ClickFunnels or SamCart for affiliates you recruit

You already have people who will promote the offer. You want a bump on the order form, a one-click upsell after the buyer pays, and a record of which partner sent them. ClickFunnels and SamCart both sell that stack. The subscription that includes a private affiliate program is not the cheapest card on either pricing page.

The program on this page is the one you run for affiliates you recruit. It is separate from either company's own offer that pays people for referring new software customers.

The plan that includes affiliates

ClickFunnels' pricing page lists Launch at $97 a month and Scale at $197 a month. Launch is about $81 a month when that plan is billed annually. Dominate is $5,997 a year, and that plan is annual only. The Affiliate Center app page says the center is included in Optimize and Dominate. Optimize is the ClickFunnels price in the monthly row of the table.

The pricing grid puts webhooks and full API access on Scale and higher. Scale still sits below that gate. Buying Launch or Scale because the price is lower leaves the center out.

SamCart's pricing page lists Core at $79 a month. Order bumps, one-click upsells, A/B testing, Subscription Saver and the Affiliate Center are grouped on Pro. Pro is the SamCart price in that same monthly row. SamCart's trial is the 7-day line above. ClickFunnels prints a free-trial button on Launch, Scale and Optimize, and the pricing FAQ offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

SamCart's comparison page puts ClickFunnels' affiliate program on the Optimize plan. The gate used here is the ClickFunnels app page, which names Optimize and Dominate.

When the funnel account is the reason

The ClickFunnels homepage groups the product into the funnel, the store, the CRM, email marketing and online courses. The same page lists one-click upsells, one-time offers and order form bumps among the sell steps. Those steps are how a funnel sells. The center is the app limited to the two higher plans.

The center's page describes single-tier and two-tier commission plans, affiliate dashboards and automated payouts. Two-tier means an affiliate can earn from someone they brought in, on a structure you set in that center.

Choose ClickFunnels when you are paying for the funnels, the email and the courses, and you also need the center in that account. Optimize or Dominate is the subscription that combination requires. If the buyer should be charged on a marketplace instead, the split between those checkouts is in network checkout or your own cart.

SamCart vs ClickFunnels on checkout

Choose SamCart when the checkout is the product you are buying. Pro is the plan that puts the Affiliate Center on the same subscription as the bumps, the one-click upsells, the A/B tests and Subscription Saver. Core is the hosted checkout without that bundle, so a Core subscription does not include the bump or the private program.

SamCart's Affiliate Center article says affiliates earn 0% until you set a rate on the product. Leave the rate untouched and the partner earns nothing on it. When more than one affiliate sends the same buyer, the last referrer gets the credit. The cookie follows that visitor for 30 days by default, and you can make it longer, up to 999 days. The article describes that cookie following the visitor around the web, including when the link lands on a page that is not a SamCart page, before the buyer reaches checkout.

The payout step builds a file. Clicking Payout produces a CSV with a line for each affiliate being paid. PayPal MassPay is one method the article allows, and you can pay another way. You send the money. Sales tax on that charge stays with you. The merchant of record guide maps who files that tax when a network is the company on the sale.

On the bumps, the two products draw the line in different places. ClickFunnels lists the bump and the one-click upsell as funnel steps, and limits the center to the higher plans. SamCart puts the bumps, the upsells and the center on Pro together.

ThriveCart is covered on its own: SamCart or ThriveCart for affiliates you recruit compares the monthly plan that includes partners. PayKickstart's entry price and revenue cap are in PayKickstart or SamCart.

Who sends the commission

ClickFunnels describes automated payouts inside the center, with the dashboards. SamCart's payout step is the CSV above, and the vendor pays that list. Both pricing pages treat the software bill as the subscription. ClickFunnels' FAQ says it does not take a percentage of your sales. SamCart publishes SamPay at 2.9% + 30¢ on the pricing page, which is the processor rate beside the plan.

A year on the affiliate-ready plan

Twelve months of Optimize, at the monthly price in the table, is $3,564. Twelve months of Pro is $2,388. That is twelve monthly bills, before the processor's fee on each sale. The annual Launch price is the one in the plan section above. On yearly billing, SamCart's pricing page shows 25% off.

My take

I would buy SamCart Pro when the reason for the subscription is the private program, the order bumps and the one-click upsells, and a CSV at payout time is acceptable. That is the lower of the two affiliate-ready monthly prices in the table.

ClickFunnels Optimize, or Dominate, is the subscription I would keep when the funnels, the email, the CRM and the courses are the reason for the account and the center has to share that login. Launch and Scale leave the center out.

A 2023 discussion still pointed people who wanted an affiliate link to a feature request called Backpack. The app page now names the center and the plans that include it.

If the buyer pays on a network

A network that charges the buyer also pays the affiliate and keeps a cut of the sale. Bump math on those order forms is in order bumps on network checkout. The SamCart review is the longer write-up of the Pro tools and the payout file, and it is the next page if Pro is the plan you are buying.