When you look for landing page and funnel builders that integrate with current site builders, they almost always target WordPress. But what if I told you there was at least one funnel builder you could integrate directly into your cPanel dashboard?
Cloud Funnels is the exception to this rule, as it integrates directly with your existing website host. This means you don’t have to pay any additional website builders. Because of this, Cloud Funnels refers to itself as the WordPress of funnel builders.
So, is Cloud Funnels as good as having a WordPress account? You can find out in our detailed review.
What is Cloud Funnels?
Cloud Funnels (sometimes called CloudFunnels) is a relatively new funnel-building tool created by Cyril Jeet Gupta. Cloud Funnels is a website-building tool that requires cPanel hosting that was only made a few years ago. This makes it younger than most of the other tools on our list.
Still, Cloud Funnels has gone through a few updates (at least enough to create Cloud Funnels 2). Although, we couldn’t say what the improvements were because we weren’t part of the launch two years ago.
Cyril Gupta is the CEO behind Teknikforce, a company based in the United Arab Emirates known for its massive number of marketing tools. He also runs a digital marketing school YouTube channel. The company is also relatively young, as it was founded in 2018.
Cloud Funnels is still very much an in-development product. Think of GrooveFunnels, but in an even earlier stage. This doesn’t necessarily mean it has the same rawness as GrooveFunnels, but we’ll take a closer look throughout our review.
Who is Cloud Funnels best for?
Cloud Funnels is best for solopreneurs who are willing to take a risk to save some money. Because the funnel is very early, there’s no guarantee of longevity. As a result, investing at this stage can result in huge profits later.
However, you also have a chance to lose your money completely. While there is work being put into the platform, there’s a chance that this project could fail.
You can find a lifetime deal to save money later in the article. But terms can change over time as new features are introduced.
Cloud Funnels has to outgrow many pains before becoming a helpful platform. However, it does have some neat features worth discussing.
CloudFunnels Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 30-Day Money Back Guarantee | Newness of Product Poses Potential Risk |
| Very Affordable | Installation Can Be Tedious |
| Can Install Across Multiple Domains | Hosting Not Included |
| Easy to Navigate | Unprofessional Looking Funnel Page |
| Grid-based & Freeform Editors | Few Templates Available |
| Create Membership Sites | Higher Learning Curve |
| Create Online Products | Product Management Requires Extra Effort |
| Storable Multimedia Assets | No Design Features on Autoresponder |
| Simple Email Autoresponder | Basic Email Marketing System |
| Shop Marketplace for Plugins | |
| Set User Accounts/Permissions | |
| Built-in GDPR Compliance Settings |
Cloud Funnels pricing and plans
There are two plans that Cloud Funnels lets you choose from, the Pro and Elite plans. In both cases, the price of these products is generally cheaper than the alternatives.
There are no free trials with this tool, but you get a 30-day money-back guarantee if you don’t like the software. But, there is one way you can double your days in a later pricing option.
Cloud Funnels Elite Plan
You start with a pretty affordable price at either $19 per month or $67 per year (renews to $47 per month or $197 annually). If you choose to pay either of these amounts, you get these features:
- More than 30 website templates
- Support from two to ten domains
- A/B testing features
- A membership site builder
- Support for 17 payment gateways
- Integrations with Zapier, Facebook Pixel, and Google.
Paying for a year upfront will get you access to more domains.
Cloud funnels Pro upgrade
The pro upgrade costs $27 per month or $97 per year. This upgrade provides you with some notable features for what is an extra $30.
- Unlimited domains
- Autoresponder access
- Removal of Cloud Funnels branding
- Two years of free plugins
- 50 funnel ideas
Of course, if you want to save a bit more money, you have a third option. At the time of this article being written, there is a limited-time Appsumo deal.
The Cloud Funnels Appsumo deal
Cloud Funnels is still trying to get its name out as a young product. In an attempt to support this, it has an LTD with lifetime support. This is a one-time price of $99 for a lifetime version of the pro plan. This is a relatively high front-end price for a more affordable price in the long term.
