When it comes to creating membership based websites and sales letters, Kajabi and OptimizePress generally both come to mind; two platforms that are somewhat similar in functionality, but in theory do two completely separate things, and I get my fair share of emails in my inbox from my followers wanting to know which platform is best for what they want to use. So, now that the buzz has settled on the launch for both of these membership website solutions, and there are slighly less dirty tactics going on in order to simply get a sale, I’ll do my bit to help out. Lets crack this one wide open with a bold statement….
Kajabi Is Not OptimizePress
Who remembers when both Kajabi and Optimizepress launched? It really was a David and Golliath battle, on one hand you had the massive Guru “syndicate” launch that was almost impossible to compete against, and on the other hand, you had OptimizePress. Created by a much smaller fish in the pond, but you know what? It actually performed, and whilst it was not possible to compete all that hard against a “Syndicate” launch, you know, they actually did pretty well! Even if it did take a few dirty tactics along the way, and a ton of slandering of the bigger launch.
Not that I am a fan of these launches or anything… I like to be sold quality, and only report on quality as such.
At the end of the day though, both solutions, as much as they are vigorously compared against each other, are completely different products. They both offer different functionality, and do two great things but in very different ways.
What Is OptimizePress?
Since its launch in late 2010, OptimizePress has grown from being more than a simple sales letter creator, but a theme and management system for a membership based website, supporting various payment gateways such as PayPal, 1shoppingcart, Clickbank, and Nanacast. It has a built in launch funnel controlled by a simple cookie drop, and is designed from the ground up to convert as best as possible, with countless templates included from your standard sales letters to full blown video squeeze pages. OptimizePress is a theme, so it comes at a one off cost, and also has great iPad and iPhone browser support, which is a huge benefit in itself. You can grab your copy here.
Kajabi on the other hand is a hosted service that you have a smaller amount of control over (ie, if they go down, you go down), however, it has a fantastic membership area and stunning sales letter templates that are on par with what is provided in OptimizePress. There are also a few paid add ons involving your affiliates, plus Amazon S3 is also included in the monthly cost, meaning that you can host your content as well under the one monthly membership cost. It is also worth noting that Kajabi also supports iPad and iPhone browsers, but I have not yet had a smooth experience with it myself.
Lets Do A Comparison
Lets say that you wanted to launch a membership site using OptimizePress. Here’s what you would have to fork out. Initially, you would have to purchase the theme which now sits at $97 (down from $297, you can grab it at the reduced cost here, plus I will also throw in some bonus video training – read below for more details), plus you would have to arrange your shopping cart, or payment gateway (PayPal is free, but other services can cost). On top of that, you would need some kind of hosting for your video, which would more than likely be Amazon S3, which has its own cost depending on how much video content is watched (which is quite minimal really), and the time spent setting up the members area, which is quite an easy and fluent task really.
Now, on the other hand, if you use Kajabi, you will not need WordPress, as everything is hosted in the platform itself. You set up your sales letter, membership area, upload your video content, and your shopping cart. Setting up the sales letter is done minus code editing, and the same applies to setting up the membership area. The cost of Kajabi’s lowest package is $99 per month, with packages trippling in cost to host multiple products.
So, Do The Math
To do a serious comparison here, I’ll talk about an email that I received recently in response to this post (the version prior to this current version). In the email, I was told by one of my followers that they have a product that is around the $50 mark, and they want to launch it ASAP, but are confused with which platform to select.
The way to consider this is quite simple. Lets look at what is needed, and associate a break even point. At $50 per sale, minus affiliate comissions, you will need at least 4 sales to break even on the lowest package that Kajabi has to offer, and that is a recurring point to meet every single month.
For those of us who have never launched a product before, this can be a hard target to meet, so my recommendation is to stick with what will get you to a permanent break even point as soon as possible.
That said, if you have multiple mid to high end products, and want one platform or service to manage each product, by all means, Kajabi would be absolutely perfect for you, that said, I do fear that it may be a little overkill for most people, especially at the cost.
