Unveiling the Truth: My Honest LeadPages Review

 If you have huge business goals and a limited budget, you aren’t alone. But paying hundreds of dollars a month for a landing page builder might not be an option, at least, until you start making money. But Leadpages is one potential solution to your budgetary woes. 

That being said, being the cheap alternative isn’t always the best. Being the “Wish.com” of landing pages isn’t exactly a badge of honor. So, in this Leadpages review, we are going to take a closer look at the platform and let you know whether this builder is worth your time. 

What is Leadpages?

 Leadpages is a landing page developing company owned by Redbrick, which was founded in 2011. In 2019, the company exceeded $100 million in revenue, thanks to Leadpages (alongside their other properties, like Shift).

Leadpages itself was founded in 2012 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Unlike other companies, there’s no heartwarming story about surviving on ramen or baloney sandwiches in college (see Unbounce). Instead, Leadpages likes to focus on what it offers. 

Who is Leadpages best for? 

 Because of its pricing and plans, Leadpages is ideal for entry-level businesses. Namely, small businesses and solopreneurs who can’t afford more expensive alternatives. As a result, you might sacrifice some features you are familiar with from our other page builder reviews. 

That’s not to say that Leadpages is a total waste, as there are a lot of positive sides to choosing Leadpages. To find out why you should consider them, keep reading. 

Leadpages pros and cons

Leadpages pricing – how much does it cost?

As we’ve said before, Leadpages is generally less expensive than other page providers. The closest alternative in price is the entry-level plans of SEMRush or Sendinblue. You’ll also find that there are fewer plans available, as there are a total of three options:

• Standard
• Pro
• Advanced 

The Standard and Pro options offer a free 14-day trial to give the system a shot. The Advanced option is for enterprise-level clients, so you won’t see a free trial. 

The Standard Subscription

The standard plan starts at $49 per month (or $37 per month if you pay annually). The most considerable note of this standard offering is access to unlimited traffic and leads. This differs heavily from other companies, which typically limit your access by traffic or conversions. 

Below are some additional features you get:

• One site 
• A free custom domain and hosting 
• Access to all mobile-responsive templates 
• Chat and email tech support 
• More than 40 standard integrations 
• One-on-one quick start call

The Pro Subscription 

 The Pro Plan is the more expensive of the two plans, starting at $99 per month (or $74 per month if you pay yearly). Below are the additional features you get for paying the higher rate:

• Three sites 
• Phone tech report (alongside chat and email)
• Access to online sales and payments
• Unlimited A/B split testing features 

The two big reasons to pay for the pro plan include direct online sales and A/B testing. Variant testing is a significant requirement for landing pages, often helping online marketers decide what works best with proven data. 

The Advanced Subscription

Going with the Advanced option is for larger businesses. This phase gives you access to one master account and five sub-accounts, each with pro-level features. You also get more advanced integrations with well-known programs like Infusionsoft, Marketo, SalesForce, and HubSpot. 

Because this is intended for enterprise customers, we won’t be looking at this plan. 

Leadpages features – how does it work?

When you first create an account on Leadpages, you’ll be brought to the above dashboard, getting you through the steps to set up your account. 

The first thing you might notice when booting up your account is getting a one-on-one setup call. You’ll appreciate the extra customer service if you prefer a guided onboarding process. You can also choose to skip the onboarding call if you prefer. 

Creating your first landing page 

After the dashboard, the first tab on your navigation bar is “landing pages.” Clicking either of the page creation buttons onscreen will bring you to a list of landing page templates. 

Like other landing page creators, you can sort by various uses, styles, industries, and colors. If you’ve read other reviews, you might have heard that the default landing page designs are somewhat weak. However, the templates we saw were pretty solid. 

Using the professional landing page builder

If you want to create high-converting landing pages, Leadpages is a simple tool. From the image above, you can see a pretty simple editor. The editor is similar to the smart page builder from Unbounce. 

Like other builders, you can hover your mouse over existing elements to edit them. When you click on those elements, a popup appears in any open space. 

It is an incredibly beautiful landing page builder that focuses on simplicity. While some builders might get overwhelming, Leadpages doesn’t do this. Instead, it’s a builder that makes you feel like you can go at your own pace. 

The problem with it being simple is that it is too simple. A Leadpages page has limited customization options when looking at a few others, such as Clickfunnels. 

Navigating the landing page builder

The left side of the navigation bar gives you five options to choose from:

• Layout – This lets you browse different sections that contain the images and text you insert into the editor. You can also use this page to add new sections.
• Sections – This navigation link allows you to add new, pre-made sections with their text, video, and image combinations.
• Widgets – This link includes the individual content pieces you can add (text, images, lines, spaces, etc.). 
• Styles – This link allows you to change the overall styles of your buttons, fonts, and backgrounds. You can also use this link to insert custom CSS styles. 
• Settings – Allows you to modify SEO (search engine optimization) settings like titles and meta descriptions. You can also set the language, preview how social shares will look, and add a Google Analytics tracking ID. 

