Sam Poyan

Sam Poyan is a writer, blogger, and social media coordinator, with a passion for online commerce. He specialises in researching and writing about digital products online. When he is not writing he enjoys watching football and going on walks with friends.

ClickFunnels vs Shopify – Which Is Best For Conversions In 2021?

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ClickFunnels vs Shopify for eCommerce

I don’t know about you… But I found that a lot of the ClickFunnels vs Shopify comparisons seemed a little biased.

Some were hyping up ClickFunnels like it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Others were saying it lacks the features you need for the dropshipping/eCommerce model.

Strange, that’s a big difference of opinion..!

And choosing the software you want to run your business on is pretty serious…

So, don’t make the mistake of choosing the wrong option — as this can harm your performance later down the line.

That’s why I decided to take a detailed look at both platforms to see which is best. Keep in mind this article mainly focuses on using ClickFunnels and Shopify for eCom, but I’ll also talk about the many other ways you can use these platforms in this article.

Let’s get to it.

ClickFunnels vs Shopify Overview

Here are the main differences between ClickFunnels and Shopify:

  • ClickFunnels is better equipped for building sales funnels, while Shopify is suited for full-navigation stores
  • ClickFunnels has better tools for converting your visitors built-in, such as order bumps, one-click upsells and downsells
  • ClickFunnels has an affiliate management tool built-in, whereas Shopify doesn’t
  • ClickFunnels has (pre-recorded) webinars built-in, whereas Shopify doesn’t
  • ClickFunnels lets you build membership sites, while Shopify doesn’t
  • ClickFunnels has better email marketing tools
  • Shopify has an app store where you can download applications from 3rd party developers
  • Shopify has better options for order fulfillment
  • Shopify’s pricing plans start at a more affordable price
  • Shopify has a mobile app, whereas ClickFunnels doesn’t
  • Shopify has more integrations
Get ClickFunnels 14-Day Free Trial
Get Shopify 14-Day Free Trial

What Is ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels homepage

ClickFunnels is like that popular kid from high school that everyone loves. One of the reasons for this is because of the founder of the platform, Russell Brunson. He’s always front and center explaining how to use funnels effectively, and teaching important marketing concepts, which I think is why so many people love him.

Furthermore, ClickFunnels is known to help business owners increase their conversions by enabling them to build sales funnels in their business. One way it does this is through its sales and marketing features that we’ll take a look at later.

However, what really sets ClickFunnels apart from Shopify in this ClickFunnels vs Shopify debate is its usability and laser-focused conversion tools. You can create a sales funnel that will likely increase your conversions in as little as 20 minutes.

What Is Shopify?

Shopify homepage

Shopify is like the Amazon of the eCommerce world, but for smaller scale store builders. Besides WooCommerce, there really aren’t many competitors that even get close to it when it comes to market share. Bear in mind that ClickFunnels is technically not in this particular race.

Like ClickFunnels, one of the big reasons it became so popular is its ease of use… This is also why you hear so many stories of teens using it to build 6-figure stores out of seemingly thin air.

ClickFunnels Pros

  • The sales funnels tools are perfect for a one-product dropshipping store and will likely help you increase sales
  • It has some outstanding features built-in that most other platforms don’t, which should keep your costs low if you need them
  • It has a library of marketing educational material
  • You will be able to market your products better than with most other platforms
  • It’s easy and straightforward to use; you should be able to build a funnel in 20-30 minutes

ClickFunnels Cons

  • The platinum plan is quite expensive
  • You’re kind of stuck with the features it has (unless you use some of the integrations it has)
  • Fulfillment options make it a bit harder to dropship with ClickFunnels

Shopify Pros

  • It’s made specifically for eCommerce and Dropshipping, so it will have many tools that other platforms don’t
  • It’s easy to use
  • It starts at a low pricing point
  • It has a nice variety of templates
  • You can download and use 3rd party apps, giving you more flexibility in features

Shopify Cons

  • There is a transaction fee
  • It doesn’t come with a lot of built-in features, so you will need to pay extra for all the additional apps and plugins you will need (some of which you will also have to pay monthly for)
  • The URL structure is not entirely customizable

ClickFunnels Features

Now that we have had an introductory look at ClickFunnels vs Shopify, let’s look at their features. We’ll dive into ClickFunnels first and then do the same for Shopify to see how it compares.

ClickFunnels’ Core Offering: The Funnel Builder + Templates

ClickFunnels’ core offering is its funnel builder, and it’s what the platform is mainly known for.

It allows you to build pretty much any type of funnel in just minutes:

  • Lead funnels
  • Sales funnels
  • eCommerce funnels
  • One-click order bump funnels
  • Upsell funnels
  • Membership site funnels
  • Tripwire funnels
  • Webinar funnels
  • And many more

Here’s an image of the funnel library page inside ClickFunnels. As you can see there is a menu on the left hand side where you can search by category. Then, within each category are additional types of funnel templates that are high-converting for that type of business.

ClickFunnels funnel templates

And ClickFunnels has templates for all of these types of funnels, plus the well-optimised landing pages.

For an eCommerce store, this is priceless, as it helps you promote your products very effectively. Sales funnels are usually best for promoting single products (or maybe two or three with upsells).

The way in which ClickFunnels funnels are laid out puts the entire focus on two critical things to get your customers to make a buying decision:

  • What your product can do for them
  • How they can get it

This is the main unique selling point of ClickFunnels because it lets you build these conversion-focused funnels in just under 20-30 minutes.

Most of the stores you build with other tools like Shopify aren’t built like this and risk distracting the user with menus, layouts, and dancing widgets etc.

And ClickFunnels also lets you share your funnels with any other user through a simple link.

This is a pretty useful feature for several reasons. You can use it if you want to migrate your funnel to a new account, sell your funnel, or if it is of some benefit to you to give your funnel away in order to incentivize a sale.

The ClickFunnels editor is really easy to use, and there are a ton of ‘how to’ videos that you can find on YouTube to help you out if you need them.

ClickFunnels editor for an ecommerce template

Checkout and Conversion Focused Tools

What goes hand in hand with ClickFunnels’ funnel builder is its checkout’s and conversion-focused tools. In this regard ClickFunnels is better than Shopify.

ClickFunnels doesn’t only make your visitors focus on your product’s benefits and the steps they need to take in order to make a purchase. It also gives you the tools you need to make offers strategically and effectively.

What I’m talking about is:

  • Order bumps: A little box your visitors can tick to add another product to their cart
  • One-click upsells and downsells: A separate post-purchase page where your visitors can purchase another product with just one click. This works because your funnel already has their payment info saved)
  • Two-step cart
  • Coupons

Let me explain this with an example Checkout process

Imagine you were selling beard growth oil, and you built a funnel for it.

Step 1: In the checkout process, you ask them to enter their email to reveal the one-time pricing. If they enter it and don’t like the price, you can follow up with them and use discounts to push them toward the sale.

Step 2: With the reveal of the pricing also comes a little box that they can tick to purchase a related item (or the same one for a discount). For this example, let’s assume they purchase here, but you can follow up with emails if not because you have their email address.

Step 3:  Here’s where the magic happens – Now your funnel sends them to a separate upsell page. You offer them a subscription to your monthly beard growth club that they can purchase with just one click.

Step 4: If they decline, you could send them to another upsell, or a downsell page.

With this example process, you’re turning that single initial sale into monthly sales. It’s pretty much the same strategy that the dollar shave club used to build its way to a $1 billion valuation.

Plus, if you go to Amazon, you’ll find that they have started using this subscription model too on supplements and similar products.

And there are so many ways you can use this, but I just wanted to give you an idea to show you what’s possible with ClickFunnels.

When using ClickFunnels for eCommerce, this is really the main benefit and what makes it unique compared to other options like Shopify.

Email Marketing

ClickFunnels also comes with some decent email marketing tools. For your eCommerce store, the most important is obviously the transactional emails, which ClickFunnels has. However, ClickFunnels also has a complete autoresponder tool known as ‘Follow-Up Funnels’, which you can use on the Platinum plan.

When comparing ClickFunnels vs Shopify for email marketing, ClickFunnels has more advanced automation sequences and segmentations. This means you’ll be able to send more targeted and automated emails, which should also lead to an increase in conversions.

However, ClickFunnels also has a fantastic list of 3rd party email integrations. So if you want the really advanced features of a dedicated platform, that’s an option.

If you prefer to use a 3rd party autoresponder then you can see the best autoresponders compared here.

Affiliate Management

Another benefit of ClickFunnels is its built-in affiliate management system.

Using this you’ll be able to recruit affiliates that promote your product for you in exchange for a commission.

Affiliate marketing can work great for eCommerce stores, especially if you have good margins, allowing you to pay out decent commissions.

However, it’s not right for every business, so you might want to check out some competitors and see what they’re doing before implementing an affiliate program. But if you do want one, ClickFunnels lets you do so.

Webinars

One feature that you might not need to use for eCommerce is webinars. You might do, but I personally haven’t seen a lot of eCommerce stores use webinars. The exception to this might be if you also have some high ticket products that need a introduction and explanation of all the benefits.

Another way webinar funnels can be useful for eCommerce is if you are launching a new product or hosting an event where you’re showcasing some of your products.

Something to keep here in mind is that ClickFunnels only lets you host live webinars, not pre-recorded ones. However, live webinars are great for building trust and leading people to make a high ticket purchase.

Membership Sites

Another great feature of ClickFunnels is its membership sites. But again, you’re unlikely to use this for your eCommerce store, although you could do—still, it’s a nice feature to have.

If you’re not sure what this is, it’s the ability to host content behind a locked wall, usually videos. Most users who employ this feature use it to host a course, but you could also certainly use it to house specific products.

For example, you might want to create a private members subscription where they get access to your members area. In the members area you could offer a selection of products with special offer price tags, include a free product each month, and perhaps some digital resources such as eBooks or videos on how to get the most out of your product range.

You could also offer your members a unique link to share with their friends to introduce them to your products, in exchange for discount coupons to use for their own purchases.

A private members area is also a great way to introduce customer sot your high ticket products.

Just an idea!

Anyway, ClickFunnels’ membership sites are not far from dedicated platforms like Kajabi, but there’s still room for improvement.

Educational Material (FunnelFlix)

Finally, ClickFunnels comes with a ton of educational material that you can use to grow your business, or train your team:

  • FunnelFlix (The Netflix of sales funnels, as the name suggests)
  • Funnel Hack-A-Thon
  • Additional paid options

I mention this because it should be helpful for you, especially if you’re looking to make the most out of your sales funnels.

Russell Brunson and the team will teach you the concepts and use cases of sales funnels in more detail, so you can take them and apply them to your own store.

FunnelFlix library1
FunnelFlix Library2

What ClickFunnels Has That Shopify Doesn’t

To recap, I have explained what ClickFunnels has that Shopify doesn’t have, below:

Checkout and Funnel Features

The main selling point for ClickFunnels vs Shopify is the checkout and funnel features. Again, this is the way the sales funnel is built, and of course the conversion features such as:

  • Order bumps
  • One-click upsells
  • Downsells
  • Two-step carts
  • Two-step cart

With Shopify, you’ll need a 3rd party app to get these features, and that can get quite costly when you add everything up. Plus, it would also not be as easy to use as ClickFunnels.

Other Built-in Features

Besides the funnel builder and the cart checkouts, ClickFunnels also has the following features that Shopify doesn’t:

  • Webinars
  • Affiliate management
  • Membership sites
  • Better email marketing

I would describe these as “big features,” as dedicated platforms for these can cost you $50+ per month. And if you do need them, using ClickFunnels might actually be the more affordable option.

If you still want more detailed info on ClickFunnels then you can read my in-depth ClickFunnels review here.

Shopify Features

Now that we have taken a look at ClickFunnels’ features, let’s dive into how a Shopify store compares.

Shopify Core Offering; eCommerce Store Builder + Templates

Shopify’s core offering is its eCommerce store builder. Similar to ClickFunnels’ funnel builder, this is what Shopify is known for. However, the key difference compared to ClickFunnels is that it’s not suited for sales funnels, but instead, full navigation stores.

This means if you are looking to build an online store with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of products, a Shopify store will be better suited. This is also because of the fulfillment integrations that it has, which ClickFunnels doesn’t.

I also found that Shopify’s templates will be better suited for most eCommerce stores. You simply have a wide variety of styles, and it’s more tailored towards them. Then again, that is because Shopify was made for eCom, while that isn’t ClickFunnels’ core purpose.

That being said, if you have a large store with lots of product lines, but you also want to improve the conversions of a few of your top sellers, then you could build your store on Shopify AND also use ClickFunnels for the advanced funnel features. Afterall, Shopify does integrate with ClickFunnels.

Shopify theme finder
More Shopify themes

App Store

Next is Shopify’s app store, which is similar to WordPress plugins.

In my opinion, this is one of the best Shopify features. This is because it gives you so much flexibility in what you can do with the platform. With ClickFunnels, you’re limited to the features it has, and its integrations list.

On the other hand, Shopify allows you to install 3rd party apps, which means you can add functions to the platform. For example, you can add an app for managing and displaying customer reviews in real-time for social proof, whereas, with ClickFunnels, this isn’t possible.

You can even get an app that adds order bumps and one-click upsells to your Shopify store. However, those still aren’t quite the same as ClickFunnels, as your store isn’t as optimized for conversions.

But back to the app store, this is one of the biggest benefits of using Shopify over ClickFunnels.

Email Marketing

The next feature inside Shopify is the email marketing tool. Similar to ClickFunnels, it also lets you send transactional emails. However, that’s pretty much it, but of course, you can use an app and integration for email marketing.

I recommend using an integration for this if you choose to use Shopify, as it will allow you to make the most out of your email marketing campaigns. One of the most popular ones for Shopify is Klaviyo.

 Commerce

Shopify comes with a range of commerce features to help you run your online business.

Some of these features include:

  • Analytics
  • Sales and payment processor integrations
  • Sales tax calculation
  • Coupons
  • Reports

In this area of features, I think Shopify is slightly superior to ClickFunnels.

ClickFunnels has the basics, but Shopify’s reports and sales tax calculation should be useful, especially as you scale your business. The reports are much more comprehensive than the analytics inside ClickFunnels, and you can download them via PDF format.

Security

Another area where Shopify goes beyond the basics is security. It has all the standard stuff like SSL certificates, but I was impressed by the fraud protection.

Shopify has built-in tools to prevent fraudulent chargebacks, which can harm your revenue or just be a headache to deal with. As you scale your store, problems like these will be more common, so it’s great to see that Shopify has tools to prevent them.

What Shopify Has That ClickFunnels Doesn’t

Let’s look at what Shopify has that ClickFunnels doesn’t.

More eCommerce Full Navigation Templates

ClickFunnels has sales funnel templates, and Shopify has full navigation eCommerce templates.

If you’re looking to create a store with many products, Shopify might be the better choice. It’s simply what it is made for, while ClickFunnels is made to create sales funnels.

You might want to consider using Shopify for your store, and creating sales funnels with ClickFunnels. Doing so will allow you to get the best of both worlds, and if it can have a big impact on your revenue, then the cost is probably worth it.

App Store

Having 3rd party developers apps available in a store is priceless, as you can add almost any feature you can imagine to Shopify. This is one of my favorite benefits of Shopify, but you also shouldn’t underestimate the cost of these apps.

Some of them can cost you an extra $20-$30 per month, and that can add up pretty quickly.

Some Commerce and Security Features

Shopify has a few little features that ClickFunnels doesn’t, including:

  • Fraud protection
  • Sales Tax Calculation
  • Reports

As you scale your eCommerce store, these features will be beneficial because they’ll help you save time. With ClickFunnels, you will have to rely on external software for this, a potential added cost.

ClickFunnels Integrations

Payment integrations:

  • Stripe
  • PayPal
  • JV Zoo
  • ClickBank
  • Warrior Plus
  • OntraPort
  • Recurly
  • Apple Pay
  • Infusionsoft
  • EasyPayDirect
  • Bluesnap
  • NMI (Gateway Funnel Pros)

ClickFunnels Email Integrations:

  • GetResponse
  • Drip
  • Infusionsoft
  • AWeber
  • Constant Contact
  • ConvertKit
  • Hubspot
  • ActiveCampaign
  • SendLane
  • Ontraport
  • Salesforce
  • Market Hero
  • MadMimi
  • MailChimp

ClickFunnels SMTP Integrations:

  • Sendgrid
  • Mailgun
  • Mandrill
  • SparkPost

ClickFunnels Webinar Integrations:

  • Zoom Webinar Integration
  • GoToWebinar Integration
  • EverWebinar Integration
  • WebinarJam Integration

Other

  • Shopify
  • Zapier
  • Zoho
  • G Suite

Shopify Integrations

Shopify has a whopping 3370+ integrations. So no, I’m not going to sit here and list them all.

However, I have listed the main categories alongside some of the most known integrations for that category:

  • Store design (Shopify Chat, Product reviews, SEO integrations)
  • Sales and Conversions (Emails, Discounts, Subscriptions, etc.)
  • Marketing (Facebook and Google ads, SMS and email marketing, etc.)
  • Orders and Shipping
  • Reporting
  • Finances (Tax, Payments, etc.)
  • Places to sell (Amazon channel, Google, Facebook, etc.)
  • Trust and Security (GDPR, etc.)

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Pricing

Now that we have seen what type of value they both provide, let’s look at ClickFunnels vs Shopify at the pricing level.

ClickFunnels Cost

ClickFunnels has three pricing plans starting at $97 per month. The next one up is the platinum plan which costs $297, and lastly, there is also the Two Comma Club X option, which mainly just comes with additional team members.

While this may sound costly compared to Shopify, it’s also worth keeping in mind that it comes with a range of built-in features that you would have to pay extra for with Shopify. I’ve listed the full pricing for you below.

ClickFunnels Starter ($97 per month)

Resources:

  • 20 sales funnels
  • 100 pages
  • 1 sub-user
  • 3 payment gateways
  • 3 domains

Features NOT INCLUDED in this plan:

  • Affiliate management
  • Follow-up Funnels
  • Funnel Hack-A-Thon
  • Some FunnelFlix Videos
  • Priority Supports

ClickFunnels Platinum ($297 per month)

Resources:

  • Unlimited funnels and pages
  • 3 sub-users
  • 9 payment gateways
  • 9 domains

Features included: Everything

ClickFunnels Two Comma Club X ($2,497)

  • Unlimited funnels and pages
  • 10 sub-users
  • 27 payment gateways
  • 27 domains
  • Features: All + Hours of additional FunnelFlix training
ClickFunnels Pricing chart

Shopify Cost

Shopify has three main pricing plans:

  • Basic Shopify: $29 per month
  • Shopify: $79 per month
  • Advanced: $299 per month

One of the key differences between the plans is the transaction fee percentages – As you can see in the screenshot below.

Because of this, it will usually make sense to upgrade once your revenue hits a certain income level anyway.

Besides the transaction fees, the main other differences come in the reports and localization. The higher plans give you more options to adjust your pricing, currencies, and languages to more locations.

Plus, they also give you options for more detailed reports to help you analyze your business’s performance.

Shopify pricing list

ClickFunnels vs Shopify: Final Thoughts

As you have seen throughout this ClickFunnels vs Shopify comparison, they’re both great for their own purpose. While ClickFunnels is perfect for stores with a small product line, or high ticket items, Shopify is ideal for traditional full navigation stores.

I don’t even want to pick a winner between the two because I think they both provide incredible value, and it really depends on what your store needs.

however, my final verdict is, if you need to build a large store with lots of product lines, but you also want to improve the conversions of a few of your top sellers, then you could build a Shopify store AND also use ClickFunnels for the advanced funnel and conversion-optimized features. Afterall, Shopify does integrate with ClickFunnels!

Get ClickFunnels 14-Day Free Trial
Get Shopify 14-Day Free Trial

SamCart Review: Does It Live Up To The Hype?

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SamCart review image with red banner

One thing that all business owners have in common is the desire to increase conversions and make more sales.

Many factors will affect the conversion rate of your products, but one of the most significant factors is the shopping cart platform you use.

A lot of business owners don’t realize that the average abandoned cart rate is a staggering 79.17%! That’s a shocking statistic to discover, especially if you’re a business owner who’s been trying to sell your products online.

Everything else being equal, if you’re using the wrong shopping cart platform, your business will just not reach its full potential. 

SamCart is a shopping cart tool that aims to help businesses of all kinds to grow and increase conversions.

In this SamCart review, we will put it to the test to see if it can do what it promises.

What is SamCart?

SamCart is one of the leading shopping cart tools on the market that promises to help businesses make more sales.

It’s recognized as one of the the top eCommerce platforms, but is also built for selling digital products and services too.

The tool works by focusing at the product level instead of the store level. This is a clever move because it means that users can easily showcase their products, convert more visitors into paying customers, and boost the overall order value. 

SamCart allows you to build your sales pages, shopping carts, and process transactions. Using this tool you can potentially double, or even triple your sales. This is because you can sell more stuff to the same people through clever use of advanced conversion tools such as order bump collections, product bundling, upsell pages, and more.

