Kajabi Payments Review: Keep More of Every Sale

Money is the part of an online business that people worry about most, and it's the part that should feel the simplest. Your customer pays, the money arrives in your bank, and you get on with your day. That's exactly what Kajabi Payments is built to do.

When Kajabi Payments launched in 2023, I moved all of my payments into it.¹⁴ Before that, my checkout sat in Kajabi while the money itself lived in a separate processor with its own login. Now every sale, refund, subscription and payout sits in the same account as my courses, my community and my emails. One dashboard tells me what came in, what went out and when it lands in my bank. That move made my business noticeably simpler, and simpler is always my goal.

This guide explains how Kajabi Payments works, what it really costs, how it compares with plugging Stripe in directly, and what changed in 2026. The headline is worth saying up front. Kajabi doesn't take a share of your revenue. You pay a small processing fee on each transaction, and on most plans that fee is lower than you'd pay elsewhere.

What is Kajabi Payments?

Kajabi Payments is Kajabi's own payment processor, built in partnership with Stripe. Stripe does the heavy lifting in the background, and you never need a Stripe account of your own to use it.³ Stripe describes Kajabi Payments as a payment processing solution built directly into Kajabi and powered by Stripe.⁷

Everything you'd normally manage in a separate processor now lives in your Kajabi dashboard. That covers transactions, refunds, subscriptions, invoices, sales tax and payouts, all in one place.³ It's available to businesses registered in the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and selected European countries.³

Your customers can pay the way they like to pay. Kajabi Payments accepts all major credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Link, plus the buy now, pay later options Afterpay and Klarna.¹³

Does Kajabi take a cut of your sales?

No, and this is the part I most want you to understand. Kajabi takes no revenue share as a platform, so you keep whatever you earn.² That's true on Basic, Growth and Pro alike.

What you do pay is a processing fee on each successful transaction. Every card payment online costs something to process, wherever you sell, because the card networks and banks charge for moving the money. Kajabi Payments simply passes that cost on as one clear fee per sale.⁵

How much does Kajabi Payments cost?

The card rate depends on your plan. For US businesses it's 2.9% + 30¢ on Basic, 2.8% + 30¢ on Growth and 2.7% + 30¢ on Pro.² Apple Pay, Google Pay and Link are charged at the same card rate.⁴ Here's the full US fee list, from Kajabi's US fees page.

Fees in US$ for US businesses, checked on 8th November 2026.²⁴ Rates differ by country, and Kajabi lists each region on its own page.

Most experts only ever see the first line. A one-off card sale on Basic costs 2.9% + 30¢, and everything else in the table only applies when you choose that feature.

Is Kajabi Payments cheaper than Stripe?

Yes, once you count everything you'd pay. Kajabi Payments is built on Stripe, so you get the same proven technology underneath, at a better price on Kajabi.³

Stripe's standard US price for online card payments is 2.9% + 30¢.⁶ You can still connect your own Stripe account to Kajabi, and plenty of people did before Kajabi Payments existed. When you do, Kajabi adds a third-party processor fee on top of Stripe's own fee: 2% on Basic, 1% on Growth and 0.5% on Pro.²⁵ That extra fee doesn't apply to PayPal, or in countries where Kajabi Payments isn't offered.²

Here's what that means on a $197 course sale with a US card.

Worked from Kajabi's published rates and Stripe's standard US rate, checked on 8th November 2026.²⁶

Those few dollars add up quickly. Sell 100 courses at $197 on the Basic plan and the difference is $394 that stays in your pocket. On Growth and Pro the card rate itself also sits below Stripe's standard 2.9%, which Kajabi describes as typically lower than standard Stripe pricing.³

Several features also only work through Kajabi Payments. Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link, Afterpay, Klarna, automatic sales tax, invoicing and the QuickBooks and Xero connections all need it switched on.³

What can you do with Kajabi Payments?

Kajabi Payments covers every way an expert gets paid. Here are the tools you'll actually use, in plain English.

Checkout is where all of this comes together. Here's the checkout I built for Emily Chase, the patisserie chef I created for my examples, for her monthly Gluten-Free Baking Community. It's built in Kajabi's newest checkout builder, the same page builder you use for the rest of your site.

Kajabi · Checkout builder

Getting paid is just as simple. Payouts can go to your bank daily, weekly or monthly, and new accounts start on a monthly schedule while Kajabi gets to know your business.¹⁰ When you need money sooner, Instant Payouts can send your available balance in minutes, even at weekends.³

With Afterpay and Klarna, your customer spreads the cost while you're paid in full straight away.¹¹ That's a lovely way to make a bigger program affordable without you carrying the risk of a payment plan.

What's new in Kajabi Payments in 2026?

