12 Best PayKickstart Alternatives for Better E-Commerce Experience

Running an online business is hard.

Between managing products, handling payments, tracking taxes, and acquiring customers, things can get dirty pretty quickly.

And as much as we’d all love more hours in the day, that’s just not happening.

What is possible?

Equipping your business with the right set of tools to help automate workflows and streamline operations.

That’s where a shopping cart and subscription billing platform like PayKickstart comes in mighty handy.

But maybe it’s not the best fit for your exact needs or budget right now.

No worries.

I’ve dug into the 12 best PayKickstart alternatives on the market today so you can find the ideal solution to power up profits with your online business.

Here they are:

1. SamCart

(7-day trial, paid plan starts at $79/month)

Samcart is an elegant yet powerful shopping cart platform that helps entrepreneurs sell products online, whether digital or physical.

Samcart helps maximize conversion rates and the average order value. They make it easy to create optimized checkout pages to upsell customers and increase cart totals.

You can offer coupons, one-click upsells, payment plans, and more.

One standout feature is Samcart’s excellent affiliate management tools.

The affiliate center provides detailed reporting and link tracking to help you manage affiliates driving sales of your products.

Samcart is also good when it comes to email marketing integrations. It works seamlessly with all the major providers like MailChimp, Drip, and ActiveCampaign.

This allows you to trigger customized purchase confirmation and post-purchase email sequences.

Now Samcart isn’t perfect. It only supports Stripe and PayPal payments currently. And some users complain about the template customization needing to be more flexible.

However, Samcart still delivers an impressive feature set focused specifically on maximizing online sales.

Key Features

• Feature-rich affiliate management and tracking
• Customized checkout page templates
• Drag-and-drop sales funnel builder
• Support for selling physical and digital products
• Subscription and payment plan capabilities
• Integrations with email marketing platforms

2. Post Affiliate Pro

(30-day trial, paid plan starts at $139/month)

Post Affiliate Pro is a robust affiliate marketing software with features to set up, manage, and optimize affiliate programs.

It empowers businesses to leverage affiliates to promote products, drive traffic, and boost sales.

Post Affiliate Pro offers precise tracking and detailed analytics to measure affiliate performance through methods like cookie, pixel, and IP tracking.

You gain data-backed insights to identify high-performing affiliates, campaigns, and channels to double down on what works.

It also comes with multiple tools to create eye-catching promotional materials from banners to coupons to lightboxes and more.

These can be fully customized and branded for a polished look.

When it comes to commissions, Post Affiliate Pro equips users with flexible models like CPA, CPC, lifetime commissions, and more.

Post Affiliate Pro simplifies affiliate recruitment and communication through customizable signup forms, themes, member areas, and multi-language support spanning 36 languages.

Key Features

• Banner Rotator for dynamic banner promotion
• SmartLinks to optimize landing pages
• Reporting for campaigns, banners, affiliates
• Geographical performance tracking
• Real-time user activity monitoring
• Performance rewards for top sellers
• White-label customization for branding

3. Zoho Billing

(14-day trial, paid plan starts at $20/month)

Zoho Billing is a comprehensive billing software solution with a focus on efficient processes and security.

It provides robust product catalog management, allowing you to easily create, update, and manage multiple products and services under one roof.

You can optimize revenue potential by experimenting with flexible pricing models like flat fees, volume-based tiers, and more.

Zoho Billing combines invoicing, expense management, project billing, and recurring subscriptions on a unified platform to streamline workflows.

It enables automated invoice generation with custom branding, consolidated billing, multi-currency support, and multilingual invoices.

You can seamlessly bill expenses, track team mileage, and monitor project budgets through centralized dashboards.

They also help manage the entire customer lifecycle – from sharing quotes to handling subscriptions, upgrades, downgrades, trials, and discounts.

Key Features

• Product catalog management
• Automated invoicing
• Expense and project billing
• Recurring & subscription billing
• Subscription lifecycle management
• Accounting, CRM & app integrations

4. Sellfy

(14-day trial, paid plan starts at $29/month)

Sellfy is an all-in-one e-commerce platform for entrepreneurs and small businesses to create, customize, and manage online stores with ease.

You can get your store up and running in minutes, and then leverage built-in features to sell digital goods, physical products, subscriptions, and more.

Some of the key capabilities of Sellfy include beautiful storefront creation, product variety spanning digital files to print-on-demand merchandise, and much more.

With Sellfy, the focus is on simplicity and automation so you can focus on creating great products rather than getting bogged down in the technicalities of running an online business.

