Kartra vs Kajabi 2022: Which One Is Better?

Kartra vs Kajabi. Not sure which one to choose?

Both of these SaaS (software as a service) applications offer everything you need to launch, market, and grow an online business with ease.

And in many ways, Karta and Kajabi are very similar.

But there are some key differences between the two platforms that you should be aware of before deciding which one is right for you.

To help you out, I have compared Kartra and Kajabi side-by-side, so you can see which one best fits your needs.

As always, I value your time. So without delay, let’s go compare the Kartra platform against Kajabi.

Karta Overview

Kartra is an all-in-one marketing platform created by internet marketing experts Mike Filsaime and Andy Jenkins in April of 2018.

It has everything you need to launch and grow an online business that sells physical products, digital products, and services, including done-for-you marketing campaigns by the most sought after online marketing consultant, Frank Kern.

At the heart of Karta is a powerful drag-and-drop page builder that makes it easy to create lead generation pages, sales pages, checkout pages, and more.

Plus, you get access to a suite of marketing tools, including hosting, email marketing, sales funnels, video, A/B split-testing, and analytics.

And the best part?

All of Kartra’s features are integrated by default which saves you time and money because you don’t have to manage multiple software applications or hire a team of developers to integrate a bunch of different tools for you.

Read my Kartra review to learn more about all of the features and benefits Kartra offers.

Kajabi Overview

Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that allows users to create and sell digital products, including online courses, membership sites, and coaching programs.

It is designed for entrepreneurs and content creators who want to monetize their knowledge and expertise.

Kajabi provides everything you need to launch and grow your business online, including a website builder, email marketing tools, a payment processor, and more.

Kajabi also has a strong focus on design, which makes it a great option if you want your online course or membership site to have a professional look and feel.

Plus, you can create an online community where your customers can interact with you and each other.

Whether you’re just getting started or you’re an experienced course creator, Kajabi can help you take your business to the next level.

Is Kajabi Better Than Kartra?

In some ways, yes, Kajabi is better than Kartra. But it also lacks some features that Kartra has. So depending on your needs, Kartra may be a better option for you.

For example …

As I’ve mentioned above, with Kartra, you can sell physical products, digital products, and services.

Kajabi, on the other hand, is designed specifically for digital products.

So naturally, to sell services and physical products, Kartra is better.

Who Is Kartra Best For?

Kartra is best for you if:

• You’re in the business of selling services.
• You are selling physical products.
• You want one single platform to run your entire business.

Who Is Kajabi Best For?

Kajabi is best for you if:

• Your primary goal is to sell online courses and membership sites.
• You want to add a blog and use SEO to get traffic to your website.
• You want to create digital products that include student quizzes, surveys, and assessments.

Kartra vs Kajabi: How They Are Different

Coming up next in this Kartra vs Kajabi review, we will compare both of these online business tools in great detail, but if you’re short on time, below is a quick summary of the main differences between them.

• At its core, Kartra is a sales funnel builder that comes with all the essential marketing tools you need to sell digital products, physical products, and services. Kajabi, on the other hand, is designed specifically for online course creators, membership sites, and coaching programs.
• With Kajabi, you can add a blog to your website and use SEO (search engine optimization) to get traffic from Google. Whereas Kartra doesn’t have blogging features, so you’ll need to use a dedicated blogging platform like WordPress.
• Kartra has an integrated helpdesk feature that allows you to offer email, phone, Skype, and live chat support to clients and customers. Whereas Kajabi doesn’t have built-in customer service features, so you need to integrate a third-party app such as ZenDesk and Livechat.
• Kajabi has a page and a website builder, unlike Kartra, which has a page builder only. However, you can easily link Kartra pages together to make an entire website, so this difference isn’t that much of a deal-breaker.
• Kartra also includes a calendar for customers to book appointments and schedule meetings with you. Kajabi doesn’t have this feature, but you can integrate a third-party app like Calendly instead.
• Kajabi offers a free 14 day trial. Kartra doesn’t, but they do offer a 14-day $1 trial and a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can still try Kartra risk-free.

Kartra vs Kajabi: What They Have In Common

Here’s how Kartra and Kajabi are similar

• Kartra and Kajabi both come with a full suite of marketing tools to help you grow your online business, including email marketing automation and analytics.
• Both tools make it easy to quickly create and host a website without any technical, design, or coding skills.
• They both allow you to create and sell digital products including courses and membership sites.

