Act-On Software vs. Instapage

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Act-On
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Act-On is an adaptive marketing platform designed to drive personal and purposeful multi-channel marketing. Its foci are inbound and outbound marketing, for enabling a tighter alignment with sales and turning data into actionable insights.
$900
per month
Instapage
Score 7.6 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Instapage is used by marketers to create, optimize, and personalize landing pages without coding skills. With its built-in optimization tools like A/B Testing, Ad-to-Page Personalization, and Heatmaps, marketers can launch more campaigns faster and accelerate their conversions.
$99
per month 15,000 unique monthly visitors
Pricing
Act-On SoftwareInstapage
Editions & Modules
Professional
$900
per month
Enterprise
$2,000+
per month
Create
$99
per month 15,000 unique monthly visitors
Optimize
starting at $199
per month starting with 30,000 unique monthly visitors
Convert
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Act-OnInstapage
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThe Professional package starts at 2,500 active contacts, 3 marketing users, 50 sales users and 30,000 API calls per day. The Enterprise allows for much more customization, the package starts at 2,500 active contacts, 6 marketing users, 100 sales users and 30,000 API calls per day. Annual contract required for all packages.20% discount for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Act-On SoftwareInstapage
Considered Both Products
Act-On
Chose Act-On
Act-On pairs better with our internal CRM and provides exactly what we need. The price is better, and the working relationship with Act-On has traditionally been a good one.
Chose Act-On
We chose Act-On for its ability to support our customers within a single account. The Marketing Network is a huge benefit to our business and the offerings we provide to our customers. In previously working with Hubpsot and Salesforce, we found the support to be lacking - often …
Chose Act-On
Everything is better with Act-On Software. The landing pages, the email editing, the reporting, the campaigns, and the automated programs are just a few things I love more than Constant Contact. It's by far the best ESP out there and any sales company not using it is making a …
Chose Act-On
It's got way more bells and whistles, and we really just trust it more. Sure the Dynamics automated platform could help us, but we chose not to use it as Act-On Software sold us on their ease of use. We haven't regretted our decision and are now in the 6th (or maybe 7th) year …
Chose Act-On
Superior in every way at a competitive cost.
Chose Act-On
To improve the system, Act-On is developing custom reports and workflows. It is incredibly flexible as well as functionally sound and reliable. The other features that our team enjoys the most are the features such as all contacts. Creating landing pages and web forms is a snap …
Chose Act-On
Act-On has been committed to improving the system and performance through customized reports and workflows to motivate customers and track their progress and participation.
Chose Act-On
We investigated heavily into automation platforms prior to purchasing. Act-On was easily the stand out because:
  1. Interactive reporting. Getting behavioral data and other analytics is critical for us making the educated decisions we need for our business to continue to succeed.
  2. Enh…
Chose Act-On
Hootsuite allows me to add a month's worth of content to all of our social media platforms at one time. My problem with Act-On is it would not connect our accounts and when it did it would not use the company account. It would only use my personal account. Hootsuite also gives …
Chose Act-On
We have been evaluating HubSpot and Zoho CRM. These 2 are more expensive and more robust. These include more of the sales side interactions like pipelines, tasks, marketing emails, etc. Our team uses ACT as more of a Rolodex then a tool. Because we do have an outside ticket …
Chose Act-On
Acton does really well in ease of setup, quality of support, and also does a decent job in dashboard creation. These features are something that drove us to opt for Act-on.
Chose Act-On
I am a relatively new HubSpot user and have only used a few different things on there but so far, the UI/UX is much more pleasant, seems more organized, seems more capable in general. I had heard rave reviews about HubSpot from my former coworkers who were using Act-On with me, …
Chose Act-On
I think that if you're just starting out in email marketing, you'll probably navigate to a tool like MailChimp. When you've gotten a good base of what the industry is and you want to do a little bit more, then you'll upgrade to Hubspot and then to Act-On. I feel like Act-on is …
Chose Act-On
I would select Act-On over competitors in the marketing space. While it can be used for sales outreach, I would not select it as a sales tool.
Chose Act-On
Act-On is the scrappy little program that could. One of the biggest problems of the larger ESP and ABM services is that companies have to meet a high standard with their other software and IT in order to use them. I think this is a big failing on their part, considering that …
Chose Act-On
We used to use a combination of SugarCRM and Inbox25, but we moved to a Microsoft platform and had to go to a compatible platform. Act-On was the perfect fit since it was compatible with both Sugar CRM and Dynamics CRM, which made our change over and integration relatively …
Chose Act-On
Many more, too^^^

The best after any free one. Once a company has a budget it's time for Act-On.
