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Kartra Review
Reviewed by Carlos Gil · Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Updated 6 min readEditorially reviewed
Quick facts
- Starting price
- Essentials $52/mo billed yearly ($59 monthly)
- Free plan
- No
- Best for
- Coaches, course creators and info-product sellers who want funnels, email, checkout, memberships and support in one login
- Platforms
- Web app
BestStacked Score
Weighted average of 5 categories. Methodology below.
Quick answer
What is Kartra, and is it worth paying for?
Kartra is an all-in-one marketing platform for selling online: pages and funnels, email and SMS, checkouts, memberships and courses, video hosting, calendars, affiliates and a helpdesk sit in one account. It's worth paying for if you sell coaching or digital products and want to replace four or five tools, and if you buy at least Starter. Essentials costs $52 a month billed yearly ($59 monthly) but covers 500 contacts, 5 pages and one product and takes a 5% fee on sales; Starter costs $99 a month billed yearly ($119 monthly) for 2,500 contacts and unlimited email, checked on Kartra's pricing page on October 14, 2026. Automations, affiliates and the helpdesk need Growth at $189 billed yearly.
- Best for
- Coaches and info-product sellers who want funnels, email, checkout, memberships and customer support under one login.
- Skip it if
- You're on a tight budget, need a free plan, or want month-to-month freedom without automatic upgrades and a 10-day cancellation notice.
- Strongest capability
- Breadth: pages, email and SMS, checkouts, memberships, video hosting, calendars, affiliates and a ticket-and-chat helpdesk share one contact database.
- Biggest limitation
- Cost structure: a 5% sales fee on Essentials, key features held for Growth, automatic paid upgrades when you pass your contact cap, and terms that allow renewal price increases.
The Verdict
Kartra covers more of an online business than most funnel builders: one account runs pages, funnels, email and SMS, checkouts with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Klarna through Stripe, memberships, video hosting, calendars, surveys, affiliates and a helpdesk with tickets and live chat. That breadth comes with steep plan gates. Essentials is a starter tier with 500 contacts, 5 pages, one product and a 5% transaction fee; automations, affiliates, the helpdesk and API access need Growth ($189 billed yearly, $229 monthly). Passing your contact limit triggers an automatic upgrade, the terms reserve the right to raise prices at renewal, and you must cancel at least 10 days before your billing date. Support starts with an AI assistant, and its own pages disagree on several limits. We score Kartra 7.8/10.
Best for
Coaches and info-product sellers ready to pay for Starter or Growth to run funnels, email, memberships and support in one place.
Skip if
You want a free plan, the cheapest entry tier with no sales fee, or predictable month-to-month costs.
AlternativesClickFunnels, Kajabi, HighLevel
The Background
What Is Kartra?
Kartra is an all-in-one platform for marketing and selling online products and services. Its terms name Kartra Inc. of Las Vegas, Nevada, and every page footer says Kartra Inc.; its pricing FAQ also refers to "Genesis Digital subscriptions" and gives a Genesis Digital legal address, the company that runs WebinarJam and EverWebinar. Kartra doesn't publish its founding date or a corporate ownership statement. Inside one account you build pages and funnels, send email and SMS, take payments through several processors, host videos and member areas, book calls, run surveys and quizzes, manage affiliates and answer customers in a helpdesk. Kartra claims 60,000+ coaches and business owners; that's its own figure. Release notes show updates about weekly through July 21, 2026.
The Product
Kartra Features: What You Actually Get
Pages, funnels and checkouts
A page builder, funnel mapper and simulator, and checkouts that, since May 2025, are separate from products and accept Apple Pay, Google Pay and Klarna through Stripe Connect. Payment processors include Stripe, PayPal, Braintree and Authorize.net. Checkouts can be shown in 24 languages and accounts can bill in 21 currencies. Essentials allows 5 pages and 1 product; Starter and up are unlimited.
