Kartra vs LearnDash Comparison 2026
Both cover courses & coaching. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Courses, funnels and email with a cart attached
Turn a WordPress site into a course platform
At a glance
- Kartra starts cheaper, at $59.
- Neither has a free tier.
- LearnDash bills annually only, so there is no month to try it for.
Side by side
Kartra | LearnDash | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $59 | From $259 |
| Pricing model | Paid subscription | Paid subscription |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing (they differ) | Monthly or annual | Annual only |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export |
Kartra
Courses, funnels and email with a cart attached
Kartra sells the whole stack in one subscription: pages, checkout, email, membership and the course itself, with everything wired together on arrival. The trade is stated plainly on the pricing page, because the cheapest plan takes five percent of what you sell. Contact limits are the other constraint and they bind sooner than most people expect. Anybody with an email platform they like is paying twice.
Our note
Work out the transaction fee against your expected sales before choosing Essentials, because at any real volume the dearer plan is cheaper once the percentage stops applying. Systeme.io covers similar ground on a free tier and Kajabi is the closer comparison at the top end.
Only on this side
- Covers email marketing & automation
- Covers landing pages & funnels
LearnDash
Turn a WordPress site into a course platform
LearnDash is the answer for somebody who already has a WordPress site and does not want their course living on somebody else's domain. Lessons, quizzes, drip schedules and certificates all become part of the site you own, and the payment plugin is your choice rather than theirs. Hosting, backups and the security of that site stay your problem. That is the whole trade against a hosted platform.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.