Best SendOwl Alternatives, Competitors & Similar Software (2023)
SendOwl is an e-commerce platform that allows you to sell your digital and physical products online. It provides customizable checkouts and email templates. Moreover, you can manage sales, online orders, and payment processes.
If you ever wanted to create a full-fledged eCommerce website, you might have heard of SendOwl. SendOwl offers a shopping cart processing system so your customers can buy and add more products to their virtual shopping carts. In addition, you can use affiliate programs to increase the sales of your recent course or any other product.
While SendOwl provides features to start your eCommerce business, it might not be the right fit for you. SendOwl has its downsides, such as no discussion forum or complex features with a long learning curve.
In this post, we'll review some of SendOwl's shortcomings and fantastic alternatives to SendOwl.
Reasons to look for SendOwl Alternatives
-
SendOwl does not provide a mobile app to give your customers more buying flexibility. SendOwl also offers limited customization and lacks many features that other platforms provide, such as a custom domain, single-sign-on (SSO), and white-labeling.
-
While SendOwl allows you to sell your online courses, you'll have a more difficult time maintaining student motivation without features like gamification or a discussion forum. Additionally, 1:1 messaging is not available on the platform.
-
SendOwl does not have accurate A/B testing for templates, and many users have complained about the subpar quality of customer service. In order to get everything set up, you will need at least 2-3 developers on your team.
Best SendOwl Alternatives
Graphy Community Platform
Memberful
Gumroad
Patreon
SquareSpace
WildApricot
Podia
Kajabi
LearnWorlds
SamCart Courses
Thinkific
Skillshare
Graphy Community Platform
Graphy Community Platform is an ultimate community platform that helps you build a robust community where you can sell your courses and host live events, webinars, and live streams. It offers the best community features through which you can moderate, manage, and monetize your community all in one place - with your brand appearance, under your custom domain. Graphy Community Platform can also generate a whitelabelled mobile app and list it on the Play Store/App Store.
Features
Pros
- Available across in multiple formats & avatars; be it a web app under your domain, a native whitelabeled app on Android and iOS, integrations within your existing app or API-based integrations.
- Auto Scaling across platforms - Scenes uses powerful auto-scaling technology to keep your community blazing fast no matter how many visitors you have across all devices. They scale as you scale.
- The only platform that enables custom CSS for top to bottom granular-level user interface customization. You can make your community look close to your app/website's UI.
- A built-in coin system lets you incentivize your community members to engage more.
- Live audio-video features for your events, webinars and live classes where all your members can get notified and RSVP.
Cons
- You will lose some members during the platform migration process.
Memberful
Memberful is a membership site platform that enables you to sell and deliver digital and physical goods, community subscriptions, and online courses. Members can easily pay and stay subscribed with its tools.
Memberful Features
- WordPress Plugin - It allows you to make private posts on your WordPress website. This is ideal for creating members-only content.
- Discord Plugin - You can create a chat forum for members-only. Memberful invites paid members to your Discord server and removes their access when their subscription expires.
- Track your performance - You can track your performance and earn new members using conversion analytics and activity metrics, Gift purchases, Group subscriptions, Coupons, Discounts, Referral programmes, Free trials, etc.
Memberful Pricing
- Starts at $25/mo.
- Free trial available.
Pros
- Memberful offers reasonable prices compared to its other competitors. It is budget friendly and a good investment in building
- With the free plan, you have access to a variety of advanced features.
- Tens of thousands of third-party applications are compatible with memberful integration.
Cons
- Besides hosting costs for your WordPress site, Memberful charges fees between 4.9%-10% on each transaction.
- Memberful works with WordPress, but you have to add extra plugins to handle SEO, which can take a great deal of work.
- In comparison to other solutions, they have fewer features to offer.
Gumroad
Gumroad is a digital marketplace for independent artists and creators selling digital services like books, memberships, and courses.