AppSumo also has a more generous money-back guarantee for its customers, offering up to 60 days.
Now, remember that by “lifetime,” they mean the product’s lifetime, not yours. While you have an excellent chance to save a lot of money. If the product fails, consider it a lost investment.
Still, even if you miss the deal, it doesn’t cost all that much to pay for. But, there are some additional costs to address.
Hosting costs and Cloud Funnels
A big part of how Cloud Funnels can keep costs low comes from hosting. While other companies tend to offer a complete solution, Cloud Funnels provides the tool. You still have to pay for the hosting yourself.
At an entry-level approach, hosting can cost no more than a few dollars per month. But Cloud Funnels partners with Three For One Hosting to provide you with some discounts.
But, since I already had a host through Hostinger, I decided to pass on this offer. You can install Cloud Funnels on any Linux server. We reference a tutorial later in the article you can use.
CloudFunnels.in or CloudFunnels.co?
A quick Google search will reveal two forms of Cloud Funnels: one ending in “co” and another ending in “in.” Both have the same name, but we will discuss the one ending in “in.” The “co” variant is not associated with Teknikforce and has no details on where it comes from.
Creating your account
To create your account, you’ll want to go to cloudfunnels.in and click the “buy now” button. This leads you to another website, yournextfunnel.in.
From here, you’ll see an old-fashioned funnel site.
Scrolling down, you’ll find a button that leads you to the bottom of the page with two massive “buy now” buttons for your choice of plans. Then, you see a product illustration.
I mention this whole process because it feels like Cloud Funnels was created with care given the detail to the graphics. Does this mean that the rest of the software matches up? I wanted to find out.
Installing Cloud Funnels on your website
Once you get through registration, you get to the Cloud Funnels account dashboard. But to access the actual product, you’ll need to install it on your server.
If you choose to host with Cloud Funnels, use the cPanel one-click install, or hire them for a DFY (done for you) installation, the process is easy. Unfortunately, I don’t pay for cPanel hosting; I pay for WordPress hosting through Hostinger.
In this case, you can follow the manual installation process. You can find the files on the account dashboard with the steps for installation just below.
You can follow this process (generally) with WP shared hosting. You have to set up blank server and skip the WordPress installation process. Remember that when you provide the hostname in the tutorial, you’ll need to be sure it starts with “u” and set up numbers, ending in “cfinstallation.”
No other funnel-building platforms require this because potential customers prefer no-effort funnels. When you need to install the funnel before using it, it removes some of how easy it is.
As someone who has never done this before, I can say the process is doable. But then again, I’ve spent much of my life surrounded by technology. Anyone not in my shoes might struggle.
That being said, I had to revisit this a couple of times to get this to work. There are multiple tutorials, and they have contradicting information. This is why they offer to do it for you for $70.
Getting started with Cloud Funnels
You know you’ve done it right when you see a screen like this:
The first arrival is a night and day difference regarding professional appearance. The Cloud Funnels dashboard is an excellent departure from what we just saw.
To get started, you have three types of funnels: webinar, membership, and sales funnels. Because creating sales and webinar funnels are identical, we will begin with those two.
Creating a sales funnel or webinar funnel
After naming your first sales funnel, you’ll be brought to the dashboard page, where you can choose between starting from scratch or choosing from templates. These steps apply to both webinars and sales funnels.
Similar to ClickFunnels, you find it starts building funnels with multiple steps. The default page options focus on multi-page funnels. You can create unlimited funnels, but please keep in mind your host provider’s limitations.
To add new funnels, you can click “new page.” To switch between funnels, you can click on each title. So, this is more than just creating a single landing page (which you can also do). As sales funnel software, Cloud Funnels is very simple.
Bear in mind that you only have one URL to work with. So there’s no place to add secondary domains. If you want more than one domain, you’ll need to install it there. The more sites you have, the more work you’ll need to put into installation.
