ClickFunnels vs ConvertKit: Detailed Comparison (2024)

On the surface, ClickFunnels and ConvertKit look similar as they can help you build landing pages, create advanced automation workflows, and sell digital products online. However, after using both platforms and comparing them side by side—it’s clear they suit different users.

ClickFunnels is an all-in-one funnel builder with a focus on lead generation and sales. It comes with a well-rounded page builder, advanced opt-in form creation tool, and sales funnel builder. You can also use it to create automated email sequences but it takes more steps to create one compared to ConvertKit. Moreover, ClickFunnels comes with built-in e-commerce features to help you sell both digital and physical products online. However, due to its extensive set of features, ClickFunnels comes with a higher price tag compared to ConvertKit.

Meanwhile, ConvertKit does well when it comes to email marketing in general. It offers strong features for building and nurturing your email list such as a tagging system for subscriber segmentation, a visual automation builder to create email funnels, and a landing page builder for leads generation. 

ConvertKit also allows you to sell digital products online but this functionality is quite basic and is limited to a few countries in North America and Europe.

After using and testing both tools for some time now, I decided to create this detailed ClickFunnels vs ConvertKit guide to show how both tools stack up when it comes to:

• Landing page and form building
• Automation workflow creation
• Email campaign building
• E-commerce tools
• Third-party app integration
• Pricing

Let’s get right into it.

A Quick Summary of ClickFunnels vs ConvertKit

Both ClickFunnels and ConvertKit offer strong marketing automation features but take different approaches.

ClickFunnels — The all-in-one sales funnel builder.

ClickFunnels offers a comprehensive sales funnel builder suite with automation as part of the package. The funnel builder is intuitive and users can use it to build a variety of funnel types including:

These funnels seamlessly integrate with its workflow automation tool to trigger different actions such as email sequences, webinar delivery, membership site access, conditional actions, and other sales funnel actions.

ClickFunnels best suits businesses and eduprenuers looking to drive more sales to their products with well-optimized sales funnels.  

ConvertKit — Build an email audience without complicated systems.

ConvertKit is primarily an email marketing platform with a powerful automation builder. It’s well-versed in building automated email sequences, email funnels, and subscriber segmentation using its tag-based system which organizes them based on their actions.

ConvertKit is the ideal solution for creators and businesses looking to build an email list, nurture their leads, and sell their digital products.

Below is a table summarizing ClickFunnels’ and ConvertKit’s features.

ClickFunnels vs ConvertKit: Forms and Landing Page Building

Both ClickFunnels and ConvertKit allow you to create landing pages and forms for lead generation, but they take different approaches. ClickFunnels is a comprehensive sales funnel builder that provides all the necessary tools to create high-converting funnels. On the other hand, ConvertKit keeps everything simple by offering a wide range of customizable templates for creating forms and landing pages of your choice. In this section, we will compare the functionalities of both tools when it comes to building forms and landing pages.

ClickFunnels can build advanced forms such as payment, contact, and survey forms while ConvertKit is limited to simple email opt-in forms.

ClickFunnels offers more flexibility on how you can design your forms—making it easy to design different form types including order forms, opt-in forms, contact forms, and more.

Using its drag-and-drop editor, you can select from its wide selection of input field types including email, name, phone number, and address just to mention a few.

You can also use its “Custom field” option to create any input type you want to add to your form. 

For example, create an input field that allows your visitors to add a custom message such as what they’re expecting to learn from you when they sign up for your newsletter allowing you to collect more data about your subscribers which you can use to to personalize your campaigns.

Moreover, ClickFunnels also allows you to add different elements to your forms including a progress bar, countdown timer, video, and images allowing you to create engaging forms.

This makes ClickFunnels form builder a versatile tool for users who need to create complex forms beyond simple email opt-ins. Although customizing the forms may take a few minutes, it eliminates the requirement of integrating a third-party tool to create advanced forms.

Meanwhile, ConvertKit form building is limited to lead capturing—specifically email opt-in forms. The form builder allows you to create a simple yet intuitive email signup form. You get access to its 9 prebuilt form templates that you can quickly customize reducing the need to start from scratch, unlike in ClickFunnels.

You can style your form by modifying the form background, font color, input field, background, and radius. You can also enhance your forms by adding various elements such as images, videos, downloadable files, and a countdown timer which can make your forms more appealing and engaging.

However, ConvertKit limits you on the data you can collect via forms which makes it hard to create more diversified forms. Using its “custom field” functionality you can only collect the email and the subscriber’s first name.

This makes ConvertKit form builder the best option for collecting emails from your audience where you can nurture them down the conversion funnel.

ClickFunnels landing page builder offers more design flexibility than ConvertKit’s.