You may be familiar with eCommerce platforms like Shopify. This is often a starting place for eCom business owners and drop shippers. While it’s pretty good for getting your business off the ground, it generally lacks the advanced features needed to scale a business effectively. Because of this, a lot of businesses make the switch to a platform like SamCart.

If you’re a business owner or marketer struggling with conversions, SamCart may be able to help you increase your sales due to its laser-focused conversion-rate optimisation (CRO) features.

Since SamCart was founded in 2013 by Scott and Brian Moran, and since then, it has rapidly evolved and gained several exciting features that we’ll be covering later on in this article.

SamCart Review – Who Is It For?

SamCart is used to help businesses sell pretty much anything online. This includes physical and digital products, services, and even courses.

SamCart gives you the ability to sell products at a one-off cost, a recurring subscription, or even offer your customers a payment plan.

The platform focuses on giving users the ability to create high-converting sales pages, funnels, and shopping carts. It’s not a platform for creating a huge store with hundreds of products. In that case, something like Shopify would probably be better suited. However, SamCart can certainly be integrated with a large store, in order to hone in on sales of specific products.

However, if you have a smaller number of products, then SamCart could potentially be all you need to sell your products successfully online.

Some examples of who SamCart can work well for include:

  • Course creators
  • Coaches & Consultants
  • Authors
  • Physical Product Sellers
  • Digital Product Sellers
  • Agencies

One of my friends used to sell eBooks and courses related to fitness, and I feel like if he had known about SamCart at the time, he probably would have made a lot more sales. At the time, I believe he was using something quite basic like Shopify, which just didn’t give him the same amount of conversion control that SamCart gives you.

Free Stuff From SamCart

As you will see in this in-depth review, SamCart has a lot to offer. While it’s not perfect, it is certainly different from most other shopping cart platforms out there. However, all the features can be difficult to convey in a single article.

The SamCart creators have gone to great lengths to show people how effective this SaaS tool is at selling products and generating revenue online. Because of this, SamCart has a free bonus you can take advantage of:

Free Training: The 10 Step System To Build An Online Business From Scratch. Click the video below to watch the training now.

The SamCart 10 step system
Try SamCart Free For 14 Days Here >>

SamCart Pros & Cons

Just like any other software, there are some pros and cons to SamCart, so let’s take a look at them.

SamCart Pros

  • Unmatched revenue-optimization
  • Easily create beautiful pages
  • Great list of integrations
  • Robust reporting & analytics
  • 0% transaction fees
  • Membership site builder available on all pricing plans

SamCart Cons

  • Can’t use it to build a store with a massive selection of products
  • Only email support available
  • Some features are not available on the starter plan

SamCart Features

SamCart has a huge list of features which all combine perfectly to help businesses lift their conversions if used correctly.

Let’s break them down to help you get a better understanding of how they can be used.

Sales Page Design

One of the first and most important features that SamCart has to offer is sales page design.

You can easily create beautiful sales pages using the easy-to-use drag and drop builder inside of SamCart.

There is no limit on how many pages or products you can create, which gives you the flexibility to try out lots of templates for A/B testing if you want to.

I also like this feature because it meant I can create more product lines using different landing pages, all from within the same account. Annoyingly, many SaaS tools put significant restrictions on what you can create.

Using SamCart, you can create both multi-step sales pages and one-page checkouts. This makes it a versatile platform that can be used to sell pretty much any kind of product.

Selling products and services online is so much more than just throwing up a pretty-looking landing page and hoping for the best.

To really make it work sellers need to have powerful conversion-focused tools at their fingertips in order to stand a chance at success. The tools that SamCart offers have been proven to boost the average order value of a customer without the headaches of making it happen.

Order Bumps & One-Click Up-Sells

Order bumps, one-click up-sells and down-sells are highly effective tools in increase your conversion rate and boost your total cart value.

If you’re not familiar with order bumps then basically, they’re like one-time offers you can include in your funnel, usually on the checkout page. They work especially well if the order bump is a complementary product to the leasing product that is offered on the sales page.

For example, let’s imagine you’re a fitness coach who’s trying to sell an eBook. A great order bump would be to offer the audio version of the book for an additional cost.

This works well because most people just don’t get time to read the eBooks they buy and so, being offered the audio version for a few extra bucks is an attractive offer to many. With a simple tick, they can add the audio book to their cart, and you increase the total cart value as a result.

The one-click upsell is a separate, but complementary product that is offered to the customer on a separate page. Once the customer has clicked the button to accept the first offer, they are then diverted the the up-sell page.

The reason it’s called one-click up-sell is that the payment info is already saved, meaning your customer only needs to click a button to purchase, instead of entering in their credit card details.

If, however, the customer declines the first offer, then you can have them diverted to one more offer at a lower price, known as the down-sell offer.

Coupons & Discounts

The next feature is the ability to create coupons and discounts. 

Creating coupons and discounts can work extremely well to promote your products and can therefore also help you increase conversions over a given period.

This SamCart feature is also much more advanced than most shopping cart/landing page alternatives out there. The reason being is that, with SamCart, you create both simple coupons that apply to one-time transactions, as well as recurring transaction coupons if you need to.

Template Library

SamCart has a vey large selection of templates for both sales and checkout pages.

Personally, I do like the look of the templates as they’re modern and professional, yet simple. You also have a wide variety of templates for different types of pages and carts, which could prove to be useful if you ever decide to switch the type of products that you sell, or if you operate businesses in different industries.

Recurring Payments & Subscriptions

SamCart can also help you process recurring payments and subscriptions.

This is great because I have heard several stories from friends who have used certain other shopping cart or eCommerce platforms that don’t allow you to process recurring payments and subscriptions. This then causes real headaches, as they have to go through a lot of effort and extra expense by using two cart platforms and trying to integrate them.

You also have some great options inside of the SamCart subscriptions area that many other SaaS tools don’t have. For example, you can create free trials, paid trials, and even payment plans. This further increases the likelihood of you making sales.

Plus, you can manage all your customers from your customer portal and they can also cancel their own subscriptions easily whenever they need to.

Customers being able to cancel their own subscriptions is something that will save you many wasted hours replying to customer support emails.

All in all, SamCart is probably one of the easiest cart platforms you can use to accept payments and deliver products to your customers.

A/B Testing

SamCart has detailed A/B testing functionality allowing its customers to understand exactly what is converting and what isn’t.

Using SamCart, you can not only split-test your sales pages, but also the actual carts themselves, which is a pretty cool feature. This gives you the ability to tweak the components of your cart to optimize for maximum conversions.

Subscription Saver (Dunning)

When it comes to other platforms that do allow you to process recurring transactions, they can often have a problem with creating many failed transactions. This, of course, is not good for business!

Often, these platforms will just treat a failed transaction as a customer canceling, which of course means you would lose out on a lot of revenue. This is not the case with SamCart, as it will keep trying to charge the customer on auto-pilot until the sale goes through.

As you can imagine, this is going to be a tremendous tool in your online business arsenal.

App Integrations

SamCart has a great list of integrations, as it is compatible with a number of leading autoresponders, membership site platforms, and payment processors.

Email integrations include:

  • Aweber
  • GetResponse
  • ConvertKit
  • ConstantContact
  • iContact
  • ActiveCampaign
  • MailChimp
  • Maropos

Membership site platform integrations include:

  • Memberpress
  • Thinkific
  • Wishlist
  • Optimizepress
  • Membermouse
  • Kajabi
  • DigitalAccessPass

Payment Processor Integrations include:

  • Braintree
  • Stripe
  • Authorize.net
  • Paypal

CRM/Marketing automation integrations include:

  • Klaviyo
  • Ontraport
  • Drip
  • Infusionsoft
  • Hubspot

Other integrations:

  • ShipStation
  • Zapier
  • WordPress
  • Intercom

As you can see, SamCart has a solid list of direct integrations. However, if you do need more for some reason, then you can always use Zapier.

If you are interested in a shopping cart solution that is specifically designed to be used with WordPress then check out my CartFlows review.

Affiliate Center

SamCart also has a powerful affiliate management tool you can use.

This is another great feature if you want to recruit affiliates to sell your products for you. You won’t need to use an expensive third party solution for this as you’ll be able to manage it all from within your SamCart dashboard.

You also have full control in terms of the percentages that you set up for your affiliates. You can create standard commission rates or even have a tied compensation plan to incentivise those affiliates that are prepared to work harder to promote your products.

Abandoned Cart Feature

Do you remember that shocking statistic I told you about earlier? 79.17% of online shoppers abandon their cart before completing the steps on your checkout page.

I think, you, like me, agree that you’d want more than one in four people who add a product to their cart, to actually convert.

The Cart abandonment feature is something that could help with exactly that. Using this feature, you can engage with the customer who has abandoned their cart and follow up with them later to try to make the sale.

For example, you might set up SamCart to notify your autoresponder, when a cart is abandoned. Then, that lead will be added to an email automation sequence based on the abandoned cart, and receive periodic emails from you encouraging them to complete their purchase.

In this automation sequence, you can remind them of the product or potentially offer them a discount to make the sale more likely.

Now imagine the conversion increase of when you have something like this in place, and hundreds or even thousands of people adding your products to their cart. If you don’t already have this set up in your business then you’re just leaving money on the table.

Membership Site App

An exciting new feature to the SamCart online marketing software suite is the membership site builder. I think this is one that a lot of users had been hoping that the SamCart team would add one day, and now it’s finally here.

This new feature will give you several more ways in which you can build your business (and you income) online.

If you have an online course, of if you’re planning to launch one then you can sell and host your course all with this one software tool. You won’t need to pay any unnecessary charges by using a third party tool to host your course.

You can host your entire course behind a password-protected and secure members area. This will ensure that only paying customers will have access to your material.

You can choose to bill your customers one-time for your course, or set up a recurring subscription plan on, for example, a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. This is a great way to build recurring revenue for our business.

Advanced Analytics

It’s great to have all these conversion rate optimisation tools set up ion your business. But if you can’t accurately measure them, then you’re not going to be able to scale effectively.

Luckily, SamCart also has detailed analytics that help you understand which steps of your cart and sales pages are converting.

If you do decide to go buy SamCart, or even [get a free trial], you’ll quickly realise the benefit of choosing a platform that has integrated analytics so you can see clearly what’s working for your and what is not.

Core Commerce Features

Lastly, I want to tell you about some of the core commerce features inside of SamCart. These are features that didn’t fit into any category but are still useful for most businesses.

Taxes & VAT

SamCart lets you collect any taxes & VAT.

This is a feature that many cart platforms ignore, so it’s nice to see SamCart making things easier for their customers in that sense.

Partial Refunds

You can also issue partial refunds if you feel that is suited. This is great because partial refunds can be a hassle. With SamCart, partial refunds are easy to issue.

Custom Fields

If you sell products that mean you need to collect custom requirements, like shirt size, then you’ll need to use custom fields.

If you’re looking to sell products that need to use custom requirements, then SamCart is one of the best tools you use, IMO.

SCA, GDPR, PCI Compliant

With recent heavy SCA, GDPR, and PCI changes, you must stay compliant, otherwise, you might face fines.

Fortunately, SamCart is compliant with all of these regulations, so you can use it to easily set up your business how you need to and be compliant from the get-go.

A User Review Video – 26% Sales Boost

If you’d like to see a real life example of how SamCart can boost the sales of an online business, the below video is an excellent example of how this shopping cart platform increased one lady’s sales by a staggering 26%!

 

Get a SamCart 14 Day Free Trial Here >>

What I Like About SamCart

While SamCart has a lot of great features, there are a few things in particular that I like about this platform.

As I have mentioned a lot throughout this article, conversion-rate optimisation is at the heart of what SamCart can offer you.

I’m talking about the order bumps, one-click upsells, A/B testing, and detailed analytics. Of course, these features will not sell your products for you, but they definitely can make a massive difference to your conversions, if you use them correctly.

Plus, the templates combine well with these features too, as they are also focused on converting visitors with clear layouts and CTA buttons.

I also like that SamCart doesn’t ignore the less flashy requirements, and helps business owners with tax obligations and in staying compliant with important laws.

Finally, I also particularly like how easy it is to use SamCart to scale up your business with your own affiliate program.

What I Don’t Like About SamCart

There isn’t much negative to say about SamCart, except for two things, in my opinion.

For me, the first thing I find it a bit of a let-down that some of the best features are only available in the $199 per month “Scale” plan.

This includes:

  • Cart abandonment
  • Built-in A/B testing
  • Affiliate center
  • Subscription saver (dunning)

If SamCart could make one exception, I think they should at least allow all plans to be able to do A/B testing as this is an important part of growing a business.

Secondly, if you need to reach support then you only have the option of email. I’d prefer to also have the option fo live chat support. However, I have heard that SamCart’s email support is actually very good, so I guess it’s not too bad.

SamCart Pricing

SamCart has three pricing plans. There are some differences between the plans, as I already mentioned, so make sure you are aware of them.

SamCart Launch ($49 Per Month)

Checkout features:

  • No Additional Processing Fees
  • Unlimited Pages & Products
  • Unlimited Templates
  • Drag & Drop Template Builder
  • Full Template Library
  • Advanced Subscriptions
  • Full Email Customizations
  • Custom Domains
  • Digital Product Delivery
  • Coupons & Discounts
  • Smart Pixel Tracking
  • Pay What You Want
  • Sales & VAT Tax Support
  • Free SSL Certificate
  • Apple & Google Pay
  • Custom Thank You Pages
  • SamCart Branding

Upsell & add-on features:

  • Free & paid trials

Management:

  • 1 Admin User
  • Dashboard & Sales Report

Integrations:

  • Zapier Integration
  • Email Integrations
  • Membership Integrations

Support & Service:

  • Email Support (2 Day SLA)
  • Knowledge Base
  • 99.98% Uptime

SamCart Grow ($99 Per Month)

Everything in “Launch” plus:

  • No SamCart branding i.e completely white-labeled
  • Multiple Payment Options
  • Custom checkout fields
  • Advanced Subscription Cancellations
  • Post-Purchase Upsells
  • Advanced Reporting
  • Pre-Purchase Add-Ons
  • Customer Management
  • Email Support (1 Day SLA)
  • Subscription Charge Reminder

SamCart Scale ($199 Per Month)

As you would expect this plan has everything that SamCart has to offer. 

Everything in “Grow” plus:

  • Customer Self Cancellations
  • Admin User Roles
  • Cart Abandonment
  • Built-in AB Testing
  • Affiliate Center
  • Subscription Saver (Dunning)
  • CRM Integrations
  • Custom Integrations (Webhooks)
  • Email Support (Priority)

SamCart Alternatives

I also want to let you know about some SamCart alternatives which you may like the look of.

PlatformFree PlanTrialLifetime OptionStarting Cost
SamCartNo14-DaysNo$49/pm
ThriveCartNoNoYes$495/one time
ClickFunnelsNo14-DaysNo$97/pm
KartraNo14-DaysNo$99/pm
GrooveKartYesYesYesFree
GrooveSellYesYesYesFree

1. GrooveKart

GrooveKart is a complete eCommerce shopping cart platform that includes everything you need to launch and grow your business.

With advanced conversion tools and analytics built in, GrooveKart has quickly become one of the biggest competitors.

GrooveKart is now part of the popular GrooveFunnels marketing suite and is now a completely free app.

Starting price: free

You can check out GrooveKart or get a free account here.

2. ThriveCart

ThriveCart is also a powerful shopping cart platform that has features very similar to SamCart.

At the moment, ThriveCart is still in early stages so there are lifetime options available at a one-time fee. Given that most shopping cart SaaS tools, including SamCart, come with monthly subscriptions, ThriveCart’s lifetime plans are a great deal.

However, what I would say about ThriveCart is that some of the designs of the shopping cart look a little outdated.

Still, in terms of price for features, I think it would be quite hard to beat.

Starting price: $495 one time fee (lifetime)

3. ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is one of the most popular funnel builders with over 120,000 members.

It aims to be the best landing page and funnel builder platform for online businesses by offering the following core features:

  • Drag-and-drop funnel builder
  • Checkout platform (somewhat limited compared to SamCart)
  • Membership site builder
  • Autoresponder
  • Affiliate management

It does have a great list of features, so it’s worth checking out if you want to see the full list of features that ClickFunnels offers.

The one thing I personally don’t like about ClickFunnels is their templates as they look somewhat outdated and are all very similar to each other. Having said that, they can be customized to a great degree.

Starting price: $97 per month

If you want to know exactly how ClickFunnels stacks up against SamCart then you can see my comparison article, SamCart vs ClickFunnels here.

You can see more info on ClickFunnels here.

4. Kartra

The third and final alternative I recommend is Kartra.

Kartra is also still in the early stages but has already proven to have some powerful features.

Here’s a list of the Kartra core features:

  • Funnel builder
  • Checkout platform (also somewhat limited compared to SamCart)
  • Membership site builder
  • Autoresponder
  • Affiliate management
  • Helpdesks
  • Video hosting
  • Calendar

As you can see, it’s quite similar to ClickFunnels with some minor differences in the features.

Kartra is more of an all-in-one online business solution and offers additional tools like the help desk and video hosting functions.

From my experience, the autoresponder inside of Kartra is also better than ClickFunnels’ autoresponder, as it has more triggers for tags and automation sequences. Having said that, I personally prefer to use a stand-alone autoresponder service since it’s such an important part of a business.

If you prefer to use a stand-alone email marketing service then you can see the top autoresponders I recommend here.

Starting price: $99 per month

You can see more info on Kartra here.

If you still want to read about even more SamCart alternatives then here are the top 11 options you can choose from in this article here.

5. GrooveSell

GrooveSell is a new app that launched in 2020. It is part of the GrooveFunnels software and is a completely free app.

I list this shopping cart option here because it is slightly different to it’s sister, GrooveKart.

With GrooveSell you can create sales and product funnels complete with upsell and downsell pages, order bumps and, of course, a checkout page.

The main difference with this app is that is is designed to be used to sell digital products such as eBooks, videos, courses, coaching sessions, etc. If you want to sell physical products then choose on of the other shopping cart solutions listed above.

You can read more about GrooveSell here.

Final Thoughts

SamCart has proven to be a strong solution for businesses struggling with high cart abandonment and low conversions.

The reason it works well for increasing conversions is the features like the order bumps and one-click up-sells, as well as its strong analytics capabilities.

Combining these with the beautiful templates it has to offer, you can see from my review, why it works so well. Plus, it also has great payment flexibility, as you can offer payment plans, accept Google and Apple pay, and also process recurring transactions.

If you’re selling or looking to sell anything online and want to check out SamCart for yourself, you can get a free 14-day trial by clicking here.

Try SamCart Free For 14 Days Here >>

Related Articles: ThriveCart vs SamCart

GrooveFunnels vs Builderall – Which Is Best In 2021?

by
A person on a computer looking into funnel software

If you’re looking to start an online business, you’re probably going to need some type of sales funnel builder. Today, we’re going to be comparing two popular options, GrooveFunnels vs BuilderAll.

They are both great platforms, but something that I found interesting about GrooveFunnels in particular is their free and lifetime plans.

But, we’ll talk more about this later on…

GrooveFunnels Vs Builderall Overview

Below, I’ve given you a brief overview of GrooveFunnels and BuilderAll.

 GrooveFunnelsBuilderall
Websitegroovefunnels.combuilderall.com
Founded in20202017
PricingStarting at freeStarting at $69.90 per month
Trial?Freemium30 days
Money-back guarantee30 days30 days
Overall rating9.38.5

More Comparisons

You may also want to compare these funnel and landing page builders with other popular options:

What Is GrooveFunnels?

GrooveFunnels is the fastest-growing funnel builder, as it only launched this year, but already has over 100,000 members.

GrooveFunnels aims to become a true all-in-one marketing platform that blows away the competition in terms of features.

The founders of GrooveFunnels are:

  • Mike Filsaime
  • John Cornetta
  • Matt Serralta
  • Matt Naus

What Is Builderall?

BuilderAll has been around a little longer but is still relatively new as it launched in 2017.

Similar to GrooveFunnels it also aims to be an all-in-one platform for digital marketers. It’s also constantly evolving and adding new features, which is something that I like about it.

GrooveFunnels Verses Builderall – Similarities

As these two platforms have similar goals, you can probably guess that there will be a few similarities. Below, I’ve explained all to help you see what’s available in both of them.

Drag & Drop Website & Funnel Builder

Both GrooveFunnels and BuilderAll have a pretty good website & funnel builder.

They both allow you to build conversion-focused landing pages and funnels, as well as full-navigation websites. That being said, I find that GrooveFunnels’ page builder offers a little more customization by giving you more elements.

Templates

Just like almost any funnel builder you know, they also have a great selection of templates. Both of them offer a good variety, and the templates look quite nice. They can be easily edited with the drag & drop builder which makes it easy to build the websites or funnels you want.

Email Marketing & Templates

BuilderAll and GrooveFunnels also have great email marketing features.

They both have drag & drop email marketing automation sequences with lots of triggers that can also be combined with their beautiful email templates.

Membership Site Builder

If you’re someone looking to sell a course or create another type of membership site, then, of course, you’re going to need a dedicated builder for it.

