Creator commerce · checked 2026-10-19

Can I vibecode SamCart?

KINDA· weekend project

For one product, SamCart's core is a sales page, hosted Stripe Checkout, an order bump, a webhook that unlocks the purchase and a receipt email, and an agent builds that in a day. The weekend goes on everything the money brings with it: sales tax or VAT, refunds, chargebacks, failed-payment retries, affiliate payouts and a members area. Stripe Checkout takes the card handling and Stripe Tax a good part of the maths, but you remain the seller who answers for both. One or two products with no affiliates is realistic; a catalog with a course platform is not.

$79/moprice

$948you'd save a year

weekendbuild time

—people replaced it

Before you start

What you need on hand.

DifficultyIntermediate · Some system setup or keys.

TimeA weekend for one product; about an hour of it is Stripe's dashboard

Claude Code, Codex or CursorAny of them can run the prompt.
Node.js 22better-sqlite3 compiles a native module, so build tools must be installed.
A Stripe accountStart in test mode; going live needs business details and a payout account.
SMTP credentialsA transactional email provider's free tier covers a single seller.
A public addressStripe has to reach the webhook: a tunnel while testing, a small VPS with HTTPS for real sales.

Before you buildSamCart has no free plan. Stripe Payment Links need no code and no monthly fee, so check whether one product with a coupon is all you need before building.

1. Install one agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.
2. Make an empty folder and open it in the agent.
3. Paste the prompt below, press enter, and answer its questions as it builds.

The prompt

Build me a personal checkout and sales-page system to replace SamCart for one or two digital products. Requirements:

- Node.js 22 + TypeScript: Fastify with server-rendered pages (Eta). `npm start` serves
http://localhost:4950: /<product-slug> sales page, /thanks, and /admin.
- Payments: Stripe Checkout Sessions (`stripe`) so card details never touch the server, with
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY and STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET in .env. Per product: a one-time price and an
optional monthly price; promotion codes allowed; `automatic_tax` on, and the README lists the
Stripe dashboard steps it needs.
- Storage: better-sqlite3 in ./data/shop.db: products (slug, name, Markdown page body, prices in
cents, file path), orders (Stripe session id UNIQUE, email, amounts, tax, status), processed
webhook event ids and download tokens. Files live in ./data/files/. Markdown is rendered with
`marked` and cleaned with `sanitize-html`.
- Order bump: a checkbox on the sales page adds a second product as another line item. A
one-click upsell after payment is out of scope.
- Fulfilment on the webhook: handle `checkout.session.completed` (paid only), `charge.refunded`
and `charge.dispute.created`, verify the signature, and ignore an event id seen before. A paid
order gets a random 32-byte download link (stored hashed, 7 days, 5 downloads) emailed through
nodemailer SMTP from .env; a refund or dispute revokes it.
- Admin: one password in .env (signed cookie): orders list, refund button (Stripe refund API),
resend the email, and CSV export of orders and customers (`csv-stringify`).
- Test with Stripe test mode: `stripe trigger checkout.session.completed` twice must create one
order and one email.
- Single seller. No accounts for buyers, no telemetry, local-first; the only outbound calls are
to Stripe and your SMTP server.
- Out of scope: affiliates, A/B tests, courses and a members area, subscription recovery
emails, tax filing, and any card form of your own.
- README: Stripe CLI webhook forwarding, a tunnel or VPS for the live webhook, going live, and a
warning that you are the seller: sales tax or VAT registration and refund terms are yours.
Budget an hour for the Stripe dashboard.

Opens your agent with the prompt filled in, you press enter. Or copy it and paste it into an empty folder.

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Then keep going

Next prompts, same folder.

The first prompt builds the core. Run these one at a time in the same folder to grow it into your own SamCart.

Add a post-purchase upsell to the checkout app in this folder. Requirements:

- Create the Checkout Session with `payment_intent_data.setup_future_usage: "off_session"` so the
  card is saved, and mark one product per sales page as the upsell.
- On /thanks show the offer; Accept charges the saved card with a PaymentIntent created
  off-session, Decline skips it. Handle `authentication_required` by sending the buyer back
  to a Checkout page for that product.
- Record the upsell as its own order line, deliver its file, and make it refundable from
  the admin like any other order.
- Idempotency keys on every charge: pressing Accept twice charges once.
- Update the README, including the Stripe settings that matter.

Add abandoned-checkout emails to the checkout app in this folder. Requirements:

- Collect the buyer's email before redirecting to Stripe, with an explicit consent checkbox,
  and store it with the session id.
- On the `checkout.session.expired` webhook, if there is no paid order for that email and
  product, send one reminder with a fresh Checkout link; never send a second one.
- An unsubscribe link in every email, and a suppression list checked before sending.
- Show sent, recovered and unsubscribed counts in the admin.
- Update the README with the legal note that marketing consent rules depend on your country.

Add simple affiliates to the checkout app in this folder. Requirements:

- Admin creates an affiliate with a code and a percentage; /?aff=<code> sets a 30-day cookie.
- Store the affiliate code in the Checkout Session metadata and on the order.
- A refund or dispute reverses the affiliate's commission for that order.
- A monthly report per affiliate (orders, refunds, net commission) as CSV; payouts happen
  outside the app and are marked as paid by hand.
- Update the README, including that you are responsible for any tax paperwork on payouts.