Chose Act-On
Act-On has a much more hands-on customer support focus than any of the other companies that we have worked with that do similar things. They also have a really easy to use platform (however I know they all do). It's one of those products that you feel good when you are using it.
Chose Act-On
A colleague used iContact but it did not offer us the ability to build content as efficiently as ActOn. In addition, the survey, landing page and automated program functionality was not available or not as advanced.
Chose Act-On
Act-On is easier to use than Marketo, but not as visually appealing and user-friendly as HubSpot. It's much better than Pardot, as Pardot feel clunky every step of the way. SharpSpring is comparable because of its price point but surpasses Act-On in its tools and intuitive …
Chose Act-On
We like to know a variety here, and we know multiple marketing automation platforms to help provide the best direction to our clients. We need to provide the know-how in many different use cases. Sometimes, Act-On isn't always the best solution for a company's needs. Marketers …
Chose Act-On
Act-On was decided upon by the Marketing and Operations team. I am part of the Development team and was consulted on the aspects of reporting. However, our Marketing/Operations team were very pleased with the way you could personalize and create your own emails and campaigns …
Chose Act-On
I've used Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, Exact Target. I would say Act-On Software is most similar to Exact Target, but I feel you get a better bang for your buck with Act-On.
Instapage
Chose Instapage
Instapage is a more complete package with an editor function, a large selection of multi-component templates, a reporting dashboard, basic SEO tools, customization functionality and excellent site speed and site performance standards. We choose Instapage because it had all …
Chose Instapage
I prefer Unbounce to Instapage even though the end result may be a nicer-looking page, the pages are not the desired outcome. Lead generation and engagement trump design, for all intents and purposes. So don't focus on the best-looking page as long as the pages are good clean …
Chose Instapage
The Instapage editor is super flexible and easy to use. You can move any element to any spot on the canvas. Instapage and Unbounce have better editors when it comes to flexibility and control. Leadpages and HubSpot offer visual drag-and-drop design but both of them are more …
Chose Instapage
We also use MailChimp's new functionality to build landing pages. It has some advantages since we use MailChimp as our email marketing system. However it is not as user-friendly as Instapage - and we only use it for certain simple campaigns that don't need us to be creative …
Chose Instapage
Reviews were good and functionality was decent for the price.
Chose Instapage
I know there are a lot of options for building quick landing pages out there, but Instapage makes it so easy to use. Think of them like Apple, the clean, friendly, easy to use option. Everyone else seems to make this a little more complex than I think it needs to be.
Chose Instapage
Instapage is easier to build pages, but does not have all the integrated functionality that SharpSpring has.
Chose Instapage
Instapage is much more user-friendly than landingi, and is much less glitchy than Wix. As such, Instapage is likely the strongest and most productive for ROI of all of the landing page software solutions. Would strongly recommend this, despite the higher price tag, it is well …
Chose Instapage
Prior to using Instapage, I had only ever used Unbounce. I wanted to see what other tools brought to the table and Instapage was the one we went with at first. I prefer Instapage's interface to Unbounce, but the underlying functionality turned out to not be the best fit for our …
Chose Instapage
Optimizely - More expensive and responsive functionality is less reliable. The WYSIWYG editor is also a little more difficult to use and many times requires custom coding for desired experience. The A/B testing tools are a little more sophisticated, but Instapage is sufficient …
Chose Instapage
I found Instapage and Leadpages similar in a lot of ways. Both are good solutions. Instapage has a little better of a drag n drop builder. A little more flexible. Leadpages actively restricted form embed code to upsell their integration packages. Not cool IMO.
Chose Instapage
Clickfunnels for more complex funnels and sales pages, Insatpage for simple opt ins, and I use dont use leadpages at all in anymore. It just didn't have the quality and I customization I was looking for.
