Trying to decide between InstaPage vs. ClickFunnels?

It’s way easier than you think. They’re both great landing page tools, but for totally different customer types.

I’ve used both these landing page builders – one for my business and one for clients – so I’ve been in your shoes before.

I’ll show you exactly how to decide which one you need, plus provide in-depth insight into features so you know what you’re getting BEFORE buying.

Plus, you’ll also learn the pricing secret that could change your entire decision.

Ready?

Let’s go.

InstaPage vs. ClickFunnels: Quick Overview

ClickFunnels 

Price: $97 Basic | $297 Platinum (recommended)

An all-in-one sales funnel and landing page builder containing all the features you need to generate leads and sell products. Including landing page software, checkout pages, email marketing, membership sites, and pre-made sales funnel templates plus expert coaching. Ideal for new businesses, solopreneurs, and small businesses selling physical or digital products.

Key Features

• Sales funnel templates and landing page templates
• Payment gateway integration
• Email marketing automation
• Landing page builder
• FunnelFlix (marketing training videos)
• Membership websites
• Sales funnel coaching

InstaPage

Price: $199 Basic | Custom for upgrades ($500 +)

The world’s best landing page tool.

Build landing pages, analyze visitor behavior, and optimize conversions with an unrivaled landing page optimization toolset including heatmaps, pixel tracking, and 1:1 personalization.

Ideal for large companies with dozens of landing pages, busy teams, and Google ads traffic. NOT for small businesses or solopreneurs.

Key Features

• Advanced landing page builder
• High-quality landing page templates
• A/B testing
• Team collaboration features
• Mass landing page editing
• High-converting forms
• Heatmaps
• 1:1 ad personalization

Quick Verdict: Which Landing Page Tool Is Best for Me?

It depends.

Neither of these landing page builders is “better” than the other. They’re both great at what they do. It depends what YOU need.

InstaPage is a landing page builder and landing builder ONLY. You use it to build, host, and optimize landing pages. That’s it. Anything else, you’re going to need some help.

ClickFunnels is a self-contained business building tool. With it, you can create landing pages PLUS create full sales funnels, accept payments, and run email marketing campaigns.

For example, say I have a bodybuilding supplement. I would use InstaPage if I had a lot of traffic and wanted to create dozens of kickass landing pages, run PPC ads (Google ads) traffic to each, and optimize each page for conversions. 

If I wanted to create a sales funnel, run automated email campaigns, and actually sell my product to customers with one tool, I’d get ClickFunnels.

It’ll help to answer this question: Do you have a business yet? 

If not, you probably need ClickFunnels. InstaPage is ONLY for established businesses with heavy traffic that needs dozens or hundreds of landing pages.

ClickFunnels is definitely the more popular and versatile tool. It does so much more for a lot less. InstaPages is a “niche” tool for established advertising teams. Don’t believe me? Here’s the CEO saying literally the same thing:

ClickFunnels is probably better for 95% of the people reading this. 

InstaPage Vs. ClickFunnels: Who Are They For?

I Recommend ClickFunnels For…

• Solopreneurs: If you’re flying solo with a small niche site, an FBA brand, a coaching biz or something like that, you want ClickFunnels. You get simple landing page software plus a ton of extra tools to sell your products.
• New businesses: ClickFunnels is ideal for new businesses. With just one tool you can find new leads, create landing pages, build automated sales funnels, accept payments, and even learn about marketing from the best in the businesses.
• You’re selling a product: I don’t care what the product is – goat’s milk, protein powder, consulting packages, mothering advice, or whatever – if you want to sell it, get ClickFunnels.
• Any business WITHOUT major infrastructure: If you don’t have email marketing sequences, landing pages, checkout pages, or anything resembling a real business infrastructure, you need ClickFunnels to build it.
• If you need marketing tools: InstaPages basically says “here’s your landing page, thanks. Bye”. It’s on you to do something with it. ClickFunnels gives you all the marketing tools you need to run a business.
• You want to learn from the best minds in marketing: FunnelFlix is like Netflix for digital marketing. It might be worth the price of ClickFunnels alone. You’ll learn secrets for creating landing pages, funnel building, productivity, webinars, courses, and anything else related to selling things online. This is a HUGE plus in my book.

