What a Sales Funnel Costs to Build and Run

Sales funnel software starts at $41 a month on Funnelish billed annually, and entry paid plans elsewhere cost about $29 to $119. You also pay for traffic, building and payment fees. A simple funnel on organic traffic costs about $41 a month. Add $2,400 of paid ads on the PRO plan and it's about $2,480, with ads taking most of it.

A sales funnel has four running costs: software, traffic, building and fees. Sales funnel tools only cover the first. Each one is priced below, then all four are added up.

Software: What the Funnel Builder Costs

Software is a fixed monthly price for the funnel builder: pages, checkout and, on some platforms, email marketing. Entry plans from dedicated funnel builders run about $29 to $119 a month. Here's what Funnelish charges:

Basic covers one store and 20,000 visitors, enough for a simple funnel. PRO lifts that to 100,000 visitors and fits once you pay for traffic. Advanced suits several brands, with unlimited visitors, 50 custom domains, and gateway pools that switch a declined payment to a backup provider. Some builders advertise unlimited custom domains, but 50 covers 50 brands.

Every Funnelish plan includes the drag and drop editor, landing page templates, upsells, and email and SMS marketing automation. That replaces separate tools like a website builder, a landing page builder and email marketing tools. Yearly billing saves $96 on Basic and $492 on Advanced. There's no free plan, but the 14-day trial needs no card.

Traffic: The Cost That Decides Your Budget

Organic traffic from search and social posts costs time instead of cash, and it builds over months. Paid traffic from Google Ads or social media campaigns starts on day one. It buys targeted traffic, chosen by search term, interest or location, and charges for every click.

To estimate paid ads, multiply clicks by cost per click. At 2,000 clicks and $1.20 a click, that's $2,400 a month, the figure used in the totals below. Use your own cost per click when you set a digital marketing budget.

Building: Templates or Hiring

Building covers landing pages, sales pages, checkout and emails. A lead generation funnel with a lead magnet also needs email campaigns that turn sign-ups into paying customers.

Build your own sales funnel from a Funnelish template and it takes an afternoon. The landing page, checkout, upsell and thank you page arrive connected in the sales funnel builder, and you swap in your product and copy. Basic funnel templates that stop at one landing page leave the rest of the sales funnel building to you.

Use Free Funnelish Funnel Templates

Hire a freelancer or agency for a complex funnel with custom design or a long sales process with lead scoring. Ask for a quote broken down by page.

Fees: The Cost That Grows With Your Sales

Some platforms add 1% or 2% of every sale on top of card processing:

Funnelish adds 0% on every plan, and the line stays at zero through business growth. A plan $50 a month cheaper that takes 1% costs you more once sales pass $5,000 a month.

How Much Does a Sales Funnel Cost Per Month?

Here are the totals for three setups, using plans billed annually and the $2,400 ad example:

The simple funnel pays for software and nothing else. In the paid funnels, ads are nearly the whole bill: Basic to Advanced adds $167 a month, while switching on ads adds $2,400. Price your traffic first.

Is It Worth It? Work Out What Each Customer Costs

Divide what you spend by the paying customers the funnel brings in, then compare that with what a customer spends. The paid funnel spends $2,483 on 2,000 visitors. At 2.5% conversion that's 50 customers at $49.66 each. At 3% it's 60 customers at $41.38. Half a point of conversion made each customer 17% cheaper.

A high converting sales funnel beats a cheap plan. When you compare the best sales funnel software, check the key features that lift conversion at each funnel stage: A/B testing, mobile responsive pages, fast loading and analytics integrations with Google Analytics.

One Platform or Separate Tools

An effective sales funnel also needs lead capture forms, pop ups and an email marketing platform. With all the tools in one place, customer behavior stays in one report, showing which email marketing campaigns bring back loyal customers without exports from different tools. For online businesses where one digital marketer runs the marketing campaigns, that's time back each week.

All-in-one suites may bundle affiliate management, membership sites and online courses. Pay for them only if your business model needs them, like an affiliate program, and check whether they need other tools. Stores get more from ecommerce features like upsells than from advanced automation built for sales pipelines. Every extra module also brings a steep learning curve for anyone new to online marketing.

Read more: What Is a Sales Funnel Analysis?

How to Budget for Your First Funnel

Price traffic first, then pick the plan that fits it and build from a template. After a month, divide what your sales and marketing efforts cost by your new customers. That tells you whether to buy more ads, improve conversion or upgrade.

Give it a month of changes before calling anything the perfect sales funnel. Small businesses can test an offer on Basic with a small ad budget. Once the numbers are in, choose the right sales funnel software plan and upgrade when your marketing funnels outgrow it.

Use Free Funnelish Funnel Templates