Kartra Vs ActiveCampaign: Comparing Sales Funnels and Email Marketing

The Kartra vs ActiveCampaign comparison is certainly an unusual one.

After all.

There’s a good amount of overlap when it comes to these two software tools:

  • ActiveCampaign is all about email marketing and marketing automation.
  • Kartra is all about sales funnels which also does email marketing and automation.

So in this post, I’m going to be comparing and contrasting some of their biggest features.

I understand that your time is precious, so let’s get started.

Kartra Vs ActiveCampaign Summary (Plus Video)

kartra vs activecampaign

I also wanted to create an ActiveCampaign vs Kartra video in case you’d rather watch that.

This is a quick way to get the cliff notes when it comes to comparing these two tools.

Simply click on the play button below to roll that beautiful software footage:

Here are some of the popular features when it comes to these two tools:

Kartra Features (Starter)

  • Up to 2,500 leads
  • 15,000 emails / month
  • 100 pages
  • 20 products
  • 2 membership sites
  • Marketing automation
  • 1 team member
  • $99/month

ActiveCampaign Features (Lite)

Note: There are many more plans, perks, and features than what’s shown above.

Extra Note: This is just comparing the two entry levels for each of the tools.

I will be talking more about the prices and the plans as we go on.

Comparing Sales Funnel Features

There’s no doubt about it that Kartra is better when it comes to sales funnel features.

I talked about this extensively when I reviewed what Kartra has to offer.

Related: Extensive Kartra review.

ActiveCampaign comes with a few helpful features that can be related to sales funnels too.

So what do each of these software tools have to offer when it comes to sales funnels?

Let’s start with Kartra first.

Kartra Landing Pages & Sales Funnels

Kartra is an all-in-one platform and its bread and butter feature is landing pages and funnels.

This is what Kartra is primarily about, they allow you to:

  • Create, market, and launch online.
  • Without hiring a team of copywriters, web developers, or designers.

So after being able to test both of these software tools?

It’s easy to say that Kartra is the champion when it comes to landing pages and sales funnels.

Note: This is simply for the fact that ActiveCampaign doesn’t offer them.

Kartra also comes with many templates for creating various types of landing pages and funnels.

Examples of pages that you can create include:

  • Coming soon.
  • Squeeze pages.
  • Thank you pages.
  • Video sales pages.
  • Product review pages.
  • Standard sales pages.
  • Pages for product launches.
  • Registration pages for webinars.

Note: You can create registration pages for webinars but you can’t run webinars.

The reason for this is because their company (Genesis Digital) already has two webinar tools:

  1. EverWebinar software.
  2. WebinarJam software.

Now back onto the topic of their sales funnels.

As shown below, the block templates that they offer in their editor is extremely helpful:

I also posted in the features comparison chart that Kartra also does membership areas.

And to my surprise?

Creating membership sites was a big highlight of testing out this premier sales funnel software.

  • It was quick and easy to create.
  • And I was able to immediately figure it out without looking for tutorials.

That’s something to keep in mind if you’re looking to create membership areas.

Down below is a quick screenshot of when I was testing out the various tools they offered:

So Kartra is pretty stellar when it comes to landing pages and sales funnels.

After all, that’s what their software is all about (plus many more features):

And on the topic of getting a trial?

I figured out a sneaky way to extend and double their trial duration.

Check out the post I did below to show you exactly how it’s done:

Related: Quick tutorial for doubling the Kartra trial.

Now let’s move onto ActiveCampaign.

Here are a couple of features that you could put into the sales funnel related category.

ActiveCampaign Sales Funnel Related Feature

So as expected, ActiveCampaign does come with the ability to create subscription forms.

Note: I put this with sales funnel related because sometimes they can be used as landing pages.

Quick Followup Note: I don’t recommend doing that.

However, you can see an example of an ActiveCampaign subscription form in the image above.

The cool thing about their forms is that they come in a few different varieties.

As you can see from the image above, you can create:

  1. Inline forms.
  2. Floating bars.
  3. Floating boxes.
  4. And last but not least, Modal.

That means that a few of these forms can be attached to your website as well.

This is a tried and true way of being able to increase your leads and conversions.

All in all.

It’s hard to fit many features into this category seeing ActiveCampaign is about email marketing.

So let’s now move onto the biggest section when it comes to ActiveCampaign vs Kartra.

Comparing Email Marketing

Allow me to give you my opinion when it comes to comparing this section.

If you just want an email marketing tool?

ActiveCampaign is going to be your best bet.

The reason for this is because they are 100% dedicated to email marketing.

However, it doesn’t mean that it is a bad choice when it comes to email marketing.

Let’s see what Kartra has to offer first.

Kartra Email Marketing & Automation

The fact that Kartra does email marketing pretty well makes this a great comparison topic.

There are quite a few beneficial features when it comes to Kartra’s email marketing:

  • Make automations based on behaviors.
  • Add personalization to your message and emails.
  • Split-test your subject lines and track your conversions.
  • You can even automate all of your email marketing campaigns.

Note: ActiveCampaign does all of those things above as well 🙂

What I like about Kartra is that they come with some comprehensive email statistics:

kartra getresponse email stats

Note: The image above is thanks to the Kartra features page.

It’s always fun to see just how well your emails are doing (especially sales-wise).

Nevertheless.

That’s just a little bit about what Kartra has to offer in terms of email marketing.

Now let’s move onto the big email marketing kid in town: ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign Email Marketing & Automation

ActiveCampaign shines the spotlight on anything email marketing related.

So just if you happen to be on a mobile device and can’t see the text in the image above?

Here is what you can send with ActiveCampaign.

