Thinking about using Kartra for your online business? Before you sign up, make sure you read our Kartra review below.
There are lots of different moving parts in an online business. Gone are the days when you could get away with just a WordPress blog and some basic email marketing software. These days, you need high-converting landing pages, shopping carts, sales funnels, online courses, video marketing…the list goes on and on.
As more and more features have come on the market, business’s software arrangements have become increasingly fragmented with different providers for each feature. Trying to manage and integrate all of the different software that goes into running an online business has always been a major headache – until now.
Kartra has attempted to make managing online businesses easier with its all-in-one e-commerce platform.
This totally integrated, full-featured platform is designed to be an all-in-one solution to create, grow, and manage your online business, eliminating the need to have multiple subscriptions to different products.
That all sounds great, right? But how good is Kartra really?
Do all the Kartra features really give you everything you need to build your entire business?
What about third-party Kartra integrations?
And what do Kartra reviews from real customers (including myself) say about the digital marketing platform?
This Kartra review will assess each feature in their offering and determine whether the ‘whole package’ approach holds up. To quickly jump to each section click the links below.
We’ve fully updated this review for 2023 after over 4 years of using Kartra so that you have all the latest info on new Kartra features, pricing, performance, and more.
If you have already decided to buy Kartra, you can try it free for 14 days right now.
Let’s talk about Kartra Membership Courses, but before..
Kartra pricing and plans are essentially based around the size of your contact lists – the bigger they are and the more emails you send the bigger the price.
In our view, if you are a beginner start off with the Starter pack at $119 a month and work your way up. It’s the perfect plan for small business owners and new entrepreneurs.
There’s no point in getting a bigger plan until you nearing 2,500 contacts or emailing close to the threshold of 15,000. Likely you will reach this email threshold first, and then you can upgrade to a higher-tier plan for more Kartra features.
The only exceptions to starting off on the bigger plans are of course if you already have an established contact list. Or you are offering more than 20 products from the beginning of your business.
Check out our Kartra pricing page for a more in-depth look at their pricing structure.
Ready Built Campaigns/Sales Funnels
Kartra has start to finish internet marketing campaigns in place and they are designed by Frank Kern – a man who has brought in a million in a day from online marketing campaigns. Essentially you get spoon fed a marketing system designed by one of the leaders in the field.
The most work you do in these campaigns is input your product name, and preferred pricing.
You can also create your own campaigns if you think they can rival Frank Kerns! Kartra use a drag and drop sequence builder which can allow you to automate email sequences and add customers to subscription lists in a personal way which helps increase conversions.
Taking more control of your sales funnels content will happen naturally as you gain experience but the Kartra templates a great base to start from if you are new to online marketing and sales funnel builders.
In 2023, Kartra also launched a couple of new sales funnel features – Funnel Mapper and Funnel Simulator.
With Funnel Mapper – available in all plans – you can easily create a visual map of your sales funnel with a drag-and-drop tool, letting you get a big picture overview of your funnel so you can understand possible outcomes each step of the way. This lets you structure conversion flows in the most optimal way to reach your desired outcomes.
Funnel Simulator is only available in the Silver and Platinum plans, and this feature lets you actually simulate the various steps of your funnel and come with up projections for the impact of every facet of your campaign. This helps you get an idea of if your funnel will perform the way it’s supposed to and is useful for setting some performance metrics to track.
Once you get the hang of it, you’ll see Kartra has a ton of potential as a marketing automation platform.
Landing Page Builder
The ability to create great landing pages is an essential feature for any serious online marketing software provider these days. Landing page builders, specifically drag and drop landing page builders, have been perfected in the industry already by Kartra’s competitors like Clickfunnels.
So, how does the Kartra page builder compare?
While the manual page builder is decent, we were more interested in the Kartra templates as these have been created by professionals and they have the biggest impact on conversions.
The Kartra page builder is as good as anything else on the market with a wide array of gorgeous templates to use.
kartra landing page templates
Of course, if you fancy building out your own sales pages then you can do so easily as this is a responsive builder and Kartra offer a good mix of instructional videos.
If speed to market is your main goal, then I would be going with these templates and making some minor color/wording adjustments depending on your preferences. There are over 500 page and section templates available to choose from, allowing you customize every element, including headlines, paragraphs, images, backgrounds, videos, carousels, buttons, icons, navigation menus, social media sharing buttons, sticky alert bars, popups, and more.
It’s a fast and straightforward way to create landing pages.
Kartra’s page builder is super easy to use. What you see is what you get, and you can build just about any type of page you can think of – sales landing pages, thank you pages, blog pages, home pages, and more (check out some Kartra website examples for inspiration). Everything is designed to be totally responsive on mobile devices, ensuring your pages look great everywhere.