With flexible customization, native mobile optimization, and multilingual support, Sellfy stores meet buyers where they are.

Finally, one-click domain integration and product embedding expand your reach, while customer engagement features like discount codes and upselling increase sales.

Key Features

• Customizable, mobile-friendly storefronts
• Print-on-demand merchandise capabilities
• Integrated email marketing and analytics
• Global payments, PCI compliance, security features
• Multilingual support for global audiences
• One-click domain linking for branding

5. ThriveCart

(Current price: lifetime plan at $495)

ThriveCart is an e-commerce shopping cart tool that stands out for its clean interface and one-time pricing model.

As a PayKickstart alternative, ThriveCart has several notable strengths like seamless integration with top payment gateways, flexible payment models including subscriptions and installment plans, and robust affiliate marketing tools.

You also benefit from granular control over discounts and coupons.

However, ThriveCart does have some limitations in areas like cryptocurrency payments, template selection, and design customization.

It may not be suitable for all physical product scenarios either.

ThriveCart delivers a smooth, conversion-focused checkout experience via templates, A/B testing, and other enhancements.

Key Features

• Clean, simple interface and aesthetic for shopping cart and checkout pages
• Tight integration with major payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal
• Flexible payment models including subscriptions, installment plans, and trials
• Robust affiliate marketing tools and dashboard for managing partners
• A/B testing to optimize checkout for higher conversions

6. Gumroad

(10% fee on every sale)

Gumroad is a simplified yet mighty e-commerce platform to set creators free on their journey to financial independence.

The way it works is pretty straightforward – open an account, add a product, start selling, repeat, and get paid.

Smooth and efficient.

With Gumroad, you can speedily score payments for your creative goods.

Now here’s the extra cool part – you can fully customize your store on Gumroad or seamlessly integrate it into your existing site.

No site yet? No worries!

You can quickly set one up with their flexible page editor and make it your own with customizable colors and more.

And when it comes time to get paid, Gumroad has got you covered with integrations for various payment options.

It includes simple memberships, subscriptions (monthly, quarterly, etc), and even the pay-what-you-want flexibility for your audience.

You can accept different currencies too, allowing you to open your shop globally.

On top of that, Gumroad handles the nitty-gritty stuff in the background.

I am talking about creating offer codes, generating license keys, and selling multiple product versions. They’ll even deal with VAT collection and submission to the EU so you can keep creating.

Key Features

• Seamless setup to start selling digital products and services
• Customizable storefront builder to reflect brand identity
• Integrations for flexible payment options and global audience reach
• Audience growth tools and detailed analytics for data-driven decisions
• Automated workflows to engage an audience and boost sales
• No monthly charge

7. Payhip

(Free plan, paid plan starts at $29/month)

Payhip is a user-friendly e-commerce platform with digital products in mind.

Whether you want to sell ebooks, online courses, or other digital files, Payhip makes it simple to set up an online store and start selling.

One of the things that stands out about Payhip is how affordable it is.

They offer a free forever plan that lets you use all of Payhip’s features while only charging a 5% transaction fee on sales (unlike Gumroad’s 10% fee).

Payhip covers everything you need to build and manage an e-commerce store. Their store builder lets you easily customize the design of your site.

Payhip also provides detailed analytics so you can track your sales performance and find ways to boost conversions.

Additionally, Payhip equips you with effective marketing tools like coupons, email newsletters, and social sharing discounts.

When it comes to payments, Payhip seamlessly integrates with PayPal and Stripe.

Key Features

• Store Builder for complete site customization
• Integration with PayPal and Stripe for easy global payments
• Detailed analytics for tracking product performance
• Marketing tools like coupons, email lists, upgrades, cross-sells
• Order, email, followers, sales reporting for customer management
• Integrations with WordPress, Squarespace, and more
• Automatic handling of EU and UK VAT

8. SendOwl

(3-months free plan, paid plan starts at $9/month)

SendOwl is an all-in-one digital checkout and delivery solution built to power online businesses selling any stuff.

Unlike other platforms that cater only to specific product types, SendOwl flexibly supports selling just about anything you can imagine.

From ebooks, courses, and software to tangible goods and subscriptions, it has you covered.

SendOwl also integrates across various channels, allowing you to sell on your website, Shopify, or social media profiles.

One standout element of SendOwl is the emphasis on marketing tools like coupons, one-click upsells, and abandoned cart savings.

The extensive customization options are another plus, enabling brands to tailor the checkout templates, buttons, and branding to match their sites.

