SamCart Review: Pros and Cons, Apps & Who Should Use It

Last Updated on 1st February 2024

Are you tired of using clunky, outdated shopping cart software that makes it a hassle for your customers to buy from you?

It’s time to upgrade to SamCart, the sleek and intuitive shopping cart platform that’s taking the online world by storm.

But wait!

Does SamCart really live up to the hype, and, is it worth your precious time?

In this SamCart review, we’ll give you an in-depth review of SamCart and all it has to offer. We’ll cover everything from its easy-to-use design and customizable checkout pages to its integrations and advanced features.

By the end, you’ll have a good sense of whether SamCart is the right choice for your business, or if one of our recommended alternatives is a better fit.

So if you’re ready to make the switch to a shopping cart that actually makes your life easier, keep reading!

---

---

SamCart Pros and Cons

Just like any other software, SamCart has its good and not-so-good points. So, let’s take a look at the SamCart pros and cons:

---

---

What is SamCart?

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

SamCart was founded by two brothers, Brian and Scott Moran back in 2013. Since that time it has evolved (and continues to evolve) into more of an all-in-one online business tool (it’s not much more than just a shopping cart platform).

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

The tool works by focusing on 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. 

The SamCart app allows you to build your sales pages, and 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 can help you increase your sales due to its laser-focused conversion-rate optimization (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?

The SamCart app 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.

Here are some examples of who SamCart can work well for:

• 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.

How Does SamCart Work?

SamCart works by streamlining the checkout process and allowing you to showcase your products on a stylish one-page funnel.

SamCart’s checkout templates are said to have been designed and tested to improve conversions. As such, SamCart offers a ‘conversion boost guarantee’. Basically, they guarantee you’ll see an increase in conversions once you switch to them.

You can use the SamCart app to sell both physical and digital products. If you’re a course creator then you can also benefit from SamCart’s membership site builder and funnel your new customers into a members area.

Once inside, you can showcase your other products through SamCart’s cross-selling feature to boost sales.

Should You Try SamCart?

So, should you try out the SamCart platform before you buy it?

Yes, if you’re thinking to buy a SamCart subscription then you should definitely opt for a free trial first. At the moment, SamCart is offering 14 days to test drive their shopping cart platform completely free of charge. This is worth taking advantage of.

If you need a high-converting shopping cart platform, or if you’re looking for a suitable platform to build a membership site for a digital course, then test out SamCart first by using their free trial.

---

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 creators of SamCart 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, which is this free training below.

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

---

---

SamCart Features

SamCart has a huge list of features that 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.

Landing Page Designer

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 means 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, however, 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 upsells, and down-sells are highly effective tools in increasing your conversion rate and boosting 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 audiobook 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 to the upsell 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.

---

SamCart Discounts & Coupons

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 very large selection of templates for both sales and checkout pages.

Personally, I do like the look of SamCart templates more than some of the other platforms out there. While they’re modern and professional, they’re also quite simple, which I think can improve conversions.

You also have a wide variety of templates for different types of pages and carts/ This 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 carts 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, the SamCart app 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.

---

Online Courses App

The newest feature to be added to the SamCart offering is their online courses app.

This is a fantastic addition because it means that you will no longer need to rely on expensive third-party tools to host your courses.

One thing I particularly like about the new Courses App by SamCart is that the SamCart team has also incorporated loads of great conversion features like cross-selling for you can use inside your member’s area.

With cross-selling, you can set the app to recommend other products that you own to your audience at different stages of their learning. As your students move through the course they will then have the opportunity to buy other products from you, or purchase upgrades.

All this means more revenue for you, which is why we particularly like the SamCart Courses app.

You can see more online course platforms here.

---

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.

Other integrations:

• ShipStation
• Zapier
• WordPress
• Intercom

As you can see, SamCart has a solid list of direct integrations. However, if you do need to connect other apps that are not on the list above, then you can simply use Zapier to integrate between the two.

---

Affiliate Center

The SamCart app 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 incentivize 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 your income) online.

If you have an online course, or 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 optimization tools set up in 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 realize the benefit of choosing a platform that has integrated analytics so you can see clearly what’s working for you 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%!

 

---

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 optimization 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 is 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 of 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

There are 3 SamCart pricing plans. There are some differences between the plans, as I already mentioned, so make sure you are aware of them.

Remember, you can get a 20% discount on any SamCart plan through this link if you select annual billing.

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

In case SamCart isn’t exactly right for you, here are some SamCart alternatives which might be a better fit.

Below, I’ve listed the best alternatives to SamCart in a chart for a quick snapshot. Then, below, I’ve gone into more detail on each tool if you want to know more.

Platform	Free Plan	Trial	Lifetime Option	Starting Cost
SamCart	No	14-Days	No	$49/pm
ThriveCart	No	No	Yes	$495/one time
ClickFunnels	No	14-Days	No	$97/pm
Kartra	No	14-Days	No	$99/pm

---

1. GrooveKart (no-longer recommended due to tech issues)

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 the 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.

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 (no longer recommended due to tech issues)

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 from its 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 it’s 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 one of the other shopping cart solutions listed above.

You can read more about GrooveSell here.

If you still want more options, then check out my article on the most recommend SamCart alternatives.

---

Review of SamCart: My 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.

---

---