Last Updated on January 23, 2022
Have you been considering purchasing SamCart for your business? Here’s a comprehensive SamCart review to help you make the right decision.
If you are landed to this article, most probably you have heard about SamCart? But you may have some questions in your mind like: Is SamCart legit? Is SamCart worth it? How much does it cost? or Will it fulfil my Ecommerce needs?
Researching a software product before buying is a time-consuming process and complicated. That is why I prepared in depth review of SamCart to help you out.
If you have an online business or looking to start that selling physical products, then Shopify or WooCommerce are the best fit.
But what it comes to digital products like Ebook, online courses, memberships, saas subscriptions, software downloads, coaching and consulting, you need a different system. You may need a flexible billing system like on time, recurring or instalment payments.
That is the scenario where SamCart comes that specialize in selling digital products.
What is SamCart?
SamCart is an online shopping cart for digital marketers who sells digital products and services. This software has all of the tools, bells and whistles you’ll need to boost conversions, increase customer value and run your business confidently without worrying about technology.
With SamCart you can sell:
- Online Courses
- Ebooks
- Membership Sites
- Coaching
- Consulting
SamCart Pros and Cons
Pros
Easy To Use – An easy-to-use interface lets you create a shopping cart in an hour or less.
SamCart Templates – Pre-made funnel templates that are proven to convert.
Design flexibility – You can match the checkout process precisely to your branding. Also, you can choose from a variety of pre-made sections for your shopping cart.
A robust integration system – SamCart comes with several built-in options. SamCart also supports webhooks and Zapier for additional customizability. You can use various events to trigger these integrations.
More Assistance For Beginners – When you purchase SamCart, you have access to free courses that will help you as a beginner.
SamCart Courses – You don’t need to purchase a service such as ClickFunnels or Teachable. SamCart’s new course features let you do it all.
Cons
Monthly Subscription: The price of SamCart is higher than ThriveCart, but it does not charge per transaction or sales volume like other systems does.
One Currency: Upon signup, you cannot change your default currency.
Poor Affiliate System: Their affiliate system is perhaps their weakest feature. However, no service can do everything.
Two-Factor Authentication: It seems odd that a shopping cart service does not support two-factor authentication for administrative accounts.
SamCart Features
Payment gateways and options
When you first set up your cart, one of the things it will require is that you connect your payment gateway(s) to Stripe (for credit card purchases) or PayPal (for non-credit card purchases).
Using a payment processor can help you and your customers:
- Avoid fraud and protect your customers
- Customers don’t have to reenter details for every transaction, so payments are made easier
- Customers can set up recurring payments
- Mobile payments are enabled via digital wallets
- Various payment options are available
- Provides upsell features, such as one-click upsells and order bumps, for payment
- Send digital invoices and other payment communications via email to simplify your admin work
- Your audience will trust you if you process payments using methods they already know and trust
SamCart templates
SamCart’s templates are one of its most prominent features. You have a variety of blank layouts to pick from, as well as a collection of pre-made templates.
Several different cart styles use the basic layout. They come in eight distinct designs:
- Blocky: The site’s preliminary design is a single-column layout with top of page Contact information, a middle-order summary, and bottom payment choices.
- Startup: It is a modern design of the Blocky theme, with payment methods in the center of the page.
- Launchpad: An alternative to Startup.
- Accelerator: In the design, a two-column layout is employed in which order data are on the left, and product information is on the right.
- Multi-Step: Through this feature, you can break down the sales page into multiple stages (contact info, order information, and final confirmation)
- Popup Template: You may now add a Popup Order from another website and accept orders.
- Full Width: As the name implies, a full-width layout is fantastic for mobile ordering.
- Two Column: The layout is similar to the Accelerator layout, but the order information is located on the right. The content is located on the left.
Drag and drop page builder
SamCart has a visual editor with many options to make your purchase page look fantastic and increase conversions using effective marketing strategies.
The core features include using the headline, button, bullet, divider, text, image, video, and icon on the order form.
Widgets: These tools will help your product sell better. There are several options for these tools, which makes them highly versatile.
You can use these tools to help increase sales of your product. Each of these has many different styles to choose from
Progress Bar: This indicates how far the consumer has progressed in the ordering process.
