14 Pros and Cons of Landing Page Platforms

If you’re thinking about trying one of the popular landing page platform such as Unbounce, Instapage, or Leadpages, but you’re not quite sure if that would be the best choice for your landing page project, this article will help you make an informed decision.

Landing page platforms have been around for many years now, and lots of marketers (myself included) love them. However, with their numerous benefits come some downsides.

The three most popular landing page platforms at the moment are Unbounce, Instapage, and Leadpages.

While there are others, I’m not going to list them all, because some (like ClickFunnels) are trying to become all-in-one platforms, and others (like Lander) are just not nearly as popular as the leading three mentioned above.

So, with Unbounce, Instapage, and Leadpages in mind, here’s a list of some pros and cons of landing page platforms vs. other solutions for building landing pages–WordPress page builders or regular HTML for instance.

Pros of Landing Page Platforms:

• Faster development — They allow you to quickly build landing pages using a drag-and-drop interface, so you don’t need to know how to write code.
• A/B testing — They usually have A/B testing capabilities built-in, so that you can create split tests with ease in order to
• Easy to set up — You don’t have to mess with a hosting environment, CDN, plugins, etc. to get up and running.
• Great support — Each of the major page builders offer their own support to customers. Unbounce’s support in particular is amazing.
• Template gallery — Unbounce, Instapage, and Leadpages also offer templates to choose from, so you don’t have to design your page from scratch (unless you want to).
• Speed and performance — Since the page builders are hosted for you, the major players take performance very seriously, with great hosting, caching, and content delivery regardless of where your visitors are coming from.
• Large expert communities — There are plenty of Unbounce experts, Instapage experts, and Leadpages experts on sites like Upwork, Fiverr, or Freelancer, if you’re looking for someone to build your pages for you.
• Easy integrations — From connecting marketing automation tools, to installing Google Analytics or Facebook pixels, the page builders make it as easy as a few clicks.

Cons of Landing Page Platforms:

• Ongoing monthly/yearly costs — Since all major landing page builders are built around the SaaS model, you’ll be paying monthly or annually for them.
• Data portability — It’s not always easy to export pages from a page builder to standard HTML, or to switch from one platform to another.
• Limited customization — While most page builders are becoming more flexible by the day, they will never be as flexible as a 100% custom design and development environment that you build yourself.
• No global edits — For most page builders, it’s difficult or impossible to make global edits, which means that if you have 10 of the exact same edits to make on 10 different pages, you have to do it one-by-one.
• Some features are extra — Regardless of which page builder you choose, there are different tiers or packages depending on what you need, which can increase your overall costs.
• Higher learning curve — If you’re just starting out, most page builder interfaces can look intimidating, and since they’re all different, even if you’re familiar with one builder, you might feel lost when working in different one for the first time.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it. Hopefully, you’re now able to make a more informed decision whether to go with a landing page platform such as Unbounce, Instapage, or Leadpages–or–choose a different solution altogether.

If you’re still on the fence, each of the major landing page platforms offer free trials, so give them a spin and see for yourself if they have what you’re looking for.

Happy building!

Originally published at landingpageschool.com on October 21, 2017.