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SamCart, an online shopping cart software, was created by Scott Moran and Brian Moran in 2013. It’s been around for a while, but lately, it seems to be everywhere.
A lot of marketers, business owners, and entrepreneurs are touting it as the best shopping cart software available today.
But does it live up to the hype?
This SamCart review will share my experiences with the software, including who it’s best for, its pros and cons and whether it’s worth it to your business.
Is SamCart Worth it?
SamCart demo available. Click Here for a free demo
In my opinion, SamCart is absolutely worth the investment because compared to the majority of other shopping cart platforms, it offers tons of useful features and is optimized to help you increase conversions which ultimately boosts your bottom line.
As a marketer, you know the importance of testing your pages to optimize conversions, and SamCart has done all the work for you to make sure that you maximize the profit you make from each sale.
If you sell a $47 PDF and you use a standard checkout page, you might not be allowed to add an extra sale. But, with an upsell to the same offer (using SamCart, of course), you may be able to sell an additional $60 product to 30% of your customers.
What does mean for you?
This means more revenue per sale, as well as a higher average order size, which ultimately leads to more money in your pocket.
Sidenote: If you do purchase SamCart, I’d be grateful if you supported me by clicking on this link to purchase.
The countless reviews and testimonials from happy customers speak for themselves:
SamCart is Good for Who?
SamCart is ideal for anyone selling stuff online. SamCart can be used to sell physical or digital products, such as books, courses, seminars, or events. You can even use it to sell services, such as consulting services on your website.
However, unlike other shopping cart software, it is specifically designed for a specific user. This means it will not be suitable for all.
So, depending on whether you sell information products, software, memberships, or services, read on to discover the different features and functionality of SamCart so you can determine whether or not it’s the ideal shopping cart for you.
SamCart Pros and Cons
SamCart, like all other software, comes with its own set of pros and cons. I have listed them below so you know exactly what to expect from this shopping cart.
SamCart Pros
- User-Friendly PlatformSamCart allows you to sell physical and digital products online using a simple platform.
- Integrations The software can be integrated with many marketing tools and services via Zapier.
- Flexible Payment models: SamCart offers flexible payment options, including subscriptions and payment plans.
- Supports One-Click Upsells: You can use one-click upsells, downsells, and even “bumps” to boost your revenue.
- Granular Coupons and Discounts Control: You have granular control over how you use coupons and discounts for your products.
- Affiliate Management – SamCart offers an integrated affiliate program management system that is comparable to other shopping carts. This will help you manage your affiliate program quickly and easily.
- Great Support: SamCart has a vast knowledge base to help you with all types of issues. You can also get support through email, Facebook group, and live chat.
- Analytics and Reporting: The platform offers an impressive reporting dashboard that gives you useful insights from your data.
SamCart demo available. Click Here to get a FREE demo
SamCart Cons
- Not Great For Services:SamCart doesn’t work well for selling services. You can still make it work by being creative in the name of your offer.
- Limited Design Options: SamCart’s checkout templates design options are not as extensive as other shopping cart software within the same price range.
- You cannot accept cryptocurrency payments using SamCart. Apple Pay is not available.
- Very Few Payment Integrations: Although SamCart offers a lot of payment options, it only integrates with a few payment processors like Stripe and PayPal.
- High price:SamCart offers a wide range of features but is still expensive for small businesses and individuals. This is especially true when compared with platforms such as ThriveCart which offer their services for a one time payment.
Top SamCart Functionality
SamCart’s functionality is what might convince you to choose it over other shopping cart software. This is where its true strengths lie.
Below, we take a look at each of SamCart’s functions, so you can get a better idea of why SamCart is different from the rest, and how it can be of benefit to your business.
One-Click Upsells
This is one of the main features that differentiate SamCart from the rest. The platform has one-click upsells that help you maximize your profits from each sale you make.
You’re wasting a lot of money if you don’t use upsells in your sales funnel. The world’s biggest retailer, Amazon, reports that SamCart makes upselling easy and seamless, and according to their website, once you set it up, it will increase your customer value by up to 68.1%.
Bump Offers
SamCart offers cross-selling order bumps. This strategy, also known as “bundling” is where you bundle the main product or service with complementary products to increase the profits from each sale.
