Kartra Vs Kajabi [2020]: Which is the Better Online Platform?

If you want to sell a course, build a digital product, or run your online business, you need a platform.

And in this post, I’ll be comparing Kartra and Kajabi: two platforms that empower you to run your entire online business.

While creating this Kartra vs Kajabi guide, I discovered that Kajabi is suitable for products and online courses while Kartra does a LOT more than that.

Want to know the better option for your business?

Let’s take a deep dive and see who wins the Kartra vs Kajabi debate.

What is Kartra?

Kartra is a complete online marketing platform with a variety of in-built tools that perform various functions such as building funnels, running email campaigns, hosting videos, managing affiliates, split A/B testing, run webinars, and more to run your entire online business from one place.

The platform was built by Andy Jenkins and Mike Filsaime in 2018 to empower entrepreneurs to run their business from one place.

They understand how FRUSTRATING and a huge waste of time it is to duct-tape a bunch of different solutions that must be together to our online business.

So they built Kartra!

And added all the various tools you need to power your online business in one place.

Whether it’s a landing page builder, checkout page, mailing tool, helpdesk portal, or affiliates management system, Kartra has it ALL.

What is Kajabi?

Kajabi is an online platform that allows you to create and sell online courses or digital products and run your online business in one place.

They give you the required tools you need to build a membership site, host your courses (or digital products), and deliver your content to your students with ease.

Kajabi was built by Kenny Rueter, and the platform is used by thousands of entrepreneurs including some popular names like Brendan Burchard and Amy Porterfield.

Even though selling courses and digital products is its major use case, you can do more than that.

You are able to build a website, blogs, sales funnels, and even run automated email campaigns with Kajabi.

Call it a combination of WordPress + ClickFunnels + ConvertKit + Teachable, all in one place.

That is the idea behind Kajabi.

Kartra Features

Page Builder

Kartra has an in-built page builder that allows you to build stunning, high converting pages in minutes.

You don’t need any extra tech or coding skills to use this.

And with the hundreds of stunning, well-designed page and section templates at your disposal, you also don’t need to hire a designer.

The page builder allows you to drag-and-drop desired on-page elements into a canvas, edit each element to taste and build your page from scratch. You can also start building from a page template and just customize each section.

And everything built with the Kartra page builder is 100% mobile responsive. You can preview your page while building in desktop, tablet, and mobile mode to ensure they look perfect and responsive on all platforms.

When you’re done building, Kartra allows you to publish your page to your desired domain under one-click.

Awesome stuff!

Checkouts

Kartra allows you to sell much more easily with its checkout features.

Whether it’s digital products, physical products, membership sites, and training courses, creating irresistible product pages that compel your visitors to buy hasn’t been easier.

You can set multiple price points for each product, and multiple payment methods also.

Kartra accepts payments with credit and PayPal as well and you can set up one-time, recurring, or installments payments for your customers.

And you are able to set up discount coupons, add upsells and order bumps to increase profit at the point of sale.

Kartra makes payment processes really easy and amazing!

Mails

Kartra helps you to get more opens, more clicks and more customers on your email campaigns.

They boast of having a world-class email platform that allows you to run automated email campaigns to achieve your business goals.

You can activate email automation based on your contacts’ actions and behaviors.

All thanks to its powerful IF and THEN automation system.

For example, Kartra can send your contact a follow-up mail if they didn’t open your previous email or take your desired action after X days.

You can also do Intelligent Split Testing with your email campaigns. You are able to split-test your email subject lines, content, design, and more to track and boost conversions.

To help you create awesome emails, Kartra has a ton of beautiful, well-designed email templates for you to choose from and customize for use.

Plus, email personalization is a cool breeze with Kartra Mails. You are able to personalize the message with custom tags to get more opens and give your contact a personalized marketing experience.

Funnels & Campaigns

If you love done-for-you systems, Kartra is a platform that should greatly interest you.

Kartra comes with done-for-you funnels & campaigns that you can directly use for your own business.

This battle-tested funnels and campaigns were built and used by top online marketing experts like Frank Kern and Andy Jenkins.

So you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Simply import at will and use these fully-built funnels and campaigns under one-click.

You can also import funnels and campaigns from other Kartra users that have been proven to convert via the Kartra marketplace.

Of course, you can build your OWN sales funnels and campaigns and even share your wonderful creations with the Kartra community via the marketplace.

Brilliant stuff!

Membership Sites

If you’ve got knowledge you want to share and sell online, Kartra has a feature for you.

Kartra Memberships is an in-built tool with features that empower you to deliver knowledge to your customers. Whether it’s a training course or a monthly membership community, you get all the flexibility you need to deliver your content with your customers or students.

You are able to build your membership site from scratch using a drag and drop interface or create using any of the professionally designed templates.

