ClickFunnels vs LeadPages Review – Which Is Really Best?

It was only a few years back when I remember building my lead capture pages via HTML and having to upload them to my hosting via FTP! Come to think of it I’m not sure I would even know how to do that now if I had to and then along came LeadPages which made my life so much easier. A fantastic tool that allowed you to create an attractive and high converting lead capture page within a few minutes, host it easily on their server and even track conversion rate and do A/B testing!

LeadPages really was a game changer for me personally, it literally doubled my lead flow overnight and changed my business completely for the better. That was a few years ago though and since then the competition has really upped their game. Along came ClickFunnels which in my opinion took things to a new level, but which one is really better? In this post I’m going to compare them and give my verdict (based on experience using both). First up it’s Leadpages…

LeadPages – Overview

LeadPages allows you to create a number of different types of pages for collecting opt ins (leads). It’s a great tool, one that I started using back in 2014 which helped me double my lead flow overnight simply because I had a very high converting capture page. I’ve literally send 100,000’s of visitors through pages I have made on LeadPages. You can also install a plugin for WordPress that will easily publish your LeadPages opt in forms on your WordPress domain. LeadPages costs $37 a month for the standard pricing and $79 a month for the Pro. The membership I went for was the Pro which actually cost me $67 per month (it was cheaper back in 2014 when I picked up my membership). You also have the option to choose annual billing which does save you money however in this constantly changing online world I prefer to use a monthly option which means I can easily switch provider should I need to.

As you can see by the image above I have a lot of experience using LeadPages having sent over 174,000 visitors to just a few of my pages in the last couple of years.

LeadPages – Pros

Let me share a few of the things I really like about LeadPages. First up I love the A/B testing, I think they got that spot on because it’s really simple to use and is definitely better than the A/B testing on ClickFunnels in my opinion. This is a really important aspect of collecting leads because small changes can have a huge effect on your lead flow. One of the things I learnt back in 2014 which had a huge affect on my business was that it’s easier to increase conversion rate than it is to increase traffic. Now this might not always be the case, but for me it was, with a particular strategy I was using I had capped out at around 50-60 leads per day. I made the change and started using LeadPage and instantly doubled my opt in conversion rate from 25% to 50% and started getting 100-120 leads per day which overnight doubled my business!

Other things I like about LeadPages are that it’s simple to use. This is also a negative as I’ll explain later in this post but I do like the fact that it’s easy to use, and they keep it simple. Also the pricing, it’s certainly not cheap however in comparison to ClickFunnels it is cheaper and they don’t put limits on your account like how much traffic you can receive. Another positive is that it integrates easily into WordPress, you just download a plugin, upload and you’re done. You can still track all your stats from inside the LeadPages back office.

LeadPages – The Negatives

The monthly cost is of course a negative, it’s good when you can pay one time for something however at the same time I like a monthly payment because then I know that the creator is more likely to release updates and keep their tool at the top of it’s game. If you pay one time for something there’s a good chance the creator / company won’t release updates because well let’s face it, why would they? Or they might charge you for updates which is also annoying.

Another thing I don’t like is the simplicity of LeadPages. Look I love a tool that’s easy to use but LeadPages hasn’t changed much at all in the past 2-3 years I’ve been using it. The way we collect leads and the designs of websites has changed and LeadPages still looks like it’s in the past. I recently went onto my account to create a new page and ended up going back to ClickFunnels instead because the quality in the design just wasn’t all that. Also their customization isn’t great either, you are very limited in what you can actually do to the pages. You can’t move items around or add text where you want it, you are fixed to adding text and things like images in set locations. Whereas other builders like ClickFunnels have moved the game on and you can literally create a page exactly how you want it without the limitations.

LeadPages Conclusion

A good tool that does the job but also one that hasn’t changed much in the past few years. It was head and shoulders above the competition when it launched but where is it now? I’m not so sure that it’s still as good as it was since the features and designs haven’t really changed at all. Let’s move onto ClickFunnels and see how that compares…

ClickFunnels – Overview

I picked up ClickFunnels around 12 months ago. I still send a good amount of my traffic through LeadPages since it was easier but over the past few months I have paid a lot more attention to ClickFunnels and really transitioned everything over. It’s more than just a tool for creating lead capture pages it’s a full on funnel builder as the name suggests. You can create a number of different funnels and you can really customize them too. You can even start from complete scratch if you want and make something that’s really for you. I personally like to use the pre-made pages as it’s a lot easier and I’m not that technical when it comes to design. The pre-build pages are great and you can arrange them via opt in conversion rate and sales conversion rate. ClickFunnels also integrates via API with a number of different tools and payment processors. It’s really a far more rounded tool in my opinion than LeadPages.

