Kajabi vs Kartra: An In-depth Guide for 2024

Deciding between Kajabi vs Kartra? Get insights on their usability, features, and pricing to make an informed decision for your digital marketing needs.

Joanna TaylorJoanna Taylor

By Joanna Taylor  •  Updated 5 April 2024

Kajabi and Kartra provide platforms for teams and individuals to host, market, and sell their products. 

Kajabi is your go-to if you're an educator looking to sell courses online, with a nice touch of freedom in shaping your site and marketing plans. 

On the other hand, Kartra is more focused on providing top-of-the-line marketing capabilities and a platform to sell both digital and physical products. 

Both platforms also have a lot in common, with slight variances. Let's take a deeper look at their features and key differences.

Kajabi vs Kartra – At a Glance

Kajabi vs Kartra Compared

Let's take a closer look at where Kajabi and Kartra excel, and how these features can be beneficial to you as a user.

Kajabi

Kajabi is first a learning management system (LMS), then a marketing tool. It is primarily for educators who wish to monetize their knowledge in the form of courses.

Kajabi Homepage

Users have access to a suite of tools enabling them to make their courses fun, engaging, and presented in a well-rounded manner.

Plus, a beginner-friendly website builder and a host of marketing tools allow you to sell your course all from one platform.

Kajabi

Here is a detailed list of Kajabi’s main features, their functions, where they lag behind, and how to use them.

1. Course Creator

Kajabi’s course builder is one of the platform's biggest strengths. You can choose the design of the course player from a series of different templates to edit how it looks for the user. 

To keep your course engaging, you can also offer quizzes, assignments, and surveys after each lesson and set a passing grade for students to meet. 

With the content locking feature, you can limit students from moving forward with the course unless they pass the test. 

Kajabi also allows you to manually grade assignments and provide feedback to students where necessary. 

The content-dripping feature allows you to schedule your courses. So, once a student signs up, they'll receive access to each lesson periodically rather than all at once to keep them from feeling overwhelmed and put off.

2. Mobile App

Kajabi provides an iOS and Android mobile app to provide your students with a hassle-free experience when watching content on their mobile devices. 

You also have the option to keep your customers informed by sending them push notifications directly to their phones. Plus, they don't have to log in each time they want to watch a course, which would be the case when accessing through the mobile browser. 

While it isn't completely white-labeled, your students will see your branding once they open the app. 

Kajabi is also rolling out a service where they create a fully branded app for you, although this feature is currently in the works and not fully available.

3. Community

Kajabi’s community feature is one of its highlights. It allows you to create a discussion group with your students right within Kajabi, without directing them to a third-party platform.

Kajabi Community

The community feature consists of Access Groups and Circles. Groups consist of members of your course and you can create multiple with different members. 

You can consider Circles as mini rooms for the topic of discussion. For example, there can be a Q&A Circle, where students can enquire about their queries. 

You can restrict access to certain Circles to a designated Access Group. So, if you have various membership tiers and only some of them permit access to a particular Circle, you can form an Access Group comprising members who pay for the service, granting them access accordingly.

4. Funnels

Kajabi also has the feature to create sales funnels, directing your customers from the top of the funnel to the bottom and vetting them in the process. 

You get to choose from eight different funnel templates, each geared towards a specific goal. For example, if you're looking to offer a free file download to your customers, the 'Freebie' template is your friend.

Once you have selected a template you can modify the pages according to your preferences. Just click on the page you want to edit, and Kajabi will whisk you away to its convenient drag-and-drop page builder.

5. Email Marketing

Kajabi comes with an email marketing tool that can rope in leads, play an integral role in your sales funnel strategy, or simply keep your customers in the loop. 

You can choose what they look like by either designing them yourself or choosing from a range of pre-made templates. 

