# ClickFunnels vs SamCart (2026) · Campaign Buyer

> Source: https://campaignbuyer.com/compare/clickfunnels-vs-samcart

Funnel builder vs checkoutmedia buyer software

## ClickFunnels vs SamCart

By [Dana Rourke](/authors/dana-rourke), Lead reviewer. Reviewed by [Campaign Buyer Editorial](/authors/editorial). Updated 27 September 2026\. 

**Disclosure:**We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. It never affects our rankings. 

ClickFunnels, from $97/mo.

SamCart, from $79/mo.

Quick answer

Pick ClickFunnels if you want to build the whole sales funnel, the pages, the checkout, the upsells and the email, live and selling in one account; pick SamCart if you already have your pages and an audience and just want a proven, conversion-focused checkout with order bumps and one-click upsells.

### Side by side

|                      | ClickFunnels        | SamCart               |
| -------------------- | ------------------- | --------------------- |
| What it is           | Funnel builder      | Conversion checkout   |
| Best for             | Whole funnel in one | Checkout for sellers  |
| Pages and funnels    | Built in            | No, checkout only     |
| Checkout             | Bumps, upsells      | Bumps, upsells (Pro)  |
| Email and CRM        | Email, light CRM    | No                    |
| Courses, memberships | Included            | Included              |
| A/B testing          | Included            | On Pro                |
| Cut of sales         | None                | None (processor fees) |
| Track record         | 10+ yrs, 4.6/5      | Since 2014, 75k+      |
| Entry price          | $97/mo              | $79/mo                |

If you have narrowed the whole market to ClickFunnels and SamCart, the first useful move is to notice they are not two versions of one product. They overlap on the checkout page and split apart on either side of it. ClickFunnels builds the whole funnel: the pages, the checkout, the upsells and the follow-up in one account. SamCart is the checkout itself, a cart you drop in front of an offer to raise the value of every order. The reader stuck between them is really choosing between two jobs, and once you know which job is yours the rest gets simple.

### The one question that decides it: build the funnel, or just the checkout?

Answer that before you compare a single feature. ClickFunnels assumes you need everything: pages, a selling checkout, email follow-up and a place to host a course, all live fast without stitching four tools together. SamCart assumes you already have the pages and the audience, and the one thing you want done well is the checkout. If your problem is getting a whole offer live this week, that points one way. If your problem is that a good offer is leaking money at the cart and the rest of your stack is settled, that points the other. Everything below is a version of that split.

### ClickFunnels: the whole funnel in one account

ClickFunnels is one of the names that turned "sales funnel" into a category, and after more than a decade it is still one of the most recognised funnel builders online. For a coach, creator or info-product seller the pitch holds up: landing and sales pages, a checkout with order bumps and one-click upsells, email follow-up, a light CRM, courses and a community, all in one account. The most-praised part across Reddit and the review sites is speed. You build the pages, the checkout and the follow-up in one system instead of gluing four tools together, and the drag-and-drop editor with prebuilt funnel templates gets a non-technical seller from idea to live funnel without a developer.

Its Smart Checkout is built for selling rather than merely collecting money, with order bumps and one-click upsells aimed at lifting average order value, and it takes no cut of your sales on any plan. Aggregate scores are strong, around 4.6 out of 5 across more than 400 G2 reviews and thousands on Trustpilot. The weak spots are price and billing. Plans run $97 a month for Launch, $197 for Scale and $297 for Optimize, and users say the cost climbs fast if you only need part of it. Billing and cancellation are the loudest complaints, along with confusion between the older Classic and the newer 2.0 accounts. Course and membership delivery is the part users rate weakest, so if a serious course is your product a dedicated platform gives a better student experience.

### SamCart: the checkout built to raise order value

SamCart is not trying to be a whole platform, and that is its strength. It is a checkout built to raise the value of every order, and it has been doing that since 2014, with the company reporting more than 75,000 businesses and over $8 billion in transactions run through it. This is an established tool, not a launch-week gamble. Order bumps add a companion product with one checkbox at checkout, one-click upsells charge the same card after the first purchase, and courses, memberships, subscriptions and physical goods all sell through one cart with a members area built in. Long-term users describe it as dependable for the job that matters most, taking the payment, which is what you want from that page.

