HighLevel vs the rest › HighLevel vs Kartra
Quick answer: Kartra's $59 plan takes 5% of every sale and allows 500 contacts. Its realistic entry point is $119 for 2,500 contacts. Go over your contact cap and Kartra auto-upgrades you and charges a reconciliation fee. HighLevel is $97 with no contact cap, no seat cap and no cut of sales, and it includes texting and calling that Kartra needs a separate Twilio account for.
HighLevel gives 30 days through my link, no card hold.
Every number below is from the vendor's own pricing page and help centre, read 20 Sep 2026. HighLevel is the one I use and teach, and I'm an affiliate, so I show you the numbers instead of asking you to trust me.
Nine ways the number on the price tag turns into a different number on your card. Most of these are published, just not on the big price tag. Every cell is from the vendor's own pages, read 20 Sep 2026.
| The fee | HighLevel | Kartra |
|---|---|---|
| Cap on contacts | None. Unlimited on every plan. | 500 / 2,500 / 12,500 / 25,000. Go over and you're auto-upgraded, plus a "reconciliation fee". |
| Fee per user seat | None. Unlimited users. | 0 / 5 / 10 seats. No add-on: next tier only. |
| Cut of your sales | 0% on top of Stripe. | 5% of every sale on the $59 plan. 0% from $119. |
| Email charges | $0.675 per 1,000 sent. 10,000 emails = $6.75. No monthly cap; brand-new accounts ramp up over their first weeks. | 10,000/mo on $59 plan. Unlimited from $119. |
| Texting (SMS) | Built in. About $0.012 per text, number $1.15/mo, pay as you go. | Bring your own Twilio, Plivo or Vonage. You pay the carrier. |
| AI charges | Separate on every plan: pay per use, or $50/mo AI Employee Growth, $97/mo Unlimited. Never included in the $97. | Copywriting AI only, 30 / 100 / 250 uses. No AI for customers. |
| Onboarding or setup fee | None. | None. |
| Commitments and cancellation terms | Month to month. Cancel any time. Numbers and texts used during the trial are billed at usage rates. | "Dynamic marketplace pricing... subject to change at any time." $9.99/mo to freeze. Overages billed at cancellation. |
| Price rises this year | Same $97 / $297 / $497. | Terms allow changes at any time. A Dec 2024 review: "price keeps going up". |
30 things a business actually needs to run, and whether HighLevel and Kartra have it built in. "Add-on" means you pay extra. "Limited" means it's there but capped or tier-gated.
| You need | HighLevel | Kartra |
|---|---|---|
| CRM with sales pipelines | ✓ | ✕ tags only |
| Websites and funnels | ✓ | ✓ unlimited pages from $119 |
| Courses and memberships | ✓ | ✓ unlimited from $119 |
| Community | ✓ groups, channels, gamification | ✕ comment forums only |
| Documents and contracts with e-signature | ✓ | ✕ |
| Invoicing and estimates | ✓ | ✕ |
| Subscriptions and payment plans | ✓ | ✓ |
| Forms and surveys with conditional logic | ✓ | limited surveys from $229 |
| Chat widget on your website | ✓ | limited live chat on $549 only |
| add-on $10/mo + Meta fees | ✕ | |
| Missed-call text-back and call tracking | ✓ | ✕ |
| Affiliate program manager | ✓ | limited $229 plan and up |
| Blog | ✓ | ✕ |
| Mobile app for you to manage leads | ✓ | ? not on vendor page |
| Webinars, built in | ✓ | limited retiring 1 Nov 2026 |
| Course quizzes and certificates | ✓ | limited quizzes from $229; certificates not on vendor page |
| Google review requests | ✓ | ✕ |
| Email marketing | ✓ metered | ✓ |
| Texting from the app | ✓ | limited own Twilio account |
| Phone numbers and calling | ✓ | ✕ |
| Booking calendars | ✓ | ✓ from $119 |
| Reviews and reputation | ✓ | ✕ |
| Social media planner | ✓ | ✕ |
| AI that talks to customers (chat, voice) | add-on pay per use or $50/mo, every plan | ✕ copywriting only |
