All-in-one marketing platforms are becoming the new standard for online businesses.
Rather than relying on a bunch of different tools for different marketing operations (like email marketing tools, landing page builders, etc.), you can use all-in-one platforms to do everything from one place.
Systeme.io is one such all-in-one platform that’s taking the market by storm. It offers substantially more features than its competitors (we’re looking at you, ClickFunnels), and it’s more affordable—but is it too good to be true?
We wanted to find out, so we put Systeme.io to the test and put together this in-depth Systeme.io review to share what we learned (spoiler: we were impressed).
Read on, and we’ll tell you everything you need to know.
Table of Contents
What Is Systeme.io?
Systeme is a sales funnel builder and all-in-one platform that’s a lot like ClickFunnels, except more affordable and with a broader feature set.
It’s the new kid on the block, having only recently been launched in 2018 by founder Aurelien Amacker, so it isn’t as popular as ClickFunnels just yet—but it probably should be!
The marketing platform was built to meet the needs of SMBs and entrepreneurs looking for an easier way to build and grow their businesses without jumping around between a bunch of different tools.
It aims to be “the only tool you need to launch your online business” and provides users with a suite of marketing and sales tools rolled into one unified ecosystem.
They say there are only six tools online businesses need:
- a sales funnel builder,
- email marketing solution,
- online course creator,
- website builder,
- affiliate program management solution,
- and marketing automation.
Systeme.io provides all of these and much, much more.
Is Systeme.io Legit?
Yes, Systeme.io is completely legit. We (and others) were skeptical at first, too, given how good value for money it seems to be, but it really is as good as it seems.
It has a straightforward pricing model, so you don’t have to worry about any hidden costs, and it delivers on all of its features and promises.
Systeme has also already earned a pretty stellar reputation for itself, with an impressive 4.9/5 star rating on Trustpilot based on hundreds of user reviews and a rapidly growing user base.
A lot of people are switching over to Systeme from platforms like ClickFunnels as it offers more for your money.
But if you don’t want to take our word for it, you can try it out for yourself for free! Systeme offers a ‘forever free’ account for up to 2,000
contacts. No credit card details are required, and you don’t have to pay a penny, so it’s totally risk-free.
You can sign up for a free account here.
Systeme.io Features
As we mentioned, Systeme.io is a multifunctional marketing software solution that provides a lot of different features in one interface. Here’s everything you need to know about all of these features.
Sales Funnel Builder
The heart of Systeme is its sales funnel builder. If you didn’t already know, sales funnels are the journeys your potential customers go through on their way to conversion.
Systeme allows you to visualize and build these customer journeys by creating a sequence of landing pages, forms, and emails and connecting them together.
The process is super straightforward. From the main dashboard, just navigate to the Funnels tab and click on + Create.
Then, choose what kind of funnel you’d like to create based on what your goals are (e.g. lead generation, sales, webinar promotion). We’ll choose ‘build an audience.
Next, you’ll see the builder interface. In the left sidebar, you can see the different steps/pages in your funnel.
Here, we have a squeeze page and a thank you page, but you can add as many steps as you like.
You can choose a page template for each step in your funnel and then customize it.
There are dozens of templates to choose from, but not quite as many as you’d find in a dedicated landing page builder like Instapage or Leadpages — but I guess that’s to be expected.
From the builder, you can also do things like set up automation rules, configure settings and URLs, launch A/B tests, edit your pages, etc. We’ll talk more about all of this later.
You can also find done-for-you funnels in the Systeme marketplace if you don’t want to build sales funnels from scratch.
In the marketplace, vendors can list their own funnels for sale, but most of them are available for free. You can download them and implement them on your own site in minutes.
My only gripe here is that there doesn’t seem to be much available in the marketplace compared to Clickfunnels, probably because Systeme isn’t as widely used yet.
Landing Page Editor & Website Builder
Once you’ve selected a page template, you can open it up in the landing page editor to customize it. Here’s what the interface looks like:
From the left sidebar, you can drag in different elements and blocks.
There’s a good selection of elements to choose from, including images, videos, image carousels, headers, paragraphs, forms, social buttons, etc.
There are also pre-made block templates that you can use to quickly add whole page sections.
You can drag and drop elements in the main preview screen to move them around the page.
Systeme’s page editor uses a grid system, so everything can only be moved within set rows and columns.
You can’t move them with precision like you can with grid-free page editors like Instapage and Unbounce. The drag and drop interface also felt a little clunky.
You could, in theory, use the landing page editor to build your whole website.
