But, while both tools make it simple to create and test new landing pages, here's what isn't:
Select one of these two tools.
Both are well-known and well-liked, so I completely understand if you're having trouble deciding.
I'm here to assist you:
I'll give you the knowledge you need to choose the right tool for you by comparing Leadpages vs Instapage.
I'll review a number of categories and share my thoughts on how each tool compares.. Finally, I'll try to provide some scenarios in which you should use one tool over another.
A brief comparison of the key features
Leadpages core features
Before I get into the more in-depth comparisons of Leadpages vs Instapage, I'd like to start with a quick general overview of each tool's features so you know exactly what to expect when I get more hands-on with the comparison.
Drag and drop editing – Create landing pages with simple drag and drop functionality and visual previews.
More than 130 free drag-and-drop templates – In addition to these free templates, you get access to hundreds more free and premium templates that are compatible with Leadpages' legacy editor.
Integration with your preferred tools – Connect to your preferred email marketing service, webinar tool, payment gateway, CRM, and a variety of other services.
Hosted landing pages – Don't worry about hosting your landing pages or lead magnets; Leadpages handles it all.
Simple split testing – Create new A/B/n tests quickly to optimize your landing pages.
Detailed analytics – View analytics in-dashboard or connect to your favorite third-party analytics services.
A plethora of website integrations – Use HTML or a WordPress plugin to easily publish your landing pages to your own website.
Complete website development – You can use the same drag-and-drop builder to create entire websites in addition to landing pages (think Squarespace).
Alert bars – Create visually appealing notification bars to promote offers, grow your list, and more.
Bonus features include the ability to use Leadboxes to create conversion-boosting two-step opt-ins, sign-up subscribers with Lead links, and much more.
Instapage core features
Create landing pages with a flexible, freeform drag and drop interface that doesn't require a grid (a super unique feature)
More than 200 free templates – Choose from over 200 free templates or buy hundreds more from Envato.
Numerous integrations – Connect with email marketing services, CRMs, and much more.
Hosted landing pages – With a dedicated WordPress plugin, Instapage hosts your landing pages for you and makes it simple to get them up and running on your own domain.
Split testing is simple – Create new A/B/n tests in a flash to optimize and fine-tune your landing page designs.
Simple analytics – Use in-dashboard analytics or connect to a variety of third-party analytics services. You can even get more advanced analytics, such as heatmaps.
Tools for effective collaboration – It's great for teams because you can leave comments on specific parts of a landing page design draught, for example.
Templates: There are more free templates available on Instapage.
When you go to create a new landing page with either of these landing page creators, the first thing you do is select a template.
Of course, you can always start from scratch. However, most of the time it is easier, to begin with, one of the professionally designed templates.
Overall, Instapage has a larger selection of free and premium templates than Leadpages, making it the clear winner in this category.
Template selection for Leadpages
At the time of writing, Leadpages provides 130+ free templates for its drag and drop editor*. These templates cover the following page types:
- Checkout
- Coming Soon
- Ebook
- Launch
- Lead Capture
- Newsletter
- Opt-In
- Pre-Cart
- Product
- Promotion
- Sales
- Thank You
- Upsell Bonus
- Video
- Webinar
One nice feature of the templates is that you can sort them by industry to find templates relevant to your niche quickly, whereas Instapage only allows you to sort by campaign type.
And here's another feature of Leadpages that I like:
To quickly find the landing page templates that perform the best based on Leadpages' aggregate data, sort by "Highest Converting.
Finally, while the design is obviously subjective, I think most of these templates look great – certainly better than something I could do myself using the blank template.
*In addition to the free templates for Leadpages' drag and drop editor, there are hundreds of additional free and premium templates for Leadpages' older "standard" editor.
Choosing an Instapage template
At the time of writing, Instapage provides 200+ free landing page templates, ranging from barebones wireframe-Esque layouts to fully designed templates (both of which can be seen in the screenshot below)
- Conversion rate
- Niche
Like Leadpages, I believe Instapage's templates are well-designed. I'm not sure I notice any difference in the template design quality – both tools have some great designs.
However, Instapage clearly outnumbers the competition in terms of quantity.
Because you get access to 200+ free templates right away.
Leadpages, on the other hand, have a more limited selection.
While Leadpages does sell premium templates, these are for the company's older "standard" editor.
Because there is no premium marketplace for the newer drag and drop editor, Instapage can currently put up 200 total templates compared to Leadpages' 130 drag and drop templates.
Editor of landing pages: This is a matter of personal preference.
While both Leadpages and Instapage provide drag-and-drop visual editors, they do so in very different ways.
While the approaches differ, I'm not sure there's an objective way to declare one "better" than the other.
As I dig deeper into each tool's editor, you'll be able to easily see the differences and decide which method you prefer.
Editor of Leadpages landing pages
As I mentioned in the templates section, Leadpages technically provides you with two editors:
- The "standard" editor of the past
- The more recent drag-and-drop editor (released in 2016)
While you can use either, the drag and drop editor is a significant improvement and will be the sole focus of this section.
