In the search for that ‘one tool to rule them all’ in digital marketing, many of us hit the same wall – choice overload.
Many tools are out there, promising to be your next business lifeline. In your hunt for the perfect platform, you may come across Kartra and GoHighLevel.
Each boasts a suite of features that, at first glance, might seem to mirror one another. But the truth is they have different strengths.
This article will be an honest Kartra vs GoHighLevel comparison to steer you toward the platform that will improve your marketing game.
Table of Contents
- What Is Kartra?
- What Is GoHighLevel?
- Kartra vs GoHighLevel – Key Similarities and Differences
- Kartra vs GoHighLevel – Detailed Comparison
- Karta vs GoHighLevel – User Experience and Interface
- GoHighLevel vs Kartra – Pricing Comparison
- Karta vs GoHighLevel – Marketing Automation
- GoHighLevel vs Kartra – Course Creation and Membership Sites
- Kartra vs GoHighLevel – Landing Pages, Sales Funnels, Surveys, and Forms
- GoHighLevel vs Kartra – CRM and Lead Management
- Karta vs GoHighLevel – Marketing Agency Features
- GoHighLevel vs Kartra – Customer Support and Training
- Pros and Cons of Kartra
- Pros and Cons of GoHighLevel
- Conclusion
What Is Kartra?
Kartra emerges as a comprehensive cloud-based marketing suite designed to serve as the operational backbone for online businesses.
It’s perfect for you if you’re looking for an all-encompassing platform that can handle everything from crafting high-converting sales funnels to managing email marketing campaigns and even hosting webinars and online courses.
Launched by the creators of WebinarJam, Kartra has been available to a few people in 2016. And was introduced to the public in 2018.
Who Is It For?
It primarily serves digital marketers, small businesses, entrepreneurs, course creators, and coaches. But its highest plans can also cater to agencies and larger organizations.
Kartra is the go-to for anyone wanting a comprehensive platform to sell products and services and manage their online presence.
What Is GoHighLevel?
GoHighLevel, often referred to simply as HighLevel or GHL, is swiftly gaining recognition as a top-tier solution for marketing agencies.
It’s engineered to streamline your online business’ complete marketing lifecycle, from capturing leads to fostering client relationships and finalizing transactions.
What sets GoHighLevel apart is its sophisticated CRM capabilities and powerful automation tools. Those make it a great platform to handle multi-channel marketing strategies that adapt to the modern landscape.
Additionally, with its affiliate management feature and unique SaaS mode that lets agencies sell the features as their own, GoHighLevel opens up new revenue streams.
Who Is It For?
Initially crafted with agency owners in mind, GoHighLevel extends its capabilities well beyond this core audience.
It’s designed to help a broad spectrum of users, from local businesses to consultants, sales professionals, and B2B companies craving a unified system.
If your business thrives on leads and you need to keep all your client engagement tools in one place, GoHighLevel could be the operational nerve center you’re looking for.
Kartra vs GoHighLevel – Key Similarities and Differences
Drawing from my hands-on experience with both Kartra and GoHighLevel, here’s a straightforward peek at what sets them apart and where they sync up:
Similarities
When it comes to the price tag, both GoHighLevel and Kartra are positioned at the higher end of the online marketing platform category.
This reflects the comprehensive nature of these platforms—they don’t just add a few tools but equip you with a full suite. Each is designed to be the last piece of software you’ll need, combining a range of features to handle almost everything your agency could throw at it.
Their higher-tier plans are built with agencies in mind, offering the ability to oversee multiple clients from a single, powerful dashboard. This feature alone makes them a solid investment for serious marketers who mean business.
Moreover, Kartra and GoHighLevel understand the importance of a test drive. They both offer free trials to new users—Kartra gives you a whole month to get acquainted with its features, while GoHighLevel provides two weeks to explore its capabilities.
When it comes to the core functionalities, both platforms offer impressive sales funnel and page builders, comprehensive affiliate management features, and resources for creating and managing online courses and memberships.
