Instapage vs Unbounce (2024): Which Is the Best Landing Page Tool for Online Marketing?

If you’re running pay-per-click campaigns, the slightest difference in your landing page conversion rates can have a big impact on your bottom line. 

That’s why it’s essential to make sure every dedicated landing page you create is laser-targeted to your target audience and built to convert as many visitors as possible—and for that, you need a great landing page builder.

Instapage and Unbounce are two of the best landing page builders on the market, but which is best?

In this comparison of Instapage vs Unbounce, we’re going to try to answer that question. We’ll take a closer look at what both platforms have to offer and compare their features, pricing, and performance in various categories.

After that, we’ll give our verdict on which one you should choose based on your business needs.

Ready? Let’s get started!

An Unbounce and Instapage Overview

Unbounce and Instapge have a lot in common.

They’re both high-end page builders that offer sophisticated, grid-free landing page editors; they both have cutting-edge features (like Unbounce’s AI-powered conversion intelligence and Insapage’s AdMaps and AMP landing pages), and they’re both suitable for both single users as well as teams/agencies. 

However, there are a few key differences between them. Here are the main differences you need to know about:

• Unbounce is more affordable (for smaller businesses). Unbounce plans start at less than half the price of Instapage’s plans, but…
• Instapage doesn’t cap conversions on any of its plans, whereas Unbounce does on all of its plans. The fact that Instapage has no conversion limits means that, despite the higher price tag, it’s still the more economical choice for larger businesses with lots of conversions.
• Instapage is easier to use (in our opinion). It works smoothly out of the box with a simple interface and no bloatware.
• Unbounce offers two page builders rolled into one. You can choose between the Classic Builder and the new Smart Builder, depending on whether you want more control or a no-hassle page building experience. Instapage just offers one.
• Instapage provides an advanced heat mapping tool, whereas Unbounce only offers basic analytics and reporting.

There are a few more differences aside from the above; these are just what we think are the most important ones.

What Is Unbounce?

Unbounce was one of the early pioneers of modern landing page software solutions. It was founded in 2009 and has made continuous upgrades to its software in the years since, earning a stellar reputation amongst marketers.

Recently, Unbounce expanded its service offering. It’s now no longer just a dedicated web-based landing builder—it’s a complete, AI-powered ‘Conversion Intelligence Platform’.

The company still offers the same classic landing page tool, which allows marketers to quickly build, test, and launch high-converting landing pages using templates and a drag and drop editor.

For more insights on this part of the tool, read our Unbounce review (or keep reading this comparison guide).

But now, they also offer a selection of ‘Smart’ tools powered by machine learning: Smart Builder (Beta), Smart Traffic, and Smart Copy.

What Is Instapage?

Instapage was founded in 2012 and is marketed as the “World’s Most Advanced Landing Page Platform.”

It specializes in post-click landing page optimization and provides a suite of tools to help marketers create and optimize high-converting landing pages and personalize them for each ad.

Like Unbounce, it aims to be much than just a landing builder and also offers other conversion optimization tools like heatmaps, A/B testing, and collaboration tools.

Its collaboration tools are some of the best in the industry and make it a popular choice amongst marketing teams that work together on PPC campaigns. More details in our Instapage review (or in our comparison below).

Which Is More User-Friendly?

Next, let’s compare Instapage vs Unbounce to see which is the most user-friendly.

Both platforms are very easy to use and suitable for beginners, with no-code editors, intuitive interfaces, and a ton of templates to make it easier to get started quickly.

However, on the whole, we found Instapage a little easier to use out of the box. Unbounce’s Classic Builder took longer to learn.

Unbounce

Unbounce’s Smart Builder is particularly easy to use as it’s designed to streamline the page creation process. 

The AI-powered Design Assistant asks you questions about what kind of page you’re hoping to build and then automatically generates the foundations of the page for you, based on data about what kind of pages typically convert best for your goals and industry.

You can then customize it in the Smart Builder Editor.

Unbounce’s Classic Editor is a little less easy to work with than the Smart Editor, but it’s more flexible. To help you learn the ropes, there’s also a training template that walks you through the process step-by-step.

