Welcome to my Kartra review for 2023.

You’re so lucky to be growing an online business in 2024 instead of 2011. When I first started, I had to duct tape everything together.

Kartra is a total game changer. It’s easier, cheaper, and better than anything I had back in the day. That doesn’t mean it’s for everyone though.

I’ve been using it for 4 years on and off so I've got a fair bit of experience with it as well as the evolution of it.

In this Kartra review, I’ll give you an insider look at how I use it to run an online business, how it makes my life easier, who it’s for and NOT for, and even a few Vietnam flashbacks (not the PTSD ones).

I just spent god knows how long writing this 8,400-word Kartra review. I hope reading it is better than writing it…

First: What do Duct Tape, Ho Chi Minh, and Estonian SEO Have in Common?

Before we get to the Kartra review, I want to tell you about my journey with Kartra.

I first heard about Kartra about 4 years ago.

Flashback to 2018. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. 

Duct tape holds my entire business together.

Actually, my entire life – sleeping in airbnbs, shady visa agents, running an agency on 2.5 hours of sleep – was a bundle of stress held together by duct tape.

So I did what any add 22-year old entrepreneur would do with no sleep, no residence, and no permanent home…

START A 50-VIDEO ESTONIAN SEO COURSE!

You know all those gurus who tell you courses are PASSIVE INCOME?

They’re full of s***.

My course took off. I had 100 students in less than 3 months (hey, that’s like half of Estonia, so shut up). Plus a ton of leads to deal with.

Managing all the different tool subscriptions was a part-time job itself. Web hosting, email tools, a checkout cart, landing page builders, CRM…

One day, I met this guy at a DC (Dynamite Circle) event that told me about Kartra, a tool that could replace all my current tools and synchronize my entire business under one umbrella. 

I was a bit skeptical. No way could ONE tool do ALL of that.

But it did… and it changed my entire business.

Kartra contains every tool you need to start, launch, grow, and manage a successful business. And it’s all under one SYNCHRONIZED UMBRELLA.

I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is not having to integrate data from 5 different platforms. If someone lands on my page, it’s tracked automatically. If they fill in a form, they’re subscribed to my email list. I do nothing.

Kartra replaced:

• Teachable
• Deadline Funnel
• ConvertKit
• SamCart
• Onepage

And all of these headaches disappeared:

• Managing and coordinating 5 different ecosystems (stressful and inefficient)
• Dealing with integration errors (I have ZERO tech knowledge)
• Dealing with 5 different customer support teams (impossible)
• Paying for every tool every month. I went from paying ~$450/month to $1,800/year

Kartra is not perfect and has a few limitations that might be deal breakers for you.

But there’s ONE selling point to Kartra that I can’t oversell: it turns your business into an efficient, stress-free experience. 

Everything is under one roof – no integration errors, no learning curve, no separate subscriptions, one support team, instant synchronization. 

With Kartra, I was finally free to go back to stressing about being a semi-stateless, semi-homeless entrepreneur in a country where I didn’t speak the language (the good life).

Which bring me to this full review of Kartra

This tool has been a total game changer for me. I still use it to this day for my course, SEO services, and SEO consulting businesses. 

But it’s not perfect and it might not be right for your business.

So in this review, I’m going to walk you through EVERYTHING you need to know in detail before buying, including:

• My favorite features
• The benefits of Kartra
• Who it’s for and who it’s not for
• What Karta is and what it does well
• The drawbacks 
• An inside peek under the hood at the most important features

Ready? 

I’m not – I need a coffee. Give me a second.

OK, I’m back. Let’s do the damn thing.

Quick Verdict – Is Karta Worth It?

Yes, Kartra is worth the money. It’s not perfect, but that’s not the point. The point is to make your business easy, efficient, and stress free on the cheap.

Starting from $950/year, you get 1 tool that empowers you to do everything.

Including:

• Selling products (checkout)
• Building web pages (page builder)
• Organizing leads (CRM)
• Automating marketing funnels (funnel builder)
• Designing email or sms campaigns (Karta mail)
• Managing membership sites (memberships)
• Managing an affiliate network (affiliate manager)
• Hosting videos (Karta Video)
• Offering help desk to customers (Karta Helpdesks)

So with one tool, you can:

• Build a website
• Create squeeze, landing, or sales pages for your products
• Sell products with multiple payment processors 
• Organize and market to contacts
• Build automated marketing funnels to sell more products
• Recruit and manage affiliates to grow your brand hands off
• Utilize different marketing streams: text, email, video
• Offer help to customers for troubleshooting, refunds, upsells, etc.

If you’re already running a business, you’re probably spending more money on 5 or 6 different tools than you would with a Kartra subscription… so “is it worth it?” actually doesn’t even apply here.

It’s great for what it does – simplifying your business and putting all of your tools/subscriptions under one roof, so you can focus on growing instead of managing. 

Say you want to start a fitness coaching business. With Karta, all you’d need to do is set up a home page, host your digital products/pricing packages, load some videos, and start collecting email addresses.

From there, you can recruit affiliates, manage your contacts, offer upsells, run automated campaigns, and more.

Pros 

• One affordable subscription instead of 5
• No switching between tools or integrating data
• Protect your business from software errors (single point of failure)
• Karta marketplace (sell your campaigns)
• Minimal learning curve

Cons

• Jack-of-all trades 
• No inbound marketing 
• Low contacts limit for the Starter package

<< Check out Kartra's 14-day trial! >>

Kartra Overview

What Is Kartra and What Is It Used For?

