Here at Income Mesh I pride myself on helping entrepreneurs select the absolute best tools for their digital marketing stack. And one of the most essential tools in an online marketing business today is the landing page builder.

This tool breaks down the technical barriers to building beautiful, high converting, web pages that will fuel your conversions and improve your sales and leads in your business.

But because everyone knows how vital page builders are in your business... there's a problem.

There are a ton of different options on the market today. And more show up every month!?

It's a confusing sea of beautiful options, each one vying for your attention and your dollars. 

But which one is right for you? You need a guide through the process. An unbiased review of each of these page builders so that you know what you need and what you should avoid.

In this post, I will be your guide - and the journey is long. Grab your hiking boots and cinch up. It's time to build some landing pages together!

More...

How to read this guide

This post is going to be a living, breathing guide to help you build incredibly high converting and beautifully designed landing pages.

Whenever a new player hits the scene, I will be sure to add him to the list.

And when companies fall from grace, I will make a note of them and add them to the page builder graveyard!

But whenever there are major updates to one of the page builders, I will be sure to keep this guide fresh and clean for you. So go ahead and bookmark this page so you can check in over time.

For each page builder, I will:

  • Give an overview of the company and its history (did it just pop up yesterday, or is it decades in the business?)
  • Give a full video walkthrough and first impressions where we browse the landing page templates, build one together, hook it up with our email marketing platform, and even bring it into our wordpress site if possible!
  • I'll talk through the general feature set: the good, bad, AND UGLY.
  • I'll give my recommendation on who I think the page builder is best for, and who should avoid.
  • And I'll let you know how to proceed

Currently on the list for review is Thrive Architect, Optimize Press 2.0, ClickFunnels, Megaphone by Kajabi, Landingi, Lander,  Kartra, Brizy, Elementor, Divi, and Instapages. More to come soon!

By the end of the article, you will have a complete view of the page builder landscape and know which one could be right for you.

Let's waste no time and dive right in.

While researching through this blog post, I've reviewed over 1,000 different landing page templates.

When you look through that many designs, certain elements and patterns emerge. Let's call these the Landing Page Essentials.

While I review each tool, I'll pay special attention to which essential elements the builder does particularly well - and if they are missing any.

Landing Page Essentials

  • Ability to create beautiful full-width sections easily with alternating colors
  • Custom background images - including static images, parallax, gradient overlays, etc
  • Video and image elements with editing options. Including mockup frames (like a video playing on a laptop screen), or image editing options like adjusting the borders, adding shadows, etc.
  • Layout customization - multiple columns, content boxes to nest content together, and any other design elements to allow you to easily build what you imagine.
  • Testimonial blocks to easily create high-converting word of mouth
  • Access to a free library of stock images to make it seamless to build out sites in different niches
  • Searchable databases of icons that allow you to quickly illustrate your points with high-quality vector graphics.
  • Beautiful dividers that allow you to add style between each section of your page (for an example, check out my home page!)
  • Opt in form elements that integrate with most email marketing platforms. It doesn't matter how beautiful your pages look if they can't actually get your leads and subscribers to you!
  • Conversion focused features like split testing, cloning pages, and adding custom redirects after opt in processes.
  • Ability to create 2-step sign up processes (click a button and display a lightbox for sign up details)
  • Mobile responsiveness. Build it once and have it look good on any screen size
  • Overall ease of use and joy while building out your designs.

The review process

For each tool, I will walk you through the installation and review the interface.

Together, we will review the template libraries and build out an entire funnel with opt in form and thank you page.

As we go, I'll compare the tool's highlights and shortcomings as compared to other products that I've reviewed.

At the end, I'll let you know what the tool does well, misses on, and provide my recommendations on who it is good for.

Quick note: Some of the links in this review are affiliate links. That means I'll receive a small commission if you sign up using my link. It comes at no cost to you, and helps me keep the lights on for this blog. However, I am going to give you my honest opinion of these tools and not base my recommendation based solely on affiliate commissions. Thanks for the support!

Anything missing?

I want this to be the most complete and thorough comparison online, so if there are any tools that I missed in this review...


Leave a comment below and I'll get it added immediately!

Thrive Architect

Thrive Architect Logo Review

Let's start the comparison off with the tool that I am currently running on my blog, Thrive Architect.

Thrive Architect is the premier plugin of the company Thrive Themes. Thrive's whole mission is to be the most conversion-focused suite of plugins for WordPress. That means that every tool they offer is specifically designed to help you get more leads and subscribers.

Thrive has a gift for making complex activities (like split testing opt in forms or entire landing pages) stupidly simple, which is the main reason I run it on my sites.

Thrive Architect and Thrive Leads (check out my full review here) are a deadly combo for lead generation, and their Thrive Membership allow you to get every product offered at an affordable monthly price.

Thrive Themes Testimonials

Testimonials from Thrive Themes Homepage

You can see a nice live example of a Thrive Architect landing page from my new conversion optimization course 🙂

What's great is that Thrive Architect is also perfect for writing all your blog posts. In fact, this post is designed with Thrive Architect!

Here are some of my latest examples:

In the video below I walk you through several features of Thrive Architect:

  • Layout elements
  • Color adjustments
  • Several basic features you can add to all your pages
  • Templates & Symbols (global items)
  • Split Testing variations of pages with Thrive Optimize

I also walk you through my opinions of Thrive Architect's ease of use, value for money, support and professionalism of the company. I hope you enjoy the review video!

