Systeme.io Review

Edit: Systemeio has now been updated and gone through a bit of a change. As such, this whole Systeme.io review has had an update.

I have received more emails this year about a new funnel building platform, or 'all in one marketing platform' than any other year, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. With many calling themselves ClickFunnel Killers or 'the latest funnel software'.

Today I have a new one to review, going by the name of Systeme.io, they look to be an all in marketing platform, focusing on funnels, blogs and emails, so a bit like GroovePages or Kartra.

They reached out and asked if I would have a run through and give it my honest opinion, so here I am to do just that. 

What Is Systeme.io?

Edit: Maybe they read my old Systemeio review, as they have done some major branding and copy upgrades. The below is now an updated version.

In their own words, Systeme.io is 'the only tool you need to launch your online business', though they have now moved that to the bottom of their landing pages. The home page has now been updated, and you are now greeted with the following; 

Which is a pretty big, attention grabbing headline that throws a huge claim out there!

My previous Systemeio review complained that they didn't actually explain anything about any of the tools or features you got access too, which was a little annoying. Thankfully they have now updated the home page to show at least some of the tools. 

The feature page has also now been updated, with more information about each one. 

As you can see, Systeme.io can be seen as that all-in-one platform that they claim to be. With access to;

• Funnels
• Emails
• Blogs
• eCommerce Stores
• Webinars

What Is Inside Of Systeme.io

Right, let's actually get into this, because there is a lot to cover in this Systeme.io review, with a number of different features to explore. 

I will bundle the key areas together, as I have done for other large platform builders, I would say if you do want to check out all the features, then you should grab yourself one of their free trials, that way you can actually understand what Systeme is all about.

The Funnel Builder

I am going to take a big guess and state that this is the main angle that Systeme are aiming for. They are focusing on the funnel building part of this platform, much like ClickFunnels does, the other areas are simply add-ons, or additional 'fun tools' that can compliment the sales funnels.

So the Sales funnel area comes with a sort of 'funnel wizard' designed to get you going on the right path. 

Each option will take you to a different screen, on which you will find a vartiety of templates. if we take the 'Sell' option, you are given what I would call a pretty standard 2 step funnel, with a single landing page and then a thank you page. 

If we decide to go with the product page that I would say looks the most, 'different' from the others (i.e not an eBook), then you are given a number of options.

The first being what you actually want the page to be called, the other being the products or even the commissions you want to provide for people buying the products. For those familiar with ClickFunnels would know this as the 'settings' or admin page. Systeme.io looks to provide this straight away, rather than what I would have expected, which is the editor.

(If you want to see more comparisons between these two, check out the Systeme.io vs ClickFunnels article.)

The admin part is pretty standard to be fair, giving you access to the 'standard' setting you would expext, as well as split testing, sales informaiton, and any automation rules for example triggering an event if someone decides to click buy, or where to send people if they subscribe to your email list etc. 

When a user clicks the 'magic pen?' icon, the one below the magic eye, then they get access to the 'editor' (I have no clue why they hide this away). 

The editor is the same as many others. It's an easy to use, simple, drag and drop editor. 

I really like the editor, it's easy to use, it doesn't take long to completely change the look and feel of the page that you are editing, quickly adding new images, fields or a multitude of payment options and products.

For my first 'order form' step, I chose a bright, vibrant 'fitness and supplement' based page. It stood out from the generic book selling pages that usually haunt these page builders. 

Originally, I wrote that the Thank You pre-builds sucked. They did. Thankfully they have now updated these and you now have lots of different choices. 

My biggest gripe did still stand, in the fact the funnel steps where disjointed, and it didn't feel like you could just create a new funnel with a number of steps already stitched together. 

Instead, you are forced to add each template/step manually. 

As I said before, there is zero follow on from the first page. They are just 2 separate entities, there is nothing that says that funnel step 1 and 2 are going to be connected. You have to spend time searching through different templates to try and match the first page. 

The same can be said about a few of the pages and 'funnels' within Systeme.io, they don't feel like there is anything connecting them. Take Thrive for example, when you select one of their templates, it gives you 3 or 4 pages that all have the same theme, colour scheme and look to them. You can quickly get them all set up, with minimal work. 

I do like the Systeme.io funnel builder, it takes a bit of time to navigate and get used too, but it's easy to drag and drop stuff around, and adding automation is pretty simple as well.

The CRM

I'm not sure I can call this a full CRM, but Systeme.io do have a place to save a lot of information about leads and customers, so it does have some basic CRM characteristics. 

