Making money online through Niche Marketing

A Full Kartra Review 2020: Pricing Plans, Features, and Comparisons

So, you’re thinking about adding Kartra to your marketing toolbelt and you want to know if it’s a good idea. Well, this is a platform that I use in my business, and I’m here to tell you everything I know to help you decide if it’s right for you. So, here’s a comprehensive Kartra review. 

Here, you’ll find answers to the following questions: 

  • Who uses Kartra and is it a CRM?  
  • How much is Kartra monthly with available plans?
  • What features can you leverage and how are they presented? 
  • Is it the best platform on the market for your needs? 
  • What is Kartra agency?… and more

If you’re ready to learn everything above and then some, read this full review of Kartra now.     

Kartra reviews
Real Kartra reviews from Capterra users.

[Kartra reviews from Capterra users]

First, What is Kartra? 

Kartra is an all-in-one marketing platform with CRM-capabilities, but it is more than that. It’s used by beginning and advanced online business owners to build lead funnels, sell products and services.

From start to finish, Kartra is designed to help you create, launch, and maintain complex marketing campaigns. The system can help you attract leads, create customers, and process sales transactions. Learn more about the specific features below. 

Next, Kartra Pricing: How Much Does it Cost?  

Kartra pricing plans vary in cost based on the selected features. You will pay between $79 and $499 per month with annual discounts for a Starter, Silver, Gold, or Platinum account. 

Kartra pricing packages are discounted up to 25% when you pay annually. And, you can cancel, scale, or switch from monthly to annual pricing at any time. 

And, here’s a simpler look at Kartra’s pricing plans. 

What does Kartra cost monthly?

Kartra Agency is open to users of the top three pricing tiers. This feature enables you to manage multiple marketing campaigns from one dashboard and is especially valuable for marketing service providers who would like to leverage Kartra to help their clients.  

What does Kartra cost?

Then, What Kartra Features Can You Take Advantage of?

As stated, Kartra is an all-in-one platform. But, from a software perspective, that could mean anything. So, what functionalities does the system offer? Here’s what you’ll get: 

1. Checkouts

The platform can enable you to sell your products and services by processing payments directly from your website pages. Offer your clients and customers the freedom of paying via credit or PayPal on one-time sales, subscriptions, and installments. 

Furthermore, the checkout feature allows you to easily establish automated free and low-cost trials or initial setup fees. You can streamline pricing and coupons for individual customers, freeze subscriptions, and edit payment options. 

Financial reports in Kartra

Plus, you can configure upsells, down-sells, cross-sells, and order bumps. And, payments are tracked so that you can create thorough reports to understand your business finances. 

Customer Value Tracking

One of my favorite features of Kartra is the lifetime value (LTV) tracking or, as Kartra calls it, “Customer Value.” So, if you acquire a new member, client, or customer and you make $50 from them on day one and another $50 on day 7, the Customer Value or LTV will be $100. The platform will find your average LTV for you from the total of all customers.   

You can then use this number to determine your maximum price per customer for acquisition. So, if each customer is worth $100, and you spend about $25 to acquire that customer, you would have made $75. Use this feature to set an informed marketing budget. 

2. Pages 

In just a few minutes, you can design landing pages from over 500 templates in a simple drag and drop builder. You can also choose to build pages from scratch if you have the instincts for good design, so there’s quite a bit of freedom. 

Create landing pages

And, each page element can be customized (fonts, colors, etc.) and is responsive. You won’t be limited to what you can achieve. 

3. Leads

As you build your list, you will be able to manage individual profiles along with their history with your business. Add notes, create segments, collect data, and deliver an enhanced user experience on a case-by-case basis. 

Build a robust lead list

This feature establishes CRM, support, sales, and marketing possibilities in a customized and holistic environment. Track each customer’s journey for data to power your sales marketing campaigns. 

In addition, the system will automatically score leads and customers, providing insights about who your best customers and clients are. This feature is as good as any other CRM or customer support software I’ve tried.

4. Funnels & Campaigns

From within the platform, you can create and launch complete sales funnels in under an hour. Connect your original content, use plug-and-play campaigns, or import campaigns from other users for multi-page flows, email sequences with if/then automations, and lead-tagging to drive sales.

The drag and drop sequence builder in the platform allows you to create funnels as simple or complex as you need them to be. And, your leads are tracked each step of the journey. 

Campaign marketplace

Moreover, you can sell your campaign ideas in a designated marketplace for an additional income stream while you help others with your knowledge.  

5. Mail and SMS

Automate your email sequences to send leads through your sales funnels and convert more site visitors. Features include behavior-based automations, intelligent split-testing, beautiful templates, and customization tags. 

The platform’s if/then automations are robust. Segment your lists based on subscriber behavior to ensure that the right people get the right messages at the right time. And, you can queue both email and SMS. 

Email campaign tracking

Plus, you can monitor the success of your campaigns based on opens, clicks, goals, revenue ratios, and unsubscribe rates. Using these insights, you can optimize your communication campaigns to continually deliver better results. 

6. Memberships

Run your knowledge business using the memberships features that Kartra offers. You can deliver training materials with ease inside the system. Structure lessons with beautiful templates and colors using an easy-to-use drag and drop interface. 

