Paying $299/month for basic shopping cart features? You’re not alone. Thousands of online businesses are overpaying for SamCart when more affordable alternatives exist that do the same job for less.
U.S. online retail sales surpassed $1.00 trillion in 2022, reaching approximately $1,034 billion, an increase of about 7.7% from 2021. Globally, retail e-commerce continued its steady climb: sales reached an estimated $5.82 trillion in 2023 and are projected to hit around $6.42 trillion in 2025. At the same time, online channels are now accounting for roughly 20% of worldwide retail sales, with estimates of 19.4% in 2023 and 20.1%+ in 2024.
With so much spending happening online, there’s fierce competition from brands of all sizes, and no one is out of the running if they’re trying to earn a cut of those profits.
The best option for selling your own physical or digital products will always be your own website or online store, where you can showcase your wares without competition from others. Along with your website, you’ll need a shopping cart solution and, ideally, a strategy to boost sales and conversions.
If you’re reading this article, you already know that SamCart is one such solution … but you’re probably wanting to know what other choices you have.So keep reading as we review how SamCart works, along with eight of the best SamCart alternatives.
Key Takeaways:
- SamCart is powerful but pricey for growing businesses.
- Each SamCart alternative serves different business needs.
- Choosing the right cart software depends on flexibility, pricing, and scalability.
ThriveCart stands out as the best overall alternative to SamCart. See how it works.
Why Look for SamCart Alternatives?
SamCart offers a secure shopping cart with flexible subscription payment plans for customers. The platform is primarily designed to sell digital products and services to small businesses, although it can also be used to sell physical products.
While SamCart is a generally well-received platform, there are some significant drawbacks, such as:
- High pricing (starts at $79/month, expensive features locked behind $299 plan)
- Limited customization options (template-based, no custom design)
- Missing core features (no email marketing, basic affiliate tracking, no website builder)
- No lifetime pricing option (monthly fees add up over time)
Pricing
While you can get started for free, there is no free plan. SamCart’s starter plan pricing starts at $59 per month for the Launch package. This entry-level package allows for one admin user and includes standard integrations and email support, along with dashboard and sales reports.
While there are no additional transaction fees aside from those charged by payment gateways, the basic plans lack many of the features you need. For example, to add additional admins, include post-purchase upsells, custom checkout fields, or payment integrations with multiple customer payment processors, you must upgrade to the $119 per month Grow package.
If you want cart abandonment conversions, affiliate management capability, or A/B split testing, you will need to upgrade to the Scale package, which offers pricing plans at $299 per month.
- Sales pages and page builders
- Tax calculation
- Compliance services
- Customer orders
- Coupon codes
- Customer information
- Payment options
The best shopping cart platforms will be highly customizable and will also include advanced features such as automation and affiliate programs, robust management tools, and integrations with popular SaaS solutions such as WordPress, Zapier, Mailchimp, and more.
They will also offer multiple payment options, including credit cards or online payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, or Apple Pay.
There are different types of shopping cart software, so it’s essential to assess the features each cart platform offers to choose the best solution for your business.
The Best SamCart Alternatives for Shopping Cart Functionality of Your Online Business
| Platform Name | Starting Price | Best For | Checkout Pages | Email Marketing | Course Hosting | Affiliate Management | Lifetime Pricing | Key Strength |
| ThriveCart | One-time $495 (Lifetime) | High-converting funnels & digital product sellers | ✅ | ✅ (via integrations) | ✅ (ThriveCart Learn) | ✅ | ✅ | Lifetime access, top-tier funnels, advanced affiliate tools |
| ClickFunnels | $97/month | Businesses wanting full sales funnels | ✅ | ✅ (limited) | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | Drag-and-drop funnel builder, strong A/B testing |
| PayKickStart | $79/month | Subscription billing & affiliate management | ✅ | ✅ (via integrations) | ✅ (for drip courses) | ✅ | ❌ | Powerful recurring billing & affiliate tracking |
| SendOwl | 💵 $39/month | Digital downloads & small creators | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | Simple checkout for digital goods, multi-currency support |
| Kartra | 💵 $59/month | All-in-one marketing suite | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | Comprehensive business toolkit with CRM-style automation |
| Sellfy | 💵 $29/month | Creators selling digital & physical products | ✅ | ✅ (basic) | ✅ (video/file hosting) | ❌ | ❌ | Easy store setup, built-in hosting for digital content |
| BigCommerce | 💵 $39/month | Full-scale online stores (physical or digital) | ✅ | ✅ (advanced tiers) | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | Enterprise-grade eCommerce with omnichannel sales |
| Podia | 💵 Free plan, Paid $39/month | Course creators & online communities | ✅ | ✅ (basic) | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | Easy for beginners; combines courses, memberships & communities |
Many online sellers and entrepreneurs researching eCommerce platform shopping cart options look at SamCart, but also want to explore additional options. That’s smart since the solution you choose will play a big role in your success. You want the best solution to create landing pages, drive sales, and maximize your revenue.
