If you’re looking to sell your products online (or services), building your checkout pages on a conversion-focused marketing tool is critical.
Traditional websites offer plenty of benefits to eCommerce shop owners and info product sellers, but websites make it challenging to focus their attention on a specific product or service. Sales funnels allow you to direct customers towards a specific action: making a purchase.
For online entrepreneurs who don’t have coding experience, building an effective landing page is often difficult without an online shopping cart or ecommerce platform.
Consumers don’t benefit from long attention spans (neither does the sales process), so it’s more critical than ever to transition from providing information to selling a product as quickly as possible.
Two shopping carts that are helping online businesses improve their sales funnels are ClickFunnels and SamCart.
By streamlining setting up sales funnels, these platforms allow marketers to build high-converting marketing campaigns quickly. The question is: SamCart vs Clickfunnels – which is best to sell your products online with?
While both services are effective, there are marked differences between ClickFunnels and SamCart aside from accepting credit cards and making a pretty buy button. We’ll highlight those key differences and help you determine which marketing solution can make you more sales.
Table of Contents
ClickFunnels vs SamCart Differences
If you’re going to take advantage of ClickFunnels or SamCart, it’s critical to understand the core differences between the platforms.
Below, we explore the features that separate these two services:
- ClickFunnels is a comprehensive sales funnel creation software & all-in-one platform, while SamCart primarily offers checkout pages and landing pages post-checkout.
- SamCart has a cheaper pricing plan when compared to Clickfunnel’s Startup plan and Etison Suite plan (now known as Clickfunnels Platinum).
- SamCart offers more extensive checkout and shopping cart abandonment features than ClickFunnels.
- ClickFunnels offers more functionality and extensive drag-and-drop tools, whereas SamCarts feels more rigid.
- ClickFunnels provides email marketing automation features while SamCart only lets you connect with 3rd party email service providers via email integration
Note: SamCart now has a drag-&-drop landing page builder you can use to build your marketing funnels! They also recently updated the names of their old plans (basic plan, pro plan, and premium plan now have updated names). See the SamCart pricing details here.
What is SamCart?
SamCart is an online service specifically designed to help businesses host effective checkout pages (aka. shopping cart pages). While your website or sales funnel plays a critical role in converting visitors to paying customers, your checkout page is another essential element to consider.
SamCart specializes in high-conversion checkout pages that focus on simplicity. Most web users abandon the purchasing process after placing a product in the ‘shopping cart,’ so investing in a practical design is more important than ever.
While SamCart offers basic funnel features (features like shopping cart abandonment, marketing automation, A/B split testing, down-sell pages, and the one-click upsell feature where customers don’t have to re-enter their billing information post-sale), it is not a traditional A-Z sales funnel builder.
Its landing page software, for example, can’t create opt-in squeeze pages or traditional sales pages.
The checkout platform is the real gem in SamCart, with so many advanced checkout features. You can track abandoned carts, offer one-click conversions, and more.
It is an excellent tool for eCommerce shop owners that are struggling during the checkout process. Despite not offering extensive sales funnel features, you can easily integrate SamCart with email marketing platforms, too.
What is ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels is a comprehensive sales funnel platform that allows users to build and manage advanced eCommerce funnels.
The system is popular with online business owners who don’t have previous experience creating effective landing pages.
Instead of creating a website with multiple elements, ClickFunnels helps you generate a sales funnel with the sole purpose of converting visitors into customers.
With intuitive designs and a lack of distractions, ClickFunnels built for creating high-converting sales funnels.
ClickFunnels users combine the platform with a paid-for advertising campaign, so it is easy to track your return on investment (ROI) and view which funnels provide the best results.
ClickFunnels has perfected the process of leading customers through an intuitive and straightforward purchasing process.`
While many eCommerce users will still need to engage in general website building and SEO, a sales funnel is an excellent choice for a product launch, campaign, webinar series, or any other product or service.
Users have access to a broad range of attractive templates and designs. You can split-test different funnels to determine which ones provide the most conversions.
While the per month price tag might be a bit high, it’s never been easier to identify the right funnel for small & big businesses alike.
SamCart Vs ClickFunnels Features
If you’re interested in the nuts and bolts of the SamCart vs. ClickFunnels debate, it’s critical to explore the key features of each platform. We’ve taken a closer look at the various elements that make these systems unique.
Checkout Pages
Your checkout page is one of your funnel’s most critical components. If you don’t focus on building an effective checkout process, you lose consumers during the most critical stage of the conversion phase.
