SamCart vs ClickFunnels 2026: checkout specialist or full funnel builder?

SamCart vs ClickFunnels looks like a straight price fight, $79 against $97. It is not. One is a checkout that grew some page tools, the other is a funnel builder with a checkout inside it, and the features most sellers actually want sit on different plans on each side. I have tested both, and this compares them section by section with prices checked against both pricing pages in October 2026. Whichever way round you are weighing them up, ClickFunnels vs SamCart or SamCart vs ClickFunnels, it ends with a plain answer on who each one is for.

The short answer

If you sell digital products or subscriptions and the part you want to improve is the checkout itself, SamCart is the more focused tool. It handles payment options, subscription billing, failed payment recovery, and post-purchase offers well, and it plugs into the website and email platform you already use.

If you are starting from nothing, or you want one login for pages, email, checkout, and course delivery, ClickFunnels is the better fit. It builds the whole journey, from the opt-in page to the follow up email to the upsell, and its entry plan already covers order bumps and one-click upsells. The one catch is automation: email broadcasts come with Launch, but automated follow-up sequences need Scale.

What each platform is built for

SamCart was built around the moment someone pays. Its core is the checkout: the payment form, the price options, the order bump on the page, and the offer that appears after the purchase. Over time it added sales pages, opt-in pages, a course app, and AI design tools, but the product still assumes your marketing happens elsewhere and the buyer arrives at SamCart ready to pay.

ClickFunnels was built around the journey before the payment. A funnel in ClickFunnels is a sequence of pages, usually an opt-in, a sales page, a checkout, an upsell, and a thank you page, with email and contact records running underneath. The checkout is one step in that sequence rather than the whole product.

One sells at the till. The other builds the whole shop.

That difference explains almost every row in the comparison below. SamCart goes deeper on payments and subscriptions. ClickFunnels goes wider on pages, email, and everything that brings the buyer to the checkout in the first place.

Pricing compared

Both companies have reworked their plans, and a lot of comparisons online still quote the old ones. These are the current plans, checked against both pricing pages in October 2026. For every SamCart fee and real monthly bills, see our SamCart pricing guide.

On sticker price SamCart wins the entry level, and paying yearly widens the gap: Core works out at about $59 a month against about $81 for ClickFunnels Launch. That is the comparison most articles stop at, and it is misleading, because the two entry plans do not include the same things.

What it costs to get the feature you actually want

The better question is which plan you need on each side for the features you plan to use. This is where the order of the two platforms flips.

Read the table by the features you would use in your first year, not by the first row. A seller who wants a checkout with an order bump and an upsell is comparing SamCart Pro at $199 with ClickFunnels Launch at $97, not $79 with $97. A seller who wants an affiliate program is comparing SamCart Pro at $199 with ClickFunnels Optimize at $297, and SamCart becomes the cheaper option again.

Transaction and processing fees

Neither platform takes a percentage of your sales on its standard setup. SamCart says there is no added platform fee on SamPay, its own processor, or on Stripe and PayPal, and lists a SamPay and Stripe rate of 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction on Core and Pro. If you use SamCart's tax collection, it charges 0.5% of the transaction on Core and 0.35% on Pro.

Pro also lets you connect Braintree, Authorize.net, or Easy Pay Direct. SamCart currently charges no extra platform fee for these and says it will give notice if that changes, so check the terms if a third-party processor is part of your plan.

ClickFunnels states plainly that it takes no percentage of your sales. You pay your payment processor its normal rate, whether that is Stripe connected directly or a gateway connected through Payments AI, ClickFunnels' payment layer.

Free trials and refunds

SamCart gives 7 days on every plan. ClickFunnels gives 14 days, and its pricing page adds a 30 day money-back guarantee after that. If you want to build a real funnel and put a test purchase through it before paying, ClickFunnels gives you more room to do it.

Checkout and payments

This is SamCart's home ground. Its checkout pages, which it calls CheckoutOS, are built to be fast and mobile first, and the payment options are broad: cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Venmo, and Buy Now Pay Later. For a high-ticket offer, being able to split the payment at checkout without a separate tool is a real advantage. It also sells physical goods and services as well as digital products, all on the same checkout.

ClickFunnels' checkout is good and it is smart in a useful way. It recognises returning customers so they do not re-enter their details, and it can offer an upgrade or downgrade when someone already has an active subscription. Payments run through Stripe directly or through Payments AI, which supports its own gateway plus Stripe, PayPal, and NMI, and you can turn on methods such as Apple Pay and PayPal there.

Where the gap shows is in the details. SamCart has more payment methods out of the box and more processor choice on Pro. ClickFunnels gives you a checkout that is perfectly capable, but the checkout is not where it puts most of its effort.

Order bumps, upsells, and order value

Both platforms offer the two classic order value tools: an order bump on the checkout page and a one-click upsell after the purchase. How you get them is different.

On SamCart, 1-click upsells, order bumps, and upgrades are listed as Pro features in SamCart's own plan guide. Core does not include them. So if these tools are the reason you are looking at SamCart, budget for $199 a month rather than $79.

On ClickFunnels, order bumps and one-click upsell pages are documented as standard parts of building a funnel. You mark a product as an order bump on the checkout step, and the upsell page charges the card from the first purchase without the buyer typing it again. ClickFunnels' pricing page does not list either one as a higher-plan feature, and its help centre treats them as a standard part of every funnel, so they come with Launch.