Thrive Architect Pros

  • ItÂ’s a WordPress plugin - If you are using WordPress this is great, since it wonÂ’t mess up with your theme and you can create landing pages without having to change your theme. It's also just nice having everything in one place! It also allows you to use Architect with your theme, so your navigation, sidebar, and footer all stays nicely themed.
  • Huge number of options - Thrive Architect has it all, and when I say all I mean EVERYTHING you might need for your landing pages, here are some cool features: credit card icons, content revealer, testimonials, call to action (CTA) elements, styled lists, pricing tables, countdown timers, toggle, tabs etc. etc. And their ability to save templates and global colors makes it super easy once you have built out your initial website style.
  • Run split tests in 1 minute: If you've never run a split test, you might not think this is a big deal. But I guarantee you, it can make or break your entire business model. Web pages don't need to look pretty... they need to convert! And with Thrive Optimize, you can set up an incredible split test in just seconds. No code required!
  • Advance element styling - The number of styling options with Thrive Architect is out of this world, I think I didnÂ’t even show half of it in the video. You can change and style every piece of your page, all dragÂ’nÂ’drop.
  • Full HTML/CSS access - This will be important for some of you. If you need it, you have the ability to see and change complete HTML / CSS of your page.
  • Speed - Thrive Architect is both fast to build in, and fast for the end users. They have several tricks up its sleeve (removing your theme from its loading times when possible, automatic image optimization...) and this all results in incredible page load speeds for your end users.
  • Quality Templates & Training: I love the over 250+ templates in Thrive Architect offer so much more than simply example Lorem Ipsum text. Instead, they give you hundreds of template pages with example sales copy written by professionals that teach you how to create better conversion rates with each landing page! It's like a college course on copywriting included in your templates!
Thrive Architect Landing Page Builder Templates

Each template expands to a full funnel or entire business site, complete with sales copy pre-written

Thrive Architect Cons

  • Learning curve - Thrive Architect can take a few days/weeks to fully come to "get it." Adjusting layouts is more intuitive in Divi and Brizy, but once you understand Thrive, I think it offers you the must customization.
  • Mobile Responsiveness - Thrive Architect is fully mobile responsive, but I have found that you really need to check each format of the page (desktop, tablet, and phone) before you publish. Sometimes layout settings like margins and paddings can cross over into different layout modes and can make things look a little funny. This is the cost of the customization you have with Architect.
  • Developer friendliness -  Thrive works a lot like Apple. What it does, it does extremely well. All Thrive plugins integrate nicely together the way your iPhone and Macbook do. But if you want to add something new to Architect, it has to come from Thrive. Other builders like Divi and Elementor allow developers to build their own blocks, modules, or capabilities in themselves.

Thrive Architect is for you if...

You need a powerful WordPress landing page builder for a reasonable price. If you want to style and customize everything and leave no stones unturned, then Thrive Architect is for you. It comes with a LOT of features and will even satisfy the most advanced users.

It's also for you if you want to ensure your plugins work well together. With the Thrive membership, you get a complete solution to build funnels, write compelling blog posts, capture leads, host online courses, collect testimonials, and more.

Thrive Architect Pricing

You can get Thrive Architect for: $67 for a single license (with lifetime updates), for $127 when bundled with Thrive Optimize for split testing, or get the entire suite of Thrive products (more coming every month) for only $19 per month through my link.


Landingi Review

Landingi Page Builder Logo

Next on the list is Landingi - our first hosted option on the list.

Once you get over the silly name, you'll find a pretty powerful page builder inside this platform.

Landingi offers 200+ templates that can be easily searched by goal (opt in page, webinar, sales page, etc) or by industry (real estate, dentist, digital marketer).

That means that you should never really have to start from scratch, which is a huge time saver.

Check out my full impression of it as I :

  • Start with a brand new account, design a new opt in funnel
  • Create an ebook offer funnel from a simple template
  • Connect my CRM of choice via its native integration (Mailerlite)
  • Import my new funnel page into WordPress using Landingi's free plugin.

?

Landingi Pros


  • Templates organized by niche and color - This is the first time I am seeing this, they have over 200 beautiful templates which are organized by niches like health, marketing, tourism, sports etc. and even by color too! I just love that. Download all of their templates below for free and see for yourself. You even have the option to order a custom designed page if you have the budget:
Landingi Template options

Start with a template, or order a professionally designed landing page right from Landingi!

  • Positioning of elements - You can simply drag and drop any element wherever you want on your page, without manually changing margins or padding of the elements, which makes design very approachable. There is also a con here though, that you need to really check all responsive views to make sure the content formats correctly.
  • Ease of use - Landingi is really fast and easy to use, no frustration while building your pages and thatÂ’s awesome. Even integrating Mailerlite and importing the page to WordPress was seamless!
  • Funnel in a click - When you select a template for Landingi, it loads both the squeeze page AND the thank you page. You can even easily toggle between them. This makes it super simple and logical to set up, saving dozens of clicks in WordPress to create multiple pages and link them together.
  • Hosting for your freebies - Not only can your pages live on Landingi's servers, but so can your freebies. Want to deliver a cheat sheet for subscribers? You can quickly drag your PDF into the thank you page and it can easily be downloaded with minimal set ups.

