2025 Showdown: Kartra vs. Kajabi—The Ultimate Course Platform Battle

The landscape of online education and remote learning is rapidly expanding. As a result, the popularity of digital course platforms continues to grow. With the eLearning industry valued at about $240 billion by the end of 2022, there’s a huge demand for online learning solutions.

However, the sheer number of options can make selecting the right platform confusing, especially when you’re just starting out with creating your own online course. In this article, I will compare two well-established course platforms: Kartra and Kajabi. These platforms share many similarities but also have their distinct differences, which I will highlight shortly. Keep reading to learn more.

Developed by Andy Jenkins and Mike Filsaime, Kartra is an all-in-one online business platform that offers a range of digital marketing tools to promote, sell, and deliver products and services online. It integrates marketing automation, email services, help desk ticketing, shopping cart features, and affiliate management into a single system, making it easier for entrepreneurs to launch and grow their online ventures without needing extensive technical skills. You can create websites, landing pages, email campaigns, and other digital assets effortlessly, thanks to its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface.

Kartra’s main features include a visual page builder, email marketing automation, sophisticated marketing tools, pre-designed sales funnel templates, affiliate management, customer support systems, knowledge base creation, membership site management, opt-in forms, and video marketing functionalities.

Founded by Kenny Reuter, Kajabi is a comprehensive cloud-based platform designed for online course creators, digital product sellers, and content marketers. It allows users to host, market, sell, and deliver courses, videos, digital downloads, and websites all from one centralized location. Kajabi simplifies building and managing an online business, providing tools such as website hosting, payment processing, email marketing, and analytics, all integrated seamlessly.

Much like Kartra, Kajabi emphasizes ease of use with its drag-and-drop website builder and ready-made templates, enabling users with no coding experience to develop engaging websites and landing pages. It also offers automated email marketing, the ability to create community spaces for student interaction, and customizable sales funnels, surveys, quizzes, and assignments to enhance learning experiences.

In summary, Kajabi is tailored more specifically for course creators and membership-based entrepreneurs, offering specialized features that support content delivery and community engagement. On the other hand, Kartra provides a broader suite of marketing and sales tools aimed at entrepreneurs seeking an all-in-one platform to manage various aspects of their online business.Welcome to our detailed comparison of an all-in-one online marketing platform.

Let’s examine their features closely.

Hello and welcome to our comprehensive review of an all-in-one online marketing platform. Today, we’ll explore the key features and differences between two popular tools: Kartra and Kajabi. Both platforms aim to streamline your online business by offering a suite of marketing, course creation, and sales tools integrated into one system. We’ll break down their advantages and disadvantages to help you decide which one suits your needs best.

Here’s a quick summary of the strengths and weaknesses of Kartra:

– Seamless integration with other tools
– Built-in email marketing service
– Includes shopping cart and affiliate management systems
– User-friendly drag-and-drop editor
– Pre-designed templates and sales funnels
– Automates lead capture and sales processes
– Offers split testing capabilities
– Provides more advanced marketing features than Kajabi
– Sufficient tools to manage an entire online business

However, some limitations include a 50 GB bandwidth cap on the starter plan, absence of blogging features, and inability to add comment sections on video pages.

Now, let’s look at Kajabi’s pros and cons:

– Offers in-course assessments
– Multiple membership tiers
– Includes a standard blog on every website
– Students can comment on videos
– Detailed analytics for student activity
– Webinar funnels support
– Unlimited video hosting
– Visual page builder for easy design
– Visual sequence builder for automations

On the downside, Kajabi tends to be more expensive than Kartra and lacks some advanced email marketing functionalities.

You can explore both platforms further at their respective links: Kartra and Kajabi.

Moving on to a more detailed comparison, we focus on specific functionalities, starting with online course creation.

