What Is ThriveCart and Is It Any Good? (My Honest Review and Rundown)
For complete transparency, this post contains affiliate links and I may receive some money (at no cost to you) if you buy via one of my links.
Answering the question “how will my clients pay me for stuff?” can get unnecessarily complicated.
Before you know it, you’re days deep into a Google rabbit hole but still no closer to figuring out what tools or software you actually need.
I mean, it shouldn’t be this difficult, right? You just want something that’ll handle everything smoothly and efficiently, with as little manual input as possible. (That you don’t need an IT degree to set up.)
After trying out a mix of other solutions in my business, I started using ThriveCart in early 2021 and was so happy to discover that it ticked a lot of those boxes for me.
I bought lifetime access to ThriveCart for around £575, and 13 months later it has helped me process £17,739 of net revenue. That’s a pretty phenomenal ROI right there! And a pretty sweet chunk of change that been in addition to the regular revenue I already generate via Xero.
And because I always appreciate an insider peek into the systems other biz owners use (and what they’re doing with them), here’s my honest rundown and review to help you decide if ThriveCart might be right for your business.
(Pssst!! For more of my tried & tested recommendations to make your business life easier - take a look at my blog post with 7 of the best online tools for your business in 2022.)
What is ThriveCart?
ThriveCart is an online shopping cart and checkout platform for your digital products and services.
(Apparently, you can sell physical goods with it too, but I’ll be honest, I have zero experience of this side of things with ThriveCart, so definitely do some research of your own to make sure it’s a fit if this is relevant for you.)
As well as high-converting cart pages, you can use ThriveCart for one-click upsell funnels, bump offers (adding a complementary offer to your checkout page), free trials, recurring payments, and so much more!
I use ThriveCart to sell all my products and services at the moment.
Coaching
Power hours
Training & mentorship
So literally anything that requires payment in my business goes through ThriveCart - and that just makes my life SO much easier.
How much does ThriveCart cost?
The standard version of ThriveCart costs $495 (about £400) for lifetime access. Yup, you read that right. One payment, and it’s yours forever - amazing!! That was a huge plus for me.
For an additional $195 (around £160), you can upgrade to the Pro version (this is what I use), which gives you everything you get with the standard version, plus:
Affiliate Management Centre - makes it super easy to set up and manage your affiliates as a “street team” to help promote your product or service.
Joint Venture Contracts /Revenue Sharing - a simple way to split revenue from partnerships or collaborations.
Subscription Saver - automated emails for expired/cancelled cards and declined payments.
Automatic Sales Tax Calculation & Reporting - especially handy for digital products.
Custom Domain Name - use your own branding instead of ThriveCart’s.
Admin User Management - add up to 5 team members to your account.
Enhanced Business Projections - Intelligent metrics projections based on your past sales data.
What I used before ThriveCart
Before ThriveCart, I tried Kajabi to host some of my courses and memberships. But that’s not a cheap option - you’re talking around £120/month for the basic plan.
It’s tough to justify that level of expense every month for a new offer when you’re still testing your idea and building up social proof for your product. I ended up paying for Kajabi for about six months and operating at a loss for that time due to the cost of the subscription. Plus, it had a massive learning curve - I just didn’t find it intuitive.
I was also using Book Like a Boss for coaching bookings and payments and selling some digital resources (PDFs etc.) And that integrated with Stripe for payment and worked perfectly well. The problem was it didn’t generate an invoice, which a lot of clients would ask me for, so I’d have to spend time creating that separately.
How ThriveCart simplifies my business
ThriveCart helped me streamline everything with a single payment solution for all my products and services. And because it’s a one-off payment, there were no worries about being tied into an expensive monthly subscription.
It was also really easy to integrate with the other software I use in my business - ActiveCampaign for emails, MemberVault for my membership and Stripe/PayPal for payments. And it generates an invoice for every purchase - job done!
So what else can ThriveCart do?
