Kartra vs GoHighLevel: Pricing, Features and Who Should Pick Which

Kartra and GoHighLevel both call themselves all-in-one platforms, and on paper their feature lists overlap a lot. In practice they're built for different people. Kartra is made for creators and experts selling their own courses, memberships and products. GoHighLevel is made for agencies and service businesses that sell through conversations. I've compared them on real pricing, contact limits, fees, CRM, messaging, courses and agency tools, using each company's own pages and screens from my GoHighLevel account, so you can see which one fits how you sell.

The short answer

If you're one person selling a course, a membership or coaching, and email is how you follow up, Kartra is the cleaner fit. One bill covers your pages, checkout, video hosting and members area, and from Growth up you get a helpdesk and an affiliate program too. My Kartra review goes deeper on how it works day to day.

If you run an agency, a local business, or any sale where a lead needs a text or a call fast, GoHighLevel is the better buy. It puts texts, calls and email in one inbox, tracks every deal in a pipeline, gives every client their own sub-account, and never charges you more for a bigger list.

Kartra vs GoHighLevel at a glance

The Kartra column comes from its pricing page, and the GoHighLevel column from HighLevel's pricing page and my own account.

What each platform is built for

Kartra is a creator suite. Its pricing page describes itself as replacing your email platform, page builder, membership portal, checkout, calendar, helpdesk, video hosting and affiliate system. Everything is aimed at one business selling its own products, and you scale up by buying a plan with more contacts.

GoHighLevel is an agency operating system. The agency account sits on top, and each client gets a sub-account with its own CRM, phone numbers, calendars, funnels, courses and automations. You pay a flat fee for the software, then usage for what gets sent, which agencies usually pass on to clients.

Kartra's own comparison page says much the same: GoHighLevel is "strong for agencies and client management", while Kartra is for entrepreneurs running a whole business. Where I disagree with that page is its claim that GoHighLevel "relies on integrations for checkout, memberships, and video". Payments, courses and communities are all native in GoHighLevel now, as you'll see below.

Pricing compared

Kartra plans

Kartra takes up to 22% off if you pay yearly, according to the toggle on its pricing page. It bills in US dollars, takes cards but not PayPal for your subscription, and backs every plan with a 30 day money-back guarantee. Current figures are on Kartra's pricing page.

GoHighLevel plans

Every plan includes unlimited contacts and unlimited users, and every one comes with a 14 day trial. You can compare them on GoHighLevel's pricing page, and my GoHighLevel pricing guide breaks down every add-on.

The costs that aren't on the price tag

Kartra's 5% fee. Essentials takes 5% of your sales. Starter costs $60 a month more and takes nothing, so once you sell more than $1,200 a month, Starter is the cheaper plan.

Kartra's contact upgrades. Kartra never stops you adding leads. If you pass your plan's contact limit, its FAQ says you're automatically moved to the next tier and charged a mid-cycle reconciliation fee. The same FAQ says a Kartra subscription has "never any extra fees", which doesn't sit well next to the 5% Essentials fee or that upgrade, so read the limits before a big launch.

GoHighLevel's usage wallet. The plan price covers the software. Texts, calls, email and AI are paid from a prepaid wallet at usage rates, and some extras such as HIPAA support are paid add-ons. Kartra says it's HIPAA compliant at no extra cost.

What you'd actually pay

Here's what each platform costs a single business at four list sizes, on monthly billing. Kartra's numbers come straight from its plan limits. GoHighLevel's are plan price plus usage, which depends on how much you send.

At 500 contacts, Kartra wins if you sell little and email a lot. By 10,000 contacts the gap has flipped: Kartra's plan alone is $229, while GoHighLevel's software cost hasn't moved. Usage is what decides it, and an email-heavy business with a huge list will pay more usage than one that mostly sends texts to a few hundred leads. For an agency, compare Kartra against GoHighLevel's $297 Unlimited plan, which covers every client account.

Funnels, pages and checkout

Both build the pages an online business needs: opt-in pages, sales pages, checkouts and full websites. Kartra limits Essentials to 5 pages and 1 product, then makes pages and products unlimited from Starter. Its checkouts take card and PayPal payments, and Growth adds funnel simulation so you can walk through a funnel before it goes live. Professional adds real-time funnel analytics.

GoHighLevel doesn't cap funnels or pages by plan. Payments are native, with invoices and payment links alongside checkout pages, which service businesses use more than classic sales funnels. If funnels are your main concern, my GoHighLevel vs ClickFunnels comparison goes deeper on the builder.

