Brutally Honest Clickfunnels vs WordPress Comparison – Which one is right for you

I left Clickfunnels with a heavy heart and moved all my funnels to WordPress. And before I even compare Clickfunnels vs WordPress, I must tell you I love Russell Brunson. He is one of my favorite person on the planet.

I love him so much and you can count me in the die-hard fans of Russell. I have spent days and nights binge-watching his videos. going through his One Funnel Away challenge was the one of the best decisions of my life. And I don't remember how many programs I have attended with ClickfunnelsI. I have learned so much with him and I will continue to do so.

But I can't use Clickfunnels and there is something unsettling about sales funnels. What I am sharing here about Clickfunnels vs WordPress is something that gurus are not opening talking.

In fact, I have stopped using all fancy software tools that I used to flex a few months ago.

I don't want to write a persuasive sales letter to sell you a Clickfunnels free trial! Because there is plenty of people that are trying to do the same.

This post compares Clickfunnels with default WordPress for developing your sales funnels. And you need to read it carefully. Especially if you are a budding entrepreneur with limited resources.

Which one You should pick - Clickfunnels vs WordPress

WordPress is a wonderful website builder or in other words, Content management system. You can install it on your server and use it to create beautiful websites.

With a hosting provider like WPXHosting, you can create up to 5 WordPress websites for $24/mo. And they do all the heavy lifting for you.

But WordPress alone is not powerful. You can not create a converting sales funnel on WordPress. So you need extra themes and plugins with it.

Think of WordPress as a blank book waiting for you to write on it. WordPress helps you create a website or a blog that you can update regularly.

On the other hand, Clickfunnels is a completely different thing. Comparing Clickfunnels with Simple WordPress is like comparing Apples with Oranges.

So in short, WordPress helps you build websites and Clickfunnels helps you design automated sales system. 

Why Clickfunnels is a better option than Clickfunnels

Clickfunnels does Only One Thing (and does it pretty well)

It helps you create sales funnels. That means, landing pages, checkout pages and creating membership area accessible only to your paying customers.

After the recent updates of 2.0, You can even host online courses and create blogs with this platform. Clearly, a value of money.

With features like your own Affiliate program, one-click funnel set up and hundreds of shared funnel templates you can import into your dashboard and save hours; Clickfunnels truly outshines any other funnel software.

Here are a few reasons that might inspire you to go and take a free trial of Clickfunnels; Especially if you are not a tech-savvy person and don't have plenty of time to learn WordPress.

• Clickfunnels offers exclusive membership site features for customers in its Etison package (starts from $297 per month).
• You get sales funnel hosting and a complete funnel deployment system
• You can create a one-page checkout system for your funnels
• Order bumps and Upsells with Clickfunnels help you add more money into your bank account.
• You can select from hundreds of pre-built sales templates to create your sales funnels.
• And you can create a marketing automation engine all in one place with Clickfunnels.

I have read reviews of people sharing why "<a random competitor trying to be like Clickfunnels>" is a good alternative and I laugh at'em.

People who compare Kartra with Clickfunnels, Dropfunnels or Groovefunnels vs WordPress are doing it for the sake of affiliate commission.

They are not understanding why these sales funnel builders are nowhere close to the capabilities of Clickfunnels. So needless to say, it's the best funnel software in the market.

But the big question is, 

Do you really need that complexity to sell your products

I asked myself and my answer was NO.

Most of the time, I don't need that fancy looking, shiny funnel that I was designing on Clickfunnels.

Here is what you need to create a sales funnel in your business

1. An opt-in page that converts strangers into your prospects
2. A Sales page builder that doesn't suck (because most WordPress themes and Plugin do suck)
3. A Checkout system to take payments with the capability to upsell them your more products
4. A membership or course platform or a system to deliver your products and service

While WordPress does not provide these features, it does have benefits over Clickfunnels that made me move from Clickfunnels to WordPress

Benefits of WordPress over Clickfunnels

• WordPress is a self-hosted platform.

That means you own your sales pages, landing pages, opt-in forms, upsell pages, online course material and anything you create.

• When you want to "pause" your business for some time, because you are busy with product development, you can do it without paying extra money.

It is less about money and more about who controls what in your business

• WordPress comes with freedom of "organic growth". 

Building your funnels that SaaS companies like Shopify and Clickfunnels can not provide it. (in fact, it's opposite as they want you to keep hooked).

• WordPress has an inbuilt SEO engine that helps you rank on websites like Google and Bing. 

And you can enhance it further with the help of SEO plugins. It is essential for brand awareness.

• Digital marketing is less about sales funnels and more about "brand authority".