Kartra, although not primarily built as a course platform, provides options for creating membership sites, portals, lead capture, checkout, and sales pages. It’s truly an all-in-one marketing tool that allows you to create, host, and promote your courses within the same platform. Its drag-and-drop builder makes designing and customizing course pages quick and straightforward, with numerous ready-made templates that are mobile responsive across all devices. You can automate drip content delivery, releasing lessons over specific intervals and setting prerequisites, which helps keep students engaged and organized. Additional features include tracking student progress, organizing content with categories, uploading various media types (text, videos, audio), creating multiple membership tiers, automating welcome emails, and incorporating quizzes and surveys to enhance interaction.

Kajabi, on the other hand, is optimized for course creation and delivery, focusing heavily on video-based content. It includes web hosting, payment processing, shopping carts, and delivery systems tailored for online courses, membership sites, coaching programs, and virtual events. Kajabi is particularly suited for those who prefer video as their primary teaching medium. Beyond courses, it supports mini-courses, evergreen training models, communities similar to Facebook groups, and structured coaching programs like those designed by industry experts such as Brendon Burchard.

In summary, Kartra offers a versatile, integrated marketing solution ideal for users needing a broad array of tools to run their entire online business, including course hosting. Kajabi excels at creating engaging, video-centered courses and membership experiences, making it a great choice for educators and trainers primarily focused on content delivery.

Feel free to explore both platforms further to see which matches your online business goals best.

(Source: Kajabi)

With Kajabi, you can either utilize its intuitive drag-and-drop builder and predefined templates to develop your courses from scratch or import existing content for sale. All templates are highly adaptable—you can easily customize colors, logos, header images, and layouts to match your brand. Similar to Kartra, Kajabi allows you to organize your courses into categories and subcategories, giving your online platform a structured, syllabus-like appearance. In addition, Kajabi provides multiple assessment options, including multiple-choice, open-ended questions, fill-in-the-blank statements, and even image-based questions. The platform is fully optimized for mobile devices, enabling students to access their courses seamlessly on any device without needing to remember passwords or login details.

Final verdict: Kajabi tends to be more feature-rich for course creation and user engagement than Kartra. It also supports building online communities where you can host private conversations, send real-time notifications, and implement more advanced assessment tools, making it ideal for comprehensive educational platforms.

2. Membership Sites

Creating membership sites is an excellent way to generate passive income by building a loyal following and granting subscribers access to exclusive content, courses, and special offers. Both Kartra and Kajabi support the creation of membership sites, but they differ in capabilities and features.

Kartra makes content delivery straightforward, whether you’re offering free or paid memberships. You can start with a basic setup and expand as your business grows, thanks to its scalable platform. Its drag-and-drop interface simplifies building membership sites, and there are pre-designed, customizable templates aligning with your branding. Uploading various content types—text, videos, audio files, podcasts, PDFs, or documents—is simple and flexible. You can create single sign-on credentials, allowing users access to password-protected pages, or set up complex multi-level memberships with different pricing tiers and exclusive content.

You can also drip content over time, providing scheduled access to your members. If managing multiple membership sites, you can host all of them within a single portal, enabling cross-selling and upselling. Managing members becomes more efficient through tools that allow you to oversee comments, revoke or grant access, and automatically or manually tag users. Tracking user progress and engagement is seamlessly integrated, offering insights like subscription rates, active members, retention, content progression, and average time to complete courses. However, the basic plan limits you to 50 GB of uploaded content, so larger content libraries require upgrading to higher-tier plans.

Kajabi also offers a rich set of features for membership management, including customizable themes and a drag-and-drop builder for designing your site. You can add multiple elements such as download sections, media players, and embed videos, audio, and PDFs. Its tools aid in creating exclusive member-only areas with a professional appearance, supporting robust content delivery and member engagement strategies.

Both platforms facilitate building comprehensive membership sites but differ primarily in content capacity and customization options, making them suitable for different scales and needs.

With Kajabi, you also gain comprehensive access to analytics and student progress reports, helping you monitor whether students are engaging with the course materials and completing modules.

