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Kartra vs Mailchimp
Are you trying to decide which marketing tool between Kartra vs Mailchimp is the best fit for growing your business?
Having the right tools can make or break any business, and that’s especially true in the world of digital marketing.
Kartra and Mailchimp are two of the most popular marketing automation platforms on the market today, but they have their own unique strengths and weaknesses. Comparing the differences between these two tools can help you determine which is better for your particular needs.
Kartra and MailChimp are excellent marketing tools and whereas they do more or less the same thing, there are some differences between them that could interfere with how much satisfaction you get from each tool.
For instance, both MailChimp and Kartra have extensive email marketing capabilities. After all, that’s what Mailchimp is known for (despite expanding its offering to include other features, email marketing is what it does best). However, Kartra is more of a true all-in-one marketing tool that does a whole lot more than just email marketing, including website building, video marketing, affiliate management, and more.
Simply put, while there are some areas where the two tools overlap and compete against one another, Kartra is a more robust tool than MailChimp. But as you will soon find out, it’s not for everyone.
In the guide below, we’ll compare Kartra vs MailChimp by looking at their features to help you decide which one is right for your business needs.
We’ll compare the two tools on a range of criteria, including pricing, email marketing functionality, website building, and more.
Table of Contents
Kartra
Kartra email does more than just send emails. It automatically brands, tracks, tests, and optimizes your emails.
You can perform the following email-related tasks on Kartra:
- Set up behavior-based email automation. For example, you can automatically unsubscribe customers who haven’t opened their emails in 60 days, or automatically send email reminders when their last email hasn’t been opened.
- Test different parts of an email, such as the subject line, and automatically convert your campaign to the best version
- Customize your emails by testing different template designs or even just sections of a template.
- Use custom tags to personalize emails by adding personal customer data
Email automation on Kartra uses the IF and THEN functions. The IF function is the operator that triggers a condition (then), which is the action that Kartra takes. Predefined triggers and conditions create an email funnel sequence that works effortlessly.
Other messaging features on Kartra include:
- Automatic sending of text messages. Just like emails, Kartra will queue and send SMS according to preset rules
- You can set an unlimited number of triggers and conditions (conditions are defined by TRUE / FALSE statements)
- Email analysis. Email performance is shown on the dashboard. You can track emails sent, open rates, click-through rates, click-through sales, and unsubscribed emails.
MailChimp
MailChimp is an email marketing automation software that helps you send targeted and high-converting emails.
Here are some of the Mailing features that stand out on MailChimp:
- Turn your audience into engaged customers with customizable email templates built to drive sales and showcase your brand
- Leverage the power of AI to design eye-catching emails that look great on any device.
- Create better-performing emails with premium templates from MailChimp’s marketplace. The designs are flexible and help you do anything, from onboarding customers to promoting sales and products.
- Code your own templates or use HTML tailored to express the uniqueness of your brand
When you create your own templates, you can reuse them as many times as you like instead if you want to run similar campaigns in the future.
It’s quite simple to create a template as you don’t need to know any coding or design. If you want to create a new template:
- Click on “Email Templates” under the Campaigns tab.
- Select the type of email for which you want to create a template and click “create template”.
- Name the template, and add content blocks and other design elements such as styles.
- Optimize for mobile, preview your template in desktop and mobile mode, and save.
Coding your own template will give you more control over how dynamic you can make your designs. If you are a developer working with multiple clients who want unique templates, you may want to explore coding on MailChimp.
You can find the option to create a template by coding under the templates tab.
Winner: Kartra
You’ll find the same emailing features on Kartra and MailChimp; from customizable templates to tagging and segmentation. But Kartra does it better. Kartra’s templates have a modern feel and its email sequence builder is more seamless and visually appealing.
Landing Pages
Kartra
Kartra’s drag-and-drop page builder is easy to use, intuitive and requires no code.
It allows you to create pages from scratch or use Kartra’s ready-made templates by choosing from different categories. To create a page, simply drag elements onto a template and edit them by resizing, customizing fonts, adding logs, and more.
When designing pages, you can:
- Add popups to capture leads, send welcome messages, offer discounts, encourage customers to checkout, or offer discounts when they’re about to walk away without a purchase
- Increase conversions, generate leads, and build your mailing list with forms
- Add visual interest with video-style popups, keeping your pages clean and navigable
Kartra Pages can dynamically customize the content your visitors see based on their behavior and tags (Behavior-Based Marketing). Through behavior-based marketing, you can recommend special offers to customers with a specific tag.