It does cost more than LeadPages at $97 per month however you can take a 14 day free trial to test it out first which is awesome. Here is what their interface looks like:

You get a number of getting started vides that show you how it works and how you build funnels. These videos also show you how to integrate things like auto-responders and payment processors. As you can see it’s a clean looking interface. It does take a little getting used to if you have used other tools like LeadPages however once you get the hang of it I think you’ll find it a lot easier to use.

One of the reasons I held back from ClickFunnels even though I’ve had an account for around a year was that certain features were a bit glitchy. Sometimes their tracking wouldn’t work properly for some reason however they were a very new tool a year back, now they’ve worked hard and got rid of all the little glitches and it runs super smooth. I can’t remember the last time I had any problems with it, and I’m logged in everyday editing funnels and creating new ones.

The way you use ClickFunnels is different to LeadPages, instead of creating a “page” like you do with LeadPages you create a funnel. If that sounds complicated don’t worry it’s super easy. For example a simple funnel could just be a lead capture page and a thank you page. With LeadPages you have to create 2 separate pages which is just plain stupid. With ClickFunnels you create a funnel and then both pages sit inside of that 1 funnel. Your funnels also sit in categories so if you have multiple projects you can group them together into 1 category.

ClickFunnels – Pros

I already mentioned some pros above such as having all your pages under 1 funnel and not having lots of different pages all separate. Also I like their tracking, it’s nice and simple. Check out this image below that shows how many visitors and opt ins I have gotten in the last 30 days, plus the conversion rate. You can also change this up to different timeframes such as 7 days, 30 days, 2 months and all time. Another thing I like is similarly to LeadPages they have a plugin for WordPress, you just download it, upload it and then integrate your login and API details that can be found inside of ClickFunnels and you can easily publish your pages on your own domain. Also if you want to publish your funnels/pages on your own domain but you’re not bothered about having WordPress as well you can follow the instructions on ClickFunnels to point your domain at theirs and publish easily onto your domain from inside their interface. I don’t really know the technicalities behind how this works but it’s pretty simple, and only takes 5 minutes when following their instructions!

Another pro about ClickFunnels is their 14 day free trial. You can test it out for a full 14 days completely free to get a feel for whether you really like it or not. It’s also easy to run split tests too. Initially I preferred LeadPages for my split tests over ClickFunnels but as I’ve got more familiar with ClickFunnels I much prefer it now. It’s really simple, you just create a duplicate page. As you can see (kind of ) in the image above I have the MAIN (CONTROL) page. You simply press a button next to it and you can create a duplicate page and then make changes to the page, or you can start with a completely new template.

The final pro I’ll mention is the share funnels feature. You can literally share an entire funnel with someone. So that could be a friend, colleague, student or even a complete stranger. And the person you share the funnel with doesn’t even need to already have a ClickFunnels account. You can even use this share funnel feature to bribe people into signing up to ClickFunnels because if you share a funnel and that person doesn’t have an account it will offer them an account (in order to access the funnel) and credit you with the affiliate commission. Pretty cool 🙂

ClickFunnels – The Negatives

Obviously it’s not all great and there are negatives to ClickFunnels too. First off it does cost more than LeadPages does as it’s $97 per month, that’s $18 more per month than what you get with LeadPages. Another negative I found is for membership websites. This might not be a big deal for most people but if you are looking at using ClickFunnels for a membership website then personally I’d go elsewhere as it’s not great. I actually built a whole membership website for a product of mine and ended up moving it across to a different platform because I found it difficult to actually lock down the site. You can build a membership site on it, but personally I think it’s a far better tool for building actual funnels rather than membership platforms. As a direct comparison though to LeadPages it still comes out on top for membership sites, it just wouldn’t be my primary purpose for buying it.

The Verdict – ClickFunnels or LeadPages?

You might have already guessed but if not the winner here by a significant margin is ClickFunnels!

You can start a free 14 day trial at this link here

LeadPages is a great tool still and I have a lot of respect for them. Ultimately they helped me make a lot more money when I discovered them because it was pages built on their platform that helped me double my conversion rate, however I don’t feel like they’ve kept the game moving forward whereas ClickFunnels most definitely has. Going forward I’ll be building all my pages and funnels on ClickFunnels and I recommend you do to!

I hope you’ve found my review/comparison helpful. If you have any questions leave a comment below 🙂

And if you want to give ClickFunnels a try… click here to take a 14 day free trial

Thanks for reading!