How To Make Money With Clickfunnels For FREE!

Are you trying to sell stuff online?

Then I’m sure you will agree that converting your visitors into sales is hard.

And getting yourself profitable? That’s even harder.

But there’s a simple secret to increasing the value of every customer you sell to:

Sales funnels.

By creating a well-designed sales funnel, you can dramatically increase your sales and provide more value to your customers.

ClickFunnels Review

Last updated: Dec 29, 2019
Initially published on: June 14, 2015
Product rating: 4.7 / 5.0

tl;dr Summary

With its ability to create complete sales funnels and easy to use and powerful editor, ClickFunnels provides a clear challenge to LeadPages’ place as the best landing page builder.

Visit the website

In today’s post, I’m going to introduce you to ClickFunnels, the software I’m using to build sales funnels for my business.

You don’t need any technical know-how to use it, and it will really change the way you run your business.

Plus:

If you’re ready to throw yourself into the ClickFunnels world, it has one of the best affiliate programs out there.

I’ll be talking about that too later on.

Here is what I’m going to be covering in this ClickFunnels review.

• What is ClickFunnels?
• How I started earning 5 figures a month with ClickFunnels
• What are the best parts of ClickFunnels?
• What I don’t like about ClickFunnels
• ClickFunnels Pricing Plans
• Everything else you need to know about ClickFunnels
• How can you make ClickFunnels work for you?
• Final Thoughts

If you’re already ready to buy, skip to the end of this review and grab my exclusive ClickFunnels Bonus Package.

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What is ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels was created back in 2014 by Russell Brunson and his team. Since that time, Russell has turned ClickFunnels into a $100 million a year business and they just crossed over 98,000 active members as of Dec 2019.

At its core, ClickFunnels is a software for building sales funnels. With a bunch of added bells and whistles.

You can use it to build:

• Landing pages
• Squeeze pages
• Webinars
• Membership sites
• Every type of sales funnel you can think of, complete with order bumps, upsells and downsells

Plus, with the highest-end ClickFunnels Platinum package you’ll even be able to start your own affiliate program (Backpack) and replace your email service with Follow-Up Funnels.

Basically you’re getting everything you need to market and sell your products online, without having to hire expensive developers.

And people are using ClickFunnels with great success.

If you check out their 2 Comma Club site, you can see that almost 300 entrepreneurs have already created 1 million dollar funnels using ClickFunnels.

That’s amazing!

How I started earning 5 figures a month with ClickFunnels

Back in 2015, I wanted to sell white-labeled logo design services and I was looking for an easy way to collect payments on one of my websites.

At the time, LeadPages was the popular software for building landing pages, but you couldn’t integrate payments with it, without some complicated hacks.

I felt super frustrated by this limitation, so I turned to a product I had been hearing some buzz about.

ClickFunnels.

And after getting a little experience with it, I wrote this initial review of ClickFunnels on the site.

It took several months, but it eventually started ranking for a bunch of ClickFunnels related keywords and this post started to get steady traffic.

But the weird thing was, is that none of this traffic was turning into affiliate commissions. I’m embarrassed to say that for the first 2 years after this post was published, I earned $0 from ClickFunnels.

This was incredibly frustrating, and to this day I’m still puzzled by why I couldn’t have earned at least a few random ClickFunnels commissions.

Because of this lack of success, I put ClickFunnels on the back-burner and focused on other things.

Fast forward to the middle of 2018. I was randomly listening to the Funnel Hacker Radio podcast on my drive to work, and I happened to listen to episode 202… which is Spencer Mecham’s episode.

I had no idea who he was at the time, but I learned that he was the #1 ClickFunnels affiliate which really piqued my interest. And one other thing that they mentioned was that he had just started a Facebook group called Automation Nation.

So I joined the group, got on his email list and forked out some cash for his course, Affiliate Secrets 1.0. There was a ton of great stuff in there, but one lesson that hit home was where Spencer explained how he used bonuses and his value stack to get people to click on his links.

Now bonuses aren’t a new concept. I’ve known about them for a long time, but I had always been too lazy to create them. But since the top CF affiliate was saying to do it, that got me inspired to create my own bonus value stack.

So that’s what I did.

I created a few lead magnets and offered their white-label rights to give them more value. And I invested in some other white-label software products that my referrals could use themselves for their own bonus offers.

And I tied them together with some personalized coaching to create what I consider to be the best ClickFunnels bonus package that anyone is offering.

