Leadpages Review 2023: A Brutally Honest Review
LeadPages is a web-based software tool that allows users to create landing pages and other opt-in tools like popup boxes with minimal fuss. With one of the lowest price points on the market, Leadpages is suitable for beginners who may not require much flexibility and customization design-wise, but still want strong emphasis on lead generation – an area LeadPages excels in with its features and suite of accompanying tools.
Effectiveness
Leadpages allows users to make effective landing pages and boasts useful features that help beyond that as well. However, it’s rigid editor can be limiting.
Price
Leadpages is one of the more affordable landing pages available. The best features, however, only come with the most expensive plan.
User-friendly
While Leadpages is easy to get the hang of, the drag-and-drop editor can sometimes be a fuss to work with.
Service
Leadpages prioritizes users who pay more by offering them three channels of support, plus one-to-one calls and weekly mentoring. Users of their cheaper plans might find themselves lacking in support.
Landing pages are key to successful ad campaigns, and a lot of effort goes into making one that efficiently converts.
Enter Leadpages, a software tool that helps you create and customize landing pages to your liking. The software allows you to create much more than just landing pages, including pop-ups, alert bars, social media ads, and even entire websites (think page builders).
On their website, Leadpages promises to turn clicks into customers, and advertises itself as the world’s #1 high-converting landing page platform, standing out from its biggest competitors like Instapage and Unbounce for not placing limits on users. Such limits include web traffic and the number of published pages.
Leadpages launched in January 2013, and within 2 years alone managed to obtain over 30,000 customers.
Here’s a fun fact. Co-founder and original CEO Clay Collins was a law school dropout who dropped out to – guess what – further pursue his blogging business which had taken off. Leadpages wasn’t even his first venture, having started his first software company at only 15.
So yes, you can rest assured the people behind Leadpages know what they’re talking about.
Things a good landing page builder should have
The right landing page builder for us may not be the right landing page builder for you. Hence, when making your pick, it’s a good idea to think about what the elements of a good landing page would be for you.
From there, you can compare landing page builders for which will best allow you to create those elements, and create them well.
Most landing pages share the same goal of capturing leads. So at the very least, a good landing page builder should satisfy these 3 criteria:
1. Conversion-optimized templates
If you’ve ever made a landing page before, you’d know that an effective landing page that converts isn’t going to look anything like a normal page on your website.
It’ll probably look (and sound!) more bold, more minimalistic, and a whole lot more straight-to-the-point.
Most landing page builders will, and should, come with an array of templates for you to use as a base to start with. For one, they should already be mobile-friendly.
A good builder is also supposed to save you time and effort. Instead of having to manually implement certain characteristics of an effective landing page, a good builder should already have everything done for you. All you have to do is edit, publish, and move on to other things.
Image via Leadpages
For instance, Leadpages specifically categorizes their templates by function. Think “Leadership Webinar”, “Real Estate Tour Request Confirmation” and “Free E-Book Opt-in Page”.
That aside, Leadpages even categorizes their templates according to the highest converting ones. Imagine that!
2. Great customizability
Having a ton of “fill in and go” templates to choose from is great. What’s even more important, though, is being able to customize the minutiae of your landing pages to your liking.
Simple is best, and this is usually the case when creating effective landing pages. Often though, you might have a great idea or specific element you’d like your landing page to have. If you create websites for clients, it’s even more key that you’re able to customize down to the smallest of details.
It can also be a real bummer when you’re unable to design your landing page to fit with your brand, campaign, or just the rest of the site.
Choosing the best landing page software which has your best design interests at heart means choosing one which allows for custom css, has plenty of elements, easily integrates with other software, and if it’s a drag-and-drop builder as most are now – should be freeform.
While these aren’t dealbreakers per se, you no doubt want a builder that gives you the most bang for your buck.
3. Robust analytics
It’s simple enough to create a landing page. But to create a really good one that highly converts? Now that’s a different story.
The landing page builder you choose has to be much, much more than just a design tool. It should automatically track data from your landing pages so that you can know what’s working best, then replicate those elements in your future pages.
Unique views, emails, conversion rates…there are a ton of metrics you could analyze to see how your pages are doing.
