Unbounce Review [The Pros & Cons Of This Popular Landing Page Builder]
If you own an online business, affiliate site, or a blog that you're hoping to monetize, chances are you've built a landing page or two. If so, then you know how time-consuming they can be to build from scratch and how frustrating they are to optimize. In this Unbounce review, we break down one of the most popular software on the market to see whether it's right for your business.
Unbounce is an easy-to-use landing page builder that has been around for a while. Whereas most other relevant landing page companies have moved into offering other services and features, Unbounce is dedicated to providing you with the resources to deliver the best landing pages you can in just a few clicks.
But does it stack up? Is it the best landing page builder for your needs? In this Unbounce review, we'll dive into the specifics to help you make the best decision for your brand.
Try Unbounce for yourself here!
Unbounce Review
Summary
Unbounce is a landing page builder for Wordpress. While it doesn't have the secondary features that users have come to expect from their SaaS products, it does create beautiful, high-converting landing pages for a variety of purposes. The customer support leaves much to be desired, and the price point is higher than direct competitors, but for those who are already familiar with modern marketing methods, Unbounce can be a game-changer. Try Unbounce here!Â
Pros
- Ever-growing list of templates for wide array of applications
- Very easy to use
- Pages are mobile-responsive out of the box
- Several advanced AI features
Cons
- No split testing at lowest plan
- Minimal customer support and training
- More expensive than competitors
- Not as many templates as other landing page builders
Contents
Unbounce Review: Introduction
In 2009, co-founder Rick Perrault first had the idea for Unbounce to find a better way from his own frustrations. All he wanted to do, according to him, was have the ability to develop a landing page for himself from scratch.
At the time, building landing pages was only possible via dedicated web developers, then populated with digital graphics artists and copywriters. These pages were monitored by marketing teams, who could suggest multiple variations of the new page after several rounds of split testing to improve the conversion rate.
Rick's idea was to empower a single person to have complete freedom to do all of that quickly and create a landing page without writing a single line of code.
Today, Unbounce employs over 200 people and has customers in nearly every country on the planet. They count enormous companies like Amazon and Linkedin as customers but still choose to focus on the everyday solopreneur as their primary target audience.
Unbounce Review: Overview
To put all of the aforementioned marketing power in a single package is a challenge, not the least of which is making the landing page platform accessible. Many users complain about the difficult learning curve associated with other landing page builders, so it's important to make the customer feel like they're capable of success right off the bat.
Unbounce can get you working on your landing page fast. Drag-and-drop landing page builder and easy-to-move blocks will help you create and customize any element on the page without writing code.
If you're feeling especially ambitious, you can even adjust the CSS and HTML coding to make your landing page precisely what you want.
Once it's finished, Unbounce lets you host your landing page on your own WordPress website (via a plugin) or publish it directly on Unbounce's platform (see also Unbounce alternatives here).
The desktop version arguably works best but Unbounce's landing pages are mobile-friendly right out of the box, so you can create responsive mobile pages for your website easily. The average load time for pages on mobile devices has dropped so much in recent years, great mobile pages are a must-have.
Despite it's easy-to-use features, Unbounce is best used by people who have at least some form of marketing or web design experience. Digital marketing teams, SaaS agencies, and e-commerce sites will be able to really maximize Unbounce's capabilities.
That's not to say that the everyday user with a website can't benefit. Its suite of high-powered capabilities lends itself well to growing with brands.
Unbounce Review: Key Features
The Unbounce features list is extensive (by design), cultivated by years of refining based on customer demand.
The primary focus of landing pages is to drive ROI. Landing pages can be extremely long, detailing every step of the customer journey, or narrow, giving only a few paragraphs of copy.
To create the best version, you'll need a lot of options. Fortunately, our Unbouce review found plenty to experiment with.
Drag and drop builder
Most landing page builder software has a drag-and-drop builder embedded in the program. Many people prefer to simply move elements across the screen rather than working with a block editor like on a WordPress site.
