Samcart Review 2023: The No #1 eCommerce Platform

As an ecommerce business owner who has used numerous checkout and shopping cart solutions, I’m often asked – is Samcart really worth the monthly investment and better than more affordable cart options?

After testing Samcart extensively on my own online stores, I’m in a great position to provide an unbiased review based on direct experience as a paying customer. In this Samcart review guide, I’ll give you my honest take on where it delivers immense value, where it falls short, and if it justifies the higher pricing.

Let’s cut through the hype and explore if Samcart is the right solution for your business!

Samcart Review: A Near-Perfect Checkout Software

Samcart was started by Brian Moran and Scott Moran in 2013 with the idea of helping small and medium entrepreneurs to sell online services and products and increase the conversion rate at the same time. 

The best thing about Samcart is that it eliminates the requirement for technical knowledge while you are building your store. The platform offers a bunch of design features along with a simple drag-and-drop tool that allows you to create anything without writing thousands of lines of code. 

Here are the things you can sell through Samcart:

• Physical and digital books (ebooks)
• Membership sites where you can set recurring subscriptions and payment plans
• Online coaching and training material
• Online courses and study material 
• Consulting services

Not only that but for beginners, there are pre-designed checkout templates that can be further optimized as per your requirements or personal preferences. With Samcart, it will take you less than an hour to build a professional yet stunning checkout page. Also, there are enough tools to boost your sales and convert visitors into buyers. 

Here are some quick checkout page features available at Samcart:

• 1-click upsells, downsells
• 1-click order bumps
• A/B filter testing
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Automated membership recovery 
• 1-click discount offers, coupons, and upgrades

Samcart: Advantages and Drawbacks

Let’s have a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of Samcart.

What It Gets Right?

✅ It’s easy to create high-converting and professional-looking shopping carts with a drag-and-drop cart builder along with pre-designed templates.

✅ Round-the-clock life chat support along with quick email assistance. You can also join an exclusive Facebook community for help.

✅ An in-house affiliate program with a powerful affiliate management system.

✅ A variety of third-party integrations for payment, marketing, fulfillment, and much more.

✅ Efficient reporting and analysis tools

✅ Provides you control over the offers and discount coupons that you use on the checkout page

What Does It Miss?

❌ It has limited payment processors (PayPal and Stripe). Also, there is no option for cryptocurrency payment which is becoming a popular trend now. 

❌ Compared to other cart builders, it has restricted design options and a limited number of templates. Customization is also just average. 

❌ Lacks integrated digital sales tax calculator

❌ A/B split testing is not as effective as it is on some other platforms. It often misfires. 

❌ Last but not least, the pricing. The monthly price can hamper your budget, especially if you are still in the initial stage of setting up your store. 

❌ Not optimized enough for selling services and subscriptions. You can still do it, but that requires some creativity and tricks. 

Samcart Checkout Templates: A Boost to Your Sale?

Let’s talk about the checkout page builder, which is the USP of Samcart. When you are selling products online, the process of bringing a prospect to the checkout page requires accurate planning, study, and some tactics so that the prospect doesn’t have any choice but to click on the Buy button eventually. 

For instance, with Samcart, you can put multiple payment options on the checkout page itself rather than second a customer to a separate payment page. It’s referred to as a one-page checkout option that holds the customer on the checkout page for longer, giving them more time to make the decision on the purchase. 

A good checkout page gives just enough options to the customers, forcing them to proceed with the purchase. Samcart’s professionally designed checkout templates are stunning yet very effective in terms of conversions. Currently, millions of merchants are using Samcart, and most of them seem to have a pretty good opinion of its checkout page capabilities. 

The idea is simple, you don’t have to spend hours writing the codes and designing the page by yourself. Simply pick a template that you find appropriate to the product or service you are selling, customize it with your brand name and colors, and add details by using a simple drag-and-drop editor, and you are good to go. 

Modifying the templates, however, is not very convenient as you can’t see the real-time changes on them. But, with Samcart’s Sandbox mode, you can cross-check the changes and buttons without publishing them. Not only that, but you can also sell directly through your website using the embedded Buy tab on any page. 

Here are some of the customization you can make:

• Upload your brand logo
• Specify custom fields
• Use presets or define your own color themes
• Manage checkout page elements such as Billing/shipping address, contact information, order quantity, postal address, etc
• Product image, bullet points title, and images
• Terms and conditions section
• Add customized content, texts, and much more
• Add text buttons 

Samcart Payment Options

With Samcart, you are allowed to accept payments for your products and services. When you set up your Samcart account, you will be asked to set up payment methods. Let’s have a look at what you can offer and accept with Samcart:

• Fixed one-time payments
• Membership plans, split pay (installments)
• Free/paid trials 
• Set the billing cycle and due dates
• Accept payment in 8 currencies 
• Payment with/without processing charge
• Shipping options and Product quality restrictions

As far as Payment processors are concerned, You get to choose between PayPal and Stripe. To be honest, it’s a bit disappointing to see the limited options, but Samcart seems to be working with multiple platforms to bring in more processors in the near future. Also, these 2 are among the top global payment processors, so it shouldn’t be a problem. But with businesses moving more towards mobile payment and cryptocurrencies, we would definitely love to see more options. 