And you will need a blogging system for building an authority today or tomorrow.

But it comes with it's own disadvantages. And you need to pick if you are OK with WordPress cons over Clickfunnels

Disadvantage of WordPress (and how I overcame them)

• WordPress is a self-hosted platform. So you will need a good website hosting service for it. And you will have to do it by yourself

Since I am saving thousands of dollars when I am not using a SaaS funnel software, I use it for buying a strong website hosting with great support.

I use WPX Hosting after testing over a dozen website hosting platforms like bluehost, hostgator and A2Hosting.

I don't really need to do anything by using WPX Hosting as their support takes less than 1 minute to reach. This is the best thing I found for my website.

• WordPress can be more technical to use than Clickfunnels for newbie entrepreneurs 

WordPress is challenging sometimes for new people. So I picked Thrive suite annual membership for just $299 (or $149/Qtr) and now I can do way more than what I could do with Clickfunnels. I have explained this in more details in my Thrive themes review.

If you need a checkout system in your WordPress, check OptimizePress3.0 over other "pretending WordPress funnels".

• WordPress is a DIY system when Clickfunnels comes with a support.

This is important to understand. Clickfunnels is backed with a strong community. This is why I invested in One funnel away challenge before doing anything.

WordPress has a community but they are not business oriented and mostly freelancers and professionals.

Clickfunnels education is priceless. You can take next One Funnel Away challenge without hesitation to learn the science of sales funnels. 

The simple WordPress website can not be compared with Clickfunnels at all. But if you are playing a game of the long-run, you need a WordPress website. It will give you more organic reach and establish you as an authority in your niche.

Built-in blogging capabilities in WordPress also give you an opportunity to add more sources of income with affiliate marketing.

Since WordPress alone can not create an amazing website for you that brings conversion, I moved to Thrive membership and WordPress.

When you should move to WordPress from Clickfunnels

• You are a beginner entrepreneur and need "Sales funnel" and "Website" because you can do it with Thrive themes for less than $20 a month. (save 90% of what you are investing in Clickfunnels that you can use in advertising)
• You are a blogger or coach who is planning to become an expert in your industry and not just a salesperson.
• You are comfortable with WordPress blogging and know the basics of WordPress (you can learn it within a day)

In all other cases, Clickfunnels $127 plan is better than WordPress for the time, energy and money you save.

When you are new to internet marketing, it doesn't make sense to spend thousands of dollars on software you are not even sure about.

Technically, WordPress, along with Thrive themes is revolutionary. It has everything that you need to start with. And it is coming with a choice to move away whenever you want.

Making a converting sales funnel on WordPress is possible with Thrive themes. And if you need a checkout system for your online courses, Sendowl integration is there to help.

Just for $9/mo, you get a worry-free Sendowl checkout system that is deeply integrated with Thrive Themes online course module as well.

You can go through my sales funnel here. This will help you understand how I do it. This is completely made with Thrive themes and Sendowl.

Getting a checkout system is always better than giving control of your data to a different software when you are in the initial days of your journey.

Further Advantages of using WordPress with Thrive themes instead of Clickfunnels

The sales funnel is about making money by selling your products and services. This is why some features are quite necessary for creating a high converting funnel.

Split testing two versions of pages

A/B testing of sales pages to check, which one is converting better is critical to increasing conversions.

It's not directly possible in WordPress but works best in Clickfunnels. With Thrive Themes you can remove this limitation.

Email marketing integration and email automation

A key feature of Clickfunnels is integration with tens of email marketing software like Getresponse and Drip. With thrive themes, you can connect the same with WordPress much easier than Clickfunnels.

Payment gateway

WordPress has it's own e-commerce engine called Woo-commerce. Now Thrive themes are integrated with woo-commerce and you can easily take payments from over 27 payment gateways with Thrive themes and woo-commerce.

Search engine optimization

A big problem with most funnel building tools like Clickfunnels is, they completely ignore Search marketing and Search engine optimization.

Search engines like Google are 65% of all internet traffic and ignoring them is not a good idea. With WordPress, you have this extra advantage.

If you are going for a hosting provider like WPX Hosting, you will be in total peace. They will do most of the things for you including installing WordPress, setting up emails and everything.

And they don't take more than 2 minutes to reply (some times I feel they have super-powers)

Check WPX Hosting here

Here is my observation

A WordPress hosting also costs nearly $70/mo. On the contrast, Clickfunnels costs $81 for an annual plan. With the easy of use, Clickfunnels now might be a better option for quick start. However WordPress is still a better option if you want the ability to move to a different hosts after a period.