Kartra vs ActiveCampaign: Which is Best Marketing Automation Tool?

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Kartra vs ActiveCampaign Comparison

Kartra and ActiveCampaign are both powerful marketing tools. They help you - whether you have a small or large business - to get amazing results with your marketing.

ActiveCampaign is completely made for email marketing which makes it basically an email marketing automation platform at its core. Some of its amazing features include an email builder for creating beautiful email content, sales CRM and machine learning to keep track of your leads and make better business decisions.

Equally, Kartra is a great all-in-one platform that helps you to create, market and launch your online business without hiring a team of copywriters, web developers, designers, or system integrators! It also gives you the Email Marketing, Marketing Automation, and CRM tools you need to create incredible customer experiences.

So, how would you choose between the two? How would you know that it’s Kartra or ActiveCampaign that suits your business? Well, let’s assess these two tools with respect to pricing, features, ease of use, overall value, and more aspects  to guide you on a better tool to choose from.

Which is the Best Tool For Your Business - Kartra vs ActiveCampaign

Header

Kartra

ActiveCampaign

Overall

4.9/5

4.3/5

Ease of Use

4.8/5

4.5/5

Features

4.9/5

4.6/5 

Design

4.7/5

4.4/5

Support

4.8/5

4.8/5

Best For

All-in-one marketing tool

Email Marketing

Shared Categories

Marketing Automation

Unique Categories

Sales Funnels & Landing Page Builders, E-Commerce Platforms, Affiliate Management  and ALL-IN-ONE tool for your business

CRM & Sales Automation

Customer Support

  • 24/7 Live Support
  • Online
  • Email Support
  • Chat Support
  • Live Training Events
  • Limited Live Chat 
  • Training
  • Support Center

Training

Live Online, Webinars, Documentation

One-on-one, Webinars, Video

Key Features

  • Sales Funnels Builder
  • Landing Page
  • Lead Nurturing
  • Lead Generation
  • Shopping Cart
  • Email Marketing
  • eCommerce
  • Lead Management
  • Marketing Automation
  • Membership Management
  • Affiliate Management
  • Helpdesk
  • Schedule Booking
  • CRM
  • Lead Scoring
  • Marketing automation.
  • Smart auto responders
  • Built-in integrations
  • Drag and drop email designer
  • Track your contacts onsite and in your apps
  • Campaign, contact, as well as list reporting

Entry Level Charges

$99/Month

(2500 contacts)

$15/Month (500 contact)$49/m (2500 contact) for very very limited features mostly email automation only nothing else

Best Features Pricing

Silver Plan $199/m (12500 contacts) - All of the Kartra features

Enterprise Plan $499/m (10000 contacts) - All of ActiveCampaign features (even though features are way lesser than Kartra)

Payment Model

Monthly subscription

Yearly subscription

Monthly/Yearly subscription

Free Trial

$1 for 14 Days Trial

Free 14-day trial with no credit card required.

Money-Back Guarantee

30 Day Money Back Guarantee

N/A

Cell

Kartra vs ActiveCampaign Comparison

So, besides these two tools being a solution to your online business, what makes them different from each other? Do they have anything in common? Let's now dig deeper and see;

Kartra vs ActiveCampaign Features

Kartra Features

  • Checkouts: Helps you to sell products online for both credit card and Paypal payments.
  • Video Marketing: Here, you can inject lead capture forms, multi-video playlists and much more.
  • Forms: Beautiful lead capture forms to help you create your custom fields with powerful tagging and automation rules.
  • Funnels & Campaigns: Help to convert your visitors into leads then into customers - easy & best sales funnels builder.
  • Landing Pages Builder: It has a simple drag-and-drop page builder with hundreds of professionally designed templates which are ultimately flexible and 100% mobile optimized.
  • Calendars: Help you to register and organize your one-to-one scheduled sessions with your customers.
  • Helpdesks: Comes with support ticketing and live chat.
  • Marketplace: Helps you to sell your marketing funnels and expert services and discover resources created by other Kartra users.
  • Affiliates: Helps you to recruit, manage and track affiliates to promote your products. It has flexible commissions, payment milestones.
  • Memberships: To deliver your content, course, or training material.

