SamCart vs. ThriveCart — Which Cart Software Is Best?

Joe Fier
GetThrivecart
Published in
7 min readOct 25, 2016

As online business owners, we’re tasked with many roles: creating content, building websites, marketing our products and services, writing copy, driving traffic, and closing sales. In doing this, we need to learn new strategies, learn new softwares, how to integrate everything, and the list goes on.

Many times we’re left scratching our heads trying to figure out what technologies we need to save us time, eliminate the technical stress, and, most of all, make us more revenue.

One of the most important things an online business owner can do is optimize the sales process in their business. By doing this, you don’t normally have to create anything new, but rather you need to tweak a few things and make it easier for your customer to purchase what you offer.

Of all of the work you might be able to do to optimize your Facebook ads, landing pages, and sales pages, most people forget about their checkout pages. This is where most of your people drop off in the sales process and never come back to buy your stuff.

It’s time to fix that… and there are two checkout page softwares that will help you easily do this. Let’s explore each one and decide which is best for you.

ThriveCart and SamCart, an overview of two checkout page tools:

ThriveCart and SamCart are tools that allow you to:

  • Quickly create checkout pages with professionally designed templates
  • Insert 1-click upsells so you can boost sales
  • Integrate with the leading email autoresponders/CRM tools and payment processors
  • Create coupon codes to provide special offers to your customers
  • Much more…

Key differences between ThriveCart and SamCart

It’s tough to decide which checkout software to use when the features seem so similar. Let’s explore some of the key differences that will make this decision simple for you…

Integrations

Being able to integrate your systems into the important services that you already use, like CRMs, autoresponders, payment processors, etc. will be the difference between long hours of headaches trying to “make it work” or being able to click a few buttons and sleeping well at night.

Let’s explore a comparison of ThriveCart’s and SamCart’s integrations so you can best decide which would better suit your systems set up. And remember, it’s wise to think ahead to integrations that you might need in the future. It’s better to prepare yourself now with something that integrates to more software services.

ThriveCart’s Integrations:

  • ActiveCampaign
  • AWeber
  • GetResponse
  • MailChimp
  • InfusionSoft
  • Any autoresponders (using HTML)
  • Digital Access Pass
  • ConvertKit
  • Member Mouse
  • HubSpot
  • Wishlist Member
  • Kunaki
  • LeadPages
  • OptimizePress
  • Stripe
  • PayPal
  • iPhone/ApplePay (payments)
  • Zapier
  • Here is a link to an upcoming features list (more are added every week)

SamCart’s Integrations:

  • ActiveCampaign
  • AWeber
  • Constant Contact
  • GetResponse
  • iContact
  • MailChimp
  • InfusionSoft
  • OntraPort
  • ConvertKit
  • Digital Access Pass
  • HubSpot
  • Kajabi
  • Maropost
  • Wishlist Member
  • Member Mouse
  • OptimizePress
  • PayPal
  • Stripe
  • Zapier

Autoresponder Support

If you’re not building a list of your customers, then you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. With both ThriveCart and SamCart, you are able to integrate your autoresponder of choice with ease.

When we were doing our testing of the two products, we then played with the idea of hooking up multiple autoresponders. We did this because we wanted to put our buyers into a different autoresponder than our prospects.

We quickly ran into trouble with SamCart…

With SamCart, we were limited to ability to just integrate one autoresponder to the software. But when we tried ThriveCart, we had the ability to integrate with multiple autoresponder services, thus allowing us to segment prospects and customers just as we wished. Big win for ThriveCart in this respect.

Tech Support

Having great support can make or break a business. This is one of the very first factors we test when reviewing a new product. You might have the best software or service in the world, but when you run into that inevitable problem and CAN’T get a response from a support representative, then you run into big troubles.

This is exactly what we noticed when we asked multiple people about the support they’ve received from SamCart…

Many told us, and even gave us screenshots, of their experiences with SamCart’s support. Here’s an example of a SamCart customer on Twitter:

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to know if support is good for a product without purchasing and trying for yourself. Fortunately, when we looked deeper into ThriveCart, we quickly noticed that their developers and owner have successfully created and supported their software with a full-time support team for nearly 10 years. They’ve done this with previous softwares like Easy Video Suite and Easy Video Player, both which have thousands of customers.

