Kartra vs Kajabi: The Ultimate Marketing Platform Showdown

Not quite sure which is the best choice between Kartra vs Kajabi?

No wonder. They have such a similar set of features that it can be a tough choice, especially if you haven’t taken a detailed look yet.

Don’t worry; this article will discuss everything you need to know about both platforms and compare them head to head. We’ll be taking an in-depth look at both of their features, pricing, and more so that you can make an educated decision on which is best for you.

Our Pick

Kartra

Kartra is the only all-in-one marketing platform you’ll ever need to grow & scale your business online!

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About Kartra

Kartra is a popular all-in-one funnel and website builder that launched in 2018.

Genesis Digital, the company behind Kartra, was founded in 2013 and has also been behind various other SaaS tools for online businesses like EverWebinar or WebinarJam.

Kartra is known to shine with impressive marketing automation and sales features that help business owners generate more revenue. However, we’ll talk about those later on in this article.

About Kajabi

Kajabi has been around a little longer than Kartra, as it was founded in 2010.

The platform is known to be one of the best software pieces for online education businesses. And, it brands itself as an all-in-one platform for course creators.

Kajabi has also become extremely popular over recent years, as it has an impressive number of 50,000 customers.

Which has better features?

Now that we have taken a basic look at both platforms let’s dive into the features.

Kartra Features

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, features are among the areas in which Kartra shines.

In fact, Kartra has such an extensive list of features that breaking them down individually would take way too long.

Instead, I’ll give you a bullet point list of the features and break down the main areas where Kartra beats Kajabi. Afterward, we’ll do the same vice-versa.

List of all of Kartra’s features:

• Kartra Checkouts
• Kartra Pages
• Kartra Leads
• Kartra Mail
• Kartra Funnels & Campaigns
• Kartra Memberships
• Kartra Videos
• Kartra Helpdesks
• Kartra Calendars
• Kartra Forms
• Kartra Affiliates
• Kartra Integrations
• Kartra Agency
• Kartra Marketplace

Kartra Mail & Leads System

The first area where Kartra has an advantage over Kajabi is the leads system and the autoresponder.

Kartra’s lead system is a lot more comprehensive than Kajabi’s, which also shows in their autoresponder. There’s simply a lot more information and metrics for you to use, such as, for example, your lead value.

As you can track your visitors’ behavior through your entire funnel, you can also use it as a trigger for your email automation sequences. Doing this allows you to send more targeted messages and ultimately increase your conversions.

To do this, Kartra uses a technology called behavior-adaptive-marketing.

Plus, Kartra also comes with a lot more triggers in general. For example, you can target your emails based on refunds or whether the recipient is an active affiliate.

Kartra Funnels & Campaigns

One of the significant differences between Kartra and Kajabi is funnels & campaigns.

Kartra comes with a range of pre-built funnels that you can easily use as your own. As you can imagine, this makes your job a lot easier, as you just need to select one of the pre-built funnels.

However, this feature comes with a lot more.

My favorite thing about it is that you get pre-built campaigns by some very influential marketers, for example, Frank Kern.

Kartra has partnered up with Marketers like Frank Kern to bring you campaigns that they created and written. So, you will have access to a library of funnels and campaigns have been written by Frank Kern, for example, the famous “4-day cash machine”.

As you can imagine, this can have a huge positive impact on your business with little effort.

You can also share your entire funnel with other Kartra users through a little code. This isn’t like ClickFunnels, where it only shares your web pages; Kartra lets you share everything, including your emails, your membership sites, even your helpdesk… You get the point, everything.

Kartra Affiliate Management

Another area in which Kartra really shines is affiliate management.

It has one of the most comprehensive and flexible affiliate management tools on the market.

I was particularly impressed by Kartra letting you create cost-per-action (CPA) affiliate programs. For example, you can choose to pay affiliates when a visitor they send enters their email.

Doing this gives you additional opportunities to market your business, and it’s something that most tools like this don’t offer.

Plus, the affiliate reporting is super-comprehensive, not only for you but also the affiliate.

It also has built-in tracking links that they can create, which will help them create better campaigns.

Overall, Kartra has done an outstanding job for this feature, and Kajabi can’t quite compete, as it only has the basics.

