If you tend to write about digital marketing, eCommerce, and other such topics on your blog, becoming a Samcart affiliate might be a good way of diversifying your passive income.
This service can be utilized for the creation of sales funnels and other shopping extras that people need when managing online stores. In today’s article, we’re looking at absolutely everything you should know about the Samcart affiliate program, from the commissions you can expect to how hard it is to join it.
We’ve seen the same model in some other tools that we have tested in the past, but the thing that makes Samcart stand out from the crowd is that it is specifically designed for people who want to build eCommerce sites and sell through them.
The nice thing about the platform is that it makes it a breeze for users to sell anything from consulting services and eBooks to online courses and a variety of other products.
With Samcart, you can both build product pages and landing pages, but you can also add a variety of cart functionalities. The drag and drop page builder definitely takes the hassle out of the entire process, and the fact that the tool comes with a 14-day trial allows people to test out its features before deciding to commit to a monthly subscription.
The pricing depends on the exact type of plan people choose. What we mean by this is that the monthly plan is a little more expensive compared to the yearly one. In fact, there’s a 20% discount for folks who decide to get billed for the entire year instead of having to pay for Samcart each month.
There are three main plans with different features. The Launch one costs $49 and is the most basic of all. The second one is far more generous by comparison and although it does set back users by $99 per month, it has plenty of functionalities from UTM tracking and a built-in SEO engine to heaps of payment options, checkout fields, and all sorts of product page features, too.
The biggest one costs $199 a month and is obviously necessary for stores that get hundreds of orders every month. This plan comes with the same features of the middle one, Grow, and includes several additional ones such as A/B testing and more.
From what we’ve noticed, Samcart services are slightly more expensive than those offered by some of the brand’s competitors.
To date, there is no affiliate network managing the affiliate program, which means that you will have to create an application on the company website. As it is to be expected, there are some requests and basic questions that you will have to answer to the best of your ability.
You will typically get your answer in a period of less than a week, although if things get busy, you might have to wait for a bit more.
The packages that we have previously mentioned and shortly described are the obvious products that you can promote as a Samcart affiliate.
It is also worth noting that the brand has a masterclass that aims at teaching people how to build their sales funnels. This feature comes with a 12-month access to Samcart itself, which means that people are not only going to be paying for the training, but also the product.
One thing that we didn’t like off the bat is that the brand doesn’t actually offer any type of promotional materials whatsoever. While some of its competitors do this, which means that even affiliates whose technical skills aren’t excellent can easily promote their services, Samcart does not.
The only thing that you can get as an affiliate is your affiliate link to the webinars or the paid packages. You can then share this with your audience through your own website, your social media following, through YouTube, or any other type of content you create.
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This is perhaps one of the main reasons you are using affiliate marketing in the first place — meaning that you want to make a living off of recommending products to people.
Well, the good thing is that the commission rate you can expect from the Samcart affiliate program is actually worth writing home about. And the reason we are saying this is that you can earn as much as 40% out of every qualifying order.
To make things even better, this is not a one-time commission, either. Every month, when people pay for their monthly plan, you get another 40% of the value of their subscription.
We’ve seen this recurring commission model in other affiliate programs that we have reviewed in the past, but we will say that keeping the same rate as the initial one is quite out of the ordinary. Lots of other programs give you a bigger share at first and then the recurring one is like 10% or 20% out of the continuing monthly payments.
To make a simple calculation, if someone picks the middle plan, called Grow, they’ll pay almost $100 per month. That means that you get a commission of $39.60 for their first payment, but you get paid the same rate for every month they continue to pay for their subscription.
There’s Samcart affiliate tracking in your Samcart affiliate dashboard, where you can check out all the information you might want to know – such as your number of conversions. This will all help you improve your performance.
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Something that we have found quite interesting about this program is that it strictly pays its affiliates through PayPal. So, if you are unlucky enough to have had your PayPal account deleted for one reason or the other, you’ll basically have no means of getting your money.
