Last updated Jul 6th, 2020 | 4 Comments
Creating high-impact landing pages are essential if you want better results from your online marketing efforts. And there are now many tools that help you quickly create high quality landing pages.
But which landing page tool is best? There are now so many to choose from, each with different benefits.
To help you decide for yourself, I have compared and reviewed the three leading landing page tools – Unbounce versus Instapage and Leadpages. I have created a comparison table including ratings for key aspects of the tools, listed the pros and cons of each, and who each tool is best for.
First of all, why use a landing page tool?
Lets you create high quality website pages quickly and easily without needing help from developers
Few design skills are needed as tools come with many stylish modern templates to choose from
You benefit from templates featuring best practices to convert more visitors into sales or leads
Unbounce vs Instapage vs Leadpages: The main differences
So now let’s move onto the actual ratings and comparisons for these major landing page creation tools. As you can see each has their own specific advantages and disadvantages:
Cost rating
7/10 Plans from $80 a month for their ‘Launch’ level (20K visitors).
5/10 Plans from $149 a month for ‘Business’ level (30K visitors).
9/10 Plans from $25 a month for ‘Standard’ level (unlimited visitors).
Amount and quality of landing page templates
9/10 Over 100 very high quality templates with built in conversion best practices. All mobile optimized but AMP only on higher plans levels.
9/10 Over 90 good quality templates which are all mobile optimized. AMP pages available but at enterprise level only.
7/10 The highest amount of templates offered, but many have extra cost to use. Varying quality of templates, but are all mobile optimized.
Ease of use of the page editor
8/10 Ease to use page editor. Advanced features are harder for beginners though.
8/10 Simple to use and intuitive editor menu system. Ideal for beginners.
8/10 Easy to use editor that is very intuitive and ideal for beginners.
Ability to customize pages
9/10 Excellent ability with full drag and drop options. Not limited to a grid system.
9/10 Good drag and drop and CSS page editing options. Also includes ‘Instablocks’ for sharing across many pages.
5/10 Very limited page customization ability as it uses a rigid grid layout for editing.
Amount of landing page features
8/10 Great amount of features. Includes new popups and sticky bars.
8/10 Good amount of features. Lacks popups, but includes good countdown timers and multi-step forms.
9/10 Highest amount of features and includes variety of popup and exit intent options.
Landing page hosting and tool integration options
9/10 Pages hosted on their servers or on WordPress. Great tool integration options including most email marketing tools and Google Analytics.
9/10 Pages hosted on most websites including WordPress, and an option to host on their servers. Good amount of tool integrations.
9/10 Pages hosted on most types of website including WordPress or their servers. Good amount of tool integration options.
Analytics and reporting options
8/10 Simple reporting of traffic and conversions, with good option to get traffic and conversion reports by email.
9/10 Excellent reporting functionality and conversion tracking, now with click heatmaps on premium plans.
8/10 Good reporting and graph options make it easy to understand traffic and conversions.
A/B testing options
6/10 Good A/B testing options but only in the ‘optimize’ and up plans (from $120 per month).
8/10 Good A/B testing options includes in all plans.
7/10 A/B testing only included in the ‘pro’ level and up plans (from $48 per month).
Popup lead generation options
9/10 Offers good easily customizable popups including entry and exit intent features, and available with all plans.
5/10 Basic popup boxes with all plans, but no entry or exit intent popups included (I recommend using OptinMonster for this).
9/10 Strong emphasis on popups with their excellent ‘Lead Boxes’ feature, including exit intent options.
Support options
9/10 Phone, email and live chat support at all plan levels. Coaching included in enterprise level.
8/10 Live chat and email support at all plan levels.
7/10 Varies by plan. Email support only at lowest plan. Phone support only in highest plan.
Overall rating
8/10 Has the best page editing options and flexibility. Definitely the best option for experts and marketing teams.
7/10 Great all-around tool, but costs more than Unbounce. Reasonable editor with good features, for beginners and experts.
7/10 Lowest cost and great popup options, but page editor gives least flexibility. Better suited for beginners.
