Kartra vs Kajabi 2023 (Which One is Better for Your Business?)

kartra vs kajabi

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Kartra Vs Kajabi 2023 Comparison

kartra vs kajabi

Published by Al Rose

Last Updated on January 20, 2024

Whether you’re looking to launch a brand new online business or take your current venture to the next level, you need the right tools to help you succeed. And two of the most popular tools for growing an online business are Kartra and Kajabi. 

Kartra and Kajabi are competing marketing and business management tools that give you access to the latest technologies and advanced marketing features that can boost your customer reach and your revenue. 

These tools can help you with everything from selling online courses to getting subscribers to a membership site to selling other products.

Both of these platforms act as all-in-one tools for growing and managing your business, helping you with practically every aspect of growing a successful ecommerce venture.

So when it comes to Kartra vs Kajabi, which one is truly the best?

Kartra is the new kid on the block and is making a name for itself in the software marketing tools space due to its value for money approach and the useful features it sports. 

Kajabi has been around for some time and has established itself as a trusted platform with many users utilizing the software for their business needs.

Both platforms offer a 14-day trial. Kajabi’s trial is free and Kartra charges $1 for the 14 days.

Table of Contents

Kartra Vs Kajabi Review

  • All-in-one online marketing software platform
  • Funnel templates built by renowned marketers
  • Unique features like helpdesk, webinars, and membership sites
Start Kartra $1 Trial →
  • Integrates all business needs
  • Consistently releasing new features
  • High-quality customer service
Try Kajabi For Free →

Software Overview

Kartra was created in 2018 by Andy Jenkins and Mike Filsaime, both accomplished marketers. 

Mike Kern, the notable direct response marketer also backs the platform. The software has made a big splash in the market because of its many features and affordable pricing.

Kajabi is the more seasoned platform and was started in 2010 by co-founder and CEO Kenny Reuter. 

With more than 600 million dollars in online sales and an estimated 20,000 businesses utilizing its tools, the company has an impressive CV.

Page Builder/ Editor

Both platforms provide a drag and drop style page builder removing the need to know code or hire a web developer for your landing pages, checkout pages, and more.

Kartra

Kartra offers over 500 customizable page and section templates to choose from including lead capture pages, sales pages, landing pages, checkout pages and a lot more. 

All the pages are mobile and tablet responsive and are integrated with Kartra’s other tools like analytics and split testing.

The page editor works with a column and a component mode allowing you to change entire sections or the content within the sections.

kartra Page Builder

Kajabi

Kajabi lets you create standalone pages or a Pipeline (a sales funnel) and has many templates like lead pages, sales pages, landing pages, and home pages.

Building a webpage in Kajabi has been split into 2 parts- the page builder and the theme editor.

In the drag and drop builder, you are given the option to choose a template and then edit the title, URL, visibility and SEO settings. 

You are also able to edit the code (only available on the pro plan) should you have the necessary skills.

The theme editor gives you the freedom to completely customize your page-change the font size and color, add sections, view the mobile responsiveness, add social media links and much more.

kajabi Themes

Winner

Kartra does a stellar job at creating webpages and Kajabi is by no means a slouch in this regard, but this round goes to Kartra. The capabilities found within the page builder and theme editor give them the one-up

Email Marketing

An effective email marketing campaign can make customers and potential customers aware of what you are selling and can aid in building confidence in your business.

Kartra

Kartra’s email service is called Kartra Mail.

It is focused on optimizing communications with your customers by using behavior-based automation and personalization features. 

The idea is to target your customer’s wants and needs making them more likely to open the emails you send and act on the product or service you are selling.

Automations can be set up based on whether a customer has opened an email, clicked on a link, subscribed to a list, or purchased a certain product.  

All your customer’s interactions-clicks opens, and sales are tracked. Emails can be split tested to see which ones are being responded to the most.

A count-down timer feature that encourages customers to buy or sign up for special offers has also been included.