Kartra is an all-in-one marketing platform that contains everything you need for starting, launching, growing, and managing a digital product business in one platform. 

That includes hosting, landing pages, payment processing, CRM, email marketing, affiliate management, videos, SMS marketing, and help desks.

Think of it like your business’ campus HQ where every department is in one massive building and communicates automatically.

If it’s part of running an online business, Kartra has a tool for it (except inbound marketing).

The goal is to simplify running a business, cut hours of management out of your day, and reduce costs, all while still providing a high level of functionality for each tool.

I always tell people the same thing: Kartra isn’t exceptional at anything. But it’s the only tool that delivers everything at an acceptable or better level.

So how do business owners use Kartra?

Business owners use Karta as a fully integrated business management platform. By fully integrated, I mean everything is connected automatically.

Say you want to host a video course, collect emails, recruit affiliates, and accept payments, Kartra does all of that.

Or, say you have a healthy cooking membership site, you can create membership tiers, track reader progress, slowly drip content to your readers, and accept recurring payments.

All from inside one platform.

The most common uses for Kartra are:

• Running email marketing campaigns
• Building sales funnels
• Capturing new leads
• Payment processing
• Video marketing campaigns
• Building landers and sales pages

Who Is Kartra For?

Digital Products and Services Businesses

The simplicity, power, and convenience of Karta are ideal for:

• Course creators
• Coaches
• Consultants
• Content membership sites 
• Training membership sites
• Digital product sellers (e.g. ebooks)
• Small online service businesses
• Marketing agencies

Basically, if you have a digital product or service, Kartra is a life-changing platform.

I’m not exaggerating.

You’ll be able to build web pages, host your products, build killer sales funnels, manage leads, and automate high-ROI email marketing campaigns all on the cheap and with minimal learning curve.

The only time it wouldn’t be is if you’re already a thriving business needing a custom site, advanced CRM and marketing automation, and complicated inbound marketing.

Everyone else, Kartra is for you. AND they have a 14-day trial waiting for you.

Beginner Solopreneurs

If this is your first course or membership site, you’ll love Kartra’s usability, power, and pricing. You can be up in running in a few days with zero previous experience in coding, marketing, or pagebuilding.

I cleared a few thousand dollars in sales in no time, and that included setting up new funnels. You’re going to need to spend money on hosting, email marketing, and automations anyway – you might as well spend less, make more, and have more free time.

Who Is Kartra NOT For?

There are a few key drawbacks to Kartra that I’ll cover in more detail below. Let me sum up who those drawbacks affect the most.

Karta is NOT ideal for:

Physical Product Stores 

It’s not bad – it’s just not as good as Shopify. Shopify is solely for eCom business to build a store and sell products. That’s what you’re looking for. Kartra is not for you.

People With No Money

You think running should be free? 

It really irks me to see so many negative “iTZ sO ExPeNsivE” reviews out there. I get that if you’re selling $20 eBooks or $99 coaching packages, paying a few hundred a month is expensive, but you won’t find other tools this good for this cheap.

Karta will cost you $99/mo at the lowest and you don’t see major savings unless you pay annually.

That’s nothing for the functionality you get. If you’re on a budget, use a super cheap or free alternative.

But I will say, you'll likely regret it the day you need to migrate back to Kartra. And that day WILL come, fast, if you take your business seriously.

People With Tens of Thousands of Leads

Must be nice, bro. Kartra caps leads on their plans. For Starter it’s 2,500 and for Silver it’s 12,500. If you happen to be sitting on a mountain of warm leads, you’ll want a tool with uncapped plans (see alternatives section).

Anyone Who Likes Wasting Time on Small Tasks

If you’re a sociopath who enjoys constantly berating phone support or fixing errors, be my guest. Because that’s what happens when you try to run an online business on 6 different pieces of software.

What Are the Benefits of Using Kartra

The Only Stress-Free Online Business Platform

Imagine waking up with a clear mind. Imagine not stressing about a dozen different platforms, monthly charges to your credit card, logins, reports, integrations, employees, customer service reps, and god knows what else. Let alone how one error could cause a butterfly effect that melts the polar ice caps. 

Thanks, dude. YOUR FORGETFULNESS just caused the apocalypse. 

Instead, you have one login. One platform. One low monthly subscription. One dashboard. And zero data integration. Imagine your entire online business under one beautiful Las Vegas-based umbrella.

Everyone says they’re an all-in-one platform. But Karta is the only one that truly is.

I can’t tell you how soothing it is to have everything in one place. For my course, everything from my checkout page to my emails, affiliates, funnels, and CRM are all connected and only a few clicks away.

Honestly, what else do I have to say to get you to try the 14-day trial and send me a thank you email next Monday?

Fun Fact: About two weeks into using Kartra, I was stoked about not duct taping my life together that I kept track of how much extra time I had. It came out to about 2 working hours per day. That’s 10 per week. Imagine how much extra work you could get done with 25% of your workweek back in your pocket.

Save Money While Earning More 

Kartra eliminates pretty much all of your monthly subscriptions, and brings them all under one easily manageable monthly payment.

So you’ll have more time and more features to earn more money, and pay less while doing it. If that’s not the best sales pitch, I don’t know what is.

Let’s do some back of the napkin calculations. For my course, Kartra replaces: 

• Teachable ($119/mo)
• ConvertKit ($79/mo)
• ThriveCart ($495 lifetime)
• WordPress Hosting (~$30/mo)
• Vimeo Pro ($20/mo)
• Deadline Funnel ($49/mo)

Let’s omit ThriveCart for simplicity’s sake. The total here is $297 per month. And that’s compared to $199 per month for Kartra. Add in $495 for ThriveCart and savings increase.

