Hey, it’s Karl again. Welcome to my ThriveCart review.

I first heard about ThriveCart way back in the day when I was living in Vietnam and trying to launch my first SEO course and coaching services.

I’d been using Teachable for a while (awful idea—complete garbage) and needed to switch to a new platform ASAP.

Pretty much everyone I knew was using one of the “Big 3”: ThriveCart, Kajabi, or Kartra.

Everyone was like, “Get ThriveCart, man. It’s $690 FOR LIFE.”

I eventually chose not to use ThriveCart and instead chose Kajabi. It’s not that ThriveCart is bad—Kajabi was better for what I needed.

It’s funny because I know a handful of people killing it with ThriveCart. Like $5,000 – $10,000/month or more in sales, mostly hands-off. I was thissss closeeee (**does that little thumb and pointer squeeze motion**) to choosing it, but when I saw what Kajabi could do for generating leads, email marketing, and hosting complex products, I knew it was exactly what I needed.

I have 0 regrets. I went from $5,000 in sales in one year to 5x that in 6 months with Kajabi. I don’t think I could’ve done that with ThriveCart.

ThriveCart is great. It’s got a ton of features, it’s simple, and it’s cheaper than a late-night Taco Bell burrito run. But it’s only for one type of online business.

This review is based on my research, 5 years in the digital products space, talking with other entrepreneurs and seeing how they run their businesses, and my experiences using multiple shopping cart, checkout page, and sales funnel builders.

I want to give you a full picture of things so you can better understand Thrive’s strengths and limitations as well as why I don’t recommend it for MOST digital business people.

This thing is a beast, so grab a coffee and let’s dig in. In this ThriveCart review, I’ll cover:

• Which types of online businesses ThriveCart is best for (and who should stay away)
• My experience selling digital products so you understand the game
• My experience with shopping cart platforms
• A thorough review of features like the shopping carts, checkout pages, payment processors, and affiliate programs
• Pros and cons of using the platform
• The #1 flaw that prevents me from recommending ThriveCart
• Whether CRO features like bump offers actually work

And a ton more.

Let’s get to it.

ThriveCart Quick Verdict: Is it the Right Shopping Cart for You? Yes or No?

This review is 5,000 words. Ain’t nobody got the time for that. I spent days on this…I never want to hear the word ThriveCart or anything that rhymes with it again.

This decision is actually so cut-and-dry that the key information you need to choose ThriveCart or not in 60 seconds is right here.

ThriveCart Quick Verdict

ThriveCart is a solid and affordable shopping cart platform that’s perfect for small-time digital products like:

• eBooks
• Basic online courses
• Simple physical products like print-on-demand t-shirts
• Simple coaching packages (not membership sites or packages you want to make part of a larger business ecosystem—e.g, marketing coaching with the goal of upselling services)
• Business templates or assets like themes or apps

And that’s about it.

If you just want a cheap and simple (but limited) platform, it’s fine.

You just need to be cool with selling low-ticket products, small-time courses, or one-off coaching packages. Go sign up now, pay $500, and never pay for a shopping cart again. And that’s NOT me damning it with fake praise. There’s nothing “wrong” with that business model.

But…

If you’re serious about building a six or seven-figure business, ThriveCart is ultimately flawed.

The reason is that as you scale, you’ll eventually hit a ceiling. It’s not a matter of if but when, and when you get there, it’ll be a bitch to switch (if you even can at all). You’ll be exactly where I was with Teachable.

There’s a reason that the top 10% of online business owners use shopping cart platforms like Kajabi, Kartra, or even their own custom site.

I’ll get to all that next, but let me finish up by saying why ThriveCart is good at what it does. I hate to hate. It has its place, and it’s cheap enough that it opens doors to massive opportunities for beginners, which is definitely a plus.

TL;DR:

What I Like About ThriveCart

There’s a reason that ThriveCart is so popular (price **cough** price).

Value for Money

It’s an excellent value. No ifs, ands, or buts. For a one-time payment of $690, you get lifetime access to everything you need to sell digital products including:

• High-converting checkout pages
• A shopping cart
• Payment gateways
• An affiliate program
• Multiple payment options for customers
• A simple web page builder to make sales pages and landers
• Coupon codes
• Software that auto-calculates digital sales tax

Lack of capital is the #1 reason new entrepreneurs fail in business. They totally underestimate how much it costs to start a new business or launch a product. So I totally get why you want to pay $495 once instead of $99/month or more.