I Recommend InstaPage For…

• Large businesses who need only landing pages: If you’re creating landing pages by the dozen, and you already have email marketing software, a payment gateway, and sales funnels, InstaPage is perfect for you.
• Existing businesses that want to level up: InstaPage is ideal for companies who want to optimize their existing landing pages and increase conversions. It has by far the best conversion rate optimization (CRO) features I’ve ever seen in a landing page software. You’ll get unrivaled insight into issues with your landing pages and actionable advice on how to fix them immediately. I’ve seen companies double or triple revenue from landing pages just from InstaPages’ feedback.
• If you’re running PPC campaigns: If you’re running ads to landing pages in an existing funnel, InstaPage is exactly what you need to optimize each page and increase conversions. It’ll help you squeeze every last bit of juice out of your traffic.

Clickfunnels vs. Instapage: Head-To-Head Comparison

Landing Page Builder

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels’ landing page builder is a simple, straightforward tool that lets anyone create functional landing pages in minutes with 0 design experience. All you need to do is learn how to use the drag and drop editor. 

If you can drag and drop elements onto the page, you can have a landing page.

Just click which type of page you want from the funnel builder (you have to start a new funnel to make a landing page – which sucks):

Once you choose from this menu, ClickFunnels ask you a few more questions about what you want to accomplish, then it handles the rest of the setup. If you want to get frisky, you can also choose to build custom landing pages.

Pretty easy, right?

Building landing pages is the same…

Everything works on a simple, color-coded system. Like this:

You can either build from scratch or choose from a page template. You can even buy a proven, high-converting template from an expert marketer on their marketplace (my favorite). Most templates are 80% ready out-of-the-box and cost $5-$10. Just add your content, images, and other page elements. That’s it. You’re done.

Once you set up the sections, choose which elements you want to spice it up. 

Elements include:

• Text
• Headline
• Video
• Countdown timer
• Bulleted list
• Pricing tables
• 2-step order forms
• Images or image pop ups
• Pop up windows
• Sticky bars

It really all comes down to one word: Easy. ClickFunnels gives you high-converting landing page templates, a simple drag and drop editor, and easy color/CSS adjustments.

This is kind of a catch-22, though. It’s so simple anyone can use it, but because it’s so simple it lacks features that InstaPage offers.

Types of ClickFunnels Landing Pages

ClickFunnels is a sales funnel tool, so, naturally, it gives you every type of page needed to complete the entire sales funnel.

For example:

• Opt-in pages: Simple landing pages whose sole goal in life is to capture email addresses. Headline, a tiny bribe (I’ll give you x for your email!), a simple form – that’s it. They’re also known as squeeze pages.
• Sales pages: Pages designed to turn visitors into paying customers. This is where you knock em’ dead and charm the credit card out of their wallet. Cool thing here is ClickFunnels has tested thousands of landing page designs and added their best performing ones into their template library.
• Order pages: These pages capture customer info and complete the purchase. This is a huge plus over InstaPage. These forms/pages are pre-designed to make the purchasing process super simple and enjoyable, which has shown to drastically reduce abandonment.
• Upsell pages: Why not try to squeeze some more money out of paying customers? After all, how can you possibly buy a vacation to Bali WITHOUT renting a Maserati after booking a hotel (damn you, Booking.com!!!).

Hope this is all making sense so far…

Again, it’s all about simplicity. It’s never been easier to create beautiful landing pages. Choose a page type, choose a high-converting template, drag some elements onto a page, and that’s it. Time to hit the gym or take a nap.

ClickFunnels Templates

ClickFunnels offers 100+ templates for landing page creation like opt-in pages, sales pages, webinars, membership sites, “coming soon” announcements, and even thank you pages.

I like how easy it is to just choose what fits your goal, make a few tweaks, and have a live landing page that’s solid. The peace of mind alone is worth it.

I HATE designing pages and writing copy. Most of the time I just stare at a blank page. So having the pre-made text blocks with clear directions – “Karl, explain the benefit in detail!!!” – saves me a ton of mental anguish.

However, some of the templates feel outdated and stale, and a bunch are totally useless. The real value is in the marketplace and “Cookbook” (much more on this one in the funnels section).

