ClickFunnels vs SamCart 2024: Which is Better to Drive Sales?

As an entrepreneur, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is choosing the right shopping cart and checkout page software for your online business. The wrong platform can derail your eCommerce ambitions before you even get started.

According to recent statistics, over 77% of online shoppers abandon their carts before completing a purchase. This represents a massive missed revenue opportunity for store owners.

To turn website visitors into paying customers, you need a shopping cart solution equipped with features to combat cart abandonment.

In this post, I’ll compare two of the most popular options – Samcart vs ClickFunnels – to help you determine which is the better fit for your needs. By the end, you’ll have a clear recommendation on which platform to choose based on your specific business requirements.

Here are some of the factors I’ll cover in this Samcart vs ClickFunnels comparison:

• Overview of Samcart and ClickFunnels
• Key feature differences
• Ease of use
• Templates and customization
• Sales funnels
• Marketing capabilities
• Integrations
• Pricing and plans
• Reporting and analytics

Let’s dive in and see how these two sales funnel builders stack up against each other.

ClickFunnels Overview – ClickFunnels vs SamCart

Founded in 2014 by online entrepreneur Russell Brunson, ClickFunnels has rapidly become one of the most popular all-in-one marketing and sales platforms.

Over 350,000 businesses and entrepreneurs now use ClickFunnels to grow their companies online.

Unlike SamCart which focuses specifically on checkout page optimization, ClickFunnels offers a much broader set of tools and capabilities, including:

• Simplified funnel building – ClickFunnels makes it easy to create optimized sales funnels without any technical skills. Funnels can include landing pages, upsell pages, webinar registration pages, thank you pages and more.
• Pre-built funnel templates – Choose from a marketplace of professionally designed funnel templates for different business models, including ecommerce, lead generation, subscriptions and more.
• Page editor – ClickFunnels’ drag-and-drop page builder makes creating high converting pages fast and simple.
• Membership sites – Create gated membership sites and content easily with built-in members area capabilities.
• Email marketing – Send drip email campaigns and broadcast messages to your lists with Actionetics, ClickFunnels’ built-in email marketing platform.
• Affiliate management – Track affiliate referrals and automate affiliate payouts with the Backpack affiliate program feature.
• A/B testing – Test variations of headlines, copy, design and more to optimize your funnels using split testing.
• Analytics – Get in-depth data on your funnel performance from lead sources to conversions and revenue. Identify opportunities to improve.
• Integrations – Connect to popular third-party systems including major payment processors and email marketing platforms.
• Excellent customer service – ClickFunnels is well-known for responsive 24/7 customer support via live chat and email.

For online businesses looking for an all-in-one solution, ClickFunnels makes it easy to manage everything from your website and funnel building to email marketing and affiliate programs.

Rather than piecing together disparate systems, ClickFunnels consolidates your core functions onto a single, intuitive platform. This can greatly simplify operations for solopreneurs and small teams.

However, ClickFunnels’ expanded features come at a higher cost when compared to a specialized tool like SamCart. The overall package may be overkill for businesses focused exclusively on e-commerce checkout optimization.

SamCart Overview – ClickFunnels vs SamCart

Founded in 2014, SamCart has quickly become one of the most popular checkout and shopping cart solutions for eCommerce businesses.

Over 17,000 entrepreneurs are currently using SamCart to sell their products and services online. The platform has powered over 9.7 million product sales and counting.

SamCart stands out for its simplicity and ease of use. The intuitive drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for non-techies to create professional, high-converting checkout pages and sales funnels.

Here are some of the key benefits and features of SamCart:

• Sell both digital and physical products – SamCart supports both downloadable items as well as tangible, shippable products.
• Mobile payment optimization – SamCart seamlessly integrates with mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Microsoft Wallet. This boosts conversion rates on mobile devices.
• Abundant templates – Choose from dozens of professionally designed, mobile-responsive checkout page templates. Customize them to match your brand in minutes.
• Order bumps – Encourage customers to spend more by offering additional products and upsells on the checkout page.
• Subscription billing – Create and manage recurring payment plans. SamCart supports one-time purchases, monthly, yearly and lifetime memberships.
• Affiliate center – Recruit an army of affiliates to promote your products for a commission on each sale. This is available on higher-tier pricing plans.
• Excellent customer support – SamCart’s support team offers timely responses to questions and concerns. They even provide one-on-one onboarding assistance.
• Integrations – Connect SamCart seamlessly with payment processors, email marketing tools like Mailchimp and Ontraport, membership platforms and more.
• Functionality for all plans – Nearly all of SamCart’s core features are available on every pricing tier. You won’t be nickeled-and-dimed as your business grows.

