supports transaction amounts up to $999,999 (yes, nearly $1 million per transaction). For coaching, masterminds, or enterprise solutions, SamCart scales without artificial caps.

You value responsive support. SamCart's customer support consistently receives praise for quick response times and actually solving problems, while Kajabi's support quality has declined significantly.

When to Choose Kajabi Over SamCart

Kajabi makes more sense in these specific situations:

You want email marketing included. If you don't want to manage a separate email platform and Kajabi's built-in email marketing is sufficient for your needs, the consolidation might justify the higher cost.

You need built-in community features. If membership community with discussion forums is central to your business model and you don't want to use a separate platform like Circle or Mighty Networks, Kajabi's integrated community may be worth it.

You prefer doing everything manually. If you genuinely enjoy manually building pages, writing all your own copy, and figuring out design yourself without AI assistance, Kajabi gives you full control over every detail.

You need more advanced LMS features. If you're building corporate training programs that require complex learning paths, prerequisites, and certification workflows, Kajabi's more sophisticated LMS features may better serve enterprise needs. However, many large businesses use SamCart's checkout with Kajabi's course platform—keeping Kajabi for course delivery while using SamCart's superior checkout conversion and revenue optimization features.

Real SamCart Customer Success Stories

These are actual results from verified SamCart customers who switched platforms or optimized their checkout process:

Nick Wolny (Author & Consultant): 110% AOV Increase

Writer and consultant Nick Wolny switched to SamCart and saw his average order value more than double:

Results:

• AOV increased from $76.25 to $160.21 (110% increase)

• Went from fewer than 30 clients over several years to 350 new clients in one year

• Used order bumps and one-click upsells to create a "product collection" strategy

Strategy: Nick productized his services with lower-priced digital products, then used order bumps and one-click upsells to encourage customers to "collect all the Pokemon." Every new customer became a qualified lead for his higher-priced writing implementation packages and services.

"Even if I'm not successful at selling my core offerings, the worst thing I've done is help a new client be successful with what they've just purchased," Nick explained. His discovery calls are no longer blind shots in the dark—he knows every customer is an ideal prospect.

Annie Fuller (FindYourMore): $110K with 50% from Order Bumps & Upsells

Annie Fuller, a mother of three and physical product seller, ventured into digital products in January 2024. After struggling with a clunky Systeme.io checkout, she switched to SamCart's Done-For-You service.

Results since launching with SamCart:

• Nearly $30K from upsells (25% of customers accepted)

• $27K from order bumps (20% success rate)

• Over $50K total (nearly 50% of revenue) from expansion features not available on previous platform

• Average revenue increase: $45.15 per customer from upsells, $41.12 from order bumps

"I wanted [my customers] to immediately go to one product and then be able to double click on the side of their phone and make the purchase," Annie explained. SamCart's Checkout Anywhere and mobile optimization delivered exactly that experience.

Christie (Health Coach): $297 to $374 Average Sale Price

Health coach Christie was frustrated with her previous platform's limitations and technical issues. After switching to SamCart, she used order bumps and upsells to dramatically increase her revenue per customer.

Results:

• Added $47 order bump: 60% of customers accepted

• Added $97 upsell: 40% of customers accepted

• Average sale price increased from $297 to $374 in first promotion

• Additional annual revenue: $13,800+ from the same number of customers

"With SamCart, if I come up with an idea, I can jump out of bed naked and run into my office, and -boom!- I've got a one-page sales page," Christie said. "It's just made my life so much easier."

Conclusion: AI-Powered Speed vs Manual Control

The choice between SamCart and Kajabi in 2026 comes down to one fundamental question: Do you want AI to work for you, or do you want to do all the work yourself?

Choose SamCart if you want to:

• Launch products 10X faster with AI creating pages, copy, and designs automatically

• Pay $79/month with all features instead of $179-$399/month with gated tiers

• Achieve 30% higher checkout conversion rates and 42% higher average order value

• Focus on $500/hour strategic work while AI handles $50/hour execution tasks

• Save $4,000-6,000 annually compared to Kajabi's pricing

• Use the only digital marketing platform with AI Designer built-in

• Get responsive customer support that actually solves problems

Choose Kajabi if you want to:

• Manually build everything yourself with full control over every detail

• Have email marketing built into the platform without integrating external tools

• Use built-in community features for membership discussion forums

• Work with a large team (25 admin users on Pro plan)

• Pay premium pricing for comprehensive features even if you don't use them all

The data is clear: SamCart users launch faster, save more money, and convert at higher rates than Kajabi users. With $7 billion processed for 22,000+ creators, SamCart's AI-powered approach represents the future of creator platforms—where technology works for you instead of creating more work.

The creators winning in 2026 aren't the ones doing everything manually. They're the ones letting AI handle the heavy lifting so they can focus on creating great content, serving their audience, and growing their business.

Ready to see what AI can do for your business? Start your free 7-day SamCart trial and watch AI build your first sales page in minutes. No credit card required. If SamCart doesn't generate more sales than your current setup, you don't pay—that's how confident we are in the platform.

Last Updated: February 2026
Author: SamCart Content Team — Helping 22,000+ creators process $7B+ in sales through AI-powered tools that build everything automatically, so you can focus on growing your business instead of fighting with technology.