Chose Instapage
When we first realized we needed a way to build landing pages for our ad campaigns, Instapage was one of the first products we came across. With the CMS we use, we have outside developers who help manage the back end of the site. It was not in our budget to have them create our …
Chose Instapage
Instapage is the easiest to use. It is also the cheapest. Instapage is the most flexible for customizing the mobile versions of your page (you can make changes on the mobile version without ever having it change the desktop version without you knowing). It also seems to be the …
Chose Instapage
Because of its ease of use, Instapage remains a staple in our marketing stack. While we are using native landing pages in Wordpress more and more (because we have more skill and resources) and implementing the landing page page builder in Sharpspring, if we got into a pinch …
Chose Instapage
HubSpot was terrible because it required a lot of coding experience if you wanted to work outside the given 4-5 templates. If you wanted a new template built, or to rebrand existing templates, they charged you. Very inflexible program and was very challenged by it. Our main …
Chose Instapage
I can't remember all the alternatives we looked at. It was a long time ago, and there were a lot. The number one competitor was LeadPages... and then there were a few that were WordPress plugins that we seriously looked at. We passed all of them up in favour of Instapages …
Chose Instapage
GetResponse is a little easier to use and see how pages work out across the different devices, and it is significantly more expensive than GetResponse. However, it is much more affordable than Sales Engine and Callidus Cloud Marketing Automation - which are full marketing …
Chose Instapage
We are SharpSpring clients and love many aspects of their marketing automation platform. Because their landing page features and functionality need some refining, we still use Instapage frequently to service our clients' needs. We plan to use Instapage for as long as we need to …
Chose Instapage
Used ION Interactive. Instapage is much easier to use than ION, but doesn't feel as powerful, which is great for nimble campaigns.
Chose Instapage
I've used OptimizePress as well, but I like the ease of editing even more with Instapage, and there are a lot of great templates and preloaded dummy content.
Chose Instapage
Use Optimizely - similar product, better company.
Chose Instapage
Before finding Instapage, we used literally every landing page builder out there. NONE of them offered a free getting started plan. They all want to take your credit card and hold a deposit hostage in case you don't like their system. Well I NEVER try anything without a free …
Features
Act-On SoftwareInstapage
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.6
Ratings
12% above category average
Instapage
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG email editor9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic content9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Landing pages8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
A/B testing9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
List management9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.6
Ratings
10% above category average
Instapage
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
7.1
Ratings
4% below category average
Instapage
-
Ratings
Calendaring6.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
9.1
Ratings
19% above category average
Instapage
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.5
Ratings
15% above category average
Instapage
-
Ratings
Dashboards8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
8.3
Ratings
11% above category average
Instapage
-
Ratings
API9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
SEO and Conversion Optimization
Comparison of SEO and Conversion Optimization features of Product A and Product B
Act-On Software
-
Ratings
Instapage
7.6
Ratings
20% above category average
Landing page A/B testing:00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Dynamic page text replacement00 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Real-time analytics dashboard00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
SEO tools00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Optimization recommendations00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Act-On SoftwareInstapage
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Vbout
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Score 9.9 out of 10
Zoho LandingPage
Zoho LandingPage
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
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Score 9.0 out of 10
LocaliQ
LocaliQ
Score 9.0 out of 10
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PFL Direct Mail Platform
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User Ratings
Act-On SoftwareInstapage
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(0 ratings)
7.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Act-On SoftwareInstapage
Likelihood to Recommend
If you have MS Dynamics CRM, this is the automation platform for you and your operations. Act-On Software easily syncs with dynamics, and we've never had a problem with this since we set ours up years ago. If you use a different CRM, I'd check to see if other options might make more sense. Having that ability for the systems to seamlessly talk is critical.
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If you aren't too picky about having precise control over your page designs, Instapage is a great tool that will make it easy to build and publish pages quickly. It's easy to set up and intuitive to use. It seems like that audience (prioritizes speed over precision) is their target -- for control freaks like me, it comes up a little short. The pricing is pretty good for what you get -- a super-fast path to getting campaigns out quickly so that you can test and iterate your way to profitability. It plays really well with most other tools designed for the small, scrappy startup marketing team, too.
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Pros
  • The templates are easy to use and set up campaigns.
  • It's simple to use, and the email editor features a drag-and-drop interface.
  • It's easy to set up a drip campaign or a series of scheduled emails.
  • It has the flexibility of having a variety of scheduling options and the use of user experience automation.
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  • I love how easy the setup was. The drag and drop design is easy for people who don't know code but it also allows coding options for those who do.
  • Customer service has been easy to contact. They are quick with their response times and have suggested workarounds or provided videos to help fix any issues.
  • They are constantly working on improvements to the interface and additional features.
