Hey there! Welcome to our 2024 Instapage Review.
As a marketing business, we've used Instapage for a long time now.
And personally, for this review, I packed in an extra week's worth of time so that I could rank it by a few features that are essential for any top landing page builder.
I mainly focused on usability, quality of pages created, conversion optimisation…
….as well as who it might be best for:
SEO's, solopreneurs, agencies, small business owners, large corporations?
We all know that Instapage isn't cheap! But that doesn't mean it's not great value for money…for the right kind of user!
Will Instapage see you creating beautiful, high-converting landing pages in a snap?
Well, we're going to find out inside this Instapage review.
- Instapage – Key Info
- Instapage Review – What We're Going To Cover?
- Do I Recommend Instapage?
- Instapage Pros and Cons
- Use-ability – How Easy Is Instapage To Use?
- A/B Testing – Set-Up And Accuracy
- Conversions – Is Instapage Conversion Focused?
- Agencies & Teams – A Workable Solution?
- Integrations – Enough And Simple To Set-Up?
- Pricing – Is Instapage Good Value?
- Instapage Pricing
- Customer Service – How Much Do They Care?
- Instapage Alternatives
- Instapage FAQ's
- Instapage Review – Wrapping It Up!
Instapage – Key Info
📣 About | Premium solution offers market leading technology & innovation. |
💲 Price | Check for current pricing. |
✅ Pros | Fluid page builder means you create the exact page you want. |
❌ Cons | It is quite pricey! |
🏁 Conclusion | If you run PPC ads, and have the budget, it's worth every dollar. |
Do We Recommend Instapage?
We recommend Instapage to anyone who already has experience of building landing pages and who is regularly using PPC advertising as part of their marketing strategy.
If you're using PPC ads, and you're looking for extra functionality, as well as a powerful boost to your conversion rates, Instapage could be a great option for you.
So all of this likely means that;
Instapage is probably a better fit for more experienced online marketers, as well as agencies and marketing departments of small/medium/large businesses.
If you're relatively new to building landing pages, it might be a while before you really start using some of the extra functionality that Instapage offers over many of its landing page builder competitors.
So if you fall into this latter category, maybe think about doing your learning with a less expensive option.
But if you have the experience and the budget, Instapage might well be the competitor-crushing conversion machine you've been looking for!
Well, that's the super-brief summary, keep reading our Instapage review to find out the detail.
Instapage Pros and Cons
Here's a real quick snapshot of what I really like, and really don't like about Instapage:
Instapage Pros:
- Genuine drag-and-drop page creation
- Drag-and-drop builder is robust and easy-to-use
- Good number of mobile-responsive templates
- Templates are high-quality and useable
- Collaboration tools great for teams and/or client work
- Powerful analytics and split-testing
Instapage Cons:
- Price – features and benefits great but not cheap
- No A/B testing in the starter plan
- Widget list needs expanding
Our Instapage Review – What We Focused On
Let's be honest here;
It's unlikely that we can answer every single question that someone might have about Instapage.
So to make sure your time isn't wasted reading any more of this Instapage review…
These are the questions we really set out to answer:
- How easy is Instapage to learn how to use?
- Are the Instapage pre-built templates high quality and actually usable?
- How conversion focused is Instapage?
- How workable/flexible is Instapage for agencies and businesses?
- How easy to set-up is the A/B testing function
- Does Instapage integrate easily with third-party software?
- How stable/robust is the Instapage software?
- Given price and functionality, is Instapage good value?
- Is the Instapage customer service on-point?
- Instapage Alternatives
So that's ten areas that we've really tried to nail to the floor.
I've very briefly summarized my thoughts on Instapage directly below.
But to get the full picture, and find out the finer detail, you'll need to read the full review.
Use-ability – How Easy Is Instapage To Use?
This is a pretty important thing for me.
I see it happen all the time…
…someone signs-up to a great looking piece of software, that can do just about everything they need.
But the whole thing just turns out to be close to un-useable.
And that tends to be either because it requires so much time upfront to achieve even basic user skills.
Or, you can get the basic user skills going quickly, but getting to the more sophisticated stuff proves super difficult.
So let's see how Instapage fares on these fronts…
How Many Hours Will You Need to Spend Learning to Use Instapage?