Kajabi has added a run of useful payment updates this year. These are the ones I'd point out, taken from Kajabi's product changelog.¹²

1. Link by Stripe (October 2026)Returning buyers can pay without typing their card details again. You turn it on for each offer, cart or invoice.¹²
2. Cancellation discounts (October 2026)When a subscriber goes to cancel, you can show them a discount to stay. This works on Kajabi Payments subscriptions.¹²
3. Customer self-pause (October 2026)Members can pause their own subscription from their billing page, which keeps them with you instead of cancelling.¹²
4. Pay off payment plans early (August 2026)Collect the rest of a plan in one charge, with an optional discount for paying early.¹²
5. Pause until a set date (August 2026)Pause a subscription or payment plan and choose exactly when it starts again.¹²
6. Monthly balance report (August 2026)A downloadable report of your charges, refunds, fees and payouts each month, which your bookkeeper will love.¹²

Notice how many of these help you keep members rather than find new ones. Cancellation discounts and self-pause are simple retention tools that used to need extra software.

How do you set up Kajabi Payments?

Setting up takes one sitting, and Kajabi's US setup guide walks you through it.⁸ Have your business details, a government ID and your bank details ready before you start.

1. Open payment setupGo to Settings, then Payment settings, then Payment setup, and click Get Started.⁸
2. Choose your country and business typePick where your business is registered, then choose Individual or Company and your business structure.⁸
3. Add your business detailsAccept the terms, then enter your address, phone number and website on a secure page hosted by Stripe.⁸
4. Verify your identity and add your bankUpload a government ID, then add the bank account your payouts should go to.⁸
5. Switch your offers acrossIf you used Stripe before, go to Sales, then Pricing, and use the banner to convert your offers in one go.⁹

One thing to know if you're moving from Stripe. Existing subscriptions and payment plans keep billing through Stripe until you migrate them, and only new purchases go through Kajabi Payments.⁹ Customers with cards saved in Stripe may need to enter their card once more on their next purchase.³

Which Kajabi plan gives the best rate?

Every plan includes Kajabi Payments, and the rate improves as you move up. Growth gets a discounted rate and Pro gets the deepest discount, as the Kajabi pricing page shows.²

Prices and US card rates in US$, checked on 8th November 2026.

Choose your plan for the features you need, and let the card rate be a bonus. Every plan has a 30-day money-back guarantee.² The standard free trial lasts 14 days, as Kajabi's trial information page explains.¹³ Through my partner link you get 30 days, which is plenty of time to set up Kajabi Payments and take your first sale.

How do you keep your payments simple?

Every extra tool in a business brings another login, another bill and another place for money to go missing. My name for that cost is the Complexity Tax, and it's one of the ideas at the heart of Simplify the Funnel®.

Payments are where that tax hurts most, because it's paid in actual dollars. Moving my payments into Kajabi took a whole tool out of my week. Here's the simple flow I'd aim for:

“It’s time to reject complexity as strategy. Embrace the power of doing less, but better.”

From Simplify the Funnel® by Ant Hodges

Where does AI help with your payments?

My belief is that AI creates movement, and humans create momentum. Let AI handle the set-up work in the back office, while your prices and your promise to customers stay fully human. There’s more on this in my post Built to Be Human.

When I build examples with the Kajabi MCP, the offers it creates are saved as drafts. Publishing still happens in Kajabi itself, which keeps a human in charge of anything that takes real money. That's exactly how it should be.

Who is Kajabi Payments best for?

Kajabi Payments fits almost every expert selling on Kajabi in a supported country. If you sell courses, coaching, memberships or a community, it's the simplest and cheapest way to get paid on the platform.

Where Kajabi Payments isn't available yet, you can still connect Stripe or PayPal, and Kajabi adds no extra processor fee in those countries.² Kajabi says it's working to bring Kajabi Payments to more regions.³

Kajabi Payments FAQs

Sources

1. Kajabi (2026) "Kajabi Payments." kajabi.com/features/payments ↩
2. Kajabi (2026) "Pricing." kajabi.com/pricing ↩
3. Kajabi Help Center (2026) "Kajabi Payments overview." help.kajabi.com ↩
4. Kajabi Help Center (2026) "Kajabi Payments fees: United States." help.kajabi.com ↩
5. Kajabi Help Center (2026) "Kajabi Payments processing fees." help.kajabi.com ↩
6. Stripe (2026) "Pricing." stripe.com/pricing ↩
7. Stripe (2026) "Kajabi unveils Kajabi Payments, powered by Stripe." stripe.com/customers/kajabi ↩
8. Kajabi Help Center (2026) "Set up Kajabi Payments: United States." help.kajabi.com ↩
9. Kajabi Help Center (2026) "Convert offers from Stripe to Kajabi Payments." help.kajabi.com ↩
10. Kajabi Help Center (2026) "Kajabi Payments payouts." help.kajabi.com ↩
11. Kajabi Help Center (2026) "Buy Now, Pay Later methods with Kajabi Payments." help.kajabi.com ↩
12. Kajabi (2026) "Changelog." feedback.kajabi.com/changelog ↩
13. Kajabi Help Center (2026) "Kajabi trial information." help.kajabi.com ↩
14. PR Newswire (2023) "Kajabi unveils three significant products to its leading creator platform." prnewswire.com ↩

All sources checked and live on 8th November 2026.