Armed with that data, you can then experiment and apply the best elements, designs, or copy to vastly improve the performance of your landing pages.
So what does Leadpages have to offer?
Reading this review probably means you’re in the midst of researching for the best (and most worth it) landing page builder to fork out for.
We’ll make your job easier for you. Below, we’ve sorted out Leadpages’ features by category so that you can compare them at a glance.
Features
EDITOR
- Drag and drop editor
- Ready-to-use categorized templates
PRICING
- Flexible, affordable plans
- Unlimited landing pages, leads, and traffic
FUNCTIONALITY
- 40+ integrations available
- Facebook ad creator
- Full-suite conversion marketing tools
- Simplified analytics
- A/B testing functionality
SUPPORT
- Q&A coaching call
- Various support channels
1. Editor
a) Drag & Drop Editor
There are two ways you could create a landing page. You could code it out, and bring to life anything you imagine – the only limit being your coding knowledge.
Or…you could use builders. These days, most editors in builders are drag-and-drop, which usually means you’ve got a taskbar on the left of the page, and you simply drag whatever you want to add from the taskbar directly onto the page.
The drag-and-drop editor was something Leadpages only introduced in 2016. It was a much awaited upgrade that garnered Leadpages lots of happy customers.
Previously, their standard editor called Legacy was much more inconvenient and limited design-wise.
One thing to note, though, is that Leadpages still offers both types of editors for users. It’s a little hard to wrap our heads around why anyone would choose the previous standard editor, but that’s still an option nevertheless! However, having both editors available means that you’ve got to be careful when choosing your templates.
- Standard templates can only be edited by the standard editor
- Drag-and-drop templates can only be edited by the drag-and-drop editor
Here’s a quick run through of what it’s like to use Leadpages’ drag-and-drop editor.
Image via Leadpages
If you find yourself giving Leadpages a spin, you’ll start by choosing what you want to create – a landing page, pop-up, simple alert bar, or an entire website. As Leadpages is primarily a landing page builder, that’s what we’ll be focusing on.
After choosing your template (or starting from a blank white canvas, if that’s what you prefer), you’ll automatically start editing. The editing interface is as you see below.
Do note that the standard editor will look different with much less room for customization.
Image via Leadpages
On the right is your landing page, while the bar on the left is the taskbar. It’s simple and what most will anticipate – no one likes an overcomplicated interface.
In comparison, Unbounce is slightly messier to use as there are elements on the left, bottom, and right of the interface. With Leadpages, everything is contained on the left where the taskbar is.
Of course, we do argue that Unbounce’s better design capabilities make up for its more complicated interface.
Leadpages uses content blocks, similar to WordPress. To edit, you simply click on any block on the landing page, as highlighted in blue in the screenshot above.
Once highlighted in blue, you can drag over any element from the taskbar and drop it in, where it’ll automatically snap into place.
This is one feature that garners a lot of criticism from Leadpages users, complaining that this lack of freedom to place elements anywhere they’d like is a hindrance.
Here’s what we think – this can certainly be helpful, as you don’t have to worry about the exact placement of certain elements on your landing page. Instead, you can use what’s already been set by the template.
If complete and utter design freedom is what you’re looking for, you might want to look elsewhere.
The taskbar consists of 4 tabs:
- Layout
- Widgets
- Styles
- Settings
The Layout tab is where you add, delete, and customize your sections (or blocks). You’ll also adjust your sections’ margins and padding from here.
Below that is Widgets, which are the building blocks of your landing page. This is where you add elements to your pages, such as images, videos, text, or just some empty space. There are more specific widgets, too, such as a countdown timer and social media share buttons.
Are all the widgets free?
That’s a big nope! For more useful ones such as a checkout cart or integration with Calendly, you’d need a Pro account, which costs $48 per month.
We would complain that the widget options Leadpages provides may seem painfully little, the fact is that this is a landing page builder. Hence there’s no need for so much extra fluff.
The Styles tab allows you to customize the design elements of your landing page. This includes font and background colors etc.
Under the final tab, Settings is where you key in the page title and meta-description for your landing page.