If you’d like to test the performance of your pages, you can use the split-test feature to compare page versions.
MailChimp
You can create landing pages in MailChimp to showcase your products, attract customers and increase conversions through sales and sign-ups.
MailChimp’s landing pages are attractive and shareable. They also contain comprehensive analytics that you can use to shape marketing decisions.
Just like with websites, creating a landing page on MailChimp begins with finding a domain. If you don’t have a domain or a shop that’s already up and running, MailChimp will provide you with a URL for your landing page.
It’s worth noting that if you want to create landing pages and a website, you can host your landing pages under your website’s custom domain.
The landing page builder is intuitive and easy to navigate, making it easy to design attractive pages even if you’ve never built a landing page before.
You don’t need to start your page designs from scratch because MailChimp provides you with ready-made page-building templates. In addition, you don’t have to worry about how your landing pages will look on mobile because the templates are already mobile-optimized
What’s more, if you have an eCommerce store, MailChimp will pull product images from the store, and even feature top-selling products.
To grow your audience, you can use different methods such as:
- Give free downloads to new visitors to sign up
- Run a giveaway contest to encourage more people to participate in your campaigns
In addition, if your campaign targets a specific segment, you can create ads that drive that segment to the landing page.
MailChimp’s mobile app keeps you in touch with your customers even when on the go. When working on mobile, you can create landing pages with one simple click and even connect to payment platforms. You can also drive traffic to your social media accounts and update your audience about your business.
On top of that, the mobile app makes it easy to leverage your phone contacts, by making it possible to share a link with them.
MailChimp generates reports of individual landing pages, giving you an up-to-date view of performance metrics such as clicks, revenue, and conversions. You can then use this information to redesign your landing pages so that they perform better.
Once you’re ready to create a landing page, follow these steps:
- Go to the landing page builder and pick a template
- Customize the landing page by changing color, font, and brand logo
- Write a page description
- Add a URL
- Define an audience and add tags and tracking
- Publish
Once done, you can promote the landing page with tools such as retargeting ads, which you can find on MailChimp.
Winner: Both
Kartra and MailChimp support page customization, split testing, integration, different types of media, and social sharing.
Funnels
Kartra
Kartra lets you connect pages and emails into a funnel flow using a drag-and-drop builder, to create a full campaign strategy.
If you’re not an experienced marketer or you just want a ready-to-run campaign, you can use Kartra’s plug-and-play funnels. These pre-built funnels are tested and proven to generate significant conversions.
Here are some key features to note about Kartra funnels:
- If/then and yes/no rules and conditions allow you to create multiple stacked scenarios for running your campaigns.
- As prospects move down the funnel, you can control the communication they receive by sorting them into different groups. In addition, you can track each step and see in real time how people are progressing.
- Kartra makes it super easy to interact with clients. If you need to share your client’s work, you can export your finished work directly to your client’s account.
- Customer tagging
- Email automation
Once you’re comfortable creating funnel sequences, you can also export your own funnels to Kartra (the campaign marketplace) to sell or give to others for free.
MailChimp
Just like Kartra, MailChimp also has marketing funnels (Customer Journey Builder) to help you automate marketing campaigns to ensure that you reach more customers with accurate emails, where and when it matters the most.
MailChimp promises its customers to increase orders by up to 4 times when they use the Customer Journey Builder. In other words, you can expect to see more repeat customers and less customer churn.
MailChimp tries to deliver on this promise by equipping its funnel builder with features such as:
- Pre-built journeys. By providing pre-built journeys, MailChimp lets you quickly implement your marketing campaigns.
- Data integration. Working with data from different apps allows you to work with a wholesome picture of customer activities, hence interests.
- Email automation. MailChimp’s email automation increase click rates by adapting to your campaign goals and those of your customers.
- Visual journeys. You can see how your customers transition from their first interaction with your brand to when they make a purchase.
- Reports and insights. Get up-to-date insights on customer activity, and use that information to improve your campaigns.
- Cart abandonment reminders. Get cart abandoners back to the checkout page by targeting them with discounts and offers.
- Customer tagging. Tags identify your customers into groups. As long as a customer possesses a specific tag, you immediately know the type of email to send that customer once they complete an action.
Winner: Kartra
Kartra and MailChimp use conditional logic to build automated customer journeys. Both tools also have prebuilt journeys, customer tagging, and methods to support repeat purchases. But again, just like with emails, Kartra does it better.
Website
Kartra
Kartra doesn’t have a traditional website builder, but you can build a full website using Kartra Pages.
