Annual vs Monthly Billing: What You Save

The annual discount on these platforms is real, and the headline percentage describing it often is not. GoHighLevel charges exactly ten monthly payments for twelve months. Teachable advertises 22% and gives more than that on two of its three plans. Kartra advertises up to 22% and gives 11.9% on its cheapest plan. ClickFunnels and Thinkific both print dollar savings that do not reproduce from their own per-month figures. Nine pricing pages were read on October 11, 2026, and the arithmetic below is ours, using only the numbers those pages publish.

Every discount here lands between 11% and 26%

The cheapest annual commitment relative to monthly is Kartra Essentials at $59 against $52, which is 11.9% off. The deepest is Teachable Growth at $189 against $139, which is 26.5% off.

Between those two sit ClickFunnels at roughly 16%, GoHighLevel and systeme.io at about 17%, Kajabi at 20%, Leadpages at a stated 20%, Thinkific at around 25% and Unbounce at a stated 25%.

All of those percentages are ours, calculated from the published monthly and annual figures. Only Teachable, Kartra, Unbounce and Leadpages print a percentage themselves.

That spread is wide enough to matter. On a $200-a-month tool the difference between an 11% and a 26% discount is roughly $360 a year, which is more than most buyers save by switching vendor.

GoHighLevel's annual price is exactly ten monthly payments

Its page lists Starter at "$97 /Month" or "$970 /Year", Unlimited at "$297 /Month" or "$2970 /Year" and Agency Pro at "$497 /Month" or "$4970 /Year".

Divide each annual figure by the monthly one and the answer is ten in all three cases. Ten payments covering twelve months is two months free, or 16.7% off. That division is ours.

systeme.io states the same structure in plain words rather than numbers: its billing toggle reads "Annual billing 2 months free", applied to Startup at $17, Webinar at $47 and Unlimited at $97 a month.

Two months free is the easiest version of this offer to verify, because there is nothing to recalculate. It is also, at 16.7%, in the middle of the range rather than at the generous end.

Verifying it still means opening the checkout, since the yearly figure and the per-month figure are rarely printed together. That is the first instruction in our funnel builder pricing page reading order.

Teachable's headline understates two of its own three plans

The page labels its annual column "22% savings". Starter moves from $39 to $29 a month, Builder from $89 to $69 and Growth from $189 to $139.

Those are discounts of 25.6%, 22.5% and 26.5% on our arithmetic. Only Builder matches the headline; the other two plans are better than advertised, which is an unusual direction for a pricing page to err in.

The dollar figures on the same page are exact. "Save $120", "Save $240" and "Save $600" each reproduce precisely from the per-month gap multiplied by twelve, so the dollar rows are the ones to trust.

Teachable's annual plan also carries a second effect worth pricing. Its Starter tier charges a 7.5% transaction fee where Builder and Growth charge "0%*", so committing annually to Starter locks in that cut for a year.

Kartra's "up to" carries the whole claim

The page advertises "Save up to 22%". Essentials moves from $59 to $52 a month, Starter from $119 to $99, Growth from $229 to $189 and Professional from $549 to $429.

Those work out at 11.9%, 16.8%, 17.5% and 21.9% on our arithmetic. The advertised 22% is reached only on the $549 plan, and the cheapest plan gets barely half of it.

This is the clearest example in the group of why a headline percentage should be recalculated per plan. The words "up to" are doing all the work, and they are easy to read past.

Kajabi takes the opposite approach and publishes no percentage at all: $179 to $143, $249 to $199 and $499 to $399. Those are 20.1%, 20.1% and 20.0%, which is the most consistent discount on any page here.

Rounded per-month figures do not always reproduce the stated savings

ClickFunnels Launch is $97 a month or $81 billed annually, with the page printing "Save $194/year". Twelve months at $97 is $1,164 and twelve at $81 is $972, a gap of $192.

The same two-dollar drift appears on Scale, where $197 against $164 gives $396 while the page prints "Save $394/year", and on Optimize, where $297 against $248 gives $588 against a printed "Save $594/year".

Thinkific shows the same effect. Basic at $54 and $40 gives $168 against a printed "Save $173 by billing annually". Start at $109 and $82 gives $324 against a printed $330. Grow's $660 matches exactly.

None of this is a large sum. It means the displayed per-month figure is a rounded presentation of the real annual charge, so the invoice should be checked rather than assumed from the card.

