Powerful but Needs Work: My Honest Dropfunnels Review

Sales funnels can make a great deal of money for the right business. ClickFunnels is likely one of the most massive builders that help you transform business ideas into profit. But as a relatively expensive tool, many marketers (understandably) look for alternatives. DropFunnels claims to be one of those alternatives. 

DropFunnels also shares itself to be the alternative of all funnel builders. They encourage you to cancel your WordPress hosting, LeadPages, Kajabi, and other platforms. DropFunnels wants to be your all-in-one marketing tool. 

Bold claims like this aren’t far from the claims of other online marketing tools. So, does DropFunnels live up to the hype, or is it not worth the monthly cost? Find out the honest answer to that question in our DropFunnels review. 

What is DropFunnels?

According to the DropFunnels website, it is an all-in-one marketing tool. This tool is ideal for building a brand website, authority blog, or high-converting sales funnels. You can also use it for course creation, email automation, and hosting. 

Jordan Mederich founded DropFunnels in 2020. Compared to other companies, it’s a lot younger. Despite this, it seems to have skipped the awkward teenage years most sales funnel builders go through.

DropFunnels is built on the WordPress.org platform, but you wouldn’t exactly call it a plugin. While it relies on the power and speed of WordPress hosting, the dashboard for website editing is entirely custom. This means you can’t install any third-party plugins, which might be a bummer for those who like the customization of WordPress. 

Most people in the market for these all-in-one marketing tools see it as an alternative to ClickFunnels 2.0. After all, the names of the two tools are similar; swapping out “Drop” for “Click” doesn’t leave much creativity. 

The main difference between the two is their marketing approach. ClickFunnels relies a lot on Russel Brunson’s marketing style. If you check out our ClickFunnels review, you’ll see how much we talk about the “hype beast” culture centered around ClickFunnels.

That being said, DropFunnels has no problem telling you about the number of people signing up through popups in the bottom-left corner. 

DropFunnels relies heavily on customer stories, which you can read through from the “customer stories” on top. But reviews directly on the website are hardly helpful, which is why we need to dig a little deeper in our review. 

Who is DropFunnels for?

What you’ll find in our review is that DropFunnels is for small to medium-sized businesses. It’s convenient for those in the knowledge industry thanks to its ability to build blogs and online courses. 

DropFunnels is also ideal for businesses currently familiar with the WordPress platform. Given that it’s built using WP, the dashboard has many similarities to WordPress. The difference, of course, is that the builder is geared more toward online marketers. 

Of course, if you currently have a WordPress site and want a plugin, you might check out our OptimizePress review. OptimizePress is a third-party plugin for WordPress, making it a more flexible option. 

For resellers, DropFunnels also offers a solution. Our pricing section will take a quick look at the white-label plan. 

DropFunnels Pros and Cons

DropFunnels Pricing Options

For business owners, DropFunnels has two different plans you can use:

• Starter
• Ultimate

All plans allow you to test the system using a 14-day free trial. So, we recommend you check out the system to see if you like it beforehand. 

For resellers, you also have a white label option. We will review the two plans below:

The Starter Plan

The starter plan is your next level up, starting at $97 per month ($81 per month for yearly plans). As you might expect, you get a few more bonuses:

• Two accounts and custom domains
• Unlimited funnels and steps
• Unlimited membership sites and courses 
• SMS marketing 
• Access to the Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) 
• Unlimited sales pipelines 

The Ultimate Plan

For agencies or entrepreneurs who own multiple businesses, the ultimate plan provides you more access. It costs $299 per month (or $250 per month if you pay annually). Here are the extra features you get:

• Private onboarding 
• Ten accounts, domains, and websites 
• Everything else mentioned so far. 

Those who pay for the ultimate plan will find it comparable to ClickFunnel’s most expensive plan. The difference is you get one more domain through DropFunnels, technically making it a better value. 

The White Label Plan

White label plans start at $997 per month, which includes everything you need if you want to sell funnels to other people without the DropFunnels branding. Reselling is ideal for digital marketers who offer direct service to others. 

The next level up, known as White Glove, is $4997 per month, which offers technical support and training. We won’t be taking a closer look at this tool, but it is good to note them in our review as a business growth opportunity.