Key Features

• Checkout customization and branding options
• Tools for marketing (coupons, upsells, abandoned carts)
• Detailed sales, order history, and tax reporting
• Affiliate marketing tools to drive sales through referrals
• Security features such as file watermarking and download limits
• API access and integrations with services like Zapier
• Payment processing via major gateways like Stripe and PayPal

9. Paddle

(Pay-as-you-go pricing model: 5% + 50¢ per transaction)

Paddle is an all-in-one billing platform designed specifically to meet the needs of SaaS businesses.

It acts as a merchant of record, taking care of all aspects of payments, tax compliance, fraud protection, and subscription management.

Paddle aims to provide flexible billing that grows alongside SaaS businesses.

It supports multi-product subscriptions, tiered pricing, metered billing, and add-ons to accommodate complex business models.

Developers can leverage Paddle’s REST API to deeply customize and integrate billing workflows.

For those expanding globally, Paddle handles localized checkout flows, currency conversions, VAT collection, invoicing requirements, and more across 200+ countries.

Key Features

• Support for multiple payment methods and currencies
• Automated, tax-compliant B2B billing
• Manages global sales tax obligations
• Fraud risk exposure via advanced systems
• Data-driven decisions through robust analytics
• Reduces churn through automatic dunning features

10. E-junkie

(14-day trial, paid plan starts at $8/month)

E-junkie is a user-friendly all-in-one e-commerce solution that allows online sellers to set up a shopping cart and start selling quickly.

E-junkie handles secure checkouts, payment processing, and digital delivery while giving you robust tools to customize the shopping experience.

It grows alongside your business too – integrating shipping carriers, offering promo tools, bundling products, tracking analytics, and more.

When it comes to ebook protection and sales, E-junkie has you covered too.

It stamps buyer info onto PDFs to limit unauthorized sharing and enables you to generate unique download codes for offline selling.

Key Features

• Automates digital delivery and ebook protection
• Customizable shopping cart seamlessly integrates into sites
• Promo tools: coupons, gift cards, affiliate programs
• VAT and tax rule configuration capabilities
• Integration with mailing lists, accounting, and logistics software
• Exposure to the E-junkie marketplace

11. HoneyBook

(7-day trial, paid plan starts at $9.5/month)

HoneyBook is an all-in-one client management solution for small businesses to streamline their operations.

It brings together proposals, contracts, invoicing, scheduling, automation, and more on a single intuitive platform.

For invoicing, HoneyBook provides fast digital payments with automatic reminders to ensure timely payment collection.

When it comes to proposals, HoneyBook makes the process polished yet flexible. Its branding capabilities and streamlined 1-2-3 booking workflow simplify client interactions.

Additionally, HoneyBook’s scheduling feature allows users to get booked online seamlessly with customized meeting links, confirmations, and reminders.

It also offers ready-made, legit contracts with secure online signatures, smart barcode tech, and instant notifications.

Last but not least, HoneyBook delivers robust integrations with tools like Zoom, Quickbooks, Gmail, and more to maximize efficiency.

Key Features

• Fast digital payments with reminders for easy collection
• Professional and flexible quoting with streamlined booking
• Customized appointment setting to get booked effortlessly
• Ready-made agreements with secure online signatures
• Connects with popular tools like Zoom, QuickBooks, Gmail

12. Recurly

(Free for a year, chat with the sales team for exact pricing)

Recurly is a feature-rich subscription billing and management platform to help businesses maximize recurring revenue.

It stands out with its proven ability to rapidly grow subscription businesses.

Leading with flexibility and ease of use, Recurly gives you the capabilities to iterate, experiment, and manage subscriptions to enhance the entire customer lifecycle.

From launch to scale, Recurly focuses on driving the metrics that matter most: acquiring more subscribers and maximizing the revenue they generate.

Key Features

• Agile iteration tools to quickly test and optimize subscriptions
• Actionable insights to reduce churn and maximize lifetime value
• Integrations with major payment gateways, ERPs, and CRMs
• Focused on acquiring more subscribers and revenue growth

PayKickstart Vs. The Rest

And there you have it, a roundup of 12 capable PayKickstart alternatives to consider for your business!

Now I don’t know about you, but my head is spinning after that info download.

Here’s what I suggest:

Step 1: Pour yourself a nice cup of hot coffee.

Step 2: Grab a notebook and pen or any note-taking tool of your liking.

Step 3: Read back over the key features and benefits of the top 2-3 contenders that caught your attention.

Jot down any questions or uncertainty areas so you can get clarity.

And take notes on must-have capabilities based on your business model, payment needs, feature wishlist, and budget.

Once you’ve narrowed it down to your favorite option, go ahead and grab that free trial!