An example of this concept at work is when McDonald’s offers you fries and drinks with your burgers. You might also be eligible for a half-off gym membership if you buy sports equipment.
So, for instance, if you sell laptops using SamCart shopping cart software, you might also offer bump offers of laptop bags, antivirus packages (Avast could really use this) , etc. This is a great way to increase customer value.
SamCart makes it easy with just one click. All you have to do is set it up, and the platform will do the rest to get customers to make the purchase through its optimized checkout process.
You can check out these pages
Samcart’s checkout platform currently has 18 professionally-designed shopping cart templates. All of these have been proven to convert.
All the pages are mobile responsive and they have a unique “sandbox” mode that allows you to check that everything is working perfectly before going live. This is different from other shopping cart software, where you actually have to publish your page and then test it.
A lot of well-known marketers use SamCart which means that you will be able to avoid having to spend countless hours designing and testing checkout pages on your own. You can simply take the word of the experts that came before you and leverage their hard work to start seeing immediate results in your marketing and sales campaigns.
SamCart’s checkout templates include testimonials, security reassurances and guarantees. These trust elements are designed to increase conversion rates.
SamCart demo available. Click Here to get a FREE demo
All you have to do is pick a template to use, and then customize it to match your brand colors and style.
One-page Checkout
This is a unique feature that offers you the ability to add multiple payment options to a single checkout page.
Here’s an example of what that looks like:
For instance, if you are selling an online course for $447, you can use SamCart to offer your customers a payment plan whereas, on other shopping cart pages, you might have to use separate checkout pages to achieve that.
SamCart’s one-page checkout keeps visitors on the page as they decide on the best way to pay for your product.
You, as an online marketer, know how important it is to keep your visitors on your site. If they leave, you could lose them all together.
Affiliate Center
SamCart makes it easy for you to not only sell your products online but also to enlist a whole army of affiliates who will promote your stuff and increase your revenue.
The platform’s affiliate management function is so powerful that you don’t even need to spend time promoting products or services.
Affiliates are a great way to promote your product or service without having to spend money on advertising or other marketing. You only pay them once you make a sale.
Subscription Saver
If you sell subscription products online, this is one SamCart feature that you will find extremely appealing.
You know that not everyone pays their bills on time. Some missed payments might be due to credit cards that simply expired, or it might be unscrupulous people who decline charges or cancel their cards to avoid honoring their obligations.
It doesn’t matter what the reason is, it’s bad for the marketer. Often times you won’t be able to get your money, unless you take legal action against the customer.
SamCart helps to guard you against expired credit cards and declined payments by sending your customers an email on your behalf whenever a payment fails.
In the email, there will be a link where customers can update their payment information on file straight from their inbox. This will save you time and prevent you from spending valuable time trying to find customers who have not paid their bills.
SamCart will automatically cancel a customer’s subscription if they fail to update their payment information. After receiving multiple emails, SamCart marks them as “delinquent”. This allows you to identify the person and contact them if necessary.
You can keep tabs on what’s going on in Subscription Saver via SamCart’s simple and effective dunning report.
A/B Testing
Split testing is a common practice among marketers. Split testing can be especially helpful if you have a high cart abandonment rate. Even a small improvement can result in a huge increase in your revenue.
This goes for your blog post headlines, opt-in pages, email subject lines, sales pages, and pretty much anything else you can think of.
However, very few marketers bother to test their checkout pages. It is absurd that anyone would ignore this important aspect of their sales funnel when they consider how much you can make.
Luckily, SamCart makes this part easy, as well. You can even run live A/B tests on your pages, a feature that is unique as far as shopping cart pages go.
There are tons of different things you can test on SamCart, such as changing the template, trying out a different guarantee/testimonial, etc., removing fields (tests have shown that the fewer fields you have, the better), and much more.
SamCart demo available. Click Here to get a FREE demo
SamCart Integrations
SamCart offers a wide range of integrations that will allow you to connect your shopping cart to the rest of your marketing stack.
Here are some of the main integrations on the platform:
Payment Providers: One of the first things you’re prompted to do once you log into SamCart is to set up your payment processor. So far, there are only two options available, but SamCart is working on adding new integrations to the shopping cart platform. It’s also important to note that there are no cryptocurrency payments, such as bitcoin, or mobile payments, such as Apple Pay on the platform.