The catch is cost, and it comes in two parts. Core is $79 a month, well above a single-purpose cart, and the features SamCart is known for, one-click upsells, order bumps, A/B testing, Subscription Saver and the Affiliate Center, are all gated to the $199 Pro plan. So the realistic price of SamCart as advertised is $199 a month, not $79\. The second friction is billing. Unexpected renewals and slow refunds are the loudest theme across its public reviews, and SamCart's own help docs confirm that cancelling through the customer portal stops future billing but does not refund charges already taken, so read the renewal terms before the trial ends. It is checkout-first by design, with no built-in CRM, email automation or multi-step funnel management, and it runs standard processors such as SamPay, Stripe and PayPal, so a seller whose category those gateways decline needs a different kind of tool.

### The real split: the whole path, or the page where money changes hands

Strip away the shared surface and the difference is what each one owns. ClickFunnels owns the whole path from the first landing page to the follow-up email, and it assumes you would rather build all of it in one place than assemble it. SamCart owns the checkout and the order-value tools bolted to it, and it assumes the pages, the traffic and the nurture are handled somewhere else. If your problem is that you have no funnel yet and want one live fast, ClickFunnels is the more complete answer. If your problem is that a proven offer is leaking revenue at the cart and everything around it already works, SamCart fixes exactly that and nothing you are not using. Neither is the worse product. They solve two different versions of one goal, selling more of what you already have.

### Pricing: a flat plan against a gated one

ClickFunnels bills a flat monthly plan and takes no cut of your sales. Launch is $97 a month, Scale $197 and Optimize $297, with a 30-day money-back guarantee, and the number climbs with the features and contact limits you need rather than with a slice of revenue. SamCart opens lower and closes higher. Core is $79 a month and Pro is $199, both with a 7-day trial and 25% off annual, and SamCart takes nothing of its own on sales; its SamPay processor charges 2.9% plus 30 cents a transaction, the same range as Stripe. The tell is not the sticker. ClickFunnels charges for the whole platform at every tier, while SamCart's real cost lands at Pro, because the order-value tools most people buy it for are the ones gated behind that $199 plan. Price each on the tier that carries what you actually need.

### If you buy your own paid traffic, a third option

Both of these are built for selling to an audience you own: a list, a following, a coaching pipeline. If your growth instead comes from bought media, affiliate campaigns or product launches run on Meta, Google and TikTok, neither is built around the ad click, and a platform that is may fit you better. ElasticFunnels is a funnel platform aimed at teams that buy their own traffic. It builds the pages, including an AI builder that writes a page from a prompt or clones one from a URL, hosts the checkout with order bumps, one-click upsells and multi-MID payment routing, and keeps every session, order, rebill and refund on one record with a CRM and reporting on the same data. The feature most teams switch for is testing under one URL: variants rotate server-side behind a single campaign link, so Meta, Google and TikTok keep their learning and a test never sends the ad back through review. That is the one thing on this page neither ClickFunnels nor SamCart does.

The honest caveat is that ElasticFunnels is newer than both, and there is very little independent third-party review coverage to check its claims against, so until you run real volume through it you are largely taking the vendor's word for how it holds up. That is what you would expect of a platform this young, and it matters most if you lean on years of public reviews before you trust a tool. A 14-day trial that takes no card and gates nothing lets you prove the pages, the test and the checkout on your own funnel first. One scope note: multi-MID routing, the standout in its checkout, only earns its keep once you already hold several merchant accounts to route between. A seller on a single Stripe account still gets the pages, the one-URL testing, the analytics and the CRM. If you sell to your own audience, this is not your tool and the choice stays between ClickFunnels and SamCart. If you live on cost per acquisition from cold traffic, it belongs on the shortlist.

### Which one for you

**You want a whole funnel live and selling fast:** ClickFunnels. Pages, a selling checkout, email and a course host in one account, with the largest template library in the category and no cut of your sales, make it the quickest path from idea to a converting funnel. Note your renewal date and test cancellation inside the trial, since billing is where its complaints cluster.