SamCart's tools are polished and simple to set up once you are on Pro, and its A/B testing covers prices and offers as well as pages. ClickFunnels gets you the same core tools for less money, which for a new seller is the bigger point.

Funnels and pages

ClickFunnels is a funnel builder first, and it shows. You get unlimited funnels, unlimited landing pages, a website and blog builder, and a large template library, so an opt-in page, a sales page, and a thank you page can share one design and one flow. Launch includes 5 custom domains, and Scale and above include unlimited domains.

SamCart now includes pages too: sales pages, simple sites, link-in-bio pages, and opt-in pages, with an AI page designer that drafts a layout and copy from a description of your product. For a single offer with a sales page and a checkout, that is enough, and it is quick.

The difference is in multi-step sequences. If your plan is a lead magnet, a three email nurture, a webinar registration, and then a sale, ClickFunnels is designed for exactly that and keeps every step in one place. Budget for Scale if you want that nurture to send itself, because Automations are not on Launch. SamCart can host the pages, but the nurture in the middle happens in your email tool.

Email, CRM, and automation

ClickFunnels includes email marketing on every plan. Launch covers 10,000 contacts and 50,000 emails a month, Scale covers 75,000 contacts and 300,000 emails, and Optimize covers 150,000 contacts and 750,000 emails. Launch also includes one CRM pipeline. Automations, the workflows that send a sequence when someone opts in or buys, start on Scale at $197 a month, so on Launch you are sending broadcasts rather than automated follow ups. On Scale and above, a lead can opt in, get a sequence, and buy without leaving the platform.

SamCart sends the emails a store needs: order receipts, refund notices, subscription and failed payment emails, and cart abandonment follow ups. It does not present a broadcast or sequence builder for marketing to your list. Instead, it connects to email platforms, such as Drip, through its Integration Engine, with rules that add or remove buyers from lists when they purchase.

If you already pay for an email platform you like, SamCart's approach is fine and keeps your list where it is. If you do not, ClickFunnels saves you a second subscription, and that changes the price comparison above.

Courses and memberships

Both platforms host courses, and for both it is a supporting feature rather than the main event.

SamCart includes its Course App and members area on every plan. SamCart's own course page says you can create as many courses as you want with no limit on students, which is generous at $79 a month.

ClickFunnels counts courses by plan: 3 on Launch, 6 on Scale, 10 on Optimize, and 20 on Dominate, with the same number of communities. For most sellers three courses is plenty, but a catalogue business would hit that limit quickly.

If courses are the core of your business rather than an add-on to a product, both of these lose to a dedicated course platform, and that is worth knowing before you choose either.

Subscriptions and failed payments

If you sell memberships or monthly products, this section matters more than its length suggests, because failed card payments quietly cost subscription businesses a share of revenue every month.

SamCart's Pro plan includes Subscription Saver, which retries failed payments and emails the customer to update their card before the subscription lapses. Pro also adds a customer portal where subscribers can update their card and manage their own subscription without contacting you.

ClickFunnels supports subscription products, upgrades, and downgrades, and has a customer center on every plan. It does not list a dedicated failed payment recovery feature on its pricing page, so if dunning matters to you, check how your payment processor handles retries.

Affiliate programs

Running your own affiliate program, where partners promote your product for a commission, is available on both platforms. On SamCart the Affiliate Center comes with Pro at $199 a month, and Enterprise adds multi-tier affiliates. On ClickFunnels the Affiliate Center starts on Optimize at $297 a month.

For a launch-driven business that relies on partners, that $98 monthly difference is the clearest price win SamCart has in the whole comparison.

AI tools

Both platforms now include AI on every plan, which some older comparisons miss. SamCart has an AI assistant plus AI designers for pages, documents such as ebooks and lead magnets, and marketing assets. Its pricing page lists AI usage as limited on Core and unlimited on Pro.

ClickFunnels includes an AI funnel builder, AI coaching, and AI writing tools measured in words: 1 million on Launch, 2 million on Scale, 5 million on Optimize, and 10 million on Dominate.

SamCart's AI leans further into creating the product itself, such as drafting an ebook or course outline. ClickFunnels' AI leans towards building funnels and copy. Neither is a reason on its own to choose one platform over the other.

Ease of use

SamCart is the easier of the two because it does less. Setting up a product, a checkout, and a sales page is a short, linear job, and the AI page designer shortens it further.

ClickFunnels takes longer to learn because there is more of it. Funnels, pages, email, automations, products, and courses are all separate areas, and connecting them properly is where new users spend their first week. The 14 day trial is long enough to get through that if you use it seriously.

Can you use SamCart and ClickFunnels together?

Yes, and some sellers do. A common setup is to build the opt-in pages, email nurture, and sales pages in ClickFunnels, then send buyers to a SamCart checkout for the payment, subscriptions, and payment recovery.

It works, but you are paying for two platforms that overlap on checkout and upsells, and you split your customer data between them. For most sellers, picking the one that matches their main bottleneck is the cheaper and simpler choice. The pairing makes sense mainly for established businesses where checkout and subscription revenue are large enough to justify the extra subscription.

Which should you choose?

Match your situation to the row that fits best.

If none of those rows fits cleanly, use one question as the tie breaker: do you already have a website and an email platform you are happy with? If yes, SamCart slots into what you have. If no, ClickFunnels replaces the pieces you would otherwise have to buy.

Common questions