SamCart aims to provide “everything you need to start, run and grow your business.” For online sellers focused purely on checkout page optimization and shopping cart functionality, SamCart is hard to beat.

The intuitive drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for non-technical users to create sleek, professional checkout pages. You can choose from SamCart’s library of templates and customize them to match your brand identity.

Overall, SamCart removes the technological headache from setting up a checkout system. It’s an ideal choice for solopreneurs and small teams who want to focus their energy on product development and marketing their offerings.

While SamCart excels at checkout and shopping cart capabilities, it is limited in terms of broader funnel-building and marketing automation features. For these needs, a more robust platform like ClickFunnels may be preferable.

Key Feature Differences – ClickFunnels vs SamCart

While SamCart and ClickFunnels share some common capabilities, there are important differences between the two platforms. 

Let’s compare some of the key features side-by-side:

Feature	ClickFunnels	SamCart
Shopping Carts	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Checkout Pages	⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐
Sales Funnels	⭐⭐⭐	⭐
Email Marketing	⭐⭐	⭐
Memberships	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐
Affiliate Management	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐
Webinars	⭐⭐	⭐
A/B Testing	⭐⭐	⭐

Shopping Carts

SamCart is a specialized shopping cart and checkout platform, so it’s not surprising that it offers superior shopping cart capabilities compared to ClickFunnels.

SamCart makes it easy to showcase products, collect customer information, apply coupons and calculate taxes.

Checkout Pages

Both platforms enable you to create customized, high-converting checkout pages. However, SamCart provides more advanced checkout page templates out of the box.

Sales Funnels

ClickFunnels excels at building intelligent sales funnels to turn visitors into customers. SamCart focuses specifically on shopping cart and checkout functionality rather than robust funnel building.

Email Marketing

ClickFunnels includes Actionetics, a built-in email marketing platform for sending campaigns and automating sequences. With SamCart, you need to integrate a third-party email provider. 

Memberships

ClickFunnels makes it easy to create gated membership sites with content dripping. For membership checkout pages, SamCart integrates with platforms like MemberMouse. 

Affiliate Management

ClickFunnels’ Backpack affiliate program feature provides superior tracking, payment automation and management capabilities compared to SamCart.

Webinars

ClickFunnels integrates with webinar platforms like GoToWebinar to add registration and replay pages. SamCart focuses just on checkout, not webinar marketing.

A/B Testing

ClickFunnels includes built-in A/B testing so you can optimize your headlines, copy and design. For SamCart you need a third-party tool. 

As this comparison highlights, ClickFunnels provides a more robust all-in-one marketing and funnel-building platform. But SamCart excels when it comes to optimized shopping cart and checkout functionality.

So which solution is best for you depends on your specific business needs…

Building Products – ClickFunnels vs SamCart

When selling products online, you need a platform that makes it easy to quickly set up and display your offerings to customers.

Both SamCart and ClickFunnels provide simple mechanisms for creating and showcasing your products. However, there are some differences in their approach.

SamCart Product Setup

With SamCart, adding a new product is straightforward:

• Navigate to the “Products” section of your account
• Click the “New Product” button
• Enter your product name, description, pricing, image etc.
• Select whether this is a one-time purchase, recurring payment, trial offer, etc.
• SamCart will instantly generate a visually appealing product page you can add to your funnel

Some key advantages of SamCart for product listings:

• Supports both digital and physical products
• Lets you offer multiple purchase options e.g. one-time, monthly, yearly subscriptions
• Real-time shipping calculators for physical products
• Coupon and discount capabilities
• Ability to clone/duplicate product listings

Overall, SamCart makes it extremely quick and easy to create great-looking product pages to get your offerings in front of customers.

