ClickFunnels Review [2020] — Is It the Right Sales Funnel and Marketing Tool for Your Business

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It’s difficult to find a ClickFunnels review on the Internet nowadays without sensing some ulterior motive behind the information. After all, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of affiliates pushing such a sophisticated marketing tool to beginners that barely have any clue what a sales funnel is let alone navigating a tool for creating one.

Just take a look at most ClickFunnels review on Reddit. You will find that most of them are biased and outright self-serving. If only there’s some kind of resource out there that provides an accurate and honest account of what it’s like to use ClickFunnels to market a product or service. In this article, we aim to provide just that by going over the following:

1. ClickFunnels — What’s that?
2. Why Use ClickFunnels?
3. How do you use it?
4. Notable Features of ClickFunnels
5. What are the Cons?
6. How Much Does It Cost?
7. Answers to Common Questions about ClickFunnels
8. Alternatives
9. Summary

ClickFunnels — What’s that?

We’ll start this ClickFunnels review for 2020 with an overview of what it’s all about. Simply put, ClickFunnels is an online marketing software designed to help users create and automate sales funnels for their business regardless of niche and size. As you may already know, sales funnels are theoretical marketing models that outline the steps that customers make when purchasing a product or service.

Unlike most other marketing software on the Internet, ClickFunnels isn’t limited to sales funnels and provide a host of related features which include the following:

• Page builders — landing pages, squeeze pages and sales pages
• Membership websites
• Affiliate programs
• Training resources — webinars, online courses, videos, etc.
• Checkout and payment systems
• And many more

Considering the features mentioned above, it is safe to say that ClickFunnels is an “all-in-one” marketing software and automation tool. Russell Brunson and Todd Dickerson founded it in 2014 with the vision of creating a platform that businesses can use to simplify and streamline their sales processes.

Why Use ClickFunnels?

Now it used to be that to build a complete sales funnel; businesses had to hire a team of web designers and programmers who will spend the next 2 to 3 months trying to get everything up and running. This is no longer the case, thanks to ClickFunnels.

Nowadays, it’s possible to create a complete sales funnel in a matter of days; one that will walk your customers through everything that they need to know about your business. You can use ClickFunnels to nurture leads with optimized marketing messages and turn them into paying customers.

The following are some of the wonderful things that you can do with ClickFunnels:

Create marketing pages

You can use ClickFunnels to build any type of webpage that you need to market your pages. This includes squeeze pages for growing your list, sales and landing pages, checkout page and many more.

The great thing about ClickFunnels is that you don’t have to create any of these pages from scratch. The software comes with an extensive collection of templates of high converting marketing pages. You need only choose one and personalize it to fit your business.

Run an affiliate program

Do you have a digital product that you’re looking to sell online? Create an army of affiliates to do all the heavy lifting for you (in exchange for a commission of course). 

ClickFunnels offer a feature called “Backpack” that enables users to set up an affiliate system to incentivize other marketers to promote their digital products. The affiliate system has everything you need, including an affiliates tracking tool, commission structure, hosting affiliate resources and many more.

Create and host membership sites

Are you a creator looking to sell an online course through a membership structure (monthly or annual)? If so, then you’d be happy to know that ClickFunnels has you covered as well!

ClickFunnels come with a Membership feature that allows you to upload and host course through the marketing tool. This makes it easy to monetize online courses without having to jump through the usual hoops. Users can complete the process in an hour through a few simple steps (provided that you’ve already prepared the course material). 

The only caveat though is that you need to use a third-party platform to host videos — Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc. This means that course creators don’t have complete control over the training resources as they’re hosted on a different platform.

List building and following up with leads

ClickFunnels comes with everything that you need to build a list and launch an email marketing campaign. You can create a squeeze page, store emails, and follow-up on leads all in one marketing tool. An integrated automation tool called “Follow-up Funnels” enable email marketers to set automation rules for touching base with leads as they enter the different stages of a sales funnel. 

You can trigger specific actions and send targeted marketing messages based on the information that you’ve gathered from your leads. This includes age, gender, where they’re from (traffic source) and the specific responses they made across various stages of the sales funnel.

Shopping Carts

Unlike most other marketing software, you don’t need a third-party shopping cart system to accept purchases for digital products or services. ClickFunnels already comes with a shopping cart feature integrated into the tool. 

Set up is easy — just add the product or service to the registry and fill in the details. There’s no need for any external systems and marketers have complete control over their shopping cart features.

Organize Webinars

A webinar is an excellent medium for pitching new products and digital services. With ClickFunnels, there’s no reason why users should miss out on the latter. The marketing tool provides everything that you need to run webinars. 

Plus, just like webpages, there’s no need to create them from scratch. Webinar templates are available so you can get webinar events running in only a few hours.

How do you use it?

Now that you’ve learned about some of the great things that you can accomplish with ClickFunnels, you might be eager to get started with this marketing tool. Before you buy ClickFunnels, it is well worth delving more into what the marketing tool has to offer and what you can expect out of it.

