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SamCart has earned a strong reputation for its top-tier shopping cart functionality and effective tools designed to boost sales conversions. The SamCart Courses feature functions as an extension, supplying fundamental capabilities for constructing educational programs, distributing materials, and fostering student interaction.
This functionality doesn’t fully substitute for specialized online course platforms; it’s primarily suggested for individuals already utilizing SamCart who intend to market straightforward, video-centric courses through the internet.
Perhaps you recognize SamCart primarily for its powerful capabilities as a checkout system, yet how does its specific Courses application measure up? Does the inclusion of this course feature justify investing in SamCart? Is it a beneficial tool for current subscribers?
In pursuit of answers, our team conducted comprehensive evaluations of the platform, resulting in this detailed assessment of SamCart Courses. Within this analysis, we will explore its complete feature set and delve into the advantages and disadvantages associated with its utilization.
Furthermore, we will position the software alongside other well-regarded course creation tools, assisting you in determining whether it aligns appropriately with your specific requirements.
Let’s get started.
SamCart Courses operates as an enhancement for the main SamCart system, a well-regarded sales funnel application utilized by a vast number of people. Fundamentally, SamCart serves as a checkout processing tool, and its Courses app incorporates the ability to build and provide educational programs within that environment.
SamCart Courses landing page
Consistent with other managed platforms, employing the courses application frees you from the responsibility of managing updates and ongoing maintenance, as these aspects are overseen by the SamCart team.
It furnishes a user-friendly drag-and-drop course construction tool, adaptable frameworks for arranging lessons, simple procedures for establishing different access permissions, fundamental quizzes and downloadable worksheets, plus features for sequential content release (dripping) and lesson locking.
Nonetheless, the truly distinctive attribute of SamCart Courses is the integration enabling the sale of online courses through its market-leading sales instruments.
Next, we will delve into these functionalities with greater specificity.
Within this part, we’ll evaluate SamCart Courses’ proficiency in creating courses and examine the features it includes for education and interaction. We will further review the content distribution methods and their overall capacities.
SamCart Courses features a straightforward course construction interface designed for organizing your educational material using units (which function like sections) and individual lessons. The primary content actually resides within the lessons, whereas units serve the purpose of logically categorizing related lessons together for better structure.
Utilizing the course builder is quite intuitive; adding new units and lessons presents a simple process. Subsequently, you can conveniently rearrange their sequence within the course structure through an easy drag-and-drop mechanism.
SamCart’s course builder
What kind of materials can you incorporate into these lessons? The lesson editing tool permits the inclusion of videos, images, PDF documents, and audio recordings. It offers integrated hosting for all your materials, including video files, thereby removing the requirement for an external video hosting service.
Additionally, the lesson construction interface includes a text editor that allows you to insert written content into your lessons, complete with a variety of formatting choices.
We truly appreciate the adaptability the lesson builder provides, allowing for the integration of various media types within a single lecture. For example, you have the freedom to combine video + PDF + audio, or any mix of content formats you prefer, arrange them in any sequence, and even adjust their order later.
SamCart Courses’ lesson editor
Nevertheless, a notable drawback is the inability to import videos in batches; you must construct each lesson one by one. Additionally, SamCart does not facilitate importing from cloud storage services, which consequently can impede the speed of the course development workflow.
Conversely, a rather distinctive capability inherent in SamCart Courses involves the provision for establishing multiple access tiers. Moreover, assigning your educational units and individual lessons to these specified access tiers is a straightforward process.
Let’s now look into the features SamCart offers to support student learning and keep them engaged, starting with its quiz functionality.
The SamCart Courses app furnishes elementary tools for building quizzes. Your choices are restricted to crafting multiple-choice items with just one designated correct answer; the system doesn’t support the creation of questions allowing for multiple selections.
Adding a question in a SamCart quiz
SamCart quiz frontend
Concerning the types of media you can incorporate, you are limited to adding basic text, hyperlinks, and a single image within the question itself. Regrettably, there isn’t a mechanism to embed audio or video files directly into either the questions or the potential answers.
