- Your headline needs to say what you do and who it's for in one sentence. Not a tagline. Not a vision statement. - One CTA per page. Every second option reduces conversions. - You don't need testimonials before you launch. Specificity beats social proof at the early stage. - Free trial converts better than "Request a Demo" for most solo founder SaaS products. - Show the product. Screenshots and short demo videos remove more doubt than any copy you'll write. - Pricing on the landing page is almost always worth it for early stage SaaS. - The page exists to do one thing: get the visitor to take the next step. Everything else is noise.

## SaaS Landing Page Best Practices: The Solo Founder Version Most articles on SaaS landing page best practices are written for marketing teams at Series A companies with designers, copywriters, and A/B testing budgets. That's not you. You're a solo founder or a small dev team. You built a product, now you need a page that converts visitors into signups without spending three weeks on it. This guide is for that situation specifically. The median SaaS landing page converts at around 3.8 percent. The top performers hit 8 to 15 percent. The difference is almost never design. It's clarity. Visitors who immediately understand what your product does, who it's for, and what to do next convert. Visitors who have to work for that information leave. Everything in this guide is oriented around one question: does this make the page clearer or not?

## 1. The Headline: Say What You Do The single highest-impact change you can make to a SaaS landing page is writing a headline that says what the product actually does. Most founders write taglines instead of headlines. There's a difference. A tagline: *"The future of team collaboration"* A headline: *"Project management for solo developers who are tired of juggling five tabs"* The tagline sounds polished. The headline converts. Visitors don't land on your page looking to be inspired. They land there because something brought them there — an ad, a tweet, a search result — and they're trying to figure out in the next three seconds whether this is worth their time. A good SaaS headline answers three questions: - What does the product do? - Who is it for? - What's the outcome? You don't have to hit all three in one sentence, but you should hit at least two. The subheadline can carry the third. **Formula that works:** *[Product] helps [audience] [achieve outcome] without [pain point].* Examples: - "AdeptDev brings your GitHub, Vercel, and analytics into one dashboard so you can stop switching between tabs." - "The Kanban board for solo founders that stays in sync with your deployments automatically." Write five versions. Show them to five people who match your target user. The one that gets the fewest follow-up questions is usually the winner.

## 2. One CTA Per Page Every second call to action on your landing page reduces conversions. This is not an opinion, it's a consistently replicated finding across SaaS conversion data. Single-CTA pages convert at around 13.5 percent. Multi-CTA pages convert at around 10.5 percent. The reason is simple. When you give someone two options, you introduce a decision. Decisions create friction. Friction causes people to leave. Pick one action you want the visitor to take and make that the only option. For most solo founder SaaS products the right CTA is one of three things: **Free trial** — best when the product has immediate value and low setup friction. Visitors can see value without talking to anyone. Converts highest for developer tools, productivity apps, and anything self-serve. **Waitlist** — best before you've built the product or before you're ready for users. Converts reasonably well if the problem resonates. Don't use this after launch. **Get started free** — functionally the same as free trial but softer framing. Works well for products where "trial" implies a time limit that might cause anxiety. **What to avoid:** "Request a Demo" as your only CTA is a conversion killer for solo founder SaaS unless your product genuinely requires a demo to understand. It signals that the product is complex, that there's a sales process, and that the visitor won't get to try it themselves. For a self-serve product, this is the wrong message. Put the CTA above the fold, in the middle of the page, and at the bottom. Same CTA each time. No variations.

## 3. Show the Product This is the most consistently skipped best practice on early-stage SaaS landing pages and the one with the most impact. Visitors don't know what your product looks like. They're trying to decide whether to give you their email address and some of their time. The single most effective thing you can do is show them what they're signing up for. This means: **Product screenshots** — real screenshots of the actual UI, not mockups, not abstract illustrations. One screenshot above the fold showing the core screen of your product. A few more lower on the page showing secondary features. Real data in the screenshots if possible. Empty states look like prototypes. **A short demo video** — 60 to 90 seconds showing the core workflow. Not a talking-head video. Not a marketing video. A screen recording of someone using the product to accomplish the thing your headline promised. Loom works fine for this. You do not need a produced video. Concrete visuals remove doubt in a way that copy cannot. A visitor who can see the product interface has already mentally started using it. A visitor who only sees abstract illustrations and bullet points is still trying to figure out what they'd be signing up for. One thing that kills this: blurring the screenshots for security theater. If your product handles sensitive data, create a demo account with fake data and screenshot that. Blurred screenshots signal that you're hiding something.

