Dreaming about owning a successful ecommerce business?
Selling products and services online offers freedom and breaks the limitations of traditional physical businesses. When selling online, there is no need to worry about renting expensive physical spaces for your storefront and you don’t have to close, keep selling while you sleep because when you set up a store it runs 24/7.
Owning and operating a successful ecommerce business is a dream for many. To be honest, creating an online store is not that complicated, there are multiple tools to help you a visually attractive storefront shortly.
But operating a successful online store is a different story. There are numerous factors you have to consider and taking care of the proper toolkit is fundamental for setting your way to success.
Today I will dofeature-by-featureure review for Kartra and Kajabi to make help you choose the best platform for your business.
What to look for in an ecommerce platform?
Ecommerce and the digital economy have the potential to improve your business and personal economy shortly. Seasoned marketers and newbies can access the industry because there is an option for all levels and products. But your business needs to be visible, relevant, and accessible, otherwise, it will fail.
Selecting the adequate platforms to promote and sell your products is crucial, but what to look for in an ecommerce platform?
SEO Tools
To stay ahead in the game, think about Search Engine Optimization. Look for the option that adapts to your business needs as well as your level of expertise. Look for social button options, blogging tools, and navigation links, among other aspects.
Payment Options
There are two elements you have to consider when talking about payment options, they are options and security. You need to offer multiple payment options to make your customers feel welcome and help them complete their purchases with ease.
As important as the methods are the security. Look for a platform with SSL encryption to protect customer data, the green lock on the URL in the browser will tell your customers their data is safe.
End-user Experience
This is the most important piece in your online store. A smooth navigation experience, an easy checkout process, and accurate product information are part of the formula. Utility, accessibility, usability, and desirability are the aspects to look for.
IT Support
Always look for IT support when looking for an ecommerce platform. Many platforms do not give support the importance it deserves, and are useless when you face prolonged technical difficulties. Solid IT support can determine the success of your online store.
Integrations and add-ons
Integrations are crucial for the marketer. Despite their best efforts, the platforms still lack some functionalities that may be vital for your business. Besides, all online stores are different, so there is no absolute all-in-one solution that works for everybody.
Look for integrations with payment processors, marketing tools, sale funnels, and review management.
That being said, I will compare Kartra vs Kajabi feature by feature to give some valuable insights to help you select the best online course platform.
How Does Kartra Work?
Kartra is an all-in-one platform for course creators to host, market, and sell online courses.
It has all the tools to build websites, and sales pages, create email campaigns, host webinars, upload videos, build funnels, membership sites, and digital and physical products from one place.
This platform has respectable popularity among solopreneurs, course creators, and other digital product developers because it allows them to count on a single platform for their operations. Kartra has a minimalistic approach but multiple tools.
When using Kartra there is no need to pay for extra software or tools like CRMs, email marketing campaign systems, membership sites, digital downloads, etc.
How Does Kajabi Work?
Stop thinking about a domain name and hosting for your online store. Kajabi takes care of both aspects for you.
You can get started using the 14-day free trial. It is a good strategy if you want to test everything before committing to this platform.
Create your store using a simple drag-and-drop tool, and design beautiful websites or landing pages without being an expert in coding or web design.
Customize your digital storefront to fit your brand, and add your colors, logo, fonts, and themes to have a uniform digital identity. In case you have a registered custom domain (outside the platform) add it to Kajabi.
Kajabi has built-in features to help with your blog and leads and the best part is that everything is mobile-friendly.
Some marketing tools included are:
- Email sequence building
- Lead marketing building
- Pre-build in funnels, even
- Quizzes
- Membership site-building
It is the moment to explore Kajabi feature by feature.
Advanced Tools and Features
Kartra
Kartra is friendly for non-tech-savvy users. It has a straightforward environment to create engaging and professional-looking websites without a degree in web design or prior experience.
But they are also inclusive, with the people that do not have knowledge and experience in web development.
Tech-savvy creators can benefit from advanced tools to code and customize your store to your liking.
Kajabi
Kajabi has a user-friendly environment with a drag-and-drop builder to create engaging and visually attractive pages. For tech-savvy online marketers, there is the option to code from scratch as well.
One similarity hit shares with Kartra is that they listen to their users. You can request new features, and Kajabi is open to growing and adapting to your business needs.
You can even see the list of feature requests to make sure you are not duplicating an idea.
If you find the feature you want to request within the list, you can vote, so it can move and potentially reach the top of the list. The requests at the top of the list have priority.