Countdown: Make a deadline. It may be the first time they saw the sales page or at a specific date and time.
Guarantee: One of the simplest ways to reduce risk is to show a seal with your warranty.
Testimonial: Social proof is another technique to assist the buyer feel more at ease.
FAQ: Deal with the most popular objections in your FAQs area.
Tabs: When you have a lot of information on a sales page, it might be challenging to comprehend. Tabs are a way to simplify and give a lot of material.
Custom HTML: Add HTML from the service Deadline Funnel to your purchase page.
If you want, you have the option to show or hide any of these elements on desktop and mobile devices. You will save your design as a template if you make a great design that you want to reuse.
Affiliate system
SamCart’s affiliate system, as compared to ThriveCart’s, is a much simpler design. The settings in SamCart are global and cannot be modified by affiliates or products. As an affiliate, the reporting is simple, and you cannot create custom offers and bonuses for the affiliates who join through your affiliate link.
To track the conversions, affiliates have to opt for the scale plan, which is one of the downsides of using SamCart. To track the traffic source for conversion, you need to enable utm_content.
Cart features
SamCart has impressive shopping cart features. Some of them are:
- With a drag-and-drop editor, you can modify all of the one-page checkout templates. The growth and scale options let you personalize your checkout pages with your custom domain.
- You can optimize the revenue with features like A/B testing for checkout, landing, upsell, and pre-order pages. You can also include intelligent pixels for effective tracking.
- You have an affiliate center, shopping saver, and impressive support for abandoned carts.
Samcart courses
SamCart’s newest feature, SamCartCourses, allows you to create an infinite number of courses and enroll an unlimited number of students.
SamCart Courses is supported on all SamCart plans for no additional cost and life. It means that you will never have to pay for SamCart Courses again, regardless of which SamCart plan you sign up for.
Other functionalities of the SamCart courses:
- YOu can add an infinite amount of units and lessons. It enables you to expand your curriculum as much as you like.
- Dragging and dropping courses in the course library is an excellent way to keep things organized. It is a simple method to maintain track of what your students see first while restricting access to specific lessons or information.
- With only one URL, you may share your entire course library. Click “share course library” to create this link. Then copy and promote this link through social media, text messages, or websites.
- You may apply order bumps to every course in your library and improve the worth of each purchase.
- The process of acquiring, viewing, and finishing a course is quick for your students. After they purchase a course, students are immediately directed to the course library.
SamCart Pricing
SamCart has four pricing plans:
- Launch plan will cost $49 per month or $39 per month if paid annually.
- Grow plan will cost $99 per month or $79 per month if paid annually.
- Scale plan will cost $199 per month or $159 per month if paid annually.
- Enterprise plan (contact sales for pricing)
Below are some core features available in any of their plan.
- Unlimited products and pages
- Unlimited courses
- Unlimited memberships
- 0% processing fees
- Drag and drop page builder
- Ready-to-use template library
- Student assessments and quizzes
The SamCart Launch Plan is designed for entrepreneurs launching their first digital or physical product. It’s not for subscription business owners or people seeking one-click upsell or payment plan functionality. You need to upgrade on Grow or Scale plans to unlock these capabilities. Below are the features you will get in their launch plan:
- 1 admin user
- Flexible customer billing options
- Standard integrations
- Standard email support
The SamCart Grow Plan adds more features to the Launch Plan. It has customer management, upsell capabilities, advanced subscription cancellations, subscription charge reminders, and more. If you buy their Grow plan on an annual subscription, you will get a 1:1 launch support call with a SamCart expert. Below are the features you will get in their Grow plan in addition to all features of the launch plan:
- 3 admin users
- Order bump collections
- Post-purchase upsells
- Custom checkout fields
- Enhanced integrations
- 1-day email support
Advanced features are included in the SamCart Scale Plan. Besides the features included in Grow plan, it also offers a built-in dunning tool, cart abandonment, the Affiliate Center, CRM integrations, priority customer support, and webhooks. In this plan, you will get a dedicated SamCart expert if you buy on annual subscriptions. Below are features you will get in their Scale plan and all the features of Grow plan.