Email Marketing Providers: For most marketers, email marketing is among the most important integrations to consider before choosing a shopping cart solution. The good news is, SamCart supports a lot of email marketing solutions, including iContact, HubSpot, Ontraport, Active Campaign, MailChimp, and Drip.
Membership platforms:SamCart supports many membership platforms including Thinkific and Post Affiliate Pro as well as WishList Member, Digital Access Pass and Optimize Member.
Webinar Platforms: If you host webinars as part of your marketing strategy, you can use SamCart’s checking-out software to sell your products and services. Although there currently aren’t any native integrations for webinar platforms on SamCart, the software easily integrates with Zapier which allows you to connect to a wide range of webinar platforms, including GoToWebinar and WebinarJam.
Fulfillment Services: If you sell physical products using SamCart shopping cart software, you only have one option available to you for fulfillment: ShipStation. Zapier allows you to link to many other fulfillment systems, which can be tailored to your business’s needs.
SamCart Alternatives
There are many shopping cart options available today, as we have already mentioned.
SamCart is just one of many, and although it has amazing features and functionality, there are a few others that can give this platform a run for its money.
Listed below are four SamCart alternatives, and depending on the specific features you need for your business, these may prove to be a better (or worse) option. This post has more alternatives.
SamCart vs. ThriveCart
Note : You can find my SamCart and ThriveCart Comparison Review here
ThriveCart, an online shopping cart software for e-commerce websites, is available. It has many of the same features that SamCart has, including one-click upsells, affiliate management center, etc.
But, SamCart does have significantly more features than ThriveCart. SamCart’s only advantage over ThriveCart is in price.
SamCart can be purchased at a monthly cost, but you can also get ThriveCart by paying a $495 one-time fee.
This is one of the many reasons why a lot of digital marketers prefer this SamCart alternative over all the rest.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that ThriveCart integrates with most of the major payment processing systems available right now, whereas SamCart only integrates with PayPal and Stripe.
SamCart vs. PayKickStart
PayKickStart allows you to easily manage your online business with a flexible shopping cart.
The software includes features like a page builder for sales funnels, powerful page editors, and pop-ups for checkout forms. You can integrate PayKickstart with Braintree, Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.net, and Easy Pay Direct.
This is the one main difference between PayKickStart and SamCart. All other aspects are the same.
Both platforms are compatible with multiple currencies and languages. Both platforms provide deep, actionable insights via a robust reporting dashboard. They also make it easy to set up shopping carts. They each come with a smart dashboard, conversion tools, affiliate center, and robust apps integration.
PayKickStart offers four subscription plans when it comes to pricing: Basic $99/month; Growth $199/month; Scale $299/month and a custom plan which will be customized to your business.
Compared to SamCart’s price, which starts at just $49/month, it’s easy to see why most marketers are drawn to SamCart over PayKickStart.
SamCart vs. Shift4Shop (formerly 3D Cart)
Shift4Shop is a renowned e-commerce platform that was established over two decades ago. It has many features that allow you to easily create optimized checkout pages for better conversions.
This makes it a good alternative to SamCart, particularly for anyone who wants a wider variety of checkout page templates to choose from. Shift4Shop offers over 50 templates free of charge, which include all the elements and features you need to increase your conversions.
You will get more templates if you select a higher-level plan. The premium templates are mobile responsive, ensuring excellent viewing experiences for your mobile customers.
Shift4Shop allows you to promote products on social media. All plans include $50 in ad credits that will help you reach a larger audience on various social media platforms.
Shift4Shop prices range from $19/month in “Startup” shops to $229/month in “Pro” shops.
SamCart vs. Clickfunnels
You can read my in-depth SamCart vs. Clickfunnels comparison here.
You can also use Clickfunnels to create beautiful checkout pages.
It supports a wide range of payment processors including Stripe and PayPal. It supports many email marketing and automation tools such as Ontraport, Infusionsoft, and NMI.
Clickfunnels offers more functionality than other shopping cart software. You can create landing pages and shopping cart pages.
This means, in essence, that it’s a lot more than just a shopping cart. It is an A-Z sales funnel which eliminates the need to use a lot of marketing tools for people who want to sell products or services online.
