Kajabi Circle Integration: The Real Monthly Math of Running Both

Kajabi and Circle don't have a built-in connection. The Kajabi Circle integration runs through Zapier: when someone buys in Kajabi, a zap invites them to Circle or adds them to the right space group. You also need a second zap to take access away when someone cancels or gets a refund. On annual billing, the cheapest honest line-up of Kajabi, Circle and Zapier comes to about $252 a month before payment fees (checked October 2026).

That's the short version. The longer version is where the quiet costs live.

I've been the person holding two platforms together with a few zaps and a lot of hope. Each tool did its job well. The problem was the space between them, and the fact that I was the one who had to notice when something fell through it.

So this guide walks through how the connection actually works, the zaps you need, where they break, and the full monthly bill. Then you can decide calmly whether running both is worth it for you.

Why Coaches End Up Running Kajabi and Circle Together

Most coaches don't plan a dual stack. It happens one sensible decision at a time.

Usually it goes like this. You start on Kajabi because it handles your courses, your website, your email and your checkout. Then your clients want somewhere to talk between sessions. Kajabi has its own community feature, but you've seen Circle communities that feel livelier, or your clients already know Circle, so you add it.

Sometimes it goes the other way. You build a busy Circle community first, then want Kajabi for its sales pages and email.

Either way, you now have two places your clients need to log in, and two places that need to agree on who has paid. If you're still weighing which one does the community job better, my Circle vs Kajabi comparison covers the features side by side. This post assumes you're running both, or about to, and want to know what that really involves.

How the Kajabi Circle Integration Actually Works (Zapier, Step by Step)

Zapier sits in the middle and passes details from one tool to the other. Kajabi sends an event (a purchase, a new payment, a tag being added or removed). Zapier catches it and tells Circle what to do (invite this person, add them to this space group, remove them).

On Zapier's Kajabi and Circle page, the Kajabi triggers include New Purchase, New Payment, Cart Purchase, Tag Added and Tag Removed. The Circle actions include Invite Member, Add Member to Space Group, Add Member to Access Group, and matching Remove actions (checked October 2026).

Here's what that means in practice.

The Zap You Need: Kajabi Purchase to Circle Invite or Space Group

This is the one almost every dual stack runs on.

1. Trigger: Kajabi "New Purchase", filtered to the offer that includes community access.
2. Action: Circle "Invite Member" (for brand new members) or "Add Member to Space Group" (to put them straight into the right spaces).
3. Match on email: Circle uses the buyer's email address to find or invite the member.
4. Test it with a real purchase: buy your own offer with a test email, then check that the invite arrives and the person lands in the right space group.

If you sell more than one offer with community access, you'll either need one zap per offer or a filter step that sends each offer to its own space group. Filters and multi-step zaps need a paid Zapier plan.

The Zap People Forget: Cancel or Refund to Remove Access

Most setups I've seen get this one late, usually after the first refund.

Here's the catch. Kajabi's Zapier triggers don't include a "subscription cancelled" event. The common workaround is a tag. When someone's access ends in Kajabi, a tag gets removed from their contact. Zapier's "Tag Removed" trigger then fires a Circle "Remove Member From Space Group" (or "Remove Member") action.

That means you need two things working together:

• On the Kajabi side: a reliable way to remove that tag when access ends. How you set this up depends on your offers and your Kajabi plan, so check Kajabi's own help docs for your setup rather than guessing.
• On the Circle side: a removal zap pointed at the same space group the purchase zap added them to.

Where the Connection Breaks

The zaps themselves are simple. These are the spots where they quietly go wrong:

• Different emails. A client buys in Kajabi with their work email but already has a Circle account under their personal one. Circle matches on email, so they get a second invite or a second account, and then message you asking why they can't see the community.
• Failed zaps. Zapier counts only successful steps as tasks, which is fair, but a failed step still means someone didn't get access. Turn on error notifications so a failure reaches your inbox, not just the task history.
• Tag drift. Someone adds or removes a tag by hand in Kajabi for a different reason, and the removal zap fires. Keep the community tag for this one job only.
• Waiting for the invite. Zapier checks for new data on a schedule. On the Free plan that's every 15 minutes, and every 2 minutes on Professional. A buyer who expects instant access may email you in that gap.
• Plan and app changes. If either tool changes its triggers, or a connection's login expires, the zap stops. Nothing on your sales page tells you that happened.

None of this makes the integration bad. It just means somebody has to check it. In most coaching businesses, that somebody is you.

The Real Monthly Bill for Kajabi, Circle and Zapier

Here's the line-up I'd call the cheapest honest version, plus the next step up. All prices are USD, before tax, on annual billing, from each tool's own pricing page (checked October 2026). Circle shows its prices based on annual billing, so I've kept everything on that basis to compare like with like.

A few notes on those numbers:

• Kajabi on monthly billing is $179 for Basic and $249 for Growth.
• Zapier on monthly billing is $29.99 for the 750-task Professional tier.
• Zapier's Free plan gives you 100 tasks a month and two-step zaps only. A simple purchase-to-invite zap fits that, but filters, multi-step zaps and automatic replays of failed steps need a paid plan.
• Circle's Email Hub is an add-on from $99 a month for 10,000 contacts, charged on top of the community plan. Most Kajabi users already send email from Kajabi, so you likely don't need it, but it's worth knowing it's separate.

