In this comparison review, I’m going to put ClickFunnels and Kartra up against each other — and help you find out which of these funnel builders meets your needs.
The core difference between ClickFunnels and Kartra is that one is easier to use and provides its users with tons of marketing and funnel training while the other powers more marketing-oriented features for businesses.
I’m going to discuss how these products compare in terms of:
- Funnel and page builder capability
- Email marketing automation
- Affiliate management
- Membership and course hosting
- Shopping cart
- Landing page and funnel templates
- Ease of use
- Pricing and value for money
- Support
…and more!
I will break down everything there is to know about them right now.
As I have used and tested them both.
Most experts will advise you to take on the 14 days free trial ClickFunnels and also try 14 days of Kartra before deciding.
Why waste so much precious time doing that?
When you can leverage this comparison as your holy book to guide you on the right path.
We shall critically compare both ClickFunnels Vs Kartra, highlight both of their strengths, weaknesses, and the features built into both tools.
Quick Summary:
With Kartra you have all the tools you need ready-to-go at your fingertips, which makes it ridiculously easy to build and scale your online business fast… with tons of extra features at a more affordable price.
Now, what shall we be covering?
- ClickFunnels vs Kartra – Overview
- ClickFunnels vs Kartra – Similarities
- ClickFunnels vs Kartra – Differences
- ClickFunnels vs Kartra – Drawbacks
- ClickFunnels vs Kartra – Pricing
- The Winner & Why
- Final Thoughts
Let’s get started!
Part #1: ClickFunnels vs Kartra Overview
Virtually almost every online marketer knows one or two things about sales funnels and how they can be exploited to make a positively drastic change in their online business.
And ClickFunnels and Kartra are two monstrous software for building your online funnels and landing pages.
Both are of course great sales funnel builders that provides everything you need.
No doubt.
But one fact still remains that you cannot use both tools at a time. Or at least sell the same product.
In this overview, we shall take a look at a brief backstory behind both tools, what they tend to help online business owners accomplish, and how they operate.
ClickFunnels Overview
ClickFunnels is a tool founded by the world’s highest-paid stage speaker who made over $3 million on stage within 90 minutes, Russell Brunson.
One of his sole aim for building ClickFunnels was to help entrepreneurs who are finding it difficult or expensive setting up a converting business website without paying a web designer to get a good website up and running.
So they’d be able to create a more “sales making” website.
But in an easier, conducive, and less-expensive way.
Not just that, but for such a platform to be geared towards making money and not just gaining visitors alone.
With the invention of a platform like ClickFunnels, it became less of a stress and risk converting a cold prospect into hot buyers and also making business owners see more ways of adding value to the lives of their customers.
This tool comes with great features that help with:
- Building funnels
- Designing landing pages
- Managing affiliates
- Building courses
- Hosting webinars
- A lot more…
Over the years Russell Brunson has transformed lives and businesses NOT just with the ClickFunnels software alone.
But with the kind of numerous training, courses, and challenges he puts out to educate entrepreneurs.
Kartra Overview
Kartra, on the other hand, is also an all-in-one marketing software for building sales funnels and hosting your entire business.
The tool was co-founded by Andy Jenkins who is a great marketer and good at what he does.
Kartra is newer than ClickFunnels into the sales funnel thing, but it has gained attention from thousands of users over the past year alone.
If not for anything but for kind of features it brought that took everyone off their feet.
Let me add that, this platform is backed by one of the greatest direct response marketers of all time. Frank Kern. So something awesome should come out of this platform.
Right?
Kartra awesomeness comes from some of its inbuilt CRM and marketing-oriented features like:
- HelpDesk
- Video hosting
- Calendar
- Kartra email and BAM
- Landing pages, forms…
Plus the affiliate center, course hosting, opt-in forms, checkout cart, and a few others.
Part #2: ClickFunnels vs Kartra – Similarities
Both ClickFunnels and Kartra are very good at building sales funnels because they offer amazing features to users at every level.
Although their features might differ in a few ways and operations but that’s for another section.
Below are similar things you can do on them:
#1: Drag-and-Drop Functionality
ClickFunnels and Kartra are codeless funnel creation tools.
Meaning you can build your landing pages and sales funnels without mastering codes or designs. The drag-and-drop feature got you!
They make funnel building, landing page creation, and all that, less of a task, meaning you can easily build and design sales pages by dragging and dropping elements.
#2: Prebuilt Funnel Templates
Both ClickFunnels and Kartra comes with lots of pre-designed funnel templates which you can customize to fit your brand and business needs.
ClickFunnels lets you choose your funnel type, goal, and page templates right before you even get started building your funnels.