If it were easier to migrate or ThriveCart were better at scaling a large business, I’d buy the damn thing myself. But that’s just 100% not the case. There are too many issues.

Here are a few other cool things that ThriveCart users I know swear by:

Ease of Use

ThriveCart is the opposite of every other shopping cart I’ve ever used. Its whole reason for being is to make selling products as simple as possible. Even a total beginner could be up and running in a few days. My friend’s Poodle is launching her first eBook on it next week.

All of this struck me right away:

• The dashboard is immaculate with zero clutter
• Complex features like upsells and order bumps are pre-made and ready to go in a few clicks
• Never made a marketing funnel before? Just use a template, plop some content on the page, and let the tool do the rest. You’ll make sales as long as your offers are good
• VAT and sales taxes are automatically calculated so you can pay greedy governments money that isn’t theirs to take

It’s Super Fast

Everything loads smoothly and quickly, which is a big plus compared to most other platforms. I’m super impatient, so waiting 60 seconds for features to load equals rage mode. You’ll probably never experience this with ThriveCart.

There are two reasons for this.

For one, ThriveCart is a hosted solution, meaning everything comes from their end and not on your website. They’re a big evil company with millions of dollars, so you know their servers are faster than anything a solopreneur can afford.

Secondly, it’s a simple tool that relies heavily on integrations, meaning there isn’t much burden to begin with. So, while this is an advantage in one sense, I think you can see the deep, dark secret emerging here.

3 Reasons I Don’t Like ThriveCart And Why I Chose Kajabi

Let me take you back to 2017 for a bit.

Despacito is on literally every radio station, and your girlfriend is begging you to play “Shape of You” on your new guitar that you bought specifically to play acoustic covers of Metallica and you can’t wait for her to get tired of the song so you can just play….

Sorry, got carried away.

OK, it’s 2017, and after about a year of using Teachable to host and market my course, I’m at my wit’s end.

I HAVE to find another online course platform or I’m going to move back home to Estonia and change my name.

The problem was that Teachable was basically a glorified Google Drive that held my course videos for me without extra features to add value to the course, market my course, or even design a borderline acceptable landing page.

So the problem was it was lacking EVERYTHING I needed to get to the next level:

• No inbound marketing (blogging)
• Garbage email marketing
• Advanced funnels
• Customer relationship management
• Real analytics beyond “der you made $200 that’s good”
• Membership sites (I explain further below in features if you aren’t familiar)

I was paying for 3 extra tools AND trying to duct tape it all together. And my business wasn’t growing.

I was basically begging for referrals from students or spamming Facebook groups for sales. Everything came from affiliates and that’s NOT how you build a business (it’s a great way to start though).

So when I had the choice between ThriveCart and Kajabi, I started with ThriveCart and saw the exact same issues.

Imagine owning a physical business. ThriveCart would be your credit card terminal and salesperson that offered upsells (“would you like fries with that”?). But that’s it. You’d still need literally everything else.

ThriveCart is great as a shopping cart and for increasing sales at checkout…but how are you going to get people there?

Who’s going to host your videos (ThriveCart doesn’t)? How will you collect leads? How will you automate email campaigns? How will you sell $1,000 courses without added value like quizzes or teacher time? How will you offer higher-ticket services that require more funnel steps, webinars, landing pages, and relationship management?

So, I think you can see what I was getting at before. If you really want to build a big-boy business and make legit money, ThriveCart ain’t it.

Let’s cover the key flaws here in more detail:

ThriveCart Doesn’t Host Your Videos (Dealbreaker)

If you choose ThriveCart, you’ll still need to pay for another platform to host your online course videos.

That’s going to cost you more money, reduce the quality of your videos, and make your life harder by introducing another tool and integrating it. Every entrepreneur’s nightmare is waking up to needing 10 different tools just to run their business.

It sucks, but as an online course creator, I just can’t do that. It really irks me that they market themselves as ideal for courses. It’s just not true.

Sure, there are cheap services like Vimeo (~$7/mo to start), but they’re trash. You need a legit platform if you want to have a legit business. If not, click the link at the bottom of the page to learn 5 cool jobs you can do that AREN’T online business related. That’s more up your alley.

