Ontraport Review 2023: (Over)Loaded with Features

Launch Your Online Business in Just 7 Days

There’s steep competition when it comes to online businesses, and finding the right tool for your online business can be tough.


Ontraport is a popular all-in-one solution with multiple tools to help your business succeed — but is the steep learning curve and the price tag worth it?


In this review, we take a deep dive into Ontraport to help you decide if this is the tool you need to help run your online business.


Let’s get started.

1. What is Ontraport and who’s it for?

Ontraport logo

Ontraport logo

Ontraport is an all-in-one platform that’s known for its advanced marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) tools.


With these features, you’ll be able to focus on the 5 phases of the customer life cycle (attract, convert, fulfill, delight, and refer).


Ontraport is most suitable for educational businesses that run a membership site or sell information products.


However, Ontraport isn’t ideal for startups or small business owners — but we’ll get into the nitty-gritty details later in this review.


For now, let’s take a closer look at what Ontraport has to offer.

2. Ontraport’s features

Ontraport is a platform that allows you to have all your tools and data in one place — let’s get into some of the most noteworthy features.

2.1. Customer relationship management

Ontraport’s CRM tools

Ontraport’s CRM tools

Ontraport has an advanced CRM system that offers you several ways to build and maintain your customer relationships over the long haul.


When you’re building your database of subscribers, you need a place to store them all and keep them organized.


Ontraport lets you do this with several tools — for example, you can:

  • Build your contact list by importing your existing contact base, or use lead generation tools such as landing pages and forms
  • Customize your contact fields based on the information you’d want to collect, and segment your contacts
  • Learn the engagement level of your contacts with lead scoring to know what they’re most interested in

Even before a lead has made it onto your list, Ontraport makes segmenting them possible.


For example, you can set custom rules to qualify or disqualify leads based on their behaviors and interests.


Ontraport doesn’t stop there.


To help ensure that you target the right contacts, the platform collects the following information for you:

  • Appointment history
  • Account activity
  • Engagement history
  • Lead score
  • Purchase history

With Ontraport’s contact management feature, you’ll have complete control over the contact fields and variables used on your profile.


This allows you to gather relevant information from your leads, as opposed to just the generic ‘Name’ and ‘Email’ fields.


Having this kind of control and information allows you to customize your offerings when you set up your marketing campaigns.


With a CRM solution like this, you should have no issue addressing your customers’ concerns and keeping track of all past and future interactions.

2.2. Design elements

Ontraport’s drag-and-drop editor

Ontraport’s drag-and-drop editor

Ontraport’s block-based drag-and-drop editor is the editor you’ll use to create your emails, funnels, landing pages, and sign-up forms.


Simply:

  • Pick the blocks you’d want in your design
  • Situate them where you want them
  • Customize it until you’re happy with the design

Alternatively, you can speed up the process with pre-built templates and jump straight to customizing the finer details.


All of the templates are free, highly customizable, and responsive.


Ontraport also offers global blocks — this allows you to make a change to a block and have it automatically update on all of your landing pages.

2.3. Email marketing campaigns

 Ontraport’s IF/THEN campaign automation

Ontraport’s IF/THEN campaign automation

When it comes to email marketing, Ontraport has 3 email editors for you to choose from, these include:

1. The Simple Mail Editor for text-focused emails

2. The OntraMail Editor for graphical newsletters

3. The HTML Editor for those who are more tech-savvy

The visual campaign builder is one of the platform’s most prized features — with this tool you can:

  • Create a visual campaign roadmap with automation workflows for real-time insight into your campaign’s progress
  • Use pre-built workflows — Adjust the goals according to the actions you want your contacts to take to get them to the next stage
  • Access tons of data to determine how successful your campaign is, and run A/B tests to find what works best

Systeme.io uses the same type of workflow design:

 An example of a workflow on systeme.io

An example of a workflow on systeme.io

A workflow allows you to:

1. Determine the path you’d want your leads to take

2. Pre-determine what happens after a specific action has been taken

Workflows and contact segmentation ensure that the right customers get the right approach, at the right time.


Overall, building campaigns is fairly straightforward with Ontraport, and you’ll get live statistics about how each step of your funnel is performing.


Let’s take a closer look at Ontraport’s automation features.