SamCart is famous for its unique focus on building effective checkout pages. The entire checkout platform is designed to help small business owners increase conversion rates during the sales process.
Related: Check Out Real SamCart Examples
SamCart users benefit from one of the industry’s most capable checkout platforms. If you’re experiencing issues getting your customers over the line, there are tools built into SamCart that take them the extra mile more frequently than other platforms.
You’ll have access to 18 separate checkout page designs that are easily customized. Add your own photos, texts, and color schemes to ensure your checkout portal matches your business’s branding.
Each design is created to be stylish and intuitive—SamCart makes it easy for visitors to proceed with a purchase.
Other checkout features include pop-ups, trust seals, one-click processes, and more. You can process payments for single purchases, subscriptions, payment plans, and other arrangements.
SamCart payment integrations include PayPal, Skrill, Apple Pay, Stripe, and a host of other leading payment processing platforms.
By offering more payment options to your customers, you reduce cart abandonment issues.
One of SamCart’s most prominent features is the abandoned cart tool. If a visitor begins filling in their information but doesn’t finish an order, you can use the data for a follow-up prompt.
Users can send an SMS message or email to individuals who failed to complete orders—you can even retarget these customers with Facebook ads.
These tools ensure that visitors don’t forget about the products they might previously have wanted to purchase, drastically increasing your conversions.
ClickFunnels also offers a host of checkout features, and users can customize ‘order pages’ if they want to create a checkout portal on their sales funnel.
While setting up a basic checkout platform is easy, you won’t find the same intuitive designs and advanced settings available in SamCart. A premium checkout feature that you will find at ClickFunnels is ‘abandoned cart emails.
If a visitor begins filling out their order details but never completes them, you can set up an automated email sequence reminder.
Why are checkout pages so critical? Checkout pages are an essential component of the purchasing process, and few business owners understand the hurdle that a checkout page imposes on a conversion.
Estimates suggest that around 80% of checkouts are abandoned before completion, which means that small business owners are losing serious revenue in this area.
SamCart offers more in the checkout department, but it’s reassuring that both platforms provide cart abandonment tools to recapture the attention of your visitors.
Email Marketing and Automation
If you’re planning on launching an extensive email campaign, ClickFunnels is the superior option. It comes with an in-house email marketing software, Actionetics, that lets you create your unique email template, send email broadcasts, and automate your product sales with reader interactions.
You can test out Actionetics with Clickfunnel’s 14-day free trial.
SamCart doesn’t have a built-in email marketing tool, but you can integrate with a range of external email marketing tools if you need to promote your offer.
You’ll need an email marketing service provider to collect email addresses and build your customer email list, whichever tool you choose. Expect to add a separate email marketing software “per month” bill to your budget if you choose SamCart.
Affiliate Management
If you’re using affiliate marketers to promote your goods or services, it’s critical to track leads and conversions. Both SamCart and ClickFunnels have an excellent affiliate center that keeps tabs on affiliate marketing commissions and affiliate analytics.
Backpack is the name of Clickfunnel’s affiliate platform. You can easily create trackable affiliate data, create multiple programs, assess affiliate accounts, and manage a host of other functions.
It’s all you’ll need to start building an affiliate network of affiliate marketers.
With SamCart, the affiliate center is also straightforward. You can view your earnings, commissions, and referrals in a single location.
You can also generate graphics to visualize the performance of your affiliate program. SamCart’s Affiliate Center is included in the pro plan that costs $319/month.
In fact, with both SamCart and Clickfunnels, you’ll have to pay for the premium pricing plans.
Advanced Sales Funnel Features
ClickFunnels is the right platform for your online business if you’re searching for advanced sales funnel features.
ClickFunnels has effectively mastered the art of building advanced funnels, and it will only take you a matter of minutes to get your first funnel up and running.
If you’re building leads with your funnel, ClickFunnels will store any email to your account to contact potential customers.
As a comprehensive funnel platform, users design the entire process from start to finish. While external integrations can help you improve this platform, you don’t need anything else to build a high-conversion funnel.
While SamCart isn’t known for its sales funnel capabilities, there are still numerous options available. Users can access a drag-and-drop editor and perform split testing on the checkout pages.
SamCart can provide you with coupons and other promotional tools to entice consumers during the checkout phase.
Both SamCart and ClickFunnels users have access to upselling tools.
Many businesses benefit from offering additional products or services in the checkout phase (also referred to as order bumps).
If you bring value to customers when they’re about to make a purchase, they might be willing to increase the value of their order.
