ClickFunnels and WordPress are popular software platforms for building websites and landing pages. This comparison aims to help readers understand the critical differences between the two and determine which solution may be better for their needs.
ClickFunnels is a dedicated landing page and sales funnel builder designed for marketers and entrepreneurs. It provides pre-built templates and a drag-and-drop editor to create high-converting landing pages, webinars, membership sites, and more. Everything is optimized for conversion rate optimization right out of the box.
WordPress is open-source website creation software built on PHP and MySQL. It powers over 35% of all websites on the internet. WordPress offers flexibility with over 50,000 plugins and thousands of themes. This allows users to customize sites with e-commerce stores, forums, blogs, portfolios, and more. WordPress is more technical and requires coding or development skills for advanced customization.
This comparison will focus on ease of use, main features, landing pages, e-commerce capabilities, blogging abilities, marketing automation tools, and pricing between ClickFunnels and WordPress. The goal is to understand the primary differences between the two platforms to decide which better fits specific business needs and objectives.
Ease of Use
ClickFunnels is much easier to use than WordPress for beginners. ClickFunnels offers a wide array of pre-built templates and funnels, allowing for effortless customization with just a few clicks. It has an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that lets you quickly build landing pages, sales funnels, and membership sites without any coding knowledge.
In contrast, WordPress has a steeper learning curve. While there are some drag-and-drop page builders for WordPress, like Elementor, you still need to know how to install plugins, choose a theme, and set up essential functions. The WordPress backend dashboard can be overwhelming for beginners with all its menus and settings.
Regarding themes and templates, ClickFunnels includes access to their Etison Suite, which has over 200 pre-made funnel templates for different purposes. There are also many themes for landing pages and membership sites that you can install with one click. With WordPress, you must purchase premium themes separately or code them yourself. The template selection is more comprehensive but also requires more work to set up.
Overall, ClickFunnels is the clear winner regarding ease of use for beginners. Its intuitive drag-and-drop editor and massive library of templates allow you to create professional landing pages and sales funnels with no coding skills needed. WordPress offers greater design flexibility but requires more technical knowledge.
Clickfunnels and WordPress Features
ClickFunnels
ClickFunnels is explicitly designed for marketing-focused landing pages and funnels. It includes an easy drag-and-dropdrag-and-drop page builder and pre-built templates to create high-converting landing pages quickly.
Some key features include:
- Simple page builder to customize landing pages without coding
- Built-in form and email integration
- A/B split testing capabilities
- Membership site templates
- Pre-built sales funnel templates
- Native integration with payment processors and email systems
ClickFunnels also includes more advanced marketing-focused features like:
- Autoresponder sequences and email automation
- Affiliate management
- Webinar integration
- Built-in CRM and contact management
WordPress
WordPress offers unparalleled flexibility and customization as an open-source CMS platform. It can create landing pages and membership sites with the right plugins and themes.
Key features include:
- Detailed page builder plugins like Elementor for drag-and-drop page building
- Renowned form plugins like Contact Form 7, Ninja Forms, and Gravity Forms provide flexible solutions for effortlessly integrating customizable forms into websites.
- Membership plugins like WishList Member, MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro
- E-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads
- Extensive developer resources to build custom functionality
The core advantage of WordPress is its unparalleled extensibility and customization. Virtually any functionality can be added through the thousands of plugins and themes. The tradeoff is increased complexity in setup.
Landing Pages
WordPress and ClickFunnels enable you to create landing pages but take different approaches.
WordPress offers plugins like Elementor, Divi, and more that make designing beautiful, custom landing pages easy. You have total creative control to create landing pages that match your brand. However, WordPress requires more technical skill to optimize landing page speed and performance.
ClickFunnels specializes in high-converting landing pages using pre-built templates and drag-and-drop editing. It’s easier to create great-looking landing pages fast without web design skills. ClickFunnels pages are all optimized for speed and built for conversion best practices like minimal distractions and clear calls-to-action.
