DropFunnels Review

For the last 2 months or so, all I have seen have been posts that basically say 'screw ClickFunnels, you should get DropFunnels, it's 100% better!'.

Of course, I had to take a look at DropFunnels. Else I would miss out on this 100% better WordPress based funnel builder. 

Yes, you heard me right, this particular funnel builder runs on WordPress. From my initial view, looks to run much like Elementor or Thrive Architect. But, it has got a few key differences, which I will cover below.

What Is DropFunnels?

It's quite complicated, because DropFunnels is and can be many things, depending on how you use it, or what you want to get out of it.

At the core of it, it's a semi-all-in-one marketing platform, aimed at helping you build funnels, blogs and technically even things like membership sites. 

The whole platform is built on, and uses WordPress. This intrigues me, because WordPress can be massively powerful. It can provide so much freedom when it comes to design, SEO, page speed and a ton of stuff other platforms don't.

Also, roughly 37% of the internet uses WordPress to run their sites, so it makes sense to use such a popular CMS.

When I heard DropFunnels was built on WordPress, I had to check it out, mainly because I like to use Thrive Architect as my 'funnel builder'.

I say it quite lightly, as I only create landing pages, thank you pages and on occasion download pages, but let's be honest, that's all people need these days. 

These are simple to do, Thrive has a ton of templates that can all be loaded onto a few pages and easily connected. With a little manual work to ensure you are pushed to the right page. 

Now, DropFunnels offer the ability to create actual funnels, membership sites and blogs. Without the need for extra plugins and themes. I am sceptical, as I like the ability to use my own SEO plugins and of course themes, but hey, I am open to trying new things. 

If you want to 'Try New Things' you can get a 14day free trial, that gives you access to everything, just grab it here. When you set up an account, there is a nice introduction funnel that asks some questions. A bit like ClickFunnels survey, except, a funnel.

I really enjoyed this funnel. They are trying to work out which tier you might need, if you require help or if you simply want to 'go at it alone'

Every single answer comes with a short video explaining the questions. You can then answer and again be directed to help documents or the chance to get 1-1 coach.

It provides them with some good data on areas they should focus on, and it also gets you started on the right path. 

Because I was testing it out, I went down the Affiliate Marketing / Network marketing route. I don't know if the choices you make change the layout once inside DropFunnels, I assume not. 

The DropFunnels Features

I have tried to split the following section into smaller bitesize pieces . Bundling in different tools or parts of the platform that relate to each other. 

If you have read my most recent Systeme.io review, then you will have seen this format before. It allows me to go through each section in a bit more detail, and give my opinion. As well as explaining if it's useful to have them in that chosen area or if they belong in separate places.

This DropFunnels review is no different, so I have created a section on;

• The funnels,
• Integrated CRM & Leads Section,
• Membership sites,  
• The blogging/article creator part,
• The marketplace.

Sales Funnel Builder

I guess considering it's called DropFunnels, the funnel section should be the word place we start. 

This is the part that intrigues me. As I said before, I do like to create my own mini funnels with Thrive. So seeing what DropFunnels had to offer was pretty cool. 

Starting the process off is pretty easy. There is a large button called 'Add Funnel' at the top of the Funnels tab. This in turn gives you some simple options, such as naming the funnel. 

As you can see, you create the funnel, then create the funnel steps below it. You will have to click into every funnel step to set it up, change the view of it and play around with the theme or branding. 

You also have the option of grabbing some ready-made funnels. I will go through more later within the Funnel Marketplace section. They do allow you to have the same theme/branding on all parts of the step, ready for you to change the wording. 

The drag and drop page builder itself is a little difficult to master when you first start, especially if it's a completely blank slate.

With a ton of different modules to look at and even sections on changing the number of columns (it says rows...but I knew what it meant).

As you can, it's a bit daunting to look at, and it took a few minutes of just throwing stuff onto the page to try and get something to work. You will find that a lot of the modules are drag and drop

Luckily, you can do pre-made 'Templates' which are essentially done for you pages that can be edited as you wish. 

There are a load of different pages or 'groups' to choose from, including;

• landing pages, 
• webinar registration pages,
• checkouts,
• coming soon pages,
• video sales pages.

There is pretty much a page for every part of a funnel you may need. With a decent selection of styles within the groups as well. 