2.4. Automation

Automating your business processes is a must-have for any business.


Automating all the tedious and time-consuming tasks not only minimizes the risk of mistakes, but it allows you to focus on what’s important — running your business.

2.4.1. Marketing automation

 Ontraport’s marketing automation

Ontraport’s marketing automation

Ontraport gives you the power to automate any part of the customer life cycle, whilst maintaining full control over the entire process.


This means that your leads will be nurtured the second they land on your page, and they’ll automatically be guided through your funnel.


Based on your settings, you can automatically group leads in your funnel based on their preferences, behaviors, and demographics.


If your customers prefer SMS, you can add that to your sales funnel to ensure that these leads receive SMSes instead of email.


Simply set the variables, campaigns, and funnels, and let the platform handle the rest.

2.4.2. Salesforce automation

Ontraport’s salesforce automation allows your remote sales team to generate more prospects, nurture more leads, and close more sales.


Create a pipeline with multiple stages with the drag-and-drop builder, and manage your leads as they sail through your funnel toward the close.


With visual pipelines, you can organize and oversee deals at every stage.


Drag-and-drop automation also means that making a change to your pipeline is as simple as dragging a step from one section to another.


With task automation tools, your salespeople will also automatically:

  • Be assigned leads
  • Get reminder prompts (for example when to follow up with a lead)
  • Get real value and the expected win percentage for each lead

And more.


This ensures that your sales team’s time and resources are used on the right leads and tasks.

2.4.3. Business automation

Ontraport lets you automate repetitive processes such as assigning work, replying to inquiries, order fulfillment, and sending emails.


For recurring processes, Ontraport will gather the information you need on a weekly or monthly basis so that you can automate them.


You can even automate your customer service-related tasks such as the onboarding of new customers.


Your customers will automatically receive everything they need. From forms to follow-up emails, Ontraport can handle it all.


By automating all the recurring processes, you’ll be able to focus on more important business operations, like acquiring new leads.

2.5. Webinar service

Ontraport has built-in support for webinars, which is a fantastic way to offer your customers a more personalized experience.


With their webinar service, you can record, store, and stream your webinars.


Plus you’ll be able to schedule them and have the automation take care of the launch, reminders, and follow-up emails.


The actions taken by your audience will be captured in Ontraport’s CRM with analytics that you can use to determine the best way forward.

2.6. Time zone delivery

When it comes to successful email marketing, knowing who you should send an email to is as important as knowing when you should send the email.


Unfortunately, sending mass emails at the same time means that you won’t be reaching your audience at the best times.


Ontraport allows you to send the same email at, say, 9 am, to everyone regardless of the timezone they’re in.


If you’re interested in learning more about optimal times to send your emails, click here.

2.7. Membership sites

Ontraport’s membership support is ideal for businesses that offer a subscription-based service.


This allows you to accept monthly membership fees from your members in exchange for your training material or coaching and mentorship services.


Use the membership builder to create your own from scratch, or customize a pre-built membership site to your liking.


Select your membership model and you’ll get:

  • All the necessary pages
  • Login functionality
  • Content delivery automation

Just customize and launch.

 Ontraport’s pre-built membership site template options

Ontraport’s pre-built membership site template options

Ontraport also lets you set up a self-service center for your members.


This helps to minimize your customer service inquiries, as your customers will be able to update their card information, view payment history, etc.

2.8. Ecommerce and payments

Ontraport has several ecommerce and payment features that allow you to sell both physical and digital products online.


Some of the key ecommerce features on offer include:

  • The drag-and-drop form builder to create your order forms
  • Upsells, downsells, and coupons — These help to increase your average order value
  • Built-in payment tool that lets you automate credit card payment collections, plus integrations for processing transactions
  • Pre-made automation sequences to reduce your abandoned carts — This includes card expiration, abandoned cart reminders, etc.
  • Several different payment plans and subscription models

To boost your conversion rates, you need a simple checkout process that reduces any friction — Ontraport provides this.


To start making sales, simply drag a pre-made order form onto your page and set up your payment gateway.

