SamCart Review [2020]: Pros, Cons, and Alternatives (From Real Users)

If you’re looking for an in-depth SamCart review, you’re in the right place.

Odds are, if you’re here, you’re starting a business, or you have an existing business with a product or service you want to sell. It’s likely, you’re looking for something that can help you:

• Provide a smooth checkout experience for your clients
• Improve your sales conversion rates in your business
• Have detailed analytics to watch things like lifetime customer value, retention, or sales volume
• Recoup customers who have bought from you before
• Or, start an affiliate program and manage it with ease

SamCart is a market leader when it comes to providing an online checkout solution, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best solution for YOU. In this article, my goal is to help you decide if SamCart is the right solution for you.

What is SamCart?

SamCart is an online shopping cart solution. You can use it to:

• Sell products
• Sell services
• Accept recurring payments
• Sell memberships
• Accept donations or payments of varying amounts
• Run an affiliate program
• Create landing pages with the checkout on the page
• Track analytics
• and, Manage affiliates

How does SamCart Work?

Explaining how SamCart works is best with an example, so here goes one…

Let’s say you want to start selling your product or service virtually. As a result, you can’t worry about having customers check out with a cash register or calling to take credit card info.

Instead, you need a link, you can send to them that’s simple for them to pay you.

With SamCart, you can create pages with their drag-and-drop builder. You can customize them by adding videos, product mockups, FAQs, money back guarantees, progress bars, countdown timers, colors, branding, and of course, great copy.

What does SamCart Integrate with?

SamCart integrates with many:

• Email marketing solutions
• CRM solutions
• Accounting and bookkeeping software options
• Online course platforms
• Affiliate management solutions
• And more

Within SamCart, you can connect software like Convertkit, Aweber, Thinkific, and others. When you connect SamCart to Zapier, it adds a huge level of flexibility with what you can do and how you can automate.

How do I get Started with SamCart?

SamCart gives you the chance to try before you buy. You can sign up for the software for free, and try the service for 14 days before paying anything–this can ensure it satisfies your use-case.

Who is SamCart For?

SamCart is best for:

• Product-based businesses who prefer to showcase products individually (rather than in a storefront-type of style)
• Service-based businesses who want a simple checkout option
• Businesses who want to display pricing on their checkout pages; rather than having several page-sequences prior to revealing pricing
• Those who want to accept recurring payment or donations
• Those who want to benefit from upsells, downsells, and order bumps
• Those who use software that integrates with SamCart
• Those who want to improve sales conversion rates on products and services they’re selling elsewhere
• Those who would appreciate the training and support that comes along with SamCart

SamCart Tools and Training

Brian Moran, the founder of SamCart, offers lots of training. They have a Facebook group, a Slack channel, lots of digital products and courses, and 1-on-1 support offered to the higher tier plans.

SamCart Support

SamCart offers email and ticket support. For higher tier plans, you also get onboarding and an account manager to help you along the way.

What does SamCart do Well

• SamCart offers a high-quality shopping cart solution
• The 1-page sales funnel is simple, yet proven effective
• Their 1-page funnels boast very high conversion rates
• They give you the ability to split test landing pages, offers, upsells, downsells, and order bumps
• It integrates with several leading software options
• It can be completely white-labeled
• The support on the higher tier plans is very tailored to help you achieve your goals with the software
• The affiliate center gives detailed information to affiliates, so you can serve higher level affiliates well
• The subscription saver features help you to recoup clients who are set up on recurring payments
• SamCart will automatically remind customers of things like expired credit cards, upcoming payments, or payment problems

What doesn’t SamCart do Well

• For those that like them, SamCart does not offer multi-step sales funnels
• SamCart doesn’t offer a way to checkout for free without entering billing info
• SamCart offers digital product delivery, but delivering online courses may be better suited on a learning management platform
• SamCart doesn’t offer a retail marketplace look

SamCart Review Roundup

I’ve compiled a summary of the positive and negative reviews I’ve found of SamCart, so you can decide if it satisfies your goals.

Common Positive SamCart Reviews

• SamCart offers amazing support
• They are receptive to customer feedback and constantly adding more advanced features
• They integrate with lots of software options and continue adding integrations
• The abandoned cart and subscription saver features have added lots of revenue
• The 1-page funnel makes it easier for customers to checkout
• It’s easy to pay affiliates by downloading the CSV from SamCart
• Customers speak of making lots of money b simplifying their checkout process and having a reliable solution
• It gives a high return on investment
• It’s awesome how you can split test offers, upsells, downsells, and order bumps
• Processing refunds is easy, and it’s nice that you can process partial or full refunds
• You can input Facebook Pixels, Google code, and other snippets so you can manage your ads and track your return on ad spend
• The page builder is very customizable

Common Negative SamCart Reviews

• It would be nice to manage billing on our own
• Support can vary
• It’s an expensive option
• There are several BBB complaints related to billing (customers who wanted to request a refund or customers who had trouble ending their accounts). It appears that SamCart is very responsive to the complaints and making sure customers reach an agreement.

Most Helpful Positive Review

With over $12,000 in transactions in a single day and just shy of $750,000 in customer orders through SamCart I’ve experienced zero errors…

This is truly remarkable and none of the ‘all-in-on’ funnel systems have this good of a track record (because they are trying to do too many things!)

SamCart has the lowest number of failed payments out of any cart processor I’ve ever tried and works perfect with PayPal and Stripe both.