While Kartra offers and gives numerous page templates options to ride on.
Kartra even went further with its funnels and campaigns features – where you can select professionally designed and ready-to-use funnels.
#3: Course Hosting/Membership Site Creation
Using either ClickFunnels or Kartra will allow you to set up a complete membership portal for your courses, online program, or anything that requires special access to authorized users
That said, the ClickFunnels membership site looks pretty basic compared to that of Kartra.
Yeah, Kartra course hosting has a few features that make it comparable with platforms like Kajabi, Teachable, etc.
#4: Affiliate Management Tool
Both platforms offer you an inbuilt software for assigning and managing affiliates who help to bring customers to your business and you reward them through commissions.
In addition to the above – Kartra has an affiliate Marketplace both for finding affiliates to sell your products and becoming one yourself.
For ClickFunnels – the only Marketplace you will find is where you can buy funnels built by other people.
#5: Powerful Inbuilt Email Marketing Automation
Although, you can integrate your favorite email marketing service on both platforms. They still feature their own inbuilt email tool.
ClickFunnels has a feature called follow-up funnels for following up customers via email and texts.
Kartra email marketing also gives its users access to a similar feature where you can easily manage leads and finely segment your customers based on their activity.
#6: Difficult to learn
No sugar-coating here!
As amazing as they are, both tools have a fairly steep learning curve. It will take you a pretty while before mastering either of the tools and building out a great marketing system.
But you really do not have to worry because they also provide you with the needed resources (more on this later).
However, in my experience with both, I find ClickFunnels easier to navigate around and build something up faster. Hence having a friendly learning curve.
#7: Funnel Sharing feature
You can import built funnels into your Kartra or ClickFunnela account.
For example:
When someone shares a campaign or funnel with you on Kartra you enter it this way:
ClickFunnels and Kartra offers you the option to share your funnels with others by copying and sharing the links to others to be downloaded immediately into their accounts.
Then: when you want to share a funnel on ClickFunnels you copy it this way:
#8: Shopping Cart
One of the in-built tools on ClickFunnels and Kartra is the checkout cart system.
You don’t need to piece together any third-party checkout solution to sell your products or services online. Unless you need a dedicated solution for that. Then you can get a system like ThriveCart.
#9: Split Testing
Setting up split tests for your marketing campaigns and funnels is one of the great ways to increase your conversions.
Kartra and ClickFunnels A/B split-tests allow you to see which version of your funnel performs better so you can capitalize on that.
#10: Affiliate Program
One of the common questions I’ve seen around between Kartra versus ClickFunnels is:
Which has a better affiliate program?
Well, both platforms have affiliate programs which can be quite lucrative for affiliate marketing folks.
If you’re an agency or a freelancer with clients, then this would be another means to earn.
You give clients your link to signup or build funnels in your account then share the funnel link.
Even though that of ClickFunnels looks more lucrative than Kartra’s – they both pay 40% recurring commissions as long as the users referred remains a customer.
However, Russell has more products you can promote, and he incentivizes affiliates with cars, events, mastermind, etc.
Not forgetting the free affiliate training he created.
#11: Facebook Group
Kartra Facebook group serves more like a support group than that of ClickFunnels.
But they serve as a place where you can ask questions, post your challenges, and connect with like-minded entrepreneurs.
ClickFunnels has over 200k members while Kartra’s is nearly 30k members.
#12: Support
ClickFunnels customer support used to be a terrible one, honestly.
But after their 5th birthday when Russell made an announcement on ClickFunnels focusing as the category kind in the sales funnels space and included some new features like the Platinum plan, FunnelFlix, etc.
They seem to have stepped up their support a bit.
From my personal experience, Kartra support has always been helpful from the beginning.
Both also have knowledgebase pages where you can find answers and tutorials on what you need.
Part #3: ClickFunnels vs. Kartra – Differences
Both tools are awesome – not being biased – but as you would love to know. There are quite a lot of differences in their mode of functionality, operation, and sophistication level.
Below are the obvious differences between ClickFunnels and Kartra:
Difference #1: Goal Differentiation
What does this really mean?
Okay…
Well, It means the way you build out your sales funnels on both marketing platforms differs.
With ClickFunnels you build your funnels in a sequential order making it a more of a straight forward funnel building process, unlike Kartra which lets you think in reverse order.
Let me explain better:
Building sales funnels inside of ClickFunnels starts with building the initial front-end of your funnels where everything is laid out step-by-step.
Like, from the lead capture page to the thank you page.
But with Kartra instead of thinking about building out your sales funnel from the beginning, you will first have to put into consideration what you want to achieve with your funnel.
