# GoHighLevel vs Kartra · CheckoutScale > Source: https://checkoutscale.com/compare/gohighlevel-vs-kartra ## GoHighLevel vs Kartra Head-to-head [All head-to-heads →](/compare) Pick GoHighLevel if you run an agency or a lead-gen business and need a CRM, pipelines, SMS follow-up and white-label sub-accounts wrapped around your funnels; pick Kartra if you are a coach or creator who wants pages, email, checkout, courses and memberships behind one login and can live with a slower builder. By [Marcus Reyes](/authors/marcus-reyes), Editor. Updated 27 September 2026. **Disclosure:**We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. It never affects our rankings. Quick answer **GoHighLevel** is our top pick for most people. GoHighLevel is the pick if you are an agency running many client accounts and want one platform for pipelines, funnels and white-label. * **GoHighLevel.** Best for Agencies running many client accounts who need CRM, funnels and white-label in one. From $97/mo. * **Kartra.** Best for coaches and course creators who want one login instead of a stack of tools. From $59/mo. ### Side by side | | GoHighLevel | Kartra | | --------------------- | ----------- | ------- | | From | $97/mo | $59/mo | | Same-URL split test | No | No | | Multi-MID routing | No | No | | Order bumps & upsells | Yes | Yes | | Free trial | 14 days | 14 days | GoHighLevel and Kartra both sell the same promise: one login that replaces a stack of separate tools. On a feature grid they look interchangeable, because both give you pages, email, a checkout with order bumps and upsells, and automation. The difference is what each was built to do first, and that origin decides which one fits you. GoHighLevel started as a CRM for marketing agencies and grew a funnel builder onto it. Kartra started as a marketing suite for coaches and creators and built the funnel into it. You are not really choosing between two feature lists. You are choosing between an agency CRM and a creator suite. GoHighLevel is CRM-first. Pipelines, calendars, missed-call text-back, SMS and email automation, and unlimited sub-accounts are the core of it, and its SaaS mode lets an agency resell the whole platform to clients under its own brand. The funnel builder is competent rather than exceptional, and the reason to run it is not the pages: it is that every lead, appointment, text and deal for every client sits in one place you can white-label. Long-term users warn that the sticker price is not the real price, because SMS, email, AI and white-label are usage-based add-ons that push an active account well past the plan fee, and that the platform can feel buggy and slow with support that is hard to reach. Kartra is a suite for one business, not an agency for many. One login gives a coach or creator pages, email marketing, a checkout, courses and a membership site, plus a large library of done-for-you campaigns to start from. For a solo operator that genuinely replaces four or five subscriptions and the work of wiring them together. The recurring complaint is the page builder: long-term users describe it as slow and laggy, with simple edits taking longer than they should, and support that can take days to answer. Its checkout is capable, with order bumps, one-click upsells and subscription billing, but it runs a single payment processor. #### Where each one wins If you run an agency with many client accounts, or a local-service business that lives on lead capture and follow-up, GoHighLevel wins and it is not close. Unlimited sub-accounts mean each new small client costs almost nothing once your build exists, the CRM and SMS follow-up are the point rather than an afterthought, and SaaS mode turns the platform into a product you resell. Kartra has no equivalent: it is built to run one business well, not to white-label the same setup out to twenty of them. If your product is knowledge, and your audience is a list you nurture over months, Kartra wins. The courses and membership site are built in, the email tool is a real one, and running a coaching or course business from one login beats stitching a funnel builder to a separate course platform and email tool. GoHighLevel can host a course through its membership feature, but that is not what it is shaped around, and the extra CRM and agency machinery is weight a solo creator pays for and never uses. Ask which of those two businesses is actually yours, because the platforms answer different questions. #### On the checkout itself This is where the two are more alike than their marketing suggests, and it is worth slowing down on if you sell to paid traffic. Both give you order bumps and one-click post-purchase upsells, both do coupons and subscription billing, and both run through a single payment processor you connect yourself. Neither lets you split-test a whole checkout, and neither routes payments across more than one merchant account. Kartra gives you slightly finer control over discount rules and pricing options; GoHighLevel ties the checkout into its pipelines so a sale moves a deal and fires a follow-up sequence. For a straightforward single-offer sale the difference is small, and the deciding factor is everything around the checkout, not the checkout itself. #### Pricing, tier by tier GoHighLevel starts at $97 a month on Starter, then $297 on Unlimited and $497 on Agency Pro, with a 14-day free trial. The catch is metered usage: SMS, email, AI and white-label are billed on top of the plan, so two agencies on the same $297 tier can owe very different amounts at month end. Add up the messages you will actually send before you treat the plan fee as the price. Kartra's headline is cheaper and the reality is not. The $59 Essentials plan caps you at one product, five pages and 500 contacts, and it charges a 5% fee on your sales on top of your processor fees. The first plan a real business can use is Starter at $119 a month, which drops the sales fee to 0% and lifts the caps, and above it are Growth at $229 and Professional at $549\. There is a 14-day trial that asks for a card, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. So the fair comparison is $97 GoHighLevel against $119 Kartra Starter, not against the $59 sticker, and on both