Both GrooveFunnels and BuilderAll have one, which is great because it stops you from having to go for something like Kajabi or Thinkific.

Comprehensive Checkout Features & Affiliate Platform

Something that I also like about both of these platforms is that they come with comprehensive checkout features.

This includes things like order bumps & one-click upsells to help you make the most out of every sale. Plus, you can also recruit affiliates to help you make more sales in the first place.

Video Hosting

Another similarity between these two platforms is that they both offer video hosting. They both also allow you to manage the videos and add CTA’s which is quite nice too.

Booking & Calendar App

For those of you that have consulting or other service-based businesses, you’re probably going to need a calendar app.

Luckily, both of these platforms have one which stops you from having to get another external service for this purpose too.

Webinar & Live Streaming

Another cool thing about both of these platforms is that they come with webinars & live-streaming apps. They both allow you to create live webinars and auto (evergreen) webinars.

Other Similarities Between GrooveFunnels & BuilderAll

Those were the main similarities between these two platforms, but there are a few more. You can see the rest of them in the bullet-pointed list below.

  • Blogging apps (Coming soon for Groove)
  • CRM (Coming soon for Groove)
  • A/B Split-testing
  • Funnel Mapping/Simulator
  • Advanced Analytics
  • Pop-ups
  • Lots of training & knowledge base
  • Funnel sharing/Transfer (is easier with Groove)
  • Scarcity timers
  • Ability to change SEO meta, alt text, etc.

GrooveFunnels V Builderall – Differences

Now that we have taken a look at the similarities between both of these two platforms, let’s talk about the differences.

Below, I’ve explained what GrooveFunnels has that BuilderAll doesn’t and vice versa to help you find the best option for you.

What GrooveFunnels Has That Builderall Does Not Have

GrooveFunnels Has a Free Plan

The first thing that GrooveFunnels has which BuilderAll doesn’t is a free plan.

You can get access to all of GrooveFunnels’ features for free. The page builder, the autoresponder, etc… everything.

However, they do have a few limits in terms of contacts, websites, and domains but that is to be expected on a free plan.

We’ll talk more about this later on, or if you can’t wait, you can also click the button below to create a free account.

GrooveKart

Another big feature that is not inside of BuilderAll is GrooveKart.

This is a feature that is comparable to Shopify, with the main difference being that it comes with all the apps. Using this feature alone, you can build a full eCommerce store. Interestingly, this feature on its own without GrooveFunnels costs $99 per month.

GrooveProof

GrooveProof is the feature that helps you add social proof to your sales pages. Using this, you can add little pop-ups that will say something like “X person just bought this”.

This helps you leverage social proof to increase your conversions. BuilderAll does not have this feature.

GrooveSDK

GrooveSDK is the feature that is going to allow 3rd party developers to work on GrooveFunnels and create plugins and apps.

This feature will make it an open-source platform similar to WordPress.org, which means there is much more coming to this platform.

GrooveSurvey & GrooveQuiz

Two more features that BuilderAll doesn’t have are GrooveSurvey and GrooveQuiz. As the name suggests, these are tools to help you keep your audience engaged. BuilderAll doesn’t have these.

GrooveMail & GrooveAutomation Will Be More Advanced

GrooveMail & GrooveAutomation according to Groove themselves will be like ActiveCampaign. If this is the case, then it will be much more advanced than BuilderAll’s automation sequences.

BuilderAll’s automation sequences are also drag & drop, but they don’t have as many triggers as ActiveCampaign.

What Builderall Has That GrooveFunnels Does Not Have

Chatbots

One of the main features that BuilderAll has that GrooveFunnels doesn’t is the Chatbot feature.

Using this feature, you’ll be able to create Chatbots and add them to your sites created in BuilderAll. However, if you are looking to go with GrooveFunnels, you can get external software for this for $10 per month, or even $37 lifetime.

So, it’s not exactly the end of the world that GrooveFunnels doesn’t have this feature.

WordPress 3 Click Integration

BuilderAll allows you to integrate with WordPress in just 3 clicks.

This is a native integration, while with GrooveFunnels you would have to use Zapier.

One Live Call With BuilderAll Specialist

With BuilderAll’s plans, you also get a live call with a BuilderAll specialist. This is one live call only to help you get set up, but it’s still something that isn’t inside of GrooveFunnels.

Chatbot Niche Funnels

On the BuilderAll Funnel club plan, you can get access to 30+ Messenger chatbot niche funnels. Again, because GrooveFunnels doesn’t have Chatbots, this is only available in BuilderAll.

Auction Checkout

Last but not least, BuilderAll also has an auction checkout. This can help you run auctions for your products which can create additional scarcity.

Builderall Drawbacks

Let’s take a look at the drawbacks of BuilderAll.

No Free plan & Limited Pricing

Firstly, it does not have a free plan. This means, you won’t be able to start building your business and upgrade later on, you have to invest in the software as soon as your trial is over.

If you’re a beginner or simply on a budget, this could be a reason to go for GrooveFunnels.

Plus, it also only really has one pricing plan which is the premium. This doesn’t exactly give you the best options if you only need a couple of features available in BuilderAll.

Templates Compared To GrooveFunnels

Compared to GrooveFunnels I think their templates aren’t as good.

They are good compared to most other funnel builders but they do look a bit outdated, compared to GrooveFunnels’ modern templates. Although, this is just my opinion.

Slow Dashboard

I’m not sure why this is the case, but BuilderAll’s dashboard is slow. It used to be the same for their pages, but luckily that seems to have changed. Still, their dashboard is quite slow which can have bad effects on your productivity.

Poor Support

The support is probably one of the most common complaints that I hear about BuilderAll. I’ve heard them be described as everything ranging from rude to not helpful.

GrooveFunnels Drawbacks

GrooveFunnels has fewer drawbacks, but one of them is more significant. Take a look below to see how they would affect you.

Still In Beta

This is the most significant because it affects the platform in several ways.

Firstly, you don’t know whether all of the features are coming in the future. There is no guarantee that they will.

Although, they are extremely likely to because the founders have been involved in other successful projects like Kartra, WebinarJam, and EverWebinar. These guys have a good reputation and a great track record.

However, it also affects the way the platform currently works as it means there are some bugs. Fortunately, these are getting rarer every day as the GrooveFunnels team is constantly working on them.

Limited Pricing Plans

Another drawback is that their pricing plans are somewhat limited right now. If you don’t want to invest in their lifetime plan yet, your only other option is the free plan as of right now. However, this is meant to be changing soon.

Builderall Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Good page builder
  • Good marketing automation tools
  • Good checkout features
  • Cool additional features (Chatbots, video hosting, etc)
  • Constantly evolving

Cons:

  • Templates (compared to GrooveFunnels)
  • Poor support
  • No free plan & limited pricing

GrooveFunnels Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Free plan
  • Lifetime plan available (see next)
  • An amazing list of features
  • Will be becoming an open-source platform
  • Perfect for almost any business (eCommerce, affiliate marketing, service, etc.)

Cons:

  • Some features are not available yet
  • Some bugs still to be fixed

GrooveFunnels Vs Builderall – Pricing

Now let’s take a look at the costs both of these pieces of software come at.

Builderall Pricing

BuilderAll used to have several pricing plans ranging from free to $69.90. However, that has changed since the launch of BuilderAll 4.0.

Now the only pricing plans are $69.90 per month or the funnel club option for an additional one-time fee of $199, plus $69.90 per month.

The additional option gives you access to more done-for-you funnel templates for you to use.

Builderall pricing table

Still, getting all of these features is a pretty good deal. I think they can be suited well especially for service-based businesses. For example for Chatbot or funnel-building agencies.

GrooveFunnels Pricing

GrooveFunnels is still in beta mode which means you can get access to a special deal at the moment.

GrooveFunnels will soon be switching their pricing plans and will range from $99 per month to $299 per month, depending on the limits & features needed by the user.

The GrooveFunnels pricing list

However, as of early December 2020, you can get access to all of the features for life for a one-time fee of $1397.

This deal is meant to end soon, but you can check whether it’s available by following the instructions below.

Step 1: Sign up for a free GrooveFunnels account (No Credit Card Required)

Step 2: Hit “Upgrade” in your dashboard to be taken to the upgrade page

Step 3: Check out any available deals.

Final Thoughts – GrooveFunnels Vs Builderall – Which Is Best?

As you have seen throughout this article, GrooveFunnels vs BuilderAll is not a direct comparison as GrooveFunnels offers a lot more features that are beyond the scope of what Builderall provide.

However, both marketing software programs have a fantastic list of features for what they are designed to do.

They’re also both extremely similar which makes it quite hard to pick a winner. I think it just depends on the features you need, as well as your budget.

For example, if you’re in it for the long run, and feel you need all of the features GrooveFunnels has, you can consider going for the lifetime upgrade.

On the other hand, if you feel like BuilderAll is the better option and you don’t mind about not having great support, then you can go for BuilderAll.

Additionally, BuilderAll has also been around longer which means it has been tested a little more. This also means that GrooveFunnels has a few more bugs, as we mentioned earlier, but they are becoming rarer.

Best Weight Loss Affiliate Programs

by
A woman measuring her waist while on a weight loss program

It’s no secret that a lot of people are interested in losing weight. It’s a niche with a strong pain point that you can use to sell your affiliate products.

However, it can be quite time-consuming to pick out all the best affiliate programs, how much they pay, their cookie duration, etc.

That’s why I’ve created a list of the best weight loss affiliate programs, so you can easily pick out the ones you want to promote.

Plus, I made sure to pick a great variety of programs ranging from programs that offer healthy snacks and supplements to workout plans.

Diet Direct 

Diet Direct is an online store that sells healthy drinks and snacks for people who are trying to cut their categories. They have a huge selection of products which leaves the potential for huge carts and big commissions.  

What makes Diet Direct even more attractive for affiliates is the recurring commissions. After you refer a customer, you earn a 10% commission on their first order, and 5% on every order they make afterward. That’s pretty decent, as it allows you to earn a lot more, from the same customer.

If you have an email list of leads interested in weight loss, you can promote Diet Direct next to some of the educational products like Weight Loss Evolved. That could be a great way to make more money from your list.

• Commission rate: 10%

• Cookie duration: 30 days

Affiliate Network: FlexOffers

• Sign up to promote here

Maximum Slim 

Maximum Slim is another great affiliate program in the weight loss affiliate niche that pays large commissions.

On their website, they sell weight loss supplements, tea, coffee, vitamins, and even protein shakes.

Despite, the products being physical, their affiliate program pays up to 25% of all sales. It also has a nice 1-year cookie duration and is hosted on ShareASale.

No matter what sub-niche of weight loss your audience is in, Maximum Slim could be a great addition to the other affiliate programs you’re already promoting.

Plus, I also would assume that the affiliate program is very easy to get accepted for, as their sign up page states “or simply share the link with your friends!”. So, if you’re just starting, this program might be worth giving a shot. Then again that is just an assumption. 

• Commission rate: 25%

• Cookie duration: 1 year 

Affiliate Network: FlexOffers

• Sign up to promote here

Weight Loss Evolved

Weight Loss Evolved is a great offer, with an amazing affiliate program that has industry-leading commissions.

With the average sale being $397, the 30% commission rate gives you a whopping $119 per sale.

And, if that doesn’t already sound good to you, it also has a lifetime affiliate cookie, so you will be paid whenever your referrals purchase, even if it’s in years from now (as long as they don’t clear their cookies or use another device).

Weight Loss Evolved isn’t all about the affiliate program though, the offer itself is also great. Physicians designed it, and a clinic in Denver has been using the same protocol for over 10 years.

So, it’s not a product that some random marketers created to generate sales, it works as well.

• Commission rate: 30%

• Cookie duration: Lifetime

Affiliate Network: Private

• Sign up here

Bistro MD

Similar to Weight Loss Evolved, Bistro MD is designed by doctors. This time, however, it’s a food delivery plan.

The way it works is that the doctors design the weight loss plans and meals, then chefs go ahead and prepare the food before it is delivered to the customer’s door. That’s a pretty sweet deal which is also why it’s so popular.

Additionally, the program also has an average 3.9 rating out of 5 on trust pilot, so it’s a pretty decent program.

The fact that it’s also designed by doctors, and prepared by chefs also help with conversions. Plus, it also allows them to charge a premium, which also means you make higher commissions.

According to the company themselves, the average affiliate also earns $16.90 per click with the top performers earning over $6,000 monthly.

The affiliate program is hosted over at FlexOffers and has a 45-day sticky cookie.

• Commission rate: AVG. $45 per sale

• Cookie duration: 45 days

Affiliate Network: FlexOffers

• Sign up and promote here

Weight Watchers 

Next on our list is Weight Watchers which you’ve probably heard of.

It’s another weight-loss program that has been recommended by doctors and is also very known in the industry. Both of these factors also positively impact conversions.

However, compared to some of the other weight loss affiliate programs on this list, it’s commission rate is low. Weight Watchers pays out a flat commission rate of $10 and only has a cookie duration of 14 days.

Although, both the cookie duration and the commission rate are quite low, you can still earn a lot of money with it because of the trust and recognition the brand has earned.

Plus, the affiliate program also has a lot of great tools, promotional material, and support for their affiliates.

So, if you have large amounts of traffic and are looking for a trusted brand to promote that converts, Weight Watchers could be a good option. 

• Commission rate: $10 per sign up

• Cookie duration: 14 days

Affiliate Network: FlexOffers

• Sign up and promote here

Zotrim 

If your audience is into herbal weight loss supplements, the Zotrim affiliate program might be right for you.

It’s a herbal weight loss supplement that has gained a lot of trust, as it’s also sold in brick & mortar stores in the US. Additionally, their product is available in all major languages, and so are their promo materials for affiliates.

The affiliate program also pays out a nice commission of 30%. Not only this, but it also has a conversion rate of over 22% and an average cart value of over $60. 

Additionally, they also have a calculator where you can estimate your earnings and loads of other useful promo materials.

• Commission rate: 30%

• Cookie duration: Not listed

• Sign up currently unavailable

WonderSlim 

WonderSlim is another affiliate program that has high conversions. The reason for this is because it comes with a 150% money-back guarantee.

So, if a customer uses their meals correctly, and they don’t lose weight, they will refund 150% of the money. This means, there is no risk for your referrals, which will make the purchasing decision a lot easier.

Plus, the average sale is also quite high at $120.

The offer itself is meal replacements like puddings, smoothies, soups, or shakes that the customers can order from the Wonderslim website.

Wonderslim also pays out a commission rate of up to 10% which is not bad because the conversion rates will be high.

• Commission rate: Up to 10%

• Cookie duration: 30 days

Affiliate Network: ShareASale

• Sign up and promote here

DietToGo 

DietToGo is also a weight loss offer that has a great affiliate program.

Similar to Bistro MD, it is a meal kit delivery service that prepares meals and delivers them to the customer’s door.

The meals are controlled in portions to make sure that the customer is eating the right amount to lose weight, which makes it extremely effective. Plus, every customer can contact dieticians and health coaches that are part of the program in case they have any questions.

Customers have several meal options to choose from including vegetarian, low carb, diabetic, and more.

Its affiliate program is also decent as it pays out $40 per sale, and has a 45 cookie duration.

• Commission rate: $40 per sale

• Cookie duration: 45 days

Network: Private

• Sign up to promote here

Elite Weight Loss 

Next on our list is Elite Weight Loss which provides its customers with weight loss supplements ranging from diet pills to protein powder. Again, this could be a great affiliate program to promote in combination with some of the others on this list.

Elite Weight Loss’s affiliate program is pretty decent too, as it pays out a solid 25% commission. Plus, for top-performing affiliates there are also custom commission percentages and, you can also earn cash bonuses ranging from $100 to $10,000.

Something that I also like about the Elite Weight Loss affiliate program is that there is a Facebook group for affiliates, so you can network with others and ask questions.

Plus, Elite Weight Loss also pays its affiliates weekly. 

• Commission rate: 25%

• Cookie duration: Not listed

Network: Private

• Sign up to promote here

Healthy Wage 

Healthy Wage has a very unique offer that allows participants to win cash prizes for winning weight loss challenges. So, it rewards customers who lose weight which acts as an additional incentive and makes the offer very effective. Plus, customers can also start challenges with friends or family which can be additional fun too.

As the offer is effective, the conversions are quite high, which benefits you as an affiliate.

The affiliate program is hosted on ShareASale and pays out a $30-$50 commission per referral depending on how much they bet. Plus, it also has a 30-day cookie. 

However, there are some restrictions for this affiliate program which are explained on the affiliate signup page. Still, overall I think this affiliate program has quite a large potential because even one or two referrals per day could earn you $1000-$3000 per month. 

• Commission rate: $30-$50

• Cookie duration: 30 days

Network: Private

• Sign up to promote here

Workout Anywhere 

Next, we have Workout Anywhere which is a little different from most of the other affiliate programs on this list. 

Its main selling point is that the workouts are quick, yet effective which makes it perfect for people that are busy but want to lose weight. As the name suggests, the workouts are also accessible from any device.

Plus, Workout Anywhere also comes with recipes, meal planning, coaching services, and a like-minded community. It’s almost like an all-in-one service without the meals and supplements. 

The commission rates are also decent as they range from 30-50% depending on the membership that your referral purchases.

There are also custom commission rates available for top-performing affiliates which can be unlocked at $15,000 in sales (not commissions).

Its cookie duration is not listed on the affiliate sign up page.

• Commission rate: $30-$150 CPA 

• Cookie duration: Not listed

Network: Private

• Sign up to promote here

Bodybuilding.com

Bodybuilding.com offers a range of weight-loss related products such as fat burners, workout plans, and general health supplements. As the store has such a wide range of products, there is also lots of potential for high-value carts, so you can earn bigger commissions.

Their affiliate program is pretty nice as well, as you earn 15% on first-time orders and 5% on returning customers.

The only downside of this affiliate program is that the cookie only lasts until the customer makes a purchase. While that makes it extremely likely that you will make the initial commission, the referral would have to go through your affiliate link again afterward for you to be credited with the sale, even if it’s only hours later. 

Still, overall it’s a pretty solid affiliate program by a trusted brand.

• Commission rate: 15% for first-time customers, 5% for returning

• Cookie duration: Lifetime, but canceled upon purchase

Network: FlexOffers

• Sign up to promote here

Natural Healthy Concepts

Natural Health Concepts also has a pretty decent affiliate program.

Their store is a little more general, meaning it’s not as tailored to weight loss as the others on this list. However, it still has some great products that can help its customers lose weight, so there is no harm in promoting it.

For example, their 50+ metabolic supplements can help speed up the customers’ metabolism to help them lose weight faster.

Its affiliate program pays out 8%, so it’s on the lower side of this list. However, the products seem to be of great quality and unique, so that does make up for it a little.

The affiliate program is also hosted on the popular Rakuten affiliate network too, meaning it’s easy to sign up for. 

• Commission rate: 8%

• Cookie duration: Not listed

Network: Private

• Sign up to promote here

Affiliate Weight Loss Programs – My Final Thoughts 

I hope you have enjoyed this article on the best weight loss affiliate programs.

As you have seen throughout this article, the weight loss niche has a great range of offers that you can promote.

And because a combination of them works best to help the customers lose weight, it also gives you additional room to cross-promote the affiliate programs. Therefore, a lot of people on your email list will likely be interested in more than one of these offers, which is great for you!

Email marketing is at the heart of any good affiliate campaign and is a core skill. If you need a step-by-step plan to help you grow your email list then you can check out my article here.

Looking For More Affiliate Programs?

If you’re looking for more affiliate programs you can promote to help build your affiliate income then you may also like these articles:

If you want a few more ideas for diet and weight loss offers then you can check out the video below.

GrooveKart Review: Is This New E-Commerce Platform Any Good?

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A computer with GrooveKart

Finding the right eCommerce platform is not as easy as you might think. With a lot of platforms, there are a lot of things to consider ranging from essential features, possible hidden charges, and transaction fee costs.

While the market-leader Shopify is good, it can also get very costly once you start needing to use 3rd party apps, which is almost always the case.

Throughout this Groovekart review, we’ll be looking at a platform that promises to solve these problems while aiming to be the best e-commerce site builder.

What Is GrooveKart?

GrooveKart is a new e-commerce platform created by GrooveDigital. It aims to kill Shopify with more built-in features and much lower costs. The way it does this is through having the apps ready for all users at no additional cost, while over at Shopify, you have to pay for each app you install.

GrooveKart is cloud-based, so you won’t need to download anything. You can access the user interface online.

GrooveDigital is also the parent company of the popular all-in-one funnel builder and marketing suite, GrooveFunnels.

Interestingly, when you buy GrooveFunnels, you also get free access to the GrooveKart E-commerce platform.

And, GrooveFunnels is still offering a lifetime deal for everything it has to offer; all its apps and features including GrooveKart, at a one-time fee of $1397.

You can find out more about this lifetime deal here, or you can check out my GrooveFunnels review here.

GrooveKart Founders

The company was created by industry experts in a mix of e-commerce, internet marketing and software development.

That’s a perfect mix for a software piece like GrooveKart, and will likely contribute to the success of this platform.