Let’s take a look at eight of the best SamCart alternatives for shopping carts.
1. ThriveCart
ThriveCart is a shopping cart platform that excels at building high-converting cart pages and is great for selling digital and physical products. It provides a distraction-free user experience to promote conversions and includes order bumps and one-click upsells and downsells to increase average order value (AOV) and customer lifetime value (CLV). It also includes affiliate marketing, email marketing, cart abandonment sequences, and lifetime payment options.
You can quickly create high-converting sales funnels and embed them in your website or on other sites for a seamless user experience.
Users particularly like ThriveCart’s sales funnel builder, which boosts conversion rates while managing sales taxes and multiple currencies. However, what users love is ThriveCart’s no-hassle pricing plan. There are no monthly recurring fees or per-transaction commissions except those charged by payment processors, which is also the case for all other checkout platforms.
ThriveCart also includes ThriveCart Learn at no extra cost, built for online course creators who get full access to all ThriveCart tools.
Pros:
- One-time fee, no recurring monthly fees
- Exceptional sales funnel to maximize revenue
- Advanced affiliate marketing options
- Multiple payment plans, including split-pay, subscriptions, and name your price
- Supports 20+ currencies and automates sales tax collection
Cons:
- Better for digital products than physical products
- Does not offer hosting for digital files such as videos/PDFs
Pricing:
ThriveCart offers lifetime access to core features for a one-time $495 payment—no monthly fees or transaction commissions. Need advanced tools like affiliate management and detailed analytics? ThriveCart Pro+ adds powerful features for $295 annually after year one. The Ultimate Bundle includes an advanced LMS for an additional $195 one-time fee, letting you scale without per-transaction costs.
2. ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is a user-friendly tool for building websites and sales funnels. With a drag-and-drop editor, you can build checkout solutions without any coding. Designed to leverage traffic from social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok or Google searches into sales funnels, ClickFunnels’ goal is to make conversions easier when people click.
Users like that they can upload products, images, videos, and descriptions, and create custom checkout pages. ClickFunnels also enables members’ sites to serve as a makeshift CRM for small online businesses.
Users report there’s a learning curve and onboarding can be confusing and time-consuming. It’s also a fairly pricey solution compared to some of its competitors.
Pros:
- A/B testing of landing pages
- Integration with other platforms
Cons:
- Limited email marketing tools with upgrades or third-party integrations
- Integration with existing websites or domains takes some backend development
- Lack of detailed data analytics tools
Pricing:
ClickFunnels pricing ranges from $97 to $297 per month ($972-$5,997 yearly).
3. PayKickStart
PayKickStart handles billing and affiliate management for subscription-based businesses. It can be an option if you are selling online courses that drip or release over time, or other digital downloads that require monthly recurring payments. It is not designed for selling physical products for eCommerce platforms.
You can choose from a library of more than 50 customizable checkout templates optimized for mobile that also include automated abandoned cart emails. While PayKickStart supports multiple languages and currencies, the basic plan only handles one sales tax jurisdiction and does not support integration for third-party tax tools like Taxamo.
Some users report difficulty in reconciling sales reports, especially against vendor and affiliate sales.
Pros:
- Enables discounts, coupons, upsells, and bump orders
- Third-party integrations for email, membership, and webinars
Cons:
- UX could be improved to shorten the learning curve
- Limited payment processing options
- No A/B testing
Pricing:
Pay Kickstart pricing ranges from $99 to $299 per month ($1,188-$3,588 yearly).
