Welcome to my Kartra review, in which we’ll take a detailed look at what exactly this software does and how you can use it.

Unlike many other Kartra reviews, I’m not going to try and make you purchase it by acting like it’s a silver bullet to all your problems. Instead, I’ll help you figure out whether Kartra is the right fit for you because Kartra only really works for a specific type of person which we’ll talk about later on.

And, if you’re not this type of person, then Kartra will probably not have an impact on your online business and will therefore not work for you. On the flip side, if you are the right type of person, Kartra can help you grow more than probably any other software you have used before.

Kartra Review: Overview

Here’s some basic information about the platform including the official website, starting price & more.

What Is Kartra? 

Kartra is a platform that promises to be an all-in-one marketing solution for businesses that helps them build all types of web pages, stay connected, and sell more products.

The company behind Kartra, Genesis Digital was founded in 2013 and has also created other popular software for online businesses like WebinarJam or EverWebinar. However, Kartra wasn’t launched until 2018, so it’s a fairly new product.

Before the founders behind Kartra started building the platform, their goal was to create an “InfusionSoft killer” by creating a more powerful and easier-to-use alternative. InfusionSoft is extremely complex and often requires some type of coding knowledge which is why many businesses try to do it themselves.

Who Is Kartra For? 

Kartra works incredibly well for a wide range of businesses, but only if their concept works. Don’t worry, I’ll talk a little more about this in a moment.

Some businesses that Kartra can work well for include:

• Agencies
• Affiliates
• E-Commerce Stores
• Info product vendors
• Service businesses
• Marketers
• Consultants

One thing I would say is that if you want to use your Kartra sites to rank well in search engines like Google, I’m going to have to disappoint you. While Kartra does have blog pages, I can’t imagine them competing them in search engines with an SEO-friendly CMS like WordPress.

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t use both. For example, you can have your blog on WordPress and your funnels on Kartra with a subdomain. Plus, you can also embed your Kartra pages into WordPress by copying and pasting a piece of code (It is that easy).

Kartra Will Only Help You IF… (Important – Read Carefully)

This is just my opinion but I wanted to mention it before we get started with the Kartra review, as there is no need in wasting your time if it’s not right for you.

Nobody tells you this but…

Kartra will only help you generate more revenue if your online business generates any revenue. If not, then it probably won’t.

A lot of Kartra reviews act like Kartra is a silver bullet that can take a business from 0 to 6-figures, but that simply isn’t true. The tools inside of Kartra work well for existing businesses that are already generating some kind of revenue, it doesn’t have to be a lot but it has to be some kind.

Just using Kartra when you have no idea how to sell whatever products you’re selling, won’t change the situation. You have to know how to use these tools effectively for your online business.

Does that mean you can’t have success with Kartra if your business has never generated revenue before? No. If you have a solid plan behind what you’re doing, a problem to solve, and understand the tools, then Kartra can work well for you as well.

Even, if you’re an affiliate for health products with an email list of like 300 people that generates you lets say $300 per month, Kartra could work for you. For example, you could create a course with Kartra + group with monthly updates that you sell instead of your affiliate products. Suddenly, you could be generating $1K+ per month instead of $300.

You can also sell affiliate products, but this was just an example.

The point is, if you want Kartra to work for you, you need your business to work. If your business is already working, I would bet that Kartra could increase your revenue.

Kartra Academy

Something that I also thought I’ll mention in this Kartra review is the Academy that it comes with.

The courses and educational material inside of Kartra are completely free which is pretty nice. Some material is related to marketing and copywriting, but most will teach you how Kartra fo can be used for your marketing campaigns.

Once you understand how to use the power behind the Kartra features, your online business will grow exponentially. But, again, you need the fundamental knowledge of how to sell whatever products you’re selling, else Kartra won’t change anything for you.

So, if you feel like Kartra is for you, but you’re just not quite sure how to use it for your marketing campaigns, these courses could be extremely beneficial. Plus, learning about Kartra, marketing, and copywriting from the pro’s and founder is always a good thing, right?

Kartra Features: What Does Kartra Do? 

If you’re still here at this point, I’m going to assume that you have some pretty significant interest in using Kartra for your marketing campaigns to grow your business.

For this reason, I’m going to provide you with some thorough insight into the features, so that you know exactly what to expect after reading this Kartra review.

If you prefer, you can also check out the list of features on the website.

Page builder & Templates

Kartra comes with a world-class page builder that makes building your website easy. You may know Kartra, as a sales funnel builder but it is much more than that, as you’ll see later on.

There are 100’s of templates for all types of different pages including:

• Home pages
• Landing pages
• Product launch pages
• Coming-soon pages
• Thank you pages
• Squeeze pages
• Long sale pages
• Upsell and downsell pages
• Video sales letter pages
• Check out pages
• Error 404 pages

All of these templates can easily be edited with the page builder, making it easy to build your website or funnels extremely fast.

Plus, some others as well if you dig deeper, but these are the main ones. I’ve seen many landing page templates, but the ones in Kartra blew me away completely.

Normally, landing page templates are a little too similar to each other, but Kartra has such a huge variety which I was impressed by.

The page builder is drag & drop and the templates are beautiful, but there is one thing I don’t like about the builder.

It’s not quite as flexible for example the Unbounce landing page builder. What I mean by that is that you can’t move around elements however you want them, you can just put them into one of the blocks Kartra tells you to.

So if you put it into a block and want to move it to the left or right just a tiny bit, that isn’t possible. However, all the blocks are well calculated which means they are the best places to put elements. That being said, when I first used the Kartra page builder, I did find this part a little annoying.

To be fair, it’s the same with ClickFunnels and other popular funnel builders. Many people try to compare Kartra vs ClickFunnels, but Kartra is CF on steroids.

Building a sales funnel with Kartra is easier and more effective, as it simply has everything you need to build it effectively. 

Plus, you won’t find another sales funnel builder that has so many other features that combine this well with the page builder. In terms of ease of use, it kills it as well.

