SaaS landing pages: examples, trends and insights

SaaS landing pages have changed a lot over the years. Long gone are the days of blocky designs, cold informational copywriting, and generic stock photos that show suspiciously-attractive people shaking hands in what looks like a very important business meeting.

To get the best possible conversion rate these days, you need to explain the complexities of your software without boring the pants off your prospects. You need to use authentic visuals that show visitors they can really trust your brand. And you need to target your landing page so the right audience sees it at just the right moment of their customer journey.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. What is a SaaS landing page?
  2. What are the essential elements of a SaaS landing page?
  3. SaaS marketers are converting less
  4. What is the average SaaS landing page conversion rate?
  5. SaaS landing page trends
  6. Five examples of modern SaaS landing pages

Just take a look at a landing page we used to advertise our trial of Unbounce back in our early years, compared to a landing page we’re using today…

An Unbounce landing page from 10 years ago compared to one from today

And it’s not just us—you can do the same comparison with any SaaS brand that’s been in the landing page game for a long time. The design, copy, branding, tactics…they’ve all gotten better, like little Pokémon evolving into—uh—bigger, better-looking Pokémon. (OK, you got us. We’ve never actually played Pokémon.)

But while SaaS landing pages have come a long way, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. We recently went through and manually reviewed 200 real-world SaaS campaigns to see if we could learn what works (and what doesn’t).

Keep reading to see what we learned in the process, some examples you can use for inspiration, and some tips on how to optimize your SaaS landing pages like a pro this year.

But before we jump into the insights, let’s cover some of the basics first.

What is a SaaS landing page?

A good landing page is a page that’s laser-focused on accomplishing just one goal, whether that goal is to sell “make your own bubble tea” kits or to gather leads for your eBook about why bubble tea is the greatest drink of all time. (Are you thirsty all of a sudden? Us too.)

So it follows that the best SaaS landing pages should be focused on a specific SaaS-related goal, such as selling subscriptions or getting people to sign up for your webinar. And part of the magic behind why a consumer-facing or B2B SaaS landing page can be so great for your bottom line is because it’s designed to maximize conversion. 

Sure, your homepage is great for introducing visitors to your organization and providing a general overview of what you offer, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty of actually getting visitors to convert, a SaaS landing page is your most effective tool.

And it’s pretty versatile, too. You can start building hype for your upcoming service with a SaaS pre-launch landing page, or create a SaaS product landing page to show off your product in its best light. You can also use a SaaS pricing landing page to help convince customers that it’s totally worth it for them to fork over their hard-earned dollars because of the value they’re getting in return.

What are the essential elements of a SaaS landing page?

Here’s your recipe for creating the best SaaS landing pages. By adding these ingredients you’ll be able to whip up high-converting SaaS landing pages that’ll supercharge your conversions.

Unique selling proposition (USP)

Before you do anything else, start by answering this question: What is it about your service or product that makes it stand out from the competition? The answer to that question is your unique selling proposition, and by identifying that you’ll be able to set a direction and focus for your SaaS landing page. Basically, everything on the landing page should, in some way, be connected to the USP.

Hero section

This is the top of the page (“above the fold”) that contains your headline and hero image. A good headline will grab attention while also clearly identifying the purpose of the page, so visitors immediately understand where they’ve arrived. It also shouldn’t be too long. (Does this sound a bit, um, challenging? Thankfully we have a solution for that.)

The hero image is the first visual element that visitors see when they arrive on the page. You know that old saying, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”? Don’t waste your chance—by including a strong hero image, you’ll set a good tone for the rest of the page. (We’ve got a lot more to say about hero images here.)

Page design

Speaking of good impressions, the overall design of the page can say a lot about your product and brand even before the visitor reads a single word. By keeping the design clean, uncluttered, and focused on the objective of the page (sign-ups, lead gen, etc.) you’ll be better able to nudge visitors towards taking action.

Looking for great designs that you can copy—er, get inspiration from? You can find plenty of tried and tested (and free) SaaS landing page templates right here. And whether you’re a seasoned web designer or a complete newbie, we’ve got the SaaS landing page builder that’s perfect for you.

Features and benefits

A feature is a detail about a product, like “this car has heated seats.” The benefit explains why you want that feature, such as “so you can keep your buns toasty warm even during frigid temperatures.”

Use short, punchy copy (and images, if it makes sense to do so) to describe your product’s features and benefits. Remember, the point here is to clearly explain why visitors will want what you’re selling.

Comparison tables are a great way to lay out features and benefits in a way that’s easy for readers to scan through, and maybe even show how your product stacks up against (i.e. dominates) your competitors.