4. SendOwl
SendOwl’s shopping cart solution allows shoppers to purchase digital products from your website or directly from social media platforms. You can use SendOwl to sell physical products or digital products, drip content, subscriptions, or memberships.
While it does not include a website builder, you can create your own checkout templates with custom fields, buttons, and branding. Some users note that the platform sends users to a SendOwl-hosted checkout page, which can be concerning for some users coming to your website.
Payment integrations for SendOwl include PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, Alipay (via Stripe), and several EU payment processors.
Pros:
- Supports discounts and promo codes
- Includes affiliate marketing tools
Cons:
- Limited ability to search transactions
- No website builder and limited templates for checkout
- Does not support multi-store or multi-channel marketing
Pricing:
SendOwl offers a limited-access free plan, with paid plans ranging from $39 to $159 per month ($180-$468 yearly).
5. Kartra
Kartra bills itself as an all-in-one platform for online businesses with a diverse feature set that lets users build web forms, sales pages, and order pages quickly. There are plenty of templates to choose from, including follow-up sequences.
Users speak positively about being able to create shopping carts, membership sites, and affiliate programs in one platform, but these products are somewhat under-built. Users also bring up the issue of bandwidth overages. With lower tiers of pricing, it’s easy to use up your allowance and wind up with overage charges.
Pros:
- Build websites, sales pages, and checkouts
- Can help build email lists for marketing
Cons:
- Unintuitive user interface
- Lack of integrations with other solutions
- Overage fees for exceeding monthly bandwidth limits
Pricing:
Kartra pricing ranges from $59 to $549 per month ($624-$5,148 yearly).
6. Sellfy
Sellfy is an eCommerce platform for creators to sell merchandise or digital products. A cloud site builder lets you create a store with fill-in-the-blank and drag-and-drop elements. Sellfy enables hosting for your videos or digital material, allowing for print-on-demand or digital file delivery.
You can use the Sellfy online store or add a buy now button or shopping cart to your website by cutting and pasting code. Sellfy also enables discount codes, upsells at checkout, and tracking pixels to track conversions from Facebook or Twitter.
While Sellfy used to have a free plan with a per-transaction fee, that has been eliminated.
Pros:
- Integrates with PayPal and Stripe
- No commissions on sales
Cons:
- Limited number of emails
- Does not support multi-store
- Only provides credit card payments through PayPal (no additional PayPal payment options)
- Does not support subscription plans
Pricing:
Sellfy pricing ranges from $29 to $159 per month ($264-$1,428 yearly).
7. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a premium eCommerce solution, allowing users to set up online stores and sell any kind of product. It functions as a hub for omnichannel sellers by allowing you to manage your inventory in one platform for many other sales channels. It also features unlimited products, files, and storage.
BigCommerce has a customizable automated email sequence for cart abandonment, but it is not available in the basic pricing packages. Enterprise-level business owners can leverage advanced functionalities like composable architecture and headless commerce, but these features may not be valued by small or medium-sized businesses.
Pros:
- Integrates with nearly all payment processors
- Can connect Amazon, eBay, and Walmart stores to BigCommerce
Cons:
- Themes can be costly, commonly $150-$250
- May be challenging for beginners or new eCommerce sellers
Pricing:
BigCommerce pricing ranges from $39 to $399 per month ($348-$3,588 yearly)
8. Podia
Podia lets users build a free website, so you can start selling without needing coding or design skills. You can customize color schemes, logos, and styles, and also choose from stock photos. One different feature of Podia is that you can create online communities, including free, paid, and membership communities, to host conversations.
Podia does not provide tools to build and create digital products, but it does let you host them on the site so customers can buy, download, and access them directly.
Pros:
- Custom domains for web pages
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Tools for tracking student progress for online courses
Cons:
- No templates, and limited design/customization options
- Limited payment gateways
- Limited email marketing features
Pricing:
Podia offers a limited-access free plan, with paid plans ranging from $39 to $89 per month ($396 to $900 per year).
Why ThriveCart is So Successful at Boosting Conversion Rates
As you can see, each of these e-commerce platforms has different options. Some have marketing tools, robust payment integrations, and advanced sales funnels to help drive conversation and increase order value. Others only provide basic functionality or require expensive upgrades to get the tools you need to create, manage, and market your digital products.
