SamCart Review: The Pros, Cons and Everything You Need to Know Before Signing Up

I am always curious about eCommerce solutions that aim to make life easier for entrepreneurs. One such solution is SamCart, which has been in the game for over a decade. But is it the right platform for you? Read this in-depth SamCart review to find out.

SamCart Overview

SamCart is an e-commerce platform designed for selling digital products. Specifically, it serves as a web-based checkout platform or shopping cart software. With SamCart, you have all the tools and mechanisms needed to fully manage and sell digital products, including online courses.

You can easily create a solid checkout page using any of the pre-built checkout page templates provided by the platform. SamCart’s focus is on creating ease of use for e-commerce entrepreneurs.

Founded by Scott Moran and Brian Moran in 2013, SamCart has emerged as one of the best shopping cart solutions over time.

SamCart Features Breakdown

SamCart offers a range of features that are well-suited for e-commerce businesses. Let’s review some of SamCart’s features.

SamCart Integrations

The SamCart platform provides you with over 750 tools. These tools allow you to integrate SamCart with a variety of other tools. Integrating with tools such as Zapier and Ship Station can help you create a seamless shopping cart experience. Additionally, you can access these tools for different online business functions.

Below are a few tools that have been highlighted.

Email Integrations

• Mail Chimp
• AWeber
• Constant Contact
• iContact

Marketing Automation Integrations

• Hubspot
• Drip
• Active Campaign
• Ontraport

Page Builders

• WordPress

Membership Integrations

• MemberPress
• Kajabi
• Thinkific
• Member Mouse

Payment Providers

• Stripe
• PayPal

Please Note

It is good to have options when it comes to integration. However, it also highlights the limitations of the SamCart platform. Plus, if the use of integrations increases, it also increases management needs, time required, and cost.

SamCart Affiliate Center

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make sales, particularly when you are offering a digital product. SamCart provides you with a built-in affiliate center to make the most of this opportunity.

SamCart offers a simple affiliate management system. You can set up an affiliate signup page for your affiliates. After joining, you can view their performance and commissions using the affiliate analytics provided in the center.

You can also easily create affiliate links and even private ones for particular promotional partners.

However, this is a very generic affiliate center and does not stand out in any manner.

One-Click Upsells

Here comes a signature SamCart feature focused on revenue optimization.

Up-sells work by presenting your customers with an additional offer right after they make their first purchase. This can lead to a 70% increase in sales.

SamCart allows you to go a step ahead. You can add images, videos, and promotional text to your offer to make it more catchy.

This feature is a plus for online coaches, consultants, and course creators. You can offer e-books, mini-courses, coaching programs, etc.

SamCart Payments

With SamCart, you can process your recurring or one-time payments using PayPal, Braintree, EasyPay Direct, and Stripe. Moreover, it offers its very own payment gateway named “SamPay”.

This default payment processor can receive direct credit card payments. Moreover, you can have access to any upcoming financial products by SamCart.

Please note that SamPay is a relatively new gateway. Although it has the same functionalities as Stripe, it still lacks many features, and using SamPay can lead you to be stuck with SamCart if your business has different needs in the future.

SamCart Core E-Commerce Features

This set of features is focused on simplifying e-commerce management processes for entrepreneurs.

Taxes and VAT

SamCart ensures that you are running your online business in compliance with the tax rules and VAT. It enables you to easily and automatically collect taxes on your sales.

Coupons and discounts

With Samcart, you can create recurring or one-time coupon discounts for running any promotions.

Partial and flexible refunds

SamCart makes it easy for you to manage refunds after a customer has paid you. You can partially refund customers or offer other varieties of refund offers. SamCart enables you to implement a refund policy most suited to your business.

CRM Integration

Using SamCart integrations, you can integrate SamCart with your CRM. This makes it easier for you to manage or retrieve your commerce data. Plus, it makes overall management way easier.

Advanced Subscriptions

SamCart gives you full flexibility to create any type of subscription plan for your potential customers. You can create plans like the $1 trial, pay as you want, free trials, etc.