Uploading course content, structuring lessons, defining pricing and membership tiers is also a cool breeze with Kartra memberships.

And you can manage the learning experience of your students and track their progress as they go through your content.

Videos

You can get rid of Vimeo or any other external video hosting solutions tools you use when you have Kartra.

Kartra allows you to host your videos in one centralized dashboard with no hassles. Just upload them to Kartra and let them handle your video for you.

And they give access to choose the branding and control setting on the provided amazing video player. You can customize the look of your video player, hide the control bar, add call-to-actions, add checkout buttons, display social share buttons, and more.

You also get to see video analytics and stay aware of every play, clicks, watch rates, drop out rates, and more like never before.

This feature is more like a dream come true for every video marketer!

Helpdesks

Kartra empowers you to deliver world-class support to your customers.

They have a robust ticketing system that allows you to set up tickets and organize them for each department such as technical support, billing support, sales support, and others. This way, your team members in charge of each department can view and respond promptly to each ticket.

You can view your customer’s full profile, transaction history, save frequently used responses, and transfer tickets from one department to another.

Plus, there’s a live chat feature. You can attend to support requests in real-time and be there for your customers when they need you the most.

Calendars

You can schedule appointments and connect with your customers using Kartra Calendars.

This tool is a simple and intuitive interface that allows your customers to check, schedule, and book appointments with you.

Booking is done and updated in real-time so no two customers can book appointments at the same time.

You can also customize and brand your calendar, do dynamic time zone conversion if you have international clients, and manage your weekly agenda in one dashboard.

Cool stuff!

Forms

Kartra has a special in-built tool for creating awesome opt-in forms to capture leads for your business.

This tool empowers you to create your OWN opt-in forms from scratch. If you don’t have adequate design skills, you can choose from 50+ high converting opt-in form templates.

Kartra Forms auto-fill the opt-in fields and you can add your own custom fields whether its text inputs, checkboxes, dropdowns, or more.

These forms can be embedded in your pages or videos and you can tag each lead based on specific actions.

Affiliate Management

You can manage an army of affiliate marketers selling your products from one dashboard with Kartra.

You can create an affiliate sign up form, review affiliate applications, and approve them immediately.

With zero hassles.

Kartra keeps you informed of your affiliates. You know who’s making sales and who isn’t.

You also get to set Flexible commissions either by a percentage of sales or a fixed amount.

Integrations

Even though Kartra is a suite of tools, they still give you the liberty to integrate with your favorite third-party apps. You are able to integrate for every feature they provide.

For instance, they provide direct integrations with various category of tools including:
Payment gateways (PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, and Authorize.net)

• Email systems (SendGrid, PostMark, ElasticEmail, and MailGun.)
• SMS tools (Twilio, Plivo and Nexmo.)
• Membership systems (aMember V4, DAP, OptimizePress 2, S2 Member, Wishlist, and even Kajabi.)
• Calendar tools like Google Calendar

And you can connect with a lot of other tools using Zapier.

Affiliate Program

Kartra allows you to make money promoting their platforms.

The Kartra affiliate program pays you 40% recurring commissions (every month) for the lifetime of every customer you refer to use the platform.

And you can also earn by referring affiliates to Kartra. When you sign up as a 2nd tier JV Partner, you’ll get earn 10% recurring commissions for the life of every payment generated by your affiliates.

Plus, anytime your referrals upgrade their Kartra plan, your affiliate commissions will be updated instantly.

Awesome.

Kajabi Features

Products

Kajabi allows you to create and manage online courses, and digital products for your business.

This is where it greatly shines.

They give you the necessary tools you need to take your ideas and knowledge and turn them into useful, high-value products.

You are able to upload your course content in any format (text, video, image, audio, PDF files, and more). You can even import content directly from Dropbox or Google Drive if your content is hosted there.

For your videos, Kajabi provides you with unlimited video hosting to create the digital product or course of your dreams without any technical limitations.

And you can set custom pricing, delivery path, and packaging for your products.

To help your students learn and improve, you can create quizzes and assessments within your content.

Lastly, Kajabi allows you to understand how well your students are consuming your course with detailed insights and analytics.

Really awesome!

Website & Pages

On Kajabi, you get a drag-and-drop builder to build your professional website and landing pages all in one place.

They give you security, with the ability to add a custom domain, and unlimited hosting to host all of your site videos, photos, and other files.

You don’t need to hire a developer or worry about storage or bandwidth limits.

Plus, your website will be SEO-optimized. Which makes it easy for your target audience to find you on search.

You can also create fully-integrated landing pages for your business. There are several themes available to choose from (if you don’t want to start from an empty canvas).

Pick a landing page theme, customize to taste, and publish.

Pretty easy.

Payments & Checkout

Kajabi empowers you to get paid with no hassles!

They enable simple, seamless integration with Stripe and PayPal so you can get paid easier and faster.

