The internet has changed many things when it comes to selling, but there are certain core fundamentals that will never change.
Providing value to your customers, understanding their shopping habits, knowing what they want and delivering what they need.
These are all ingredients to a successful business.
However, getting the data you need in order to succeed isn’t always as easy as it sounds.
We’re going to be comparing two different platforms in this review called SamCart and ClickFunnels.
Both of these are designed to help you sell online, but there are some key differences in how they work.
There is also some difference in who they are designed for and how much of an impact they can really make.
Both of these platforms are similar and come with a 14 day free trial
BUT one of these online shopping carts is lacking in functions when you compare the price!
Comparing SamCart to ClickFunnels
Let’s look at SamCart, a powerful shopping cart that is designed to help you sell things online.
This can be used if you sell products or services, or even subscription memberships to your website.
It’s very easy to setup and integrate into your website, but it lacks a depth of functionality that some sellers might miss.
Next, I’ll be checking out a different option called ClickFunnels.
This also helps you take orders and manage them but is also very powerful in the earlier stages of the sale process.
What are those earlier stages?
For example, when someone is still looking for a solution to a problem they’re having and doing research.
They might not be ready to pull the trigger and buy right away, but they will eventually.
Using something like ClickFunnels you can build out a full funnel nurturing your leads into a sale.
I’m going to look at the different plans that SamCart has to offer, which features to keep an eye on and where their platform falls short.
Next up, I’ll do the same for ClickFunnels.
By then it should be pretty obvious which one will be a better fit for you.
If you still need more information, I’ll compare some other aspects of the software so that you can make an informed decision on which of these two choices is going to help you the most.
SamCart Plans & Pricing Review
SamCart has three pricing tiers available.
Starting at $19/mo and going all the way up to $199/mo.
That’s quite a big difference, but is it worth the price? Well, let’s start by looking at what you get with their Basic plan and what you’ll be missing out on.
Spoiler alert: It’s probably not worth considering the cheapest plan, its limitations are just a bit too much even if it means you save some money.
Remember, this is a business and the money you save won’t make up for the missed opportunities in the long run.
Basic Plan: The basic plan has a 1% transaction fee, which the higher tier plans don’t have.
It also has SamCart branding on it, the higher-tier plans don’t have that branding. The SamCart branding shows up on your checkout pages and receipts and makes your store look less professional.
Other features that are missing from the Basic plan include 1-click upsells, a/b testing, free and paid trials, subscriptions, payment plans, collecting prospects and the ability to set up an affiliate program for your store.
These are pretty important features for a variety of different online sellers so you may want to consider bumping up to their next plan.
Pro & Premium Plans: This tier is $99/mo and it has all of the basic features like being able to list an unlimited number of products, integration into Zapier, and a huge library of templates to choose from.
The one thing it’s missing from the Premium plan (which costs $199/mo) is The Affiliate Center that lets you create an affiliate program so that other people can promote your store for you.
If that’s something you want to do you will need to upgrade to premium.
Key SamCart Features
Let’s go over some of the main features that SamCart has, including the basic ones that are included in all 3 prices.
Then some of the features that are only available in Pro and Premium.
SamCart’s bread and butter is the fact that it allows you to list an unlimited amount of products, digital goods, and services.
Whether you’re selling physical items, digital items or even selling a service they make it easy to get setup and configured so that you can start taking orders immediately.
All of their plans allow you to set up coupons so that you can offer discounts and promotions on whatever it is that you’re selling.
All of their plans also have stats and analytics that you can look through to see what’s working so you can optimize your checkout.
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Mobile friendly checkout means that people on their phone won’t have any trouble checking out.
This is good because you will lose a lot of sales if people have to find a desktop computer in order to place their orders.
Even if you’re selling something they really want, this extra obstacle can be enough to seriously cut into your bottom line.
I mentioned 1-click upsells briefly already, but basically, you can show an additional item or service for sale once your customers have already checked out.
With just 1 extra click they can order a bonus or upgrade without having to fill out all of their info again.
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A/B testing is another really great feature, it lets you test different styles of checkout pages and different upsells to see which ones perform the best.
You can test different prices. It sounds strange, but sometimes an upsell will convert even better at a higher price because of the perceived value.
You’ll never know unless you’re testing it out!
If someone starts filling out their info, but leaves before checking out you can send them an email to remind them about what’s left in their cart with the Pro and Premium plans.
ClickFunnels also allows you to keep in touch with people who may not end up completing the purchase process upon their initial visit.
How To Setup SamCart
SamCart works in tandem with your existing website
Once the visitor visits your landing page or website hey will then click on your buy button and be directed to the checkout process.
SamCart is only a checkout platform, it doesn’t have the other awesome features ClickFunnels has.