You need fast loading speeds, quizzes, progress tracking, a nice student dashboard, and all that jazz. If you charge someone $300 for a course and give them some Vimeo-hosted stuff, they aren’t going to be happy.

$10 courses, sure…but then why not just Udemy and forget this whole legit business stuff?

NOTE: If you don’t take your business seriously, then other people won’t. Don’t be a cheapskate.

You’ll at least need Thinkific (~$50/month) or, more likely, Kartra or Kajabi.

If you’re going to need Kajabi anyway, then what’s the point of having ThriveCart too?

ThriveCart is NOT Cheap – It’s Actually More Expensive

This is what causes most new entrepreneurs to fail: they don’t understand real costs.

Sure, ThriveCart is “cheaper”…but you’re going to need all of the following to make up for everything it lacks:

• A WordPress blog on a custom domain (and someone to make it)
• Email marketing software
• Webinar software
• Customer relationship management
• Real analytics
• A video hosting platform
• A membership platform

This could cost thousands of dollars per year easily. And ThriveCart’s dirty little secret now rears its head: You’ll need Zapier (basically an app that lets you integrate other apps with ThriveCart) for at least $25 a month. And if Zapier ever has an issue, your whole business is down for a day or more.

All of these things come BUILT-IN to Kajabi. Like, if I want to run a webinar to find new customers, I can do my marketing within Kajabi and email my members. Then, I can make a page for it, plan the event, and host it directly within a single tool for ONE subscription price.

ThriveCart Isn’t Good for Services or Coaching Programs

This isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s just another roadblock on the road to building an empire.

As an SEO entrepreneur, I want to create as many assets under my brand as possible, such as a course, a coaching service for new SEOs, one-off consulting for clients, membership sites where I drip feed tips to readers, and client SEO services where I provide links and content.

ThriveCart just isn’t built for this.

I don’t want to get into the technicalities, but it’s almost impossible to connect all of these things in one ecosystem for several reasons. Like, it’s hard to offer services because you have to offer them as “products.”

The lack of high-end features like agency services that allow you to manage all of your clients or a CRM to manage customers pretty much makes it impossible.

Again, if you don’t have everything in one place, then everything is in all places. And when you’re disorganized, you’re overwhelmed. It’s just not good business.

Quick Pit Stop – Why Can’t ThriveCart Take Me to the Promised Land?

As an entrepreneur, you have one goal: Dominate.

That’s what separates the winners and losers. You either take this seriously and succeed or you don’t.

ThriveCart doesn’t provide enough to get you to that next level. Yes, it’ll help you start selling cheap products, but you need to think two or three steps beyond. A year from now—two, three, five, or even ten years from now.

ThriveCart not only has a finite ceiling but it politely throws all these roadblocks in your way:

1. You need to host videos elsewhere, which reduces quality, increases prices, and creates headaches
2. It lacks webinar, email marketing, high-end analytics, CRM, agency, and membership features—you’ll need to pay for all of these things and PAY to integrate them, which is one hell of a Pandora’s Box
3. It’s not good for selling high-ticket products, large physical products, or services

Put more simply: ThriveCart is a shopping cart and only a shopping cart. If you want to make it in the big leagues, you need more than that—you need a legit business platform.

ThriveCart Overview

ThriveCart is an entry-level shopping cart software that simplifies starting and running an online digital product business.

Its unique advantages include a dead-simple interface anyone can use, pre-designed templates and funnels for easy marketing, and sales-boosting features proven to earn more money with every sale.

With it, anyone can create basic funnels, accept payments, run marketing campaigns, and earn the max on every sale. It’s limited, but it’s a great place to start.

ThriveCart Pros

• Simple and user-friendly
• Clean interface
• The fastest way to go from zero to your first sales
• Earn the max on each sale with dunning, bumps, and upsells
• Converts higher than other platforms due to payment options
• Cheap lifetime deal

ThriveCart Cons

• Hidden costs from extra tools
• Extremely limited for businesses
• Only for simple products like eBooks or cheap courses
• No business growth features like marketing, CRM, or built-in webinars
• Not for physical products or services
• Considered the “cheap”, entry-level tool (most entrepreneurs prefer business platforms)

ThriveCart Review Deep Dive – Benefits, Features, Pricing, and More

What is ThriveCart and Why Use an Online Shopping Cart in the First Place?

