In this article we are going to review SamCart Vs ClickFunnels.
These two separate and distinct software platforms each come with their own set of unique marketing related features but are bound by the same common goal – to help you sell more stuff online!
Unfortunately that is where most of the similarity between SamCart and ClickFunnels stops and so in this post we will not only give you a quick and easy to read digest of both platforms but we will also provide you with our choice of which tool you should be going with for your marketing efforts in 2020 and beyond.
So let’s take a look!
What Is SamCart?
SamCart is essentially a page builder designed for eCommerce sellers who do not need a full blown catalog store (from a platform like Shopify).
This makes it better optimized if you only want to sell a small handful of products and also allows you to better blend content and ecommerce together to have a different look and feel to a typical online store.
How Does SamCart Work?
SamCart is a web based checkout platform that provides you with templates as well as a drag-and-drop page builder to quickly build 1-click sales pages, checkout pages and upsell pages.
It also comes with an array of integrations to allow you to plug in various other marketing tools you may already be working with such as marketing automation tools, email marketing tools (such as GetResponse) and payment processors (such as Stripe and PayPal).
For a full list of SamCart integrations go here.
What Does SamCart Do?
SamCart will allow you to quickly create your checkout pages using their easy-to-use page builder so you can get a conversion optimized page online quickly.
You can then benefit from a wide range of features including but not limited to:
- Unlimited Pages & Products
- Order Bumps
- 1-Click Upsells
- A/B Testing
- Payment Plans
- Coupons
- Trial Offers
- Free SSL Certificates
- Detailed Dashboards
- Mobile optimized pages
- And More!
Although you shouldn’t get too excited just yet… unfortunately there is some bad news coming
Which SamCart features you get access to REALLY depends on which pricing plan you go with.
So lets take a look at how much SamCart costs:
SamCart Pricing – How Much Does SamCart Cost?
We cover this topic in depth in our SamCart price article here, but in summary here’s what you need to know about how much SamCart costs:
SamCart offers three different pricing plans that range from $49 per month all the way up to $199 per month.
These are:
- The Launch Plan – $49 per month
- The Grow Plan – $99 per month
- The Scale Plan – $199 per month
As you can imagine these plans are NOT created equally and so the Launch Plan is certainly pretty light on features.
While you may get some of the most essential features there are others that are just non-existent in this plan – like reporting for example, which arguably is pretty critical!
You also cannot remove the SamCart branding on the lowest tier package – something we feel makes your pages look less professional and more advertorial in nature.
The middle tier ‘Grow’ Plan, while more well rounded in terms of features, is still missing some key features that you would likely actually want to use such as:
- Built in A/B testing
- Cart Abandonment (which lets face it is key in eCommerce!
- CRM capabilities
So it feels that by default to really have something full fledged you are effectively forced to shell out $199 per month which is quite considerable.
Is SamCart Legit And Safe To Use?
Yes, while there are things we don’t like about using SamCart as marketers, it is absolutely a legitimate company and 100% safe to use.
Who Uses SamCart?
Ecommerce sellers with few products looking for a quick way to build landing pages.
At the time of writing SamCart claims to power over 26,000 websites and have processed over $750m dollars in sales
SamCart Summary
SamCart is a clean looking and easy to use tool that can be of benefit to eCommerce focused sellers with a small range of products looking to find a way to create smart looking pages.
Unfortunately many features are essentially locked behind highest tier pricing plan and although SamCart positions this tier as being for sellers looking to ‘scale’, we feel a lot of the features you actually need as an eCommerce seller period are ONLY available in this plan.
That’s why we believe ClickFunnels is far better value for money overall and we’re going to walk through the key points of the ClickFunnels platform now:
What Is ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels is different to SamCart – we are no longer talking about just setting up a sales or checkout page here or there.
With ClickFunnels you have the ability to create a whole series of pages and organize them into a sequenced set of steps, most commonly referred to as a ‘sales funnel‘.
This is very different to a traditional website or eCommerce store where visitors have complete freedom to click wherever they want to and can easily get distracted or abandon the sale. This is why funnels are proven to generate higher conversions and revenue returns,
We have covered ClickFunnels in a lot of detail in our in-depth review here, but in a nutshell ClickFunnels is far more of a fully fledged marketing platform than SamCart and it is not just limited to eCommerce.
You can basically use ClickFunnels to capture leads and better still turn your prospects into customers. This means ClickFunnels is a powerful tool for just about any business looking to sell online (whereas SamCart looks to be carving out a niche of ecom sellers with limited products).
How Does ClickFunnels Work?
ClickFunnels, like SamCart, is also a web based software platform that provides you with a very user friendly drag-and-drop page builder.
This removes the need for you to outsource work to third party developers as with ClickFunnels you do not need to have any coding skills whatsover.
This puts you as the entrepreneur back in control and makes ClickFunnels a very self-service platform. You can literally have a professional looking funnel up in running in 30 minutes and with it take advantage of a variety of extremely powerful marketing features such as:
- Opt-in Forms
- 2-step Checkout Forms
- Order Bumps (to increase your average order value)
- 1-click Instant Upsells (again designed to increase revenue while a buyer is in the act of buying)
- Thank You Pages
- Delivery of Digital Assets
- Membership Areas
- And a whole lot more!
