Choosing between ClickFunnels and Kartra is tough because they appear to offer very similar features.
I’ve cut through the noise and laid everything out simply so you can make a quick decision on which will be best for you.
ClickFunnels vs. Kartra: Quick Overview
| Feature | ClickFunnels | Kartra |
|---|---|---|
| SupplyGem Platform Ranking | No. 3 | No. 5 |
| SupplyGem Score | 9.4 | 9.0 |
| Trustpilot Score | 3.8 | 3.5 |
| Costs From | $97/month | $59/month + 5% t/f |
| Current Offer | Get a Scale plan 30-day free trial | Get a Starter plan 30-day free trial |
| Money-Back Guarantee | 30 days | 30 days |
| Top Features | Funnel builder Native payment processor Message hub | Live webinars Help desks Membership portals |
| Best For | Keen marketers looking to place funnels as their central strategy | Online businesses looking for full management and CRM tools |
ClickFunnels vs. Kartra: What Are the Key Differences?
ClickFunnels is first and foremost a marketing platform centered around the idea that everything starts with a funnel.
As you’d expect, its marketing features are top-notch, but it has also expanded its offering to include business management tools like leads and pipelines, messages, and appointment scheduling.
Kartra flips that around. It’s centered around business management tools and also happens to provide sales funnels and email marketing. It’s a more rounded solution than ClickFunnels for running key business tasks.
Both platforms have digital product building tools with various strengths and weaknesses, which I’ll cover later in this article.
Who Are These Platforms For?
Since Kartra is the more solid option for running an online business, it’s ideal for anyone wanting an all-in-one solution for that purpose.
ClickFunnels can work as an all-in-one business tool. But since its strengths lie mainly in marketing, it’s a better choice if you need to expand your capabilities in this area, especially within funnel building.
ClickFunnels vs. Kartra: Affordability
I’d consider both platforms to be “premium” in terms of pricing.
At $59 per month, Kartra has a lower-priced entry-level plan; however, the 5% transaction fee on all sales is a sticking point for me. When you start bringing in revenue, the costs can stack up.
ClickFunnels starts from $97 per month. It’s a higher cost, but there are no transaction fees to worry about.
Both platforms have feature limits and restrict advanced features to the higher plans. So, they’re about on par with each other in this respect.
ClickFunnels has a more generous discount for paying annually compared to Kartra:
| Plan | Monthly Price | Monthly Price Paid Annually | Total Annual Cost | Discount for Annual Payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ClickFunnels Launch | $97 | $81 | $972 | 16% |
| ClickFunnels Scale | $197 | $164 | $1,968 | 16% |
| ClickFunnels Optimize | $297 | $248 | $2,976 | 16% |
| ClickFunnels Dominate | N/A | N/A | $5,997 | N/A |
| Kartra Essentials | $59 + 5% transaction fee | $52 | $624 | 11% |
| Kartra Starter | $119 | $99 | $1,188 | 16% |
| Kartra Growth | $229 | $189 | $2,268 | 17% |
5 Reasons ClickFunnels Is Better than Kartra
1. Way Better User Experience
I’ll level with you. I’ve always low-key hated the Kartra user experience.
It’s clunky and often frustrating.
Features take ages to load, and it’s not always clear what you need to do. You often can’t continue without watching an annoying tutorial or filling in various pieces of information.
Once you get used to it, you get past the frustration, but it’s still not particularly efficient.
In contrast, ClickFunnels has cleaned up its act (and its platform).
You can add features (called “apps”) as you need them, resulting in a nice, clean, and uncluttered interface.
Everything is intuitive, and even if you’ve never used a tool before, you’ll get used to it within a few minutes.
It just feels more modern and stylish than Kartra. And if you’re a beginner, you’re going to have a much happier time using ClickFunnels because it’s so easy to master.
2. Sales Funnels Galore
What’s not to love about funnels?
Well, plenty.
But if your business relies on this sales strategy, ClickFunnels is the holy grail of platforms.
There are funnel templates for just about every use case, all-right-ish page designs, and a simple workflow builder to create your funnel magic.
The funnels can be as complex as you want with split branching, depending on user actions, and A/B testing to try out different formats. They can also incorporate web pages, checkouts, and emails.
I particularly like the quiz funnel and ClickFunnels’ survey builder.
This also features branching, allowing you to build variable flows that change according to user responses. This is super valuable for extracting precisely the right type of information from your leads and tailoring offers to suit them.
Although Kartra also has a funnel builder, it’s just so darn complicated to use. Creating them takes ages, the workflow screen isn’t exactly straightforward, and the templates kinda suck.
3. Integrated Message Hub
This is a relatively new feature that opens a wide door of possibilities within customer relationship management.
Now, you can pull in all your text, email, and social media message conversations into one central dashboard and respond from a single place.
Okay, so this isn’t revolutionary by any means, but it’s still a huge step up from relying solely on email.
It also means you can facilitate live chat conversations and sort out customer issues in real time.
I love the convenience of it all, too. Rather than jump from one app to another, you’ve got everything there in front of you. This means you’re far less likely to miss a message, resulting in fewer dropped leads.
4. Includes E-Commerce
Kartra will tell you that it enables physical product sales, but it doesn’t do anything beyond creating a listing for them.
ClickFunnels has actually made an effort to bring in proper e-commerce capabilities onto its platform. While it’s certainly no Shopify, it does make selling low numbers of physical products simple.
The platform features an e-commerce store builder with dynamic product listings and collections. You can manage inventory and variations and even integrate natively with a couple of shipping providers.
You’ve got a shopping cart function, complete with abandoned cart nudges and smart features that allow customers to purchase in one click.
