ClickFunnels: At a Glance
- ClickFunnels is an all-in-one marketing solution based out of Ada County, Idaho, that first launched in 2014.
- Its core feature is its sales funnel builder that enables users to more effectively convert leads into customers.
- In addition to sales funnels, it also offers a drag-and-drop website and landing page builder, customer relationship management (CRM), automated workflows, customer centers and more.
- ClickFunnels can be highly customized using its many integrations, APIs and webhooks.
Pros
The main advantage of ClickFunnels is its ability to help businesses create very sophisticated online sales funnels, which can in turn help businesses more effectively convert site visitors into leads and leads into customers.
One of the ways in which it does this is through landing pages, which it makes pretty easy to build thanks to its drag-and-drop editor. On top of that, it also has a variety of features, such as marketing automations and workflows, and even the ability to build a monetized membership site or online course.
Cons
On the other hand, ClickFunnels is not the most user-friendly, as it involves a fairly steep learning curve. That said, businesses that are looking to hit the ground running will likely be disappointed to find that it takes time to learn. It’s also expensive compared to its leading competitors, and a large number of users report that web pages load very slowly—which of course, could have the opposite of the intended effect and drive potential customers away.
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Salesforce
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How ClickFunnels Works
ClickFunnels is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) marketing solution that is designed to help businesses more effectively build advanced sales funnels in order to grow leads and drive sales. To do this, ClickFunnels offers an array of features—all of which play a role in the process of converting leads into customers, such as a website, landing pages, customer relationship management system, automated workflows, automated email marketing and more. Together, the various components work together to create a lead conversion machine.
ClickFunnels Core Features
ClickFunnels is first and foremost a funneling building software. However, it also offers a lot more than that. It also offers a drag-and-drop website and landing page builder, a customer relationship management (CRM) system, email marketing tools, analytics and more.
Sales Funnels
The core feature of ClickFunnels is its sales funnel builder. It gives users a sizable library of pre-built sales funnels across a variety of use cases and goals, for example, a lead funnel, summit funnel, cart funnel, book funnel, webinar funnel, product launch funnel, storefront funnel and more.
Additionally, users can opt to build their own funnels from scratch. Either way, funnels are customized and built in the sales funnel editor, which appears very modern but is not very intuitive or beginner-friendly. Expect to invest some time learning how to use ClickFunnels in order to build out a quality funnel that functions properly.
Website Builder
ClickFunnels’ drag-and-drop website builder is fairly easy to use; however, it’s very limited in terms of design. For example, at present there are only eight themes to choose from, which is fewer than what most website builders offer. Its site editor is also not the most intuitive for building out more advanced components of a website, such as adding products and links. On top of that, users frequently report that their website speed is very slow, which could be detrimental to user experience as well as search engine optimization (SEO).
Email Marketing
ClickFunnels has a built-in email marketing platform; however, it is not very user friendly. In fact, in our experience, it’s one of ClickFunnels’ worst features. Granted, it does have the DKIM email authentication, which helps to improve deliverability. But beyond that, not only is it very limited in terms of functionality compared to the best email marketing software, it’s also just a pain to use. Even from the outset, it’s an example of poorly designed software.
For example, before users can even view email templates, they must input basic email information. And of course, you also have to select an email address for the sender. However, it does not include the email you used to sign up for an account, nor does it give users a clear way to add an email address from the screen where it asks for one.
Analytics
ClickFunnels automatically tracks analytics to give users insights into how their funnels perform. Within the analytics dashboard, users can view their overall performance as well as the performance of each individual funnel. It doesn’t give very deep insights; however, it does include data around total orders, total opt-ins, total page views and conversion rate on a daily or weekly basis. It also provides information on total product sales and total customers.
What Sets ClickFunnels Apart
ClickFunnels stands out for its advanced sales funnel builder. While it offers a variety of features that other providers offer—such as a website or landing page builder, a CRM or email marketing tools—what really separates it from the competition is its focus on funnels. One of the ways in which it does this is through comprehensive education that teaches users not only how to use the platform (which is admittedly exhaustive), but also how to use funnels to drive sales.