The founders are:

  • Mike Filsaime (CEO and Co-Founder)
  • John Cornetta (President)
  • Mattijs Naus (CTO)
  • Matt Seralta (COO)

Who is The GrooveKart eCommerce Platform For?

The GrooveKart platform is perfect for anyone who wants to run an e-commerce business but wants to avoid the high costs of platforms like Shopify.

Whether you’re looking to sell products from Aliexpress, or Print-on-demand clothing, GrooveKart has the right features built-in.

As the platform lets you build an online store, you can sell virtually any type of product – no matter if it’s digital or physical.

However, if you’re primarily selling digital products then it may be better to use GrooveFunnels instead, as the templates may be better suited.

Back to GrooveKart, the platform also has a lot of fulfillment options built-in for print-on-demand and eCommerce stores. But we’ll talk more about that later.

Plus, I also recommend thinking about the following questions before buying GrooveKart:

  • What features will you need to build your perfect online store?
  • Do the template styles and type suit your business?
  • Does GrooveKart have the right shipping features and fulfillment options that you need?

GrooveKart Features and Benefits

  • GrooveKart Studio
  • eCommerce Templates
  • 1-Click Upsells
  • Order Bumps
  • Pre Transaction Upsells
  • Fast Loading Pages
  • Checkouts
  • Scarcity and Urgency
  • Social Proof
  • Reviews Manager
  • Custom Domains
  • Coupons and Discounts
  • Display International Currencies
  • Compliance Pages
  • CRM Software

GrooveKart Studio

The first feature is also one of the most unique on the market. GrooveKart Studio comes with templates and media-ready to use for your products.

You can use these assets to create products that you can sell using GrooveKart. And as you’d expect, setting up the fulfilment for this is very easy because it’s all inside of the platform.

eCommerce Templates and Drag and Drop Builder

GrooveKart comes with a large selection of high converting templates so that you can build pretty much any e-commerce store.

When I was browsing the templates, I was quite impressed as they are very well designed, there is a nice variety, and they are also conversion-focused.

These can then be edited using the easy-to-use drag and drop page builder.

1-Click Upsells

One of the biggest complaints about Shopify, WooCommerce and other eCommerce platforms is that they don’t have one-click post-purchase upsells built-in.

That means you’ll have to go for costly apps, which can often cost you an additional $60-100 per month.

However, GrooveKart has this feature built-in. This shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise considering that an expert marketer like Mike Filsaime is behind the company.

With this feature, you can send your customers to a new page after buying a product and offer them an upsell.

The cool thing is that the customers’ credit card or PayPal information is already saved so that they can purchase in just one click.

Order Bumps

Order bumps are another tool that is priceless for an online business but not available in Shopify. This feature will help you make the most out of every sale, similar to 1-click upsells.

In case you don’t know what this is, it’s basically a little box your customers can tick when checking out to add another product.

Internet marketing gurus don’t only use this conversion trick, but the biggest companies in the world like Amazon use it too, as you’ve probably noticed.

Pre Transaction Upsells and Downsells

This feature is similar to the post-purchase upsell that I’ve already mentioned. However, it’s before the transaction, which can also help you increase sales too.

Again, it’s just another way of making the most out of every sale.

Fast Loading Pages

If you have used many website builders, you’ll know how many of them have pages that load extremely slow.

This is a big problem because, according to CXL, every second of loading time can kill up to 25% of conversions.

However, GrooveKart has made sure that its pages load fast with all of its features. Because it has all the apps built-in, they could optimize their page builder for them, which has allowed them to ensure your pages load fast.

That’s a pretty sweet win-win if you ask me.

Checkouts

Another complaint with a Shopify store, and many other eCommerce platforms, is the lack of control over checkouts.

GrooveKart gives you a huge amount of control and lets you design user-friendly checkouts individually, which you can then embed into your pages.

Plus, they are very conversion-focused.

Scarcity and Urgency

Scarcity and Urgency tools are some of the most popular sales techniques for eCommerce stores.

GrooveKart has all the scarcity and urgency tools built in so that you can add them to your online shop to increase your conversions.

Some of the tools include:

  • Add labels such as “selling fast”, “limited supply”, etc.
  • Add countdown timers to your pages

Social Proof

Social Proof is another sales technique that is extremely popular with most online businesses, especially eCommerce stores.

You may have used it before yourself, or at least noticed the little pop-ups in the corner of some websites that say “(Person) from (Place) just bought this product.”

GrooveKart also has this built in, so you will not need to purchase an external app to display social proof.

Reviews Manager

Another cool thing about GrooveKart is that it comes with a reviews manager, so you can manage what your customers are saying from the dashboard.

You’ll be able to display the reviews and reply to your customers directly from your GrooveKart account.

Custom Domains

Like Shopify, you will also be able to connect custom domains to our e-commerce store, which is essential for branding.

Connecting them is straightforward as it is with most other platforms. You just need to verify ownership and then use the domains for your store.

Coupons and Discounts

With GrooveKart, you’ll also be able to use coupons and discounts for your e-commerce store. You can promote these on social media, email, or other marketing channels to generate more sales for your online business.

Creating coupons in GrooveKart is also very easy, as you just select the product and then set the percentage or dollar amount that should be reduced.

Display Related Items Pre and Post Checkout

Just like Amazon and other giants in the eCommerce world, you’ll be able to display related items. This can lead to more conversions, which means more money in your pocket.

Having this built-in is great because some platforms have no options for this, not even with 3rd party apps.

Display International Currencies

Besides high-converting templates, another tool that will help you increase conversions is displaying international currencies.

Just like Shopify, you can display whatever currency you want. This is ideal for targeting international markets, as they are more likely to purchase when their currency is being displayed.

Compliance Pages

Recently, many online stores have run into issues because they have not been compliant with GDPR and other privacy laws.

When you use GrooveKart for your eCommerce business, you will more easily be able to comply with the laws you need to. It comes with many pre-built templates and helps you to stay compliant with the latest rules and regulations.

Analytics

As marketers created GrooveKart, you also won’t be surprised that they value analytics highly.

Groovekart comes with very comprehensive analytics that will help you make the best decisions to grow your eCommerce store.

In addition to the built-in analytics, you can also install Google Analytics and other 3rd party tracking tools using code.

Support Desk

Finally, GrooveKart also comes with a built-in support desk that you can connect to your store.

This is also something that I don’t think any other eCommerce platform offers, without having to integrate with a 3rd party platform, at least.

This will make helping your customers a lot easier, and can also help you get more positive reviews, and avoid the negative ones.

GK-Ali-Connect

One of the coolest features is GK-Ali connect. You can choose any product from AliExpress, and import it with its images, descriptions and details into your GrooveKart store.

Educational Material

John Cornetta, Mike Filsaime and many others on the GrooveKart team are highly experienced marketers that you can learn from.

The cool thing is that the platform offers free educational material for users. This isn’t just tutorials on how to use GrooveKart. They also teach you how to market your online store.

GrooveKart Review: Pros and Cons

GrooveKart Pros:

  • Much lower cost than Shopify, even on paid plans
  • Much more features out of the box than Shopify and other E-commerce platforms
  • Lots of fantastic sales tools to help you make the most out of your traffic
  • Fast-loading pages despite the huge number of features
  • High-converting templates that look gorgeous
  • 30-day money-back guarantee on the paid plans
  • Outstanding tools for drop-shipping and print-on-demand stores

GrooveKart Cons:

  • It’s a fairly new platform (But founders have a solid track record of successful projects, so it’s not a big deal)
  • It still has a few bugs = slightly less user-friendly than more developed platforms
  • No way to get 3rd party apps yet (although it has pretty much everything)

GrooveKart Pricing – Free Plan Available Now

GrooveKart used to have paid pricing plans ranging from $99 to $149 per month. However, recently the new eCommerce platform has introduced a free plan which is more than enough to get your eCommerce store started.

You will have access to everything that the platform has to offer, but with some usage limits. As you grow your store, you will need to upgrade.

But, the biggest benefit of upgrading is that you will not be charged a transaction fee.

On the free plan, you will be charged 2% on every sale, which is also similar to the paid plans of competitors like Shopify and SamCart.

While that doesn’t sound like a lot of money, it definitely adds up. Once your eCommerce business starts doing a $10,000 revenue per month, for example, that’s over $200 in fees per month in transaction fees.

But, if you’re just getting started, the GrooveKart free plan is more than enough, and you get access to all of the features.

If you want to try it out for yourself you can click the button below to get started.

Below, I have also explained the old GrooveKarts pricing plans, alongside the GrooveFunnels lifetime deal, which also gives you full access to this shopping cart solution.

Keep in mind, if you want to take advantage of the fell plan, GrooveKart may get rid of it at some point in the future. It’s likely limited to a certain number of people.

Note: All GrooveKart plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee!

Old Pricing Plans

Monthly ($149 per month, $99 per month with Code)

The first GrooveKart plan is $149 per month, which is the platform’s standard monthly pricing. However, using the discount code “save50”, you can get this plan for $99 per month.

This plan includes everything inside of the GrooveKart eCommerce platform, and there are no transaction fees.

  • Total annual cost: 1188 (with code: Save50)

Annual Pricing: Special Deal: $497 per year

GrooveKart is currently running a special deal on the standard annual pricing, which works out to be over 50% off.

This plan includes everything GrooveKart offers, 0% transaction fees, and costs just $497 per year.

Total annual cost: $497

The New Pricing

GrooveKart Free Plan: Free

As I already explained above, GrooveKart is now free.

You can get a free account by clicking the button below.

GrooveFunnels Lifetime Deal: $1397 one-time fee

One of the most talked-about platforms for online businesses is GrooveFunnels. And no wonder, as the lifetime deal is currently going for $1397.

In this plan, you get access to everything inside of GrooveFunnels, including the platinum version of GrooveKart.

You also get access to all the other features (which are pretty much entire platforms) shown in the image below.

If you add up the costs of these separately, it would cost you thousands per month — which is why there is so much buzz around GrooveFunnels.

That being said, Mike Filsaime and the GrooveFunnels team have announced that this plan will be going away at any time.

So, here’s how to check whether the plan is still available:

  • Sign up for a free GrooveFunnels account here
  • In the main dashboard, hit “upgrade” (you will need to confirm on the next page)
  • This page will show what deals are available
The GrooveFunnels pricing list

How Does GrooveKart Compare To Other e-commerce Platforms?

GrooveKart is a new player in the field that aims to do well in areas where Shopify and others don’t.

One way it does this is through the apps. On Shopify, you’ll easily find yourself paying for 10 other apps just to run your online store.

And, on other e-commerce platforms, it’s the same; for example, with WooCommerce, you’ll need additional plugins.

However, even if you install a ton of apps for your Shopify store or other platforms, you probably still won’t have the same level of marketing tools. GrooveKart was created by marketers, so it outperforms almost every other platform in that aspect.

One of the biggest reasons why GrooveFunnels is probably the best option for your business is the transaction fees. Even on paid Shopify plans, they will charge you around a 2% transaction fee, which adds up to a lot of money. On paid plans, GrooveFunnels doesn’t charge transaction fees.

Plus, Groove Kart actually has a free plan, which I don’t think any of its competitors have.

Switching From Shopify To GrooveFunnels

Switching from Shopify to GrooveFunnels couldn’t be easier — With the click of a button.

All you need to do is enter your Shopify credentials, select what products and categories you want to import. Within minutes, they will all be inside of GrooveKart.

Plus, GrooveKart guarantees you will make more sales or they will refund you.

You can get started and switch to GrooveKart by clicking the button below.

GrooveKart Review: Final Thoughts

I hope you have enjoyed my comprehensive GrooveKart review. As you have seen throughout, the platform comes with an incredible number of features for a very small price.

You’ll have everything you need to build a high-converting online store and landing page for your business.

If you are looking to give the platform a go, you can sign up for a free account using the button below.

GrooveFunnels vs Kartra: Which One Is Best For Your Business?

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GrooveFunnels vs Kartra picture with people looking at the laptop

GrooveFunnels vs Kartra is a hot discussion in the funnel-building community because of the similarities between both platforms.

They both aim to be the all-in-one solution that lets their customers build their entire business. In this article, we are going to compare them to see which one is best for you.

Something that also caught my eye about GrooveFunnels, is that it offers a free plan. That’s something that isn’t too common for software of this kind.

But, we’ll talk more about that later on.

GrooveFunnels vs Kartra: Overview

 GrooveFunnelsKartra
Websitegroovefunnels.comkartra.com
Founded In20182013
PricingStarting at freeStarting at $99 per month
Trial?FreemiumYes, 14 days.
Money-back Guarantee30 days30 days
Overall Rating8.5/108/10
Check Out GrooveFunnels Here
Check Out Kartra Here

More Comparisons:

You may also want to compare these funnel and landing page builders with other popular options:

What Is GrooveFunnels?

GrooveFunnels image with icon

GrooveFunnels is a piece of software that lets its customers build sales funnels, send emails, and do various other tasks.

GrooveDigital, the company behind GrooveFunnels, was not founded until 2018.

The product GrooveFunnels has also only just officially launched on October 6th 2020, meaning it’s still in early stages.

Because of this, some of the features are not fully developed yet, but the most important ones are. We’ll talk more about this later on, but GrooveFunnels does offer a big selection which is what makes it special.

The founding members of GrooveFunnels are:

  • Mike Filsaime
  • John Cornetta
  • Matt Serralta
  • Matt Naus
GrooveFunnels Founders

Interestingly, Mike Filsaime was also actually the founder of Kartra. He decided to take a buyout and leave the Kartra project due to creative differences with his business partner.

As a result of this move, he started GrooveFunnels with the other founding members mentioned above.

Something to note though is that when someone like Mike Filsaime leaves a company, there are also often entire teams (for example, developers) that will leave with him as well.

For this reason, there are probably some additional similarities between Kartra and GrooveFunnels.

During the launch of GrooveFunnels, Mike has stated that getting a second run at creating an all-in-one business tool of this nature means that he can build it bigger and better than Kartra, with more modern technology.

That’s a big claim considering that Kartra is such a successful business SaaS solution.

However, these words are also coming from a guy with a tremendous amount of experience and respect in both the software and the online marketing industry.

In this article I aim to find out which platform is best, Kartra or GrooveFunnels, and share all the details with you.

This platform comes with a ton of useful tools you can use to grow your business. If you want to find out exactly what GrooveFunnels has to offer with nothing left out, then you can see all the GrooveFunnels features here.

What Is Kartra?

Kartra business icon

Kartra is also an all-in-one business software solution that also helps you build and scale your online business.

The company behind Kartra is Genesis digital which was founded in 2013.

Genesis Digital was also behind many other successful SaaS tools for online businesses including EverWebinar and WebinarJam.

Mike Filsaime, who we spoke about earlier on, was also involved in both these projects.

Kartra is Genesis Digital’s most recent project which didn’t launch until 2018, so it’s not too old either. However, unlike GrooveFunnels, all of the features are fully developed.

The current head team members of Genesis Digital include:

  • Andy Jenkins (Co-founder)
  • Hector Yague (Hector Yague)
  • A.J. Robers (Chief Revenue Officer)

You can also read our detailed review of Kartra here.

What Are The Similarities?

Other than Mike Filsaime being involved heavily in both of these projects, there are also several other similarities between Kartra vs GrooveFunnels.

In fact, GrooveFunnels has or will have every Kartra feature, and is also promising to add more software tools that Kartra does not have.

Will Kartra respond and then begin to add more apps to their platform also?

Time will tell.

However, GrooveDigital have an edge here as they have intimate insider knowledge of the blueprint behind Kartra. Because of this, they know exactly how to replicate it with modification and additional features.

In this section, I’m going to run you through the parts of these platforms that are similar, so that you know exactly what to expect if you decide to purchase either of them.

Page Builder

Both of these platforms have a brilliant page builder that lets you create several different types of websites, landing pages and sales funnels.

With both Kartra and GrooveFunnels, you can build squeeze pages, landing pages, sales funnels, full-navigation websites, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Both platforms use an intuitive drag and drop editor, which is nice to work with.

The main difference between the page editors is that GrooveFunnels uses more up-to-date software, which also helps the pages load faster. Groove’s landing page builder app is called GroovePages, and you can get access to it completely free here.

Having said that, it’s not to bash Kartra in any way. Kartra’s page editing software is outstanding too, and probably uses software that beats a lot of other products on the market.

Plus, GrooveFunnels will also naturally have a few more bugs than Kartra, at least in the early stages, as it’s only just launched and will naturally have a few wrinkles to iron out. But, the GrooveDigital team is working on them continuously, and they are becoming less common.

In short, they both have a great drag and drop editors, but GrooveFunnels might just have the edge here over Kartra due to the superior load speed. This is important because it will help any landing pages built by GroovePages to rank better in the search results.

Large Selection of Templates

Both Kartra and GrooveFunnels have a large selection of templates.

The templates aren’t just for one type of landing page or funnel, they have something for pretty much anything you can think of.

I haven’t counted all of them, but it looks as if Kartra currently has a few more. Although, this is to be expected, as the software has been around longer.

GrooveFunnels, on the other hand, have said that they will continuously add more templates to their GroovePages library every Friday on an ongoing basis.

Regardless, both platforms have nice templates that are easy to work with in the drag and drop editors.

Email Marketing

Kartra has KartraMail, while GrooveFunnels has GrooveMail.

The email marketing feature inside of GrooveFunnels is one that is still actively getting a lot of development put into it, as it’s not quite as advanced as Kartra yet.

You can send broadcasts, and also build basic automation sequences, but that’s about it as of right now.

The GrooveFunnels team is putting a lot of resources into developing GrooveMail as they want it to be, in time, one of the most advanced email marketing solutions with powerful automation capabilities, like ActiveCampaign.

Kartra Mail, on the other hand, is fully developed and is supposed to be already quite similar to ActiveCampaign, which is pretty sweet.

Kartra Mail has a huge number of automation triggers including popular ones like:

  • “If customer has been refunded”
  • “If recipient is an active affiliate”
  • “If recipient has visited X page”

GrooveMail will eventually also have these automation triggers, but as of right now they are only available in Kartra.

Membership Site

The next similarity between Kartra vs GrooveFunnels is the membership site feature.

Both platforms have a feature like this that lets you build and manage your membership sites.

They both platforms have all the usual features that you would expect such as:

  • Drip-feed content
  • Multiple Access Levels
  • Progress Tracking
  • Advanced Analytics
  • Ont-time or subscription payment options
  • Member access via password

As Kartra and GrooveFunnels have these features, you won’t need any type of external membership software like Thinkific or Kajabi.

Checkout & Sales

Kartra and GrooveFunnels also have great checkout and sales features.

The checkouts are fully customizable on both platforms, meaning you aren’t locked into one style.

They also both have great up-sell features including:

  • One-click Order bumps
  • One-click Upsells
  • One-click Downsells

Powerful features like these can help you to increase your revenue considerably, so it’s great to see that both platforms have them.

Share Funnels

Another similarity between the two platforms is the ability to create share funnels and campaigns.

With both Kartra and GroovePages, you can share your sales funnels and entire campaigns with other people who are using the same platform. This can also include your email sequences.

This can be especially useful if you are operating an affiliate marketing model and you want to offer a done-for-you landing page, funnel and email sequence as a bonus, or even as a paid product upsell of your own.

Network marketers would also find this element very useful as they can give ready made sales funnels to members of their downline to help them build their business.

When it comes to the share funnel feature, I believe ClickFunnels started it. However, with Kartra and GrooveFunnels, it has now been taken a step further as you can share other assets, such as email autoresponder sequences, not just the sales funnels.

I haven’t tested it out yet, but I recently heard that helpdesks are also shareable on both these platforms.

Video Hosting

When Kartra first came out, one of the main features that really caught my eye was that it also comes with video hosting.

Now to see the newcomer, GrooveFunnels also providing this feature is really exciting!

In my opinion, the lack of video hosting in ClickFunnels is one of its biggest let downs. It’s a great platform, but without this feature you’re soon gonna run up extra costs on other 3rd party services.

Video hosting will be really useful for those of you with membership sites, landing pages that use a video sales letter (VSL), or any other place where you would need to host your own videos.

Having the video app built-in will save you at least $50 per month as you won’t need to go for a platform like Vimeo or Wistia.

This hosting feature inside of GrooveFunnels and Kartra is also extremely advanced. For example, you can tag a lead based on how much of your video they watched, and then send them emails based on the point where they switched off. That’s pretty powerful!

Now, some people might think, “I don’t need this feature, I can just host them on YouTube privately and then embed them into my landing pages and members areas.”

Well, yes, you can do that. However, there are two problems with this.

Firstly, if you are hosting your VSL on YouTube with the intention to use it to sell a product and then the viewer clicks on your video, they’ll be taken away from your landing page and straight to YouTube.

Secondly, if you’re hosting your videos on YouTube and then embedding them into a paid members area, you’ll have to set them to public in order for them to be viewable in your members area. But that then means that everyone else on YouTube will also be able to see your videos.

So, basically you’d need to host them privately.

And why not take advantage of free video hosting inside GrooveFunnels or Kartra?