Up and Running in a Few Days

Kartra is designed to cut the learning curve down to a few days maximum for most businesses. You don’t need to build a team or pay for marketing consultants. A few cups of coffee and Karta is all you need.

You’ll be up and running in a few days maximum even with little to no prior experience. It’s as close to done for you campaigns as it gets without actually being done for you. 

It’s simple, intuitive, and comes with a lot simple features to help beginners like:

• A drag-and-drop editor
• Landing page templates
• Prebuilt funnels
• Simple automations

Plus it’s all integrated, so you don’t need to learn how to export/import data. If someone signs up through a form, they’re added to your email list/CRM automatically.

Simple but Powerful

I like how Karta strikes a good balance between being simple while still having powerful integrations, features, and extensions. That way, it’s really easy to use if you’re new, but if you’re a pro, you can do pretty much whatever you want.

Want to just keep a few simple tags in your CRM? Fine. Want an advanced lead scoring system that automatically adds VIPs to an exclusive members-only event? You can.

Want a plug-and-place email funnel where you just add the images text? Easy.

Want next-gen automations that adjust emails based on customer behavior? You can.

Some advanced features are:

• Customized lead scoring
• Behavior-based email automations
• Multi-membership portals
• Custom App System for personal extensions
• Kartra Marketplace for selling funnels or services

Protect Your Business From Failure

“Don’t spread your army too thin. This weakens the entire force” – Sun Tzu during his 14-day Kartra trial.

Using 6 or 7 different services to run an online business is a nightmare. I remember when my ConvertKit opt-in forms just decided to not work one day.

Like, somehow they all just decided to go on strike and not capture user info for my lead magnet. 

I didn’t even notice until 3 days later. Good luck getting an answer from support better than “LOLZ clear your cache. We just work here, don’t ask questions”.

When you spread your business that thin, there are too many points of failure. If one position falls, the whole thing collapses.

Bringing everything under one roof keeps everything running smoothly, and minimizes points of failure so you don't have to worry about one glitch ruining revenue. And if something does go wrong, you only have one support team, one tutorial library, and one community to deal with.

Kartra: Key Features 

Kartra is like a delicious international buffet with a little bit of everything from across the marketing world (minus the salmonella). 

“Wow, I can have a page builder, affiliates, videos, AND help desk ALL under one roof?”

I’m going to review my favorite features in-depth with screenshots so you get a taste of how it actually works. 

My advice is to zero in on 1-2 key features you absolutely must have, and make sure they do what you need first.

If you’re a funnel hacker, make sure the automations are there.

If you love designing landing pages, make sure there are enough design elements to fit your fancy.

That’s how you’ll get the most satisfaction out of the Karta platform.

Kartra Pages 

Kartra’s page builder is an intuitive but powerful drag and drop tool for building just about any page your online business needs, including:

• Home pages
• Landing pages
• Squeeze pages
• Sales pages
• Product launch pages with videos
• Webinar registration pages
• Thank you pages

It’s probably the easiest page builder I’ve ever used in a marketing platform. 

I have ZERO design skills, and even I can make nice, decent-looking landing pages (even my VA does).

If you can drag and drop, you can make a high-converting landing page.

Just choose from the 100+ templates, edit the main sections, add your images, and you’ve got a landing page that’s fully integrated into the Kartra ecosystem. Now, everyone that lands, signs up, clicks, or buys is instantly added to your mailing list, CRM, analytics, etc. See why integrating everything is awesome?

Like everything else inside the platform, the page builder can be as simple or as complicated as you like. You can even design a page from scratch and save it as a template.

Here are a few key features of the Kartra page builder:

Kartra Templates

100+ professional templates broken down into different categories for different use cases. And all of them are designed by the Kartra online marketing team based on real-world results and experiments. 

I don’t know about you, but I get pretty lazy. Why design a full page from scratch when I can have a similar landing page in 10 minutes from a template?

Kartra’s page builder is actually fast and smooth unlike Divi or Elementor. Sure, those might be better, but I’m never going to use half the features for most projects.

Kartra’s page builder is simpler and gives you fewer design options, but when I click a block to edit, it loads fast instead of bouncing around the screen. 

Kartra Block Editing and Pop Ups

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Editing is intuitive and easy. Each section is arranged into typical blocks like headers, footers, images, bullet points, columns, etc. 

Just click, add text, change the color, change the width – it’s up to you. It’s your life. Don’t need to go into crazy detail here.

My favorite part here is how easy Kartra makes it to add extras like:

• Pop up windows (upsells, exit intent, etc.)
• Google Maps
• Accordions
• Social sharing
• Countdown timers
• Carrousels

Adding a pop up to subscribe to an email list, sell something on the way out, or show a countdown to catch a sale is as easy as a few clicks.

Their pop ups are standard:

• Landing page 
• Exit
• Lead capture
• Checkout
• Video
• Info

Behavioral Adaptive Marketing (BAM) with Kartra

Big Brother is watching you. Kartra knows everything.

The cool (and scary) thing about BAM is that Kartra knows everything about your users. Their age, gender, location, history with your online business – Kartra knows…

Say you offer a healthy recipe newsletter but a return visitor has already signed up for it, Karta hides the signup and shows them targeted content instead.

Or if you run a fitness blog, Kartra allows you to offer different content for men and women automatically.

So if I’m a “I pick things up and put them down” bodybuilder, you can target me with 2,000-calorie meal recipes. Or if I’m a yoga instructor, you can hit me with light meals that are good post yoga.