Hiring a DropFunnels expert

From the navigation bar on top, you’ll see another link under “experts.” This link allows you to hire someone to develop your funnels for you. 

The pricing behind these experts changes on a case-by-case basis. However, you can get some deep insights by hiring a marketing expert or a specialist in your field. 

Not all of them will help you build your funnels. Most of them can help you develop overall marketing strategies, giving them little affiliation with the platform. Be sure to read the skills they offer before reaching out to them.

Signing up for a DropFunnels account 

Signing up is pretty simple, but you will need to provide a payment card to get started. You’ll also find two separate upsells:

• The Perfect VSL Workshop ($66)
• Jordo’s Four Favorite Funnels ($87)

These are optional but will require an upfront payment if you choose to get them. If you want to skip to the free trial, don’t check these when you click the “start building” button at the bottom of your signup. We won’t be reviewing these resources. 

DropFunnels allows you to schedule an opening customer service call. The short business consultation is ideal if you want a better idea of how to use this platform. If you prefer to skip the talk, you can scroll down and click “login to dashboard.”

Navigating the DropFunnels dashboard

The DashBoard has a pretty present view, breaking down different sections you can go to. The navigation allows you to view funnels, courses, and sales pipelines as you need them. 

The glaring issue when using this dashboard is how they’ve taken up some of the screen with “news and updates.” This is just advertising space to let you know about what they offer. 

The bulk of the screen focuses on numerous bar graphs regarding money. This includes revenue, refunds, and total sold products. Further down, you see traffic and leads, which are also important. 

The upper-right corner has a variety of quick links which let you start creating wherever your priorities are. You’ll find various links like “new funnel” for building something new, making it easy to start. 

To get started, we will look at their big offering: funnels. 

The funnels tab – DropFunnels 

The funnel builder starts with all of your funnels on a single dashboard. The system allows you to search and filter your favorite funnels. So, when you have a high number of funnels, you can find them by name, which is handy. 

For tutorials on how to build funnels, you can click the arrow button next to “add funnel” in the upper-right corner. This tutorial teaches you the basics of funnel building. To help understand the basics, DropFunnels includes a sample funnel you can look at. 

Creating your first marketing or sales funnel

After clicking “new funnel,” you’ll be brought to a screen where you can select between multiple funnel templates. These templates are broken down by purpose (authority page, call booking pages, coming soon pages) and full funnels. 

You also have the option to import ClickFunnels pages. You can do this when moving from one platform to the other. Once you choose a design, import, or pick a complete funnel, you click the “drop it in” button. Once it’s added, you can see the new funnel on your list. 

Editing your funnel steps

With any newly created funnel, you’ll see it on your list. Clicking the edit button (just to the right of “preview”) on that funnel will bring up your funnel flow screen. This “flow” screen lets you see the steps of your funnel, making it easy to customize each page.

Funnel steps bring your potential leads through various pages. For example, if you want to grow your email list, you would start by providing an opt-in form and then thanking them for signing up. For sales pages, you might have the initial sale, and multiple upsells, which is a powerful tool to increase your revenue in marketing. 

Clicking the “edit step” button will bring up the DropFunnels page builder, which we will revisit shortly. You’ll also notice that you can launch split testing. A/B testing, as you might know from our prior reviews, is a powerful way to determine which of your funnels gets the highest conversion rates. 

The funnel management page also has these features:

• Tracking – It lets you add tracking codes in your website’s header or footer.
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – It lets you add the site’s title, meta description, social sharing options, and advanced SEO features. 
• Payment Integration – This allows you to add payment gateway information.
• Stats – This allows you to track results from your funnel (including the sales and leads you generate with the two other tabs). 
• Settings – This allows you to activate or deactivate page headers or footers, add icons and images, and share the funnel with others. 

Using the page-building software

The DropFunnels page-building software is a simple drag-and-drop interface. If you’ve used funnel builders in the past, you won’t find it overwhelming. The full-page experience lets you combine editing and preview views without switching around. 

Hovering your mouse over page elements will show you want you can do. This starts with moving (using the four-arrow icon), which lets you move these page elements in relation to the columns and rows in each section. 

The wrench icon dictates settings, allowing you to adjust each element’s features. You can drag the settings to any part of the page and even maximize the settings window by clicking the square in the upper-right corner. 