If you need extra help, Unbounce provides a help center with lots of tutorials and guides on how to use the platform.

You can also send support tickets and access telephone, live chat, and email support from 1 AM—8 PM PST during weekdays and 9 AM—9 PM PST on weekends.

Instapage

Instapage doesn’t offer a Smart Builder, but its standard page editor is a lot easier to use than Unbounce’s Classic Editor—or at least, it felt that way to us. 

The Instablocks feature (which provides reusable blocks that function as individual section templates) is also a huge time saver.

The Instapage dashboard is user-friendly and easy to navigate, with everything you need easily accessible from the sidebar. Like Unbounce, there are also plenty of resources and support options if you need extra help. 

The Instapage help center has lots of helpful resources. Plus, there’s also ticket support and 24-hour live chat support, which you can access from your dashboard.

Highlight Features That Both Platforms Offer

Next, let’s take a look at Instapage vs Unbounce feature set. We’ll start with some highlight features that both landing page tools have in common:

• Grid-free landing page builders. One of the coolest things about Instapage and Unbounce is that, unlike many of their competitors (Leadpages, I’m looking at you), they both use freeform editors that don’t rely on grids. This means you can freely move elements around the page with total precision. They won’t snap into set rows and columns like they would with grid-based editors. 
• Extensive widget selection. Both page editors let you add lots of different widgets to create compelling, interactive pages. Some widgets they both have in common include headers, paragraphs, images, forms, buttons, videos, countdown timers, icons, and shapes.
• A/B testing. You can set up multiple page variants and split test them as many times as you like with either platform.
• Dynamic text replacement (DTR). Both platforms support dynamic text replacement, which is essential if you plan on creating personalized post-click landing pages for different ads at scale. DTR can automatically tailor the content on your pages to include the keywords your visitors searched for. 
• Mobile-responsive landing pages. Pages built on Unbounce and Instapage are responsive, which means they’ll look great on any device. However, each platform also enables you to tweak how they look on different devices if you want more control. 

So, those are the features they both have in common—but what unique features does each platform bring to the table? Let’s find out.

Top Unbounce Features

Smart Builder (& Powerful Classic Builder)

One of Unbounce’s standout features is its Smart Builder (still currently in Beta testing). It’s a cutting-edge feature that aims to revolutionize the way marketers build pages. 

A machine-learning algorithm generates the best-possible page design for your industry and goals based on data from over 1.5 billion conversions to both save you time and ensure your pages convert as effectively as possible. 

It’s not very flexible and doesn’t give you as much control as the Classic Builder; plus, there are still a few bugs that Unbounce is ironing out, but it’s a fantastic time-saver and something that Instapage doesn’t offer (yet).

The Classic Builder itself is also very powerful. It has the same grid-free editor as Instapage and is very flexible.

Smart Copy

Smart Copy is Unbounce’s ‘AI copywriting assistant.’ It’s an incredibly useful tool for marketers that can save you a ton of time by creating the copy for your landing pages for you. 

You can either let it create on-brand copy for you based on basic information about your company or input some pre-written text as a starting point, and Smart Copy will expand on it for you to turn it into a whole paragraph.

The Remix feature can also repurpose existing copy so you can reuse it in new channels or campaigns. There’s even a Chrome extension, through which you can highlight text on any website page, and Smart Copy will rewrite it or expand it into a paragraph for you.

Smart Traffic

Smart Traffic is another innovative feature that’s unique to Unbounce. 

It automatically gathers data to learn about your page and visitors and uses this data to identify conversion patterns, provide actionable insights, and routes visitors to the best page variant for them based on metrics like geo-location, device, browser, etc.

Popups and Sticky Bars Tools

Unbounce makes it easy to build other conversion elements like popups and sticky bars. Popups are boxes that appear on the page after a set amount of time or when a user takes a certain action (such as moving their cursor to leave the page).

Sticky bars are horizontal bars that run across the top or bottom of your page to highlight promotional offers and other important messages.

Instapage lets you build popups too, but you have to do it as a click event in the regular page editor.