Use Memberships to drip content over time based-on when a user signed up and how far through your funnel they’ve made it. You can create multiple memberships tiers for enhanced control over user experience and results. 

Build a membership platfrom

And, gamification features like leaderboards, progress, and points can improve your retention rates. 

7. Videos

The system’s video players are pretty great and provide everything you need to create personalized videos with watermark branding that you have a high level of control over. For example, you can enable your videos to autoplay or mute on load. And, you can remove video player controls if you want to force play on certain pages. 

Control how visitors view your videos

The best part, though, is that you can tag users based on watch behavior. For example, anyone who makes it through 60% of your video might be tagged “watched X video.” Use this feature to segment your lists further than what’s possible with email segmentation alone. 

8. Helpdesks

Give your customers and clients an outstanding support experience without the need for additional tools. Multiple agents can collaborate inside the dashboard for an enhanced support experience. 

Deliver excellent customer support

Customers can be filtered into categories and sent to specific departments quickly. Plus, the helpdesk is integrated with billing so support agents with permission can process payments for your users via live chat and email. 

9. Calendars

Calendars can streamline meeting schedules. Brand your calendar with your logo, configure your schedule, and allow clients and customers to schedule calls with you. The system will automatically configure timezones and currencies for convenience. 

If you have multiple hosts, it won’t be a problem because the calendar can also be configured to work around multiple admin’s schedules at one time and find the right person for consultations, meetings, and phone calls. 

10. Forms

Choose from over 50 GDPR-compliant form templates for various uses: contact, subscription, etc. Build your newsletter lists and give traffic a way to submit personal information that will be stored in the platform along with the rest of your lead and customer data.

Create stunning forms

Match your branding and convert more readers with Kartra’s responsive forms. 

11. Affiliates

If you’re interested in establishing your own affiliate program, Kartra can help. Manage all of your affiliates from one tab in your dashboard to see who helped you convert what and how much. 

Manage your own affiliate program

This eliminates the need for you to establish an account with Rakuten or another mass affiliate platform, which can potentially weed out applicants who may not be serious. And, you don’t have to create your own applications or terms because Kartra has templates you can use for this. 

And, What is it Like to Use the Platform? 

When you first sign up for a Kartra account, you will be taken to a thank you page that tells you exactly what steps to take next. And, these instructions are especially relevant since some of the most important emails may end up in your junk folder.  

You’ll soon be directed to your Kartra login then a video that promises to be “one of the most powerful videos you’ve ever watched” and set the stage for newfound success. 

Kartra video: How to get out of your own way and pursue your ultimate dream

This video, titled ‘How to Get Out of Your Own Way and Pursue Your Ultimate Dream,’ is about an hour long and features a motivational presentation — there’s smoke and fire and excitement. And, while it’s not completely related to the software, it is hyper-relevant to a marketing audience. 

At this stage, you’ll know that your experience is going to be entertaining if nothing else. 

As soon as you log in to your dashboard, the system will walk you through the platform features with easy-to-follow videos. They recommend that you move through their onboarding system in sequential order, which will teach you how to use all points of the system without getting lost along the way. 

How do you use Kartra?

Step-by-step, you will make your way through the platform and come out on the other side with an understanding of each feature the platform has to offer. 

Kartra Academy: FAQs, Q&A, Strategies, Tutorials, & Training 

In addition to the user dashboard, Kartra comes with several bonuses. Kartraverse is the platform’s training and tutorial platform, unavailable to trial users. You will be able to access these modules once you’ve paid to use the platform after your trial ends.   

Kartra Bonuses: Kartraverse Training Modules

Kartranaut Training Program and Kartra Academy will teach you how to use the platform and implement marketing campaigns for optimized results. 

In the Kartra Academy, you will find a typical software knowledgebase that includes frequently asked questions, tips, and platform tutorials. Furthermore, you will gain access to a weekly Q&A with the greatest minds behind the system. 

Finally, How Does Kartra Stack-Up to Other Platforms? 

The last thing you need to know about the platform before you sign up is how it compares to other platforms. And, two top competitors are ClickFunnels and Kajabi. So, side-by-side how do these tools compare? 

Kartra vs ClickFunnels vs Kajabi

If you want to focus on funnels, you may want to choose a more established platform that is sure to have all of the features you need to build a fully-optimized lead flow. But, if you’re looking for a robust system that seems to be expanding at a pretty rapid pace, you’ll probably prefer Kartra. 

Recommended Reading: 

Conclusion

Is Kartra worth it? In my opinion, yes! The system is well worth every penny I’ve spent on it. And, I highly recommend it. However, you will need to decide whether or not you need a full-featured marketing platform or there’s a better option for your needs. If you’re interested in finding out if this solution is right for you, try Kartra for just $1 for 14 days.


Related Questions: 

Is Kartra a CRM? 

Kartra can be used for CRM processes but offers more features than the typical customer relationship management system: Checkout, pages, leads, funnels & campaigns, mail, memberships, videos, helpdesk, calendar, forms, affiliates, and more.  

What is Kartra Agency? 

Kartra Agency is a feature that can be used by Kartra users to manage multiple client accounts. It is available with Silver, Gold, and Platinum accounts.  

Does Kartra have an app? 

There is no Kartra app for iOS or Android marketplaces. But, Kartra does integrate with other tools. So, you can use the tools in tandem with other marketing apps that you use. 