Differences
- GoHighLevel offers a unique SaaS mode, empowering you to resell its features as your own. This is something Kartra can’t provide.
- Kartra’s plans have certain limitations, whereas GoHighLevel boasts unlimited team members and usage across the core features, even on their entry-level plan. Plus, you get unlimited sub-accounts for its higher plans.
- Kartra shines for individual business owners, course creators, and coaches, providing tailored tools for product launches and marketing campaigns. In contrast, GoHighLevel is crafted with marketing agencies and seasoned marketers in mind, offering advanced CRM capabilities and extensive automation tools.
Kartra vs GoHighLevel – Detailed Comparison
Karta vs GoHighLevel – User Experience and Interface
Navigating through the digital tools of Kartra and GoHighLevel is a breeze, thanks to their responsive and well-organized dashboards.
If you have experience with SaaS favorites like Kajabi or ClickFunnels, you’ll find the transition to these platforms quite natural.
Diving into specifics, Kartra’s dashboard presents a sleek, modern aesthetic that’s not only pleasing to the eye but also makes finding your way around its comprehensive features relatively straightforward.
It’s a robust platform, but it doesn’t overwhelm you, thanks to a well-thought-out layout and helpful tutorials that guide you through each step.
GoHighLevel’s interface, while practical and efficient, doesn’t give you the same level of guidance. It assumes a certain level of proficiency from the get-go, which is great if you’re an experienced marketer but might leave those new to the scene wishing for a bit more direction.
Winner – Kartra
Kartra takes the crown for user experience. Its inviting interface and supportive onboarding process make it a standout choice, especially for those just getting their feet wet.
GoHighLevel vs Kartra – Pricing Comparison
Kartra Pricing
Kartra simplifies its pricing structure into three main tiers, designed to scale with your business needs.
- Starter – $119/month
- Growth – $229/month
- Professional – $549/month
Choosing annual billing unlocks a savvy saving of up to 22%, a smart move for those committed to the long haul. Each step up in Kartra’s plan ladder not only increases your usage caps but also enriches your toolbox with more advanced features.
For instance, the Starter plan is your entry point, perfect for getting the essentials in place and starting to streamline your online business processes.
But as you scale and need more—like advanced affiliate marketing tools, enhanced customer support, and comprehensive agency features—the Growth or Professional plans stand ready to match your expanding ambitions with an impressive array of functionalities.
GoHighLevel Pricing
GoHighLevel presents a trio of pricing plans that align closely with Kartra’s:
- Starter – $97/month
- Freelancer/Unlimited – $297/month
- Agency Pro – $497/month
Opting for annual payment grants a neat 16% HighLevel discount, which may not reach Kartra’s offer but remains a worthwhile consideration for budget-conscious users.
The Starter plan can provide a solid foundation with unlimited users and essential features like email marketing tools, a social media planner, workflow, and campaign builders.
If your focus is on scaling your online business, the Freelancer plan introduces white-labeling and membership functions you can take advantage of.
The top-tier Agency Pro boasts full SaaS capabilities and advanced features like AI conversational bots and agent reporting. These are indispensable for large agencies using cutting-edge tools to drive client success.
Winner – GoHighLevel
While both platforms bring a lot to the table, GoHighLevel edges ahead with its feature-rich plans.
Karta vs GoHighLevel – Marketing Automation
Kartra
Kartra offers marketing tools with its Sequence and Automation features.
They work a little bit similarly, but Sequence is more advanced than Automation. Automation only provides some pre-defined triggers and actions.
Meanwhile, Sequence lets you build multiple steps and triggers, add conditional paths, and put some delays or wait time on your process. The platform basically gives you a blank canvas where you can drag and add actions and triggers and then connect them.
The marketing automation of Kartra can be confusing to beginners. I had difficulty finding these tools on my dashboard, but Kartra offers a walkthrough that becomes visible whenever you return to the Sequence tool.
One more thing to note is that the triggers and actions are pretty limited to email marketing automation. So, while it’s good, it doesn’t allow you to set and forget the other parts of your online business.