Other SamCart Features
While the above features outline the primary benefits of using SamCart, there are plenty of other elements to consider before you subscribe to their plans.
Additional SamCart features cover:
- Checkout processes created with responsiveness in mind—a perfect tool if you’re targeting mobile and/or desktop shoppers
- Quick split testing on different checkout pages
- Free trials to visitors
- Accepted payments in eight different currencies
- NEW: You can now create courses on SamCart!
Other ClickFunnels Features
A primary benefit of ClickFunnels is its extensive feature list.
As a comprehensive sales funnel builder, you can manage every part of the creation process using ClickFunnels and its marketing automation tools.
Let’s explore some other features you’ll find packed into this platform:
- Extensive split testing tools that allow A/B testing of sales funnel variations—perfect for increasing the effectiveness of your paid-for traffic
- Access to a wide range of different funnel variations, which means you can access custom layouts for product launches, webinars, and a host of other funnels
- Access to unlimited leads
- Tracked ROI on your paid-for traffic
Pros and Cons of Both
SamCart Pros
- The industry’s leading checkout builder (mobile-friendly checkout)
- Extensive checkout features and conversion optimized checkout pages with seamless designs
- Ease of use is a key priority of the platform
- More affordable than ClickFunnels
- A basic plan with a low per month cost great for smaller budgets
- Email marketing integrations available
- Unique checkout page templates
- A B split testing available
- Extensive abandoned cart options
- One-click upsells and downsells
- Decent affiliate center
- No processing fees
SamCart Cons
- No extensive marketing options
- Not suitable for building funnels that needs a traditional sales page
- Must purchase the premium package for affiliates
- Their most expensive plan gets priority support
ClickFunnels Pros
- One of the most complete A-Z sales funnel builders available to eCommerce owners and internet marketers (mobile-friendly checkout)
- An acute focus on ease of use
- Exit pop-ups
- Split tests
- More integrations with payment processors
- Extensive affiliate options
- Easy to add checkout pages and features
- Pre-set checkout templates (non-checkout page templates included) and funnel templates
- Easy to order pages and funnel steps
- Drag-and-drop tools
- You can create ClickFunnels membership sites
- Integration possibilities are not as limited
- Industry-leading one-click upsells and downsells (you can add as many one-click upsell pages and downsell pages as you need)
- ClickFunnels also includes email service provider Actionetics (on their premium plan)
- Decent affiliate management system
- No processing fees
ClickFunnels Cons
- The ClickFunnels monthly price is significantly higher than SamCart
- You won’t find extensive checkout tools built into the platform
- Priority customer support (chat support) available to Platinum customers
- Includes extensive features that may not be required if you already build your own funnels
Note: Both brands have a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied after your free trial(s).
SamCart Vs ClickFunnels: Which One Should You Use?
Choosing between SamCart and ClickFunnels is complex, and it will depend on the type of page you’re trying to build.
Choose ClickFunnels If…
If you’re a business owner that wants to create an entire sales funnel, it’s clear that ClickFunnels is the better option.
ClickFunnels allows you to design a funnel from A-Z, create split tests, offer intuitive purchasing processes, capture emails, offer multiple ways to promote your landing page, membership sites, and all the features you need to sell physical and digital products.
It is a full-stack funnel-building system that also includes email autoresponders, abandoned cart tools, and more.
Choose SamCart If…
If your primary concern is optimizing your checkout pages or having a one page funnel, SamCart will do well.
It’s an excellent platform if you’re currently struggling to convert sales at the final step(s) of the purchase process.
With abandoned cart tools, post-purchase upsell options, coupons, and a host of other premium benefits, it’s easy to see why SamCart is so popular in the eCommerce industry.
Bottom Line – if you’re still unsure, I suggest trying both these platforms as they both have a free trial. Get a feel of how their marketing funnel platform would work with your sales process.
Related:
- 7 Best SamCart Alternatives of 2024
- Best ClickFunnel Alternatives of 2024
- ClickFunnels vs. Kartra in 2024
- ClickFunnels vs. Websites in 2024
- ClickFunnels vs. Builderall in 2024
- ClickFunnels vs. Unbounce in 2024
- ClickFunnels vs. Kajabi in 2024
- ClickFunnels vs. Leadpages in 2024
- ClickFunnels vs. HighLevel in 2024
- SamCart vs. ThriveCart in 2024
- SamCart vs. Kartra in 2024
- SamCart vs. Shopify in 2024
- SamCart vs. Leadpages in 2024