Behavior Adaptive Marketing (BAM)

Kartra also has a feature called behavior adaptive marketing which allows your funnel to adapt based on the behavior of your visitors.  This allows you to get your message to market match spot on, as you’ll give your audience exactly what their behavior tells you they want.

BAM is a feature that’s available to all Kartra users. You can also use BAM on all the other features, but I thought it would make sense to mention it early on so that I don’t forget to tell you about it.

All users can use BAM on:

• Their pages
• Checkouts
• Emails
• Memberships
• Videos
• Copy
• Button Text/Color
• Payments
• Offers

BAM allows you to give users what they want without them asking for it. In general, I can’t think of any other page builders in a similar pricing range that offer this feature.

Kartra Shopping Cart

To complement the beautiful pages and templates, Kartra also comes with a comprehensive shopping cart tool.

You may have heard of checkout tools like SamCart that let you create shopping carts with order bumps, one-click upsells, and downsells… Kartra does the exact same.

Plus, Kartra’s shopping cart templates are beautiful as well.

In case you’re not quite sure about order bumps and all that type of stuff, I got some quick definitions for you below:

Order bump: Little checkbox or switch at checkout, in Kartra it’s a switch. When your customers turn it on, they purchase another product. (See image below).

One-click Upsell & Downsell: A one-click Upsell is a separate page after you have already sold a product to the customer where they can purchase with just one-click (as you already have CC details). If they decline this offer you can have a downsell page where they can also purchase with one-click.

Normally on a downsell page, you would offer them a discount or a smaller quantity of the previous offer.

Make sure to use these shopping cart features or at least try them, as they can increase your revenue significantly.

Kartra Email Marketing

Just like most marketers, I love email marketing.

So, if Kartra didn’t perform well in this field, it would be a big blow. Luckily, it has an autoresponder that matches the likes of ActiveCampaign or GetResponse’s email marketing functionality. It’s even a little better as it’s on the same dashboard as everything else.

This also gives you the ability to create tags based on additional events, but we’ll talk more about that later on. So, after building your email list, you’ll have even more opportunities to engage your audience.

It pretty much does everything ActiveCampaign does other than the CRM. The deliverability is just as good which doesn’t only make it easy to build your email list but also actually get your emails delivered.

A look at the Templates

Kartra has some pretty nice email templates, although I don’t use them at all. The reason I don’t use them isn’t that they don’t look nice or don’t convert, it’s the same reason why I never use templates no matter which autoresponder I’m using.

In my opinion, using lots of images in email marketing makes your email look like an advertisement. Plus, when the servers receive emails that are full of image code, then they’re probably going to put the email into the promotions tab.

Nonetheless, it doesn’t take away from the fact that Kartra has stunning email templates too as you can see in the image below.

Comprehensive Split-testing

Just like any other powerful email marketing software, Kartra also comes with comprehensive split-testing functionality.

You can split-test up to 4 emails at once and set up an automatic winner based on the percentages that you configure. You can split-test both the body and subject line of your email, so you can make the variations as similar or different as you’d like.

Given the overall quality of Kartra, I would have expected this type of split-testing functionality, so it’s good that Kartra meets my expectations.

Behavior-based Automations

Of course, behavior-based automation sequences are an essential part of email marketing.

If you have used something like ClickFunnels before you may have been disappointed with their automation sequences, but Kartra is the complete opposite. As I mentioned earlier, Kartra Mail has more tagging events and triggers than most pieces of email marketing software.

For example, as your autoresponders on the same software, as your affiliate platform, you can trigger a particular email to send IF the contact is an affiliate. That’s pretty cool and something you couldn’t do in most pieces of email marketing software.

The email sequences inside of Kartra, also combine well with the BAM technology for pages as you can make a page look different based on your automation events. So, if you were worrying about Kartra’s email sequence builder, I can assure you that there is no need to worry, as you’ll fall in love with them.

The sequence builder performs well in power and ease of use making it another outstanding Kartra feature.

Broadcast Emails

Broadcast emails… There isn’t too much to say about them, as they’re the most standard part of email marketing.

But, what I would say is that they also have:

• Detailed Analytics
• Split-testing
• Cool templates

Other than that, they are standard just like with any other email marketing software.

Detailed Analytics

The analytics inside of Kartra is better than most pieces of email marketing software. They’re visual, comprehensive, and have some cool data that not many other autoresponders have. For example, you’ll have analytics like the ROI of an email/automation or the lead value.

Analytical data like this will help you scale as it will give you a better understanding of the monetary numbers.

You also have comprehensive analytics on:

• Emails opened
• Subscriptions
• Cancellations
• Click rates
• And… much more.

Again, in terms of analytics Kartra blows away pretty much any other autoresponder, another 5/5 star feature.

(Done-For-You) Campaigns & Funnels

Kartra also has a huge selection of done-for-you campaigns and pre-made funnels that you can import. Not only are they done-for-you, but the campaigns and funnels have also pre-written copy written by big marketers like Frank Kern.

You’ll love these if you already have a product or service. You can plug it in and you’re ready to go.

For example, on a particular email, it will give you the entire copy but the only things you need to fill in are the benefits or pain points.

And, of course, you can also create your funnels and campaigns using all of the features inside of Kartra.  Once you have them saved under a particular campaign name, you can also share the entire campaign (with emails & everything else) with other Kartra users.

Pretty cool, right?

Make sure to check these out, as they allow you to leverage Frank Kern’s copy for your products. You get access to several different pre-made campaigns and sales funnels created by him which include:

• Opt-in pages
• Sales pages
• thank you pages
• Emails

There are also dozens of campaigns for a range of different businesses including service, consulting, agencies, info-product vendors and more.

With people like Frank Kern writing your copy, building out your high converting sales funnel will be easy. Plus, you have everything you need in your all-in-one dashboard.

Online marketing does not get much easier than this.

Memberships

The Kartra membership builder will be extremely beneficial if you sell any type of info product. Of course, not everyone reading this Kartra review will be interested in creating a membership site, but it’s always nice to have.