Ultimately, you do have the capability to designate a quiz as graded by establishing a minimum required score for passing.
When considering more sophisticated quiz functionalities, elements like randomized question pools, time-limited quizzes, the inclusion of explanatory feedback, and the ability to import questions are currently not supported.
SamCart introduces an alternative assessment feature known as Worksheets, which enables you to include:
You can also enrich worksheets by incorporating text, images, audio files, and videos, enhancing their overall engagement potential.
Furthermore, a setting exists that allows you to receive an email notification whenever a student successfully submits a completed worksheet.
SamCart’s Worksheets feature offers considerable versatility. For instance, it can be effectively utilized for developing assignments and subsequently assessing the submitted work. Alternatively, it serves well for conducting surveys and gathering valuable feedback from your students.
Adding a Worksheet to a SamCart course
Worksheets frontend
However, the worksheets feature does come with certain constraints:
Regarding options for content scheduling and access control, SamCart Courses permits you to make the entire course available instantly or implement a drip schedule organized by unit or individual lesson. This means you have the flexibility to release content incrementally, either one complete unit or one specific lesson at a scheduled interval.
For each newly released unit or lesson, you can determine the specific day of the week it becomes accessible or set a number of days post-enrollment after which it unlocks. You also have the ability to exclude particular lessons from the drip sequence, making them accessible to your students right away.
Nevertheless, the platform lacks the functionality to schedule content release for a precise calendar date.
Concerning content restriction, you can designate particular units or lessons as prerequisites that must be completed before subsequent content is available.
Additionally, there is a feature to mandate quiz completion, requiring students to successfully finish a specific quiz before they can proceed to further lessons.
SamCart Courses Dripping and Locking
Despite offering these learning and interaction tools, SamCart still lacks several significant features, including:
In summary, SamCart provides only fundamental tools for learning and engagement, while essential components like certification and community features are notably absent.
The method of content delivery significantly influences the overall user experience, establishing it as one of the most vital elements in the online course development journey.
Within SamCart, learners access and navigate the course material through the designated curriculum page. This area allows them to monitor their advancement and conveniently pick up the course from their last stopping point.
SamCart Courses Curriculum Page
Educational materials are provided to learners using the platform’s integrated course player. This player adopts a traditional design, featuring the lesson video displayed prominently on the right-hand side, complemented by the course navigation menu situated on the left.
SamCart’s course player
Learners can easily navigate between different lessons and units by employing the sidebar menu along with the forward and backward lesson controls.
Although this structure is functional for presenting the educational material, some limitations are apparent:
Lastly, our evaluation confirmed the course player adapts effectively to mobile devices. Despite the absence of dedicated iOS or Android mobile applications, learners retain the ability to engage with the course materials via their mobile web browsers.
SamCart’s course player is mobile responsive
In conclusion, the content delivery mechanism within SamCart is adequate, yet there is considerable potential for enhancement.
Nonetheless, if your objective is to construct a straightforward educational program and capitalize on the platform’s robust checkout systems, SamCart Courses should prove entirely sufficient for your needs.
SamCart offers subscription tiers beginning at $79 monthly, with their most frequently chosen package priced at $159 per month. Although these plans vary concerning their checkout functionalities, the capabilities for course creation and delivery remain consistent across all available options.
The Courses enhancement is incorporated into every subscription level. This allows for the development of an unlimited number of courses and the enrollment of unlimited students, all without incurring additional transaction charges.
SamCart’s pricing plans
In comparison with alternative course creation tools, SamCart’s price point tends toward the upper range. However, for individuals already utilizing SamCart, implementing courses incurs no extra expense, positioning it as an economical choice.
Having thoroughly examined the functionalities offered by SamCart Courses, we will now explore the specific attributes that differentiate it within the marketplace.
The lesson editing interface provided by SamCart exhibits considerable adaptability. You can incorporate video, written content, pictures, data tables, downloadable resources, and hyperlinks. Numerous formatting choices are available too.
