I recently answered a question over on Quora about what I think the best sales funnel platform is. This was my answer…
Clickfunnels
I originally subscribed to Clickfunnels and used it’s Basic Plan account for a couple of years but I always thought that at $97/mth it was too expensive for what it offered.
That plan allowed you to build up to 20 funnels, each on their own custom domain if you wanted, and up to 100 pages for those funnels.
In practice, the limiting factor was the 100 pages, a limit I kept hitting again and again.
This version of the service, now referred to as Clickfunnels Classic or Clickfunnels 1.0 is no longer available to new customers though legacy customers like myself can still use it.
It also did not include an inbuilt autoresponder so paying for a 3rd-party service like Aweber or GetResponse was an additional necessary expense.
Clickfunnels 2.0 has since been released and finally includes an inbuilt autoresponder but the monthly price jumped by 50% to $147/mth.
Update: The price of Clickfunnels has now been reduced, back to its former $97/mo price.
And now you can only add 5 custom domains to a Basic (now called a “Launch) “account rather than up to 20.
If you’re an affiliate marketer, then you can no longer get access to the full Clickfunnels affiliate resources unless you subscribe to the Basic/Launch plan.
A cut-down affiliate program (where there a fewer things you can promote) is available for free but only pays 30% commissions.
To get access to the complete affiliate program, you need to subscribe to one of their paid plans – Launch Plan ($97/mo), Scale Plan ($197/mth) or Optimize Plan ($297/mth).
The Optimize Plan is a “some things unlimited” plan in that you can create an unlimited number of pages and funnels but there are still limitations:
- on the number of contacts you can collect (150,000)
- the number of cucourses you can build (10)
- and the number emails you can send out (750,000/mo)
If you want unlimited everything, then there is no standard plan for that and your best option is to switch to a Systeme.io Unlimited Plan which is only $97/mo.
Those restrictions really limits Clickfunnels to being a choice for businesses rather than individual marketers.
Clickfunnels is not a platform for someone new to building sales funnels as it’s a huge drain on your budget.
Builderall
I also tried Builderall and it is far better value for money than Clickfunnels.
There are 40+ different tools integrated into the platform which includes an autoresponder.
But you can only get access to all tools if you subscribe to their Premium Plan ($249/mo).
However, and this is just a personal thing, I found their user interface very frustrating to use.
It always seemed to run counter to how I expected it to work.
Rearranging emails in a sequence was unnecessarily difficult for example, though I did like their drag-and-drop page builder.
Also, to get access to their full library of page, funnel and optin-form templates, you have to join their “Funnel Club Plan”, which is their most expensive, and pay a $199 one-time fee up-front.
When I joined, they had an additional “Funnel Club Plan” that was $67.90/mth.
But there was an additional $199 one-time up-front setup fee I had to pay.
The monthly fee later rose to $99.90 per month and subscribers were not locked into paying the fee they originally joined at.
That seemed underhanded to me.
While Builderall had a much better feature set than Clickfunnels, that $99.90/mo price was ultimately too expensive.
Combined with its un-intuitive interface, that sealed the decision for me to drop it.
The price for the “Funnel Club Plan” later dropped to $87.90/mth but the $199 up-front fee was still required.
Since then, the “Funnel Club Plan” has been entirely dropped.
Builderall’s “Core Plan” is no worse (has fewer features) than Systeme’s (see below) free-forever plan, but costs $29.90/mth (or $13.90/mo if you pay annually).
Their next plan is their “Essentials Plan” which has a price bump to $49.90/mo.
That plan doesn’t match what Systeme.io’s Startup Plan offers for $17/mo.
Builderall’s “Essentials Plan” is still quite limited in allowing you collect up to only 3,000 leads/contacts and get 10Gb of disk space.
Emails sends are limited to 60,000 per month – that would be 20 email sends per subscriber per month with the full 3,000 subscribers.
By comparison, Systeme lest you collect up to 5,000 contacts and send an unlimited number of emails per month with their Startup Plan.
Builderall is the only one of the 3 platforms that allocates a fixed amount of disk space to you depending on your plan.
Their “Premium Plan” seems vastly overpriced for what it offers and it is the only plan that provides access to all tools on their platform.
Builderall restricts the number of funnels you can build, depending on the plan you choose.
Clickfunnels lets you build an unlimited number of funnels on all the plans (starting at $97/mo).
Systeme gives you unlimited everything for $97/mo.
For affiliate marketers, Builderall does offer an affiliate program.
There are two options:
- subscribe to one of Builderall’s plans and you’ll automatically become an affiliate;
- sign up as a “Partner” without having to join Builderall itself.
In practice, I’ve found it difficult to get accepted as a Partner.
They kept wanting me to jump through hoops, and when I did they’d put another obstacle in front of me.
They definitely prefer you to become a paying member in order to be an affiliate.
Systeme
Systeme is also an all-in-one marketing platform that has been around for several years but seems to fly under the radar.
Where Clickfunnels and Builderall offer time-limited trials before you have to start paying…
…Systeme offers a free-forever plan that is actually a superb option for those starting out with funnel building or who only want to build a funnel or two.
Their free plan allows you to:
- build up to 3 sales funnels (multiple pages per funnel),
- one email campaign (list),
- one blog,
- one course,
- one community
- and you can collect up to 2,000 leads/contacts/subscribers.
Upgrading to a paid plan increases the number of assets you can create as well as the number of lead/contacts you can collect.
Their autoresponder is easy to use and works they way you’d expect (unlike Builderall’s).
You get unrestricted access to all of their templates, even with the free plan.
Systeme offer 3 paid plans ranging from $17/mth to $97/mth.
The “Starter Plan” ($17/mth) allows you to create up to 10 funnels, 5 courses, 5 blogs, 5 communities, 10 email campaigns and add up to 3 custom domains.
You can send an unlimited number emails, create an unlimited number of blog posts, collect an unlimited number of students for your courses and you get unlimited disk space.
The “Webinar Plan” ($47/mth) increases your account limits to 10,000 leads/contacts, 50 funnels, 20 blogs, 20 courses, 20 communities, 100 email campaigns and you can add up to 10 custom domains.
You can also host up to 10 evergreen webinars.
In fact, Systeme allows you to host any number of videos for no additional cost.
These would typically be sales videos for your landing pages or tutorials for your courses.
Systeme’s “Unlimited Plan” is a truly unlimited plan.
There are no restrictions on the number of assets of any type that you can build.
Systeme is the only platform that offers such a plan.
When compared to Clickfunnels’ Launch Plan, Systeme blows that out of the water on both price and features.
Again, Clickfunnels’ most expensive “Optimize Plan” still has some limitations and is over three times the price of Systeme’s Unlimited Plan.
For my money, Systeme is the best platform to use.
You can start out for free and scale up to various paid plans as you build your business.
The price differences between plans are small unlike with Clickfunnels and Builderall.
The Systeme Unlimited Plan is a comparable price to Builderall’s “Advanced Plan” but the latter still has some significant account limitations.
Again, for the affiliate marketers out there, anyone can sign up for Systeme’s affiliate program which pays 60% commissions.
So Systeme wins out on price, ease of use, support and features against Clickfunnels.
Builderall has the edge on the number of tools provided but the account limitations are what lets it down.
You may find the articles useful:
- I’m Using Clickfunnels Now, Should I Choose Systeme Instead?
- Need A Less Expensive Alternative To Clickfunnels? Systeme Might Be The Answer!
- Affiliate Marketing Ideas – How To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing: Building The Optin Funnel
All the best,
Gary Nugent
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