ActiveCampaign Features

  • Integrations: To connect your email marketing service to other apps.
  • Link actions: For adding tags, getting notifications, and creating deals.
  • Custom data: Helps you to collect the contact information that matters to you most.
  • Geotracking: For automatically capturing your contacts location for geo targeted campaigns.
  • Free image hosting: Enables you to upload unlimited images for your campaigns.
  • Site tracking: Helps to your contact's behavior on your website.
  • Personalization: Helps to personalize each email based on what you know about each contact.
  • Conditional content: Help to show different content to different contacts based on certain conditions.
  • Mobile optimized: To help you make emails to look as good on mobile as they do on desktop.
  • Multi-user editing: To enable you to edit campaigns together with your team.
  • Revision history: Store all your edits in case you need an older email.
  • Social sharing: For tracking your campaigns’ viral spread on popular social media sites.
  • Audience segmentation: Helps to group your contacts based on practically any information you have.

Kartra vs ActiveCampaign Integration

Kartra & ActiveCampaign both can Integrate with Zapier + Webhooks, Membership software, Checkout software, Analytics, Webinar software, SMS/Texting software, Bot software, Calendar tools, Custom integrations/API.

It’s also important to understand that unlike Kartra, ActiveCampaign does not help you to create and edit content for your website. You’ll need to use 3rd party apps to create landing pages or website pages. You will also face challenges in planning as there is no option to get reports or analytics of the email marketing campaigns or how it is affecting conversion rates.

Kartra vs ActiveCampaign Pricing

Kartra Pricing

kartra pricing plans

Well, Kartra has everything you need for your business thanks to its 4 affordable pricing plans( after cancelling their 5th plan called Diamond) which can match different sizes of your business. 

All these plans feature a 14-day trial period at $1. The 4-tier plan ranges from the Starter plan which goes at $99/month (which gives you access to 2,500 leads) to the Platinum plan that gives you access to 50,000 leads for $499/month.

The intermediate plans are the Silver ($199/month) and Gold plan for ($299/month). 

There are more discounts, but you can only get if you commit to a 1-year year plan.

Click here to learn more about Kartra Pricing Plans.

ActiveCampaign Pricing

ActiveCampaign Pricing Plans

ActiveCampaign pricings calculated based on different plans which have different features and also with respect to the number of contacts to that particular plan.

Lets see how this pricing looks for 500 contacts to what features you get;

1. Lite Plan at $15/Month or $9 if Paid Yearly

This plan supports up to 3 users and 500 contacts. It comes with unlimited email sending, email marketing capabilities, newsletter sending capabilities, marketing automation, and chat and email support..

2. Plus Plan at $70/Month or $49/Month if Paid Yearly

This plan contains all the features in the Lite plan, plus CRM with sales automation, contact and lead scoring, custom user permissions, custom branding, SMS marketing capabilities, and one-on-one training. It supports up to 25 users and 500 contacts. 

3. Professional Plan at$159/Month or $129/Month if Paid Yearly

The Professional plan offers the same features as the Plus plan, in addition to site messaging and attribution. It also supports up to 50 users and 500 contacts. 

4. Enterprise Plan at $279/Month or $229/Month if Paid Yearly

This plan also supports unlimited users and 500 contacts plus you’ll get all the benefits of the Professional plan. Other features include a custom mailserver domain, in-depth onboarding, custom domain, a dedicated account representative, free social data, free design services, priority support including phone, and a 99.9% uptime SLA. 

ActiveCampaign Pricing Summary;

It's important to understand that the above ActiveCampaign Pricing may look affordable compared to Kartra's but this pricing is meant for any business that has 500 contacts or less ONLY. As your demand for contact increases, the price also increases, which makes each ActiveCampaign package more expensive.

Have a look at different plans pricing with respect to the number of contacts.

