Kajabi vs Kartra: In-Depth Side-by-Side Comparison

So you are probably wondering when it comes to Kajabi vs Kartra, which is superior?

We put together this Kajabi vs Kartra comparison to help you figure out which is best for your online business.

In this article, we are going to cover the main differences between Kartra vs Kajabi and compare both platforms across a number of categories.

At the end, we will give our final verdict for which of Kartra vs Kajabi wins our recommendation. 

Kajabi

Kajabi is an all-in-one platform designed specifically for creating, marketing, and selling online courses (watch a demo).

Kajabi is designed for selling online courses but it can be used for selling other digital products like webinars, e-books, instructional videos, and much more.

Kajabi can even be used to sell physical products, though it is clearly not optimized for that function. 

Kajabi is not so much a single thing but many functions wrapped into a  single platform. Kajabi gives users a powerful set of web building tools, email marketing tools, a huge library of marketing automations, student engagement tools, robust sales and landing page features, and membership site tools.

Kajabi really is the closest thing to “all-in-one” when it comes to digital course creation platforms. 

One unique feature of Kajabi is its amazing marketing and sales funnel tools.

Sales funnels in Kajabi are called “pipelines” and the platform has a dedicated feature for building sales pipelines.

The pipeline editor uses a neat visual display so you can add landing pages, opt-in forms, and more to your pipeline using the drag and drop interface. 

Kajabi’s other main draw is its course builder tool. Kajabi gives course creators a wide range of flexibility in how to structure their course content.

The course builder tool supports a wide range of file types (video, audio, text, PDF HTML, etc) and you can group individual lessons by courses and categories to make it easier for students to search your curriculum.

You can also create membership site pages and lock premium course content behind a paywall for subscribers.

All-in-all, Kajabi is one of the best all-in-one business platforms for selling online courses.

The web builder tools are powerful and give a lot of customization options, and the marketing pipeline tools are top-notch and can greatly increase lead generation and conversion rates.

Moreover, Kajabi subscribers get access to Kajabi University, a large library or educational and research resources for entrepreneurs figuring out how to use the platform and get started.

Pros  

• Extremely well rounded; can do pretty much everything related to business very well
• Intuitive interface and drag and drop editor
• Good customization options
• Visual pipeline editor is very helpful and intuitive to modify
• Email marketing automation tools let you create complex sequences
• Large amount of available integrations

Cons

• Relatively expensive plans compared to some other platforms
• Some features, like some of the integration tools, can be a bit obtuse to figure out
• Student engagement tools could be better (e.g. a randomization option for answers)

Kartra 

Kartra is different from Kajabi in some significant respects.

Whereas Kajabi is more designed as a general tool for running an online course business and has a good set of well-rounded features, Kartra is a sales funnel creation tool specifically designed for maximizing marketing objectives.

Kartra does have a lot of tools for hosting and building courses, but its main focus is the marketing tool.

So whereas Kajabi weighs all of its features more or less equally, Karts puts more weight on its marketing and email potentials. 

In that sense, the main feature of Karta is its marketing page editor. The building tools give access to a ton of useful templates for making sales pages, landing pages, squeeze pages, checkout pages, etc.

You just pick a template then you can switch around the layouts and elements as you please. Kartra also uses a simple drag and drop editor. 

Kartra’s email tools are another important part of the platform’s marketing edge. One major feature is the automations.

Kartra not only has a ton of cool email automations but it has the best automation editor we have seen.

Kartra gives you a visual representation of the automation flowchart where you can arrange sequences and set triggers by clicking on the elements.

As far as the email itself, Kartra lets you manage your contacts, design message templates, import contacts, and create broadcasts directly from the dashboard.

You can select from a wide range of forms and segment users by demographic data you have collected. 

One last cool feature is the pre-built marketing campaigns. You can pick from one of several pre-built marketing campaigns that have a pre-written copy, landing pages, squeeze pages, and checkout pages already set up in a functioning funnel.

The Kartra team is constantly updating the pre-made models too so you get a nice stream of new content on a semi-regular basis. 

The course creation tool lets you create course listings and create membership pages for premium content.

Each of your products allow for video hosting and can be assigned to membership offers. 

Pros

• Amazing marketing tools and automation
• Visual automation editor and sales funnel editor
• Versatile email tools
• Great video marketing capabilities
• Large variety of sales templates
• Simple drag and drop editors
• Relatively cheap pricing plans

Cons

• No quizzes or other e-learning activities
• A bit more complicated: might take a bit to get used to
• Course creation tools could have more functionality

Kartra vs Kajabi Comparison

It is a bit unfair to directly compare Kartra vs Kajabi because the two products are so different.