Social proof

Remember that time you were chatting with a friend or coworker and they were raving about the new restaurant that you just have to try out because it was so awesome? You probably felt tempted to pull out your phone and make a reservation, right then and there.

Social proof on your SaaS landing page works in a similar way. By including a recommendation or testimonial from a reputable source, you signal to your visitors that your product is, indeed, as amazing as it seems to be.

Demo video or animation

If your product or service is a bit more complicated or difficult to explain, consider inserting a video or animation. This way you can show your visitors how great it is, rather than just tell them, and help them understand how it will fit into their lives (and budget). 

Call to action (CTA)

There’s an old sales maxim that says, “The most important part of selling is asking for the sale.” (Otherwise you’d just stand there in an awkward silence?) The CTA serves this vital purpose by nudging the visitor towards taking the action you want them to take. (If you want to dig deeper into CTAs, we’ve got you.)

It’s perfectly fine to include multiple CTAs on a single landing page, as long as they all point towards the same destination. Don’t include multiple CTAs that link to different pages or you might find your conversion rate dropping like the vase your cat just knocked over.

Forms

If your landing page’s purpose is to collect leads, you’ll need to include a form. (No kidding, Captain Obvious.) To reduce friction and increase the likelihood that visitors will actually hand over their details, keep the form as short and easy to fill out as possible. 

Mobile optimization

The majority of people who visit your landing page will probably be doing it through their phones, so it’s essential that the page is optimized for smaller screens. If you force visitors to view a desktop-formatted landing page on their smartphone, your bounce rates will skyrocket. 

The big problem: SaaS marketers are converting less

For the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, our team of data scientists (yep, they have lab coats) have been using machine learning and a rigorous methodology to study more than 44,000 landing pages and 33 million conversions.

One of the perks of working here is that we got an early look at some of their research. And we don’t want to sound overly dramatic here, but one data point made us raise our eyebrows two-and-a-half inches higher than usual…

On average, SaaS landing pages convert 10.46% lower than the overall conversion rate baseline.

This means that SaaS pages are less likely to convert than the majority of other industry landing pages covered in their in-depth research—including ecommerce and education pages. (“Whaaaat?!”)

Now there could be a few reasons for this. For starters, software can be pretty intangible and boring-looking, making it harder to market. (Although, believe it or not, we have seen some super sexy bookkeeping platforms.) It can also be complicated to explain in simple terms what your software does, who it’s for, and what all the different features do that make it special. Plus, most SaaS businesses are targeting a very specific niche, in an industry that’s constantly changing—and there’s typically a longer sales cycle, too.

All of these challenges add up to make SaaS landing pages a particularly tough nut to crack. And Talia Wolf, the Founder and Chief Optimizer at GetUplift, says they often cause marketers to miss out on what’s really driving conversions on their landing pages…

Most SaaS marketers know what a great landing page looks like. They get the concept of focusing on a singular offer and leading visitors down the funnel. But there are other parts they miss out on ALL THE TIME. Strategy, emotion, persuasion, and most importantly—creating a customer-centric landing page. If you don’t go back and optimize for these things, then your page will never get the results you really need for your business.

– Talia Wolf

Yikes! It might be a bias we have here at Unbounce, but we believe you should never “set it and forget it” with your landing pages. (Though, we totally get how easy that is to do with all you’ve got going on.) To score those above-average conversion rates, you need to optimize each page before and after you hit publish.

And by optimize, we don’t just mean tweaking your button colors. To shape up your landing pages the way the experts do, you’ve gotta make smart decisions based on data and research. Track who is visiting your page and understand what they’re looking for. Use tools to discover whether your copy is actually resonating. And record what happens after someone clicks your CTA.

Because it’s only if you keep iterating and optimizing over time that you’ll be able to uncover the true conversion potential of your landing pages.

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What is the average SaaS landing page conversion rate?

This is an important question to ask because it’s the key to knowing if all of your optimization hard work is paying off, or if there’s more you need to do.

By digging through the Conversion Benchmark Report, you can see that SaaS landing pages have an average conversion rate of 9.5% and a median conversion rate of 3.0%. (Not sure about the difference between average and median values? This should clear it up.)

If your conversion rates are falling below the figures above, then it’s time to get to work. 

We spent a couple of weeks studying 200 randomly-selected SaaS landing pages built in Unbounce. The goal was to look for qualitative trends and commonalities between the pages, and get a sense of what a high-converting SaaS landing page looks like. 