Emails are limited 15,000 to the Starter plan. The higher pricing tiers allow for a larger number of emails: Silver-125,000, Gold-250,000, and Platinum-500,000.

kajabi Membership Site

Kajabi

Kajabi’s email service has a host of features to help you manage your email lists and customize your campaigns.

Broadcasts can be sent out to your entire mailing list or you can segment your customers so that only certain groups receive certain emails.

Emails can easily be customized with calls to action and buttons and you have the ability to personalize the messages sent out.

Your lead life cycle and opened emails can be tracked and you are able to tag your leads and send customized campaigns.

Automation and analytics have also been included.

Kajabi gives you unlimited emails on the Basic and Growth plans. The Pro plan gives you access to 2,000,000 emails

kajabi Email marketing

Winner

Kartra takes this one. Kartra mail is a more sophisticated service.

Membership Sites

Membership sites are a great way to deliver content and services to your clients while creating recurring revenue, and both platforms give you the option to build your own.

Kartra

Kartra’s membership sites come with built-in audio and video hosting capabilities allowing you to upload content directly on the Kartra servers.

You are given two membership sites to work with on the starter plan, while on the upgraded plans you have access to unlimited sites and unlimited landing pages. 

There is a limit to how much content you can host in terms of bandwidth with the Starter plan.. This is set at 50GB. The higher plans offer unlimited bandwidth

Membership access tiers can be set up for different payment/access options, you also have the option to automatically release content at a certain time or for a particular access level.

Login pages, usernames, and passwords are automatically generated to add to the ease of use.

Kartra Membership Site

Kajabi

Kajabi has not held back when it comes to features for their membership sites.

There is a range of product themes to choose from to get the look of your site right and if those don’t work for you, you have the ability to customize.

Some of the features include a download section and media player for audio, video or pdf documents, links to social media accounts, custom domain names, a comments section, and blogs.

There is no cap on the number of downloads or streaming done on your site, perfect for online course creators.

kajabi Membership Site

Winner

Kajabi is the winner of this one. Membership sites and online course creation are where Kajabi’s strengths lie, there are many features available and the site creation is very streamlined and easy to use.

Leads

Leads play a major part in the growth of your business, they are after all potential customers. 

As a business owner, you need to have the ability to convert leads into sales

Kartra

Kartra lets you gather information on your leads and their behavior allowing you to assess how they interact with your sales funnel.

This is done within one unified system-Kartra Leads.

Kartra Leads gives you the ability to have a complete overview of your leads as a whole or individual leads.

Automated lead scores are assigned to your leads so that you can see who are your best customers are and where to focus your attention.

Leads are tracked within the system helping you to recognize where you might be losing customers or where your sales funnels are grabbing people’s attention leading to conversions.

Automations can also be set up for when a lead reaches a certain score or is given a certain tag.

The number of leads allowed is dependent on which plan you choose to go with.

On the Starter plan, you are given 2,500 leads, 12,500 leads on Silver and 25,000 leads on Gold. The Platinum plan gives you access to 50,000 leads

kartra leads

Kajabi

Kajabi works with contacts. Contacts may be leads or already established clients.

You have the ability to import your contacts from a 3rd party program like Mailchimp and add them directly into Kajabi.

You can choose to segment or import the entire list.

On import, you can grant an offer, add tags or subscribe your leads to one of your email marketing campaigns.

Analytics is made available so that you can get information on your contacts.

You also have the ability to track and tag your potential clients as well as send customized email campaigns.

Kajabi gives you 10,000 contacts on the Basic plan, 25,000 contacts on the Growth plan and 10,000 contacts on the Pro plan.

kajabi leads

Winner

Kartra is the winner of this one. Kartra Leads gives you a lot more opportunity to nurture your leads and turn them into customers

Sales Funnels/Campaigns

An optimized sales funnel will aid in taking your customer from the landing page to the thank you page.

Kartra

Kartra gives you the ability to create your own custom sales funnels giving you various templates to work with, but if you want to get going quickly you can choose one of the Done For You Campaigns.

Done For You Campaigns was created by marketers Frank Kern and Andy Jenkins.