ThriveCart is simple and intuitive shopping cart software that allows any digital entrepreneur to instantly set up a store, start accepting payments, and even do a bit of marketing.

Say you want to sell an eBook. With ThriveCart, you can set up a page to sell your book, start marketing to bring people to your store, and accept credit cards or other payment processors like PayPal, Google Pay, or Apple Pay.

Shopping cart software exists so you don’t have to do everything separately and buy a bunch of different tools.

Normally, you’d need a website to sell your product, an account with Stripe to accept credit cards, and tools like a funnel builder to market to customers (if this is a new term, check the features section).

With a cart tool, it’s all in one place for a one-time fee. You could be up and running in a day.

It comes with pretty much everything you need to sell digital products under one umbrella.

ThriveCart offers:

• Checkout page features like checkout templates
• A shopping cart solution
• A clean and easy user interface
• Automatic sales tax support
• Revenue boosting features like coupon codes, split pay, bump offers, and upsell offers that pop up on the checkout page

ThriveCart’s Key Advantage Over Other Shopping Carts

ThriveCart’s #1 unique advantage over other shopping cart solutions is that everything works together to make you more money on every sale.

For example, something cheap like GumRoad just acts as a place to host your products and accept payments. It’s on you to figure out the rest.

With ThriveCart, you can list a product, build a quick funnel, upsell, crosell, downsell, or even just regular sell (that still happens these days) with any type of pricing plan you could possibly think of.

So, you’ll get more sales, with extra money from automated upsells, higher conversions from better templates, pricing options, and payment gateways. And since everything is templated, it’s pretty fast and easy.

Not a bad sales pitch, right?

Let’s cover the key features in greater detail so you get a clear picture of how ThriveCart boosts your revenue.

ThriveCart Features Breakdown

The Payment Gateway: Is ThriveCart the Best Payment Processor?

This is why ThriveCart is the shopping cart to end all shopping carts.

Most other shopping cart software tools focus on offering more payment processors. ThriveCart is thinking two steps ahead and offers more payment plans, pricing options, and convenient payment methods.

The more ways you offer your customer to pay the more likely they are to break through their objections and click “Pay Now.”

Let’s start with the basics first. ThriveCart offers the most popular payment gateways like:

• Stripe
• PayPal
• Authorize.net
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay

NOTE: Cryptocurrency payments are dicey and the company is currently not accepting them last I heard.

Those are all the most important payment processors, and it should open you up to the entire non-crypto world. Anyone who doesn’t have a way to pay you via ThriveCart is hiding from Interpol.

But here’s where ThriveCart starts playing 3-D Chess.

Instead of just “pay me this now,” you get the ability to offer just about any type of payment plan you want.

This includes:

• One-time payments
• Payment tiers (e.g, Starter, Gold, and Platinum plans)
• Pay what you want (the customer pays anything they want…literally)
• Subscriptions (very flexible)
• Payment plans (e.g, $1,000 once or 4 payments of $250)
• Free trials

And it offers a ton of flexibility. Check this out:

You can change the frequency, recurring price, and initial price all in one shot. ThriveCart’s customizability is beyond pretty much anyone else.

The best part is that this is a revenue-boosting feature. Imagine you’re offering a $500 product and the customer just doesn’t want to get the credit card out.

Well, now you can offer 5 payments of $100 over 5 months or maybe every other month. That’s a lot easier to stomach.

But say they STILL don’t want to buy and decide to click back.

Don’t worry…

You can hit them with a popup that offers them a short paid trial for $10 or whatever. OK, now that gets their credit card out. Next thing you know, they love your product and pay the balance.

See the power? This is EXACTLY what makes ThriveCart a beast.

The Sales Funnel Builder And Pages

I’m lumping these two together because they are inseparable. You can’t have a funnel without pages, and there’s really no point in pages without connecting them in a funnel. And every time you build a funnel, you build pages.

Actually… now that I think about it, funnels are pages and pages can be funnels…

If you aren’t sure what a sales funnel is, it’s basically a step-by-step process that brings the customer to buy your product.

Say they’re browsing the web one day and see an ad for your product and click it.

