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SamCart is an online shopping cart software that was founded in 2013 by Scott and Brian Moran. 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 really live up to the hype?
In this SamCart review, I am going to share my experience with this software: who it’s good for, it’s pros and cons, and whether or not it’s worth it for your business.
SamCart: Is it worth it?
Want to see a demo of SamCart in action? Click Here to get a FREE demo
SamCart I believe is a great investment. It offers tons of features, compared to other shopping cart platforms, and is optimized to increase conversions , which in turn will boost 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.
You can read the many testimonials and reviews from satisfied customers to see for yourself.
Who is SamCart Good For?
SamCart is perfect for anyone who sells stuff online. From physical products to digital products like courses, events, books, and seminars. You can even use it to sell services, such as consulting services on your website.
But, like all other shopping cart software, it’s specifically designed for a certain kind of user, which means that it won’t be ideal for everyone.
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. These are the pros and cons of SamCart. I’ve listed them below to help you understand what to expect from this shopping basket.
SamCart Pros
- User-Friendly Platform: SamCart is a user-friendly platform for selling both physical and digital products online.
- Integrations: The software integrates with a ton of marketing tools and services through Zapier.
- Flexible Payment models: SamCart offers flexible payment options, including subscriptions and payment plans.
- One-Click Upsells Supported: You can use one-click upsells and downsells to increase your revenue.
- Granular Coupons & Discounts Control: You have complete control over the way you use coupons or discounts on your products.
- Affiliate Management: SamCart has an in-built affiliate marketing program management system that rivals 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.
- Reporting and Analytics: The platform has an impressive reporting dashboard that provides you with useful insights from your data..
Want to see a demo of SamCart in action? Click Here for a free demo
SamCart Cons
- Not Great for Services: SamCart isn’t well-suited for selling services. However, you can still do so by being creative with how you name 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. It also doesn’t have Apple Pay.
- 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 particularly true when compared to platforms like ThriveCart that 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.
We take a look below at each function of SamCart, to give you a better understanding of what makes SamCart different and how it can benefit your business.
One-Click Upsells
This is what makes SamCart stand out from other platforms. You can maximize your profit from every sale with the platform’s one-click upsells
If you are not using upsells as part of your sales funnel, then you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. The world’s biggest retailer, Amazon, reports that SamCart makes it easy to upsell. According to their website, it will increase customer value up to 68%.
Bump Offers
SamCart also offers you 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. as a way to increase your 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.
Checkout 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. Take the advice of others and use their experience to see immediate results in your sales and marketing campaigns.
All the checkout page templates on SamCart also come with built-in testimonials, security reassurances, guarantees, and various other trust elements designed to boost conversion rates.
Want to see a demo of SamCart in action? Click Here to get a FREE demo
You simply need to choose a template and customize it to your brand’s style and colors.
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:
SamCart can be used to sell an online course at $447. On other shopping cart pages you may have to use separate checkout pages.
SamCart’s single-page checkout keeps customers on the page while they choose the best payment method for their 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.
There is no need to pay for ads or any other type of marketing because with affiliates spreading the word on your product or service, it’s an easy way to generate sales since you only have to pay affiliates once they produce a sale for you.
Subscription Saver
This SamCart feature is very appealing if you are selling subscription products online.
As you well know, not everyone pays on time, every 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.
Regardless of the reason why payments don’t go through, it’s bad news for the marketer because oftentimes you can’t get your money (barring taking legal action against the customer).
SamCart protects you from expired credit cards or declined payments. SamCart sends your customers an email whenever a payment is not received.
In the email, there will be a link where customers can update their payment information on file straight from their inbox. This saves you from having to waste valuable time chasing down customers who have failed to make their payments.
For those customers who fail to update their payment information after receiving several emails, SamCart automatically cancels their subscription and marks them as “delinquent” so you know exactly who they are and can choose to reach out to them if you want to.
You can keep tabs on what’s going on in Subscription Saver via SamCart’s simple and effective dunning report.
A/B Testing
All marketers have a good idea of how important it is to split test everything. Split testing is especially useful if your cart abandonment rate is high. A small increase can make a big difference 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. When you consider just how much money you stand to make by optimizing your pages, it makes no sense that someone would knowingly ignore such an important part of their sales funnel.
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.
Want to see a demo of SamCart in action? Click Here for 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.