It's a pretty simple CRM, that allows you to store and filter a large number of fields, including if they have been referred by affiliates, when they where last active (I assume that means what they last purchased) and again is just a place for you to store the information about your customers and leads. 

The Email Responder & Newsletter Tool

To be fair to Systeme they have actually made this part super easy, 100X easier than BuilderAlls crazy Mailboss. 

You can easily create a new newsletter, so if you have a one off email you want to send out, maybe a special offer, new amazing product launch, or simply want to build a relationship with your contacts, then it's easy enough to do. 

One thing I noticed is the neither the CRM nor the Email Responder seems to have the ability to have 'lists'. You can tag people, which I assume is their way of running lists, but usually I like to have tags, within my lists. For example a list that may contain 'buyers', I want to be able to tag those who open frequently, have bought a few items or many other options, this limits that ability. 

The 'campaigns' section looks to work and function much like many other autoresponders, I would say it's even easier to use than some autoresponders *cough*Aweber*cough*.

It's easy to see a new campaign, what emails it contains, number of contacts at each part and a vareity of other stats. Plus they have made it easy to simply add a new email.

I will accept that you can't do fun flows like you will find within GetResponse or ActiveCampaign, but you can set up a pretty decent and long email campaign that sends out emails at a certain time of time, or after another email with relative ease. 

From looking around, it looks like the only way to 'activate' these campaigns is via triggers inside of funnels, this makes it slightly unfriendly when it comes to wanting to move people across to new campaigns. 

Other than that, not bad.

Systeme.io Blog Creation

Update - You can now see a full 'How To Create A Blog With Systeme' here. It has improved a lot, but I would still stick with WordPress if I am honest.

The blog creation tools are always ones that, scare me. For one simple reason, WordPress works really well and is pretty simple to get up and running, why make that more difficult. 

But, I am going to look at this blog tool and see what it's like. 

This is not a good start. A single 'template' that looks to just preload a header, a generic font and 3 'pages', which can be edited. 

It's difficult to navigate this section, the 'posts' button is actually a button and it changes when you click on it to 'Pages'. I have zero clue why platforms do this, as it makes navigating super difficult. 

Each page is a drop & drop style editor, think Wix or something like that. It's fine to use, it's easy enough to add images, blocks or whatever you want onto it. 

You can add a post the same way you add a page, and you get access to the same builder. 

My biggest issue, and the reason people use sites like WordPress is that you have zero control over anything. You don't know how well your posts are optimised, you can't add plugins or useful tools to help you understand SEO or page speeds. 

You just have no control over it, it's simply a pretty page builder. I would say it's nice, if you are possibly a store, or someone who only needs a website that looks pretty but doesn't rank or ever show up in search results. 

Ecommerce & Affiliate Programs

Really this section should be under either the blog or the funnel, because it's all about setting up products, and potential affiliate programs within the other areas. 

Within this section, you have the ability to add your own products that can then be added to your funnel, sort out coupon codes, set up subscriptions, see if people have paid and some other stats. 

I can see why Systeme.Io added the this section, as it does help put this type of information in a single place, but you do end up running around a bit when you are creating eCom or product funnels. 

I decided to create a few products to show how this stuff will look or feel, but if I am honest, I was lost. After clicking 1 button, seeing a menu, another button, a new menu, some more buttons and menus..I just got annoyed. Why is this so difficult? 

There is no image, no pricing (there was a VAT button), and this screen just looked at adding attributes, but again, nothing is overally friendly or fun to use. 

Compare this to something like Shopify that gives you everything in 1 single place, it might be slightly over kill for say a funnel, but having this information in front of you means you have the ability to create multi step funnels, different types of funnels and basically make life a lot easier. 

Even ClickFunnels makes this part easier, and I have never been a huge fan of them, but at least I can easily see my product information. 

The affiliate part just allows you to say how much you reward if an affiliate sends someone to your funnel and someone buys the product. 

Who Created Systeme.io

The original version looks to have been created by a French company, a lot of the pages when navigating still pop up with French, especially on pages that may or may not be seen as often (password reset header was in French). 

Who Is Systeme.io For?

Honestly, I would say Systeme.io may be good for those looking for a cheaper and simple funnel builder, as long as you are only after really simple funnels. 

If you are someone looking to sell 1 or 2 products, with the ability to run an affiliate program alongside it, then again Systeme may be the right platform for you. 

I may even say that if you want the ability to capture emails, with a really simple auto-responder (that you simply plugin 50 follow ups or 150+ follow ups) then again, this could work for you. 

The final 'customer' may be those who are just starting out and want a cheap way to run webinars, most platforms that host webinars, at least 'evergreen' ones charge a few hundred $'s a month. With Systeme you may find that the cost is a lot less, and you can still build a funnel around it.