Here’s My Unbiassed Recommendation
After owning and using OptimizePress since around October 2010 myself, plus on my own product (check out the sales page here to see it in action), I am extremely comfortable with this theme. It works when I need it to, it works with WordPress, and is easy enough to use that I can get a sales letter or a squeeze/presell page live within a few minutes.
For the product that I mentioned above, we have an extensive backend set up, as we need to be able to process many payments, manage a large membership base, plus process automatic affiliate payments when they are due.
It is in this instance that we use OptimizePress with Nanacast, which is similar to Kajabi, but with ten times the functionality and under half the price.
This is more of an advanced set up though, especially for someone like myself who needs to manage affiliates, and many members.
A more basic set up may be to set up your product with ClickBank, and integrate that into OptimizePress. The two work seamlessly together to be quite honest.
Either way, without dishing any dirt on a good platform, Kajabi is a bit overkill for most people. Its good! But most people simply will not need a platform like it, especially at the price.
To grab a copy of OptimizePress before they put the price back up to $297, head to www.optimizepress.com
To get an account with Nanacast, visit www.ryantmalone.com/Nanacast
If you purchase either OptimizePress or Nanacast through those links, email me, and I will happily send you a free 30 minute training video that I recently made for my coaching clients that will train you up on how to get the most out of OptimizePress. My treat to you.
Great article. I’ve been looking at Kajabi for a while and just started looking at Optimizepress today after getting an email from someone promoting it.
One thing though – you mentioned that in order for Optimizepress to be a membership site, you need to spend $99 on Nanacast. However, you can always use Wishlist Member, which allows you to set up the membership site component. That’s only a 1 time fee, and I think it would do everything you would want it to do.
This is what I’m considering doing for my first membership site because then I host everything on my own servers, and I think I’m more comfortable with that, although – Kajabi does look pretty sweet!
Nanacast is just one option, and there are a good handful of other options out there, as you mentioned with Wishlist Member as well. Each service does have its pros and cons however, personally, I am a bit hesitant at the idea of hosting my whole membership site or product on a third party server that I have no control over, however, they have worked well for me so far.
Glad to hear that you enjoyed the post!
You know, it’s so hard to find REAL reviews anymore that are unbiased, and not merely an affiliate trying to look unbiased. I don’t have a problem with someone making money on an affiliate link. I certainly do my fair share of it myself. However, if I do a review, it’s an unbiased review as was done here. No b.s.. No fluff. Just the facts, letting people decide for themselves based on ALL of the facts, and not just their own slanted and biased view.
My hat’s off to you, Ryan. Good job!
Thanks Rick! I will say that I do use OptimizePress myself and I have found it to be quite good. If I ever do a review for a product on this blog however, it is only ever because I use it myself, and received some great results from it. OptimizePress is one of those for me.
But he is an affiliate of optimise press ! which is fine, but I would hardly call it an unbiased review. Most of the guys I know who have lists of 3000 + all use Kajabi.
Personally I use wordpress for my sites and am looking at wish list for membership sites.
If it’s of any interest I purchased profit theme and did not have a good experience at all.
Hi Wolverqueen,
I respect your opinion – as someone who does make a living as an affiliate marketer, I’m more than well aware that the act of using an affiliate link does carry some kind of stigma from time to time.
That said, before I started taking my Internet Marketing seriously, I decided that I will do this the right way. By this, I mean that everything that I promote or speak about and make recommendations to my visitors, followers, and clients, is only ever based on my own positive experience.
For example – do a Google search on “Popup Domination Refunds” and you will see that most people claim the refund rate is 1.3% or so, but I can confirm to you now that my refund rate as an affiliate is around 70 – 80%, and as a result, I will be ceasing all promotions very shortly once I have completed testing an alternative product that suits the needs of my visitors and followers much better.
Any other way is just not right ethically, and I know that many others generally don’t care, but I do.
Kajabi on the other hand, it is a great application that’s for sure, but at the end of the day, it comes down to whether or not you can turn the monthly fees into profit or not. Being locked in for the lifetime of a product to pay fees on a monthly basis that only ever increase based on subscriber numbers is an option that some people may not like.