So you can choose around 10 different pre-built webinar registration pages, roughly the same number of VSL and lead capture pages. So you can usually find a layout or brand scheme that suits your brand. 

The ready-built pages are easy to select and install, and you can add any of the pages onto any part of the funnel. The best part is that there are pages that visually look the same. 

So you can find a registration page and a thank you page that both look the same. Or you can build a webinar registration, thank you, webinar and then a checkout page all looking roughly the same. 

This really does make life a lot easier. 

I also liked the page editor. You can click on each section and get shown different options. This is clearer than other platforms that need you to click one button, then click another button and then 5 separate buttons.

It's just simple and easy.

When you have finished editing the page, you can of course save the page. This should take you back to the funnel overview, unfortunately for me, it took me to a nice white blank screen.

A few refreshes later and well, nothing. I had to go back to the main menu to get back to the funnels. Annoying.

When all the pages and steps are complete, you can start to play around. With access to integrations, tracking codes, and order confirmation details. You can also share the funnel!

The funnel builder does feel a lot like ClickFunnels, with some areas being slightly easier to deal with, especially switching out whole themes instantly or complete pages. 

I would give their funnel builder and editor a good solid 8/10.

Funnel Marketplace

So we have looked at the standard funnel builder. There is also a second part to this funnel section, and that is the marketplace. 

It's split into 2 sections, though they don't make a lot of sense.

The two sections are 'Premium Themes' and 'Full Funnels'. From what I can see, both sections provide you with full funnels.

I chose a 'Real Estate' funnel that provided a decent looking capture page and thank you page. That is in my eyes a funnel (a simple one), but it was within the 'Premium Theme' section. So there seems to be a little disconnect with the wording.

Looking at some of the other funnels/themes available within that section, there are some really nice looking pages and layouts. I picked up the course layout, and I have to say, the layout and colour design for this is lovely. 

Obviously, they may not be a 'full funnel' because a lot of these are for capturing single payments. There are no upsells or bonuses, and it's focused on a single outcome (a sale), so that may explain the difference. 

At the moment, there is a single 'Full Funnel' within the marketplace. Which is, of course, the 'Free + Shipping Book Funnel', seems to be famous these days. 

The funnel does come with a sales page, one-click upsells, extra bonus details and there are also some order summary pages.

Again I am assuming they class these as a funnel because it contains up-sells/cross-sells, which I would say does make sense.

All the themes and this funnel are free to use. You can then edit them as you see fit, adding your own products, pricing, upsell pricing, downloadable items and whatever else you fancy. 

All in all, the marketplace is 'light', but at least they have a few to choose from. It would be nice to see a few more 'full funnels' though. Maybe as they grow they will add more. 

If you are enjoying this DropFunnels review, be sure to check out their 14 day trial.

Products & Sales

Now that we have looked at the funnel part of this platform, it makes sense to check out the products and sales. Especially as a lot of these funnels are going to need this stuff.

The sales page is clean, easy to view and you can see lots of different stats and reports, including breaking down sales or orders by funnel steps. 

One part of this platform I was worried about was the 'products' page. A few funnel builders or all-in-one platforms have really struggled with this. They have made it incredibly difficult to add the products. 

DropFunnels did a pretty decent job of this. Providing you with a ton of different fields to add information into. Which is useful to have, especially when it comes to checkout or order summaries.

Each product will then appear in the product section and you can open and update or edit them as you see fit. These can then be added to funnel steps without much hassle. 

Again, a decent job and one that many screw up.

Membership Sites

I wasn't sure if this was a big focus for DropFunnels, but then again I don't spend a lot of time in the membership world. Considering I don't have a course to sell, so have never required one. 

Edit: I do actually now run my own course, but I run it on a separate domain. So I'm not sure it would fit well with my course.

From poking around this, it looks to use the WordPress 'membership' levels. Blocking off certain URLs if your user account doesn't have the correct access.

You get different styles and levels to choose from, either basic or advanced. You can build whole sites within these different URLs. 

If you have many different courses, then this would work well. Allowing you to have a different URL and section for the courses. 

Each site can have its own theme or layout for the lessons. You can change the login pages and the forgot password pages. 

CRM

Leading on from the membership sites, and funnels is a section of what I like to call the CRM. though it's a mixture of leads & WordPress users. 