As you know, a normal sales funnel starts with an opt-in or sales page and end with a ‘Thank You’ page, Kartra lets you start with the thank you page and work your way to the landing or opt-in page.
I don’t see this as a big deal though.
What matters is what is achieved at the end and how it easy it was.
I prefer ClickFunnels in this part.
Difference #2: Webinar Funnels
Webinars have become a very vital part of product launching and marketing as a whole, it helps you to quickly drive revenue and make sales in your online business.
But the best type happens to be the Evergreen webinar which converts on autopilot.
ClickFunnels offers inbuilt automated webinar functionality and whereas Kartra doesn’t.
But Kartra integrates with its sister tools WebinarJam (for a live webinar) and EverWebinar (for an automated webinar).
So the equation is a bit balanced here as you can host Webinar on both without any stumbling block.
Difference #3: Video Hosting
This is a golden feature within Kartra.
Obviously ClickFunnels does not have an internal video hosting platform. What you have to do is upload on a third-party platform like YouTube or Vimeo then embed in your funnels.
These are ClickFunnels video hosting options:
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- Wistia
- EasyVideoSuite
- HTML5 Video
When you go through my Kartra review, you will see that Kartra in-built marketing-oriented video platform comes with awesome options to make your videos convert.
As you can see, you can also use an external video hosting platform on Kartra as well:
- YouTube
- Wistia
- Vimeo
Difference #4: FunnelFlix
FunnelFlix is called the Netflix of online marketing and personal development. It is a cool collection of marketing courses and training put together by Russell Brunson.
It contains great courses I’m sure will help you learn and master several skills in marketing (I have gone through a few myself).
The better part is that you have free access to these courses as a user of ClickFunnels software.
Difference #5: In-built Calendar App
ClickFunnels does not have a calendar tool and it will cost you an extra fee or process integrating one.
This is a Kartra feature that lets your customers easily book an appointment and scheduled sessions with you.
The Kartra calendar function also makes it easier than ever to schedule clients and seamlessly integrates with other parts of your funnel.
Difference #6: Experience
It’s no doubt that Russell Brunson’s ClickFunnels have been in this game (funnels and marketing) for a very long time since 2014 and built a solid following of thousands of raving fans.
Produced millionaires, have courses and training all over the place, developed extensive support, massive social following many more.
But Kartra is new in a way and lacks most of these credentials.
But being backed by Frank Kern is something worth looking into, right?
Difference #7: Membership Portal
One of the apparent differences I saw on both platforms is the way the membership sites appeared.
I talked about this earlier.
Besides the fact that you can embed videos done on other video sites on CF, ClickFunnels membership site looks pretty basic and very easy to setup.
While that of Kartra has members progress tracking and bar and completion badge feature. ClickFunnels lacks these.
I’d choose the Kartra membership site all day if I’m left with an option to choose between both where I’d host my course.
Difference #8: Helpdesk
Kartra Helpdesk is a great feature that takes care of your customer ticketing, knowledgebase, and Livechat. Inside of Kartra.
There is no such feature on ClickFunnels.
Difference #9: Kartra BAM
If you’re really looking for the BIGGEST difference between Kartra and ClickFunnels – this is it right here. Kartra BAM.
Behavioral Adaptive Marketing is a jaw-dropping feature found inside of Kartra that automatically customizes your sales copy, offers, videos, emails, colors, opt-ins, payment plan, etc according to who is visiting, clicking, opening, or interacting with your funnels or campaigns.
Quite weird but POWERFUL. IMO.
BAM basically customizes the messages to your customers and prospects and it is ridiculously easy to set up.
Difference #10: SEO and Blogging
If you’re a big fan of organic traffic and blogging like me, then I think you should pay close attention to this part:
First of all, I have to say that landing pages and sites built on ClickFunnels aren’t SEO friendly and you can’t blog with ClickFunnels.
(of course, WordPress is king at this!)
What about Kartra?
Just like the availability of templates for almost any page type on Kartra – there’s also a blog post pages section in Kartra Pages, so you can create pages that look like blog posts.
But this doesn’t make a Kartra a full-fledged blogging platform.
According to Kartra, they made it clear that:
Kartra Page Builder does not intend to be a WordPress competitor or even a blog platform per se.
We just want to allow you to craft pages that LOOK like blog posts, but ultimately it’s still a platform geared towards page -not blog- publishing
Not long, some SEO features were also released:
Difference #11: Heatmap Tool
It’s okay to integrate heatmap tools into your Kartra and ClickFunnels pages to uncover the elements engaging your visitors.
But why pay extra for that?
When Kartra has it’s own scroll/heatmap technology built-in. No downloads. No extra purchases. And no hassles.