They’re brought to another page where they learn the benefits of your product and get a special offer.

When they click that, they’re brought to a checkout page where they finally pay, and then a “thank you” page pops up where they can enter their email to keep in touch.

That’s a very basic funnel. The idea is to gently guide them to a purchase rather than just slapping the hood and saying, “Wanna buy this bad boy?”

Back to ThriveCart.

ThriveCart makes building funnels stupidly easy for 3 reasons:

1. You don’t even need to know how to build one because they have high-converting check page templates
2. Everything is fairly simple and just a few clicks away
3. Their drag-and-drop page builder makes it easy to edit your templates with custom information

Check out the page builder:

Once you choose a template, editing the page is fairly straightforward.

The page editor is very simple. It features key elements on the right, pre-built blocks in the middle, and more advanced color and border style options on the left.

You don’t even need to bother with those if you don’t want. Just drag whatever you want into the middle and edit.

The benefit here is that most other carts are a bit more complicated, so ThriveCart’s simplicity makes your life way easier.

You won’t be smashing your head against the table trying to edit pages.

The real value in a shopping cart like ThriveCart, though, is the templates.

ThriveCart is famous for their high-converting checkout page templates. Check it out:

Nice and clean, right? Super easy to make. And there are a ton for purchase as well from 3rd-party designers. I love this one:

And of course, you get all the normal bells and whistles to add to your checkout page like:

• Countdown timers
• Coupon codes
• Bullet points
• Buttons
• Videos (you can embed them)

Again, ThriveCart lets you take things to the next level by offering single step, multi-step, or popup checkout carts. That’s a lot more ways to convert customers—never a bad thing.

Now I have something very important to tell you…

ThriveCart uses the word funnel very liberally here.

It’s not a traditional funnel builder like ClickFunnels.

What you’re really building is more of an “upsell flow.” What that means is you’re configuring your checkout page and then adding upsells and downsells.

In essence, their idea of a funnel is “customer goes to buy product and gets hit with an upsell, downsell, or crossell offer, and then a thank you page pops up.”

This is a bit different than “complete funnels” where you take leads through multiple steps just to get to checkout.

I’m going to cover all of these terms now in a separate section because they’re pretty groovy.

Revenue Boosting Features

The #1 reason ThriveCart is so popular is that it actually increases your average profit on every sale in ways that other checkout page tools can’t.

It gives you more ways to squeeze out every little bit of juice. Let’s start with the most common way:

1-click Upsells, Downsells, and Order Bumps

“Would you like (insert your upsell product here) with that?” – ThriveCart 24/7

ThriveCart can potentially add extra money to every sale on autopilot. If this were a few years ago, you’d need to hire someone to customize all of this and then integrate it into your site. With ThriveCart, it’s super easy.

Here are the features in general before we cover them in more detail:

• Upsells
• Downsells
• Order bumps
• Dunning (subscription saver)
• A/B testing

Let’s take it one by one.

Upsells and Downsells

An upsell is asking customers if they want another related product after purchasing the main product.

This could be something like marketing consulting after they’ve purchased a digital marketing course from you.

It’s super easy to add your own custom upsell pages:

Just create one and give it a name, then add it to a product (this is what they call a funnel).

Finally, edit the page:

Once it’s live, the user is automatically taken there after completing a purchase.

This is the best way to increase customer lifetime value. Another option here is a downsell.

Downsells are when a customer doesn’t buy, so you hit them with a lesser offer.

If they don’t want a $1,000 course, you can offer them something like a “mini-course” without the bells and whistles for $499.

To create one, you just select a downsell in the funnel section:

And the process is exactly the same.

Bump Offers

Bump offers are when you offer small add-ons related to the main product.

The difference between bump offers and upsells is that bump offers are tiny add-ons done before the purchase that don’t require much effort to sell.

They’re normally cheaper. Upsells are done AFTER the purchase.

Here’s how it looks in an example checkout page:

Dunning (Subscription Saving)

I love this feature. ThriveCart adds even more value to your business by automatically chasing down delinquents and letting you intimidate them.

Say someone’s card is about to expire or they missed a payment, you can configure dunning to contact them and follow up automatically.