Contacts/Plan

Lite

Plus

Professional

Enterprise

500 Contacts

$15/m

$70/m

$159/m

$279/m

2500 Contacts

$49/m

$125/m

$159/m

$279/m

5000 Contacts

$89/m

$169/m

$239/m

$449/m

10000 Contacts

$139/m

$249/m

$349/m

$449/m

25000 Contacts

$225/m

$399/m

$599/m

Contact Support

You can get start with ActiveCampaign trial to check if this suite your business.

Kartra vs ActiveCampaign Similarities

  • Email Marketing Automation: Kartra and ActiveCampaign intersect mostly with email marketing. Both tools help you run better email marketing campaigns as well as managing automation.
  • Lead Management: Both Kartra and ActiveCampaign enables you to build your leads, prospects and customer database as well as organizing them in theme groups via lists and custom tags.
  • Reporting & Analytics: Both platforms come with analytics tools to help you in accessing your business performance.
  • Customer Support: Both tools come with robust customer service and support.

Kartra vs ActiveCampaign Usage

Use Kartra If

Use ActiveCampaign If

  • You want an all-in-one platform
  • You want to make use of both landing pages and sales funnels for your campaigns
  • You don’t want the hassle of integrating with third-party apps
  • You exclusively want an email marketing tool
  • If your email marketing suffers from low deliverability and engagement

Kartra vs ActiveCampaign Pros & Cons

Kartra Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • All-in-one system that replaces other expensive tools
  • It has inbuilt funnel templates
  • Offers great value for your money
  • Great for both beginners and experts businesses
  • Reliable video hosting capacity
  • Email autoresponder system inbuilt
  • Full website, funnel, membership site system
  • Agency portal facilitates client work

Cons:

  • There might be little known about Kartra since it’s a new company
  • Steep learning curve compared to the competition
  • Can be overwhelming at first

ActiveCampaign Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Easy to learn
  • Best in class for email marketing
  • CRM is great for pipeline development
  • Best email automation features
  • Many third-party integrations and auto-responder options

Cons:

  • It seems to be only good for email marketing. The full CRM solution is quite bad and has poor functionalities on your overall business
  • Clunky user interface and email editor
  • Not friendly to affiliate marketing links
  • Not beginner friendly
  • Customer service is not great on the "Basic" plan

Kartra vs ActiveCampaign: Which is Better to Select?

Both platforms have a similar goal to help you run better email marketing campaigns. They are both good choices, but your choice will largely depend on the size of your business and what you want to achieve; 

Reporting and Analytics Capabilities

Kartra comes with advanced analytic tools that help to consolidate and organize customers’ data in a way that you can make bigger-picture marketing decisions throughout all stages of your business (small to medium to large).

ActiveCampaign does not have well reporting capabilities like Kartra. However, the software is ideal for small-to-midsize businesses, allowing you to build and segment contact lists as well as measuring your overall performance.

Therefore, for sophisticated small to big data analytics and overall measurement of business performance, Kartra takes a win.

Customer Service & Support

ActiveCampaign provides you support via email, live chat and phone support. They also give you access to a robust Help Center and community forum for troubleshooting and learning more about how to maximize your experience on the platform.

Equally, Kartra also provides robust customer support through live chat, email ticketing and phone and you'll also get access to their active community forums as well as help centers.

In this case we’d say that Katra takes the lead since ActiveCampaign customer support is not that great on the basic plan as Kartra's. You'll have to upgrade your plan for you to enjoy full support.

Email Marketing

If you just want an email marketing tool, ActiveCampaign is going to be your best bet because they are 100% dedicated to email marketing. It's simply the best email marketing tool. However, the drawback with ActiveCampaign's email editor is that it's not a WYSIWYG HTML editor, so you might find it difficult to understand and proceed with certain editing blocks to achieve the desired design

Kartra, on the other hand, provides the best and easy to use email marketing, with the help of a simple drag-and-drop email designer. It does not only help you in email marketing but also other essential tools you may need in your business.

However, since ActiveCampaign was primarily made for the purpose of Email Marketing, it wins in regards to providing email marketing solutions, unlike Kartra which has not specialized in email marketing alone rather it provides complete business marketing automation solutions.

Video Marketing 

Kartra will help you in reliably hosting your videos with the help of a customized player offering advanced in-video actions attracting more shares and sales. You can also add opt-in form and compelling CTAs while the video is being played. 