GoHighLevel
Meanwhile, GoHighLevel has a better marketing automation tool. It’s more powerful and easier to navigate than Kartra’s (based on my experience, at least.)
GoHighLevel’s automation workflow builder is one of my favorite features of GoHighLevel, as you can set different conditions and actions.
When I say you can do a lot with this feature – it means a WHOLE LOT.
For instance, with just some of its ready-made workflow templates, you can:
- Set appointment confirmations and reminders that end with sending an automated review request,
- Nurture your lists in the long term. So you can decrease the number of leads you lose in the future,
- And create multi-channel marketing that allows you to connect with your leads through SMS, email, voice mails, and calls.
Besides that, you can also create from scratch and set up complex marketing automation. GoHighLevel lets you include unlimited steps, add more specific rules, send data to your sheets, accept payments, set up team notifications, and so much more.
Winner – GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel’s marketing automation is pretty impressive and tops most of its competitors. You can have lots of fun playing and experimenting with it.
GoHighLevel vs Kartra – Course Creation and Membership Sites
Both platforms make creating online courses, membership sites, and even community spaces possible. You won’t have any issues with the following.
They also allow you to create a client portal where students can log in and access your digital products. With this feature, it’s much easier to provide access and create a great user experience for them.
Moreover, you can view useful metrics on Kartra and GoHighLevel to measure whether your online courses or membership sites are doing well. However, GoHighLevel allows you to check specific members’ progress, while Kartra only provides an overview.
Kartra
What I like about Kartra is its launch builder. It allows you to create visually appealing online course modules and membership sites.
For example, you can add elements like a progress bar, an audio playlist, an existing webinar, and other helpful multimedia content.
I felt like I was designing landing pages and sales funnels while using this builder. Part of me likes it because it encourages you to be creative and to add what you want for every page or module you have.
However, its style differs significantly from the typical LMS like Kajabi and Thinkific. And to be honest, I find it confusing.
Let’s say you want to add modules and lessons. Instead of being able to create them separately, you need to add them as categories and sub-categories in the navigation menu.
It might make your online courses look more efficient and unified. But it can become overwhelming for long courses. Just imagine a navigation menu filled with modules and drop-down menus.
Another thing to note is that you cannot send certificates to your students without using a third-party app like Zapier.
That said, Kartra is still a long way away from being able to match dedicated course builders.
GoHighLevel
In comparison, GoHighLevel offers a range of features that position it shoulder-to-shoulder with specialized course platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, and Kajabi.
It’s apparent that GoHighLevel has borrowed elements from these tools, particularly the user-friendly interface of Kajabi.
What sets GoHighLevel apart is how it presents its features for memberships, courses, and communities. It separates the following tools and allows for a more organized and focused approach to creating and managing each aspect of your digital product offerings.
It’s also noticeably more intuitive when structuring modules and lessons, making the course creation process smoother and less time-consuming for you.
The capability to neatly segment and streamline the course and community aspects means that you can develop a more cohesive learning environment.
Next, it provides blueprints that you can use to build your courses faster. For each blueprint, you get some introductory content and quick tips to help you create high-quality courses effectively.
Lastly, GoHighLevel provides a new feature that allows you to design and send certificates from the platform itself. This adds a layer of value and professionalism to your courses, allowing you to acknowledge your students’ achievements with a tangible reward.
Winner – GoHighLevel
With its more intuitive course-building interface, comprehensive features, and the ability to issue certificates directly, GoHighLevel stands out as the more user-friendly platform for creating online courses and membership sites.
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Kartra vs GoHighLevel – Landing Pages, Sales Funnels, Surveys, and Forms
Once again, these two platforms are great tools for building sales funnels, landing pages, forms, and surveys. And we already know how important these are in getting more leads for your online business.
Kartra
Kartra offers funnel mapping, which allows you to create more advanced and complex sales funnels.
