The Best Kajabi Alternative — Course Hosting, CRM, and Marketing All in One
Kajabi is a polished course platform. But it charges premium prices for features that still leave your marketing and sales stack incomplete.
If you're searching for a Kajabi alternative, you're probably one of two types of business owner: a course creator who wants more than just course hosting, or a small business operator who looked at Kajabi's pricing and realized you're paying $149–$399/mo for a tool that still doesn't include a real CRM, SMS marketing, or AI phone agents.
Kajabi does course and membership hosting well. But it's a content delivery platform first — not a full business operating system. When you need to manage your full customer lifecycle, run SMS follow-up sequences, handle sales pipelines, or get your Google reviews under control, you're adding tools on top of Kajabi and your stack starts to sprawl.
Automated Sales Machine (ASM) includes native course and membership hosting as part of a complete all-in-one platform — plus CRM, email marketing, SMS, AI voice agents, funnel builder, reputation management, and more — for $150/mo flat.
Table of Contents
Where Kajabi Falls Short Beyond Courses
1. No Real CRM or Sales Pipeline
Kajabi tracks course purchases and membership access, but it's not a CRM. There's no visual sales pipeline, deal tracking, or lead management system. If you have a sales team following up on leads, Kajabi offers them nothing.
ASM includes a full visual CRM with pipelines, lead routing, and deal management natively.
2. No Native SMS Marketing
Kajabi's marketing tools focus on email. SMS marketing requires third-party integrations.
ASM includes native two-way SMS/MMS marketing, missed call text-back, and omnichannel inbox built in.
3. Premium Pricing for Content Delivery Alone
Kajabi's Growth plan costs $199/mo. Kajabi Pro is $399/mo. At those prices, you're paying for a polished course platform — but you still need a CRM, an SMS tool, and potentially a separate website builder alongside it.
ASM is $150/mo and includes course hosting as part of a complete platform.
4. Transaction Fees and Student Limits
Kajabi's lower plans cap the number of active members and products. Scaling your course business within Kajabi means upgrading tiers.
ASM has no course or member limits.
What ASM Offers That Kajabi Doesn't
AI Voice Phone Agents
ASM deploys AI that handles inbound and outbound calls, books appointments, and qualifies leads. Kajabi has no phone capabilities.
Reputation Management
ASM automates Google and Facebook review requests and AI-powered review responses. Kajabi has no reputation management.
Full CRM and Sales Pipelines
ASM includes a visual CRM with pipelines, deal tracking, and round-robin lead routing. Kajabi has no CRM.
Native Affiliate Management
ASM includes a built-in affiliate program manager. Kajabi has a basic affiliate feature on Pro only; ASM includes it across all plans.
Social Media Planner
ASM includes a native social media scheduling and publishing tool. Kajabi does not.
Who Should Switch from Kajabi to ASM?
ASM is the right Kajabi alternative if you're a course creator or membership business that also needs a CRM, SMS marketing, and multi-channel follow-up — and you're tired of paying Kajabi prices for content delivery alone while maintaining a separate marketing stack. If Kajabi's course-specific polish (beautiful student portals, Kajabi University ecosystem) is central to your brand, you may want to keep it for delivery while moving your CRM and marketing to ASM.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does ASM support online courses and memberships like Kajabi?
Yes. ASM includes native course hosting, membership management, drip content delivery, and community building. It's not as visually polished as Kajabi's dedicated student portal, but for most businesses it covers the full course and membership workflow.
How does ASM pricing compare to Kajabi?
ASM is $150/mo flat. Kajabi Growth is $199/mo, Kajabi Pro is $399/mo — and neither includes a CRM, SMS, or AI agents. ASM gives you course hosting plus a full marketing and sales platform for less than Kajabi's mid-tier plan.
Does ASM offer a free trial?
Yes — 14 days, full access, no credit card required.