Kartra vs Kajabi: Core Features Compared

Now, let’s move on and compare the core features of Kartra and Kajabi against each other to see which tool best suits your needs.

Web Page Builder

As I mentioned above, you don’t need design and coding skills to create professional-looking websites.

Both Karta and Kajabi offer a drag-and-drop builder and beautiful, pre-designed templates that are easy to customize.

Kartra

With Kartra, you can create stunning web pages for your website in just minutes.

If you do have an eye for design, you can put your creative hat on and build your own pages completely from scratch.

Alternatively, you can choose a pre-made page template and customize every aspect of it, from the logo, colors, images, and fonts, to the order of elements.

With over 500 professionally designed page and section templates to choose from, you can create any type of page you need with Kartra, including squeeze pages, sales pages, checkout pages, thank you pages, 404 pages, and the list goes on.

As expected, all the templates are mobile responsive, and if you add new elements to a page, you can easily optimize them for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

And there’s more.

Kartra’s split testing feature allows you to test up to four different versions of a page against each other to help you optimize for the highest conversion rate.

Kajabi

Kajabi’s page builder is also easy to use, but creating a website with Kajabi is a two-step approach.

Unlike Karta, you don’t use the page builder to create individual website pages and then link them all together.

Instead, you choose a website theme and customize it using Kajabi’s website editor.

Kajabi themes come with 15 predefined website pages, including a home page, contact page, about page, thank you page, blog page, 404 page, and more.

Then, if you want to add additional pages to your website, you use the page builder to design a page from scratch or select a pre-designed template and customize it.

Kajabi templates include sales pages, podcast pages, bio pages, opt-in pages, policy pages, and coming soon pages.

While Kajabi’s two-step approach makes building a website a little easier in contrast to Kartra, there are only 11 website themes and 51 page templates which may be too limiting for some users.

However, all the templates are beautifully designed and mobile responsive, so they look great on all devices. And, Kajbi has blogging and SEO features. Kartra doesn’t.

Who wins?

Kajabi, IF you want to blog and get traffic to your website from Google.

But if blogging isn’t your goal, Kartra wins because it has a LOT more templates and customization options. Plus, Kartra’s page builder is easier to use than Kajabi’s.

Email Marketing Tool

Email marketing is an important part of any successful online business because it is the best way to build a trusted relationship with leads and convert them into paying customers – and generate repeat business from existing customers.

Both Kartra and Kajabi have email marketing and automation features to help you build your email list, send one-time email broadcasts, set up automated email follow-up sequences, tag and segment email subscribers, and more.

Kartra

Kartra’s email marketing tool, Karta Mail, has everything you need to grow and manage your email list, including advanced features to help you send the right emails, to the right people, at the right time, for higher open rates and conversions.

On a basic level, you can import contacts, create new email lists, send email and SMS broadcasts, and create beautiful opt-in forms to embed on your website and pop-ups to turn website visitors into leads when they are most engaged.

Plus, you can use pre-designed email templates that are easily customized with a drag-and-drop builder to help you create professional-looking emails quickly.

Advanced features allow you to segment your email list into different groups based on interests, demographics, or behavior using Kartra’s tagging system and then send targeted emails to each segment.

Kartra Mail also offers powerful email automation features to help you create complex workflows and send highly personalized emails that convert.

With Kartra’s visual workflow builder, you can easily drag and drop the email automation sequence you want to create and then use Kartra’s if/then conditions to send targeted emails based on people’s behavior.

For example, you can set up an automated email sequence that is triggered when someone subscribes to your list and then sends a series of welcome emails.

Or, you can set up an email sequence that is triggered when someone purchases a product and then sends emails with related products and upsells.

Last but not least, you can split test email copy and subject lines to find the winning version, which Kartra then switches to automatically. This is my favorite feature.

Kajabi

Like Kartra, Kajabi also offers stunning email templates that you can easily customize. Or you can create a reusable template from scratch to match your business brand.

There are 19 templates to choose from, including templates to showcase a product, make an announcement, send a blog post notification, and more.

You can perform essential tasks such as importing a list, sending email broadcasts, tagging and segmenting contacts, and creating an email sequence.

However, beyond the features listed above, Kajabi’s email marketing software is very basic in comparison to Kartra’s.

There is no visual email builder, and when/then conditions (similar to Karta’s if/then rules) are minimal.

Who wins?

Honestly, I found Kajabi’s email marketing feature underwhelming and Kartra’s visual builder and email split testing make Kartra a clear winner for email marketing.

