Clickfunnels Vs Groove – Which Is The Better Sales Funnel Software Option?

UPDATE Aug. 27th, 2022: I’ve updated this post to reflect the current prices for Groove and updated some information that was out of date. The post now refers to “Groove” exclusively rather than talking about “GroovePages” or “GrooveFunnels” which are tools within the “Groove” brand. The post was originally published on February 4th, 2022.

Joining The Funnel Building Revolution

So you want sales funnel software to get started in the funnel building revolution…

And Clickfunnels has probably been high on that list of software.

But there’s a problem…the price of Clickfunnels.

Clickfunnels, in case you didn’t know, is $97 per month for the standard plan.

That’s pretty steep for someone starting out with funnel building.

And there are restrictions on what you can do in that plan.

You can build, at most, 20 funnels or 100 pages, whichever limit you reach first.

You might think that sounds like a lot, but when you start factoring in that your funnels really should include privacy policy, terms of service and disclaimer pages (as required by Google), then your page count starts to get eaten up fast.

If you’re building larger funnels, like this one for example (I’ve paused the site while I look at an alternative to Clickfunnels), where there are several tutorial videos in the funnel, then your page count goes up even faster:

And suddenly you find yourself trying to balance the number of funnels and pages you can create and what funnels you maybe should leave out of the mix.

There’s another issue with the Clickfunnels $97 plan – you don’t get access to the more advanced features like the inbuilt autoresponder and email marketing system.

So you have to pay extra each month for an autoresponder service like Convertkit, Aweber or GetResponse.

So now you’re looking at paying $120+ each month in business expenses.

If you want access to all of Clickfunnels’ features, then you can always go for the Etison Suite Plan.

Except, that’s $297 per month.

But at least you don’t have to pay for a 3rd-party autoresponder.

Is Clickfunnels Worth The Cost?

So does this mean that Clickfunnels is way overpriced and not worth the money?

Well, no. It’s a business service with a business price tag.

Registered businesses will be able to get a tax write-off on this ongoing expense.

But if you’re a lone affiliate marketer looking to move into funnel building, then coughing up $97+ per month just to build a few sales funnels might seem like a non-runner.

Clickfunnels was founded in 2014 – and one of its co-founders is the well-known marketer, Russell Brunson.

Having a name like his associated with the tool gives it legitimacy and kudos.

Even more so when you learn that it was his marketing skills that turned Clickfunnels into company that makes over $100,000,000 each year.

The Clickfunnels Killers (Not)

Over those intervening years, there have been a number of services that appeared (and some subsequently disappeared) that claimed to be a “Clickfunnels Killer”.

The tools that advertise themselves as such and are sold for buttons on the likes of WarriorPlus don’t last long.

These are tools you pay for once.

They may actually be pretty good in what they do but the developers aren’t interested in maintaining them over the long term.

That takes an investment of time and money.

And they’d rather be off developing their next “must have” tool that they can get to market quickly and make a quick killing on.

Rinse and repeat.

A company like Clickfunnels is prepared to keep their system going which includes ongoing maintenance costs, paying staff, renting space for physical assets like servers, desks, chairs and people, and all the other ongoing costs that are part of running a bricks-and-mortar business.

And the only way to cover those costs is to charge a subscription fee rather than a one-time fee.

Ok, so now you understand why Clickfunnels and other cloud-based page builder services like Builderall, LeadPages, LandingPage Monkey, etc., charge monthly or annual fees.

I’m not going to go into a full-blown review of Clickfunnels here; I already did that in my review post, if you want to learn more.

Gary’s Clickfunnels Review – Does This Sales Funnel Builder Live Up To Expectation?

Are There Any Real Clickfunnels Competitors?

There are very few real competitors to Clickfunnels out there.

Some reviewers promoted services like Builderall and LeadPages as essentially being cheaper versions of Clickfunnels, but that’s mis-selling those products.

Neither service is a direct competitor to Clickfunnels on price or on features.

Clickfunnels was specifically designed to make building landing pages and sales funnels easy, especially for non-techies.

You can also build membership sites with it.

Builderall is more of a business tool suite that contains a page builder as part of that suite. It only recently added its own dedicated funnel builder into its mix.

LeadPages is more of a landing page builder than a funnel builder.