Furthermore, combining various media formats within a single lesson unit is possible, allowing custom sequencing for an aesthetically pleasing presentation within the course viewer.
Regarding the setup of access tiers, SamCart provides a level of adaptability and simplicity potentially surpassing even leading course development applications.
Typically, alternative course software requires packaging distinct products to establish varying levels. Conversely, SamCart’s course building feature permits grouping specific modules or lessons inside one course to form unique access levels.
Adding access levels in SamCart Courses
As an illustration, establishing two distinct levels for your program is feasible: fundamental and enhanced. The essential lessons might comprise the fundamental package, whereas supplementary advanced modules could form the enhanced package.
SamCart functions predominantly as a checkout solution, and it certainly offers superior capabilities.
Initially, you have the ability to integrate Stripe, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, plus several additional choices for handling payments.
Regarding the construction of checkout pages, a wide selection of pre-designed layouts is accessible. You possess the option to modify these or develop a unique design entirely anew.
Additionally, the checkout page construction tool includes all essential components—client endorsements, trust symbols, highlighted sections, textual content, visual elements, and others.
SamCart Checkout Page Builder
Crucially, SamCart provides exceptional features designed to enhance conversion rates and maximize customer lifetime value:
SamCart enables the configuration of triggers and resulting actions through connections with over twenty external applications.
Your required steps involve choosing the specific integration, inputting the confidential API key, followed by defining the desired triggers and subsequent actions.
Over fifteen distinct eCommerce-related triggers are provided, including events like order finalization, item acquisition, and subscription initiation. Various actions can be assigned to these triggers based on the capabilities of the connected third-party tools.
Specifically regarding courses, four distinct trigger events are available:
SamCart Courses Triggers
SamCart Triggers for ConvertKit Actions
Select any of these specific triggers, configure the corresponding third-party actions, and you will be prepared to proceed. As an illustration, you might opt for the trigger Student Added To Course, and the resulting action could be Add Tag To Subscriber within ConvertKit, which subsequently facilitates sending them a tailored onboarding email sequence.
The advantage inherent in this feature is that it negates the necessity for a separate automation platform, such as Zapier, to forge advanced integrations connecting with other software tools.
SamCart provides first-rate features for operating a subscription model.
You can conveniently formulate distinct tiers by introducing multiple access levels for all your course offerings and consolidating them to fashion membership plans. You can even package several courses concurrently and include digital downloads as components of the membership.
With respect to pricing structures, there are special capabilities like personalized recurring payment schedules, time-limited subscription durations, options for both free and paid trial access, and initial setup costs.
Setting a recurring subscription in SamCart
In addition to pricing considerations, several other functionalities deserve specific mention:
Finally, SamCart permits you to monitor all essential subscription performance indicators, such as the count of currently active subscriptions, monthly recurring revenue (MRR), customer attrition rate, number of new trials, cancellations, and subscriptions identified as being at risk.
SamCart Courses is missing certain significant features that could potentially affect your online education venture. Within this segment, we will examine each of these particular aspects.
Although SamCart Courses includes quizzes, downloadable worksheets, and content dripping schedules, they each possess certain constraints. For example, you are limited to creating fundamental multiple-choice assessments and lack access to more sophisticated evaluation options.
Furthermore, you cannot issue students a formal certificate of completion following their successful course finalization.
Additionally, there are no integrated tools for fostering community interaction or enabling group discussions. Features for conducting live instructional sessions and personalized coaching are also absent. As is evident, methods for direct student engagement are not provided.
While SamCart incorporates a checkout page design tool, it does not offer a comprehensive website builder. No pre-designed website templates or capabilities for developing complete sales landing pages are available.
Therefore, if your goal is to construct an entire course website featuring a main homepage, blog section, etc., this cannot be accomplished solely using SamCart. In such a scenario, employing WordPress or an alternative platform for hosting your website becomes necessary.
SamCart provides considerable flexibility in designing a customer purchase sequence. Nevertheless, you may find the process of linking elements somewhat difficult to grasp initially.
