If you ever struggled with customer flows, email marketing or creating a killer landing page, Kartra might help.
Kartra is a marketing automation software by Genesis digital focused on optimizing your business’ digital marketing efforts.
So follow the guide for this Kartra review!
You should consider using Kartra if:
- You struggle with web design
- Lead management is not your forte
- You need a way to distribute digital products
But most importantly: if you want all of those in one place.
The biggest USP of Kartra is that it’s a jack of all trades for a sales funnel and has been recommended by people like Frank Kern.
Kartra offers help with:
- Video hosting
- Sales funnels mapping
- Membership areas
- Email marketing & marketing automation
- Shopping cart
- Affiliate management
- And more
How about the Kartra pricing? Although relatively expensive, there are a lot of things this tool gets right.
Read on to find out if it’s suited for your business.
Kartra Pricing
Kartra is not the cheapest tool in the shed.
For $1 you can get a 14 days trial.
But if you decide to use the tool for a longer period of time, you can spend anywhere between $99 and $699 a month.
The price point is justified by the fact that it can replace several automation tools.
Somewhat.
While Kartra can do a lot for your business, it won’t do everything as well as the tools solely focused on one process.
All For 1$
This is an interesting take on the “free” trial.
You can use any of the plans for 14 days for 1$.
While it will (technically) require you to pay the company upfront, it’s a small sum to make full use of the software and decide if you like it or not.
Starter Plan
The Starter plan lets you hit the ground running with a cap of 2500 leads, 50GB of bandwidth and 15000 emails per month.
If you do the math, this means you’re able to send 6 emails to all of your leads (as long as you reach the subscriber count cap).
It’s not a bad choice for small online businesses that find the features of Kartra helpful.
Considering the 99$ price point, it’s also decent for an all-in-one software.
Silver
The Silver plan jumps up to $149/month.
What do you get? 12,500 leads, 125000 emails, 125 GB of bandwidth and two more domains.
The only reason you’d want to upgrade is if you like the tool and you have a considerable increase in potential clients.
Or if you have several websites and you need landing pages or members area for all of them.
Other than that, there’s no real incentive to upgrade.
Gold, Platinum And Diamond
The next tiers cost $299, $499 and $699 respectively.
They don’t really provide an added value in terms of features.
You can make full use of Kartra with both Diamond and Starter, which is great for the small business that couldn’t afford to spend $700 a month on marketing automation.
The choice to upgrade or not is simple.
Do you have 100,000 leads and 10 websites? If yes, go for Diamond.
If you need, even more, you can upgrade to an Enterprise plan and you’ll negotiate the price with the developers.
Kartra Features
Kartra has a lot of them.
From a page builder to analytics and business automation to sales funnel builder & shopping cart, to video hosting, to membership area & affiliate management, there’s a lot you can do with this all-in-one business marketing tool.
Kartra Page Builder Review
The page builder is on-par with big names in the website builder scene.
Wix, Weebly and SquareSpace are definitely better in some areas.
However, with a few tweaks, Kartra could give them a run for their money with the page builder alone.
The tool has a lot of functionalities, from site management to SEO and CSS playgrounds.
The first thing you’ll notice is a quick tutorial walking you through each section.
It’s well-made and it really helps you hit the ground running because it teaches the basics of building your website.
If you skipped it, you can always read their page builder guide.
Sites
The Sites tab lets you assign the page you’re creating to already existing sites.
This ties back into Kartra Sites as a functionality of the software.
While not suitable to run a fully-fledged business or blog (both due to hosting and design limitations), Kartra can help you publish an entire membership website.
This is great if you have limited web design knowledge and you made it work with WordPress, but you’re not sure how to build a member’s area.
Settings
The Settings tab lets you edit SEO parameters or things like tracking codes.
You don’t have a lot of options for advanced SEO mods (nothing compared to what Yoast offers).
However, since Kartra mostly helps with campaigns, it’s likely you already have other ways to send traffic to the page (ads, referrals, etc).
It’s really easy to set-up tracking codes, so you don’t have to count on in-house analytics.
You can also tie a page in with third-party features like the Facebook pixel.
Lastly, page redirect is something people don’t really think about when making a campaign, but it can become important in the long-run.
For example, if you create a landing page for growing an email list, you’re going to send traffic that way from blog posts, podcast interviews or even ebooks.
