Kartra

What is Kartra

Kartra is an all-in-one marketing platform designed for online businesses, entrepreneurs, and creators. Its main purpose is to provide all the necessary tools to run an online business in a single, integrated system. This removes the need to connect multiple different software for tasks like email marketing, page building, and payment processing. Kartra includes features for creating sales funnels, hosting membership sites, managing leads, automating email campaigns, and selling products or services. The platform was co-founded by Andy Jenkins and Mike Filsaime and is a product of Genesis Digital, LLC, which is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. It is built to help users turn their expertise into a scalable online business without technical complexity.

Kartra Features

Kartra offers a wide range of features that work together seamlessly. Here are the key functionalities:

• Kartra Checkouts: A complete system to sell your products and services online. You can create beautiful checkout pages, offer one-click upsells, downsells, and manage payment plans or subscriptions.
• Kartra Pages: This is a drag-and-drop page builder. You can create landing pages, sales pages, and even full websites from scratch or by using hundreds of available templates.
• Kartra Leads: A customer relationship management (CRM) tool to manage your leads and customers. It tracks every interaction a person has with your business, allowing for detailed segmentation and targeting.
• Kartra Funnels & Campaigns: This feature lets you build and connect all the pages and automations for a complete marketing funnel. You can share entire campaigns with other Kartra users.
• Kartra Mail: An email marketing automation tool. You can send broadcasts, create automated email sequences based on user behavior, and split-test your emails to see what works best.
• Kartra Memberships: A tool to build, host, and sell online courses or private membership content. It includes features for dripping content over time and managing member access levels.
• Kartra Videos: Host your videos directly on Kartra. You can add in-video calls-to-action, tag viewers based on their watch behavior, and see detailed analytics.
• Kartra Helpdesks: A built-in customer support system. You can manage support tickets, create a knowledge base, and offer live chat to assist your customers.
• Kartra Calendars: A scheduling tool that allows clients to book appointments with you directly. It integrates with your funnels and automations.
• Kartra Forms: Create custom forms to capture leads. These forms can be embedded on your Kartra pages or on external websites.
• Kartra Affiliates: A built-in affiliate management system. You can recruit, manage, and pay affiliates who promote your products for a commission.
• Kartra AI: An artificial intelligence assistant that helps you write copy for your emails, pages, and sales scripts, making content creation faster.

Kartra Pricing Plans

Kartra offers several pricing tiers to fit different business sizes and needs. The plans are structured based on the number of leads, custom domains, emails sent per month, and bandwidth.

• Starter Plan: This plan is designed for individuals or small businesses just starting out. It includes a limited number of leads and domains and provides access to all the core features, making it a good entry point.
• Growth Plan: Aimed at growing businesses, this plan offers a higher limit on leads, domains, and emails. It also unlocks more advanced features like the affiliate management system and API access.
• Professional Plan: This tier is for established businesses with a large audience and high volume of sales. It provides very high limits on all resources and gives access to the full suite of Kartra's features.

Kartra Free Plan

Kartra does not offer a permanent free plan. However, it provides a trial period for new users to test the platform. Typically, this is a 14-day or 30-day trial that you can access for a small fee, such as $1. During the trial, you get access to most of the features of a paid plan, allowing you to build funnels, create pages, and explore the platform's capabilities before committing to a monthly subscription.

How to use Kartra

Getting started with Kartra involves a few key steps to set up your online business.

1. Sign Up: Start by signing up for a Kartra trial plan on their website.
2. Initial Setup: Complete your profile information and integrate your payment gateways, such as Stripe or PayPal, in the settings.
3. Create a Product: Go to the 'My Products' section to define what you are selling. Set the price, create payment options (one-time, subscription), and customize the checkout page.
4. Build Your Pages: Use 'Kartra Pages' to create a sales page for your product and a thank you page for after the purchase. You can use a template to make this faster.
5. Set Up Email Automation: In 'Kartra Mail', create an email sequence to follow up with people who buy your product or those who abandon the checkout process.
6. Connect Everything: Use the 'Funnels & Campaigns' feature to link your pages, product, and emails together into a cohesive sales funnel.
7. Drive Traffic: Once your funnel is live, you can start sending potential customers to your sales page through ads, social media, or your email list.