Gumroad Features
- Gumroad offers a robust analytics dashboard that provides you with an array of data about your sales, including - How much you've sold over the last week, month, or year.
- Your customers can enjoy full content access as long as they are subscribed. You can also create discount codes for your products.
- Gumroad offers email marketing tools that will help you send automated messages. Workflows help save time and energy, automating email campaigns and sequences after your customers purchase a product.
Gumroad Pricing
- Starts at $10/mo.
- Free version available.
Pros
- It's possible to accept any payment format, including different foreign currencies, create software licences, and sell similar products in various forms.
- It has a user-friendly interface that is simple to set up and can quickly go live with a product.
- With Gumroad, you can set up a simple storefront with a profile image of your brand - and upload some text to describe the products you'd like to sell.
Cons
- There are limited options for customization when it comes to email design, and all you can do is format the text and add a call-to-action button; that's it.
- There are no trial capabilities, A/B split testing, or other forms of payment processing.
- When you sell products on Gumroad, you'll be charged a fee for every transaction on the platform.
Patreon
Patreon is a membership platform that makes it easy for artists and creators to get paid. When you become a Patron, you agree to pay your monthly membership fee. In return, you'll get access to exclusive content and experiences, as well as special discounts and opportunities created just for Patrons.
Patreon Features
- You can create membership tiers and integrate Patreon with Discord and Zapier. The customization tools for your own Patreon page are good and user-friendly.
- It is easy to extract money from it via PayPal, it also allows for simple content sharing for the subscribers and the subscription tiers are easy and nice to set up.
- Patreon is to use between a consumer and seller. I can buy access to media from content creators and sell my art to a large audience.
Pros
- Offers continuous crowdfunding for creators.
- The platform facilitates reward giving.
- Fewer content restrictions than some other crowd-funders. Multiple subscription plans available.
Cons
- No built-in promotional tools.
- Some creators report issues when attempting to collect funds.
- A high volume of public complaints.
SquareSpace
Squarespace is a platform that offers you multiple tools to create and manage your website. From creating and editing content to adding products (such as ebooks, online courses), managing payments, and more, you'll be able to do it all in one place.
Squarespace Features
- Engagement Analytics - Track engagement with an activity log, form & button conversions, popular content and site search keywords.
- Social Media Links - Showcase your social media links, giving your visitors quick and easy options for following you on all major networks. Breakaway’s design builder provides a variety of styles that let you keep up a unified look across every social network.
- Squarespace’s custom WYSIWYG engine supports custom designs - so whether or not you are a professional web developer or designer, you will be able to customize your site to match your vision and make it work for your business.
Squarespace Pricing
- Starts at $19/mo.
- Free trial available.
Pros
- They have great templates, design and color palette, type family are a useful feature.
- There is no requirement of technical know-how or design skills to create a solid website. The high-quality templates, with predetermined styling, ensure that even a simple website looks clean and elegant.
- You can edit websites using your web browser without any special software. This also allows you to train my clients easily since it's drag and drop. Usability is a big plus especially with smaller clients.
Cons
- There is no autosave option after you make any changes and always asks to save it manually. No site history feature either.
- Their template score low ratings by Google’s page speed tool, which could lead to a poor user experience on smartphones and possibly harm your search engine rankings.
- It is not for larger businesses as they require customizations and functionality.
WildApricot
With WildApricot, associations and non-profit organizations can automate and simplify membership management tasks. WildApricot allows you to add, edit, manage members, and collect dues and payments.
WildApricot Features
- Member application process – WildApricot offers membership management software that can automate the application process to give your new members a great first impression.
- Events – You can create a detailed event listing with descriptions and images and get an online event registration form. You can list events in a calendar on your WildApricot site or existing website.
- Email marketing - With WildApricot, you can send prospective members announcements or offers using modern email templates that match your brand.
WildApricot Pricing
- Starts at $60/mo.
- 30-Day free trial is available.