Our methodology was pretty straightforward. We’d open a SaaS landing page, check it for some of the different elements, then mark it off in a spreadsheet. We went with a smaller sample size (200) that was manageable enough for us to take a self-guided look and satisfy our own curiosity.

Before we dive into the data though, there is one other caveat. While we did our best to keep only the pages that looked, felt, and smelled like SaaS, some of the sampled companies might not sell their software on a purely subscription basis.

Sound cool? Then let’s get to the good stuff…

What types of landing pages are SaaS marketers creating?

A pie chart showing what types of landing pages SaaS marketers are creating

The most popular type of SaaS landing page we saw was the “Demo/Consultation Page.” Marketers are using these to get visitors to try a demo of their software or reach out for a free consultation to learn more. No surprises here—it’s that classic “try before you buy” approach that gets leads in the door.

Sign-Up Pages” were the next-most popular at 24%, which skip the demo and ask visitors to get started right away with either a free trial or paid plan. These work well at the bottom of the funnel—but you’ve gotta make sure you target them properly so only the decision-ready people are clicking onto your landing page. Otherwise, you’ll just end up scaring folks away.Coming in third place were “Lead Magnet Pages” at 21%. These are your webinar registration pages, your ebook download pages, and… well, that’s pretty much it, actually. Seems like those are still the two most popular ways to get top-of-funnel leads into your email database.

How long is the average headline on a SaaS landing page?

A bar graph showing the average headline is 44 characters long

Here’s an interesting data point—the average H1 headline we saw on these SaaS landing pages was 44 characters long, which usually comes in at less than eight words. In general, this gives you just enough space to communicate the problem your software is going to solve for visitors. (E.g., “Rescue Customers When They Need Quick Support.”)

And while we know we tend to think the shorter, the better when it comes to headlines, that’s not always the case. As we went through these 200 pages, one thing we noticed was that the shortest headlines were usually just the names of the software or literal descriptions of what they did (e.g., “AI Dialer”). This is a classic mistake that SaaS marketers tend to make—making the landing page all about you and your software, and not enough about the problem you’re solving or the people who need it most. (Further proof? Words like “You” and “Your” only appeared in about 27% of the H1 headlines on the SaaS pages I sampled.)

Curious about what other problems are plaguing SaaS landing pages? CRO expert Talia Wolf has identified three other mistakes marketers make and put together step-by-step instructions on how to solve them in the epic new guide—How to Optimize Your SaaS Landing Pages.

What types of images are SaaS marketers using in their hero section?

A pie chart showing which types of images saas marketers use in their hero section

When it comes to the images being featured at the top of SaaS landing pages, there were a few surprises. For starters, it seems like most marketers are still choosing to show off their software at the top of the page (40%), rather than a photograph of people (27%) or an illustration (8%). This is despite the fact that many SaaS brands have moved towards using illustrations on their websites in the last couple of years. Seems like marketers are choosing to go literal on their landing pages, instead.

Even more surprising? Almost one in four SaaS landing pages are choosing to use no images at all in their hero section. This isn’t a bad strategy—cutting down on the design elements of your page can help visitors focus on what’s important (like your headline and that big, beautiful CTA) and help your content load faster too.

How many SaaS landing pages use social proof?

Pie charts showing how many saas landing pages use social proof

Social proof is one of the most valuable things you can have on your landing page. Not only does it build trust with your visitors, it can also help to highlight key software benefits and features that you want prospects to know about.

And yet—only 54% of the SaaS landing pages we sampled featured a testimonial of some kind. (And that number gets even lower if you only count the testimonials that feature photos of the customer and their real, full names.)

But you don’t have to take my word on why you should use social proof—here’s a testimonial (omg, see what we did there?) from Andy Crestodina, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Orbit Media.

When you say it, it’s marketing. When your customer says it, it’s social proof. This is why testimonials are so powerful. The substance is better; it’s an objective, third-party perspective. The style is also better; it’s more authentic, less polished.

– Andy Crestodina

How distraction-free are SaaS landing pages?

Two pie charts showing how distraction-free SaaS landing pages are

Here’s some good news! When it comes to keeping your landing page distraction-free, most SaaS marketers seem to be on board. 91% of the pages we sampled had no top navigation, and 73% of them had only one, singular CTA for visitors to click on. Keeping eyes on the prize—that’s the landing page advantage.

What are the most popular CTA buttons?

A word cloud showing the most popular CTA phrases on SaaS landing pages

Your CTA has to do a lot of heavy lifting. Not only should it inspire action from your landing page visitors, but it should also make it clear exactly what will happen when someone clicks through.