Free trial?
14-day free trial plus 20% off first 3 months
14-day free trial – no credit card needed
14-day free trial – credit card needed though
As you can see from the comparison table, all three tools have high ratings, so now let’s explore in more detail. Here are the pros and cons of each tool, and then which type of user each tool is ideal for.
Unbounce Review
Overall an excellent choice, ideal for marketers who want to get the most flexibility for creating pages. Comes at higher cost than the other landing page tools though.
Unbounce Pros:
Has the most flexible editor which is not restricted to a grid system like LeadPages uses
New popups and sticky bars feature for lead generation is excellent and highly customizable
Great high quality templates with many conversion best practices built in
Has dynamic keyword replacement for getting better results from PPC campaigns
Offers the best support options even at the lowest plan level, including phone support
Unbounce Cons:
A/B testing only in the ‘optimize’ level and up which starts at $120 per month
Doesn’t offer as many features as the other tools e.g. lacks countdown timer
Beginners may prefer other landing page tools that have a simpler grid editing system
Rating on G2: 4.4/5 (as of July 2020)
I have arranged a great deal with Unbounce that gives you 20% off the first 3 months.
Instapage Review
Overall a great landing page tool for beginners and experts, with good options (apart from offering no popups though), and a simple to use editor.
Instapage Pros:
The highest amount of templates included with fairly good quality
Has one of the easiest to use editors for customizing pages, great for beginners
Very easy to setup and integrate with WordPress and other common tools
Offers great built-in click heatmaps on their premium plans
Instapage Cons:
Only basic popup functionality included, unlike the other tools reviewed
More expensive than Unbounce which offers similar features
The editor could offer more customization options, not as good as Unbounce
Rating on G2Crowd: 4.4/5 (as of July 2020)
Leadpages Review
The lowest cost option and great for beginners wanting to create pages quickly, although has the poorest flexibility to customize pages out of all the tools.
Leadpages Pros:
Excellent popup functionality with their Lead Boxes feature, great for lead capture
Offer the lowest monthly plan for creating landing pages ($25)
Good amount of templates that don’t need much customization
They offer the biggest template marketplace if you want to buy versus create
Leadpages Cons:
Poorest page customization options out of all tools, restricted to a fixed grid layout
They don’t offer the ability to start from a blank page, you must start from a template
Many of their templates look very average or have become too commonly used
Rating on G2Crowd: 3.9/5 (as of July 2020)
So which landing page tool is better?
As you can see, when comparing Unbounce versus Instapage and Leadpages, all three tools rate well. Each have different strengths and weaknesses which will be more important to different types of users. To help you understand which is better for your needs, here are the main tool differences and who each is ideal for:
Use Unbounce if you want the most flexibility for creating pages and the most customization options. Ideal for experienced online marketers with advanced needs for landing pages.
Use Instapage if you want a great overall tool for creating landing pages and have a bigger budget. Ideal for teams of online marketers with moderate landing page needs.
Use Leadpages if you are beginner or want simple landing pages, and don’t want many customization options. Ideal for entrepreneurs who want to create landing pages, and people with lower budgets.
So which tool you should chose really depends on what your needs are for creating landing pages. I use Unbounce for creating my landing pages as I prefer greater editing options and flexibility. I suggest you check out Unbounce, Instapage and Leadpages, and see for yourself as they all now offer free trials.
Other landing page tools worth checking out
I reviewed and compared the 3 most popular landing page creation tools. There are some other good options you can consider though, and each have their own strengths:
OptimizePress – a landing page WordPress plugin, ideal if you don’t want to pay monthly
LanderApp – one of the lowest cost and better landing page tools to appear recently
KickOffLabs – growing fast and includes unique email marketing and contest features
Wrapping up
That is my expert 2 cents for the best landing page tools. Now over to you – which is your favorite tool for creating landing pages? Please comment below.
Disclaimer: This comparison review contains links that earn referral fees for me. I would appreciate you using these links when you sign up for a trial with any of these tools.