If you’re new to Kartra, this guide will help you understand the difference between Products and Checkouts—and how to decide which setup works best for your business.
What is a Product in Kartra?
A Product is the item or service you’re selling.
It includes the basic setup needed to make a sale:
- Pricing: What your customer pays
- Delivery: How they get what they bought
- Payment methods: Like Stripe or PayPal
- Checkout fields & terms: What info you collect and your terms and conditions
- Automations: What happens after a sale (emails, tagging, access, etc.)
- Refund policy: How you’ll handle returns
Pro tip
Every Product includes built-in legacy checkout settings, so you can start selling with no extra setup needed.
If you want to offer mobile payment options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Klarna—or run multiple campaigns—consider creating a Checkout to go with your Product.
What is a Checkout in Kartra?
A Checkout is a customizable sales tool that controls how people complete a purchase.
You can create multiple Checkouts for the same Product. This is great for:
- Different sales pages or campaigns
- A/B testing or comparing funnels
- Tracking where your sales are coming from
With Checkouts, you can also:
- Add pop-ups, embedded forms, or full checkout pages
- Accept mobile-friendly payments like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Klarna (via Stripe Connect)
- Customize the look and flow of each Checkout
- Enjoy faster load times and better performance
Do I need to use Checkouts?
Not always.
You can simply use the legacy checkout form included in the Product setup. This is the quickest way to get started.
But Checkouts are recommended if you want to:
- Offer mobile payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Klarna)
- Run multiple campaigns with the same Product
- Customize the look and experience of the checkout
- See separate analytics reports for each campaign or funnel
- Use the newest Kartra improvements
What settings do Products control?
Even when you use a Checkout, the legacy checkout section in your Product still controls important settings. The details added here apply automatically to your linked Checkout:
- Checkout fields (name, email, etc.)
- Product quantity
- Terms and conditions
- Bump offers
- Cart abandonment tagging
Pro tip
You don’t need to set up your form design inside the Product settings. Just make sure the rest of the settings are complete before linking the product to a Checkout.
How to get started with Checkouts
- Set up your Product, including the checkout settings
- Create a new Checkout and link it to that Product
- Add the Checkout to your page:
- Use a pop-up or embed it directly
- Or link a button to your Checkout page
Quick summary
- Products = What you sell
- Checkouts = How customers buy it
- You can sell using just a Product (with the legacy checkout)
- Add a Checkout if you want more flexibility and mobile payment options
- Checkouts will receive all future feature updates in Kartra