To do that, you first have to build several pages and then pull them together under one site by following these steps:
On the Pages tab, click the plus icon to open a new canvas.
Once you click “launch builder”, the page builder will load. Click on “manage my sites” under the Site dropdown.
Follow the instructions to add the pages you have already created to your new site.
But a site isn’t complete yet without global settings, as global settings are what provide that coherent “website experience”.
Although Kartra’s site-building process is different, it takes the pressure off the builder because you only focus on building and perfecting one page at a time before you even think of creating a website.
Check out these Kartra website examples to get a feel for what’s possible with this tool.
MailChimp
MailChimp has tools to simplify website building, making it easier for small businesses and online stores to get up and running in mere minutes.
Building a website on MailChimp involves completing these simple steps:
- Finding a domain name. You can find a domain name using MailChimp’s domain name generator.
- Connecting a domain name. If you already have a domain name, you can connect it to your website.
- Curating the look and feel of your website. Pick a theme and ready-made color palette that you can customize to represent your brand.
- Customizing the layout of your website. Use MailChimp’s pre-made layouts to build the structure of your website.
- Adding imagery. Find suitable images from MailChimp’s stock photo library to add beauty and character to your website.
You can view all the edits you make in real-time and without having to leave the page editor.
After you publish your website, you can:
- Start selling. You can launch an e-commerce store and start selling for free.
- Set and accept appointments from the site. Customers can book your services straight from your website for free.
- Drive traffic. You can use MailChimp’s marketing features to increase sales by driving more people to your site.
One of the most useful tools in website traffic generation is SEO descriptions. But if you have tried to generate SEO descriptions for yourself, you know it can be difficult to nail the right tone. This can make it difficult for your SEO description to attract clicks.
But not when you use MailChimp.
MailChimp will generate SEO descriptions for your pages, based on the content on those pages. The result? Unique SEO description to make your page rank better.
Another helpful feature you’ll access when using MailChimp is Google Workspace. When you purchase a domain, it will come bundled with Google Workspace, which consequently, gives you access to the features that come with Google suite.
Besides the tools we’ve discussed, MailChimp has the following additional website features to help you speak to your audience and nurture their interest:
- Built-in pop up forms to help you capture interested leads
- Emails that are personalized based on a person’s actions on your website
- Reports of page performance
Winner: MailChimp
MailChimp has a more superior website builder that comes preloaded with different tools and features.
Community
Kartra
Kartra membership is a great way to make your members feel as if they are part of your inner circle. It’s a place where you can share tips, training, and content with your paid customers. It’s also an area where members can interact with the community.
You can structure the content in your membership area into several tiers, each with different pricing and benefits. You can also organize content by category to make it more navigable for members.
There is no limit to the number of membership areas or membership tiers you can create.
Kartra makes it easy to sell membership-based courses on your site. You can sell training courses, membership levels, or both. You can set up drip feeds to offer portions of the content, then give access to all the content at any time.
Using multiple templates, styles, and colors, you can customize the members’ area into a professional website.
You can keep all your membership sites in one global portal, and make it easier to cross-sell. In addition, a member can access all memberships with the same login and password, therefore removing the need to have multiple logins.
Kartra has a member tracking area on which you can manage membership access, view subscription status, cancel access, or view member progress.
More so, if you’d like to see members’ performance, you can find this information on the analytics dashboard. Performance on the dashboard—such as retention and unsubscribe rate—is available in graphical format.
MailChimp
MailChimp also has a community feature, although it’s easy to miss as it’s located under the resources section.
There’s a community section for three groups:
- Freelancers and agencies. This section has tools and features to help freelancers and agencies manage their work and build a client base. Members also share tips and ideas.
- Developers can manage app data, get guidance on how to use different APIs, manage transactional emails, and access information on the latest updates.
- Partners. If you’re having a hard time figuring out MailChimp, you’ll find the partners’ community very helpful. Here, you’ll find professionals who can help you with different tasks, from designing a template to managing your campaign.
Winner: Kartra
While both tools provide their target audiences with all tools for managing communities, Kartra truly specializes in this area and has a more fully fleshed out solution.
Analytics
Kartra
Kartra has over a dozen features under one roof, and it tracks and presents the performance of each of these features on one dashboard.
Below are some of the performance metrics that Kartra tracks:
- Email open rate and conversions
- Engagement on landing pages and web pages
- Video metrics
- Membership subscription and cancellations
- Facebook and Google ads conversions
- Affiliate activity
- Product performance
- Calendar and customer support analytics
Such metrics can show a pattern in how or when customers bounce off, helping you to optimize different parts of your content and improve retention.