You can also choose the mode of payment plan. Whether its monthly recurring payment to one-time payment plans or one-click upsells, Kajabi got you covered.

Kajabi has an integrated checkout page to receive payments from anyone in the world. You can even use one-click upsells in your checkout page to earn more profit from your students or customers.

And if you want to offer coupons for your products, Kajabi is up to the task.

You can also give your customers a free trial period for your product and roll them over into paying customers when they taste the value you’re offering.

Emails

Kajabi empowers you to run your email campaigns without any third-party tool.

So you don’t need external email tools such as MailChimp, Aweber, Convertkit, and others when you use Kajabi.

You are able to create beautiful custom emails FAST with Kajabi’s visual builder to grow and strengthen relationships with your audience.

This visual builder allows you to add images, videos, call-to-actions, and more in your email broadcasts.

You can also run automation with Kajabi.

Kajabi Campaigns allows you to run follow-up email sequences and custom automation triggers for your business to create interesting, personalized experiences for your audience.

When you automate, you’ll grow your business on autopilot. And you get quality time to focus on other things that matter.

Sounds cool, right?

Integrations

Kajabi allows you to add even more functionality with built-in Integrations.

You can integrate with various easy-to-use, built-in integrations with your favorite third-party tools to make it easier running your online business and selling digital content.

Some of these tools in various categories such as email marketing tools, payment processors, and more.

Plus, you get to integrate with Zapier. With a powerful Zapier integration, you can connect with over 500 apps (no jokes)!

Really flexible.

Affiliate Program

You can join forces with Kajabi to recommend the platform and make money and make a difference!

Kajabi Partner Program allows you to earn 30% recurring commission for the lifetime of the referred customer.

Asides the monthly commissions, you also get rewarded with various prizes (such as a dream car) as you grow through the ranks as a Kajabi Partner.

The only downside to the Kajabi Partner program is that you have to be an active Kajabi customer to promote the platform and earn revenue.

Kartra Pricing

Kartra offers four pricing plans for you to choose from to use the platform.

Each plan has some form of limitation that differentiates it from higher tiers. And they don’t charge you any transaction fee on any plan.

Instead, you get a 25% annual discount when you pay yearly along with a 14-day FREE trial for $1 only. Also, I have published a comprehensive Kartra pricing guide that goes into details on each plan.

Let’s take a look at each plan in detail.

Starter Plan for $99 per month

This plan is suitable for entrepreneurs and online business owners with little audience base.

You can save some money and pay $79 per month (annual billing saves $240) when you claim the annual discount.

Here are the features you get on the starter plan:

• 2,500 Leads
• 1 custom domain
• 15,000 emails per month
• 50 GB bandwidth
• 100 pages
• 50 videos
• 20 products
• 2 membership sites
• 1 additional team member
• 1 helpdesk

Silver Plan for $199 per month

This is Kartra’s most popular plan and is suitable for agencies and entrepreneurs with a large audience base.

You get to save $600 and pay $149 per month ($1788 billed annually) when you pay on a yearly basis for this plan.

And you get the following features on the silver plan:

• 12,500 Leads
• Emails (Unlimited)
• Bandwidth (Unlimited)
• 3 custom domains
• Pages (Unlimited)
• Videos (Unlimited)
• Products (Unlimited)
• Membership sites (Unlimited)
• Team members (Unlimited)
• Helpdesks (Unlimited)
• Kartra Agency

Gold Plan for $299 per month

The third plan gives you unlimited features and a lot fewer restrictions than the Silver plan.

It reduces to $229 per month (pay $2748 and save $840) when you pay on a yearly basis.

And you get the following features:

• 25,000 Leads
• 5 custom domains
• Emails (Unlimited)
• Bandwidth (Unlimited)
• Pages (Unlimited)
• Videos (Unlimited)
• Products (Unlimited)
• Membership sites (Unlimited)
• Team members (Unlimited)
• Helpdesks (Unlimited)
• Kartra Agency

Platinum Plan for $499 per month

This plan gives you ALL the features (Unlimited) of Kartra and you get to pay $379 per month when you pay yearly (pay $4548 and save $1440)

Here’s what you’ll get on the platinum plan:

• 50,000 Leads
• 10 custom domains
• Emails (Unlimited)
• Bandwidth (Unlimited)
• Pages (Unlimited)
• Videos (Unlimited)
• Products (Unlimited)
• Membership sites (Unlimited)
• Team members (Unlimited)
• Helpdesks (Unlimited)
• Kartra Agency

If you need enterprise-level accounts, you should reach out to Kartra support and they will arrange one for you according to special needs and demands.

In every Kartra plan, you get the following:

Kartra Checkouts

It allows you to sell your products and services online using an in-built secure checkout form. It can accept both credit cards and PayPal payments.

