Hello and welcome to my article about how to choose the best landing page builder for your marketing needs.
In this article I will be comparing 4 different landing page builders, go into their individual strengths and also their individual weaknesses.
This article will include charts, designs, and functionality of what each landing page builder offers.
I will also include what are the best practices for landing pages.
First I want to get the basics out of the way like what is a landing page builder and what applications you can use these landing page builders for, then I will dive further into more detail and finally give you my personal final thoughts.
What Is A Landing Page Builder?
So, what exactly are these landing page builders, what do they do, and how can they be used for my business?
A landing page builder is any type of software that aids in the creation of pages. These pages are designed to aid in sales.
When designed correctly as far as images and content, some landing pages can have an extremely high EPC (earnings per click).
It is very important to only have a limited amount of actions the visitor can make when on that page.
Examples of limited actions would be no navigation (except for the legal pages at the bottom of the page), and no additional advertisements.
The only action the visitor should have on a landing page would be to learn more and buy now.
Additionally, you can include an exit popup with a call to action for a discounted downsell offer, but in a nutshell, the “less is more” strategy is typically the best practice for a great converting landing page as far as the “call to action” steps the visitor can make.
The breakdown of a proven sales funnel method would be explained like this:
- Traffic Generation
- Capture Page to Collect Leads
- Landing Page to Sell the Opportunity or Product
- Payment Processor to Buy
- If Customer wants to Buy – (optional upsell offered)
- If Customer does not want to buy – (optional down-sell offered)
- Additional downsell can be offered if the Customer does not want the “Upsell offer”.
With the majority of premium landing page builders on the market right now, they are not only limited with the ability to create just landing pages, but the majority will also be able to create capture pages, webinar pages, exit capture box popups, and various other types of web pages.
This is the basic functionality of what these landing page builders can do, but as I mentioned earlier, many have the ability to do much more, I will cover some of these features for some of the landing page builder services and software later on in this article.
So now that we got the basic concept of what landing page builders can do, let’s move forward to see what are types of landing page builders are offered.
What Are The Different Types Of Landing Page Builders?
There are actually 2 classes of landing page builders available on the market.
They have a similar function to create landing pages but where they differ is where they are hosted.
But what stands out above everything else as far as the differences are:
- One type of landing page builder is WordPress plugins hosted on your own hosting account.
- And the other types would be on its own building platform hosted by the program owners.
WordPress Landing Page Builder Plugins
These types of builders will be on a plugin that you will have to download from the developer site that you will have to manually upload to your WordPress site to install it yourself.
Typically these types of plugin-based page builders have a bigger learning curve when compared to the builders hosted on their own platform.
In my experience, all of these types of page builders vary when it comes to the learning curve you will have to get past.
Not to steer you away with that said, just like anything else with a bit of practice and getting used to the functionality you will eventually learn how to use them to their full potential.
Some popular landing page builders that are in the form of a WordPress plugin would have to be OptimizePress, Thrive Architect, and Instabuilder.
I would have to say that the Thrive landing page builder is definitely a HYBRID style of WordPress page builder plugin due to its massive support and dedicated programming staff, and because of this Thrive is actually a subscription-based plugin which actually sets it apart from the other plugins in my opinion.
Some Pros
- You will have total control with limitations with what the plugin can do
- You will have total ownership
- The ability to create some amazing funnels and pages
Some Cons
- Usually a steeper learning curve
- Customer service is not as highly rated when compared to a plugin that is hosted
- Updates are not as frequent
Landing Page Builders Hosted On Its Own Platform
These type of landing builders are hosted on their own hosting platform and usually has a dedicated programming staff that deals with any program fixes or updates that the program will need from time to time.
Compared to the plugin builders, these types of landing page builders usually have more up-to-date and new releases when it comes to templates and features.
Because of this, these types of landing page builders require a monthly or yearly subscription.
These landing page builders are typically more intuitive and have a much easier-to-use interface.
With that said, and my experience, these types of page builders are easier to use.
Popular Landing Page Building Services That Are Hosted on their Own Hosting
Some of the more popular companies that you can create beautiful landing pages, capture pages, and other lead generating pages on are:
- Clickfunnels
- Leadpages
- Builderall
Some Pros
- Usually easier to get started and easier interface to use
- Frequent Updates
- Great Support
- Latest Features (usually)
- Tested and Beautiful Templates for Conversions (usually)
Some Cons
- Monthly Pricing (some are higher than others)
- Every interface is different so different learning curve times
- Some page builders have a specific specialty and are limited on what they can do (refer to the chart below)
Some Popular Landing Page Builders
With software and page builders, they always update and improve, so I wanted to let you know that these top builders might change in the near future which I will update in later articles.