Kartra’s affiliate management also includes:

• Payment milestones
• Closed and open affiliate programs
• Paypal Adaptive payments
• Transaction and subscription based commissions
• Flexible commissions; by percentage or a fixed value

Kartra Analytics

Kartra has one of the most comprehensive analytics I have seen. For every feature inside, you get so much data to work with, which will help you reach the best possible decisions.

For example, in your emails, you can see metrics such as the ROI of an automation sequence. On your membership sites, you also get data that will show you insights on the retention of your students, or what videos did not engage them.

Again, this is pretty impressive.

Helpdesk

If you want to install a helpdesk on Kajabi, you’re going to need an external software piece. These can often charge you anywhere from $5 to $15 per user, which can quickly add up.

Kartra has a built-in helpdesk app, meaning you can easily support your customers. It’s also straightforward to add it onto any page you have created in Kartra, so it’s effortless to use.

(Scheduling) Calendar

Finally, Kartra also has a built-in calendar app. This feature is comparable to Calendly.com and will allow your clients to schedule appointments with you. You can choose whether you make these paid appointments or free in the settings; the choice is yours.

Again, the cool thing about this is that it’s in the same place as everything else. This means you can tag users after setting an appointment and start an automation sequence based on that.

Kajabi Features

As you have seen above, Kartra has set the standard quite high for features. However, there is a reason that Kajabi is as popular as it is. So, let’s take a look at what it has to offer:

Here are Kajabi’s main features:

• Membership site builder
• Free Unlimited Wistia video hosting
• Website builder & pages
• Payments & checkouts
• Email marketing
• Pipelines
• Analytics
• Mobile app
• Bullet point list

Interestingly, Kartra offers its own video hosting feature, while Kajabi offers free unlimited video hosting with Wistia. So, both platforms have video hosting, which is pretty useful,  as I’d assume you’re at least interested in selling a course.

We’ll talk about the page builder and templates later on, but Kajabi does outperform Kartra in the membership sites. This is where Kajabi specializes in, and it was to be expected, but I did explain that in a little more detail down below.

Engagement Tools

One of the areas where Kajabi does really well is helping customers engage their students.

The way Kajabi does this is through:

• Quizzes
• Surveys
• Assessments
• Community area inside of membership site

Kartra’s membership site builder doesn’t have these features. If you are looking to have these in Kartra, you will need to go for an external solution.

Membership Site Customization

Another area where Kajabi outperforms Kartra is the membership site customization. This isn’t really about features, as they both support multiple access levels, content locking, drip-feed content, etc.

However, Kajabi’s membership sites just look a bit nicer and offer more visual customization. But, both allow you to completely remove their branding and use your own.

So, this isn’t a big difference, but I still thought I would mention it.

Visual sales pipeline builder

Kajabi has a visual sales pipeline builder while Kartra doesn’t. This feature basically allows you to easily map out your sales pipeline to plan and manage your marketing campaigns.

This is a pretty cool feature because it can help visualize how you plan on converting your customers.

However, it’s not that significant since there are tools like Funnelytics that basically do the same thing for free. You just wouldn’t be able to manage it as easily.

IOS & Android App

One thing that I like about Kajabi is that it has a mobile app, or both IOS and Android. So, your students will be able to access your courses through it, which feels smoother than the browser.

Advantage: Kartra. Although Kajabi offers some great tools to make your membership site a great experience for your users, Kartra just does more. If you compare the benefits of Kartra’s additional features to Kajabi’s, they actually outweigh them by quite a bit, at least for most businesses.

How much does each cost?

Now that we have taken a look at what features the platforms have to offer let’s look at the cost they come with.

Kartra Pricing

Kartra has four main pricing plans:

• Starter $99 per month
• Silver $199 per month
• Gold $299 per month
• Platinum $499 per month

There is also a custom plan available for enterprise businesses. If you require it, you can contact customer support through the pricing page for more information.

I like Kartra’s s pricing because you get access to all features on every plan. The only exception for this is Kartra Agency, which is a feature that helps agencies manage their clients’ accounts.

Which plan is best for you depends on how many resources you need, as you can see in the image below.

The only thing that I find slightly annoying about Kartra’s pricing is that you only get 15,000 emails on the starter plan. However, there are add-ons available, which isn’t the case for any of the other plans. Apart from that, the pricing plans are solid, as they are suited for most businesses.

