SamCart vs ClickFunnels Comparison – Which Is Best For Your Business?

Last Updated on 15th September 2024

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.

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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 of 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
• ClickFunnels has more tools overall
• SamCart has more tools that are laser-focused on the checkout experience
• SamCart has better payment tools, subscriptions and affiliate management
• SamCart primarily focuses on eCommerce

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What Is SamCart?

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 price plans ranging from $49 to $292 per month.

SamCart Pros & Cons

What Is ClickFunnels?

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 within their Facebook group, which is always a nice bonus.

ClickFunnels Pros & Cons

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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 is 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 is 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.

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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 for your funnel layouts too.

For example, you get templates for all kinds of funnels, such as lead magnet funnels, webinar funnels, tripwire funnels, 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 to customize.

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.

If you want an alternative to ClickFunnels then you can see 8 more membership site builders here.

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, that 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 plans for ClickFunnels 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.

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.

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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 many 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

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SamCart Vs ClickFunnels Cost

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

SamCart Cost

The cost of SamCart is actually quite reasonable compared to its competitors.

They offer three pricing options, ranging from $49 to $292 per month:

• SamCart Launch ($49 per month)
• SamCart Grow ($99 per month)
• SamCart Scale ($292 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
• Customers 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 ($292 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)

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ClickFunnels Cost

SamCart has some quite affordable plans; let’s look at how ClickFunnels compares.

While ClickFunnels are more expensive, they do also have 4 attractive discount offers here.

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

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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 sales 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 creators and ecommerce sellers who are looking for a dedicated sales and checkout platform with more than the basics. Cart abandonment, subscriptions, cross-selling, and other sales/checkout tools are where it shines.

If you want to try SamCart then you can get a 7-day free trial here.

If you choose the Scale plan then you’ll be able to test out every feature that SamCart has to offer.

If you then discover that SamCart is right for you but you don’t need all the features then you can simply downgrade to either the Launch or Grow plan before your trial period ends and you’ll only be charged for your chosen plan going forwards.

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Related Articles:

• 11 best alternatives to ClickFunnels
• SamCart vs ThriveCart
• Shopify and ClickFunnels
• ClickFunnels vs. Unbounce
• ClickFunnels vs CartFlows
• ClickFunnels vs Keap (a.k.a InfusionSoft)
• LeadPages or ClickFunnels
• Alternatives to SamCart

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