There are a few options here:

• Overdue payment notice
• Upcoming payment notice
• Upcoming credit card expiration notice
• Credit card expired reminder

Some claim this can add hundreds or even thousands of dollars in lost revenue back into your pocket each year. Judging by how often I forget to update card info, I 100% believe that’s true.

A/B Testing

Some of the most common complaints I hear about other platforms are related to the lack of split testing, which is just another reason that ThriveCart is the best cart out there these days.

A/B split testing is when you set up two versions of the same page and see which one your customers like more.

If one converts more customers, you change to that version.

Boom. More money rolling in.

Here’s how easy it is:

Just clone your product page and make whichever changes you want to test. I recommend only testing one change at a time.

Then go to the tab that says A/B test and create it:

For simplicity’s sake, let’s just say you want to test which page converts at a higher rate. Just select that variable and select a date to end the test.

From there, the tool tracks everything and shows you the winner:

Just keep in mind that this is very basic split testing.

That’s fine since ThriveCart is designed for simplicity. Most advanced marketers know that time doesn’t mean much when A/B testing. The real metric you need to measure is “statistical significance.”

What that means is you need a significant sample size to determine the winner rather than a length of time. If only 10 people buy a product, it’s not a large enough sample to determine a winner, regardless of how long you ran the test. ThriveCart doesn’t give this option.

Other Key Features

I want to cover a few supporting features that’ll be super helpful in growing your business. None of these are very special, but it’s helpful to have them.

• Affiliate center: ThriveCart’s affiliate platform makes it easy to build your business by getting others to promote your product. Affiliate marketing is the easiest and cheapest way to grow in the beginning, since you don’t pay anything until you make a sale. It helps to have the platform built straight into the tool. Just generate the affiliate link, and anyone can start promoting your products to their audience for you.
• Tax reporting: You can automate collecting sales tax on digital and physical products where applicable. Currently, ThriveCart supports the US, EU, UK, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico.
• Business insights: Aside from having everything neatly displayed on the dash, ThriveCart lets you compare periods of time to see differences in revenue or other metrics like conversions. The prediction engine even shows estimated future earnings …though I’m not sure how accurate it is. Nothing crazy happening here. The analytics are pretty basic, but again, they’re helpful to have.

ThriveCart Integrations

ThriveCart integration is a very contentious topic among entrepreneurs, so let me spell it out plainly for you.

Yes, ThriveCart integrates with just about everything either natively or via Zapier. That’s great.

Except it’s not.

On the one hand, it’s cool that you can integrate with webinar platforms, membership site platforms, fulfillment services, and email marketing providers.

On the other hand, PAYING for these other tools AND integrating them (remember that Zapier also costs at least $25) is a B***.

Sure, it looks easy, but running your business through multiple different tools is a nightmare. It’s the #1 bane of internet business.

This just adds multiple points of failure, added subscription costs, and the headaches of learning multiple different ecosystems AND sacrificing holistic analytics.

So, yeah, it’s cool that ThriveCart integrates with everything, but it SHOULDN’T HAVE TO INTEGRATE WITH ANYTHING.

All-in-one business solutions like Kajabi and Kartra that include everything from advanced user management to customer support and beyond are 10 times better at least. Trust me, there’s nothing better than the peace of mind you get firing up your laptop in the morning and working within ONE tool. Just one tool instead of 12.

If you’re anxious like me about business, you’re in for a bad time with integrations.

ThriveCart Pricing – Is it Really Once in a Lifetime?

I have to admit, $690 once forever is a pretty nice deal for a shopping cart with this many features. You’ll definitely want the Pro upgrade or you’ll miss out on affiliates, dunning, and Simple Sales Tax, which are total game changers. You won’t miss the $195, trust me.

Let’s do some back-of-the-napkin math right quick.

$690 divided by 365 days in a year equals ~$1.80 per day for probably the best shopping cart software on the market. That’s nuts.

If you extrapolate it out even further, it’s even more fun.

If you use it for 50 years, that’s 18,250 days. $690 divided by 18,250 is ~$0.03 cents per day for a complete shopping cart platform.

Jokes aside, $690 is way too cheap for something this good.

I used to think cheap, one-time payments were a bit suspicious, but it’s actually pretty standard behavior for SaaS platforms these days, especially if they are trying to gain more market share or launch a new version.

They get more capital to re-invest, more happy users (and take more users from competitors), and more chances to make money off you.