Settings 

 The upper-left corner of the screen has a drop-down menu that holds additional settings. Here’s a roundup of what some of those are:

• Responsive editing allows you to check out mobile views and table views (and edit in those views). 
• Revisions and history allow you to see past versions and recent changes for your funnels. 
• Layout CSS & Javascript allows you to add custom code to your funnels. 
• You can adjust global settings in this menu (page margins, column width, etc.)
• The Change UI brightness setting lets you view the menu in dark mode.
• The WordPress Admin setting allows you to adjust general page settings (like the page name), similar to how you would with a standard WordPress site. 

Adding new page features

The upper-right-hand corner has two different breakdowns: the page breakdown and the menu to add new page elements, known as modules. 

The image above shows you what appears after clicking the plus icon. You have a wide range of modules to choose from, broken down into five areas: 

• Sales Modules – Includes modules regarding payments and checkouts (receipts, upsells, checkout pages).
• Basic Modules – Includes some of your more standard modules and acts as a “grab bag” for everything else. (audio, progress bars, opt-in forms, etc.) 
• Design Modules – Focuses on providing visually driven content (Content sliders, icon groups, slideshows, counters, etc.) 
• Business Modules – Provides information to users if you run an actual business (Reviews, testimonials, map data, social buttons, business hours, etc.) 
• Advanced Modules – For those who want an enhanced version of standard items (menus, advanced menus, blog posts, posts slider, etc.) 
• Layouts – Features a combination of rows or design elements, including accordion designs, tables, and tabs. 

There is a vast number of modules to choose from. You can save and access them under the “saved modules” group on the above drop-down menu. 

Just to the right of the modules tab is rows, which lets you set up different page design elements by columns. You can choose between one and six columns and between the left and right sidebars. This covers a wide array of how you might order your modules.

The templates section provides a pre-built combination of these rows and modules. So, there is a healthy amount of customization behind it. However, the drag-and-drop focus isn’t quite as flexible as Unbounce, as you are still stuck to a grid. For most marketers, this won’t be a problem. 

Adding and editing products on DropFunnels

The funnels tab also contains a link to product creation. For most people, this will be your digital products, such as eBooks or audio. You can add these through the “add media” button. 

You can also use this as a lead magnet by checking the “free product” box below. Lead magnets are ideal to encourage visitors to give up their contact details to be added to your list.

Through this page, you can establish several different product conditions. You can make the product online, set a product purchase limit, and allow split payments. You can also use this page to set up reoccurring payments through a subscription.

Overall, there’s a lot of flexibility here. However, you’ll want to use the tutorials, so you have a complete understanding of everything. It’s not always so obvious.

Creating popups using DropFunnels

The popup creation tool is identical to the site-building tool we’ve already reviewed. You get access to all the same editing tools and modules, letting you create a site within a site. The difference is that it starts you off with a blank page, as you can see above.

Click the “add new” button in the upper-right corner to get started. From there, you’ll reach a popup dashboard that lets you publish, add a category for sorting purposes, and set a featured image. 

The popup creation process is simple, although the dashboard is very underpopulated. It could do with some extra content. 

Creating lead quizzes on DropFunnels

Quizzes are a gamified way to push people through your marketing funnels. You can also use this page to create quizzes for your online courses. Gathering information about your prospects, this can be an effective tool. 

The quiz-building tool gives you a single-question slider or a full suite of questions. The single question is ideal for marketing purposes, while the full question quizzes are ideal for building complete examinations. 

The quiz tool allows you to choose between single choice, multiple choice, or text-based answers. Passing this quiz can result in the next step of the funnel or a point-based result. You can also set up email confirmations to send people the quiz results. 

To create a quality platform for your online course, quizzes can help. However, Kajabi’s platform for quiz creation is more accessible and design-friendly. This quiz creation tool isn’t broken, but it lacks the same level of polish you get from other platforms. 

Setting up your funnels to take payments

DropFunnels supports more payment gateways than the average funnel-building software. While most only support Stripe and PayPal, you get more here. Below is the complete list:

• Stripe
• PayPal
• NMI (Network Merchants LLC)
• Authorize.net
• CoinPayments (still in beta)

For those living in smaller countries, the extra options provide more flexibility. While Stripe and PayPal work in most locations, the additional gateways can help fill the gap. 