| Multi-step automation | ✓ | limited advanced from $229 |
| Separate accounts for clients | ✓ 3 on $97, unlimited on $297 | limited bulk-buy from $229, you bill |
| Your brand on the software (white label) | limited $297 plan and up | limited your name in email footers |
| Sell the software to clients (SaaS) | limited $497 plan | ✕ |
| Unlimited contacts | ✓ | ✕ |
| Unlimited users | ✓ | ✕ |
| Free trial | 30 days | 14 days 1,000 emails |
| Built in, no add-on | 26 of 30 | 5 |
Counted: a ✓ with no "limited" or "add-on" tag, trial row excluded. Each column is that tool's entry plan shown in the close-up cards below, except Kartra, where I use the $119 Starter because the $59 plan is not a real starting point. A grey ? means I couldn't find it on the vendor's own pages, so I didn't count it either way. Read 20 Sep 2026 from each vendor's pricing page and help centre; links in the footer.
Plans, the fees behind them, what's missing, who it's honestly good for, and what people said about it in the last 30 days.
Not because HighLevel is always the cheapest line. Because of what the price tag can't show.
| Tool | Your brand on the software | Separate accounts for clients | Resell it and set your own price |
|---|---|---|---|
| HighLevel | Yes, from $297: white-label desktop app and custom domain | Yes: 3 on $97, unlimited on $297 | Yes, on $497: SaaS mode, clients sign up and pay you automatically, you mark up their usage |
| Kartra | Partly: your agency name in client email footers; app and domain stay Kartra | Yes: bulk-buy at 40% off from the $229 plan | Partly: mark up the accounts and bill clients yourself; no sign-up-and-pay mode |
Short answers. Every number is from the vendor's own pricing page, read 20 Sep 2026.
Kartra's $59 plan takes 5% of every sale and allows 500 contacts. Its realistic entry point is $119 for 2,500 contacts. Go over your contact cap and Kartra auto-upgrades you and charges a reconciliation fee. HighLevel is $97 with no contact cap, no seat cap and no cut of sales, and it includes texting and calling that Kartra needs a separate Twilio account for.
Kajabi, Kartra, ClickFunnels, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign and Flodesk all price by contact tier. HubSpot and Flodesk auto-upgrade you the moment you cross a tier; Kartra auto-upgrades and adds a fee; ActiveCampaign stops your campaigns at the cap. HighLevel has unlimited contacts on every plan.
All six. Kajabi $5 per extra seat, ActiveCampaign $10 to $40, HubSpot $20 to $75. Kartra, ClickFunnels and Flodesk have hard seat caps with no add-on, so you must jump a whole tier. HighLevel has unlimited users on every plan.
Kartra takes 5% on its $59 plan. Kajabi adds 2%, 1% or 0.5% on top of Stripe if you use your own processor, and 0.7% on every subscription payment through Kajabi Payments. ClickFunnels adds 0.5% for billing and invoicing through Payments AI. HighLevel takes 0%.
Only HighLevel has texting, phone numbers and calling built in, at about 1.2 cents per text. HubSpot sells it as a $75 a month add-on on Professional and above. ActiveCampaign sells credits from $21 a month. Kajabi, Kartra and ClickFunnels require your own Twilio account. Flodesk has no SMS at all.
HighLevel and Kajabi both offer 30 days. HighLevel's is 30 days through an affiliate link with no card hold (14 days on the public page); Kajabi places a $149 hold on your card. Kartra, ClickFunnels, ActiveCampaign, Flodesk and HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional offer 14 days, and ActiveCampaign caps its trial at 100 emails. HubSpot also has a permanent free tier with HubSpot branding.
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