Podia Review 2026: Pricing, Transaction Fees, Pros and Cons

Podia sells itself on being simpler and cheaper than Kajabi, and on the price of entry it is. The real cost question is the fee line. Mover keeps 5% of every sale on top of the 2.9% + 30 cents your payment processor charges, so the cheapest plan is only cheap while revenue is small.

Podia also raised its prices in 2026. A May 20, 2026 snapshot of its pricing page shows Mover at $39 a month, or $33 billed yearly, with unlimited products and a 30-day trial. By the June 13 snapshot, Mover's yearly rate had risen 27% (our arithmetic), products were capped at 50, and a third plan, Earthquaker, had appeared. The trial fell to 14 days by September. If you read a Podia review written before June, its numbers are out of date.

Toolradar data: Toolradar tracks 75 online course platforms as of November 4, 2026, and the median cheapest paid plan is $25 a month across the 25 that publish one. Podia's entry price sits well above that median, so it competes on bundle and fees, not on being the cheapest course host. For the platform it is usually measured against, see our Kajabi review and the Kajabi pricing breakdown.

Podia is an all-in-one storefront for creators: online courses, digital downloads, coaching, a community, live and in-person events, a website with a blog, and email marketing, all sold through one built-in checkout. Every plan gets the website, custom domain, landing pages, sales tax handling for 230 countries and more than 20 currencies.

It sits between a course-only host and Kajabi. Compared with Teachable, it adds a community, a site builder and newsletters in the same account. Compared with Kajabi, it trades depth (fewer admin seats, a smaller included list) for a lower monthly bill. Podia says more than 15,000 creators run their business on it. If you sell to an audience you built on a newsletter first, our creator monetization tools guide covers the wider stack.

You sign up for the 14-day trial without a card or a plan choice, build products and pages, then pick Mover, Shaker or Earthquaker. Payments go through your own Stripe or PayPal account, and the money lands there, not with Podia.

Three plan details shape the real cost. PayPal works only on Shaker and Earthquaker, and even there it handles one-time payments only, so subscriptions and payment plans need Stripe. Stripe and PayPal are the only gateways; Podia's help center lists Klarna, Afterpay, SEPA debit and Razorpay as unsupported. And the email list is priced as an add-on on top of each plan's included subscribers.

The refund window is short. Podia refunds a payment only if you ask within 72 hours of it, and never partially on an annual plan, so the trial is the real test period. Kajabi, by contrast, prints a 30-day money-back guarantee on every plan.

Prices were read on November 4, 2026 on Podia's pricing page, which shows yearly billing by default; the monthly-billing prices come from the same page's plan data and its switch page. Mover is $49 a month billed monthly or $504 a year, Shaker $99 a month or $1,008 a year, and Earthquaker $179 a month or $1,800 a year. Podia's help center puts the yearly saving at 15%.

When does Mover stop being the cheap plan? On yearly billing, Shaker costs $504 more than Mover. Mover's fee reaches that amount at $10,080 of sales a year, about $840 a month, by our arithmetic. On monthly billing the gap is $50 a month, so the switch point is $1,000 of sales a month. Above those lines, Mover is the expensive plan.

One sale, three plans. A $97 course on Mover costs $4.85 in Podia fees plus $3.11 in card processing, leaving $89.04. On Shaker, Earthquaker or Kajabi Basic, which charges the same card rate through Kajabi Payments, the same sale leaves $93.89. On Gumroad, its 10% + $0.50 plus the same card rate leaves $83.69.

A year of sales, compared. Take a seller with 1,000 email subscribers who sells 240 copies of a $97 course a year ($23,280). By our arithmetic, platform cost plus platform fees comes to $2,448 on Gumroad, $2,094 on Teachable Starter (7.5% fee), $1,836 on Podia Mover, $1,800 on Earthquaker, $1,716 on Kajabi Basic, $1,176 on Podia Shaker, $828 on Teachable Builder and $204 on Systeme.io Startup billed monthly. Card processing of about $746 comes on top for every one of them.

Where Kajabi catches up. Podia's email tiers grow with the list. On yearly billing, Shaker with 25,000 subscribers costs $2,304 a year against $2,388 for Kajabi Growth. At 100,000 subscribers, Shaker costs $4,848 and Kajabi Pro $4,788, so Kajabi becomes the cheaper bundle at that size.

Methodology: list prices from each vendor's own pricing page or help center, read on November 4, 2026, with no discounts or promotions. Yearly totals, break-even points and per-sale figures are our arithmetic on those printed prices; processor fees are the US card rates the vendors print. Price history comes from archived copies of Podia's own pricing page.

Podia fits a solo creator who sells a mix of courses, downloads, coaching and a community, makes between roughly $1,000 and $10,000 a month, and has a list under 25,000 people. In that range, Shaker beats Kajabi Basic on price, removes the platform cut and gives 30 times Kajabi Basic's 5-product limit.

It is the wrong pick in three cases. A first-time seller with no revenue pays $504 a year for Mover when Systeme.io has a free plan with 1 course and 2,000 contacts; see our Systeme.io review and Kajabi vs Systeme.io. A newsletter-led business near 100,000 subscribers pays more for Podia's email tiers than for Kajabi Pro, which includes 100,000 contacts; Kajabi sells more in blocks of 25,000 at $125 a month. And a team needs Kajabi or Earthquaker, since Shaker includes a single assistant seat.

If email is the business rather than a sales channel, compare a dedicated tool: our best email marketing software guide, the Kit review and the beehiiv review. For disclosure, MarketingShot itself is sent on beehiiv. Subscribe to MarketingShot for weekly marketing tool price changes.