- 10 admin users
- Cart abandonment conversion
- Subscription saver (dunning)
- Affiliate center
- Built A/B testing
- priority email support
- Custom CRM and API integrations
The SamCart Enterprise Plan is designed for businesses with more employees that need multiple subaccounts. You receive a dedicated account manager, integration setup support, and everything you’ll need to get operational quickly with this plan. Below are the extra features you will get in their enterprise plan in addition to the Scale plan:
- Multiple sub-accounts
- Custom reporting and exports
- Dedicated account manager
- Technical setup support
- Subscription migration support
The best thing about SamCart’s pricing, you will not be paying a single cent more or less based on how many customer orders there are. So if it were just one order per year or annual revenue of $1 million, they would still get charged the same fee.
They don’t have any free plan, but each SamCart pricing plan comes with a 14-day free trial and money-back guarantee. You can cancel your account within the first 14 days, and you will not be charged. If you paid upfront for an annual plan, you could cancel your account within the first 30 days to get a full refund.
SamCart Integrations
Apart from standard integrations, SamCart has advanced Zapier integrations. Below are some popular integrations currently available with SamCart.
Payment Gateways: SamCart has a broader range of payment gateway options:
- Braintree
- Stipe
- PayPal
- Authorize.net
Email Marketing Services: SamCart allows integration with reputed email service providers:
- Mailchimp
- GetResponse
- AWeber
- ConvertKit
- ConstantContact
- iContact
Marketing Automation Platforms: You can easily integrate with your favorite platform:
- ActiveCampaign
- Klaviyo
- Drip
- Ontrport
- Keap
- Hubspot
Membership Platforms: Integrate SamCart with a range of major membership platforms:
- Memberpress
- Thinkific
- Wishlist
- Optmizepress
- Membermouse
- Kajabi
Fulfillment Services: SamCart allows integration only with ShipStation at the moment.
Customer Support
Excellent customer support is essential when choosing any software platform for your business. Sometimes, you need help with general or technical issues, and having a fantastic support team makes your life easier.
Below are the support options you will get with SamCart
Knowledge Base: To better know SamCart’s services, it provides a knowledge base on various topics. So before contacting the support team directly, it is better to look at their knowledgebase articles as your answers.
Email Support: They have email support for general queries like marketing and partnership opportunities and customer support queries.
Chat Support: Apart from the above two support options, they also offer real-time chat support with humans and not with bots, which is helpful for your urgent queries.
They are available for their email and chat support between 9 am — 5 pm ET on weekdays. You can also try their on-demand demo video before purchase to know how SamCart can help you.
Our Recommendation
We recommend SamCart If:
- You need a drag and drop shopping platform, making template creation very easy.
- You have a subscription-based business, making the billing system easy for the customers.
- You need an affiliate system that helps create multiple tracking links to promote the products.
We do not recommend SamCart If:
- You do not need another monthly subscription service like the pricing of SamCart is high compared to competitors like Thrivecart.
- You want to provide detailed reporting and tracking capabilities to your affiliates that help you to promote your products.
SamCart Alternatives
ThriveCart: ThriveCart is another eCommerce shopping cart platform with conversion-boosting elements for creating highly effective checkout pages, and it’s ideal for selling physical items as well as digital ones. Unlike SamCart, they don’t have monthly plans. You can get a ThriveCart lifetime license for a one-time payment of $495.
PayKickstart: PayKickStart is a fully automated and highly configurable eCommerce cart manager that will assist you in growing your online business. It offers several features, including conversion-centric capabilities that may help you increase sales and conversions.
SendOwl: You may use SendOwl to sell digital items over the internet. It connects to the payment system, so you will get paid and immediately deliver the files to purchasers after their payment. There are several advantages to utilizing this software for various operations, including automating a time-consuming manual procedure, providing enhanced security by delivering files directly rather than waiting for the buyer to take action, etc.
SamCart Pricing FAQs
Conclusion
For bloggers and individuals who sell digital items, SamCart is a beautiful online shopping cart platform, but it’s not ideal for selling physical products.
SamCart’s biggest drawback is its cost. Over time, SamCart can become very costly to use.