Pros
- You can easily customize your member database with WildApricot. You can use it to keep track of all sorts of information, and it's easy to use.
- WildApricot provides up-to-date member directories. You can also store membership information in the cloud, making it accessible to your team.
- WildApricot's drag-and-drop website builder creates a website easily, sells digital products and services, and quickly gets your business online.
Cons
- WildApricot does not give you the freedom to create a website that matches your brand strategy.
- WildApricot does not provide any specific functionality for course building, so you may have difficulty formatting your courses and displaying student progress. In addition, WildApricot does not host videos or digital files.
- You can only add a certain number of members, emails, and invites unless you spend some extra money.
Podia
Podia is a platform that lets you build a free, no-code website and sell your online courses. With Podia, you can create a business from anywhere in the world with zero fees or start-up costs.
Podia Features
- Connect your audience and your content – You can host an online community in the same place that your audience uses your digital products.
- Community – In Podia, you can create a community that works like a forum or Slack. The design is clean, and the workflow is simple.
- Course Features – Using Podia, you can quickly create lessons and quizzes.
Podia Pricing
- Paid Plans start at $39/month.
- It has a free version.
Pros
- You can offer your audience webinars using YouTube Live and Zoom with Podia.
- If you want your website to look professional and run smoothly, you do not need to be tech-savvy or have coding knowledge.
- You can connect your payments, scheduling, and sales pages all in one place in minutes with Podia.
Cons
- Podia does not have a mobile app if you want to build courses that will be accessible on mobile for your members.
- Podia doesn't offer in-depth lesson reports if you're interested in knowing how impressive your course is. Only some basic information about student progress is provided.
- To assess your students more effectively, Podia lacks open-ended questions. The use of multiple choice questions is not suitable for all courses.
Kajabi
Kajabi is a platform that enables educators to run their online courses and manage their students in one place. Moreover, Kajabi also offers a mobile app to allow your users to access courses on the go (however, it is not a native white-label app)
Kajabi Features
- No bandwidth or storage restrictions - Upload all of your videos, photos, and other files without worrying about space or bandwidth limitations.
- Fully-fledged LMS capabilities let you run your courses and manage your students seamlessly.
- Integrated checkout - Accept payments from anywhere in the world using Stripe or PayPal and give instant access to your content behind a paywall.
Kajabi Pricing
- Starting Price is $119/month.
- Kajabi offers a 14-Day free trial.
Pros
- Kajabi has rich-text and media features that let you upload all kinds of content into your online content library.
- You can track lesson progress, view grades, and get detailed analytics on how well students digest your content.
- Kajabi offers your prospective students free trials to taste your content before rolling them over to become paid customers.
Cons
- Kajabi is one of the most expensive solutions out there when it comes to LMS + community platforms.
- It lacks good customer support and offers minimal options to customize your course community.
- You have no native branded mobile app; your students will have to download the Kajabi app to access your content.
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is a learning management system that lets course creators create online courses. Using LearnWorlds, you can create student communities and sell online courses.
LearnWorlds Features
- Offers gamification tools such as badges so that you can acknowledge efforts & promote good behaviour.
- In-built shop for highlighting the details of your courses and selling them all in one place.
- A broad range of assessment tools to help the educator & the students measure the learning progress.
LearnWorlds Pricing
- Paid plan starts at $24/month (billed annually).
- LearnWorlds offers a free 30-day trial.
Pros
- You can create student communities in LearnWorlds so that your members can share their experiences, ideas, and learnings.
- Students can interact with your course content through LearnWorlds' course builder and enjoy a blissful learning experience.
- LearnWorld's live online classes encourage your students to have interactive sessions and discussions among each other.
Cons
- LearnWorld's interface is difficult to understand, and there are no tutorials that can help you get started.
- Regarding email management and funnel-building tools, LearnWorlds does not offer as many options.
