What Is Kartra? Memberships, Checkout and Contact Tiers
By Joris van Huët · Kartra's own site
The short answer: if you sell a course or a membership and want the checkout, the member area, the emails and customer support under one login, Kartra does that from $119 a month on Starter; the $59 Essentials plan holds 500 contacts and keeps 5% of each sale, per the plans page. It is an all-in-one platform for coaches, experts and creators.
Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.
What to work out first:
- Where the 5% fee crosses the price gap. Essentials charges 5% on net sales and rebills, per the fees article, and Starter costs $60 more a month. For example, $60 / 5% = $1,200: above $1,200 of net monthly sales, Starter is cheaper.
- Your contact count, today and in six months. Essentials holds 500, Starter 2,500 and Growth 12,500 on the plans page. Past the cap, Kartra moves you up a tier on its own.
- The number that says it works. Membership analytics report active members, average retention in days and cancellations, per the analytics guide. Read retention, not sign-ups.
What Kartra does
Kartra puts pages, funnels, email and SMS, lead lists, checkouts and membership portals in one account, per its homepage. Starter adds video hosting, calendars and unlimited products; Growth adds automations, affiliates, surveys, funnel simulation and a helpdesk.
A product holds the price, the payment processor and what happens after the sale, and a membership can be what it delivers, with access granted and revoked as subscriptions start and end. Payments run through Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net or Braintree, per the integrations page. Kartra AI writes page, email and SMS copy within a monthly allowance, 30 uses on Essentials and 100 on Starter per the plans page. Its GDPR and CCPA tools have to be switched on in account settings, per the data privacy guide.
The buyer it is built for
Coaches, course creators and membership businesses that want sales, delivery and support in one place. Less so a team that needs Zapier or the API from day one, since the Zapier guide puts API access on Growth and above, or a business with a large, low-value list, since every tier is priced by contacts.
Plans, in dollars
Checked on 26 October 2026 on the Kartra plans page:
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually, per month | Contacts | Transaction fee | Custom domains |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $59 | $52 | 500 | 5% | 1 |
| Starter | $119 | $99 | 2,500 | 0% | 1 |
| Growth | $229 | $189 | 12,500 | 0% | 3 |
| Professional | $549 | $429 | 25,000 | 0% | 5 |
The trial page offers 14 days free on any plan, with sending limited to 1,000 emails, and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Kartra never turns a new lead away: past your plan's contact cap it moves you to the next tier and bills a mid-cycle reconciliation fee, per the plans FAQ, so the size of your list, not the plan you clicked, sets what you pay.
Kartra next to its rivals
- ClickFunnels starts at $97 a month with 10K contacts on its pricing page, with upsell pages after checkout. A bigger list for less, minus the helpdesk.
- HighLevel prices by client account: three sub-accounts with unlimited contacts for $97 a month, per its pricing page. It is the agency answer; Kartra is built for one expert's business.
- Systeme.io is free up to 2,000 contacts and $97 a month unlimited on its pricing page. On cost alone it wins at every list size.
Start here
How to use Kartra sets up a paid membership with a 14-day free trial, through to a test purchase.
FAQ
Is there a free trial?
Yes, 14 days on any plan, limited to 1,000 emails, per the trial page.
Can I connect Kartra to Zapier?
On Growth and above, after an activation request that usually takes 1 to 2 business days, per the Zapier guide.
Where do my Kartra AI prompts go?
To OpenAI, which stores them for content moderation, according to the Kartra AI FAQs. Keep customer data out of prompts.