Similar to SamCart, ClickFunnels also has a long list of integrations with other platforms that is growing all the time. Currently there are close to 40 different integrations in ClickFunnels spanning a total of six different integration categories:
- Actions
- SlyBroadcast
- ZenDirect
- Delivery
- ShipStation
- Shopify
- Email
- AWeber
- Constant Contact API
- ConvertKit API
- Drip
- GetResponse
- GVO Pure Leverage
- HTML Form
- HubSpot
- Infusionsoft API
- Infusionsoft API V2
- Mad Mimi API
- MailChimp
- Market Hero
- Maropost
- OfficeAutopilotTagging
- Ontraport
- Sendlane
- Messaging
- Facebook Pages And Messaging
- PushCrew
- SlyBroadcast
- SMS
- Twilio SMS
- Webinar
- EverWebinar
- GoToWebinar
- GoToWebinar Form
- WebinarJam
- WebinarJamRedirect
- WebinarJamStudio
- Zoom
It’s worth mentioning that you can also use Zapier with your funnels to drive automation for other non-supported integrations. For example you can easily set up a new ‘zap’ for every time a new order is placed to automatically add the customer and order info to a web-based Google Sheet.
From there you can set up another zap to include them in your email marketing platform list, for example in our favorite platform GetResponse.
What Types of Funnels Can I Build in ClickFunnels?
To be blunt – a lot of different types!
While you can of course create a funnel from scratch – so the only limit is your imagination – you can also take advantage of a number of high quality professionally designed ClickFunnels templates for funnels such as:
- Auto Webinar Funnel
- 2-Step Tripwire Funnel
- Bridge Funnel
- Sales Letter Funnel
- Summit Funnel
- Ask Campaign Funnel
- Homepage Funnel
- Video Sales Letter Funnel
- Survey Funnel
- Reverse Squeeze Page Funnel
- Storefront Funnel
- Webinar Funnel
- Product Launch Funnel
- Cancellation Funnel
- Invisible Funnel
- Hero Funnel
- Membership Funnel
- Application Funnel
- Live Demo Funnel
- Lead Magnet Funnel
- Squeeze Page Funnel
- Daily Deal Funnel
If you are not familiar with some of these funnel types there is no need to panic as ClickFunnels provides you with a cookbook style interface that not only provides different explanations and help guides but literally breaks down everything into a recipe style format that is easy to follow.
This is great news to entrepreneurs who can easily get distracted or get into a state of analysis paralysis as ClickFunnels makes everything very actionable in nature.
Unlike SamCart ClickFunnels also has a number of different funnel types to cover a wider range of industries and not just eCommerce:
- Author / Speaker / Coach / Consultant
- Professional Services
- Retail
- Ecommerce
- B2B
- Network Marketing
- Other
Or you can filter based on the intended purpose of the funnel:
- Generate Leads
- Sell A Product
- Create An Event
- Other
Whatever your funnel need, its going to be available directly within ClickFunnels.
ClickFunnels Pricing – How Much Does ClickFunnels Cost?
ClickFunnels takes a simpler approach to pricing than SamCart.
You only have a choice of two options and its worth noting here that ClickFunnels recently overhauled its pricing in September of 2019.
You now have a choice of just:
- ClickFunnels Plan – $97 per month
- ClickFunnels Platinum – $297 per month but at risk of increasing to $697 per month
What Is ClickFunnels Platinum?
ClickFunnels Platinum is the new membership tier introduced by ClickFunnels as part of their 5 year birthday announcement and it replaces the previous Etison plan.
With ClickFunnels Platinum you will now get access to:
- Clickfunnels Unlimited
- Follow Up Funnels Unlimited (this replaces Actionetics MD)
- New Daily Virtual Hack-A-Thon (Usually reserved only for $25k paying mentorship members)
- New Funnel Hacker Forum (Priceless)
- New FunnelFlix membership (INSANE VALUE)
In particular we want to call out FunnelFlix which has been dubbed the ‘Netflix’ of marketing.
This means you get access to a HUGE range of marketing training materials as well as personal development assets from industry giants like Tony Robbins.
This is a key difference when it comes to SamCart Vs ClickFunnels.
ClickFunels has successfully built a raving fan base and a culture built around online marketing and now counts over 100,000 paying active members which is testament to the quality of the software!
Is ClickFunnels Legit And Safe To Use?
Yes! 100%.
Who Uses ClickFunnels?
Digital marketers looking to make more money online.
ClickFunnels has taken the online marketing space by storm and is only going from strength to strength.
You can jump back above to see the different industries and use cases for ClickFunnels but it far surpassed the size of SamCart in terms of users, community, developers, support resources and amount sold through its platform.
ClickFunnels is here to stay.
ClickFunnels Summary
As regular users of ClickFunnels we believe it far surpasses SamCart in terms of power, utility and value for money.
Better still you can even make a lot of money by becoming a ClickFunnels affiliate – so this is a tool that is not only jam packed with powerful features but at the end of the day it really should not cost you a thing!
SamCart Vs ClickFunnels Conclusion
For us ClickFunnels is the clear hands-down winner on just about every count.
SamCart, while a solid platform, is designed for checkout pages. ClickFunnels on the otherhand is an all-ine-one marketing powerhouse that helps you to make you more money while as the same time being easy to use for anyone without coding skills.
Furthermore a number of the features that you would want to use, such as A/B testing – which is critical for page optimization, come as standard within the ClickFunnels $97 per month plan. With SamCart you would be forced to take the $199 per month plan for the same thing.
In our humble opinion the value is greater with ClickFunnels and not to mention that you can use it for any new marketing ideas you get from webinars to membership sites. SamCart is just too limiting in that regard.
So to wrap up our advice would be:
- Commit to ClickFunnels for your online marketing and automation needs. Better yet, go and trial it completely free for 14 days to see how you like it
- Take their One Funnel Away Challenge. It is hands down the best value for money digital marketing training you will ever take
- If you are serious about getting ClickFunnels, then the best deal out there is this one
Happy Funnel Building friends!