Course website builders: Kajabi, Teachable, Stan Store and the alternatives (2026)

Who a course website is for

A course and creator website is for people who sell what they know: coaches, course creators, consultants and newsletter writers. The site has to do four jobs at once: sell the offer, deliver the lessons, collect payments and keep your email list.

General website builders handle the first job well. The other three are where the real cost and lock-in hide.

A working creator site usually needs:

• A sales page for each course or coaching offer, with price, outcome and refund terms.
• A checkout that takes cards and, for memberships, recurring payments.
• A student area where buyers log in and watch lessons.
• An email list you can export and take with you.
• Your own domain, so links and search traffic stay yours if you switch tools.

Which course website builder should you use?

There is no single best course website builder. The right pick depends on how much you sell, if you already have a website, and how much you care about leaving later.

• You want one tool for site, blog, email, funnels and community: Kajabi, from $143 a month billed yearly ($179 billed monthly).
• You want a course platform at a lower fixed price: Teachable Builder ($69 a month billed yearly, 0% fee) or Thinkific Start ($82 a month billed yearly).
• You want to start free: Systeme.io’s Free plan (1 course, 2,000 contacts, 0% platform fees) or Gumroad ($0 a month, 10% + $0.50 per direct sale).
• You sell mostly from Instagram or TikTok: Stan Store ($29 a month or $300 a year), but it has no custom domain.
• You want to own everything: WordPress with a course plugin, the only route here that scores 10/10 on our exit score.
• You write a paid newsletter more than you teach: look at Ghost, built for newsletters and paid memberships.

For the two names most people compare first, see Kajabi vs Teachable.

Four ways to sell courses online

1. An all-in-one course platform

These host your site, lessons, checkout and email in one account.

• Kajabi: Basic is $143 a month billed yearly ($179 billed monthly) with 5 products and 2,500 contacts; Growth is $199 billed yearly ($249 monthly); Pro is $399 billed yearly ($499 monthly). Kajabi takes no revenue share; Kajabi Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 per US card on Basic, 2.8% on Growth and 2.7% on Pro. It includes a website, blog, funnels and unlimited marketing emails on every plan.
• Teachable: Starter is $29 a month billed yearly ($39 billed monthly) but adds a 7.5% Teachable fee on each sale. Builder ($69 billed yearly, $89 monthly) and Growth ($139 billed yearly, $189 monthly) charge 0% with Teachable Payments; US creators who connect their own Stripe or PayPal pay 2%. US card processing is 2.9% + 30 cents. Teachable has no native blog.
• Thinkific: prices rose about 10% on August 13, 2026. Start is now $82 a month billed yearly ($978 a year, up from $888) or $109 billed monthly (up from $99). Grow is $164 billed yearly or $219 monthly (up from $199). Expand stayed at $374 billed yearly or $499 monthly. There is no Thinkific fee when you use Thinkific Payments, which charges 2.9% + $0.30 per US card.
• Podia: Mover is $42 a month ($504 billed yearly) with a 5% fee per sale; Shaker is $84 a month ($1,008 billed yearly) and Earthquaker $150 a month ($1,800 billed yearly), both with no Podia fee. Podia’s pricing page shows only yearly billing; monthly prices are not published there. Payments go to your own Stripe or PayPal account.
• Systeme.io: a forever-free plan with 1 course, 500 students, 2,000 contacts and 1 custom domain, then $17, $47 or $97 a month billed monthly. It charges no transaction fees; Stripe or PayPal charge their own.

2. A website plus a course plugin or app

Here your website is the main tool and courses are a feature inside it.

• WordPress: LifterLMS has a free core plugin; its Earth Bundle for 1 site is $398 a year ($199 the first year with code FIRSTYEAR50). Tutor LMS Pro is $199 a year for 1 site. You pay for hosting and run the updates. We build on WordPress every week, so weigh our bias. See our WordPress review.
• Squarespace sells courses and memberships as Digital Content, with a fee by plan: 7% on Basic, 5% on Core, 1% on Plus and 0% on Advanced, on top of card processing.
• Wix Online Programs can charge a one-time price or sit inside a recurring Pricing Plan. Taking payments starts on Core at $29 a month billed yearly.
• Shopify has no native course feature. The third-party Courses Plus app runs from free (5 lessons) to $199.99 a month, on top of a Shopify plan.

3. Link-in-bio stores and pay-per-sale shops

• Stan Store is a phone-first storefront for courses, coaching calls, digital products and memberships. Creator is $29 a month or $300 a year; Creator Pro is $99 a month or $948 a year. Stan says it charges no transaction fees. The catch: “you cannot create or embed a custom domain” into a Stan Store. You can only forward your domain to your stan.store address.
• Gumroad has no monthly fee. It takes 10% + $0.50 per direct sale (Gumroad’s help article says that excludes card processing) and 30% on sales from its Discover marketplace. Since January 1, 2025, Gumroad is the merchant of record, which means Gumroad is the legal seller and handles sales tax for you.
• Skool is community-first, with a classroom for courses. Hobby is $9 a month with a 10% + 30 cent fee per transaction; Pro is $99 a month with 2.9% + 30 cents. Those fees include card processing, and Skool is also the merchant of record. Your group lives at a skool.com address, not your own domain.

