Head to head

AXL vs Kartra

Both bundle the whole stack. One charges you for the size of your list. Every Kartra figure here was read from kartra.com/plans-and-pricing.

Free plan, no card needed.

The short answer

AXL is the better fit when you want every feature on every plan and published overage rates as your audience grows. The difference: Kartra tiers the bundle by contacts, while AXL keeps the operating model predictable.

Where it decides AXL Kartra
Bill follows Free start; $49 Starter, all features Contacts, from $119
Cut of sales 0%, any provider 5% Essentials, 0% above
AI actions Not counted 30 to 250 a month, by plan
Webinars, omni-channel chat Same account Not on the pages we read
2,500 contacts on Kartra Starter; contact 2,501 moves you to Growth at $229
5% Kartra's cut on the $59 Essentials plan; 0% on every plan above it
30 to 250 “Kartra AI uses” a month, by plan
0% what AXL takes of your sales, on every provider
Feature by feature

The comparison table

AXL against Kartra. Kartra read from kartra.com/plans-and-pricing.
What you are comparing AXL Kartra
Entry price Starter $49/month, then published overage $59 Essentials · $119 Starter · $229 Growth · $549 Professional ($52 / $99 / $189 / $429 annual)
What the bill is metered on Consumption: no named tier to outgrow Contacts: 500 · 2,500 · 12,500 · 25,000
Cut of your sales 0%, on all 20+ providers and on cash and bank transfer 5% on Essentials; 0% on Starter, Growth and Professional
Products and memberships No product tier One product and one membership on Essentials; unlimited from Starter
Marketing email The plan includes an email allowance. Usage above it is $0.0006 per email. 10,000 a month on Essentials; unlimited from Starter
AI capacity AI builders for pages, emails and forms, plus an agent surface; a billing admin sets or disables the monthly spending cap 30 · 100 · 250 · 250 “Kartra AI uses” a month
AI agent access (MCP) Included on every account: roughly 1,100 operations, about 110 verified recipes; publishing and sending stay separate calls We found no first-party MCP server on the pages we read; the route today is a Zapier wrapper
API Included, with unlimited keys carrying per-key rights An inbound API, webhooks and order notifications. Kartra's own support pages call them “for advanced users with programming skills only”, with support depth “very limited”
Webinars, live and evergreen Live rooms with registration, attendance analytics and revenue attribution, plus scripted evergreen sessions Not named on the pricing page we read
Messaging channels WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Telegram, Viber, LINE or SMS in one inbox with automation. SMS runs on your own provider account, billed per message Not named on the pricing page we read
Assessment and certificates Six auto-graded question types with pass thresholds, a homework queue with voice feedback, certificates with a registry, dated cohorts Not named on the pricing page we read

“Not named on the pricing page we read” is a statement about kartra.com/plans-and-pricing, not about the product. If Kartra ships something this table misses, tell us and we will correct the row.

The money

One business, five bills

Method One reference business, used on every comparison page: 2,000 contacts, one course, 5,000 marketing emails a month, $5,000 a month in sales, on its own Stripe account. Platform cost only; card processing goes to Stripe on both sides and is excluded from both. 2,000 contacts exceeds Essentials' 500, so the honest comparison is Starter.
Worked example: the arithmetic is in the row, so you can check it.
Scenario Monthly 12 months
Kartra Starter: $119, 2,500 contacts, 0% fee $119 $1,428
Kartra Starter, annual billing: $99 $99 $1,188
Kartra Essentials, if you had only 500 contacts: $59 + 5% × $5,000 = $59 + $250 $309 $3,708
Kartra Growth, once your list passes 2,500: $229 $229 $2,748
AXL Starter: $49, 5,000 contacts included, then $0.002 each, 0% of revenue $49 $588

The row to hold on to is the fourth one: contact 2,501 costs $110 a month, with no change in what you earn. And AXL Starter is $49 for this reference business; usage above an allowance is billed at the published overage rate, so model your own before you switch. Estimate your own bill →

Moving over

What moves and what does not

Moves cleanly
  • Contacts and custom fields, matched on email and phone.
  • Products, prices and pages: rebuilt from their URL.
  • Contacts same day; pages and checkout in one to two.
Does not move
  • Helpdesk tickets: no module here; plan a replacement first.
  • Automation sequences and email history; videos re-upload.
  • Saved cards; ask us before you schedule the switch.

Nothing here needs a hard cutover. Run both while you check the numbers; automations take one to two weeks. Plan the migration →

What people ask before they switch

Stop paying for the size of your list.

Import your contacts, rebuild one funnel and see the bill at your volume.

Start free; paid plans start at $49/month with included usage and published overage

Leaving Kartra rather than choosing between two? Five Kartra alternatives, compared

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