A coach builds a webinar sign-up page, a sales page and a checkout with an order bump, then maps the funnel to see where leads go.
Email, SMS and automations
Kartra sends email and SMS from the same contact database, through its own mail service or SendGrid, Mailgun, Elastic Email or Postmark, and Twilio, Plivo or Vonage for SMS. Essentials includes 10,000 emails and texts a month; Starter and up are unlimited. Visual automations start on Growth.
A course creator tags buyers at checkout and, on Growth, triggers a 5-email onboarding sequence plus an SMS reminder before the first live call.
Memberships, video hosting and webinars
Member areas deliver courses with drip content, and video hosting starts on Starter. Kartra's pricing page lists webinars from Starter, while its terms set webinar attendee limits only for Growth (300) and Professional (1,000). Kartra also integrates with WebinarJam and EverWebinar, which are sold separately.
A fitness coach hosts workout videos in a members-only area and releases a new module each week.
Helpdesk, calendars, surveys and affiliates
Growth adds a helpdesk with tickets, a knowledge base and a self-billing portal, plus surveys and quizzes and an affiliate program manager; Professional adds live chat in the helpdesk. Calendars for booking calls start on Starter.
An info-product seller on Growth recruits affiliates, pays commissions from Kartra, and answers refund questions through helpdesk tickets.
Kartra AI
Kartra AI writes copy in the page builder and the email and SMS composer, using OpenAI, with monthly limits shared across the account: 30 uses on Essentials, 100 on Starter and 250 on Growth (another table on the same page says 200).
A consultant drafts three subject lines and a short sales-page section with Kartra AI, then edits them to match her voice.
Feature recap
- Page builder, funnel mapper and simulator
- Checkouts with Stripe, PayPal, Braintree and Authorize.net
- Email and SMS from one contact database
- Memberships and video hosting from Starter
- Automations, affiliates, surveys and helpdesk from Growth
- Calendars and booking from Starter
- Kartra AI copywriting with monthly limits
- Zapier, inbound and outbound API (Growth and up)
The Numbers
Kartra Pricing: Every Plan Explained
Kartra prices by plan and contact count. Prices below are from Kartra's plans and pricing page, checked October 14, 2026, in USD; annual prices are shown as a monthly figure billed once a year. Every plan has a 14-day free trial that requires a card.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Included Features | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $59/mo | $52/mo | 500 contacts, 10,000 emails and SMS a month, 1 domain, 5 pages, 1 product, 1 membership, no team members, 30 AI uses; 5% transaction fee on sales | Testing one offer |
| StarterBest value | $119/mo | $99/mo | 2,500 contacts, unlimited email and SMS sends, 1 domain, unlimited pages, products and memberships, 5 team members, 100 AI uses, video hosting, calendars, webinars; 0% transaction fee | Creators with a growing list |
| Growth | $229/mo | $189/mo | 12,500 contacts, 3 domains, 10 team members, automations, affiliates, surveys and quizzes, helpdesk, API access, custom code, agency features, unlimited languages | Businesses that need automation and support |
| Professional | $549/mo | $429/mo | 25,000 contacts, 5 domains, 20 team members (per the terms), real-time funnel analytics and helpdesk live chat | Larger programs and agencies |
The $52 entry price is a trial of the platform more than a working plan: Essentials caps you at 500 contacts and 5 pages and takes 5% of net sales, invoiced monthly even on annual billing. Starter at $1,188 a year (our arithmetic) removes the fee and limits, and Growth at $2,268 a year is where Kartra's automation, affiliate and helpdesk tools start. Watch three terms. If you pass your contact limit, Kartra upgrades your plan automatically and charges a mid-cycle reconciliation fee. The terms (updated August 2026) reserve the right to raise prices at renewal and require cancelling at least 10 days before your billing date. Refunds are available only to new customers who ask within 30 days of the subscription starting, and trial payments and overage fees aren't refundable. Subscriptions are billed by card in USD. Instead of cancelling you can freeze the account for a monthly storage fee Kartra doesn't publish.