Order Bumps

Here comes yet another revenue and sales optimization feature by SamCart.

This e-commerce feature takes your customer on a mini-shopping tour right before they check out. It occurs right on the checkout page. This feature helps boost revenue and sales. Moreover, it helps to increase order value.

Basically, you offer some additional products with the main products at a reasonably fair price. This technique is also known as “bundling.”

You can create a high-converting new bump using SamCart in a minute. Plus, the platform makes incorporating them into the checkout page easier.

SamCart Subscription Saver

This is an advanced e-commerce feature.

It sends automated messages and reminders to your customers if payments are due or if their payment was declined. This process is also referred to as “dunning.”

This feature also sends a secure link via email to customers, asking them to update their details. In case a customer fails to pay, SamCart automatically cancels their subscriptions.

SamCart Analytics

SamCarts provides you with a solid analytics feature. You can easily monitor your business’s performance with a wide range of metrics.

This feature provides reliable data on traffic, subscriptions, and revenue. Additionally, you can track data on the funnel, subscription plans, LTV (lifetime value), and product performance.

Smart Pixel Tracking

This is basically a sub-feature of SamCart analytics that enables you to analyze the performance of your ads. Moreover, you can study your sales funnel, which means you can see where your sales are coming from.

A/B Testing

A/B testing, or “split testing,” allows you to test two versions of the same product to see which one performs better. With SamCart, you can easily perform A/B testing after creating checkout pages. This feature is great for optimizing conversion rates.

Checkout Page & Sales Page Builder

SamCart offers a robust sales and checkout page builder as a shopping cart solution. It’s a user-friendly drag-and-drop builder. You also get access to a library of around 50 high-converting checkout templates.

You only need to pick a template, make any changes if you want, preview it, and make it live. All templates enable you to incorporate essentials such as badges, testimonials, and payment options.

SamCart offers you the Sandbox sub-feature. Using this feature, you can test the page before making it live.

SamCart CreatorU

This is a relatively new addition to SamCart’s features. SamCart CreatureU is basically a learning and resource hub. It provides you with 48+ business case studies and training by SamCart users and experts. Users can access industry reports, training videos, and templates.

CreatorU is priced at $144 per year, which is quite expensive considering that it’s new. Moreover, the flow of training content is low. You only get 4 pieces of training per month. Plus, it is a separate platform and is not linked directly to the SamCart platform.

SamCart Course App

If you are a course creator, SamCart has just the right feature for you. It’s the SamCart Course App.

This feature allows you to create and sell online courses. You can easily set up your online course. For that, you can incorporate videos, resources, quizzes, content tiers, and drip content. Next, you can create a sales page for your course using SamCart’s pre-built templates.

You can also track student performance and engagement. SamCart Course App comes with auto-enroll technology that directs your students right to the course after payment. You can also advertise your online courses using Course Cross-Sells.

SamCart Pricing

A plan for every creator and need?

But, then, where’s a free plan for beginners or customers who wish to experience the platform to see if it’s worth the cost or not? because a 7-day trial is not enough.

Now, let’s talk about SamCart’s 3 paid plans.

SamCart Paid Plans

1. Launch Plan: $59/month
2. Grow Plan: $119/month
3. Scale Plan: $299/month

All 3 plans offer you the following core features and benefits:

Launch Plan @ $59/month

This is the first and cheapest plan offered by SamCart. You get all the core features and benefits.

This plan allows 1 admin user. Plus, you get all the standard features. Overall, the plan is quite limited and expensive.

The launch plan is good if you can pay $59 and want to experience Samcart. Even after that, you must upgrade to grow your business and make the most of it.

This plan just allows you to experience the basic features of SamCart. You will have to pay more for a bigger plan to fully take advantage of what SamCart offers.

It’s just there to get things going but at a cost.

You can also opt for the annual billing cycle for $39/month. Even then, paying for a limited plan is still not worth it.

The additional features are not useful at all, such as a free preview of CreatorU. It does not make any sense. Moreover, no advanced features are offered in this plan, such as order bumps and an in-built SEO engine.