They also feature an automation tool that allows you to automatically send emails if a trigger is activated. Triggers can range from if a person has been inactive for a period or if they have purchased an offer. Here is a full list:

Kajabi Automations

Kajabi Pros:

Website builder: There's no need to juggle between different platforms for course creation and website building. Kajabi's beginner-friendly website builder ensures you have all the tools to design your site, market, and sell your courses from one unified platform.
Community features: This feature allows you to set up a discussion forum right within Kajabi without having to lead your customers to a third-party platform.
Mobile accessibility: Offering both iOS and Android apps, Kajabi ensures a hassle-free mobile experience for students. This improves accessibility and enhances user engagement with push notifications and easy login features.
Email marketing: The email marketing tools in Kajabi are great for educators who want to stay in touch with potential and current students. Its automatic features can make talking to students and selling courses much easier and more effective.

Kajabi Cons:

Limited interactive video features: You don't have the option to make the course player more engaging by adding CTAs or on-screen quizzes.
Limited email marketing features: While the built-in email tool will handle most basic tasks and even assist with a few technical aspects of email marketing, if you aim to build a more sophisticated marketing campaign, you will need to integrate it with another tool.

Recommended for you

If you've considered Kajabi but found it to be too expensive, you might like to check out our guide to cheaper alternatives to Kajabi.

Kartra

Launched in 2018, Kartra is relatively new compared to competitors, but has performed splendidly in terms of functionality, features, and regular updates.

Kartra Homepage

Kartra, much like Kajabi, is a versatile platform. From memberships and courses to marketing, it does it all. 

However, its marketing features shine brighter than the rest, making it a great choice for those who have been hopping between good platforms for creating courses but found them lacking when it comes to selling those courses.

1. Page Builder

Kartra's page builder is among the best. They offer a staggering 468 templates for various use cases. You can filter them according to your particular use case or by their primary colors.

Kartra Page Builder

Once you have your template, the page builder itself is neatly laid out, with a handy tutorial to guide you if needed. 

You can change the default font and style of the text, plus drag and drop the various elements you need. You also have the option to go into settings and set various SEO parameters, including page title, meta description, keywords, author, and more. 

From the top bar, you can change the screen to see how the page looks on desktop, tablet, and mobile to ensure everything works as it should on all screens. 

All other options are present within various sections on the left sidebar, and getting the hang of it shouldn't take more than a few test runs on the builder.

2. Lead Generation

Kartra has different tools that make getting new leads easier and help increase your chances of success.

One of these is the split testing feature. You can create two different versions of a page and split traffic between them. Over time, you keep the version that performs the best in terms of whatever goal you pick. Here are the goals you can select:

Opt-In
Page Visit
Purchase

Another handy tool is the forms feature. You get to play around with a detailed form creation and design tool, where potential leads can fill in their details. Kartra also allows you to set up automations dictating which email campaigns the user gets enrolled in upon completing the form.

Plus, you have the flexibility to add the form either to either an existing Kartra page or a third-party page—the choice is yours.

3. Funnel Mapper

Kartra's Funnel Builder is like a virtual canvas for sketching out your marketing strategies. This feature is purely for your own reference and is not a functional tool that creates a campaign, however, it is still plenty useful.

Kartra Funnel Mapper

Since the page builder operates on individual pages one at a time, it can be easy to lose track of your organizational plan. The funnel mapper addresses this issue by offering a space to jot down your ideas as you build your site.

Once done, you can choose to save your work as a PDF or share the link with others.

4. Campaigns

Funnels, or campaigns, as Kartra likes to call them are a great way to lead your customer on a predefined sales journey.

Kartra provides 218 different pre-built campaigns created by other users for various use cases that you can purchase and integrate directly with your site. If you aren't keen on spending extra, you can also use one of the free campaigns provided by Kartra or build your own. 

You can manage the buyer journey using sequences. Once a sequence is triggered – say, when someone buys a product or signs up for a newsletter – it takes your customer or lead down the sales funnel. 

This can be anything from sending a thank-you email after a purchase to sharing informative content based on their interests.

5. Calendars

Kartra's Calenders feature allows you to keep track of your schedule and keep your students updated about any open slots that they can book for a meeting. 

