WinningWP content is free to all. If you make a purchase through referral links on our site, we earn a commission (learn more).

Instapage, Unbounce or LeadPages – Which Is The Best Landing Page Builder?

Remember the days when you had to work with a developer every time you wanted to test a new landing page? Thankfully, landing page builder tools such as Instapage, Unbounce and Leadpages have made that a thing of the past.

Now, by using a simple visual drag-and-drop, you can quickly design, deploy and optimize as many landing pages as you want. And that means you can spend more time on the important stuff: Converting visitors into customers or subscribers.

However, when it comes to Instapage, Unbounce and Leadpages, these three tools aren’t identical. Yes, they’re all quality tools, and, yes, they’re all drag-and-drop landing page builders, but there are some feature differences that may make one tool better than another for your needs.

In this post, I’m going to try to help you find those important differences by going hands-on with these three rather excellent landing page builders.

I’ll show you how the landing page builder interface works, what kind of templates and integrations you get, and the most unique things about each one of these tools.

Instapage vs Unbounce vs Leadpages: Some Quick Introductions

We’ll get more in-depth soon, but let’s start this comparison with a high-level look at how these three tools stack up, as each tool has a slightly different pricing structure, as well as a different focus.

Instapage started as ‘just’ a landing page builder, but now it calls itself a ‘post-click automation platform’. Now, I realize that’s a little jargony, but it does highlight that Instapage is more focused on creating dynamic, personalized landing pages that match your ads, rather than just creating one-off static experiences for all visitors. There’s a lot to like about Instapage’s functionality, but it’s also the most expensive tool on this list.

Instapage Homepage

Leadpages also started as a landing page builder, but now it’s morphed into more of a general lead gen tool, with the addition of popups, notification bars and even entire websites (such as Squarespace). Leadpages is also the most affordable tool on this list by a good margin.

LeadPages Homepage

Unbounce has doubled down on the landing page focus, calling itself ‘the landing page platform’. Like Leadpages, though, Unbounce also lets you create notification bars and popups. Pricing wise, Unbounce sits in between Instapage and Leadpages.

Unbounce Homepage

Now you have some context, let’s dig a little deeper…

Comparing the Templates

Building a landing page from scratch is a lot of work, so, if you want to more rapidly deploy new landing pages, you’ll want a tool with a good set of templates.

All three tools do offer templates for you to choose from, but the selections are different.

Instapage

Instapage offers ~90 page templates for you to choose from. Instapage claims to have 200-plus templates, but I don’t see 200-plus templates in the interface, so I’m not sure where that number comes from.

These templates are divided into the following categories:

  • Lead generation
  • Two-step
  • Click-through
  • Thank you
  • Webinar
  • E-book
  • Event
  • App

The templates are clean, with modern looks and plenty of white space. One thing I like is that they include some wireframe-like templates, which are nice if you just want a basic starting point:

Instapage templates

(click to enlarge)

View all Instapage templates.

Unbounce

Unbounce gives you access to 100-plus templates, which you can choose from when you create a new landing page.

It divides these templates into ten campaign types:

  1. Books
  2. Coming soon
  3. Click-through
  4. Events
  5. Products
  6. Ebook
  7. Lead generation
  8. Sales pages
  9. Webinar
  10. Ecourse

While beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I think that, in general, Unbounce’s templates look a little more ‘finished’ than Instapage’s. As with Instapage, you also get those ‘wireframe’-type templates that you can use as a starting point:

Unbounce landing page templates

(click to enlarge)

View all Unbounce templates.

Leadpages

Leadpages gives you access to 130-plus templates for landing pages, as well as templates for entire websites.

These templates are divided into a variety of categories:

  • About or Bio
  • Author
  • Checkout
  • Consultation
  • Contest or Giveaway
  • Even
  • Free Resource or Download
  • Newsletter or Sign Up
  • Offer, Discount or Coupon
  • Sales
  • Thank You
  • Upsell or Bonus
  • Wait List or Coming Soon
  • Webinar or Virtual Event

In general, the templates look pretty great. Additionally, Leadpages has a unique feature that lets you sort the templates by conversion rate. It’s a little gimmicky, as the exact conversion rate will depend on the content you add, but I think there’s some benefit to this option as it gives you some real-world basis for which templates to choose:

Leadpages templates

(click to enlarge)

View all Leadpages templates.