Landingi Cons

  • Drag and drop interface - We are all different, but for me, the design interface of Landingi is a negative. Essentially, when you drag something around on the desktop version, it won't automatically place correctly on the mobile design. The benefit here is that you can have totally different designs on desktop or mobile... if you consider that a benefit. The downside is that you essentially need to design each version separately. I prefer my builds to be automatically responsive where there is more structure to the designs. 
  • Limited number of fonts - Although there are quite a few fonts available and some well known fonts too, having Google fonts would be better. Update: You can upload your own fonts now!
  • Missing separator / line element - Not a crucial thing to have, but sometimes it can be handy to have.
  • Optin form styling - Like with many other landing page builders reviewed here I couldnÂ’t get the perfect look I wanted to, but it certainly wasnÂ’t a deal breaker.
  • Limited components - A lot of the essentials were here, but I would have liked to see a Click to Tweet button, some social share buttons, and other elements that are more common on wordpress builders
  • Price - The option I would recommend for Landingi is the Automate plan at $49 per month. At that price point, you get the ability to split test, get pop ups, and integrate with Zapier. And I simply can't justify that price point with all the other powerful options with lifetime price points and better integration capabilities.

Landingi is for you if...

If you prefer to have pixel-perfect design options with your landing pages, and want the ability to have professionally designed landing pages created for you within the platform itself, Landingi is worth taking a look at.

If nothing else, it is worth signing up for a free trial for 2 weeks and see if it works for you.

Landingi Pricing

You can get Landingi for $29 - $185 per month. But you can get a 2 week free trial, no need to input your credit card.


Brizy Review

Brizy Page Builder Logo

I don't discriminate here at Income Mesh. I review products of all walks of life. The most reputable staples of the digital marketing community, or the brand new companies on the scene, barely out of infancy.

Brizy is one of the newest page builders on the market, and it is turning heads everywhere it goes.

It comes with a free version that can be found on the wordpress directory, and a Pro version that is currently being offered at a one time price for lifetime agency access.

Pay careful attention to this one - they are developing at a very rapid pace, and will be giving the big boys a run for their money within a year. 

Purchasing a lifetime license is a bit of a bet at this point, but it's one that could pay huge dividends over the years as this platform matures.

Let's take a look at it!

Brizy Pros

  • Brizy has a certain fluid feel to the entire editing experience. Even on low-powered computers, everything is buttery smooth and just feels modern. It's built on the React engine which is the latest web technology.
  • You never have to save your work when you are building with Brizy. Your work is constantly auto saved, which is a HUGE benefit to people who like to really push their content forward. I can't tell you the number of time's I've lost my content after hours of working on it (and forgetting to save...)
  • Brizy has the most elegant implementation of Global Colors that I have seen. You have 8 slots for colors to store, and if you decide you want to change your entire website's color scheme, it's as easy as changing those slots up. Every instance of that color on your site is kept in sync. Mindblowing.
  • Brizy offers the same global management for fonts, and offers the full Google Fonts inventory for beautiful looking pages.
  • Image Alignment. Brizy has a very intuitive way to make sure the important parts of your image are always in focus. Simply drag a blue "focal point" on the image, and no matter what size screen you are on, that point will be the center of attention.
  • Brizy is introducing an author program. This is another potential revenue stream. Like designing pages or entire themes? You can sell these and build assets over time. The program is still being worked out, but it's an exciting opportunity for designers.
  • Managing your sections of content (called Blocks in Brizy) couldn't be easier.  Click a button, and you can see a thumbnail of every section of your page. Simply drag and drop the sections around to completely change the layout of the page.
Brizy Reorder Blocks

Reordering the sections of your page couldn't be easier with the Reorder Blocks feature

Brizy Cons

  • It's a new platform. I would argue that Brizy is fine to "play with," but I wouldn't be putting it on an important client's site just yet. It's simply too new. They have a long road map ahead  which they share publicly, but missing features like autoresponder integration and the full theme builder are preventing me from building a full site with it.
  • Limited Templates. Brizy has a good number of pre-designed page sections, but have a very limited number of full page templates so far.

Brizy is for you if...

If you are an early adopter, and plan on building websites professionally, you should strongly consider buying Brizy now.

That's not a scare tactic to try to get an affiliate commission (but if you bought, thank you!). I say that because I see huge potential in this builder, and you have a never-again opportunity to get it at a lifetime deal.

That lifetime deal opens up the ability for you to build unlimited websites on your own or client accounts.?

In comparison, Thrive Themes limits their agency license to 50 clients, and charges $50 a month for that privilege. 

Now, 50 is a ton of clients and you may never exceed it, but that total price comes to $600 per year. That's double what the current lifetime deal is for Brizy, and Brizy has no limits on the number of sites you can build.

Now I'm not advocating Brizy over Thrive. This site is currently built on Thrive. But when it comes to agency and client work, I think Brizy could be a great contender.

Brizy Pricing

Brizy's pricing is a little hard to pin down. As they are pre-launch, they are steadily increasing the price of their lifetime deal.

If you decide to purchase, you have a full 30 day money back guarantee from the official launch date of the Pro plan.?

That's an important point. For instance, I have had my copy of Brizy pro for about 5 months, and the clock still hasn't started for my refund window.?

The company wants to make Brizy a full-featured tool before they release version 1.0, and that gives us plenty of time to kick the tires and make our own decisions.

Divi Logo

Divi Builder Review

Divi was the first page builder that I ever used, and it will always have a soft place in my heart.

Divi is the flagship product of Elegant Themes, a complete juggernaut in the web design industry.

Their customer base alone is all the testimonial needed to tell you this company is built on quality:

Divi Review 2018

Over half a million customers at Elegant Themes

My wife's blog is built entirely on Divi, which you can check out here!