Whether you're hosting 1:1 coaching sessions, regular weekly classes, gym sessions, or big live events, this is the tool where the magic happens. 

Plus, Kartra ensures nobody misses an appointment with automatic confirmations and reminders. It's like having a scheduler, secretary, and reminder system all in one – without any extra cost.

Kartra Pros:

Beginner-friendly page builder: Kartra's page builder is top-notch, offering 468 templates catering to various use cases. This eliminates the need for external landing page platforms, as you have a diverse range of design options right within Kartra.
Visual funnel mapping: This tool provides a visual way to map out marketing plans. It keeps your strategies organized and ensures consistency across all marketing actions.
Lead generation tools: Kartra has easy-to-use tools for testing different page versions and making forms. This helps make your pages better and capture more leads directly on the platform.
Convenient scheduling: With the calenders feature you can mark your open slots and your customers can then choose to book you for a call, all within Kartra.

Kartra Cons:

Product: The platform is structured so that the product is the last thing you build once you have your pages and campaigns ready, this can feel confusing and counterintuitive.
No community feature: If you want to set up discussion forums for your members, you will have to do so off the platform.

Kajabi vs Kartra – Pricing

Kajabi comes with three plans, each varying in the number of features it provides users access to. Here are their prices

Basic Plan: $149 /month
Growth Plan: $199 /month
Pro Plan: $399 /month

You also get access to a 14-day free trial so you can test out the tool and decide whether you want to buy a subscription.

Kajabi Pricing Plan

We recommend going for the basic plan only if you're starting out and don't have too big of a customer base. However, once you start expanding, the limits can start to feel restrictive and you will have to upgrade to the Growth plan. 

On the other hand, Kartra is comparatively cheaper. It also offers three plans, but their free trial lasts 30 days. Here are the subscription plans available:

Starter Plan: $99 /month
Growth Plan: $189 /month
Pro Plan: $429 /month
Kartra Pricing Plan

If you're selling courses, the Starter plan isn't ideal. You don't get access to many essential features to interact with students, including the quizzes and webinar tools. We recommend going with the Starter plan, even though it's pricier.

Kajabi vs Kartra – Key Differences

While both platforms offer many similar features, their primary focuses differ. As a result, some tools available in one might not be present in the other. Here are Kajabi and Kartra’s key differences.

Mobile app: Unlike Kajabi, Kartra doesn't come with a native mobile app. Your students will have to rely on the mobile web app to watch your courses.
Course creator: Since Kajabi mainly caters to course creators, its course platform is also the better-looking and more functional of the two platforms.
Community feature: Kartra doesn't come with a native community tool. You will have to take to third-party platforms if you want to create a space for your course members to interact with you and each other.
Flexibility: Kartra allows you more flexibility in the types of products you can sell on the platform. While Kajabi only allows a handful of digital products to be listed for sale, with Kartra, you can sell both digital and physical products.
Split testing: Kajabi doesn't offer a native A/B testing tool and you will have to go through loopholes to conduct a split test.

Kajabi vs Kartra – Choosing the right platform for you

To sum it up, if you're looking to teach or coach, Kajabi is great if you’re keen on delivering engaging courses with a community-centric approach, all wrapped in a user-friendly website builder.

On the flip side, Kartra shines for those who need a strong marketing platform to run their funnels and sales campaigns. You get access to a variety of tools that make the task easier and hassle-free. 

If you're an online business owner and require an intricate set of marketing tools to make yourself heard, Kartra is the clear winner. However, if you need a strong community-building platform, Kajabi is the more reliable of the two.

While Kartra might be cheaper, its Starter plan is very limited in what it can do, especially if you're selling courses. Comparing the Growth plans, Kajabi comes out as the more value for money out of the two. 

However, if you're seeking our advice on an LMS, we'd strongly suggest considering Kourses. We’re actively working on making it the best course creation and selling platform in the market, offering a vibrant community tool, a feature-packed course builder, various membership options, and much more. 

You can join the waitlist today to get exclusive access upon release!

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