There is a payout threshold that you need to reach before being able to receive your earnings — $100. It might be a bit high, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary.
However, it’s also worth adding that a 45-day waiting period is necessary before your commissions get approved. This is mandatory because there is a 30-day money back guarantee for Samcart services.
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There are both advantages and disadvantages when it comes to using Samcart for affiliate marketing. First of all, if you become a Samcart affiliate, you will be able to generate recurring commissions, no matter the value — and this can be quite reassuring if your blog is relatively successful.
Just having 10 people with the Grow monthly plan can make you approximately $400 a month in passive income. And that’s without you making an extra effort.
Then, there’s the obvious advantage of promoting a product that’s actually worth the money. There aren’t too many complaints about Samcart online, which is something you’ll see if you do a bit of research yourself. The builder is very easy to work with so much that it can’t be considered work.
On top of everything, people can benefit from a free trial before committing to a monthly expense. This is definitely an advantage because it makes the product easier to recommend for you.
Unfortunately, there are also some cons that we have to address. Perhaps the most significant one is that Samcart doesn’t have too many creative marketing materials. In fact, the only one that you get to benefit from is the affiliate link, so you will be in charge of creating your own banners and any other extras you might want to utilize.
This can be slightly off-putting for people who do not have a lot of experience with image editing software, even Canva. It’s just an extra amount of work that can be handled by an affiliate network, and since Samcart doesn’t seem to have affiliate managers, either, that’s another potential con.
Some affiliates are apparently bothered by the fact that Samcart retains the earnings for a period of one month and a half. We’ve already explained why that happens — the 30-day money back guarantee is at the root of the issue but you also have to understand that it’s one of Samcart’s selling points since people are more confident in trying out the product and even paying for it if they know that they can get a full refund if they don’t like it.
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We’ve written a separate review of the ClickFunnels affiliate program, so we suggest you read it if you have some time on your hands. But just to make a comparison between the two, we will admit that Samcart’s commission rate is better.
ClickFunnels pays its affiliates a 20% commission on regular subscription plans, and while it can increase to 40%, it’s not something that affiliates can earn off the bat, as is the case with Samcart.
Another possible reason to skip ClickFunnels if you want to choose between the two is that ClickFunnels actually pays its affiliates after a waiting period lasting for 60 days, not 45 (like Samcart). On the other hand, there are quite a bit more payment methods currently used by ClickFunnels, including local transfers and cheques.
This one is slightly better compared to ClickFunnels in that it pays its affiliates a commission of 30% on all qualifying orders. There is a recurring rate, too, which means that you can continue to make 20% of the continuing subscriptions. If someone decides to cancel their plan, you will obviously stop receiving your commissions.
So Samcart seems better even compared to OptimizePress, at least when it comes to the value of your estimated earnings. Like Samcart, OptimizePress uses PayPal for processing payments, so if you can’t use this method, there’s no point in becoming an affiliate of either of these services.
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In terms of features, we’d say that this one resembles ClickFunnels the most. But Systeme.io comes with a lot of other functionalities, from email marketing to the ability to create opt-in forms and more.
When it comes to the commission rate, it’s perhaps the only affiliate program that truly resembles Samcart since it can make you 40% out of every qualifying order. The products do differ in terms of the money that they can make you, so 40% is not a universal commission.
But the biggest reason to at least consider integrating Systeme.io in your affiliate marketing plan is the fact that the commissions are also recurring. When it comes to getting your money, you can be paid through PayPal, but also through direct transfers. Your earnings will hit your account on the 10th of every month.
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Final thoughts
So, is the Samcart affiliate program the right one for you? That is a question that only you can answer. Do keep in mind that it might not be the right solution for someone who’s not in the right niche.
If you don’t have a blog or website in the digital marketing or eCommerce field, becoming an affiliate for this product is probably not going to help you too much. However, we will admit that the 40% recurring commission is very appealing, along with the fact that the product itself is pretty good.
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