You will set up each product from within the SamCart platform, where you can customize them.
Then you get a special link to the checkout page for that item, which you can easily implement into your site.
If you’re using WordPress, SamCart integrates perfectly. It also works perfectly with LeadPages, OptimizePress, and other premium platforms like GetResponse for email marketing.
There are tons of different templates to choose from.
Very Limited Editing Options!
Whatever product you are trying to sell, It’s just as easy as creating the product and pasting over the URL for your checkout.
This is great because it lets you use any website building platform including your existing website.
ClickFunnels Features & Benefits
Let’s go over what ClickFunnels brings to the table.
The big difference is at the core of both platforms.
SamCart works great for creating a cart page for people to click to after you’ve sold them on the product from your site.
ClickFunnels adds layers to this whole process, literally think of it like a sales funnel.
It allows you to organize your visitors based on their intentions.
So people who are looking to order right away will hit that part of the funnel and people who are still interested in researching will end up in the correct place for that as well.
To go into more details I wrote a very detailed ClickFunnels review on this blog about 3 weeks ago. You can read it here.
ClickFunnels has two plans, the Startup plan is $97 and the Enterprise plan is $297.
The major difference is in the level of customer support because Enterprise customers get priority support and more help with templates than people who have the Startup plan.
Startup plan allows for up to 20 different funnels with a total of 100 different pages.
Enterprise gives you up to 70 funnels and 300 pages.
Startup gives you up to 3 customer domains, whereas Enterprise has room for 20.
Other than that, it comes down to how many visitors your site can handle.
The Startup plan allows for up to 20,000 visitors per month and Enterprise can handle up to 100,000 visitors.
I would rather see a hosted platform limit visitors rather than offering unlimited to everyone.
When some sites start taking advantage of the “unlimited” offer for things like spam or just because they’re super popular, that can end up slowing things down for everyone else.
You won’t have to deal with that at ClickFunnels.
Slow site speed is a HUGE sales killer, so knowing your ClickFunnels pages are going to be loading quickly for every visitor is great.
Key Features Included In The Plans
Here are some features that are included in both tiers of ClickFunnels, and why they’re so important and helpful to have.
A/B Testing: Compare different versions of different funnels to put together a flow that’s brilliantly optimized to be as effective as possible. Certain shopping patterns will repeat themselves, and by studying the analytics you’ll be able to best serve your visitors to eliminate any pressure-points throughout the sales process so that it’s smooth sailing.
Unlimited leads: You can store an unlimited amount of contact leads, which you will start collecting as people visit your site and fill in their email addresses.
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Tons of different funnels: ClickFunnels comes with a huge assortment of proven and tested funnels for accomplishing a variety of different goals once somebody lands on your site. If you want them become a member, join a webinar, join a Hangout, make a purchase or to enter their email address then ClickFunnels can do it all.
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Order Pages: These are like what SamCart offers as their main feature, a page where you can send people to, so they can place an order with you.
You Can Completely Edit These!
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Upsells and Downsells: You can create pages in your funnels for upsells and downsells, which can be a very effective ways to increase your average order value.
There’s lots more, you can check out their site to see the full list of what they’ve got to offer.
These are the key features that can have a huge impact.
There are also other useful things like email integration, optin funnels, a ton of advanced funnels and even the ability to share your funnels with other people!
How To Setup ClickFunnels
Getting your first funnel setup is super easy.
There’s a button in ClickFunnels that says “+ Create Funnel” and from there you just choose a name.
You then choose your templates, you add your product and choose a price.
Then you can write an email template that gets sent out to your buyers after their purchase.
Once this is all done you just grab the URL provided then you are all done.
You can also setup lead generation pages if you want to collect leads for a local business.
What One Is Better Overall?
ClickFunnels has a lot more features than SamCart.
I like both of them but at the end of the day, you get a lot more with CLickFunnels for the same price.
It’s simply designed and engineered to help you through the entire sales process.
SamCart is only a checkout Platform so it only helps you when the person checks out
That’s not a knock on SamCart, it is a great platform for what they do, it’s just that overall ClickFunnels brings more to the table.
ClickFunnels you’ll have more control over the whole sales process. SamCart is more just meant for the final steps.
Why Does This Matter?
At the end of the day, you want to put your customers through the process that’s going to lead to the most sales.
Sometimes that would be a simple funnel and other times it will be a longer process that will really warm up the buyers and have them rushing to pull out their credit cards.
You won’t know what’s going to work best for your particular product and audience unless you do some testing.
ClickFunnels give you the ability to test anything because they have all the features you need. You don’t need to go buy other landing page builders or checkout platforms to test.
Instead of feeling frustrated trying to piece your online business together you can do it ALL with ClickFunnles.
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