ThriveCart Review: Is it Worth it?

Launch Your Online Business in Just 7 Days

When it comes to online business, your customers’ carts are a big deal!


A whopping 88% of online shopping carts are left abandoned, so ensuring your customers follow through with their purchase is no easy feat.


This is where ThriveCart comes in — a sales cart solution that promises to help online business owners reduce cart abandonment rates and increase sales.


But does it follow through with its promise?


Let’s find out.

1. What is ThriveCart?

ThriveCart markets itself as the best cart platform for online business owners.


In a nutshell, ThriveCart provides checkout templates for your business.


This means you won’t have to build your own checkout page, and it adds all the elements that promise to maximize your conversions (e.g. one-click upsells).


For online business owners that are new to ecommerce, or simply don’t have the time to do it all, it’s a useful tool.


ThriveCart does have a couple of specific features (including some cons), which we’ll cover in-depth.


One very obvious factor that puts ThriveCart at a disadvantage is that it doesn’t offer a website — you’ll need a separate tool for a website, which means a whole lot more work with integration.

2. Who is ThriveCart for?

When evaluating any ecommerce platform, it’s incredibly useful to have a look at the people already using the service.


This will help you determine whether ThriveCart really is the tool for you.

2.1. Selling digital or physical products

Selling Digital or Physical Products

Many online business owners offer their products or services in the form of subscriptions.


ThriveCart helps manage these subscription payments through dunning management (payment auto-retry), as well as other payment models such as split payments and free trials.


Entrepreneurs selling online courses, for example, can make sure there are no hitches in the payment processes using ThriveCart.


Just as well, those selling physical products can make use of ThriveCart’s payment models to manage their outgoing orders.

2.2. Shopify store owners

Shopify Logo

Shopify's logo

Since ThriveCart integrates with Shopify, you’ll be able to use their conversion features for your online business.


The majority of ThriveCart's features are useful for upselling to customers.


Coupons, one-click upsells, and some other features that ThriveCart offers merge well with Shopify.


While this is great news for Shopify users, it’s a limiting factor for those who aren’t with Shopify.

2.3. Membership site owners

Membership Site Owners

For owners of membership sites, ThriveCart manages the payment processing for members to access their content.


For online business owners who are new to the ecommerce world, ThriveCart comes across as an appealing option.


However, a comprehensive look at the features offered by ThriveCart is necessary to see how they stack up.

3. ThriveCart's features

ThriveCart Features

ThriveCart's features

ThriveCart suggests that its features will help you convert more customers and grow your business with ease.


So, let’s see how substantiated this is by taking a look at the features.

3.1. Checkout page templates

Checkout Page Templates

ThriveCart's checkout templates

ThriveCart’s main selling point is its checkout page templates.


Since your checkout page is the last step for customers, it should be optimized for maximum conversion.


ThriveCart has various checkout templates to choose from:

  • Multi-step checkout — Collect your customers’ information across multiple pages
  • Single-step — Collect your customers’ information on the same page
  • Sales cart — Immediate checkout
  • Embeddable — Checkout that appears when your customers click the button
  • Pop-up — Checkout that pops up when customers click the button

After choosing your checkout page template, you’ll be able to customize the design of your checkout page.

3.2. Funnel builder

A funnel builder creates and designs the web pages that are part of your customers’ journey and also makes them look appealing.


ThriveCart’s funnel builder only focuses on the checkout process.


You can add two useful features to build the experience for your customers:

  • One-click bump offer
  • One-click upsell

These features allow customers to upgrade their orders in just one click without the hassle of re-entering payment details or adding the product to their cart again.


This reduces the likelihood of customers leaving the page or abandoning their carts.


You can also set rules for the purchase experience.


These rules allow you to choose what your customers will see after they complete their purchase.


It also allows you the opportunity to add them to your mailing list or ask them for referrals.

3.3. A/B testing

ThriveCart A/B Testing

ThriveCart's A/B testing

A/B testing is necessary for improving the efficiency of your checkout pages.


Usually, it requires a lot of coding and cross-referencing your results to see if one checkout type beats the other.


ThriveCart does this for you and allows you to set up A/B testing and evaluate your results.


For example, you could test a checkout page with one-click upsells and a checkout page without them.

3.4. Affiliate marketing

ThriveCart Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a surefire way to promote your business.


Fortunately, ThriveCart offers this feature.