Approximately how many hours of learning will be needed by a landing page newbie, before they can build a decent landing page, from scratch, using Instapage?
It was a little difficult for me to get a genuine feel for this, because I've been building landing pages for a long time.
So my opinion would be a bit pointless.
Which led me to ask around a little, to try and persuade a couple of people to carry out this part of my Instapage test for me.
It took some time, but I eventually got three people, with no landing page building experience, to agree…not all that willingly, but hey, they did it!
The feedback was promising.
I say surprising because I worry slightly that there's so much going on inside Instapage, that someone new to it would just get overwhelmed and find it annoying and un-useable!
So let's break this down into a couple of clear areas:
a) Dashboard Layout and General Navigation
The interface is simple and uncluttered. You won't waste time simply trying to get around.
When you first sign-in, you'll have a basic overview of your account, just like this:
I'd just like to be clear before we go any further, that the above conversion rates are not mine!
I'm not that bad at getting conversions!
These images were captured by one of the kind people that opened up a new account to test out building Instapage pages from scratch.
If you then select ‘Landing Pages' from the menu on the left hand side, you'll be taken to another nice clear page:
As you can see, you now have the option to either ‘Create Page' or ‘Learn More'.
Being the sort of person who doesn't like to read instructions, I would tend to crash straight in to the ‘Create Page' option.
If you do that, you end up here:
Another very clear page that now gives you the options of either creating a brand new page from scratch, or selecting a template to work from.
You'll see in the menu down the left-hand side, that you can filter the templates by intended use.
b) Actually Creating Your First Page
Now, I think that most people stating out would tend to select one of the pre-built templates according to its intended use.
But we wanted to select to create a totally new landing page.
Once you've chosen a name for your new page, you'll be taken to this screen:
You just want to select ‘Edit Design' in the top right-hand corner.
And now you can start building your landing page.
All three of my crash test dummies were able to go from this:
To something like this…
…in about five minutes.
Now, I know that this isn't going to win many design awards, or land a whole shed load of conversions…
…but for someone totally new to landing page building, to get anything on the canvas in five minutes is good going.
The overriding feedback was that Instapage does not take a lot of time to get up to basic/competent user level.
A full day maybe, say seven or eight hours.
Are the Instapage Pre-Built Templates High Quality and Actually Usable?
I think most people nowadays tend to use a template as their base when creating a new landing page.
Over time you'll no doubt build up a bunch of your own templates.
But before then, it's helpful to have a decent range of them on offer inside your landing page builder software.
Instapage has a good range of templates, over two-hundred at the time of writing.
All of the templates are divided up by category to make it easy to find the type of thing you're looking for.
The template selection ranges from basic to comprehensive, so you can simply select how much you want to start with.
Once you've selected the right one for you, just click to select, and you'll be inside the page builder, just like below…
…and as you can see, you're all set to start making whatever changes you require.
How Stable/Robust is the Software?
Exceptionally good.
I've used a ton of page builders over the last few years and this is up there with the very best when it comes to the stability of the software.
An awful lot of page builders feel kind of clunky and glitchy as you use them, sometimes simply refusing to do what you want.
Having really solid software behind it is a key reason why it's pretty straightforward to create landing pages quickly with Instapage.
This is a big plus point as far as I'm concerned.
A/B Testing – Set-Up And Accuracy
Once you're landing page is looking and reading how you want it to, it's time to set up your split-testing.
Thankfully, with Instapage, this is a just a short exercise in pointing-and-clicking!
How Easy is the Instapage A/B Testing Function to Set-Up?
Here's a little step-by-step illustration of just how simple it is to set-up:
1. Click on ‘Experiments' in the left hand column;
2. Name your experiment, note what you are testing, and select your landing page;
3. Click on ‘Add Variation';
4. Name your variation landing page and click on ‘Save';
5. Choose the percentage traffic split you want to sent to each page, and click on ‘Start Experiment'…
…and you're done!
All-in-all I reckon that's a pretty acceptable set-up process.
Nothing complicated to do, just follow the steps from one to five.
Conversions – Is Instapage Conversion Focused?
It's great to have a beautiful landing page, but are people click, click, clicking on those CTA's?
How Conversion Focused is Instapage?