When I was first setting up Income Mesh, I had a hard decision to make, Divi or Thrive Themes? Before I go into all the reasons for my decision, be sure to check out the complete review video below:

Divi Pros

  • Theme, Plugin, or Both - If you are just starting out and want to get into a family of tools that will grow with you over time, Divi is a great option. If you install one of Elegant Theme's main themes (Divi or Extra), you will get the page builder installed. And if you ever decide to change themes, you can still get the builder installed as a plugin.
  • More than a builder - Your membership also comes with Bloom and Monarch - two decent plugins for lead generation and social sharing. Be on the lookout for a review post on these in the near future!
  • Simple (but limited) split testing - Want to test your headline? Button color? Totally easy to do with Divi. You don't even need a separate plugin - just right click and start your test. It's more limited than what you can do with Thrive, but it covers the most important basics of good split test design.
  • Advanced (intuitive) styling - Want to edit padding, margin, or text shadow? I think Divi gives you the most intuitve search functionality to find the settings that are normally deep inside a list of menus. Hats of to Elegant themes for their intuitive design.
  • Great hover controls - Divi has recently released support for hover animations, and they implement it beautifully. Want to change the color of a module when you hover over it? Easy, and you can toggle to easily make sure it looks just right.
  • Layout library - Divi takes their template library a new direction from the rest of the funnel-focused options. Divi gives you complete layout packs (84 currently) that are designed for specific niches. So instead of giving you an opt in page and confirmation page, you will instead get a full set of pages for a restaurant - complete with Home Page, About us page, contact form, etc. This is great if you want to build designs for local business, but not ideal for the funnel-focused marketers.
Divi Layout Pack

Divi gives you a total of 632 layouts for different types of business. And they all look beautiful!

Divi Cons

  • Short Codes... - This is a big one, and a potential deal breaker. While Divi looks like a full front end editor... it's just smoke and mirrors to hide all the short codes you are creating on your site. Short codes aren't a BAD thing, but it does lock you in to Divi for the long haul... when you remove the builder, you're left with this:
Divi Short Codes

Once you go Divi, you don't go back unless you like staring at shortcodes on  your blog!

  • Limited button actions - Pop up light boxes are extremely popular in marketing today, and it's a little sad to see that they are not supported by Divi natively.
  • Not great for writing blog posts -  The Divi builder shines when creating beautiful pages that have a lot of images, colors, and fewer words. It becomes clunkier if you ever try to use it for writing a blog post. I wouldn't recommend that at all (trust me, I've tried).

Divi is for you if...

It is very easy to recommend Divi to most people. If you want a high quality builder, then the lifetime deal for Divi is excellent. Building pages is very fun with their new visual editor, and most options seem quite intuitive.

Divi isn't quite as conversion focused as other options like Thrive Architect and Kartra, but that is my personal preference. And if you purchase Divi, you are committed to Divi. Other builders will retain your content if you disable the builder, but you definitely don't want to disable the Divi builder once you have more than 10 or so pages built with it.

Divi Pricing

Your Elegant Themes membership comes with:

  • 87 Themes (Divi and Extra are the best)
  • Divi Builder plugin so you can use any theme you like
  • Bloom plugin for lead capture
  • Monarch plugin for social sharing buttons on your site

You can pick up a one year membership for $89, or a lifetime access for $249.

You have a 30 day money back guarantee, so if you're even slightly curious, I'd give it a try. It could be one of the best investments for your website you make!


Elementor Pro Review

Elementor is yet another great page builder option for those who are looking to start out on a budget.

They offer a free version, and have multiple ways to upgrade as your needs grow. That free version has helped them gather over 1 million customer!:

Elementor 1 million users

1 Million users... impressive statistic Elementor!

I am not the most familiar with the Elementor page builder, but throughout the video below I give some great commentary as I compare Elementor with Thrive, Divi, Brizy, and all the other experience I have built up over the last 3 years of working online:

Elementor Pros

  • Free version - I love the freemium model, and Elementor does it right. It gives you plenty of features to get a ton of value up front, but as you need more, they have the pro options to serve all your needs
  • 3rd party extensions - I like that additional developers can add functionality on top of the existing Pro features. Want to add a dynamic timeline to your post? Before and after photos? Download Elementor Extras and you instantly have more functionality!
  • Astra + Elementor integration - Astra is an extremely popular free theme, and it allows you to import an entire website using the Elementor builder. It will even install Elementor for you if you'd like! This makes it a great option for building client sites.
  • Front editor - Elementor and Thrive Architect are both fully front end editors. Elementor gives you plenty of menus to find the exact settings, but as you are making edits, you see them update in real time. Big bonus.
  • Elementor Anywhere - This is an add on you get with your membership, and it allows you to build custom post layouts, custom headers, footers, and any other element of your theme that you want.
Elementor Astra Sites

Astra and Elementor give you 64 complete websites all built on top of Elementor (Astra paid feature)

Elementor Cons


  • Email Marketing integrations - As of this writing, only 5 email marketing platforms integrate with Elementor. 
Elementor Email Integration

Only 5 email marketing platforms integrate with Elementor

  • Limited button actions - Similar to Divi, Elementor has limited button actions that simply redirect to a link.
  • Limited Split Testing - I discovered this plugin that lets you split test in Elementor, but it looks like a much more limited option than you get with other page builders.
  • Not focused on conversion optimization - Elementor seems to appeal more to the "pretty websites" crowd than the conversion-focused crowd. I will admit that the Astra + Elementor sites look prettier than some default Thrive Themes sites. But pretty doesn't put money in your pocket 🙂

Elementor is for you if...

