SamCart

What is SamCart

SamCart is an e-commerce platform designed for creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses who sell digital products, courses, and services online. Its core purpose is to provide a simple yet powerful way to create high-converting checkout pages and sales funnels. Founded by Brian and Scott Moran, the platform focuses on maximizing revenue by optimizing the customer's purchasing experience. Unlike traditional e-commerce solutions that require complex setups, SamCart offers a drag-and-drop page builder and pre-designed templates to help users launch their products quickly. The main functionality revolves around features that boost average order value and customer lifetime value, such as one-click upsells, order bumps, and subscription management.

SamCart Features

SamCart provides a suite of tools focused on increasing sales and simplifying the online selling process.

• CheckoutOS™: A powerful checkout system designed for speed and high conversion rates. It supports embedded checkouts that can be placed on any website or landing page.
• Drag-and-Drop Page Builder: An intuitive, AI-powered builder for creating sales pages, landing pages, and full websites without needing any coding skills. It includes dozens of high-performing templates.
• 1-Click Upsells and Downsells: After the initial purchase, you can present customers with additional offers that they can accept with a single click, significantly increasing the average order value.
• Order Bumps: Add a complementary offer directly on the checkout page as a simple checkbox option, encouraging customers to add more to their cart.
• Cart Abandonment Recovery: Automatically follows up with potential customers who start the checkout process but do not complete it, helping to recover lost sales.
• Subscription Management: Easily sell recurring subscriptions, memberships, and payment plans. The platform includes a Subscription Saver feature that helps recover failed subscription payments automatically.
• Affiliate Center: A built-in system to create, manage, and track your own affiliate program. You can recruit partners to promote your products and pay them commissions on sales they generate.
• A/B Testing: Test different headlines, prices, and colors on your checkout pages to identify what converts best and optimize your sales process.
• Multiple Payment Options: Supports various payment methods, including major credit cards, PayPal, and 'Buy Now, Pay Later' services like Klarna and Affirm.

SamCart Pricing Plans

SamCart offers several pricing tiers to accommodate businesses at different stages of growth. The plans are typically structured as follows:

• Launch Plan: This entry-level plan is ideal for new entrepreneurs and creators just starting to sell online. It includes core features like unlimited pages and products, standard checkout templates, and basic reporting.
• Grow Plan: Aimed at growing businesses, this plan unlocks more advanced features to boost revenue. It typically includes everything in the Launch plan plus features like 1-click upsells, order bump collections, and enhanced reporting to better understand customer behavior.
• Scale Plan: This is the most comprehensive plan, designed for established businesses and power sellers looking to maximize their sales. It includes all features from the Grow plan, along with advanced tools like the Affiliate Center, A/B testing, cart abandonment recovery, and subscription-saving features.

SamCart Free Plan

SamCart does not offer a permanent free plan. However, it provides a free trial for new users to test the platform's capabilities. The trial period typically grants access to all the features of one of the paid plans, allowing you to create products, build checkout pages, and even process real sales. This gives you a complete experience of the platform before committing to a paid subscription. After the trial period ends, you must upgrade to a paid plan to continue using the service.

How to use SamCart

Getting started with SamCart is a straightforward process designed to get your products online quickly.

1. Sign Up and Set Up: Create an account and complete the initial setup, which includes connecting your preferred payment processor, such as Stripe or PayPal.
2. Create a Product: In your dashboard, navigate to the 'Products' section and click 'New Product'. Fill in the details, including the product name, price, and description.
3. Design Your Checkout Page: Choose from a library of pre-designed, high-converting checkout page templates. Use the drag-and-drop editor to customize the page with your branding, images, and sales copy.
4. Add Revenue Boosters: Enhance your sales funnel by adding an Order Bump directly on the checkout page. Then, create 1-Click Upsell pages that will be shown to customers immediately after their purchase.
5. Publish and Share: Once your page is ready, publish it. SamCart will provide you with a direct link to your checkout page that you can share on social media, in emails, or link from your main website.
6. Monitor Performance: Use the built-in analytics dashboard to track your sales, conversion rates, and the performance of your upsells and order bumps.

Pros and Cons of SamCart

SamCart is a powerful tool, but it has its own set of advantages and limitations.

Pros:

• Focus on Conversion: The entire platform is built around features that are proven to increase sales, like 1-click upsells and order bumps.
• User-Friendly: The interface is clean and easy to navigate, making it simple for non-technical users to build and launch sales pages.
• Excellent Templates: Offers a wide variety of professionally designed and mobile-responsive templates for checkout pages.
• Built-in Affiliate Center: The integrated affiliate management system is a major advantage for users looking to scale with partner marketing.
• Subscription Management: Robust tools for handling recurring payments and reducing churn from failed payments.

Cons:

• Pricing: Can be more expensive than some competitors, especially for beginners who may not need all the advanced features.
• Limited Customization: While the page builder is easy to use, it may not offer the same level of design flexibility as a full website builder.
• Primary Focus on Checkout: It is not an all-in-one platform for building a complete website with a blog or extensive content pages. It is best used as a specialized checkout tool.

SamCart Integrations

SamCart integrates with a wide range of popular marketing, email, and membership platforms to automate your workflow.

• Email Marketing: Connect with services like Mailchimp, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, and AWeber to automatically add new customers to your email lists.
• Membership Platforms: Integrates with Kajabi, MemberPress, WishList Member, and Thinkific to automatically grant access to your courses or membership sites upon purchase.
• Payment Gateways: Works seamlessly with Stripe and PayPal to process payments securely.
• Automation Tools: A Zapier integration allows you to connect SamCart to thousands of other applications, creating custom workflows for nearly any business process.

SamCart Alternatives

If you are looking for other options, here are some popular alternatives to SamCart:

• ThriveCart: A strong competitor known for its one-time payment model instead of a recurring subscription. It offers similar conversion-focused features like upsells, bumps, and an affiliate center.
• Gumroad: A simpler platform ideal for individual creators selling digital products like ebooks, music, or software. It is very easy to use and has a more straightforward pricing structure based on transaction fees.
• PayKickstart: Another shopping cart and affiliate management platform that offers a high degree of customization and powerful features, including subscription management and detailed analytics.
• SendOwl: A lightweight and affordable solution for selling digital goods. It focuses on providing a simple checkout process and secure product delivery, making it a good choice for those who don't need complex sales funnel features.

SamCart API

Yes, SamCart provides a developer API that allows for custom integrations and automation. The API enables you to programmatically access and manage your data, such as products, orders, and customers. You can find your API key within your SamCart account settings, typically under the 'Advanced Settings' section. The documentation for the API is available for developers on the SamCart support site.

Here is a basic example of how you might use the API with cURL to retrieve a list of products:

curl https://api.samcart.com/v1/products \
  -u "YOUR_API_KEY:"

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with the actual key from your account. This allows for building custom dashboards, connecting with proprietary software, or creating unique workflows beyond the standard integrations.

SamCart Affiliate Program

SamCart runs its own affiliate program for users and marketers who want to promote the platform. Affiliates earn a recurring commission for every new customer they refer who signs up for a paid SamCart plan. The commission is typically a percentage of the referred customer's monthly subscription fee, paid for the lifetime of that customer's account. To join, you can apply through the affiliate sign-up page on the SamCart website. Once approved, you receive a unique referral link and access to a dashboard to track your clicks, referrals, and earnings. Payouts are usually made on a regular schedule, often monthly, through a payment processor like PayPal.