One of ClickFunnels’ most powerful features is built-in A/B testing – you can create multiple page variations, and the software will automatically show the highest-converting version to your visitors. This takes the guesswork out of optimization. WordPress has A/B testing plugins, but they require more configuration.
Overall, ClickFunnels can help you build landing pages faster and make creating high-converting pages optimized for lead generation and sales easier. But WordPress offers more flexibility and control if you have web design skills.
E-commerce
E-commerce functionality is a significant difference between ClickFunnels and WordPress.
Out of the box, WordPress does not have built-in e-commerce features. You must install additional plugins like WooCommerce to sell products and services. WooCommerce is very powerful but can have a steep learning curve to set up an online store. Hosting considerations with WooCommerce also require specialized caching and performance optimization to support high-traffic stores.
With ClickFunnels, e-commerce capabilities are built directly into the platform. You can easily add products, customize checkout pages, calculate taxes and shipping, integrate payment gateways, track orders, and manage inventory. Everything is optimized for conversions with beautiful, mobile-friendly checkout processes.
ClickFunnels also provides advanced order bump and upsell functionality to increase average order value. For instance, you can prompt customers to add products or upgrades during checkout. Abandoned cart saver sequences will also automatically follow up with customers who don’t still need to complete their purchase.
Overall, ClickFunnels provides a much smoother e-commerce experience than WordPress. You don’t need to install plugins, manage hosting, or learn additional systems. The integrated funnel builder and e-commerce features were designed to work together for streamlined selling. This makes ClickFunnels better suited for launching an online store or selling information products like online courses or membership sites.
Blog
Incorporating blogging into your marketing strategy is essential for success, enabling you to craft and distribute content that effectively captivates and resonates with your desired audience. Choosing the right platform for your business blog is an important decision.
Here’s how WordPress and ClickFunnels compare when it comes to blogging capabilities:
Content Creation and Blogging
Conceived initially as a blogging platform, WordPress boasts robust content creation tools and streamlined blog post publishing capabilities. The intuitive WordPress editor simplifies the process of crafting engaging posts and pages, seamlessly incorporating text, images, videos, and more. There are also thousands of themes and plugins available to customize the look and features of your blog.
ClickFunnels isn’t focused on blogging, but you can create blog-style content as part of your marketing funnels. The editor allows basic content creation but focuses more on converting visitors than long-form writing. You have less design flexibility than WordPress sites.
SEO Capabilities
WordPress offers built-in SEO features like customizable URLs, XML sitemaps, and optimized code. There are also plugins for more advanced SEO work. Overall, WordPress sites are search-engine friendly.
ClickFunnels pages need to be optimized for organic search – they are built to convert visitors to ads or other sources. The URLs aren’t customizable. SEO plugins aren’t available. Better for paid traffic than SEO.
Engagement
WordPress sites allow readers to comment on blog posts, fostering community engagement. There are plugins to enhance comments with likes, upvotes, social sharing, etc.
ClickFunnels is focused on something other than engagement features – the goal is to convert visitors. Comments and other social features aren’t built in. You’d need to integrate third-party apps—more one-way communication than engagement.
For severe blogging and SEO, WordPress is likely the better choice. ClickFunnels can work for simple content marketing but doesn’t match WordPress for robust blogging capabilities.
Membership Sites
Both WordPress and ClickFunnels allow you to create membership or subscription-based sites where users can sign up for access.
However, there are some critical differences in how each platform approaches memberships:
Creating Membership or Subscription Sites
- ClickFunnels makes it very easy to create different membership levels and gate access to content based on membership level. Their membership features are built-in and easy to set up.
- In WordPress, you need a membership or subscription plugin like MemberPress or Paid Memberships Pro to handle memberships. The setup is more complex but ultimately offers more flexibility.
- ClickFunnels membership sites are hosted and managed within ClickFunnels, while WordPress sites are self-hosted.
Managing Members and Access
- ClickFunnels has simplified member management with tools to handle signup, access, and billing all in one place.
- For WordPress, plugins add member management functions, but they can be more piecemeal across signup forms, user roles, content restrictions, and payment processing. More customization is possible, however.