Part #4: ClickFunnels vs Kartra – Drawbacks & Lacks
What do they lack?
In this section of ClickFunnels vs Kartra is where we look into the ugly side or cons of both sales funnel tools:
ClickFunnels Drawback
-
Drastic Limitation on the basic plan (Not all-inclusive)
One obvious setback about ClickFunnels is the limit of the number of the funnel, landing pages, visitors one can have on the basic plan which most users don’t find cool.
I don’t either.
Also, you won’t be able to make use of the affiliate management tool and inbuilt marketing automation tool on that plan.
-
Video hosting not supported
ClickFunnels doesn’t have the functionality of hosting your videos inside of the platform, instead, you host in an outside platform like YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia.
Then use it inside your funnel. Unlike Kartra where you get a certain amount of bandwidth (depending on the plan) to host your video files and use them throughout your marketing funnels.
-
No Helpdesk and Calendar
The Helpdesk and Calender features are great inbuilt functionality Kartra gives to their users, right from the startup plan. ClickFunnels lacks both features.
Other ClickFunnels Drawbacks:
- Lack of Behavioral Adaptive Marketing
- Lack of Heatmap tool
- No blogging feature and not SEO friendly
Kartra Drawback
-
No in-built evergreen webinar
This is one of the downsides of Kartra I see ClickFunnels shines a lot in. Unless you choose to integrate with automated software – you can’t build out an automated webinar.
-
You pay more as you grow
Despite having users pay $1 for testing the Kartra software unlike ClickFunnels where you test the waters for free 14 days, Kartra pricing packages could sound unfriendly for some people.
To that’s not bad.
My problem is that you would have to pay more and more as your email list grow. (more on this in pricing)
No matter the size of what you want to achieve in ClickFunnels, the Platinum plan of $297/mo got you covered.
-
No much free training and courses
The Kartranault membership contains various levels of training on how to use Kartra.
Nothing more than that!
That’s not the case with ClickFunnels – which gives you free access to tons of marketing courses (funnel creation, ads, copywriting, etc).
I won’t deny that I’ve gained more knowledge from Russell Brunson’s teaching about funnels and internet marketing than I’ve ever gotten from most paid courses over the years.
This is an aspect Kartra tends to be weak on.
-
Smaller community
Kartra has fewer fans, smaller community members, and a few hundreds of video training all over the internet, which makes it a little hard for new users to find quick help when lost.
But nevertheless, they are growing in numbers and their FB community isn’t bad. Every single problem need gets attended to.
For example:
If you decide to make a search on how to use Kartra, you might find just very few tutorials. Far from ClickFunnels where you get tons of training on how it works.
I won’t forget to mention that Andy Jenkins of Kartra sends valuable stuff too. Especially if you are on his list.
Part #5: ClickFunnels vs Kartra Pricing
I must say in this ClickFunnels vs Kartra comparison, this is the part I guess you’re most interested in, right?
Value for money matters in every investment.
But let me tell you that; the benefits you enjoy and the shortcomings you encounter in both marketing software are more critical to your business than the price itself.
Starting with ClickFunnels…
-
ClickFunnels Cost
You get a free 14-day trial to test out everything when you sign up for ClickFunnels then you can decide if it’s a tool worth sticking with.
Below is the pricing table:
Start-up ClickFunnels Plan $97/mo
This is the basic plan where you will have access to build up to 100 pages, 20 funnels, 20, 000 visitors, an unlimited number of contacts, 3 custom domains, limited access to FunnelFlix and every other feature except the Backpack and Follow-up funnels features.
Platinum plan $297/mo
This Platinum plan is for a business that has larger needs in terms of visitors, funnels, etc. You get an unlimited number of funnels, visitors, pages, and domains.
You’ll also have access to the inbuilt autoresponder and affiliate management platform and access to all FunnelFlix courses.
Discount Plan
This is called the Secret Masterclass plan where you pay almost half the price of the Platinum plan.
When you pay upfront for 6months. Instead of $1,782, you pay $997!
You can watch the free Secret Masterclass training to find out more.
-
Kartra Cost
Kartra, on the other hand, offers four different pricing options to its users after the $1 for 14days trial period:
- Starter Plan – $99 per month up to 2,500 contacts with 1 custom domain
- Silver Plan – $199 per month up to 12,500 contacts with 3 custom domains
- Gold Plan – $299/mo up to 25,000 contacts with 5 custom domains
- Platinum Plan – $499/mo up to 50,000 contacts with 10 custom domains
Another nice thing about Kartra platform is it’s ‘all-inclusive‘ pricing packages.
This means that you get all the features at every plan.