Helpdesk

Both platforms also have a help desk tool that you can connect to your websites, landing pages, or membership sites.

They allow your customers to easily contact you, meaning you will be able to provide better customer service.

Again, it’s nice to see that both platforms have this tool, as it saves you from having to get an external tool for this.

Calendar

Another tool that both of Kartra and GrooveFunnels have is the calendar feature.

This tool allows you to book appointments with your clients and manage your time better.

It’s a rather small feature compared to some of the other ones, but it could prove to be useful if you own a service-based business, especially for something like consulting.

Affiliate Management and Tracking Suite

If you want to recruit affiliates to promote your own products and services then both GrooveFunnels and Kartra offer this feature.

Recruiting affiliates to promote for you is an extremely effective way to grow your business quickly.

Both of these all-in-one business solutions offer an easy to use affiliate management tool with powerful tracking and reporting capabilities.

Using either Kartra’s affiliate management suite or Groove’s solutions known as GrooveAffiliate, you can do the following:

  • Offer flexible commissions
  • Review affiliate applications
  • Approve affiliates
  • Create custom landing pages for affiliates
  • Offer payouts via PayPal
  • Set payment milestones
  • Tag your affiliates
  • Offer layered commission tiers
  • Set up your program as either transaction or subscription-based
  • Provide your affiliates with promo tools

Affiliate Program

The next similarity between GrooveFunnels and Kartra is that they both have a pretty good affiliate program.

Kartra pays out 40% recurring commissions to all its affiliates, while GrooveFunnels pays 20% to free members and 40% to paid members.

The GrooveFunnels affiliate program has also gone one step further than Kartra by offering a tier-2 level commission on top of the 20 or 40% commission, depending on your membership level.

So, if you’re on the 20% commission rate for direct sign-ups, you will then also get an additional 5% commission on anyone who signs up through someone who you have signed up.

And if you’re on the 40% commission structure, then your tier-2 commission increases from 5% to 10%.

Both affiliate programs have a ton of material for affiliates to use, including:

  • Banners
  • Email swipes
  • Ad Swipes
  • etc.

If you’re an affiliate with a funnel-building audience, promoting either GrooveFunnels or Kartra could be pretty lucrative for you. Plus, you would be promoting two of the best pieces of software on the market, so you can feel good about it too.

Both of these programs are good for beginner affiliate marketers and experienced veterans alike.

Check Out GrooveFunnels Here
Check Out Kartra Here

What Are The Differences?

As you have seen above, there are quite a lot of similarities between Kartra and GrooveFunnels.

Below, we’ll be taking a look at the key differences between both of these platforms.

What GrooveFunnels Has That Kartra Doesn’t Have

Here are the main tools only available in GrooveFunnels.

Once it’s fully developed, there may also be some parts of the individual features that are only available in GrooveFunnels. But, we’ll have to wait and see for that.

Webinar Hosting

The first app that is available in GrooveFunnels but not Kartra is the webinar hosting feature.

GrooveFunnels lets you host both pre-recorded (evergreen) webinars and live webinars.

This is not available inside of Kartra, so if you’re using that platform then you’ll need to integrate with something like EverWebinar and WebinarJam.

This means, if you are looking to use webinars, it would make sense to go for GrooveFunnels and save money by using their webinar hosting service.

GrooveKart

GrooveKart is the eCommerce platform by GrooveDigital. If you sign up for GrooveFunnels premium or get the lifetime deal (check here if it’s still available), you will get access to it.

It’s similar to Shopify in the sense of what it does, but the cool thing about it is that all the apps are built-in for free. With Shopify, you gotta pay extra for them.

GrooveKart also has some great educational material on things like traffic and copyrighting to help you grow your business.

Faster Page Loading Times & Better Page Builder

Mike Filsaime left the Kartra project to start GrooveFunnels with his partners. 

GrooveFunnels uses more up-to-date software for their page editor. For this reason, it’s easier and more intuitive to edit your landing pages in the GroovePages app.

All the landing pages and sales funnels built with Groove are done so by using HTML. This means that your landing pages and websites will load much faster for your visitors, and so there’s less chance of your visitors getting frustrated waiting for your page to load and leaving. Unfortunately, this often happens with slower page builders.

If your landing pages are loading quickly then you’ll also get an additional SEO benefit. This is because Google now awards higher rankings to pages that load faster, especially for mobile.

If you’re looking to use SEO to generate organic traffic, this (and the next feature) would be a big reason for you to pick GrooveFunnels over Kartra.

GrooveBlog

GrooveBlog is the blogging platform that will be quite similar to WordPress. It will also have an open-source plugin store, meaning 3rd party developers can upload their own plugins. 

The blog pages will be easy to edit and also be SEO-friendly. To have something like this inside of your funnel-builder is awesome. 

  • GrooveQuiz and GrooveSurvey

Kartra also doesn’t have any features for Quizzes and Surveys.

You can build basic ones by connecting the buttons, but it’s nothing like the features designed for these purposes inside of GrooveFunnels. 

What Kartra Has That GrooveFunnels Doesn’t Have

Let’s now look at the tools that Kartra has but GrooveFunnels does not.

Although, I could also imagine that later on GrooveFunnels will eventually add all of these features, as they’re clearly looking to do one better than Kartra.

  • Kartra a finished Product

This first point isn’t a feature, but it’s the fact that Kartra is a finished product.

With GrooveFunnels, you’ll still be waiting on certain apps. Every single tool inside of Kartra is available and fully developed. 

If you want all the features right now for whatever reason, going for Kartra may be the right option. However, you could also look for software that integrates with GrooveFunnels, if you don’t want to miss out on the future of Groove. 

  • Kartra Uses BAM – Behavioral-Adaptive-Marketing

BAM or Behavioral-Adaptive-Marketing is a feature that lets you match what your visitors and leads see, based on their behavior.

With this feature, the landing pages, emails, copy, and offers that you create will adapt to the behavior of your visitors and leads.

This is a killer tool that can help lift your conversions, and as of right now, it’s only available in Kartra. GrooveFunnels may add this later on, but they have not mentioned anything about it yet.

  • Kartra Agency

This feature is only available in Kartra.

As the name suggests, this is extremely useful for agencies. It allows you to sell Kartra accounts and manage them as well. You get them for a 40% discount but can sell them for any price you wish.

For example, you can build an entire funnel for a client with emails, helpdesks, etc.  and charge $2,000 for the setup, plus a $500 per month retainer for managing it.

Your monthly cost would only be 40% less of what a Kartra account usually costs, and if the client stops paying you, you can revoke access.

  • Better Automation sequences (As of right now) 

As of right now Kartra also has better automation sequences.

GrooveFunnels will eventually catch up with Kartra, but right now it only has the basics. That being said, you can easily integrate GrooveFunnels with an autoresponder of your choice, if you do need advanced automation sequences.

Kartra Drawbacks

Compared to GrooveFunnels, Kartra has a few drawbacks. In this section, we are going to take a look and see what these limitations are.

No Free Plan

Firstly, Kartra does not have a free plan.

The starting price for Kartra is $97 per month, while GrooveFunnels has a completely free plan.

Slower Pages

The pages inside of Kartra are not the fastest, as it uses the older technology if you are comparing it to GrooveFunnels.

From my experience, Kartra pages can take anywhere from 3 to 7 seconds to load, depending on the size.

This could cost you conversions in some cases, and is also a problem if you’re looking to use SEO to generate organic traffic.

Fewer Features

As you may have noticed throughout this article, GrooveFunnels has more features than Kartra.

GrooveFunnels Feature Summary

To give you a direct overview, here’s a quick recap of features only inside of GrooveFunnels:

  • Webinar hosting (Pre-recorded & live)
  • Blogging app
  • GrooveKart (E-commerce platform)
  • Survey app
  • Quiz app

While at first glance these features may not seem like that big of an impact, they are.

For all of those features, you would need entirely separate pieces of software that could easily cost you a couple of hundred bucks per month combined.

For example, GrooveKart would be comparable to Shopify. But, with all the paid apps you would need for Shopify, that would cost you at least $70-$90 per month. 

Smaller Community

Despite Kartra being older, it has a smaller community.

This isn’t anything to be ashamed of, as GrooveFunnels has seen some exponential growth this year. However, fewer people using the platform also means you’ll find it a little harder to network or get “community help”.

That being said, you may be someone who prefers a smaller community.

Kartra’s Facebook group has 21,000 members compared to GrooveFunnels’ 100,000.

21,000 for an online business group is still quite big in all fairness to Kartra.

GrooveFunnels Drawbacks

GrooveFunnels doesn’t have as many drawbacks as Kartra, but the main one of course being that it’s still in early stages. Other than that, there isn’t much at all that you could complain about.

Still In Early Stages

GrooveFunnels is still in very early stages.

This is the biggest drawback with the software, as it means:

  • Some features are not available at all
  • Some features are still being developed & improved
  • There are a few bugs (although they are becoming less frequent)

Because of the list of features that this platform has, it still is a great offer, even if it would stay the way it is.

Still, this is a drawback and it’s the biggest one with this platform. Other than that, there are only minor limitations.

Features On Lower Plans

With Kartra, even on the lowest plans, you get access to all features, apart from Kartra agency.

This isn’t the case with GrooveFunnels, as you need to have the premium plan to get access to all features.

Of course, the other plans still have great value, but this could be seen as a drawback if you were looking at one of the lower plans.

In the lifetime deal, you also get access to all features, so it’s an incredible deal, but we’ll talk more about that later on.

Kartra: Pros & Cons

Kartra is a solid all-in-one platform that could help you build an online business. To give you a clear overview, I’ve laid out all the pros and cons below.

Kartra Pros:

  • Fully-developed
  • Powerful Automation
  • All-in-one platform
  • Good sales funnel builder
  • Nice templates
  • BAM (Behavioral Adaptive Marketing)
  • Good list of features

Kartra Cons:

  • No free plan
  • Older page builder
  • Slow pages
  • Fewer features compared to GrooveFunnels

GrooveFunnels Pros & Cons

GrooveFunnels is still in beta, but is evolving quickly and has seen some exponential growth over the past couple of months. Take a look at the recap of the pros and cons below.

GrooveFunnels Pros:

  • Free plan available
  • Big Community
  • Extremely large list of features
  • Fast pages
  • Great page builder
  • Great sales funnel builder
  • GrooveKart platform included
  • Lifetime deal available (As of October) 
  • All-in-one platform
  • Nice templates

GrooveFunnels Cons:

  • Still in early stages (few bugs, not finished features)
  • No BAM or Agency Feature
Check Out GrooveFunnels Here
Check Out Kartra Here

The Pricing

Now that we have taken a look at what features both platforms have to offer, let’s see at what cost they both come.

Kartra Cost

Kartra has four main plans, with the lowest one starting at $99 per month.

Something that I do like about Kartra’s pricing is that you get access to all features, even on the starter plan.

The Kartra pricing plan table

What I don’t like as much about Kartra’s pricing is the resources available such as the custom domains or bandwidth if you’re on the starter plan.

50gb bandwidth isn’t a lot, so if you are hosting videos, you’ll probably use that up with a couple of thousand visitors.

Overall though, I would say the Kartra pricing plans are fair. If you were to buy all the features separately, they would cost you a lot more as well. 

GrooveFunnels: Cost

As mentioned a couple of times throughout this review, there may still be a lifetime deal available. Before we jump into that though, let’s take a look at the regular plans.

In the image below, you can see the features and costs of each plan. Of course, there is a completely free plan which lets you build pages, sell your products, and also gives you access to the GrooveAffiliate platform.

If you were to add up the costs of all the tools you would need to get the features available in any of the plans below, you’ll realize what an incredible deal GrooveFunnels is offering.

The GrooveFunnels pricing list

GrooveFunnels Lifetime Deal

GrooveFunnels’ cost is already extremely low compared to if you were to buy separate tools for every feature.

However, there may still be an even better deal available.

As of October 2020, you can still get access to everything inside of GrooveFunnels for a one-time payment of $1397.

This deal is only available for a limited time, and a certain number of people, after which it will be discontinued.

To check whether it’s available follow the instructions below:

  • Step 1: Join GrooveFunnels for free here (No credit card required)
  • Step 2: In your dashboard, hit “upgrade”
  • Step 3: Scroll through the page to see any available deals

If this deal is available, it’s worth considering, to say the least.

To put this into perspective, you would be paying around the cost of 4 months’ worth of GrooveFunnels premium, and then you’ve got it free forever.

GrooveFunnels premium is already an incredible deal, purchasing separate tools for all the features could easily cost you thousands of dollars per year.

Check Out GrooveFunnels Here
Check Out Kartra Here

Final Thoughts: Which Is Best?

Throughout my GrooveFunnels and Kartra comparison, we’ve seen a close battle.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that there’s a winner, as they both have tremendous value for marketers and business owners.

Kartra could work exceptionally well if you work with clients, thanks to the agency feature. Or, it could also be the right choice for you, if you’re an experienced marketer looking to utilize the BAM feature, as well as the advanced automation sequences.

GrooveFunnels on the other hand could work incredibly well for you if you are willing to wait for all the features. Once, the software is fully developed, it will have everything you need to build a business, and you probably will rarely ever need another SaaS tool again.

GrooveFunnels could also be a good option if you are starting and want to use the free plan.

Either way, both of these platforms have some powerful features for a great price. You can use the links below to check them out for yourself.

Check Out GrooveFunnels Here
Check Out Kartra Here

Want More GrooveFunnels Comparison Articles?

Did this comparison between GrooveFunnels and Kartra help you out? If so, let me know in the comments below.

If you’re still not sure which business software suite is for you between Kartra vs GrooveFunnels, and you want to see more comparisons, then I recommend you read one of my other popular articles below:

SamCart vs ClickFunnels – Which Is Best For Your Business In 2021?

by
Two people in a business meeting

If you sell products and services online, tools like SamCart and ClickFunnels can considerably improve your conversions.

While both platforms offer a range of features to help you acquire more customers, where they really shine is in their ability to generate more sales and increase your bottom line.

They’re both great tools with a set of similar features, however, there are a few key differences you need to know before jumping in.

Here in my comparison of SamCart vs ClickFunnels I will review in detail the features of each platform and explain the benefits they can bring you. I will also lay out the pros and cons of working with each platform so you can clearly see for yourself which one is right for your business.

SamCart Vs ClickFunnels TL;DR Overview

If you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to read the whole post, here’s the TL;DR overview with the main differences between ClickFunnels and SamCart:

  • SamCart focuses on helping you build the best shopping cart, while ClickFunnels focuses on using funnels
  • ClickFunnels has a membership site builder, while SamCart does not
  • ClickFunnels lets you host live webinars while SamCart does not
  • ClickFunnels is more expensive than SamCart
  • They both have a decent list of integrations, but ClickFunnels has more
  • ClickFunnels has more tools overall
  • SamCart has more tools that are laser-focused on the checkout experience
  • SamCart has better payment tools, subscription and affiliate management
  • SamCart primarily focuses on eCommerce
SamCart 14-Day Trial Here
ClickFunnels 14-Day Trial Here

What Is SamCart?

SamCart homepage

Brian and Scott Moran co-founded SamCart in 2014. The platform was designed to help businesses convert more customers by creating a better eCommerce checkout experience.

And with the average cart abandonment rate being 69.80%, it’s fair to say that there is a huge need for a product like SamCart.

Since SamCart launched, it’s become extremely popular with businesses, entrepreneurs and online marketers. While many of its competitors, including ClickFunnels, focus on being somewhat of an all-in-one platform, SamCart has stuck to its specialty; checkout experiences.

The platform is also popular with businesses of all sizes, as it has pricing plans ranging from $49 to $199 per month.

What Is ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels homepage

ClickFunnels is the most popular funnel builder on the market.

It’s an all-in-one platform that helps its users convert visitors into sales through a range of powerful features that combine exceptionally well together. I’ll talk about the features in much more detail later on in this article, though.

Like SamCart, the platform was also founded in 2014. Its creator, Russel Brunson, has become very known in the industry because of ClickFunnels and his internet marketing expertise.

ClickFunnels is also known for its massive community of like-minded marketers and entrepreneurs who you can network with in their Facebook group, which is always a nice bonus.

SamCart Pros

  • Allows you to create a smooth checkout experience for your customers
  • Decent pricing plans to suit every budget
  • Very conversion-focused
  • 14-day trial
  • Lots of great payment tools
  • Advanced reporting metrics like lifetime value

SamCart Cons

  • Somewhat limited in features, compared to ClickFunnels
  • Some of the best features are only on the higher plans
  • Not as many integrations as ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels Pros

  • All-in-one funnel system tool
  • Lets you host webinars
  • Allows you to create membership site platforms
  • Good list of integrations
  • Better and more complete page builder than SamCart
  • Lots of educational material and a big community
  • 14-day trial

ClickFunnels Cons

  • Not as good payment tools as SamCart
  • It can get costly and doesn’t have a lot of payment plans
  • Not as good analytics as SamCart

SamCart Features

Now that we have taken a look at some basic info on these two popular platforms, let’s jump into SamCarts in more detail and explore the features.

SamCart has quite a long list of features, and they are designed to help you generate more sales. Below, I’ve broken them down into different sections that should make them a little easier to digest.

Sales Page Design

One of SamCart’s core features is sales page design.

For this feature, SamCart comes with:

  • Drag and drop builder
  • Pre-designed templates
  • Unlimited products
  • Digital Wallets (Apple pay, Google pay, etc.)
  • Pre-made templates
  • Localization (Translate your websites automatically)
  • Custom domains

Compared to ClickFunnels, SamCarts drag and drop builder is a little more simple. It lets you create a single sales page with a thank you page, while ClickFunnels enables you to build multi-step sales funnels.

One feature that I think is especially cool about SamCart is the localization feature. This means that your pages’ language and currency will adapt to your customer’s location, which should help to increase conversions considerably.

I also like the templates inside of SamCart; they’re simple, clean, and straight to the point.

The drag and drop builder is also straightforward to use — This is also complemented by how simple the templates are to work with. If you’re not that tech-savvy then you’ll find SamCart very easy to get set up.

Revenue Optimization

The next set of features are what SamCart specializes in; revenue optimization.

Here’s what SamCart has to offer in terms of revenue optimization:

  • One-click order bumps (pre-purchase)
  • One-click post-purchase upsells
  • Split-testing
  • Smart pixel tracking
  • Advanced reporting (with comprehensive insights like lifetime value)
  • Add products to order, post-purchase
  • Pay what you want/donations

SamCart’s tools for revenue optimization are pretty decent. It comes with a lot of tools to help you get the most out of every sale.

Features like one-click upsell, and order bumps can help you generate more sales from the same number of visitors, which can help to increase your profits considerably.

I also liked that SamCart has built-in split-testing for all of the assets you create, so you don’t have to create everything twice manually.

The analytics are also something that I was impressed by. They are very visual and show you some great insights. It can even make advanced business projections to help you predict the near future of your sales.

All in all, I think revenue optimization is an area where SamCart really shines.

SamCart Add Ons

SamCarts next set of features are the “add-ons.” These aren’t add ons in the sense that you have to pay for them separately. Instead, they are called add ons because they are only available in the highest-priced plan.

These features include:

  • Cart abandonment
  • Subscription saver
  • Affiliate Center/Management

Cart Abandonment

Cart abandonment is one of the main areas where SamCart has put a lot of effort into. And, according to the platform itself, SamCart recovers an impressive 35.1% of lost sales.

This feature gives you a lot of info about users who have abandoned their cart, and it can also communicate with your autoresponder to follow up to generate the sale.

Affiliate Management

SamCarts affiliate management is pretty decent, and it has almost everything a dedicated platform would have. There’s a lot of customization for the links, plus you can also create both open and closed affiliate programs.

I also like that you can choose when cookies expire, which is a pretty cool option to have.

Subscription Saver

The final feature of this section is the subscription saver, a.k.a dunning. In case you don’t know what this is, it’s basically a feature that keeps trying to bill your customer if their subscription payment fails for any reason.

Overall, SamCart has a solid set of features, and I can definitely see them making a significant increase in sales for many businesses.

Core Commerce Features

Next, we have the core commerce features. As the name suggests, this is everything that helps you with sales and payment processing basics. However, SamCart does go a little beyond the basics here, as you can see in the list below.

  • Advanced Subscriptions (Free trials, dollar trials, or even payment plans)
  • Taxes and VAT
  • Integrations (We’ll discuss these in more detail later on)
  • Partial refunds
  • Custom fields
  • Payment processors
  • Coupons and discounts
  • Payment options
  • Customer portal

This is another set of features that I was very impressed with. I say this because there aren’t many platforms out there that provide you with this many tools at such a reasonable price.

Features like advanced subscriptions, partial refunds, and tax support are not that common in the industry. However, they can be beneficial and will allow you to be more flexible in your payments.

What SamCart Has That ClickFunnels Does Not Have

As SamCart doesn’t aim to be an all-in-one platform, it doesn’t have as many features as ClickFunnels. However, it does have a few that ClickFunnels is missing, which can make quite a significant difference when used correctly.

Let’s take a look at them below.