4. A marketplace (Udemy)

Udemy is a course marketplace, not your own website. Publishing is free, and Udemy keeps a revenue share instead of a fee. You get 37% of the net amount on organic sales (including sales after Udemy’s own ads) and 97% when the student buys through your coupon or referral link.

The bigger trade-off is the audience. Udemy does not give you students’ email addresses, and its promotional email rules bar links to your own website. Udemy also says courses you charge for there “cannot be offered for free off of Udemy.”

The options side by side

A platform fee is what the platform keeps from each sale, apart from card processing. Our transaction fees entry explains the difference.

What it costs over 3 years

Counting the plan, a domain ($48.24 over 3 years, or $36.96 where the host includes year one) and one Google Workspace inbox ($252), three years before any sales cost $300.24 on Systeme.io Free or Gumroad, $432.60 on WordPress hosting alone, $1,029.60 with a $199-a-year LMS plugin, $1,344.24 on Teachable Starter billed yearly and $5,448.24 on Kajabi Basic billed yearly.

Fees change the order fast. At 40 sales a month of a $97 course, Teachable Starter’s 7.5% fee adds $10,476 over three years, and Gumroad’s 10% + $0.50 adds $14,688 before processing. Our creator website cost page shows every line of that math.

What you can take with you if you leave

None of the hosted course platforms here documents a one-file export of a whole course.

• Kajabi exports contacts to CSV (the link expires after 3 days). Only a Course Template exports, and videos download one at a time.
• Teachable exports students and transactions to CSV. Videos and files download one at a time, and text must be copied by hand.
• Systeme.io exports contacts, and course students with their progress, to CSV by emailed link (valid 3 days). Its help center documents no export for pages, funnels or blog posts.
• Stan Store and Skool have no export article we could find, so treat export as unconfirmed.
• WordPress gives you every file and the database: 10/10.

On any platform, keep master copies of every video and worksheet, and export your email list every month. Our exit scores and the guide to leaving your website builder cover the rest.

The rules your creator site has to follow

These are the main US rules for selling courses and coaching online as of October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.

Endorsements, affiliate links and testimonials

The FTC’s Endorsement Guides, revised in 2023, say you must disclose affiliate relationships “clearly and conspicuously,” close to the recommendation. The FTC’s FAQ says “Paid link” next to a link is adequate. If a testimonial shows results that are not typical, the ad must make clear what people generally achieve (FTC FAQ).

The FTC’s Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, announced August 14, 2024, bans fake or AI-generated reviews and testimonials and fake follower or view counts.

Earnings claims

The FTC has acted on income claims by course sellers. On October 26, 2021, it sent a Notice of Penalty Offenses on money-making claims to more than 1,100 businesses. In September 2023 it sued the course company Lurn over claims such as “Make More Than $13,700 Per Day”; the settlement required $2.5 million for refunds.

On January 13, 2025, the FTC voted 3-2 to propose extending its Business Opportunity Rule to “money-making opportunities” such as business coaching, which would require written proof for earnings claims. We found no Federal Register publication of that proposal and no final rule as of October 2026. Section 5 of the FTC Act, which bans deceptive claims, applies either way.

Subscriptions and cancellation (“click to cancel”)

The FTC’s click-to-cancel rule was vacated by the Eighth Circuit on July 8, 2025, before its main parts took effect. On March 11, 2026, the FTC opened new rulemaking, asking whether and how to regulate subscription sign-ups again, including adopting parts of the vacated rule (FTC notice). The federal ROSCA law and state automatic-renewal laws still apply to memberships and payment plans, so make cancelling easy.

Sales tax on digital products

Since the Supreme Court’s Wayfair decision, states can require sellers in other states to collect sales tax. Whether a course, download or membership is taxable depends on each state’s definitions. Washington, for example, taxes digital goods and digital automated services.

Who collects depends on your platform. Gumroad and Skool collect as merchant of record. Teachable’s teachable:pay, Thinkific Payments and Kajabi Sales Tax ($0.15 per transaction) automate it. On Podia and Systeme.io, which pay into your own Stripe or PayPal, it is your job.

Accessibility

Justice Department guidance from 2022 lists videos without captions as a barrier. Caption your lessons and use real text in PDFs (see web accessibility).

Pre-launch checklist

1. Your domain is registered in your name, and the course site runs on it, not only on a platform subdomain.
2. Every sales page states the price, what is included, the refund terms and how to cancel a payment plan.
3. Income and results claims match what typical buyers achieve, and you can prove them.
4. Affiliate links and paid partnerships are labeled next to the link.
5. Sales tax is set up, or your platform collects it for you.
6. A test purchase works on a phone, and the login email arrives.
7. Lesson videos have captions, and you keep master copies off the platform.
8. You have exported your contact list once, so you know the export works.

Where to go next

• How much Kajabi and its alternatives cost: 3-year totals with a 40-sales-a-month example.
• Kajabi vs Teachable: plans, fees, payouts and exports side by side.
• Best online store builders, if you sell physical products too.
• Websites and email: sending from your own domain so launch emails reach inboxes.
• Website builders with a CRM, if coaching leads need follow-up.

Website guides for other industries: Real estate, Law firms, Dental, Medical, Therapists, Contractors, Electricians, Restaurants, Schools, Salons, Churches, Artists, Events, Vacation rentals, Nonprofits. All industries.