Clickfunnels’ marketplace is a giant bazaar with thousands of optimized landing pages and funnels for any goal or business. Why go in blind when you can just buy something that’s already worked for someone else?

Say I’m selling an eBook. All I’d have to do is choose “eBook” from the side bar:

Then choose whichever page/funnel fits my type of book or company branding. Like this one for $7:

So, instead of spending hours designing a page and worrying what to write on a new landing page, I could just spend $7, get a pre-tested page with directions, and be done with it in an hour or less.

Winning.

InstaPage

InstaPage’s sole purpose is to build, host, and design landing pages, and then optimize beautiful landing pages en masse. If you’re considering InstaPage over ClickFunnels, it will be for this reason and this reason only.

It’s the most powerful landing page builder on the market by mile. Here are just a few of the features:

• 100+ stunning templates
• 33 million stock photos
• Precision design features like instant align
• Global blocks so you can edit dozens of pages globally at the same time
• 500+ layouts by industry
• Thor Render for the fastest landing page loading speed 
• Page-level team collaboration
• Heat maps
• A/B testing

All this plus other tools too.

And the amazing thing is that even with all these features, it’s still easy to get the hang of. I built my first fully optimized page in less than 15 minutes. To be fair, I have built landing pages before.

Check out the pic above – pretty clean, eh? I love InstaPage’s page builder. 

For one, it’s super clean with everything clearly visible.

And two, it actually works. Sometimes when I drag an element in ClickFunnels, it magically darts to the top corner like my cat when I drop a frying pan (there’s a reason they call it GlitchFunnels).

It gives you all the same elements as ClickFunnels, but it also comes with some precision design features that make it a dream for the creatively disabled like myself. The dimensions and ratios are clearly visible, so you can align everything just right. And auto align perfectly aligns content within a block at the click of a button. 

Since InstaPage is more advanced than ClickFunnels, I’m going to run through some of the key features here. That way you get an idea of just how powerful this thing is:

Built-in A/B Testing and Heat Maps

The main reason InstaPage is a PPC ad spend godsend is that you can make stunning, high-converting landing pages for your ads AND quickly and easily test variations to see which ones convert at a higher clip. This is known as a split test. It’s where you show two different versions of the same page to website visitors and see which one converts best.

Both InstaPage and ClickFunnels offer this, but it’s a lot harder to get set up ClickFunnels, and there isn’t the same depth of data. In InstaPage, you can do it from right inside the page editor itself.

InstaPage also has heatmaps, a feature that provides granular insight into how users interact with your pages. This gives you the intel you need to run successful split tests. You don’t get this natively in ClickFunnels. You’d need to integrate with analytics tools.

It tracks mouse movements, scroll depth, and clicks, so you can see how and where users interact with your pages.

Knowledge is power. With ClickFunnels, you’ll either be taking a shot in the dark or paying an extra fee to integrate a heatmap that isn’t even guaranteed to work. With InstaPage, everything is built-in and works perfectly.

Thor Render – Feel the Need for Speed

Thor Render is one part speed engine and one part hammer-wielding god channeling the powers of Valhalla straight to your landing pages.

I don't know how it works, but it’s pretty cool. 

The Thor Render Engine is a page generator that drastically increases page speed and reduces bounce rate by changing the fundamental structure of the page. Basically, InstaPage has stripped all nonoptimal code and rejiggered image loading to ensure all of your pages load as fast as possible. The best part? You do 0.

To put that in perspective – most Thor pages load within 3.5 seconds compared to 5-8 for most landers. That could have drastic implications for your bounce rate. 

Team Collaboration

InstaPage continues to set itself apart from all other competitors with this feature. 

They’re the first and only landing page builder with a built-in collab platform for creating and optimizing landing pages. Ever tried to work with 4 different people on a page in Google Docs? It’s hellish.

Collaborating in real time reduces comment tag and response time, which essentially eliminates bottlenecks. With this platform you can:

• Make and respond to comments
• Leave feedback
• Review comments
• Respond to issues

The main benefit is centralizing all team communication in regards to this particular page rather than communicating across Slack, Google Docs, email, and god knows what else.

Huge win for agencies and busy teams here.

Templates and Layouts

500+ conversion-tested landing page templates for every industry, purpose, or occasion. Now THAT’S a sales pitch I can get behind.