- ClickFunnels offers native features to restrict access and dripped content based on member level. WordPress requires integrating member plugins with page builders or content plugins.
So, for launching a membership site quickly, ClickFunnels provides a faster and easier setup. However, WordPress offers more customization and flexibility for larger or more complex membership sites. The choice depends on your specific membership model and needs.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is a crucial feature where ClickFunnels and WordPress differ significantly.
ClickFunnels includes excellent marketing automation capabilities out of the box. It provides features like:
- Email marketing and autoresponders to send targeted emails to lists and automate messaging. ClickFunnels integrates with email providers like AWeber and Mailchimp to simplify list management.
- They have sophisticated lead nurturing workflows to automatically send emails and messages tailored to where contacts are in the sales funnel. This helps turn cold leads into customers.
- Sales funnels to automate multi-step processes for selling products or services. Options like upsells and one-click upsells are included to maximize revenue.
In contrast, WordPress itself has no native marketing automation features. Some WordPress plugins like Mailchimp and OptinMonster add essential email marketing, but they need the advanced automation of ClickFunnels. Lead nurturing and sales funnels require integrating multiple plugins with complex setup and maintenance.
For serious marketing automation, ClickFunnels provides far more capability out of the box than WordPress. ClickFunnels simplifies creating automated messaging and sales funnels to convert and retain customers. The advanced automation features give ClickFunnels a significant advantage.
Pricing
When it comes to pricing, Clickfunnels and WordPress offer different payment models and levels of investment.
Clickfunnels uses a software service (SaaS) model with monthly subscription plans. There are three main plans:
- The Basic plan, priced at $97 per month, offers users access to 20 funnels, 100 pages, and a monthly visitor limit of 20,000.
- The Etison Suite is $297 monthly and includes unlimited funnels, pages, and visitors. It also has features like Actionetics and Backpack.
- Two funnel-specific plans are called the Startup plan ($19 per month for five funnels, three domains, and 100 pages) and the Marketing plan ($49 per month for ten funnels, six domains, and 300 pages).
With Clickfunnels, you pay a monthly fee to access the software and features. There are no limits on traffic or bandwidth.
WordPress is free, open-source software that you self-host. The only investment is web hosting, which starts around $5-10 per month for basic shared hosting. However, managed WordPress hosting usually costs $25-75 per month.
There are costs for themes (free to $60+), plugins and extensions (free to $200+), and services like email marketing, membership, and e-commerce. The overall investment can add up but remains flexible based on your needs.
The key differences are that WordPress is self-hosted with flexible à la carte pricing, while Clickfunnels is SaaS with set monthly plans. For an all-in-one solution, Clickfunnels may cost more but can save time compared to integrating various plugins and services with WordPress.
Conclusion
ClickFunnels and WordPress are powerful tools for creating websites, landing pages, and membership sites. However, they each excel in different areas.
WordPress offers extensive flexibility and customization capabilities, whereas ClickFunnels presents a faster and more straightforward approach to constructing sales funnels and optimizing landing pages.
WordPress is better for:
- Building content-focused sites like blogs, news sites, magazines
- Complete control and customization over site design and functionality
- Open-source platform with thousands of free themes and plugins
ClickFunnels is better for:
- Building marketing and sales funnels quickly
- Crafting high-converting landing pages and effective lead capture forms.
- Offering products, memberships, and automated email marketing
- Less technical knowledge is required compared to WordPress
Ultimately, it depends on your specific needs. WordPress gives limitless options for building complex sites, while ClickFunnels simplifies the process for sales-driven sites and landing pages. For maximum flexibility, the two can even be integrated.
If you need to quickly set up landing pages, membership sites, and marketing automation, ClickFunnels may be the better choice. But for content sites, blogs, or online stores with extensive customization, WordPress remains the dominant open-source CMS. Carefully evaluate your goals and technical skills to determine which platform is the best fit. Both ClickFunnels and WordPress provide powerful options and can work together when required.