How do I cancel my Kartra subscription? 

How to cancel Kartra: login to your Kartra account and select Billing from the top right dropdown menu. Scroll down until you see your plan and click the red Cancel link. When prompted, confirm that you want to cancel your account. You will be able to reactivate your account at any time. 

How much does Kartra cost? 

Kartra costs between $99 and $499, depending on which features you need and offers discounts on annual plans to save users between $240 and $1,440 per year. 

Who uses Kartra? 

Online business owners who want an all-in-one marketing solution to sell their products and services use Kartra. The platform is equally-geared toward beginners and seasoned users.

Kajabi Review (2020) – Is It Really That Good?

I’ve been hearing great things about this system as a membership site and platform. So, I decided to take it for a test drive. In this Kajabi review, I’ll share my thoughts about designing a website and landing pages, video hosting, marketing your online courses, and creating a membership site. But, first, I’ll go over pricing, tell you about their Hero University, and explore who uses the platform.

What is Kajabi? 

Kajabi offers the world’s only “knowledge commerce platform” for business owners to create, promote, and sell digital products. It’s like an all-in-one content management system (CMS) primarily used to host and market online courses, coaching programs, memberships, and other knowledge-based products. It delivers a suite of product creation tools for your online business. 

  • Website
  • Online Courses
  • Membership Sites
  • Quizzes & Surveys

But, it’s not limited like other available CMS options. Rather, Kajabi contains built-in templates for landing pages, funnels, events, and email automations designed specifically for those who want to share their expertise with the world. From your dashboard, you can collect payments with zero transaction fees and create a customized checkout experience for members.

Kajabi Pricing Tiers

When you sign up, choose from three Kajabi pricing tiers

  1. Basic – $119 (yearly) or $149 (monthly) per month
  2. Growth – $159 (yearly) or $199 (monthly) per month
  3. Pro – $319 (yearly) or $399 (monthly) per month

Note: If you need a larger plan, a custom Enterprise package can be created just for you. 

14 day free trial

You can try any of the plans free for 14 days. You will need to enter your credit card information, so be sure to cancel your account right away if you decide you don’t want to commit. Each of the pricing tiers gives you access to at least one website, the Hero University, 0% transaction fees, webinars, events, ready-to-use templates, assessments (quizzes and surveys), unlimited landing pages, unlimited marketing emails, and customer support. 

Here’s what else is in store with each option. 

Basic Plan Features

With the Basic plan, your products will be branded with the Kajabi logo. You will have the ability to create, market and sell up to three products with three pipelines. Additionally, you can store and market to up to 10,000 contacts and up to 1,000 members. With this plan, you will fly solo, with only one user account. It’s the perfect place for anyone who is just starting out. 

Growth Plan Features

The most popular plan, Growth, gives you the ability to remove Kajabi branding from your products. It also enables the creation, marketing, and sales of up to 15 products and pipelines. And, you can have up to 25,000 contacts and 10,000 active members. The Growth plan will open you up to have up to ten user accounts for your team. 

In addition to the scale increases above, this pricing tier enables automations and the affiliate program platform. This is a good plan for intermediate and growing membership sites.

Pro Plan Features

With the Pro plan, you will have access to everything above for 100 products and pipelines. You can build to up to three websites with 25 admin users. And, you’ll be able to store up to 100,000 contacts and have 20,000 members. 

In addition, you’ll access the Experts Academy on top of your Hero University. Finally, you’ll have access to the Theme Editor, giving you complete control over the appearance of your store. Authorities and those with a massive contact list or membership should usually start here. 

What is Kajabi’s Hero University? 

Hero University is filled with resources to help users learn the Kajabi platform and run their online businesses. It’s a pretty robust help center. 

hero university

These resources cover an array of topics: 

  • Company Announcements (News & Feature Roll-Outs)
  • Account Information, Settings, & Billing
  • Products, Marketing, Pipelines, & People (Contacts & Members)
  • Liquid Documentation (for Developers)

If you follow the resources as they are presented to you, Hero University is pretty helpful. But, if you’re looking for answers to specific questions, they can be difficult to find, as the organization inside the help center could use some work. The best way to find the documentation you need is to use the search bar at the top of the screen. Even then, you may not find answers to all of your questions. 

kajabi help center

But, that’s what customer support is for, and the platform is still great for selling online courses.  

Experts Academy Breakdown

Only available with the Pro plan, Kajabi’s Experts Academy opens new doors for expert knowledge commerce businesses. Many of the courses are taught by Brendon Burchard who teaches users how to share and monetize their online passion using the platform.

experts

Rather than technical use of the platform, the Experts Academy teaches users strategic business-building techniques. This is a decent channel for taking your knowledge commerce business to the next level.

Which Popular Influencers Use Kajabi? 

You already know that Brendon Burchard is a user. So, who else are the popular Kajabi users? To get an idea who the platform is best for, let’s look at a few influencers that host their membership programs and courses using Kajabi. 

 Chalene Johnson, Self-Help and Fitness Coach

coaches

With over half a million Instagram followers, Chalene Johnson is an extremely popular fitness influencer using Kajabi to power her business. 

Amy Porterfield, Online Marketing Expert

online marketing expert

Amy Porterfield is known for teaching entrepreneurs and educators how to grow their businesses online using content marketing and other online strategies, and she trusts Kajabi to sell her online courses. 