Also, just like everything else inside of Kartra, it comes with a range of beautiful templates to make your life easier.

Drip Feed Content

If you have created memberships before, you’ll know that it’s so important to be able to drip-feed content. It allows you to make sure your customers are not watching too much at once and it also allows you to charge monthly on your memberships.

You won’t always use this feature, but not having it would be so annoying. Luckily, the Kartra membership builder has it.

Variety of File Types Support

Kartra memberships support all types of files including:

• MP4 (through their video hosting)
• YouTube Videos
• Written
• Images
• MP3/Audio

This is great, as it doesn’t limit you on file types. If you just want to give your customers a quick note, or an audio file you can do so.

Membership Tiers

One of the most annoying things with some membership site platforms is not being able to have multiple membership/pricing tiers.

For example, you could have a course that sells for $199, but you might also have an additional upsell for $99. So, then you of course want to segment these two groups of customers and only give access to the upsell to the group that purchased it.

With some memberships, you can’t do this, but luckily with Kartra, you can!

Progress Trackers

Kartra memberships also have comprehensive membership tracking which is always nice. This is useful to get an understanding of which videos your customers are watching and where they are stopping. For example, if you have a free membership site that you monetize through selling a product at the end and everyone is only watching 50%, then you need to figure out why that is.

With comprehensive progress trackers inside of Kartra, you can even see at which videos your users have watched. You can also see averages of all progress by your customers.

Again, Kartra performs just like a high-quality membership site builder which is insane, when you consider all the other features this software comes with.

Multi-site Portals

With Kartra, you can also create multi-site portals. Multi-site portals are used for when you are selling multiple courses but want them on the same storefront so that visitors can see them all on one page.

For example, you might have a course on SEO and one on copywriting. With this feature, you can have both of them on the same storefront, now if somebody wants to purchase both, they can.

Robust Analytics

Robust analytics are essential if you want to know exactly what your members are doing. Knowing what your members are doing, will allow you to create better memberships and will ultimately increase your sales.

Some of the analytics that you have access too include:

• Subscription rates
• Cancellation rates
• Member Progress
• Average Retention time
• Members’ time to complete

Upsells

Remember I told you about one-click upsells inside of the checkouts? Well, it’s the same for your membership sites and they’re still one-click if you are using stripe. That’s insane.

For example, you could have sold somebody a course, one month later while accessing that course they decide to upgrade through the button inside of your membership. No, it doesn’t ask them for their credit card info, it just instantly upgrades them.

I’m not sure if there is ANY other software that lets you do this. Again, another outstanding feature that I just had to mention in this Kartra review!

It truly is a special all-in-one platform.

Video Hosting

In the modern world of online marketing, you’re probably going to need some type of videos for your sales pages, memberships, or other components of your funnels. With most other funnel and page builders, you would have to use an external video hosting platform like Wistia which often costs $99 per month.

With Kartra, you don’t need any external tool to host your videos.

However, Kartra also comes with video hosting functionality. You can upload your videos (MP4 files), add CTA’s and overlays.

What I would say is that, if you’re on the Kartra starter plan, you only get 50gb storage. If you’re hosting videos for an entire course, then that’s probably going to take up that storage extremely so that’s something to look out for. All other plans come with unlimited storage, but we’ll talk more about that later on.

Helpdesks

A nice little bonus is the Kartra help desk tool. Unless you have a lot of users, help desk tools aren’t usually that expensive to be fair, but you don’t need an external one when using this software.

However, just like with all other Kartra’s features it’s cool to have it in the same dashboard, like all these other features. Plus, always having a helpdesk available will help you increase your conversions and also improve the user experience.

Ticket Segmentation

You can segment your tickets by departments which makes it easy to assign the right type of support agent to the matter.

Some departments you can segment your tickets by include:

• technical support
• billing support
• sales support

I like this, as it just makes the whole support process much quicker and easier.

Multi-Agent Collaboration

Something that is also quite cool is that you can add another agent to the conversion. You can also send private messages from an agent to another and transfer a ticket to another agent or department. This makes it easy for your agents to collaborate to provide the best support possible.

Integrated Billing

Because everything is inside of Kartra, you can access all the customer information, transaction history, and billing management, from inside of the helpdesk ticket. Again, this is something that I have praised several times throughout this Kartra review as it makes your life so much easier when everything is in one dashboard.

Canned Responses

And, of course… Canned responses which make your life easier as you can help a customer in a click of a button.

This is also pretty standard, but so useful.

High- Converting Calendars

Kartra also has a pretty sleek calendar app to help you book appointments.

And, it’s also just as advanced as a normal calendar app.

Take a look at some of the features:

• Real-time booking management
• Dynamic timezone conversion
• Mobile, tablet computer
• Multi-class Calendars
• Branded Calendar

Affiliates & Marketplace

We also have the affiliates & marketplace feature which also will help you sell more products.

This Kartra feature is also better than many actual affiliate management platforms. Plus, you also get access to the marketplace which sends you an army of hungry affiliates applications to sell your products for you.

Or, if you’re an affiliate yourself, you can also use the marketplace to find affiliates in a variety of different niches.

If you have ever used a website like ClickBank, this is basically what the marketplace is.

Comprehensive Communication Ability

You can trigger email or SMS events & tags based on how an affiliate is performing, whether they are an active affiliate, and several other events. This gives you the ability to communicate everything closely so that your business partnership is as profitable as it can be.

Review and approve affiliates

Of course, you probably don’t want every tom dick and harry promoting your products, right?

That’s cool, as Kartra allows you to review and approve affiliates if you want to. So, there is no need to worry about getting the wrong type of affiliate as you are in full control.

Flexible Payments & Commissions

Payments and commissions in Kartra’s affiliate platform are as flexible as it gets.

For commissions & payments you can:

• Choose a minimum amount that affiliates need to earn to withdraw
• Set commissions globally or by product
• Set commissions by percentage or fixed dollar amount
• Pay per lead or pay per sale – You choose!