2.9. Reporting and analytics

When it comes to measuring your business’ success, Ontraport gives you insight into important metrics — here are a handful of them:

  • Desktop and mobile performance
  • Open rate, bounce rate, and click-through rate of your email campaign
  • See how your contacts have moved through your campaign and where they are now
  • See the total and average amount your customers have spent on an individual campaign
  • Specific performance of a demographic
  • Opportunities based on each salesperson
  • The exact results of a specific marketing funnel

Plus several others — you have the flexibility and freedom to choose KPIs relevant to your business.


The options are endless and that's because of the large amount of data gathered on each lead.


Since Ontraport does a lot of the data mining on its own, you don’t have to worry about doing any of this yourself.


You can simply use the data fields you’ve chosen to compile your reports to offer feedback to your marketing and sales teams.

2.10. Support

Ontraport offers ample resources on their website, these include beginner guides, video courses, and more.


Unfortunately with the learning curve that comes with a tool like Ontraport, you’ll likely need additional support.


Their customer support team will help you through various channels:

  • Email
  • Live Chat
  • Screenshare

Thankfully, Ontraport offers great customer service as expressed by most of its customers, but some have stated that more resources are needed to assist with the learning curve.


Now we get to the question that’s on everyone’s mind — how much will Ontraport set you back each month?


Is it worth what you’ll be getting? Let’s find out.

3. Ontraport’s pricing

Ontraport has 4 price plans, starting at a whopping $79/month for their Basic plan!


Here are the monthly prices for each of the 4 plans:

 Ontraport’s pricing plans

Ontraport’s pricing plans

For $79/month, the Basic plan gives you:

  • Unlimited emails for 1,000 contacts
  • 1 account user

In terms of features, this plan includes:

  • Most of the business automation and CRM features
  • All of the email marketing and marketing automation tools
  • Landing pages and pop-up forms
  • Limited salesforce automation
  • Split testing

The Basic plan doesn’t give you:

  • Automated task management
  • Custom branded invoices
  • Ecommerce features
  • Custom objects
  • Membership sites
  • Referral programs
  • Lead scoring or routing

You also get very limited IF/THEN automation, shopping cart integration, and reporting and analytics.


Plus, if you need an additional user on any of the plans, this will cost you an extra $47/month!


For $147/month, the Plus plan gives you everything in the Basic plan with a few extras:

  • Unlimited emails for 2,500 contacts
  • 2 account users
  • Ecommerce tools
  • Membership sites
  • Referral programs
  • Salesforce automation

On this plan, you’re just as limited in terms of reporting and analytics.


The Pro plan for an extra $150 ($297/month) gives you:

  • Unlimited emails for 10,000 contacts
  • 3 account users

You get everything in the previous plans, plus:

  • Custom objects
  • Email deliverability insight

The Enterprise plan gives you all of Ontraport’s features, but you don’t get unlimited email sends, instead you get:

  • 200,000 emails/month for 20,000 contacts
  • 5 account users
  • VIP support

If you need higher limits, this will cost you an additional $99/month for an extra 100k contacts or emails.


It’s important to note that you can request a dedicated IP address regardless of your plan.


This ensures that the only sender reputation affecting your email deliverability rates is your own.


Ontraport offers a 14-day free trial, and a 30-day money-back guarantee if you find that you’re dissatisfied with the tool.


Is it worth it? Let’s weigh up Ontraport’s pros and cons.

4. Ontraport’s pros and cons

These are some of the main pros and cons of using Ontraport, as expressed by their customers:

Pros

  • Great customer support
  • Ontraport uses dedicated IP addresses (this boosts deliverability)
  • Offers more than just CRM (webinars, ecommerce tools, etc.)
  • There are many free and responsive templates
  • Ontraport’s campaign builder is user-friendly and powerful

Cons

  • There’s a steep learning curve
  • Frustrating contact management issues with removing duplicate contacts
  • It’s expensive especially for small business owners
  • There’s limited integration and app support
  • The email design software isn’t as intuitive as you’d expect
  • Lack of adequate reporting capabilities on the Basic and Plus plans

5. Frequently asked questions

Have you still got some burning questions? Let’s get into some of the most commonly asked questions.

5.1. Does Ontraport have a free trial or Free plan?

There’s no Free plan — Ontraport’s pricing starts at a staggering $79/month.


Considering that the price plans start at this, a mere 14-day free trial is disappointing, but thankfully no credit card details are required.