## 4. Social Proof Without an Audience The hardest landing page problem for early-stage founders is social proof. You need testimonials to convert, but you need users to get testimonials. Here's the honest answer: specificity beats social proof at the early stage. A vague testimonial from a made-up persona converts worse than specific, concrete claims about what your product does. If you don't have testimonials yet, don't fake them or use generic stock quotes. Instead, make your copy so specific and credible that it does the work social proof would do. What specificity looks like: - "Syncs with GitHub webhooks so your Kanban board updates automatically when you push code" — not "powerful integrations" - "Connects to your existing Vercel account. Read-only. No write access." — not "secure deployments" - "Free trial includes all features. No credit card required." — not "try it risk-free" Once you have even one or two real users, ask them for a specific quote about a specific outcome. Not "great product" — "I used to open Vercel and my analytics tab separately a dozen times a day. Now I don't." That's worth ten generic testimonials. Other social proof options that work early: **Usage numbers** — "Used by 47 developers" is better than no number. Small honest numbers beat missing numbers. **Company logos** — if any of your early users work at recognizable companies, a logo bar converts well even with 3 or 4 logos. **Press or publication mentions** — even a mention in a newsletter or a small blog post is worth featuring. **Open metrics** — MRR, number of users, number of tasks tracked. Some founders share these publicly. It signals legitimacy.

## 5. The Problem Section The section immediately after your hero should describe the problem your product solves. Not the solution. Not features. The problem. This does two things. It confirms to the right visitors that they're in the right place. And it gives the wrong visitors enough information to leave without wasting anyone's time. Good problem copy is specific and resonant. It names the exact frustration your target user has in language they'd use themselves. Bad example: *"Managing your workflow is harder than it needs to be. Teams spend too much time on administrative tasks instead of focusing on what matters."* Good example: *"You're a solo developer. You have a Kanban board in one tab, your Vercel dashboard in another, your analytics in a third, and your GitHub notifications in a fourth. By the time you've oriented yourself, you've already lost 20 minutes."* The good version is specific enough that a solo developer reading it feels seen. The bad version is generic enough that it could apply to any product for any audience. Write this section last. After you've talked to some users, their words are better than yours. Use the exact phrases they use to describe the problem when you interview them.

## 6. Features vs Benefits: The Right Balance Most SaaS landing pages are too feature-focused. Features are what the product does. Benefits are what the user gets. Features: - Two Kanban boards per workspace - GitHub webhook integration - Vercel deployment tracking Benefits: - Your task board stays in sync with your repo without manual updates - You see if a build failed right next to the tasks that caused it - One tab instead of four You need both but in the right order. Lead with the benefit. Follow with the feature that delivers it. The benefit answers "why do I care?" The feature answers "how does it work?" The pattern that works: **Benefit headline** — "Your board updates when you push code" **Feature explanation** — "GitHub webhooks move tasks between columns automatically as you open and close pull requests." Do this for three to five core features. Not ten. Visitors don't read everything. They scan. Three compelling benefits that land clearly beat ten features that blur together.

## 7. Pricing on the Landing Page Show your pricing. Most early-stage founders hide pricing because they're nervous about it. This is usually a mistake. Visitors who can't find pricing have to make a decision: invest time figuring out if this product might fit my budget, or leave. Most leave. Showing pricing does two things. It qualifies visitors (people who can't afford it or don't see the value leave before wasting your time in a trial). And it removes a blocker for people who are close to signing up. What works for a solo founder SaaS pricing section: **Keep it simple.** One or two plans. If you have a free tier, show it. If you don't, show what you charge and what's included. **Anchor with value.** The plan name should suggest the outcome, not the tier. "Solo" and "Team" are better than "Starter" and "Pro." **Highlight the recommended plan.** If you have two plans, visually indicate which one most people choose. It reduces decision anxiety. **Show the trial clearly.** "7-day free trial, no credit card required" next to the price removes the last purchase barrier for people who want to try before committing. **Address the obvious objection.** "Cancel anytime" or "No contracts" in small text under the plan. People who are almost bought in need one last nudge that they're not trapped.

## 8. The FAQ Section An FAQ section at the bottom of a SaaS landing page converts better than most founders expect. The people who read it are your most serious potential customers. They've read the whole page, they're interested, and they have one or two remaining concerns before they sign up. Good FAQ questions come from actual conversations with potential users. What do people ask in your trial onboarding? What do they ask in sales conversations? What objections come up? Common high-value SaaS landing page FAQ topics: - Can I cancel anytime? Is there a long-term contract? - How does the free trial work? Do I need a credit card? - What happens to my data if I cancel? - Which integrations do you support? - How does billing work for teams? - Is my data secure? Answer these honestly and specifically. Vague answers to security and data questions read as evasive. "We use industry-standard encryption" is worse than "Your data is encrypted at rest with AES-256 and in transit with TLS 1.3. We never sell your data."