Imagine the jump in conversions if you could hit each visitor with exactly what appeals to them and cut out everything they’d never read. The future is here.

Kartra A/B Testing Tools

Kartra’s A/B testing empowers you to show higher converting pages based on fast, accurate test data. 

Show users two versions of the same page, see which gets better results, and show that page.

You just got fast, free, and accurate market research in a few days. Behold, the interwebz.

Like all things Kartra, its A/B testing sacrifices high-end features for simplicity and synchronization. It doesn’t do much, but you can set up a test in 10 minutes, and the data is automatically integrated into your Kartra-verse.

Unless you’re a massive operation needing handfuls of A/B tests on dozens of pages, you won’t notice a difference. You don’t need to pay for Optimizely.

All the features are pretty standard:

• Show up to 4 versions of the same page
• Customize traffic percentage to each page (doesn’t have to be 50/50…could be 60/40 or 80/20)
• Goal tracking
• Certainty Ratio (Kartra’s metric for determining statistical certainty)

Kartra Checkouts (Shopping Cart)

Kartra is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to get started selling products. Setup is almost instant.

Now, without a bank, business, or merchant account, you can:

• Accept credit cards or PayPal
• Get payouts to your bank
• Charge sales tax and track tax/sales
• Offer upsells and cross sells
• Resell products to abandoned cart customers
• Analyze your business’ sales with analytics
• Offer trials and coupons
• Manage existing customers

If you’re new to selling courses, coaching, or consulting packages, all you need is Kartra. You can start rolling that same day.

It’s like your cash register, business bank account, and merchant account all in one, and the shopping cart is included in your subscription. I think it’s just as good or better than ThriveCart or Podio.

Here are two reasons why Kartra’s online checkout cart is ideal for businesses:

1. Advanced cart abandonment: Say someone wants to buy your blueberry muffin recipes but gets cold feet. You can apply an abandoned cart tag in your CRM and Kartra will send them automated reminders, offers, or even a whole series of emails – whatever it takes to get them to press that damn buy button.
2. Optimized for conversions: did you know that up to 80% of people abandon cart due to branding, format, or difficulty issues? Kartra puts an end to that. Left or right; up or down; branded; security badges; simplified checkout steps. Kartra’s customization options make it easier to get your customer to buy.

NOTE: Kartra is PCI and GDPR compliant and uses 256-bit encryption protocol. Yes, it is 100% safe.

Funnels and Campaigns

Kartra’s marketing campaign funnel builder is a simple, visual tool that lets anyone build successful online marketing campaigns quickly and easily. 

Just drag and drop elements where you want or use one of their premade campaigns based on Frank Kern’s successful marketing funnels. That’s it, you have a funnel that makes you money 24/7, 365.

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: no, Kartra’s sales funnels are not as good as Clickfunnels. Clickfunnels is solely a funnel tool. 

But Kartra makes building a successful funnel and managing it easier than any other tool, because everything about your funnel – pages, opt-in forms, checkout, follow up emails, lead tagging – is automatically synched into your ecosystem.

Now imagine that, instead of coming up with a funnel from scratch, super successful funnel builders gave you their funnels, and you could just plug them into your business to make money on autopilot?

I used Frank’s List Builder for my SEO consulting packages, and it worked like a charm. Instead of paying someone to make a funnel or figuring it out on my own, I just got a proven funnel that worked immediately. 

Again, Kartra takes the hard work out of starting and growing an online business by simplifying the process and removing headaches. Noticing a pattern here?

Kartra Mail (Email Marketing and SMS Marketing)

Kartra Mail gives you the power to send users the optimal message at the optimal time automatically based on user behavior. Then, you can test to see what’s working and send emails that convert even better. Overall, it’s a very solid sequence builder.

The email marketing tool’s design is simple and modern, and the editor is intuitive. You can build emails in a few minutes flat.

The key advantages of Kartra’s email marketing platform are:

• Next-gen automations: Kartra’s automations go a level deeper than most platforms, increasing open rates and conversions by delivering the right email to the right user. It can send emails based on whether or not users click a link, have a certain tag, bought a product, or subscribed to a list. 
• Behavior-based automations: Where most other tools give up, Kartra squeezes that extra bit of juice you need to make a sale. Say a user didn’t open your previous email, you can send a follow up with a better offer. Or, if they clicked a link and didn’t buy, you can send a discount coupon.
• Split testing: The easiest way to increase sales. Send emails, track which ones work the best, zero in on those and trim the fat.
• Full analytics: The Kartra ecosystem at it again. The email marketing platform is fully integrated. Every send, open, click, and dollar goes directly in your ecosystem for analysis. Kartra will show you which emails are working, how much you’ve earned, and which goals are working. They’ll even show you the right time of day to send emails based on user behavior.
• SMS: This opens up a whole new revenue stream. Now you can send coupons, updates, and other offers via text directly to a customer’s phone. Nearly 1/3rd of Americans actually want to receive offers via text rather than email (Source). 

It’s really hard to overstate how simple and time-saving the funnel builder is. Just drag an element onto the canvas, follow the setup wizard, and you’ve pretty much got a funnel. Or, choose a high converting template and customize it to fit your brand.

Kartra does 90% of the work.

Kartra Memberships

Kartra Memberships is a beast of a membership platform, and it’s a fraction the price of using competitors like Kajabi (when you factor in all the extra software you need to run the business).

