ClickFunnels is a popular platform for creating funnel-driven websites. Its popularity relies mostly on the ease of getting onto their platform and partly on their dynamic Tony Robbins-style culture. While those things initially get business owners hooked on the system, they soon look for a ClickFunnels alternative.
You’re not alone if you’ve found that the value you’re getting from ClickFunnels is not equal to the high cost you’re paying each month. You might be excited to learn that there is a lower-cost and more flexible option. Let’s talk about the issues with ClickFunnels and how you can solve them with a WordPress-based alternative.
The ClickFunnels Alternative
Before we dig into the alternative, I want to highlight the problems running your eCommerce store through a SaaS like ClickFunnels.
First, ClickFunnels is expensive. If you’re just getting your business up and running, it can be a lot of money to shell out every month. While they offer a free trial, it says something that you have to dig around to find their pricing chart (I had to Google it). I discovered that pricing starts at $97 per month and moves up to $297 per month for their platinum plan. However, even their highest tier doesn’t include the ability to maintain a blog or create a membership area, both of which are essential website features that can help drive traffic.
Additionally, because their platform is a SaaS, you’re locked into a proprietary system. If you close your account, you lose all your hard work – and we all know how much work it can be to build an effective site that consistently generates sales. While you can export your data, you’ll have to find a host and start rebuilding your e-commerce store completely from scratch.
Thankfully, there is a flexible and robust alternative to using ClickFunnels: WordPress combined with WooCommerce and WooFunnels.
WooFunnels is a plugin for WordPress that integrates with WooCommerce to create a feature-rich eCommerce site. WooFunnels gives you freedom by using the WordPress CMS, which powers over 40% of the web. When designing any type of site these days, flexibility is your friend. With WordPress, you have the opportunity to add a blog or membership feature to your site, which can help drive traffic. Most SaaS eCommerce platforms don’t offer that as a feature. Additionally, your content is completely portable because you’re not locked into a proprietary system. You can export your customer and sales data and your database tables with all your marketing copy intact.
The beauty of using WooCommerce to build your online store is that it is already an established and trusted eCommerce plugin. Currently, 93.7% of all WordPress e-commerce websites are using WooCommerce. It’s fairly easy to set up a store with WooCommerce, and like anything in WordPress, it’s extremely customizable.
WooFunnels takes your WooCommerce store to a whole new level. The plugin handles everything that ClickFunnels offers with more flexibility in design and structure. With WooFunnels, you can create:
- Landing pages
- Customized checkout pages
- One-click upsells
- Order bumps
- Subscription-based options
- A/B split testing
One thing that attracts me about WooFunnels is the low barrier to entry. As a small business owner, it seems risky to invest $300 per month in my store before I’ve even been established and made any sales. The low cost of WooFunnels means that it’s easy to get started without worrying that I’ll lose my shirt.
The cost to create your store using WooFunnels and independent hosting is less than $15/month for their Solopreneur-level package. That’s an 85% drop from ClickFunnels pricing, with significantly more value. You’re getting a sales funnel solution that works seamlessly with your existing WordPress eCommerce store, and you own your content.
How WooFunnels Works
Easily enough, WooFunnels installs like any other WordPress plugin. WooFunnels integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce. The plugin automatically makes your existing products available for different funnels that you want to create. I found that it’s a good idea to have your WooCommerce store configured with at least a few products before diving into WooFunnels. Having some products already in place makes it easier to play around with all the features that WooFunnels offers right from the get-go.
Setting up WooFunnels
When you first activate WooFunnels, they start you off with a handy wizard to help you get things configured. From there, you can start creating your funnels or tweak your settings. Under Settings, there are options for:
- Setting up a test payment gateway
- Adjusting your permalinks
- Inserting custom CSS
- Using external .js scripts
It also allows you to integrate with external services like Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and even TikTok or Snapchat.
Create your funnels
Creating funnels is as easy as adding new pages or posts. For example, let’s say you have a product that would benefit from an add-on to enhance the functionality. In my test, I created a Raspberry Pi 400 kit and a protective sleeve as separate products in WooCommerce. Once I had those products set up, I went into WooFunnels and created a new upsell funnel. If someone purchases a kit, the protective sleeve is offered automatically as an upsell during checkout.
You can customize a one-click upsell funnel to add any upsell product(s) you choose. WooFunnels also offers multiple responsive templates for creating your funnels, so you don’t have to design everything from scratch. Every aspect of your new upsell offer is editable, so you can choose colors and adjust the layout and content – just as you would a post or page. WooFunnels automatically adds the funnel into the checkout process.
When working with the templates, you can choose your page builders’ type, such as Elementor, Divi, Gutenberg, Oxygen, or others. You can also preview how it looks on different mobile screens and the desktop.
Utilizing WooFunnels’ Analytical Tools
In addition to design tools, WooFunnels also provides tools that let you track orders and perform split A/B testing. It also gives you analytics reports that are easy to understand. There is also a feature that allows you to index orders.
Indexing is a feature that maps customer data with orders. Essentially, it stores information in a database, establishing a relationship between customers and their purchases. That’s helpful when you’re creating upsells and order bumps.
For example, if a customer purchased a product in the past, WooFunnels would skip showing them an offer for that item. Conversely, you could show an offer for an item purchased in the past by that customer – useful for refillable products like soaps or other beauty products.
Capturing leads and analyzing customer data
WooFunnels also offers an add-on called Autonami. Autonami is an additional plugin that complements WooFunnels. Essentially, it functions as a lightweight CRM. The add-on plugin helps you capture leads, create automated emails and get deep into customer data.
Recapture Abandoned Shopping Carts
Autonami also helps you recapture abandoned shopping carts. Cart abandonment is a huge challenge for online sellers. Almost 80% of shopping carts were abandoned in March of 2021. It’s a big problem for eCommerce stores, but there are ways to recapture those sales.
One way is to set up triggered (and well-timed) emails to bring customers back to your store and entice them with a new offer or deal. Autonami provides analytics on abandoned orders and allows you to set up those automated emails using the customer data already in your system.
Sharing Data Between Plugins
Autonami also connects your WordPress plugins, allowing data to be shared between them and initiate an action in one when triggered by another. For example, when a user clicks the submit button on a form, a WooCommerce coupon can be created and sent in an email. You could also have a course-completion action that sends a follow-up email to the student, cross-selling them on your new course.
These tools are already available to you as a WordPress user, of course. Several plugins offer the same functionality. There are WordPress CRM plugins, WooCommerce cart abandonment add-ons, Workflow automation tools, automated follow-ups, etc. Some of them are quite good. The only problem with these plugins is that you have to spend the time installing and configuring each one, not to mention there are subscription fees to pay for all of them. By looping Autonami into WooFunnels, everything you need is already integrated with your WooFunnels and WooCommerce configurations.
A powerful ClickFunnels alternative
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The advantage of powering your store with WordPress is the flexibility and stability of the platform. You have complete control over customizing your site to fit your brand so you can target the audience you want. It doesn’t matter whether you use Gutenberg, Elementor, Divi, or any other page builder to design your site. You can customize your funnels with the tools you’re already familiar with.
The ability to capture leads and retain existing customers through automated emails is powerful. Using the Autonami add-on, you can regain those annoying abandoned carts and stop leaving money on the table.
With the robust combination of WordPress, WooCommerce, and WooFunnels, you can create a beautifully-designed eCommerce store that’s a robust alternative to ClickFunnels.
Have you recently started an eCommerce site with funnels? What sort of challenges have you run into along the way?
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