If You Skip These Before Launching, You'll Regret It Live

When a Kajabi launch goes wrong, the course itself is rarely the problem. It's usually something small around it: a missing login link, a coupon that doesn't work, a thank-you page that leads nowhere.

You've spent weeks, maybe months, building the course. The content is solid, the branding looks right and the launch emails are written. Then you press send, and something breaks. A student can't log in. The checkout throws an error. The welcome email says "Hi {{first_name}}". A coupon meant to take 20% off takes 100%.

Kajabi is seldom the cause. Most of these problems come from settings that were changed during the build and never checked again, and they're easy to catch if you test before you launch. This list leaves out the obvious things, like uploading videos or writing a sales page. It covers ten things that look fine until a real customer runs into them.

What a broken launch looks like

Picture a creator launching a course to a list of a thousand or so people. The launch email goes out at nine in the morning, and a handful of people buy in the first hour. Then the messages start. "I bought the course but I can't find where to log in." "The coupon says it's invalid." "I got an email that says 'You're in!' but there's no link."

Each problem has a simple cause. The welcome automation still points to an old product. The coupon's expiry date was set during testing and never changed. The thank-you page sends buyers back to the homepage with no next step. None of it is hard to fix, but fixing it on launch day means answering emails instead of selling, and some buyers will ask for a refund simply because they felt forgotten right after they paid.

An hour or two of testing beforehand would catch all of it. Here's what to check.

1. Do a full test purchase yourself

Go through the whole journey as a customer would, from the sales page to checkout to the first lesson, in one sitting. Most people test the pieces separately: the sales page, the checkout, the course. The gaps only show up when you go through the full sequence.

Kajabi has a Test Checkout option (Preview, on offers that use Enhanced Checkout) that runs the checkout without charging anything. It doesn't create a member or send any emails, though, so it won't show you what happens after someone buys. For that, make a real test purchase. Set the offer price to free or create a coupon that brings it to $0, then buy it in a private browser window, logged out of Kajabi, using an email address that's different from your account. Kajabi's guide to creating a test purchase walks through it.

If you skip this: you may find out on launch day that checkout points to the wrong product, the purchase email is missing the course link, or the course isn't attached to the offer at all.

2. Make sure the thank-you page goes somewhere useful

Right after someone pays is when they're most attentive and most ready to be told what to do next. If the thank-you page is blank or sends them to your homepage, that moment is wasted.

The page should confirm the purchase, tell them exactly what to do next, link straight to the course and set expectations for what comes after.

If you skip this: a confused buyer starts to doubt the purchase, and that doubt is what leads to refund requests, even when the course is good.

3. Test your drip schedule

If you release lessons over time, log in as a test student and check what's locked, what's open and when each part unlocks. Kajabi gives you two options for modules: schedule them for a specific date, or drip them a set number of days after someone enrolls. By default, the drip clock starts from the purchase or grant date. If you've changed these settings a few times during the build, check that they still do what you intend. Kajabi's guide to scheduling and dripping course content covers the details.

If you skip this: students either get everything on day one or find themselves locked out of lessons they expected, and your inbox fills up either way.

4. Check that your legal pages are linked

Your privacy policy and terms should be linked in your site footer and easy to find from checkout. If you collect email addresses or payments, privacy laws such as the GDPR in Europe and the CCPA in California may require you to explain how you handle people's data, so check what applies to your business.

These pages usually get set up once and forgotten. Footer links can disappear when you switch templates or rebuild pages, and nobody notices.

If you skip this: besides the legal risk, some buyers look for these pages before entering their card details and leave if they can't find them.

5. Show your refund policy before checkout

Buyers should be able to find your refund policy before they pay, not only in a confirmation email afterwards. If they have to hunt for it, many will assume the worst. A clear policy can make people more comfortable buying.

If you skip this: a buyer who can't find your policy, or feels misled by it, may go to their bank for a chargeback instead of asking you for a refund. Chargebacks come with fees and, if they pile up, can cause problems with your payment processor.

6. Give your welcome email real onboarding

Someone who has just bought is about as engaged as they'll ever be, so the welcome email is one they're very likely to open. It's not the place for a one-line "You're in!"

Tell students how to access the course, what to do first, what to expect in the first week and how to get help. Think of it as a short onboarding call in about 200 words.

If you skip this: students with no clear next step drift off, the motivation they had right after buying fades, and fewer of them finish the course.

7. Test every coupon at your real checkout

Before you share a coupon anywhere, use it yourself at checkout. Check the discount, the expiry date, any usage limit and which product it applies to.

If you skip this: an expired code, the wrong discount or a code tied to the wrong product means a flood of emails during the most important hours of your launch, and you look unprepared at exactly the moment you're asking people to trust you.

8. Watch your videos on a phone, on mobile data

More than half of web traffic now comes from mobile devices, and plenty of students will watch lessons on their phone. Turn off your Wi-Fi, open a lesson on your phone, and see whether it loads, whether it buffers and whether the player works in Safari on an iPhone.

If you skip this: students who can't watch on their phone either give up quietly or email you frustrated. Problems here usually come down to file size or format, which are easy to fix before launch and much harder to sort out during it.

9. Check who has access to what

There are two kinds of access to check. The first is your students. Make sure each offer grants the right products, and that your test purchase gives access to everything it should and nothing it shouldn't.

The second is your team. In Kajabi, account users are the people who help run your account, and each has a role, such as Administrator or Assistant, with different permissions. Remove any test accounts you created during the build, and make sure everyone with access has the role they need and no more. Kajabi's guide to account users lists what each role can do.

If you skip this: a student whose offer is missing a product will report the course as broken, and a leftover test account or an overly broad team role is access you never meant to give.

10. Have a plan in case something goes down

Kajabi is generally reliable, but its status page shows that incidents do happen, and it would be bad luck to have one in the middle of your launch. Decide in advance what you'd do if checkout wouldn't load on launch morning. Could you send a direct payment link and enroll people manually? Do you have a short email ready explaining a delay?

If you skip this: a problem you didn't cause still looks like your failure, and your launch momentum stalls while you work out what to do.

Why it's worth the time

A rough launch costs more than the sales you lose that day. Students who have a frustrating start are less likely to finish the course, recommend it or buy from you again.

A couple of hours of testing protects months of work: building the course, growing your list, writing the launch emails and earning enough trust that people are ready to buy. It's worth doing before you press send.