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In this Kartra vs Shopify review, I'll compare individual features of both tools and also look at pricing, integrations, affiliate programs, use cases, and more, so you can make an informed decision before you decide which is right for you.

So which is better Kartra or Shopify?

If you want to see the winner of the Kartra vs Shopify battle, you’re in the right place.

Let's get started and dive right in.

Kartra Vs Shopify - Overview

Kartra and Shopify are both popular online platforms designed to help entrepreneurs sell products online, and run their businesses. Kartra is a complete marketing platform for building sales funnels, running email campaigns, and automating your business while Shopify provides an online platform to build ecommerce stores and sell products.

Kartra Vs Shopify - Side By Side Review

In the section below, I compare Kartra and Shopify according to their respective features, integrations, ratings, pricing, and more.

To ensure you have an amazing viewing experience, I reviewed both tools using a side-by-side horizontal layout, so you can compare them and choose the best platform with ease.

NOTE: you can view the side-by-side horizontal layout best on desktop (not mobile).

Shopify Logo

SHOPIFYâ„¢

Shopify is the #1 ecommerce store building platform in the world.

How we rated Shopify

Overall Rating

Ease of Use

Value for Money

Pricing

Customer Support

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an online platform that allows you to create online stores without knowing how to code or design. With over 800,000 online stores built, Shopify is the #1 leading ecommerce solution for many entrepreneurs to launch and manage their online stores with ease. Shopify is a simple, elegant ecommerce solution.

Who is Shopify for?

Shopify is built for entrepreneurs, e-commerce sellers, drop shippers, and anyone who wants to sell products online. It is your ideal, go-to platform for starting and running an ecommerce business. You are able to design your online store with various themes (paid and free) and there are plenty of customization options. You also get dedicated hosting for your store and you can collect payments with ease using 3rd party payment gateways.

Notable feature: a platform to build e-commerce stores, showcase your products, and sell online.

Shopify Pros and Cons

Pros
  • Best in class for ecommerce stores
  • Shopify's app store gives you added store functionality
  • Affordable prices compared to competitors
  • Full 14 day free trial 
  • Easiest way to start an ecommerce store
Cons
  • UI/UX are not great experiences
  • You need 3rd party apps for added functionality
  • The visual page builder is limited
  • Limited functionality compared to a full LMS
shopify dashboard

Shopify Pricing - How much does Shopify cost?

Shopify pricing options start at $26/month - $2,000/month.

Basic Shopify Plan - $26 per month - sell unlimited products with a 2% transaction fee charge (if you don’t use Shopify Payments).

Shopify Plan - $71 per month - grow your business with features like gift cards, abandoned cart recovery, and 1% transaction fees.

Advanced + Shopify Plus - $266 - $2,000 per month - get advanced features to scale your business along with 0.5% transaction fees.

Shopify Annual Discount: You get a 10% discount on annual plans, a 20% discount on biennial plans, and Shopify Lite is only $9 per month.

Shopify Pricing Information

Free 14 Day Trial Available

$1 Trial For 14 Days

No Credit Card to Start

Freemium Account

Monthly Subscription

Annual Discount

Cancel Anytime

30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Shopify Features

Landing page builder

Visual editor

Landing page templates

Sales funnel templates

Complete page hosting

Mobile responsive pages

A/B Split Testing

Funnel builder

Share funnels

Custom webhooks

Email Auto-responders

Affiliate tracking software

Membership Sites

Behavioral Adaptive Marketing

Included subdomain

Use your own domain

Checkout forms, shopping cart

Full website builder

Video marketing tool

Customer Helpdesk

Calendar scheduling tool

Agency Portal

Shopify Integrations

Shopify supports direct integration with a variety of third-party tools which include Google Sheets, Salesforce, QuickBooks Online, Mailchimp, Wave, Gmail, ActiveCampaign, ClickFunnels, Slack & many more.