These tools all have their place and what you want to do, and the price level you can work within, will dictate which tool best suits your particular needs.

If your budget is tight, you may have to compromise on the tools you use until you can afford to buy the tool you really want.

But suppose you decide that Clickfunnels is really the tool you want but you can’t afford the monthly fee.

That’s where Groove comes in.

The Rise of Groove

Another well-known and long-established internet marketer is behind the Groove business software suite – Mike Filsaime.

Again, I won’t go into detail here about what’s in Groove – I covered this on my related site in this blog post.

There’s a webinar replay in that post that gives you an inside look at Groove, what it can do and the features and tools it includes.

Clickfunnels Vs Groove

So is Groove (the full business tool suite) an actual viable alternative to Clickfunnels?

I’ve talked about how some services that were touted as Clickfunnels Killers were nothing of the sort.

And about how some other superficially similar services were promoted (by affiliates, not by the companies themselves) as alternatives to Clickfunnels…

…when, in reality, they weren’t.

But Groove can make the claim that it’s a true alternative to Clickfunnels.

It may be the first service that can stand over such a claim [Update Oct. 5th, 2020: Builderall can now lay claim to also be a viable alternative to Clickfunnels].

So let’s summarize the differences between the two services so you can get a better idea of why taking a look at Groove is worth your time:

Pros

1. Groove’ Price – it’s a one-time $2,997 (see below for further information).

People can sign up for the Free (very limited) Lite version and will then get the opportunity to upgrade to the different plans on offer:

• • Start Up – this would be a rough equivalent of Clickfunnels’ Basic Plan but allows you to build unlimited pages. The autoresponder is limited to 500 contacts and 2,500 email sends per month so you’re still probably better using a 3rd-party autoresponder. This plan is $99/mth or $479.88/yr. Pays 20% affiliate commissions.
  • Creator – mostly unlimited everything except for the autoresponder which allows 5,000 contacts but only 50,000 email sends per month. Limited to 20 autowebinars as well. $149/mth or $996/year (the annual payment is the same as for a year of Cluckfunnels’ Basic Plan). Pays 30% affiliate commissions.
  • Pro – this offers unlimited everything and the autoresponder comes into its own allowing 30,000 contacts and unlimited email sends. $199/mth or $1,491/yr. Pays 40% affiliate commissions.
  • Premium – unlimited everything including autowebinars. Can have 50,000 email contacts. $299/mth or $1,988/yr. Pays 40% affiliate commissions plus 10% 2-Tier commissions.
  • Premium + Lifetime – unlimited everything including email contacts and autowebinars. One time $2,997 or 4 x $997 fee. Pays 40% affiliate commissions plus 10% 2-Tier commissions.

The Premium + Lifetime option was originally removed on Feb 22nd, 2022 but was re-introduced recently.

Buying that Plan means that you’ll never have to pay any future fees for the system. You get unlimited everything (no account restrictions) and all future upgrades are free.

2. The Premium + Lifetime Plan Features

You get Lifetime Access and Unlimited Everything for that one-time fee.

You get access to all tools provided by Groove which is far more expensive than the couple of tools (page builder, funnel builder and membership site builder) provided by Clickfunnels.

You also get free updates for life and free access to new features when they are added.

3. The Subscription Plan Features

Depending on the plan you opt for, different numbers of tools are available to you and different account limits will be in effect, so you get what you pay for.

You can start out on a low-level plan, like the free Lite plan, and upgrade to higher tiered plans as you need when building your business.

There are a lot more tools available to you than Clickfunnels provides in its Basic plan.

From what I can see, paying annually for the Creator plan costs the same as paying Annually Clickfunnels’ Basic Plan but the Groove features rival and probably exceed what’s on offer in Clickfunnels’ Pro plan.

4. The Autoresponder

Groove has an inbuilt autoresponder so there’s no need to pay for a 3rd-party service like Aweber or GetResponse.

In theory, anyway. However, unless you go for the Groove Pro plan or higher, you’d ve better off using a third-party autoresponder.

Cons

1. Groove Is In New Tool Suite

While bugs in the system have been squashed in the Beta testing phase, the suite has only been stress tested in real-world conditions for about a year.

All the serious bugs should have been removed but there may still be other low-level bugs that lead to a lower-quality user experience.