Should you establish multiple access tiers, distinct products will be required for each tier, and subsequently, you must assign these products back to correspond with every access level. You must also incorporate a purchase button link directing users to the checkout.
The entire procedure is rather intricate, presenting a challenge to execute the flow correctly on the initial attempt. However, navigation should become easier once you gain familiarity with the system.
Although SamCart boasts robust sales reporting capabilities, it fails to furnish any insights related to course performance. You will be let down if you seek metrics like completion percentages, learner progress tracking, or quiz result analysis.
All leading course platforms provide these reporting instruments, empowering you to make informed decisions regarding your course content based on data. Regrettably, this capability is unavailable within SamCart.
Moreover, video analytics are not offered, meaning you cannot obtain data concerning video viewership statistics and engagement levels.
Before presenting our concluding assessment, let us evaluate how SamCart Courses compares against other online course development tools.
One premier platform favored by many course instructors is Thinkific. It functions as a dedicated course platform concentrating primarily on the creation and dissemination of educational content.
When juxtaposed with SamCart courses, Thinkific furnishes significantly more course-specific functionalities, including advanced quizzes, completion certificates, live class hosting, community features, and mobile application support. It further encompasses a website builder and numerous third-party integrations to broaden your site’s capabilities.
Consequently, if your requirement is a comprehensive course-building solution, Thinkific represents a suitable choice. However, its checkout construction tool lacks the same power, prompting many creators to utilize Thinkific in conjunction with SamCart.
Another widely recognized course platform is Kajabi. This represents an integrated all-encompassing online course platform providing tools to oversee every facet of your knowledge-based enterprise.
Through Kajabi, you gain access to varied course player layouts, assessments and assignments, mobile applications, community and coaching modules, a potent website builder, optimized checkout processes, a sales funnel builder, and integrated email marketing capabilities.
Once more, Kajabi emerges as a more robust selection for course creators and is advisable if you aim to manage your entire operation from one centralized location.
This SamCart Courses assessment comprehensively covered all the platform’s course creation functionalities. Furthermore, we investigated the tools distinguishing the course application and identified areas where it falls short.
On the whole, the course application is deficient in several quite critical features and cannot yet serve as a substitute for a specialized online course platform. Nevertheless, if you are already a SamCart customer seeking to develop straightforward online courses, the Courses add-on component should adequately meet your needs.
If you wish to explore SamCart Courses firsthand, initiating a complimentary trial is possible by clicking the link provided below.
We trust this examination of SamCart Courses resonated positively and contributed to clarifying if this solution aligns with your specific needs. Should you possess any uncertainties regarding the system, please share them using the comment box situated at the page’s conclusion.
An online community platform is a software that lets you create a website where people with common interests can connect and interact. The platform provides the infrastructure for members to communicate and collaborate with each other, share content, and participate in activities and events.
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Circle is the best all-around community platform that works well for creators as well as brands. In addition, Mighty Networks and BuddyBoss are also great options for creators.
BuddyBoss is the best community plugin for WordPress users, as it is the only robust WordPress-based option that offers a complete suite of community-building features. It also integrates with other popular plugins like LearnDash and Gamipress.
The best way to get your community app is to subscribe to a community builder that lets you create branded apps. There are a few providers out there, like Mighty Networks, BuddyBoss, and Disciple, that provide this service.
Hey there! I'm Daniel, the brains behind SellCoursesOnline. I used to run a digital agency, where I helped course businesses launch their eLearning platforms. I also led the tech and marketing teams at StationX, helping it grow to 500K+ students. In addition, I created the popular supply chain network design course. With 8+ years of experience, I'm here to share my expertise and insights on course creation and platforms with you.
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Copyright © 2024 by SellCoursesOnline
Daniel Nic is an entrepreneur and digital education specialist who founded sellingonlinecoursesguide.com, a platform dedicated to helping creators and educators successfully navigate the online course marketplace. Through his website, he shares insights and strategies for developing, marketing, and monetizing online educational content. His work focuses on empowering course creators to build sustainable online businesses while effectively sharing their knowledge with students worldwide.
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