It’s got all the must haves of a membership platform:

• Membership tiers
• Members-only content
• Content drip
• Video hosting and audio
• Progress tracking
• Quizzes
• Comments
• Moderation

Plus the advantages of using Kartra:

• Simple drag-and-drop editor: Build a Kartra membership site from a template or from scratch with 0 experience.
• Integrated analytics: You know the drill by now. Everything is connected.
• Beautiful templates: Not on Kajabi’s level, but there are tons of very professional templates. You don’t need to hire a designer.
• Unlimited bandwidth: The Starter plan caps bandwidth at 50GB. Higher plans do not.
• Multi-portal: Create a portal page with all your Kartra membership sites/courses to cross sell returning students and build even more income.

Kajabi (see comparison here) is definitely a better membership platform for building and managing a membership site, but then you’d need other software to run the business. And then we’d be back to square 1 again. Not worth it.

Lead Management (CRM) via Kartra Leads

Now here’s a feature that’ll save you a s*** ton of money, and should make you more money too.

I love Kartra’s CRM. 

Basically, it gives you the power to track, tag, and analyze your leads so you can:

• Boost conversions rates
• Increase lifetime value
• Lower your cost per acquisitions
• Never lose a sale

Let’s cover the basics first.

Kartra Leads tracks EVERYTHING about your leads and customers. Their personal info, tags, subscriptions, behavior, etc…everything. That way, you can see it all in one place. Have they bought anything? Have they signed up for a free trial? Are they giving support any trouble?

It all comes down to two features: Lead tagging and scoring.

Lead tagging is exactly what it sounds like. You assign a custom tag to a customer based on their previous actions. That way you know who your super-customers are, who your hot leads are, and who needs a bit more nudging to fork over some dough.

Lead scoring is a native Kartra feature that quantifies leads into one easy-to-understand metric. Basically it quantifies how good of a lead someone is.

For example: I have an SEO course with a webinar and a lead magnet plus a free video. I assign 5 points for each. Anyone who signs up for all 3 gets a score of 15 in my CRM. That way, I know at a glance who is really interested in my course or not. I assign them a VIP tag, and this automatically triggers a targeted email sequence with an offer for 20% off if they buy now. I’d never get that level of customization without Kartra Leads.

Kartra Videos

Kartra Video is ideal for your marketing, training, branding, or any other videos for one key reason. Any guesses?

IT’S CONNECTED TO THE REST OF YOUR KARTRA ECOSYSTEM SO ITS DATA-DRIVEN AND INTERACTIVE!

SURPRISE!

I know it sounds like I’m beating a dead horse, but it’s way more important than it seems at first. 

Vimeo or YouTube might be free, but using Kartra video hosting unlocks a whole new universe of customization and data-driven enhancements you can’t get from using an outside platform.

Using the native video hosting feature is the easiest way to upload, publish, market, and track all of your business’ videos (plus you can watermark with your own branding). 

And when you connect with Kartra’s analytics, CRM, and behavioral marketing, possibilities become exponential.

For example: if a new customer is watching a video, you can show them a pop-up opt-in form immediately when you mention an offer. Or, if you’re showing a warm lead a cool offer, you can hit them with a buy now button as soon as the CTA comes up. And all of this behavior gets saved into your ecosystem. 

So you’ll know:

• Who’s been watching
• How long they watched
• What they did after
• Which videos provide the most value for your business

The video tool is just like every other tool, except it’s connected into your Kartra ecosystem for maximum efficiency.

Karta Helpdesk

Kartra Helpdesks reduces your workload, improves service, and improves customer satisfaction, leading to better efficiency, reputation, and repeat customers. I can’t tell you how much easier my life is now that my support center is a Kartra helpdesk instead of my Facebook Messenger.

My students were always messaging or emailing me.

My inbox – and life – were a total mess.

My Kartra helpdesk gives me a single support system with ticketing, chat, analytics, and even an answer wiki to unload some of the burden of answering the same questions over and over…and over…and over.

If you’re a big business, you can organize agents, shifts, and departments all in one dashboard, and of course it’s all interconnected (this poor horse). You can see each customer’s entire history with your brand.

It comes with everything you’d expect in a helpdesk software: ticketing, phone support, self-billing, real-time chat, canned responses, chat logs, and all that jazz.

The main benefits of a Kartra Helpdesk are:

• Happier customers and agents
• Reduced workload
• Analytics to show you busiest times 
• A full help department without an extra monthly subscription
• For solopreneurs, it totally revolutionizes support and actually makes you feel like a business rather than a guy/girl who works out of their messenger

Kartra Marketplace

Out of all the platforms that Kartra replaces, there’s one that makes me happier than all others: Freelancing platforms.

I hate Upwork. It’s the worst.

Kartra marketplace is where I go for funnel hackers, copywriters, designers, marketing specialists, and pro coders.

So instead of paying to list a job, paying heavy fees, and working with god knows who, you work with only vetted experts and access is included in your subscription.

Remember the done-for-you campaigns I was talking about before? This is where you get them. Why make your own from scratch when you can just buy one from an expert that’s already proven to work?

And it goes both ways too: You can list your funnels/services for sale and make extra cash. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Great community, no fees, no scammers – so long, Upwork.

Kartra Analytics

Kartra Analytics is the brain of your entire operation. It’s the all-seeing control center that records, analyzes, and visualizes every visitor, click, bounce, email, affiliate, video, and sale so you can find out what’s working and double down to make even more money.

So far, analytics have helped me:

• Recognize wasted advertising dollars and focus on what works
• Realize my sales page was garbage and switch to a high-converting template
• Fix my email marketing strategy by sending custom messages instead of canned responses
• Staff help agents at the busiest times of day rather than spreading them out
• Recognize my highest performing affiliates and reward them (don’t ask what happened to the bad ones)

What can you do with Kartra Analytics?