Comparing the Drag-and-Drop Editor

Whether you’re building a page from scratch or using one of the templates, your next stop is the landing page builder itself.

Here, all three tools offer a visual, drag-and-drop builder, but you’ll see some key differences between the three.

Overall, I’d say Instapage and Unbounce have the strongest editors when it comes to flexibility and control over mobile design. Leadpages still offers visual drag-and-drop design… it’s just a little more limited.

Instapage

The Instapage editor is super flexible.

Using drag-and-drop, you can move any element to any spot on the canvas. It’s not like a WordPress page builder where you’re constrained by a grid of rows/columns. Instead, it’s 100% free-form:

Instapage landing page builder

(click to enlarge)

You get plenty of widgets for adding content, including buttons, forms, countdown timers and so on.

Beyond that, you can also design separate layouts for desktop and mobile devices. Instapage will automatically make your desktop design responsive, but then you can activate the mobile mode to fully customize how the mobile version of the page works:

Instapage mobile builder

(click to enlarge)

You can also create dedicated AMP designs on the highest tier.

For those reasons, Instapage has one of my favorite editors of any tool on this list.

Unbounce

Unbounce’s drag-and-drop editor is right up there with Instapage, offering you that same free-form drag-and-drop design flexibility. Again, that means you’re not limited to a pre-made row/column grid like a page builder — you can just drag elements wherever you want them:

Unbounce builder

(click to enlarge)

Like Instapage, you get widgets for forms, buttons and so on. And one unique thing about Unbounce’s builder is that it makes it really easy to add your own JavaScript or CSS.

Also like Instapage, you get the ability to fully customize the mobile version of your landing page, and you can also create dedicated AMP designs:

Unbounce mobile builder

(click to enlarge)

Overall, I’d say that Unbounce’s editor is a little more targeted towards developers because it has more advanced options, whereas Instapage’s is a little more targeted towards designers because it’s focused more on the visual design. Both are great, though!

Leadpages

Unlike Instapage and Unbounce, Leadpages’ drag-and-drop editor is not free-form. Instead, like with most WordPress page builder plugins, it only allows you to move elements around within the grid you’ve set up.

For example, you can see below that as I try to drag a subheading around I can only move it to those suggested sections with the diagonal lines — I cannot place it exactly where I want as I could with Instapage and Unbounce:

Leadpages builder

(click to enlarge)

Leadpages also lags behind when it comes to responsive design. While Leadpages will automatically make your designs responsive, you can’t go in and manually customize the mobile version of your page like you can with Instapage and Unbounce, nor do you get the AMP editing that those tools offer.

You get a mobile preview, but you can’t edit anything:

Leadpages mobile preview

(click to enlarge)

Leadpages is the most affordable tool by far, so these drawbacks look a little better when you remember that. Additionally, while I do still think Instapage and Unbounce have better editors, most people will still probably be fine with Leadpages’ editor.

Comparing the Other Features

While all of these tools may have started as landing page builders, they give you plenty more functionality beyond landing page templates and a drag-and-drop builder.

Let’s dig into that next…

Instapage

  • A/B testing.
  • Integrated conversion analytics and heatmaps.
  • 1:1 ad-to-page personalization that lets you deliver dynamic landing page experiences based on where a person is coming from, including dynamic text replacement.
  • Detailed collaboration features, which are great for working with a team. Team members can leave comments directly on landing pages, which makes for a faster feedback process.
  • Publish to WordPress, Drupal or a custom domain name.

Unbounce

  • A/B testing.
  • Integrated conversion analytics.
  • Design popups and notification bars in addition to landing pages.
  • Dynamic text replacement to personalize landing pages based on visitors’ search terms.
  • Publish to WordPress or your own custom domain name.

Leadpages

  • A/B testing.
  • Integrated conversion analytics.
  • Design popups and notification bars in addition to landing pages.
  • Publish to WordPress or your own custom domain name.
  • Create entire websites, such as Squarespace or Wix.
  • Sell digital products right from landing pages or popups with an integrated checkout powered by Stripe.
  • Create Facebook or Instagram ads that are pre-populated with landing page content.