Kartra Pages

You are able to create amazing, mobile-optimized landing pages using the drag-and-drop page builder and hundreds of well-designed templates.

Kartra Forms

You can build awesome lead capture forms with desired custom fields and powerful automation rules using Kartra forms.

Kartra Leads

This feature allows you to nurture and manage the leads and prospects you’ve captured and thereafter build a customer database.

Kartra Funnels & Campaigns

With this feature, you can build a multi-page funnel flow to attract visitors, generate leads, convert leads into customers, and customers into recurrent clients in Kartra!

Kartra Mail

You are able to engage with your leads and customers with live or automated email and SMS marketing campaigns on Kartra Mail.

Kartra Memberships

You are able to use a special drag-and-drop membership portal builder to build your membership site and deliver your course content.

Kartra Affiliate Management

If you need a single platform to recruit, onboard, manage, pay, and track an army of affiliates promoting your products, say no more. Kartra has got you covered!

Kartra Marketplace

You get a special integrated marketplace to sell your ideas, funnels, and campaigns to the Kartra community.

Kartra Videos

You are able to host your marketing videos, add CTAs within videos, collect leads within videos and track video analytics, and more on Kartra. It’s a dream come through for video marketers!

Kartra Helpdesks

The helpdesk portal allows you to provide various types of support to your customers using support ticketing and live chat inside Kartra.

Kartra Calendars

Your customers can schedule and book one-to-one scheduled appointments with you all from within the integrated Kartra calendar dashboard.

Kartra Agency

This feature is available only on the Silver and above plan. You get to manage your entire clients’ accounts and agency portfolio from a central console. 

To help you sign up and purchase with utmost confidence, Kartra is offering you a 30-day money-back guarantee.

If for any reason you’re not satisfied with Kartra within 30 days after your purchase, you can receive a full refund when you contact support or use the help desk.

Kajabi Pricing

Kajabi has three pricing plans and they all offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited video hosting, and zero transaction fees.

Before that, they give you a 14-day FREE trial to try out the platform. And you also save money by taking advantage of the 20% annual discount when you pay yearly.

Basic Plan for $149 per month

This plan is great for entrepreneurs with little digital products to sell. You pay $119 per month if you choose to pay for the Kajabi basic plan on a yearly basis ($1,428 billed annually) and you get the following features:

• 3 Products
• 3 Pipelines
• Landing Pages (Unlimited)
• Emails (Unlimited)
• 10,000 Contacts
• 1,000 Active Members
• 1 Website
• 1 Admin User
• Kajabi University
• 0% Transaction Fee
• Webinars & Events
• Ready to Use Templates
• Assessments (Quizzes & Surveys)
• Chat Support
• Automation

Growth Plan for $199 per month

This is the most popular Kajabi plan useful for large businesses and organizations. You can pay $159 per month when you pay for this plan on a yearly basis ($1,908 billed annually) and it comes with the following features:

• 15 Products
• 15 Pipelines
• Landing Pages (Unlimited)
• Marketing Emails (Unlimited)
• 25,000 Contacts
• 10,000 Active Members
• 1 Website
• 10 Admin Users
• Kajabi University
• 0% Transaction Fee
• Webinars & Events
• Ready to Use Templates
• Assessments (Quizzes & Surveys)
• 24/7 Chat Support
• Advanced Automations
• Ability to Remove Kajabi Branding
• Affiliate Program

Pro Plan for $399 per month

If your large company or organization want to sell a large suite of multiple products, then this product is your best bet. Plus, you can pay $319 per month ($3828 billed annually) when you apply the annual discount.

Here are the features you get on the Pro plan:

• 100 Products
• 100 Pipelines
• Unlimited Landing Pages
• 2,000,000 Marketing Emails
• 100,000 Contacts
• 20,000 Active Members
• 3 Websites
• 25 Admin Users
• Kajabi University
• 0% Transaction Fee
• Webinars & Events
• Ready to Use Templates
• Assessments (Quizzes & Surveys)
• 24/7 Chat Support
• Advanced Automations
• Ability to Remove Kajabi Branding
• Affiliate Program
• Code Editor

Final Words

Now that we’ve closely compared Kartra vs Kajabi and seen what each tool can do and what they cost.

Here’s my final verdict for the Kartra vs Kajabi debate.

If you’re only looking to sell courses and digital products, go with KAJABI.

You can’t go wrong with Kajabi if your business revolves around creating online courses and digital products. It was essentially built for that purpose.

And its features are well-tailored to those use cases.

That’s it.

On the other hand, Kartra is a BETTER fit if you want to run your online business and manage the various parts from one central place.

You get to build sales funnels, run webinars, manage affiliates, host your marketing videos, leverage done-for-you campaigns and much more with Kartra.

Which TOOL is better for your business?

Let me know in the comment box below!