One thing I will point out is that the blogging feature on Kartra isn’t our favorite. It’s just not as smooth or robust as something like WordPress.
A/B testing is built into the sales pages too which means the best performing version of your page will appear to your audience once they’re tested. This is an incredibly important feature to have for your sales landing pages in paid ad campaigns.
Kartra pages do have some built-in SEO features as well that can be helpful for getting them to rank in Google.
All these Kartra pages can connected to your website through a custom domain like;
www.yourdomain.com/yourpage
Kartra Mail
Email campaigns still form the core of most online business to drive sales and awareness, so any successful online business will need an email marketing tool. Kartra recognize this and have put thought into their templated emails formats.
Calling it ‘Kartra Mail’ they offer a variety of pre-made email templates that make sure of countdown timers and testimonials to encourage clicks. They are creative and Kartra Mail can also automate your email sequence based on the behavior of your lead.
For example, a follow-up email can be sent to remind leads to finish their order if they exit when on the payment page. A pretty robust analytics feature in Kartra Mail can then measure the effectiveness of your email broadcasts.
Kartra Mail Set Up
In 2023, however, these are features we should expect from any decent email marketing automation software. Their email deliverability rates are decent too which is a relief as many new marketing software platforms have issues in this area.
You can also create an email list by manually adding leads or importing your email list from a CSV file.
Kartra started provided unlimited emails at the Silver Plan level upwards in May 2020 which has a big impact on affordability for customers.
All in all, the email marketing functionality in the Kartra ecosystem is very solid.
Kartra Mail Analytics
Start Kartra Trial
Kartra Video
Having quality video content can be very helpful in getting new leads and making sales.
We are fans of the video feature here as it’s allows you to edit everything in one place.
So Kartra Membership Courses, important things to know.
From a marketing perspective, this feature can add calls to action to any part of your video.
Say for example you mention a membership option halfway through your video. You can add an opt-in pop up at this specific time in the video for your audience to sign up. This way you can capture subscribers in the video without sending them to a new window.
This is important for conversions, the fewer steps to sign up the better!
Kartra Video Stats
On the analytics side, they provide a dropout graph showing you when your audience stopped watching your video or those who clicked through to your product page.
By using the Katra tagging feature you can then send personalized follow-up emails to advise those dropouts on what they missed or re-target them with a different offer.
You can also enjoy features like video chapters to make your videos easier to navigate.
All in all, Kartra Video lets you do away with tools like Vimeo for hosting your videos.
Membership Sites
Kartra Membership Site
Like other prominent marketing software platforms, Kartra has included a membership gateway as a feature. It’s perfect for those selling and marketing online courses, premium content, one-on-one coaching, training programs, and other types of membership sites.
Kartra membership sites combine sleek design, user-friendliness, robust features, and seamless integration into the Kartra ecosystem.
Using a drag and drop builder you can build a secure branded portal where you provide exclusive courses or products to your premium customers. Multiple membership tiers with different price points cater for those of you looking to sell various products.
You may have heard of WordPress membership plugins like MemberPress that can do all these things.
A basic package for MemberPress currently comes in around $15 a month
If a membership site is your sole aim then this could be a better option but if you’re planning to promote it through email marketing and funneling then an all in one package like Kartra will make your life easier.
This feature can eliminate the need for tools like Kajabi, Podia, Teachery, or Memberspace as you can easily host your courses and membership content directly in Kartra.
Marketing Analytics
Every feature I have mentioned above is monitored and organized into a supplementary analytics page.
Performances of key elements like email campaigns, marketing page conversions, and video viewership are captured and displayed so you can see what areas need attention. It’s accurate too!
Affiliate Management
Karta, again like their benchmark competitor, Clickfunnels offer an integrated affiliate management system.
Kartra’s affiliate capabilities transform the complexity of managing an affiliate program into a harmonious symphony of automation, flexibility, and data-driven insights. With Kartra, you can confidently orchestrate your affiliate marketing endeavors and watch your business flourish.
The most important aspect of affiliate tracking is ensuring affiliates are paid correctly and on time. Any divergence from this and you quickly lose affiliates trust and this affects your brand’s standing.
There are no nasty surprises with Kartra’s affiliate management software.
Affiliates are paid on time, you can pay them through trusted platforms like Stripe and Paypal and the screening process is self-explanatory.
Some noteworthy features of Kartra Affiliate include:
Automated Sales and Commission Tracking: Kartra’s affiliate system easily and accurately tracks every sale and commission. It automatically records and updates affiliate-generated sales, ensuring that commissions are accurately attributed.
Bulk Affiliate Payments: Imagine being able to effortlessly pay all your affiliates in one go. Kartra makes it happen. It allows you to automatically pay your affiliates in bulk, simplifying the financial aspect of your affiliate program.