ClickFunnels Pricing
| Basic | Pro | Funnel Hacker | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Price With Annual Billing
|
$127 per month
|
$157 per month
|
$208 per month
|
|
Price With Monthly Billing
|
$147 per month
|
$197 per month
|
$297 per month
|
|
Number of Websites
|
One
|
One
|
Three
|
|
Funnel Limit
|
20 | 100 |
Unlimited
|
|
User Limit
|
Three
|
Five
|
15 |
|
Contact Limit
|
10,000
|
25,000
|
200,000
|
|
Unlimited Courses
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Unlimited Workflows
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Unlimited Pages
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Unlimited Products
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Unlimited Email Sequences
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
API Access
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Money-Back Guarantee
|
30 days
|
30 days
|
30 days
|
|
Support
|
Live chat and email
|
Live chat and email
|
Live chat and email
|
Basic
The ClickFunnels Basic plan is its entry-level plan that starts at $127 per month with annual billing or $147 per month with monthly billing. It includes one website, up to three users, up to 20 funnels and up to 10,000 contacts. It also includes unlimited workflows, courses, pages, projects, products and email sequences. Unlike the Pro and Funnel Hacker plans, it does not include API access. However, it does include a 30-day money-back guarantee on annual plans.
Pro
The Pro plan costs $157 per month with annual billing and $197 per month with month-to-month billing. Along with the Basic plan, it includes one website. However, it comes with the addition of up to five users, 100 funnels and up to 25,000 contacts. Otherwise, it includes all of the same features from the Basic plan.
Funnel Hacker
ClickFunnels’ Funnel Hacker is its top-tier plan and it costs $208 per month when billed annually or it jumps to $297 per month without a contract. For this high price tag, users get all of the same features in the Basic and Pro plans, but with the addition of two more websites for a total of three, up to 15 users, unlimited funnels and up to 200,000 contacts.
ClickFunnels Setup
While the process of registering for a new account is straightforward and requires users to input their contact information and payment details (even for the free trial), the actual process of using ClickFunnels, such as setting up funnels, takes some time to learn. However, ClickFunnels does provide highly comprehensive education on how to use the software, so while it’s not overly intuitive, there is a lot of information available as to how to use it.
ClickFunnels Ease of Use
ClickFunnels is not a particularly user-friendly platform, and this is not only our experience, but a shared sentiment among many of its users. While it provides everything in one centralized place, it’s not intuitive enough to hit the ground running. Instead, new users will need to invest the time and effort to learn how to use it to build out effective funnels.
Interestingly, this upfront investment of time tends to cause another problem. Namely, while many users report that they don’t particularly like ClickFunnels, they stick with it anyway because they don’t want to have to rebuild all of the work they put into it.
In terms of its lack of intuitive design, one example is the process of setting up redirects. While most content management systems are configured through individual web pages or landing pages, ClickFunnels users set up redirects in its own stand-alone section. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s difficult to actually configure the redirect; however, it can make it difficult to find how to do it if you’re used to other platforms that tend to work differently.
ClickFunnels Security
While ClickFunnels has a number of built-in and behind-the-scenes security measures to safeguard accounts and sensitive information, it does not offer many security features for users. For example, it does not have two-factor authentication. It does, however, give users the ability to create “Collaborators,” which serve as set user roles and permissions. Though, it’s worth noting that it’s not possible to create custom roles or permissions, so it may be limiting in certain situations.
ClickFunnels Customer Service and Support
Support is available via live chat 24 hours per day, Monday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET on weekends. ClickFunnels also claims that email support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, email support can take a long time to reply, so it may not be the ideal solution for immediate assistance. Additionally, it also has a surprisingly helpful AI live chatbot as well as a comprehensive educational center (a.k.a. “success center”).
ClickFunnels Alternatives and How They Compare
| ClickFunnels | Shopify | Wix | Squarespace | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Starting Price (Billed Annually)
|
$127 per month
|
$29 per month
|
$16 per month
|
$16 per month
|
|
Free Trial
|
14 days (credit card required)
|
3 days (no credit card required)
|
Not available
|
14 days (no credit card required)
|
|
Landing Page Builder
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Website Builder
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Number of Templates or Themes
|
Eight
|
12 free themes; hundreds of premium themes
|
800-plus
|
100-plus
|
|
Sell Subscriptions
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes, with Business plans
|
Yes
|
|
Membership Sites
|
Yes
|
Yes, via an app
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Build Online Courses
|
Yes
|
Yes, via an app
|
Yes, via an app
|
Yes, available as an add-on
|
|
Built-In Email Marketing
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Built-In CRM
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
No, via integrations only
|
|
Money-Back Guarantee
|
30 days
|
Not available
|
14 days
|
14 days
|
|
Customer Support Channels
|
Live chat and email
|
Live chat and email
|
Live chat, email and phone
|
Live chat or email
|
|
24/7 Support
|
No, 24 hours per day Monday through Friday
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Learn More
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Read More
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ClickFunnels vs. Shopify
ClickFunnels and Shopify are two different platforms that offer a number of overlapping features. While ClickFunnels is largely a funnel builder, Shopify is an e-commerce website builder. However, it’s possible to build a website with ClickFunnels, and it’s possible to build out sales funnels with Shopify. In general, Shopify is far more affordable with plans starting at $29 per month—a fraction of ClickFunnels at $127 per month.