So how do you use ClickFunnels? Well, as you might have noticed, the ClickFunnels team has taken steps to help businesses make the most out of the marketing tool. For one thing, all the funnels that you can create come with templates that you can customize to fit your niche or industry.

As you’ve probably already realized, ClickFunnels is a powerful yet mighty complicated marketing tool with a diverse range of features. Hence there’s not just a straightforward way of using it but many. That said, there are some general steps worth mentioning that should give you some insights on how to use ClickFunnels:

1. Assuming that you’re now logged into your ClickFunnels account and looking at the Dashboard, the first step is to create a new funnel by clicking on the “Add New” button at the top of the page.

2. For the next step, you will be asked to choose between the Classic Funnel Builder and the more advanced Cookbook Funnel Builder. For this review, we’ll be referencing the Classic Builder. Click on the “Create New Funnel” button.

3. You will be asked to choose a goal for your new sales funnel. This can be anything from collecting emails, hosting webinars or selling a new product. Choose the one that aligns with the goals of your organization. For this review, let’s suppose that you’ve chosen “Collect Emails”.

4. Name Your Funnel and choose a group tag that will make it easier to find in the future. Click on “Build Funnel” to continue.

5. At this point, you will see a selection of templates for your funnel. Choose the one and click on “Select Template”.

6. You will be redirected to the Funnel Steps Page. From here you can start personalizing the funnel to your liking. Choose a page from the left side (under funnel steps) and click on “Edit Page” to continue.

7. The next step will take you to the main funnel page editor. From here, you can modify and customize every element of the page to match your business. You can upload your logo, change the text, set your contact information and the like. Make your desired changes and click on “Save” at the upper right section of the page.

8. You will be taken back to the main funnel steps page. At this point, the funnel page you’ve just created is now live and can be accessed through the link shown under the “Overview” tab. Do the same for all the other pages for your funnel.

Of course, the steps laid out above are but a small tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more that you can do with ClickFunnels that it’d be impossible to go through them all with a single article. Nevertheless, it should give you an idea of how easy it is to create and run a sales funnel using the said marketing tool.

Notable Features of ClickFunnels

Now that we’ve gone over some general steps on how to use ClickFunnels, it is time to delve into some of its’ features that we felt are worth mentioning. Only then can you decide whether or not ClickFunnels is the right online marketing platform for you.

Consider the following:

ClickFunnels is easy to use and get started

If you’ve ever tried building a webpage from scratch, then you would know just how complicated (and expensive) things can get. ClickFunnels spares you from having to deal with all that by getting rid of the usual difficulties of webpage building.

With ClickFunnels, putting together page elements for a sales funnel can be as simple as dragging and dropping them on your screen. Hence it’s easy for marketers to come up with a decent sales funnel even with no prior technical knowledge.

Free Training Resources

Indeed, ClickFunnels makes it easy for anyone to build the pages they need for their sales funnel. That said, if you want to make the most out of what the marketing tool has to offer, then you’ll have to delve into its’ more advanced features which means going through a steep learning curve.

Fortunately, ClickFunnels provides all the training resources you need that will take you from a complete beginner to a funnel building expert.  One notable training resource on offer that paid users can access for free is a feature called “FunnelFlix”. 

As the name implies, FunnelFlix is a carefully curated collection of videos on the subject of funnel building and web marketing in general. Most of the videos feature Russell Brunson although you will also find selections from top marketing gurus like Steve Larsen, Jay Abraham, and Tony Robbins.

Works with most other web marketing tools

If you’ve been in the web marketing business for quite some time, then you’ve likely amassed a collection of marketing tools. Letting go of all of them to switch to an all-in-one marketing software can be a scary thought, even for a funnel tool that is as reputable as ClickFunnels.

Perhaps you want to stick with your old autoresponder, affiliate manager or shopping cart system? One of the great things about ClickFunnels is that it doesn’t force you to leave most of the old platforms and resources you’ve grown accustomed to. This is because ClickFunnels work with most third-party platforms from email marketing platforms and payment gateway systems to third-party webinars, WordPress plugins and many more.

Funnel Sharing

ClickFunnels allows users to share and download completed funnels with others in the community. This feature can be handy if you’re building funnels for other businesses and make some money on the side while you’re at it. 

People who don’t use ClickFunnels and want to download the funnel you’ve built would need to sign-up for a 14-day trial to do so. If they like it, then they’ll move on to a paid membership, and the funnel builder earns a commission as an affiliate.

What are the Cons?

Of course, this wouldn’t be an honest review of ClickFunnels if we don’t get into some cons. No marketing tool is perfect, and ClickFunnels is hardly the exception. In our opinion, two cons stand out the most:

It’s Expensive

A ClickFunnels subscription is going to be a significant investment, especially for small businesses struggling to make ends meet. You’ve probably heard the same sentiment from other Clickfunnels reviews & complaints aren’t dumbfounded. Even at the most basic plan, users would have to fork out $97 to maintain a subscription.