But not all drag-and-drop builders are created equal. Some of the existing ones are clunky, some don't allow you to move elements very easily, and some crash every time you blink the wrong way.
Unbounce cares about this important feature, creating a stable platform in which to create your landing pages. A widget list is static on the left of the screen, just drag any element onto the page, giving you full control.
The screen has a grid pattern so you can see exactly where you're placing the elements, and every part of the page is customizable. Move or add entire page sections, text boxes, sticky bars, CTA buttons, and even popups with just a few clicks.
More advanced features include embedding videos and adding lightboxes to landing pages. The entire web page can be manipulated using custom HTML.
Unbounce's drag-and-drop landing page builder does a great job of offering enough features for the everyday person to create landing pages without feeling overwhelming. By the same token, it has enough customization options that even advanced users won't get bored.
Templates
For those who don't want to create pages from scratch, Unbounce features over 100 different templates to create your landing pages. Additionally, there are several hundred more templates for Unbounce landing pages available to buy from Themeforest. However, support for those templates comes from the third-party developer.
The options Unbounce offers are impressive. Filter templates by campaign (lead generation, events, or books, among others), by type (agency, SaaS, etc), or by special features such as lightboxes, video backgrounds, and parallax effects.
If you're overwhelmed by options, Unbounce has a "template helper" chatbot to walk you through a series of questions. Your answers help determine the best landing page template for you.
One feature that Unbounce has recently rolled out is their “Smart Builder.” More robust than their chatbot, Smart Builder offers you a few prompts, and then builds your Unbounce landing page for you.
Smart Builder is more extensive than just selecting a template. It'll add copy, select images, and craft a CTA that will resonate with your target audience. Like all its other templates though, you're free to adjust the elements on your web page using their native builder or code.
A/B testing
No landing page options would be complete without adequate A / B testing, and Unbounce has an intuitive and powerful testing set to ensure high-converting landing pages every time.
The main drawback? Split testing isn't available on their cheapest plan. If you want to test various iterations of your landing pages (and you should), you'll need to have at least the “Optimize” plan which is $135 a month.
On the middle plan, customers have access to Unbounce's AI split-testing feature: Smart Traffic. Smart Traffic monitors the conversion rate to determine which of your Unbounce landing pages is performing better. It automatically reroutes traffic from PPC ads or elsewhere to that page over time to boost conversions.
You can do this yourself inside of Unbounce's platform, but the beauty of Smart Traffic is that it does it for you. Smart Traffic is especially handy for managing multiple landing pages or multiple sites.
Smart Traffic claims to boost the average client's revenue by up to 30% compared to the average A/B test. Those extra customers can mean additional revenue from your website.
You don't have to implement this feature -- Unbounce forces you to manually turn it on -- but it's one of the most powerful tools Unbounce offers. Few landing page builders offer anything comparable.
Integrations
Even the best landing page builder is only as effective as its integrations with other third party tools. You need to connect it with the other software in your marketing toolbox in order to optimize the customer experience. Sales, lead generation, automation, reporting -- all need to be connected in your digital ecosystem.
Unbounce's landing page builder doesn't integrate with every single website software, but it connects with the majority of them, so you shouldn't have a problem making it work with your existing tools such as Drip, ConvertKit ActiveCampaign, Facebook, Google Analytics, Hubspot, and Podio. Many integrations are compatible with Unbounce's Smart Builder feature too, making the landing page process even quicker.
In case Unbounce doesn't offer a direct integration with your software of choice, there are other options.
The first is integrating Unbounce with your software via webhooks, which connects to your landing pages, sticky bars or popup solution. You can also connect it using Zapier, which integrates with nearly 1,000 apps.
If none of the above solutions work (which is rare), you can connect Unbounce to your software using an API. This is more technical than some users are ready for, but Unbounce can help.
Support team
If there's one major flaw with Unbounce, it's in their support staff. Though the usual contact options are there -- phone, email, chat -- the hours you can contact support are less than ideal.