Online Courses and Membership Sites

Courses and membership sites are a great way to monetize your knowledge and generate a sustainable passive income online.

So let’s see who wins the next round in this Kajabi vs Kartra comparison.

Kartra

As the name suggests, with Kartra membership, you can build a membership site to deliver your online courses and other types of digital products such as coaching programs and digital downloads (e.g. ebooks).

If you have more than one online course or digital product, you don’t need to create a membership site for each one. You can house them all in one central hub.

You can create four membership tiers for each course or product and easily control what content customers have access to based on their membership level.

And to keep members engaged and coming back for more, you can drip content.

New members are automatically sent a welcome email created by Kartra with their login details. You can use the email ‘as is’ or customize it to your liking.

Other notable Kartra membership features include:

• Customizable membership site templates
• Drag and drop membership site editor
• Upload video, text, and audio content
• Member progression tracking and analytics

Sounds perfect, doesn’t it?

Before you answer that question, keep reading to see how Kartra compares to Kajabi for online course creators.

Kajabi

When it comes to courses and memberships, Kartra has a lot of catching up to do.

In comparison to Kartra’s membership site templates that look like a plain basic blog, Kajabi’s templates look elegant, and they have more customization options.

There are templates to create a mini-course, online course, drip course, community, and membership. Or you can design your own website from scratch.

Plus, unlike Kartra, you can add quizzes, surveys, and assessments to help students track their progress and measure their learning outcomes.

Another useful feature missing from Kartra is Kajabi’s bulk uploader. It allows you to import all your digital content into Kajabi at once, and then Kajabi automatically creates lessons for all the content you uploaded, which is a huge time saver.

Kajabi also allows you to create a community for students and members to connect with each other, ask questions and get support. Kartra doesn’t.

Who wins?

You’ve likely guessed already.

If you want to give students and members a professional eLearning experience and access to a supportive community of like-minded people, Kajabi wins.

Plus, with Kajabi, you can include quizzes, surveys, and assessments in your content which is a great way to increase engagement and ensure students are learning.

Sales Funnels and Marketing Campaigns

Sales funnels are an essential part of any online business. They help you attract leads and automatically convert them into paying customers.

In Kartra, sales funnels are called ‘campaigns’. In Kajabi, they are called ‘pipelines’.

Let’s see how they compare.

Kartra

With Kartra funnels, you can create automated sales campaigns for your products in just minutes using a visual builder.

You can build funnels for webinar events, online courses, lead generation, eCommerce, strategy calls, product launches, live events, memberships, and more.

But designing and building a sales funnel and marketing campaign that converts from scratch is no easy task.

So Kartra offers ‘done for you’ plug-and-play funnel campaigns that are ready to use and proven to make money online.

The campaigns come with everything you need to generate leads and sales, including landing pages, thank you pages, pre-written email sequences, checkout pages, upsells, lead tagging, marketing automation, and more.

Currently, there are 30 done for you campaigns created by Kartra and top online marketing experts, including Frank Kern and Andy Jenkins.

Or, you can import Kartra funnels created by other Kartra users.

Kajabi

Kajabi also has a visual funnel builder and customizable templates, but the templates are not plug-and-play funnels like Kartra campaigns.

Instead, Kajabi offers pipeline blueprints you use as a starting point to build automated funnels for courses and digital products that YOU have created.

There are 7 pipeline blueprints to choose from for a variety of different goals, including lead generation, zoom webinars, product launches, sales pages, free ebooks, and coaching campaigns.

Or, you can start with a blank pipeline to build your own funnel from the ground up.

Each pipeline blueprint comes with a video tutorial explaining how to use it and a visual map of the automated sales funnel flow.

When you click the ‘Create Pipeline’ button, as seen in the image above, Kajabi installs and configures the pipeline for you.

Once installed, editing the pipeline is easy. Click any of the landing pages to customize them with a page builder.

Same for emails. Just click through to the email sequence, select the email to edit, and make your changes.

You can also preview emails in your browser and send yourself a test copy to see how the email will look in the recipient’s inbox.

Who wins?

It’s a draw in terms of ease of use and customization options. But I think some users will be swayed towards Kartra because of their plug-and-play campaigns.

Lead Generation and Management

Without a consistent stream of new leads, a business cannot thrive and grow. After all, leads turn into customers, and customers are potential affiliates.

Both Kajabi and Kartra offer features to help you generate and manage leads.

But how do they compare? Let’s find out!

Kartra

Kartra offers two powerful features to help you generate and manage leads.