James Wedmore, Video Marketing Influencer

influencer

James Wedmore teaches other course creators to grow and scale their online businesses through expert video marketing knowledge and does it on Kajabi.  

Website and Landing Page Design Features

Building a website and landing pages couldn’t be easier than with the Kajabi interface. Here’s what I found when designing my site. 

Available Themes

Kajabi calls their standard website templates “layout presets.” There is technically one theme with six available presets. 

kajabi themes

You’ll choose a preset based on your aesthetic taste. From here, you can customize your site however you like. Of course, with a pro plan, you’ll open up unlimited personalization options. With a Basic or Growth plan, your choices will be slightly more limited, but with plenty of features to create a site with everything required for selling your courses. 

Standard Pages 

The Kajabi website builder is equipped with ten standard pages. 

standard pages
  1. Homepage – The front page of your website can be thought of like the table of contents for all of your online content. Here, users should be guided to navigate through your website and social media profiles to easily access what they’re looking for. 
  2. Library – A page where your members and visitors can access all of their products. The platform will automatically show all of the products a user has downloaded on this page. 
  3. Store – Here’s where your products will be showcased. Think of this as the online store of your knowledge commerce site. 
  4. Login – The page where users will register or enter their login information to access protected content on your website; this page keeps non-members from accessing certain pages of your website. 
  5. Static Page – Create multiple static pages such as ‘About,’ ‘Privacy Policy,’ ‘Terms and Conditions,’ ‘FAQs,’ and more. These pages will appear on your site exactly how you create them. 
  6. Thank You Page – A default page your users will be taken to after making a purchase on your website. Customize this page to appeal to the user and enhance their experience of your brand by saying, “Thanks!”
  7. 404 Page – When a website visitor lands on a page on your domain that doesn’t exist, you want them to reach a custom 404 error page. This message ensures that they stay on your site to browse rather than move away from your domain. 
  8. Blog – The front page of your blog showcases featured or recent blog posts where you deliver free content to the world. 
  9. Blog Post – An individual piece of content within your blog, which will be made up of several blog posts. 
  10. Blog Search – A page that is generated when a user searches for a specific topic within your content. 

With a combination of these pages, you can create a website to fuel your digital information product sales. 

Page Builder 

Within the dashboard, you can quickly create and customize any of your pages with the easy-to-use drag and drop interface. 

page builder

The landing page editor is designed with UX in mind. Simply hover over a section to edit the text or images. Use the left sidebar to add and remove sections and customize your page as you see fit. 

Blog Posts

Most CMS options, aside from WordPress, don’t provide everything needed to create a fully-optimized blog. Find out if Kajabi measures up. 

blog posts

The blog post creation dashboard has most features you’ll need to optimize your blog: Featured image, image uploads, a WSYWIG editor, custom URL, custom meta description, and you can even upload videos to your post. Still, it’s lacking in some areas. 

  • No ability to add ALT text to images
  • No add-ons/ plugins 
  • No categories

For a fully-optimized blog, you will eventually want these features. So, while the blog dashboard is enough for a beginner, a professional blogger might want to create a subdomain and host their blog on WordPress rather than use the blog tools available on the Kajabi platform. 

Analytics

In your Kajabi dashboard, you’ll be able to see reports for sales, affiliate earnings, and marketing. 

analytics

Sales reports will provide you with the sales by day, sales by week, sales by month, and sales by offer. 

Affiliate reports will show you commissions by affiliate and affiliate purchases. 

Marketing reports will give you access to the number of opt-ins by day, opt-ins by week, and opt-ins by month. 

You’ll also see a summary showing you a bird’s eye view of your online course sales and membership acquisition performance. 

Video/ Course Hosting Features

Not only does the platform allow you to upload video courses/ webinars. It actually walks you through the course creation process by delivering a step-by-step framework. 

course outline

When creating a course, you’ll be walked through the fundamental steps and have the ability to add your own additional information in the process. 

  • Course Introduction
    • Welcome to the Course
    • About the Instructor
    • Outline and Objectives
  • The Fundamentals
    • Concept 1
    • Concept 2
    • Concept 3
  • The What, the Why, the How
    • The What
    • The Why
    • The How
  • Advanced Tips
    • Advanced Tips
    • Going Beyond this Course
  • Course Wrap-Up
    • Conclusion
    • Additional Resources

At each step, you’ll be able to add a video, and assessment, and/ or automation. Learn more about automations below. 

Course Automations

When a user completes a section of your course, you will be able to automate the next action. 

automation

You can send users who complete your course section an offer, subscribe them to an email list, register them to an event, add or remove contact tags, send emails broadcasts, or send a coupon. This enhances the UX of your courses tremendously. 

Using Kajabi’s course creation system is like having your own, branded Udemy or Coursera platform. 

Marketing & Selling Your Online Courses

Once your online course is ready to sell, you can use the tools available in your Kajabi dashboard to market it. You have the ability to create, customize, and implement pipelines, email campaigns, events, automations, and forms; let’s see what this is all about. 

pipeline
  • Pipelines – Create various marketing sequences with a few simple clicks. 
  • Email Campaigns – Create email broadcasts and sequences to send to your subscribers.
  • Events – Engage users and deliver valuable webinars and other content at a specific time on a certain date. 
  • Automations – Create if/ then variables to automate your membership marketing. 
  • Forms – Create forms with automations to add new subscribers and move (segment) your contacts to new lists. 