I’ve also written this SamCart vs. Shopify Comparison.
Samcart isn’t the only one with checkout functionality. Systems like Aweber, Convertkit, Kajabi, and more. These platforms are great for their intended purpose but not as focused as Samcart.
Pricing
SamCart offers four plans:
- Launch: $49/month
- Grow $99/month
- Scale – $199/month
- Enterprise: 399/month
Pricing is straightforward, and each plan has the same features as the one before.
You get the Launch plan and the Grow plan.
The same goes if you opt for the Scale plan. All the features of the Grow plan are available, along with additional features such as the dunning tool and affiliate center, CRM integrations and A/B testing.
Every plan includes a 14-day trial and a 30-day guarantee. Additional discounts are available if you pay annually.
Support for Product
SamCart provides support via email, chat and Facebook groups. The site also has detailed documentation. It also features an intuitive interface that makes it easy to navigate.
SamCart demo available. Click Here to get a FREE demo
Here is a more detailed look at the support offered by SamCart.
Intuitive Interface: From the time you log on to the platform, you will be guided on the steps to take to help you get set up as quickly as possible.
Help Center: SamCart has a thorough knowledge base with written posts and video tutorials to help you solve any type of potential issues you might come up against.
Live Chat: If you have a pressing problem, SamCart offers support via live chat. SamCart support is responsive to all requests, despite the fact that the response time may vary.
Facebook Group: SamCart has a huge Facebook community of over 24,000 members and includes a support team that will happily answer all your questions on Facebook.
Email Support: Although SamCart doesn’t offer direct contact to the support team, they do offer email support during business hours (that is, 9 AM to 5 PM ET weekdays).
FAQ
What’s Samcart?
Samcart is an online shopping cart that allows you to sell both digital products, online services, and can even be used to sell physical products. You can create sales pages, marketing channels, run an affiliate programme, and much more with Samcart. Through excellent marketing and widespread adoption from business owners everwhere, Samcart is the leading online shopping cart on the market.
What is Samcart used for?
Samcart can be used across many industries. Samcart is a tool that can be used to help individuals sell products or services online. They have solutions for course creators, authors, coaches/consultants, agencies, side hustlers, amazon and Etsy sellers, Physical product sellers, entrepreneurs, and even non-profits.
How do you integrate SamCart with Zapier
Zapier allows you to integrate SamCart. This will allow you to instantly connect to over 3,000 marketing automation apps and tools to automate your work, increase productivity, and improve your bottom line.
SamCart Can Handle VAT
SamCart helps keep your online tax simple. SamCart automatically calculates the correct tax rates for your customers and charges sales tax accordingly.
SamCart allows coupon codes
SamCart allows you to use coupons. It also offers one of the most precise control features (compared with other shopping cart software) over how coupons are used for products and services.
Instead of one coupon being applied to all your products, you can apply a coupon to a specific product and a differentcoupon for other products within the same sales funnel.
Can You A/B Test Checkout Pages in SamCart?
SamCart offers a powerful A/B testing tool that will help you increase your conversions. To find the best version for your customers, you can test all aspects of your checkout page. You can also find detailed tutorials and a step by step process for split testing on the platform.
Does SamCart have a Money Back Guarantee?
SamCart offers a 30-day money-back guarantee if you decide that the software is not for you. To avoid paying an extra month, cancel your subscription at least a few days in advance. The platform also offers a free 14-day trial, which will make it less likely that you will need a refund since you’ll have the chance to get to know the platform in-depth before opting for any of the premium plans.
How Does SamCart Pay You?
With regards to affiliate commissions, SamCart doesn’t pay you. Rather, you get your payments directly from the vendor or your affiliate manager on the platform. Payments will be made using any of the supported payment methods, such as PayPal, and Stripe.
Is SamCart Legit?
SamCart is definitely legit for digital marketers who want to sell services or products (both physical and digital) online.
It’s an affordable shopping cart software that makes it easy to optimize each of your sales through the use of various payment models, discounts, coupons, and bump offers so you can increase your revenue.
SamCart is a valuable tool that is easy to set up and makes a great addition to any online business.
If you do decide to try SamCart, I’d be greatly appreciative if you use this link to suppo