For lead generation, with Kartra Forms, you can create beautiful opt-in forms and embed them on your website, pop-up forms, and slide-in forms.

Not a designer? No problem! There are 50+ pre-made templates to choose from.

All the templates are professionally designed to convert, easily customizable, mobile responsive, and GDPR compliant.

Plus, you can tag and segment leads by adding custom fields to your Kartra forms, and based on their answers to your questions, you can add leads to a highly targeted marketing campaign for maximum engagement and conversion rates.

But how do you know if leads are actually opening your emails, going to your sales pages, and buying your courses and digital products?

Well, that’s where Kartra Leads comes in.

Kartra Leads keeps a detailed log of all your lead’s activity in one place.

In Kartra, leads are also customers, not just email subscribers.

You can see emails they have opened, links they have clicked, pages they have visited, campaigns they have completed, products they have purchased, and more.

You can also organize leads into subgroups and customize your marketing message for each group.

Plus, Kartra’s automated lead scoring feature will help you quickly identify your most engaged leads. The higher the score, the more engaged the lead is with your content and offers.

This data can then be used to prioritize your marketing efforts and focus on the leads that are most valuable to your business.

Note: the number of leads you can manage in Kartra is determined by the pricing plan you are subscribed to. We’ll talk more about Kartra pricing shortly.

Kajabi

Leads are called ‘contacts’ in Kajabi, and like Kartra, contacts are leads and customers, not just email subscribers.

For lead generation, Kajabi offers a simple form builder to create embedded and pop-up forms for your website. Or you can create an email opt-in landing page.

In comparison to Kartra, Kajabi’s form builder is very basic. There are no templates or design customization options.

But you can add custom fields and use them to tag and segment contacts like you can in Kartra, then add contacts to a targeted email marketing campaign.

Kajabi’s contact management system is also simple but effective. You can see when contacts signed up, what products they have purchased, add tags to trigger a specific email sequence, and organize contacts into lists.

For example, you could create a list for your current customers and create a follow-up sequence that offers them a discount on their next purchase.

You can also add contacts manually or import them from a .csv file.

Who wins?

Although Kajabi does give you everything you need to effectively generate and manage leads, Kartra wins because its lead generation feature has more options, and its lead management system is a LOT more comprehensive.

Affiliate Management

It’s no secret that the most effective way to grow an online business with the least amount of work involved is to recruit a team of affiliates to promote and sell your courses and digital products for you, and in return, you pay them a commission.

Affiliate management is another key feature Kartra and Kajab have in common.

Curious to know which one is better? Keep reading.

Kartra

With Kartra, you can create questionnaires to learn more about potential affiliates before accepting them into your program.

Doing so helps you weed out unqualified affiliates and only accept those who are likely to be successful in marketing your products and services.

You can also create mandatory terms and conditions affiliates must agree to in order to protect your business from any legal issues that may arise further down the road.

If you offer buyers a money back guarantee, you can choose to withhold commissions until the refund period has ended, which is wise for obvious reasons.

Also, you can set a minimum amount before earnings are paid out, and set up different affiliate tiers to reward top-performing affiliates with higher commissions.

But how do you know who your top-performing affiliates are?

Kartra’s profiling system keeps track of affiliate performance, pending payments, payment history, and more.

And detailed analytics allow you to quickly see which affiliates are making the most sales for your business.

You can also:

• set different commissions for different products
• pay affiliates a percentage or a fixed amount of each sale
• allow instant affiliate payouts (if it makes sense to do so!)
• offer affiliates commissions to build your email list

Finally, all Kartra plans include access to the affiliate management system.

Kajabi

Oddly enough, Kajabi doesn’t reveal much about its built-in affiliate marketing feature on its website. They just say it’s only available on the Growth and Pro plans.

And unfortunately, like Kajabi forms, the affiliate system is very VERY basic.

However, it does give you everything you ‘need’ to recruit and manage affiliates, but Kartra offers a whole lot more.

Who wins?

It’s clear that Katra is without doubt the winner when it comes to their affiliate program. As I mentioned above, it is way more robust, and it is available to all users, not just those on specific plans.

Video Hosting

Both Kartra and Kajabi allow you to upload videos, and they both offer settings to customize the look of the video player.

Kartra hosts and streams your videos on their own servers, whereas Kajabi uses a third-party video hosting service called Wista. But it’s free to use for Kajabi customers, and you can upload unlimited videos, unlike Kartra, which limits you to 50GB of hosting bandwidth and 50 videos on the Starter plan.