That’s right; even landing pages can benefit from being SEO-optimized. To know more, here’s our SEO guide for newbies (no shame!).
b) Ready-to-use Categorized Templates
Image via Leadpages
You hear a lot about landing page designs that are THE BEST, or GUARANTEE insanely high conversion rates.
If only it were that easy. There’s no one size fits all design that instantly promises higher conversions.
Leadpages boasts an impressive gallery of around 160 templates. All mobile-optimized, all conversion-optimized (or so they say).
If you’re a beginner, you can jump for joy because that means you won’t have to spend more time going through all that trial and error in creating a decent landing page.
If you’re a pro, just pick the one closest to what you need and edit as needed.
In fact, Leadpages’ templates are one of their strongest selling points. We took figures from Unbounce and Instapage – arguably Leadpages’ strongest competitors, and found that Leadpages has the most number of templates available.
Number of Templates
Leadpages
(some may only be available to Pro members)
Unbounce
Instapage
It’s not just numbers either
Skimming through over a hundred templates doesn’t sound very efficient, now does it?
We like how Leadpages takes things a step further here and allows you to categorize according to several criteria:
- Newest
- Highest Converting
- Category (e.g. Event, Lead Capture or Thank You)
- Industry (e.g. E-commerce, F&B or Retail)
That’s right; you can even sort the templates according to which have shown the highest conversions! We won’t put too much money on that though…since users later edit these templates and don’t use them as is.
Here’s an example of one which popped up when we searched under “highest converting”. Bold, Bright, and Straightforward.
Image via Leadpages
2. Pricing
a) Flexible, Affordable Plans
Image via Leadpages
Leadpages is more on the affordable end of things. After surveying prices between Leadpages and a few of their biggest competitors, it seems that Leadpages surpasses them not only in terms of affordability but also payment flexibility.
Leadpages pricing comes in 3 different plans:
- Standard
- Pro
- Advanced
For each plan, you can choose to pay either monthly or annually. Of course, it’s significantly cheaper if you opt to commit on a yearly basis.
Below is a quick comparison table of Leadpages’ monthly and annual pricing:
STANDARD
Monthly: $37 / month
Annually: $25 / month
PRO
Monthly: $79 / month
Annually: $48 / month
ADVANCED
Monthly: $321 / month
Annually: $199 / month
b) Unlimited landing pages, leads, and traffic
You might expect that the cheaper plans will limit the number of landing pages you can make, which is something to consider when looking for the best landing page software.
But get this – Leadpages allows you to create an unlimited number of landing pages! Even if you’re just being billed per month.
It’s not just landing pages either, check out all the other stuff that Leadpages doesn’t put a cap on regardless of your plan.
- Unlimited pop-ups
- Unlimited alert bars
- Unlimited page visits
- Unlimited leads
Aside from Leadpages’ templates, this is another one of the biggest perks we think this landing page software has to offer. Others on the market typically limit the number of pages and site visitors.
Instead, when picking between which plan you need to ask yourself these questions:
- How many websites do I own?
- Are there are any specific integrations I need? (Hubspot, Marketo, Salesforce etc.)
- Is being able to perform A/B split testing important to me?
- Could Leadpages’ other lead gen tools such as Leaddigits and Leadlinks be beneficial to me? (we’ll get to that later)
3. Functionality
a) 40+ Integrations Available
Image via Leadpages
You most likely have a bunch of different platforms, yes? And while their functions may vary, most of them probably overlap to serve the same purpose – getting sales.
So being able to connect your software means you can tenfold your efficiency and make the entire lead gen process a simpler and quicker one.
When it comes to integrations, Leadpages takes the cake. With over 40 standard integrations available, even the cheapest plan means you’re spoilt for choice. Using Leadpages for WordPress should be a piece of cake.
With the advanced plan, you’ve got access to an extra 4 advanced integrations – Hubspot, Pardot, Marketo, and Salesforce.
Visitors can instantly buy and checkout straight from the landing page itself thanks to Shopify and pay with either Stripe or PayPal.
For the full list of integrations, click here.
Now, this is something no Leadpages review would be complete without – their Facebook ad creator.