During the summer, for instance, Unbounce has announced their support staff will only be available for four days out of the week. Their regular work hours are Monday through Friday 1AM-8PM PST, and on weekends from 9AM-9PM PST. Not quite 24/7, and oddly timed enough that it may cause a headache if you run into any issues with their software.
Unbounce is open about the hours that customers can contact support and disclose on their support page Unbounce users "may experience slight delays" outside of those work hours. You can always open a support ticket, but when that ticket is answered is dependent on the work hours.
Fortunately, Unbounce has a helpful community ready and willing to review and answer your questions. Their messaging board has topics on best practices, Q&A, developer forums, and more, so sometimes it's a better way to get your query sorted out of hours. It's worth a search to see if you can find the answer to your question.
Unbounce also offers lengthy documentation that customers can review.
Unbounce Review: Pricing
Unbounce cost options are pretty simple to understand. The platform offers three pricing tiers that should be enough for almost everyone.
The cheapest of their pricing plans, Launch plan is $90 a month. Launch includes up to 500 conversions on a single custom domain with a visitor cap of 20,000.
The Optimize plan costs $135 a month, with up to 1,000 conversions across five domains and a visitor cap of 30,000. Additionally, this is also the first tier where Smart Traffic and A/B testing is available - Launch doesn't include these.
For businesses that have more needs, the Accelerate plan is $225 per month. That includes 2,500 conversions across 10 domains, a visitor cap of 50,000, and Smart Traffic and A/B testing capabilities.
For enterprise clients that need more bandwidth than that, they have customizable options available on demand.
Every plan includes access to all of their native apps, popups, and sticky bar builder, and allow you to create unlimited landing pages for your website. As mentioned earlier, the main distinction between the three plans is whether or not they offer split testing.
The Accelerate plan is also the only plan that offers advanced targeting and scheduling based on location, cookies, and referral traffic.
If you're unsure whether Unbounce is right for you, like many of the best platforms, they offer a free trial of 14-days -- more than enough time for potential customers to take it for an adequate test drive. All payment plans offer a 10% discount if you pay for an entire year at one time instead of month to month.
How Does Unbounce Work?
Setting up your first landing page is a snap. All you need to do (after you sign up) is head into the dashboard and select a template. You have a choice of either using a pre-made template, or if you want to create a landing page from scratch, you can also choose a blank page.
From here, you have complete freedom to customize different elements: background image, text, other images, buttons, and colors. The drag-and drop-builder makes this easy, but it's worth playing around to get comfortable with the interface.
There are more specialized elements to create a more focused landing page. On the right, a workspace is opened giving you options to change the colors or text of each element, add a link (or remove one), and adjust the other page aesthetics.
Make sure your call to action is prominently displayed as well. Whether you're angling for more leads or sales, you'll want to sprinkle your CTA a few places throughout the page.
Once you're done, just click the "save" button located in the right corner and give your landing page a name. If you don't want to choose a name, it'll default to the name of whatever training template you used.
After the landing page has been built, you'll have the option to create various split tests or integrate the landing page with other softwares and websites. This step may be more difficult, but the support documentation should help you get most of the way.
Unbounce Review: pros and cons
Even the best landing page builder isn't perfect, but as mentioned in this Unbounce review, some come closer than others.
That being said, there are still a few areas that Unbounce can improve. Below is a list of a few places where they excel, and some areas to be aware of if you choose to sign up for their service.
Let's have a look at the pros and cons.
Pros
- Mobile responsive pages: Every landing page is optimized for mobile right out of the box, so you don't need to do any special adjusting to make it work on smartphones or tablets.
- Ecommerce friendly: Since the main point of a landing page is to facilitate sales, it makes sense that Unbounce is compatible with e-commerce stores. Unbounce does this extremely well.
- Ease of use: Though you may experience a steep learning curve, Unbounce is mostly intuitive when compared to other landing page builders.
- AI features: Smart Traffic and Smart Builder are game changers in the landing page world. These two features alone should justify the price point.