Grow Plan @ $119/month

Up next, we have the Grow plan. It’s the second plan by SamCart. Once again, you get all the core features mentioned above and the Launch Plan features.

This plan permits you to have 3 admin users and is a bit better than the Launch Plan. It is priced at $119 per month.

I think this is a good plan if you want to truly experience SamCart and its advanced features. However, that experience will come with a hefty price tag.

This plan is well-suited for small businesses and solopreneurs because the mix of features can serve their needs without overwhelming them.

However, the needs of small businesses can grow rapidly, followed by the need for more features. In that case, the only choice is to upgrade to the biggest plan yet most expensive plan.

There’s no add-on facility to add more features as well.

Overall, I think it’s a good plan to kick-start the operations of small businesses.

In the case of annual billing, the plan is priced at $79 per month.

Scale Plan @ $299/month

Finally, the Scale Plan is priced at a whopping $299 per month. Again, you get all the core features of SamCart plus all the features and benefits of the Grow Plan.

I think this is the right plan if you want to run a fully-functioning online business. It comes with 10 admin users. That means you can assign more roles and add team members.

The scale plan is well-suited for small to medium-scale businesses to run operations. You get all the advanced features of SamCart in this plan that you can leverage.

It allows you to integrate a custom CRM and other integrations for your business. This is actually a perk and a pain point at the same time. Because you will have the benefits of third-party tools. You also have to put more time and experts to customize and manage. That’s an added cost.

In the case of annual billing, the plan is priced at $199 per month.

SamCart Pros & Cons

Let’s round off the pros and cons of SamCart for a better understanding.

SamCart Cons

• There s no free plan. Many SamCart alternatives offer free plans with more value.
• It’s missing a community creation and management feature.
• There is no SamCart app available.
• SamCart is relatively expensive, with the lowest and most limited plan priced at $59.
• The SamCart platform is not well-suited for businesses offering services. It caters more to the needs of product-based businesses.
• Overall, SamCart is a limited platform and relies on third-party integrations that only add to the work and costs.
• The template library for checkout pages is quite limited.
• Advanced features such as an affiliate center and subscription saver are only available in the Scale plan.
• The learning platform CreatorU is expensive, and it’s not integrated into SamCart.

SamCart Pros

• You are not charged any transaction fees at SamCart.
• You get 750+ integrations with SamCart.
• You get an integrated course app, and you do not have to rely on any third-party apps for course creation.
• SamCart offers SSL certificates for secure checkout. SamCart also provides built-in security mechanisms and a PCI certificate.
• SamCart takes care of compliance with powerful certifications such as GDPR and SCA.

Verdict – Is SamCart Worth It?

SamCart is a versatile platform. It’s more than a mere checkout or an online shopping cart platform. It offers some noteworthy features such as the subscription saver, Sandbox sub-feature, A/B testing, and a wide range of integrations.

I recommend SamCart if you are running a small to mid-sized business or you are a solopreneur. However, you can only sustain with the Scale Plan, priced at $299 a month. Plus, it’s suitable if you have a product-based business.

The SamCart platform is limited and does not provide any real value. One can only function with the most expensive of its plans. Moreover, the platform relies way too much on third-party apps.

Also, SamCart does not offer any community creation or management features. This is a big drawback, as many entrepreneurs and course creators rely on communities.

Overall, it’s a complex platform trying to offer everything.

Digital entrepreneurs, course creators, and coaches need simple yet comprehensive solutions that cut the hassle. Need an example? Consider GroupApp.

GroupApp – All-In-One Learning Community Platform

GroupApp is an all-in-one learning community platform. It’s simple, user-friendly, and has a plan for every budget.

GroupApp offers an in-built course builder complemented by a community management system and content library.

No more juggling between platforms. It’s everything you need in one place. You can also create and schedule webinars and live coaching sessions with the event feature.

Plus, you get an iOS GroupApp app to manage your courses and community anytime, anywhere.

The best thing is that GroupApp offers a free plan to set your business in motion!

Try GroupApp now for free. No credit card is required!