Comparing the Integrations

Depending on your use, you’ll probably want to integrate with your own email marketing service, CRM, webinar service and so on.

All three tools offer a good array of integration options, but, if there’s a specific service you absolutely must use, I’d recommend checking each list closely.

Instapage

Instapage offers 40-plus integrations divided into a bunch of categories:

  • Advertising
  • Analytics
  • Call tracking
  • CRM
  • Ecommerce
  • Email Marketing
  • Exit Intent & Pop-ups
  • Live chat
  • Marketing automation
  • Other
  • Webinar

The list can be a little slim at points — for example, the only webinar service is GoToWebinar. However, there are also Zapier and Webhooks integrations, which give you a lot more flexibility to connect to other apps.

View all integrations.

Unbounce

Unbounce only offers 13-plus in-app integrations, which is lower than the 40-plus built-in integrations that Instapage and Leadpages offer. However, you can also use Zapier and Webhooks, which open up a lot more opportunities. Unbounce even has 60-plus prebuilt Zapier recipes that you can use right from your dashboard.

These integrations are divided into:

  • Utilities
  • CRM
  • Chat
  • Social
  • Email
  • Marketing automation
  • Customer support
  • Call tracking
  • Education
  • Analytics
  • Webinar
  • Optimization/testing

View all integrations.

Leadpages

Leadpages advertises 40-plus standard integrations divided into:

  • Analytics
  • CRM
  • Digital advertising
  • Ecommerce
  • Email marketing
  • Live chat
  • Marketing automation
  • Other
  • Payments
  • Scheduling
  • Social media
  • Video
  • Webinar
  • Website

Higher-tier plans also get access to Advanced Integrations for Salesforce, Hubspot and Marketo.

To give you an example of the extra options, Leadpages gives you three different webinar integrations: GoToWebinar, WebinarJam and Zoom. However, only GoToWebinar and WebinarJam are integrated, while Zoom makes you go through Zapier.

View all integrations.

Comparing the Pricing

In terms of pricing, here’s how these tools stack up, in order of most affordable to most expensive:

  1. Leadpages
  2. Unbounce
  3. Instapage

Instapage

Instapage only has one pre-set tier: The Core plan. Beyond that, it has an Enterprise plan that’s customized to your needs (and has a custom price to match).

If you’re interested in the Core plan, you’ll pay either $129 a month billed monthly, or $99 a month billed annually. That gets you access to the builder, A/B testing, analytics and so on.

If you want personalization, AMP support and more, you’ll need to go with the Enterprise plan.

You can also get a 14-day free trial — no credit card required.

Unbounce

In terms of pricing, Unbounce is kind of the Goldilocks — coming in between Leadpages and Instapage.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that Unbounce limits the number of published landing pages you can have by the different account tiers. You can create unlimited pages in your account — the limit just applies to how many are published live at a time. There are also some other feature differences between the tiers.

The cheapest Essential tier costs $99 a month billed monthly, or $79 a month billed annually. It lets you publish 75 landing pages at a time and eight popups/sticky bars.

Next, the Premium plan costs $199 billed monthly or $159 billed annually, and lets you publish 150 landing pages and 16 popups and sticky bars.

Finally, there’s also a customizable Enterprise tier if your needs go beyond those plans. It starts at $399 billed annually and goes up from there.

Leadpages

In terms of entry-level price points, Leadpages is the most affordable option by a mile. Additionally, all the plans let you create unlimited landing pages, popups and alert bars.

The cheapest Standard plan only costs $37 a month billed monthly, or $25 a month billed annually. It lets you use the full builder, but it lacks A/B testing, which is a pretty big omission.

If you want A/B testing, you’ll need the Pro plan, which costs $79 a month billed monthly, or $48 a month billed annually, which is still well underneath the other two tools.

Finally, there’s an Advanced plan that costs $321 billed monthly, or $199 billed annually. It adds on more integrations, sub-accounts and a one-on-one quick-start call.

What’s Unique About Each Tool?

To finish this Instapage vs Unbounce vs Leadpages comparison, I think it’s helpful to highlight what makes each tool unique.