This led me to qualify for the ClickFunnels Dream Car (referred 100+ active affiliates) and making some nice ClickFunnels affiliate commissions like this:

This has fundamentally changed the way I approach my affiliate marketing business in general and has made me a big believer in ClickFunnels.

Instead of hoping and praying that someone will click on my affiliate links, I now focus on offering as much value as I can for anyone that signs up under me.

I’ve also started leveraging ClickFunnels in my business in a bunch of other ways.

I created my own chrome extension called CFTrends which provides better insights to your ClickFunnels’ affiliate commissions. The site, of course, was built with ClickFunnels.

I also started my own Legendary Marketer case study offer using ClickFunnels that has already led to several thousand dollars in affiliate commissions.

And I’m selling my Dream Car Secrets Guide which is also built with ClickFunnels.

Now, lets now take a deeper look into ClickFunnels itself:

What are the best parts of ClickFunnels?

Best Feature #1: Funnel template blueprints

If you have never created a sales funnel before then ClickFunnels has you covered.

Russell has identified 22 different types of funnels that he has used successfully in his own business.

The funnel types fall into 3 main categories: Lead Capture Funnels, Sales Page Funnels, and Event Funnels. But there are some other special funnels like Membership funnels you can create as well.

They include simple funnels like the Squeeze Page Funnel which collects a visitor’s email address and then sends them to a Thank you page when signing up.

Or to more sophisticated sales funnels like the 2-Step TripWire Funnel which sells a low ticket front-end product (your tripwire) and then upsells them to your more expensive products using Order Form bumps, and One Click upsells or Downsells.

In addition, each funnel type has its own set of free templates and paid templates. So even if you don’t have any design skills, your funnel pages will all have a consistent, professional design.

Here’s a high-level overview of how to create your first sales funnel:

1. Choose a funnel type.
2. Select a template.
3. Customize each page to fit your business.
4. Add your products and ensure all your email and payment integrations are set up.
5. Set a domain name for your new funnel.
6. Save your funnel.

Once your sales funnel is live you can start sending traffic to it!

Best Feature #2: Good Visual Drag and Drop Editor

While ClickFunnels gives you a great starting point with its funnel and page templates, the ClickFunnels editor is where you can truly make each page in your funnel your own.

Pages in ClickFunnels are laid out using sections that can have any number of rows and columns. You can then use your mouse to drag elements around and place them where you want them.

While not as flexible as Instapage’s landing page editor, it is still very good and it can be used to achieve pretty much any design you want.

What I like is that the editor is very intuitive to use.

Selecting components on the page and moving them where you want is very seamless.

Text elements can be edited inline, and modifying any element’s properties can be done through the fly-out sidebar.

And unlike other editors out there, everything is organized in a logical way.  You’re not spending a lot of time hunting for what you want to do.

The important thing is that no coding is required. So you don’t have to spend time learning HTML or CSS or any technical things like that.

Best Feature #3: Nice Selection of Page Elements

Elements (or widgets) are essential for giving you the flexibility to design the exact pages you want and ClickFunnels gives you a wide variety of them to use.

Basic elements include Headline, Image, Text, Button, Input forms and Video widgets. These are the basic building blocks for any landing page you build in the software.

ClickFunnels also includes a number of advanced elements like:

• SMS Signup
• Surveys
• Pricing Tables
• Progress Bars
• Facebook Comments
• FAQ Blocks
• Countdown Timers
• Custom HTML

Plus, there are specialized elements like Membership elements for your memberships pages and order and shipping form elements for your order pages.

Each element can be easily customized in the editor sidebar. With most elements, you can change common properties like background colors, margins, fonts, and alignment.

Then there are element specific properties like the image URL for the Image element or the Button text of your button.

Best Feature #4: The ClickFunnels Affiliate program is awesome

There’s no doubt in my mind that ClickFunnels has the best, legitimate affiliate marketing program that you can be a part of.

First the basics:

The ClickFunnels affiliate program starts you off at 30% recurring commissions for every referral you make and you can win cool prizes like $500 towards your very own dream car once you hit 100 active referrals.

You also earn 30% commissions by promoting any product in the ClickFunnel’s ecosystem including DotCom Secrets, Expert Secrets or even the Software Secrets books.

And thanks to the ClickFunnel’s sticky cookie, you’ll also earn commissions on any upsells that your referrals purchase as they go through their specific funnels as well.

But that’s not all:

ClickFunnels also has another great feature for affiliates called share funnels.

Inside the Settings tab of any of your funnels, you can grab your Share Funnel URL.