Again, I can’t think of many actual affiliate management platforms that compare to this.

Custom Affiliate Landers & Portals

You can also build custom portals and landing pages just for your affiliates. This means, if you want to allow your affiliates to send their visitors to a particular page, you can do so.

Kartra Agency

Last but not least, there is also Kartra Agency which can be useful if as the name suggests… you own some type of agency.

This feature allows you to manage clients’ accounts and also sell Kartra accounts, but you gain 40% of the sales.

So, you can sell accounts and then still also manage the account, which is pretty cool. It’s basically like a white-label feature.

This feature is only available in the silver plan and up.

How Can You Use Kartra To Grow Your Online Business?

In this Kartra review, I’ve run you through the most important features of the probably best all-in-one platform on the market, Kartra.

Now the question is… How can Kartra grow your online business?

The features inside of Kartra combine well and have the ability to increase your conversions exponentially if you use them correctly. You can build high converting pages and checkouts while combining them with emails that sell, strong memberships, and an army of affiliates.

Not only that… Kartra makes it pretty easy to use all of these features with pre-written copy and done-for-you campaigns.

If this Kartra review, has sparked some ideas for you on how you can use this platform to grow your business, then you can.

Kartra is a marketer’s dream.

What Others Say About Kartra…

To help you get a better understanding of whether Kartra is good, I decided to get some reviews from other people.

Spoiler alert: People love it as much as I do.

It has just helped so many people generate more sales, it’s quite fascinating.

Kartra Pricing: How Much Does Kartra Cost?

As you have seen throughout this Kartra review, this marketing platform is pretty awesome. But, just like most other things in life it does come at a price.

Now, as I mentioned many times throughout this article, this cost will only be worth it for you if your business is generating any type of revenue. Anyways, let’s take a look at the Kartra pricing table.

The cool thing about Kartra is that you get access to ALL features apart from Kartra agency, even on the lowest starter plan. So, if you have fewer contacts than the limit, you’re completely fine to use the starter plan as you’ll have access to every single feature inside of this platform.

For full pricing, please visit the official website.

Kartra Starter ($99 Per Month)

In the starter plan, you get access to:

• 2,500 leads
• 15,000 emails.
•  2 membership site portals
• 100 landing pages
• 20 products
• 50 GB Bandwidth

And, all features except for Kartra Agency.

Kartra Silver ($199 Per Month)

In the Kartra Silver plan, you get access to all features and:

• 3 custom domains
• 12,500 Leads
• 3 custom domains
• Unlimited emails
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited pages
• Unlimited videos
• Unlimited product
• Unlimited membership sites
• Unlimited team members
• Unlimited helpdesks

So, as long as you’re under 12,500 leads you should be good with this plan, as you pretty much get unlimited of all resources.

I think most people will find that this is the ideal plan for them.

Kartra Gold ($299 Per Month)

Kartra Gold comes with all features plus:

• 5 custom domains
• 25,000 Leads
• 3 custom domains
• Unlimited emails
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited pages
• Unlimited videos
• Unlimited product
• Unlimited membership sites
• Unlimited team members
• Unlimited helpdesks

Kartra Platinum ($499 Per Month)

Lastly, we have Kartra platinum.

This plan comes with all features plus:

• 5 custom domains
• 50,000 Leads
• 3 custom domains
• Unlimited emails
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited pages
• Unlimited videos
• Unlimited product
• Unlimited membership sites
• Unlimited team members
• Unlimited helpdesks

3 Things To Be Aware of Before Purchasing

I love Kartra more than any other marketing platform out there. It’s effective, saves you money, incredibly fun, and easy to use.

However, there are three things that you need to be aware of before purchasing. 

1. Kartra Only Works If Your Business Works

I’ve said it a couple of times and I mean it.

Tools to help increase your conversions will only work if you are getting some initial conversions. If you can’t sell the products, you’re selling, or maybe don’t even know what you are selling, then Kartra will probably just not work for you.

For Kartra to have a positive impact on your online business you need to:

• Understand how to sell what you are selling
• Understand how to use Kartra’s tools for your business
• Test different parts of your funnel

If you do these 3 things, I don’t see how Kartra’s marketing platform wouldn’t work for you.

Knowing how to use these marketing automation tools will grow your business.

2. Not Suitable For SEO

A Kartra website is not suited for SEO

If you want your primary traffic source to be search engines, go for something like WordPress. There is no way Kartra pages will compete with WordPress sites.

You can try to rank with Kartra pages, but I would not recommend it.

You can always use a WordPress website/blog for SEO while Kartra works well for your funnels, landing pages, and just about everything else.

It’s is probably the best platform out there for marketing automation but isn’t suited for SEO.

3. There is a learning curve

You’re essentially purchasing like 10 different tools in all in one. While they all are used in the same dashboard and have a similar feel, there is a learning curve.

If you want to use Kartra to grow your business, you’ll have to either deal with this or get some help. Remember, you do also get free access to Kartra Academy.

After going through the Kartra login, you’ll be asked if you want to join the academy and it is also on the left-hand side of your screen.

Is It Worth It?

I would say that if you’re the right type of person to use Kartra, it’s a no-brainer. The features open up tons of marketing opportunities for your business to help you generate more revenue. Not only that, but they also save so much time as you won’t have to integrate or switch between platforms.

Kartra doesn’t only save you time, it does also save you quite a lot of money. Gluing together different pieces of software to do the same job is so much more expensive. If you want to see a comparison on this, just check out the table below.

When Kartra is used correctly by the right person, it:

• Helps your marketing campaigns evolve
• Helps you save time
• Generates more revenue for the owner

Is it worth it? I think we’d both agree that everything you need to grow your business under one roof is worth it.

How much would all these tools cost separately?

Kartra Review: Conclusion

Kartra isn’t just a true all-in-one marketing platform, it’s also the best on the market if you know how to use it.