I mean, at a basic level, there are a lot of similarities: All of them give you a bunch of landing page templates that you can customize with a drag-and-drop editor; all of them give you A/B testing and analytics, and so on.

So beyond the differences I’ve already highlighted, what are some big things about each tool that may make you choose it over the others?

Instapage

The three big things that stick out to me about Instapage are:

  1. Its flexible grid-less editor with mobile design control.
  2. All of its built-in team collaboration features.
  3. The built-in personalization options and ad integrations.

To that first point, I think you’ll love the flexibility Instapage’s editor gives you with its grid-less drag-and-drop design and ability to fully control how your landing page looks on mobile.

Second, there are all of those collaboration features. If you’re working in a team and you need to go back and forth with feedback for landing pages, you’ll love Instapage’s InVision-like feedback system, where you can just click on the preview and leave a comment. Here’s an example:

Instapage collab features

(click to enlarge)

Finally, Instapage has a big focus on personalization. So, if you’re interested in integrating personalization and automation into your landing pages, that’s another big reason to consider Instapage.

Unbounce

First off, Unbounce’s editor is one of its high points. It’s right up there with Instapage and gives you lots of nice features, such as:

  • grid-less drag-and-drop design
  • full control over the layout on both desktop and mobile
  • advanced features to help you to add your own JavaScript or CSS.

Unlike with Instapage, you can use that editor for more than just landing pages — you can also build popups and sticky bars with the same design flexibility.

Unbounce popups

(click to enlarge)

So, if you:

  • want a detailed editor, along with the ability to build landing pages, popups and notification bars
  • don’t need those advanced personalization and collaboration features*.

Then that may be a reason to choose Unbounce over Instapage.

*Unbounce still offers dynamic text replacement, so you do get some personalization.

Leadpages

First off, Leadpages is the most affordable tool on this list by a good bit. So, if you’re on a budget, that’s already one big thing in Leadpages’ favor.

As I mentioned, I think the tradeoff for that affordability is that Leadpages has the weakest editor on the list. However, you are quite flexible in what you can build with that editor:

  • Landing pages
  • Popups
  • Alert bars

And the latest version even lets you build entire websites, which none of the other tools offer. So, if you want to build an entire site, à la Squarespace, that’s another big point in Leadpages’ favor. You even get a bunch of full website templates, much like you get landing page templates:

Leadpages website templates

(click to enlarge)

Finally, Leadpages also offers its own integrated checkout system powered by Stripe, which is another unique feature. You can sell and deliver digital products right from your landing pages without the need for any external solutions.

Which Landing Page Builder Is Right for You?

Instapage, Unbounce, and Leadpages are all great tools, so you won’t make a ‘wrong’ decision here. Instead, it’s more about picking the tool that best fits your needs.

I hope by digging in and going hands-on, I’ve been able to illuminate some of those differences that will help you to make that decision.

If I had to sum it up, I’d say:

  • Instapage: Great editor, advanced personalization tools, helpful team collaboration features — but also the most expensive.
  • Unbounce: Also a great editor, can be used for more than just landing pages, is a little more affordable than Instapage.
  • Leadpages: Editor isn’t quite as flexible, but is the most affordable by far, and also lets you build landing pages, popups, notification bars and entire websites, along with integrated payments powered by Stripe.

Related Reading:

Using or used Instapage, Unbounce or Leadpages? Thoughts?

By Colin Newcomer

Colin Newcomer is a freelance writer and long-time Internet marketer. He specializes in digital marketing and WordPress. He lives a life of danger, riding a scooter through the chaos of Hanoi.
Comments (policy)
  1. Bob Sparkins says:

    Hi Colin – thanks for the fair review and breakdown of features. I work at Leadpages, and wanted to clarify that you CAN edit mobile version of pages. Each section can be turned on or off for mobile, desktop, or tablet.

    And you are right – we do not have a free-form drag-and-drop editor. However, because of that, non-designers love using Leadpages for how quickly they can customize their template without spending so much time tweaking every little thing.

    We’re also the only one of the 3 you compare that allows for unlimited landing pages, unlimited visits/traffic/conversions, and free weekly group coaching.

    Happy to answer additional questions you may have!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments are held for moderation. We'll only publish comments that are on topic and adhere to our Commenting Policy.