Better Cart/Checkout and Delivery Experience

As expected, SamCart does slightly better when it comes to the overall cart experience. This is, of course, because SamCart specializes in this area and is, therefore, where they focus most of their resources and development.

SamCart’s checkout experience is slightly better than ClickFunnels’ because it comes with more options for coupons, cart abandonment, and adding products to the cart post-purchase.

It’s not that ClickFunnels doesn’t have these features, but SamCart just has more comprehensive options on every one of them.

Plus, it also has a unique digital product delivery system that ClickFunnels doesn’t have.

Localization

SamCart’s first feature that ClickFunnels doesn’t actually have at all is localization. Again, this is the automatic translation and changing to the currency of your customer.

If you are targeting multiple countries with different languages and currencies, then the SamCart localization feature will be hugely beneficial, maybe even a game-changer for you.

Advanced Reporting

The next feature only available in Samcart is advanced reporting.

ClickFunnels has some analytics, but SamCart’s are more comprehensive thanks to projecting more metrics and a nice visual display.

Built-in Taxes and Vat

SamCart also has built-in taxes and VAT support.

With ClickFunnels, you’ll have to integrate another platform like Avalara to collect sales tax.

Partial Refunds

Lastly, this is relatively small, but SamCart lets you partially refund your customer. This isn’t a deal-breaker, as you can do this manually. But it will take a lot more time, and it won’t be as smooth with ClickFunnels.

For a more in-depth look at SamCart, you can check out my SamCart review here.

ClickFunnels Features

Now that we have taken a look at what SamCart has to offer let’s do the same for ClickFunnels.

ClickFunnels’ core features include:

  • Sales, checkouts and payments
  • Page builder and templates
  • Webinars
  • Membership sites
  • Affiliate management
  • Email marketing/follow-up funnels
  • Educational material

Sales, Checkouts and Payments

ClickFunnels comes with a lot of built-in tools to help you collect payments and sell your products. These include payment processors, digital wallets, subscriptions and more.

It also has great checkout tools similar to those in SamCart, like order bumps and one-click upsells.

ClickFunnels gets most of this right, and it’s also got the main features of SamCart. However, it is missing a few, such as localization, sales tax, etc., as discussed earlier.

Page Builder and Templates

The ClickFunnels page builder is super easy-to-use and even quite fun. Compared to SamCart, it does give you a few more options and lets you build more types of pages and funnels.

I particularly like the color-coded blocks in the editor as this makes it super easy to use.

It doesn’t only come with the basic templates for your pages, but also or your funnel layouts. For example, it has templates for all kinds of funnels, such as a lead magnet funnels, webinar funnels, tripwire funnel, etc. This is extremely helpful and makes it much easier for you to get rolling on building out your funnel.

The templates are also pretty nice, although many of them do look quite similar to each other, in my opinion. That being said, they are simple customize.

ClickFunnels funnel templates

Webinars

ClickFunnels also lets you host webinars, which can be a great tool to sell your products. That being said, it doesn’t let you host pre-recorded webinars without a third party integration. Still, it’s a pretty useful tool to have, nonetheless.

It’s also nice to have the webinar feature on the same platform as most of your other tools, as it makes the communication between apps more fluid. ClickFunnels also has a lot of templates for webinar funnels, alongside some solid educational material.

Membership Sites

ClickFunnels’ next core feature is the membership site feature.

This will, of course, be useful if you are looking to create a course. The membership site builder is decent and gives you quite a few useful tools. For example, you have the option to make the content drip-feed or create multiple access levels, which is nice.

However, their membership site builder isn’t flawless, and does have its limitations. For example, it doesn’t have any video hosting built-in, nor does it have any dedicated analytics. Additionally, the customization isn’t the best either.

Still, it’s quite cool that ClickFunnels offers this feature already baked in. It’s also not uncommon for ClickFunnels users’ to use a 3rd party tool like Kajabi or Teachable for their members’ areas.

Affiliate Management

ClickFunnels also has a built-in affiliate management tool.

Again, here it’s nice that it’s built-in to the platform and that it has the basics that you would need in an affiliate management tool. However, the reporting is minimal, and you really don’t get a lot of detail, which makes managing the affiliates a little harder.

Still, it will let you create a basic affiliate program, and you can set up commissions for every product/funnel step. Bear in mind though, if you want to use this feature then you will need to upgrade to the ClickFunnels Platinum plan, as it’s not available on the Standard plan. (see pricing below)

Email marketing (Follow-Up Funnels)

One thing that I also like about ClickFunnels is that it has its own email autoresponder built-in. This feature is known as Follow-Up Funnels. It’s pretty decent, as it lets you build automation sequences, send out your newsletters, and it also gives you some nice info about your subscribers too.

You can also send transactional emails, which is nice too, as many other email marketing tools don’t allow this, or only offer it on their highest plans. Having said that, Follow-Up Funnels is also only available on the ClickFunnels Platinum plan.

Overall, ClickFunnels’ email marketing tool is pretty good and should suffice for a lot of users. However, I can also see some marketers preferring a dedicated tool, like SendLane or GetResponse, for their email marketing needs.

Educational Material and Community

Finally, ClickFunnels comes with some fantastic educational material and a massive community.

For example, the Funnel Hack-A-Thon are weekly live group coaching webinars where the ClickFunnels team teaches how to build funnels. There is also FunnelFlix, a library of educational material on topics related to funnels and internet marketing.

SamCart doesn’t have anything that compares to this. Plus, ClickFunnels has a much bigger community, thanks to its popularity. The Facebook group alone has over 248,000 members.

FunnelFlix library1
FunnelFlix Library2

What ClickFunnels Has That SamCart Does Not Have

ClickFunnels being somewhat of an all-in-one platform, will have quite a few features that SamCart doesn’t have.

If you’d prefer to use SamCart but still want some of the features offered by ClickFunnels then you can always buy those features separately and hook them up to your SamCart account via integrations.

More Comprehensive Page and Funnel Builder

ClickFunnels is a funnel builder; SamCart isn’t. Therefore, it’s to be expected that you can’t build the same type of pages and funnels with SamCart.

If you want to build them, I would suggest going for ClickFunnels or seriously considering it.

With SamCart, you would have to integrate with a separate page builder platform, and this would probably cost way more than just going for ClickFunnels.

Membership Site Builder

The next feature only inside of ClickFunnels is the membership site builder. Again, as discussed earlier, it isn’t perfect, but it’s still something that SamCart doesn’t have.

If you wanted this with SamCart, you would have to integrate with a third party membership site builder like Kajabi, Teachable or Thinkific.

Follow Up Funnels (Email Autoresponder)

SamCart also doesn’t have any type of email marketing, and you will need an integration. This will usually cost you at least $30 to $50 per month. However,  I know many people who prefer a dedicated tool for this, so it’s not too big of a deal, although still quite significant.

One thing to also bear in mind is that you only get access to Follow-Up Funnels on the ClickFunnels Platinum plan, which comes in at a hefty $297 per month.

Webinars (live-only)

The next feature only inside of ClickFunnels is live webinars. This isn’t too hard to set up with SamCart, as it even has some templates for the sales page, but you will need an integration for the actual webinar.

Plus, SamCart doesn’t actually have native webinar integrations, so you will have to use Zapier to help you integrate with a third party webinar platform.

Bigger Community and More Educational Material

Lastly, ClickFunnels has a bigger community and more educational material. This is more of a bonus, as I doubt you’d buy into a software piece only for the educational material and community.

But, this can be super-helpful and also go a long way to help you generate more sales, so it’s still quite significant.

If you want to know more about ClickFunnels then I explain all the features in more detail in my ClickFunnels review here.

SamCart Integrations

SamCart has a good list of integrations too.

It integrates with all major:

  • Payment gateways (PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, Authorize.net.)
  • Affiliate platforms (Post Affiliate Pro
  • Email marketing platforms (GetResponse, Aweber, ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo and more)
  • CRMs (Hubspot, InfusionSoft, Ontraport and more)
  • Ecommerce/Fulfillment platforms (ShipStation)
  • Membership site platforms (DAP, OptimizePress, Kajabi and more)
  • Other/General (Zapier, WordPress and more)

SamCart does not have any native webinar integrations, but you could still integrate with a webinar app by using Zapier.

ClickFunnels Integrations

ClickFunnels integrates natively with 100+ platforms in various categories:

  • All major email marketing platforms (GetResponse, ActiveCampaign, SendGrid, and many more)
  • All major payment processing platforms (Stripe, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and man more)
  • Various Webinar platforms
  • Shopify and other eCommerce platforms
  • Notifications tools
  • Social media integrations
  • Fulfillment services
  • SMTP integrations
  • Email hosting
  • Membership sites
  • And many more with Zapier

SamCart Vs ClickFunnels: Pricing

Now that we have taken a look at the value these platforms provide let’s look at the cost they come at.

SamCart Cost

SamCart three main pricing options, ranging from $49 to $199 per month:

  • SamCart Launch ($49 per month)
  • SamCart Grow ($99 per month)
  • SamCart Scale ($199 per month)

There is also a 20% discount available for each plan if you pay annually. Below, I’ve listed what you get in every plan.

SamCart Launch ($49 per month)

  • Sales and VAT calculations
  • Custom Thank You Pages
  • Free SSL Certificate
  • Apple and Google Pay
  • No Additional Processing Fees
  • Unlimited Pages and Products
  • Drag and Drop Template Builder
  • Advanced Subscriptions
  • Full Email Customizations
  • Custom Domains
  • Unlimited Templates
  • Dedicated Product Delivery system
  • Coupons
  • Advanced Pixel Tracking
  • Full Template Library
  • Customer can pay what they want
  • SamCart Branding
  • Integrations (No CRM and Webhooks)
  • Email Support (2 Day SLA)
  • Knowledge Base
  • Industry Leading 99.98% Uptime

SamCart Grow ($99 per month)

Everything in Launch and:

  • Subscription Charge Reminder
  • Advanced Subscription Cancellations
  • Email Support (1 Day SLA)
  • Order Bump Collections
  • One-click post-Purchase Upsells
  • Multiple Payment Options
  • Advanced Reporting
  • Customer Management

SamCart Scale ($199 Per Month)

Everything in Grow and:

  • Customer Self Cancellations
  • Affiliate Center
  • Subscription Saver (Dunning)
  • Admin Roles For Your Users
  • Cart Abandonment
  • Built-in Split Testing
  • Email Support (Priority)
SamCart pricing chart

ClickFunnels Cost

SamCart has some quite affordable plans; let’s look at how ClickFunnels compares.

It has three pricing plans:

  • ClickFunnels starter $99 per month
  • ClickFunnels platinum $297
  • ClickFunnels two comma club $1,497

The main difference between them is the resources that you get on every plan.

However, the starter plan also doesn’t have the following features:

  • Affiliate management
  • Follow-up Funnels
  • Funnel Hack-A-Thon
  • Some FunnelFlix Courses

I’ve listed the resources you get on every plan below.

ClickFunnels Starter ($99 per month)

  • 20 sales funnels
  • 100 pages
  • 1  sub-user
  • 3 payment gateways
  • 3 domains

ClickFunnels Platinum ($297 per month)

  • Unlimited funnels and pages
  • 3 sub-users
  • 9 payment gateways
  • 9 domains

ClickFunnels Two Comma Club X ($1,497)

  • Unlimited funnels and pages
  • 10 sub-users
  • 27 payment gateways
  • 27 domains
ClickFunnels Pricing chart

Final Thoughts – ClickFunnels Vs SamCart – Which Is Best?

There you have it, a complete ClickFunnels vs SamCart comparison.

If you’re unsure whether you want to use ClickFunnels or SamCart, I have summarized the points mentioned throughout this article below.

ClickFunnels is best for businesses that need all the core features that it provides. I’m talking about the funnels, email marketing, membership sites, webinars, etc.

Getting all of these separately would cost a lot more than ClickFunnels does and would be a little harder to set up.

SamCart is best for those looking for a dedicated sales and checkout platform with more than the basics. Cart abandonment, subscriptions, and other sales/checkout tools are where it shines.

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GetResponse vs ConvertKit: Which Is Best For Your Business In 2021?

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GetResponse vs ConvertKit on a laptop background

GetResponse vs ConvertKit can be a tricky choice because they both have such similar features at first glance. However, there are some key differences between them, which means that one might be more suited to you than the other.

And choosing the wrong one could limit your business growth or lead you to waste a lot of money. That’s why this article will be a complete comparison between the two to help you make the right choice for your business.

Also, I found it interesting that both options are affiliate-friendly, which isn’t always the case. But I’ll cover that in more detail later on.

GetResponse vs ConvertKit Overview

In this article, we will take a complete look at what both of these pieces of software have to offer. This includes their features, pricing, and much more.

Introducing GetResponse

GetResponse has been around for what feels like forever. The founder, Simon Grabowski, founded it in 1999, but it has become one of the most popular email marketing tools on the internet since then.

The funny thing about GetResponse is that when Simon first founded the software, it was just meant to be an internal solution for one of his other businesses. Later on, he realized that GetResponse could be a business itself and started turning it into a product.

Today GetResponse has a whopping 350,000 customers.

  • GetResponses’ core features include:
  • Newsletter
  • Behavior-based automation sequences/Workflows
  • Email autoresponders
  • Landing and Sales page builder
  • Forms and pop-ups
  • List management
  • CRM
  • Sales funnels
  • Webinars

GetResponse is one of the best choices for business owners and marketers looking for an all-in-one platform.

It allows its users to build an entire marketing system that they can use to generate, convert and engage their leads. How it does that, I’ll talk about in more detail later on.

Introducing ConvertKit

ConvertKit hasn’t been around for anywhere near the amount GetResponse has. Nathan Barry founded the platform in 2013, but it has also gained popularity fast in recent years.

And although not quite as popular as GetResponse, the platform still has an impressive 34,000 customers. Not bad.

One of the reasons why it grew in popularity so fast is because of its usability. When it was founded, it was one of the first autoresponders that were particularly easy to use. However, since then, most autoresponders (including GetResponse) have caught up on the trend, and therefore, also invested a lot of time and money into making their platforms more user-friendly also.

ConvertKit’s core features include:

  • Email marketing
  • Automations
  • Commerce
  • Creator Pro
  • Email Designer
  • Email sign up forms
  • Integrations

It brands itself as the go-to email marketing platform for digital creators and bloggers. Some of the ways it does this is through specialized templates for these particular business types, and also providing the core tools they will need.

GetResponse Features and Benefits

Let’s start with GetResponse, and look at what features the platform offers.

What GetResponse Has That ConvertKit Does Not Have

GetResponse has been around for almost 14 years longer. Therefore, it’s to be expected that it has some features that ConvertKit doesn’t have.

And, GetResponse doesn’t disappoint, as you can see below.

Webinars

The first feature that GetResponse has that ConvertKit doesn’t is webinars.

GetResponse has a truly complete webinar feature built-in that lets you host pre-recorded and live webinars. ConvertKit doesn’t have this feature at all, so you’d have to integrate several software pieces to get it.

In my opinion, this is slightly surprising because I would have thought that a lot of “bloggers and digital creators” would also want to run webinars for their audience.

Better Landing Page Builder and More Templates

GetResponse has a landing page builder that offers more flexibility. This is because it has more elements, i.e., functions, and is drag and drop, while ConvertKit isn’t.

Plus, it also has many more templates with a lot more variety in styles. This means that it appeals to a wider range of businesses.

That’s not all… GetResponse also offers more customization when it comes to structuring your pages and customizing the SEO settings.

The only part where GetResponse’s landing page builder can improve in my opinion is the mobile optimization. While it’s perfectly capable of optimizing the pages for visitors on mobile devices, I find that the process isn’t the easiest.

Still, in terms of landing pages, it’s a win for GetResponse.

Better Email and Automation Builder

While they both have similar functionality, GetResponse also is superior when it comes to the email and automation builder.

Again, one of the main reasons for this is that GetResponse has a drag and drop builder for the emails and automation workflows. This makes it easier to use and visualize what exactly you’re building.

ConvertKit, on the other hand, has some nice templates for emails too, but no drag and drop editor. The same goes for the automation sequences, which also makes it a little harder to edit them. Plus, GetResponse also has more triggers to help you send more targeted emails.

Conversion Funnel

One of the features where GetResponse outdoes pretty much every other autoresponder on the market, is their conversion funnel feature.

This feature allows you to visualize your entire sales funnel from the point where they first visit your landing page, to them making purchases and becoming repeat customers. The cool thing is that GetResponse gives you a huge selection of templates for every step of the process to make your life easier.

You can also manage your entire sales funnel from this feature which is pretty cool too.

Plus, another excellent thing about GetResponse’s conversion funnel is that it gives you detailed analytics. For example, it shows you the ROI of the entire sales funnel, which you can use to make better management decisions.

GetResponse CRM

GetResponse isn’t only a monster when it comes to helping you generate leads. It also helps you manage and convert them with a dedicated CRM feature that ConvertKit doesn’t have. Again, the cool thing about its CRM is how visual it is; you can drag leads from one phase to another to easily keep an overview.

Plus, with tools like contact scoring, GetResponse helps you make the best decisions.

Other Features

GetResponse really does have an impressive number of features.

It would take too long to explain them all, but here’s a list of everything else that is only available in GetResponse:

  • Web Push Notifications
  • Google ads creator and management
  • Facebook ads creator and management
  • Social ads creator
  • Done for you lead magnets (Marketing niche)
  • Live chat support

You can find out more about all the GetResponse features in my article here.

GetResponse Pros

  • Landing pages, sales funnels, and webinars help you generate leads
  • Powerful CRM and Marketing automation to help you convert your leads
  • Very easy to use as all features are visual and drag and drop
  • A rich selection of templates
  • An impressive all-in-one marketing system

GetResponse Cons

  • It can be a little overwhelming because of the number of features
  • Landing page mobile optimization isn’t the easiest

What GetResponse Is Particularly Good At

GetResponse is particularly good at helping customers build an entire marketing funnel that promotes their business.

There isn’t any other autoresponder that comes with so many tools to help you generate leads.

Plus, with the average ROI of email marketing being around $44 for every $1 spent, you’ll want to funnel as many leads as you can into your list. And GetResponse helps you do exactly that.

GetResponse Ease of Use

GetResponse is one of the easiest to use autoresponders out there.

Every single feature inside of GetResponse is drag and drop and laid out visually with bright colors to make everything easy for you.

That being said, it does have a bit of a learning curve, due to the large amount of features it comes with. However, you’ll likely soon get the hang of it quickly, then have a huge list of very useful features at your fingertips.

GetResponse Deliverability Rates

Deliverability rates are another area where GetResponse performs incredibly well.

Studies have shown that GetRespnse has industry-leading deliverability rates with around 99% of emails sent through their system actually getting delivered.

Who Is GetResponse Good For

GetResponse is great for the following businesses:

  • Ecommerce stores
  • Service-based businesses
  • Info-product vendors
  • Affiliate marketers (GetResponse has no problems with users participating in affiliate marketing)

I also think it can work especially well for service-based businesses with high-value leads. This is because they can use the sales funnel, CRM, and marketing automation to convert their customers.

However, GetResponse’s tools can also be used for a wide range of other businesses, particularly any that fall into the categories I listed above.

If you want to see a visual walk-through of the GetResponse platform then check out the video below.

ConvertKit Features and Benefits

GetResponse set the standard pretty high, but let’s take a look at how ConvertKit compares.

What ConvertKit Has That GetResponse Does Not Have

ConvertKit doesn’t actually have too many features, which GetResponse doesn’t. This is because it aims to be a simpler solution for a smaller market instead of an all-in-one software targeting most small businesses.

However, I still managed to pick out a few, which I have explained below.

Some Ease Of Use Benefits

The key word here is “some.”  GetResponse, of course, is a lot more visual.

However, ConvertKit has a straightforward dashboard and automations. This may make it easier for you to keep an overview, and you will feel less overwhelmed. Plus, ConvertKit also lets you create tags anywhere inside of the app, which is pretty cool.

GetResponse, on the other hand, only lets you create those in the automation workflows section.

Newsletter Referral System

This is only available on ConvertKit’s highest plan, but it’s basically a free SparkLoop account. Using it, you can create referral campaigns for your email list and let your audience grow it for you. This is quite a cool feature/add-on because SparkLoop costs like $29 per month by itself. However, you only get this on the $59 per month plan.

Still, it’s pretty nice and something that GetResponse doesn’t have.

Better WordPress Plugin

ConvertKit has a brilliant WordPress plugin that you can also use to add tags, integrate forms, etc.

GetResponse’s plugin, on the other hand, is basic and even has quite a lot of bugs. This is also reflected in the WordPress plugin store reviews, and I would not recommend using it.

Doesn’t Charge For Duplicate Email Signups

GetResponse most other autoresponders that I know of, except SendLane, charge you twice if someone signs up two times with the same email address. This can happen if you have multiple lists with different optin forms, and a person subscribes to more than one of your lists with the same email address.

I had an issue with this at one point when I was using Aweber and I had a number of different offers on my blog. A lot of my site visitors were interested in more than one of my free lead-magnets, so they were opting to get my freebies. I set things up in this way as I wanted to keep and monitor different lists based on my free offers.

