Lovable
Good at polished course and sales pages with Supabase auth.
Courses · updated 2026-11-03
Can you vibe code a course platform like Kajabi?
Medium: Yes, with care You can vibe code a members area for your own course; video delivery, payments and the marketing toolkit around it are where Kajabi earns its price.
10 h–3 days
MVP build time
$1–$95/mo
Your running cost
$143/mo
Kajabi Basic
up to $1,704
Saved per year
The honest verdict
A course site with lessons, a login and progress tracking is a few days of work. Video should go through a hosted video service rather than your own storage, and payments through Stripe or a merchant of record. Kajabi bundles email marketing, funnels, communities, coaching and a mobile app; rebuilding all of that is a large project, but most creators only need a fraction.
Kajabi is all-in-one platform for selling online courses, coaching, communities and memberships, with email marketing and funnels. This page is about building your own version for personal or internal use, or to learn how this kind of product works, not about copying Kajabi to compete with it. How we grade.
What's easy and what's hard
Easy with AI
- Course, module and lesson pages
- Login and a members-only area
- Lesson progress and completion
- A sales page with a Stripe checkout
- Downloads attached to lessons
Hard (where AI won't save you)
- Video hosting, transcoding and streaming at reasonable cost
- Protecting paid videos from sharing
- Subscriptions, payment plans, refunds and sales tax
- Email marketing and deliverability
- Community features and mobile apps
Kajabi feature checklist
Difficulty is for a solo builder using an AI coding tool. Skip means not worth building yourself.
| Feature | Difficulty | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Course structure and lesson pages | Easy | Modules and lessons in Postgres; markdown or rich text content. |
| Member login and access | Easy | Supabase auth plus an enrollments table. |
| Progress tracking | Easy | Completion rows per lesson and a progress bar. |
| Video hosting | Medium | Use Bunny Stream, Mux or Cloudflare Stream with signed playback URLs. |
| Checkout and enrollment | Medium | Stripe Checkout; enroll only from a verified webhook. |
| Payment plans and subscriptions | Medium | Stripe Billing; revoke access on failed payments. |
| Quizzes and certificates | Medium | Simple quizzes are easy; PDF certificates need generation. |
| Email marketing and funnels | Hard | Use an email tool rather than building sending and deliverability. |
| Branded mobile app | Skip | App store builds and maintenance are a project of their own. |
Build time and running costs
Your own version vs Kajabi, at personal or small-team scale.
Build time
- Working MVP for yourself
- 10 h–3 days
- Polished, relied on daily
- 8–19 days
- MVP time at $50/h equals
- 6 months of Kajabi
Kajabi price (checked 2026-11-03)
Basic: $143/mo billed annually
$143 a month billed annually ($179 monthly); Kajabi Payments fees from 2.9% + $0.30, plus a 2% fee with third-party payment providers.
Source: kajabi.com/pricing. Prices change; check before deciding.
| Running cost | Per month | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting (Vercel or Netlify) | $0–$20 | Pages and API routes. |
| Database and auth (Supabase) | $0–$25 | Free tier for small courses. |
| Video hosting (Bunny Stream or Mux) | $1–$30 | Usage-based; Bunny has a $1 monthly minimum and bills per GB stored and delivered. |
| Email (Resend) for receipts and login links | $0–$20 | Marketing email is a separate tool. |
| Payment fees (Stripe) | $0 | Variable: about 2.9% + $0.30 per US card payment, plus tax handling. |
| Total | $1–$95/mo | Saves up to $1,704 a year vs Kajabi Basic. |
Recommended vibe coding tools
Bolt.new
Quick to scaffold a full-stack members area with Stripe.
Claude Code
Helpful for signed video URLs, webhook handling and access rules.