- Integrations and Security: With over 100 integrations with the most popular software services and strong native security, Unbounce makes a point of keeping your landing pages efficient.
Cons
- Expensive: Despite its features, many users complain that Unbounce is too expensive for an entry-level user. It's also frustrating that some of its most basic features, such as split testing, isn't available at the lowest plan.
- Limited templates: 200+ templates is nothing to sneeze at, but when compared to other landing page builders, the selection may feel limited. The third-party market is nice but adds to the cost if you have to purchase additional themes.
- Poor support: If you have issues with your landing pages, it can be difficult to reach Unbounce. Once you do, it may take even longer to receive a response. This is difficult for people just starting out with digital marketing and landing pages in general.
- No split testing: This should be a feature at the lowest level. There's simply no reason why it isn't.
- So-so reporting: While you can integrate Unbounce with Google Analytics, many users claim the native reporting features are less than ideal.
Unbounce Review: FAQ
Below are some of the most common questions people have that are not otherwise covered in this Unbounce review.
Is there a "freemium" plan available?
No. There is a 14-day free trial offered to new subscribers, but the base subscription of $90 per month (lower for annual pricing) is the cheapest Unbounce cost option available to website owners.
Is Unbounce similar to a Wordpress site?
Unbounce can integrate with Wordpress sites but is not a website builder like Wordpress. The drag-and-drop builder feels similar to users of website builders like Divi and Elementor, but those are CMSs and don't work in the same way. Unbounce is strictly a landing page builder -- nothing more.
Why do I need a landing page builder like Unbounce?
The main point of landing pages is to facilitate a call to action on your website, like generating leads, increasing your conversion rate, or driving sales. They are a part of the overall customer journey, most often used near the end to drive action. Brands may use several landing pages at other stages for different purposes.
Unbounce Alternatives
Despite the focus of this Unbounce review being on a single platform for building landing pages for your WordPress website, there are other options. Not all of the other tools will have the same features that Unbounce offers, but then again, not all customers need all those abilities for their website.
Look through the options below for other tools to find the platform that best suits your needs and matches your price point.
OptinMonster
Technically speaking, OptinMonster is a lead generation tool -- not strictly a landing page builder. If you don't need a landing page to drive sales at this point in your business, OptinMonster is a much cheaper alternative. Its base plan only costs $9 a month, though higher plans come with more features.
With OptinMonster, you can create landing pages quickly that can collect leads by way of inline forms, floating bars, or even coupon wheels (and you may also be interested in these OptinMonster alternatives). They have dozens of templates to choose from and are easily customizable.
Advanced targeting features are available (at higher plans), and the landing pages don't take that long to create. If you're looking for strictly lead generation, give OptinMonster a look.
See our full OptinMonster review here.
HubSpot Landing Pages
HubSpot casts a pretty wide net over the digital marketing landscape. Most marketers have heard of the company, and many have probably used its tools and services.
But did you know that HubSpot offers free landing pages for your website? These aren't just for lead generation or sales, you can create webinar pages and other types of pages as well. All pages are mobile-responsive and are very customizable.
Perhaps best of all, they all integrate with HubSpot's CRM. If you're already committed to the platform, check out their landing page builder as well. They have a base plan that is free, but paid plans start at $45 per month if you want more features.
LeadPages
More of a direct competitor to Unbounce, LeadPages is strictly a landing page builder. It lacks a few features that Unbounce offers, but their plans are also half the price: $27 per month for the base package, and $59 for plans with more features.
LeadPages has two different editors: a simple editor for very basic customization (and for beginners) and a more advanced editor if you want more functionality.
The main focus of LeadPages is conversions, whether that's sales or lead generation. It has tons of options for popup forms and alert bars, as well as for templates and integrations. The flexibility of LeadPages is what sets it apart from some of the other tools on this list.
Check out our full LeadPages review here.
Thrive Architect
If you're a dedicated Wordpress user and are just looking for your own landing page builder for a single site, you should definitely look at Thrive Architect. The learning curve is much steeper for this software than some others, but once you understand how it works, it's pretty a powerful landing pages plugin.
