ClickFunnels vs ThriveCart

ThriveCart vs ClickFunnels

You are down to two. You want either one login that holds the funnel, the email, the CRM and the courses, or the cheapest way to put a bump and an upsell on pages you already have.

ClickFunnels is the monthly stack. The homepage sells hosted funnels, Smart Checkout, a store, email, automations, CRM pipelines, courses and a community. ThriveCart leads with the order form. Standard includes the cart, unlimited products and funnels, one bump, one-click upsells and downsells, split tests, sales tax automation, ThrivePages, and starter limits on ThriveCart Academy.

A shopper browsing a catalog and filling a multi-item cart is outside what either homepage is selling. Both of these are built for an offer with a pay step, a bump and a follow-up page.

What you get in the account

ClickFunnels is the account you open when the pages do not exist yet. Smart Checkout looks at what is already in the cart and can present a one-time offer the buyer adds with a single click. A returning buyer can check out in one click after the account recognizes their email. That behavior is on the Smart Checkout page.

The same account sends the email and runs the pipelines, and it can host the course and the community. You are paying for the place the buyer lands, the message that follows, and the checkout, on one bill.

ThriveCart is the account you open when that place already exists. The campaign page still sells a one-time Standard license, and it calls that license a one-time cost with no monthly cart bill eating the sale. Monthly Standard and Pro+ sit beside it, each with a 30-day trial in the trial row above. ThrivePages and the academy mean the product now includes pages and a course area. The homepage still leads with conversion on the order form.

Sellers on a public Ask Marketing thread describe ClickFunnels as expensive and rigid, and they say leaving gets harder once the pages and the list live inside the account. On a digital marketing thread, long-term sellers say they try other carts and come back to ThriveCart for the checkout. Those are user reports, not a timed test of either product.

What the plans cost

The From row is the entry price: Launch for ClickFunnels, Standard month to month for ThriveCart. The table under this paragraph is the rest of the menu. ClickFunnels yearly figures are the per-month amounts the pricing page shows when you pay for the year, and Dominate is billed once a year because that page does not list a monthly Dominate price.

That one-time Standard license is about five months of Launch, before the yearly add-on. After that, the cart subscription stops. ClickFunnels keeps a monthly plan for as long as the account stays open. The Pro+ help article documents the affiliate center as part of that yearly add-on. Standard does not include it.

ClickFunnels answers the sales-cut question on its pricing page: "You'll keep every penny you make." ThriveCart's homepage says it charges no fee on sales. The card processor still bills its own rate on either side. ClickFunnels' pricing page includes a 30-day money-back guarantee. The trial cell above follows the Launch signup path, which is separate from that guarantee.

The checkout cost calculator compares the plans at a monthly revenue you choose. The ClickFunnels review and the ThriveCart review hold the longer write-ups.

How the bump and the test are delivered

On ClickFunnels the bump and the one-click offer happen inside Smart Checkout, on the hosted funnel. The A/B testing page says you compare two variations of a funnel step, and that tests can cover landing pages, funnels and emails. Each variation is a separate step, so each one is served at its own address.

On ThriveCart, Standard includes one bump and the one-click upsell and downsell path, and the homepage lists split tests of checkout pages or funnels. A second bump, and the bumps after that, sit on Pro+. Each variant again has its own address.

A campaign that has to keep a single link needs a test that rotates the page on the server. The checkout split testing guide compares the tools that do that. Neither ClickFunnels nor ThriveCart splits one sale across several merchant accounts. The ClickFunnels review calls its checkout a single-processor affair, and ThriveCart charges through one processor too. The MID routing guide compares the tools that split a first sale across merchant accounts.

When the ad has to keep one URL

ElasticFunnels is a funnel platform for teams running paid traffic. It builds the pages, hosts the checkout, and keeps the click, the order, the rebill and the refund on one record, with the CRM, automations and attribution on that same data. An AI builder can generate a page from a prompt or clone one from a URL.

It is on this shortlist because the ad can keep one campaign link while the page and the checkout change. Variants are chosen on the server under that link, so the ad platform is not sent a new destination each time you test. Order bumps, one-click upsells and subscriptions are on the checkout.

Multi-MID routing is NMI only. It is a weighted split of each first sale across that merchant's NMI accounts, with rules for card brand, product and amount, and a daily cap per account. The report shows sales, revenue and refunds per account. Upsells and rebills stay on the account that took the sale. Stripe, PayPal, Klarna and Authorize.net each connect as one account.

Starter is the From figure in the table. Growth is $197 a month and Scale is $497 a month. Growth and Scale include the same features as Starter. What changes is the allowance: 50,000, 250,000 or 500,000 page views a month, plus brands, domains, seats and automation runs. Sales through ElasticFunnels' own gateways carry a 0.5% fee. Sales you send to an external checkout are not charged that fee. The trial does not require a card. You can set up pages, funnels and a custom domain while it runs.

ElasticFunnels is newer than ClickFunnels, and independent reviews are still scarce. Until real order volume has gone through it, you are largely taking the vendor's word for how the tests and the routing behave. That is what you would expect of a platform this new. You can still set up the pages, the checkout and the NMI split during the trial, before any volume moves. The stack comparison is ElasticFunnels vs ClickFunnels.

My take

I would open ClickFunnels when the funnel, the email and the course still have to be built, and I want them in one login. I would open ThriveCart when those pages already exist and the job is the bump, the upsell and a license that can be paid once, with the affiliate center budgeted as the yearly add-on if a JV launch needs it.

When the ad cannot change its URL, I would use the ElasticFunnels trial and judge the same-URL test there, with the thin outside coverage in mind. If the shortlist is really two carts, SamCart vs ThriveCart is the closer pair. ClickFunnels vs Kajabi and ClickFunnels vs Kartra are the other hosted stacks. Read how we evaluate checkout software for the criteria behind this call. Every pair is on the comparisons hub.