You’ll also find a button to preview or publish your work in the upper-right corner. Finally, there’s a button to request expert feedback. This feedback is part of your plan and doesn’t cost extra, but it can take them a few business days to respond. 

Adding new sections and advanced customizations

As said before, building landing pages is incredibly simple. This simplicity also applies to adding new sections and customizing them. 

To start, adding new sections is just a matter of clicking, which adds it to the bottom. To add them between existing sections, you can click and drag them. 

“Widgets,” their unique name for content types, are added based on where existing content currently is. When dragging a new text box onto your section, drag them onto existing content chunks. From there, you’ll see a box pop up on all four sides, allowing you to place the content around existing content. 

Despite this being a great way to make awesome landing pages, one inherent weakness of using the editor is the lack of video. While other landing page platforms like Clickfunnels and Unbounce allow you to add videos, Leadpages doesn’t allow this. This can weaken your ability to create effective landing pages, especially if you rely on video-based content. 

Adding buttons and forms

In their focus on simplicity, clicking buttons allow you to do a variety of things. These include opening popups (which you can make elsewhere), opening your scheduling software (Calendly), and jumping to another page section. 

Because buttons often lead to conversions, there’s a decent bit of power here. The one thing we are missing is direct purchases, which require you to pay for the Pro features. 

Leadpages also allows you to develop both built-in forms and popup forms. When setting up forms, you can integrate the data to go to third-party customer relationship managers (CRMs). You can also send the form data directly to your or a team member’s email. Lastly, the data you get is added to the “lead list,” found back on your dashboard. 

This reveals you have limited form options, with a handful of fields related to contact information and comments. Thankfully, you can create custom fields using “comments,” adding a bit of flexibility. 

For business owners who use this data regularly (coaches, consultants), these types of lead pages can be handy. You can also add a lead magnet to this button, which will send them a free eBook, PDF, or audiobook in exchange for the form information. As a way to gather people’s email addresses, Leadpages can be an excellent way to connect with your target audience. 

Advanced features – creating an entire website with Leadpages

One of the more unique features of Leadpages is its ability to create an entire website. The website builder is identical to the landing page platform, with an extra navigation element that lets you switch between different pages. 

The pages tab also lets you edit what appears on your website’s navigation bar. 

The actual building experience of using this is painfully simple. Of course, you’ll need to put in extra effort to be sure your website looks unique. 

This is where we want to draw attention to something of an afterthought: the mobile version viewer. You can preview how your page looks in mobile browsers by clicking the “preview” button in the upper right. However, you can’t edit the mobile version of your website individually.

If you want to make precise edits in a mobile view, you can’t. You have to hope that the desktop version converts correctly for mobile screens. Thankfully, the system is pretty responsive, using Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) for development. Still, Leadpages is not for picky designers who want to make specific browsing experiences. 

Creating popups and alert bars

Leadpages allow you to create popups that you can apply to their sites and landing pages. These popups can show up after a delayed timer or after clicking a button. 

The popup builder follows the same format as the website and landing page builder. So, to avoid redundancy, we won’t be discussing how easy Leadpages is to use for the third time. 

As a conversion tool, popups are a great addition to your website. The right popup can turn a visitor into a buyer at the right time. However, not every business owner wants to put popups on their website, which might impact the user experience.

 Your alternative version of popups is alert bars (or sticky bars). If you’ve read our Unbounce review, you already know that these bars are at the top and bottom of a site. Like popups, they can boost your conversion rate by giving you more email addresses or making people aware of promotions.

Like all other site-building tools here, you’ll find some easy customizations. Your layout will allow you to get emails, open up your calendar to schedule a meeting, or link to another URL/landing page. 

Leadpages might be overly simple, but focusing on that simplicity means you can get a robust set of conversion tools within minutes. The learning curve is almost nonexistent, making it a pretty easy tool to get your hands on. 

Adding your brand details

Just below the “leads” tab (your contact list), you’ll find a section for brands. Here, you can set your brand colors and upload custom fonts. Given this gets a whole section of the dashboard’s navigation bar, I expected more. 

An additional option Leadpages might want to consider here is uploading logos. Perhaps the brand color gatherer can use the color data from that logo to help you set colors (similar to other logo-building software). Adding custom fonts is a neat feature, but most business owners won’t use this navigation tab.

You could just as easily move this under general settings. So the wasted spaces make it a bit of an odd addition to the dashboard. 