ClickFunnels Product Setup

Within ClickFunnels, creating a product involves just a few steps:

• Select “Products” from the main menu
• Click “Create New Product”
• Give your product a name, description, price and image
• Choose a payment integration like Stripe to collect payment
• Click “Save & Continue” and your product page will be ready

Some useful features of ClickFunnels for products include:

• Option to create membership products that grant access to gated content
• “Bump” offer on checkout to upsell customers to a higher tier
• Inventory management for physical products
• Automatic sales tax calculations
• Ability to clone existing products quickly

For basic product setup, ClickFunnels and SamCart have very similar, easy-to-use processes. ClickFunnels gives you more flexibility if you want to create membership packages or bundle digital content with a product purchase.

But for solely selling individual products, SamCart’s specialized features give it an edge. The choice comes down to your specific product mix and business model.

Both platforms make it easy to get your products online and in front of customers quickly and effortlessly.

Design Customization – ClickFunnels vs SamCart

Creating a seamless, polished brand experience requires the ability to customize your pages and templates.

Let’s compare how SamCart and ClickFunnels enable you to tailor your checkout and funnel pages:

SamCart Customization

• Intuitive drag-and-drop page builder
• 100+ professionally designed checkout page templates
• Customize colors, fonts, content
• Headers, footers, logos can be branded
• Plug-in your own CSS/HTML
• Image galleries, videos and other media
• Support team assists with design

SamCart makes it easy for non-designers to create stunning, conversion-optimized checkout pages.

Choose from their gallery of templates and customize it to match your brand. You can edit colors, fonts, content blocks and more using an intuitive click-and-drag interface.

While you don’t get total design flexibility, SamCart templates enable anyone to quickly build checkout pages that look fantastic “out of the box”.

You can further tailor the look by adding your own header, footer and logo. This allows you to maintain a consistent brand experience as customers move through your funnel.

ClickFunnels Customization

• Drag-and-drop page editor
• 100+ pre-built funnel template options
• Customize templates deeply
• HTML/CSS editing available
• Complete brand control
• Integrate custom fonts
• Animation effects and transitions

ClickFunnels gives you more direct control over your pages and funnels compared to SamCart. You can fully customize templates, edit HTML/CSS code, add custom fonts, animations and more.

While SamCart offers beautiful templates, they are more rigid. ClickFunnels enables pixel-perfect design flexibility – but you’ll need stronger design chops.

For maximum brand customization, ClickFunnels is the better choice. But SamCart’s templates still look amazing with “light” editing via their point-and-click editor.

So weigh your desire for customization vs out-of-the-box ease of use. Both platforms can create great experiences, just with slightly different design approaches.

Sales Funnels – ClickFunnels vs SamCart

A sales funnel maps out the journey you guide customers through when making a purchase.

The right funnel maximizes conversion at each stage – from initial visit to checkout completion.

Let’s examine how ClickFunnels and SamCart compare when it comes to building sales funnels:

ClickFunnels Funnel Builder

• Drag-and-drop funnel editing
• Pre-built funnel templates included
• Pages for upsells, downsells, order bumps
• Integrated email and payment processing
• Membership site capabilities
• Affiliate and partnership funnels
• Automations and email sequences
• Funnel analytics and optimization

ClickFunnels makes it incredibly easy to map out and customize sophisticated sales funnels with no technical skills required.

Intuitive drag-and-drop editing coupled with pre-built templates allows you to create the optimal path to guide customers through.

You can incorporate upsells, downsells, order bumps, payment processing, and CRM-powered automations all natively within ClickFunnels.

This combination of extensive features with ease of use for funnel building makes ClickFunnels tough to beat.

SamCart Funnel Builder

• Checkout page templates
• Upsell and order bump options
• Basic membership site integration
• 3rd party funnel building required
• Limited native automation
• Focus on checkout optimization

Since SamCart specializes in checkout and shopping cart functionality, it unsurprisingly offers less in the way of robust funnel-building capabilities.

You get well-designed checkout page templates and can incorporate upsells or order bumps for additional revenue.

But for multi-step funnels with extensive automations, you’ll need to integrate a separate funnel builder like ClickFunnels.