Here's a comparison of average conversion rates of Instapage users, compared to the overall rates of conversion experienced by both Google Ads users and Facebook advertisers.
The Google Ads and Facebook conversion data was pulled together as part of a conversion rate comparison run by Wordstream.
Instapage simply added their customer data on top and produced the following table:
I think most people would agree that Instapage customers seem to be enjoying a bit of an uplift over the industry averages.
Agencies & Teams – A Workable Solution?
For me, this a real important area where Instapage has to excel in order to command it's price.
Personally, I think it is in this space where Instapage offers the most value.
It has features that convert into real benefits for teams and agencies.
It’s intuitive to use, works brilliantly with paid ad landing pages, as well as having a very solid reputation with both big brands and digital marketers equally.
How Workable/Flexible is Instapage for Agencies and Businesses?
Let's take a look at a few features of Instapage that are particularly useful for teams and agencies.
1. Workspaces
Instapage Workspaces are ideal for anyone who works on landing pages and wants to collaborate with other team members, and/or clients, as they build their pages.
Team members, domains, integrations can all be connected to and managed from individual workspaces.
As you work on a project, team members can access the Workspace folder to either build the landing page, and/or leave feedback and comments.
It also makes sense to use the Workspace function as the route to presenting the completed page and getting final approval.
2. Google Ads Integration
Instapage enables users to manage their Google PPC ad campaigns from inside their dashboard.
Now while it's not exactly landing people on Mars…
…it makes life easier, and it's a time-saver.
3. Dynamic Text Replacement
Dynamic Text Replacement is very much focused on agencies who use PPC campaigns.
When enabled, this feature means that when a somebody types a search phrase into Google, and then ends up clicking on your ad, the headline of the landing page that they are directed to, will contain the search phrase that they just typed into Google.
A seriously powerful feature for sure.
You can see how this would immediately resonate with the page visitor, avoiding an instant click-back to Google, meaning a significantly more effective landing page.
4. AMP Landing Pages
Google AMP compliant landing pages are simple to set-up inside Instapage.
As you can see below, creating an AMP page is one of the options you are presented with whenever you click to create a new landing page.
If the company, or client that you're working for need an AMP landing page, you can do it with Instapage, but you will experience some code and feature limitations.
5. Professional Support
The Converting Plan has a pretty decent array of support available to make your life a lot easier in a number of ways, such as:
- Customer Success Manager – A dedicated 1-on-1 touchpoint for strategy and insight.
- Conversion Consulting – Tips and best practices for maximum conversions.
- Page Migration Services – The team can help rebuild your current landing pages in Instapage.
- Dedicated Launch Specialist – Your Specialist will guide you through setup and training.
- Design Services – The Instapage team can assist with your landing page designs.
Integrations – Enough And Simple To Set-Up?
You can have the most powerful landing page builder on the planet…
…but if you're going to end up spending the same amount of time integrating it with your other related software , as you did creating it…what's the point?
Does Instapage Integrate Easily with Third-Party Software?
Instapage has a ton of integration options.
As an online marketer, I would be surprised if you could not find the one you were looking for.
With in excess of 120 tools available to integrate with, I'm not about to list all of them, but here are the categories they fit into:
- Marketing Automation
- Email Marketing
- CRM
- E-Commerce
- Analytics
- Advertising
- Call Tracking
- Exit Intent & Pop-Ups
- Live Chat
- Webinar
- Other
And just in case you can't integrate the service you wanted to, you can still use Zapier to get it all working.
Pricing – Is Instapage Good Value?
I can't write this review and ignore the fact that over the last year or so, Instapage's pricing has been annoying…to say the least!
Constantly changing the pricing and the plans available.
Hopefully they have now arrived at a pricing structure that works for both them and their clients.
Because if they keep their pricing in a state of flux, they will end up losing customers.
Given Price and Functionality, is Instapage Good Value?
You will build beautiful landing pages with Instapage.
You will build landing pages that convert well with Instapage.
But you can also do both of these things with a few of their better competitors.
So where is the extra cost of Instapage, compared to many of it's competitors, delivering value?
Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns!
Whether you're a business owner, part of a marketing team, a marketing agency, or even a solopreneur…
…I believe that Instapage will add value, if you are running regular PPC campaigns.