Kajabi Pricing

Kajabi has three pricing plans:

• Basic: $149 per month
• Growth: $199 per month
• Pro: $399 per month

As you can see in the image below, not every plan comes with all the features. So, make sure to keep that in mind if you go for Kajabi.

Another thing to keep in mind when going for Kajabi is the limit on websites. These are comparable to Kartra’s “domain” limits, but with Kajabi, the basic and growth plan only lets you have one. So, if you have two businesses you want to use Kajabi for, you’re forced to go on the Pro $399 plan.

Advantage: Kartra. This was only a slight win because of Kajabi not having all the features on every plan and the domain limit.

Everything else you need to know about Kartra vs Kajabi

Below, I’ve explained everything else you need to know about Kartra vs Kajabi.

Which is easier to use?

Kajabi wins the ease of use battle, as the user interface is a little cleaner than Kartra’s. Plus, as there are fewer features, so it’s easier to keep an overview.

Kajabi also makes the process easier through its visual sales pipeline builder, while there are many configuration steps with Kartra.

However, this doesn’t mean that Kartra is hard to use, but in comparison to Kajabi, it does lose out.

Advantage: Kajabi

Which has better support?

This one also goes to Kajabi because it’s been around for much longer. Therefore, it’s had more time to build out its support team. While Kartra only has email and ticketing support, Kajabi also offers live chat.

On the Grow and Plus plan, Kajabi offers unlimited live chat support, while on the Starter plan, it’s only during work hours.

Advantage: Kajabi

Which has more integrations?

Kajabi also has more integrations. However, this is partly because Kartra has a lot more features.

For example, for Kajabi, you’ll probably need an external autoresponder, helpdesk, calendar, and maybe even a page builder (which we’ll cover in a moment). Of course, this leads to Kajabi having more integrations.

Still, it’s a win for Kajabi as they have 32 integrations, compared to Kartra’s 20.

Advantage: Kajabi

Which has better templates?

For membership site templates, Kajabi wins. However, for every other step of your business, I like Kartra’s templates more.

Kartra has a lot more variety when it comes to templates for your web pages. You can easily build squeeze pages, webinar registration pages, or whatever type of page you can think of.  This also shows in the number of templates, as Kartra has over 100, while Kajabi has around 20.

Advantage: I would say Kartra has the better templates.

Which has the better page builder?

Both page builders are very easy to use, but Kartra has more elements and pop-up options. This means you’ll be able to add more functions to your pages. Kartra also lets you embed the pages anywhere you want, assuming you can use your own HTML.

I also find that Kartra’s page builder is easier to use than Kajabi, so this is a win for Kartra. That being said, it can occasionally have a slight lag.

Advantage: Kartra

My final thoughts

As you have seen throughout this article, both Kartra and Kajabi offer some great features for your business.

While Kartra focuses on providing you with the best possible marketing tools, Kajabi focuses on the back-end membership site builder more. However, they both perform well in each other’s specialties and give you a lot more than the basics.

Overall, I would say that Kartra has a slight advantage, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right for you. That’s why I’ve explained why you should choose each option down below in more detail.

Why you should go with Kartra

Kartra comes with some truly powerful marketing features that will help you generate sales through many channels. Two examples of this would be its email marketing tools and the affiliate management feature.

This, combined with pre-built campaigns for you to use, really should help you increase your sales.

Plus, with a built-in membership site builder, video hosting, and helpdesk, you’ll have everything you need to provide a great product for your students. Overall, Kartra helps you build a great marketing system for your business, which no other tool does in the same way.

Why you should go with Kajabi

Kajabi is also a great option for anyone with an education business, especially if you need the engagement tools. What Kajabi does well is helping you build the truly best-possible back-end membership site for your students.

And if you satisfy your customer, your business will benefit from it. Plus, it also has the basics of what Kartra specializes in; marketing tools. If you would like your business’ focus to go on the back-end membership site, and go beyond what Kartra provides there, then Kajabi is a great option.

Hey! Dylan here, I'm the guy behind HustlerSource. After years of building different online businesses from the ground up, I designed this website to help you find the right tools and strategies to grow your own business!