I can’t think of a single platform that even compares to what this software is capable of. It’s a true all-in-one platform like no other

All of the tools inside just combine so well together to help you not only build but grow your entire business. If you are generating any type of revenue online, I can’t imagine how it would not grow your business unless your only traffic is SEO.

I mean just to recap…

• easy to use page builder
• high-converting checkouts
• comprehensive autoresponder (practically ActiveCampaign)
• Marketing automation like no other
• Campaigns & Funnels (Including some Done-for-you!)
• Membership sites like none other (with one-click upsells inside)
• Video hosting, no need for Wistia!
• Helpdesks (to help you provide quick & easy support)
• Calendar (Stay organized, get booked)
• Affiliates & Marketplaces (Make more sales)
• Agency (More revenue from clients)

If you know how to use this marketing tool effectively and know how to sell whatever it is you’re selling, Kartra will be gold for you. That being said, it’s not a silver bullet if your business is not working. I know I’ve mentioned this a couple of times, but you must understand this.

And, if this article has sparked some ideas on how you can grow your business with this awesome marketing tool, then what are you waiting for?

Answer To Interactive Test (If fit)

The 4 day cash machine is a free campaign by Frank Kern that you can find in your Kartra account. If Gary can make sales with it, why can’t you? 

Kartra Review: Frequently Asked Questions:

Before we finish off, I just wanted to cover some frequently asked questions.

What Makes Kartra Different?

What makes this platform different is that it’s got so many useful tools for online businesses in one dashboard. Despite having a great number of features, the quality is just as high if not higher than purchasing a separate tool for each feature.

Considering the pricing as well, this makes it one of the most effective tools for marketers.

How much does Kartra cost?

Kartra starts at just $99 per month. If you pay annually, there are also 25% discounts available.  You can find the full pricing table on their website.

Is Kartra Legit?

Yes, Kartra is legit. The company behind it Genesis Digital has been involved in several successful projects like WebinarJam or EverWebinar and has also been featured in the Inc 500 fastest growing companies.

Is Kartra Worth It? 

This depends on you, as you have to be the right type of person to use the software. You can use the interactive test in this article to find out whether it’s the right platform for you.

There is no doubt that email marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your products and services.

However, the choice between autoresponders can sometimes be a hard decision, as most offer very similar features. Two of these autoresponders are ActiveCampaign and Aweber.

Both of these are extremely popular among marketers and business owners of all sizes but have significant differences between them.

That’s why in this article, we are going to compare ActiveCampaign vs Aweber to help you find the best autoresponder. 

ActiveCampaign vs Aweber: Overview

Here is a brief overview of the key information about Aweber and ActiveCampaign.

About ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is an autoresponder that was founded by Jason Vandeboom in 2003.

Since then, it has become one of the most popular solutions for email and SMS marketing automation, as well as CRM.

It has over 300,000 customers, making it one of the most popular autoresponders on the market. It’s also known to be one of the most powerful email marketing automation & CRM solutions on the market.

About Aweber

Aweber is seen as the “godfather” of email marketing by many. 

I’m not sure whether it was the first autoresponder, but it was one of the first ones publicly available to purchase. It was founded by Tom Kulzer in 1998 and has since then, helped over one million customers stay connected with their contacts through email marketing.

As you have probably figured out, Aweber is also one of the most popular email marketing solutions on the market.

ActiveCampaign Features

ActiveCampaign has a long list of features that we’ll get into in just a moment.

I see it as the ultimate back-end communication hub that allows you to communicate with your contacts and manage them effectively.

• Email marketing software
• Form builder (forms)
• Dynamic content
• Lead tagging
• A/B testing
• Marketing platform automation
• Site tracking
• Event tracking
• Automation goals
• Automation maps
• Attribution
• Split actions
• Sales & CRM
• Gmail extension for Chrome
• Lead Scoring
• Apps
• SMS
• Site messages
• Facebook custom audience
• Conversations
• Machine learning
• Win probability
• Predictive sending
• API & Integrations

Do you see what I mean? It makes the perfect back-end communication hub as I mentioned earlier.

What I would say is that it somewhat lacks in the front-end part where you collect emails. Yeah, I understand that it’s an SMS & email autoresponder, as well as a CRM, but most of their competitors are adding features like landing pages.

It does also have forms, but I find they are not as good as dedicated form/page builders like for example Elementor or Thrive Leads. That being said, most people who use it love (and, I mean love) it thanks to its great communication tools.

Aweber has started which we’ll talk about later on and GetResponse has too. If you would like to compare ActiveCampagn with GetResponse check out ActiveCampaign vs GetResponse.

The email builder and templates in ActiveCampaign are also really easy to use. I still to this day find it hard switching to any other autoresponder because ActiveCampaign is so easy to use, despite their powerful features.

So, in terms of ease of use, ActiveCampaign is right up there.

Aweber Features

Although Aweber is one of the oldest autoresponders in the game, it has evolved which means it has a long list of powerful features too. Plus, it gives you some tools to collect emails as well such as their landing page builder.

• Automation sequences
• Tagging
• Drag & drop email builder
• Sign up forms
• Autoresponders
• Html templates
• 6,000+ stock photos
• Analytics and tracking
• Email newsletters
• Email attachments
• Mobile app
• Split-testing
• Landing pages

As you can see, it’s not quite all the bells & whistles that ActiveCampaign offers, but you do get the basics. For many marketers and business owners, it will have all the features needed.

And, if you take a look at the features, you might notice that Aweber has everything you need. Plus, it also has landing pages, although there isn’t a custom domain functionality yet (it’s coming soon).

One thing I would say is that ActiveCampaign has much more advanced email and triggers than Aweber, as well as a more visual automation builder.

I find Aweber lacks a little in ease of use personally, as the dashboard looks somewhat old. Then again, ease of use is something that is down to opinions, so that might not be the case for you.

Key Differences In Features

In terms of features, ActiveCampaign does take the crown and you will see why it does in a second. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that ActiveCampaign is the perfect solution, as it does come at a little more expensive price.