This is because the 1:1 Ad-to-Page personalization feature, as well as Ad Map, enables you to optimize your post-click landing pages for better conversion rates, and of course lower your cost-per-click.
So, therefore, if you are not dedicating time and money towards PPC ad campaigns, and have no intention of doing do…
…I would have to say that you will probably end up feeling like you are paying too much.
Instapage Pricing
Subject to annoyingly regular change…
…the Instapage plans and pricing is currently as follows:
- Create: $79/mo if paid annually
- Optimize: $159/mo if paid annually
- Convert: Pricing tailored to your needs
As you can see, and as we've said before, it's not cheap.
It is high-quality without a doubt, but if you're not running PPC campaigns, I'm not sure I see the added value.
Customer Service – How Much Do They Care?
This is a bit of an odd question to answer sometimes.
Because if you haven't had any issues that need dealing with, you have to make up some spurious reason to test them out.
And personally I haven't had any issues with Instapage.
Which leaves me needing make something up in order to reach out to the service team.
Is the Instapage Customer Service On-Point?
I have found it to be pretty good.
There is the usual first port of call in the Help Center FAQ's.
If you can't get unstuck there, you can submit a ticket to the support team, Monday to Friday.
All I can say is that I submitted a couple of support tickets, and I received good answers on both, in the same day.
What about if you need to close your account, is it difficult?
I searched online to see if I could find any recurring issues that people weren't happy with Instapage about, and I did, and it was that Instapage do not make it easy to close down accounts.
So all three of the people who had been involved in helping me test out Instapage for this review, set about closing down their accounts to see if they encountered resistance.
None of them did. All three experienced a hassle free closure.
Two clicks inside your ‘Account' tab and you get this confirmation:
And about five minutes later you get an email confirmation.
I can't see what's difficult about that.
Instapage Alternatives
Well I've been babbling on endlessly in this Instapage review about how I reckon it's great for those of you who have some landing page building experience and who are using PPC advertising…
…but what about everyone else?
What high-quality Instapage alternatives are out there?
First up I would say that I am always drawn back to dedicated landing page builders.
I've tried the software packages that offer landing pages as part of the overall stack, but so far, they've not worked out for me.
So for me, if you're seriously looking for a great alternative to Instapage, you could do a lot worse than checking out a few of these:
- Unbounce – Probably the closest in functionality to Instapage
- GetResponse – A powerful, lower priced Instapage alternative
- Thrive Architect – A WordPress plugin solution
- Wishpond – Good pricing and easy to use
- LeadPages – A great budget option, if a little glitchy at times
You can read a little more about these Instapage competitors in my ‘Best Landing Page Builders‘ roundup article.
Instapage FAQ's
Can you build a website with Instapage?
In theory I suppose you could, especially seeing as there are a lot of websites around these days which are single-page sites. I'm not sure it would be a great option though. Ultimately Instapage is a landing page builder, and trying to create a whole website with it would probably feel a bit clunky.
Are pages built with Instapage mobile responsive?
Yes all of the pages you create with Instapage will be mobile responsive. You can check how your page will look on mobile as you build, just in case you think you might have done something that won't respond too well on mobile.
Does Instapage work with Shopify?
Yes! You can create Instapage landing pages and then link them to your Shopify store through the Instapage/Zapier/Shopify integration, which lets you send info between Instapage and Shopify automatically, with zero code needed.
How do I publish my Instapage landing page?
Easily, is probably the best answer. Whether you want to publish to WordPress, Drupal, Facebook, an Instapage domain, or a custom domain, it's usually no more than a simple three-click exercise.
Is Instapage free?
Instapage is most definitely not free! You can check out my Instapage Pricing page to get the full low-down on just how ‘not-free' Instapage is.
Instapage Review – Wrapping It Up!
Instapage have pulled off that elusive feat of combining super-powerful features with ease-of-use.
When I've said earlier in this review that Instapage is not a great fit for total landing page newbies, it's not because I think they wouldn't be able to use it…
…it's because I don't believe that most people new to building landing pages will make use of a lot of the high-end functions that Instapage offers.
But, if you are using PPC ads as part of your marketing strategy, Instapage is well set-up to help you squeeze every last little bit of juice out of your ad spend.
I hope this review has helped you in your decision making.
Got something to add? Go ahead and put it in the comments below.
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