Community platforms are places where your audience can engage with your content, typically courses, an online shop, downloadable content and resources, or a mix of all three and more. They’re designed to give people who like your brand a place to connect with you and what you provide, and while most website builders can do a lot, not many of them have the necessary tools to create a worthwhile community platform.

Because of this, you’ll likely need to sign up for a dedicated community platform if you want to build a space for your courses and other content. And there are a lot of options out there, so let’s look at four popular ones, what they cost, and what you can accomplish with them to help you find a fit.

Kartra

Katra is our standard recommendation when clients want to build a membership/community platform. Their community tools will let you build an automated platform that keeps your audience engaged, though Kartra is good for a lot more than just creating a space for your community. Their platform also offers basic CRM tools and options for uploading course content, webinars, and other similar products. 

Kartra is a well-rounded platform that most users are satisfied with, but it's also one of the most expensive. Because of this, Kartra is probably a better fit for business owners who already have an audience for course content and people willing to subscribe to their community rather than those trying to break into that space.

Pricing and Free Options

Kartra has three primary pricing options, each tiered by how much access you have to Kartra’s advanced features and options.

• Starter: $119/Month
  

• Unlimited emails, pages, and forms

• Access to membership and course uploads

• Calendar Tools

• 2,500 Contacts, 5 Team Members, 1 Domain
  

• Growth: $229/Month
  

• All Features included in the Starter Plan

• Access to webinar hosting with over 300 attendees

• Tools to create surveys and quizzes

• Automation features + funnel simulations

• 12,500 Contacts, 10 Team Members, 3 Domains
  

• Professional: $549/Month
  

• All features included in the Growth Plan

• Access to webinar hosting with over 1,000 attendees

• Real-Time Analytics

• 25,000 Contacts, 20 Team Members, 5 Domains

Kartra also has a free plan that lasts for 30 days and gives you nearly identical features to what you would get with the Starter plan, with the only difference being the limits on your emailing and SMS capabilities. You can send unlimited messages with Kartra’s three paid plans, and up to 1,000 with the free trial. Other than that exception, the features available on Kartra’s free option are identical to what you’ll get in the Starter package.

Of course, this does mean you will have to commit to one of their paid options after your month of free service expires. As we’ll see later, there are platforms out there similar to Kartra that offer more limited free plans but let you maintain your free access as long as you want it. 

These alternatives will be great for people just getting started with course content and community builders who want time to build their audience before committing to a high-cost service. But if you already have an established audience for courses, Kartra’s free trial is a great way to see if their platform is a fit for your content.

Podia

Podia is the most beginner-friendly platform we’ll look at on this list. Primarily because of its accessible pricing, which we’ll look at later, but also because of how easy it is to use while focusing on basic features. If you’re just starting out with course content and building an online community, Podia will be a great introductory platform.

In addition to giving you a space to sell your courses and online products, Podia has tools to set up email marketing campaigns and a community platform. Again, it's a bit more basic than other options, but it's also a lot more accessible.

Pricing and Free Options

Podia is one of the platforms we referenced that lets you sign up for free and stick with that free plan for as long as you’d like. However, Podia is not nearly as powerful as Kartra, Podia’s free plan especially so.

One of the biggest limits of Podia’s free plan is the transaction fee. While three of Podia’s four subscription options have fees attached, the free plan’s fees are the highest, charging 10% of your sales per transaction. Another big limitation of Podia’s free plan is that you can only upload one downloadable course and one coaching product, whereas the higher-priced plans offer unlimited course creation and coaching options.

You also cannot publish course content on Podia’s free (or Starter) plan, though you can draft up a course page, webinar page, and similar content and upgrade to an at-cost option when you feel you’re ready to publish.