How do you usually create your Facebook ads? Through the Facebook ad manager, of course. But not everyone knows how to best answer all those questions to target the audience they’re looking for.
And let’s face it, you spend a whole lot of time creating those ad campaigns – brainstorming the perfect concept, racking your brain for the most effective copy, and perhaps even hiring someone to do the visuals for you. Then you’ve got the make the perfect landing page to go with it too!
So what happens when you’ve got more than one campaign to make? How are you going to find the time to make sure your ads and your landing page are perfectly aligned?
With Leadpages’ Facebook ad creator, you can create ads with (literally) just the click of a button!
Here’s how it works. First off, you have to create a landing page with Leadpages. When you publish the page, you’ll see a blue button that says, “Create Facebook Ad.”
Image via Leadpages
Clicking that button will enable Leadpages to extract images and copy from your existing landing page, and use it to create a Facebook ad from the ground up – all with stuff you’ve already written in your landing page!
This is great because, often, when creating an ad, we tend to lose track and the ad’s message may not seamlessly match with the message the landing page is trying to deliver. The last thing prospects want is to be presented with something that may be different than what they expected.
The ad creator will even automatically target the ad to the right audience for you based on existing info they have about your business.
It’s not all hands-off, though. You will have to edit the final ad copy.
Since the info from your landing pages is extracted automatically, it might seem that you just copy-pasted directly into the ad, or it may read a little wonky. You can also adjust the target audience as you like.
We don’t mean to gush, but this is probably our favorite Leadpages feature because you simply won’t find any other landing page software that has this.
Image via Leadpages
Did you know that other than Leadpages, there’s also Leadboxes, Leadlinks, and Leaddigits?
Each of these tools works hand-in-hand with each other. Here’s a brief overview of what they entail.
- Leadboxes: Create pop-up opt-in forms
- Leadlinks: Allow current subscribers to sign up by clicking a link
- Leaddigits: Allows you to collect leads via SMS
- Leadpages: Create highly-converting landing pages
It can be a little confusing, so let’s explore a little more in-depth on what each of these do.
What is Leadboxes and how does it work?
Simply put, Leadboxes is what you use to create opt-in forms.
What you want your visitors to opt-in to is up to you – be it subscribe to a newsletter, download an eBook, or register for a free trial.
While you can create these from within Leadpages as well, you can also set up a standalone form using Leadboxes.
There are 3 ways you can customize your Leadbox.
-
Standard Leadbox:
Create pop-up opt-in forms. -
Pop-up Leadbox:
A Leadbox appears after a certain amount of time or number of page views. -
Exit Leadbox:
A Leadbox appears when exit intent is detected.
What is Leadlinks and how does it work?
When you send out emails to readers, you might include a button requesting them to sign up for something – usually new content updates.
Often that process might take readers to another page or form where they might be requested to fill in more info.
Leadlinks take away that second step so that readers only have to click on the link in the email, and they’re automatically signed up!
Leadlinks is only available for those with a Pro or Advanced plan. Sorry, Standard plan users!
What is Leaddigits and how does it work?
Picture yourself in a tech convention. Say you run a software startup and send out valuable reports on a weekly basis.
Everyone you speak to wants to get their hands on those reports, but they’re either in a hurry, or it may not be the right time and place to get them to open up your site on their phone. There’s only just about enough time to exchange name cards.
With Leaddigits, the person you’re talking to only has to text a unique code to a number of your choice. (For example, text PROMO to 33444).
From there, they’ll receive an automated response (which you wrote) where they’ll be asked to send their email address so that they can get signed up, and that’s it!
Image via Leadpages
The Leadpages dashboard comes with only three key statistics about how your landing pages are faring.
- Unique Visitors
- Conversions
- Conversion Rates
And that’s pretty much all you get. If you’re using Checkouts in your landing pages, your earnings will automatically be tracked as well. Conversions are tracked as either button clicks or form submissions.
But that’s pretty much it. We find the inbuilt analytics to be overly bare and nowhere up to par with others on the market.
Granted, you’ll probably be integrating Google Analytics and using those stats instead. After all, that’s what Leadpages recommends too. But as a landing page software of its own, it leaves much to be desired considering the lack of customizability on the design front.