Email Marketing Integrations

Actionetics

ActiveCampaign

ConvertKit

Aweber

MailChimp

HTML forms

+ many more

Other Integrations

Zapier + Webhooks

Membership software

Checkout software

Analytics

Webinar software

SMS / Texting software

Bot software

Calendar tools

Custom integrations / API

+ many more

Shopify Affiliate Program

Shopify pays you a one-time 100% affiliate commission for the first and second month for new customers.  Join the Shopify affiliate program here.

Company Information

Owner / Founder: Scott Lake, Tobias Lutke

Location: Ottawa

Customer Support: support@shopify.com

Founded: 2004

Website: Visit Website

What we love about Shopify

Shopify is one of our favorite platforms to build and launch your ecommerce business. First, you get a ton of beautiful and mobile-responsive store themes (free and paid) to design your ecommerce store. You can customize any theme you choose using a drag and drop editor. Shopify gives you a built-in blogging platform to run a blog and explore content marketing. Also, you get detailed reporting (advanced plan only) for your business. 

Shopify Alternatives

BigCommerce, 3dcart, Volusion, Square Online Store, PrestaShop, Magento, WooCommerce, Weebly, Wix & Squarespace

kartra logo

KARTRAâ„¢

Kartra is an advanced all-in-one online business and marketing tool.

How we rated Kartra

Overall Rating

Ease of Use

Value for Money

Pricing

Customer Support

Who is Kartra for?

Kartra is really designed for solo-entrepreneurs, authors, digital product owners, and course creators who want an all-in-one system to minimize tool "clutter." While it's a steep price point for most newcomers to online business, you should theoretically be able to save money by using Kartra if you're using other tools like CRMs, email marketing systems, membership sites, etc. Kartra let's you ditch all that and focus on one platform. 

Notable feature: Kartra membership sites combined with their marketing automation features are worth the money alone.

Kartra Pros and Cons

Pros

  • $1 14-day full trial
  • Full website, funnel, membership site system
  • All-in-one system replaces other expensive tools
  • Native email marketing system
  • Agency portal facilitates client work

Cons

  • No email marketing integrations (only SMTPs)
  • Less integrations than other platforms
  • Steep learning curve compared to the competition
  • Can be overwhelming at first

Kartra Pricing Plans

Kartra pricing options start at $99/month - $499/month

Starter Plan - $99/mo - the "Kartra Starter Plan" gives you all features except Kartra Agency, but limits traffic, leads, domains, and features.

Silver, Gold, and Platinum Plans - $199/mo - $499/mo. With the upper tier Kartra plans, you get Kartra agency, unlimited pages, products, membership sites, and funnels. Each plan gives you more leads, domains, emails / mo. 

Kartra Annual Discount - When you pay annually with Kartra you immediately save 25% on any Kartra plan.

What to know before you sign up:

Free 14 Day Trial Available

$1 Trial for 14 Days

No Credit Card to Start

Freemium Account

Monthly Subscription

Annual Discount

Cancel Anytime

30 Day Money Back Guarantee

Kartra Features

Landing page builder

Visual editor

Landing page templates

Sales funnel templates

Complete page hosting

Mobile responsive pages

A/B Split Testing

Funnel builder

Share funnels

Custom webhooks

Email Auto-responders

Affiliate tracking software

Membership Sites

Behavioral Adaptive Marketing

Included subdomain

Use your own domain

Checkout forms, shopping cart

Full website builder

Video marketing tool

Customer Helpdesk

Calendar scheduling tool

Agency portal

Kartra Integrations

Kartra is designed to replace your email marketing platform, so lack of email system integrations makes sense. Instead they integrate with SMTPs and Zapier so using your autoresponder shouldn't be a problem.

Zapier + Webhooks

Membership software

Checkout software

Analytics

Webinar software

SMS / Texting software

Bot software

Calendar tools

Custom integrations / API

+ many more

Kartra Affiliate Program

Yes. Once approved, you can promote any of the Kartra products, as well as a marketplace of other products. Affiliate payouts vary per product.