- In LearnWorld, users complain that many features do not work when courses are published, making the learning experience less seamless.
- With LearnWorlds, you need too many integrations and more management, distracting you from your business activities.
SamCart Courses
SamCart courses is an e-commerce platform for creators. It allows you to create and sell courses, offers, templates and digital products on a single platform. You have complete control over your pricing, content, and branding.
Samcart Courses Features
- Drag & Drop Builder - You can add anything you want to showcase about your product. No coding experience is required to design pages.
- Pre-Designed Templates - You can easily create an attractive website with customizable templates to help you start selling.
- Conversion Rate Optimization - Optimization can be applied to every page on your site, making it easier to improve conversion rates.
SamCart Courses Pricing
- Pricing starts at $49/month.
- SamCart courses offer free trials.
Pros
- The affiliate management setup is very simple and easy to use. Each product has an affiliates option that can be enabled or disabled.
- Building sales pages and the checkout process for the customer are convenient and easy.
- You can easily add Google Pay and Apple Pay to the check-out flow, making it easier for your customers to pay.
Cons
- Due to SamCart's lack of an autoresponder, you cannot use your lists to send reminders, so the entire email process must be handled manually.
- SamCart's customer service is lacking, leaving customers with unanswered questions.
- Email marketing and website builders will require you to utilize multiple tools, which will take your time and effort.
Thinkific
Thinkific is a digital course creation platform where educators can curate online courses for their students. In addition, they offer competitive LMS features that let their customers run online courses effectively.
Thinkific Features
- Assessments & Certificates - Offers comprehensive quizzes, engagement surveys, assignments, exams and certificates.
- Progress Tracking - In-depth reporting to track student progress.
- Live Lessons - Deliver lessons via live audio/video and let your students engage with you in realtime (via Zoom integration).
Thinkific Pricing
- Paid plan starts at $39/month to $399/month.
- The free plan includes access to all the core features of the platform.
Pros
- Easy-to-use UI that makes running courses on Thinkific all the more seamless.
- A very prompt support system responds to customer queries and problems and comes with an active Facebook group filled with Thinkific customers.
- You can design the access portal, the courses, and the payment methods all in one interface without needing third-party integrations.
Cons
- Not built for community engagement - in 2023, an LMS is not enough to successfully run courses. Thinkific lacks critical community features like gamification and incentive systems.
- Cannot manage multiple cohorts under the same roof - this may constrain you as your courses start scaling and diversifying.
- The pricing is slightly more expensive than alternatives and confusing for some.
Skillshare
A leading creative learning platform, SkillShare is designed to help companies and teams invest in their people's development. It offer learning options that let the team learn from creative experts, stay on top of trends, and build for future. SkillShare helps businesses improve employee engagement, growth, and retention.
Skillshare Features
- Provides a learning platform for refreshing skills previously learned and to re-build abilities through new course developments.
- It provides you with the feature of building channels for creating community around your product.
- Skillshare offers regular workshops in your virtual learning. Workshops offer two to three shared classed according to the learning instructors’ schedules in your study niche.
Pros
- Allows building of communities of like-minded learners.
- Has diverse content.
- Offers teacher payment plans.
Cons
- No quality control for instructors.
- Lack of closed captioning on the videos for easy comprehension.
- Annoying ads of the free membership level.
Disclaimer: To curate the pros, cons and reviews - we mine the internet for customer references regarding the said software. Some of our sources include Reddit, Product Hunt, Twitter & Quora (and sites like G2 & Capterra).
What you should do now
Whenever you’re ready…here are 3 ways we can help:
If you’d like to turn your business into a community-led business, book a call with us. One of our community experts will understand your current situation, and suggest how a community can work for you.
If you’d like to learn the exact community-building formula we’ve used to help build 2000+ communities, watch this masterclass or read this guide.
If you know another colleague or friend who’d enjoy reading this page, share it with them via email, Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook.
.webp)