Ultimately, if complex funnel building is critical for your business strategy, ClickFunnels is the superior choice.

But if you mainly need to optimize your checkout process, SamCart fits the bill nicely.

It comes down to which implementation better aligns with your business model and conversion goals.

Both platforms aim to maximize revenue, just with different funnel philosophies.

Additional Marketing Capabilities

Beyond core funnel building, platforms like SamCart and ClickFunnels offer additional marketing features to further optimize conversions.

Here is an overview of some of their key capabilities:

Feature	SamCart	ClickFunnels
Email Marketing	Integrates with 3rd party	Built-in (Actionetics)
Affiliate Marketing	Affiliate Center	Backpack Affiliate Program
Webinars	3rd party integration	Native integration
A/B Testing	3rd party integration	Built-in testing
Analytics	Sales and conversion reporting	Detailed funnel analytics
Memberships	Checkout page support	Fully-featured membership sites

Email Marketing

ClickFunnels includes Actionetics, a built-in email platform for broadcasts, automations and list segmentation. SamCart must integrate a 3rd party for email.

Affiliate Marketing

Both have affiliate management systems to recruit partners and share revenue. ClickFunnels Backpack has additional marketing features.

Webinars

ClickFunnels can natively integrate webinar platforms like GoToWebinar. SamCart focuses solely on checkout.

A/B Testing

ClickFunnels enables split testing funnel pages natively. SamCart requires a 3rd party tool.

Analytics

ClickFunnels provides more granular analytics on your complete funnel performance. SamCart focuses on checkout analytics.

Memberships

ClickFunnels supports building full membership sites while SamCart simply offers checkout page support.

Overall, ClickFunnels includes more baked-in marketing features while SamCart focuses solely on being the best checkout platform.

Determine which capabilities are essential to your customer acquisition and revenue strategy when choosing between the two systems.

Both can power successful marketing, just with different philosophies and strengths.

Affiliate Programs

Affiliate marketing can be a powerful way to increase your sales and revenue by paying partners commissions for referrals and completed purchases.

Both SamCart and ClickFunnels offer affiliate management systems. Let’s compare how their capabilities stack up:

SamCart Affiliate Center

• Enable affiliate commissions by product
• Two-tier affiliate structure available
• Create affiliate signup links
• Track affiliate sales and commissions
• Customizable commission percentages
• Payouts processed manually or automatically

SamCart’s Affiliate Center provides the core capabilities needed to recruit and manage affiliates. You can easily set commission rates, generate referral links, and track performance.

However, payouts need to be processed manually unless you integrate a third-party affiliate platform. So this may increase admin overhead as your program grows.

ClickFunnels Backpack

• Automated two-tier affiliate commissions
• Cookie tracking assigns credit accurately
• Affiliate leaderboards and contests
• Affiliate email and social sharing
• Automated payouts through Stripe
• Affiliate marketing training access
• More extensive features and customization

ClickFunnels’ Backpack affiliate software is extremely full-featured. It automates tracking, commissions, and payouts to streamline administration.

Powerful options like cookie tracking, affiliate leaderboards, and marketing integration with Actionetics take the platform to another level.

For businesses that take affiliate marketing seriously, Backpack provides superior capabilities and customization compared to SamCart’s more basic Affiliate Center.

However, SamCart’s affiliate system is sufficient for simpler programs focused just on the basics like referral links and sales commissions.

So weigh your needs – for extensive versus streamlined affiliate management – as you choose between the two platforms.

Integrations

The ability to connect your checkout and funnel platform with other business systems is essential.

Let’s look at some of the main integrations SamCart and ClickFunnels support:

SamCart Integrations

• Payments: Stripe, PayPal, Braintree
• Email: Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Drip
• Webinars: Zoom, GoToWebinar
• Marketing: ActiveCampaign, Hubspot
• Memberships: Kajabi, Teachable
• Fulfillment: ShipStation, Shippo
• And many more via Zapier

SamCart plays nicely with all the top payment processors to easily collect payments globally.

It also integrates smoothly with major email, webinar, membership and fulfillment platforms you may already use.

Zapier support allows connecting with hundreds of other apps. SamCart focuses on being the checkout hub that ties everything together.