Starter prompt
Paste it into your tool, then ask for a plan before any code. Edit the specifics to match what you need.
prompt.txt
Build a members area for my own online course (one creator, my students only). Stack: Next.js, Supabase (Postgres, auth), Stripe Checkout, Bunny Stream (or Mux) for video, Resend. Data model: courses (id, slug, title, price_cents, published), modules (id, course_id, title, position), lessons (id, module_id, title, body, video_id, position, free_preview), enrollments (id, user_id, course_id, stripe_session_id, status, created_at), progress (user_id, lesson_id, completed_at). Features: - Public sales page per course with free preview lessons - Stripe Checkout; a verified webhook creates the enrollment and emails a magic login link - Course player with module sidebar, video, notes and Mark complete - Progress bar per course - Admin area (only my account) to create courses, reorder lessons and see students Security: video playback uses signed, expiring tokens generated server side only for enrolled users; Row Level Security on enrollments and progress; lessons content API checks enrollment server side; verify Stripe webhook signatures; secrets only in server env vars.
Security pitfalls to check
AI tools often get these wrong by default. Check each one before anyone else uses the app.
- 01Never embed raw video URLs; generate signed playback tokens per enrolled user with short expiry.
- 02Check enrollment server side for lesson content, not just by hiding links in the UI.
- 03Verify Stripe webhook signatures and revoke access on refunds and failed subscription payments.
- 04Student emails are personal data; restrict admin views to your account and support deletion.
- 05Rate limit magic link requests to prevent email bombing.
Indie makers who built a real courses business
They went far past the prototype: support, payments, reliability and years of iteration. Their profiles show what that took.
Spencer Fry built Podia
All-in-one platform to sell courses, downloads and memberships.
Bryan McAnulty built Heights Platform
Software to create and sell courses, communities and coaching.
- DK
Douglas Kendyson built Selar
Lets African creators sell courses and digital products in local currencies.
Shahjahan Jewel built FluentCommunity
Community and course platform that runs inside WordPress.
Or just use these indie-made tools instead
If you need Kajabi's job done rather than a project, these are built and supported by independent makers.
Heights Platform
heightsplatform.com
All-in-one software to create and sell online courses, communities, coaching and digital products with built-in AI.
by Bryan McAnulty
Paperbell
paperbell.com
All-in-one platform for coaches to sell packages, take payments and schedule sessions.
by Laura Roeder
Podia
podia.com
All-in-one platform for creators to sell online courses, digital downloads, memberships and webinars.
by Spencer Fry
Selar
selar.com
Platform for African creators to sell ebooks, courses, templates, memberships and other digital products in local currencies.
by Douglas Kendyson
FluentCommunity
fluentcommunity.co
Community and course platform that runs inside WordPress.
by Shahjahan Jewel
What building it teaches you
You learn access control, video delivery with signed URLs and how payment events drive product access.
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Vibe coding Kajabi: FAQ
Can you vibe code a course platform like Kajabi?
Medium. You can vibe code a members area for your own course; video delivery, payments and the marketing toolkit around it are where Kajabi earns its price.
How long does it take to vibe code a course platform like Kajabi?
A working personal or internal MVP takes about 10 h–3 days with a tool like Lovable. A polished version you would rely on every day takes about 8–19 days, mostly spent on video hosting, transcoding and streaming at reasonable cost.
How much does it cost to run your own Kajabi alternative?
Expect $1–$95/mo at personal or small-team scale (hosting (vercel or netlify), database and auth (supabase), video hosting (bunny stream or mux), email (resend) for receipts and login links, payment fees (stripe)). Kajabi Basic costs $143/mo (checked 2026-11-03), so the most you would save is $1,704 a year, before counting your time.
Can I host my online course without Kajabi?
Yes. A members area with Stripe checkout and a hosted video service covers the core. You give up Kajabi's built-in email, funnels and mobile app unless you add other tools.
Where should I host course videos myself?
Use a video API such as Bunny Stream, Mux or Cloudflare Stream. They transcode, stream adaptively and support signed URLs, which plain file storage does not.
Is a self-built course platform cheaper than Kajabi?
Running costs are often under $50 a month for a small course, compared with $143 a month or more. The trade-off is your time to build and maintain it.
Is it legal to build your own Kajabi clone?
Building your own tool that solves the same problem is common and generally fine. Copying Kajabi's code, design assets, brand name or content is not. Use your own name and design, respect their terms of service, and get proper advice if you plan to sell it. This page is not legal advice.