# GoHighLevel vs Kartra · Lander Report

> Source: https://landerreport.com/compare/gohighlevel-vs-kartra

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## GoHighLevel vs Kartra

By Marcus Reeve, reviewed by the Lander Report editors. Updated 2026-09-28\. [How we research](/methodology) 

**Disclosure:**We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. It never affects our rankings. 

### The short answer

Pick GoHighLevel if you run an agency or a lead-gen business and need a CRM, follow-up automation and client sub-accounts behind the funnel; pick Kartra if you sell your own courses or coaching and want pages, email, checkout and course delivery in one login. If you buy cold paid traffic, neither's split testing is built to protect ad learning, so look at ElasticFunnels.

### Side by side

|               | GoHighLevel                | Kartra                   |
| ------------- | -------------------------- | ------------------------ |
| Starts at     | $97/mo                     | $52/mo                   |
| Split testing | Funnel split, not same-URL | Page-level, not same-URL |
| Checkout      | Yes, order forms           | Yes                      |
| Free trial    | 14-day, card               | 14-day, card             |

### Where each one wins

#### GoHighLevel

##### What works

* One subscription replaces a stack. You get a CRM and pipelines, email and SMS marketing, calendars, a website and funnel builder, payments and invoicing, courses and reputation tools, with unlimited contacts and unlimited users on every plan.
* It is genuinely built for agencies. Unlimited sub-accounts start at $297/mo, and white-label plus SaaS Mode on Agency Pro let you resell it as your own software. Aggregate ratings back the product up: 4.6/5 on G2 and 97% five-star on Trustpilot across 15,000+ reviews.
* Follow-up automation is the real reason people stay. Leads land in a pipeline that fires SMS, email and booking reminders on their own, which is where long-time users say it beats a pure funnel builder.

##### What to watch

* It is a CRM and agency platform first, not a lander specialist. Its funnel split test compares a control page against a variation and splits traffic between them, but it is not marketed as the same-URL, server-side rotation that keeps Meta and Google ad learning intact. A paid-traffic affiliate has to design tests carefully to avoid resetting the learning phase.
* Billing is the most common complaint. Users report trial charges while the dashboard still showed a free trial, and a downgrade does not cancel add-ons, phone numbers or marketplace apps, so surprise charges are easy to hit. Screenshot every step and clear add-ons before you cancel.
* Support can be slow to escalate. Reddit threads describe tickets open for weeks on billing and technical issues, and users flag intermittent bugs in automations and the funnel builder. The sticker price also understates the bill once phone, SMS, email and AI usage stack on top.

#### Kartra

##### What works

* It really is one system, and reviewers say the consolidation is the point. Pages, email and SMS, native checkouts, courses, memberships, a helpdesk and your own affiliate program run under one login, and users describe cancelling separate CRM, email and cart subscriptions after moving in.
* From the Starter plan up it takes no cut of your sales (0% transaction fees) and includes unlimited pages, products and courses plus webinars. For a creator selling their own offer, that is a lot of platform for $99/mo on the annual plan.
* It is established and low-risk to trust. Kartra has run since 2018, reports more than 60,000 customers, and is a known quantity rather than a product that might disappear next year.

##### What to watch

* It is built to sell your own courses and coaching, not to run cold paid traffic. There is no same-URL, server-side split testing, so a page test can reset the ad learning Meta and Google rely on, and there are no affiliate-network postbacks for buying traffic.
* Support is the most repeated complaint. Reviewers report multi-day waits and generic 'clear your cache' replies, and even satisfied users call the team slow to respond.
* The entry Essentials plan is thin and takes a 5% cut of your sales (5 pages, 1 product), so the realistic starting plan is Starter at $99/mo, and new users find the editor dated and slow to learn.

### What they are, and why the choice mostly makes itself

GoHighLevel and Kartra both promise to replace a shelf of separate subscriptions with one login, which is why they end up on the same shortlist. But they are built around two different jobs, and once you name the job you are doing, the choice mostly makes itself.

