GoHighLevel vs Kartra (2026): Pricing, Limits and Features Compared
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Short answer: Kartra is an all-in-one platform for course creators and coaches, with funnels, checkouts, memberships, webinars and video hosting, priced by contacts from $59 a month. GoHighLevel starts at $97 a month with unlimited contacts and adds a full CRM, SMS, calls and white-label client accounts. Creators selling their own programs often prefer Kartra; agencies prefer GoHighLevel.
GoHighLevel vs Kartra compares two all-in-one marketing platforms with different audiences. Kartra is built for coaches and course creators who sell their own programs. GoHighLevel (HighLevel) is built for agencies and businesses that run marketing for many brands. Here is what the official pricing pages show.
GoHighLevel vs Kartra: the short comparison
| GoHighLevel | Kartra | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Agencies and service businesses | Coaches and course creators |
| Starting price | $97/mo (Starter) | $59/mo (Essentials) |
| Contacts | Unlimited | 500 to 25,000 by plan |
| Transaction fee | None from HighLevel | 5% on Essentials, 0% from Starter |
| Webinars and video hosting | Not built in | Built in from Starter |
| SMS and calls | Built in, usage-billed | SMS included in plan limits |
| Automations | Every plan | Growth plan and up |
| White label | Yes | No |
What GoHighLevel is built for
GoHighLevel is an all-in-one platform that replaces several subscriptions at once: a CRM, an email and SMS tool, a funnel and website builder, a booking tool, a course platform and a reputation manager. Workflows connect all of them, so a form fill can tag a lead, send a text, book a call and move a deal in one automation.
It is designed around agencies managing many clients, with sub-accounts, snapshots and a white-label desktop app, but plenty of single businesses use one sub-account on the Starter plan.
What Kartra is built for
Kartra bundles funnels and pages, checkouts, email and SMS, memberships and courses, webinars, video hosting and calendars. Growth and higher plans add automations, an affiliate program, surveys and quizzes and a helpdesk.
Kartra prices by contacts. Essentials ($59 a month) covers 500 contacts, 5 pages and 1 product with a 5% transaction fee; Starter ($119) moves to 2,500 contacts with unlimited pages and no transaction fee; Growth ($229) to 12,500 contacts; Professional ($549) to 25,000.
GoHighLevel vs Kartra: pricing compared
GoHighLevel charges a flat monthly fee. Kartra uses a different model, so the cheapest plan is not always the cheapest choice. These are the list prices on each official pricing page.
| GoHighLevel plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $97/mo or $970/yr | 3 sub-accounts, unlimited contacts and users |
| Unlimited | $297/mo or $2,970/yr | Unlimited sub-accounts, rebill phone and email at cost, basic API |
| Agency Pro | $497/mo or $4,970/yr | SaaS mode, automatic sub-account creation, rebilling with markup, advanced API |
| Kartra plan | Price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $59/mo ($52 yearly) | 500 contacts, 5 pages, 1 product, 5% transaction fee |
| Starter | $119/mo ($99 yearly) | 2,500 contacts, unlimited pages and products, 0% fee |
| Growth | $229/mo ($189 yearly) | 12,500 contacts, automations, affiliates, helpdesk |
| Professional | $549/mo ($429 yearly) | 25,000 contacts, 5 domains |
What this costs in a real setup
A course creator with 2,000 contacts fits Kartra Starter at $119 a month with email included and no transaction fee. On GoHighLevel Starter the plan is $97 plus usage. At 20,000 contacts Kartra needs Professional at $549 a month; GoHighLevel stays at the same plan price.
Courses, memberships and webinars
Kartra was built for people who sell knowledge. Memberships and courses, video hosting with analytics and webinars all live in the same account as your pages and checkouts, so a coach can run an evergreen webinar funnel without connecting other tools.
GoHighLevel includes courses and communities with drip content and member access, plus calendars for coaching calls. It does not host webinars itself, so you would add a webinar tool and connect it with workflows.
If webinars and video hosting are central to how you sell, Kartra saves you one or two extra subscriptions. If calls, SMS follow-up and client management matter more, GoHighLevel is stronger.