Of course, your first step is to choose from one of the many page templates. Thankfully, these are more advanced templates than what you saw on the purchase website.
Using the funnel-building software
After everything I’ve seen up to this point, I didn’t expect much of the builder. But I have to say. This is a pretty solid tool. Below, you’ll find out more about how to use this as a business website builder.
Navigation of the page builder
The left side of your screen holds all of your general components. This includes buttons, grid rows, button groups, and toolbars. You also have more advanced features such as PayPal links, charts, videos, and Instagram links. Of course, there’s a slot for custom HTML.
In the upper-left corner, you can control when you see the left and right sidebars. This lets you control what you see on the two screens, which is a nice feature. You also have undo/redo, designer mode (this is important), preview, fullscreen, save, download, and view buttons.
The right side contains the general elements of whatever you’ve clicked on. When you first start, this will be your page elements, but it also refers to the style elements of whatever page component you’ve clicked on.
Adding and page components
Whether you want to design landing pages with ultimate control or grid systems, you can do both using this tool. Designer mode, the hand up-top, lets you switch between the two modes. Other page builders do not offer this, but it provides a great combination of creativity and structure.
To move any components, you can use the four arrows you find after clicking them. To the right of that, you can select the parent component, move it up or down a layer, copy it, or delete it. How you move is dictated by the mode you are in.
Much like other builders, the way you add components is to drag them on the page. Where they end up depends on the grids and columns. You can also put it anywhere if you switch to designer mode. Adding them to a grid can be helpful if you want them to stay grouped.
There are fewer website components than other builders. This is mainly because of the newness of the builder. Still, there is enough to create a solid page. You also have a few advanced features, such as local map data.
If you prefer a bit less view, you can switch to the “blocks” menu, which includes a few preset page chunks. These include default pages like portfolio layouts, FAQ pages, and testimonial pages. Much like components, you’ll find fewer than average here.
Editing page components
The right side of the screen holds all of your editing options. It’s a little bit weird compared to most builders. Let me explain why.
First, you can edit everything using the same elements as everything else. This means your buttons, forms, and text have the same editing options.
This open editing feature means you can turn your text and input buttons into clickable links and even see the form editing options on your text. This means you can create weird effects, like changing your text boxes into links.
You’ll also find that you’ll need the tutorial to find out what each of these does. Things like CF loops, input names, and classes don’t make sense to regular people. Thankfully, they have a YouTube tutorial to bring you through the process.
Despite some weirdness, the way to link these funnels isn’t automatic. Instead, you need to insert the custom URLs from those under the auto-linking tab.
This means you’ll have to put in more work to be sure the buttons do what you want them to do. When comparing this to ClickFunnels, everything is automatically connected. Creating multi-stage funnels is easier on other platforms.
Creating membership pages
To create membership pages, you use the same page-building tool. But because some of your pages are restricted, you need to put extra effort into what pages people can access.
The good news about membership pages is that registration and password management is out of your hands. The no-code website building focus means you can run an online business built on a membership site with no issue.
However, you will need to build an email system that sends these passwords out. They also offer a tool for this under the email marketin tab found lower.
Memberships don’t always limit themselves to course content. You can also use these pages to host and sell digital products.
Creating online products
The product creator is a simple tool that’s easy to understand. By filling out the information above, you’ll be able to add products to your funnels.
In ending your pages, you can see these referred to as OTO links. These OTO links are internal links that lead customers to a page that holds the product.
If you want to create higher-value products, you can also follow the same creation process to add additional products. These include sub-products (like if you’re going to sell packages vs. individual) and optional products (for upsells).
When people go through your payment portal, you can use your membership site as an order download screen. This can also be used to sell online courses.
The process for building these front-end products is simple but not powerful. Cloud Funnels provides little to no support for product management. You can track your current product sales, but connecting the product to a specific page for download or online access will be up to you.
