Samcart vs Ultracart: Which eCommerce Platform is Better?

Last Updated on April 22, 2023 by Ewen Finser

If you’re looking for the best eCommerce platform but you can’t decide which one to go for, our SamCart vs UltraCart comparison could help you out.

SamCart vs UltraCart is great for eCommerce. They offer a lot of features, including marketing tools like upsells and coupons, great reporting, good customer support, and more. The question is – which one is better?

My Bottom Line Up Front Summary: Both are great platforms, but it depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re new to eCommerce or you’re a small business, I’d recommend checking out SamCart. If you’re a larger business or you want more advanced shopping cart customization options, I’d go with UltraCart.

Read on for the full analysis of how these two platforms compare in depth.

Main Differences between SamCart vs UltraCart

The Main Differences between SamCart vs Ultracart are:

• SamCart is not as customizable, whereas UltraCart is highly customizable.
• SamCart has a fairly easy learning curve, whereas UltraCart requires a little more technical knowledge.
• SamCart doesn’t offer a free plan for developers, whereas UltraCart does.
• SamCart is generally a bit easier to navigate, whereas UltraCart can be a little overwhelming.
• SamCart is better for those new to using an eCommerce platform, whereas UltraCart is better suited for larger, more established businesses with a developer on their team.

The main thing to consider is whether you want advanced customization or not. SamCart does offer customization, but UltraCart is more flexible. Developers will appreciate the free plan, as well as the freedom that comes with being able to dive into CSS and HTML.

However, it has to be said, UltraCart is more confusing to navigate, less visually pleasing, and has a higher learning curve. If you don’t care about being able to play around with code and you just want to get going quickly, you may prefer SamCart.

SamCart vs UltraCart – the Similarities

There are a lot of similarities here, including:

• Both offer a lot of help and support
• They are similarly priced
• They both offer a free trial
• They both offer similar marketing features including upsells

Let’s take a look at them both in more detail.

What is SamCart?

SamCart is an online shopping cart platform. Users can create product pages using customizable templates. It offers a lot of payment options for customers, including payment installations and monthly subscriptions.

What is UltraCart?

UltraCart is a shopping cart platform. It is incredibly customizable and will work well if you have a developer on your team to deal with some of the more advanced features it has to offer.

SamCart – the Main Features

So, how does SamCart work?

User Experience

You can sign up for a free trial of SamCart. While we had technical problems in starting a free trial, these were dealt with quickly with some help from the support team.

There were a couple of moments when some tools and pages took a long time to load, which is a shame. However, generally, the platform is easy to navigate and is fairly beginner-friendly.

You can see an overview of your gross sales straight away, as well as recent activity on the right-hand side.

Product Pages

Product pages are easy to set up. You can quickly add basic information – product URL, product name, images, tags, etc – and you can upload your digital products to be downloaded.

Each product has a checkout page. You can choose from SamCart’s templates:

The templates are pretty basic, we will say that. They don’t look as stylish or up-to-date as UltraCart’s templates. They can be customized, but again, the level of customization is fairly limited in comparison to UltraCart. You can change font colors and add logos, bullet-point lists, and custom sections using a basic text editor.

Shopping Cart

SamCart uses Stripe and PayPal, which is great, as it allows customers to choose from a range of payment types, including credit and debit cards. They can also pay using Apple or Google Pay.

You can add upsells to each product, attaching products as part of a ‘deal’ to increase the value of each order. You can even design an upsell funnel, allowing you to visualize the process your customer will take to get to the checkout. You can also offer ‘downsells’ to tempt customers who may be on the cusp of backing out of an order.

You can run split tests using SamCart, allowing you to design two product pages to see which version performs the best. This can boost conversion rates, allowing you to optimize your product pages to improve their performance.

SamCart allows you to sell subscription-based products, which can be customized (for example you can offer free trials).

They also have a subscription saver tool, designed to recover payments from your customers if their card expires. This is done automatically, so you won’t have to think about it. SamCart will send out an email to your customer, with a secure link. This will enable them to quickly input their card information, saving them (and you) time and hassle. This is locked behind a higher payment plan, which is worth bearing in mind.

Activity

You can view orders in the ‘Activity’ area, which allows you to access information about orders, subscriptions, and customers. If you need to process a refund or manually input an order, this is the place to go.

Reports

SamCart has pretty good reporting, breaking down sales, refunded products, upsell funnel sales, subscriptions, and more. You can also view how well the Subscription Saver feature is performing.

There is also the handy ‘Prospects’ section, holding information about customers who did not complete the checkout process. You can view the product they were going to buy, the date of their potential purchase, and their contact details. You can follow up with this customer yourself if you want to, for example, by offering a discount or coupon for that product or letting them know about a similar product at a lower price.

Affiliates

SamCart has an affiliate center if you choose the Premium Plan. You can create a sign-up page for new affiliates, set up automatic approvals for new affiliates, and set cookie length and commission rates. This is super easy to do, even if you’re unfamiliar with using affiliates.

You can view how well your new affiliates are performing on the Affiliate Dashboard. This makes it easy to keep an eye on things.