While Kartra provides sleek templates for your landing pages, you have to edit and customize them in the “Pages” section before you can connect them with your sales funnels. This process makes it a little bit difficult because you have to go back and forth between two tools.
Meanwhile, its Forms and Survey features are also great and helpful. It allows you to add simple automation and custom fields to the forms to give your audience a more personalized and smooth experience.
The survey tool is a gem for you, whether you’re a marketer, online business owner, or own a marketing agency. It turns simple Q&As into engaging quizzes, yielding rich insights and improving your marketing strategies with actionable data.
GoHighLevel
Like Kartra, it offers many professional-looking and built-in templates that you can use for free.
The sales funnel feature itself looks a little outdated than Kartra. However, I find it easier to navigate and work with without sacrificing any capabilities.
For instance, the page builder is available for each funnel step inside your sales funnel. That’s because the landing pages are incorporated into it. The pre-made templates are usually 2-3 steps for a more unified design.
The pre-made templates also extend to the survey and form builder. However, the survey form of Kartra is much more flexible than GoHighLevel, as you can use it to create interactive quizzes.
Lastly, GoHighLevel provides a separate feature for its website, which is super useful. On the other hand, Kartra only provides some templates under the sales funnel’s “Personal Branding” that you can use for website building, which I think isn’t enough.
But with GoHighLevel, you can create unlimited websites separately. Mention why that’s great in a straightforward sentence for my audience.
Winner – GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel takes the win for its seamless integration of landing pages within the sales funnel steps and the added bonus of a dedicated website builder.
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GoHighLevel vs Kartra – CRM and Lead Management
Having a robust CRM and lead management system is crucial for you as an online marketer or marketing agency. It’s the backbone that supports your efforts to connect with clients, understand their needs, and guide them through your sales funnel.
Kartra
Kartra isn’t the best in the field when it comes to CRM capabilities. It’s more of an all-rounder in the business management ring.
However, it still offers some basic tools that allow you to manage your contacts effectively. You can upload your contact list or add contacts as you meet new prospects.
Then, you can easily tag them into campaigns, queue up emails, or sign them up for your latest webinar. These features are great for nurturing leads and maintaining relationships with your clients.
But if you’re looking for a more feature-rich and specialized CRM for your online business, you may find Kartra a bit lacking.
GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel takes customer relationship management to a new level, making it not just efficient but actually enjoyable.
It covers the basics, like storing leads, just as Kartra does. Yet, it stands out with its Smart Lists feature, which lets you filter your audience to an advanced degree, enhancing your ability to segment and target effectively. This is a game-changer for online marketers and agencies, as you can precisely tailor your outreach.
The platform also simplifies direct communication by enabling you to send emails and SMS in bulk or individually. For you, this means reaching out quickly and efficiently, whether for a broad marketing blast or a personalized follow-up.
If you’re managing a sales team, the Opportunities feature is something you’ll appreciate. It allows team members to track a lead’s progress and understand exactly when to swoop in with a custom touch—like nudging a hot lead who’s yet to schedule an appointment after requesting a HighLevel booking link.
And let’s not forget about Conversations, a standout tool that consolidates messages from various channels, including Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram DMs, into one manageable space.
Even more impressive is that all these features are automatable with GoHighLevel, allowing you to craft a responsive and engaging customer management system that works around the clock.
Winner – GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel wins for its comprehensive CRM features that not only cover the essentials but also bring advanced segmentation and communication tools to your fingertips.
Karta vs GoHighLevel – Marketing Agency Features
Now, here’s the thing. Kartra and GoHighLevel provide powerful agency features that allow you to manage multiple clients. But let’s look at them to see which one has a better offer.
Kartra
Kartra’s agency feature is like a command center for digital marketing agencies. It offers a seamless dashboard that consolidates all client activities and analytics in one place. This allows you to get a snapshot of their performance at a glance.
Agency owners can appreciate the ease of having a single login for all client accounts, simplifying the management process without the hassle of juggling multiple passwords.
Billing is streamlined, with all client accounts neatly tucked under one billing profile. This not only cuts down on administrative overhead but also allows for bulk account purchases at a discount—perfect for scaling operations.