To assist you in building your design, then drag and drop editor employs a grid-based layout. To put it another way, you create a basic framework of rows and columns and then drag individual elements into those locations.
It's critical to remember that Leadpages employs a grid-based system, which differs significantly from how Instapage operates...
Editor for landing pages on Instapage
Instapage's drag and drop editor does not use a grid system, instead opting for a completely free-form building interface.
That is, you are no longer restricted to pre-defined locations defined by rows and columns. Instead, you can literally drag the elements of your landing page anywhere on the page.
Instapage will make recommendations to help you align each element properly, but you can ignore them and place the element wherever you want.
You also get a menu area where you can configure your design's more general style settings:
Is this a more effective strategy than Leadpages?
Hmm…
I believe it is a personal choice.
This is why I left this section up to personal preference – I believe you should simply gravitate toward the editing experience that appears to you to be the best.
Widgets that are available: Leadpages has a wider range of widgets.
Widgets are the actual elements you'll use to construct your landing pages with each tool. Text is a common example of a widget, but widgets can also include elements such as:
- Buttons
- Forms
- Images
- Videos
While both tools provide all of the core widgets required to build a landing page, Leadpages provides a wider range of widgets that may be useful in special cases.
Widgets for Leadpages are available.
Leadpages currently provides 18 different widgets. Here's the complete list:
- Headline
- Text
- Button
- Countdown
- Image
- Video
- Line
- Space
- HTML
This form allows you to connect to a variety of email marketing services, webinar tools, and other services.
- Checkout
- Social Share
- Comments
- Social Like
- Progress Bar
- Icon
- Image + Text
- Calendar + Text
Using the editor interface, you will be able to customize specific aspects of each widget.
If you use a Form widget, for example, you will be able to:
- Add form fields
- Manage integrations with third-party services
- Etc.
The Checkout widget is particularly distinctive in comparison to Instapage.
Widgets available on Instapage
Instapage currently provides 11 different widgets. However, some of these modules serve multiple purposes. If you compare the same functionality to Leadpages, it's actually more like 13 widgets. Here's the complete list:
- Instablocks
- Headline
- Paragraph
- Image
- Video
- Button
- Form
- Shapes –
- Social
- Timer
- HTML
To do the math for you, here are the specific elements you lack in comparison to Leadpages:
- Checkout/sales module
- Comments
- Progress bar
- Icon
You can open a separate settings area for each individual widget that you use, just like in Leadpages. For example, here's how you can edit a Form widget:
Instapage's responsive design gives you more options.
However, Instapage gives you more control over how your page's responsive version looks because its editor allows you to make separate edits for different devices.
Responsive design tools for Leadpages
As previously stated, all landing pages created with Leadpages are fully responsive.
But…
Leadpages doesn't actually allow you to control the responsive design settings of the page – everything happens behind the scenes.
You can always see a preview of your page's responsive design:
However, you cannot make changes to the design while in the responsive preview interface.
That is in stark contrast to Instapage...
Responsive design tools for Instapage
Instapage, like Leadpages, automatically makes all of your landing pages responsive.
However, Instapage goes a step further by giving you precise control over the mobile design of your landing pages.
First and foremost, you can always group multiple widgets together to ensure that they remain together on the automatically generated responsive version of your page. To select multiple elements, simply click and drag:
Yup!
Lead magnet functionality: Both tools can assist you in distributing lead magnets.
Lead magnets, for those who are unfamiliar, are an excellent strategy for increasing conversion rates.
Essentially, you provide a "bonus" that visitors can download by entering their email addresses.
To use lead magnets on your website, you must be able to:
- Subscribers can be collected using a form or a two-step opt-in process.
- Put your lead magnet file on the internet.
- Send the lead magnet file to those who have signed up.
Leadpages and Instapage can both assist you in completing the entire process. Because there isn't much of a difference in approach, I'm calling this a tie.
Leadpages has a lead magnet feature.
You can specify what to do after a visitor fills out a form on the third step of the Leadpages Form widget configuration.
One of these options allows you to select a lead magnet to send:
Lead magnet functionality in Instapage
Instapage follows a similar strategy when it comes to managing and delivering lead magnets.
When you edit a Form widget, you can specify what happens after a form is submitted by a visitor. One of these options is to send a file in which you can either:
- Upload to Instapage’s server
- Host on your own server
Options for publishing landing pages: Both tools make it simple to distribute your landing pages to various locations.
After you've finished creating your landing page, the next logical step is to publish it so that you can begin driving traffic to it.
In just a few clicks, you can publish your landing page to a hosted subdomain. Both make it simple to publish your landing pages to your own domains, using both generic methods and dedicated WordPress plugins.
That being said, if you need to publish your landing pages to a non-WordPress site, Leadpages has a slight advantage in terms of ease of use.
Options for publishing landing pages on Leadpages
When you publish a landing page, it goes live immediately on a subdomain such as blogging wizard.pages.co.