Flexible Rules and Commissions: Flexibility is key in affiliate marketing, and Kartra understands this well. With Kartra, you have the freedom to define your own rules and commission structures. Whether it’s a percentage-based commission, fixed fee, or tiered rewards, you’re in control.
Custom Affiliate Tiers: Not all affiliates are created equal, and Kartra acknowledges that. It enables you to establish custom affiliate tiers, providing incentives and rewards based on performance. This tiered system motivates affiliates to strive for higher levels of success.
Affiliate Analytics: In the world of affiliate marketing, data is gold. Kartra equips you with comprehensive affiliate analytics so you can see which affiliates are driving the most conversions, where your marketing efforts are paying off, and where there’s room for improvement.
Kartra Affiliates Management
Kartra Commerce
A critical part of selling online is presenting a trustworthy checkout or payment page – if it looks unprofessional potential customers will exit without paying and never return!
Time to cover Kartra Membership Courses in depth.
That said no decent marketing platform should be providing poor checkout pages and processes in 2023.
We’re happy to say Kartra doesn’t fall down on this basic requirement, their checkout system is smooth offering one click sales through Stripe and the pages have a smooth look.
You can display multiple payment options too which helps customers find the pricing plan that fits their needs. All the expected basic functions like one-click upsells and custom Thank You pages are also included.
Kartra Commerce
Kartra Helpdesk
This helpdesk feature is not something I have seen with other all in one platforms, and it’s something Kartra users have praised. Competitors usually have an integration built in with outside helpdesk providers like Zendesk. Any feature that eliminates the need for third-party software is very welcome!
The helpdesk essentials like a live ticketing system, live chat, and email reply system are all in place and here but I cannot say I have direct experience of using this feature yet.
A unique feature within the helpdesk is the customer history page – it can show you every query your customer has had in the past along with every interaction and a history of their sales.
I can see some great uses for this feature. For example, one quick glance at your sales volume and you could make sure a quick personalized response is sent to any big spenders!
Is Kartra a CRM? This is a common question online and it is a feature that gets lost amongst Kartra’s more prominent offerings.They do have one and it is pretty intuitive. You can read more on it through the link at the start of this paragraph.
Kartra Helpdesk
Kartra Webinars
Kartra Webinars is another great feature that allows you to broadcast webinars to a wide audience.
You can create a series of webinars, invite attendees and easily manage each webinar from the Kartra platform.
Webinars a great tool for lead generation, establishing yourself as an authority, audience engagement, and even generating revenue (you can make your webinars paid if you like).
Kartra Webinars are now available in Silver and Platinum plans.
Kartra Customer Support
For a relatively new company, Kartra’s interactive customer support is quite good. They have a typical ticket system in place and a growing Q & A section which they hope will cover most customer questions eventually.
Turnaround times for tickets raised is approximately 24 hours.
Fast growing companies usually struggle to keep up with support demands as staff must be trained up. It seems Kartra are handling this consequence of growth pretty well.
Given the breadth of different features, they have their staff are knowledgeable across the board.
Maybe others have had different experiences, let me know in the comments.
Kartra Review: Final Thoughts
If you only see yourself using just one of these features early on, like the sales funnel builder, then you are better off signing up with a more funnel focused platform like Clickfunnels.
However, if your business is or will be using multiple features, Kartra’s all-in-one solution will save you a lot of headaches in terms of cost and time in getting multiple software platforms to work well in tandem with each other.
Not forgetting the quality of each feature also, especially their campaign templates, membership sites and webinar feature.
The free trial period should also iron out any uncertainty but if you are unsure about any features, just ask me your questions below in the message section.
Lastly, a quick things worth mentioning:
One really cool unique feature that Kartra pages have is called “Behavioral marketing.”
This is where you can tag certain leads who visit your page and show or hide specific page elements depending on how they’ve interacted with your business in the past.
For example, if a lead is tagged “customer”, you can hide a special offer only for NEW customers. Or, if a lead has been a regular customer for many years, you could show them specific content on your landing pages that is hidden from everyone else.
Kartra Pages can be hosted on either your main domain name or a subdomain.
Can you build a website with a blog using Kartra Pages?
Yes, you can build a normal-looking website with a blog on Kartra Pages. However, the blogging feature is not very good. If you want a blog on your website, it’s recommended you use WordPress for better SEO results.
For WordPress hosting, I recommend SiteGround.
Click here to get a SiteGround discount if you’re a first-time customer.
In fact, even Kartra’s own blog (at the time of writing this) is hosted with WordPress.
Kartra can be used effectively for everything else (other than blogging).
Kartra Pages do have built-in SEO features. For example, you can edit the SEO meta title and page description. However, for best SEO results, it’s better to create a blog using WordPress and use Kartra only for hosting your sales funnel.
Yes, Kartra pages allow you to do basic A / B testing (similar to ClickFunnels split testing feature).