Making the right decision to increase sales and conversion rates will be crucial to optimizing your revenue. ThriveCart is the best online shopping cart software and the ideal solution for most online businesses. While providing a full range of functionality for a one-time price, ThriveCart’s built-in sales funnels boost conversion rates to increase order value and customer lifetime value.
For course creators, the ThriveCart Learn platform is included at no additional cost, allowing you to create and sell e-learning courses, with the option to upgrade in order to leverage affiliate programs.
Learn more about ThriveCart and how it can optimize your online sales.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What is Shopping Cart Software?
Shopping cart software is a type of software that facilitates online sales and powers online businesses. When added to your online storefront, customers can collect items to purchase, and they can check out for all items at the same time.
Shopping cart platform features typically include:
- Sales pages and page builders
- Tax calculation
- Compliance services
- Customer orders
- Coupon codes
- Customer information
- Payment options
The best shopping cart platforms will be highly customizable and will also include advanced features such as automation and affiliate programs, robust management tools, and integrations with popular SaaS solutions such as WordPress, Zapier, Mailchimp, and more.
2. What’s the cheapest SamCart alternative?
The most affordable SamCart alternative is SendOwl, starting at just $15 per month. It’s ideal for selling digital downloads, memberships, or small-scale eCommerce products. Another budget-friendly option is Sellfy, which offers all-in-one eCommerce tools for creators without extra transaction fees. If you’re looking for long-term savings, ThriveCart’s one-time lifetime license provides unbeatable value compared to recurring monthly pricing.
3. Which platform is best for selling online courses?
For course creators, ThriveCart Learn and Podia are the best SamCart alternatives. ThriveCart Learn (included free with ThriveCart) lets you build and sell e-learning courses, track student progress, and integrate affiliate programs for promotion. Podia is also great for educators—it combines course hosting, memberships, and community features under one dashboard, making it an excellent choice for coaches and digital teachers.
4. Do any alternatives offer lifetime pricing?
Yes — ThriveCart is the leading shopping cart platform offering lifetime pricing. With a one-time payment of $495, users gain lifetime access to all core features, including sales funnels, affiliate management, tax automation, and advanced checkout templates. This pricing model eliminates monthly or annual fees, making ThriveCart a cost-effective SamCart alternative for long-term business growth.
5. Which SamCart alternative has the best affiliate management?
ThriveCart stands out for its advanced affiliate management system. It lets you create, track, and automate affiliate campaigns with custom commission structures and performance reporting. PayKickStart is another strong contender, offering detailed affiliate analytics and integrations for recurring subscription programs. Both platforms are designed to help sellers grow revenue through well-managed, automated affiliate programs.
6. Can I sell both digital and physical products?
Yes. Many SamCart alternatives support both digital and physical sales. ThriveCart, BigCommerce, and Sellfy offer tools for managing inventory, shipping, and digital file delivery in one place. BigCommerce is ideal for large stores selling physical products, while ThriveCart is perfect for digital creators who also want to sell merch or bundled offers.
7. Which platform is easiest for beginners?
The easiest SamCart alternatives for beginners are Podia and Sellfy. Both platforms have intuitive drag-and-drop editors, built-in hosting, and zero coding requirements. Podia helps new sellers launch digital products, courses, or communities quickly, while Sellfy’s simple setup lets creators start selling physical and digital items in minutes. They’re both beginner-friendly and optimized for hassle-free online sales.
8. What’s the best alternative for subscription billing?
PayKickStart and ThriveCart are the top SamCart alternatives for subscription billing. PayKickStart specializes in managing recurring payments, trials, and subscription analytics for digital businesses. ThriveCart supports flexible billing options like split-pay, recurring subscriptions, and pay-what-you-want pricing—all with automated tax handling and customer management tools to streamline recurring revenue.
9. How do I migrate from SamCart to another platform?
Migrating from SamCart to another shopping cart platform is straightforward. Start by exporting your product, customer, and subscription data from SamCart. Then, import it into your new platform—such as ThriveCart or ClickFunnels—using built-in import tools or third-party integration apps like Zapier. Update your checkout links, payment gateways, and tracking pixels to ensure a smooth transition without losing sales.