Upfront: I work on Crownerr, which competes with Kajabi for some of the same creators. So I have a bias, and I have also helped enough people untangle a Kajabi exit to know where the snags are. The honest summary is that Kajabi is a mature, capable product. People leave it for two reasons, the price and the feeling of being locked in, and both are real.
Why Kajabi feels sticky
Kajabi bundles everything: courses, a website, email, checkout, memberships. That bundle is convenient, and it is also the lock-in. When one tool holds your content, your students, your pages, and your billing, unpicking it touches all four at once. The price climbs as you grow, and at some point a lot of creators look at the monthly bill and ask what they are actually paying for.
Leaving is doable. It just needs to be done in the right order so nobody who paid for a course suddenly loses access mid-way through.
What you need to get out, and what to watch
Your content
Course videos, downloads, and lesson text need to come out. Kajabi hosts your video, so plan to download or re-host every video file, not just the page structure. This is usually the most time-consuming part. Do it before you cancel, because once the subscription lapses your access to pull files can go with it.
Your students
Export your member and customer list while the account is active. You want emails, which products each person bought, and ideally how far through a course they are. That progress data rarely transfers cleanly, so set expectations: students may keep their access on the new home but start fresh on progress tracking. Tell them that in advance and it is a non-issue. Spring it on them and it generates support tickets.
Your billing
This is the one that catches people. Active subscriptions and payment plans on Kajabi run through its checkout. Moving them means students re-entering payment details on the new platform, the same re-subscribe problem you get leaving most paid platforms. Map out exactly who is on a recurring plan, what they pay, and when they renew, so you can time your outreach and not drop anyone's billing silently.
Your pages and SEO
If your Kajabi site ranks or your sales pages have inbound links, the same rule applies as any migration: do not break a ranking URL without a 301 redirect. If you used a custom domain, the domain comes with you and redirects are straightforward. If you sold on a kajabi subdomain, you will rebuild those rankings on a domain you own.
The order that protects paying students
- Build the new home and load the courses before you tell anyone. Test that a real student account can log in and watch a lesson.
- Export students, content, and billing details while Kajabi is still active.
- Email students with a clear, calm heads-up: what is moving, when, how they log in, and what to do if anything looks off.
- Re-create access for existing buyers so people who already paid keep what they paid for. Do not make a past purchaser pay again.
- Migrate recurring billing deliberately, with outreach to each subscriber, and overlap the two platforms so renewals do not fall through the gap.
- Keep Kajabi alive until the dust settles, then downgrade or cancel.
What you're moving toward
The pitch for leaving Kajabi is usually "same capability, lower bill, and I own it." On Crownerr your courses and content live as products and posts inside a Space you own on your own domain, with membership tiers, Stripe checkout, community, and livestreams in the same place, and AI wired across the modules for drafting and summaries rather than bolted on. The platform fee is 5, 2, or 0 percent by plan, and the pricing page shows the ladder against a flat monthly tool cost. The fair counterpoint, which the Crownerr vs Kajabi page states plainly, is that Kajabi is a mature product with a deep feature set built up over years. If a specific Kajabi feature is load-bearing for your business, check it survives the move before you commit. For a side-by-side of the cheaper routes, Kajabi alternatives compared is the direct read, and best platforms to sell online courses covers what each one really costs. The how it works page and the wider alternatives overview are the place to sanity-check that.
The cancel button is the last step, not the first. Everything that protects your students happens while the Kajabi account is still alive.
The mistake to avoid
Do not cancel Kajabi to stop the bill and then start the migration. The moment you cancel you can lose access to the exports and video files you needed. Pay for one more month than feels necessary. It is the cheapest insurance in the whole process.