ClickFunnels Integrations

• Payments: Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay
• Email: AWeber, Mailchimp, Constant Contact
• Webinars: GoToWebinar, EverWebinar
• Marketing: ActiveCampaign, GetResponse
• Memberships: Kajabi, Teachable
• eCommerce: Shopify, WooCommerce
• And many more via Zapier

Like SamCart, ClickFunnels seamlessly supports all major payment gateways. Actionetics also replaces the need for external email marketing systems.

Native app integrations combined with Zapier connections give you endless connectivity options.

You can easily integrate your favorite tools for webinars, email marketing, member management and more into your sales funnel.

Both platforms provide excellent integration support – so you can painlessly connect them with the other tools you rely on.

The choice comes down to which platform offers the combination of core features you need natively without requiring a wide array of additional tools.

But flexibility and connectivity are strengths of both SamCart and ClickFunnels.

Pricing

When evaluating SamCart vs ClickFunnels, pricing is often a major factor. Let’s compare the plans and costs of these two popular platforms:

SamCart Pricing

Plan	Price	Key Features
Launch	$49/month	Core checkout features
Grow	$99/month	Advanced integrations
Scale	$199/month	Full affiliate tools

• 14 day free trial (credit card required)
• 2-3% transaction fees on top of monthly price
• Monthly contracts – cancel anytime

SamCart offers three straightforward pricing tiers. The entry-level plan provides the core checkout page and shopping cart capabilities.

More advanced features like affiliate marketing are only included at the highest tier. You must also pay transaction fees on top of the monthly price.

Overall, SamCart aims to provide robust features even on starter plans for a reasonable monthly cost.

ClickFunnels Pricing

Plan	Price	Key Features
Basic	$97/month	Funnel building basics
Etison Suite	$297/month	Advanced features
Two Comma Club X	$2,497/month	Premium training, support

• 14 day free trial (credit card required)
• No transaction fees – one price
• Annual contracts offer biggest savings

ClickFunnels offers pricing tiers appropriate for small to very large enterprises. You get access to core funnel features even at the lowest pricing.

More advanced functionality like affiliate marketing and Actionetics email are only available on higher tiers however. There are no transaction fees.

For ClickFunnels’ extensive capabilities, the pricing is reasonable. Annual contracts can also cut costs substantially.

Head to Head

Both platforms offer free trials so you can experience them firsthand. SamCart starts cheaper at $49/month but charges transaction fees. ClickFunnels starts at $97 without extra fees.

For serious funnel builders and marketers, ClickFunnels justifies its higher pricing with more robust features, especially at the higher tiers. But quality on a budget? SamCart is hard to beat.

Together they cover a wide range of business sizes and requirements very competitively.

Reporting

Understanding your sales funnel performance requires quality analytics and reporting. Let’s see how SamCart and ClickFunnels compare when it comes to actionable data and insights.

SamCart Reporting

• Intuitive centralized dashboard
• Sales, conversion and traffic analytics
• Customer details and activity tracking
• Export reports as CSV or PDF

📊 Funnel conversion rates

📉 Sales volumes and trends

📈 Traffic sources and engagement

SamCart provides a clean, visual dashboard to monitor key checkout and conversion metrics for your business.

The reporting focuses specifically on checkout and shopping cart analytics rather than end-to-end funnel data. But it delivers excellent top-level visibility into your ecommerce performance.

You can export the data to dig deeper if needed. For most use cases, SamCart reporting provides exactly what’s needed to understand checkout effectiveness.

ClickFunnels Reporting

• Centralized funnel dashboard
• Page-level conversion data
• Customer journeys and drop-off
• Detailed traffic source analysis
• Customizable real-time reports

📈 Page-by-page conversion rates

📊 Payment and upsell metrics

📉 Lead quality and values

📈 Affiliate and email channel tracking

ClickFunnels provides incredibly robust analytics into every aspect of your sales funnel – from traffic to opt-ins, payments, upsells, affiliate channels and more.

The in-depth reporting really separates ClickFunnels from checkout-only tools like SamCart when it comes to understanding your funnel end-to-end.

You can customize reports as needed to pull actionable insights across all stages that impact your bottom line revenue and conversions.