  • Targeted emails.
  • Triggered emails.
  • Broadcast emails.
  • Scheduled emails.
  • Email autoresponders.

You can even utilize email funnels as well (this will help you increase your sales).

There are a variety of goals to pick from when it comes to using ActiveCampaign.

In fact.

That is one of the first things that they assist you with after you sign up:

I originally started by choosing:

Build and send more targeted, segmented emails.

This tool also comes with 34 email templates that can make things easier for you.

Nevertheless.

I prefer starting from scratch because I don’t like using a bunch of pictures in my emails.

Check out the screenshot below to see what a few of the ActiveCampaign templates look like:

activecampaign templates

I think that there’s a lot to enjoy when it comes to email marketing with ActiveCampaign.

  • Dynamic content.
  • Subscription forms.
  • Email segmentation.
  • Split testing (which Kartra can also do).
  • Don’t forget about subscription forms which I talked about earlier.

I guess you could say that subscription forms are somewhat similar to landing pages.

That’s why I mentioned them previously.

Now onto another great aspect of ActiveCampaign.

Advanced Automation

Taken directly from it says on the ActiveCampaign automation page:

Automation handles what no one else has time for.

This couldn’t be any more true, especially for their automation campaigns.

Have a glance at how many automation recipes that you can choose from down below:

The drag bar on the right side of the page is REALLY small.

Spoiler Alert: There’s a ton of automation recipes to choose from.

You also have the option to:

  • Create your automation recipe.
  • Import an automation recipe.

In the example below, I chose Part 1 – Engagement Tagging.

You can see what it looks like down below:

You kick-off the process by adding a start trigger which can include:

  • Visting a website.
  • Submitting a form.
  • Clicking on an email link.
  • Reading or opening an email.
  • Subscribing (or unsubscribing) from a list.

There are many more ways to start a trigger (those are just a few suitable ways to do it).

You can also add tags based upon activity and engagement.

Special Note: For this automation, you will also need to use the Part 2 automation as well.

You get the idea though.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

This portion of ActiveCampaign is simplisticly advanced.

These advanced features and perks come with a splash of simplicity.

You can do a lot more when it comes to automation too:

  • Site and event tracking.
  • Automation goals and maps.
  • There’s also attribution and split action.

I think that’s enough information when it comes to ActiveCampaign and their:

  1. Automation.
  2. Email marketing.

You can always try them for yourself and set up some automation campaigns:

Now onto the price tags of these software tools.

Kartra Vs ActiveCampaign Investments

It’s hard to say who the better choice is when it comes to price.

They are hard to compare given the fact that higher prices come with many more features.

Regardless, this gives you a good idea of how much each of these software tools cost.

Kartra is up first on the list.

So How Much Is Kartra?

So here are all of the plans that Kartra comes with:

  • Kartra Starter is only $99 per month.
  • Kartra Silver is $199 per month (BEST value).
  • Kartra Gold is $299 per month.
  • Kartra Platinum is $499 per month.

Lastly, there is an Enterprise plan but you need to contact support for that.

And depending on the plan that you pick?

You’ll get a variety of different features and perks as well as increases in limits.

Down below is a related post that lists all of Kartra’s prices and perks:

Kartra Related Post: How much is Kartra going to cost?

And then we have ActiveCampaign.

So How Much Is ActiveCampaign?

ActiveCampaign is a little bit more complex when it comes to their plans and costs.

The reason for this is because the price can change depending on:

  1. The plan that you choose.
  2. How many subscribers that you need.
  3. And if you plan on paying monthly or annually.

So with that being said.

Here are the prices for each plan for having only up to 500 subscribers:

  • Lite is $15 per month.
  • Plus is $70 per month.
  • Professional is $159 per month.
  • Lastly, you have Enterprise which is $279 per month.

Once again, the price can change based upon the number of subscribers that you need.

So now that you have all of the biggest details for two of these software tools?

We can now move onto the big conclusion of this post.

Kartra Vs ActiveCampaign Summary

activecampaign vs kartra

Here is a quick Kartra vs ActiveCampaign summary. ActiveCampaign focuses 100% on email marketing automation, while Kartra is an all-in-one sales funnel builder for launching and growing your online business.

And now onto the biggest question of them all: Which software should you use?

Here is my best recommendation.

Use Kartra If

  • You want an all-in-one platform.
  • You want to utilize landing pages and sales funnels.

In my opinion, Kartra is the best option for having everything under one roof.

They come with many more features that I didn’t get to cover, such as:

  • Calendars.
  • Helpdesks.
  • Checkouts.
  • Video hosting.
  • Affiliate management.

And there’s still a bunch more.

Kartra is your best choice when it comes to an all-in-one business builder:

Now we move onto ActiveCampaign.

Use ActiveCampaign If

  • You exclusively want an email marketing tool.

In case you didn’t know, ActiveCampaign was first founded back in 2003.

It’s safe to say that they do email marketing well.

Especially with all of those years of email experience and tweaking of their software.

So if you just want an email marketing tool that also handles marketing automation?

ActiveCampaign is going to be the best choice for you:

Note: You don’t even need a credit card to test out ActiveCampaign.

But that’s all.

Thank you for taking the time to read about Kartra vs ActiveCampaign and have a great day.

Here are a few more comparison posts if you’d like more information about Kartra.

Related Kartra And Email Comparison Posts

More Related Kartra And Software Comparison Posts

Thanks again for stopping by and I hope that you enjoy using your new software.

James Canzanella
 

A former personal trainer who went from unemployment to online business success. He's been marketing since 2012 and (still) enjoys lifting weights, listening to rock music, and relentlessly quoting movie lines.

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