So, if you aren’t going to use these features you may as well go for Aweber. If you might need them, you should consider ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign Dominates Email Marketing

ActiveCampaign completely dominates email marketing, despite also offering a bigger variety of communication tools.

Here are some of the features only available in AC:

• more triggers
• conversations (i.e manage conversations from AC dashboard)
• more comprehensive email split-testing
• more comprehensive automation (with goals, lead scoring, etc)
• better site & event tracking
• Chrome extension for Gmail

I think it’s fair to say that ActiveCampaign wins in email marketing. If you’re somebody that wants to get as much out of your email marketing as possible and have the best possible tools, you should consider it as it has some of the strongest email marketing tools on the market.

On the flip side, there is no need to go for ActiveCampaign if you just need simple automations, tagging, and a couple of newsletters.

Aweber Has Landing Pages and Stock Images

Aweber takes the point in this regard, as it has landing pages and stock images.

ActiveCampaign? Doesn’t have any.

With Aweber, you can create basic landing pages to help you collect emails. And, Aweber also comes with stock photos that you can use in your emails or landing pages.

The landing page builder can be used through their drag and drop editor to easily create beautiful landing pages quickly.

These two little bonus features/perks can be beneficial in your social media campaigns, as you can collect emails and use the stock images.

They can also be useful for social media advertising or a range of other places outside of social media like for example on your blog.

Killer tip: Try to not use images in your emails as heavy image HTML code is likely to send your emails straight to the “promotions tab” where you will get a lower open rate.

ActiveCampaign Has a CRM (which is super-powerful)

The next key difference in the features is the fact that ActiveCampaign has a CRM tool.

Its a brilliant CRM tool that lets you automate your entire sales processes including advanced tasks such as contacting your sales team. I must admit it’s quite advanced and as a blogger, I have never felt the need to use it.

However, if you’re looking for a powerful CRM, then ActiveCampaign could be the solution for you.

Some other cool ActiveCampaign CRM features include:

• Win probability
• Lead scoring
• Customer attribution & Path to purchase
• Predictive Sending
• And more

You get the point though, ActiveCampaign has a pretty nice CRM.

ActiveCampaign Has a Native SMS Autoresponder

It’s possible to integrate SMS autoresponders with Aweber, but ActiveCampaign has a native SMS autoresponder (if you’re on the right plan).

This means you can set up SMS sequences that will go out directly from your ActiveCampaign dashboard.

SMS sending is only available in certain plans, but we will talk more on that in the pricing section later on.

Deliverability

Now, let’s talk about email deliverability. In case you are unaware, deliverability is the ability to get your emails delivered as the name suggests.

If you have a bad deliverability rate, then your emails are often going to land in the spam folder. On the flip side, if you have a good deliverability rate, they are usually going to land in the inbox or the promotions folder.

I have a whole article on Deliverability if you would like to read more on this topic, but for this article, I am just going to be comparing the Aweber vs ActiveCampaign deliverability. 

According to a study by emailtooltester in February 2020, ActiveCampaign emails were delivered 90.2% of the time, whereas Aweber emails were delivered 85.4% of the time.

This is not a big difference at all and I can confirm that as long as you are following deliverability best practices and not sending spammy-looking emails, you shouldn’t run into deliverability issues with either of these autoresponders.  

Support

Both of these email marketing platforms have great support teams.

They are available via email support, phone support, and live chat for both platforms. What I would say is that ActiveCampaign has a better knowledge base and better resources. Also, the onboarding process of AC is a little better than the one from Aweber.

Overall though, I have nothing to complain about though with either of their support teams, as they are fast and friendly.

Something also worth noting is that Aweber’s phone support is available more often than the one of ActiveCampaign. I think Aweber’s support team is available on more hours per day, but both support teams are great.

So, if you’re somebody who hates bad support (who isn’t?), there is nothing to worry about with these two companies.

ActiveCampaign Pricing

ActiveCampaign has four pricing levels. You can see them below for up to 500 subscribers and annual discounts, however, for the full pricing please visit the website.

The pricing table depends on how many contacts you have, so I can’t show you the full pricing here.

As you can see in the image below, most CRM features are only available in the professional and enterprise plan. However, even the lite plan has key email marketing features such as split-testing, lead tagging, and automation sequences.

If you’re looking for a powerful email marketing tool without all the CRM features in the upper plans, then the lite plan could already be the perfect plan for you.

Even with the “lite” plan, there is a greater selection of triggers than with Aweber.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise, as ActiveCampaign is known to be one of the best email marketing tools on the market. Plus, the selection of automation triggers that ActiveCampaign has is truly huge and beats any email marketing tool I can think of.

Aweber Pricing

Aweber offers a completely free plan which you can use to test things out. Or if it meets your requirements, you can also use it as it’s completely free, forever.

It comes with:

• An autoresponder
• A landing page builder
• Email templates

Not bad for a free autoresponder right?

Now, I’m sure you might be wondering where the limitations are, so we might as well get those out of the way too.

• 500 Subscribers & 3000 emails per month
• No behavior-based automation sequences
• No custom domains (coming soon to paid plan only)

Still, the free plan has proven to be one of the best free autoresponder plans.

Aweber’s pricing also depends on the number of contacts that you have, but if you’re just starting, you can use the pricing table below. For full pricing see Aweber website.

Something that I do like about the pricing of Aweber is that the only plan includes all features. There isn’t no messing around in that sense, as SaaS tools can be so annoying when they have all these amazing features, but then they are only available in the most expensive plan that is often severely overpriced.

Of course, you’re not going to get everything in the free plan, but what do you expect?

There is also a free trial available for the Pro version.

Key Differences Between ActiveCampaign and Aweber

Here are the key differences between ActiveCampaign and Aweber:

• Aweber has a free plan, whereas ActiveCampaign doesn’t.
• ActiveCampaign has slightly better deliverability
• Only Aweber has a landing page builder, whereas only ActiveCampaign has a CRM tool.
• Aweber has a lower cost than ActiveCampaign
• ActiveCampaign has better email marketing tools overall

What I like about ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is one of my favorite email marketing tools of all time.