Course Creation
Kartra
The number one choice of solopreneurs, digital product sellers, and creators who want to have all they need to operate condensed in one place.
In the long term, Kartra saves time and effort because you will not have to invest in outside tools for mail marketing, memberships, CRMs, and other operations.
They have native apps integrated for these tasks to have you running all your online course creation operations from one place.
Kajabi
Kajabi focuses on course creation. It is an advantage for course creators because the platform has special features for online course creation and membership sites.
Kajabi has unique automation features, one of the most remarkable is lecture automation.
Kajabi has a mobile app, so you can go with your students wherever they go.
Using Kajabi you can benefit from the following features.
- Custom domain
- Private conversations with your students
- Unlimited views
- Memberships
Data Analytics
Kartra
This platform has native tools to help you identify the best ways to market online businesses for better income and conversion rates.
Kartra provides data analytics on content, student performance, and lead segmentation, so you can provide relevant content for your audience and leave them wanting more.
Besides, kartra gives you access to lifetime revenue analytics to have a detailed record of your online course revenue.
This feature is so powerful that it lets you filter to see all the purchases from a customer since he registered.
Kajabi
Kajabi has a visual performance reporting feature, lifetime value reports, and custom reporting filters. As well as:
- Broadcast analytics
- Sequence analytics
- Detailed form analytics
- Page analytics
- Membership site analytics
Though the ecommerce platform falls a bit short when compared to Kartra, you can still gather valuable information from your contacts and craft future marketing strategies according to your data.
Instructor Support
Kartra
Kartra takes customer support seriously, and they have a support ticketing system and a live chat to answer your questions quickly and efficiently.
They also have a comprehensive learning center to help you navigate common issues, provide straightforward answers, and help you make the best out of the product.
They have divided their guides into digestible categories to help you navigate and learn at your convenience.
This platform finds value in your ideas. You can always request new features to include in Kartra software. Let the development team know about your fantastic idea, and help improve the product for you and the community.
Kijabi
This feature is linked to your Kajabi Plan. Basic Plan subscriptions only have live chat support on specific hours.
The following tier plan (growth) has 24/7 support.
As for email support, you can access it under the same conditions, no matter your plan. One feature you have to love is Kajabi University. Here you find numerous training videos, tutorials, and resources to help you squeeze all the course-building and marketing tools of the ecommerce platform.
Last, but equally valuable, is their community. It adds value to their support because it is a place where you can find support from other course creators like you.
Pricing
Kartra
With Kartra you have four different levels to suit your needs. You can decide to pay monthly or yearly. If you decide to pay yearly, you can save 25%.
Starter Plan ($99 per month)
Access a custom domain, up to 2,500 leads, and up to 15,000 emails.
Silver Plan ($199 per month) grants you up to 3 custom domains and unlimited emails.
Gold Plan ($299 per month)
gets you 25,000 leads and 5 custom domains, and unlimited access to everything else.
Platinum Plan ($499 per month)
Gives you 50,000 leads, 10 custom domains, and unlimited everything else.
Kartra includes the following features for all its plans:
- Kartra Checkouts
- Kartra Pages
- Kartra Leads
- Kartra Forms
- Kartra Mail
- Kartra Funnels and Campaigns
- Kartra Memberships
- Kartra Marketplace
- Kartra Affiliate Management
- Kartra Surveys and Quizzes
- Kartra Videos
- Kartra Calendars
- Kartra Helpdesks
When you buy the annual subscription, you save 25%.
Kajabi
When you get on board with the annual subscription, you save 20%. There is also the option to pay month by month, but the best part is you have a 14-day free trial to discover the tools, features, and benefits of this platform. That being said, they have three pricing options.
Kajabi’s Basic Plan ($149 per month)
Gives you access to 3 products, 3 funnels, unlimited landing pages, unlimited marketing emails, 10,000 contacts, 1,000 customers, 1 website, and one admin user.
Kajabi’s Basic Plan subscribers also gain access to Kajabi University and the following benefits: 0% transaction fee, webinars & events, ready-to-use templates, assessments (quizzes & surveys), 1 welcome call with an onboarding specialist, 1 check-in call with an onboarding specialist, chat support, automation.
Kajabi’s Growth Plan ($199 per month)
Uploads the products and funnels to 15, with unlimited landing pages and emails, up to 25,000 Contacts, 10,000 Customers, 1 Website, and 10 Admin Users.
The plan includes Kajabi University and everything on the basic plan, with some upgrades. Chat support is 24/7, and you can access advanced automation, remove Kajabi Branding and create Affiliate Programs.