So with that said, the ones that I have included in my comparison are:
- Clickfunnels
- Leadpages
- Optimizepress
- Builderall
And some honorable mentions that I felt needed to be included (just not practical to include due to size constraints) are:
- Instabuilder
- Thrive Architect with Leadpages
- Unbounce
- Hello Bar
I will cover these landing page builders on their own page that covers all of their features and benefits in all their glory.
What Are Some Good WordPress Plugin Landing Page Creators?
In this section, I took the time to research WordPress plugins designed specifically for the creation of landing pages for lead generation.
When digging around for WordPress landing page builders specifically, I found a ton of landing page creators they are both free landing page builders and the ones that you have to pay for aka, the premium plugins.
Here is a list of some of the more popular WordPress plugins for landing pages are:
- OptimizePress
- Thrive Architect / Landing Page
- Instabuilder
- Leadpages
- Beaver Builder
- WP Lead Plus Squeeze Page Creator
- Landing Pages
Here Is a Quick Overview of Each of these WP Plugin Landing Page Builders
OptimizePress 2.0
Optimize press started with a great page building plugin that came with templates and the user was able to create many types of pages, even from a blank canvas.
Like many others, this one has improved over the years, I will dig into the details in a later article strictly about this plugin with my OptimizePress 2.0 review.
I really enjoyed using this landing page building plugin and always and still think that this is one of the most versatile plugins that you can create some of the most impressive-looking pages.
Some of the top internet marketers use this plugin when promoting their products on JVZoo among other affiliate platforms that have had some of the best selling products of all time on some of those platforms.
You can create any kind of page and funnel you can think of, your limitation is only your skill level with the OptimizePress plugin platform and your imagination.
Pros
- Extremely customizable
- Templates included
- It’s hosted on your own server
- One time payment
Cons
- The steep learning curve to get more customized designs.
- Continued support requires additional funds.
Thrive Architect / Thrive Landing Pages
I believe this was the top landing page builder for at least a year before I found one recently that simply outshined all the others.
I would say this one has to be second best in my book for some valid points that I will point out.
Thrive Architect and Landing Pages is a WordPress Plugin but has one of the best support staff that I had the pleasure of experiencing on many occasions.
They have a complete site dedicated to supporting and learning with a full training suite library and support forum that is monitored by the minute it seems.
I literally got my support questions looked at and addressed within an hour!
Support also will go into your site or your hosting if needed to fix issues with their plugins if needed and allowed of course by you.
EXTREMELY TOP NOTCH SUPPORT!
Very happy with these guys!
Thrive is a little pricey though, so with that great support and great plugin comes a price.
But I think it’s worth it, but if you are new to online marketing and in need of some great tools like a great landing page builder, then I would have said a year ago to start here, but recently I’ve changed my mind.
I’m not going to go into a lengthy overview of all the great tools and features that Thrive Architect has to offer, just because I created a dedicated Thrive Architect review page for that.
So after reading this article and finding out what the best landing page builder is in my opinion is, and you still want to learn more about Thrive Architect, and its Landing Page plugin features, click on the link below to learn more.
Learn more about Thrive Architect here.
Instabuilder
Instabuilder was a great landing page builder when it came out, but since the inception of the other landing page builders that have come out, it kinda got left in the dust in my opinion.
Instabuilder is a WordPress plugin, that you have to install and is a one-time price when you purchase it.
It’s affordable and does what it’s intended to do which is to help create pages to help with lead generation and selling.
My issue is that it hasn’t been updated regularly and is a bit outdated, and is pretty much the same as when it first came out many years ago.
There haven’t been many updates but are useful and still work which is positive.
I still have a license, and pull it up from time to time to see what “new” but as far as it updates nothing is really triggering me to purchase another year of support and updates just because at this time I don’t see much to make me pull the trigger.
Instabuilder wouldn’t be one of the page builders that I would recommend getting at this time.
Leadpages
This builder has been designed to use and design your pages within the Leadpages site.
Although you can use it with WordPress, it’s not technically a WordPress plugin, but you can use it with WordPress with some of the features it includes like the inline post adverts that when clicked on gives the visitor a “popup” email capture landing page or one of the 2 step opt-ins they have.
Leadpages is designed and specialty is exclusively for generating email subscribers to your list with all of their tools offered.
I really like and enjoyed Leadpages, and is also used by many top marketers to this day, but for me, I had to move on.
The reason was it was limited to what I wanted to do.