DropFunnels is also one of the only page builders that lets you take cryptocurrency payments. As an online platform, this makes them unique compared to other companies. Not many are willing to accept payments from this source, given the uncertainty of value. 

Funnel tracking features 

Tracking features come from three different areas: Global Sales, Global Leads, and the Link Tracker. The sales section breaks down your earnings and orders and how much revenue. Meanwhile, the leads section lets you see your visitor to conversion rate. 

The link tracker lets you set up link-based redirections between different URLs. For example, if you still have an old funnel that people frequent, you can direct them to the new version. You can also use this page to track where people are coming from.

With this in mind, this is the last section under the funnels tab. Overall, building funnels is pretty simple, offering some powerful tools for visualization and understanding. 

With this in mind, DropFunnels doesn’t hide its inspirations. If you are familiar with ClickFunnels, you’ll have no problem with DropFunnels. 

Even if you don’t have experience with funnel builders, it isn’t hard to grasp. There’s a lot to absorb, so take your time and try not to get overwhelmed. 

Using the DropFunnels course building software 

The second menu below your funnels is your courses. Adding course-building software puts it in direct competition with Kajabi. But is it a good alternative? 

To understand the answer to this question, we start by creating a new course. The course is broken down into modules and units. Courses contain units, and units contain modules, while modules contain lessons. The on-site training videos will show you how this works. 

Knowing this, units and modules are ways you can sort your course. It also helps you to set up walls, requiring people to take quizzes before progressing. 

When you create a new lesson, it pulls up the familiar landing page building software. The software assumes you will make a video-based course, which you can see below:

The same modules and editing features from the standard page builder are there. So, if you want to create a text-based course or include a transcript, you can. You can also have the course transcript as a downloadable PDF or under an accordion menu. 

To sell the course using your sales funnels, you’ll need to connect a course to one of your products, which you can do under the course settings menu. Next, you’ll want to join that product to your funnel.

Next, you’ll want to provide your customer with an email link to your course. Most of this is done for you, which you can find under the “email settings” section. The system uses email coding features and will generate usernames and passwords for you. 

The second menu option, “course quizzes,” is identical to the quiz function above. So with this in mind, it’s easy to start using the course-building software. The onboard training materials can help you out here. 

Building a sales pipeline inside of DropFunnels 

The pipeline tab is in the middle of the left-hand navigation bar. Here, you can put down your process for transforming leads into customers. For example, you might have someone go from new lead, to qualified lead, to new customer. 

At the bottom of each stage, you can click a plus icon that lets you manually add leads. Click the “add new stage” button in the upper-right corner to add more stages. This is where the limited Customer Relationship Management system is. 

The bad news behind this system is that the information you can put down is bare bones. However, you can add custom notes on each lead once you start the conversation with them, supplementing this a bit. 

The one thing that I appreciate about this pipeline feature is the ability to open a chat with each person. The chat will allow you to communicate directly with these leads. Typically, it sends them an SMS message.

The gears in the upper-right corner of each pipeline stage also let you create sequences. These sequences will automatically send them SMS or email messages. This way, you can affect the buying experience by providing them with a direct link to a product or asking them to schedule a meeting with you. 

Despite having a simple CRM, the sales pipeline automation features are simple and powerful. The trade-off isn’t bad, as you can still make effective sales with this platform. 

Building a complete website using DropFunnels

When building a full website, you can see the WordPress inspiration. Above is an image of what you see when you add a new page to your website. Those familiar with using WordPress will find some familiarity here. 

Because DropFunnels seeks to be an all-in-one solution for your online marketing, having a full website is a good backup. Some customers may prefer the more detailed research and information process that comes from reviewing your website. 

Also, it uses the same page builder, making this a consistently handy feature. Once you understand how to build one thing, you can build anything using DropFunnels.

The one unique page you get here is the blog archive, which we will revisit shortly.

From this element, you can also create multiple menus. The menus tab allows you to add different navigational drop-down menus. You’ll typically see these as website headers linking to various pages on your site. 