GoHighLevel (the company calls the product HighLevel) is a CRM and agency platform first. It puts sales pipelines, email and SMS follow-up, calendars and booking, a website and funnel builder, payments, reputation tools and client sub-accounts under one roof, with unlimited contacts and unlimited users on every plan. Its centre of gravity is the lead after it converts: the pipeline that chases it, the automation that books it, and the sub-account that lets an agency run all of that for a client.

Kartra is built to sell and deliver your own offer. It has run since 2018, reports more than 60,000 customers, and folds pages, email and SMS, native checkout, courses, memberships, a helpdesk and its own affiliate program into one login. Where GoHighLevel leads with the CRM, Kartra leads with delivery: it is made to sell a course or a membership and then host and service it without a second tool.

So the real question is not which has the longer feature list. It is whether you are running follow-up and clients behind a funnel, or selling and delivering your own courses and coaching.

### Pricing compared

GoHighLevel has three plans. Starter is $97/mo and already includes the CRM, funnels, email and SMS, calendars and unlimited contacts and users; it caps you at three sub-accounts, which is fine for one business. Agency Unlimited at $297/mo removes the sub-account cap, which is the tier an agency running multiple clients actually buys, and Agency Pro above it adds SaaS Mode, so you can white-label the platform and resell it as your own software. The trial runs 14 days and asks for a card.

Kartra prices by contacts and features across four plans, billed monthly or annually, with annual saving up to 22%. On the annual rate Essentials is $52/mo, but it takes a 5% cut of your sales and caps you at 5 pages and one product, so the realistic entry is Starter at $99/mo, which drops the fee to 0% and adds unlimited pages, products and courses plus webinars. Growth is $189/mo with automations and affiliate management; Professional is $429/mo with real-time funnel analytics and API access. Paid monthly the plans run $59, $119, $229 and $549\. The 14-day trial asks for a card, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Read the entry rows together and they are close on headline price: GoHighLevel Starter at $97/mo and Kartra Starter at $99/mo. What the money buys differs. GoHighLevel spends it on the CRM and agency layer, with unlimited contacts, unlimited users and sub-accounts you can hand to clients. Kartra spends it on delivery, adding a course host, a membership site and a helpdesk to the same bill. If you would otherwise pay separately to host and sell a course, Kartra's bundle is real value. If your problem is following up leads and running client accounts, GoHighLevel's is.

### CRM and follow-up versus course delivery

This is where the two platforms stop overlapping. GoHighLevel's strongest feature, and the reason long-time users stay, is follow-up automation. A lead lands in a pipeline that fires SMS, email and booking reminders on its own, and an agency can run that same machine across many client sub-accounts from one login, white-labelled. Kartra has automations too, but it does not do client sub-accounts or resale; that is not the job it is for.

Kartra's edge runs the other way. Its checkout does order bumps and one-click upsells, and because it sits on the same data as the email and course tools, a purchase can trigger a sequence and grant course access with no connector. For a creator selling one course or a coaching program, that tidiness is the whole appeal: sell it, deliver it, and service it in one place. GoHighLevel has courses too, but delivery and memberships are not where its depth is.

Both take payment natively, which separates them from a landing-page tool like [Unbounce](/reviews/unbounce) that hands the sale to a third party. Neither, though, is built for the one job this site cares most about.

### The split-testing gap that matters for paid traffic

Here is the line that matters if any of your traffic is bought. GoHighLevel's split test compares a control page against a variation and splits traffic between them, but it is a funnel-step test, not the same-URL, server-side rotation that keeps ad learning intact. Kartra's is page-level and picks a winner for you, and running a test can move the page the ad points at.

For organic or email traffic that is fine. For paid traffic it is a tax. When a test changes the destination URL, Meta and Google can drop the campaign back into the learning phase and reset the optimisation you paid to build, and a changed page can send the ad back through review. If you test constantly, which is the whole job of a paid-traffic buyer, that cost lands on every experiment. This is the standing reason a cold-traffic affiliate looks past both of these platforms, and it is worth naming before you commit to either.