Kajabi allows you to filter these reports to view the performance of specific student groups, providing targeted insights.

Key metrics you can analyze include:

You can also foster a community by building a social space within your membership site using Kajabi. Their platform supports unlimited bandwidth and allows you to host an unlimited number of courses, ensuring your site can grow without restrictions.

Final Verdict: Kajabi

Kajabi primarily functions as a course creation and membership platform. It is equipped with a variety of features designed to make managing and delivering online courses straightforward and stress-free. The allowance of unlimited bandwidth across all plans is a notable advantage, making it scalable as your audience expands.

The core elements of any successful online business or course are the sales page and website. Both Kartra and Kajabi provide their users with a selection of ready-made templates that are highly customizable, making it easier to create professional-looking pages without needing coding skills.

Their intuitive drag-and-drop builders simplify the design process, eliminating the need to hire web developers and allowing you to craft your pages with ease.

Let’s explore each platform’s capabilities in more detail to see which one offers superior options for building sales pages and websites.

Kartra enables you to manage your entire online business from one platform, thanks to its integrated website builder and sales page creator. This integration means you don’t need additional tools to run your operations.

You can utilize over 500 customizable templates or design your pages from scratch.

With access to more than 500 templates and an easy drag-and-drop interface, users can swiftly build various types of pages—including lead capture pages, sales funnels, checkout pages, and landing pages.

Create a fully functional website with features such as:

Kartra also offers advanced functionalities such as countdown timers with dynamic, scrolling effects, background videos, pop-ups, and custom forms. All templates are mobile-friendly, ensuring your pages look great on any device. If desired, you can fully customize your pages by starting from a blank canvas and adding your branding elements—including logos, color schemes, and watermarks. For those with technical skills, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS editing capabilities provide full control over the design. Additionally, Kartra features behavior-based marketing, allowing dynamic content adjustments based on each visitor’s behavior—like changing headlines or videos to enhance engagement.

Using reports and analytics, you can:

Kajabi enables you to build your own website or create standard funnel pages for collecting leads, making sales, and more. You can select from pre-designed templates, assemble an entire site, or craft one entirely from scratch.

Add custom domains, URLs, titles, SEO settings, and other details to develop a fully functional website. The pro plan even allows you to edit the site’s code, providing the flexibility to add extra features.

It’s also possible to connect your web pages and sales funnels with membership areas, marketing campaigns, email sequences, offers, blogs, and beyond. In fact, Kajabi lets you set up an automated sales pipeline directly linked to your site.

Final Verdict: Kartra (if a blog isn’t necessary).
Kartra offers more advanced options for building websites and landing pages compared to Kajabi. With drag-and-drop tools for adding calendars, sticky bars, countdown timers, and other elements, Kartra has a distinct advantage. Moreover, it features a built-in helpdesk and scheduling systems, making it a comprehensive platform for course creators. However, Kajabi supports having a blog on your site, a feature that Kartra lacks.

Both Kajabi and Kartra are popular tools for designing sales funnels, though they differ in some key aspects.

Kartra provides ready-made sales funnel templates, helping you craft automated marketing campaigns seamlessly. You can drag and drop various sales components onto a straightforward canvas and connect them with directional arrows. It also offers options for creating different paths based on visitor actions. Kartra manages everything for you: tested campaign designs with precise text, engaging videos, automatically delivered emails, and lead tags that track user behavior.

To boost your lead generation and sales, Kartra’s funnel templates include opt-in forms, automated email sequences, advanced automation tools, tagging, and triggers—all easily integrated through an intuitive editor.

You can create campaigns from scratch or use pre-made campaigns created by other members and staff. Additionally, Kartra provides a comprehensive dashboard showing your sales pipeline’s performance and the conversion rate of visitors reaching the final step.

Kajabi offers ready-made playbooks, sales pipelines, and blueprints to assist your marketing efforts. Choose a template aligned with your goals—whether it’s lead generation, product launches, hosting webinars, or other objectives—and customize it. These pre-built sales processes connect your landing pages, opt-in forms, automated email sequences, and more, making it easier to reach your targets.

