What does Kartra cost?
Kartra costs $59, $119, $229 or $549 a month for its four plans: Essentials, Starter, Growth and Professional. Billed yearly, that drops to $52, $99, $189 or $429 a month. There is no free plan, but there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. For a small seller, the cheapest plan is the one to read closely: Essentials allows 500 contacts and one product and lists a 5% transaction fee, while Starter and up list 0%. Checked 18 October 2026.
Every number here comes from Kartra's own pricing page and help center, read on the day this was written. Kartra sells email, pages, courses and a checkout in one account, so the plans differ mostly in how many contacts and products you can have.
How much does each Kartra plan cost?
Essentials is $59 a month, Starter $119, Growth $229 and Professional $549, billed monthly. Each plan has a contact limit, and Essentials also limits products and pages.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Contacts | Products | Transaction fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $59 | $52 a month | 500 | 1 | 5% |
| Starter | $119 | $99 a month | 2,500 | Unlimited | 0% |
| Growth | $229 | $189 a month | 12,500 | Unlimited | 0% |
| Professional | $549 | $429 a month | 25,000 | Unlimited | 0% |
The prices and limits come from Kartra's plans and pricing page. Essentials also caps you at 5 pages, one membership or course, 10,000 emails a month and one custom domain. Starter lifts the page, product and course limits, adds unlimited email and SMS, video hosting, calendars and 5 team members. Growth adds automations, an affiliate program, surveys and quizzes, 3 custom domains and 10 team members. Professional adds real-time funnel analytics, 5 custom domains and help desk live chat.
Every plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and Kartra says you can cancel or change plans at any time from the billing page in your account. Kartra bills in US dollars and does not take PayPal for the plan itself.
Is Kartra cheaper if you pay yearly?
Yes. Kartra says yearly billing saves "up to 22%", and that top figure is on Professional. On the cheapest plan, the saving is smaller.
| Plan | 12 months, billed monthly | Billed yearly | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $708 | $624 | $84, about 12% |
| Starter | $1,428 | $1,188 | $240, about 17% |
| Growth | $2,748 | $2,268 | $480, about 17% |
| Professional | $6,588 | $5,148 | $1,440, about 22% |
The pricing page shows the yearly price as a monthly figure, "billed annually", and does not print the yearly total. The totals above are our own sums: the monthly figure times 12. Read the total on the checkout screen before you pay.
Yearly only saves money if you stay a full year. With a 30-day money-back guarantee, one way to test Kartra is to start on monthly billing and switch once you know it is your tool.
Does Kartra take a cut of each sale?
On Essentials, yes: its plan card lists "5% transaction fees". On Starter, Growth and Professional, the card lists 0%. On every plan you also pay your own payment processor's fee.
Kartra's own pages do not agree with each other here. The pricing FAQ says your plan is a flat rate with "never any extra fees", and the FAQ on Kartra's checkout page says Kartra does not charge transaction fees. Go by the plan card, and ask Kartra before you plan to sell on Essentials.
Our own arithmetic on Kartra's published monthly prices: 5% of $1,200 is $60, the gap between the two plans. Processor fees are the same on both, so they are left out.
Kartra does not process payments itself. It connects to Stripe, Authorize.net, PayPal or Braintree, and says buyer card details go straight to your gateway. So a sale on Starter costs your processor's fee and nothing more to Kartra, and a $50 sale on Essentials costs that fee plus $2.50.
What do the contact and product limits mean for a small seller?
They decide when Kartra costs you more. Passing the contact limit moves you up a plan on its own. Passing the product limit means choosing to upgrade.
Kartra calls contacts leads, and its FAQ says it never stops new leads coming in. If you pass your plan's limit, you are "automatically upgraded" to the next plan that fits, and charged a mid-cycle fee for the change. On Essentials, going past 500 contacts moves you to Starter at $119 a month. If you give away a free download to build a list, every sign-up is a contact, so a list can fill faster than sales do.
Products work differently. Essentials allows one product, and there are no add-ons to buy more. The same goes for custom domains, team members and languages: Kartra will not charge you or move you up when you hit those limits. It shows a message, and you choose whether to upgrade.
So Essentials fits one product sold to a small list. A second product, or a list past 500, means Starter.
Does Kartra have order bumps and one-click upsells?
Yes. Kartra's checkout page lists upsells, downsells and order bumps. The pricing page does not say which plan they start on.
Kartra's help article on bump offers says you can set one bump per price point, by picking a bump product. The bump and the main product must have different prices and use the same payment gateway, coupons do not apply to the bump, and both are charged together as one payment. Because a bump means picking a second product, check with Kartra whether it works on Essentials, which allows one product.
The one-click upsell runs on what Kartra calls Express checkout. After a card purchase, Kartra saves the buyer's details in a browser cookie for 30 days. A follow-up offer can then be bought with one click, but only if the buyer paid by card, accepted cookies, and is on the same browser, the same device and the same domain. A buyer who paid with PayPal, Apple Pay or Google Pay does not get the one-click version.
How does Kartra's price compare with Systeme.io and SamCart?
Kartra sits between the two. Systeme.io has a free plan with more contacts than Essentials, and SamCart's $79 Core plan allows unlimited products, which Kartra only gives you from $119. Here is each plan's monthly fee, its contact limit, its own cut of a sale, and whether it lists a bump and an upsell.
| Platform and plan | Monthly fee | Contacts | Platform's cut of a sale | Bump and upsell |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systeme.io Free | $0 | 2,000 | None | 1 of each |
| Stakk | $0 | No email list | 10% + $0.50, card processing included | Both, on every account |
| Kartra Essentials | $59 | 500 | 5% | Plan not stated |
| SamCart Core | $79 | No limit listed | None added on SamPay | Neither |
| Kartra Starter | $119 | 2,500 | None | Plan not stated |
| SamCart Pro | $199 | No limit listed | None added on SamPay | Both |
Systeme.io's free plan holds up to 2,000 contacts with no transaction fees and one order bump and one one-click upsell, and there is more on what Systeme.io costs past that. SamCart is $79 or $199 a month and keeps its bump and upsell on the $199 plan, which our breakdown of SamCart's pricing covers.
When is Kartra the right choice and Stakk the wrong one?
When you want email, pages, courses and a checkout in one account. Kartra sends email and SMS, builds pages, hosts memberships and courses, books calls and runs an affiliate program. Stakk has none of that: no email marketing, no page builder, no memberships, no course hosting, no subscriptions, US dollars only and prices up to $999. If that is what you need, Stakk is the wrong choice. And if you want those tools for less, use Systeme.io instead. Its free plan includes email, funnels and a course with no transaction fees, and Whop charges 2.7% + $0.30 on a domestic card with no monthly cost. Both take less per sale than our 10% + $0.50.
What Stakk does differently is the checkout, with nothing to outgrow. There is no contact limit to pass and no product cap. The order bump rides the same charge as the product, so it carries one fee rather than two. The upsell after payment is one tap against the card the buyer just used, and it is a second charge that carries its own fee. Both are on every account, which fewer platforms do than you might expect, and the money lands in your own Stripe account. The layout came out of funnels that ran for agency clients before Stakk existed.
Just want a checkout with a bump and an upsell?
If you are pricing Kartra to sell one or two products, Stakk has no monthly fee and no plan to move up to. It is 10% + $0.50 a sale with card processing included, and nothing in a month with no sales. You connect your own Stripe account, add a bump and an upsell to any product, and you can have it live in about ten minutes.