MailChimp
MailChimp has a detailed analytics and insights feature that includes the following functions:
- The reporting feature shows sales performance and other performance data.
- Smart recommendations. You can use data to help you recommend relevant products to your customers.
- A/B testing. Change parts of your emails and test how each version performs
- Gather feedback from your customers by conducting surveys
- Content optimization. Optimize your content to make it personalized and engaging
Winner: Both
MailChimp and Kartra win because they both provide useful insights to help you optimize your content.
E-commerce
Kartra
Kartra’s sales process takes place through customizable single and multi-step checkout forms that display important product information such as color and price.
Kartra checkouts are designed to improve customer satisfaction and sales. Below is a summary of the features that make Kartra Checkouts stand out:
- Easy order fulfillment through a linked checkout and the warehouse process
- Sell an unlimited number of products
- List products under multiple pricing
- Allow customers to subscribe under different pricing models
- Enable One-click checkout
- Upsells and downsells
- PayPal and credit card payment support
- Automatic lead scoring
- Follow-up emails are automatically sent
- Customize offers
- Support for multiple currencies and languages
- Calculate taxes automatically based on geography
- 256-bit data encryption
- All transactions are updated automatically in real time
MailChimp
Mailchimp makes an effort to help beginner or seasoned e-commerce business people to sell online.
Here are some of the useful ways the Ecommerce feature can help you build your business:
- Prebuilt email automation. With e-commerce automation, you can collect customer information and target them with personalized messages and offers during their journey
- Business advice. Learn anything you want to know about starting and running an e-commerce business. For example, you can learn marketing tips such as how to take great product photos, or how to run an SEO marketing campaign for your products.
- Build a survey. You can collect information from customers when they are signing up for your service to learn how they found out about your business. Sending a survey after a sale is a great way to find out if customers loved their purchase experience.
Winner: Kartra
The e-commerce feature in Kartra is way more developed than in MailChimp. Everything is well thought out whereas, in MailChimp, you have to integrate essential features such as checkouts.
Support
Kartra has a dedicated team that provides customer support through chat or tickets. They also have a resource center called Kartranaut.
You can get support from MailChimp via phone for sales-related queries, email if you want to report abuse, and developer portal if you want API support. MailChimp also provides chat support, and if you need to mail them anything physical such as a letter, you can send them a letter in their P.O. Box.
More so, MailChimp’s help section is a robust resource full of information on how to set up and use every feature in MailChimp.
Winner: Both
Kartra and MailChimp have invested in providing great customer support to their users.
Pricing
In the end, no matter how great a tool is, your decision may all come down to pricing.
Kartra pricing includes four different plans to choose from: Starter at $99/month, Silver a $199/month, Gold at $299/month, and Platinum at $499/month.
MailChimp’s pricing structure is more complicated as it has separate price plans for its marketing platform, websites and commerce, and transactional email.
The marketing platform has four plans: Free, Essentials at $13 per month, Standard at $20 per month, and Premium at $350 per month.
There are three plans under websites and commerce: Free, Core at $10 per month, and Plus at $29 per month
Pricing for transactional email ranges from $10 per block to $20 per block; it gets cheaper as the number of blocks increase. Therefore, you’d pay $10 for over 161 blocks and $20 for up to 20 blocks. A block is equivalent to 25,000 emails.
Winner: Both
MailChimp is the cheaper tool right out of the box. If you are okay with using MailChimp as is, you won’t have to spend a dollar more. Kartra is costlier because it comprises multiple tools under one roof. However, with more integrations, MailChimp can get as costly as Kartra. This is why both tools tie.
Bottom Line: Kartra vs MailChimp: Which Tool Should You Choose?
The choice between Kartra and MailChimp depends on what you want your software to do for you.
If you want a tool that can handle all the aspects of running an online business without having to integrate with multiple tools, go for Kartra. Otherwise, go for MailChimp if you want a cheaper alternative but don’t need to integrate with many other tools.
All in all, if you’re looking for one tool that will make the biggest impact in growing your online business, it’s pretty hard to beat Kartra. It does so many different things to streamline your operations and removes the need to have multiple software solutions for different parts of your business.
That’s why we give the nod to Kartra in this head-to-head comparison.
If you want to learn even more about it, make sure to check out our complete Kartra review where we go in-depth analyzing all of its different features and pros and cons.
Have any questions about how Kartra vs Mailchimp compare in other areas? Let us know by commenting below.