ThriveCart allows you to set up different price points and discount codes for your products, making it simple to add some urgency when you’re launching or promoting something over a specific timeframe.
I love how straightforward it is to set up a recurring subscription for something like a membership. And you can do free trials with it too. For instance, you could give somebody seven days of access to your training programme and once that time is up, they’d have to cancel or switch straight onto monthly billing.
This flexibility around payment terms is a big advantage for me because it’s something I felt was missing from platforms like Kajabi and MemberVault.
So for that one-off investment, you can see you’re getting an awful lot of features and functionality bundled into ThriveCart.
But… that’s not all!
What is ThriveCart Learn?
ThriveCart started out as just a checkout and shopping cart tool, but in 2021 they added “Learn” to the product.
Learn is a fully-functional platform for hosting your digital courses and memberships. And… it’s included for FREE with the standard version of ThriveCart! You can also upgrade to “Learn+” with even more features and customisations for a single payment of about $200 (about £165).
Full disclosure - I haven’t explored Learn much yet, because my membership is already set up with MemberVault and I’m happy with that for now. But if creating a course is in your plans and you’re considering ThriveCart, do bear this in mind, as it might save you having to pay for a separate platform to host your programme.
Is ThriveCart easy to set up?
Yes! For me, it was very intuitive and simple to set up. There are native integrations with most of the main email, membership and payment tools. And if by chance yours is not on the list, not to worry, you’ll probably be able to connect it using Zapier.
Design and layout aren’t my strongest areas, but I find creating a checkout page for your products is super quick. ThriveCart gives you checkout templates as a starting point, and then it’s just a matter of dragging and dropping. If you want to take things a bit further, you can buy sales page templates from other vendors, but what’s included is more than enough for me at the moment.
What’s ThriveCart support like?
Their support team has always been super helpful whenever I’ve emailed them. They’ve got a fairly comprehensive knowledge base of articles on the website covering all aspects of setup and how to get the most from it. There’s also a pretty active Facebook group if you’re looking for help with more specific questions and scenarios.
What I like most about ThriveCart
I don't have to worry about it. It’s so straightforward to set up and integrates perfectly with the other tools I use in my business.
Another brilliant feature is that when I’m coming to the end of a coaching agreement, I can create a page specifically for that client with a countdown timer and an exclusive special offer or bonus if they’d like to continue working together. Then, once that offer has expired, I can choose where I want to redirect them to. I really like that level of customisation.
What I don’t like about ThriveCart
Honestly (and I promise I’m not just saying this), there isn’t really anything I don’t like! As with any online platform, there's a bit of a learning curve at first, but the software walks you through the setup process really well at each stage - prompting you to set the price, add a discount, etc.
One potential downside might be that ThriveCart doesn’t offer a free trial option. But they do have the ThriveCart “Pays For Itself Guarantee”, which says that if you don’t grow your results enough to make back the cost of your investment, their team will work with you until you do. And if it still hasn’t paid for itself, you can get a full refund in the first 30 days.
Is ThriveCart worth it?
For me - yes. It’s a chunky sum to pay out at once, but you get a lot for your money. Even the standard version of ThriveCart gives you the checkout templates, upsells, order bumps, automated cart abandonment follow-ups, metrics and A/B testing.
And, of course - the lifetime access. That really was a massive selling point for me.
But word is that in 2022 they’re planning to end the current one-time deal and switch to a subscription model. There’s no timeframe on this yet, but it’s worth keeping in mind if you’re on the fence about whether to purchase.
A special offer - just for you - £100 credit to use in my business
Hopefully, this review has given you enough info to figure out whether ThriveCart is the solution for you. And if you have decided to go for it - I’ve got a special offer just for you!
For a limited time only, if you buy ThriveCart through my unique link, you’ll receive £100 of “Victoria Credit”** to redeem against any of the services I offer.
So, if you’ve been thinking of purchasing ThriveCart AND you’d like to try out working with me then this could be just what you need.