Systeme IO Pricing - How Much Does Systeme.io Cost?

There are now 4 different systeme.io pricing options, including a new 100% free version. There are a lot of features, and it does make it difficult to work everything out. 

If you check out their pricing page it's much easier to understand what you get, I will also throw a summary below. 

I admit it was quite difficult trying to capture all of the 'features' you get on 4 different tiers, but at least the tiers are less confusing than BuilderAll.

Essentially, even on the free tier, you get access to all the features, minus webinars. You get enough contacts, funnels and even blogs to get started. 

At the $27 per month pricing point, you can increase your contacts to 5,000, you can increase the number of funnels, blogs, campaigns and of course domains. 

Moving to the $47 per month introduces Webinars (as the name suggests), as well massively increasing domains, workflow rules, courses and of course contacts and campaigns. 

Finally, stepping up to the $97 tier, this is essentially the same price you would pay for the lowest tier of most other builders. They basically just give you everything. You also get 1-1 coaching and introductions to Systeme.io and help migrate things across. 

Is Systeme.io Free?

Yes, or at least they now have a free tier. As part of the latest updates they have now added a new Systeme Free version which provides you with access to most of the tools available, minus the webinar, migration services and onboarding. 

But you still get access to;

• Funnels
• Email & Contacts
• A blog with unlimited posts
• Your own affiliate program
• A custom domain

And more, so be sure to check out the pricing page for more details. 

What I Like About Systeme io

Again, as with other areas, now that Systeme.io has had an update, it makes sense to look at updating the systeme io pros and cons list. 

The funnel builder editor and the overall structure designer where really nice and smooth. They have now added more templates and pages, which makes life a lot easier. 

Being able to set up campaigns, send emails and have some structure to the emails was brilliant, and this blows MailBoss out of the water (even if you can't do complex logic paths). I loved the fact I could get up a campaign with 5 or 10 emails, in maybe an hour or less, give it some rules, and then trigger it by an action on a funnel. Simple and easy. 

I also enjoyed the webinar funnels, and the fact you can actually create webinars, but it suffers from the same issue as the funnel builder. There is a lack of consistency across pages or steps.

What I Didn’t Like About Systeme.io

Aside from the stuff I enjoyed, basically everything else if I am going to be honest, and I do try to be. 

The blog builder tool just felt lacking in any real control or power, with 1 single template, it was hardly mind blowing. 

Adding products, as I said earlier becomes a maze, and you can't easily see what your products contain, their prices or even what they are. They are simply just strings of text. I accept you don't need this information within a funnel, because a sales page will have that information, but it's good to have this information actually stored against the product, so when they get to checkout they have a quick overview, an image and some information. This is vital if you have multiple upsells and cross selling within that funnel. 

The overall look and feel felt unfinished, with only a small number of templates, and a lack of real consistency across the pages, made it feel like you had to spend hours updating colours and styles, which defeats the purpose of using this kind of product. 

You can now share, and import Funnels, something you couldn't do a few months back. Which means the ability to use someone else's makes it so much easier to get started. 

Is Systeme The Right Funnel Builder Or All In One Platform For You?

After the initial release, I was pretty 'meh'. Some parts of it worked really well, others didn't. With the introduction of the free level and changes to the platform, I actually think it's a pretty decent funnel builder and marketing platform.

The lack of theming across funnels still annoys me, but then looking back at other platforms, they do exactly the same. The only time you get the same is when you import full funnels. 

The funnel builder/page builder is easy to use, again has some of the same quirks as other funnel builders, but for 1/4 of the price, so I actually allow them to get away with it. 

I personally wouldn't use the blog, a bit like I wouldn't use DropFunnels blogging parts, as I just prefer to run my affiliate blogs with WordPress. But, if you are a shop or local business who just wants a few pages to accompany your funnels, then it works fine. 

Finally, the product or ecommerce part was just really confusing, with so may sub menus and pages, you get lost so easily, you just don't know what you are doing. 

SystemeIO Review Conclusion?

If you are looking for a free funnel builder then I would say Systeme.io ticks all the boxes. Or even a cheap or free ClickFunnels alternative then Systeme is a great place to start. 

For the price, if you wanted a cheap way to run a very simple funnel and email follow, then you have everything covered.

Venturing into the higher price ranges, I would say ClickFunnels still wins the battle when it comes to the product/shop side of things. With a much easier template system, a much quicker and nicer to use product inventory system. 

But, again if you are on a budget, want to create your own course or sell products, with access to an affiliate program, you can do so for under $100 a month. It may just take a little longer to get set up.