For ease of use however, and simplicity, I prefer Optimizepress. I use it on my products, my email segmentation systems (content delivery), plus my own internal training, and I am yet to find an issue with it – all contributing to why I speak so highly of this product.
Hope that clears things up a bit, and restores some confidence that I’m not just a sly affiliate marketer, but someone who advises from good experiences.
Hi Ryan,
I love your post. I am using OptimizePress with Nanacast on my new membership site and it is a dream.
The good thing with Nanacast is that it also manages affiliate programs very well and also integrates well with PayPal. Nanacast / Optimize Press gives you the shopping cart plus also provides the ability to scale up more easily – it handles unlimited projects where for the same price Kajabi only offers 3 projects at the $99 fee.
Kajabi only does 1 project for $99 per month
Only one project now? Wow… that’s super pricey.
As of right now anyways, kajabi offers 3 projects for the recurring price of 99. I’m still trying to decide, actually.
Hi Peter, Kajabi definitely does have an interesting offering. At the end of the day, its really up to what it is that you are wanting to deliver. Kajabi is much more expensive, however you can get a much similar result combining Optimizepress with Nanacast, and saving on cost down the track if you ever end up launching multiple products.
Let me know how you go.
Hi Carol, I agree. For The BBS Formula, we use a combination of Nanacast and OptimizePress, however, the only issue that I have with OptimizePress, and I really hope that they work towards this, is adding the ability to drip feed content from Nanacast memberships into an OptimizePress membership area.
I am sure that there is a way to do it using Nanacast + Wishlist + OptimizePress, but the costs of owning those three products is huge. I know, I own both those plugins! :p
Kajabi on the other hand, well, it does something cool, I personally love the idea behind it, but I just dont have a need for it. Nanacast has done well for me so far.
RYAN… I appreciate cutting through the smoke and mirrors! Thank You, Thank You… you saved me a ton of time… keep up the clarity… brah! Joe Syverson
Anytime, always happy to help.
What WAS the price—it is $97 now!
The sales page crosses out $297 for a current price of $97…was it cheaper?
Maybe I should wait for a special launch
Hi Sherry,
That was a mistake on my part in the post. It is $97, reduced from $297. I accidentally forgot to add the 2 in front of the number at the end of the post.
When it first launched, it went for a little cheaper than that for a few weeks, but that was back last year. I really couldn’t say if they are going to do another launch or not.
That said, for that price, it is very cost effective, especially if you dont need to spend on a per month basis with other solutions like Kajabi.
Let me know how you go with it.
http://www.optimizepresstheme.com
Ryan
Will Optimizepresstheme provide help on installing WordPress and then installing the theme?
I have no internet setup experience. Who can help? John jklein@jklein.com
Hi John,
I’ve just taken a look inside my membership area to see if there is an option for them to install it for you, but I havent seen anything just yet. That said, I know that the guy who created OptimizePress (James Dyson) has previously done some work for other marketers before, so it might be worth you chasing him up through the OptimizePress help area.
As for pricing, I’m really not too sure what he would charge. That said, its a very worthwhile skill to have, the ability to install WordPress and a theme, so might be worth taking the time to learn it when you have the time.
Ryan,
Is OptimizePress a one time, relatively easy set up or do you have to go though a long techie set up for each site? I was looking at AuthorityPro 2.0 and it takes forever to set up and for each site you build.
I’m trying to make this process easier, not rocket science.
Thanks,
Al
Hi Al, Optimizepress is very easy to set up in comparison to many other sales letter themes that I am aware of.
The process is as simple as creating a page with your chosen template, filling in the boxes (Your sales video, headlines, content, etc), then once you have published the page, setting it as your front page in your WordPress options.
Of course, there are more complex set ups involved in the launch funnels and your membership backend, that said, compared to any other means that I know of, it really is quite easy to get up and running.
Let me know how you go with it.
Ryan
Hi Ryan
great post…i’m in the process of purchasing a product and came across PRODUCT LAUNCH WORDPRESS THEME…from cheapinternetmarketingtools…i already use their auto webinar product…and need an easy way to make some good capture pages and then maybe some sales pages down the road.
what are your thoughts?
also do you use any auto webinar software…im having some tech issues and tech support isnt the greatest so far…which leads me, not into wanting to purchase PRODUCT LAUNCH WORDPRESS THEME….
hows tech support on optimize press?