It has low-cost pricing if you need it in the “lite plan” or it has the big guns in the upper plans. The choice is yours. Saying that even the “light” plan has some of the best email marketing tools out there with advanced automation sequences & triggers, I don’t think you can go wrong with it.

Plus, I also remember when I first signed up, the support and on-boarding were super friendly, so that’s always good too. You can give the ActiveCampaign free trial a shot using the link below. 

Try ActiveCampaign For Free (No Credit Card Required) 

What I like about Aweber

Aweber is basic but gives you everything you need for a low price. Or, now there is even a free plan available.

I also like how low-cost they are considering that they give you a full autoresponder with automation sequences, as well as landing pages.

So, if you’re looking for a cost-effective solution that does all the things you need, Aweber might be a good option. You can check out both the free trial or the completely free plan using the link below.

Check Out Aweber’s Free Options (No Credit Card Required) 

ActiveCampaign vs Aweber: Final Words

I hope you have enjoyed this comparison between ActiveCampaign and Aweber.

Keep in mind, this article is always just a guideline, ActiveCampaign offers a free trial and Aweber has a completely free plan, so don’t shy away from testing them out.

While I personally prefer ActiveCampaign that doesn’t mean it will be the same for you.

If you’re just looking for the basics, then Aweber will probably do the job. Either way, both of these autoresponders are easy to use, efficient, and powerful meaning there isn’t a completely wrong choice.

If you are looking to create an online course or any other type of membership site, then you will probably want to take a look at Kartra or Thinkific.

Unlike most other Kartra vs Thinkific comparisons, I’m not going to completely dismiss one and tell you to go for the other.

Both offer fantastic features for course creators to create their courses and build their business.

However, there are some key differences between both pieces of software which we are going to cover in this article. 

Kartra vs Thinkific: Main Differences

The main differences between Kartra vs Thinkific are that Thinkific gives you a little more tools for the inside of your membership area, while Kartra gives you more tools for your business. 

Both offer some fantastic tools which will allow you to create and sell your memberships. 

There is also a key difference in pricing, as Thinkific starts at a lower price. 

Kartra vs Thinkific: Overview

What Is Kartra?

Kartra is a product by Genesis digital.

Genesis Digital is a company that was founded in 2013, but Kartra didn’t launch until 2018.

However, it’s on its way to becoming one of the most popular all-in-one funnel builders.

If you would like to learn more about Kartra, check out my Kartra review. 

What Is Thinkific?

Thinkific was founded in 2012 and has since then become one of the most popular membership site builders on the market. 

It offers creators everything they need to create and sell their online courses.

Kartra Features

As I have mentioned many times before, Kartra has a gigantic list of features.

Page Building & Templates

Firstly, we have the page building & templates.

Kartra comes with over 500 templates that you can easily edit using their drag & drop editor.

The templates are for all kinds of pages including sales pages, squeeze pages, upsell pages, and many other types of pages.

Checkout

Kartra also has some great checkout features.

You can use Checkouts created by Kartra which have been thoroughly tested, or you can customize them. 

Features inside include upsells, downsells, and order bumps.

Email Marketing

Kartra comes with great email marketing features including:

• Automation sequences
• Split-testing
• Lead tagging

All of these can be combined to build powerful email marketing campaigns. 

Membership Sites

Kartra also allows you to build membership sites, but we will compare it to Thinkific’s software later on. 

Kartra’s membership site builder includes: 

• Progress-tracking 
• Comments & comment control
• Drip-feed content
• Advanced analytics
• Automated membership management
•  Tagging inside based on view time and other triggers
• Content protection based on Progress

Video Hosting

You can also host your videos with Kartra, so there is no need for an external video-hosting provider. 

Affiliate Management & Marketplace

Kartra also lets you manage and recruit your affiliates.

There is also a marketplace feature to help your products gain exposure (if you want them to). 

Calendar

Kartra also comes with a calendar feature to help you book appointments easily. 

Helpdesks

Kartra also has an in-built Helpdesk. 

This will allow your customers to contact you easily & quickly. 

Thinkific Features

Here are the main features inside of Thinkific. 

Drag & Drop Membership Site Builder

Thinkific comes with advanced membership site tools to help you create the best course (or other membership) possible. 

We will talk about this in a little more detail later on, but the membership site features are a little more advanced than in Kartra.

Themes For Sales Pages & Landing Pages

Thinkific allows you to also create the sales pages & landing pages for your course. 

This means, you probably won’t need an external landing page builder such as ClickFunnels or Unbounce. 

Thinkific also has themes (or templates) for all of these pages. 

Content Hosting

You also will not need an external content hosting platform such as Wistia.

Thinkific allows you to host all of your content inside of Thinkific.

This includes Video, Audio, and PDF.

Affiliate Management 

Thinkific also lets you recruit and manage your affiliates.

The difference between this and Kartra’s affiliate management is that Kartra has a marketplace. 

Kartra vs Thinkific Membership Site Comparison

Due to the nature of Thinkific, I figured, you probably want to create and sell online courses or do something very similar. 

Am I right? 

Yep… That’s why I wanted to go into more detail on the comparison which compares the membership sites between these two products. 

Quizzes, Surveys, Assignments

Quizzes, surveys, and assignments are tools that are only available in Thinkific. 

If you would like these features inside of Kartra, you will have to use some sort of external application. 

Content Hosting

Both pieces of software allow you to host your videos, meaning you will not need an external video hosting provider such as Wistia.

But, Kartra does not let you host PDFs and audio (Thinkific does)  which is usually fine as there are external free services such as Google Drive. 

The videos are what’s important. 

Helpdesks

Only Kartra comes with an in-built helpdesk, but you can integrate helpdesks with Thinkific.

Customization

Although Kartra has better tools and more customization for your Sales pages, Thinkific wins in the back-end customization.