• Analyze customer behavior to find super customers and duds
• Measure A/B testing campaigns to find what’s working and what’s not
• Measure the ROI of email campaigns
• Analyze funnel performance
• Analyze affiliate performance
• Compare video engagement
• See how well your helpdesk is performing
• Measure revenue and ROI by the day, week, month, and year

Kartra’s analytics aren’t super advanced, but they are simple and convenient. The main benefit is, you guessed it, integration and synchronization.

Kartra records everything you and your users do, runs it through its machine head, and spits it out into something easily understandable (the horse is dead, Karl. Please stop.)

Miscellaneous Features

Now that you’ve got your funnel, landers, shopping cart, email marketing, videos, custom domain, and dynamic follow for social channels, let’s take a quick look at some supplementary features that sweeten the deal. 

Remember, everything you’ve read up til now is covered in ONE SUBSCRIPTION. And now there are still even more features at no extra cost. Talk about a complete marketing system.

• Calendars: Calendly and it’s $12 per month subscription be damned, Karta’s native calendar is better, simpler, and more intuitive. Embed it right on your page and customers can see your available times and dates. There are even templates for different business models like gyms, consultants, recurring classes, and live events.
• Forms: 50+ high-converting form templates with underlying marketing automation based on customer info. They can even improve conversions by subscribing them to a certain mail list, assigning them a unique tag in your CRM, or triggering a custom automation based on user info. It’s all inter…ok, you get it. Choose a form, pick a template, play around with the colors, add custom fields, and you’re ready to go.
• Affiliates: An easy way to identify, recruit, and manage affiliates to grow your business 100% hands off. Kartra Affiliates improves affiliate performance and relationships via custom landing pages, multiple commission tiers, fast and easy payments, and simple performance analytics. It even shows you down to earnings per click. Every day, I log in and the dash shows me who’s sold how much, to who, how much they’ve made me, and how much I owe them. Then I choose to pay via PayPal, bank, or even check. Super easy. It’s so much better than using a 3rd-party software or tracking things in email like I did before.
• API and Integrations: Kartra gives you the best of both worlds. You can keep everything simple, in-house, and fully integrated, OR you can connect with the world and expand to make up for Karta deficiencies. Karta does most things well, but anything it lacks can easily be made up for by connecting with Zapier, Stripe, SendGrid, Twilio, Plivo, Optimize Press, Wishlist, and more names than I can add here. If you and your team want to customize something, the API, Custom App, and IPN system turn Kartra into your canvas. You can add anything you want.

Every Kartra user gets all of those features, no matter the plan (except Kartra Agency).

Kartra Academy

Kartra Academy is an insider’s vault of top-level platform and marketing training from some of the best minds in the business. It’s exclusive to Kartra members and is 100% free.

Most platforms give you the tools you need to run a business.

Kartra gives you the marketing tools and show you what to do with them. So you can maximize earnings and minimize wasted time and expenses. 

And they don’t just show you how to use each feature, they give you advanced marketing training for funnels, customer psychology, email marketing, and landers.

Frank Kern’s Four Day Cash Machine was a game changer for me. I never realized the power of sending only 4 emails in the right order, at the right time, with the right discount, to the right customer persona. I never would have learned that without this training center.

It’s a 100% free library of everything from training videos and FAQs to done-for-you blueprints.

What can you learn in Kartra Academy?

• Simple list builder funnel
• Quick launch funnel
• Book funnel
• Agency campaigns
• Lead magnet campaigns
• eCommerce campaigns
• Free Kartra membership campaigns

That’s why I keep telling everyone Kartra is ideal for new solopreneurs: You’ll get advanced marketing training plus all the tools you need, all for one low subscription. You’d pay thousands of dollars for courses, consultants, or employees to get this type of knowledge otherwise. It’s a no brainer.

Kartra Pricing – Is Kartra Worth it?

Yes, Kartra is 100% worth it. 

It contains every tool you need to run a business along with full integration, unlimited customization, advanced marketing training, and done-for-you funnel templates – all for as little as $99 a month, or roughly $3 per day. That’s less than a large coffee at Starbucks for a platform that runs your entire online business.

You can run your entire business – sell products, accept payments, create funnels, analyze data, manage leads, offer help desks, manage affiliates – without ever leaving the tool. You don’t need a single 3rd-party integration. 

…for $3 a day.

And one other cool thing: Kartra doesn’t lock any features behind a paywall (besides Kartra Agency). Every package includes all features, just with different limits.

Let me give you some quick thoughts on each plan based on my experience:

Starter ($99) 

The Starter Plan is perfect for new online businesses just getting off the ground and ok for small-time coaches and consultants as long as you have a small email list. 

Key features:

• 2,500 leads
• 15,000 emails
• 100 pages
• 50 videos
• 20 products
• 1 helpdesk

This is plenty for most people to start off – click here to start your trial and see for yourself.

Silver ($199)

I started on the Silver package, and it was plenty for me until I hit it big time. The cool thing is, once you’re big enough to upgrade, you don’t even care about spending the extra money.

Key features:

• 12,500 leads
• 3 custom domains
• Unlimited gb bandwidth, pages, videos, products, membership sites, and help desks

Gold ($299) 

If you’re nearing enterprise marketing levels and have a big team, you’ll want to upgrade. It comes with a few key perks.