Now, let’s take a closer look at a couple of the marketing features. 

Marketing Pipelines in Kajabi

Pipelines are one of the most exciting features Kajabi has to offer. There are six standard blueprints to choose from, five of which are “OVO” (Opt-in, Value, Offer) and all have been tested by Brendon Burchard to drive sales for his business. 

marketing pipelines
  1. Freebie – This is a simple pipeline containing an opt-in page promising value, a confirmation email, and a thank you page that delivers the promised value. The Freebie is a great lead generation blueprint to use when growing your list. 

It automatically creates an email sequence you can use to nurture your prospects after they’ve opted in. Grant subscribers a free course or offer a download that they can access from the thank you page. 

  1. Sales Page OVO – This is the simplest way to get quick conversions and starts with an opt-in page promising value. Next, it delivers an 8-email sequence. After that, the promised value is delivered on a thank you page that doubles as a sales page. 

The thank you/ sales page will ask for a conversion. Finally, the pipeline contains a checkout page where the reader can buy whatever digital product you’re selling. The Sales Page OVO is a great lead generator that can also result in sales. 

  1. Product Launch OVO – This is a full-featured pipeline that you can use to create your own online marketing campaigns that resemble some of the best you’ve ever seen. The Product Launch OVO was actually designed by Brendon Burchard and uses the same techniques he uses to sell his digital knowledge products. 

First, the pipeline delivers an opt-in page promising value. Next, a 10-email sequence is created. After that, you can design three separate value offers hosted on thank you/ sales pages. Finally, the reader can buy your digital offer on the checkout page. 

  1. Zoom Webinar OVO – This pipeline blueprint packs all the power of a product launch into a webinar. The Zoom Webinar OVO starts with a registration page, like an opt-in page where users sign up to take your webinar. Right after that, registrants are taken to a confirmation page restating the date and time of the webinar they signed up for. 

Next, recipients will receive four emails leading up to your webinar (event) to remind them to attend on the date and time they signed up to attend. After readers attend your webinar, this pipeline delivers five follow up emails leading to a sales page. Finally, this pipeline blueprint ends with a checkout page.  

  1. Free Book OVO – This pipeline blueprint is for a free book giveaway. It enables you to give your book away to those who sign up for your email sequence. Use the Free Book OVO to sell your main knowledge product. 

First, readers will see an opt-in page. Next, they will be taken to their first checkout where you will provide them with a copy of your book. Finally, you will provide subscribers with 10 nurture emails. 

  1. Coaching Campaign OVO – This pipeline is designed for coaches to power their business. It starts with an opt-in page that looks like an application to join your coaching program. Then, readers will be sent three nurture emails asking them to join your program. Finally, sales and checkout pages help seal the deal. 

Keep in mind that all of the content for these pipeline blueprints is already written for you, negating the need for you to hire a sales copywriter. Of course, you can customize the pipeline content to meet your business needs. 

email templates

Marketing Automations in Kajabi

In case you were wondering from before, Kajabi automations aren’t isolated to video and course hosting operations. Instead, they can be created at any time during the marketing funnel design process. At any time, you can create a new automation in your marketing dashboard. 

marketing automations in kajabi

You can set “triggers” in the ‘When’ section and automate the action to be triggered in the ‘Then’ section. 

Available ‘When’ Triggers: 

  • Assessment is Completed
  • Tag is Added or Removed
  • Email Broadcast is Opened or Link in Email Broadcast is Clicked
  • Email Sequence is Completed
  • Email Sequence Email is Sent, Opened, or Clicked
  • Form is Submitted
  • Person has Been Active for 7, 30, 60, or 90 Days
  • Offer is Purchased or Offer Payment is Successful, Failed, or Cancelled
  • Post is Completed

Available ‘Then’ Actions 

  • Grant or Revoke an Offer
  • Subscribe to or Unsubscribe From an Email Sequence
  • Register to or Deregister From an Event
  • Add or Remove a Tag
  • Send an Email
  • Send a Single-Use Coupon

Use any combination of the when/ then automations to set powerful marketing campaigns on auto-pilot. 

The coolest thing about the Kajabi marketing dashboard is that, while it may not be full-featured, everything you need can be accessed from one place. The downside is that there are no add-ons, apps, or plugins to enhance existing features. 

I still recommend checking out ActiveCampaign and ConvertKit for your email marketing needs. 

Creating a Membership Site with Kajabi

Now that we’ve made it through the guts of the platform, it’s time to look at the famed membership site creation options. 

When setting up a membership program within Kajabi, you will have to set membership tiers as “Offers” in the product section of your dashboard. 

membership site

Here, you can add various products to each offer or membership tier. Name or brand your tiers as membership levels (ex: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced). The process is simple and you can keep members engaged as long as you can create new content. 

Final Thoughts

The greatest downside to the Kajabi platform seems to be the blogging dashboard. And, there’s an easy fix for that (just host your blog on another platform with a subdomain) if you want a more robust system. So, if the platform were to enhance the blogging dashboard and add an app marketplace, I would give it 5 out of 5 stars. 