Hi Geoff, thanks for commenting. As for other product launch themes, I certainly dont want to launch out there and put anyone else down, because the truth is that I have used limited themes that have the capability of being a sales page, or a membership area all rolled in one.
That said, of what I have used, OptimizePress is by far the easiest that I have used, and has the largest feature set. They also have great tech support as well, and their online documentation is second to none as well.
As for auto webinar software, to be completely honest, I am yet to do webinars myself, so it would be hard for me to advise on this.
Let me know how you go with Optimizepress.
I’m just starting out building websites again after a couple years off. I bought the Product Launch Theme 4 days ago. I asked for a refund today. I’m willing to say that perhaps I was doing something wrong – but -there were a few problems such as missing bullet point graphics in the set up, it also would lose the ability to keep the video on auto-start, the opt-in box never appeared, but the download button did. The buy button delay did work. Another thing that bothered me was that there were 8 or 9 plugins that had to be used with it. I’ve used a few themes with WordPress, and have never seen that before.
Hi Lawrence, I have heard similar stories about the Product Launch theme. At the end of the day, I have tested a few different sales letter/squeeze themes, and the one that always comes out on top in terms of functionality, and all in all completeness (Optimizepress requires no plugins at al to work properly), Optimizepress has always come out on top.
If you end up grabbing it from this page, let me know and I will send you some training on how to best use it.
Hi again,
I just “fired” Authority Pro. now. I tried them out, and there was a glitch with an upgrade in wordpress at the time. Simple thing like headers weren’t appearing, and, really, nothing worked. They produced a new plugin, (one of a number,) and after a few tries it finally worked. So, now when in the admin panel, I can see what’s there, instead of having to scroll down to see anything. However, it did not fix: the video that never appeared, the header that never appeared, the optin box that never worked, and I can’t think of what else. I went to the website, and they have good customer service, but many differing problems and answers. Hey, I like the techie stuff, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this – but – programming takes a long time for novices, and I just don’t have the time. I am going to try out Optimizepress now. All I really want is to have a video show up easily. I’ve already done this via WordPress options, but I figure that an official program will give me more options, *easily*.
Hi Lawrence, hopefully Optimizepress will work better for you!
Remember to chase me up about the bonus video that I have for people who buy through the link on this page, as that should really help you get started.
Hey Ryan,
I’m a first timer here and I thought I was going to read something else besides Kajabi and OptimizePress (but loved your review anyway!) since I just read in the comments about a few products I’m willing to try myself, these are some things I’ve been listening lately around some of them:
1. A guy that I’ve been learning a few things from, has been having issues for setting up PayPal and Nanacast in his OptimizePress site. There’s something he can’t automate and he also needs to pay his affiliates manually, this may be just some basic setup somewhere but I don’t know as I haven’t really ask.
2. WishList Member claims to be able to drip content, but what it really does is separate content on a membership user level. I believe a php guy out there made a plugin for making WLM work properly for that function but I wasn’t interested, it was too clumsy for me and I’m not even picky about dashboards.
2.1 I’ve been told WLM charges for assistance and even basic troubleshooting. Maybe this explains why is there a certificacion program to be able to implement and do proper configuration.
3. I recently heard about Digital Access Pass (another membership site even more expensive than WLM) but they do claim that they can drip content properly or at least that’s what I can see from their features page and looks pretty amazing at all it can do.
I have been researching a lot on this and the reason for that is that I have made a few mistakes in the past that costed quite a lot and these kind of tools are the last ones I’m going to buy at least in the short time.
So far I have decided on OptimizePress (not sold 100% yet on it), I’m still not sure about Nanacast (as I’m barely starting as a real internet marketer, I would love to know how the ClickBank sales funnel and affiliate management works) but I’m pretty sure I will need something extra besides ClickBank.
And the membership site plugin, this is where I can’t be wrong particularly because spending approximately $500 to ‘check out’ something is not that viable right now.
Hope to see what are your thoughts on this Ryan, definitely will come back to check out more of your work!