When it comes to payment modes, customers can pay using any credit/debit card, Google Pay, and Apple Pay, recently introduced by the platform. 

We are still waiting for popular options like Braintree and Authorize payment to be brought in for the card processing considering many of the Samcart competitors already provide those options. 

A/B Split Testing

If you are losing your customers at the last stage of the sale, it’s a good idea to implement a few modifications to your checkout page and try different versions. This can be done through A/B split testing. It’s a very useful tool to have if you are experiencing a high cart abandonment rate. 

Samcart allows you to try out different variations before going for the one that seems to be working for you. All your variations are listed under the AB test, where you can check the version you are using and the ones you have discarded. 

You may not get instant results with split testing, but over time, you will understand the buyers’ moods and predict their next moves. With AB testing, you can find out which version of the cart page is bringing you more sales. 

However, the split testing feature lacks some functionality, especially when you have several test variations. Sometimes it’s tricky to determine which one is actually in use and which one you are editing. 

Upsells, Order Bumps, and Offers 

Upsells and Bump orders are used to increase the value of the purchase. These marketing tricks have been used over the years not only in online marketing but in-store as well. 

Samcart allows you to add upsells and order bumps with a single click, where you can encourage the customer to go with the more expensive product or convince him to buy complimentary items with the one that he’s already purchasing.  

For example, if you are selling smartphones, you can highlight the upgraded models on the checkout page, which are obviously more expensive, giving you a better profit opportunity. Also, you can add supporting items such as a screen protector/back case for the model that the customer has added to the cart, a smartphone stand, and other accessories. 

With Samcart, it’s fairly simple. All you need to do is click on Order Bump and Upsell and select the items or services you are going to offer with the particular product. Thanks to email marketing integrations, you can figure out your customers’ interests and add the exact product that they had clicked on in the past. 

Samcart: Third-party Integrations

Samcart allows you to connect your account/store to numerous third-party platforms to increase the functionality of your store. Let’s have a look:

Email Services

Emails and autoresponders are important for marketing and keeping a good relationship with your customers. Samcart allows you to connect to all the popular email marketing platforms, including:

• HubSpot
• Active Campaign
• MailChimp
• Drip
• Ontraport
• iContact

Fulfillment Programs

You will need a fulfillment service if you are going to sell physical products in your store. With Samcart, you can integrate only with ShipStation, which is enough to take care of all your fulfillment requirements. 

Thankfully, Samcart also supports Zapier, where you can add multiple fulfillment partners to your store. 

Webinars

If you want to market and advertise your product through Webinars, Samcart allows you to do so through Zapier integration, where you can connect to numerous Webinar hosting platforms. 

Payment Providers

As I stated above, Samcart only supports 2 major payment providers. Stripe and PayPal with more options in the pipeline. Just recently, the company has included Apple Pay and Google Pay, allowing a wider window for accepting payments. 

Email Services	✅iContact ✅GetResponse ✅Mailchimp ✅Maropost ✅ConvertKit ✅AWeber ✅Constant Contact
Marketing Automation	✅Klaviyo ✅Ontraport ✅ActiveCampaign ✅Drip ✅Keap ✅HubSpot
Membership Platforms	✅Memberpress ✅WishList ✅Thinkific ✅Optimizepress ✅Kajabi ✅MemberMouse ✅Digital Access pass
Payment Providers	✅Braintree ✅Stripe ✅PayPal ✅Authorize.net
Fulfillment/Webinar	✅ShipStation ✅Zapier

Samcart Affiliate Center

This is my personal favorite Samcart feature. In this age of competition in the e-commerce business, you can’t have enough advertisements because there is always someone who is doing it more and better than you. Paid ads are nice, but they can hit your budget hard. 

With Samcart, you get an Affiliate program where you can hire individual marketers or social media influencers who have a good image in the online space and can spread the good word about your products. The best part is that you only have to pay the affiliate if they manage to get you a sale. Affiliate marketing is a better way to promote your products and rather cheaper than paid online advertisements. 

If you go to the Affiliate section, you can do multiple setups, such as approving/rejecting an affiliate, setting the cookie duration, setting up payment options and duration, etc. Now, Samcart affiliate management is not the strongest in the market since there is no facility for tracking down the URLs, but we think it does the job and will definitely benefit you. 

Who Should Use Samcart?

Samcart is an amazing tool for anyone who is selling online either physical & digital products or services. With this eCommerce tool, you can sell digital products, like webinars, events, online courses, and eBooks. If you are a small business owner, then this is the best option for you to have. But it may not be right for everyone because it has features that will not suit everybody.