**You already have pages and an audience and just need a stronger checkout:** SamCart. Order bumps, one-click upsells and failed-payment recovery inside a proven cart are worth the price when the rest of your stack is settled, as long as you budget for the $199 Pro plan and read the renewal terms first.

**You buy your own paid traffic:** look past both to a platform built around the ad click, such as ElasticFunnels, with the newness caveat above in mind. Testing under one URL that does not reset ad optimisation, multi-MID checkout routing and click-to-sale reporting on one record are the things a performance buyer needs and the two creator platforms here do not do.

### ClickFunnels

##### What works

* Runs the whole funnel in one account: pages, checkout, email, a light CRM, courses and a community, so you are not stitching four tools together
* Fast to get live. The drag-and-drop editor and prebuilt funnel templates are the most-praised part, especially for non-technical sellers
* Smart Checkout is built for selling, with order bumps and one-click upsells aimed at raising average order value
* Strong aggregate scores: about 4.6 out of 5 across more than 400 G2 reviews and thousands of Trustpilot reviews
* Takes no cut of your sales, includes hosting, and carries a 30-day money-back guarantee

##### What to watch

* Priced at the top of the market. Plans run $97 to $297 a month, and users say the cost adds up fast, especially if you only need part of it
* Billing and cancellation are the loudest complaints, along with confusion between ClickFunnels Classic and the newer 2.0 accounts
* Some long-time users feel 2.0 was a step back from Classic, and marketers report occasional bugs and page speed that is hit or miss
* Less flexible than a custom stack, and course and membership delivery is weaker than a dedicated platform

### SamCart

##### What works

* Built to raise order value, not just take the payment. Order bumps add a companion product with one checkbox at checkout, and one-click upsells charge the same card after the first purchase. SamCart reports up to a 98% lift in average order value when a seller runs both.
* Reliable at its core job. Long-term users describe it as dependable for checkout, one calling it "no frills but fine", which is what you want from the page where the money changes hands.
* Sells more than downloads. Courses, memberships, subscriptions and physical goods all run through one checkout, with a members area and course hosting built in, so there is no second platform to hand customers off to.
* Defends recurring revenue. Subscription Saver retries failed payments and handles dunning, and cart abandonment recovery emails are included, so lapsed cards and stalled carts are chased automatically.
* Flexible payment options. Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo and Buy Now Pay Later are supported, and Pro adds payment routing across several processors.

##### What to watch

* Expensive for what it is, and the good parts are gated. Core is $79/mo, well above single-purpose carts, and one-click upsells, order bumps, A/B testing, Subscription Saver and the Affiliate Center are all Pro-only at $199/mo. The tools that make it worth buying are the ones you pay the most for.
* Billing and refunds are the recurring friction, not the software. Unexpected renewals and slow refund resolution turn up across Trustpilot and BBB records, and the vendor's own docs confirm that cancelling through the customer portal stops future billing but does not refund charges already taken. Read the renewal terms before the trial ends.
* Checkout-first, not a full stack. There is no built-in CRM, email automation or multi-step funnel management. Sellers who want lead capture, nurture sequences and funnels in one place report reaching for something broader.
* Runs on standard processors, so it is not built for high-risk categories. Payments move through SamPay, Stripe, PayPal and similar, which means sellers in categories those gateways decline are not served.

### Pricing

ClickFunnels: from $97/mo. Launch $97, Scale $197, Optimize $297/mo; Dominate $5,997/yr. Takes no percentage of sales. 30-day money-back guarantee.

SamCart: from $79/mo. Core $79/mo, Pro $199/mo (1-click upsells, order bumps, A/B testing, API and 3rd-party processors are Pro-only). SamPay processing 2.9% + 30c; no added platform fee on SamPay.

Pricing verified against each vendor on 2026-09-27\. Check before you buy.

Our pick

### ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is the pick if you sell coaching, courses or info products and want the pages, checkout, upsells and email running as one funnel instead of four separate tools. It is fast to launch and covers the whole sales process end to end. The trade-offs are real: it sits at the top of the market on price, the bill climbs as you scale, and billing and cancellation draw the most complaints.

