SamCart vs Stan Store 2026: checkout platform or link-in-bio store?

SamCart vs Stan Store looks like an odd match at first, because one is a checkout platform and the other is a store that lives in your Instagram or TikTok bio. But both sell digital products, courses and subscriptions, and both now have order bumps, upsells and affiliates. I set up a full test store in SamCart for my SamCart review. I haven't used Stan Store myself, so everything I say about Stan comes from its own pricing page, help centre and terms, checked in October 2026.

The short answer

If your buyers come from your social bio and you sell digital products, courses, calls or a community, Stan Store is the better deal. Its $29 Creator plan already includes a course builder, bookings, a community and lead magnets. Order bumps, upsell funnels, affiliates and email cost $99 a month on Creator Pro, against $199 on SamCart Pro, which still has no email broadcast tool.

SamCart earns its higher price if your checkout is the business. It gives you more payment processors, AI that drafts your pages, physical products with shipping, A/B testing and Subscription Saver for failed payments. It's the deeper checkout, and you pay for that depth.

What each platform is built for

SamCart was built around the moment someone pays. Over the years it added pages, a course app and AI tools around that checkout, but the checkout is still the product. It expects you to bring traffic, from ads, email or a website, and send it to a page built to convert.

Stan Store was built around the link in your social bio. Your store is a single mobile page with all your products on it, and buyers check out without leaving it. Around that it adds the things a creator sells next: courses, coaching calls, a community, lead magnets and Stan AutoDM, which replies to Instagram comments and messages for you.

One is a checkout you send traffic to. The other is the store in your bio.

That explains most of the rows below. SamCart goes further on payments, page building and recovering revenue. Stan puts more creator tools on its cheaper plan.

Pricing compared

Both have simple plans, and neither has a free plan. These are the current plans, checked against SamCart's pricing page and Stan's own pricing page and help centre in October 2026. For every SamCart fee, see my SamCart pricing guide.

What it costs to get the feature you actually want

The sticker price only tells half the story, because the two put the same features on different plans.

Read the table by the features you would use in your first year. A creator who wants a store with a course and booked calls is comparing Stan Creator at $29 with SamCart Core at $79, and only Stan has the bookings. A seller who wants bumps, upsells and affiliates is comparing Stan Creator Pro at $99 with SamCart Pro at $199.

Free trials and refunds

SamCart gives 7 days on every plan. Its terms say monthly payments aren't refundable, and refunds on annual plans are only considered within 30 days. Stan gives 14 days. You can cancel from your Settings at any time, and Stan's terms say subscription fees are non-refundable. Stan also lets you move between Creator and Creator Pro whenever you like, so I'd start on monthly billing and switch to yearly once you're sure.

What each costs over three years

This is my own sum of the plan fees, at today's yearly prices. I've left card processing out, since you pay Stripe or PayPal on both anyway.

Compare like with like. For a store with a course, Stan Creator against SamCart Core is $900 against $2,130 over three years. For bumps, upsells and affiliates, Stan Creator Pro against SamCart Pro is $2,844 against $5,370.

Transaction fees and sales tax

SamCart takes no percentage of your sales. SamPay, its built-in processor that runs on Stripe, charges 2.9% plus 30 cents per sale.

Stan takes 0% too, and says so on its homepage. You pay Stripe or PayPal directly. For US sellers on Stripe, Stan's help centre lists 2.9% plus $0.30 per sale, 1.5% more for international customers, 0.5% more on recurring payments and a payout fee of 0.25% plus $0.25 per payout. Afterpay costs 6% plus $0.30 and Klarna 5.99% plus $0.30. PayPal is 3.49% plus a fixed fee. Stan pays out when you cash out, with a $10 minimum, and you cash out your whole balance at once.

On tax, SamCart collects sales tax for 0.5% of the transaction on Core and 0.35% on Pro. In my account, tax setup works region by region, starting with the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom or the European Union. Stan uses Stripe Tax, which only works when Stripe is connected, in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway and the EU. Stan's help page doesn't list its own fee for it. Neither one is a merchant of record, so filing and paying tax stays with you on both.

Checkout pages and page building

If you sell from a sales page rather than a bio link, SamCart has the better tools. I typed a short description of my demo course and its AI Assistant gave me a product and a full sales page to edit, so I never started from a blank screen. The checkout templates already look finished. Core has a limit on AI use, Pro doesn't.

Stan works the other way around. Your products sit on one mobile storefront, and each product gets its own checkout or landing page inside that store. It's built to be quick on a phone rather than to be a long sales page. Stan's plan pages don't list an AI page builder, and I haven't built in Stan, so the 14 day trial is the place to judge its pages.