platforms the real monthly cost depends on volume, not on the tier you pick. #### If you run paid traffic: a third name to weigh Both of these leave the same two gaps open, and for a media buyer those gaps decide the whole thing. Neither GoHighLevel nor Kartra does same-URL split testing, and neither routes payments across more than one merchant account. If you buy media at volume, those two absences matter more than agency features or a built-in course tool, and they are what ElasticFunnels is built around. ElasticFunnels is a funnel platform for teams that live on paid traffic. It builds the pages, with an AI builder that generates one from a prompt or clones an existing page from a URL, and it rotates split-test variants server-side under a single campaign link, so Meta, Google and TikTok keep their optimisation and a new test never sends the ad back through review. Its checkout runs order bumps, one-click upsells and subscriptions, and it can route payments across several processors, with the click, the order, the rebill and the refund landing on one timeline alongside a CRM, automations and attribution. Every feature is on every plan, and the plans differ by traffic: $97, $197 and $497 a month, with a 14-day trial and no card. EF-hosted checkouts carry a 0.5% fee on processed revenue, and sales you run on outside platforms are not charged. The honest catch is age. ElasticFunnels is newer than both GoHighLevel and Kartra, and there is very little independent third-party review coverage to check its claims against, so until you push real volume through it you are largely taking the vendor's word for it. That is what you would expect of a platform this recent, and the no-card trial exists precisely so you can prove the split testing and the checkout on your own traffic before you move any spend. The thin outside coverage limits how much you can lean on other people's reviews today; it does not change what the pages, the split testing or the routing do once your own numbers are running through them. For the full breakdown, read our [ElasticFunnels review](/reviews/elasticfunnels), or [ElasticFunnels vs GoHighLevel](/compare/elasticfunnels-vs-gohighlevel) if GoHighLevel is the one you were leaning toward. #### The short version The two-way answer holds. Pick GoHighLevel if you run an agency or a lead-gen business and need a CRM, pipelines, SMS follow-up and white-label sub-accounts wrapped around your funnels. Pick Kartra if you are a coach or creator who wants pages, email, checkout, courses and memberships behind one login and can live with a slower builder. If your decision is really being driven by split testing and payment routing rather than by CRM depth or a course tool, that is the signal to put a third name on the shortlist before you sign anything. Our [ClickFunnels vs Kartra](/compare/clickfunnels-vs-kartra) breakdown and the [GoHighLevel review](/reviews/gohighlevel) and [Kartra review](/reviews/kartra) go deeper on each. ### GoHighLevel: strengths and trade-offs ##### What works * Unlimited sub-accounts and contacts mean adding another small client costs almost nothing once your setup is built. * It consolidates CRM, funnels, email, SMS, calendars and reputation into one platform, replacing several subscriptions. * SaaS mode lets an agency resell the platform to clients as its own product. ##### What to watch * The sticker price hides the real cost: SMS, email, AI and white-label are usage-based add-ons that push the bill well past $97 to $497 a month for active accounts. * Long-term users report bugs, slow loads and support that is hard to reach, plus a steep learning curve; its checkout is basic, so it is not for routing payments across several processors. ### Kartra: strengths and trade-offs ##### What works * One login for pages, email, checkout, courses and a membership site, which for a solo coach replaces five separate subscriptions and the work of wiring them together. * The checkout is genuinely capable: order bumps, one-click upsells, coupons and subscription billing, with no platform fee on your sales from the Starter plan up. * Deep control over the details, like discount-code rules and pricing options, plus a large library of templates and done-for-you campaigns so you are not starting from a blank page. ##### What to watch * The page builder is the top long-term complaint: users report it as slow and laggy, with simple edits taking longer than they should. * Support can be slow. Long-term customers report responses that take days and some issues left open for weeks. * It is built for coaches and creators, not paid-traffic direct response: there is no same-URL split testing and the checkout runs a single processor, so it will not rotate whole checkouts under one URL or route volume across merchant accounts. Our pick ### GoHighLevel GoHighLevel is the pick if you are an agency running many client accounts and want one platform for pipelines, funnels and white-label. [Visit GoHighLevel (opens in a new tab) ](https://www.gohighlevel.com/?utm%5Fsource=checkoutscale.com&utm%5Fmedium=affiliate&utm%5Fcampaign=comparison) ### Frequently asked questions Is GoHighLevel or Kartra better for paid traffic? Pick GoHighLevel if you run an agency or a lead-gen business and need a CRM, pipelines, SMS follow-up and white-label sub-accounts wrapped around your funnels; pick Kartra if you are a coach or creator who wants pages, email, checkout, courses and memberships behind one login and can live with a slower builder. Which is cheaper, GoHighLevel or Kartra? Compare the "From" row in the table above. The cheaper sticker is not always cheaper at volume, once processing fees, add-ons and annual upgrades are counted. ### Related reading * [GoHighLevel review](/reviews/gohighlevel) * [Kartra review](/reviews/kartra) * [The full ranking](/best) --- We rank the platforms that build the pages and host the checkout for teams running paid traffic: order bumps, one-click upsells, split-testing whole checkouts, different checkouts per traffic source, and payment routing for high-risk verticals. CheckoutScale [Top ↑](#main) We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. 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