However, Kartra has a lot of cool features for your videos that Kajabi is missing.

You can:

• tag users based on how they interact with your videos
• add timed call-to-actions including checkout buttons and opt-in forms
• organize videos into comprehensive playlists
• see detailed video analytics

Kartra video is included in all of Kartra’s pricing plans, but on the Starter plan, you can only host 50 videos.

Who wins?

In terms of video features, Kartra is a clear winner. However, it depends on your needs.

Because like we’ve already established in this Kartra vs Kajabi comparison, Kajabi is the winner for online course creation …

So, if you’re in the business of selling online courses and you don’t need all the fancy video bells and whistles mentioned above, then Kajabi is likely the winner for you.

Unique Features of Kartra and Kajabi

Now let’s take a look at the unique features of these two platforms.

Kartra

First on the list is one of my favorite marketing features.

A/B Split Testing

Kartra’s split testing feature lets you compare different web pages and emails against each other to find the best performers. When a winner is determined, Kartra automatically switches to it and bins the losers.

Helpdesk

Kartra helpdesk is a great way to provide customer support. It helps you keep track of customer service tickets and ensure each one is addressed in a timely manner.

You can create knowledge-based articles to help customers resolve common issues without submitting a ticket and canned responses for frequently asked questions.

You can also add live chat to your website without third party integrations.

Calendars

With Kartra Calendars, prospects, customers, and potential business partners can easily schedule consultations, coaching calls, and meetings with you at a time that is suitable for both parties. They can also self-manage their appointments. Plus more.

Agency

If you’re a freelancer, web developer, or marketing agency, you’ll love Karta Agency.

You can use it to build and manage Kartra-built websites and marketing campaigns for clients.

Clients can either grant you access to their account, or you can create an account on their behalf and include the cost in your service fees.

Marketplace

Kartra’s Marketplace is a valuable resource to help you launch and grow your business.

In the marketplace, you’ll find done-for-you sales campaigns created by other Kartra users and potential affiliates to partner with.

You can also hire expert copywriters, developers, coders, marketing specialists, etc.

Kajabi

Now let’s take a look at Kajabi’s unique features.

Blogging

Kajabi makes it possible to add a blog to your website and optimize your content for SEO to get free organic traffic from Google.

This feature gives Kajabi a big advantage over Kartra. However, for blogging, you can’t beat WordPress, and they both integrate with WordPress anyway.

Mobile App

Everyone is busy these days, and I don’t know about you, but everywhere I look, people are glued to their mobile phones.

Finding time to juggle work, the kids, exercise, learning, etc, is difficult. That’s why Kajabi created a mobile app for customers to access your courses on the go.

The app is easy to use, and in Kajabi’s own words, customers will love you for it.

Kajabi Access

Kajabi Access is an optional add-on that you can purchase with any of Kajabi’s pricing plans for an extra $99 per month.

Here’s what you get:

• Six 1:1 sessions with a Kajabi Customer Success Manager to help you reach your online goals faster
• Weekly live calls to get all your Kajabi questions answered
• Custom code editor for complete control over the look and feel of your website and;
• Everything on your plan doubles. For example, you can create six products and six pipelines instead of three.

Karta vs Kajabi: Pricing

Now you know which features make Kartra the best choice for your business and vice versa, below is an overview of the pricing options for each platform.

For more information, see my Kartra pricing guide and Kajabi pricing guide.

Kartra

Kartra offers four plans, and you can choose to pay monthly or yearly. If you pay yearly, you get a 25% discount.

There is no free plan, but they currently offer a 14-day trial for just $1 and a 30-day money back guarantee.

Note: the trial is marketed as limited, so I’m not sure how long it will be available. Also, you only see the offer when you go to exit the pricing page.

All Kartra plans include access to all the features we’ve discussed today. However, they are limited on the Starter plan.

But the plans above (Silver, Gold, Platinum) only limit the number of leads, contacts, and custom domains, as seen below.

Kajabi Pricing

Kajabi offers three plans and a free trial.

Like Kartra, If you choose annual billing over monthly billing, you save twenty percent, and they offer a 30-day money back guarantee.

Karta vs Kajabi: The Final Verdict

I hope this Kartra vs Kajabi comparison has helped you choose the best platform for your needs.

But if you’re still unsure, why not try both? Kajabi is free for 14 days, and Kartra is just $1, so it’s still risk-free. That way, you’ll know for sure which one is right for you.