Key features:

• 25,000 leads
• 5 custom domains
• Unlimited team members

Platinum ($499)

The only noticeable differences for the Platinum plan are double the leads – 50,000 – and double the custom domains – 10. If you’re a massive enterprise, the Platinum plan is for you.

Notice how plain and simple the pricing is? No hidden fees or guessing games. One flat fee per month for an awesome marketing tool.

So for $99, you get something that replaces Teachable, Leadpages, Mailchimp, Salesforce, Vimeo, and Calendly,.

And it all comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

So, yeah…you get all this functionality for cheap, and if for some reason you still aren’t happy you get your money back. 0 risk. Sounds good to me.

Start your trial today – seriously, what are you waiting for?

Kartra Customer Support – Is It Any Good? 

Kartra’s support is solid, but the real value comes from the community itself. 

Kartra is a thriving community of entrepreneurs helping each other out solving issues, finding good help, offering advice on funnels, and troubleshooting minor issues.

Let’s start with basic support.

Customers have access to live support and email 24/7. Live chat was quick and responsive. It took 39 seconds for them to respond to my first message, though I eventually got “sent up” to someone with more technical knowledge than “Erik” – who I assume was either a bot or the most boring person on the planet.

Email “ticket” support is very helpful, even if they’re a bit slow. I’m also super demanding and picky so maybe I’m overreacting. I’ve never had a ticket “lost” mysteriously or an issue go unresolved. And any time I get a little heated they send me up to someone who knows what they’re doing.

Kartra’s support has a few perks:

A Kartra Facebook Group

Everyone gets access, even those on the 14-day trial. Not bad having over 23,000 likeminded people to ask for help. Trust me, they’ve been through everything you’re going through and will be way more helpful than support.

FAQs

Everything from freezing an account to requesting a refund is right here in this wiki. I wish it had more detailed answers, but it’s fine for what it is.

Concierge Services

Not only will they give you the tools, show you how to use them, and give you marketing training, they’ll actually do all the work for you too… for a fee.

Kartra offers concierge marketing where they set up your sales funnels, landing pages, emails, videos, and god knows what else for as little as $97/month.

I’ve never used them, but from what I hear, the packages aren't worth it unless you pay $300/week. 

You literally need ZERO prior experience to start a successful business on Kartra. Pretty cool.

Kartra Pros and Cons

Again, let me stress that Karta is not the most advanced platform out there. That’s not its purpose.

It’s designed to make your business stress free and to bring all of your different tools under one subscription and into one interconnected ecosystem. It’s goal is to simplify your business into something stress-free and easily manageable, and it’s damn good at what it does.

That theme will tie a red line through all of these pros and cons, so keep it in mind.

Kartra Pros

• Save money: 1 subscription instead of 10
• Save time and stress: 1 platform instead of switching between 10
• Protect your business: Never suffer from data integration errors or downtime when a single cog in the machine breaks
• Done-for-you: Kartra gives you all the tools, training, and blueprints you need to start, run, and grow a business
• Very small learning curve: Kartra is super easy to get the hang of, and even complex features like sales funnels have pre-made templates that anyone can figure out
• Easy to analyze and tinker: Everything is connected into the Kartra borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
• Great training: Don’t know how to make funnels or run a webinar? Mosey over to the 100% free training
• Joes and pros: I hate this cliche but it’s true. Simple enough for me to run, but customizable enough for pros to extend and add on to
• Never use Upwork again: Kartra Marketplace is home to training, freelancers, templates, and consultants to accelerate your business. No Upwork needed
• Great community: 23,000+ Kartra pros all helping each other succeed

Kartra Cons

• Jack of all trades cliche: There’s no single elite feature. You’ll find better templates, marketing automation, CRM, etc.. in other tools. You just won’t find them all in the same platform
• No inbound marketing: This is my #1 gripe with Kartra. There’s no way to create a blog or even run ads. You’ll need to integrate with Facebook or WordPress to do that. Not hard, but wish they had a blog feature
• Limits on Starter plan: Starter is a bit too restrictive in my opinion. 2,500 leads is nothing. Most small businesses have around 5,000, which means they need Silver ($199). $200 per month is a bit expensive if you aren’t profitable yet
• Not ideal for physical products: I recommend Shopify or WooCommerce plus extensions for physical product stores. You can do it with Kartra, but why not use a platform designed specifically for eCommerce? Kartra is for digital products and services

Kartra’s Reputation – What Are Users Saying?

Let me start this off by saying never trust anything you read on the internet (unless it’s from Dreamgrow. I heard they’re legit). 

That being said, I do like to snoop around a bit and get a taste of what the webz thinks. That way, you don’t have to take me at my word. Remember: trust, but verify. 

Kartra has a solid reputation on Capterra:

4.5 out of 5 ain’t too shabby. The most common praises were convenience, great training, and easy to use templates. The biggest complaint was customer support (that’s why I use the group!).

4 out 5 on G2, as well:

Most reviews focused on it either being a one-stop-shop (ugh) or training (noticing a pattern here). The most common downside was the lack of email automations.

GetApp loves Kartra – 4.51/5! 

Customers Loved:

• Simplicity and connectivity
• Training
• One low subscription
• Sales funnels
• Integrations

Customers Complained About:

• Support
• Lack of email features
• Bugs

Reputation TL;DR: Pretty much every review site agrees on what I’ve been saying all along – Kartra is great for being a do-it-all business management tool that brings everything under one roof and trains you how to do it.

It’s not, however, an advanced marketing tool for emails and funnels.

Sticking with the beating a dead horse theme here – just start your trial and give it a try, you have nothing to lose.

Kartra Alternatives – How Does It Stack Up to Competitors?