Sergio
Hi Sergio, glad that you liked the post!
With PayPal, you might want to make sure that Nanacast is able to notify it of completed sales. There is an IPN (Instant Payment Notification) issue that affects people across the board with PayPal integration with just about anything, and is an issue that PayPal have had for many years, but have never been bothered to fix. The only way that I have managed to fix the issue is to start a new PayPal account, but before you do that, it might be worth talking to PayPal first.
Using WLM and Nanacast is really easy, but for drip feeding, you do need to seperate content over different membership levels, and auto upgrade memberships. Having used Nanacast to set up drip feeding in the past, I actually prefer using Wishlist Member. Its super easy. Not too sure about how WLM charge for support though, but the majority of everything is covered in the documentation for the plugin.
As for DAP, I have not used it yet as I am quite happy with WLM, that said, I have heard great stories about it.
If youre not sure about the recurring investment of using Nanacast, maybe it might be a good option to start using WLM with Optimizepress (I can confirm that this works great), and then move up to Nanacast once you know that you can break even on the costs per month. That may be a great way to start out.
Good luck with it!
Thanks for the rad answer Ryan, it helped quite a lot!
Hey thanks so much.. your info has really clarified a lot for me just when I needed it! Cheers
More than happy to help Christine!
Thanks for the insights. You know what, I bought Optimize Press many months ago probably as a result of the hype you mention.
And … I have never used it! What a loser! Now, after reading what you say about it I am going to put things into action.
Thanks for the kick up the butt – just what I needed.
Hi Mark, you know what? I have done the same with so many plugins and themes. That said, when I got OptimizePress, I had a good reason to do so, and it has worked out really well for me so far.
I don’t know anything about membership sites but I do own optimize press and I’d love to find someone that has some wp twin clones of some sites using all of it’s features, I’ll even keep your affiliate content on the site toobso you can make money off my clone copy of it! I want to create a membership area for a Bbs that I own so I can promote some of my products off the Bbs. (not I’m type content, it’s offline stuff). If anyone’s interested let me know
Hi, I have a WP website with WishList recently installed and I love the total control but I am lacking functionality due to sidebar issues in my current WP theme. ( I tried to remove the side bar from posts on the pages but a white area remains, limiting the space.) I need more space to post word docs for my clients.
It looks like Optimize Press Is my next step but does the OP theme have a sidebar?
If so, can it be removed entirely on certain pages to insert full size word docs or do users have to click a link to open the doc as a sales page which still looks too narrow?
Last, I’ve put a lot of hours into my WP site. Can I transfer my theme to OP without losing data and will it hurt with SEO? Will all of my directory listings need to be redone?
Thank you and I appreciate everyone’s help in answering these questions!
Hi Carol, Optimizepress does have a sidebar that you can opt to use, that said… you can choose whether or not to use it. Its extremely flexible like that.
As for transferring details over to OptimizePress, here’s the thing. OptimizePress uses pages to publish content as compared to posts. If you have a sales letter or squeeze page already set up using pages, then it should not be a problem. That said, I would recommend mapping out your site before you change over to Optimizepress, so that when you transfer all of your content over, it will retain all of your page URL’s and the such.
Hope that helps.
Ryan,
Thank you for the tips. Hmm, sounds like it might be best just to use Optimize Press on another one of my domains and use it solely for stand alone sales pages. Your thoughts?
Great article, Ryan! Will I be able to upload my own header image and graphic elements or can I only use the graphic elements provided by OptimizePress? And how does it compare to Flexsqueeze? Thanks
Hi Silvia, thanks for the kind words.
You can certainly upload your own header graphic, there are multiple different options for this as well, as the templates all vary so much (and there are a ton of them too!).
As for how it compares to Flexsqueeze, I personally have not used Flexsqueeze, that said… I have received a handful of emails in the past from people who have been extremely happy with OptimizePress after trying Flexsqueeze. It seems that Optimizepress is a much more flexible theme that has much more options as well, in the way of your membership area, and a blog as well.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Ryan!
Great post Ryan and good to see you keep up with the comments!