Integrations

SamCart has a lot of integrations, including:

• ShipStation
• Klaviyo
• WordPress
• Zapier
• Stripe
• PayPal
• Thinkific
• MailChimp
• Drip
• Constant Contact
• ActiveCampaign

UltraCart – the Main Features

Let’s see what UltraCart has to offer.

User Experience

It’s very easy to sign up for a free trial of UltraCart, and you don’t need to input any card details to get going.

The dashboard itself is fairly intuitive. It’s easy to navigate, and it has a ‘Getting Started’ guide that helps you to get going quickly. You can also arrange widgets on the Dashboard, so you can find all the information you need at a glance every time you log in.

UltraCart has a moderate learning curve. It’s not particularly beginner-friendly, and you may find using the platform to be a bit of a pain at times. It’s highly customizable, which is great, but it may feel a bit overwhelming if you’d rather keep things simple.

Storefront

There are three options available: you can choose a full storefront, a checkout page, or a checkout page for WordPress.

There are several themes to choose from. The themes are highly customizable – you can change almost everything, and you can even edit the CSS if you want to. If you want the ability to create a unique storefront, you’ll get that with UltraCart. The downside of this level of customization is that it can feel a bit overwhelming if you’re not into HTML or CSS, but you don’t need to know this to change things up – and the templates look great before customization anyway.

The page builder is not that intuitive. Rather than having a drag-and-drop builder, you have to edit each page using the menu above. It feels a bit cluttered and confusing, and not particularly nice to look at – it feels a bit like a chore going through each page to add content. The good news is, you can easily add meta titles and descriptions, and you can save and preview your pages at any time.

You can add embeddable ‘buy buttons’ onto your existing website. This allows your customers to quickly jump to a checkout page, and it makes it really easy for them to complete the process. If you already have a website set up and you just need a checkout page that will integrate with it, UltraCart could work well for you.

Products

You can add products within the ‘Getting Started’ section of the Dashboard, or you can go to the ‘Items’ section.

It’s easy to add products. You can upload images, give each item an ID number, set the pricing, weight, title, etc.

The item manager allows you to see an overview of your products. You can also use the search bar to find an item quickly, which is helpful if you have a lot of products to look through.

You can sort digital delivery settings here (if you sell digital products), add discounts or pricing tiers, add other options or variants, and set related items, which will show similar products to your customers as they browse.

Customers can leave reviews for products, which you can have displayed on your product page. This is a great way to encourage new customers to buy.

Shopping Cart

Customers can pay using PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, credit card, debit card, and more.

You can set up gift certificates and discounts, set up shipping options, and enable single-page checkout. This makes it really easy for customers to complete their purchases. It has an abandoned cart recovery tool to chase up abandoned orders, too.

Customers can set up a profile if they want to enable this. This allows them to view their purchases, leave reviews, and store their credit card information for the next time.

Orders can be viewed in the ‘order life cycle’ section. This allows you to view current orders and pre-orders, manually add orders, manage refunds and shipping, and more.

Reporting

You can run reports for any time period in a variety of categories, including abandoned leads, email campaigns, item sales, landing page hits, upsells, coupon usage, and more. The report automatically converts to an Excel spreadsheet, which you can download and share.

The dashboard offers you a good overview of your sales, expenses, and more. This is a nice visual guide, and it makes it easy to track vital information.

Affiliates

If you want to have affiliated for your store, you can do this with UltraCart. Again, this is highly customizable. You can set up welcome messages for new affiliates, set cookie lengths, set pay dates for commissions, and choose to automatically approve new affiliates. There’s a lot to do here, and you can run reports on your affiliates at any time.

Integrations

There are a lot of integrations available for UltraCart, including:

• Intuit Quickbooks
• HubSpot
• InfusionSoft
• Ontraport
• SalesForce
• Constant Contact
• MailChimp
• Amazon
• eBay
• Authorize.net

SamCart vs UltraCart – Support

Let’s see how they compare in terms of support.

SamCart

SamCart offers a knowledge base with some basic tutorials and articles about products, the checkout process, integrations, settings, etc.

The support team is friendly and helpful – in the past when I have contacted them, they have replied within the same working day despite me not qualifying for priority support. They were very helpful and resolved my issues quickly.

UltraCart

UltraCart has a lot of help and documentation, especially for developers. If you want to take advantage of some of the Pro Services, including advanced customization, you’ll find a lot of tutorials and FAQs to help.

If you need further support, you can contact UltraCart by sending a request from their website, call their phone support team, email them, or contact them on Skype. The support team is helpful and friendly.

SamCart vs UltraCart – Pricing Compared

How do they compare in terms of pricing?

SamCart Pricing

 

There are three payment plans for SamCart.