When someone visits this URL, they will be able to add this funnel directly into their account if they are an existing ClickFunnels member. If they aren’t a member yet, they can sign up for the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial and then get your funnel added to their account.

Here’s an example One Funnel Away Challenge share funnel that Doug Boughton used to get his Dream Car.

What’s really awesome is that this share URL also acts as your affiliate link, and you will get a recurring commission if this new user ends up staying on.

There are so many ways to make ClickFunnels affiliate commissions by creating share funnels.  It just takes a little bit of creativity on your part.

You can also check out my ClickFunnels affiliate guide for more ideas on how to make money with share funnels.

Best Feature #5: The built-in included training (Funnel Flix) is fantastic

Want to level yourself up as a marketer? Then the Funnel Flix training that’s available is a brilliant resource, that everyone should take advantage of.

There’s an entire collection of ClickFunnels focused content including the:

• 30 Days book videos
• Affiliate Bootcamp
• Funnel Builder Secrets
• Product Secrets
• Funnel University

But there are other great training modules as well including Ad Skills, which is a premium course for learning paid traffic strategies and even Tony Robbins Private Collection is on there.

Honestly, even if you’re not interested in ClickFunnels itself, you may want to take the free trial just to watch these.

I really feel that Funnel Flix makes ClickFunnels a legitimate marketing training platform

What I don’t like about ClickFunnels?

Bad Part #1: Why is adding a funnel so slow?

After choosing your funnel type and template, it needs to get added to your account.

For some reason, this process seems to take around 8-10 seconds every time.

While I don’t know what’s really going on behind the scenes, it doesn’t make sense to me why this would take so long. It’s a bit annoying, although just a minor inconvenience.

Bad Part #2: Limits on funnels you can create and visitors

ClickFunnels limits you to 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors on their cheapest plan. I’m really not a fan of software products that limit you in this way.

If you are just building sales funnels for yourself, these limits are probably ok.

But you may get more annoyed at these limitations if you are doing client work, building funnels for multiple customers or promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate using share funnels.

You will need to upgrade to the Platinum plan if you want to build unlimited funnels.

Bad Part #3: Fairly High learning curve

The scope of what ClickFunnels can do is pretty huge, and I can definitely see it be intimidating to some.

That’s why ClickFunnels put so much work into the onboarding process to help ease you into the software. The ClickFunnels interface is pretty well designed for the most part and once you’ve built a few funnels yourself, the whole process does get easier over time.

ClickFunnels Pricing Plans

Over time, ClickFunnels has evolved its pricing plans. In the beginning, they had 3 different pricing tiers, but they have since been consolidated into 2 separate plans.

So how much is ClickFunnels now?

Currently, the cheapest ClickFunnels plan is $97 a month. On this plan, you get access to all the funnel creation tools, but you are limited to creating 20 funnels, 100 pages, and 20,000 visitors. You also don’t get access to Follow-Up Funnels, their built-in email service provider and Backpack, which allows you to create your own affiliate program.

To get access to that, you’ll need to go with the ClickFunnels Platinum plan. It includes everything, plus you get unlimited funnels, pages, and visitors. However, this will run you $297 a month.

As far as I can tell, there are no ClickFunnels coupon codes available.

However, you can purchase Funnel Builder Secrets for $2,997 which gives you 12 months of Etison Suite for free plus some additional bonuses. This brings the cost down to $249.75 a month.

ClickFunnels does make it easy for you to demo their service with their free, 14-day free trial. It’s not limited in any way which lets you give the software a full test before you fully commit.

Everything else you need to know about ClickFunnels

How is their support?

ClickFunnels can be a bit hit or miss, but they’re working hard to improve the experience.

Support requests are usually answered within a few hours and I found the staff to pretty helpful to all my questions.  If you’re looking for faster support, you can use the Official ClickFunnels FB group which I mention below.

Do I need my own domain name?

You do not necessarily need your own domain name to launch a funnel, although I would recommend it. If you don’t have one then your funnel URL will look something like http://username.clickfunnels.com.

One nice bonus that I didn’t know about is that ClickFunnels will buy you your first domain name for free and even set up SSL on it for you. You can learn how to do this from the first game in the onboarding training.

Do they have an active community?

ClickFunnels has an enormous community. There’s the official group on FB with over 100k members and the ClickFunnels Avengers FB group (for affiliates) that has over 30k members.

Both groups are extremely active and it’s a great place to get answers to get feedback on your sales funnels and answer any questions you may have.

