freshbooks and samcart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL7ggP2EsjY

SamCart, an online shopping cart software, was created by Scott Moran and Brian Moran in 2013. Although it’s been around for some time, it has become more popular in recent years.

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?

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.

Table of Contents

SamCart: Is it worth it?

SamCart demo available. Click Here to get 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 this mean for you?

This results in more revenue per sales and higher order sizes. In the end, more money in your pockets.

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.

SamCart is Good for Who?

SamCart is ideal for anyone selling stuff online. From physical products to digital products like courses, events, books, and seminars. It can also be used to sell services such as consulting 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 & Cons

SamCart has its pros and cons, just like any other software. 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

  1. User-Friendly Platform: SamCart is a user-friendly platform for selling both physical and digital products online.
  2. Integrations The software can be integrated with many marketing tools and services via Zapier.
  3. Flexible Payment models: SamCart offers flexible payment options, including subscriptions and payment plans.
  4. One-Click Upsells Supported: You can use one-click upsells and downsells to increase your revenue.
  5. Granular Coupons & Discounts Control: You have complete control over the way you use coupons or discounts on your products.
  6. 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.
  7. Great Support: SamCart has a vast knowledge base to help you with all types of issues. Support can be obtained via email, Facebook group and live chat.
  8. Reporting and Analytics: The platform has an impressive reporting dashboard that provides you with useful insights from your data..

SamCart demo available. Click Here for a free demo

SamCart Cons

  1. 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.
  2. Limited Design Options: SamCart’s checkout templates design options are not as extensive as other shopping cart software within the same price range.
  3. No Cryptocurrency Payments: When using SamCart, you need to find a different method for accepting cryptocurrency payments. It also doesn’t have Apple Pay.
  4. Very Few Payment Integrations: Although SamCart offers a lot of payment options, it only integrates with a few payment processors like Stripe and PayPal.
  5. 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

The one thing that might make you choose SamCart over other types of shopping cart software is its functionality. This is where the real strength of SamCart lies.

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 over a third of its revenue comes from upselling efforts.

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 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. Or, if you purchase sports equipment, you might also get an offer for half price gym membership or something like that.

For example, if you sell laptops with SamCart shopping cart software you might offer bump offers for laptop bags and antivirus packages ( Avast could really benefit from this) This is a great way to increase customer value.

SamCart makes it easy with just one click. It’s easy to set up and customers will make purchases through the optimized checkout process.

You can check out these pages

At the time of this writing, the checkout platform of Samcart has 18 professionally designed shopping cart templates – all of which are 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.

SamCart is used by many well-known marketers. This means you won’t have to spend hours creating and testing checkout pages all 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.

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.

SamCart demo available. 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:

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 one-page checkout keeps visitors on the page as they decide on the best way to pay for your product.

As an online marketer, I’m sure you know the importance of being able to keep your visitors on-page, otherwise, you risk losing them altogether if they leave for any reason.

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.

In fact, the platform’s affiliate management feature is so robust that you don’t even have to spend any time promoting your 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.

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 protects you from expired credit cards or declined payments. SamCart sends your customers an email whenever a payment is not received.

Customers will receive an email with a link to update their payment information. 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.

Subscription Saver’s easy-to-read dunning report from SamCart allows you to keep track of what’s happening.

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. A small increase can make a big difference in your revenue.

This applies to your blog headlines, opt in pages, email subject lines and sales pages.

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.

SamCart makes it easy. Live A/B testing is possible on your pages. This feature is quite unique in the world of shopping cart pages.

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 for a free demo

SamCart Integrations

SamCart has many integrations that allow you to connect your shopping cart with the rest of your marketing strategy.

Here are some of the main integrations 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. You should also note that the platform does not accept cryptocurrency payments such as bitcoin or mobile payments such as Apple Pay.

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 sell physical products using SamCart shopping cart software, you only have one option available to you for fulfillment: ShipStation. However, with Zapier, you can link out to a variety of other fulfillment systems to suit your business needs.

SamCart Alternatives

As previously mentioned, there are tons of shopping cart solutions available on the market today.

SamCart is only one platform, but it’s not the only one.

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. 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 is an online shopping cart software designed for e-commerce sites. It offers many of the same features as SamCart, such as one-click upsells and affiliate management center.

SamCart has a lot 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.

It is also worth mentioning that ThriveCart integrates seamlessly with all major payment processing platforms, while SamCart can only be integrated with Stripe and PayPal.

SamCart vs. PayKickStart

PayKickStart allows you to easily manage your online business with a flexible shopping cart.

The software has features such as a sales funnel page builder, a powerful page editor, and checkout form pop-ups, among others. 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. They offer deep actionable insights through a robust reporting dashboard, and both shopping cart solutions are easy to set up. 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.

SamCart’s monthly price is only $49/month. It’s easy to see why marketers prefer SamCart to 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 has over 50 free templates, each of which contains all the features and elements required to boost 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 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.

It’s more than a shopping cart. It’s an A-Z sales funnel that removes the need for a ton of other marketing tools for anyone who wants to sell services or products online.

Also, I wrote this Shopify Comparison.

Samcart isn’t the only one with checkout functionality. Kajabi, Convertkit and Aweber are just a few of the many systems that offer checkout functionality. These platforms are great for their intended purpose but not as focused as Samcart.

Pricing

SamCart offers four plans:

  • Launch: $49.
  • Grow: $99/month
  • Scale: $199/month
  • Enterprise: 399/month

The pricing structure is simple, and the features available in each plan build on the ones from the previous plan.

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.

Every plan includes a 14-day trial and a 30-day guarantee. If you pay yearly, you get additional discounts on the fees outlined above.

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 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 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 does not offer direct contact with the support team, they offer email support during normal business hours (9 AM to 5 PM ET on weekdays).

FAQ

What is 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. Samcart is the most popular online shopping cart due to its excellent marketing and wide adoption by business owners all over the world.

What is Samcart used for?

Samcart can be used in a number of different ways across a number of different industries. If an individual is trying to sell a product or service online, Samcart can help. 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.

Does SamCart Allow 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.

For instance, instead of having any one coupon applied automatically to all your products, you have the option of applying one coupon to specific products, and a different coupon to other products in the same sales funnel.

SamCart:

SamCart has a robust A/B testing feature designed to help you boost your conversions. To find the best version for your customers, you can test all aspects of your checkout page. 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?

SamCart does not pay affiliate commissions. Rather, you get your payments directly from the vendor or your affiliate manager on the platform. 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