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Teachable calls itself an all-in-one course platform. In practice the “one” ends at courses and checkout: email marketing is a separate subscription, automations run through Zapier, the Starter plan takes 7.5% of every sale — and the whole thing is rented. Schoolyland is the other path: one complete platform, every system actually included, built for you in 2 business days, that you own.
Founding launch: $1,990 setup + first year (reg. $3,500) · renewal locked at $790/yr · 0% platform fees, forever
Teachable’s Starter plan takes 7.5% of every transaction. Escaping the fee means a higher tier — and 0% only through teachable:pay, their payment processor. Either way, your success routes through their billing.
Email marketing isn’t built in — Teachable’s own help center points you to Kit, Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign, each a separate subscription. Automations beyond that run through Zapier. The all-in-one is actually a hub of paid add-ons.
The free plan is gone, prices climb, and the day you stop paying, access ends. Years of courses, students and sales history — on a platform that was never yours.
Teachable is a fine course tool. It’s just not your platform — and it was never the whole business.
Teachable is a course tool with paid add-ons around it. Kajabi is the pricier full rental. Schoolyland is not a rental at all.
| Schoolyland | Teachable | Kajabi | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A complete platform built for you — that you own | Course-and-checkout SaaS | All-in-one SaaS you subscribe to |
| Who owns the platform | You — your domain, your data, your files | Teachable | Kajabi |
| If you walk away | You keep everything — host it anywhere | Access ends | Access ends |
| Platform fees on sales | 0%, forever — your own Stripe / PayPal | 7.5% on Starter; 0% requires teachable:pay | 0% (Kajabi Payments or Stripe) |
| Email marketing & CRM | Built in — full CRM, 12,000 sends/mo included; or connect any email provider via API | Not included — external tool subscription | Included, within plan caps |
| Automations | Built in, across every system | Via Zapier (separate subscription) | Email workflows only |
| Courses & LMS | Full LMS — quizzes, certificates, drip, cohorts | Strong course builder | Strong native builder |
| Community · affiliates · video | All included | Affiliates yes; the rest partial | Higher tiers / partial |
| Run it with AI | Built in — AI runs every department of the business, and builds new features on request | AI quiz & content helpers | AI content-writing tools |
| Extend & customize | Open WordPress — add plugins, build features, change anything | Locked — what the platform offers | Locked — what the platform offers |
| Setup | Done for you in 2 business days | DIY | DIY |
| Year 1 | $1,990 founding (reg. $3,500) | $348–$1,668 + sale fees + add-on tools | $1,716–$2,388 |
| 3 years | $3,570 — yours from day one | $1,044–$5,004 + fees & tools — you own nothing | $5,148–$7,164 — you own nothing |
Sources: Teachable pricing · Kajabi pricing — annual billing where available. Last verified: July 18, 2026. Teachable Starter adds a 7.5% transaction fee; email marketing and Zapier automations are separate subscriptions. Schoolyland founding pricing is limited to 10 founding seats; regular pricing $3,500 + $990/yr.
Teachable and Kajabi are trademarks of their respective owners. Schoolyland is an independent company, not affiliated with or endorsed by either. If anything here is out of date, tell us and we’ll correct it.
Run the numbers on a creator selling $10,000 a year, and Teachable’s headline price stops being the real price.
$1,990 setup + first year, then $790/yr locked — and optional. Email, automations, community, affiliates, video — included, 0% platform fees. The platform is yours from day one; after year one, renew everything, only what you need, or nothing.
$1,044 in plans + 7.5% of every sale ($2,250 on $30K) + the email tool and Zapier the “all-in-one” doesn’t include. The fee grows with every sale you make. You own nothing.
$2,388/yr on annual billing after the January 2026 increase. Everything included while you pay — nothing left when you stop.
Every rental has the same ending: year 4 costs the same as year 1, and you still own nothing. Ownership is the only line that goes down.
The platform runs on your domain, under your name. Move it to any host, any time — it’s a standard, portable website, not an account on someone’s servers.
Students, subscribers, orders, emails, content — all in databases you control and can export whole. No “request your data” forms. It never left your hands.
Sales land in your own Stripe or PayPal account. No platform fee, no platform processor requirement, no one between you and your money.
Stop working with us and you lose exactly nothing — the site, the data and the customer relationships stay with you. We think that’s the only honest way to sell infrastructure.
A SaaS hands you a fixed menu: these features, this checkout, that page builder — and your business adapts to the tool. Schoolyland is open WordPress: the world’s largest ecosystem of plugins and integrations, plus an AI layer that builds custom pieces on request.
Thousands of proven WordPress plugins — booking, podcasts, multilingual, memberships, marketplaces. If your business needs it, it exists, and it plugs into your platform.
Layouts, flows, checkout fields, member areas — nothing is off-limits, because nothing is locked. Ask the AI, or bring any WordPress professional in the world; no proprietary platform gatekeeps the work.
Custom features, calculators, client portals, niche integrations — developed for your exact workflow, on your platform, yours to keep. No feature requests to a SaaS roadmap.
Your platform connects directly to AI — every system, every department, not a chatbot bolted on the side. Marketing, sales, content, design, SEO, email campaigns, community, reporting — the daily work of an entire team happens in a conversation. And because the platform is open, the AI doesn’t just operate it: it builds. New landing pages, automations, design changes, custom features.
The departments this covers, in practice
That’s not one saving — it’s every department. The hours, and the monthly retainers you’d pay service providers for each of these, become a conversation with your own platform.
Claim a founding seat. You choose the domain; we take it from there.
Your complete platform goes live: courses, checkout with your own PayPal or Stripe, email marketing, community, affiliates — connected and ready to sell.
Course content and your student list export from Teachable, videos re-upload, your email list imports from your email tool. Importers, step-by-step guides, the AI layer and our support carry you through it.
The honest footnote: recurring subscriptions billed through Teachable can’t transfer — that’s true of every platform switch. Your subscribers re-subscribe once through your own checkout, and from that day the billing relationship is yours, permanently — with no 7.5% on the way through. It’s the last time a platform stands between you and your customers.
Ten founding seats. $1,990 for the platform and your first year — regular $3,500 — with renewal locked at $790/yr for as long as you stay. Built and live in 2 business days, 0% platform fees forever.
2 business days delivery · you own everything · 647+ course sites built by this team