What you lose

One-click upsells after checkout and A/B tests on pages and prices
Subscription Saver, which retries and chases failed payments
The affiliate center with tracking and payouts
The courses app, members area and hosted video
Tax collection, the customer portal and native integrations that other tools plug into

Why people still pay

Sellers pay so they don't have to think about the checkout: upsells and bumps are a click, failed cards are retried, and a customer portal answers 'cancel my subscription' without an email to you.

Moatcompliance & regulation integrations execution polish

Do the math

SamCart or your own copy?

Over

Your usage

Count my time12h ×$/h

SamCart, 1 yr$948

Your own copy, 1 yr$44running + build session

You keep$905pays for itself in the first month

Estimate · A tunnel is free and a small VPS is about $5. Stripe charges its normal per-sale fee, much as SamPay does on SamCart; the $79 platform fee is what goes away. The build is token usage on your agent plan.

Leaving SamCart

Take your data, then cancel.

1 · Take your data out of SamCart

1Customers: open the Customers tab in the left navigation and click the blue Export button above the table.
2Orders: use the Export button at the right of the orders table and choose Email Report; the file is sent to the address you enter.
3Per product: open Products, pick the product and its Details tab; the Orders, Customers and Subscription Cancellations tables each have an Export CSV File button at the bottom right.
4We found no single export across every product, so repeat the per-product export for each one.

2 · Cancel SamCart

1In your marketplace, click the blue icon (or your logo) at the top right and open Billing.
2Under Your Subscriptions, find the subscription and click Manage, then Cancel My Subscription, pick a reason and click Continue.
3Read the confirmation, which shows the date you lose access, then click Confirm and Cancel.
4Repeat for every subscription you have: each one is cancelled separately. Pause My Subscription is offered as an alternative.

Recurring customer subscriptions on Stripe keep billing after your SamCart account closes unless you or the customer cancel them; they are managed in your connected Stripe account.
Limited-payment plans on Stripe stop at once, and so do recurring and limited charges on PayPal, Braintree, Authorize.Net and other processors: move those customers first.
Cancelling a legacy plan (Launch, Grow, Scale or Core Legacy) is permanent and the old pricing can't be restored.
For refunds of SamCart's own fees, write to billing@samcart.com; the cancel guide says nothing about data deletion.

Checked 2026-10-19 against SamCart's docs: 1, 2, 3, 4

The escape hatch

Don't feel like building it? These are already free.

Stripe Payment LinksFreeNo-code hosted payment pages for one-time or recurring prices, with promotion codes and an optional custom domain; no monthly platform fee, and its page describes no upsells or order bumps.they host it
WebVisit ↗MedusaOpen sourceMIT headless commerce engine (its enterprise folder has a separate licence) for stores with carts, products and orders; you build the storefront.★ 37k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗SaleorOpen sourceBSD-3-Clause headless commerce API in Python with GraphQL; built for catalogues and storefronts, more than a single checkout needs.★ 23k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗

All 5 free alternatives to SamCart ›

The numbers

SamCart pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annual, per month	What you get
Core	$79	$59.25	Unlimited pages, products and checkouts, the courses app and members area, cart abandonment emails, the integration engine, an AI assistant with limited usage, limited video hosting and 1 team seat.
Pro	$199	$149.25	Everything in Core plus 1-click upsells, order bumps, upgrades, A/B testing, Subscription Saver, the affiliate center, advanced analytics, API and webhooks, third-party processors, unlimited AI usage and video hosting, and 10 team seats.
Done for You	custom	—	Everything in Pro plus a dedicated account manager, priority support, multiple marketplaces, unlimited seats and negotiated processing rates.

Free tier: No free plan.
Billing: Monthly, or yearly at 25% off according to the page toggle. The FAQ answers on billing dates, contract length and plan changes load dynamically and couldn't be read, so check them before paying. Cancellation is done in the in-app Billing page.
Hidden costs: Payments through SamPay cost 2.9% + 30 cents a sale on both plans, and tax collection adds 0.50% on Core or 0.35% on Pro. Dedicated live support is $19 a month on top. Third-party processors and the API need Pro. Stripe's own fees still apply to sales processed through Stripe.
Source: www.samcart.com

Also on the list

Kajabi$179/mo · Creator commerceKINDA

Teachable$39/mo · Creator commerceKINDA

Podia$49/mo · Creator commerceKINDA

Questions

SamCart, briefly

Not answered here? Tell us and we'll add it.

Ask a question ›

No free plan, only a 7-day free trial.

Kinda. The core is a weekend build with the prompt on this page, but real gaps remain: One-click upsells after checkout and A/B tests on pages and prices, Subscription Saver, which retries and chases failed payments.

About $79 a month on the Core plan, $948 a year (checked 2026-10-19).

One-click upsells after checkout and A/B tests on pages and prices; Subscription Saver, which retries and chases failed payments; The affiliate center with tracking and payouts; The courses app, members area and hosted video; Tax collection, the customer portal and native integrations that other tools plug into. If any of those matter to you, keep paying.