The campaigns give you fully built sales funnels that already have the pages, email marketing, automation, tagging and more already set up. You can even run webinars as part of your funnel.

You can also import campaigns from other members of the platform and if you want to profit from a campaign you have built, you can sell it on Kartra’s marketplace.

kartra Campaigns

Kajabi

Kajabi makes a point of guiding the user through the funnel building process.

The platform’s funnel builder is called Pipelines and it enables you to use templates called Pipeline Blueprints which give you a layout of the funnel.

Every page of the funnel can be customized and there are recommendations for what to write and where to place the sections of each page.

Email sequences designed by Brendon Burchard, a world-renowned high-performance coach come as part of pipelines.

kajabi Pipelines

Winner

Kartra wins another one with innovative and time saving Done For You Campaigns feature.

Affiliate Management Software

Having an army of affiliates working to promote your product will drastically improve your sales.

Kartra and Kajab both have an array of tools to help bring in new affiliates and manage your current ones.

Kartra

The reputation of your business can take a knock if you deal with salespeople who do not take your products seriously or treat them respectfully.

Kartra gives you the ability to put potential affiliates through a screening process by having them fill in a questionnaire and terms and conditions agreement.

Tiers with special commission structures can be set up to incentivize affiliates to make more sales and all affiliates have access to their own dashboard to track their sales.

Detailed analytics give you an overview of how well each affiliate is performing, earning per click, sales, and conversions can all be tracked.

Kartra Affiliate Management

Kajabi

Kajabi allows you to have a complete overview of how your affiliates are performing.

You can view the statistics of each individual, set the percentage of their commission, and check their sales reports to see what you owe them.

You also have the option to track the overall click count of the affiliate share links, form submissions, conversions, and the conversion rate.

The affiliate program is not available on the base plan.

kartra Affiliates

Winner

Kartra offers a lot more flexibility and features with its affiliate management program and it is available on the base plan. Kartra is the winner.

Automation

Automation allows you to build marketing campaigns that do the work for you, both Kartra and Kajabi have powerful automation features that will greatly increase your productivity. The platforms share similar DNA when it comes to automation.

Kartra

Automations can be set on most of the features found in the software. If and then logic is used to create a customized response to an action made within the platform.

Automations within Kartra can be used to send out automatic reminders and follow up emails, create an automated customer retention sequence and build up anticipation for a future product launch and more.

Kartra also has Behavioral Adaptive Marketing (BAM) integrated into its software, which makes the automation capabilities even more powerful.

BAM is essentially a marketing strategy that changes based on how your customers interact with your business, making it possible to have your marketing campaigns be customized for the individual

kartra Automation

Kajabi

The automation options found within Kajabi are similar to what you find in Kartra.

You are able to create automations within Pipelines and email campaigns to send out broadcast and event reminders, respond to form submissions, set up multiple-stage follow up communications and a whole host of other options.

kajabi Automations

Winner

Choosing a winner for this particular feature is a difficult task because of how much they have in common, but Kartra has BAM capabilities integrated with its automation which sets it apart.

Kartra is the winner.

Customer Support

Using software packed with many features inevitably leads to many questions on how to utilize the product to its full potential. Good customer support should be a given.

Kartra

Kartra has had a great track record with its support since its inception in 2017.

The overall user feedback points to a support team who are friendly and get back to you in a timely fashion.

Kartra provides the following support options:

  • Kartraverse training portal
  • Kartra Facebook group
  • Kartra live support
  • Kartra support portal

Kajabi

Kajabi’s support team is friendly and they have decent response times according to the majority of users.

They offer 24/7 live chat which is a great feature, this is, however, exclusive to their higher pricing plans. Online training is also available.

Winner

Kartra wins the customer support category. The platform provides more avenues for customers to find answers to their questions.

Differences Between Software

We have seen the similarities between the two products, now let’s see what makes them different.

Calendar

Kartra has a built-in calendar app that your customers can use to book appointments with you.