It doesn't really matter what type of page you want to create: homepages, blog posts, sales pages -- Thrive Architect does it all. When you add in that it's only $67 for a single site license ($19 monthly if paid that way), it's a great investment to make for a very targeted group.
Landingi
Landingi has been around for nearly ten years, but it still remains one of the simplest options on this list. It doesn't have nearly the capability that other page builders on this list have, but it's not necessary for every company. If you're just starting out and have simple marketing goals, Landingi is a good landing page builder to start with.
The basics are all there: A/B testing for more conversions, a popup solution, create funnels, duplicate pages, and options to customize your landing page further via HTML and CSS. Beyond that, there are a few AI technology options such as their PageInsider technology, but overall, it's a simplistic landing page tool that is designed to be user-friendly above all else.
The basic plan costs $29 per month (billed annually), while other plans are $65, $89, and $109 for the Agency package. All plans offer unlimited conversions and landing pages; the difference is how many unique visits and custom domain needs. The top plan also offers a white label option, so if you're an agency that wants to offer this service to your clients, take a look at Landingi.
ClickFunnels
Led by Russell Brunson -- one of the biggest names in the digital marketing world -- ClickFunnels is more than just a landing page builder. ClickFunnels is a software designed to take your visitors from the beginning of the sales journey to the other end in one seamless package.
Though it can create beautiful landing pages that are also quite effective at improving conversion rates, the strength of ClickFunnels landing page software is in its support. They have documentation, an active community, daily webinars, support groups, and a full training template. It's no wonder why ClickFunnels is the first place many new entrepreneurs visit when entering into the digital world.
ClickFunnels is priced very competitively with Unbounce, and has other features that you may be interested in.
We did a full write-up of the difference between ClickFunnels and Unbounce for you to read here.
SeedProd
It's hard to find a landing page builder that is strong enough to generate a decent enough ROI but won't cost your entire startup budget just to work properly. SeedProd hopes to toe that line by bringing a state of the art drag-and-drop visual page builder that is lightning quick, easy to use, and ruthlessly efficient.
SeedProd is a WordPress plugin that can create landing pages with minimal effort. Though some people prefer to create landing pages from scratch using a blank WordPress page, SeedProd is a great alternative for beginners.
Starting at just $40 per year, SeedProd has an impressive feature list that makes it perfect for solopreneurs. There's also a free plan that is much more basic but still useful.
Some features you can expect with SeedProd for example, include WooCommerce blocks, domain mapping, templates, and responsiveness for mobile devices. With several customization options and "one-click page modes," SeedProd is a turnkey software solution to create beautiful landing pages in minutes to get more leads.
Instapage
For businesses that need a lot more features than Unbounce provides, Instapage might be the right choice. They're more than double the price of Unbounce's cheapest plan -- coming in at $199 a month -- but offer several more features to justify the price: no conversion limits, advanced A/B testing, and unlimited domains, among others.
If that's still not enough, customized enterprise plans are available.
If you're considering this page builder, the heatmaps feature can be a game-changer. With a single glance, you can tell where visitors are dwelling on your page, and what they skip over. Containing integrations with most of the major SaaS companies, for example, Hubspot, Salesforce, and Marketo, InstaPage might be the only landing page builder you need.
Learn more in our Instapage review here.
Is Unbounce Worth It?
No Unbounce review would be complete without questioning whether or not it's the best landing page builder for you.
If you're needing a powerful landing page builder with pricing that won't break the bank and should grow with you as you build your brand, take a look at Unbounce.
If you happen to prefer to start creating landing pages with something a little simpler and don't need as many features to get the best results, consider a free alternative. Just be aware that migrating to another platform will come with its own challenges.
Our full review found that Unbounce is a great, easy-to-use landing page software for creating high-converting landing pages. As with any page builder, there are pros and cons, but the question that matters is whether it can increase conversion rates and your ROI. If you decide it's the best landing page builder for you and your company, give it a spin.
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