SoloStore → Kajabi alternative
Kajabi Growth costs $2,388 a year and never stops. SoloStore is a one-time licence you install on your own hosting — courses, funnels, community and checkout, running on your Stripe account.
Short answer: if you want Kajabi's marketing suite, mobile app and phone support, stay on Kajabi. If what you actually use is courses, a checkout and a community — and you resent paying $2,388 a year for it — SoloStore does that for $497 once plus about $7 a month in hosting. Over five years that is $917 against $11,940.
Kajabi Growth is $199/mo billed annually. You never stop paying, and the bill does not shrink in a slow quarter.
Growth caps you at 50 products and 25,000 contacts. Outgrow it and Pro is $399/mo — $4,788 a year.
Your courses, your members and your checkout live on infrastructure you do not control and cannot move without a migration.
Every number below came off the vendor's own pricing page, checked 5 August 2026.
| Kajabi Growth | SoloStore | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay | $199/mo billed annually | $497 once |
| Year one | $2,388 | $581 |
| Every year after | $2,388 | $84 hosting |
| Platform cut of each sale | 0% on Kajabi Payments, 2% on third-party | 0% — always |
| Products | 50 on Growth | Unlimited |
| Contacts | 25,000 on Growth | Unlimited |
| Payments run through | Kajabi Payments or a 2% fee | Your own Stripe account |
| You can host it yourself | No | Yes |
| Built-in email marketing | Yes | connects to Kit |
| Student mobile app | Yes | No |
| Phone & chat support | Yes | email only |
| Five-year total | $11,940 | $917 |
Kajabi figures are public list prices from kajabi.com/pricing, checked 5 August 2026. SoloStore's total is the one-time licence plus about $7 a month of self-hosting (Railway and Bunny, paid direct). Stripe's processing fee applies on both sides and is excluded.
A comparison page that only flatters itself is an advert. Here is where Kajabi wins.
Stay on Kajabi if your business runs on its email automations, if you need someone on the phone at 11pm, or if a five-minute setup is five minutes you would rather not spend. Those are real reasons and $2,388 a year buys them.
Two services, no markup, nothing paid to us — and a five-minute setup with no code and no terminal.
Not sure what self-hosting means in practice? Watch the five-minute setup video — it is the entire process, start to finish.
Other questions? Shoot me an email — matt@mattgiaro.com