5.2. What integration options are there?

When it comes to Ontraport integrations, you can connect with other shopping carts, webinar services, LMS software, and more.


These are some of the integration options:

Among several others.

5.3. Is there a mobile app?

Ontraport does have a mobile app, it’s available even on the Basic plan, and it supports both Android and iPhone devices.


With this app you can:

  • Get task reminders and trigger the next steps to ensure your customers get what they need
  • Send quick messages through email or text to your segmented groups
  • Get live insight into your performance, productivity, leads, and customers

Being able to do things on the go like keeping your contacts up to date or subscribing users to your sequences is very handy.


While Ontraport prides itself on being a leading CRM solution, we’ve got a true all-in-one marketing machine lined up.


Let’s get into the best Ontraport alternative — systeme.io.

6. Systeme.io: The best all-in-one alternative to Ontraport

systeme.io logo

systeme.io logo

Ontraport was once the most affordable marketing tool on the block — until systeme.io swooped in!


With tools like systeme.io, you won’t have to be concerned about your wallet — forget the hefty price tags, painful integrations, and steep learning curves!


With us, you’ll get all the tools you need to run and grow your online business without breaking the bank.


Let’s get into what systeme.io, as a true all-in-one solution, has to offer.

6.1. Systeme.io’s features

Systeme.io has everything you need to launch, grow, and scale your business — here’s a peek into our toolbox of features:

  • Sales funnels — Build high-converting sales funnels equipped with sales pages, upsells, downsells, and more in just a few clicks!
  • Email marketing — Send unlimited emails to your contacts, create marketing campaigns, segment your list, and automate your efforts
  • Create your website — Build your very own website with drag-and-drop ease and our proven templates
  • Affiliate marketing — Run your own affiliate program, and manage all your payouts and affiliate links in one place
  • Create online courses — Easily create, market, and sell your courses, and offer full or drip access to your content
  • Evergreen webinars — Run webinars to grow your audience and your revenue
  • Ecommerce features — Become a drop shipper, or sell your own products or services with order bumps, coupons, and more
  • Reporting — Access all the important performance analytics you need, and run A/B tests to find what works best
  • Integrations — Integrate with PayPal, Stripe, Zapier, and ActiveCampaign

And more!


Like Ontraport, systeme.io offers powerful marketing automation tools that’ll do all the heavy lifting for you.


Plus, our software is also fully integrated which makes managing each part of your business a breeze.


Launching and growing your business has never been easier, or cheaper — let’s get into how much these powerful features will cost you.

6.2. Systeme.io’s pricing

Systeme.io offers 4 plans that cater to every business, regardless of size and available budget:

 systeme.io’s pricing plans

systeme.io’s pricing plans

Our Free plan is free forever, and it requires no credit card details — with it, you’ll get:

  • Unlimited emails for a list size of up to 2,000 contacts
  • 3 sales funnels with 10 funnel steps
  • 1 blog and 1 membership site
  • 1 custom domain

Plus, without spending a cent, you’ll also get the following:

  • 1 automation rule and 1 workflow
  • 1 email campaign and 1 tag
  • A 1-click upsell and order bump
  • 1 A/B test and 1 coupon

All of our plans, including our Free plan, include not only unlimited emails but also:

  • Unlimited file storage space
  • Unlimited members for your membership sites
  • Unlimited blog posting
  • Affiliate marketing
  • No transaction fees
  • 24/7 support whenever and wherever you need it

Growing your business doesn’t need to cost you a fortune — our paid plans are a far more affordable means to growing your business.


Besides our world-class support team, our platform takes affordability and ease-of-use to the next level.


Just take a look at what our customers have to say.

7. Conclusion

Ontraport has the bells and whistles, but unfortunately (especially for small businesses) it comes at a price that can be difficult to justify.


Especially when you’ve got forever Free plans with tools like systeme.io.


Starting at $79/month, Ontraport’s pricing is a weak point (alongside their steep learning curve).


Our Unlimited plan is $400 cheaper than that of Ontraport’s — that’s a huge difference! Do we need to say more?


Forget the unappealing price tags and learning curves, and join a tool that simplifies it all — at a price that makes sense!


Sign up for your free account here.

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