With Unbounce, you can build your popups and sticky bars in a dedicated drag-and-drop editor using pre-made templates. 

Unbounce also lets you trigger popups based on visitor actions, choose how often to show them (e.g. once per visitor, or every second visit), and even set advanced targeting options (show or hide offers based on the visitor’s location, past behaviors, referral source, etc.).

For more control over pop-ups when using Instapage, they recommend using third-party pop-up software (one of them being OptinMonster). We opted to use Convertbox they offer a lifetime license.

Lead Notifications

You can set up lead notifications in Unbounce so that whenever a visitor submits a form, you (or your client or team members) automatically receive an email notifying you of the new sign-up. You can even customize your notification emails with your brand colors and logo. 

Top Instapage Features

Instablocks

Instablocks is a relatively new feature that Instapage introduced a few years back. It’s a real game-changer that enables marketers to build landing pages more quickly by saving and reusing page ‘blocks,’ thus eliminating repetitive creative work.

Page blocks are groups of elements like headers, text, and images. Instead of wasting time recreating the same page blocks on every page, you can simply save sections you’ve already created in your Instablock library and then reuse them.

It’s especially useful for designers that often create pages with different templates but similar content.

There are also 1,000+ pre-made Instablocks available in the library, which you can use to quickly put together pages right out of the box. 

Heatmaps

Both Instapage and Unbounce come with built-in analytics, but Instapage is the only platform of the two to offer heatmaps. 

Heatmaps allow you to visualize your visitors’ journey across the page. ‘Hot spots’ show you the areas on the page that visitors are interacting with the most, while ‘cold spots’ show the areas that get less attention. 

You can use the insights you draw from heat maps to optimize your landing page designs.

Team Collaboration Tools

Instapage is especially well-suited to teams and agencies as it comes with a ton of unique collaboration features. 

It supports multiple users, each of whom can leave comments and feedback on page designs for easy collaboration. You can edit projects alongside other users and see changes in real-time, share projects with your clients for approval, and more.

AMP Landing Pages

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages. AMPs are lightweight pages that load super fast. The advantage of fast-loading pages is better Quality Scores for Google Ad Campaigns and improved SEO.

Instapage is one of the only platforms on the market that allows users to create these types of pages.

Publishing Tools

Instapage offers plenty of different publishing options. You can publish your pages directly to WordPress via the Instapage plugin.

You can also publish directly to Drupal, Facebook, or your own external domain. 

If you don’t have your own domain yet, Instapage can host your page on a subdomain if you publish it as a ‘Demo Page.’ You can test it out on the subdomain before launching it.

AdMaps & Personalization

AdMaps is another unique Instapage feature that enables users to visualize their ad campaigns and connect individual ads to highly-personalized post-click landing pages.

You can sync up your ad accounts with Instapage, track your Postclick Score, contextually visualize your campaigns, and evaluate ad-to-page relevancy, all from one place.

Which Has Better Templates?

Templates are the backbone of landing page builders. They provide the design foundations for your pages for you so you can get started quickly and don’t have to build everything from scratch each time.

The question is: which platform provides better templates? Let’s find out.

Instapage

Instapage offers the widest selection of templates, with over 500+ free high-converting templates to choose from in their library.

These templates are organized into different categories based on the use case. For example, there are templates for: 

• App downloads
• Product sales
• Special promotions
• Event registrations
• Case studies
• Thank you pages
• Trial sign-ups
• Webinar registrations

And many more! Because there are so many to choose from, it can be tough to sort through them all and find the best one for your campaign.

This is made more difficult due to the fact that there aren’t a lot of filtering options. You can only filter pages by use case. 

Unbounce

Unbounce has a smaller selection of landing page templates than Instapage. They provide 100 high-converting templates to choose from.

However, each of these has been carefully curated so you can be sure they’ll all perform well.

There are templates not only for landing pages but also for popups and sticky bars. You can filter them by type, campaign, or special features.

Sorting them by special features allows you to choose templates that include things like parallax scrolling effects, video backgrounds, or lightboxes.