## 9. Page Speed and Mobile Two things most developers get right by default but worth mentioning: **Page speed** — a landing page that takes more than 3 seconds to load on mobile loses a significant percentage of visitors before they see anything. If you're building with Next.js and hosting on Vercel, you're mostly fine by default. The main culprit is unoptimized images. Use Next.js `` component and serve WebP. Check your Core Web Vitals in Vercel Analytics before you drive traffic to the page. **Mobile** — roughly 60 to 70 percent of initial landing page visits are mobile, even for developer tools. Your hero section, CTA, and first two sections need to work on a phone screen. The screenshots section often breaks on mobile if the images are too wide. Test it on a real phone, not just browser dev tools.

## 10. What to Skip When You're Resource Constrained If you're a solo founder with limited time, here's what to deprioritize: **Custom illustrations** — costs time and money, rarely improves conversion over good screenshots. Skip it. **Animated hero sections** — motion for motion's sake adds load time without adding conversion. Skip it. **Chat widgets** — if you can't respond quickly, a chat widget that sits idle hurts more than it helps. Add it when you can actually respond. **Video testimonials** — harder to get, don't convert meaningfully better than text. Get text testimonials first. **A/B testing** — you need significant traffic for A/B tests to be statistically meaningful. Below 500 visitors per week, your gut and user feedback are better signals. Build the page, talk to users, iterate manually. What to prioritize first: headline, hero screenshot, one CTA, problem section. Get those right and the page will convert. Everything else is incremental.

## The Landing Page Checklist Before you drive traffic to your landing page, run through this: - Headline says what the product does and who it's for in one sentence - Subheadline adds context or the key outcome - One CTA, above the fold, in the middle, and at the bottom - At least one product screenshot in the hero section - Problem section uses specific language your target user would recognize - Three to five feature/benefit pairs, benefits first - Pricing visible without scrolling to find it - Trial terms clear (length, credit card required or not) - FAQ answers the most common objections - Page loads in under 3 seconds on mobile - Tested on an actual phone

## Wrap Up A SaaS landing page that converts well is not a design achievement. It's a clarity achievement. Visitors convert when they immediately understand what your product does, who it's for, what they'll get, and what to do next. For a solo founder, the fastest path to a converting page is: write a specific headline, show a real screenshot, explain the problem in your users' words, and put one clear CTA above the fold. That's 80 percent of the work. If you're building a SaaS and want your project management, deployment tracking, and analytics consolidated in one place so you can spend more time on the product and less time tab switching, check out [AdeptDev](https://adeptdev.io). Free for 7 days.

## What should a SaaS landing page include? A SaaS landing page needs six core elements: a headline that says what the product does and who it's for, a subheadline that adds context or the key outcome, a CTA (only one), at least one product screenshot in the hero section, a problem section that resonates with the target user, and pricing. Everything else — testimonials, feature deep-dives, FAQs — adds conversion but these six are the minimum. ## What is a good conversion rate for a SaaS landing page? The median SaaS landing page converts at around 3.8 percent. Top performers reach 8 to 15 percent depending on the product, audience, and traffic source. For a new SaaS with no brand recognition, 2 to 5 percent is a reasonable initial target. The fastest way to improve conversion rate is improving headline clarity and adding product screenshots, not redesigning the page. ## Should I put pricing on my SaaS landing page? Yes. Hiding pricing creates a barrier for visitors who are close to signing up and makes your product feel like it has a complex sales process. Show your pricing, highlight your recommended plan, make the free trial terms clear, and include "cancel anytime" near the price. Visitors who can't afford your product will leave, which saves everyone time. ## How do I write a SaaS landing page headline? A good SaaS landing page headline says what the product does, who it's for, and what outcome it delivers. Avoid taglines and vision statements. A useful formula is: "[Product] helps [audience] [achieve outcome] without [pain point]." Write five versions and show them to five people who match your target user. The one that generates the fewest follow-up questions is usually the best one. ## How do I get social proof for a SaaS landing page before I have users? Before you have testimonials, use specificity instead. Concrete, specific claims about what your product does convert better than generic social proof. Once you have even one or two users, ask them for a specific quote about a specific outcome rather than a general endorsement. Small honest usage numbers ("47 developers use this"), company logos from early users, and open metrics like MRR also work well at the early stage. ## Should a SaaS landing page have a free trial or request a demo CTA? Free trial converts better for most self-serve SaaS products. "Request a Demo" signals that the product is complex and that there's a sales process, which creates friction for visitors who want to try before buying. Use "Request a Demo" only if your product genuinely requires a guided walkthrough to understand. For developer tools and productivity SaaS, free trial or "get started free" is almost always the right CTA. ## How long should a SaaS landing page be? Long enough to answer every question a potential customer might have before signing up. For most solo founder SaaS products this means: hero section, problem section, three to five feature/benefit pairs, pricing, FAQ, and a closing CTA. The page should be scrollable but not padded. Every section should either move the visitor toward signing up or remove a reason not to. If a section does neither, cut it.