There are also several other FB groups run by ClickFunnels affiliates which are also very active. The main one I recommend joining is Automation Nation. It’s run by Spencer Mecham who is ClickFunnel’s #1 top affiliate.

Can you really make money with ClickFunnels as an affiliate?

Yes, you can!

I have over 100 active ClickFunnels referrals under me, which means I’ve qualified for the Dream Car.  I was able to do this by really creating a really irresistible ClickFunnels bonus offer which has allowed me to start getting commissions like this:

What’s the best ClickFunnels training?

The best ClickFunnels training in my opinion is the One Funnel Away Challenge.  It’s an intensive 30-day training that’s taught by Russell Brunson, Julie Stoian and Stephen Larsen.  I’ve taken it three already, and I’ve learned so much from it.  You can read my full One Funnel Away Challenge review here.

What integrations do they offer?

Even though ClickFunnels has its own email service provider via Actionetics, it also integrates directly with all the best email services out there.

For payment gateways, ClickFunnels integrates with Stripe, Paypal, Clickbank, Infusionsoft, Authorize.net, and a few others. The one limitation with using Paypal though is that it does not support One Click Upsells or One Time Offers. That’s why I would highly recommend going with Stripe if you can.

What is the Funnel Builder Secrets system?

If you’re looking to get the $297/mo. ClickFunnels Platinum plan, then it’s definitely worth it to sign up with Funnel Builder Secrets instead to save some additional money. For $2,997, you’ll get twelve months of the Platinum plan which is $3,564 in value.

You’ll also get a bunch of additional training and bonuses that include:

• Funnel Hacks Master Class
• Funnel Builder Secrets Training
• Traffic Secrets Membership
• 12 Months Free Access to Funnel Scripts

This is the plan I am currently on after Funnel Hacks was phased out.  While it’s not as good a deal price-wise as Funnel Hacks, you do get a lot more training and the year of Funnel Scripts is worth quite a bit.

Is ClickFunnels a scam?

I think ClickFunnels gets some negative buzz because of all the affiliates who are trying to promote it.

But no, ClickFunnels is not a scam. It’s definitely the real deal.

It’s a great software with an amazing affiliate opportunity. There are so many examples of people using ClickFunnels to build 6 and 7 figure businesses.

When people ask, “How do I create a sales funnel”, ClickFunnels is the #1 answer hands down. There’s no other software that can do everything that ClickFunnels does at the moment.

Is it perfect? Of course not.  Like every product, it has its own flaws and annoyances.  But it’s very good, and will keep improving in the future.

How does ClickFunnels compare versus LeadPages?

LeadPages is a very popular landing page builder, and people are often looking to see how it stacks up to ClickFunnels.  I’ve written a detailed LeadPages vs ClickFunnels article here.

How does ClickFunnels compare versus SamCart?

SamCart is a product that allows users to create beautiful, high converting checkout pages. Which gives it a lot in common with ClickFunnels.

SamCart is geared towards getting set up and selling fast. It supports both Stripe and Paypal and it comes with 17 different checkout page templates which you can customize.

In terms of flexibility, there is no comparison between ClickFunnel’s drag and drop editor and SamCart’s.

ClickFunnels is infinitely more powerful in that you can design any checkout page you can dream of. Samcart only allows for some basic customizations to its pre-made templates.

SamCart does allow you to add order bumps, upsells and downsells as ClickFunnels does. You can also easily create coupons for your products which is another great way to increase conversions.

However, where Samcart is lacking, is the ability to capture leads and create complete sales funnels. Both products come in at the same $97 a month price point, and I find ClickFunnels to be quite a bit more flexible and powerful than Samcart.

What else is ClickFunnels used for?

Besides creating standard sales funnels, there are many ways marketers are using ClickFunnels right now in their business.

It’s great for creating opt-in funnels to help you generate more leads and build your email list.

You can create webinar funnels to help you grow your brand and sell your products and services.

And you can use it to create membership sites where you can gate your premium content so that it’s accessible only to subscribers.

How can you make ClickFunnels work for you?

First of all, you need to have a product or service to sell. If you don’t have something to sell, then don’t even bother looking into ClickFunnels before you do. Unless you just want to promote it as an affiliate.

Next, you need to be willing to invest time and money into creating your value ladder and building out your entire sales funnel.

That means at least creating a lead magnet or low-cost tripwire product to get customers into your funnel. And then coming up with appropriate upsells, order bumps and other OTOs that complement or enhance your main product offering.

