Getly
Kajabi and Thinkific are the two names most creators meet when they decide to turn what they know into an online course. Both host lessons, take payment and give students a place to learn. They look interchangeable in a feature list. They are not, and the difference is less about any single feature than about what each platform treats as the centre of your business.
Two different centres
Kajabi positions itself as an all-in-one business platform. The course is one part of a bundle that also includes a website, email, funnels, landing pages and a community. The promise is that a creator can run the whole business from one login and never stitch tools together.
Thinkific positions itself as course-first. The learning product is the centre: building lessons, structuring a curriculum, the student experience. More of the surrounding marketing is left to integrations and add-ons, so a creator assembles the rest from tools they choose.
Neither is better in the abstract. The question is whether you want one system that does everything reasonably, or a strong course tool plus your own choice of marketing tools around it.
How you pay for them
Both are built on the subscription model that course platforms generally use: you pay for a plan, and the plan decides which features, how many products and how many seats you get. That makes the cost predictable, and it also means you pay every month whether you sold anything or not.
Plans, tiers and what each includes have changed on both platforms over time, and a stale price inside a comparison is worse than none. No current prices appear here on purpose. Put your real usage next to each current plan on the platforms' own pricing pages: number of products, whether you need a community, whether you need email built in or already have a mailing tool.
The axes worth weighing
| Question | Kajabi | Thinkific |
|---|---|---|
| Centre of the product | The whole business | The course |
| Marketing tools | Largely built in | More often via integrations |
| How you pay | Subscription plan | Subscription plan |
| Who brings students | You | You |
The last row is the one sellers forget. Both platforms host what you sell; neither sends you strangers from a shared catalogue the way a marketplace does. Your launch, your list and your content decide the result on both.
What happens to a plain download
Around most courses sits a set of files: a workbook, a template pack, a spreadsheet, a checklist. Both platforms can sell such files, but their structure is shaped around lessons. For a creator whose best seller turns out to be the template rather than the course, it is worth asking whether that file needs a course platform at all.
A marketplace is the other shape for it. Getly has no lesson player, no quizzes and no progress tracking, and it is not trying to. It is a shelf: 7,143 active listings measured 26 September 2026, with the shelves where course-adjacent files live among the largest. Guides & Tutorials holds 154 listings at a median paid price of $12.99; Business & Money holds 150 at $11.00; Excel Templates holds 125 at $12.99, with the middle half between $9.90 and $12.99.
No monthly plan is needed to list. A listing needs a file (or a declared delivery mechanism), an image, a category, a name of at least 5 characters and a description of at least 150 characters. Buyers pay by PayPal or cryptocurrency; sellers are paid on the 1st and the 15th in USDT or USDC on BNB Smart Chain (minimum $5) or Tron (minimum $15, USDT only), with no bank account and no KYC. Current rates are on the pricing page.
Access for a period, without a membership site
One reason creators pick a course platform is to sell access that ends. Getly's timed access does that for a file or a service: up to six periods (1, 3, 6 or 12 month presets or custom days), each with its own price; buying again extends from the current end date; the buyer sees the end date and gets a reminder email 7 days before it; access.expiring and access.expired webhooks tell your own system. Measured 26 September 2026, 1.79% of active listings use it.
If you want the student relationship that course platforms are valued for, the signed sale.completed webhook carries each order with the buyer's email, so a Getly sale can still end in your own list.
Choosing
Pick Kajabi if you want the course, the website, email and a community in one system and would rather pay for the bundle than assemble it.
Pick Thinkific if the course itself is the product you care most about and you are happy to choose your own marketing tools around it.
Add a marketplace listing for the files that do not need a classroom. Something you can do today: open your course platform's sales report, find which products are really files, and list the strongest one on a marketplace shelf with a description that says exactly what is included and what software opens it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the main difference between Kajabi and Thinkific?
Kajabi positions itself as an all-in-one business platform where courses sit next to email, funnels, a website and a community. Thinkific positions itself as course-first: the learning product is the centre, and more of the surrounding marketing is left to integrations. Both are built around teaching, not around selling single files.
Which one is cheaper?
There is no answer that holds for every creator, and both have changed their plans over time. Compare what you would actually use against each current plan on the platforms' own pricing pages. This article quotes no competitor prices on purpose.
Can I sell plain downloads on either?
Both let you sell digital files alongside courses, but their centre of gravity is the course. If most of what you sell is a template, a workbook or an ebook, check how each handles a download-only product before paying for a plan built around lessons.
Do I own my student list?
On course platforms you generally keep the relationship with your students, which is one of their strengths over a marketplace. Confirm export options on each platform. On Getly, the signed sale.completed webhook carries the buyer's email with every order.
Where does Getly fit?
Getly is a marketplace for digital products, not a course platform: no lesson player, quizzes or progress tracking. It suits the downloads that sit around a course, and timed access lets you sell a period instead of a file forever. Measured 26 September 2026, 1.79% of active listings use timed access.
How are Getly sellers paid?
Buyers pay by PayPal or cryptocurrency. Sellers are paid in USDT or USDC on BNB Smart Chain (minimum $5) or Tron (minimum $15, USDT only) on the 1st and the 15th, with no bank account and no KYC. Current rates are on https://www.getly.store/pricing.