ClickFunnels offers a powerful page builder that can replace specialized builders like Leadpages and Elementor. With the ClickFunnels page editor, you can start with a blank canvas or choose from a wide selection of free section templates that you can fully customize to your needs.

You can design your page layout using sections, rows, and columns, and further customize individual rows by changing padding, background color, and adding a border and shadow. Additionally, you can add animation to your columns or use CSS to style them further. In short, you get more control over how you want to style your page layout without needing any coding skills.

This makes ClickFunnels page builder the ideal option for users who want a robust page builder that gives them more creative freedom to build any page they want.

On the other hand, ConvertKit offers more of a page template editor. You get access to over 50 landing page templates, although they are limited in terms of design. You cannot create a page from scratch, and the elements you can add to your page are limited compared to ClickFunnels. You also have fewer styling options, limiting you to the predetermined design options of your chosen template. 

That being said, the ConvertKit page-building tool best suits small creators looking to quickly build a landing page to collect leads and where the uniqueness of design is not a priority.

Who takes the crown? 👑 ClickFunnels wins over ConvertKit because it offers more functionality and flexibility when it comes to creating forms and building landing pages. You can create different forms including email opt-in forms, payment forms, and survey forms among others. Its page builder is more robust and offers more customization options.

ClickFunnels vs ConvertKit: Email Marketing and Workflow Automation

Both ConvertKit and ClickFunnels provide email marketing tools such as list management, automated email sequences, email templates, and A/B testing tools. However, each platform has its strengths and weaknesses. In this section, we will compare the two platforms based on their capabilities for creating and sending email marketing campaigns and show you where each thrives and lacks.

Both ClickFunnels and ConvertKit allow you to import an email list from other email marketing platforms but ConvertKit offers a one-click import from platforms like MailChimp and Drip.

ConvertKit offers more flexibility when it comes to migrating your email list from your previous email marketing platform. You have the option to upload your list via a CSV file and assign it to the workflows and tags of your choice. However, if you were previously using MailChimp or Drip, ConvertKit has a proprietary list-importing functionality that is much simpler and easier to use.

To use this functionality, all you need is an API key from Drip or MailChimp, and the tool will automatically transfer your list to ConvertKit.

The tool will map your contacts to their respective tags and automation in ConvertKit, saving you the time and effort of doing it manually.

Furthermore, ConvertKit offers a free migration service to all users in their paid plans, where their team will handle everything from adding tags to recreating templates and automation funnels. This is especially helpful for busy creators and entrepreneurs, as you’ll be receiving help from people who are experts in their product.

Meanwhile, ClickFunnels only allows you to import contacts import via CSV file—no importing tool or free migration services are available.

ClickFunnels email template designer offers more functionality than ConvertKit’s.

ClickFunnels has a powerful email template designer that is just as robust as its page builder. Using it, you can design your emails from scratch by dragging and dropping elements onto a blank canvas or by selecting from a wide range of pre-built templates. The majority of its templates are well-designed and optimized for all devices including mobile phones.

On the other hand, ConvertKit’s email template designer is simple and intuitive. The platform offers over 15 email templates that you can customize according to your needs. Its drag-and-drop email designer is easy to use, but it offers fewer customization options. 

ClickFunnels requires you to verify your custom domain email DKIM key before sending emails but in ConvertKit it’s not necessary.

To send broadcasts or drip campaigns in ClickFunnels, you need to authenticate your domain email DKIM key. Verifying your email DKIM key involves adding a record to your DNS provider. 

Although ClickFunnels offers good directions on how to do it and even has a tool to help you authenticate your domain fast, it can feel a bit daunting for most less technically savvy. 

Since you’ll be editing some of the most sensitive records of your domain a simple mistake can cause unexpected redirections especially if you’ve hosted your site on your root domain. However, the good side of it is that you’ll improve your domain email deliverability which will prevent your emails from landing in your recipient’s spam folder.

On the other hand, ConvertKit does not require you to authenticate your domain email right away to start sending emails. You can even begin sending emails from a Gmail account ( though we highly advise against this).

However, as your subscriber list grows to over 3000, you will need to add a custom domain and configure your DKIM key.

ConvertKit makes building automated email sequences more seamless than ClickFunnels.

ConvertKit offers a central hub for building your entire sequence. You can create and automate a string of emails and effortlessly add them as a single step into your workflow automation. 

Here’s how to do it:

Start by hitting the “Sequence” option under the “Send” menu.

Proceed and click on “New Sequence” and you’ll be prompted to choose your preferred email template. After that, you can customize your email template by adding your content, modifying the subject line, and adding personalization. 

To add a new email to your sequence, you don’t need to open a new tab. Just hit the “add email” button and the same template will be loaded. You can customize its content and also set the time intervals of when the email will be sent.

After that, you can add the entire automated email sequence to your workflow as a single step. 