2. No Track Record

Groove doesn’t have the history or record of Clickfunnels so it’s not an established tool (but it’s getting there).

There is still a risk that things might not work out in the long run and Groove will be shut down (Clickfunnels has been running smoothly since 2014).

But, to be fair, that could happen to any online service, including Clickfunnels.

3. No Endorsements

Clickfunnels has been tried, tested and honed over the years since it was first created and it’s used by some really big names in the marketing industry like Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi.

People like this do their research and pick the companies best suited to moving their own business interests forward.

With names like this enthusing about how great Clickfunnels has been for their businesses, that bodes very well for Clickfunnels being around for a long time to come.

That claim can’t be made by Groove yet and only time will tell if it gets similar support from big names in the marketing industry.

4. Smaller Number of Page Templates

Clickfunnels has hundreds of templates to choose from when building pages.

While new templates are constantly being added into Groove, it doesn’t have the same number of templates yet.

5. Subscription Plans

All the subscription plans require that you pay an ongoing subscription and, if you cancel your subscription, you lose access to everything you’ve built on the platform (Clickfunnels has a $9.95/mth option where you can pause your account and reactivate it later without losing anything you’ve built. I don’t know if Groove has a similar option).

Summing Up

There’s no denying that buying Groove carries some level of risk, though nowhere near as much as when it first launched publicly early this year.

Maybe it will never live up to its aims and goals; maybe it will just not gain enough market traction and subscribers to keep it going as a viable business.

But for a single $2,997, assuming everything is delivered as promised and continues to be, you do get Lifetime Access to all features, present and future, free upgrades and Unlimited Everything.

Clickfunnels’ closest subscriber plan to what’s in the Groove Pro (and above) plans is their own Pro plan which costs $297 per month.

That’s $3,564 every year you continue to use this level of Clickfunnels’ service.

So, is Groove worth risking $2,997 on?

That’s something you’ll have to be the judge of.

Epilogue

BTW, I am a Clickfunnels subscriber myself (I’m on the $97/mth plan) and in 2020 I subscribed to Builderall so I wouldn’t have to upgrade to the Clickfunnels Pro plan just so I could build more than 20 funnels. (I’ve since cancelled my Builderall subscription due to having too many funnel builder tools!)

I gave serious consideration to buying Groove but I didn’t buy it myself.

That’s because all the funnels I use in Clickfunnels are shared funnels – funnels provided by other Clickfunnels users, including some provided by my own mentor.

These funnels cannot be shared to Groove (or any other similar service) and, even if they could, there are videos on some of the pages in those funnels that will only play on pages hosted on the Clickfunnels domain (that’s to prevent them from being used without permission by unscrupulous marketers).

I’m at my limit on funnels and pages on my Clickfunnels plan but I just can’t justify spending $297 per month on their Pro plan.

Hopefully, I’ve given you enough information here to help you make an informed choice about which sales funnel software is best for you.

My Bonuses

I’m actually offering the same bonus package worth $7,100 (which includes some PLR products) for both Clickfunnels and Groove.

If you decide to order Groove, the bonuses will be delivered to you automatically.

If you opt for Clickfunnels instead, you’ll need to email your first receipt to me to confirm, as Clickfunnels don’t offer automatic bonus delivery.

Click the images below to go to the relevant bonus page:

Groove Pricing Update

In order to help marketers during the global pandemic, the “Groove” team are giving Lifetime Free Access to their GrooveSell platform, which normally costs $99 per month.

GrooveSell is a shopping cart that product sellers can add to their websites and is one of the tools in the Groove suite.

If this is something you’d like to get, you’ll also see an offer to get free access to Groove on the sales page.

This is, in fact, for Groove Lite and not the full-blown version of the tool.

You can build up to 3 pages with this free version – so you’ll be able to play with it without committing any money up front.

Once you log into Groove Lite, you’ll see an “Upgrade” green button on the top of the page that prompts you to upgrade to get access to the full version of Groove with the plan options I outlined above.

I hope all that hasn’t been confusing.

If any of this is unclear, just let me know in the comments and I’ll try to do a better job of explaining the pricing structure.

Just to be clear, to get Groove at the cheapest price, go for the Premium + Lifetime plan ($2,997 one-time).

Here’s what’s included in the Plan:

All the best,

Gary Nugent

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