However, the process wouldn’t be as easy or intuitive as it would be with a ‘true’ website builder or CMS like Wix or WordPress, as you’d have to add each page as a step in your funnel first and then customize them in the editor. You’d also have much less control.
The bottom line is the page editor is very easy to use and does the job. However, it’s not as flexible or powerful as dedicated page or website builders.
Email Marketing Tools
Email is an essential marketing channel for any online business.
Fortunately, Systeme comes with built-in email marketing tools to help you communicate with your subscribers and nurture your leads.
You can send unlimited newsletters and set up campaigns from your dashboard, personalize emails for different audience segments, and automate the process with follow-up emails and autoresponders.
The interface is really intuitive. To create a newsletter, all you have to do is choose a subject, email address, sender name, and template.
You can then open up your email in the visual editor to customize the content. You can change the layout, add images, text, buttons, and more.
Once you start sending emails, Systeme will track their performance for you. You can view key metrics like open rate, click rate, bounce rate, and spam report rate.
Systeme can also help you to grow your email list with opt-in forms, squeeze pages, and lead magnets.
Online Course Creation
If you’re hoping to sell online courses, Systeme can help with that too. From the Products/Sales tab, you can create a new course, then build it out by adding modules.
Within each module, you can add individual lectures. There are two lecture page templates to choose from: a video-based lecture template and a text-based lecture template.
Once you’ve chosen a template, you can open it up in the editor, which uses the same interface as both the email and landing page editor.
From there, you can customize the course content and add your own educational videos.
Now, there are a few limitations here worth mentioning. Compared to dedicated course builders (think Kajabi and Learnworlds), Systeme’s course creation tool is not very flexible at all.
You’re limited to just two different page types, and course materials are displayed on traditional landing pages rather than in a purpose-built course player.
We also couldn’t see any way to add interactive elements or assessments, which is a little disappointing.
However, given that Systeme isn’t designed for building courses primarily, I guess this is to be expected.
It should be sufficient if you’re just building very simple courses, but for complex/large curriculum-based courses, you may be better off looking at professional online course software.
Aside from the course creation tools, Systeme also gives you access to all the other tools you need to market and sell your courses.
You can bundle up multiple courses together in one product package, accept payments via PayPal or Stripe, manage affiliates for your courses, and more.
Membership Sites
Another cool thing about Systeme is that it supports membership websites. You can use it to create gated, members-only content.
Again, this is pretty easy. Simply create your course and integrate it with the payment page in your funnel.
You can offer two pricing plans for your customers: one for drip content (course modules/lectures are automatically sent out to your subscribers sequentially after a set amount of days) and one for the full course (subscribers have access to all modules and lectures)
Affiliate Management Tools
To help you sell more online courses (or any other product), you might want to use affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing involves having other people promote your course for you in exchange for a commission payout on each referral they make.
Again, Systeme.io can help with this. You can access the affiliate program management area from the main dashboard.
You can use this tool to set up affiliate programs without the need for any third-party software.
From the settings page, you can set custom payout amounts, set your own commission structure, and create affiliate proxy links.
Automation Tools
One of the best things about Systeme is its powerful built-in marketing automation features.
You can access your automations tab from the main dashboard and set up rules to automate all kinds of processes using a simple “if this, then that” formula.
You can also click the automation rules tab in the builder to create automated customer journeys and workflows. All you have to do is add a trigger and action.
For example, let’s imagine you want to automatically send a welcome email to people that opt-in to your mailing list through your squeeze page.
All you’d have to do is add a new rule, then set the trigger to ‘‘Funnel step form subscribed‘ and the action to ‘Send email.’ You can then choose your welcome email from your email library, and Systeme will take care of the rest!
That’s a very simple example, but there’s a lot more you can do with automations. For example, you can use automations to:
- Automatically add tags to contacts when they visit a certain page or take a certain action
- Subscribe contacts to a campaign when a tag is added
- Enroll contacts in your course when they make a purchase
- And much more.
ECommerce
Systeme.io comes with lots of built-in eCommerce features to help you run your online store.
You can sell any physical or digital products you like through the platform directly with features like a coupon engine, order management tools, upsells and downsells, and more.
You can create order pages from templates in your funnel and add your physical products, membership courses, or bundles.
Systeme supports both single payments and subscriptions. You can offer trial periods, set up recurrent payments, and integrate the platform with payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal.
Dropshipping
Systeme is also suitable for dropshipping businesses. If you didn’t already know, dropshipping is a retail fulfillment in which you don’t have to stock the products you sell.