Read before you buy
Where Kartra's own pages differ
Fees and payment: the pricing FAQ says there are "never any extra fees", while Essentials carries a 5% transaction fee and contact overages trigger a paid upgrade. The FAQ says PayPal isn't available for subscriptions; the terms say PayPal may be used in some cases. Marketing pages promise a 30-day risk-free money-back guarantee; the terms limit refunds to new customers and exclude trial payments, and one refund clause ends without stating its terms.
Limits: Growth's AI uses are 250 in one pricing table and 200 in another. One comparison table gives Starter 1,000 emails and Essentials 5 team members, against unlimited email and no team members on the plan cards. The terms give every plan except Essentials unlimited helpdesks, while the pricing page starts the helpdesk on Growth, and the pricing page lists webinars on Starter while the terms set attendee limits only from Growth. The terms also describe an Enterprise package (250,000 contacts, 50 domains, 50 team members) that the pricing page doesn't show.
Trial: the pricing and trial pages say 14 days free with 1,000 emails, a pop-up offers to double it to 30 days, the integrations page still shows an expired "Start for $69" offer, and the terms cap trials at 500 registration-page invitations with no API or automations.
The Tradeoffs
Kartra Pros and Cons
What we love
- Funnels, email, SMS, checkout, memberships and helpdesk in one account
- No transaction fee from Starter up
- Checkouts with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Klarna via Stripe
- Several payment processors and email/SMS gateways supported
- Affiliate management and surveys built in (Growth)
- Frequent release notes through mid-2026
What could be better
- Essentials takes a 5% sales fee and allows only 5 pages
- Automations, affiliates and helpdesk need Growth ($189+)
- Automatic paid upgrade when you pass your contact limit
- Cancel at least 10 days before billing; renewal price rises reserved
- Support starts with an AI assistant; human hours unpublished
- Many limits differ across Kartra's own pages
The Audience
Who Should Use Kartra?
Best for: coaches selling programs
Coaches who sell programs, book calls and run member areas get pages, checkout, calendars, email and memberships in one place from Starter.
Best for: info-product businesses with support needs
Sellers who handle many customer questions or run an affiliate program get a helpdesk and affiliate manager on Growth without another subscription.
Skip if: you're just testing an idea
Creators validating a first offer will find Systeme.io's free plan or ClickFunnels' trial cheaper places to start than Essentials with its 5% fee and 500-contact cap.
The Methodology
How We Reviewed Kartra
This is an editorial review, not a documented hands-on test. We didn't use a Kartra account for this review. It's based on Kartra's plans and pricing page (plan cards, comparison tables and FAQ), trial page, integrations, helpdesk and AI feature pages, terms and conditions (updated August 2026), help-center articles on Essentials transaction fees, Kartra AI, cancellation, freezing an account, contacting support and the WebinarJam integration, its release notes, and WebinarJam's pricing page, all checked on October 14, 2026. Where Kartra's pages differ, we report both statements. No deliverability, conversion or support-response results are claimed.
Our editorial evaluation considers product information, official documentation, pricing, features and professional experience. It is not a claim of documented hands-on testing.
Our review methodology →What changed
- : First published. Editorial review based on Kartra's plans and pricing page, trial page, integrations, helpdesk and AI pages, terms and conditions, help-center articles on transaction fees, Kartra AI, cancellation, account freezes, support and WebinarJam, its release notes and WebinarJam's pricing page, all checked October 14, 2026. Sub-scores are provisional pending editorial approval.