Using Thinkific, you get much more customization for the inside of your membership sites.

Kartra Membership Site Examples

• Example 1

• Example 2

• Example 3

Thinkific Membership Site Examples

• Example 1

• Example 2

• Example 3

(Source: JerryBanfield)

As you can see, Thinkific gives you a little more customization than Kartra on the back-end.

Which Software Will Help You Sell More? 

If you just want to take a look at the marketing tools, we have a definite winner in Kartra.

But, you would probably expect that due to the pricing difference.

Kartra has all of the following marketing tools which Thinkific doesn’t:

• Order bumps
• Upsells
• Downsells
• Comprehensive Email marketing tools
• Behavior-based marketing
• More Sales Page Templates
• Affiliate Marketplace

If you’re for example running ads or paying for your traffic, then these features can make a big impact on your conversions.

But, let’s not forget that you can integrate both of these pieces of software together if you did want the best of both worlds. 

Kartra Pricing

Kartra has four main pricing plans.

Kartra Starter ($99 Per Month) 

This is the perfect plan for businesses that are just starting out (as the name suggests). 

Here you can collect up to 2,500 leads and send 15,000 emails.

You can create 2 membership site portals, 100 landing pages, and up to 20 products on this starter plan. 

Other than Kartra Agency, you get all the features inside of this plan. 

Kartra Starter comes in at $99 per month. 

Kartra Silver ($199 Per Month) 

This plan costs $199 per month and it gives you access to Kartra Agency and all the other features inside of Kartra.

Other than the 12,500 leads and the 3 custom domains, you get unlimited amounts of all resources.

Kartra Silver costs $199 per month.

Kartra Gold ($299 Per Month)

The third plan is Kartra Gold.

Again, unlimited everything, the only difference being:

• 5 Custom Domains
• 25,000 leads

Kartra Gold costs $299 per month

Kartra Platinum ($499 Per Month) 

You guessed it… Unlimited everything, apart from:

• 50,000 Leads
• 15 Custom Domains

Kartra Platinum costs $499 per month.

Thinkific Pricing

Let’s take a look at Thinkific’s pricing to see which one has better value for you. 

We are going to take a look at the monthly pricing, but if you pay annually there are 20% discounts available. 

You can see the full pricing on their website.

Thinkific FREE

Thinkific actually has a free plan which might even be enough for some people.

Here’s what you get inside of the free plan: 

Ability to create 3 courses

Unlimited Students

Quizzes & Surveys

Content Hosting

Instant Access To Your Funds

If you’re just looking to host up to 3 courses and you are not bothered about the advanced features, then this plan might be perfect for you. 

Thinkific Basic ($49 Per Month)

Next, we have the basic plan which has some advanced features I was talking about earlier. 

• Unlimited courses & students
• Coupons 
• Email students 
• Drip (scheduled) content
• Affiliate reporting
• Custom domain
• Email integrations 
• Zapier triggers 
• Manual student enrollment & exports

Thinkific Pro ($99 Per Month) 

The pro plan has some even more advanced features than the previous plan. 

Here, you get everything in basic PLUS: 

• Unlimited courses & students
• 2 Site admin accounts
• 5 Course admins/authors
• Private & hidden courses
• Advanced course pricing options (Subscriptions,payment plans, etc.) 
• Memberships and bundles 
• Certificates
• Advanced Customization 
• Priority Support
• Assignments
• Communities

Thinkific Premier ($499 Per Month) 

Lastly, we have the Thinkific Growth plan.

This plan is mostly for enterprise teaching businesses and I don’t think most people will need this plan.

Although, if you own an Enterprise teaching business then this plan can definitely be for you. 

Here, you get everything in Pro plus: 

• Unlimited courses & students
• 5 Site admin accounts
• 15 Group Analysts
• 50 Course admins/authors 
• Single sign-on (SSO)
• Onboarding package 
• Unlimited Growth Package 

Which One Is Best For You? 

This really depends on you, as I say so often.

But, here is how I would pick…

If you’re looking for a basic low-cost solution for your course without all the marketing tools that Kartra has to offer, go for one of Thinkific’s lower-priced plans or even the free one. 

However, if you want all the tools that Kartra has to offer to help you sell more courses, then go for Kartra.

Or, if you want to have all the customization and advanced back-end membership site features (quizzes, surveys, etc.) that Thinkific has to offer, you can also go for Thinkific. 

You could even think of integrating both of these pieces of software if you wanted to. 

Direct Comparison

Who Is The Winner? 

Unlike my comparison of Kartra vs Teachable, you cannot pick a clear winner here.

Both pieces of software are extremely good at what they do.

Kartra has business-focused tools, while Thinkific gives you great tools for the back-end of your membership site.

Plus, Thinkific even offers a free plan with content hosting, that alone is probably at least $49 value, as usually, video hosting is quite expensive. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love Kartra, but this is a draw. 

I would give both of these options a 9/10 

Final Thoughts

As you can see, both of these platforms are great at what they do.

I hope this article has been helpful in finding the right option for you.

Remember, if you find it hard to choose, you can always use the extended Kartra trial or give the free Thinkific plan a shot.

If you have any questions, make sure to leave a comment down below and I will get back to you asap. 

Kartra vs Thinkific: Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some frequently asked questions for Kartra vs Thinkific. 

Does Kartra Have Better Tools For Course Creators?

It depends. If we are talking about who has better tools to sell online courses, I would have to give it to Kartra.

However, Thinkific does have better tools inside of the membership to manage students (Quizzes, surveys, certificates).

Is Thinkific Free? 

Thinkific does have a free plan, but as you would expect it is a little limited compared to their paid plans. 

However, it’s more than enough to get started. 

How Much Does Kartra Cost? 

Kartra’s pricing plans range from $99 per month to $499 per month. There are 25% discounts available if you pay annually. 

Which Is Better? 

This depends on your needs, Kartra is better for selling and marketing your memberships, while Thinkific has better tools for the inside of your membership.