Everything that ClickFunnels does InstaPage takes a step further. 

ClickFunnels has 100 templates – InstaPage has 500+.

ClickFunnels offers templates for different goals – InstaPage breaks things all the way down to product-specific goals (EX: download an app!). 

And it’s all based on real data.

That, and the pages are pretty much all modern, stunning, and purpose-built. ClickFunnels has a ton of stale templates I’d never use.

Some categories include:

• Download an app
• Case study
• Competitor comparison
• Request a demo
• Even registration
• Travel booking
• Upsell
• Webinar registration

Global Blocks

Global Blocks empower large-scale advertisers and agencies to instantly change certain blocks of landing pages across hundreds or even thousands of pages instantly. This is a new type of dynamic text replacement created by InstaPage.

Say you need to update an offer, image, piece of copy, or even the copyright date in the footer of your page. Now you can do that on every page you’re currently using with the click of a button.

Imagine you’re an agency with 100 landing pages from a client. One day, the client decides to change the price of their product. Cool, now you’ve got to change $297 to $197 on 100 different landing pages. There goes your week.

But if the CTA button with pricing is in a “global block”, you’d just need to change the master block and it would update on every page instantly.

Dynamic text replacement equals another huge win for large-scale advertisers.

1:1 Ad Personalization 

This might be the single most powerful feature in all of PPC advertising. Imagine being able to create completely customized ads AND create landing pages perfectly customized to the visitor’s specifications. This type of personalization lets you deliver 100% dynamic and unique content to any visitor/audience. InstaPage is the only landing page software that does this.

If you customize landing pages this way, it should drastically increase conversions and reduce bounce rate by delivering hyper-specific ads and experiences to micro-audiences. 

Right now, most marketers leverage data to create specific ads that increase clicks and reduce prices. But then they send that traffic to generic landing pages for a general audience.

Guess what?

No purchases for you.

With 1:1 personalized landing pages, you can create unique experiences for each different target audience, resulting in a higher conversion rate.

Page Builder Verdict: InstaPage

InstaPage does everything ClickFunnels does, and a ton more than ClickFunnels can’t do. The built-in A/B testing, heatmaps, team collab, extra speed, and better templates put it head and shoulders above ClickFunnels. Add in the personalization and global blocks, and it’s not even close.

There’s a reason InstaPage is considered one of the best landing page builders in the business.

Reporting and Analytics

InstaPage

InstaPage's analytics give you a basic 10,000-foot view of user behavior on your pages. To keep it simple, let’s just look at the basic functions here.

There are two main sections: Experience and Performance.

Experience shows visitors, conversions, and conversion rate (you can also view heat maps or create A/B tests).

Performance shows the overall performance over a given period of time. Nothing too crazy here.

The good news is you can integrate Google Analytics which gives you extra data like:

• Page views
• Time on page
• Average session
• Bounce rate
• Exit %

I hate to say the analytics are “basic” since heatmaps and A/B testing should be included here. But in terms of just available metrics native to the tool, they’re pretty meat and potatoes if you ask me.

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels has no native analytics.

You can integrate Google Analytics and Facebook tracking pixel into your funnels, but that’s about it.

This is another reason I normally recommend solutions like Kartra to solopreneurs. ClickFunnels is lacking some key features that it really should have.

Their email marketing tool does have analytics, but there’s no “big picture” way to track the health of your funnels. If you’re reading this ClickFunnels, get to work!

Note: ClickFunnels also has native A/B testing or “split testing”, if you consider that an analytic.

Verdict: InstaPage

Seeing as how ClickFunnels has zero analytics, I don’t see how they could win.

Winner: InstaPage. No contest.

SEO

I’m only going to touch on this briefly since neither tool really has anything revolutionary in SEO. They both offer almost the exact same thing.

InstaPage

Here, you can edit basic SEO data like keywords, meta description, and page title. It’s really dead simple.

ClickFunnels

​​ClickFunnels is basically the same. You go to the page, click settings, and select “SEO Meta Data”. Then, you fill in the same things I just mentioned in InstaPage.

Verdict: InstaPage

They both offer the same SEO info for pages, but InstaPage’s lightning fast load speeds will send better user experience signals to Google. In the long run, it’ll add up to better rankings.