I really want to finish this Kartra review and do calf raises on the beach, but you deserve better than that.

You deserve to see a Kartra review complete with alternatives, just in case you’ve read 7,000 words of proselytizing and still aren’t convinced.

Here are the three most popular alternatives:

1. Teachable

Teachable is the most popular and convenient way to host and manage an online course.

The key difference between Kartra and Teachable is that Teachable is only a course hosting and management platform.

Kartra lets you host a course AND grow it via a sales funnel, marketing automation, video hosting, opt-in forms, split testing, and a ton of cool features. Teachable is not a marketing platform.

Most course creators will pay around $119 per month to host a course, but then you’d need at least Mailchimp to start building it. Teachable’s page builder and email tool are about as helpful as the Maginot Line circa 1940. 

2. Kajabi

Kajabi is a leader in the course creation and membership site spaces with a ton of great features and a generous entry-level plan. At first glance, Kajabi actually looks better for small businesses since their cheapest plan gives you 10,000 contacts and unlimited emails.

But as we delve greedily under the mountain in search of raw business-building materials, we discover some devilry.

Kajabi doesn’t offer help desks or decent scheduling tools – two key features for any business. And their video hosting is meh at best. So any time you have a tutorial, webinar, or workshop, you’ll be one-step behind.

And you’ll have to upgrade to one of the higher price points to get key features like affiliates or advanced marketing automation. Kajabi is 100% superior to Kartra for building a membership site. However, Kartra is 100% better for building a business.

3. Clickfunnels

ClickFunnels is a beast of a sales funnel builder that’s focused on converting visitors into customers.

The key difference is Kartra is an all-in-one platform for growing and managing your business, whereas ClickFunnels is mostly a sales funnel builder. 

ClickFunnels does come with some key tools like:

• Affiliate management
• Split testing
• Web hosting

But the rest is pretty lacking in terms of marketing automation and management tools. You’ll need third-party integrations for email and video at the very least.

The sales funnel templates, builder, and automations are stellar, but you’ll have to pay $297/month to get enough functionality to run your entire business. And even then, ClickFunnels is pretty much just a sales funnel builder – not an online business management tool. 

Want to go deeper? Here's our full Kartra vs Clickfunnels comparison.

Conclusion – Is Kartra Worth it?

Kartra isn’t the best or most advanced tool, but it’s really good at what it does.

Kartra is a simple and convenient “do-it-all” platform for small business owners, coaches, consultants, course sellers, and any other digital product business.

This one tool is enough to run an entire business for just one low monthly subscription. I see no reason NOT to switch, since you’ll probably save time and money. And if you aren’t happy, just cancel at the end of your trial period.

You have nothing to lose.

It’s not the best at any one thing, but it’s the only tool that gives you All the things you need to run a small business under one roof, and connects them into one ecosystem for easy storage and analysis. And anything it can’t do, you can just integrate another tool and do it. It grows as you grow.

If you’re a course creator, consultant, coach, info product seller, or online service provider, Karta is a life changing platform. 

So ends my Kartra review. I seriously need to hit the beach now.

Kartra F.A.Q.

Q: What is Kartra good for?

A: Kartra is good for managing your business under one easy-to-use platform. This marketing software comes with all the marketing tools you need to start, build, grow, and manage your business under one roof. It’s especially good at selling digital products like courses or membership sites. That’s what I’ve been saying this whole Kartra review: It’s good at everything.

Q: How much does Kartra cost?

A: Kartra costs anywhere from $99 to $499 per month depending on your plan. The Starter plan is $99, Silver is $199, Gold is $299, and Platinum is $499. I noticed that other Kartra reviews had inaccurate pricing. Be sure to check yourself first.

Q: Is Kartra safe?

A: Yes, Kartra is 100% safe. It’s in the cloud, so you only need one login, and all their data is protected using the latest security. You can use Kartra with no peace of mind.

Q: Who is behind Kartra?

A: Genesis Digital is behind Kartra. Kartra was founded by Andy Jenkins and Mike Filsaime, and has the backing of a marketing superstar Frank Kern. The company is known as Genesis Digital, LLC. Most Kartra reviews around the web are very positive.

Q: Does Kartra have a free trial?

A: No, Kartra does not have a free trial. However, they do have a 14-day trial for $1 dollar, and a 30-day money-back guarantee. 

Q: Is Kartra a CRM system?

A: Yes, Karta has a CRM called Kartra leads. With Kartra Leads, you can tag customers, score leads, store info, and personalize each customer’s experience with your business. Plus it’s all integrated into the rest of your Kartra ecosystem. It’s not as powerful as other CRMs, but it’s fine for small businesses and super convenient. So while it is a shopping cart and automation tool at heart, it’s still a solid CRM. Scroll back up through my Kartra review and check out the CRM section.

Q: Is Kartra good for a small business?

A: Yes, Kartra is ideal for any type of small business, especially digital products and services. This marketing software gives you every tool you need to run a small business in one subscription. The great thing about using this marketing automation platform as a small business is that none of the shortcomings will affect you. That’s why I recommend every small business owner uses it throughout this Kartra review.

Q: What does Kartra come with?

A: Kartra comes with all the tools you need to run a business in one marketing automation tool. Kartra features include a shopping cart, landing page builder, a custom domain, email marketing automation tool (the sequence builder), web hosting, dynamic follow, CRM, unlimited gb bandwidth, tools to run an online marketing campaign, affiliate management, and more. You can use Kartra as an all-in-one online marketing system, because it comes with all the marketing tools you need at multiple price points.