Thinkific Killed Its Free Plan. Podia Killed Its Free Plan. Kajabi Killed Its Cheapest Tier. The Cheap Way In Is Closing.

The entry floor on course platforms didn't drift up. It was lifted, deliberately, five times in about eighteen months.

Start with the loudest one. Kajabi raised monthly prices roughly 20–25% across every plan, eliminated the $89/month Kickstarter tier entirely, and cut the Basic plan's contact limit from 10,000 to 2,500. New customers got a 50% promotional discount; existing customers faced the full hike on their first billing date on or after January 13, 2026 — with no grandfathered pricing.

The cheapest Kajabi plan is now Basic at $179/month, or $143/month billed annually. The contact cut matters more than the price. Basic caps at 2,500, and that counts everyone on your list, not just buyers.

The ledger

Thinkific. It quietly retired its free plan in 2025, replacing it with a 30-day trial. Then it moved again this summer: paid plans now start at $40/month billed annually and run to $164 for Grow, after a roughly 10% increase effective August 13, 2026.

Podia. The free plan was removed on October 14, 2024 and replaced with a 30-day free trial for new users. Three paid tiers remain — Mover at $42/month annual, Shaker at $84, Earthquaker at $150. Mover carries a 5% transaction fee; the higher tiers charge 0%.

Teachable. A June 2025 restructure replaced the legacy Basic and Pro plans with Starter, Builder and Growth, and pushed course completion certificates up to the Growth tier at $139/month annual. The cheapest option is now Starter at $29/month annual — with a 7.5% transaction fee on every sale. One caveat worth flagging: coverage disagrees on whether a stripped free tier survives. DDIY's 2026 pricing breakdown still lists a Free plan capped at 1 product and 10 students, charging 10% + $1 per sale. Either way, nobody is running a business on it.

Udemy. No monthly fee, but the split keeps narrowing. Subscription revenue share for instructors has been cut three times since 2023: 25% to 20% in January 2024, 17.5% in January 2025, and 15% in January 2026 — a change disclosed via an SEC filing in November 2023.

The reason one of them actually gave

Podia is the only platform in the group that explained itself in plain numbers. It said the free plan made it too easy to delay launching instead of pushing creators to start selling — and that only 0.5% of Podia's total sales came from free accounts.

Read that as the industry's real position. Free users cost money, generate support tickets, and almost never convert into revenue. The person who hasn't sold anything yet is no longer a customer worth subsidising.

About that escape hatch

Staying put is the move most creators assume they have. It's thinner than it looks.

Kajabi didn't grandfather anyone. Teachable's June 2025 overhaul also raised prices for many existing users on legacy plans. Teachable did add certificates and compliance across every plan and AI captioning on Growth and above — but for many legacy users the experience was paying more for less.

If you are sitting on an old plan you like, the useful question isn't whether you should upgrade. It's what your renewal date is, and whether your platform has ever repriced an existing customer.

Where the floor actually sits now

Under $50 a month, annual billing, you're choosing between a transaction fee and a feature wall. Teachable Starter at $29 with 7.5% off every sale. Podia Mover at $42 with 5%. Thinkific Basic at $40 — though certificates, quizzes and live sessions start a tier up at $82. Outside the big four, Systeme's paid plans start at $27 per month and SchoolMaker lists a $29 starting price.

Udemy is still the only door with no monthly fee at all. It just costs 63% of every organic sale.