In a nutshell, yes, Kajabi really is that good! And, if you’re an entrepreneur interested in selling your knowledge, you should check out the free trial today and see what the world’s only knowledge commerce platform can do for you.

ActiveCampaign Review: Marketing Automation that Turns Leads into Repeat Customers (2020)

In the early days of email marketing automation, the only available platforms either lacked crucial features or they put a huge dent in your pocketbook. Now, there are a few platforms dominating the marketplace. At the top of the list is one I started using about 8 months ago. I love it so much that I’ve been inspired to write a full ActiveCampaign review for others who might be interested.

Here, you’ll learn why I love their deliverability tools to prevent going into recipients’ spam folders and (best of all) the amazing sequences you can build. So, now let’s take a look at these features and the ActiveCampaign pricing tiers.

Once you’re finished reading, you should be able to determine whether or not this is the right platform for you — I will put money on the idea that you won’t be disappointed!

What Can You Expect When Creating Your Account?

While surprises are fun, the onboarding experience with ActiveCampaign goes above and beyond other platforms that I’ve tried, so I want to specify here what you can expect.

An ActiveCampaign offer that is pretty standard is the 14-day free trial. And, With your trial, you can register an account with any email address as a Lite user. At this time, the platform will collect all the information it needs to create your customized dashboard.

First, of course, they’ll ask for your contact information. Then (this is where it gets good), they will ask about your niche, email marketing goals, and other software you use within your business processes.

Make sure to mention each your favorite tools here, in detail, to make sure the internal processes are fully-customized for your needs.

ActiveCampaign Pricing Tiers

Because of the customization options, pricing options for ActiveCampaign are much more elaborate than most email marketing platforms. While you’ll normally find between three and five pricing options, this platform has ten list size options in four categories (40 pricing options).

The lowest price you will pay is for the Lite plan, with 500 or fewer contacts, is $9 per month when paid annually.

The highest listed price for the Lite plan, with up to 100,000 contacts, is $369 per month when paid annually.

Customized pricing for Plus, Professional, and Enterprise plans with over 25,000, 50,000, and 100,000 contacts are available via a customized quote.  

So, there is a plan for everyone (and you can try it out for two weeks before you make a monetary commitment — no credit card required). You will pay a little more month-to-month with each plan than if you pay for the year up front, and pricing is based on features leveraged and the number of contacts in your list.

Lite Plan Pricing Tiers

First, with most of ActiveCampaign’s Lite pricing plans, you will get unlimited sending, email marketing features, the ability to send newsletters, marketing automation features, and live chat and email support for up to three users.

Pricing for lite plans is as follows:

  • 500 Contacts – $9 (yearly) or $15 (monthly) per month
  • 1,000 Contacts – $17 (yearly) or $29 (monthly) per month
  • 2,500 Contacts – $39 (yearly) or $49 (monthly) per month
  • 5,000 Contacts – $69 (yearly) or $89 (monthly) per month
  • 10,000 Contacts – $111 (yearly) or $139 (monthly) per month
  • 25,000 Contacts – $179 (yearly) or $225 (monthly) per month
  • 50,000 Contacts – $239 (yearly) or $299 (monthly) per month
  • 75,000 Contacts – $299 (yearly) or $379 (monthly) per month
  • 100,000 Contacts – $369 (yearly) or $459 (monthly) per month
  • >100,000 Contacts – Quote Required for Pricing

Plus Plan Pricing Tiers

Next, with most of ActiveCampaign’s Plus pricing plans, you receive everything you get with the Lite plan as well as CRM with sales automation, contact & lead scoring, deep data integrations, custom user permissions, a custom domain, custom branding, one-on-one training, and SMS marketing for up to 25 users.

Pricing for Plus plans is as follows:

  • 500 Contacts – $49 (yearly) or $70 (monthly) per month
  • 1,000 Contacts – $49 (yearly) or $70 (monthly) per month
  • 2,500 Contacts – $99 (yearly) or $125 (monthly) per month
  • 5,000 Contacts – $135 (yearly) or $169 (monthly) per month
  • 10,000 Contacts – $199 (yearly) or $249 (monthly) per month
  • 25,000 Contacts – $319 (yearly) or $399 (monthly) per month
  • 50,000+ Contacts – Quote Required for Pricing

Professional Plan Pricing Tiers

Then, with most of ActiveCampaigns’ Professional pricing plans, you have access to all the features of the Lite and Plus plans with site messaging, attribution, predictive sending, and win probability for up to 50 users.  

Pricing for Professional plans is as follows:

  • 500 Contacts – $129 (yearly) or $159 (monthly) per month
  • 1,000 Contacts – $129 (yearly) or $159 (monthly) per month
  • 2,500 Contacts – $129 (yearly) or $159 (monthly) per month
  • 5,000 Contacts – $199 (yearly) or $239 (monthly) per month
  • 10,000 Contacts – $279 (yearly) or $349 (monthly) per month
  • 25,000 Contacts – $479 (yearly) or $599 (monthly) per month
  • 50,000+ Contacts – Quote Required for Pricing

Enterprise Plan Pricing Tiers

Finally, ActiveCampaigns’ Enterprise pricing plans, created for full-scale marketing campaigns, include all features of the Professional, Plus, and Lite plans in addition to custom reporting with Google Analytics integration, a custom mailserver domain, a dedicated account representative, in-depth platform onboarding, free design services, free social data, phone support, and uptime SLA for unlimited users.  