I’ve been considering purchasing Optimizepress (OP) along with EasyVideoPlayer (EVP). Before I pull the trigger, I was wondering if you had any experience with using these two products together? Is EVP even necessary to use with OP? Can OP easily post and protect Amazon S3 video by itself? Can OP automatically convert video to iPad / iPhone versions? Can OP automatically popup “Buy Now” buttons at predetermined times during the video? If OP can’t do these things, will EVP still do them on a OP platform or should I just use the EVP sales page or is using these two together overkill? Do you recommend any other video products to look it for use with OP?
Thanks!
Hi Legacy, thanks for stopping by.
I personally do use both Optimizepress and Easy Video Player 2.0, both when publishing products (Eg, The BBS Formula) or for anything else that requires it.
The way I see it is, if you want to display video professionally, then using something along the lines of EVP or EZS3 is highly recommended. Sure, you can use your own scripts on their own like FlowPlayer, but software like EVP and EZS3 just makes it easier, plus you get to customize the player, embed code in the player, and do a ton of other cool things.
As for the video functionality within Optimizepress, if you want to play video, you will need to use an embed code and player (EZS3, EVP, YouTube, Vimeo, etc).
There are a few thing that you mentioned there as well, but it all relates to functionality that I do not use/have never searched for. Might be worth while checking with the gang at OptimizePress, as they will be able to give you a great idea. That said, its a great platform, I use it extensively myself, and clasify it as being one of the best investments that I have made.
Hope that helps.
Can optimizepress be used with ANY theme? Or is it a theme itself? I use the Headway theme and like that but don’t want to have to change it to use Optimize.
Hi Robert, Optimizepress is a theme in itself, which means that you will only need to use Optimizepress if you want to run a sales letter or membership site.
If you are still wanting to use Headway (which I dont blame you, its a great theme!) for a blog, then I’d recommend creating a subdomain, and installing WordPress plus Headway there, and linking to it from the main page of your blog.
Hope that helps.
I ordered Optimize Press some time ago, but I didn’t realize it doesn’t work if you have a custom wordpress set-up. I had someone design a custom wordpress theme and Optimize press wiped it all out when I installed it. Needless to say I was a bit upset. Restored my word-press and refunded Optimize. Curious to know if others have had this issue?
Hi Mark, sounds like an awkward spot! You see, when you customize a WordPress blog, in all essence, you are either creating, or customizing a pre-made theme. When you install and activate a new theme (in this case, Optimizepress), it will simply deactivate the original theme, and leave it in the background sitting idle.
So… you shouldn’t have lost your work. It should still be intact, it just means that the theme that you customized will not be the current active theme, as you cant run two themes simultaneously.
Hope that helps.
Hi,
I’ve been using Kajabi, and I am looking to set up a few sites for clients and looking at other options.
One of things I like about Kajabi is that with it’s membership functionality is in being able to set up a community, with different rooms people can go and work with each other.
Does Nanacast or WLM allow you to do this?
The thing I don’t like about Kajabi is that it is restrictive when it comes to your squeeze page design. It is a bit restrictive with the design of the membership site, and you need to have a reasonable amount of content to fill out the membership site part. For smaller products I’ve used a generic word prese theme.
The other thing with Kajabi does that I don’t know it other sites do is that when you upload into Kajabi it converts it using Krunch, so that it is mobile friendly. I’m not sure if using one of the other alternatives you mentioned means that you need to do the video conversion yourself, before uploading to you something like AWS.
I would be interested in your perspective on these points.
In looking like OptimizePress, it looks like a good option, as it gives good flexibility.
Thanks, Mike
Hi Mike,
Some really good questions there, glad that you asked.
The function within Kajabi that allows you to set up a kind of community in different rooms is something that doesn’t come with Optimizepress. That said, with Nanast integration, it is entirely possible to be able to join a Vbulletin forum to your membership as well. That’s just one way that I can think of it, and in many ways, a much better way to be able to do it, as you have full control over the system that you are using, unlike Kajabi where it is locked away and not open to full customization.