On the flip side, creating automated email sequences in ClickFunnels takes more steps than ConvertKit. The tool depends on its visual workflow builder where you need to add each email as a separate step, which can lead to a cluttered workflow, especially when managing multiple emails. 

Unlike in ConvertKit which automatically populates your chosen email template when adding a new email to your sequence. ClickFunnels requires you to choose a new template every time— which can be tempting to choose a different one leading to inconsistency in your email designs. 

The process can get unnecessarily lengthy and considering how slow its workflow can load sometimes building sequences in ClickFunnels can feel cumbersome than in ConvertKit.

Both ConvertKit and ClickFunnels offer visual automation builders but ConvertKit offers more functionality with its automation rules.

ConvertKit automation rules allow you to create simple automation using the “If this happens, then do that” logic that does not necessarily require you to use its workflow builder. You can use it to create basic automation such as “if someone subscribes to a particular form then a specific tag” is added. Such automation doesn’t need you to create a new visual workflow and can be easy to set up. 

On the flip side, ClickFunnels does not offer a way around creating simple automation and instead necessitates you to use its visual workflow builder which can feel cumbersome for one-step automation.  This is because the builder works well when creating complex sequences with multiple steps and conditional branching.  Using it for a simple “subscribe-add tag” scenario can feel more like an overkill. 

ClickFunnels offers superior split-testing capabilities than ConvertKit.

ClickFunnels allows you to create variations of your landing pages and emails, and test them against the original versions to to determine which one performs better. 

You can test various elements on your pages such as headlines, CTA buttons, copy, and many more to see which variations convert well.

ClickFunnels is not just limited to landing page split testing, you can also do it on your emails in your workflows. You can create variations of your emails and test which one gets more open rate and higher CTR. You can test different aspects of your email including the template design, subject lines, email content, and buttons. 

On the other hand, ConvertKit’s A/B testing capability is limited to testing subject lines only. You can create variations of your subject line and send them to a small test group. ConvertKit then analyzes which subject line has a higher open rate and automatically sends the winning version to the rest of your list in your campaign.  

Who takes the crown? 👑. This was a tough one but we had to go with ConvertKit over ClickFunnels. This is because ConvertKit has a well-rounded set of email marketing features and excels at creating automated email sequences. It is also easy to use and offers simple one-step automation. On the other hand, ClickFunnels is great for building complex workflows that go beyond email marketing, and it has better A/B testing and conditional split paths capabilities. However, when it comes to email marketing overall, ConvertKit is the clear winner.

ClickFunnels vs ConvertKit: Pricing Review

ClickFunnels offers more value at a higher price point.

ClickFunnels pricing starts at $147/mo for 10,000 Contacts in your list which is more expensive than ConvertKi which starts at $119/mo for the same email list size. However, ClickFunnels offers more value at such a price point as it allows you to create and sell online courses, build a website, and create blog features that are not available on ConverKit.

ConvertKit offers a free plan while ClickFunnel doesn’t.

ConvertKit offers a free plan that allows you to build an email list of up to 1000 subscribers.

Using the free plan you can build and unlimited landing pages, email forms, add your custom domains, and send as many broadcasts as you can. This allows you to get a taste of their products before upgrading to their paid plans to unlock more features. Meanwhile, ClickFunnels does not offer any free plan. However, if you need to get a taste of its products you can sign up for its 14-day free trial which provides access to all its tools.

ConvertKit vs ClickFunnels:  Pros and Cons

Both ConvertKit and ClickFunnels are excellent products to build an build marketing automation and nurturing your leads. But there are areas where each excels and falls short. Below are the pros and cons of ConvertKit and ClickFunnels.

ClickFunnels vs ConvertKit: Final Verdict

After using both ClickFunnels and ConvertKit platforms and comparing them side by side, it is clear that they are intended for different users, although their use cases might sometimes overlap.

ClickFunnels is rocks in building sales funnels. It has a well-versed funnel builder with proprietary split testing capabilities and an intuitive workflow builder to build advanced marketing automation workflows. In addition, ClickFunnels allows you to create and sell online courses and website memberships. This makes it a great option for businesses and creators who want to create highly converting sales funnels around their digital products.

So choose ClickFunnels if:

• You want to build sales funnels, online courses, and membership sites all on a single platform
• You want a funnel builder with built-in A/B testing tools

On the other hand, ConvertKit is an excellent option for email marketing. It has better segmentation capability (where it uses tags), a minimalist design, and a wide selection of landing page templates. Its visual automation builder is super intuitive and robust, though limited to creating email automation workflows.

Use ConvertKit if:

• Your primary focus is nurturing leads and building relationships through targeted email marketing.
• You are looking for a robust email automation builder that’s also easy to use
• You want a tool with clear and flexible list management capabilities.

Want to try the tools yourself?