For a sense of task use: each successful action step counts as one task, and the trigger doesn't count. So a purchase zap and a removal zap use about one task per buyer and one per cancellation. The 750-task tier covers a lot of purchases before you need to think about it.

The Hidden Costs That Never Show on a Pricing Page

The table is the easy part. These are the costs that don't have a price tag.

Payment and transaction fees. Kajabi Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 per card payment on Basic, 2.8% + $0.30 on Growth and 2.7% + $0.30 on Pro (US entities, checked October 2026). On a $97 monthly membership, that's about $3.11 per payment on Basic. Circle also charges a transaction fee on payments you take through Circle: 2% on Professional and 1% on Business and Scale. If Kajabi takes the money and Circle only hosts the community, the Kajabi fee is the one that applies to that sale. Be clear about which tool takes payment for what, or you can end up paying both.

Your admin time. Checking failed zaps, fixing duplicate accounts, answering "I paid but can't get in" emails. It's rarely more than a few minutes each time. It just never fully goes away, and it tends to land at the worst moment, like launch week.

Two logins for your clients. Your clients learn one place for their course and another for their community. Some won't mind. Others will drift, and the community feels quieter than it should because half your buyers never found it.

Two sets of member data. Progress lives in Kajabi, conversations live in Circle. If you want to know which buyers are actually showing up, you're looking in two places.

Honestly, this is the part I underestimated. The subscription total was fine. Being the glue between the two tools was the real cost.

When Running Both Makes Sense, and When One Place Is Calmer

Running both can be the right call. It tends to make sense when:

• Your community is the main thing people pay for, and Circle's community features genuinely serve it better than what you'd get elsewhere.
• You already have a busy Circle community and moving it would cost more goodwill than the zaps cost in time.
• You have someone (a VA or an ops person) who checks the zaps every week, so it isn't all on you.

One place is usually calmer when:

• You're the only person checking whether buyers got access.
• Clients regularly ask where to find things, or which login to use.
• You're adding a third or fourth tool to cover the gaps between the first two.
• A price change is pushing you to rethink the whole setup anyway. If that's you, my guide to the Kajabi price increase walks through stay, downgrade or leave.

If you're wondering whether Kajabi is earning its place at all, is Kajabi worth it works through that question on its own. And if you want to step back and look at every tool you pay for, not just these two, the coaching tech stack audit is the worksheet I'd start with. There's also a shorter list of what tools coaches use by job, which helps you spot where two tools are doing the same work.

If you decide to bring things into one place, don't rush the move. My guide on how to migrate from Kajabi without losing members covers running both side by side until everyone is across, and the Kajabi alternative guide covers what to compare beyond the feature list.

Whatever you choose, the test is the same: fewer seams, and fewer things that depend on you remembering to check them.

Talk It Through With Other Coaches

Working out whether a dual stack is worth it is easier when you can compare notes with coaches who've run one. The community is where we work through exactly this: what each tool really costs, which zaps keep breaking, and how to build around one connected place under your name. Bring your monthly total and your zap list, and ask the questions you'd rather not ask a sales rep.

If that sounds useful, Join The Community.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Kajabi integrate with Circle?

Not directly. There's no built-in Kajabi to Circle connection, so most coaches connect them through Zapier. A Kajabi trigger, like a new purchase or a tag being removed, fires a Circle action, like inviting a member or removing them from a space group. Developers can also build a custom connection with each tool's API.

Can you use Circle with Kajabi?

Yes. Plenty of coaches sell and deliver courses in Kajabi and run their community in Circle. You'll need Zapier (or a custom build) to pass buyers from Kajabi into Circle, and a second zap to remove access when someone cancels or gets a refund.

How do I give Kajabi buyers access to my Circle community?

Set up a zap with Kajabi's New Purchase trigger, filtered to the right offer, and Circle's Invite Member or Add Member to Space Group action. Circle matches people by email, so ask buyers to use the same email in both places. Test it with a real purchase before you launch.

How much does it cost to run Kajabi and Circle together?

On annual billing, Kajabi Basic ($143), Circle Professional ($89) and Zapier Professional ($19.99 for 750 tasks) come to about $252 a month before payment fees (checked October 2026, USD, before tax). Kajabi Growth with Circle Business comes to about $418 a month. Card and transaction fees come on top.

What happens in Circle when someone cancels in Kajabi?

Nothing, unless you set it up. Kajabi's Zapier triggers don't include a cancellation event, so the usual approach is to remove a tag in Kajabi when access ends and use Zapier's Tag Removed trigger to remove the member from the Circle space group. Without that zap, they keep community access.

Should I use Kajabi's community or Circle?

It depends on how central the community is to what you sell. If your community is the main thing people pay for, Circle may serve it better. If it's a bonus alongside your courses, one login in Kajabi is simpler. My Circle vs Kajabi comparison goes through the features in detail.