The same drift appears on contact and send rows, where a rounded cap on the card differs from the one enforced in the account. Catching both is the reason the free trial checklist imports the real list on day one.

Leadpages prints two different entry prices on the same page

The plan cards read Pro $15, Business $25, Grow $50 and Optimize $100 a month, with a toggle labelled "Monthly / Annual" and the line "Save 20% with annual billing".

The introductory paragraph on the same page reads "Plans starting at $29/mo to build and publish. Testing & Optimization features starting at just $99/mo", and the page title reads "Plans from $29/mo".

The toggle state attached to each of those figures was not readable from the page as rendered on October 11, 2026. So $15 and $29 are both published entry prices for the same plan, and only one is the monthly rate.

The practical instruction is narrow: on any page with a billing toggle, take the price from the checkout rather than the card. That step is near the top of the funnel builder pricing page reading order.

What annual billing costs that the discount does not show

• The ceiling is locked with the price. ClickFunnels Launch includes 10,000 contacts, so a twelve-month commitment is a commitment to that cap as well as to that rate.
• The transaction fee is locked too. Teachable Starter's 7.5% cut applies for the whole term, and the editorial break-even against the 0% Builder plan is roughly $667 of monthly sales at list prices.
• Refund windows are shorter than the term. ClickFunnels and Kajabi both publish a "30-day money back guarantee". No equivalent wording was readable on the GoHighLevel, Kartra, Teachable or Leadpages pricing pages on October 11, 2026.
• Trial lengths vary widely: thirty days on Thinkific, fourteen on ClickFunnels, GoHighLevel, Kartra, Kajabi and Unbounce, seven on Leadpages. A seven-day trial is not long enough to test a year's commitment.
• Automatic renewal is the default. GoHighLevel states that "Billing begins automatically at the end of any free trial unless canceled," which is the industry norm rather than an outlier.
• The discount is not a reason to buy the wrong tier. Twenty per cent off a plan that caps seats at one is more expensive than full price on the plan that does not.

Testing the cap before committing to twelve months of it is the whole point of a trial, and the day-by-day order for that is in the fourteen-day free trial checklist.

Frequently asked questions

How much does annual billing usually save on a funnel builder?

Between roughly 11% and 26% across the nine pages read on October 11, 2026. The most common structure is two months free, which is 16.7%, used by both GoHighLevel and systeme.io.

Which vendor gives the biggest annual discount?

Teachable, on our arithmetic: $189 to $139 a month on Growth is 26.5% off, and $39 to $29 on Starter is 25.6%. Its own page advertises the smaller figure of 22%.

Which gives the smallest?

Kartra Essentials, at $59 monthly against $52 annually, which is 11.9% off. The same page advertises "Save up to 22%", a figure only its $549 Professional plan approaches at 21.9%.

Why do the stated dollar savings not match the per-month prices?

Because the per-month figure on the card is rounded. ClickFunnels prints "Save $194/year" on Launch where $97 against $81 gives $192, and Thinkific prints "Save $173" on Basic where $54 against $40 gives $168.

Can I get a refund if I commit annually?

ClickFunnels and Kajabi both publish a 30-day money-back guarantee. No equivalent wording was readable on the GoHighLevel, Kartra, Teachable, Thinkific, Unbounce or Leadpages pricing pages on October 11, 2026.

Should I ever pay monthly instead?

Yes, while the correct tier is still in doubt. A locked annual plan also locks the contact cap, seat count and transaction fee for the term, and those cost more to get wrong than the discount is worth.

Does the annual price change the included limits?

On every page read here the limits are attached to the plan, not the billing period. Annual billing changes the rate only, which is why the tier decision should be made before the billing decision.

Bottom line

Recalculate the discount per plan rather than trusting the headline. Three of the four vendors that publish a percentage understate or overstate it on at least one tier, and the dollar rows are consistently more reliable than the percentages.

Then decide the tier before the billing period. The discount is between 11% and 26%; choosing a tier whose seat or contact cap is one notch too low costs far more than that over twelve months.

Finally, take the number from the checkout screen. On at least one of these pages two different entry prices are published for the same plan, and the card is not the binding figure.

The row-by-row order for making that tier decision is in how to read a funnel builder pricing page, and the testing schedule that confirms it before the term starts is the free trial checklist.