And you get a great shopping cart for about the cost of dinner and drinks in San Francisco.

And yes, it really is once in a lifetime.

Just a caveat, though. While it looks really cheap on the outside, you’ll still need to pay for the following ThriveCart integrations—at the bare minimum:

• Zapier (~$25)
• A video hosting platform (~$50 minimum)
• WebinarJam ($39/month)
• Email marketing software (start free then pay $9 – $200 as you grow)
• WordPress blog (domain, hosting, design)

And if you really want to scale, you’ll need:

• A membership site platform
• Analytics
• SEO tools for your blog
• ClickFunnels
• CRM

So you’re really paying $690 once and then thousands of dollars per year in subscription fees.

Final Verdict – Is ThriveCart the Right Tool to Start an Online Store?

Honestly, I like ThriveCart as a shopping cart for digital products. It’s one of the best shopping cart solutions I’ve ever seen.

But I 100% can’t recommend building a business with ThriveCart. Not if you want to take it seriously and really scale to six or seven figures. Especially if you plan to offer high-end courses, physical products, services, or membership sites.

While ThriveCart offers a lot of awesome shopping cart features, you need more than a shopping cart if you want to succeed. I’ve learned this the hard way: You either take your business seriously from Day 1 or you fail.

My key issues are:

1. It doesn’t host your videos. This reduces video quality, forces you to pay for another platform, and reduces your authority in the eyes of buyers
2. It lacks marketing, CRM, webinar platforms, analytics, and real sales funnel features. Just a few upsells are fine for small businesses and eBooks, but where’s that going to get you?
3. It seems affordable, but you’ll pay thousands of dollars a year for the 10 other tools you need to make up for everything it doesn’t do. You’re better off with an all-in-one platform that has everything you need under one subscription

If you’re a course creator, you need a REAL course platform. You need quizzes and progress tracking. You need high-quality videos. You need complete funnels with webinars, multi-step funnels with multiple landing pages built right into the tool, and high-end student management. And you need a real sales page creator. If not, you might as well just be using Udemy (read: applying for a desk job instead of doing online work).

If you just want a cheap shopping cart and to make some decent money online, ThriveCart is fine. If you want to build a real business and actually build wealth that lets you live a life of freedom, you need one of the all-in-one ThriveCart alternatives like Kajabi. But fine, learn the hard way if you want. Get ThriveCart now, hit the wall, waste thousands on integrations, and THEN get Kajabi next year when you finally realize the pain.

ThriveCart F.A.Q

Q: Can you build a website with ThriveCart?

A: No, you can’t build a website with ThriveCart, but you can build something that looks like a website with it. You can build checkout pages that essentially function as a website or sales page for a particular product you’re selling. But it’s not a real website. ThriveCart is a checkout page builder and cart tool for building high-converting checkout pages. It’s not a website builder. If you need a site, build a WordPress website.

Q: Is ThriveCart a payment gateway?

A: Yes, ThriveCart is the best payment gateway for selling digital products because it has more features than any other shopping cart solution on the market. Not only can you accept payments, but you can also build high-converting checkout pages and cart pages, integrate with webinar platforms, sell physical products, and offer multiple pricing options to visitors. And you can do it all for a low one-time fee. It also has the best template and customization options.

Q: What does ThriveCart cost?

A: ThriveCost costs a one-time payment of $690. It’s $495 for the regular version, but ThriveCart Pro comes with a built-in affiliate program, tax calculation, and other helpful features. Most other shopping cart software options cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars more.

Q: What does ThriveCart integrate with?

A: ThriveCart integrates with just about anything you could ever need. This includes fulfillment services, membership platforms, your PayPal account, a custom domain, and other advanced tools for your shopping cart pages. However, all of these online shopping cart tools require additional monthly subscriptions. Most cost at least $20 per month.

Q: Is ThriveCart the best checkout page builder?

A: Yes, in my opinion, ThriveCart is the best checkout page builder because it’s more affordable and has more features than any other tool of its kind. Its checkout pages are exceptional if you want to sell digital products. You can also run a membership site (it integrates with multiple membership platforms), create popup checkout boxes, run A/B tests on your checkout pages, and offer customers different payment plans. It even comes with a built-in affiliate program. And it only costs a one-time fee of $690.