The word cloud above shows which CTA buttons SaaS marketers are using most frequently on their landing pages. “Get Started” and “Get Free Demo” are two of the most popular phrases, with other classics like “Start Your Free Trial” and “Try Now” coming in close behind.

Should you include a form on your landing page?

A pie chart showing how many landing pages feature a form

The majority (72%) of SaaS landing pages we sampled feature a form of some kind for visitors to fill out. This means rather than have visitors click-through to a sign-up flow or some other registration page, marketers are opting to collect lead info right on the landing page itself.

The forms we saw ranged in type and size. The largest had over 10 fields to fill out, including mandatory boxes asking for your “Type of Organization,” “Job Title,” and “Company Website.” (It also had a box at the end asking if you had any “Questions/Comments.” Which, of course you do. But this landing page form probably isn’t the best place to put them.) 

The average number of form fields came in between four and five, with the shortest forms asking you to only fill out one thing: your email address.

Five examples of modern SaaS landing pages

Looking for some inspiration for your next campaign? Here are five SaaS landing page examples, most of which were built in Unbounce, that impressed us with their smart, tailored approaches to copy and design.

The “Try a Free Demo” page

SaaS Landing Page Example: Mixmax
Image courtesy of Mixmax. (Click to see the whole thing.)

So many SaaS landing pages have headlines that focus on the product. What we love about this example from Mixmax is that the copy makes it about the visitor and the problems they care about most. “De-clutter YOUR email. Prioritize YOUR focus. Automate YOUR day.” These are the benefits of the software, and the Mixmax team has framed them in a customer-centric way that really resonates with visitors.

The “View a Demo” page

SaaS Landing Page Example: Miro
Image courtesy of Miro. (Click to see the whole thing.)

If your visitors are too busy to try out an actual demo, a demo video can be the next best thing. On this landing page from Miro, the hero section includes a short, embedded video—less than a minute long—that helps visitors understand how Miro helps teams share and organize ideas.

The page’s design is clean and uncluttered, with plenty of white space to allow visitors’ eyes to focus on the images and the short, effective copy. The page provides a simple, seamless experience—not unlike what it’s like to use Miro itself.

The “Start Your Free Trial” page

SaaS Landing Page Example: Peakon
Image courtesy of Peakon. (Click to see the whole thing.)

When you get to the bottom of the funnel, it’s important to layer on the social proof so visitors are ready to take the plunge into a free trial. This example from Peakon does a great job of showing that they’re the “world’s leading platform for measuring and improving employee engagement” by dropping in some big-name company logos right underneath.

Add in a simple and straightforward form that includes objection-handling microcopy (“Peakon is free to try for 30 days. No credit card required.”) and you can see why this page delivers the goods.

The “Lead Magnet” page

SaaS Landing Page Example: Shoelace
Image courtesy of Shoelace. (Click to see the whole thing.)

This beautifully-designed lead magnet landing page from Shoelace is like a work of pop art. The on-brand illustrations and animations make downloading the deck seem like a downright fun proposition, and the copy highlights the problem before sliding in the downloadable deck as a solution.

Also, did you notice the “book a demo” secondary CTA in the top nav bar? Although it goes against one of the landing page best practices, this works nicely as a shortcut for more solution-aware visitors who are ready to take action.

The “Animations” page

SaaS Landing Page Example: FigJam
Image courtesy of FigJam. (Click to see the whole thing.)

FigJam is a whiteboarding tool made by Figma. And similar to the Miro example above, its usefulness is best illustrated by seeing how it works. However, this landing page doesn’t require you to click on a video—instead, it features animations that play automatically (and silently, so you don’t get that “AARGH I really hate loud, autoplaying videos!” effect). 

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The only thing the visitor needs to do is scroll down slightly, then watch as the colorful and lively animations demonstrate FigJam’s versatile and easy-to-use functionality. And since motion tends to capture attention, it’s nearly impossible to scroll past the animations without stopping to watch.

Are you ready to start optimizing?


Every year, SaaS landing pages keep getting better. More marketers in this industry are becoming optimization experts in their own right, which means they know how to target the right people with their campaigns, use copy that taps into visitor emotions, and drive more conversions.

To help you optimize like a bonafide expert, Unbounce has teamed up with Talia Wolf and ActiveCampaign to create an epic guide. Inside, Talia has identified the four biggest problems on SaaS landing pages today (like having a UX that bleeds visitors) and is sharing the customer-centric checklist she uses to make sure her client campaigns are high-converting.

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