Challenge

Kajabi has become an indispensable platform for creators looking to turn their unique skills and expertise into online businesses. Kajabi’s all-in-one platform simplifies the technical and logistical tasks of building a website and distributing digital content such as paid courses, coaching services, and online memberships so creators can focus on inspiring their audiences.

In 2023, Kajabi launched Kajabi Payments on Stripe to give creators a flexible way to develop their own pricing and subscription plans and collect revenue online. But creators still faced a hurdle in managing their businesses: there was no direct integration between Kajabi Payments and a creator’s accounting or bookkeeping software of choice. Instead, creators would have to manually record their payment data into their accounting software to reconcile expenses and revenue and monitor the financial health of their businesses.

“Our customers needed a seamless, integrated approach to accounting and bookkeeping, one that would minimize manual effort, reduce time spent on financial administration, and allow them to focus on what they do best—creating,” said Steph Visessung, VP of commerce, checkout, and analytics at Kajabi.

Kajabi began exploring ways to build a direct integration between Kajabi Payments and third-party bookkeeping software, but the process came with several challenges: finding a partner, spending time and development resources to learn new APIs and complete the integration, and managing ongoing maintenance and support. That prospect was daunting enough for one integration, but Kajabi had bigger plans. Looking longer-term, the company envisioned offering an ecosystem of third-party apps and solutions that complemented the features of its platform. Ideally, Kajabi could find a way to use its first third-party integration as the foundation for future additions.

Solution

Kajabi turned to its longtime partner Stripe for advice on a better way to perform third-party integrations. Stripe had recently launched a beta of embedded components for Apps, which extends Stripe Apps into platforms and marketplaces running on Stripe Connect. One of the first embeddable components for Apps available in the beta was the Xero app, which allowed Kajabi to implement a direct integration between Kajabi Payments and Xero’s small business cloud accounting software. This lets users access real-time financial data and is designed to manage the most important accounting workflows for small businesses.

Working through Stripe accelerated several steps in the process, eliminating the need for Kajabi to develop a business relationship with Xero. Because Stripe and Xero have a global strategic partnership, Stripe facilitated the engagement for a joint go-to-market collaboration.

Stripe also enabled the integration of embedded components for Apps, which meant that Kajabi’s team never had to interact with Xero APIs. As a Connect user, Kajabi was already deeply familiar with Stripe technology, allowing its team to move quickly through the development process. And by using embedded components for Apps, Kajabi kept its team free from the burden of ongoing maintenance and the need to support future updates. Instead, App developers like Xero own this process.

The integration process itself was simple. Over the course of a few days, Kajabi’s developers prepared a landing page to alert users to the new feature. They set up Stripe’s Connect.js with the ability to embed Connect embedded components into the platform. Then, the team added two lines of code needed to embed the Xero app into their platform. Finally, the Kajabi team defined what data it wanted to pass to Xero to display for its creators, and the app was ready to go live.

Once the integration was complete, the Xero app was available to Kajabi Payments users through their Kajabi dashboards. The integration automatically imports Kajabi Payments transactions into Xero’s accounting software. That meant creators could easily reconcile recent transactions with their other financial data for a clear view of their current business finances.

Results

Six-week integration process accelerates time to market

Using embedded components for Apps allowed Kajabi to complete the Xero integration in six weeks. That timeline is significantly faster than the 6 to 12 months it typically takes for most companies to complete a direct integration with a third-party software platform. The streamlined approach allowed Kajabi to focus on its go-to-market as it applies to the Xero integration, and it freed Kajabi developers to focus on enhancing the core functionalities of the platform.

Xero integration saves Kajabi creators 10 hours a month in administrative work

By streamlining and automating financial management tasks through the integration with Xero, Kajabi creators are now saving, on average, 10 hours per month. That efficiency gives them more time to focus on building their brands and creating content for their audiences.

Enabling embedded components for Apps allows Kajabi to extend its partner ecosystem

Embedded components for Apps is designed to help platforms scale beyond a single integration. Enabling embedded components for Apps is a one-time process, which meant that Kajabi was able to add a second app, QuickBooks Sync by Acodei, shortly after the Xero integration. The team simply needed to add two more lines of code to integrate that app and make small modifications to the list of data it wanted to pass from Kajabi Payments to QuickBooks Online, reducing the integration time to four weeks.

This repeatable process will make it easier for Kajabi to continue adding third-party integrations to its platform to meet its customers’ needs and continue delivering cutting-edge features to its creators.

“Integrating embedded components for Apps was a game-changer for us, accelerating our time to market and enhancing both our operations and user experience,” said Visessung. “This is more than just a technical upgrade; it’s about enhancing our platform to better serve and empower our creators. Stripe has been a key partner in helping us achieve this at scale.”

About Partner

Xero is an easy-to-use global cloud accounting platform for small businesses and their advisors. It provides 4.2 million subscribers with connections to an ecosystem of apps and financial institutions helping small businesses access a range of solutions.