I would find myself having to buy additional tools to use in conjunction with Leadpages to make it work how I wanted it to work which was a bit frustrating.
With that said, your needs for marketing might be different from mine and this might be the perfect landing page builder for you.
But I think I found something a bit better I will go over later on in this article that kinda blew me away.
Beaver Builder
This one has a really great free option to start off with which you can design some beautiful pages, lead capture pages… pretty much any kind of page you need.
This is a WordPress plugin that you need to download and then upload to your servers, through your WP back office plugins area, or with an FTP upload and download client.
Beaver Builder has been getting more and more customizable throughout the years and has become a leading page builder in its field alongside Elementor being one of its competitors.
Beaver builder comes with a bunch of nicely styled templates but is more geared towards the blogger and not in lead generation although you can create some sharp-looking landing pages with it, its specialty is with the blogger marketer in mind.
This plugin is actually integrated into many WP themes that are in the WP market and also in Envato.
Pros
- Free to use with many of the useful tools that you can use to create very beautiful designed custom layouts for your WP pages and posts.
- Beautiful templates that come with even the free version.
- Integrates into almost all themes both free and premium.’
- If you disable the plugin your site is still readable and usable.
- Great developers.
- One-time price for licensing.
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- The interface is a little complicated to get used to (that learning curve)
- Not for the newbie.
- The layouts and design are geared more towards page design and blog page/post layouts not so much for lead-generating landing pages.
Overall
If you can figure this WP page builder plugin out then it can easily become is a very powerful tool that you can use to create any design you can think of with the limitation being your imagination.
WordPress Landing Pages
Landing Pages is a great plugin that is geared towards growing your email list. It comes with a handy visual editor that lets you view changes as you make them in real-time. Your campaigns can be easily optimized by using the included and detailed conversion statistics. Landing Pages supports A/B testing so you can test several versions of a page in order to decide which one converts the best.
There are lots of pre-made design templates or you can create your own template from scratch – one of the reasons why it’s one of the most popular free landing page builder plugins. There are lots of free and paid add-ons for WordPress Landing Pages including WordPress Calls to Action and WordPress Leads.
If you want to use this plugin with your email marketing platform to set up autoresponders, you’ll need to purchase premium add-ons.
WP Lead Plus Squeeze Page Creator
This plugin lets you create stunning and responsive squeeze pages.
A squeeze page is a page on which you ask for your users’ email information. If you are looking to grow your email list, squeeze pages can prove to be very effective.
With over 15 ready-to-use templates, WP Leads Plus helps you set up professional opt-in forms and popups on your site. You can create unblockable popups too. The pro version comes with advanced exit-intent technology which means when users appear to be leaving your website, they’ll be presented with a popup. The use of images, advanced conversion tracking, A/B split testing and widgets are all possible with this plugin.
Price: $47 License for usage on all the sites owned by you
When Comparing Landing Page Builders
When it comes to comparing the best landing page builder, as you can see with the information I provided, you do have options.
I don’t think you should limit yourself and try all of them if it’s in your budget because they have their own special features that outshine the others that each one has in certain categories.
Technology is also always improving as I mentioned before, so my personal pick might become different in the future, but right now it’s hard not to give the one that I am going to share with you below my landing page builder of choice as of right now.
My Personal Pick For Best Landing Page Builder
You do have choices, and your needs might be different from mine for your marketing needs.
I’ve compared many of these builders, and have had personal experience with every single one that is listed on this page.
I wanted to compare the pricing, the uses, the features, and the ease of use because even when you know how to code and build a site from scratch as I do, I still want it to be fast, easy, and to look and function how I want it.
So judging from both the new person just getting started and as an experienced marketer and site builder, I would have to go with the Builderall platform at this time.
The price is extremely low, they have a ton of templates, they have the ability to create entire membership sites all the way with including payment processors and payment cart pages.
Builderall even gives you an autoresponder with a 10,000 lead limit for their regular monthly cost included… if you would compare Builderall and all of its features to GetResponse or Aweber, Builderalls pricing covers most of the cost of just having the autoresponder feature alone when compared to the monthly subscription cost of either one of those 2 programs, and they only have that one single feature!
Builderall also has design studios where you can edit photos, create eBook covers and digital media, and a ton more.
Plus I really like the affiliate program associated with it!
The best page builder that literally is changing the game, and literally has everything one needs to become extremely successful with online marketing and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to get started and use.
ClickFunnels…
Yes, this is my choice for the #1 spot for being the best landing page builder at this time.
Thank you for taking the time to read my article about the 4 Best Landing Page Builders Shootout.
I hope you enjoyed this article.
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