Our suggestion is to ask to join our private ThriveCart Facebook group and ask some current buyers of ThriveCart and get their story with support. We recently did a poll in the group and having great support landed very close to the top…

Mobile Payment Options

With the large majority of people using their mobile devices to browse online and purchase products, it’s essential to have a checkout process that is mobile friendly.

Mobile now represents 65 percent of digital media time, while the desktop is becoming a “secondary touch point” for an increasing number of digital users.
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Marketing Land

Most people don’t like to type in all of their credit card details on a mobile phone, but there is great technology, like ApplePay, that helps speed up the process.

ThriveCart is the only cart that is fully integrated to work with ApplePay. This means that if people have ApplePay set up on their phones, they just need to use their thumbprint to make a purchase for your product! Really cool.

Unfortunately, there is not an option for this with Android phones yet, but it’s coming soon (once Android opens up the ability to make the feature). At this time, SamCart does not have an option to integrate with ApplePay.

Templates

Both ThriveCart and SamCart offer a variety of templates you can use “out of the box”. In both cases, all templates are beautifully designed and made to convert the most sales.

The biggest difference is that ThriveCart is a bit more intuitive when it comes to the set up process. Because of the simple process that ThriveCart has built, you’ll be up and running quicker than SamCart.

All Other Features

We could go on and on, but these were the main highlights that we saw when diving into each software. Here’s a list of both of the product features if you’d like to explore further: ThriveCart & SamCart

Here’s a comparison chart that we were able to come up with the key features we tested:

Pricing

This is one of the biggest deciding factors for many customers. The largest difference between ThriveCart and SamCart is that one (ThirveCart) is a one-time fee (for a limited time) and the other (SamCart) is a monthly fee.

For any business, this can be the biggest deciding factor, especially when the features are very comparable. Adding recurring expenses to any business can become a burden, so a key advantage of ThriveCart is taking advantage of their lifetime, one-time fee.

Currently, ThriveCart can be purchased for this one-time fee by clicking this link. You can read about the special, but we’d recommend getting it sooner than later. The price will be rising (it already has recently) and may change to an annual/monthly fee soon.

Pricing comparisons:

  • ThriveCart: one-time payment of $595
  • SamCart: either $99/month (Pro license) or $199/month (premium license)

Simple math says that if you choose ThriveCart over SamCart, then it’ll only take five months to breakeven on the costs. After that you’ll never pay any ongoing fees. That’s a win!

Which Is Better, ThriveCart or SamCart?

We have spent hours and hours of time in each of these softwares and both are great. They will get you the optimized sales process that you need to convert more sales and will outperform other checkout processes on the market.

But after digging in and taking a hard look at all features and costs savings, you can’t beat ThriveCart. Here’s a quick recap why ThriveCart is the winner:

  • Cost savings: This is the BIGGIE, you can’t beat a one-time fee versus a monthly fee
  • Smarter integrations: This will save loads of hours because it’s ready to hook up to your current systems
  • Mobile payments: ApplePay integrations will capitalize on your increasing mobile traffic
  • Quicker setup: You’ll be able to get your checkout process up in less time and less hassle

Getting Started With ThriveCart

Because we’ve spent the time testing both checkout softwares, we wanted to make it easy for you to get started FAST.

We’ve set up a private page just for our friends to take advantage of the limited time one-time payment option.

Simply click here and learn more. You’ll go to a page with a full rundown of ThiveCart and how to get started.

As a little bonus, we’ll be here for any support and questions that you might have with ThriveCart. Just drop us a line on the blog here and we’ll get in touch!

We’ve also set up an exclusive group on Facebook just for ThriveCart. We discuss strategies and best practices to make the most of the checkout software. Click here and request to join. You’ll be able to meet some of the best in the online business space :-)

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Joe Fier
GetThrivecart

Digital marketing experimenter and show & tell artist at EvergreenProfits.com. Podcast co-host of the Hustle and Flowchart Podcast (you’ll laugh & earn more).