What’s particularly helpful is that Brendon Burchard, a renowned high-performance coach and bestselling author, designed these sequences. They include pre-written sales content and proven strategies—you just need to personalize them to suit your needs. Launching your tailored sales pipeline is quick and straightforward, often done in just a few clicks.

And because these platforms automate so many tasks, you can set up your systems once and then focus on analyzing your results rather than manual management.

Final Verdict: It’s a draw. Both provide ready-made funnel templates, trigger campaigns, automation options, and email sequences. However, Kartra offers split testing capabilities, which Kajabi does not.

5. Affiliate Program.

Both platforms let you create referral programs for your courses, send emails to affiliates, add new affiliates, and monitor their performance. However, there are notable differences.

Kartra includes advanced automation for managing affiliates—setting commissions, handling product and sales management, and screening potential affiliates. It guides you through creating custom landing pages for affiliates and helps you build a strong network. You can set up tiered commissions as incentives and see detailed analytics to track affiliate progress. Payments can be automated via PayPal once certain sales thresholds are met, and you can encourage affiliates to join your exclusive email list. Key features include built-in questionnaires, referral links, promotional tools, earning reports, automated payments, affiliate marketplaces, and sales analytics.

Kajabi also offers an affiliate management system that tracks sales, shares links, and monitors form submissions and conversions. You can assign commissions based on performance metrics. Still, it lacks many of Kartra’s advanced features: marketplace access, promotional tools, inbuilt questionnaires, and so on. Additionally, its affiliate program isn’t available with the basic plan.

Final Verdict: Kartra. It provides a richer suite of tools for building a robust affiliate marketing system.

6. Video Hosting.

Given that online courses heavily rely on video content, their hosting capabilities are crucial.

Kartra enables you to host, edit, and display videos directly on your pages using a customizable player. You can tailor colors, themes, and layouts to match your branding. Interactive features like clickable calls-to-action, sign-up forms, buy buttons, tagging, and watermarks can be added—enhancing viewer engagement. Videos are optimized for all devices, including mobiles and desktops, and can be embedded or shown as pop-ups. Detailed analytics allow you to assess performance, though there is a limit to how much content you can upload, which can be expanded for an extra fee.

Kajabi uses Wistia for hosting, with no bandwidth limits, unlike Kartra’s restrictions. It provides engagement analytics but does not support CTA or sign-up buttons within videos. Embedded videos or pop-up options are also unavailable, which makes it less versatile for interactive content.

Final Verdict: Kartra.

7. Email Marketing Automation.

Automated email communication is essential, and both platforms enable you to manage it without needing separate services like Mailchimp or Aweber.

Kartra features Kartra Mail, an integrated autoresponder system that supports sending broadcasts and follow-up sequences. It allows automated emails triggered by user actions, saving you time. The platform includes an email editor with customizable templates for both desktop and mobile, making campaign management straightforward.The platform allows you to craft emails using built-in templates and personalize them with a variety of elements such as testimonials, timers, video previews, calls to action, and more.

You can tailor your email campaigns by targeting your leads based on their behavior, making your messaging more relevant and engaging.

Create automated trigger emails that respond to specific recipient actions—whether they’ve clicked a link, missed opening a previous email, or chosen to unsubscribe—saving you time and effort.

You can also leverage the dynamic countdown feature to create a sense of urgency, boosting your conversion rates.

A/B split testing helps you compare different email versions to find the most effective ones, increasing open and response rates.

Kajabi, similar to Kartra, enables you to build email campaigns with customizable templates and drag-and-drop editors. This makes designing personalized emails, broadcasts, and autoresponders straightforward.

Whether you aim to send a single email blast or segment your audience for targeted messaging, Kajabi’s tagging system makes this easy. It offers a collection of over 15 templates, 12 preset sections, and adaptable layouts for mobile and desktop.