Shopify does not offer a native CRM like ClickFunnels. However, it does integrate with many of the best CRM systems and it does have numerous selling tools, including email marketing with automations and segmentation, live chat for customer assistance and a form builder to help users generate more leads.
In general, online retailers that are looking for an easy way of building a code-free website with built-in marketing tools will find Shopify to be the more suitable solution. However, ClickFunnels is better for established businesses that are looking to supercharge their sales funnels.
ClickFunnels vs. Wix
When it comes to comparing ClickFunnels to Wix, a key difference is that Wix is first and foremost a website builder that is highly customizable thanks to its large library of apps and integrations. So, it’s not designed to be a funnel builder like ClickFunnels; however, it does have vast marketing capabilities that can effectively help businesses generate more leads and convert more leads into sales. Wix is also far more affordable than ClickFunnels at $16 per month with annual billing, has a ton more templates to choose from and, like ClickFunnels, it has a built-in CRM and email marketing tools.
The average small business looking for an easy way of building a highly customizable website, complete with a marketing suite, will likely find Wix to be the better choice. However, ClickFunnels is better for businesses with an existing website that are looking to improve upon their sales performance.
ClickFunnels vs. Squarespace
Squarespace is a surprisingly good alternative to ClickFunnels, as it is an all-in-one website builder designed to help small businesses more effectively market their business online. It’s far easier to use, offers far more templates, includes native email marketing tools and can be customized to have numerous functionalities, including a CRM. Plus, Squarespace is more affordable than ClickFunnels at $16 per month with annual billing.
Generally, Squarespace is the better choice for small businesses and startups that are in the early stages of building an online presence and developing digital marketing campaigns. On the other hand, ClickFunnels is better suited for businesses that have established an online presence and have a well-developed digital marketing plan but are looking to optimize their performance through sophisticated sales funnels.
Read more:
Check out our full list of recommended ClickFunnels alternatives.
Who Is ClickFunnels Best For?
ClickFunnels is best suited for more established businesses that are looking to optimize and more effectively automate their digital marketing through the use of advanced sales funnels. For example, this might be a business that has achieved solid sales using its current strategy but is finding it difficult to improve upon existing performance.
Conclusion
ClickFunnels is a good investment for online retailers that want to build a system to supercharge their digital sales and are willing to invest the time to learn how to do so. However, it’s not the ideal solution for the average small business or startup in the early stages. This is because it’s not only expensive and time-consuming, but it relies on having an existing contact list and sizable web traffic for it to provide value to users, which very small businesses and new ventures may not have.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is ClickFunnels worth it?
ClickFunnels is a worthwhile tool for e-commerce businesses that are looking to essentially automate their marketing and sales processes. While it does involve an investment of time upfront, it does help save businesses time (and money) in the long run.
Which is better: Shopify or ClickFunnels?
To determine which is better for you, Shopify vs. ClickFunnels, determine what your needs and goals are. For example, Shopify is better suited for the average business that’s looking for an effective way of building out an online store with numerous automations, such as integration with dropshipping companies and abandoned cart recovery emails. On the other hand, ClickFunnels is the better solution for established businesses that are seeking a way to further optimize their sales process and increase revenue.
What is the best e-commerce website builder?
The best e-commerce website builder depends on your e-commerce requirements, skill level and budget. In general, Wix is the best drag-and-drop builder for those who want the ability to create a highly custom and code-free site. Meanwhile, Shopify is best for dropshipping and its AI functionalities, Shift4Shop is the best for advanced product management and tracking, Ecwid is the best for zero transaction fees and Squarespace is best for beginners. Learn more about the best e-commerce platforms.
What are the disadvantages of ClickFunnels?
ClickFunnels is not the most affordable marketing software on the market, and it also comes with a bit of a learning curve. For those who are looking for more than sales funnel creation, there’s no built-in blogging platform and its design options are limited.
