CrocOTT vs Kajabi: When a Course Platform Stops Fitting a Video Business
Kajabi is a good course platform. That is not the question. The question is what happens when video stops being the wrapper around your course and becomes the product you sell, because the shape of the tool changes from helpful to expensive at that exact point.
What we measured
In August 2026 we read the public pages of 1,361 domains belonging to streaming and membership businesses. Fourteen of them run Kajabi. Five of those fourteen also pay Wistia, and three run three separate video platforms at once.
That is the tell, and it is worth sitting with. Kajabi hosts video perfectly well. But more than a third of the Kajabi operators we found had bolted a second video vendor onto it anyway, which is what people do when the thing they need is not quite the thing they have.
The limit that catches people is the website count
Kajabi prices on contacts and products. Verified on kajabi.com on 8 August 2026, the plans read:
| Plan | Monthly | Products | Contacts | Websites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $179 | 5 | 2,500 | 1 |
| Growth | $249 | 50 | 25,000 | 1 |
| Pro | $499 | Unlimited | 100,000 | 3 |
One website on Basic. One on Growth. Three on Pro. If you run a single brand that is invisible. If you franchise, license your programme to gyms or studios, or operate under more than one name, it is the whole conversation: you end up on the $499 plan for the website count rather than for anything you wanted, and at three you stop again.
Contacts are not subscribers
A contact on Kajabi is anyone who ever gave you an email address. The person who downloaded a free guide in 2023 and never returned counts against the same 2,500 as the member paying you every month. Your bill therefore tracks your marketing history rather than your revenue.
CrocOTT meters active subscribers, at $0.20 per active subscriber per month, with no base fee. A dormant lead costs nothing because a dormant lead is not a subscriber.
Whose domain is your library on?
Kajabi accounts get a name.mykajabi.com address, and custom domains are supported. Plenty of businesses never move off the default, so the paid library ends up living on the vendor's domain, frequently under one individual's name rather than the brand's. It works. It also means the asset your customers log into is not yours, and none of that traffic builds your own domain.
Side by side
| What you may need | Kajabi | CrocOTT |
|---|---|---|
| Sell courses with email, funnels and checkout in one place | Yes, and it is what the product is for | Not a funnel builder |
| More than one brand or location | 1 website, 3 on Pro | A sub-feed per operator, your brand on each |
| What the bill follows | Contacts and products | Active subscribers only |
| Apps on TV, phones and tablets | Mobile only | iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku, Smart TV |
| Certificates issued from watch time | Course completion, not measured viewing | Issued from time actually watched |
| Live events and pay-per-view | Limited | Live, PPV and subscription together |
| Where it runs | Their cloud | Your server, or ours |
When you should stay on Kajabi
If you sell a handful of courses under one brand, want email, landing pages, checkout and hosting in a single subscription, and video is how the lesson gets delivered rather than the thing being bought, Kajabi is simpler than anything we would build for you. Staying is the right answer and we will say so.
When it stops fitting
- Video is the product. People pay for access to a library, not for a course with videos in it.
- More than one brand. Franchisees, licensed studios or partner gyms, each needing their own front door and their own members.
- Television. Members asking to watch on the screen in the living room.
- You are already paying twice. A second video vendor alongside Kajabi, which is where five of the fourteen operators we found had ended up.
- Certificates that mean something. Issued from measured watch time, which is what a professional body will accept.
The honest summary
Kajabi is a course business in a box and it is good at that. It is not built for a business whose product is video, whose brand appears in more than one place, or whose members expect a television app. Those are not defects. They are the edges of a different tool, and the cost of ignoring them shows up as a second vendor on the invoice.
Prices above were read from kajabi.com on 8 August 2026 and change without notice, so check them before deciding anything. Ours are on the pricing page.