Payments and processors

Every SamCart plan takes payments through SamPay, Stripe or PayPal. SamPay is the one that brings Apple Pay, Google Pay and buy now pay later through Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay. On Pro you can also connect Braintree, Authorize.net or Easy Pay Direct. In my account, PayPal stayed locked until I added a marketplace address, so do that first if you want it.

Stan connects to Stripe and PayPal. Afterpay and Klarna run through Stripe, and Stan lists Stan Payments, Afterpay and Klarna on Creator Pro. Buyer refunds are full refunds only, and Stripe keeps its processing fee on a refund. SamCart lets you refund part of an order.

Order bumps, upsells, and order value

Both now offer the two classic order value tools: an order bump on the checkout and an upsell after the purchase. The difference is which plan you need, and how far each one goes.

SamCart keeps order bumps, one-click upsells and A/B testing on Pro. To try it, I added a $9 swipe file as a bump on my $27 demo course. Buyers see it as a box to tick below the card form, and setting it up was one short form. My account has no processor connected, so I checked it in a test mode preview, not a real purchase.

The upsell after checkout works the same way. I picked the course, chose a $47 templates upgrade as the next offer and could add a cheaper downsell for anyone who skips it. Since September 2026 SamCart can also change the next offer based on what the buyer just bought.

On Stan, order bumps and Funnels are Creator Pro features. A funnel starts with an entry offer and then shows upsell or downsell pages depending on whether the buyer purchases or skips. Stan's help centre is clear about the limits, though. You get one order bump per product, the bump has to be a paid digital download, course or one-time community product, subscriptions can't be bumps, and bumps don't work inside funnels.

What you can sell: courses, bookings and community

SamCart includes its Courses App on every plan, Core included. I built a demo course with two units, three lessons and a quiz with a 50% pass mark, and turned on drip so lessons unlock over time. It also sells physical products with shipping, which Stan doesn't. What I didn't find in my Pro account is a bookings tool or a community. SamCart's site describes Calendar Bookings as a beta, but it isn't in my account, so I don't count it here.

Stan's $29 Creator plan lists an unlimited course builder, calendar and booking tools for coaching calls, community creation, recurring subscriptions and lead magnets. That covers most of what a creator sells, all from one storefront. Stan's own help centre says it only supports digital products, so physical goods are out.

Email and audience tools

SamCart doesn't include an email broadcast tool. It collects your customers and connects to your email platform, so you still pay for one separately.

Stan has more here. Creator includes lead magnets with email collection and Stan AutoDM, which answers Instagram comments and messages automatically. Creator Pro adds email broadcasts and flows, contact import and tracking pixels for Meta, Google, Pinterest and TikTok. If you build an audience on social media, that's one less tool to pay for.

Subscriptions and failed payments

Both handle subscriptions and memberships. The difference is what happens when a card fails. SamCart Pro has Subscription Saver, which retries failed payments and emails the customer to update their card. In my test account it's a single screen of settings.

Stan lists recurring subscriptions on Creator and payment plans on Creator Pro. Its plan pages don't list a tool for recovering failed payments, so if a lot of your income is recurring, check that in the trial.

Affiliate programs

You need the higher plan for affiliates on both, SamCart Pro or Stan Creator Pro, which makes an affiliate program $100 a month cheaper on Stan.

SamCart's Affiliate Center tracks commissions, but SamCart doesn't pay them. You export what's owed and pay affiliates yourself. In my account I set a 30% commission on the demo course, and new products start at 0% until you change them.

Stan's version is called Affiliate Share. You turn it on per product and set a commission, and everyone who buys that product gets their own affiliate link to resell it. Stan tracks the sales, and affiliates cash out their earnings in Stan after a hold of 7 business days. It only works on digital products, and not on products inside an order bump or a funnel.

Ease of use

In SamCart, getting from nothing to a working checkout was quick. I made a product, a checkout, a bump and an upsell in one sitting, one screen after another, and the AI wrote the first draft of the page. The hard part isn't the setup, it's the price, because the tools I used most are on the $199 plan.

I can't give you a hands-on verdict on Stan's ease of use, because I haven't built in it. It's designed to be simple, with one storefront and products you add to it, and the 14 day trial is long enough to find out for yourself.

Can Stan Store replace SamCart?

For creators who sell digital products from social media, yes. Stan covers the store, checkout, courses, bookings, community, bumps, upsells, affiliates and email for less than SamCart Pro. The things you would give up are SamCart's extra processors, physical products, A/B testing, partial refunds, AI page building and Subscription Saver.

The reverse works if your checkout is the business and you already have an email tool. Either way, switching means rebuilding your products, checkouts and funnels on the new platform. Running both rarely makes sense, because they overlap on almost everything you'd use.

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 most of your buyers come from the link in your social bio? If yes, take Stan Store. If they come from ads, email or your own website, take SamCart. If you're also weighing a cheaper checkout, my SamCart vs ThriveCart comparison covers that choice.

Common questions