If you’re unclear how to start, I would take a look at Russell’s own multi-million dollar sales funnels to give you inspiration. Read his book DotComSecrets where he explains exactly the why and how of creating sales funnels and how to tell stories to sell your products.

And as you go through his own sales funnels yourself you can see how he goes from low-cost tripwire (DotComSecrets) to selling his flagship product (ClickFunnels).

By creating his own community of raving fans he can then upsell his various other products and events like Funnel Scripts, Funnel Hackers Live, and more.

Once you’ve gone through his funnels, then you can take the parts that apply to your own business and create a plan for your own sales funnel. Only then will you be ready to start making money with ClickFunnels.

Final Thoughts

Which software you go with depends on your requirements and the amount of work you are willing to invest in your business.

Although many of you are selling standalone products, are you willing to put in the effort required to create a high converting sales funnel?

If not, then ClickFunnels might be overkill for you. You can collect leads or sell your front end product more cheaply using alternative services.

However, if increasing the average lifetime value of your customers is important to you, then I really recommend giving ClickFunnels a try.

Not only to get access to the software but also because the training you get will be both inspiring and enlightening.

Take advantage of the ClickFunnels 14-day free trial, and see if you can use it to grow your business today.

Take the free 14-day ClickFunnels trial

My ClickFunnels Bonuses

Did my ClickFunnels review get you interested in taking the free 14-day ClickFunnels trial?

Why not get some extra help to start your ClickFunnels journey with these exclusive ClickFunnels bonuses.

Instead of overwhelming you with a huge list of bonuses that you will never use, I’ve created a no-fluff offer that is specifically designed to help you succeed with ClickFunnels.

Here is what you will get:

• Bonus #1: Dream Car Secrets Guide – Want to see how I won the ClickFunnels Dream Car? I wrote this guide which documents all the steps I took to go from struggling ClickFunnels affiliate to Dream Car winner.
• Bonus #2: Unlimited Email/FB Chat Support from Me – Got a question? No problem. I help all my affiliates by providing one on one mentoring with ClickFunnels and affiliate marketing in general.
• Bonus #3: CF Follow Up Pro access – This is best system for automatically following up with your ClickFunnels affiliates. I use it myself to boost my stick rate and retain my affiliates longer.
• Bonus #4: Dream Car Follow Up System + Email Swipes – You’ll go through my ClickFunnels email training course that will get you up and running with ClickFunnels as quickly as possible. You’ll also get the same email swipes that have been working great for me at converting my trials into happy, paying ClickFunnels customers.
• Bonus #5: Link Wizard Standard Account – Link tracking is an essential tool for promoting any affiliate product including ClickFunnels. You’ll be getting free access to this great software which will tell you exactly where all your commissions are coming from.
• Bonus #6: Group Convert Silver Account – This is one of my favorite Chrome extensions. It automatically grows your email list from new members signing up to your Facebook group. These are your most engaged followers, who you will be able to market to with your offers.
• Bonus #7: White Label Lead Magnet Starter Pack – You’ll be getting white label rights to 3 of my top-performing lead magnets. Use them to grow your own email list, or as bonuses like I am.

By grabbing my bonuses, you will save yourself so much time and provide a ton of extra value with a minimal amount of effort on your part.  I guarantee they will help you achieve better success with promoting ClickFunnels as an affiliate.

Take a look at my ClickFunnels bonus page for more details on the above bonuses and how to get them.

ClickFunnels Pros

• Best software for creating marketing and sales funnels
• Editor balances ease of use with flexibility
• Integrates with all major email and payment providers
• Beautiful looking templates for every type of funnel
• Great onboarding process for learning the software
• Software continues to get better after every update
• Easily share any funnels you make and automatically earn affiliate commissions
• Free domain name with SSL installed
• 14-day free trial

ClickFunnels Cons

• Limits on the number of funnels, pages, and visitors with the standard plan
• Lots of things to learn, fairly steep learning curve
• Split testing is pretty basic

Affiliate Disclaimer: I hope you enjoyed this ClickFunnels review. Please note that any links inside this article may be affiliate links to ClickFunnels. That means that if you click on one of the links and sign up, I may be compensated for it. If you do happen to click, thanks! Any money we make keeps this site running and allows us to keep producing high-quality reviews. I am an independent ClickFunnels Affiliate, not an employee. The opinions expressed here are my own and are not official statements of ClickFunnels or its parent company, Etison LLC.