Using the email marketing platform
The email marketing tool is broken down into five sections:
- Email lists
- Compose email
- Email sequences
- Mailing history
- SMTPs
The “lists” section refers to everyone in your contact list. Unlike your other pages and their data, this information is limited to their email and subscriber name. There’s also a section for custom data. The email list system could use some extra features.
The compose mail section refers to your email broadcast system. This text-only editor is less powerful than designers through Convertkit or Sendinblue. However, those who send text-based emails will find this helpful.
In creating mail sequences, this is where your email auto-responder comes in handy. This lets you select your email list, the day delay you send the email, and use the standard builder.
The last area to look at is the SMTP settings. This lets you connect your email address for auto sending, something you’ll need to do to receive email responses or set up your autoresponder.
What might be nice here is to include the site builder as a feature of your email-building tool. Sticking to a text-based system limits your ability to engage customers.
Your ability to sort through email lists is also limited. With no tags, segmenting your email list is more challenging. One way to get around this is to create a new list for each subscriber type, which takes more effort and limits your email segmentation.
The email marketing tool found here is very basic. It gets the job done, but it isn’t ideal for those who demand power from their email marketing software.
Adding plugins to your website with the marketplace
The Cloud Funnels Marketplace is a surprising treasure trove of plugins for digital marketers. You’ll find many website integrations and optional page features in the marketplace.
Some optional marketplace features include a popup feature, a “proof of convert” popup, and several payment platforms. When installing any of the free plugins, they will appear on the left-hand side.
If you don’t like the editor design, you can swap it out for an easy editor. The easy editor plugin is a bit more engaging. But since the editor is in beta, it doesn’t let you change how the buttons perform (you still need the old editor for that).
Despite some minor quirks between these plugins, they add more power to the marketing tool. Overall, if you want to make your website more engaging, there’s much to love here.
Settings and other features
Settings cover a wide range of things you can change below.
The general settings on top let you change various features. These include checking your version, force loading HTTPS, and disabling a page preview for performance reasons.
You can change store settings to send notifications whenever you sell a product. You can also set up automated product confirmation emails.
The membership settings let you change a few cancellation features. However, it’s mostly for settings on what you send when members request to reset their password. You also have general error messages for member pages near the end.
You also have the 404 pages setup, which lets you create a custom 404 (which is excellent for SEO purposes).
The other two setting pages let you create user accounts. Because Cloud Funnels doesn’t have to handle the hosting, you have unlimited user accounts (as long as your server can take it). When creating the accounts, you can also set user permissions to only access specific areas.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Is CloudFunnels a good option for small businesses?
CloudFunnels is a good option for small businesses looking to create and manage their own sales funnels and marketing campaigns. It offers a range of features and integrations to help businesses promote and sell their products and services.
Can I use CloudFunnels for affiliate marketing?
Yes, CloudFunnels allows you to set up and manage affiliate programs for your products and services.
What types of funnels can I create with CloudFunnels?
CloudFunnels allows you to create a variety of funnels, including sales funnels, lead funnels, webinar funnels, and more.
Is Cloud Funnels worth your money?
Because of the newness of Cloud Funnels, it is hard to determine whether it’s worth your investment. However, that investment is still pretty low, as you pay far less than other funnel-building software.
Cloud Funnels is worth the money if you are willing to gamble a bit. It’s even more worth the money if you get their lifetime deal through Appsumo. But, in its current form, anyone with a budget should likely look elsewhere.
Experienced marketers can find better solutions through other, more refined platforms. Cloud Funnels is only two years old and is going through significant transitions. You might consider it an “early access product” for site building.
The site builder is pretty powerful but has some quirks. Because of this, I had to look at the tutorial during my ease-of-use testing (something I don’t generally do, as it forces me to understand what I’m looking at). So, if you are willing to put in the work and gamble a bit, you might find something amazing in a few years.
With this in mind, give it a shot if you can get the deal and have some money lying around.