There isn't an area or section for the 'CRM'. Each part is separate, so you can check out all the leads, where they have come from and what funnel caught them. But you also have the users/members section. 

From the looks of the information, it's based on WordPress membership & user accounts. When someone becomes a member of your course, they will also have a user created. 

It's worth noting, you cannot send emails within this, but you may be able to hook up an Autoresponder, via webhook or API. I did notice you get the option to export your leads, so you could quite import them into an autoresponder of your choice. 

Blog / WordPress

I'm not sure if this area is one that DropFunnels are focusing on, but they provide the options. You can add your own domains in, so I can't see why not. 

The blog or WordPress side of this, works a lot like a standard WordPress installation, with a few tweaks. 

You can create posts, or pages, much like you can with a standard WordPress site. But you can also build these posts and pages with DropFunnels. Essentially working as a page builder. 

This gives you the choice of just creating normal blog posts, such as this one. Or allows you to create a mini funnel or possibly a capture page within a post. 

I found it difficult to chop and change like I can with Thrive. I can create whole blog posts in Thrive Architect. I can add images, templates and other items, without needing to touch the standard WordPress builder. This feels a lot more difficult with the DropFunnels Blog Builder. 

Every time you add a new element, the 'new' module vanishes. You have to click a button for it to appear again, so if you have say 10 - 20 elements to add, you will be forever clicking to add that next section. 

If I was going to use it, I would write everything out within the standard builder or text editor. Then try and fit in extra bits and pieces with the DropFunnels builder. 

Though I am not convinced I would want to port all my blog posts onto that platform. This may defeat the whole point of actually wanting to own DropFunnels.

Plugins - SEO

It's worth noting that you can't add your own plugins to this WordPress build. You are restricted to 'pre-approved' plugins. The first of the plugins you will notice is the SEO one.

On every page or post that you create, there is a section that is there to help you understand your on-page SEO. Much like RankMath does for me on this site. 

The plugin is pretty decent. It's a cross between YOAST & RankMath. It provides you with more than enough information to understand if your posts are going to rank or not. 

SEO looks to be a big selling point for DropFunnels. A lot of their advertisement focusing on the fact you can set up your funnels to be SEO centred. This of course means that search engines such as Google or Bing will love you, and you can rank with optimised pages.

This is all well and good, but I have found from experience, that funnels usually work a lot better with Ads. The content on funnel pages is usually so thin that they don't have a chance to rank against a full site.

For example, if you are trying to rank for 'Top Tips To Lose Weight'. You build your funnel pages with meta descriptions, increase your keyword density and ensure you have the right permalink set up. You still won't have enough content on that page to outrank an article dedicated to that topic. 

I guess this will work if you are doing an eCommerce website, or funnel. Focusing on trying to rank funnels that sell particular products. Possibly looking at gaining leads for local businesses that may have easier to rank pages.

The other possibility is that Drop Funnels wants you to focus on the blog side of life. Using the funnels as a natural move towards securing a commission or sale. But, once again the SEO focused funnels feels a little, pointless. 

Plugins - Link Tracker

Another useful tool, or plugin depending on how you look at this, is the Link Tracker. 

It's actually found under the marketing section and works the same way as PrettyLinks. You can add your own extension to your own site, it will then re-direct a user to a link of your choice. 

It can then be reviewed, you can see the number of hits and the last time someone actually clicked it. I'm not sure you can run reports on the link tracker, but it's nice to have in case you don't have one. 

Appearance & Themes

Honestly, you have very little choice of changing how posts or menus etc look and feel with this platform. It pretty much uses a standard 'clean' theme across all your standard posts and pages (if you don't decide to change them) and that's it. 

You can't add new themes, or update how it looks, you can only change whole pages by using the DropFunnel builder.

What Is The DropFunnels Pricing Like?

Edit: DropFunnels pricing plans have now been updated, with a 'Starter Plan' & 'Partner Program'. Though their FAQ page still shows the old pricing. 

These days, DropFunnels pricing is now offered at $97 per month. Most people will go for this plan. Some of the big affiliates will look at the Partner Program at $297 per month. 

According to their own website, the Partner Program is the most popular one, but I will let you judge which one you believe would be right for you. 

They have now removed their visitor caps and they have also upped the number of pages and domains you can have. They have also doubled the price.