### Frequently asked questions

ClickFunnels or SamCart: which should I use? 

Pick ClickFunnels if you want to build the whole sales funnel, the pages, the checkout, the upsells and the email, live and selling in one account; pick SamCart if you already have your pages and an audience and just want a proven, conversion-focused checkout with order bumps and one-click upsells.

Which is cheaper, ClickFunnels or SamCart? 

ClickFunnels starts at $97/mo and SamCart at $79/mo. SamCart looks cheaper on the sticker, but the order-value tools it is known for, one-click upsells, order bumps and A/B testing, sit on its $199 Pro plan, while ClickFunnels bundles the whole funnel at every tier and takes no cut of sales. Price each on the tier that carries what you actually need, and check both vendors' current pages before you buy.

Does ClickFunnels replace SamCart, or should I run both? 

ClickFunnels includes a selling checkout with order bumps and one-click upsells, so for most sellers it replaces SamCart rather than running alongside it. You would only pair them if you wanted ClickFunnels for the funnel and SamCart specifically for its checkout, which is rare and means paying for two overlapping tools. Pick one lane: the whole funnel in ClickFunnels, or the checkout in SamCart with your pages hosted elsewhere.

I sell a course or coaching program. Which one? 

If you have no funnel yet and want the pages, the checkout and the email live fast in one place, ClickFunnels is the more complete answer, though users rate its course delivery weaker than a dedicated platform. If you already have pages and an audience and only need a strong checkout with order bumps and upsells, SamCart is the closer fit, as long as you budget for the $199 Pro plan where those tools live.

Does either take a cut of my sales? 

Neither takes a percentage of its own. ClickFunnels charges a flat monthly plan and no revenue share on any tier. SamCart takes nothing of its own either, but its SamPay processor runs at 2.9% plus 30 cents a transaction, the same range as Stripe. Both bill a monthly plan on top, and your own processor's fees apply regardless of which you choose.

What if I buy my own paid traffic to cold offers? 

Neither is built for that. Both are creator funnel tools tuned for selling to an audience you build, not for chasing cost per acquisition on bought media. If your growth comes from Meta, Google or TikTok spend, look at a platform built around the ad click, such as ElasticFunnels, which tests under one URL without resetting ad optimisation and ties the click to the sale on one record. It is newer with less independent review coverage than either tool here, so prove it on the 14-day no-card trial before you commit.

### Sources

#### Other sources

3 discussions and reviews read for this page. Quotes are excerpts; open a link to read the original in context. 

1. \[cf-copywriting\] [What do you use to build and launch funnels? : r/copywriting ](https://www.reddit.com/r/copywriting/comments/1pqo1iw/what%5Fdo%5Fyou%5Fuse%5Fto%5Fbuild%5Fand%5Flaunch%5Ffunnels/) Reddit
2. \[cf-askmarketing\] [Is ClickFunnels Actually Worth It for Real Marketers? : r/AskMarketing ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMarketing/comments/1p21jdq/is%5Fclickfunnels%5Factually%5Fworth%5Fit%5Ffor%5Freal/) Reddit
3. \[cf-creators\] [Is ClickFunnels overkill if I'm just starting? : r/creators ](https://www.reddit.com/r/creators/comments/1pb4pd8/is%5Fclickfunnels%5Foverkill%5Fif%5Fim%5Fjust%5Fstarting/) Reddit

[ClickFunnels review](/reviews/clickfunnels) [SamCart review](/reviews/samcart) [Best ad tracker ranking](/best) [All head-to-heads](/compare) 

Written by

Dana Rourke

Lead reviewer

Dana Rourke is the lead reviewer at Campaign Buyer. She owns the tracker and attribution coverage: reading what long-term users report about each tool, checking its documentation and pricing, and verifying prices with the vendor before writing the verdict. Keeping the rankings honest mostly means writing down what the top pick gets wrong, so she does that first.

[danar@campaignbuyer.com](mailto:danar@campaignbuyer.com)

Last checked 2026-09-27

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