Launch – $49/month

This includes:

• Unlimited pages and products
• Unlimited templates
• Drag and drop template builder
• Full template library
• Advanced subscriptions
• Email customizations
• Custom domains
• Digital product delivery
• Smart pixel tracking
• ‘Pay What You Want
• Sales and VAT Tax Support
• Free SSL Certificate
• Apple and Google Pay
• Custom Thank You Pages
• SamCart Branding
• Free and Paid Trials
• 1 Admin User
• Dashboard and Sales Report
• Email Support (2-Day Response Time)

Grow – $99/month

This includes everything in the Launch plan, plus:

• Custom Checkout Fields
• Order Bump Collections
• Post-Purchase Upsells
• Multiple Payment Methods
• 3 Admin Users
• UTM Tracking and Marketing Reporting
• Advanced Reporting
• Customer Management
• Subscription Charge Reminder
• Advanced Subscription Cancellations
• SamCart Onboarding
• Email Support (1 Day Response)

Scale – $199/month

This includes everything in the Grow plan, plus:

• 10 Admin Users
• Admin User Roles
• Cart Abandonment
• Built-in AB Testing
• Affiliate Center
• Subscription Saver
• CRM Integrations
• Custom Integrations
• Email Support (Priority Response)

They offer a 14-day free trial. You can find out more on their pricing page.

UltraCart Pricing

UltraCart has three tiers, each with different price plans.

The Growing Business Plans are:

Small – $49.95/month

• Up to $50k revenue per month
• 1 Storefront
• Single Page Checkout
• UltraCard payment rates at 2.90% + 0.30c
• Up to 250 products
• Many features including upsells, coupons, and customer profiles
• Email and phone support

Medium – $79.95/month

• Up to $100k revenue per month
• 5 Storefronts
• Single Page Checkouts
• REST API Checkout
• UltraCard payment rates at 2.85% + 0.30c
• Up to 1000 products
• Many features including upsells, coupons, and customer profiles
• Email, phone, and priority support

Large – $229.95/month

• Up to $250k revenue per month
• 10 Storefronts
• Single Page Checkouts
• REST API Checkout
• UltraCard payment rates at 2.80% + 0.30c
• Up to 10000 products
• Many features including upsells, coupons, and customer profiles
• Email, phone, and priority support

Then there are the Enterprise and Developer plans.

Enterprise – $499.95/month

• Up to $500k revenue per month
• 25 Storefronts
• UltraCard payment rates 2.70% + 30c
• Up to 250000 products
• All marketing and product features
• All integrations

Developers – Free

If you’re a developer looking to create storefronts for your clients, you can use UltraCart’s platform for free. If your client likes it, they can pay the standard UltraCart fees to gain access to their new store.

You can try out UltraCart’s free trial if you want to test it first – find out more on their pricing page.

SamCart vs UltraCart – Pros and Cons

Let’s take a look at the best and worst bits of each platform:

SamCart

Pros

• Beginner-friendly
• Easy to navigate
• Create products easily
• Lots of payment configurations available
• Useful marketing features

Cons

• Can be a little slow to load at times

UltraCart

Pros

• Highly customizable
• Many payment options for customers
• Marketing features including upsells and abandoned cart recovery
• Attractive storefront templates
• Plenty of integrations with other platforms

Cons

• Steeper learning curve
• Not that attractive to look at – can feel overwhelming at times

SamCart and UltraCart Alternatives to Try

If you want to keep looking, there are a lot of other great platforms out there:

• ThriveCart: Very similar to SamCart. In fact, I’d argue it’s the top competitor. Worth checking out and considering further here.
• Shopify – We’d recommend checking out Shopify, especially if you’re new to eCommerce or you want to get up and running quickly. You can customize your Shopify store using integrations and plugins. 
• Kartra – Kartra has a secure shopping cart, and it has a pretty easy learning curve. The storefront templates are attractive and stylish. Check out our Kartra review for more info.
• Cratejoy – aimed at subscription-based businesses, Cratejoy allows you to sell subscriptions and advertise them in Cratejoy’s marketplace. It’s a simple platform if you want to focus just on subscription boxes.

SamCart Compared to Other Checkout Software Alternatives

• SamCart vs Kartra Compared
• SamCart vs Shopify Compared
• SamCart vs Leadpages Compared
• SamCart vs Clickfunnels Compared
• SamCart vs ThriveCart Compared

UltraCart Versus Other Checkout Software Options

• UltraCart vs ThriveCart Compared

FAQs

To Sum Up – Which is the Winner?

It’s a tricky one because it depends on what you want. But, if I had to pick one, I’d go with SamCart today. I like SamCart because it’s fairly easy to use. The marketing tools are easy to understand but could make a real difference in your sales. We like that you can access potential leads, and we think that the customer support team is very responsive and helpful.

However, UltraCart is also great. It has so much to offer in terms of customization, and would particularly suit medium-to-large eCommerce businesses. If you want to slot new checkout pages into your existing website, UltraCart is excellent.

Bottom Line Up Front Summary: Both are great platforms, but it depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re new to eCommerce or you’re a small business, I’d recommend checking out SamCart. If you’re a larger business or you want more advanced shopping cart customization options, I’d go with UltraCart.

If you’ve tried either one, let us know in the comments – do you like it? What could be improved? We’d love to hear your thoughts.