One thing we do like, however, is how the actual stats are presented. Leadpages features a customizable graph ala Google Trends so you can choose how you’d like to see your stats – by day, month, or year.
Image via Leadpages
Image via Leadpages
About a year or so after Leadpages launched their drag-and-drop editor, they also released unlimited A/B split testing functionality for their Pro and Advanced users.
When it comes to landing pages that are going to be up on your site for some time as opposed to short-term ones, being able to test and find out what works best can make a difference.
If you’re not familiar with what A/B testing is, it’s essentially changing an element of your landing page and splitting your traffic to see which drives better results.
For example, you might be wondering whether or not to go with a background image that’s a little more professional, or one that’s a little more laid back and funky. You create both pages and divert 50% of visitors to the professional one, and the other 50% to the more casual one. From there, you can see which performs better.
Then again – A/B testing isn’t some new technology. Consumers expect landing page software to have this ability, and most definitely do.
With Leadpages, you get what you pay for. Their one-to-one coaching calls are a good example.
Only buyers of the Advanced plan get access to one-on-one coaching calls with Leadpages’ support team. There are 2 types available:
- Implementation Coaching
- Office Hours Mentoring
Implementation Coaching
When you need help at the starting point
All software comes with a learning curve. But imagine if you had someone to guide you step-by-step through the process…
After purchasing Leadpages’ advanced plan, their support team will get on the phone with you for up to an hour to walk you through making your first landing page.
Most software companies use video guides or pop-up instructions. With Leadpages’ implementation coaching, you’re pretty much guaranteed a flawless first use experience.
Office Hours Mentoring
Beyong software advice
Then again, Leadpages’ interface isn’t that hard to get to grips with. The part that’s remotely challenging at all is the crafting of the actual landing page itself.
That’s where their office hours mentoring program steps in. Once a week, members of Leadpages’ marketing team will host a program where users can ask more specific questions.
You could ask what email headlines work best, or how to best promote that eBook of yours.
We’ve yet to come across any other landing page software that provides a service as valuable and helpful like this.
Users can access three modes of support with Leadpages:
- Email Support – available for all users
- Chat Support – available for Pro and Advanced users only
- Phone Support – available for Advanced users only
It should be clear as day to you by now that Leadpages’ prioritizes higher-paying customers. Of course, we don’t fault them for that.
Sometimes though, it can feel like you’re getting the short end of the stick as a Standard or even Pro user.
One example is their email support. While it’s no doubt available for all users, Leadpages’ does state that priority email support is included with all of their Pro and Advanced subscriptions.
So while your email won’t be neglected, you shouldn’t expect to see lightning-quick response. Skimming through other Leadpages reviews online, it seems we’re not the only one to share this sentiment either.
You’re probably looking up Leadpages reviews online along with other landing page software to compare for the best one.
Here’s our advice – keep in mind that everyone has a different experience depending on their background with such software, the plan they’re on, or what they expect from using Leadpages.
In general, we’ve narrowed down the 3 main gripes most users complain about after using Leadpages:
- Rigid drag-and-drop editor that’s not as customizable nor fluid to use as it’s marketed to be
- Lack of customer care for users of the Standard plan
- Pricey for what it’s offering
Take a look for yourself!
Amin A on Capterra
Used the software for: 2+ years
Joe G on Capterra
Used the software for: 2+ years
Christopher R on Capterra
Used the software for: 2+ years
Jenny David on Quora
Is Leadpages right for you?
As with any software, there’s no one size fits all. You choose what’s best for what you need.
Hence, here are the biggest Leadpages pros and cons that we find to stand out the most to us.
PROS
- Simple interface that’s easily understood
- Huge range of categorized templates to choose from
- Over 40+ integrations
- Extremely useful Facebook ad creator which will automatically create ads for you
- Well supported by other conversion marketing tools (Leaddigits, Leadlinks, Leadboxes)
- No limit on the number of landing pages you can create or traffic/leads you can receive
- Great support which goes above and beyond (but only if you’re an Advanced plan user)
- Flexible payment plan options
CONS
- Clunky, rigid drag-and-drop editor
- Very limited design capability
- Lack of features and customer support for cheaper plans
- Bare-bones analytics, unless you integrate with Google Analytics
To make your comparison journey easier for you, use this checklist below to see if Leadpages would be a good choice for you. If you answer yes to most or all of these, there’s a good chance Leadpages might be just the thing you’ve been looking for.
