OptimizePress Versus Premise – Which Is Better?

When Kajabi first launched, it seemed to raise the awareness in the market about automated marketing funnel systems. Kajabi was supposed to make squeeze pages, membership sites, all those little technical aspects of online marketing a lot easier.

Of course, Kajabi came with a monthly fee. So, it led people to look for alternatives. Sure, enough, there are many of them. I’ve looked at several of them, including Optimizepress, JVPress and Premise. There are others, too.

The two which get the most “press” seem to be Optimizepress and Premise. And this leads to the natural questions:

1. What’s the difference between them?
2. Which is better?

So, I thought I would do my best to answer these questions.

I will tell you, up front, that I personally prefer Optimizepress and have more experience with it. But, I own and have personally used both.

Optimizepress

Optimizepress is a WordPress theme designed to allow you to set up professional squeeze pages, sales pages and membership sites. When this theme is activated, you have a TON of custom page templates to choose from. So, you simply choose the type of page you want. Any page can be either a:

• Squeeze page
• Sales page
• Membership page

Any of these have many variations available. So, you select the type of page you want and then define all the various options for it.

Aside from the visual elements of Optimizepress, the theme also automates evergreen launches. In other words, you can have a prelaunch sequence set up to run automatically (in conjunction with Aweber or whatever autoresponder you prefer). It takes care of setting the user cookie to ensure people who have opted in already are taken right to the correct page in the launch sequence. If they haven’t opted in yet, it routes them to opt-in first and then sends them on their way.

So, in short, Optimizepress can help you simplify or automate the following:

• Evergreen launch funnels
• Squeeze page creation
• Fully functional membership site (only the theme, not the actual management which would be the job of something like Wishlist Member)
• Sales page generation
• All kinds of on-page elements, like video (using included video player), call to action buttons, timed release content, exit pops, etc.

Optimizepress also includes a blog template if you want to run a blog with it, although you might find you want to customize it further since blogs aren’t really what OP was designed for.

Premise

Premise is a plug-in for WordPress. This is one of the most marked differences between the two products. While Optimizepress is a theme, Premise runs as a plug-in which means it can run in conjunction with whatever theme you’ve chosen to run for your site.

Premise is designed mainly for landing pages and squeeze pages. This means that, unlike Optimizepress, Premise does NOT include any membership site features.

One thing that Premise does which is unique, though, is the copywriting assistance and web-based copywriting training that comes with it. Basically, they’ve included backend access to some copywriting training and some buttons for 1-click sales templates. I think it is a nice selling point, but not one which will be necessary long-term, in my view. We’re buying a solution, not training, after all.

Premise also has a few things, design-wise, that Optimizepress currently doesn’t, including price comparison tables and tab-styled sales page (where you scroll sideways, similar to what I did on the 3DayMoney sales page). There are ways to do price tables with OP, however it is more of a manual process. As for tabbed sales pages, I find they don’t convert as well anyway, honestly. Premise also has a large library of design graphics piped in, and it is updated via their API.

So, Let’s Compare…

As I said before, I prefer Optimizepress and now I’m going to tell you why.

First, if you want to set up evergreen launch funnels, OP can do it and Premise cannot. Technically, you could do it with Premise (since much of it comes down to your autoresponder), but you wouldn’t have the ability to control the flow of the subscriber in that launch sequence.

Second, if you want to do membership sites, the membership site templates of Optimizepress are the best I’ve seen. They are simply awesome and you can make a VERY professional membership site training portal with OP. Premise simply lacks this.

From a technical perspective, the KEY difference is that OP is a theme and Premise is a plug-in. Since you can only have one active theme at a time with WordPress, you’ll need to set up separate WordPress installations for different setups with Optimizepress. This is not any kind of problem, however. In fact, when you bring a product to market, you’ll most likely use a separate site anyway.

The only time this might seem annoying is when you simply want a squeeze page on the same domain as your main blog. This is the one point where Premise does make it easier. Being that Premise is a plug-in, it will work along with your blog’s theme. That being said, the pages Premise creates DON’T jive with other themes and the design of your landing page will still be completely different looking than your main blog. Unless you get into some pretty ninja customization, that is.

So, either way, your landing page will look different than your main blog. With OP, you just need a separate WP installation and, with Premise, you don’t.

Which brings me to my last point…

I personally think that the designs of Optimizepress are far more professional looking than those of Premise. The output of Premise looks a bit more amateur, in my opinion. I recognize this is TOTALLY a matter of opinion, so you’ll need to make that call for yourself.

Lastly, I also personally found Optimizepress to be less complicated.

In my view, Premise offers less features for more money. If you value the training that comes with it, then perhaps Premise is a better way to go. If you absolutely insist on trying to do everything on a single WordPress installation, then Premise is the way to go on that. Otherwise, Optimizepress can do more, looks better, and costs less.

To be clear, Premise starts at $85 – which is cheaper than Optimizepress at $97. However, you only get 6 months of Premise updates unless you pony up $165. With Optimizepress, updates are unlimited.

So, There You Have It

Premise is a good system. I think one of the major competitive advantages of it is that it works in conjunction with any other WordPress theme. In a world where the 1-click installation of WordPress is all over the place, though, I really don’t see that as a major draw.

For most setups, Optimizepress outperforms. It does more, looks better, and has features designed for a serious marketer. All in all, it is more affordable, too.

1. Click Here To Learn More About Premise
2. Click Here To Learn More About Optimizepress (the one I use)