ClickFunnels, ThriveCart, and SamCart build your pages, your upsells, and your checkout flow. None of them process your payments. They all sit on top of Stripe, PayPal, or a small list of approved gateways, which means if Stripe decides your info product business is too risky, your funnel builder can't do a single thing about it. The pages still load. The checkout still renders. The money just stops moving.
That distinction gets lost because these tools are marketed as complete funnel solutions, and for building and hosting pages, they are. Payments are a different layer, owned by whichever processor you connected, and that's the layer that actually decides whether your launch survives.
What payment gateways do these builders actually support?
SamCart is the most flexible of the three, supporting Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net directly. ThriveCart's native gateway options are narrower, and ClickFunnels primarily integrates with Stripe and PayPal as well. In every case, the builder is a checkout interface wired to someone else's underwriting decision. If that processor freezes your account, the builder has no fallback of its own.
This is exactly why an entire category of third-party fixers exists. Gateway Funnel Pros is built specifically around this gap: connecting ClickFunnels, ThriveCart, CartHero, HighLevel, Shopify, and WooCommerce accounts to specially underwritten merchant accounts once Stripe or PayPal has already said no. If the builders themselves solved the processing risk, that business wouldn't need to exist. It exists because they don't.
Why does a funnel builder freeze happen mid-launch specifically?
Because that's when your volume spikes, and volume spikes are the single biggest trigger for automated risk review on a payment facilitator model like Stripe's. You've spent weeks building the funnel, your ads are live, your affiliates are pushing traffic, and the exact moment your sales curve looks the way you wanted it to is the moment the processor's risk system flags the pattern. The builder didn't cause it and can't stop it. It's a downstream effect of a decision made one layer below the pages you built.
Does switching funnel builders fix this?
No. Moving from ClickFunnels to ThriveCart, or ThriveCart to SamCart, changes your page editor and your upsell flow. It does not change your underwriting relationship with Stripe, PayPal, or whatever gateway you reconnect on the new platform. If the reason you got flagged was your business category, your chargeback rate, or your volume pattern, that reason follows you to the next builder because it was never about the builder in the first place.
What actually needs to change?
The payment layer, independent of which builder renders your pages. A checkout built for the funnel businesses Stripe and PayPal won't approve, running on underwriting that already accounts for your category and volume instead of discovering it mid-launch. DROPP's checkout drops into your existing funnel: same brand, same layout, same flow, with one-click upsells that work the way buyers expect from a fast checkout, but running on a processing relationship that was underwritten for exactly the kind of business you have.
That's a payments swap, not a rebuild. Your pages, your copy, your upsell sequence stay exactly where they are. What changes is what happens when your volume spikes instead of holding steady, which is the scenario a standard Stripe or PayPal integration was never built to survive for a high-risk category in the first place.
What's the actual cost difference?
DROPP runs on one flat rate: 12%, all-in, no rolling reserve, payouts every Monday. Compare that to the total cost of a frozen launch: the sales you can't collect while your account is under review, the days spent on a support ticket instead of running the funnel, and, if you end up going through a service like Gateway Funnel Pros to get reconnected, whatever fee sits on top of that recovery process. A predictable flat rate on every transaction is cheaper than an unpredictable freeze on your best week.
| Funnel builder + Stripe/PayPal | Funnel builder + DROPP checkout | |
|---|---|---|
| Pages, upsells, branding | Yours | Yours, unchanged |
| Underwriting for high-risk categories | None, automated review only | Underwritten upfront |
| What happens at a volume spike | Risk of freeze | Business as usual |
| Payout schedule | Set by the processor | Every Monday |
| Rolling reserve | Possible | None |
Do you need to rebuild your funnel to switch?
No. The checkout integration is the part that changes. If your funnel is already built in ClickFunnels, ThriveCart, or SamCart, that work stays exactly as it is. This is also why the fix is worth doing before a launch, not after a freeze: reconnecting a checkout takes far less time than rebuilding an audience's trust after a broken payment page mid-campaign. For a deeper look at what a flat-rate setup avoids compared to a traditional high-risk merchant account, see our comparison of the two models and what a rolling reserve actually costs if you've never had one explained in plain numbers.
FAQ
Does ClickFunnels have its own payment processor? No. ClickFunnels integrates with external processors, primarily Stripe and PayPal, and doesn't underwrite your business itself.
Which payment gateways does SamCart support? Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net, more options than ThriveCart or ClickFunnels natively offer.
If Stripe freezes my account, will switching to a different funnel builder fix it? No. The freeze is tied to your processor relationship and business risk profile, not to which builder renders your pages.
Do I have to rebuild my funnel to change payment processors? No. Swapping the checkout integration doesn't require rebuilding your pages, upsells, or branding.
What does DROPP charge for funnel checkouts? A flat 12%, all-in, with no rolling reserve and payouts every Monday.
Your funnel builder was never the layer deciding whether your payments survive a spike. See how DROPP's checkout replaces that layer without touching the rest of your funnel.