The Field
Kartra vs The Competition
Kartra competes with funnel builders, course platforms and agency CRM suites. Prices below were checked on each vendor's pricing page on October 14, 2026, using US pricing.
| Tool | Starting Price | Free plan | Best Feature | BS Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kartra | Essentials $52/mo billed yearly ($59 monthly) | No | Pages, funnels and checkouts | 7.8/10 |
| ClickFunnels | Launch $81/mo billed annually ($97 monthly) | No | Funnels, email and courses with no sales cut | 8.4/10 |
| Kajabi | Basic $143/mo billed annually ($179 monthly) | No | Course and community platform with no revenue share | 8.9/10 |
| HighLevel | Starter $97/mo ($970/yr) | No | Agency CRM with sub-accounts and unlimited contacts | 8.5/10 |
| Systeme.io | Free plan; Startup $17/mo ($170/yr) | Yes | Free plan with funnels, email and a course | —No BestStacked review yet |
ClickFunnels: ClickFunnels' Launch plan costs less than Kartra's Starter and its FAQ says it takes no cut of sales, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Kartra adds a helpdesk and affiliate manager on Growth.Read our ClickFunnels review →
Kajabi: Kajabi focuses on courses, communities and coaching and says it takes no revenue share; Basic allows 5 products and 2,500 contacts. It costs more than Kartra's Starter for a similar contact count.Read our Kajabi review →
HighLevel: HighLevel is built for agencies running client accounts, with unlimited contacts and users and 3 sub-accounts on Starter. Pick it over Kartra if you manage marketing for clients rather than selling your own products.Read our HighLevel review →
Systeme.io: Systeme.io's free plan covers 2,000 contacts with no card and no expiry, and every plan has 0% transaction fees. It's the low-cost way to test what Kartra's Essentials charges for. BestStacked hasn't reviewed Systeme.io yet.
In The Wild
How People Actually Use Kartra
A coach launching a first paid program
Skip Essentials if you expect sales: the 5% fee on a $2,000 month is $100, close to the gap to Starter ($99 billed yearly), which removes the fee and adds calendars and video hosting.
A course business with a support inbox
Growth ($189 billed yearly) adds automations, affiliates and the helpdesk. Check your contact count against the 12,500 limit, because passing it triggers an automatic upgrade.
A webinar-led business
Kartra lists webinars from Starter and connects to WebinarJam and EverWebinar, which are sold separately by Genesis Digital. Confirm attendee limits with Kartra first, since its pages disagree on them.
The Ecosystem
Kartra Integrations
Kartra is built to replace other tools, but it connects to payment processors, email and SMS gateways, calendars and Zapier, and offers an API from Growth.
- →Stripe (with Apple Pay, Google Pay and Klarna), PayPal, Braintree and Authorize.net
- →SendGrid, Mailgun, Elastic Email and Postmark for email
- →Twilio, Plivo and Vonage for SMS
- →Google Calendar, Google Meet and Zoom
- →Zapier
- →Inbound and outbound API and IPN order notifications (Growth and up)
- →WebinarJam and EverWebinar
API access and custom code start on Growth, and trial accounts can't use the API or automations. Kartra removed Skype as a helpdesk channel and the Facebook Comments widget in July 2026.
Common Questions
Kartra FAQ
The Final Word
Should You Use Kartra?
Kartra can replace a funnel builder, email tool, membership site and helpdesk with one subscription, which suits coaches and info-product sellers who want everything under one contact database. Its value depends on buying the right plan: Essentials is too restricted for most businesses, and the automation and support tools need Growth. Read the terms on automatic upgrades, renewal pricing and the 10-day cancellation notice before committing, and confirm limits in writing where Kartra's pages disagree. We score Kartra 7.8/10.
Yes, if
You sell coaching or digital products and want funnels, email, checkout, memberships and support in one account at Starter or Growth.
No, if
You want a free plan, a low entry tier without a sales fee, or flexible month-to-month terms.
About the reviewer
Carlos Gil
Founder & Editor, The Best Network
Carlos Gil is the bestselling author of The End of Marketing, a LinkedIn Top Voice, and founder of The Best Network. He brings 15+ years in marketing to practical reviews of AI, SaaS, email marketing, creator, and ecommerce software.
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