ThriveCart was founded in 2016 by entrepreneur Josh Bartlett. Based in Austin, Texas, the platform has raised over $35 million in funding from LTV SaaS Fund. With over 75,000 sellers, ThriveCart is built for creators of online products, such as physical products, courses, subscriptions, and more, while offering funnels and automations as key features.
What is ThriveCart?
ThriveCart is an ecommerce tool that primarily focuses on its conversion-focused checkout. On this platform, you can sell digital and physical products. The platform is known for its advanced funnels and automations to help sellers increase their average order value. You can fully customize your checkout pages to reduce cart abandonment. Plus, you can create sales funnels to upsell other products as customers are ready to check out.
How does ThriveCart work?
ThriveCart is more of a shopping cart and checkout tool. Creators can add their products, which ThriveCart hosts, accept payments, and create sales funnels with ease. You can connect your Stripe or PayPal account to collect payments in the form of one-time fees, recurring subscriptions, payment plans, or free trials.
The platform has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that you can easily customize, giving you control of the checkout process. However, these checkouts can only be added to your website and don’t replace having a website itself.
What you need to know about selling on ThriveCart?
Unlike most ecommerce platforms, ThriveCart isn’t a traditional website builder. When choosing ThriveCart, you’ll need a separate website to embed your cart. Considering most website builders automatically include a cart option, it is a less-than-ideal platform for the average seller. If you’re looking for an all-in-one platform solution, it’s best to check out another solution like Payhip, which allows you to sell digital and physical products while giving you both a website and a complete checkout experience.
ThriveCart lacks a native email marketing tool like some of its competitors. Instead, you’ll need to integrate a third-party tool like Mailchimp to be able to start running email campaigns. If you already have a provider, then all you need to do is set one up.
ThriveCart doesn’t currently host videos for online courses. If you’re a course creator, you’ll need to use a third-party video player like YouTube or Vimeo for your online courses. Even if you make your videos private, there’s still a risk they’ll be shared with others. Having a piracy-safe alternative like Payhip allows you to sell courses while securely hosting your course videos on your own website.
While you can sell physical products on ThriveCart, the platform is more focused on digital product sales. The platform may not be as helpful if you need advanced shipping rules or third-party integrations with a warehouse.
ThriveCart also lacks community forums. If you want to create a community around your course or membership program, you’ll need to use a third-party tool. Most course programs include native commenting systems that allow students to interact within the program, increasing engagement.
ThriveCart also has a one-time payment with a high cost of $495. However, it has an even more expensive plan of $709 with a recurring annual subscription of $295. So the one-time payment doesn’t completely eliminate the subscription. Plus, most ecommerce platforms only charge about $29 per month on their Pro plan. The one-time fee would amount to about 17 months of a subscription. Not all sellers will be choosing to go online for over 17 months.
Is ThriveCart the best platform to sell products?
No, ThriveCart isn’t the best platform for selling products, as it’s more of a cart and checkout tool than an all-in-one platform like Payhip. On Payhip, you’ll be able to sell your products, host files, including videos, and own a website. Plus, Payhip also has a commenting tool for course creators to help create an engaging sense of community. On top of all this, Payhip also offers a free plan that takes only a 5% cut per sale. If you want to reduce fees as your sales grow, you can choose a paid plan. Start selling digital and physical products on your own website. Sign up for free.