Instead, you take payments for products and have the original supplier/manufacturer ship them directly to your customers.
As with any eCommerce business, growing a successful dropshipping business requires you to put in place high-converting sales funnels and market your products well. Systeme.io can help with this.
Blogging Platform
One advantage Systeme has over Clickfunnels is built-in blogging functionality.
Publishing blog posts can help you improve your site’s visibility in search engines for niche-relevant keywords and generate new leads for your business.
Unlike many other competing platforms, Systeme makes it easy to launch a blog in just a few clicks.
All you have to do is navigate to the blogs tab from your main dashboard and click create a blog.
You can then choose your blog domain/URL and select a professionally-designed blog template.
Systeme will automatically lay the foundations of your blog for you with a post archive page, home page, and contact page.
You can add new posts and manage your existing posts from the Posts tab or customize your posts and pages in the editor.
Webinar Hosting
Evergreen webinars make great lead magnets and can help you to grow your list while you sleep. The only problem is that third-party webinar hosting services tend to be expensive.
Fortunately, you won’t need one, as Systeme provides all the tools you need to create evergreen webinars, set up registration funnels, and start collecting sign-ups right out of the box.
You can set it all up in a few minutes. Just click on Funnels > Create > Run an evergreen webinar.
Systeme will then automatically create a basic EVG webinar funnel for you, complete with a registration page, thank you page, and broadcast page.
You can edit each page in the customizer and add a direct link on the broadcast page to your live stream.
A/B Testing
If you want to squeeze out as many conversions as possible from the pages in your funnel, it’s important to continually test and optimize them.
The way you do this on Systeme is through the integrated A/B testing tool. A/B testing—or ‘split testing’—involves setting up multiple variations of your landing pages and distributing your website traffic between them in order to compare their performance.
You can set up your split tests in a few clicks through the A/B test tab in all your funnel steps.
Just set your original page, add a page variant, and choose the goal page.
Once you’ve done that, Systeme will collect data on their performance so that you know which one is delivering the highest conversion rates.
Contact Management
Systeme.io also provides you with the tools you need to manage your contacts and leads.
From the contacts page, you can view your entire database, import contacts from a CSV file, or add new contacts and tags manually.
You can also open up any contact to view details like their email address, name, location, tags, etc.
Integrations
One of the biggest drawbacks to Systeme.io is that it doesn’t support any native integrations to third-party tools.
This means that, unlike Clickfunnels, you can’t directly connect Systeme with email marketing tools like Active Campaign or CRMs like Salesforce.
The reason for this, according to Systeme, is that you don’t need to.
The whole point of Systeme is that it aims to be a true all-in-one solution with everything you need already included out of the box.
So, in theory, you shouldn’t need to rely on any outside apps.
However, the reality is that there are still some things Systeme can’t do, so it’s a little disappointing that it’s difficult to integrate with other tools in your marketing stack.
The only workaround is to go through Zapier.
Zapier is an automation tool that can move data between different apps, so you can use it to Connect Systeme.io to thousands of other tools. It’s just more difficult than it would be with native integrations.
According to the Facebook group, they’re working on implementing more native integrations as that’s what the people want!
Support
Systeme provides a variety of support options. Here are all the main ways you can get help:
- Knowledge base. Systeme provides a help center full of tutorials and troubleshooting guides. You can browse the knowledge base to find information that can help you learn how to use the platform or search directly for answers to specific questions.
- Video tutorials. Systeme.io has its own YouTube channel, on which you can find a ton of helpful tutorials about how to use the different tools available and how to grow a successful online business.
- 1-on-1 coaching. Enterprise plan customers also get access to a ‘kickstart coaching session,’ during which an expert from the platform will work with you directly to help you get started.
- Facebook group. There’s also a public Systeme.io Facebook group, which anyone can join. There, you can get help and support from other users of the platform.
- Email support. You can reach out directly to Systeme.io’s tech support team via email from their contact page.
- In-dashboard support. In the bottom-right of your dashboard, there’s a chat icon labeled ‘instant answers.’ However, when we tried it out, it didn’t seem to work (see screenshot below).
The problem definitely wasn’t on our end, so I’m not sure if this is a bug in the system or if they just don’t offer this support option anymore.
Either way, it’s a little disappointing that we couldn’t get in touch with an agent via live chat.
Systeme.io Pros and Cons
Next, let’s recap some of the main benefits and drawbacks of Systeme that we uncovered in this Systeme io review.