### What long-term users report

We do not run these platforms on live campaigns. We read what long-term users report, alongside each vendor's own docs and pricing pages, and we verify prices with the vendor. GoHighLevel is established and backed by strong aggregate ratings, 4.6/5 on G2 and 97% five-star on Trustpilot across more than 15,000 reviews, so you are not buying vaporware; the repeated complaints are billing surprises (trial charges, add-ons that survive a downgrade) and support that can be slow to escalate. Screenshot every step and clear add-ons before you cancel.

Kartra draws praise for the consolidation, with users describing cancelling separate CRM, email and cart subscriptions after moving in; the steady complaint is support, with multi-day waits and generic replies, and an editor new users find dated and slow to learn. Both are real and safe to trust. The risk with each is fit and support, not whether the software works.

### Which one should you pick?

#### GoHighLevel, for agencies and lead-gen behind the funnel

Choose GoHighLevel if you run an agency or a lead-gen business and the money is in what happens after the click. It gives you a CRM and pipelines, follow-up automation over email and SMS, calendars and booking, and client sub-accounts you can white-label and resell, with unlimited contacts and users on every plan. Starter is $97/mo for one business; Agency Unlimited at $297/mo is the tier for running many clients. Budget for the true bill once phone, SMS, email and AI usage stack on top, and design any paid-traffic test carefully, because its split testing is not built to protect ad learning.

#### Kartra, for selling your own courses and coaching

Choose Kartra when what you sell is your own courses, coaching or a membership and you want the pages, email, checkout, delivery and support desk in one login. From the Starter plan up it takes no cut of your sales and includes unlimited pages, products and courses plus webinars, and it has run since 2018, so it is a known quantity. Start on Starter at $99/mo rather than the thin Essentials tier with its 5% fee, plan around a dated editor and slower support, and know its page-level split testing is not made for the constant testing a paid-traffic buyer does.

#### ElasticFunnels, if you buy cold paid traffic

If your margin is conversion rate minus click cost, the honest answer is that neither of these two is built for you, and a third platform fits the job better. ElasticFunnels is a funnel platform for teams that buy traffic: it keeps the pages, the split testing, the checkout, the CRM and the attribution on one data layer. Its same-URL split testing rotates variants server-side under one campaign link, so Meta and Google keep their learning and a test never sends the ad back through review, which is the exact gap that decides against GoHighLevel and Kartra above. An AI builder generates a lander from a prompt or clones one from a URL, the checkout routes payments across several merchant accounts with order bumps and one-click upsells, and because the click, the order and the rebill sit on one record you can see which ad actually paid. Multi-MID routing matters most to sellers pushing real card volume across more than one account; a seller taking a handful of orders a week will not lean on it, and still gets the same checkout, upsells and one-record reporting. Starter is $97/mo, every feature is on every plan, the 14-day trial needs no card, and EF-hosted checkouts carry a 0.5% fee. The catch is age: ElasticFunnels is newer than either platform here, and there is very little independent review coverage to check its claims against yet, so until you run real volume through it you are largely taking the vendor's word, which is what you would expect of a platform this new. That limits your outside proof, not the checkout or the testing themselves, so prove it on one test campaign before you move a business onto it.

Still weighing more than these two? Start from [the full ranking](/best), or read the [GoHighLevel review](/reviews/gohighlevel), the [Kartra review](/reviews/kartra) and the [ElasticFunnels review](/reviews/elasticfunnels) in full.

Our pick

### GoHighLevel

GoHighLevel is real. It is an established agency platform that has facilitated billions in sales and carries strong aggregate ratings, so you are not buying vaporware. You would regret it if all you wanted was fast, polished landing pages: the page builder and its split testing are not the strength, and the recurring complaints are billing surprises and slow support. Buy it if you run an agency or a lead-gen business and need a CRM, follow-up automation and client sub-accounts behind the funnel. Skip it if you just need a lander and a same-URL A/B test for paid traffic.