Features compared
| Area | GoHighLevel | Kartra |
|---|---|---|
| Funnels and checkout | Funnel builder, order forms and payments. | Pages, funnels and checkouts are Kartra’s core. |
| Courses and memberships | Courses and communities included. | Memberships and courses included. |
| Webinars and video | Use an external webinar tool. | Webinars and video hosting built in from Starter. |
| CRM and inbox | Full CRM with pipelines and a unified inbox for email, SMS, calls and social. | Contact management and helpdesk (Growth and up). |
| Agency features | Sub-accounts, snapshots, white label and SaaS mode. | Team members per plan, no resale. |
The usage costs on top of GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel prices its plans as a flat monthly fee with unlimited contacts and users, but email, SMS and phone calls are billed from a prepaid wallet that recharges your card automatically. These are the US and Canada rates from HighLevel’s own phone pricing guide and email documentation:
- Email (LC Email): $0.675 per 1,000 emails on every plan. Every recipient counts, including CC and BCC.
- SMS: $0.00747 per segment, sent or received. MMS costs $0.022 outbound.
- Calls: $0.0166 per minute outbound and $0.01165 per minute inbound, rounded up to the full minute.
- Phone numbers: $1.15 a month for a local number, $2.15 for toll-free, plus a one-time A2P 10DLC registration fee ($22.50 for low volume) for business texting in the US.
For a course creator sending 25,000 emails and 1,000 text segments a month from one local number, that adds about $25.49 a month in usage. Usage is cheap at small volume, but it is not included in the plan price, so budget for it when you compare GoHighLevel with tools that bundle sending into the subscription.
Kartra costs to watch
- Contact tiers: crossing 2,500 or 12,500 contacts means the next plan.
- 5% transaction fee on the Essentials plan.
- Automations only from Growth ($229/mo).
Questions to answer before you decide
Where will your list be in a year? Plans are priced by contacts, and the jumps between tiers are large: from 2,500 to 12,500 contacts the price nearly doubles.
Do you sell through webinars? If yes, built-in webinars and video hosting can replace a separate subscription. If no, that part of the bundle has little value for you.
Do you need automations from day one? On the cheaper tiers they are limited, so price the plan that includes the automations you will actually use.
Who should choose GoHighLevel
- You manage several brands or clients.
- Your list is growing fast and you do not want contact-based pricing.
- You need calls, SMS and reputation management.
Who should choose Kartra
- You sell your own courses and want webinars and video hosting built in.
- Your list is small and you want to start at $59 a month.
- You want email and SMS included in the plan price.
How to switch from Kartra to GoHighLevel
- Export contacts, tags and purchase history from Kartra.
- Recreate products and order forms in GoHighLevel and test a purchase.
- Move course content and enrol existing members.
- Replace Kartra webinars with your webinar tool of choice.
- Redirect old Kartra page URLs to the new pages.
Our verdict on GoHighLevel vs Kartra
GoHighLevel starts at $97 a month with unlimited contacts and adds a full CRM, SMS, calls and white-label client accounts. Creators selling their own programs often prefer Kartra; agencies prefer GoHighLevel.
Whichever you lean towards, start a trial and rebuild one real workflow before you move everything. GoHighLevel offers a 14-day trial on its pricing page; the GoHighLevel links in this article go to HighLevel’s 30-day trial offer page. Check the current Kartra offer on its pricing page.
How we compared these tools. This comparison uses the official pricing and feature pages of both products, checked on 22 October 2026, and the vendors’ own help documentation. We did not run our WordPress performance tests on these hosted tools, so there is no WPGlory test score here. Prices change often: confirm them at checkout. How we test.
FAQ
Is GoHighLevel better than Kartra?
For agencies, yes. For a single creator selling courses with webinars, Kartra’s built-in video and webinar tools can save extra subscriptions.
Does Kartra charge transaction fees?
Only on Essentials, which has a 5% transaction fee. Starter and higher plans have 0%.
Which is cheaper, Kartra or GoHighLevel?
Kartra is cheaper for small lists (from $59 a month). GoHighLevel becomes cheaper as contacts grow, because its price does not depend on list size.