In this case, I needed to then also monitor my subscribers and every few weeks clear out the duplicate email addresses manually so I wouldn’t get charged twice for them. It’s a bit of a pain, but not the end of the world.

ConvertKit Pros

  • Has a free plan
  • Great WordPress plugin
  • Simple, easy to use interface
  • Good features for bloggers and digital creators
  • Doesn’t Charge For Duplicate Email Signups

ConvertKit Cons

  •  No webinars
  • No conversion funnel feature
  • Not as good landing pages, automation sequences, email creators, templates, etc.
  • No CRM

What ConvertKit Is Particularly Good At

ConvertKit is particularly good at simplicity and ease of use. Despite it not having the same drag and drop functionality, it helps users that might lack technical knowledge, but who will benefit by using email marketing.

ConvertKit does this by offering the most essential tools in an easy-to-use interface that almost anyone can understand.

ConvertKit Ease of Use

ConvertKit is easy to use because of how simple it is. It simply doesn’t have as many options as GetResponse, so you don’t have as many buttons on your screen. The options you do have on your screen are also bigger, so they are easier to recognize and move around the dashboard quickly.

You may prefer ConvertKit because of this, and if you don’t need all the features that GetResponse provides. Personally, I think that most businesses would be able to do a lot more with GetResponse, but that’s just my opinion.

ConvertKit Deliverability Rates

According to their website, ConvertKit also has a 99% deliverability rate. Or, at least they mention, “Last month ConvertKit has sent over 1 billion emails with a deliverability of over 99%”.

I wasn’t able to find other studies on ConvertKit’s deliverability to share with you in this article. But, they seem to have a lot of resources to help you get your emails delivered and in the right place.

Who Is ConvertKit Good For

ConvertKit’s tools are indeed pretty well suited for bloggers and digital creators.

If you look at those groups’ needs, you’ll find that ConvertKit meets most of them. Plus, it is also easy to use because of the simplicity.

So, ConvertKit is great for bloggers looking for simplicity and don’t want to use a more comprehensive tool like GetResponse. Based on my assumptions, I could imagine ConvertKit working well for digital creators in niches like food, fashion, interior design, etc.

If you want to see ConvertKit in action then take a look at the video below.

GetResponse vs ConvertKit – Pricing

Now that we have taken a look at the features let’s look at the cost they come at.

GetResponse Cost

GetResponse comes with flexible pricing plans ranging from $15 to $99 per month for 1,000 subscribers. Plus, if you need something more custom, you can contact GetResponse’s support team for the “Max” plan.

The prices below are based on 1,000 subscribers. If you want to know the prices based on more subscribers then please see their pricing page here.

Basic ($15 per month)

This plan is perfect for beginners and includes:

  • Unlimited landing pages
  • Chats
  • Basic email marketing (Non-behavior automation, newsletters, etc.)
  • 1 Sales funnel
  • Unlimited lead generation funnels
  • Facebook and Google ad creator

For a $15 per month plan, this plan is solid as it comes with basic email tools, and you can even sell your products.

Plus ($49 per month)

This plan has everything the previous one has, plus:

  • Contact scoring and tagging
  • Webinars with up to 100 attendees
  • Work with a team (up to 3 members)
  • 5 Sales Funnels
  • 5 Behavior-based automation workflows
  • 5 webinar funnels

The $49 per month plan will be suited for more businesses. It comes with more sales funnels, better email marketing tools, and even webinars. Pretty impressive for a $49 per month plan.

Professional ($99 per month)

Everything in the previous plan, plus:

  • Work with 5 users
  • On-demand webinars
  • Paid webinars
  • Up to 300 attendees inside of the webinar
  • Unlimited sales funnels
  • Unlimited email automation workflows
  • Website push notifications

GetResponse Professional comes with almost everything that the platform has to offer. This plan is perfect if you want to create many sales funnels, webinars, automation sequences, etc.

GetResponse Max (Custom pricing)

Everything in PRO and:

  • Manage teams and roles
  • Single-sign on (SSO)
  • 500 webinar attendants
  • Transactional emails (only as a paid add on)
  • Dedicated support (including for Migrations)
  • Several accounts and users
The GetResponse pricing table

ConvertKit Cost

ConvertKit has three main pricing plans; free, creator, and creator pro. Below, I’ve explained them all, but keep in mind the prices named are for up to 1,000 subscribers.

 Free ($0 per month)

ConvertKit’s free plan is pretty limited. While you can use their basic landing page builder and send email broadcasts, you can’t use automation sequences.

While this plan may be enough to get you started, it probably won’t be the best choice because you can’t even automate the process.

 Creator ($29 Per Month)

ConvertKit’s creator plan is what I’d assume to be the most popular plan.

Here you can get everything in free, plus:

  • Sell digital products
  • Automation sequences/Workflows (or funnels, as ConvertKit calls them)
  • Get a free migration from any other tool.

This is pretty decent for a $29 per month plan, although it still doesn’t quite offer the number of features that GetResponse has.

Creator Pro ($59 Per Month)

Finally, ConvertKit’s creator pro plan comes with everything the platform has to offer.

That means everything in creator plus:

  • Facebook custom audiences
  • Newsletter referral system
  • Subscriber scoring
  • Advanced reporting
ConvertKit pricing

Final Thoughts – GetResponse vs ConvertKit – Which Is Best?

As you have seen throughout this article, both GetResponse and ConvertKit have an impressive list of features.

However, GetResponse does have quite a few more, and their pricing is a little more flexible to suit more types of businesses. Therefore, if I would pick a winner overall, it would have to be GetResponse, because of the significant differences in features.

GetResponse have also been around for a lot longer, and have also piled a considerable amount of money into improving the usability of their products a few years ago. To me, this shows that the company is committed to evolving their business and they do actually care about their customers.If you want to try them out for yourself then you can get a free 30-day GetResponse trial here, no credit card required.

GetResponse vs ActiveCampaign – Which Is Best For Your Business In 2021?

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A compater comparing GetResponse vs ActiveCampaign

GetResponse vs ActiveCampaign can be a tricky choice, as they both have some great features to offer.

In this article, I’m going to take a look at what both of these email marketing platforms have to offer to help you make the best-suited choice for your business.

I have used both of these platforms myself, so I’ll also give you my opinions on both from my own personal experience.

Both these email marketing platforms are great for all kinds of businesses, which I’ll get into a bit later in the article. However, one thing to note is that these two platforms have slightly different policies when it comes to affiliate marketing.

ActiveCampaign isn’t really affiliate-friendly and doesn’t like its members using affiliate links. However, there are ways around this if you have some experience, so it doesn’t rule out ActiveCampaign completely for affiliates. I’ll also discuss this in more detail later on.

GetResponse vs ActiveCampaign Overview

If you have been looking for a complete comparison of GetResponse and ActiveCampaign, you’ve come to the right place. I’m going to take a deep-dive look at what both of these email marketing software products have to offer, what they’re good at, and a whole lot more.

Introducing GetResponse

GetResponse was created in 1998 by Simon Grabowski when he only had $200 in his pocket. He made it to solve a business problem that he had, but he later realized that the email marketing software could be a great business itself.

Since then, it has become one of the most popular email marketing software pieces globally and has evolved into an all-in-one marketing platform that does so much more. In fact, GetResponse has an impressive number of over 350,000 customers in 183 countries.

Over the years, it has also become significantly easier to use than it used to be.

Here are GetResponse’s main features:

  • Newsletters
  •  Behavior-based email automation sequences/Workflows
  • Email Autoresponders (This is what GetResponse calls basic non-behavior-based automations)
  • Landing page builder
  • Forms and Pop-ups
  • List Management
  • CRM
  • Sales Funnels
  • Webinars

GetResponse is known for helping businesses of all sizes generate more leads and connect with their customers. It does this through its unique and effective set of features beyond helping its customers with email marketing.

Introducing ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign has also been around for quite some time, as it was founded in 2003 by Jason Vandeboom. Since then, it has also become extremely popular in the email marketing industry as it has over 100,000 customers.

The software offers a combination of email, sales, and marketing automation tools to help its customers convert more leads.

ActiveCampaigns main features include:

  • Email marketing
  • SMS and Email Marketing automation
  • CRM and Sales Automation

ActiveCampaign is known for having high deliverability rates and powerful CRM features that combine well with their email marketing tools. The software is best suited for small and medium-sized businesses that want to have the best possible tools on the back-end to convert their leads into sales.

GetResponse Features and Benefits

To give you a better idea of which software is best for your business, I’m going to run you through both platforms separately. This way, you can see which set of features suit your business best.

If you want a more detailed deep-dive on this autoresponder platform then I recommend you read my full GetResponse review.

What GetResponse Has That ActiveCampaign Does Not Have

The main advantage that GetResponse has over ActiveCampaign is that it is more of an all-in-one platform. It gives you tools for landing and sales pages, webinars, and sales funnels, whereas ActiveCampaign doesn’t have these features.

Below, I’ve described these in a little more detail, so you know what features you’ll have when you sign up for GetResponse.

(Better) Landing Page and Sales Page Builder

GetResponse has a built-in landing page builder, which lets you build your sales and landing pages. It’s an easy to use drag and drop builder that lets you create unlimited pages with checkouts.

It comes with a wide range of templates that you can use to create different types of landing or sales pages. They’re colorful and surprisingly load quite fast, which isn’t always the case with managed page builder platforms.

Having this feature is great, as it means you won’t have to spend money on an external landing page builder. It helps you save some money, and it also makes your business a little more efficient and easier to manage as you don’t need integrations.

Although ActiveCampaign lets you build basic landing pages, it doesn’t allow you to create sales pages. Plus, GetResponse’s builder has been around for a lot longer, so it has more templates and elements that you can use.

GetResponse Funnel Builder

This feature was recently called the auto funnel feature, but now it is called the “Conversion funnel.” Either way, it’s a useful feature that can definitely make growing your business a lot easier.

You can select your campaign’s goal, and GetResponse will suggest the steps you need to take and give you templates for every part of the process. Or you can, of course, select your own if you prefer.

This feature helps you build your sales funnel and gives you a complete overview of it. I also like the GetResponse funnel builder because it shows you some excellent analytics like the ROI of your funnel as a whole or the value per lead, which can help you make better management decisions.

If you’re interested in funnel builders then I recommend you read my article on the best funnel builder software here.

GetResponse Webinars

The third feature that only GetResponse has is the webinar builder.

Surprisingly, GetResponse’s webinar builder lets you host both live webinars and pre-recorded webinars. I’ve come across quite a few platforms that don’t let you host pre-recorded webinars, so it’s pretty nice to see that GetResponse does allow this.

The GetResponse webinar feature also comes with some cool engagement tools like live chat and surveys.

These webinars can also be connected to your landing pages, sales pages, email automation workflows, and sales funnels easily. This makes running your marketing campaigns a lot easier, as you won’t need to integrate with a ton of different platforms and can easily manage everything from one dashboard.

ActiveCampaign, on the other hand, doesn’t have this feature, so if you do want to run webinars, you’ll need external software unless you use GetResponse.

GetResponse Pros

  • Powerful landing page and sales funnel builder let you convert leads effectively
  • Webinar builder gives you a great way to sell medium to high-ticket products and services
  • Great automation features to help you engage your audience and sell to them
  • Affordable pricing for all sized businesses
  • Easy to use for any skill level

GetResponse Cons

  • It has a little learning curve due to the large number of features it comes with
  • CRM is a little limited and doesn’t let you automate as much as ActiveCampaign’s

What GetResponse Is Particularly Good At

GetResponse is particularly good at giving its users an easy-to-use, all-in-one marketing system that is highly effective.

Whereas most autoresponders focus on helping their customers convert their leads into sales, GetResponse focuses on converting your visitors into sales, meaning they guide you through the entire process.

It’s becoming increasingly popular for email marketing platforms to offer landing pages, but GetResponse goes one step further and gives you webinars and sales funnels. All the features combined work extremely well to create a highly effective marketing sales machine, which no other email marketing software can create the same way.

GetResponse Ease of Use

GetResponse had a major update a few years ago and has since then been really easy to use. Even the automation workflow builder is drag and drop, just like everything else inside of the platform.

Before the update, GetResponse was quite hard to use and a little overwhelming, but that is no longer the case.

The only thing which I think could be slightly easier to use is the landing page builder for mobile. When you create the page and then switch the builder to mobile, it can be a little hard to optimize it. Then again, that might just be me.

Apart from that, though, GetResponse seems to be excellent in terms of usability. I also like the interactive tutorials for almost any feature to help beginners use the platform more effectively.

GetResponse Deliverability Rates

Deliverability is always a little tricky to review, as there are so many factors that affect it. However, according to their website, their overall deliverability rate stands at an impressive 99% success. However, 3rd party tests indicate GetResponse has a slightly lower deliverability rate of only 86%. Still, that’s pretty solid and not to spoil this article, but it’s also better than ActiveCampaign!

From my personal experience, I can tell you that I have never had any issues with GetResponse’s deliverability. Although it does always depend on your emails’ content, if you follow the usual deliverability best practices, you shouldn’t run into any issues.

GetResponse actually has a spam scoring system, which you can easily use on every email to avoid them going to spam. It will give you some suggestions as well to help you prevent your emails from going to spam.

Who Is GetResponse Good For

GetResponse offers a wide range of features that suit most modern businesses.

There are hardly any businesses out there that don’t need a great landing page builder with powerful automation features. It’s also highly likely that you will need a comprehensive sales funnel feature and a webinar builder to help you convert as many leads as possible.

Plus, as we also briefly mentioned earlier, GetResponse is affiliate-friendly. This, combined with the features and strong deliverability rates, make it a solid choice for affiliate marketers. If you are an affiliate, you’ll have everything you need to collect emails and promote affiliate offers effectively to your audience.

Overall, I think the GetResponse’s set of features can work incredibly well for:

  • Service-based businesses
  • Affiliate marketers
  • Info-product vendors
  • SaaS tools (assuming the back-end site is somewhere else)
  • E-commerce stores

GetResponse also has transactional emails, which can be especially beneficial for eCommerce businesses.

Plus, the pricing plans are also suited for businesses of all sizes, so it’s likely to fit yours too. If you need most of the tools that GetResponse offers, you’re unlikely to find a more cost-effective solution than it.

ActiveCampaign Features and Benefits

Now that we have taken a look at what GetResponse has let’s take a look at what ActiveCampaign has to offer.

What ActiveCampaign Has That GetResponse Does Not Have

The main advantage that ActiveCampaign has over GetResponse is its features on the back-end, such as the CRM, SMS, and a few additional email features. Below I’ve described them in a little more detail to help you get a better understanding.

A Better and More Automated CRM/Sales System

While GetResponse has a CRM system, it isn’t quite as advanced as ActiveCampaign’s. For example, if your lead activates specific triggers, ActiveCampaign can go as far as contacting your sales team, while GetResponse lets you manage your leads from an easy overview.

Both also come with lead scoring to help you determine the actions suited best for your business.

However, if your business does need a comprehensive CRM to help you manage your sales and automate tasks like contacting your sales team, it may be worth considering ActiveCampaign. That being said, you can also integrate some of the best CRM tools on the market with GetResponse.

A Slightly Better Email Automation System

This difference is minimal, but ActiveCampaign has a slightly better email marketing system. The reason for this is that it has a few more triggers than GetResponse. However, this difference is tiny and shouldn’t even affect most businesses.

Still, I thought I’d mention it just in case it is important to you.

SMS Marketing

ActiveCampaign also has SMS marketing features.

Have you ever received those SMS messages from Dominos or any other pizza place?

That’s exactly what this feature allows your business to do. You can also build it into the automation sequences with your emails, which is pretty cool.

Admittedly, I don’t think most businesses use SMS marketing, but I still thought it’s quite a cool feature. And it can be quite effective as well.

ActiveCampaign Pros

  • Brilliant email automations with many triggers to engage your audience
  • Powerful CRM that is comparable to a regular comprehensive CRM
  • It has a SMS marketing feature
  • You can get automation sequences on the lowest plan starting at just $15 per month ($9 if paid annually)

ActiveCampaign Cons

  • The landing page builder isn’t as good as GetResponse’s
  • No Webinar feature
  • No funnel feature

What ActiveCampaign Is Particularly Good At

ActiveCampaign is particularly good at giving its customers a sales system that lets them convert their leads into sales.

Using ActiveCampaign, you are equipped with some excellent features like the comprehensive CRM, powerful automation sequences, and SMS messaging to help you make more sales.

I think that these little tweaks and features can work wonders for the right type of businesses, mainly when used in combination. If you feel that your business could use the unique set of tools ActiveCampaign offers, it may be worth giving the platform a shot.

ActiveCampaign Ease of Use

Compared to GetResponse, I must say that ActiveCampaign is a little harder to use. The email creation process is fairly similar, but I find that GetResponse’s dashboard just looks a lot cleaner and is a lot easier to keep an overview of.

Plus, with ActiveCampaign, you need to integrate with a lot more software as it doesn’t have webinars or sales funnels. This can be quite confusing, especially if you have to connect the software pieces through API or Zapier.

However, ActiveCampaign also has a visual automation builder that is easy to use. It works the same way GetResponse’s builder does through drag and drop.

The CRM feature also has quite a learning curve, but this is due to the number of things it does.

Overall, ActiveCampaign is fairly easy to use, but compared to GetResponse, it loses out.

ActiveCampaign Deliverability Rates

ActiveCampaign used to be known for its good deliverability rates, at least in most Facebook communities. However, the recent study where GetResponse scored 86%, ActiveCampaign only scores 73%. That’s not a huge difference, but it is notable, to say the least.

Before this test, ActiveCampaign scored at least 90% in the previous ones, which shows why this result is a little strange. Still, the study is considered to be pretty reliable.

However, as we mentioned earlier in the GetResponse section, as long as you follow the best practices, you shouldn’t run into any issues. Plus, their support team is also happy to offer advice on getting your emails delivered.

Overall though, GetResponse surprisingly also wins the deliverability battle. The reason I chose GetResponse as the winner is because they published their overall deliverability rate, and in a 3rd party study, it also outperforms ActiveCampaign.

Who Is ActiveCampaign Good For

ActiveCampaign can work great for a wide range of businesses such as:

  • Ecommerce stores
  • Service-based businesses
  • Info-product vendors

It really depends on what the business needs.

I think ActiveCampaign is best suited for small and mid-sized businesses that could make great use of the CRM/Sales tools. For example, if a company needs to send out SMS reminders. Or if they have high-value leads and would like to automate tasks like contacting the sales team, then ActiveCampaign could be a great choice.

A more specific example of a business where tools like this could come in handy would be small and medium-sized marketing agencies.

However, if you own a business that doesn’t really need those features, I wouldn’t recommend ActiveCampaign.

Can You Use ActiveCampaign For Affiliate Marketing?

The short answer to that is no, not directly at least. But, there are ways around it if you have an affiliate marketing business.

ActiveCampaign says they do not like affiliate links being used in their emails, as affiliate links can often harm the deliverability.

However, they have also stated that their users can send affiliate links if they do not:

  • Send messages about make money online, getting rich, affiliate marketing, or work from from
  • Send emails that purely just focus on promoting affiliate links
  • Send emails that are only created to promote other businesses/products
  • Do not send emails related to getting rich, making money online, etc.

Even if you follow these guidelines, I would still be careful when using ActiveCampaign for affiliate marketing. You could get around this consistently by building a brand yourself that helps its users find the right product.

You could do this by:

  • Using landing pages as bridge pages between your emails and your affiliate offers
  • Creating eBooks or video courses that contain affiliate links, so your emails send users to those instead
  • Creating a blog post or YouTube video containing affiliate links, which can also be used as a bridge page

I personally think that GetResponse is better suited for affiliate marketing anyway. However, I wanted to give you a guideline for using ActiveCampaign if you still wanted to use it as an affiliate.

GetResponse vs ActiveCampaign – Pricing

So far, I’ve looked at the key differences between GetResponse and ActiveCampaign are. Now let’s take a look at what costs they come at.

GetResponse Cost

Below, I’ve explained each GetResponse pricing plan and how much it costs at 1,000 subscribers. If you need more contacts, just head over to the official GetResponse pricing table here and take a look.

If you pay monthly, there are annual discounts available too; 30% for 12-months, and 40% for 24 months.

GetResponse Basic ($15 Per Month)

This plan includes:

  • Email marketing basic features (Newsletters, email creators)
  • Autoresponders (Again, this is GetResponse’s name for non-behavior automations)
  • Unlimited automation templates
  • Unlimited lead funnels
  • 1 Sales Funnel
  • Chats
  • 1,000 subscribers (need more subs, click here)

I think this plan is pretty solid for beginners. You won’t find many $15 plans that offer more value than this one, as it also has email marketing, landing pages, and funnels included.