Verdict

Both platforms provide excellent reporting suited for their capabilities – SamCart for top-level checkout analytics and ClickFunnels for detailed funnel data.

Let your specific reporting needs guide which solution would provide more value. But comprehensive funnel analytics is a clear advantage of ClickFunnels.

Final Thoughts

Both SamCart and ClickFunnels are excellent solutions for optimizing your checkout process and creating sales funnels. But which platform is the better fit depends on your specific business needs and goals:

Choose SamCart if:

• 🛒 You want a specialized cart and checkout platform.
• 💲 Your budget is under $200/month.
• 🛍️ You only sell a few products or services.
• 🚚 You need to ship physical products.
• 📈 Checkout optimization is your primary goal.

SamCart excels at providing a beautifully designed, conversion-focused checkout experience. With intuitive templates, seamless payment processing, and easy customization, it enables you to quickly launch an optimized checkout flow for your products.

Choose ClickFunnels if:

• 📈 You want to build advanced sales funnels.
• 🎯 Lead generation and list building are key goals.
• 🤝 You need extensive affiliate management tools.
• 📧 Built-in email marketing is essential.
• 📊 You want detailed funnel analytics.

With its focus beyond just checkout pages, ClickFunnels is the better choice for businesses that rely on sophisticated sales funnels, email marketing automation, and affiliate partnerships as core growth strategies.

You get far more features and capabilities out of the box versus needing to integrate separate tools. The powerful funnel analytics also help you continuously optimize your processes.

The Bottom Line

• 🏆 SamCart is ideal if you just need an optimized checkout solution.
• 🥇 ClickFunnels is better for comprehensive funnel building and marketing.
• 📊 Evaluate your specific needs and growth goals before deciding.

Either platform can be a valuable asset for your business. Make sure you choose the solution that provides the capabilities that best match your requirements today and in the future.

Conclusion

Whether you choose SamCart or ClickFunnels, investing in a high-converting checkout and funnel building platform is essential for ecommerce success.

In this comprehensive SamCart vs ClickFunnels comparison, we covered:

• Key feature differences between the two platforms
• How they compare for building products, custom pages, and sales funnels
• Their additional marketing capabilities
• Available integrations, pricing, and reporting

Hopefully this analysis provides clarity on which solution best meets your needs.

Building out your checkout and funnel capabilities is too important not to get right. With over 77% of shopping carts being abandoned before purchase, the right platform can dramatically boost sales.

While both SamCart and ClickFunnels are leaders in their respective areas, be sure to choose the one that aligns with your goals and strategy. Get started with a free trial of SamCart or 14-day free trial of ClickFunnels to experience them firsthand.

The faster you can optimize your checkout process, the faster your revenue and profits will grow. Invest in the right funnel building platform and take your business to the next level.

ClickFunnels vs SamCart – FAQs

What is the main difference between SamCart and ClickFunnels?

The main difference is that SamCart specializes in shopping cart and checkout page functionality, while ClickFunnels offers a broader all-in-one marketing and funnel building platform.

Is SamCart cheaper than ClickFunnels?

Yes, SamCart’s pricing starts at $49/month compared to ClickFunnels’ starting price of $97/month. However, ClickFunnels offers more features and capabilities, especially at the higher pricing tiers.

Does SamCart offer a free trial?

Yes, SamCart offers a 14-day free trial so you can test out their checkout platform. ClickFunnels also provides a 14-day free trial.

Can you make membership sites with SamCart?

SamCart focuses on checkout pages and doesn’t have membership site capabilities built-in. You would need to integrate a third-party membership platform. ClickFunnels lets you build membership sites natively.

Does SamCart have email marketing features?

No, SamCart does not have built-in email marketing. You need to connect a third-party email provider like MailChimp. ClickFunnels includes Actionetics for email marketing and automation.

What types of pages can you build in ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels lets you create optimized landing pages, checkout pages, upsell pages, webinar pages, thank you pages and more. It’s a full-featured funnel builder.

Does ClickFunnels offer an affiliate program?

Yes, ClickFunnels has a native affiliate platform called Backpack that provides extensive tracking, commissions and affiliate management. SamCart also has an affiliate program but with more basic features.