Miles Beckler

Most Helpful Negative Review

The most helpful negative reviews are on the BBB website. Several customers decided to buy into SamCart without having products or services to sell, or without having knowledge of how to build a sales funnel. It’s important to pass the concept phase before investing in products or services like SamCart. If you’re not clear about what product or service to sell, you shouldn’t buy SamCart.

SamCart vs. Others

The leading shopping cart solutions are SamCart, Clickfunnels, Woocommerce, and Shopify. Based on popularity, Shopify and Woocommerce are definitely most popular.

SamCart vs. Clickfunnels

• SamCart and Clickfunnels approach the sales funnel two different ways. Clickfunnels has several steps and different pages, whereas, SamCart offers trust-building and conversion on a single page
• Clickfunnels and SamCart have strong media brands and lots of founder involvement
• Clickfunnels limits the number of funnels you can create and products you can sell using the software. As the pricing plan is bigger, you’re able to create more funnels and sell more products
• SamCart has no limit on the number of products you can sell or funnels you can create
• With SamCart, you can white-label your sales pages, and with Clickfunnels, it’s easier to identify the software
• They both offer shopping carts, affiliate management, subscription management, landing pages, and training

SamCart vs. Shopify

Shopify offers an online retail experience that’s scalable for a small number of offers, or for a large number of offers. It’s a leading shopping cart option.

When comparing Shopify and SamCart, it seems that the two software work best for two different audiences. SamCart works best for businesses who don’t want the retail feel, whereas, Shopify is best for retail companies.

Added to that, Shopify can be used for affiliate products or drop-shipping products, whereas, SamCart doesn’t work for affiliate sales, and would be harder to use as a dropshipper (because it doesn’t auto-populate with software like Oberlo).

SamCart vs. Kartra

Kartra is an all-in-one solution that gives email marketing, landing pages, memberships, and more. Since it offers a broad range of features, it doesn’t offer the depth of features at checkout as SamCart. It also requires more risk because it’s harder to move away if you invest so much effort on one platform.

SamCart vs. ThriveCart

ThriveCart is a very comparable shopping cart solution. Customers prefer SamCart for their free trial, their ongoing development, and their brand. They’ve established a large amount of educational materials on Youtube and podcasts that helps to inform entrepreneurs about SamCart, whereas, ThriveCart is newer to the market.

Customers who prefer ThriveCart usually do so because they offer a one-time payment (no recurring costs), and at one point, they had more features and integrations than SamCart. The two software offer similar features. In fact, of all competing software, it seems that ThriveCart and SamCart are the most similar, but ThriveCart doesn’t sell the software all the time.

Before becoming a SamCart customer, I considered ThriveCart, but it wasn’t for sale, and reviews seemed to point out limitations with the landing page customization options and analytics. Added to that, they don’t have a trial or a demo that clearly helps to disregard the mixed reviews.

Miles Beckler is a professional marketer, and a customer of both software options. When comparing the two shopping cart options, he’s said:

Now, SamCart is not the cheap option, but a true professional who is optimizing and scaling their business needs the best of the best.

If you want a cheap alternative, try ThriveCart.

You sacrifice customization and testing ability, but you will save $500 – $1500/year.

For me, I earn much more back from my funnel testing, checkout split tests and advanced automations to make the monthly fee for PRO well worth it.

SamCart vs. Podia (Or, Learning Management Checkout Experiences)

I’m a customer of Podia and SamCart. I’ve also reviewed many other learning management solutions. What makes SamCart advantageous as a shopping cart solution in comparison to Podia or other learning management solutions are:

• The ease and simplicity of the 1-page checkout
• Some learning management options have a more complicated checkout process that makes it more difficult for customers to pay
• The backend analytics
• The integrations and automations
• Most don’t offer upsells, downsells, order bumps, and things that can help optimize revenue
• Podia does not, but many learning management solutions limit the # of products you sell, charge processing fees, or limit the number of students or pageviews you can have
• Podia does not, but some learning management software don’t offer options for digital product sales

As a result, it’s common to see course creators who use their learning management solution to deliver their courses, and SamCart to deliver the checkout experience.

How Much Does SamCart Cost?

SamCart has four plans that range from $47/mo to $399/mo for Enterprise-level plans. They each vary in the amount of features that are offered. You can see the current pricing by going here.

My Final Opinion about SamCart

I signed up to start using SamCart after having several customers who were confused by my membership checkout on Podia. I decided to test and see if my sales would improve if I kept my course delivery at Podia, and offered SamCart as the checkout. When I switched my checkout to SamCart, I was able to get sales during my 14-day trial period.

My customers found the SamCart checkout experience to be simple, and I haven’t received complaints since.

Although SamCart has worked well for me, it’s not for everyone. It seems the BBB complaints are mostly from customers who signed up for SamCart too early in their business growth journeys; before they had products and services to sell, and they didn’t get their returns as a result.

I would recommend SamCart to entrepreneurs who have products and services to sell, and who have an established audience to sell to, but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone whose starting out (unless you have the money to sustain the costs before making a profit) because it’s a high overhead cost to maintain for most startup entrepreneurs.

If you already have consistent sales of your product or service, and you’re looking for ways to monitor your sales better, split test and improve conversions, or have more convenience for customers, SamCart could be a great solution for you. You can try it out with a 14-day free trial, and see if it satisfies your use-case.

Verdict: Recommended