The $97 per month I would see as the equivalent of getting access to a funnel builder, and some blog hosting. This could be seen as very expensive

For example. Choosing high speed hosting from a company such as SiteGround or WPX will cost around $30 per month. Adding access to Thrive Suite or Elementor Page Builders will set you back $20 per month. In the case of Elementor, it will cost $97 per year.

You have a lot more freedom with that set-up than you would be with DropFunnels.

What I Liked About DropFunnels

I actually liked a lot of the features of DropFunnels. This might surprise some readers, considering what I have said about other builders in the past. 

The actual drag and drop editor and funnel builder part of Drop Funnels are pretty good. The pre-built funnels or premium themes are well made, and they look very professional.

I would definitely use them if I was building quick and simple landing pages for clients. Knowing that I could build a small site or blog around that funnel, with that being my home page or something. 

The templates given within each page are nice, they match up with each other. You can build a 4 or 5 step funnel using the pre-existing templates. You may have to change a few of the colours or swap out some images. 

I enjoyed the fact that they had thought about SEO & blogging. A lot of funnel builders don't think about that part. Especially as they focus on ads or getting traffic to come to them, as opposed to 'finding them'.

But, I will caveat that with, I am not sure it needs it for funnels. 

The SEO plugin looked pretty decent and I could have used it if I wanted to build a blog around a funnel or capture page without much trouble. 

Even though I didn't take much time looking into it, the membership aspect of DropFunnels was decent. It utilises core WordPress, so no need for extra plugins.

With my limited experience with course creation. I managed to get a somewhat 'good' looking membership site created with a few lessons thrown in.

The interactive, or step by step quiz funnel really works. Asking questions to understand your level and deciding which plan you will need.

I don't know if the consultancy on offer is free, or if you have to pay for that help. For people starting out, it's nice that they offer it, and they don't push it if you say no.

What I Disliked About DropFunnels

I wouldn't say there where many things that I would say I 'hated' when it came to Drop Funnels. 

I came across a few bugs, such as saving funnel steps and finding a white or blank screen. That happened pretty much everything I did anything with funnels. 

When creating funnels from scratch it felt daunting. A blank canvas, with this huge list of possibilities. Even having a 'basic' layout may have been nice, to ease you into the process.

Some of the pre-built templates looked a bit basic, considering the standard of the premium themes. I felt that some of them had been thrown together, with some of the colour and branding not quite matching. 

The number of pre-built ready to go funnels was...lacking? 

Well, there was 1. I know that's more than some other companies provide, but why make such a song and dance about it. Especially when all you actually give is the basic 'Free + Shipping' funnel that has been done to death. 

They could have really come up with an awesome looking eCom funnel. Or used their real estate templates to up-sell some swanky pickup service. Missed the opportunity on that one.

With the rise in pricing, I would say the appeal has lessened for me. I could achieve the same, if not more with high-speed hosting + a page builder of my choice. Adding some premium plugins, and still be under the $97 per month price tag. 

Considering you do lose the ability to add your own themes, and plugins. You can feel like you are paying for a closed-off version of WordPress. A bit like paying for WordPress.com or WpEngine.

Who Is DropFunnels For?

Anyone looking to build pretty decent fast funnels, with an 'SEO' twist to them. 

If you are looking for a nice place to create your own membership area(s) with videos, courses and teaching. This is a slightly cheaper alternative to something like ClickFunnels, BuilderAll or Kajabi. 

I wouldn't say that hardcore bloggers would want to move across to Drop Funnels. Especially because I enjoy having my plugins, themes and page builders configured how I want them. I think most bloggers would agree.

Is DropFunnels Right For You?

Good question (Thanks James), I would give the 14-day free trial a run. That way you can play around with it, build some funky funnels, create a multitude of membership sites or a load of landing pages. 

The world is your oyster with a free trial. Magic.

DropFunnels Review Conclusion

If you are searching the market for a wallet-friendly funnel builder, or a bank happy membership site to host your training. I would say DropFunnels might be the platform for you.

The funnel editor and pre-build themes are easy to use and install. They also offer share funnels, so as the community grows, I suspect so will the number of funnels available for people to play around with. 

Have you tried DropFunnels, or have you got another platform that might compete? Let me know in the comments below.