ThriveCart vs SmartPayCart: Which Cart Platform Works Best?

Shopping carts are something that businesses need to get right to maximize their sales.

If they don’t, they could be missing out on a lot of sales which could leave a dent in their revenue.

Two popular cart solutions out there that work extremely well are ThriveCart and SmartPayCart.

Today, we’re going to put both of these to the test to see which one is better for your business. 

ThriveCart vs SmartPayCart: Key Differences

Both ThriveCart and SmartPayCart are great shopping tools, but ThriveCart offers a little more flexibility, as well as a few more cart features. ThriveCart lets you split-test your cart and embed it on any page, while with SmartPayCart you cannot split-test your carts and it’s only available as a WordPress plugin.

SmartPayCart also has fewer integrations than ThriveCart and no affiliate management feature, but ThriveCart does. 

ThriveCart vs SmartPayCart: Overview

	ThriveCart	SmartPayCart
Website	thrivecart.com	smartpaycart.com
Founded In	2015	Unknown
Starting at	$495 Lifetime	$15 per month
Trial?	N/A	N/A
Money-back Guarantee	30 Days	30 Days
Overall Rating	9.5/10	8.5/10

What Is ThriveCart?

ThriveCart is one of the best shopping cart solutions for businesses that want to sell products online!

They’re focused on increasing conversions and maximizing average order value, to ensure you’re getting the most out of each visitor.

It was founded by Josh Bartlett in early 2016 but hasn’t actually launched yet.

What Is SmartPayCart?

SmartPayCart is a WordPress cart plugin that was originally created just for Digital Access Pass membership sites.

Digital access is another plugin that lets its users build membership sites inside of WordPress.

However, you can use SmartPayCart without Digital Access Pass now.

Both Digital Acess Pass and SmartPayCart were founded by Veena Prashanth.

ThriveCart Features

ThriveCart is known for the comprehensive checkout tools it has to offer.

Just take a look for yourself:

• 1 Click order bumps
• 1 Click upsells/downsells
• Embeddable Cart
• Funnel builder & Templates
• Split-testing
• Affiliate Center
• Webhooks
• Auto-follow up
• Autoresponder integrations
• Coupons
• Customer hub
• Detailed Analytics
• Discount URL
• Dunning/Auto-retry
• 2 Factor Authentication
• Two-step cart
• Instant affiliate payments
• Link tracking
• Membership integrations
• Modal Cart
• Predicted sales
• Product upgrades
• Automatic receipts
• Retargeting
• Digital sales tax calculator
• Subscription management
• Secure URLs
• Advanced Trials (for example $1 trials)
• Unlimited Carts
• Video carts

SmartPayCart Features

SmartPayCart also has some great shopping cart features, but it is worth noting that SmartPayCart is only available as a WordPress login.

This means using SmartPayCart outside of WordPress is unfortunately not possible.

Here is the list of features that SmartPayCart has to offer:

• Funnel builder
• Analytics
• 1 Click upsells
• 1 Click order bumps
• Smart coupons
• Buy now buttons
• 2 step checkouts
• EU VAT/GST Calculations
• Flat shipping rate
• 1 Click Upgrade (For digital access pass memberships)
• Automatic Login
• Smart tags
• One-off & Subscription products
• Email integrations
• Cart abandonment detection
• Free Trials

Which has the best features?

As you can see, the comparison today is extremely close as both options have quite similar features.

However, ThriveCart does have a slight edge, as the following features are only available in ThriveCart:

• Affiliate Center
• Coupons for affiliates
• Discount URLs
• Advanced Trials (For example 14 days for $1)
• Embeddable Cart (not just in WordPress)
• Predicted Sales
• Cart split-testing
• Automatic Receipts

For these reasons, ThriveCart wins in features.

Integrations

Whether you are taking a look at these two cart solutions to sell your memberships, services, or any other type of product, you will probably need to integrate with other software to get your business rolling.

The three types of integrations we are going to take a look at are:

• Membership site integrations
• Autoresponder integrations
• Payment Processor integrations

Membership Site Integrations

Firstly, we have the membership site integrations.

ThriveCart directly integrates with:

• Teachable
• MemberMouse
• MemberPress
• Wishlist Member
• Digital Access Pass
• OptimizeMember

It also integrates with Zapier where you can integrate ThriveCart with more membership site platforms.

SmartPayCart only integrates with Digital Access Pass, no other membership site integrations are available for SmartPayCart.

Autoresponder Integrations

ThriveCart integrates directly with these autoresponders:

• Ontraport
• ConvertKit
• ActiveCampaign
• AWeber
• Hubspot
• MailerLite
• Infusionsoft
• MailChimp
• Drip
• GetResponse
• Moosend
• Sendy

It also offers HTML integrations with autoresponders too, so these integrations should have you covered.

SmartPayCart only offers direct integrations with:

• Active Campaign
• Drip
• ConvertKit
• Aweber
• MailChimp
• GetResponse
• Zapier (via DAPConnect)

Payment Processor Integrations

ThriveCart integrates directly with:

• Paypal
• Authorize.Net
• Google Pay
• Apple Pay
• Stripe

SmartPayCart only directly integrates with:

• Stripe
• Paypal
• Authorize.Net

ThriveCart Pricing

ThriveCart has two main pricing options which are both lifetime options as of right now. This is due to ThriveCart not officially being launched yet.

As it is a SaaS tool, the price is going to increase to anywhere from $99 per month to $299 per month once it does officially launch.

For now, the pricing plans are:

• Thrive Cart Lifetime $495
• Thrive Cart Pro Lifetime $695

The following features are only available in ThriveCart Pro:

• Affiliate Center
• Subscription Saver Functionality
• Automatic Sales Tax Calculator
• Intelligent business projections
• JV Contracts
• Advanced User Management
• Client Usage rights
• Custom domain name functionality

SmartPayCart Pricing

SmartPayCart has three different pricing options.

• SPC Monthly $25 Per Month
• SPC Annual $250 Per year
• SPC Lifetime $599

There is no difference in the features between the plan, the only difference is how you pay.

All plans also come with unlimited site licenses.

If you are a Digital Access Pass Platinum member then you are eligible for the special pricing plans below.

• SPC Monthly $15 per month
• SPC Yearly $150 Per Year
• SPC Lifetime $399

It’s also worth noting that SmartPayCart runs completely on WordPress which means, you probably need to go for a premium hosting option, otherwise it may slow down your site quite badly.

Which One Is Better?

As we have seen throughout this comparison, ThriveCart and SmartPayCart have similar shopping cart features.

But ThriveCart does have a few more including:

• Affiliate Center
• Coupons for affiliates
• Discount URLs
• Advanced Trials (For example 14 days for $1)
• Embeddable Cart (not just in WordPress)
• Predicted Sales
• Cart split-testing
• Automatic Receipts

Plus, I would like to see a little more flexibility from SmartPayCart, as it only works for WordPress sites.

This shouldn’t be too much of a problem, as 18.9% of the internet use the open-source WordPress CMS.

ThriveCart lets you embed its carts on any page you wish, no matter whether it’s a WordPress site or any other type of site (assuming you can insert the code).

If you were to create a super high-converting checkout and you wanted to switch from WordPress into another CMS, you would also have to stop using your SmartPayCart checkout.

It’s also worth noting that because the tool is managed from your WordPress dashboard, it can slow down your site a little.

Despite this battle being extremely close, overall the winner is going to be ThriveCart as it offers more checkout features and integrations.