If you are just starting out and are not sure if you want to build a business online, I think Elementor is a great free option to get you off the ground. If you pair it with the Astra theme, you've got a powerful launch pad to build out a professional looking website.

As you grow, you can add additional functionality on with the Elementor Pro and other extensions, to make this a kit that can last you forever.

Elementor Pricing

Your Elementor membership comes with:

  • Premium Support
  • Theme Builder
  • WooCommerce product builder
  • 50+ Pro Widgets
  • 300+ Pro Templates
  • 1 Year of Updates

You can get 1 Site license for $49/year, 3 site license for $99/year, or go unlimited for $200/year.

Be sure to check it out!


Optimize Press 2.0 review

optimize-press-review

Is there anyone who hasn’t heard for Optimize Press yet? I didn’t think so 🙂 Optimize Press is one of the oldest marketing tools I know, the first came out over 5 years ago if I am right. Then, they launched a second version like 3 years ago which was a complete change and a lot more powerful than the OP1.

Optimize Press 2.0 (or shorter, OP2) isnÂ’t just a landing page builder. ItÂ’s a complete solution for creation of any kind of landing pages, product launch funnels, membership sites, regular blog sites and even webinar registration pages.

It comes as both WordPress plugin and theme, so you can choose your pick. It has really a lot to offer (check the first 10 minutes of my video review) and has some really cool and unique features.

Expert's quote:

brian-dean“If you’re serious about conversions, your landing pages have to give visitors ONE or TWO options. Every additional option eats away at your page’s conversions.” - Brian Dean, Backlinko

Today we are going to cover just Optimize Press 2.0 landing page builder/editor, so for other things related to OP2 make sure to check their homepage.

To see how did Optimize Press do with my own sales page take a look at my video review below.

P.S. Make sure to watch in HD and in a full screen mode for the best experience.


Now letÂ’s dissect that whole video experience into text, and see what does OP2 do very well and in which fields does it need improvements.

WhatÂ’s good about it:

  • A lot of page elements - ThereÂ’s really a bunch of page elements which you can add to your page, many of them have multiple premade looks (templates) which is really cool and can be handy.
  • Cool looking templates - Nice selection of templates which all marketers will love.
  • Autosave - OP2 will autosave your page every 5 minutes and store last 10 revisions.

What could be better:

  • Style editor not really live - This one is really bad. So, to change any styling on any element you get a popup window where you change the settings, and then you have to click on insert/ok button to make to changes and then you can see what have you done. So basically you are doing the styling and the changes without being able to see the effect of those changes. That way you have to go back and make another change and repeat that stuff countless times until you are satisfied with the results. Very time consuming and frustrating if you ask me.
  • Margins and padding - Some elements donÂ’t have margins and it is sometimes hard to get a desired look when you try to position elements exactly where you want to.
  • No undo/redo button - If you make a mistake you need to go to revisions and choose previously saved revision or fix your mistake. Btw revisions setting seem to be buggy at times.
  • Different look of page in editing mode - Your page might look different in editing mode and vice versa, thatÂ’s why it is important to preview your page regularly. This is mostly related to spacings between elements and margin/padding issues.
  • Incompatibility with other plugins and themes - You can check the list here https://optimizepress.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/200553686-Incompatible-Themes-Plugins but in my experience that list is even bigger.

This is for you ifÂ…

You need a complete set of marketing tools and a membership feature, and if you are really patient and tech savvy. It can also be useful if you would like to use their templates and not build your site from scratch.

However if you are looking for an easy and fast landing page creation experience you might skip this. Before you go take a look at the template designs below, maybe youÂ’ll find something interesting.

Price

You can get Optimize Press 2.0 for $97 - $297.

Kartra review

 

Kartra is one of those tools that sounds too good to be true when you first hear about it. "All-In-One Online Business Platform?" is a pretty tall order to fill.

Kartra is a new kid on the block. They only recently had their public launch, and I was excited to be in the initial wave of users.

Before we dive too deep into the review - let's answer the question of what is an all-in-one business platform?

The Kartra Difference

Kartra includes out of the box:

  • A landing page builder
  • A shopping cart that accepts secure payments
  • An email autoresponder with list & tagging functionality, and plenty of dynamic automation
  • A video hosting platform where you can upload your sales videos and get in depth analytics on who watched
  • A fully functional help desk where you can live chat with your visitors on your site, submit support tickets, and even skype call! (And yes, it integrates with everything else so your support tickets become leads automatically)
  • Membership sites - host your online courses or other membership content directly on Kartra. Offer upsells to your other products directly from within your membership area!
  • Affiliate program. No more need to stitch different tools together to manage an affiliate team. Kartra also has a public marketplace where you can place your own product up for affiliates to promote, or find other interesting products you would like to promote yourself.
  • Advanced funnels - upsells, downsells, bump offers, free-trials... anything you can think of
  • Analytics - because the entire platform is under one roof, Everything talks together. So your landing pages talk to your auto responder. Your help desk talks to your affiliate program, your shopping cart... you get the idea

When I saw Kartra hit the market, I was skeptical... it sounded too good to be true. But after my rigorous testing, I can tell you that Kartra is an incredible page builder that everyone should give a try in their business!

And plenty other users are seeing success with it is well:

Real People and Real Results with Kartra in their Facebook Group

Kartra is a fully hosted solution, which means there is no software to update or back end coding that you need to do. You simply log in, check your sales, and get back to marketing your products!