As for customization, and the amount of content needed, again… Optimizepress is completely open for customization. In theory, if you know how to use WordPress to its full, you will be able to create a great unique looking sales page plus membership with as much or as little content as you like.
When it comes to mobile video, the thing to remember is that Optimizepress only has the functionality to be able to place video on a page. If you want it to be mobile ready, you will more than likely need a third party player that supports HTML5 or playback on mobile devices. There are a number of these around, but the one that I recommend is Easy Video Player.
Hope that helps.
Hi Ryan,
I’ve just started really looking for a system to get my product out, and in my research came across this. Thank you for your review. I’d like to know, I have a product (under $100), I won’t be doing any affiliate commissions, and it’s a one time payment with lifetime membership (for this first product there may be more), what do you suggest I use? Would I need to use Optimize Press with Nanast, or would Paypal suffice? Or should I look to using WLM with OP? I’m really not sure but I’d appreciate any guidance/insight you could give.
Hi Angeline, thanks for visiting my blog!
To answer your question, it all depends on how far you want to scale it in the future. If you have no need for affiliate functionality, then you can easily use PayPal with Optimizepress. That would work fine.
If you ever plan on using advanced techniques, such as auto upgrading memberships, or slow release of content, then WLM would be your best bet.
If ever you did want affiliate functionality though, Nanacast is great, but for what you are speaking of, I’m pretty sure that Optimizepress and PayPal will work fine.
Great info Ryan!
I’m a little confused about how Optimize Press handles the layout of the membership content. The video on the Optimize Press sales page showcases the layout of the sales page but doesn’t show layout options for displaying the content. It got me thinking that Optimize Press is more for sales pages and less for membership sites.
I also don’t want my sales page to look like every other sales page with big red headlines and yellow “order now” buttons…. ya know what I mean. What I’m launching needs to be consistent with my existing brand, while also still using the tried and true marketing strategies. For Example: http://www.omharmonics.com/invitation/index-b
Can Optimize Press pull something like this off?
MY MEMBERSHIP SITE NEEDS:
I’ll be displaying videos, text and downloadable PDF’s as part of my membership program. I want it to look awesome and be intuitive for the members to navigate through the content. There are some exceptional themes on theme forest, however in experimenting with them they continue to look more like a website hacked to host membership content rather than looking like an e-course / membership site. I considered Kajabi but it has more features than I need and feels to heavy duty. I’m hopeful that Optimize Press can be the Membership Theme I’ve been looking for, but am uncertain what it will look and feel like.
What do you recommend?
- Andrew
Hi Andrew, thanks for commenting!
There are a ton of templates in the back end that are used when creating pages that allow you to create module pages, and content pages. It is a bit of fiddling the first time that you use it, but once you have got the general lauout of how the templates work automatically with each other (eg, content pages auto listing in module pages, and page order, etc), it becomes much easier.
As for being more of a sales theme, to be honest… Optimizepress although it looks great as a sales letter, at least 80% of its functionality is in the way the membership area is laid out. It’s quite something when you get a grasp of it all.
The example that you sent through appears to be a static website rather than something based off WordPress. the issue with this is that updating content if you create a static website can be arduous, especially if you don’t know code too well. Optimizepress itself can be quite versatile, I suppose it all just depends on how creative those people who use it are with graphics, and placement of shortcodes, and so on. As for emulating what is shown in that example, there are some templates in Optimizepress that allow email opt in forms and the such, but not in the same style as what you can see in that example. They are effective though.
I would recommend Optimizepress for you, as it will allow you to do everything that you need, but you will have to be a little creative creating your sales page though.
Hope that helps!
Thanks for the quick and detailed reply Ryan. I’ve decided to use Optimize Press for my product launch videos / squeeze page, a wordpress theme that looks sexy for my product overview page so it looks something like http://www.scienceofstillness.com, and I’m going to compare Optimize Press to other wordpress themes for holding my online course content. I’m feeling like Optimize Press doesn’t look as awesome as other wordpress themes for membership areas. I can see that it definitely gets the job done… I just feel that the visual element is soooo important. Maybe I’m extreme
This entire conversation has helped me out. Im in the process of deciding on Optimize Press and have started to now take notes on these other platforms that have been discussed (Nanacast and WLM) I’m in the video game strategy business and have struggled to find something that breaks the conventional look of a video game site. What I’ve seen here looks Awesome and I can’t wait to get started.