GetResponse Plus ($49 per month)

GetResponse Plus has everything mentioned in basic and:

  • Automation builder with 5 sequences
  • Contact scoring and tagging
  • 5 Sales funnels
  • 3 Sub-users/partners
  • Webinars with up to 100 attendees
  • 5 webinar funnels
  • 1,000 subscribers (need more subs, click here)

GetResponse Professional ($99 Per Month)

  • Unlimited automation workflows and builder
  • Push notifications
  • Paid webinars
  • Up to 300 Webinar attendees
  • Unlimited sales funnels
  • Unlimited webinar funnels
  • 5 sub-users/partners
  • On-demand/pre-recorded webinars
  • 1,000 subscribers (need more subs, click here)

I think this is the plan that will suit most businesses. It has everything you need to create a powerful marketing system that converts visitors into sales. There aren’t many limits on it either, which is pretty nice too.

GetResponse Max (Custom)

Lastly, there is the GetResponse Max plan, which has everything in professional plus:

  • Transactional emails (available as an add-on)
  • Dedicated support
  • Dedicated IP address
  • Single sign-on (SSO)
  • Webinars (max 500 attendees)
  • Email marketing campaign consulting
  • Microsoft Dynamics integration
  • Deliverability consulting
  • 1,000 subscribers (need more subs, click here)

This plan is, of course, the custom/enterprise plan, so if you’d like more info on that, you can get in contact with GetResponse here.

ActiveCampaign Cost

The prices below are for 500 subscribers, which is what ActiveCampaign’s plans start at. There are also discounts of around 20% if you choose to pay annually.

I find that ActiveCampaign’s pricing plans are quite expensive compared to GetResponse unless you truly need all the features they offer.

ActiveCampaign Lite ($15 per month)

  • Email marketing automation
  • Email marketing tools (Newsletters, Creator, etc.)
  • Forms
  • Segmentation
  • The site and Event tracking
  • Reporting
  • Up to 3 Users
  • Mobile CRM and Marketing Access
  • APIs, Webhooks, and Integrations

What I like about this plan is that it has behavior-based automation workflows. Overall, it’s a solid plan, although it doesn’t quite compare to the tools that GetReponse offers.

ActiveCampaign Plus ($70 Per Month)

ActiveCampain’s next plan up is lite, and it comes with everything in Lite+ plus:

  • Landing pages
  • Custom Facebook Audiences
  • Scoring
  • Automations Map
  • Conditional Content
  • Advanced Reporting
  • Advanced CRM
  • Salesforce integrations
  • SMS follow-up

ActiveCampaign Professional ($159 Per Month)

Everything in plus and:

  • Website personalization
  • Predictive sending and content
  • Marketing attribution
  • Conversion reporting
  • Site Message
  • Win probability
  • Deal path reporting
  • Split automations
  • Personalized product experience
  • In-app messaging
  • 50 Users
  • 1:1 Onboarding
  • Strategy consulting
  • 3x 1:1 Training per month

ActiveCampaign Enterprise ($279 Per Month)

  • Custom Mailserver domain
  • Custom Domain
  • Free design services
  • Email design testing
  • Social Data enrichment
  • Custom reporting
  • Contact enrichment
  • Unlimited users
  • Dedicated account rep
  • Phone support
  • Customize your application URL
  • Custom branding within the application
  • HIPAA support
  • Single sign-on

Final Thoughts – GetResponse vs ActiveCampaign – Which Is Best?

As you have seen throughout this article, both GetResponse and ActiveCampaign have some excellent features.

ActiveCampaign has a better CRM and slightly more triggers for automation sequences. However, overall I am going to call GetResponse the winner.

This is because it simply offers many more significant features and even does so at a better price. It has a better landing page builder, a sales funnel feature, and a great webinar platform, which combined significantly outweigh the few benefits of ActiveCamapaign for the majority of businesses.

With ActiveCampaign, you’ll need to spend additional money on all of these tools that GetResponse has built-in.

Plus, GetResponse has also been around longer, so it has a better track record and has built up more trust.

If you would like to try GetResponse, you can click the button below to get access to a 30-day free trial (NO Credit Card Required).

Kartra Review – Powerful Software or Just a Load of Hype?

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A computer with Kartra stats

If you have been looking for a complete Kartra review that breaks down everything you need to know about the software, you’ve come to the right place. I’m going to give you a look inside what this software offers to help you choose whether it’s right for your business.

Let’s get started!

What Is Kartra?

Kartra is an all-in-one funnel and website builder that was launched in 2018 by Genesis Digital.

Genesis Digital was founded in 2013 and has also created several other successful software products for online businesses, such as WebinarJam and EverWebinar.

Interestingly, Mike Filsaime, who has now left the company, was heavily involved in the creation of Kartra. Kartra was also mentioned on Billy Gene’s podcast that Kartra aimed to be the “InfusionSoft killer”.

He went on to explain that they wanted to do this by offering a product that is more powerful and easier to use than Infusionsoft.

However, Kartra is also often compared to other funnel builders like ClickFunnels, Groove Funnels, etc. as its features and audience are similar.

If you want an exact comparison of Kartra versus GrooveFunnels then check out my detailed article here.

Since Kartra was launched in 2018, it has become extremely popular in the internet marketing community, with a Facebook group of over 22,000 members.

One of the reasons many users like it is the powerful automation features that are all hosted in one, convenient place. However, I’ll go into more detail on this soon.

Who Is Kartra For?

Kartra is best for:

  • Marketers and businesses selling digital or physical products/services looking for an all-in-one solution (that don’t need a blogging feature)
  • Agencies that build websites and marketing campaigns for clients
  • Affiliates that want to build funnels to promote Kartra, or other products to earn commissions

Kartra can also be used for eCommerce businesses that sell physical products. However, from what I have seen, it can be quite hard to find good order fulfillment solutions if you were, for example, wanting to fulfill via dropshipping. However, if you get one sorted out, then there is no reason why you can’t use Kartra.

From what I have seen in the Facebook group, and the Kartra community in general, most users fall into one of the three categories above.

However, Kartra is not suited for anyone who wants to grow a blog. Although they have blogging templates, the pages don’t load fast enough, and you have limited SEO options.

If you are looking for an all-in-one funnel builder that has a better blogging feature, I suggest going for one of the following alternatives:

Recently, we explained all of these options in our best funnel builder article. If you are looking to find the right option for your business, make sure to check that article out.

That being said, Kartra also gives you the code to embed entire pages. So you can use WordPress and embed your Kartra pages. This might be useful for squeeze pages, but I have not yet, tested how well this works for SEO.

Things To Think About Before Purchasing Kartra

I also wanted to give you a few things to think about before purchasing Kartra:

  • Will my business need an SEO/blogging feature?
  • What features do I need to grow my business, and does Kartra have them?
  • How many resources will my business need, and which Kartra plan is best suited?
  • Will my current provider let me migrate my business to Kartra, and if yes, how?

Kartra Review: The Features and Benefits

As we already mentioned at the beginning of the article, Kartra aims to be an all-in-one software. This means it does have a nice number of features, which I have all broken down below.

Drag & Drop Page Builder & Templates

Similar to most of Kartra’s competitors, it also comes with a drag and drop page builder.

You select a template (or start from scratch), load up the page builder, and then edit the pages.

Compared to a lot of other page builders, Kartra’s is pretty decent. It does have the occasional lag/freeze, but it’s very rare. Apart from that, it’s solid, as you have a good selection of elements and can build almost any website type.

The templates also look nice and modern. I was especially impressed by the full-navigation websites, as many funnel builders don’t put a lot of effort into these. Plus, Kartra also has templates for every step of your funnel, whether that’s your squeeze page, landing page registration, or course sign up page.

It even has some templates for your blog pages. Although, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, I wouldn’t recommend Kartra if you are looking to grow a blog. This is due to the pages not being the fastest and not having the full SEO flexibility.

Still, overall I think Kartra’s page builder is pretty solid. It’s easy to use and lets you build pretty much any type of page that you can imagine. Plus, you can also embed your Kartra pages anywhere you’d like using the code they provide you with.

Behavior-Adaptive-Marketing Technology

Another cool thing about Kartra is that it has a behavior-adaptive-marketing technology built-in. This means you can adapt your pages to the behavior of your visitors.

Using this feature, you can send a more targeted message to your visitors and increase your conversions.

Kartra Checkouts

The next feature inside of Kartra is its checkouts.

Kartra allows you to build checkouts or use one of their templates. Once you’ve created the checkout, you can then embed it into one of your Kartra pages.

The checkout feature is pretty advanced, as it has order bumps, one-click upsells and down sells. This is great, as you won’t need to use an external checkout tool like SamCart, and you’ll have what you need to make the most out of every sale.

I also like the style of checkout templates that they have, as they should suit most businesses.

Video Hosting

One complaint that you hear with many membership site and funnel builders is that they don’t have video hosting. That means that on those other platforms you then need to pay for external video hosting with a company like Vimeo or Wistia, which can get expensive.

Kartra comes with built-in video hosting with a lot of memory to use on most plans.

This feature is also pretty decent, as it allows you to add CTAs and headlines to your videos to help you convert viewers.

You can add your videos to any page within Kartra, and that also includes your membership sites, which is awesome. So, you won’t have to spend any additional money on getting a video hosting software like Wistia or Vimeo.

Kartra video hosting feature

Email Marketing

Kartra’s email marketing tool, Kartra mail, was something that I was very impressed by.

You can send out newsletters or build automation sequences.

Inside of the automation sequences, you can choose from many triggers, which allows you to send more targeted emails. It’s also pretty nice that everything is built into the Kartra system, meaning the email marketing feature can easily access and use data from your sales funnels, membership sites, helpdesks, or even videos.

For example, if a lead watches the entire sales video but doesn’t buy, you can tag them and start an automation campaign based on that to follow up with them. You can also do the same if they have a support ticket open, are an active affiliate, have been refunded, and various other triggers.

That’s pretty cool, as it allows you to send more targeted emails, which will ultimately increase your conversions.

The templates inside of Kartra Mail are also gorgeous. You just need to insert them, and then they can easily be edited. Or, you can use plain text emails, if you prefer as well.

Something that I really like about Kartra is the pre-built emails, which are part of the campaigns and sales funnels, but I’ll get into those next.

Kartra mail feature

Sales Funnels and Campaigns

From all of the features mentioned in this Kartra review, this is probably my favorite one. You’ll see why in just a moment.

Kartra’s sales funnel approach helps you build out the entire customer journey, from the moment they first come across your website to the point where they’re a customer. This also includes your emails, membership sites, etc., instead of just your pages.

You can save all of the assets you create in Kartra under a campaign to help you keep an overview of all your assets. However, that isn’t yet what makes it unique, but these two points below are.

1. Share Entire Campaigns, Not Just Pages

You’ve probably heard of or even used ClickFunnels’ share funnel feature. Kartra takes this one step further and lets you share entire campaigns with not only your pages but also your emails, membership sites, helpdesks, videos … You get the point, everything.

This means if you’re creating a campaign for a client who has Kartra, you can share your campaigns with a click of a button. And, if you are skilled in building campaigns, this makes selling them a lot easier.

You can also create mini-campaigns, use them as a lead magnet, or sell them to your audience.

There’s an unbelievable number of opportunities, thanks to this feature. And that’s not even the best part of Kartra’s funnels and campaigns.

You can read more about Kartra compared to ClickFunnels here.

2. Done-For-You Campaigns From Frank Kern and Many Others

Creating your entire campaign requires an enormous amount of effort. There are the pages, the copy, the automation sequences, the membership sites, and a whole load of other assets that you’ll have to create from scratch.

Well, with Karta, you don’t have to create them from scratch.

In fact, you get access to campaigns built by industry-leading experts like Frank Kern. All you need to do is go into your Kartra account and head over to campaigns, and you’ll find endless campaigns for all types of businesses ranging from info-product vendors to consultants.

For example, many of these templates, such as the book funnel and the famous 4-day cash machine, are built by Frank Kern. Not only are these the sales funnel steps, but they also have pre-written sales copy that you just need to edit to tailor towards your business.

For example, it will say “(Insert Benefit 1),” and you just need to make those little changes while also leveraging copy that has been proven to work.

I don’t know about you but I think that’s pretty awesome!

There are also endless additional campaigns for you to use created by Genesis Digital and some other internet marketing experts.

Additionally, there is also a marketplace where you can purchase more from other Kartra users or sell your own.

Why This Is Great

This set of features helps all users, no matter what their experience level is. Beginners can get started with done-for-you campaigns, while advanced users can sell their own.

There are templates for consultants, course creators, agencies, and various other businesses. Plus, if you have any type of marketing-related business like an agency, or that’s what your audience is interested in, this opens up many opportunities.

You can also use the Facebook group to discuss your ideas, find partners, etc. which makes this even better.

Leads System/CRM

Kartra has a leads system that helps you segment your customers automatically to target your marketing messages much better.

This is comparable to a CRM, as Kartra’s leads system automatically scores and tracks your customers to help you make better marketing choices. This, combined with the advanced analytics (which we’ll get into later on), makes it a lot easier to figure out what’s working and what your next steps are.

I’m a big fan of this because, if we’re honest, we’ve all had some marketing campaigns where we didn’t really have an overview of what’s happening. And, because this lead system is in the same place as your pages, email automations, membership sites, etc., it can give you a true picture of what’s happening.

Also, if you have high-ticket clients or are looking to in the future, this will be of huge benefit to you. Just by clicking on a lead’s name, you’ll be able to see their value to your business, their tags, and various other information.

Take a look at what I mean below. You can also click on the bar’s features at the top to get all the needed information from that particular feature.

Kartra analytics

Affiliate Marketing/Management and Marketplace

Kartra also comes with a powerful affiliate management tool that lets you recruit affiliates for your products.

The affiliate reporting inside of Kartra is super comprehensive for both the vendor and the affiliate.

Plus, the amount of options you have when creating your affiliate offer is almost insane.

Here are some of the things I’m talking about:

  • Multiple Commission tiers (i.e., create tier 2 affiliate programs/pay affiliates for finding affiliates)
  • Open and closed affiliate programs (Control who can become an affiliate)
  • Pay affiliates instantly with PayPal
  • Joint venture brokers
  • Create CPA affiliate programs (for example, upon lead registration)
  • Recurring & Standard affiliate programs
  • Set payment milestone (i.e., affiliate has to earn at least X to get paid)
  • Fixed commission rate or % of the sale

This is also something that gives you many opportunities to grow your business, as you can create almost any type of affiliate program you want.

Affiliate Marketplace

Kartra also comes with an affiliate product marketplace that you can compare to ClickBank.  This is where vendors can upload their products with the affiliate program, and affiliates can find them.

Meaning, if you have a product, you can upload it, and if the affiliate offer is good, you’re likely going to get affiliates applying to promote it.

Or, if you are looking to become an affiliate yourself, you’ll have access to a huge library of different types of affiliate offers that you can promote.

This is another feature that I think will be very helpful to many users.

Membership Sites

Throughout this article, I’ve already mentioned a couple of times that Kartra has membership sites. However, I still want to break down what exactly Kartra’s membership site builder has to offer.

Kartra’s membership site builder comes with all the features you would expect from a normal membership site builder, such as:

  • Drip Feed Content (with scheduling)
  • Multi-site portals
  • Advanced Member management
  • Comments
  • Details analytics (Average retention, average progression, subscription rates & more)
  • Multiple membership tiers

Kartra’s membership sites are also straightforward to build, as all you need to do is select a template, then use the drag & drop builder to create it. The only complaint I would have with this feature is that the templates look a little boring.

Yes, you can completely remove the Kartra branding and add your own, but they are very basic. However, there’s nothing wrong with simplicity, but that’s just the way I personally feel about the templates.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t build a high-quality membership site with Kartra. And, it still has more than enough features to give your students an amazing learning experience.

Helpdesk Portal

Kartra has a built-in helpdesk tool that will allow you to connect a helpdesk to all of your pages, membership sites, etc.

This will allow you to provide ticketing support and email support to your customers. Again, the cool thing about this is that you don’t have to switch between two or three software pieces to access the data you need to provide support.

Since your sales platform and CRM are also inside Kartra, you can instantly access any information you need.

Analytics

Kartra also has detailed analytics for every feature. That includes your emails, pages, membership sites, affiliates, and everything else inside Kartra.

I also like how visual the analytics are, making it really easy for you to keep an overview. However, what I was very impressed by, were the metrics that Kartra provides you with.

Some of these include:

  • ROI of Campaign
  • Average Lead Value
  • Retention (For membership sites)

And many more, these metrics are beneficial in deciding what’s right for your business.

For example, once you know your average lead value, you can, of course, focus on scaling your campaigns. If you know your lead value is $7, you can recruit affiliates and pay them $1-3 per email sign up. Plus, you can also run paid ads and control the cost, so you don’t spend more than $1-3 per lead.

Overall, I think that Kartra’s analytics are one of its strong points.

Kartra Agency

Kartra Agency is a feature available on all plans but Kartra starter, but we’ll talk more on pricing later on.

This feature, as the name suggests, is made specifically for agencies.

It allows you to manage separate Kartra accounts using your master login, and it also has some unique features:

  • See all your clients’ data from your account
  • Generate personalized reports for your metrics
  • Get discounted Kartra accounts and sell them

If you want to set up clients with separate Kartra accounts, you can also get those for a discount and sell them for the standard price, plus your service fees.

Integrations and APIs

Kartra also has a list of native integrations. However, you get access to both the inbound and outbound API keys, so you should be able to integrate with all of the tools you need.

If you do want to take a look at the native integrations, here’s a list of those:

Payment processors:

  • Braintree
  • Stripe
  • PayPal
  • Authorize.Net

Email integrations:

  • Mailgun
  • Sendgrid
  • Elastic Email
  • Postmark

Membership site integrations:

  • Digital Access Pass
  • OptimizePress
  • aMember
  • s2 Member
  • Wishlist
  • Kajabi

Other:

  • Twilio
  • Nexmo
  • Plivo
  • Google Calendar
  • Zapier

Kartra Pros and Cons

Okay, that was quite a hefty number of features. I did say this was going to be a detailed Kartra review, so I had to explain them all.

 But to help you get a clearer overview of whether Kartra is right for you, I wrote a pros and cons list below.

Kartra Pros:

  • Great all-in-one system
  • Lead management system & CRM are amazing
  • You get access to funnel and copy templates from people like Frank Kern
  • You can create almost any type of affiliate program that you like
  • Gorgeous templates for your pages, emails, etc
  • Detailed Analytics makes it easier to decide correctly
  • Powerful automations make it easy to convert leads to customers
  • Checkouts with one-click order bumps/upsells/downsells allow you to make the most out of every sale.

Cons:

  • Not good for Blogging/SEO
  • Pages can load slow
  • It can be overwhelming at first due to the huge number of features

Kartra Pricing:

Now that we have seen what Kartra has to offer in terms of features and benefits let’s look at the price. Kartra has four main pricing plans and an enterprise plan.

Below, I’ve explained all of these plans in detail. I like Kartra’s pricing because all features (apart from Kartra Agency) are available on every plan. This is great, as I think it can be annoying when platforms advertise all their features, and then you have to be on the highest plans to get them all.

So, you’re only limited in terms of resources you use.

Kartra Starter Plan ($99 Per Month)

The Kartra starter plan is great for anybody just starting.

Here’s what resources you get in Kartra Starter:

  • Up to 2500 leads
  • 1 custom domain 
  • 15,000 emails p/m
  • 50 GB Bandwidth
  • Host 100 pages
  • Host 50 videos
  • Sell 20 products
  • Build 2 membership sites
  • Add 1 additional team member
  • Connect 1 helpdesk

And of course, it does not come with Kartra Agency.

Also, if you are looking to build a membership site with this plan, I would warn you that you’re probably going to need to purchase more bandwidth. Hosting videos and having a lot of your customers play them takes up quite a lot.

However, Kartra lets you purchase more bandwidth, or if it makes sense for you, you can also go for the Silver plan.

Kartra Silver Plan ($199 Per Month)

The Kartra Silver plan has significantly fewer limits than the previous one and comes with Kartra agencies.

Here’s what resources you get with Kartra silver:

  • Up to 12,500 leads
  • 3 custom domains
  • Unlimited everything else
  • Kartra Agency

Kartra Gold Plan ($299 Per Month)

Kartra Gold gives you almost double the amount of all resources. And, of course, it also comes with Kartra Agency.

  • Up to 25,000 leads
  • 5 custom domains
  • Unlimited everything else
  • Kartra Agency

Kartra Platinum Plan ($499 Per Month)

The Kartra platinum plan is the highest standard plan. And, again, the resources have almost doubled from the Gold plan.

  • Up to 50,000 leads
  • 10 custom domains
  • Unlimited everything else
  • Kartra Agency

Kartra Enterprise plan (Custom)

Lastly, if you need an enterprise solution, you can contact the Kartra team and let them know. I can’t explain how this process works, as I’ve personally not done it. If your needs exceed the platinum plan’s limits, you can contact them through the pricing page here.

The Kartra pricing plan table

Final Thoughts

That’s it! I hope you have enjoyed my Kartra review. If you are looking for an all-in-one platform with a powerful lead management system and strong sales tools, I recommend giving Kartra a try. They have a 14-day trial for $1, which you can access through the button below to see if it’s right for you.

Entrepreneur Nut