I really enjoy Kartra - it is fast, intuitive, and funnel creation is extremely fun and logical.  I found myself not worrying about the tech, and simply focusing on my message and offer, which will pay off  hugely in the end.

Check out my full Kartra Review below!

WhatÂ’s good about it:

  • Done for you campaigns - With a single click you can import the opt in page, the thank you page, the sales page, the one-time-offer page, AND the email sequences and tagging automation directly into your dashboard! And these aren't shells of webpages, they are carefully crafted by Frank Kern - an internet marketing legend
  • Powerful automation - If you've ever held your head in defeat because you couldn't connect your tools together, Kartra will make you a very happy person. All the integrations are done for you, and you just click through to make the automations work.
  • Great value - Some shopping cart platforms will run you $97 per month by itself! You get huge cost savings when you consolidate your 6-7 tools in your business into their one package starting at $89 per month
  • Built in Photos & Icon Library - Want to grab a beautiful stock photo for your sales page? Or maybe some nice vector graphics to showcase your product? Kartra has you covered, and you never have to leave the browser window
  • Great Email Marketing - This review is focused on page builders, but you have to look at Kartra as a total package. And their email marketing service has fantastic deliverability rates, which means your emails will get into the inbox every time!
  • Analytics - Does Google Analytics intimidate you? Don't worry, because after you try Kartra you may never need another analytics tool. The interface looks similar across all your business functions, and tell you just the info you need to tweak your message.

What could be better:

  • Page speed is decent - This is one of the trade offs with hosted solutions. If you want your pages to load faster, you can't switch to a faster host. The page speed is still acceptable, and with good image optimization can be improved
  • Text editing is finnicky - As they are still a new company, there are small things they are working out. I have noticed that randomly some of the styling of my text can change a bit between paragraphs.
  • No global items - It's hard to knock them on this as the premium WordPress builders are just now coming out with this feature, but it would be nice if I could design a section once and keep it updated universally across the different pages of my funnel. You can save templates, but they are not all linked together across pages.
  • No direct integration with WordPress - If you have an existing blog on wordpress, you are going to want to install your Kartra account on a subdomain. It would be nice if they had a wordpress plugin that allowed you to host your Kartra pages directly on wordpress. But here is a simple workaround you can do today:

This is for you ifÂ…

  • You get frustrated and overwhelmed trying to stitch all your digital marketing tools together
  • You don't really like blogging, and prefer to do your marketing on Youtube / Social Media / Podcasting / Paid Advertising
  • You want analytics across your entire business

For an even deeper review that goes into each Kartra feature in depth, click here to read my full review!

Price

You can give Kartra a 14 day test drive for $1, after which pricing starts from $89 per month depending on the size of your business.

 

Instapage review

 

This was a tool that I was very interested to try myself. I had always heard about Instapage, but had just never ventured into those waters.

Luckily, they offer a full 14 day trial with no credit card required, which is excellent.

I was excited to dive in to the demo... so let's begin!

Expert's quote:

sujan“Remove all distractions from your landing page. Make it as clean and simple as you can while still providing all the information a visitor needs in order to trust you enough to make the decision to convert. Don’t use flashy animations or worthless stock photos. Just get to the point.” - Sujan Patel, ContentMarketer

Instapage has a WordPress plugin if you want to use their landing pages on your WordPress powered website, A/B testing tools and 40+ various integrations with other marketing tools.

Throughout the review I had experienced enough head-scratching moments and frustration that I chose not to complete the entire process, and simply move this tool into the "not recommended" category. Here's why:

WhatÂ’s good about it:

  • Beautiful templates - A very large number of beautifully designed templates for different niches.
  • Clean interface - The cleanest and simplest interface I have seen so far, yet all the options are there + they have a nice grid for orientation.
  • Easy change of page section height - Just drag and drop your page sections to the desired height.
  • Drag n drop elements wherever you want - There are some people who like this, but I personally cannot stand this build style...
  • Easy linking to page sections - If you want to link to certain page elements it is as easy as point and click, literally.
  • Speed - It is quick to add elements and move them around the page. Never really experienced lag.

What could be better:

  • No possibility to put elements outside of the container area - All elements must be inside the container area (which is 960px), if you want to put it outside you unfortunately canÂ’t.
  • Drag and Drop - At first glance you think you have design freedom, but in reality, you just have a very cumbersome build process where you need to make sure you align everything just right for it to look good. And then repeat the entire process for mobile... no thank you.
  • Limited Elements -  No icon element, no list element, and in general just a limited stock of things you can drag onto the canvas.
  • Paid Stock Photos built in - For a tool at this price point, I would have expected them to include some free stock photo engine or to have a special deal worked out. But $5 per stock photo? That's highway robbery.
  • Optin form types - It would be great to have popups and 2-step and other optin forms available.

This is for you ifÂ…

I have a hard time recommending this tool to anyone. It's missing some critical features, and priced at a premium. Pass.

Price

You can get Instapage from $99 per month and up.

ClickFunnels review

clickfunnels

I know my ClickFunnels review will be interested to so many of you, since it looks like one really amazing set of marketing tools. I was also happy to try them out for the first time, but you will have to read below and/or watch the video to see were I impressed or not.

ClickFunnels got a lot of attention because they are claiming that they are better than LeadPages and OptimizePress 2.0 which are one of the most popular and most used marketing tools out there. They even have a comparison chart where they show their advantages against those two.

Expert's quote:

derek-halpern“The #1 conversion killer in your web design is clutter! The simple solution is to DITCH the baggage, and focus on what you NEED visitors to do to grow your business.” - Derek Halpern, Social Triggers


ClickFunnels
is more than just a page builder, itÂ’s a complete funnels builder for your squeeze (opt-in) pages, sales pages, webinar pages and even membership pages.