What You Get With ClickFunnels That You Don’t Get With InstaPage

This is where the overlap ends. ClickFunnels includes a suite of tools for designing and optimizing high-converting sales funnels. Their goal as a software is to give you everything you need to finish the sales process from lead generation to post-purchase follow ups.

I think seeing just how much more you get in your subscription fee will drive home the point of why ClickFunnels is a much better value for 95% of you reading this article.

Let’s start with the #1 reason everyone loves ClickFunnels:

Complete Sales Funnels

ClickFunnels is the world’s most popular funnel builder. In fact, it was founded by the guy who literally coined the term.

No other tool makes it easier to attract leads and walk them step-by-step through intricate, fully-optimized funnels to the promised land.

It’s stupidly easy to create every step of the funnel:

• Lead capture
• Landing pages
• Sales pages
• Checkout pages
• Upsells and cross sells
• Email nurture sequences
• Long-term retainment

I can’t stress how close this is to “done for you”. You can create a high-converting funnel even if you’ve never done it before just by selecting a template, following directions, and tinkering with the colors to fit your branding. Then you have a funnel that works for you 24/7/365. It’ll take a few hours max.

Funnel Templates and CookBook

ClickFunnels basically holds your hand through the entire process.

When creating a funnel, you just choose a goal:

​​

From there it walks you through each page needed, including templates and directions for creating a perfectly optimized page for each step. 

It doesn’t get easier…or does it?

ClickFunnels CookBook is a tome containing Russell Brunson’s top converting funnels according to industry/purpose.

You really CAN’T screw this up.

It’s basically like “tripwire page goes here and write this” then “OK, this is the sales page, say this”.

If you still somehow can’t find something to fit your goal, there’s always the Marketplace that I mentioned above. It has functionally limitless landing pages and funnel templates based on industry/goals/purpose and more.

Email Marketing and SMS (Actionetics)

Actionetics is an email marketing tool that empowers businesses to connect directly with their audience and deliver precisely targeted sales messages at the right time. It’s one of the most powerful marketing tools you could possibly use.

So, whereas InstaPage solely helps you collect leads or increase sales on a sales page, ClickFunnels lets you collect leads AND market to them where they spend the most time – their email and their phone.

Once you’ve got an email address (or number), Actionetics opens up new avenues to more revenue in so many ways. You can:

• Foster a deeper connection with customers with thank you emails
• Increase customer loyalty by sending free gifts
• Grow your authority by sending free value like tips or case studies
• Increase conversion rates by gently nurturing leads through targeted email sequences
• Increase customer lifetime value by selling more products in the future
• Boost average sales by upselling and croselling 

That’s really all there is to it. Collect email addresses, separate users into audiences with tags, and start sending them precisely targeted auto-responders (automatic email messages).

It’s all about convenience. Everything is built right into the tool and exists in one ecosystem, so you don’t have to switch between multiple tools.

Everything works on a system of tags and groups. Say I have an offer for supplements for males interested in weight loss. I could create a group based on gender and send a sequence to all men. Or I could create separate tags like “clicked Facebook ad” or “requested weight loss eBook”, and send them a series of targeted messages like:

1. Thanks for buying the eBook! Have you seen this other cool thing I have?
2. Here’s 3 tips for losing weight you probably didn’t know
3. Hey, did those tips work? Here’s a one-time offer for 1-to-1 coaching at 50% off

See how, once set up, it basically makes you more money in perpetuity? Pretty sweet.

Payment Processing

One cool thing about ClickFunnels is it basically turns you into a fully functioning business as soon as you sign up. It’s your sales department, marketing department, AND your cash register/payment processor all wrapped up in a nice bundle with Russell Brunson’s smug mug on the front.

So not only can you make a funnel to sell products, you can actually accept payments too.

I think it's all pretty straightforward. ClickFunnels integrates with more payment processors than just about any software I’ve ever used. 

The common ones are:

• PayPal
• EasyPay
• Stripe
• ClickBank

Having more payment processing options opens you to a wider audience (obv…). Again, another reason why ClickFunnels is ideal for solopreneurs and small businesses.

ClickFunnels BackPack (Affiliate Management)

Keeping with the business-in-a-box theme…

ClickFunnels Backpack is the easiest way to grow your business quickly with 0 upfront investment. This affiliate management tool lets you create an army of sales people that do the selling for you in exchange for a commission.