Although I don’t recommend it for high-volume sellers with hundreds of products (choose a standalone e-commerce platform if that’s you), it’s more than adequate for selling a handful of products or a mixture of physical and digital offers.
5. Native Payment Gateway
I love a native payment gateway! They’re so fast and simple to set up.
But ClickFunnels is extra smart because it also allows you to connect to other gateways like Stripe and PayPal. Then, it will route each payment through the best option according to where the buyer is located or what currency they are using.
You also get advanced automations and a clean dashboard for efficiently handling various payment scenarios, resulting in fewer failed transactions.
All your various payment options come with the service, including buy now, pay later and digital wallets.
Kartra does not have a native payment processor, so you have to integrate Stripe, PayPal, or one of the other options.
5 Reasons Kartra Is Better than ClickFunnels
1. (Mostly) Unlimited Features
Even the most expensive ClickFunnels plan has limits on the number of products you can create and emails you can send.
This is not the case with Kartra, and although the cheapest plan has limitations, its other plans don’t, allowing you complete freedom to create and try new things.
In the end, this is going to work out much cheaper than ClickFunnels because you’re not forced to upgrade to a silly-priced plan just to gain the ability to build an extra course or two.
2. Proper Membership Portals
It is possible to create a membership site in ClickFunnels, but there’s no specific feature for it. Also, the workaround is a pain. Often, it’s just easier to create product bundles and stick with that.
On the other hand, Kartra does have a proper portal feature, allowing you to create a centralized area where each customer can access what they’ve purchased via a single login.
I also like that the portal can be fully branded (it’s hard to remove ClickFunnels branding completely), plus you can connect your helpdesk to provide support access when needed.
It’s these kinds of things I was initially talking about when I said that Kartra was better for business management.
3. Customer Helpdesks
Customer support is essential to any business, yet it’s surprising how little some platforms offer to facilitate it.
Kartra’s got it sorted, with a full helpdesk feature to facilitate live chat and a full email ticketing system.
Although you can connect fewer communication methods than you can with ClickFunnels, the system is better for the customer’s end, providing them with various and clear ways to get assistance.
One excellent tool is the self-service billing area. Rather than come to you with any billing queries, your customers can manage their subscriptions and other payments via their membership portal.
Additionally, you can create an entire resource library with guides, walkthroughs, etc., and connect that to the helpdesk, enabling customers to help themselves.
4. Live Webinars
ClickFunnels has a webinar funnel, but it doesn’t have any tools to facilitate live webinars—only pre-recorded ones.
Now, this is where Kartra excels because its webinar tools are the same as those offered by WebinarJam (the platforms are provided by the same company).
You can choose to go live right away, whenever the mood takes you. Alternatively, you can schedule your webinar for a specific time and date.
There’s a bunch of interactive tools, too, so you can make your webinars super engaging and interesting.
For instance, you can use a text chat window to display polls and quizzes, hand out files, and even show offers during the broadcast.
Webinars can also be enriched with video clips and slide presentations to add variety.
Live sessions are a powerful way to connect with your audience, so this feature alone is a reason to consider Kartra over ClickFunnels.
5. SMS Marketing
Although it’s not particularly sophisticated, Kartra does offer SMS marketing.
You have to use a third-party service and integrate it with Kartra, and once you do, you’ll be able to send one-time SMS blasts to your contacts.
This is a feature that ClickFunnels notably lacks, so if you need this capability, Kartra is going to save you the hassle of using two separate platforms.
I will add that setting up automated SMS sequences isn’t yet possible, which is a shame. However, you can set up automations based on the recipient’s interactions with your messages.
ClickFunnels vs. Kartra: Pros and Cons
Still can’t decide? Here’s a quick rundown of each platform’s advantages and disadvantages:
ClickFunnels Pros
- No transaction fees on any plan
- User-friendly, intuitive platform
- Advanced funnel builder and marketing tools
- Central dashboard for communication
- Inbuilt payment processor
- E-commerce tools
ClickFunnels Cons
- Higher-priced plans with feature limits
- No native live webinar capabilities
- Limited business management tools
- Reports about customer service aren’t positive
Kartra Pros
- Cheaper plans with unlimited features
- Inbuilt webinar feature
- SMS marketing
- Membership portals and helpdesks included
- Advanced course builder
- Better analytics for products and sales
Kartra Cons
- Transaction fees on the cheapest plan
- Clunky user experience and slow platform
- High learning curve
- Many templates cost extra
Bottom Line: Which Should You Go For?
Everything comes down to a single question: Do you want better tools for marketing or business management?
When you can answer that, you know which platform to pick.
If you want my honest opinion, I think Kartra is the better of the two platforms, simply because its features are more in-depth and give you more ability to serve your customers well.
If its user experience weren’t so bad, I’d be highly recommending it.
For usability, ClickFunnels wins hands down, so if you are a complete beginner, going for this platform may just save your sanity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ClickFunnels or Kartra Better for Marketing Tools?
ClickFunnels is better than Kartra for marketing tools. It has a world-class funnel builder and excellent email and automated workflow capabilities. Kartra is also fine for marketing and features SMS marketing, but its tools aren’t as advanced as ClickFunnels.
Is ClickFunnels or Kartra Better for Course Building?
Kartra has a more detailed course builder than ClickFunnels and enables you to create full membership portals containing a variety of content. ClickFunnels’ course builder works like a web page creator and isn’t so great for structured learning.
Which Is a Better Value: ClickFunnels or Kartra?
Kartra is better than ClickFunnels because it offers less expensive plans and unlimited features on all but the cheapest plan. ClickFunnels applies feature limits regardless of the plan, which limits the overall value you get.