Email, SMS and conversations

Kartra includes email and SMS sends in its plans: 10,000 a month on Essentials and unlimited from Starter. That's a real plus for a big email list, because there's no per-email charge. Its messaging is built around broadcasts and automated sequences.

GoHighLevel treats messaging as conversations. Every text, call, email and social message lands in one inbox per contact, and you reply from the same screen. Each sub-account can have its own phone numbers for two-way texting and calls, and a missed call can trigger an automatic text back. You pay for that by usage rather than a flat allowance, and texting US numbers needs A2P 10DLC registration first.

CRM and pipelines

Kartra has lead and sales management on every plan, with tags and lists to organise contacts. It works well for tracking customers of an online business.

GoHighLevel is a CRM first. Opportunities move through pipeline stages you set up, with values, owners and tasks on each deal, and contacts and users are unlimited. If your team sells on calls, this is where the difference is most obvious.

Automation and workflows

Kartra includes automated sequences on every plan and adds automations from Growth, with advanced automations listed on Growth and Professional. Its 100 pre-built campaigns, listed on Essentials, give you ready-made flows to start from.

GoHighLevel's workflow builder starts from almost any event, including form submissions, calls, replies, appointments, pipeline changes, payments and reviews. Actions can text, email, branch, wait, assign a deal or hand a conversation to AI. It also has a Template Library of ready-made workflows. My guide to GoHighLevel workflow templates walks through ten I build first.

Courses, memberships, video and helpdesk

This is Kartra's home ground. Starter gives you unlimited memberships and courses plus built-in video hosting, so your course videos live in the same tool as your sales pages. From Growth you also get a helpdesk for customer tickets, and Professional adds helpdesk live chat. That's a tidy setup for a creator who sells and supports in one place.

GoHighLevel has courses too, despite what Kartra's comparison page suggests. The Memberships area has Courses, Communities, a Client Portal and Credentials, and students sit in the same CRM as every other contact. If you want a community alongside a course, my GoHighLevel communities guide shows the setup.

Affiliates and webinars

Kartra lists affiliate management from the Growth plan, right next to surveys, quizzes and funnel simulation. GoHighLevel has an affiliate manager too, and you can build webinar registration funnels with its page builder and calendars. For a creator who launches with affiliates, Kartra packages it more neatly. For anyone else, it isn't a deciding factor.

Agencies: sub-accounts, snapshots and SaaS Mode

Kartra lists agency capacity on Growth and Professional, but its pricing page doesn't mention client sub-accounts, white label or reselling. It's built to run your own business.

GoHighLevel is built to run other people's. Starter includes 3 sub-accounts and Unlimited removes the cap. Each client gets their own login, CRM, inbox and numbers. Snapshots copy a full working setup into a new client account, and my GoHighLevel snapshots guide shows how. On Unlimited you rebill phone and email at cost, and on Agency Pro you get SaaS Mode, automated sub-account creation and your own markup. My SaaS Mode guide covers the reselling side.

AI tools

Kartra AI is counted by uses: 30 uses on Essentials and 100 on Starter, while Growth shows 200 in one table on the pricing page and 250 in another.

GoHighLevel's AI goes further. Conversation AI replies to texts and chats, Voice AI answers calls, and there's AI inside the workflow builder too. These are billed by usage or through add-on plans, so they cost more, but they do work rather than just write it. My Conversation AI guide shows the setup.

Ease of use and support

Kartra is easier to get going. It's one business in one account, with templates for pages and 100 pre-built campaigns, and the Growth plan adds helpdesk support.

GoHighLevel asks more of you up front: settings at agency and sub-account level, a usage wallet, phone registration and a lot of menus. Starter lists 24/7 support, and HighLevel's Bootcamp and my GoHighLevel tutorial for beginners shorten the first few weeks.

Switching from Kartra to GoHighLevel

There's no import between the two, so treat it as a rebuild. Export your contacts with their tags, then rebuild pages and checkouts, re-upload course videos, and turn your sequences into workflows. Set up payments and test a purchase before you move traffic. If you'll text US numbers, start A2P registration early, since approval isn't instant. Keep Kartra running until the new setup is live, so no member loses access. My Kajabi to GoHighLevel guide shows what a full creator move looks like, and most of it applies here.

Which is better for your situation?

Find the row that sounds most like you.

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