If you change domains, instead of reformatting all the places you have a link for your landing page, you can just set-up a quick redirect.
If this got your webmaster senses tingling, you can read more about the best SEO tools.
Styles
The Styles tab is where things start to slow down compared to other visual editors.
Yes, you can edit the default font, background color, page width and you can access the CSS code.
But it’s a bit thin.
Other tools like Wix or Elementor let you customize background designs, which can make the website stand out.
A wider selection of fonts and the possibility to edit hovers could’ve helped too.
Sections And Components
Now for the real page building – blocks and elements.
From these two tabs you can access:
- Pre-made blocks (like About Us sections or Forms)
- The elements within those blocks (like a button or image format)
Overall, it’s easy to build a site. Just click on the item you want to be inserted, drag it on-page and drop it where you want it displayed.
I really liked the variety – after reviewing over 20 website builders, Kartra would rank in my top 3 most in-depth editors when it comes to block variety.
Moreover, all of them are made for online marketing, with all the flashy colors and
premade blocks you need to push visitors down a funnel.
Pop-Ups And Notifications
This is where you can create pop-ups and notification bars.
You get templates for all of them, mainly landing and exit pop-ups.
It definitely helps with GDPR compliance and improving your conversion rate.
A pitfall you can slide into is overdoing it with the alarms.
It’s so easy to create notifications that you may be too drawn to it.
Don’t worry – as long as you set expiry dates and decent sizes for all notifications, you won’t annoy visitors.
The interface could’ve been simplified by putting both sections under one tab, but if you get used to the UI it won’t be a big problem.
Preview
The Preview tab lets you get an overview of your site as seen on different platforms.
It’s great that you can keep editing no matter what preview you’re in.
On the flip-side, you can’t have certain elements not show on mobile devices.
Visual editors usually support this because you can end up with resource-heavy sections or poorly formatted images that only work for desktop visitors.
With Kartra, all elements seem to be very well optimized (and they resize automatically) so it might not be an issue, but you never know.
Column And Components
These tabs let you edit two layers of your website.
By default, you’re working in the components view.
If you click on the column tab, you can modify the structure of your website to add, edit or remove columns.
This is great to organize a resource-packed page, like a squeeze.
It’s also extremely helpful for blog posts that act as lead magnets, like this one:
You can’t really host a blog on Kartra, but you can host Kartra pages on your WordPress website.
Main Menu
The main menu lets you access a few backend options.
- Preview your current design in a new tab.
- Save progress in case you’re afraid of imminent internet crashes.
- Save page as template in case you want to make a risky edit.
- Publish live. Pretty self-evident.
- Return to the dashboard, which will close the page builder, so make sure you save beforehand.
Lastly, there are the on-page edits.
Mostly, you can edit the style of a component.
This practically means width and borders, but you can also add effects like fade or flip.
The downside of features overall is that they sacrifice customizability for ease of use.
For example, it’s hard to reorganize premade blocks. When you manage to do it, it can cause some mobile optimization issues.
Verdict: The page builder does its job to supplement your website, but some tweaks wouldn’t hurt.
If you need a quick landing page created and you’re not really good with WordPress, it’s a safe choice.
Unless you really care what it looks like.
If you have a strong design that’s a key part of your branding, like a cool background theme or an unorthodox header, Kartra won’t help all that much.
Lead Management Review
When it comes to Lead Management, Kartra falls behind a fully-fledged CRM.
But it does a few things very well and it might just be enough for your sales funnel.
It’s easy to create a new list, you just:
- Upload a .csv or text file
- Clarify what each field is referring to (if it’s not clear from the document)
If you don’t have that, you can copy and paste leads into a text box.
Once you have everything set-up, you can use your list for everything Kartra – adding them to a campaign, sending an email and anything else you may do that targets visitors.
On the other hand, the data protection questionnaire that you need to fill if you upload the leads is cumbersome, especially if it’s your first time.
To make it worse, Kartra needs to review the leads added manually.
Yes, it’s great that they’re dedicated to data protection, but for most law-abiding online enterprises it’s just an extra hassle that could’ve been avoided.
Verdict: It does the job of managing a list better than a human could, but there are better alternatives.
Shopping Cart, Video Hosting & Membership Area Review
One of the biggest pluses of Kartra is their Products feature.
It’s very easy to set up a membership.