With this feature, you’ll be able to:

  • Recruit affiliates
  • Set up commission structures
  • Pay only when your affiliates have sold your products

Affiliate marketing allows you to reduce your marketing costs while increasing your revenue.


Along with this, you can set arbitrary rules for affiliates — for example, you could reward top performers with additional bonuses.

3.5. Dunning management

ThriveCart Dunning Management

Source: ThriveCart.com

Dunning management manages recurring billing solutions and credit card payment declines.


If your business offers subscription services, dunning management is an absolute necessity.


If credit card payments from your customers bounce, ThriveCart’s system will send them a notification of the failed payment and try the payment again.


Dunning allows your business to retain the revenue you expected.

3.6. Maximizing order value

ThriveCart Maximizing Order Value

ThriveCart's order value features

Repeat customers make up 65% of a business’s revenue.


With this in mind, retaining customers should be a high priority.


So how does ThriveCart increase your order value to retain more customers?


In addition to 1-click up-sells and bumps, it offers other features:

  • Product upgrades
  • Retargeting support
  • Coupons
  • Auto-follow up
  • Customer hub

Should you decide to set up a referral promotion for your customers, you can track discount URLs to see who your loyal customers are.

3.7. Analytics tools

Analytics Tools

ThriveCart's analytics

With ThriveCart’s analytics tool, you’ll be able to see some of your metrics at a glance.


This includes:

  • Average daily revenue
  • Live traffic and conversion rates
  • Projected revenue

Pair this tool with A/B testing, and you’ll be able to understand how changes affect your revenue.

3.8. ThriveCart's integrations

 ThriveCart Integrations

ThriveCart offers you a broad set of integrations to choose from.

Payment processors:

Notifications:

Fulfillment services:

Membership platforms:

Webinar platforms:

  • Demio
  • WebinarNinja

Autoresponders:

  • InfusionSoft
  • Ontraport
  • HubSpot
  • ConvertKit
  • ActiveCampaign
  • AWeber
  • GetResponse
  • MailChimp
  • Drip
  • MailerLite

If you haven’t found the service you’d like to integrate with ThriveCart, you can do it with Zapier.

4. Design the checkout experience

To design the checkout experience, you’ll have to add your products and fulfillment options (if you sell physical products) to the template.


If you have a membership site or you sell access to courses and webinars, you’ll have to connect ThriveCart with your native platform.


So, how do you go about this?

4.1. Choose your checkout template

ThriveCart Template

ThriveCart's checkout options

ThriveCart gives you the opportunity to choose your checkout template.


Your choice of the template will depend on your audience.


If it’s evident (from A/B testing) that your audience doesn’t like pop-ups, it would be good to go with fixed checkout appearances such as embeddable checkouts.


If you want to remove friction, opting for a single-step checkout is a good idea.

4.2. Design your funnel

Unlike systeme.io, ThriveCart only allows you to create a checkout page.


We’re not exactly sure why the platform refers to it as a sales funnel since it’s only one part of the funnel.


Again, it’s clear that ThriveCart is definitely not the complete solution to launching an online business.


Sure, checkout pages are undeniably important, but what about the rest of the funnel?


Luckily systeme.io offers the full sales funnel tool and much more!


ThriveCart simply provides an add-on (checkout page) to your regular website, which you’d have to create yourself.


You can set up your sales funnel/checkout page in a few steps:

  • Create the post-purchase experience
  • Choose upsell or downsell offers
  • Customize the appearance of your upsells and downsells

5. Help and support services

ThriveCart Helpdesk

ThriveCart's helpdesk

To access ThriveCart’s support services, you’re directed to tutorial articles (explaining how to use the features) in the help section.


If you need additional assistance, you can submit a support ticket.


Unfortunately, ThriveCart doesn’t offer other types of support like online support.


This can be confusing and inconvenient, especially if you’re new to the ecommerce world.


If you go with systeme.io, you get access to 24/7 customer support service with quick response rates and an informative FAQ page.

6. ThriveCart's pricing

ThriveCart Pricing

ThriveCart's pricing

If you go to ThriveCart’s website, their pricing information is not readily available on the homepage.


You’d have to watch a video first to see the pricing information.


Needless to say, this isn’t ideal.


In fact, to find it, you’d have to Google it.


We must admit, this adds a little hitch to the process.


Most customers like to see prices upfront and clear.


They’re currently offering a Standard plan for lifetime access at $495.


You could choose to upgrade your Standard plan to Pro for an additional $195, and your one-time payment would total $690.