The navigation bar below “brand” allows you to upload images. If you have a designer on staff, having a way to upload pictures easily isn’t a bad thing. In this case, having your images be easily accessible makes some sense. 

Adding and creating lead magnets 

Lead magnets are the “bread and butter” of how you convince people to perform a task. For example, if you want more webinar registrations, give them an “ultimate checklist,” providing them with how to master digital marketing in your business niche. 

Leadpages understands how vital these magnets are, so they’ve devoted a whole tab to them. From this tab, you get the option to click “create a new lead magnet.” 

From there, you are given the option to fill out a form that includes the sender’s (your) name, email, and the subject line that comes with the magnet. You can also choose to have your lead magnet link to an external URL or upload a file directly. Below, you can fill out a message that people will receive alongside the magnet. 

The message box you see if you scroll down is someone simple. This draws attention to a significant weakness of Leadpages: the lack of an all-in-one marketing tool. There are no email editor, marketer, or automation tools. 

For those who can use those tools in their marketing (most business owners), you’ll have to use another service. This adds to your expenses, which Leadpages can justify, given their lower-than-average pricing. 

LeadPages Integrations & User Reviews

To supplement some of their more lacking features, Leadpages has many integrations. These include email marketing integrations like Mailchimp. 

Because the list above includes all of their native integrations, you don’t have to pay for another automation platform to get them to work. Instead, you just have to connect your account, leading to a complete package. 

Many of the integrations you see above also supplement the total lack of CRM features. Both HubSpot and Kajabi allow you to add more customer data. 

Most integrations you see under this tab require you to have a Zapier membership. For example, if you want to use GoToWebinar to set up one-on-one coaching, you’ll need Zapier automation between you and Leadpages to get that done. 

Many companies rely on Zapier’s integration features, so this isn’t new. Again, the need to rely on third-party applications will be clear if you want to create a complete marketing strategy. 

Adding custom domains and free hosting

The last tab on your navigation bar refers to your ability to create a custom domain. Alongside the ability to connect your existing domains, Leadpages will be handing hosting for you as part of its monthly package. 

Under the less expensive plan, you get access to a single site. This is more than enough for most businesses to manage their customer base. However, you can add two extra sites for a pretty reasonable upcharge. 

If you want to purchase a domain, you won’t be able to use Leadpages. Instead, you might use another platform like GoDaddy or Namecheap. However, the included hosting does make this a pretty good deal. 

Adding new users and managing a team

Leadpages allows you to create sub-accounts that connect other users to your account. This is a great feature, but there’s a problem: you can only do this by paying for the most expensive plan: the advanced subscription. 

This means that those who manage a large team will need to reach out to sales to get access to sub-accounts. So you will need to pay several hundred dollars to provide this access to other users. 

Leadpages is not as ideal for businesses with more than one lead generation manager. However, if you are hiring multiple marketing specialists, you should have more than enough budget to justify the extra cost. 

Leadpages customer service review – what do its users say? 

Out of more than 300 reviews, Leadpages has 4.6 out of 5 stars. This puts it in the “excellent” category, on par with top-tier page builders we’ve reviewed in the past. 

Looking at G2 yields similar results, showing ratings of 4.2 out of 5 stars. This means that customers who use it love it. There are not as many people who are upset with it. 

Most people talk about how easy it is to use and how it exceeds expectations. Those with little to no marketing knowledge can start with this tool tomorrow. The company also has a solid knowledge base to supplement those who want to know more. 

However, that’s not to say there are no issues with Leadpages. 

The big one comes down to its lack of advanced functionality. For example, we mention how easy making a one-time form submission is. However, if you look for automated features that send people to specific landing pages based on logic, you won’t get that through Leadpages. 

Customer service seems pretty solid overall, with Leadpages being responsive to positive and negative reviews. So overall, Leadpages has done a pretty good job.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Wrap up – is Leadpages worth your money? 

The answer to the “is it worth your money” question depends on what you are looking for. 

Overall, Leadpages is incredibly simple. There is almost no learning curve, making it ideal for those who don’t want to worry about automation or email. If you are looking for a straightforward landing page builder, Leadpages is an incredible option. 

But there is such a thing as too easy. 

Leadpages has no advanced features that include email automation, advanced site building, or responses to how customers behave. As a result, you’ll find that Leadpages is ideal for service offerings that need to take a hands-on approach to their clients. In the cases where automation wouldn’t help, Leadpages is a good alternative. 

You can increase the power of Leadpages by using integrations and Zapier. However, Sendinblue has it beat regarding automation at similar pricing. The one thing Leadpages does better across the board is its unlimited traffic and leads, making it easily one of the most cost-effective landing page builders as you grow your customer list.