Decide things like whether your membership or product requires a recurring payment or not and you’re good to go.
Thank you pages and payment systems can be marked as “solve later” so you can focus on the easiest things to begin with.
You can use Kartra just to measure sales, or you can go further and host the product page on Kartra itself (with the subsequent domain limitations).
If you set-up the product in this software you can also tag cart abandonment, which speeds up remarketing efforts. You can offer another product to these people or remind them to finish their checkout for example.
You can also serve digital products.
Whether it’s a download link or member area, Kartra can be used to distribute your digital goods.
They even host your videos if you need them to.
This is especially great for membership sites, because they’re harder to set up traditionally.
On the flip side, the benefits of Kartra products are only suitable for newcomers.
If you have decent hosting and good knowledge of WordPress, you can host the download link just as easily on your platform.
And you won’t get any benefit out of spending the extra $99 each month.
Verdict: Powerful feature if your hosting is lacking or if you’re not that good with an Analytics – Mailchimp combo. Other than that, experienced webmasters won’t get a lot out of it.
Sales Funnel Integrations
Kartra and third-parties don’t mix very well since the software is marketed as an all-in-one solution.
Regardless, the integrations that do exist are smart.
You can integrate with some big names like PayPal or Zapier.
If you’re not familiar with Zapier, you can check their collab documentation.
Everything is easy to set-up and you can access documentation right from the integrations hub.
For example, you can set-up a scheduling form on your page that will automatically populate your Google Calendar.
Moreover, you get a lot of support with any API you might want to use.
On the flip-side, there’s not a huge variety of supported third-parties and that can be crippling for your business.
Nothing comparable to most of their competitors at least.
While a downside, in theory, you don’t really need more than what’s on display.
Things like Mailchimp or form builders are the norm, but Kartra has an in-house equivalent for those tools.
Moreover, if you put it against other marketing automation software like the Hubspot CRM, it definitely ranks better in terms of integrations.
Verdict: You won’t depend on Kartra integrations (and they’re not impressive), but they are smartly-chosen.
You’ve got your own email marketing, automation, and lead management tool, so there’s no need to integrate with CRMs or email marketing software.
You don’t have a payment processing system and you may miss some trigger-action workflows, so you can use Paypal, Authorize.net, and Zapier to deal with it.
Kartra Analytics Review
Kartra analytics isn’t necessarily bad – it’s just that it doesn’t help all that much.
Ok, granted, it helps you track sales for your online business.
You can calculate your revenue, subscriber value, and everything is laid out clearly (for the most part).
The problem is that you can’t do a lot of work with the data.
For example, as much as I played with the tool, I didn’t find a way to analyze the place people exited a funnel.
There’s little segmentation possible.
And the system is confusing.
For example, under “My Communications” the sequence tab is both under analytics and under communications.
Yeah, you could get over that.
What’s truly confusing is that there’s no centralized place for analytics.
You’ve got “analytics” spread out among different tabs, which can make it harder to access the data you want.
Alternatives? Google Analytics can help.
As long as you’re talking about Kartra pages because you can insert the tag in the source code.
Other than that, you’re stuck with their system
Verdict: It’s hard to make good use of their analytics with no centralized structure.
Kartra Templates Review
They are impressive.
Whether we’re talking about page sections, entire pages or their done-for-you campaigns, you get a lot of free templates.
Or you can just create your own.
You can use layouts for:
- Video Sales pages
- Thank You pages
- Long Sale pages
- 404
- Legal Documents
- Content videos
Once again you can see the efforts they put in easing your online business efforts.
On the other hand, there’s not a lot of visual variety in their templates.
Apart from changing the colors, you need to put some thought into aligning the page with your branding.
Verdict: Decent amount of responsive templates, not a lot of customizability.
Kartra Automations
Open up sequences. Set it up (the initial tutorial is exhaustive).
And you’ve got a funnel, automated rule or SMS trigger.
Everything’s got a trigger and a subsequent action and everything is self-explanatory.
It’s also easy to set-up pop-ups, thank you pages and form responses.
But Kartra’s only good when it comes to automating communication.
If you want to populate excels after customer behaviors, diminish churn or sell a backup offer, you’ll still rely on other tools.
Yes, you can integrate with Zapier.
And they have a hub for it.
But it still feels like the automations hub could do with more triggers and actions.