Some of the different types of templates available include:

• Lead generation
• Events
• Sales 
• Webinar 
• Coming Soon 
• Ecourse 
• And more. 

What’s cool is that most templates are aptly named based on the industry or what you might use them for, so you know exactly what you’re getting.

For example, there are templates named things like “Getting Started-Click Through.” There are also templates named after specific industries, like the “O-SaaS” template. 

And if you’re struggling to find the right template, you can use the template helper, which will automatically pick out some suitable options based on your answers to questions about your campaign.

The bottom line: Instapage has more templates, but it’s easier to find a good fit for your campaign with Unbounce. Unbounce’s selection may be smaller, but it’s also carefully curated, so overall, it comes out on top in this category.

Third-Party Marketing Automation Integrations

Regardless of which platform you use, you should have no problems hooking it up with the rest of your marketing stack.

Both Instapage and Unbounce support a ton of integrations with third-party email marketing and marketing automation tools, including:

• Campaign Monitor
• MailChimp
• Salesforce
• HubSpot CRM
• Google Analytics
• Infusionsoft

And many more. Both also integrate with Zapier, which you can use to connect to hundreds of other tools, and have their own WordPress plugins for easy integration with your WP site.

Analytics & Reporting Tools

Unbounce and Instapage both offer built-in analytics, which you can view from within your dashboard.

They both enable you to track all the most important metrics related to page visits and conversions, but Instapage has the edge thanks to its built-in heatmapping tool (see the feature section above for more information).

You can also integrate Google Analytics with both platforms to unlock even more detailed analytics. 

Pricing Plans Comparison

Finally, let’s compare Instapage vs Unbounce pricing structure.

Both platforms offer different paid plans designed for different types of businesses, but unfortunately, neither offers a free plan.

Here’s what Instapage’s pricing plans look like:

In the first quarter of 2022, Instapage released their new “Start-Up Plan” which starts at $89/mo. Check out the latest info here.

And here’s a snapshot of Unbounce’s plans:

As you can see, Unbounce’s starter plan (Launch) is less than half the price of Instapage, which makes it a much more affordable option for small businesses. 

However, there’s an important caveat to this: if you have more than 1,000 conversions/month, Instapage is the more affordable option.

This is because Instapage has no conversion limits, whereas Unbounce does, even on its highest-priced plan (which is more expensive than Instapage).

Unbounce also caps your traffic. You can have up to 20,000 visitors on the launch plan, 30,000 on the Optimize Plan, and 50,000 on the Accelerate plan. There are no traffic caps on any Instapage plan, as far as we could see.

All Unbounce plans include access to the Smart Builder and Classic Builder, but Smart Traffic isn’t available on the Launch Plan. Smart Copy is also priced separately at $25/month for unlimited generations, but you can get access to 5 generations per day for free. 

The main difference between Instapage’s Building and Converting plans is that the latter includes more advanced features, integrations, and consulting services.

Editable global blocks, ad-to-page personalization, heatmaps, and multi-step forms are some of the most important features that are only included in the Converting plan.

One last thing to note is that Instapage offers a 14-day free trial, while Unbounce offers a more generous 14-day trial with 20% off the first 3 months. 

Instapage vs Unbounce Final Verdict

It’s tough to pick an overall winner as each platform has its strengths and weaknesses. That said, here’s what we’d recommend:

Instapage is the best choice for larger businesses, agencies, and teams that need to create landing pages for ad campaigns at scale.

It comes with fantastic personalization and team collaboration features, plus no conversion or traffic limits, but the higher price tag may deter smaller businesses.

Unbounce could be a better choice for smaller businesses. It has a lower entry-level price point and some incredible time-saving features like the Smart Builder and Smart Copy, which can significantly reduce your workload.

However, the conversion and traffic limits mean it might not be suitable for larger, high-traffic websites. 

Related Content:

• Who Are Unbounce’s Biggest Competitors?
• WhIch Platforms Compete With Instapage?
• What Are the Best Landing Page Tools of 2024?
• Instapage Versus ClickFunnels Comparison Guide