For ActiveCampaign video marketing, the video content block only works with videos hosted on YouTube or Vimeo that are made public. This limits you from adding more videos from other sources. Therefore, Kartra wins!

Email Automation

Kartra’s drag and drop automation builder helps you to quickly set up your workflows. This helps you to automate your email and follow up, find your most engaged contacts by adding custom points to certain actions.

With ActiveCampaign, you can Despite all the packed marketing automation features, its user interface is a bit difficult to understand and is not so robust. Therefore, Kartra takes the lead.

Best Pricing Plan

ActiveCampaign comes at a price of $15 per month for 500 contacts on its lowest plan. This plan only comes with basic email marketing features and you’ll have to upgrade to get more on automation, sales CRM, and machine learning, which will cost you heavily.

To get the same basic email marketing features on Kartra, you’ll have to pay at least $99 per month, which enables you to send up to 15,000 emails and have about 2,500 contacts and can get zero restrictions on higher plans. With Kartra, you will also get access to premium features which will be only accessible on upgraded ActiveCampaign plan, making Kartra more affordable  compared to its counterpart.

Best Overall

Kartra is the best option for having everything under one roof. It will not only replace your  current email marketing platforms, but also hosting service providers, domain hosts, membership platforms, analytics tools, eCommerce platforms, affiliate management, membership sites, help desk, calendars  and many more.

Why Kartra Is Our Top Choice

Kartra not only gives you a complete suite of integrated sales and marketing tools which makes it easy to build your emails, pages, opt-in forms, checkouts, and sales funnels. Kartra has also the following advantages over ActiveCampaign tools and other competitors;

  • Complete sales funnels, pre-built, beautifully designed and professionally copy written by renowned internet marketing experts: Which are ready for you to customize and activate in just minutes.
  • Complete set of ready-to-use, stunning design templates: For creating new emails, pages, checkouts, opt-in forms and many more.
  • Its ease of use and all the done-for-you marketing assets: Helps you to launch your entire online business in just a few hours with Kartra.
  • Kartra gives you a convenient, budget-friendly monthly subscription model with the lowest prices you’ll find a combination of all essential online marketing tools in one platform.
  • Easy integration with other tools: You can connect Kartra with other vital platforms and use them for your business, including many popular payment gateways, membership platforms, email marketing platforms e.t.c and they are still updating more integrations.
  • With just a few steps, Kartra gives you the option to use any domain you own to direct to your Katra-hosted pages.

Things You Need To Know About The Best Tools For Your Business

  • Customization: The platform should allow you to edit and customize the available templates to match your business branding needs.
  • Templates and Editors: You need to select professional-quality, and highly editable sales funnel and landing page builders.
  • Analytics: The platform you choose should be able to measure your overall business performance so as to help you improve your entire business process.
  • Email Marketing Integration: Your tool should allow seamless integration with email marketing and other automation tools.
  • Personalization: Can you personalize your landing pages with the name of your visitor? A good tool should enhance your ability to track and learn about your customers’ behavior with ease. It should also allow user and email management and website tracking.
  • Affordable: Of Course all best rated features are the top most important things while selecting any platform but if more & better features are at lower price is the sweet deal.

Final Thoughts

ActiveCampaign can help you to grow your businesses by connecting and engaging with your customers. Its advanced SaaS platform enables you to create optimized customer experiences by automating many behind the scenes processes and communicating with your customers across channels with personalized, intelligence-driven messages.

However, Kartra is more of an all-around tool. It is an all-in-one marketing software, which can help you to go beyond the process of a basic simple email in order to help you in advancing your business to a higher level; from funnel building, online course creation, video hosting, and many more at a starting price of $99 per month which is way lower compare to the value you are getting with all features.

If you want to run your business effectively at an affordable budget with full access to essential features, then I would recommend Kartra.

Bhargav Bavarva is a digital marketing consultant & affiliate marketing expert. He helps local, small & SaaS businesses to get consistent and predictable leads. He also guides people like you to find the right software tools by extensive review, comparison and personal recommendation to make informed decisions and earn more money!

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