Company Information

Owner / Founder: Andy Jenkins, Mike Filsaime

Location: USA

Customer Support: Email

Founded: 2017

Website: Visit Website

What we love about Kartra

When it comes to "All-In-One" business building platforms, Kartra really stands out as top of its class. You can easily build your entire solo-preneur business on top of this platform, and ditch other expensive tools like membership site builders, email autoresponders, funnel tools, landing page tools, and more. If one of your goals is to reduce marketing tool overwhelm and you want to be able to "see" your entire business from one vantage pont and system, than Kartra might be right for you. We absolutely love how easy it is to keep in front of your leads with Kartra.  

What Stands Out For Us When Reviewing Kartra Vs Shopify?

Kartra Vs Shopify

Here are the things that stood out for us when we compared Kartra Vs Shopify.

Both platforms are popular marketing solutions built to help you sell online.

Kartra is an all-around marketing platform for running your business. You get the tools you need to do a lot of things like building sales funnels, running automated email campaigns, hosting videos, hosting online courses, helpdesk for providing customer support, calendar tools for helping clients schedule appointments, and a LOT more. And you don’t need to duct-tape multiple tools together to achieve all this.

On the other hand, Shopify does a LOT less than that. In fact, it’s only designed to help you to set-up, launch, and manage your online e-commerce store. Nothing more!

However, Shopify has a creative workaround to get around the limited functionality issue: the Shopify App Store.

Shopify apps are added functionality available to plug in to your store built by 3rd party developers. You can find apps for almost everything you need including landing page or funnel builders, and more. The downside to this is each app typically comes with an additional cost, and that can add up fast.

With Shopify you get all the required tools you need to build and bring your e-commerce business to life. Shopify simply helps you build and launch an e-commerce site, find customers, drive sales, and manage your business.

Kartra Vs Shopify Pricing

On pricing, there’s a wide gap between both platforms. As expected, Kartra is more expensive and has its base price at $99 per month (Starter plan) and higher tiers of $199, $299, and $499 (all priced per month).

kartra pricing

To save money, you get a 25% discount when you pay for these plans yearly. And you can test-drive Kartra for 14-days by paying $1 only.

Shopify has a LITE plan that allows you to sell on Facebook for $9.

shopify pricing

 They have three paid plans which include the basic plan for $26/mo, Shopify plan for $71/mo, and the advanced Shopify plan for $266/mo.

There’s an enterprise-grade plan (Shopify Plus) with advanced and custom features for high-volume businesses and you can save money when you pay annually (10% discount) and biennially (20% discount).

Lastly, both platforms also have affiliate programs where you can join and earn affiliate commissions by promoting and bringing in customers.

So, which platform should YOU use?

Final Thoughts - Which Is Better Kartra or Shopify?

Want to find out which platform you should use and Who wins the Kartra Vs Shopify debate?

kartra vs shopify

Shopify is great if you are trying to sell physical items through an ecommerce store. It was built for that purpose and comes with tools you need to launch your ecommerce store, get customers, and grow your online business.

You can design awesome stores (with little or no design or coding skills), showcase multiple products, sell to anyone, and connect to thousands of third-party apps. And it costs $29 per month on the base plan.  

Looking to build something more than just an ecommerce store?

Then, Kartra might be the perfect solution for you.

You get tools to build sales funnels, run cool email marketing automation, build memberships sites, host your videos, manage affiliates for your products, run your webinars, manage support for your customers, and a LOT more.

Plus, you get done-for-you funnels and campaigns built by expert online marketers that you can use for your business.

And Kartra comes at a base price of $99 per month (up to $499/mo on higher tiers).

If you were to purchase each of these Kartra in-built tools separately, you would end up spending a LOT more which makes Kartra an affordable option for the features it provides.

So if you’re doing more than running an ecommerce business, you NEED Kartra.

My Most Trusted Resources

I've negotiated special discounts and trials using my links to the right. Every tool or app recommended has my full trust and has been personally tested by me. I consider these three resources to be FOUNDATIONAL to any online business. 

bluehost review

Bluehost

#1 for Hosting Websites & Blogs. Get a free domain and discount here.

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HighLevel

#1 for Landing Pages & Sales Funnels. Get a 2 week free trial here.

ActiveCampaign

#1 for Email Marketing and automated email follow-ups. Free Trial here.

About the author 

Sam Rexford

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