### Frequently asked questions

Which is better, GoHighLevel or Kartra? 

Pick GoHighLevel if you run an agency or a lead-gen business and need a CRM, follow-up automation and client sub-accounts behind the funnel; pick Kartra if you sell your own courses or coaching and want pages, email, checkout and course delivery in one login. If you buy cold paid traffic, neither's split testing is built to protect ad learning, so look at ElasticFunnels.

Do GoHighLevel and Kartra both support A/B testing? 

GoHighLevel: Funnel split, not same-URL. Kartra: Page-level, not same-URL.

### What we read

#### From GoHighLevel

* <https://www.gohighlevel.com>
* <https://help.gohighlevel.com/support/solutions/articles/48001230918-split-testing-in-funnels> Funnel split testing

#### Other sources

14 discussions and reviews read for this page. Quotes are excerpts; open a link to read the original in context. 

1. \[reddit-ghl-bugs\] [Anyone else experiencing issues with GHL? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gohighlevel/comments/1ihb7f8) Reddit, 4 Feb 2025
2. \[reddit-ghl-regret\] [Anyone here actually regret signing up for GoHighLevel? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gohighlevel/comments/1ut9psl/anyone%5Fhere%5Factually%5Fregret%5Fsigning%5Fup%5Ffor/) Reddit, 1 Jan 2025
3. \[reddit-ghl-billing\] [Has anyone else had issues with GoHighLevel billing and support? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gohighlevel/comments/1pqjdzm/has%5Fanyone%5Felse%5Fhad%5Fissues%5Fwith%5Fgohighlevel/) Reddit, 19 Dec 2025
4. \[bbb-ghl\] [HighLevel Inc. | BBB Complaints ](https://www.bbb.org/us/tx/dallas/profile/marketing-software/highlevel-inc-0875-91307159/complaints) Blog, 1 Jan 2025
5. \[reddit-ghl-vs-cf\] [When does GHL actually beat ClickFunnels for a business funnel? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gohighlevel/comments/1u1040t/when%5Fdoes%5Fghl%5Factually%5Fbeat%5Fclickfunnels%5Ffor%5Fa/) Reddit, 1 Jan 2025
6. \[reddit-cf-or-ghl\] [Clickfunnels or Go High Level (GHL) ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMarketing/comments/1pscnje/clickfunnels%5For%5Fgo%5Fhigh%5Flevel%5Fghl/) Reddit, 1 Jan 2025
7. \[g2-ghl\] [HighLevel Products | Read 651 Reviews on G2 ](https://www.g2.com/sellers/highlevel) G2, 1 Jan 2026
8. \[trustpilot-ghl\] [HighLevel Reviews | Trustpilot ](https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.gohighlevel.com) Trustpilot, 1 Jan 2026
9. \[tp-cache\] [https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kartra.com ](https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kartra.com) Trustpilot
10. \[tp-price\] [https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kartra.com?page=2 ](https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kartra.com?page=2) Trustpilot
11. \[tp-mixed\] [https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kartra.com?page=4 ](https://www.trustpilot.com/review/kartra.com?page=4) Trustpilot
12. \[cap-save\] [https://www.capterra.com/p/184946/Kartra/reviews/ ](https://www.capterra.com/p/184946/Kartra/reviews/) Capterra
13. \[cap-infusion\] [https://www.capterra.com/p/184946/Kartra/reviews/?page=3 ](https://www.capterra.com/p/184946/Kartra/reviews/?page=3) Capterra
14. \[sa-ui\] [https://www.softwareadvice.com/marketing/kartra-profile/reviews/ ](https://www.softwareadvice.com/marketing/kartra-profile/reviews/) Blog

### Keep reading

* [GoHighLevel review](/reviews/gohighlevel)
* [Kartra review](/reviews/kartra)
* [The full ranking](/best)

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