- I create Facebook ads which link to my landing pages often
- I create very simplistic, minimal landing pages
- I often integrate my landing pages with other software
- I create a lot of landing pages on a consistent basis
- Lead-gen focused features are more important to me than being able to have complete design freedom
- I’m willing to pay more for the best features and support
- I’m okay with limited customer support
What if we put Leadpages head to head with one of its competitors?
Leadpages vs Unbounce
Image via Leadpages
Out of all the landing page builders on the market, Unbounce is arguably Leadpages’ biggest threat.
Founded in 2009, Unbounce strongly keeps its focus on design. That aside, though, perhaps the strongest feature is its Dynamic Text Replacement (DTR), which Leadpages very sadly does not have.
DTR is valuable because it highly personalizes what visitors see according to what they search for. Imagine clicking on a landing page to have it address you by name!
When compared to Leadpages, however, Unbounce is a much pricier option at $79, $159, and $399 for their Essential, Premium, and Enterprise plans, respectively.
Unlike Leadpages, which places no cap on the number of landing pages you can get, nor the amount of traffic, Unbounce limits users to 500k visitors (for all plans) and up to 375 landing pages max.
In a nutshell, Unbounce makes up for what Leadpages lacks in – freedom of design. In return, Leadpages counters that with unparalleled integrations, extra valuable features, and unlimited traffic, landing pages, and leads.
Overall, Leadpages is also the more affordable option. This table below will help you to compare Unbounce vs Leadpages at a glance.
Unbounce
- Ease of use
- Customizability
- Templates
- Integrations
- Features
- Pricing
Leadpages
- Ease of use
- Customizability
- Templates
- Integrations
- Features
- Pricing
Then again, being able to make specific modifications you want to the look of your landing page is extremely important as well. Things like interactive landing pages can be a little bit of a fuss to make but are well on the rise in 2020.
So if you’re looking to harness the power of design flexibility in your upcoming landing pages, try out Unbounce for yourself at 20% off!
With all that said and done…
Leadpages is one of the classics on the market, yet many seem to be very vocal about the superiority of other landing page software.
After some hands-on experience, here’s what we think :
Leadpages is affordable if you opt to get their Standard plan. But that’s what it is – standard. If you want to fully utilize the best features they’ve got to offer, you’ll have to be willing to fork out more.
It’s suitable for beginners who don’t need much design flexibility but still want a strong emphasis on lead conversion.
But if you run a small business or agency where landing pages make up quite a big chunk of the work you put out, even better. For enterprise-level companies who can invest a little more, you’re guaranteed to get more as well. Already, there’s no cap on the number of landing pages and traffic you can get. With the advanced plan, however, you’ve also got a whole host of valuable features and weekly mentoring with their support team!
Yes, Leadpages may lack in their design department. But they’re also jam-packed with tons of templates and helpful features such as their Facebook ad creator, Leaddigits, Leadboxes, and Leadlinks.
On that note, landing pages shouldn’t be too intricate anyways. Bold and minimal is the way to go, and as flawed as Leadpages’ drag-and-drop editor is – it gets the job done.
With all those points and more, Leadpages has us convinced! You might be too if you try out the software for yourself.
And you can! Get your Leadpages free trial from us here, and let us know what you think in the comments below!
DISCLOSURE: The HUSTLR goal is to help readers navigate around the digital economy by learning digital skills to achieve their life goals. This blog post may contain affiliate link(s) and any purchase(s) made through such links will result in a small commission to HUSTLR (at no cost to you). However, this does not impact our reviews and comparisons. We try our best to keep things fair in order to help you make the best choice.
Shen is a content and copywriter, sales exec and a world-record holding powerlifter. She works with words – writing about property, law, travel and business. Gratitude drives her, along with a goal to implement real-world skills and values in youth from childhood.
6 thoughts on “Leadpages Review 2023: A Brutally Honest Review”
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