They have a lot of similar features but are focused on accomplishing different tasks.

After all, you wouldn’t judge a shovel based on how good of a rake it is; shovels and rakes are just designed for different things. 

That being said, there is enough overlap that we can compare the two platforms on some of their major features.

This Kartra vs Kajabi comparison will come some of the major features of the platforms.

Sales Funnel Tools

The sales funnel tools are probably the areas where Kartra and Kajabi most line up.

Both platforms have a unique sales funnel building feature and give great flexibility as fast as what you can do. 

The sales funnels are some of the most important featuers yo get started with .

Kajabi

Kajabi’s pipelines are pretty darn competent and are simple enough to use.

The key feature of the pipeline is the visual layout.

Pipelines can get pretty abstract and hard to keep track of so it’s great to have a simple visual representation of what path customers will take through the sales funnel. 

The pipeline tools are amazing because it puts everything you need done for your campaigns in one place.

With other platforms, the process of creating a marketing funnel can span 3-4 separate apps. Kajabi puts all the functions in one place and automates a good deal of the process.

That does not mean you have to rely on the automation tool either; you can customize each part as much as you want. 

Overall, the pipeline function of Kajabi has very few downsides.

There is one important one though; there is no option to test out how efficient your sales funnel will be. You just have to set it and see how it turns out. 

Kartra 

The sales funnel tool for Kartra shares a lot of similarities with Kajabi. It also lets you create a custom pipeline from scratch and wraps all the features up into a single tool.

Kartra’s sales funnel works on sequences and conditionals. You can create specific sequences and then link them together into a larger chain with “if-then” conditionals.

Like Kajabi, the editor uses a visual representation of the funnel so it’s easy to see where the process branches based on what the customer does. 

Kartra has one major advantage over Kajabi when it comes to the sales funnels though.

Kartra has a dedicated split testing function that lets you keep track of how effective different campaigns are.

You can definitely do split testing using Kajabi, but Kartra has a tool specifically for it where all the information is gathered and presented.

That single option makes us judge that Kartra is slightly superior to Kajabi when it comes to the sales funnel tool. 

Email Tools

Both Kartra vs Kajabi have a good range of email automation tools built right into the platform.

However, ultimately we think that Kartra comes out superior in this aspect as its tools are a bit more flexible. 

Kajabi 

Kajabi has some great email marketing tools right out of the box. The email tools contain a bevy of features including premade templates, opt-in forms, campaign creation tools, and set up auto-responses.

You can segment your contacts on 45 different criteria and target each with a specific marketing campaign.

The list segmenting is powerful and one of Kajabi’s best email marketing features. You also get access to over 10,000 emails.

For instance, you can create a filter that essentially creates a decision tree about who to send emails and when.

There is one tiny problem we noticed though. The auto-response tool defaults to sending out an email one day after a person subscribes.

You have to go in and change the default setting to “Day Zero” to get it to send them out immediately. We don’t really get why the immediate response is not the default option but luckily it’s an easy fix. 

Otherwise, though, building forms and tying them into automated campaigns is a cinch. These opt-in forms can be used to gather customer data so you can better segment your contacts and tailor marketing campaigns. The email tool also keeps tabs on important statistics like open rates, click rates, bounce rates, and unsubscribe rates. 

Kartra

The email portion of Katra is definitely one of its most attractive features.

Like Kajabi, Kartra has in-built automation functions that let you set up unique auto-responses depending on several conditions.

However, we think that Kartra’s email tools give a bit more flexibility than Kajabi.  Kartra makes it easy to get everything done for your campaign.

For example, Kartra also lets you set the time frame on auto-responses but you can set it to individual hours (Kajabi only lets you do it by days). Kartra also has a bit more intuitive of an interface.

This is mostly because Kartra has a really awesome visual automation interface that shows you the branching decision trees of the sequences.

Kajabi does have a somewhat similar layout but it’s not as structured and easy to interpret. 

Kartra also has a wide range of email templates and opt-in forms to choose from.

You also get to pick the option to send SMS to subscribers. Overall, Kartra just gives more email options to connect with your subscribers, which is why we think Kartra wins this match up.

One complaint though, several people notice that Kartra’s automation sequence builder can be pretty buggy and take a long time to reload.  You can send over 10,000 emails in a cinch though.