Creating blog posts on your website

Those familiar with WordPress’s blog publishing page will also find familiar territory. The only issue with this is you can’t take advantage of Yoast or other blog-improving plugins. Instead, you can only use integrations that work with DropFunnels.

That being said, all of your standard blog editing features are here. This includes google snippet previews, adding tags, and modifying blog templates. 

DropFunnels has its own content analysis features, suggesting improvements based on social tags, keyword density, and word count. This is similar to Yoast, providing you with an alternative. The only problem is you have to scroll down to see this analysis page. 

You’ll also notice from the above image is the replaced text editor. Instead of the standard blog text box, you get a link to open up the DropFunnels editor. On the one hand, it allows you to create dynamic and engaging blogs with interesting page elements. On the other hand, it is an unusual choice if you like to focus on writing. 

Later areas of the blog tab allow you to sort by categories, filter through visitor comments, and limit what comments appear based on various options. 

It integrates with Akismet anti-spam, which is WordPress’s preferred option for automatically filtering through spam comments. Setting up an account through them will require you to pay extra. 

The SEO features of your new website

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, lets you get found on Google by making a website that appeals to them. There are several SEO best practices to follow, which DropFunnels tries to integrate through its SEO tab. 

The first section allows you to set up website analytics. Connecting your Google ads account, adding a Google tracking ID, and adding additional tracking codes (like through Facebook Pixel) is something you can do here. 

Meanwhile, the titles and metas section allows you to edit page titles and meta descriptions on each of your pages. When people find you on Google, this encourages them to click. 

You can also set up your XML sitemap and 404 settings from this page. Having a custom 404 and an established sitemap helps direct Google on where to go on your website. This improves your technical SEO, which boosts your site rankings.

Remaining areas under your navigational tab

The remaining sections under the navigation tab have pretty simple features. Below is a quick review of what they do:

• Assets – This lets you manage your images, videos, or other uploaded digital assets for use on the site
• Settings – This allows you to adjust various site settings, get a custom domain, set up SMS, and establish SMTP settings. 
• Appearance – Lets you access saved templates for reuse on other parts of your funnels or websites.
• Account – Lets you adjust various general account settings.

DropFunnels integrations

Under settings is where you will find your various integrations. There are fewer integrations than the average funnel builder. They tend to fall into one of two categories:

• SMS autoresponders (Twilo)
• Email autoresponders (Sendinblue and Sendgrid)

This supplement’s DropFunnel’s biggest weakness: the lack of email marketing features. While you can set up a sequence to reply to them, you’ll need to use one of these third-party systems to get started. 

DropFunnels could benefit from an integration with SEMRush. Given the relative newness of the software, there is a chance for further integrations. 

DropFunnels user review – what do other people say about it?

Based on the review, you might think that DropFunnels has the same clout as some of the other sales funnel builders. However, its relative newness means it has less use. To see this in action, Captera has given it a 4.5 based on a whopping 12 reviews.

On the positive side, most people say it’s simple and easy to use. So is ClickFunnels, which is what the software is based on. It’s also simple to build a course but not as easy to create an entire website.

Some customers have explained how frustrating it is to redo work. Given the fairly new age of the software, there is a higher likelihood of stability issues. Several reviews mention how they tried it out because it was cheaper. 

Despite having cheaper pricing plans, most customers don’t see DropFunnels as inferior. It is still pretty easy to use, especially given it’s still in the early stages.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Wrap up – is DropFunnels worth your money?

DropFunnels positions itself as the ClickFunnels killer. It also encourages you to cancel all of your other site builders. But is it worth the extra hype that comes with being an “everything alternative?”

The short answer: it’s really powerful. But it needs some work. 

It’s funnel-building- software is an easy alternative to ClickFunnels. Its entry-level pricing is cheaper, and you can build a healthy number of funnels without issues. As a replacement, it does an incredible job, especially given its limited experience in the field. 

Conversely, DropFunnels might have skipped through a lot of the awkward teenage phase, but it is still an awkward young adult. This means that several features, like the quiz and website building, need some serious refinement. Customers might struggle with the WordPress-driven system, as it is overly complex. 

Despite having a higher learning curve, there’s a lot to love about DropFunnels. If you are looking for an inexpensive alternative to your current site builder, DropFunnels has you covered. Check out the free trial today to see if you like it.