The calendar has four different modes- the consultant, the recurrent, the gym, and the live event. Kajabi has no calendar.

kartra calendar

Done For You Campaigns

As we saw earlier Kartra uses this feature to build established, working marketing campaigns. 

Kajabi has no such feature yet.

Marketplace

The marketplace can be used to buy and sell products and services among the Kartra community. Kajabi does not have a marketplace.

kartra marketplace

Video Hosting

Kartra makes use of built-in video hosting but has a set cap limiting the amount of content that can be hosted, to get a higher threshold you will need to upgrade your account.

Kajabi makes use of Wistia for hosting and has no cap.

BAM (Behavioral Adaptive Marketing)

Kartra uses this technology to customize the user experience according to who the user is and what their personal preferences are. Kajabi does not utilize this technology.

Community Feature

Kajabi makes it possible to interact with your customers by creating a community group. 

Kartra has no such community features at this time.

Helpdesk

Kartra offers customer support with Helpdesk. 

Helpdesk enables you to set up a ticketing system for multiple departments and grants your agents access to the customer’s entire history with your business. 

Two Helpdesks are provided with the Starter plan, while on the higher plans you have access to unlimited helpdesks.  Kajabi has no such system.

Quiz Feature

Should you wish to test how well your students are digesting your content you can give them an assessment to complete.

Currently, this feature is only found in Kajabi.

Pricing

Kartra offers 4 pricing options-Starter, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

All of the features found in Kartra are included even on the Starter plan.

You will, however, be limited by the number of leads and products, bandwidth allocation, and a few other areas.

Find more info in our Kartra pricing article.

kartra pricing

Kajabi pricing has three plans-Basic, Growth, and Pro. See the image below for the prices.

The basic plan is rather limited when compared to Kartra’s base plan, not to mention that it is also more expensive.

The affiliate program, Kajabi branding removal, and the code editor are only available on the higher plans.

kajabi plans

Which Platform Is Right For You?

So, when it comes to Kajabi vs Kartra, which platform should you go with?

Both platforms offer powerful features that can change the way you run your business, optimize your marketing efforts, and give you new tools to reach potential clients.

You have to mindful though. While they do offer a lot of the same tools, they do not share the same primary focus.

Kartra truly is an all in one package, the platform is loaded with features and does them well. People just starting their business will benefit from the price-point as well as the fact that the product is all-inclusive.

Kartra’s strength lies in all-round business management and powerful marketing features.

The Done For You Campaigns provide tried and tested marketing funnels that can help reach customers and boost sales.

The BAM feature enables you to target your customers according to their preferences providing a customized experience.

Kartra has you covered on multiple fronts. 

Kartra is a great choice for entrepreneurs and business owners who want to conduct all their business on a single platform. It has all the advanced features you need to run successful marketing campaigns, track sales and manage customer relationships. The platform also offers comprehensive automation capabilities, which makes your life easier as you focus on more important tasks.

Kajabi’s strength is in online course creation, membership tools, and web design. Whether you’re trying to sell online courses, get subscribers to membership content, or launch a podcast, Kajabi has all the tools you need to succeed. 

Having an unlimited cap to host your content is an invaluable tool for online course and membership site creators and the quiz feature is a great way to make what you are teaching stick.

The community feature aids in building a relationship and trust between you and your customers.

Kajabi is a good choice for business owners looking to build beautiful webpages and provide content and membership platforms to their consumers.

Choose Kartra if:

  • You want to run your entire business on one platform
  • Budget is a concern (Kajabi’s base plan is more expensive)
  • You are focused on creating an optimized customer experience

Choose Kajabi if:

  • Your business is focused on creating online courses, membership sites, and websites
  • You need an unlimited cap for content
  • You want to engage with your audience and facilitate conversation amongst your users

Final Thoughts

Choosing software for your business does not need to be daunting. You simply need to establish what type of business you have, what your goals are and then choose the platform best suited to your needs.

Hopefully, this review has helped highlight the core features of both Kartra and Kajabi enabling your decision making to be more informed.

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