If you wish to upgrade from the limitations of Podia’s free plan, the platform has three priced options:

• Starter: $4/Month
  

• Everything included in the Free plan

• 8% transaction fees

• A custom domain

• Access to chat support
  

• Mover: $33/Month
  

• Everything included in the Starter plan

• 5% transaction fees

• Unlimited downloads and coaching sessions, courses, webinars, and product bundle uploads

• Third-Party code

• Shaker: $75/month
  

• Everything included in the Starter plan

• 0% transaction fees

• Affiliate marketing

Keap

Though you can’t upload course content with a standard Keap subscription, the platform is partnered with the Software as a Service (SaaS) platform Memberium. Memberium is a WordPress plug-in that lets you build and sell course content and similar products. Plus, as the name suggests, Memberium is a great way to make a membership platform, giving your community a spot to gather if you have an active audience.

You can still accomplish a lot on Keap as well, even without a course and community plug-in. Keap has a lot of standard CRM solutions for small businesses, including email and text marketing features, lead capturing and management tools, landing page and form builders, and more. 

In overall functionality, Keap is on par with Kartra, which is why both are priced similarly as the highest-cost platforms on this list.

Pricing and Free Options

• Ignite: $249/Month
  

• Two Users

• 1,500 Contacts

• 5 Automation Options
  

• Grow: $329/Month
  

• Three Users

• 2,500 Contacts

• 10 Automation Options
  

• Scale: $499/Month
  

• Five Users

• 5,000 Contacts

• 15 Automation Options

Keap’s pricing plans have a lot more differences than those listed here, and you can view the specific features not mentioned on this blog on their website.

One unique feature of Keap’s pricing options is that you can adjust the amount of included users and contacts for a higher or lower cost. For example, if the Ignite plan is almost perfect but you need closer to 2,000 contacts rather than 1,500, you can bring the contact capacity up for a slightly inflated rate.

Keap’s free option is similar to Kartra and gives you access to all the features available in the Ignite plan for a limited time. However, you only get 14 days with this trial - which should be more than enough to give the platform a good try, but you won’t have any time to waste when building your landing pages and website functions.

Kajabi

Kajabi is one of the most popular course-building platforms available, and one of the biggest reasons why is that you can use this platform for a lot more than just uploading courses. You can use Kajabi to upload podcasts and coaching tools and build a strong community platform as well.

Kajabi is a great platform for building a user-friendly web presence, but the platform itself is also great for website administrators. It gives you easy access to a lot of helpful analytics and an easy-to-use payment management platform to track your revenue. 

Pricing and Free Options

Kajabi has four price tiers, ranging from $69 to $399 a month. One unique feature of Kajabi is that each of their price tiers come with a 0% transaction fee. So while it costs more to sign up for Kajabi, you can make some of that money back if you have a wide enough audience. This makes it less of a beginner-friendly platform, however, since you have to go in with an established audience to get the most out of your investment.

• Kickstarter: $69/Month
  

  • 50 Landing Pages

  • One Website

  • One Product + One Funnel

  • 250 Contacts + 50 Active Customers

  • 1,250 Marketing Emails
    

• Basic: $149/Month
  

• Everything included in the Kickstarter package

• Unlimited landing pages and marketing emails 

• Three Products + Three Funnels

• 10,000 Contacts +  1,000 Active Customers
  

• Growth: $199/Month
  

  • Everything included in the Basic package

  • 15 Products + 15 Funnels

  • 25,000 Contacts + 10,000 Active Customers

  • Advanced Automations

  • Affiliate Marketing
    

• Pro: $399/Month
  

• Everything included in the Pro package

• Three websites

• 100 Products + 100 Funnels

• 100,000 Contacts + 20,000 Active Contacts

• Custom Code Editor

The best platform to build your community will really depend on where you’re at with your business. If you’re just getting started with community or course content, you’re probably better off staying on a cheaper, limited platform like Podia until you grow your audience a bit. Either that or kicking the tires on a free trial to see if you even like managing an online community.

On the other hand, a more expensive platform like Kartra will be a better fit if you need a high-powered community and course builder to meet the demands of a larger audience.

Need a website to upload your course content and start an online community? Book a consultation with NAV Creative today to find out how we can help.