To learn more about them make sure to visit their homepage and see what else do they offer.

In this article you will find out and see how easy/hard is to use their page builder, what are the good sides and the bad sides, and you also have the opportunity to download and see all of their templates (scroll a bit down).

P.S. Make sure to watch in HD and in a full screen mode for the best experience.

WhatÂ’s good about it:

  • Templates - Huge number of available templates (download them below)
  • Some cool editor functions - The one I really liked was the ability to move whole sections of page very easily with drag and drop function, there are some more cool functions like nice FAQ elements and styled list element (check the video)
  • Powerful styling options - A lot of editing and styling options available for use, even some not found with other landing page builders reviewed here. On the other hand some things are missing (check below).
  • Highly editable input form - Unlike many other landing page builder, ClickFunnels really gave us full control of optin form styling.

What could be better:

  • No blank templates - Apparently you canÂ’t make your website from scratch and use a blank template to start with
  • Takes a bit of time to figure it out - Not really that bad thing, since it has a lot of options, but sometimes page builder can get a bit confusing and will take you some time to figure it out. Still, if you ask me, things can always be a bit even simpler and easier to use.
  • No Google fonts - ClickFunnels should absolutely have Google fonts in their page builder if they want to be the best, or, one of the best landing page and marketing funnel creating tools.
  • CanÂ’t create columns within columns - This feature could be handy in some situations but unfortunately thatÂ’s not possible to do (check the video for better understanding)

This is for you ifÂ…

You need a complete and powerful funnel and page builder with a lot of beautiful templates, integration options and some extra features not found elsewhere.

Templates

I have made a screenshot of each and every landing page template that comes with ClickFunnels and put it in a nice downloadable zip file. Please use one of the sharing options to get access to it, thank you.

Price

You can get ClickFunnels for $37 - $297 per month.

 

Save

The Landing Page Graveyard

Nothing lasts forever, and the same goes for landing page software. Some of the original builders that I recommended in this article have fallen from grace, and I can no longer include them as a possible recommendation.

But to pay respect for the dead, I'll list all the tools that at one time had a presence on this page, as well as a brief reason why they've been moved to the graveyard:

1 Minute Sites: Limited functionality and poor updates.

Fusion HQ: Was killed by the more full-featured all-in-one plugin offerings

Instabuilder: buggy experience, lack of support, and simply outpaced by the competition.




The bottom line

I hope this ultimate review was valuable for you, but I'm sure it left you with the obvious question:

Which one should I be using?

Ultimately this is a personal decision, but I will give my guidelines below. I've ordered the tools with my top recommendations at the top, working down to the ones I do not recommend:

Use Thrive Architect if:

Use Divi if:

Use Kartra if:

Use Elementor if:

Use Brizy if:

Why do I use Thrive Architect?

I chose Thrive Architect for a few reasons.

I like that their tools meant for more than just building beautiful websites. I'm an engineer, not a designer, so I could care less how "pretty" it is. I want it to convert.

Their focus on split testing and continuous improvement is exciting to me.

I also like the other projects they offer in their membership. I like split testing my blog post headlines to make the most of the effort I put into writing them.

I think Thrive Leads is the best lead capture engine on the market, period. And if you want to offer online courses as lead magnets, Thrive Apprentice makes it extremely easy.

I also use a Thrive theme on this site (currently using Minus). Thrive has some nice performance optimization features built right in, like automatically compressing and optimizing my images whenever I upload them. This keeps my site running fast.

Thrive isn't perfect though...

Because Thrive has works on a number of different tools at once, I think they may spread their attention too thin at times.

I think Divi's and Elementor's builder experience is better than Thrives, but the final pages look great on either.

And you can see with Thrive that some plugins will go several months without major feature adds, simply bug fixes or small performance improvements.

I think Thrive will keep up with the pack and remain best in breed, but I also think Divi, Elementor, and Kartra are currently worth your consideration.

What's Next?

There are more page builders popping up every day it seems - which one would you like to see me review next? Leave a comment below and let me know!

And if you enjoyed this post and found it valuable, please be sure to share with your friends!

About the author 

John

John Whitford is an entrepreneur who has built over 12 profitable online blogs and businesses. He's also the founder of Unbeatable Tech, a data-driven digital marketing company that specializes in sales funnel implementation for both his own businesses and clients alike. John loves to be a beach bum while brainstorming new ideas for marketing strategies, but he's always excited to take on another project!

  • Fantastic reviews! I have not learned WordPress yet but it’s in my future. You make it look so easy.
    I look forward to what your sharing. I’ve learned much in an afternoon and going to spend some time with Landingi and instapages. Google fonts would be nice but am going to check these two out.
    Thanks for the cheat sheet too.
    I’m updating websites so not sharing them currently
    Cynthia

    • Thank you Cynthia, I’m glad this is useful for you. If you have any questions or doubts feel free to ask here 🙂

  • Holy smokes Drazen, this post is a BEAST (7587 words in case anyone is wondering!!)

    One of the most comprehensive posts on the topic that I’ve seen – awesome job! That’s an insane amount of work.

    Thanks for the pointers about what you would like to improve – I’ve taken note and will approach with the team this week.

    A few quick things:-

    – We now have 85 templates (we’re adding them all the time so I guess we added some after your review research took place)
    – You can do jump links by using the # key. I’ll raise a task to make this simpler going forward.