Like on all the plans you have unlimited access to:
- Emails for email marketing and automation
- Bandwidth for videos
- Pages
- Products
- Membership sites
- Team members
- Helpdesk
- Kartra Agency
There are also discount options for Kartra where you get up to 25% discount for an annual subscription for any plan.
Kartra or ClickFunnels – The Winner and Why?
Let me say it one more time that both tools are wonderfully perfect. Honestly! There are certain things I like on each platform that I think the other is weaker on.
For a quick recap…
Things on ClickFunnels and NOT on Kartra:
- FunnelFlix (training and courses)
- Native webinar
- Bigger Community
- Funnel Hackathons
- Awards, Events, and Masterminds
- More lucrative affiliate program
- Books, Courses, and Training (Dotcom Secrets, Expert Secrets, Funnel University, OFA challenge, Marketing secret podcasts + Free Blackbook, etc)
Things on Kartra and NOT on ClickFunnels:
- Helpdesk
- Behavioral Adaptive Marketing (BAM)
- Calendar
- Blogging templates
- Inbuilt Video hosting
- Heatmap tool
- Affiliate marketplace
Now, when it comes to choosing the winner, it all comes down to your online BUSINESS NEEDS and online MARKETING NEEDS.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ClickFunnels better than Kartra?
ClickFunnels is NOT better than Kartra when it comes to overall features and inbuilt tools. From the features and differences above you’ll see that Kartra hosts more functionalities than ClickFunnels.
While ClickFunnels has more courses and popularity than Kartra.
Is Kartra cheaper than ClickFunnels?
No, Kartra is not cheaper than ClickFunnels when it comes to the monthly pricing option. But when you decide to subscribe to the yearly subscription package of Kartra, you’ll get a 25% discount.
This makes Kartra cheaper on a yearly package compared to ClickFunnels.
How is Kartra better than ClickFunnels?
Kartra gives you access to all it’s inbuilt features from the starter plan, unlike ClickFunnels that limits you on the $97 plan.
You get the Helpdesk, video hosting, Kartra BAM, Calendar, Membership site, Marketplace, and more on Kartra.
Which is Your Choice?
Having used and tested both ClickFunnnels Kartra and lots of page-building tools – I would say Kartra has more business-oriented features and amazing stuff that is worth looking into if you are new to funnels.
If you’re an online business owner looking to sharpen your marketing skills and funnel building skills – then I think going the ClickFunnels route is the best.
Whichever your choice is in the Kartra vs ClickFunnels comparison, let me know in the comments below.
As for me:
With Kartra you have all the tools you need ready-to-go at your fingertips, which makes it ridiculously easy to build and scale your online business fast… with tons of extra features at a more affordable price.
How about you?
Checkout Other ClickFunnels Comparison Posts:
I use Cickfunnels for myself and Kartra for a client (their choice.)
The big difference is that CF is really made for selling. It doesn’t give you features that you don’t need and could easily get distracted by- which is an issue for many of us!
Kartra offers customization that most of us really don’t need.
Given that CF is a $100 million+/year company that runs off their own platform, how many of us really need things they don’t have?
There is a great add-on, CF Pro Tools, that gives a lot of additional features marketers crave.
I wish the CF $97 plan included an affiliate setup, but apart from that I’m all in and will soon get the full meal deal.
Khris, this in depth analysis is really helpful and I can see that there are pros and cons to both Kartra and ClickFunnels – your explanation is incredibly detailed and I’m impressed by the depth of your reviews. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I’m thinking about going with Kartra, that being said I’m curious – do you think it’s worth the time to learn how to build out the system myself? Or look into hiring a Kartra virtual assistant to help with the process so it gets done a little bit faster? I’m not sure what VA’s charge for something like this. I’m a one-person business – I teach yoga and before COVID-19 was teaching 10-15 classes/week making not a lot of money. I have a yoga alliance accredited teacher training – 200 hour program – online on my website. I want to set up a sales funnel to direct traffic to my teacher training program, and future programs in development. I set up my own word press website which as my teacher training password protected in it. If you don’t mind sharing with me your opinion regarding learning to set up Kartra or hiring someone to do it, I would greatly appreciate your insight. Thank you again!
Hey Ahlia,
Thanks and so much for the compliments. I’m really humbled!
Oh yes! I would recommend learning and building the funnels yourself. It’s not too hard to do as Kartra isn’t that hard. Since the Kartraverse, the Kartra support and the super-engaged community are always there to assist you. Remember nobody understands your business more than you do, right?
Maybe unless you have a very limited time on other stuff, then outsource it (I can recommend a very talented Kartra builder to you). But my opinion is you building your Kartra funnels yourself.