That’s a steep figure, especially if you don’t intend on using ThriveCart for a lifetime.


This pricing plan just doesn’t cater to short-term users or interested users who simply want to try the platform out before committing to it.


Another downfall is that you’ll need to pay for additional tools.


ThriveCart doesn’t offer the complete digital marketing package, as it mostly focuses on the post-purchase process.


So why settle for limited tools, when you can get the full package with systeme.io?

7. Systeme.io: Your all-in-one alternative

Systeme.io Logo

Systeme.io's logo

If you’re in search of one place that has everything you need to launch your online business, look no further.


And by everything, we mean…

7.1. Create automated sales funnels

Create Automated Sales Funnels with systeme.io

Create sales funnels with systeme.io

Our funnel builder allows you to set up user-friendly and efficient sales funnels with these outstanding features:

  • Build and automate sales funnels with our easy-to-use editor
  • Speed up the process with our proven templates
  • Integrate your email list, payment system, and membership sites
  • Trigger email sequences and give instant access to courses

Find out more about our funnel builder here!

7.2. Email marketing

Systeme.io Email Marketing

Systeme.io's email marketing

With systeme.io, you’ll be able to integrate your email lists into your sales funnels and websites with these handy features:

  • Send unlimited emails to all of your contacts
  • Set up automated email sequences
  • Keep track of your emails with our in-depth statistics
  • Categorize your customers and send tailored emails to specific groups

Say goodbye to complicated marketing with our simple email marketing tool!

7.3. Build websites

Build Websites with systeme.io

Build a website with systeme.io

Building a website has never been easier than with systeme.io.


You’ll be able to easily create your website with an array of templates and our simple interface.


Just one glance at these nifty features, and it’s evident our website builder is top-notch:

  • Start with our proven website templates and speed up the building process
  • Create the website you want with our simple drag-and-drop editor
  • Integrate your email list, payment system, and membership site
  • Create and add a blog to deliver your content to your audience

7.4. Manage your affiliates

Manage Your Affiliates with systeme.io

Manage your affiliates with systeme.io

Systeme.io has all the tools you need to manage your affiliates and payouts all in one place.


These efficient tools will help make your affiliate marketing a breeze:

  • Track your affiliates easily
  • Manage affiliate commissions and payouts all in the same place
  • Integrate your email list, payment system, and membership sites
  • Publish your offers on our marketplace for thousands to see

7.5. Create online courses

Create Online Courses with systeme.io

Create online courses with systeme.io

Easily deliver your course content with our online course creator.


It’s hassle-free with our simple interface and our effective templates.


Systeme.io gives you all the tools you need to deliver high-quality online courses with these features:

  • Create your course site with our easy-to-use editor
  • Integrate your course access with payments (from PayPal and Stripe) from your sales funnels and websites
  • Give timed access to your course
  • Create, market, and sell your course all in one place

7.6. Marketing automation

Systeme.io Marketing Automation

Automate your marketing with systeme.io

At systeme.io, we know that great marketing is everything, that’s why we’ll automate your marketing for you.


We’ll make sure that your business is promoted with excellence and consistency in mind with these convenient automation features:

  • Capture leads automatically with integrated funnels and emailing
  • Automate repetitive email sequences for product and membership sites
  • Add automated rules to any element of your website and funnel
  • Automatically trigger emails and membership access

7.7. Systeme.io’s pricing

Systeme.io’s Pricing Plans

Systeme.io's pricing plans

All of our plans (including the Freemium plan) give you access to these features:

  • Unlimited emailing to your contacts
  • Unlimited file storage space, so you can create funnels based on our tried and tested templates
  • Unlimited members on your site
  • No transaction fees
  • Access to our affiliate program to increase your income through referrals to systeme.io
  • Online support whenever and wherever you need it

Systeme.io is your all-in-one tool for everything you need to launch and run an online business successfully.


Systeme.io can offer you exactly what ThriveCart can, and even more at a bargain price.

8. Conclusion

ThriveCart’s lack of a website builder, complete sales funnel, and other necessary digital marketing features, would definitely make us think twice before signing up for their rather pricey lifetime plan.


Along with the hassle of paying for extra tools and integrations with ThriveCart, you’re simply not getting the full-suite that you would get at systeme.io.


Systeme.io will manage and automate your marketing for you, including everything from email marketing to the full sales funnel, with a built-in checkout page.


Sign up for your Freemium plan today, and get all the features you need to start and run your online business, at your fingertips!

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