These are the major integrations available on the platform:
Payment Providers The first thing you will be asked to do when you log in to SamCart is to setup your payment processor. SamCart has only two payment options, but they are constantly adding more integrations to the shopping 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. SamCart supports many email marketing solutions including iContact and 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: SamCart’s check-out software can be used to help you sell your products and services if you host webinars . SamCart doesn’t have any native integrations to webinar platforms. However, Zapier allows you to easily connect to a variety of webinar platforms including WebinarJam and GoToWebinar.
Fulfillment services: If you are selling physical products with SamCart shopping cart software you only have one option for fulfillment: ShipStation. However, with Zapier, you can link out to a variety of other fulfillment systems to suit your business 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.
Below are four SamCart alternatives. These options may be better or worse depending on what you need. If you’re looking for more options, check out this post which has more alternatives.
SamCart vs. ThriveCart
Note: You can read my full SamCart vs ThriveCart 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.
SamCart has a lot more features than ThriveCart. The one place where ThriveCart outshines SamCart is on price.
SamCart can be purchased at a monthly cost, but you can also get ThriveCart by paying a $495 one-time fee.
This is just one reason why many digital marketers prefer SamCart over the other.
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 is a flexible shopping cart that will help you power your online business in an affordable way.
The software includes features like a page builder for sales funnels, powerful page editors, and pop-ups for checkout forms. PayKickstart can be integrated with Braintree and Stripe, PayPal and Authorize.net.
This is the main difference between SamCart and PayKickStart. Everything else is pretty much the same.
Both platforms support multiple languages and currencies. Both platforms provide deep, actionable insights via a robust reporting dashboard. They also make it easy to set up shopping carts. Each comes with a smart dashboard and conversion tools.
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.
It is a great alternative to SamCart for those who want a greater selection of templates for their checkout pages. Shift4Shop offers over 50 templates free of charge, which include all the elements and features you need to increase your conversions.
When you choose a higher-level plan, you will have access to even more templates. The premium templates are mobile responsive, ensuring excellent viewing experiences for your mobile customers.
Shift4Shop also allows you to promote your products on social media, and all the plans come with $50 ad credits to get you started reaching a wider audience on different social media platforms.
Prices for Shift4Shop range from $19/month for “Startup” stores to $229/month for “Pro” stores.
SamCart vs. Clickfunnels
You can find my SamCart and 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.
It’s more than 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.
Also, I wrote this Shopify Comparison.
Samcart isn’t the only one with checkout functionality. Systems like Aweber, Convertkit, Kajabi, and more. As good as these platforms can be for their intending purpose, they aren’t nearly as focused as Samcart is.
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. You get all the features available in the Grow plan, as well as additional features like the dunning tool, affiliate center, CRM integrations, and A/B testing.
Each plan comes with a 14-day free trial, as well as a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you pay yearly, you get additional discounts on the fees outlined above.
Product Support
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 for a free demo
Here is a more detailed look at the support offered by SamCart.
Intuitive Interface From the moment you log in to the platform, you’ll be guided through the steps necessary to get you set up as quickly and easily as possible.
Help Centre: SamCart offers a comprehensive knowledge base, including written posts and videos to assist you in solving any potential problems you may face.
Live Chat: If you come up against a problem that requires urgent assistance, you can get support via SamCart’s live chat. SamCart support is responsive to all requests, despite the fact that the response time may vary.
Facebook Group:SamCart boasts a large Facebook community with over 24,000 members. It also has a support team who will gladly answer any questions you may have 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 allows you to sell digital products and online services. It can also be used to sell physical items. It allows you to create sales pages, marketing funnels, run an affiliate program, ecommerce, and more. 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 in a number of different ways across a number of different 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
You can integrate SamCart with Zapier, which will then allow you to instantly connect with over 3,000 marketing automation tools and apps to help you automate your work, supercharge your productivity, and boost your bottom line.
Can SamCart Handle VAT?
SamCart makes it easy to manage your online taxes. SamCart automatically calculates the correct tax rates for your customers and charges sales tax accordingly.
SamCart allows coupon codes
SamCart not only allows coupons, but the platform also has one of the most granular control features (compared to other shopping cart software) over the way you use coupons for your 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 has a robust A/B testing feature designed to help you boost your conversions. You can test every aspect of your checkout page to find out which versions work best with your audience. The platform also has in-depth tutorials for those who are new to split testing and provides a step-by-step process to help you hit the ground testing.
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. Instead, the vendor or your platform manager will pay you. All supported payment methods are accepted, including Stripe and PayPal.
Is SamCart Legit?
SamCart is a great tool for digital marketers looking to sell products or services online.
It is an affordable shopping cart software which allows you to optimize your sales by using various payment models, discounts and coupons.
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