    Cheers mate,
    Paul

    • Thx Paul, I appreciate your kind words and I’m very glad that you like the article 🙂

      And thanks for the heads up about the Thrive Content Builder, I’ll fix that mistake in the comparison chart.

      You just keep up with the good work with the Thrive tools 🙂

      Cheers

  • Hey Drazen!!

    Awesome, AWESOME job you did here with this post!
    I haven’t read all of it just yet, but it’s being quite interesting so far!
    Great and important info I was looking for, thanks.

    Keep it up my friend,
    Louie

    • Hi Louie, I’m glad that you like it, thank you 🙂

      Take your time, this guide is here to stay and to grow. Whenever in doubt which landing page builder to use you can always come back to this article and remind yourself + see what’s new.

      All the best Louie,
      Drazen

  • Great work, Drazen! This is a thorough analysis with constructive, balanced opinion… a helpful resource. I own a number of these products and your assessments line up with my own personal experiences. Each of them has a fit, just need to figure out where/when/how they will be used. Your hard work is an excellent contribution to helping anyone accelerate their decision. I look forward to your continued additions. Your time was well spent and valuable for all of us. Thanks.

    • Thanks Paul, that was my intention from the beginning, to create the ultimate source when it comes to landing page builders. I’m glad you enjoyed the article 🙂

    • Hey Brandon, Beaver Builder looks good for WP page building, but it’s not actually built for marketers and it’s missing a lot of features (like A/B testing, opt-in forms, marketing templates etc.) which most online marketers want to use. That’s why I didn’t include it in this article.

      Thanks for your comment.

      • Can you update your post and include Beaver builder now? It has improved a lot meanwhile and has tons of addons (like Ultimate Beaver Builder) to offer similar features. Thanks!

        • Thanks for the comment and I’ll be 100% honest beaver builder is one that I have never shown a huge interest in… I’ll reach out to the team to see if they’ll let me demo their software to include in this post – thanks so much for the nudge 🙂

  • Hi Drazen, Marius from Instapage here.

    I just finished watching the video – and I love your article. Thank you for taking the time to create such a detailed review.

    A couple of things I would like to point out – we do allow Google Fonts and our team can implement any Google font for you if you don’t have coding experience. We will add an article in our Help Center on how to do this today.

    Also, we do offer pop-ups and multi-step forms – that’s a great way to increase your conversions and expand your A/B tests. Perhaps we should make them a bit more intuitive! We will definitely take your lists of “cons” into consideration and see what we can do to improve in those departments as well!

    I think your video is a great tool to showcase what Instapage can do and how quickly you can build a professional page.

    • Hi Marius,

      Thank you for pointing out the solutions for a few Instapage issues I’ve mentioned in the article. I will point to your comment so that users can see what you have written.

      Regarding Google Fonts, I meant something like point and click solution where people could choose the font they want to use easily, without having to implement the code manually.

      Thx again for your comment Marius, you are doing a great job with Instapage.

      Drazen

    • Hi Welly, thank you very much, I’m glad that you like it 🙂

      Just to be clear, you do have SOME Google Fonts available but not all, am I right?

      Thanks again,

      Drazen

  • I have seen many comparison reviews over the years but I can honestly say I have never seen such an in depth and comprehensive review ever!!

    This is a great post and very informative.

    Maybe to make it complete, you could add wp profit builder to it and maybe one of the free ones that are out there?

    • Hey Lloyd, thank you very much 🙂

      That was my intention. Most of reviews like this, they always have something missing. I wanted to cover everything 🙂

      Yeah absolutely, I see a lot of interest for Profit Builder and it will most certainly be included in this article.

      But before I review Profit Builder I will do Unbounce and LeadPages since they got more votes from readers.

      Regarding some free builders, can you recommend some good one? Just to be clear, I am not covering general website builders here, this article is strictly for landing page builders, meant for marketers or anyone who wants to promote their products/services with dedicated landing pages.

  • When will the Landing Page Monkey review and comparison be coming out? The product is $37 atm… 🙂

    I am looking forward to your opinion.

    • Hey Scott, you’ll have to wait a bit, I have to cover Unbounce, Profit Builder and LeadPages before I check the monkey 🙂

      • No worries… I moved on 🙂

        I am presently looking at Themify – themify.me. Their Ultra theme has landingpage templates, not many at this stage, but seem to be adding all the time. Their builder is fantastic, and yearly cost are extremely reasonable. They are not on your list for review… Do you have any experience with them?

  • I’m curious to see what you think of Sean Donahoe’s WP Profit Builder; It’s bot price going for it, as a 1 time cost of $67. I have it but haven’t actually used it yet.

    • Hey William, I will review WP Profit Builder soon yes. I see a lot of people talking about which makes me interested in trying it out.

      Although since the tool is made by an internet marketer I do not know how often do they update it and bring new features on the table, which is also very important, but we will see.

  • Hey Drazen
    I’m looking for a sales funnel builder that I can integrate with Thrive Themes. CF seems the obvious choice. But cant integrate with any other page builder. Can you recommend any please?
    Thx
    Sainy

    • Hi Ben, it certainly looks interesting. I actually tried it for like 5 minutes, it has potential but it needs more tuning up. One thing I noticed is that there is no blank template, or a way to create a landing page without theme’s header and footer section, at least I didn’t find it. In any case good job, and kudos to you for making something completely free 🙂

    • My verdict is still the same, Thrive is the way to go if you ask me. But of course there could be some other tools which are more suitable for you and your business.

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