Samcart is not the best for agencies, large businesses, and expert eCommerce sellers. If you already have an online store, then Samcart can help you set up your checkout page and sell products easily. Samcart’s inventory management tool is equipped to manage small inventories, so if you have a big inventory, it will be best for you to find a tool equipped to handle that. If you want to try the tool before buying a subscription to it, then you can opt for its 7-day free trial.

Samcart Review: Pros & Cons

Here are the benefits & drawbacks of using Samcart.

Pros

• It is a user-friendly platform that allows you to sell digital & physical products both.
• Samcart offers multiple sales boosting tools like on-click upsells & downsells and offer bumps.
• Different payment models are available such as free trials, subscriptions, and payment plans.
• It has an inbuilt affiliate management tool where you can manage affiliates for your products.
• Its analytics & reporting tools give you actionable insights into your business.

Cons

• It has fewer design options than its competitors.
• Samcart’s pricing is expensive for small business owners and individual marketers.

Samcart Pricing

Samcart offers 3 plans to its users – Launch, Grow, and Scale and with each one, you get access to Samcart’s core features such as:

• Drag-drop page builder
• Pre-designed templates
• Host unlimited courses
• Upload unlimited videos
• Zero processing fee
• Sell unlimited products without any additional cost
• Sell unlimited memberships

With the Launch plan, you get a single user license, standard integrations and email support, customer billing, and sales reports and analysis. The plan will cost you $79/month ($59 if billed annually).

The Grow plan comes at $159/month ($119 for annual users) and gives you more flexibility and advanced reporting features. Along with all the features from the Launch plan, you get 2 additional user licenses, advanced integrations, and priority 1-day email support along with a support call with Samcart experts. 

You also get post-purchase upsells, order bump collections, an integrated SEO engine, multiple customer payment options, custom checkout fields, and much more. 

A Scale plan is more suitable for merchants who need all the high-end features and are looking to scale their businesses. You get 10 user licenses, CRM management, API integrations, and a dedicated Samcart expert (for the annual plan). 

You also get cart abandonment service, access to the affiliate center, a subscription saver, and an A/B split testing feature. The plan will cost you $319/month ($239 if you pay for the whole year). Before you buy any plan of Samcart, take a look at our exclusive Samcart discount offer that will help you save a few bucks on your purchase.

Here is a detailed comparison of Samcart plans and pricing

Launch Plan	Grow Plan	Scale Plan
$79/month or $59/month Billed Annually	$159/month or $119/month Billed Annually	$319/month or $239/month Billed Annually
✅1 User license	✅3 user license	✅10 user license
✅Basic Integrations	✅ Refined Integration	✅CR management
✅Standard email	✅1-day email support	✅API integration
✅Samcart dashboard	✅Launch Support	✅Priority support
✅Sales Report	✅Bump Orders	✅Dedicated expert
✅Customer Billing	✅Upsells	✅cart abandonment
✅Weekly webinars	✅SEO engine	✅Dunning feature
✅CreatorU preview	✅Payment options	✅Affiliate center
✅All core features	✅Custom checkout	✅A/B split testing

Samcart Alternatives

Even though Samcart is an amazing eCommerce platform, it will not be the best solution for everyone. That’s why I have listed the best Samcart alternatives for you to choose from:

1. ThriveCart – Provides hosted checkout pages and shopping cart capabilities focused on conversions. Offers extensive customization of templates, 1-click upsells, subscriptions, and abandoned cart recovery. Integrates with email and membership tools. Ideal for digital products or services. If you want to know more about ThriveCart, then take a look at our in-depth ThriveCart review here.

2. SendOwl – Specialized cart for digital goods like ebooks, courses, audio, and video. Enables seamless delivery of digital purchases. Offers webinar integration, affiliate tools, and global payment options. They are focused on selling information products.

3. PayKickstart – Shopping cart optimized for digital subscriptions and recurring billing models. Supports one-time purchases, too. Provides comprehensive affiliate and commission management tools as well. It is suited for SaaS and membership sites.

Conclusion: Is Samcart Worth It In 2023?

Samcart is certainly a good place to start selling physical and digital items. The platform provides easy-to-use tools to build high-converting checkout pages that your customer finds impossible to resist from making a purchase. 

However, the platform misses out on some key features, such as botched-up split testing, limited payment options, lack of funneling, in-built sales calculation, and a few more. For advanced sellers, this is going to be a problem, but if you are looking for a strong checkout page builder for your startup, Samcart won’t disappoint you. 

Since I’ve mentioned the features that are missing from Samcart, it’s only fair to mention Thrivecart, another checkout software that nearly has everything that Samcart lacks. Although the platform is relatively new, compared to Samcart, it has enough features and functionality to compete with Samcart.

A more refined split testing, better integrations, and an in-built sales calculations tool are a few of the features that Thrivecart offers. And all this comes to a one-time price of $495. 

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