You have a few options for incorporating it into your own website:
The WordPress plugin is extremely easy to use. Simply log into your Leadpages account through the plugin, and you can begin publishing your Leadpages designs as pages on your WordPress site right away:
All you have to do with this option is add a short code snippet where you want the page to appear, and Leadpages will handle the rest.
Options for publishing landing pages on Instapage
You can always publish your Instapage landing page as a subdomain at Instapage, just like you can with Leadpages.
However, there are a few ways to incorporate it into your own website:
The only area where I believe Instapage falls short of Leadpages is if you want to use your landing page on a site that isn't powered by WordPress or Drupal.
Instead of simply pasting in a code snippet like Leadpages, you'll need to access your domain's DNS settings and add a CNAME record.
While this isn't a deal-breaker, it is a little more involved than Leadpages' method.
A/B testing: Both tools make it simple to conduct split tests.
This is another section where it's difficult to see any discernible differences.
While each tool has a slightly different user interface, both allow you to easily run A/B tests to optimize your landing pages.
A/B testing strategy for Leadpages
You can always create a new split test with Leadpages right from your main dashboard.
When you first enter the interface, you will notice:
Choose your control page
Make a variant by duplicating the control page or selecting a completely different page.
Choose how to distribute traffic
Start your test
A/B testing strategy for Instapage
Analytics options: Instapage offers more in-depth analytics.
Both tools provide basic traffic and conversion rate analytics. Both make it simple to integrate with third-party analytics services such as Google Analytics and others.
Where Instapage differs is that its higher-tier plans include more advanced analytics features such as heatmaps.
Analytics options for Leadpages
When creating your landing page, you can always include your own tracking codes.
However, in addition to third-party analytics services, Leadpages includes an in-dashboard interface that allows you to quickly see the traffic, conversion rate, and earnings (if you use the Checkout widget) for your pages:
Options for Instapage Analytics
In addition, Instapage provides a more detailed in-dashboard analytics section.
Aside from traffic and conversion rate, you can also see:
Cost per visitor/lead
Heatmaps
Other features include: Everything that isn't a direct comparison
Until now, I've attempted to compare various implementations of features that are otherwise quite similar.
If any of these specific features pique your interest, they may help you make a decision one way or another.
Leadpages' distinct features
Leadboxes – This allows you to create popups with the same drag-and-drop editor that you use for lead boxes. Popups can be triggered by action (such as a button click for two-step opt-ins) or by timing. Best of all, Leadboxes can be used on any page, not just those created with Leadpages.
Integrated Facebook ads – Create Facebook ads that correspond to your landing page directly from Leadpages.
Lead links – Sign subscribers up for a sublist or webinar simply by clicking a link.
Leaddigits – Allow subscribers to opt-in via mobile phone.
Website creation – Thanks to a 2019 update, you can now use the same template for multiple websites.
Make notification bars to promote special offers or your email list. You can use them on your landing pages as well as other pages (or both).
The distinct features of Instapage
Audit log – This allows you to track changes and edits to your account's landing pages.
Dynamic text replacement – Replace text in real-time to better align the experience of a visitor from the ad to the landing page.
Instablocks – This feature allows you to save entire "blocks" to reuse on different pages, saving you time. A block is essentially a collection of related elements, such as a header, footer, or testimonial section.
Pricing – Leadpages are less expensive than Instapage.
The cheapest Leadpages plan starts at just $27 per month (billed annually). Instapage's cheapest plan, on the other hand, is already $149 per month (billed annually).
Both services also allow you to pay on a monthly basis for a higher price.
Instapage does include A/B testing, as you might expect for $149/month (billed annually). Also included are features such as server-side testing and heat map tracking, which you may or may not require depending on your tool stack.
Leadpages is a website builder, making it simple to create entire conversion-focused websites.
Which should you use: Leadpages or Instapage?
This is a difficult question because both are high-quality products, and I don't believe there is a single correct answer that applies to all situations.
So, rather than making a blanket recommendation, I'll try to summarise some of the smaller differentiating features so that you can choose the landing page creator that best fits your specific situation.
In some cases, Leadpages may be the answer. In some cases, it may be Instapage.
Consider Leadpages if...
As an example, consider having a grid-based editor.
Are you on a tight budget and can't afford Instapage's $828 per year minimum?
Would you like to be able to create popups and opt-ins for pages on your website that you did not create with Leadpages? (Leadboxes)
Are you a solo blogger who will not be working on landing page designs with anyone else?
Do you want to create entire websites rather than just landing pages?
Do you want to be able to add popups or notification bars to pages on your website that you did not create with Leadpages?
If you want to go with Instapage, on the other hand...
Are not concerned with cost and can afford $149 per month for more advanced functionality
Like the concept of the free-form editor? Do you want complete control over the mobile versions of your landing pages?
Advanced analytics such as heatmaps are valued (other tools charge upwards of $25/month for this functionality).
Are a member of a team that will collaborate on landing page designs
Both services provide 14-day free trials. So, choose the one that appears to be the best fit for you and give it a shot!
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