Course Creation Tools

Given that Kajabi and Kartra are all about selling online courses, both platforms give users tools for creating course listing and pricing their products.

Overall though, Kajabi has better course creation tools as it gives better customization options and has better assessment tools.

Kartra

Kartra’s course building features are probably the weakest aspect of the platform, though it is still perfectly competent.

You can set up courses, group them according to categories, and set different offers. Kartra has a tag feature that makes it easier to sort classes for students to browse. 

The main problem with Kartra’s course building features is that there is a limit on the video hosting bandwidth you can use. This is a really bad shortcoming if most of your products are heavily video focused.

It is not too difficult to get around this limitation by using an external video hosting service but it’s annoying that you have to. Kartra’s course creation tools also do not support bulk uploads or cloud imports which can be tough if you want to import some already existing products.

It is also a drag to create Kartra membership pages and can take about 9 steps in total. 

To its credit though, Kartra’s individual post creator is very flexible.

You get access to 15 elements you can add however you want.

Kartra does not, however, have any options for course assessments, quizzes, and other student engagement tools which is a big flaw in a platform designed for online courses. 

Kajabi

Kajabi, on the other hand, has excellent course creation tools and learning engagement tools. Course creation with Kajabi is extremely straightforward.

All you have to do is select to create products then fill out the content. Once you do that you can set pricing and offers and publish it to your site.

Courses can be organized based on categories and individual tags.

You could also just use the bulk upload option to automatically post course content. 

You can set payment options for one-time purchase or per month subscriptions.

Organizing lessons and modules is simple too. Everything works with the drag-and-drop editor so you can arrange the pieces of your courses as you see fit.

Kajabi also has a built-in cloud import option that can directly grab materials from Google Drive or Dropbox. This saves time on uploading materials.

Kajabi directly handles all uploads so you never have to worry about running out of video bandwidth. There is no limit on other file types either such as audio of PDFs.

Kajabi has one other important feature in its course builder that puts it ahead of Kartra.

Kajabi lets you create quizzes and assessments and insert them into lesson modules. You can set things up so that students have to pass an assessment before they can move on to the next lesson.

Kartra does not have any similar features so Kajabi comes out ahead in this respect.

The only real content engagement to Kartra has is the ability to drip content on a linear schedule.

Web Building Tools 

Lastly, we are going to cover the web building tools for both platforms.

Both Kartra vs Kajabi has some great web building tools, but ultimately, Kajabi comes out on top.  

Unfortunately, Kartra’s tools are lacking in a few areas.

Kajabi

Kajabi’s page building tool is based on themes.

Each theme consists of a set of layouts and elements which you can then rearrange in whatever way you want.

Kajabi also offers free hosting, a custom domain, and SSL certificates on all your pages.

You can also upload and import custom themes. Kajabi lets you create unlimited pages.

Entire page editor is built on the drag-and-drop philosophy. Just click on your page in the editor and you can select the elements to modify.

You can remove or arrange elements using the editor. Overall, Kajabi’s page builder is extremely flexible. 

You do have to pay for higher plans before you can remove the Kajabi branding from your site.

Kartra

Kartra does not have the same theme mentality that Kajabi does so you have to put together each page more or less from scratch. That being said, Kartra has a wide library of 200+ templated to choose from and customize using the page editor.

The sections option gives templates for specific blocks like testimonials, pricing tables, and FAQ boxes. You can also get a custom domain and unlimited pages without the Kartra branding.

Kartra’s web building tools work well enough but they are ultimately limited compared to Kajabi.

Kartra also does not have a blogging feature, something that included in Kajabi’s Growth plan or higher. 

Final Verdict: Kartra vs. Kajabi

It is hard to draw a direct comparison between Karta vs Kajaboi as both platforms are designed for different things,

However, overall, Kajabi has the best mixture of features that are comprehensive. Kartra has amazing sales funnels and email tools but the other categories lag behind Kajabi. 

Fortunately, the choice between Kartra vs Kajabi is not exclusive.

Both platforms can integrate with one another, so you can run your course and webpages using

So no matter which one you choose, you will have a lot of options.

When it comes to Kartra vs Kajabi, both have reasonable pricing plans and can suit your business’ needs well.

You can find out more about Kajabi’s pricing on this page.

You can pay for your subscriptions on a per month basis or annually. If you decide to choose Kajabi, don’t forget to check out their latest discounts or register for an extended free trial. So if you are looking for a solid platform for creating, marketing, and selling digital products, Kajabi is a great choice!