Verdict: The developers realized what they couldn’t compensate for in-house and hooked onto the right third parties. Regardless, there is room for improvement.
Kartra Interface And Ease Of Use
Perhaps the biggest plus of Kartra is its ease of use.
You can really tell that the developers aimed to help people that aren’t that tech-savvy.
Even if we’re talking about experienced webmasters, it’s still better to make it easier because you save time.
The bulk of accessibility comes from the initial walkthroughs.
You get a quick video tutorial which walks you through everything you can do with the tool and some layout details.
As soon as you’re ready to go in-depth, you can go through their initial steps checklist.
This covers every Kartra functionality and it really brings the learning curve down.
You get a step-by-step introduction into every feature.
Moreover, once you start using anything (lists, sequences, helpdesks), the whole process is self-explanatory and has a lot of done-for-you campaigns.
You can also use the Kartraverse, which is their own “Academy” with a ton of videos.
Beyond the flashy names, the Kartranaut training is built to help you understand the software.
It goes much more in-depth with every feature and it’s a welcome support for mastering the tool.
Kartra Backend Ease Of Use
On the backend side, there could be some improvements.
For example, you can’t access the entire source code of the page you’re building which is a shame for an advanced business platform.
It’s just the CSS in some cases and limited access to the JS or HTML.
To be completely fair, you can insert a code block, but it’s just not the same.
If you get into specifics, you can’t do complex shipping integrations like uploading XML files.
But it’s not all bad.
You get a lot of help when it comes to support.
My Helpdesks is a feature of Kartra that lets you manage tickets and customer complaints.
It’s easy to set one up and you’re alerted to any complaint as soon as you open the dashboard.
Verdict: Could help with some improvements, but you get a lot of help with support.
Kartra Front End Customer Ease Of Use
The final result your customer gets to interact with is definitely one of the better things in Kartra.
And it’s easy to set up.
If you’re to create a campaign from the get-go, the process is similar to the Google Ads workflow.
You just upload media, make use of the pre-made templates and settle who to target with it.
And this comes on top of how easy it is to create pages.
Verdict: Qualitative frontend possibilities, with an emphasis on getting the final result in front of an audience really fast.
Kartra Review Conclusion
What Kartra has to offer is good as an add-on for an online business that already makes a bit of money and wants an all-in-one marketing solution.
It’s also great for people that want to go online, have an income and don’t want to bother with digital marketing that much.
That’s why marketers with large audiences like Frank Kern are pushing it so heavily.
Regardless of your position, it’s great if you don’t have a team of marketers, copywriters, and designers around to help you with your online business.
It eases your workflow in a lot of ways.
Overall Pros
- Easy to use
- Powerful
- A lot of premade resources
- All-in-one marketing solution
- No headaches videos hosting
Overall Cons
- Not a lot of customization in some areas
- Can achieve most things with cheaper/free software
Final Verdict: You can see Genesis digital is a company that is a veteran in online business and they know what you need to do well.
Kartra can work wonders for some online businesses, but it’s not recommended if you have the resources to do lead management, create funnels or build web pages in-house.
I would only pay the kartra price if I didn’t have a lot of pre-existing software, otherwise, the functions might overlap quite a bit.
Kartra Alternatives To Consider
Not convinced you should give the tool a shot? Here are some alternatives.
Before we get into it though, remember that there aren’t a lot of tools that cover so many aspects of online marketing.
But there are alternatives if you want to optimize some parts of your marketing efforts.
1. Do It Yourself
Creating a sales funnel or landing page may mean more effort, but for the bootstrapper with limited resources, it definitely pays of financial wise.
2. Shopify
This one provides templates, hosting and tutorials on starting your online store. For as little as $5/month, you can sell unlimited products with the Shopify Starter plan, so it’s worth taking into account.
3. WooCommerce
It’s similar to Shopify, but it comes as a plugin for your WordPress site.
4. Salesforce
Not much in the way of online marketing or flashy templates, but definitely superior to Kartra in terms of lead management. Segment, group and edit as much as you want.
5. Clickfunnels
Perhaps the biggest competitor to Kartra, Clickfunnels is focused on helping you create landing pages and sales funnels. It’s better in some areas (for example when it comes to template variety) but it’s a bit harder to use.
I hope you enjoyed our Kartra review, For more software, make sure you read about the best online marketing tools.