I have purchased WP Member a while back and currently have paypal set up, but Im interested in the affiliate aspect. I would like to know if you know of any use with WP member or do I need to scrap that all together.
Your response is truly appreciated.
Thank you,
Hi Ron,
Thanks for visiting! I personally have no experience with WP Member, so it is hard to say. Usually, I would recommend using Clickbank, or Nanacast to add in some affiliate functionality, but it looks like this plugin is compatible with neither unfortunately. At least, it would appear at skin value that it isn’t.
I’d shoot their tech support a ticket asking if they know of any way to get it to work with either Nanacast or Clickbank. In some cases, community members will work on plugins to help plugins work with other programs. For example – recently, Steve Ovens developed a plugin for WordPress and Wishlist Member to work together. Maybe someone else has done something similar for WP Member?
Let me know how you go.
I purchased Optimize Press based on the information here as well as the offer for a free tutorial. I wanted to make sure you got the credit for the sale because I haven’t received the tutorial that you mentioned if I purchased thru your link. So far the theme is robust, Im going through all the videos before implementing and will then look at your tutorial and get the ball rolling.
Thanks again
Hi Ron, very sorry about the late response with that one. I’ve been using email as my support channel for some time, so some requests have been lost in the wind unfortunately.
That said, I managed to track that down, and have sent you some access details for the free training. My apologies on that one – I have just launched a new support desk today which will make sure that things like this do not happen again.
Enjoy Optimizepress! Looking forward to hearing how you go with it!
Ryan.
Thanks for the article about the pros and cons of OP/WP and Kajabi as I was wondering about Kajabi.
I am in the midst of setting up an OptimizePress membership site with Digital Access Pass and vBulletin for a client (all his licenses.) While there are some quirks, it is rather powerful and can be a bit overwhelming. Once you get over that, it does work rather well having multiple products and userlevels on both OptimizePress and the vBulletin site.
It isn’t cheap for a one off site, but does do a lot and does it rather well.
WordPress: $0 (unlimited site)
OptimizePress: $97 (unlimited sites)
Digital Access Pass: $167 (single site, not unlimited)
vBulletin: $185 (forum version)
$449 for a rather complete membership site. Add $130 for unlimited DAP, and you then just need to buy vBulletin licenses for each site, to the price drops dramatically overall the more you make. (vB has volume license plans, but I don’t remember what they are right now.)
Of course, you do not need vBulletin unless you want a powerful forum. For just a membership site, you are looking for unlimited sites for $394. So in about 4 months of using Kajabi for upto 3 projects you paid for WP/OP/DAP for unlimited sites.
Kajabi looks good, and there are some cool features, but cost really isn’t it’s stong point.
I have some other clients that are looking for me to do WP/OP/DAP installs for them as well, so I am kind of biased =)
Hi Gerry, that certainly does sound like a big set up! I am about to do something similar in Feb/March for a new course that I am releasing, so here’s hoping I can simplify it a little.
With every dollar that I spend on product, I always balance out whether or not I am able to break even on what I spend, and the sooner that I am able to break even, the better. If I have to break even only once on the cost of buying software outright, then all the better, but breaking even every single month, especially on a membership site, it’s a problem from the git go I believe.
That said… if you can pull affiliates, then maybe that could work better.
Hi Ryan, this has definitely helped me make a well-informed decision. I am wondering, does the new optimize press give us the freedom to create a blogging platform while still incorporating all of the great list-building and membership features on the same domain?
Thanks, Paul
Hi Paul, thanks for visiting! The current version of Optimizepress has blog functionality, which means that you can run a blog front page if you like, then run sales pages or other landing pages in the background.
Hope that helps!
Hi Ryan. You shared the answer I was needing and now I want to unsubscribe but your unsubscribe link is not working. I appreciate you unaubscribing me.
Thanks!
Ahh, I’ve been meaning to fix that. Will just unsubscribe you now.
Glad to hear that I’ve helped!