Pros
- Broad feature set. Systeme really is a true all-in-one platform with one of the broadest feature sets we’ve seen. It has everything from email marketing and automations to webinars, contact management, and more.
- Intuitive drag and drop editors. The built-in page and email editors were very easy to use (if a little limited). No coding skills are required, so it’s totally beginner-friendly.
- Seamlessly integrated ecosystem. Because all your email marketing, automations, and funnel pages are built on the same platform, everything works together seamlessly.
- Powerful funnel creation. The funnel builder is Systeme’s standout feature. It’s every bit as powerful as ClickFunnels and just as easy to get the hang of.
- Value for money. The best thing about Systeme is the affordable price point. If you were to purchase all of the tools it comes with separately, you’d likely pay at least 5x as much. This makes it a super affordable option for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Cons
- Clunky page editor (with limited design freedom). The page editor felt a little boxed in and slow to respond. It was easy to use but wasn’t nearly as flexible or powerful as other dedicated page builders.
- Limited course creation tool. We felt the course creation tool was a little too basic and could have been better. It doesn’t come with a dedicated course player, only gives you two templates to choose from, and generally wasn’t very flexible or powerful.
- Potentially overwhelming. Because Systeme.io has such a broad feature set, it can be a little overwhelming for beginners. There’s a lot you can do on the dashboard, and no interactive tutorial or quick-start wizard to walk you through it.
Pricing Plan Options
Systeme.io offers a free forever plan that you can get started with to try out the features.
However, the free plan is very limited and caps your contacts, automations, sales funnels, membership sites, etc. It also doesn’t include evergreen webinars.
When you’re ready to upgrade, there are three paid Systeme.io pricing plans to choose from:
- Startup ($27/month)
- Webinars ($47/month)
- Enterprise ($97/month)
The main difference between each tier is the usage caps. The more you’re willing to pay, the more sales funnels, blogs, automations, membership sites, custom domains, and contacts you can have.
The Enterprise plan is the only plan that offers unlimited everything (except contacts, which are capped at 15,000). It’s also the only plan to come with the one-on-one kickstart coaching session and free migration.
If you have more than 15,000 contacts, you’ll need a custom plan. You can view exact costs based on the size of your contact list—and see a more detailed breakdown of what’s included in the plans specified above—from the Systeme pricing page.
Is Systeme.io Good? Is It Worth It?
Alright, so let’s cut to the chase: do we recommend Systeme.io for online business owners?
Yes, absolutely.
In our opinion, it’s definitely worth the cost if you’re looking for an all-in-one platform to help you build sales funnels. It’s cheaper than ClickFunnels by a wide margin and comes with all the tools you need to build an online business.
However, while it’s a great choice for entrepreneurs and small business owners that are selling digital products and courses, it’s not as suitable for large businesses with lots of contacts or a more complicated business model.
If you’re not sure if it’s the right choice for you, why not try it out for yourself and find out? You can sign up for a free plan (no credit card required).
FAQs
How Does Systeme.io Work?
Systeme is an all-in-one platform. You can use it for one of its tools or all of them. It comes down to how you’ll use it for your online business.
Is Systeme Free?
Yes! Systeme is one of the few platforms that lets you start your own business online for free. With the free plan, you can even start with a custom domain! Get started here.
Systeme.io Product Updates
- 2021: New landing page templates continue to be introduced.
- 2021: Introduced The New System To Launch An Online Business Course
Systeme.io Alternatives
If, after reading this Systeme.io review, you still think it isn’t the right fit for your online business, here are some alternatives you might want to check out:
- ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels is software like Systeme. It’s much more popular and provides some advanced tools, but it isn’t cheap. Plans start from $97/month. Read our ClickFunnels review.
- WordPress. WordPress is a free, open-source content management system. It’s the most flexible platform in the world and endlessly customizable and extensible with third-party plugins and themes, so it’s a good choice if you’re looking for complete control over your online website. To achieve what sales funnel builders do on WordPress, you’ll need plugins like Thrive Themes and checkout software like Cartflows or ThriveCart.
- Kartra. Kartra is another all-in-one marketing platform similar to Systeme and other sales funnel builders but with a better course creator and video hosting support. Read our Kartra review.
- Hubspot Marketing Hub. Hubspot Marketing Hub is a CRM (customer relationship management) solution with built-in marketing tools. It includes many of the same features as Systeme but also offers more expensive, enterprise-level plans that are better suited to larger businesses. Check out Hubspot.
We hope you found this Systeme.io review helpful. Good luck!