Kajabi’s Pro Plan ($399 per month)
With the Pro Plan, you access 100 products, 100 funnels, unlimited landing pages, unlimited marketing emails, 100,000 contacts, 20,000 customers, 3 websites, and 25 admin users.
You get everything the Growth Plan has, plus the code editor.
School and Online Course Customization Features
Kartra
With Kartra, you can build an intuitive online learning environment that helps engage and motivate your students.
Customize your welcome emails, set multiple membership tiers, and make your courses stand out.
Use categories and subcategories to structure your lessons for smooth and intuitive navigation.
You can deliver your content subject by subject, or all at once. The decision is yours.
Deliver your content in multiple formats (video, audio, or written forms).
In a nutshell, Kartra provides what you need to customize your course or school.
Kajabi
Kajabi has a website builder and editor that help you build your web pages and host content easily.
Like many other platforms, you can rely on pre-made templates to set up your storefront quickly. The templates are customizable, so they adapt to your brand and likings.
The number of themes is small, but you can import your custom templates if you wish. Kajabi’s templates are professionally designed, modern and clean to help you create amazing websites and funnel pages.
Course Marketing Features
Kartra
Kartra takes marketing seriously. You can set up and operate an entire online business using Kartra. With its comprehensive dashboard, you can create checkout pages and webinars and connect payment processors from a single dashboard.
Kajabi
Kajabi’s marketing features are not as strong as kartra’s. Mainly because its focus is on building courses and membership portals.
It has tools for email marketing automation and some advanced marketing features, but its strength comes from the advanced learning management system rather than from the capability of its marketing tools.
Kajabi’s marketing features help you with:
- Mail list management.
- Audience segmentation and tagging.
- Templates for email marketing campaigns.
- Set up one-time payments, trials, subscriptions, and installments.
- Allow one-click upsells to grow your revenue.
Security
Kartra
Your payment information and student data are always safe with Kartra. The platform follows the payment card industry’s standards seriously when handling and processing credit cards.
Kartra issues SSL certificates for all course websites and gives course creators total control and ownership over data.
Receive automatic security upgrades regularly, and you will have one less thing to take care of.
Kajabi
Something less to worry about with Kijaby is security. The platform and its team of experts supervise the security for you. All your member data, payment information, and course resources are guarded and safe.
They partnered with Wistia to secure your video content, which means your videos are encrypted to help you prevent fraud.
They also partnered with Cloudflare, a renowned specialist in website performance and security.
Student Experience and Retention Tools
Kartra
When you create your courses with Kartra, you can access the following features:
- Engaging surveys and quizzes
- Membership portal administration
- Embedded videos for an enhanced user experience
- Email integrations
- Calendars and other forms
Use them wisely and create an engaging learning experience for your students.
Kajabi
Every good instructor and course creator knows that their success is determined by students’ level of engagement and how they find and live their learning experience. Kajabi has multiple tools to help you engage and maintain your students’ hype. To name a few:
- Assessments
- Quizzes
- Online Community
- Drip feed
- Locked content, etc.
When to Choose Kartra
It is fair to say that kartra is appropriate for beginner online marketers. Mainly because the price is affordable, it has built-in to help you save money, and it has the marketing toolkit you need to get started.
Similarly, Kartra lets you replicate successful marketing campaigns to your account, it helps you save time, effort, and the money you would spend hiring an expert or a consultant.
In general, Kartra is a marketing-oriented platform, which is ideal for novice sellers because it directs them on the right path toward a successful ecommerce business.
When To Choose Kajabi
Seasoned ecommerce owners can find more benefits in Kajabi. The entry price for Kajabi is higher than the entry price for Kartra, it is a sign of their target audience.
Kajabi has numerous advanced features to access at the lower tier plans, an advantage for this platform.
Create a community around your course without using the community features. Read, monitor, and reply to your comments using the comment section under each lecture, and engage with your students in real time.
Offer your students content of value using kajabi’s blogging platform. Using their pre-made blogging templates will help you increase SEO traffic to your course.
Alternatives to Kartra and Kajabi
There are multiple options, and digital sellers and course creators can get lost in an endless sea of ecommerce platforms and software. You can start your quest by checking these first.
In a Nutshell
Selecting the platform to sell your courses and digital goods is serious business. But it is all about you, your brand, and your business.
Follow the roadmap to your brands’ objectives, and you will know what platform is the best for your online business and what your next move should be.
I have provided the tips and data to help you decide, I hope you find our versus review valuable for your ecommerce quest.
Let me know in the comments what you think about these platforms.