Pros and Cons of Kartra

Pros:

• All-in-One Solution: It combines many tools into one platform, which can save money and reduce the complexity of managing multiple software.
• Powerful Automations: The automation engine is very flexible, allowing you to create complex marketing sequences based on user behavior.
• Done-For-You Campaigns: Kartra offers pre-built campaigns created by marketing experts that you can import into your account.
• Integrated Affiliate Management: The built-in affiliate system is robust and easy to manage, which is great for scaling sales.

Cons:

• Learning Curve: Because it has so many features, it can take time for new users to learn how to use the platform effectively.
• Can Be Expensive: The pricing can be high for absolute beginners who are not yet generating revenue.
• Page Builder Limitations: While functional, the page builder is not as flexible or modern as dedicated page builders like Elementor or Leadpages.
• Email Deliverability: Some users report that email deliverability can be less reliable than specialized email marketing services like ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit.

Kartra integrations

Kartra is designed to be an all-in-one platform, but it does offer integrations with several essential third-party services to extend its functionality:

• Payment Gateways: It integrates directly with major payment processors like Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, and Authorize.net.
• Email Services: You can connect external SMTP gateways like SendGrid or Mailgun for sending emails.
• Membership Platforms: It integrates with platforms like Kajabi, aMember, and Digital Access Pass.
• SMS Gateways: You can connect with services like Twilio to send SMS notifications.
• Zapier: Kartra's integration with Zapier allows you to connect it to thousands of other applications, creating custom workflows between Kartra and tools like Google Sheets, Slack, or Trello.

Kartra Alternatives

• Kajabi: A strong alternative that focuses primarily on creating and selling online courses and digital products. It is known for its excellent user experience but is generally more expensive.
• ClickFunnels: This platform is a specialist in building high-converting sales funnels. It is less of an all-in-one tool than Kartra and focuses more on the sales process itself.
• Systeme.io: A more affordable all-in-one platform that offers similar features to Kartra, including funnels, email marketing, and course creation. It is a popular choice for beginners on a tight budget.
• HubSpot: A powerful CRM and marketing platform that offers a wide range of tools. It is more complex and often targeted at larger businesses, but it offers a free CRM to start.

Kartra API

Yes, Kartra provides a comprehensive API for developers. The API allows you to programmatically interact with your Kartra account data. You can use it to add or manage leads, trigger automations, retrieve sales data, and connect Kartra with custom applications or third-party software that don't have a direct integration.

To get your API key, you need to log in to your Kartra account, navigate to the 'My Integrations' section in the sidebar, and select 'API'. From there, you can find your API Key and API Password. API access is typically available on the Growth plan and higher.

Here is a basic example of how to add a lead using a cURL request:

curl --location --request POST 'https://app.kartra.com/api/lead' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
    "api_key": "YOUR_API_KEY",
    "api_password": "YOUR_API_PASSWORD",
    "lead": {
        "email": "test@example.com",
        "first_name": "John",
        "last_name": "Doe"
    },
    "actions": [
        {
            "cmd": "add_to_list",
            "list_name": "My First List"
        }
    ]
}'

Kartra Affiliate program

Kartra has a very popular and lucrative affiliate program. As an affiliate, you can promote Kartra to other entrepreneurs and businesses and earn a commission on every referral.

• Commission Rate: Kartra offers a recurring commission, which is typically 40% of the subscription fee for every customer you refer, for as long as that customer remains a paying user.
• How to Join: You can sign up to become a Kartra affiliate through the affiliate sign-up page on their website. The