Pricing for Enterprise plans is as follows:

  • 500 Contacts – $229 (yearly) or $279 (monthly) per month
  • 1,000 Contacts – $229 (yearly) or $279 (monthly) per month
  • 2,500 Contacts – $229 (yearly) or $279 (monthly) per month
  • 5,000 Contacts – $359 (yearly) or $449 (monthly) per month
  • 10,000 Contacts – $399 (yearly) or $499 (monthly) per month
  • 25,000+ Contacts – Quote Required for Pricing

ActiveCampaign Apps and Integrations

Nearly 250 apps are available in the ActiveCampaign integrations dashboard, so you can connect your existing campaign accounts to your email operations with ease.

Let’s explore the top four most popular apps so that you can get an idea of just a few integration functions the platform delivers.

Facebook App for ActiveCampaign

Facebook is still one of the top social media marketing channels for business. And, now you can connect your business page and personal profile to your email marketing efforts.

The Facebook App offers two major features to enhance your promotional efforts.

  1. Add an email subscription form to your Facebook business page.
  2. Automatically post a Facebook status update on your personal profile or business page when you send a new email campaign.

From now on, you can generate email list leads from social media and share your promotions with your current fans and followers across multiple channels.

WordPress App for ActiveCampaign

The top content management platform has easy integration with ActiveCampaign via a WordPress plugin. Access it easily from your ActiveCampaign dashboard to connect your accounts.

What will this do for your email campaigns?

The WordPress App allows you to integrate email collection on your WP site to your ActiveCampaigns dashboard so that all efforts are connected. Embed subscription forms and set up site tracking for advanced list segmentation.

Zapier App for ActiveCampaign

Use the Zapier App to streamline integration between your ActiveCampaign account and over 500 external applications.

Zapier uses connections called “Zaps” to connect apps with no coding skills. You can use existing zaps or create your own to merge nearly any two popular online applications.

Use the Zapier app to market to new prospects, auto-import various form respondents, capture new customers, and more.

Some popular apps you can “Zap” with ActiveCampaign are:

  • SurveyMonkey
  • WooCommerce
  • Stripe
  • PayPal
  • TypeForm
  • Unbounce

This list barely scratches the surface but gives you an idea of what’s possible.

Shopify App for ActiveCampaign

Every eCommerce store owner knows the benefits of Shopify for business. Now, you can connect your online store to your ActiveCampaign email marketing dashboard.

Using this app, you can send email opt-in form respondents on your checkout pages directly to your email marketing dashboard with ease. Send these subscribers to a segmented list for Shopify subscribers.

Then, you can target your email campaigns to appeal to the users who subscribed as customers and help recover abandoned carts, upsell, or send people to your new content and products.

Email Deliverability Tools

One of the main reasons I’ve chosen to stick with ActiveCampaign is the access to email deliverability tools that help keep emails from hitting recipients’ spam and junk folders.

First of all, ActiveCampaign won’t allow you to import a list of contacts that you cannot account for where you acquired the list. You are required to enter the URL for the pages where you acquired the list, the last time you communicated with this list, and how often contacts have heard from you in the past. So, from the very beginning, there’s the assurance that all contacts actually want to actually hear from you.

Next, the drag and drop interface is super intuitive, so the emails you create are always well-designed, ensuring that recipients experience a solid level of aesthetic appeal; this gives your brand a professional and trustworthy image, ensuring that people might continue to want to read your emails.

Finally (here’s the kicker!), the built-in Spam Check shows you what might get your emails sent to junk folders before you ever click ‘Send.’

What is Spam Check?

Spam Check is ActiveCampaigns’ standard anti-spam filter for email campaign managers. It runs your emails through a series of scans to point out red flags that might get you blacklisted by email providers.  

It’s crucial to note that Spam Check will not prevent you from sending an email, but that it will guide you to follow best practices, ensuring email deliverability and increase your email open rates.

Furthermore, while Spam Check scans the subject lines and body of your email messages to look for potential issues within the content itself, it does not know anything about your domain. So, it cannot fix a previously-damaged domain reputation.

What it will do is check for common errors within your email, saving you a lot of time on a filter that is nearly impossible to manually implement.

What Are Some of the Main Errors Spam Check Scans for?

When checking your emails for signs of spam, there are several errors that occur most frequently. According to ActiveCampaign’s API, Here are the common errors you might find in your emails so you can look out for them.

  1. Reference to a muscle relaxer
  2. The recipient uses a free email provider
  3. Subject line or content includes likely spam phrases (“Dr.,” “your compensation,” “profitable,” “marketing partner,” gibberish, etc.)
  4. Content includes the phrase, “reply to this email”
  5. HTML has a low ratio of text to image area
  6. Content contains imbalanced text to image ratio
  7. Improper use of personalization in content
  8. HTML includes too many tags
  9. The subject line contains exclamation or question marks
  10. Use of the word “Here” in a link (includes the unsubscribe link)
  11. Accessing blacklisted URL for externally hosted images/ videos
  12. Included URLs contain long numerical sequences or tracking IDs
  13. The message contains the word “Dear” with no recipient name/ personalization tag

Spam Check is like a standalone marketing tool, included with all ActiveCampaign accounts. It truly enhances the marketing automation workflow.