You can enhance your emails with interactive features such as timers, videos, calls to action, and forms. Customize, preview, and schedule your emails effortlessly.

The best part? Kajabi includes unlimited email sending across all its plans, whether basic or growth. Advanced features like automatic subject line validation, countdown timers, videos, and personalization add interactivity and improve engagement.

Moreover, Kajabi’s email system seamlessly integrates with your website, helping ensure your messaging complements your overall online presence. The platform also proactively checks for spam triggers and offers suggestions to improve your open rates.

When comparing the two, Kartra stands out for its advanced features such as list cleaning, split testing, and SMS sequencing—making it the more powerful choice. However, its Starter plan limits you to sending 15,000 emails, with higher volumes requiring an upgrade. In contrast, Kajabi allows unlimited email sends regardless of plan, offering more flexibility.

Kartra’s integrations are extensive, supporting connections with major business and marketing tools, including payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net, as well as email services such as SendGrid and MailGun. For SMS marketing, it connects with Twilio, Nexmo, and Plivo. The platform also supports membership integrations with tools like Kajabi, aMember, and Wishlist, plus custom integrations through its API, and Google Calendar sync.

Kajabi also integrates with many key business tools, including email autoresponders, membership systems, analytics, and payment processors like Stripe and PayPal. It supports popular services such as Google Tag Manager, Calendly, Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Facebook Pixel, Zapier, and more. While webhooks are supported, implementing them requires some coding experience.

In terms of pricing, Kartra offers four subscription tiers—Starter, Silver, Gold, and Platinum—each backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.

You can get a 25% discount if you choose annual payments and try any of Kartra’s paid plans for just $1 for a 7-day trial.

Here’s a quick overview of Kartra’s different membership plans:

– The Starter Plan costs $99 per month, supporting up to 2,500 contacts. It includes one custom domain, 15,000 emails monthly, 50 GB of bandwidth, space for 100 pages and 50 videos, the ability to sell 20 products, host 2 membership sites, include one extra team member, and access to a helpdesk.

– The Silver Plan is priced at $199 monthly, accommodating up to 12,500 contacts. It offers three custom domains, unlimited emails, bandwidth, pages, videos, products, membership sites, helpdesk support, and additional team members, as well as access to Kartra Agency.

– The Gold Plan at $299 per month expands to 25,000 contacts and includes five custom domains, with all other features unlimited.

– The Platinum Plan, costing $499 monthly, supports up to 50,000 contacts and ten custom domains.

All plans come with essential features like shopping carts, sales funnels, landing pages, surveys, quizzes, a marketplace, calendars, and support tools.

Kajabi offers three paid plans—Basic, Growth, and Pro—with a 30-day free trial, and a 20% discount if paid annually.

– The Basic plan costs $119 per month and includes 3 products, 3 pipelines, unlimited landing pages, emails, 10,000 contacts, 1,000 active members, one website, and one user.

– The Growth plan is $159 per month, supporting 15 products, pipelines, and increased contacts and members, with up to 10 users.

– The Pro plan is priced at $319 monthly, offering 100 products, 100 pipelines, and up to 25 users.

Despite Kartra’s more extensive features at a lower price point, it doesn’t include online course selling capabilities like Kajabi. Kartra excels in business management, marketing automation, behavioral targeting, affiliate programs, and advanced automation tools. Conversely, Kajabi focuses more on creating online courses, memberships, and community features.

Kartra is a comprehensive all-in-one platform with integrated shopping carts, ecommerce tools, affiliate marketing, email autoresponders, membership sites, customer support, and SEO functionalities. In contrast, Kajabi is designed mainly for course development and delivery, ideal for entrepreneurs, coaches, and thought leaders who want to monetize their knowledge online.

For more insights into online course platforms, visit StepThroughThePortal.com, where you can explore top learning management systems and compare other platforms like Thinkific, Teachable, and more.