For client engagement, Kartra enables customized reporting, which means your clients can be kept in the loop with tailored updates on their campaigns.
In my opinion, the attention-grabbing features include the ability to white-label services and the flexibility to choose between operating as the account owner or as a contractor.
This option, coupled with powerful branding opportunities, makes Kartra’s agency feature an excellent choice if you want to maintain efficiency while growing your client base and brand.
GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel has all the same digital marketing agency benefits. For instance, you can share all the features with your clients, bill them in one place, and manage all accounts in one Agency dashboard.
However, GoHighLevel provides you with a better offer. First, you can add unlimited business accounts and team members from the Agency Unlimited plan and Agency Pro plan. So you don’t have to pay extra even if your business is growing.
With Kartra, you’ll either need to buy in bulk for a discount, or your client gets their own account and lets you consolidate it into yours. Which means you need to pay more as you get more customers.
Next, besides white-labeling, GoHighLevel lets you sell your very own SaaS platform using their tools. You can customize your packages and choose how much you’ll sell them. HighLevel won’t get any of your profit, so you can make $$$ without worrying about incurring fees.
Additionally, you can offer more tools besides email marketing, sales funnels, and marketing automation. You can offer social media scheduling, appointment booking, SMS and calls, and the reputation management tool.
And lastly, you and your clients can use the GoHighLevel mobile app, which you can white-label by paying an additional quarterly fee. The app is a useful extra tool that’ll allow you to run your online business anywhere you are.
GoHighLevel vs Kartra – Customer Support and Training
Both GoHighLevel and Kartra have a knowledge base, live chat, and an official community on Facebook.
However, I feel like Kartra has an advantage when it comes to resources. First, its Support page is well-organized. Kartra categorized them based on the issues you might be facing and how they can assist you.
Next, it offers a very detailed training program for new users. Each lesson consists of videos, text, and screenshots to provide you with everything you need to know.
Lastly, you can easily submit a ticket within the support page without signing in to your account. This can save you lots of time.
Although GoHighLevel provides materials and customer support, it still needs much improvement. For instance, some resources are outdated and aren’t comprehensive.
Although they’re growing quickly and their support articles can be outdated because of updated improvements, they make up for their support with HighLevel Zoom support.
That’s right, you can hop on a Zoom with support and share your screen and GHL issues. Something that a lot of competitors don’t offer at all!
Additionally, its 24/7 live chat and telephone support is only available for agency owners.
Winner – Tie
Pros and Cons of Kartra
Pros
- Welcome video and interactive guide
- Solid community and support
- 30-day free trial
- Webinar functionality
- Advanced sales funnel features
Cons
- Its lowest plan isn’t cheap
- Lack of 3rd party integrations
- Usage caps on some of its features, like contacts and team members
Pros and Cons of GoHighLevel
Pros
- 30-day free trial
- Solid CRM and marketing automation features
- Constant updates and new tools
- Powerful agency tools like missed call text back and affiliate management tools
- Offers multi-channel marketing tools for email marketing, SMS, calls, voice mails, and social media
Cons
- Also expensive like Kartra
- Too many tools make it a little overwhelming
- Some areas are clunky and can be improved
- Customer support isn’t that accessible
Conclusion
So, after diving deep into both platforms, have you spotted the features that resonate most with your online business or agency’s needs?
We’ve walked through what Kartra and GoHighLevel offer, from their robust sales funnels to their CRM and lead management systems.
We’ve seen how Kartra maps out intricate sales journeys with its funnel mapping and brings creativity to course creation.
Conversely, GoHighLevel stands out with its superior CRM features, streamlined communication, and the ability to automate almost every aspect of the customer relationship journey.
Now for the most-awaited question: who won this head-to-head battle? While Kartra puts up an intense fight, GoHighLevel takes the crown with its all-around performance.
As I mentioned, each platform offers a free trial, so you might as well test-drive their features to better decide which one to use.
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