How Intelligent is the Automations Builder?

If you’re interested in creating if/ then automation workflows (*you should be), you will love ActiveCampaigns’ triggers, which are some of the most flexible on the market. Automated emails help you stay in touch with your audience. With this platform, you can connect with people at every step of the user journey.

Here’s what you can do with automation recipes and a description of each messaging type. As you learn about them, imagine the nearly unlimited combinations you might create.

ActiveCampaigns’ Automation Recipes

While you can start your if/ then triggered campaigns from scratch, the platform comes standard with tons of “recipes” or drip campaign types to choose from.

Here are some of the available automation workflow sequence templates (recipes).

  • Welcome Email Series
  • Product Interest Target Follow-Up Automation
  • Engagement Tagging (Two Parts) Automation
  • Product Interest Tagging Automation
  • Site Tracking Abandoned Cart Automation (Two Parts)
  • Upgrade Incentive and Outreach
  • Accessory Upsell After Purchase
  • “Forward a Campaign” and “Share a Campaign on Social Media” Incentive
  • Invite to Follow When Referred by a Social Media Site
  • On Reply, Create a Task to Respond
  • Re-Engagement Campaign Triggered by “Disengaged” Tag
  • “Need Help?” Message Triggered on Visit to Help Docs
  • Customer Service Follow-Up
  • Deduct Points for Unsubscribing From a List
  • Add Points for Form Submits, Campaign Link Clicks, Email Opens, Page Views, and Visits to an Important Page
  • e-Course Delivery
  • Opt-In Incentive Delivery
  • Identify Possible Advocates
  • Webinar Remind Series
  • Send New Blog Posts
  • Customer Win-Back Sequence
  • Failed Billing Reminders

This list is not inclusive of the existing workflow sequences. In fact, it covers less than half of what’s available. To see everything, you’ll have to try the platform yourself.

Standard Emails

For ordinary, one-time emails, you will want to use the standard emails. While this might sound boring, these types of emails are important. Imagine that you’re running a flash sale or launching a contest. In this case, you won’t have a need for autoresponders, but you will want to send a timely bulk message to your list or a segment.

In the example above, QuickBooks sends out an email notifying their recipients of an important date. They use this as an opportunity to get users into their dashboards to try out the tax estimate tool.

Autoresponder Emails

After someone subscribes to your email list, you will want to send a confirmation, a thank you, and/ or a promotion. This is where the autoresponder will come in handy. Use this type of message to welcome new subscribers and engage users when they take certain actions.  

After I used the platform for the first time, Typeform sent me this message, an excellent example of an autoresponder email. Try connecting your ActiveCampaign dashboard to your SurveyMonkey account to create autoresponder emails asking for customer feedback.

Split Testing Emails

If you have a long enough contact list, you can use split-testing to determine which version of an email is most powerful based on open rates and CTR. Then, you can use the data to continually build more powerful messages with increasing conversion rates.  

For an example of how this works, Alaska Airlines might want to know which email is more engaging for users… This one:

…Or this one:

They could send one to one randomly-generated selection of contacts and the other to another sample of the same size. Then, using the data acquired, they could build more engaging future campaigns.

RSS-Triggered Emails

Would you like subscribers to get an update each time you post a new blog post? If so, the RSS-triggered email will come in handy because it will let subscribers know each time something is published on your blog.

Above, Medium sends an intelligent RSS-triggered email with titles and snippets from recent posts.

Date-Based Emails

Sometimes you want to send emails on specific dates. Is it the anniversary of when a user first ordered from you or subscribed? Does a customer have a birthday? There’s no need to keep track of this manually when you can just send an automated email when the date arrives and let the recipient know you’re thinking of them.

This email from Elementor provides an example of what you can do with a date-based email. Just say “hi” or offer a discount or free gift on that special day.

What are the Cons of ActiveCampaign?

Affiliate marketers, MLM, and some other industries oftentimes send highly-promotional emails, cold communications, and other email messages that aren’t exactly in compliance with ActiveCampaigns’ anti-spam policies. So, that means this system won’t work for all users.

If your business involves sending messages that contain content that doesn’t meet the platforms’ standards, you may find yourself unable to send communications that are important for your business operations. This would be a tell-tale reason to stick with another option.

And, if your business falls into one of the following niches, you’ll need to steer clear altogether as you’ll be removed from the platform anyway:

  • Pornography
  • Sexually-explicit emails
  • Illegal substances or good
  • Gambling
  • Dietary supplements
  • Pills or online drug purchases
  • Work at home pyramids (MLM)
  • Day trading, Forex, etc.
  • Get rich quick schemes
  • Internet loans or payday advances
  • Male enhancement products
  • Escort and dating services

However, if your communications are generally in compliance with best practices and you work in a more trusted industry, I highly recommend finding out for yourself how well the platform works.  

Final Thoughts

Active Campaign sent me a pair of socks in response to my fan mail!

Overall (as I’m sure you can tell from the sentiment herein), I love this platform (they even sent me a pair of socks after I sent them fan mail)! While it may not work for everyone, it’s got all the nuts and bolts you need to launch and scale your email marketing efforts, no matter what sized list and team you have.

Click Here to Try it for yourself today so you can see just what I’m talking about.