To be fair, ClickFunnels offers a tonne of tools and features for their asking price. Most experienced marketers would agree that if you were to put these features together, ClickFunnels is easily worth the price of admission. That said, that feeling you’re short-changed stems from being unable to appreciate or make use of mentioned features. This brings us to the second con.

ClickFunnels Require a Significant Amount of Time to Learn and Master

You may have heard affiliates creating a hype about ClickFunnels saying that it can help you build a complete and profitable sales funnel in less than an hour. While that may be true for simple funnels, that is not the case with its’ more advanced features.

The truth is that there are so many tools and features integrated inside ClickFunnels; it’s going to be a while before you get the hang of it all. Users who are new to the platform should expect a steep learning curve and put in the time and energy necessary to learn the ropes. 

If you find yourself stuck at any point, check support and the training resource they have on offer. You will find that ClickFunnels provide most (if not all) the marketing solutions that you need, but only if you know where to look.

How Much Does It Cost?

ClickFunnel offers two types of subscription plans, and both of them come with a free two-week trial period. This makes the marketing software practically risk-free for people looking for a new marketing tool and wants to make sure that they get their money’s worth. 14 days should be plenty of time to test the features on offer and whether the results that you’re getting are worth the asking price. 

As mentioned earlier, ClickFunnels’ basic (startup) plan will set you back $97 per month. In exchange, you can build up to 20 funnels and 100 pages. Also, you can set up to 3 payment gateways and link up to 3 custom domains. Note that some features are missing under this subscription tier — follow-up funnels, backpacks, etc.

The second and most expensive subscription plan under ClickFunnels is called the “Platinum Plan”. Under this price plan, users get to build an unlimited number of funnels and webpages. It’s also possible to share access to the platform with up to 3 members of your organization and integrate up to 9 payment gateways and 9 domain names. All features mentioned in this review are available under this subscription plan.

Alternatives

Not sure if ClickFunnels is the right fit for your business? Well, there’s no need to make decisions right away. Like everything else, there are alternatives on the market that are well worth looking into.

The following are a few of the most notable alternatives we’ve found if you’re not keen about using ClickFunnels:

Leadpages

Similar to ClickFunnels, Leadpages offers a similar page building experience via an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. It can also act as an email autoresponder, payment gateway system, webinar and CRM (Customer Relations Management) tool.

At its core, LeadPages is a reasonably priced landing page builder that specializes in creating responsive mobile webpages. A standard subscription costs $25 per month while an advanced subscription will set you back $199 per month. Either way, that’s far less than ClickFunnels’ asking price.

Of course, Leadpages isn’t a complete alternative to ClickFunnels, and there are just some things that it can’t do. For one thing, you can only build form pages with it, and there’s no way to link together webpages for a sales funnel. Still, if these are features that you can do without, then Leadpages might be a more suitable and cost-effective marketing tool for your business.

Unbounce

If all you want to be able to do with a marketing software is to create landing pages and optimize conversion rates, then Unbounce is a ClickFunnels alternative worth considering. Similar to the latter, Unbounce features a user-friendly page builder where you can drag and drop page elements. Also, users get access to 100+ templates which means that there’s no need to create landing pages from scratch.Similar to ClickFunnels, Unbounce is also compatible with many third-party tools and platforms like WordPress, MailChimp, Aweber, etc. 

If you don’t require features other than ones mentioned above, then there’s no need to deal with ClickFunnels’ hefty asking price. An Unbounce subscription starts at $79 per month (Essential Plan) and lets you build up to 75 landing pages. You can also upgrade to a Premium plan that costs $159 per month (up to 150 landing pages) and an Enterprise plan for $399+ per month (375+ landing pages).

Summary

So there you have it — everything that you need to know about ClickFunnels and what the marketing platform has to offer. Without a doubt, ClickFunnels is a remarkable marketing software that has the potential to add immense value to any business. It is rare to see a marketing platform packed with an impressive selection of tools and feature sets to meet whatever goals you’ve set for your business.

So is it worth it? Well, that depends on whether or not you’d be able to make good use of most (if not all) the features on offer. If not, then there’s no reason to pay for something that you’ll probably never use when there are cheaper alternatives on the market. If you have the resources and a solid plan for leveraging the platform to your advantage, then most marketers would agree that ClickFunnels is a worthwhile investment.

Affiliate Disclaimer: I hope you enjoyed this ClickFunnels review. Please note that any links inside this article may be affiliate links to ClickFunnels. That means that if you click on one of the links and sign up, I may be compensated for it. If you do happen to click, thanks! Any money we make keeps this site running and allows us to keep producing high-quality reviews. I am an independent ClickFunnels Affiliate, not an employee. The opinions expressed here are my own and are not official statements of ClickFunnels or its parent company, Etison LLC.