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Cons
  • Building email and landing page templates are difficult, the drag and drop builder is not straightforward, and requires coding knowledge
  • The workflow tool is cumbersome and not as intuitive as I'd expect a best in class marketing software's to be
  • Domain connections and domain management functionality made it difficult to manage multiple company domains and subdomains for pages
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  • Originally, we used Pardot and Instapage and I had to pull the coding from our Instapage landing pages and throw that into Pardot to get nice looking landing pages. When we transitioned to HubSpot, they took our existing pages and did this for us. But now they added an integration with Instapage and I am guessing this will solve any issues with using Instapage going forward for our website's landing pages.
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Likelihood to Renew
It's my single biggest asset in my current role. With limited resources, its enabled Anachron to punch well above our weight marketing wise and although we're still at the beginning of our journey I know the system can scale with us
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No answers on this topic
Usability
It's good, but not quite brilliant. Some parts of the interface are still a bit outdated. The product has been evolving very fast, though, and I believe in a few months it will be up there with the best of them, interface wise as well.
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I've tried all of the other landing page services on the market, and this is literally the easiest to use. I am not a designer or software developer, just a simple guy and if I can learn how to use it, anyone can. That's what won me over. Their support and pre-made templates are awesome, but the usability is what I love!
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Reliability and Availability
I have always found them quick to respond to my query by web inquiry. In those instances when I call, I have always reached help quickly. They are conscientious and skilled in discussing my concern and finding a solution to my problem. Other tech organizations should use Act-On as a model for top-notch customer service.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Sometimes the server loading speed is a little slow but most often runs fine and if it doesn't their tech support is quick to respond
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Since we start using Act-on for ourselves and our clients, we have been supported very well. Often we need to integrate with legacy systems and we find the support team on our side during the whole endeavor. Always asking if they can help us further, always willing to do a better job. The support of Act-On is one of the main differentiators
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Again, support is just awesome. I've never had any issues go over 24 hours and the people are friendly and speak English really well.
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In-Person Training
Dan D. was great. He took the time to understand how I needed the program to run, and was very flexible to our special CRM setup.
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
The system is very user friendly, I think we were up and running within a day or so of having the product. It took very few online training for me to learn a large chunk of the functionality of this system.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
What impressed me most is that Act-On showed full committment in making our implementation successful, even when it required additional support from their team. This gave me a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings. Most other software software vendors are not anywhere close to being this responsive and effective
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
We chose Act-On for its ability to support our customers within a single account. The Marketing Network is a huge benefit to our business and the offerings we provide to our customers. In previously working with Hubpsot and Salesforce, we found the support to be lacking - often being referred to a forum or landing page rather than getting hands-on guided help from a knowledgeable person on their team. We LOVE Act-On and the team that they have servicing our account!
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We also use Mailchimp's new functionality to build landing pages. It has some advantages since we use Mailchimp as our email marketing system. However it is not as user-friendly as Instapage - and we only use it for certain simple campaigns that don't need us to be creative with the landing pages. I wouldn't recommend Mailchimp as an alternative to what Instapage brings to the table!
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Scalability
Before I feel like I need more features, the Act-On customer service reps are contacting me telling about new features as part of my account.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Positive- quick setup for webinars between 3 different tools, made it easy to do in high volume
  • Negative- lots of processes with the designer tools that made email/landing page design take longer than it should have, costing man hours
  • Positive- email automation with different types of campaigns we could have flowing at once or could span across multiple audience segments made it so we could consistently create touch points and increase our engagement, thus our ROI over time
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  • My company was so disorganized, calculating ROI was never going to happen. However, Instapage did allow us to meet our goal, which was to acquire a specific number of leads within a month.
  • Instapage allowed me to make quick changes based on lead collection progress. When we were behind on our numbers, I could quickly make changes and A/B test different page layouts.
  • I'm not sure if they continued to use Instapage after I left the company, but it was a very helpful lead collection tool and allowed us to meet our goals.
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ScreenShots

Act-On Screenshots

Screenshot of the Automated Journey Builder. Here, users can personalize customer interactions from awareness to loyalty.Screenshot of the Analytics Dashboard. This is used to compare performance over time, filter by segment, and export report components.Screenshot of the Email Composer. Here is where users design emails optimized for desktop and mobile with a drag and drop builder.

Instapage Screenshots

Screenshot of the Instapage landing page builder for desktop and mobileScreenshot of A/B testing for layoutsScreenshot of understanding consumer behavior through heatmapsScreenshot of an example of how to get feedback from a team and collaborate on edits, in Instapage.Screenshot of some of Instapage's available integrations.