It’s easy to set up, manage, and pay affiliates. You can even track their performance so you can reward the good ones and threaten the bad ones with termination (I’m joking).

If you find someone qualified to promote your product, just add them as an affiliate and they’ll get an affiliate link. Any time you make a sale due to their promotion, ClickFunnels tracks their sale, calculates their cut, and pays them out.

FunnelFlix

Behold, the NetFlix of online marketing. FunnelFlix is a cool new feature of ClickFunnels where the best minds in digital marketing teach you how to make money. Topics covered include:

• Funnel hacking
• Productivity
• Copywriting
• Video script writing
• Upselling
• Self development
• Offer development
• Running a business

The list goes on.

If you’re experiencing any problems with your business, the answer will be here. You’ll learn how to fix broken funnels, shut off social media and get to work, and develop high-converting product offers, and pretty much anything else online business related.

I think it’s worth the price alone. You won’t get this with free educational content anywhere.

Speaking of pricing…

InstaPage vs. ClickFunnels: Pricing Comparison

Both platforms advertise low-cost plans, but hide their best features behind paywalls. There’s only two things I hate in this world:

1. Business owners commenting on how other business owners run their businesses
2. Companies who hide necessary features behind paywalls…

ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels starts at $97 per month, but that plan is functionally useless.

Here’s why:

The value of ClickFunnels is that it’s an all-in-one business platform with all the tools for funnels, payments, affiliate management, email marketing, and all that jazz.

But the basic plan doesn’t come with affiliate management or email marketing. And it severely limits payment gateways (3), custom domains (3), FunnelFlix, and sub users (1).

For $297, you get:

• Email and SMS marketing
• Affiliate management
• 9 payment gateways
• 9 custom domains
• The full FunnelFlix experience
• Unlimited funnels
• Unlimited pages
• Virtual hackathons where real pros evaluate your funnels

So, yeah. If you aren’t willing to spend $297 – which is totally worth it by the way – it’s not worth getting this platform.

InstaPage

InstaPage starts at $299 per month ($199 per month annually) for the “Building” plan. Just like ClickFunnels, they try to Shanghai you with a low-priced plan hoping you realize how limited it is. That way, you’ll sign up for the higher priced custom plans.

If you want all of the juiciest features, you need to upgrade to a custom package where InstaPage builds you a tailored pricing plan based on your business’ size, goals, and usage of the tool.

If you upgrade, you’ll get:

• Salesforce Integration
• Global blocks
• 1:1 ad personalization
• Heatmaps
• Multi-step forms
• Design services

And a ton more.

So the song remains the same: InstaPage is only worth it if you get a custom package. All of the features that make InstaPage a no-brainer are not accessible unless you upgrade.

Based on my conversations with friends in the industry, prices for custom packages START at about $599 per month.

Again, NOT worth it for small businesses, but 100% worth it for huge agencies.

Verdict: ClickFunnels vs. InstaPage – Who Wins?

The verdict here literally couldn’t be any clearer unless you skipped the entire article just to read this section. 

Are you a large business with a busy team that needs landing pages en masse for yourself or clients? 

It’s InstaPage. Get it. It’s worth every penny.

Are you a small business, solopreneur, coach, dropshipper, or a new business that needs tools to grow?

Get ClickFunnels – it’s by far the better tool for starting a business. It’s your entire business in a single subscription.

F.A.Q

Q: Is there anything better than ClickFunnels?

A: Yes, there are plenty of better things that ClickFunnels. It depends what you need. Do you have a simple WordPress website? You might be better off with Kartra. Do you need only landing pages with a simple drag and drop builder? InstaPage is better. It all depends.

Q: Which funnel builder is best?

A: ClickFunnels is the best funnel builder. Other tools don’t offer all the features of ClickFunnels – not even close. The templates, analytics tools, drag and drop landing page builder, and affordable basic plan, it’s a no brainer.

Q: Which is better Groovefunnels vs. ClickFunnels?

A: ClickFunnels is better than GrooveFunnels for building sales funnels. It’s also one of the best landing page tools in existence. When it comes to ClickFunnels vs. other tools like Kartra or InstaPage, the answer depends on your goals.