AI & Automation
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
I once watched a client obsess over whether every heading on their feature page should start with a verb for two weeks. Two entire weeks. While competitors were shipping updates and capturing market share, this team was paralyzed by grammatical perfectionism.
This isn't an isolated story. Throughout my years building SaaS websites and landing pages, I've seen this pattern repeatedly: teams over-engineering their feature pages to showcase every possible capability, then wondering why conversions drop.
The uncomfortable truth? Your feature page isn't a product manual—it's a conversion tool. And like any good tool, its power comes from doing one thing exceptionally well: moving visitors toward a decision.
Here's what you'll learn from my experiments with feature page simplification:
Why adding more features to your page actually reduces conversions
The exact framework I use to decide what stays and what goes
How I helped one client double their trial signups by cutting 60% of their feature content
The psychology behind why simple pages outperform complex ones
A step-by-step process for simplifying your existing feature pages
This isn't about dumbing down your product—it's about smart website design that respects your visitor's decision-making process.
Industry Reality
What most teams believe about feature pages
Walk into any SaaS company's marketing meeting, and you'll hear the same refrain: "We need to showcase all our features so prospects understand our full value." This logic seems bulletproof on the surface.
The industry has developed some pretty standard beliefs about feature page design:
More features = more value perception. The thinking goes: if we show everything we can do, prospects will be more impressed and more likely to buy.
Comprehensive comparisons win deals. Teams believe that by listing every feature, they're giving prospects all the information needed to choose them over competitors.
Technical buyers need technical details. Since many SaaS purchases involve technical evaluation, the assumption is that more detail equals better conversion.
Feature matrices build credibility. Long feature lists supposedly demonstrate that the product is mature and enterprise-ready.
Every team wants their features highlighted. Product, engineering, and sales all push to get their priorities featured prominently.
This conventional wisdom exists for understandable reasons. Product teams work hard building features and want recognition. Sales teams face detailed technical questions and want comprehensive answers readily available. Marketing teams worry about losing deals to "better" feature sets.
The problem? This approach treats your website like a brochure rather than a conversion engine. It assumes visitors will carefully read through everything, compare methodically, and make rational decisions. But that's not how people actually behave online—especially when evaluating new software.
What actually happens is decision paralysis. When faced with too many options and too much information, most visitors simply leave. Your comprehensive feature page becomes a conversion killer.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The wake-up call came when I was working with a B2B SaaS client whose conversion rates were mysteriously low. Their product was solid, their pricing competitive, and their market fit clear. But something was broken in their funnel.
The client had built what they considered the perfect feature page. It showcased over 40 different capabilities, organized into six major categories. Each feature had detailed descriptions, screenshots, and use case examples. The page was a masterpiece of thorough documentation.
It was also a conversion disaster.
When I dug into their analytics, the story became clear. Visitors would land on the feature page (usually from paid ads or SEO), scroll for about 15 seconds, then leave. The average time on page was under two minutes—not nearly enough time to process all that information.
But here's what really opened my eyes: I ran a quick test. I sent the feature page to five people in my network who matched their target customer profile and asked them to spend five minutes evaluating the product, then tell me what the company actually did.
Not one of them could clearly explain the core value proposition.
They all got lost in the feature soup. One person said, "It seems like it does everything, but I'm not sure what problem it solves for me." Another admitted, "I gave up trying to figure out what's most important."
That's when I realized we weren't dealing with a design problem or a copywriting problem. We had a cognitive load problem. The page was asking visitors to process too much information to make any decision at all.
The client initially resisted my suggestion to simplify. "But prospects need to understand our full capabilities," they argued. "What if they leave because they don't see a feature they need?"
I posed a counter-question: "What's worse—losing someone because they didn't see one specific feature, or losing everyone because they can't figure out what you actually do?"
We agreed to test a radically simplified approach, focusing on just their three core use cases instead of their 40+ features.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's exactly how I approached the simplification process, turning a feature graveyard into a conversion machine.
Step 1: The Feature Audit
First, I exported all their existing feature content into a spreadsheet. Every single capability, description, and benefit went into three columns: Feature Name, Current Description, and Usage Data (if available).
Then I applied what I call the "Mom Test" to each feature: If I showed this to someone's mom (someone completely outside the industry), could she understand what problem it solves and why she'd want it? About 80% failed this test immediately.
Step 2: The User Journey Mapping
Instead of organizing features by internal team structure, I mapped them to actual user journeys. I interviewed five recent customers about their evaluation process: What were they trying to solve? What questions did they have at each stage? When did they know this was the right solution?
This revealed something crucial: customers didn't care about features—they cared about outcomes. They wanted to know "Will this solve my specific problem?" not "What can this theoretically do?"
Step 3: The One-Page Rule
I challenged myself to communicate the entire value proposition in what could fit on one screen without scrolling. This forced brutal prioritization. If something couldn't earn its place in that limited real estate, it got cut.
The new structure became:
Problem statement (one sentence)
Solution overview (one paragraph)
Three core benefits (not features, but outcomes)
Social proof (one customer quote)
Single call-to-action
Step 4: The Progressive Disclosure Strategy
For visitors who wanted more detail, I created a progressive disclosure system. The main page stayed simple, but clicking on any benefit revealed more specific capabilities. This satisfied both the simplicity need and the comprehensive information need.
But here's the key: the detailed information was structured around use cases, not feature lists. Instead of "Advanced Reporting," it became "See exactly which campaigns drive revenue."
Step 5: The A/B Test Setup
We ran the simplified page against the original for six weeks, splitting traffic 50/50. I tracked not just conversion rates, but also time on page, scroll depth, and—most importantly—trial-to-paid conversion rates.
The hypothesis was simple: if visitors could more quickly understand the value proposition, they'd convert better both to trial and to paid plans.
Psychological Impact
People can only process 7±2 pieces of information simultaneously. Complex feature pages overwhelm this cognitive capacity, leading to decision paralysis.
User Testing
Five target customers couldn't explain the product's core value after reviewing the original 40-feature page, revealing a fundamental communication breakdown.
Progressive Disclosure
The simplified main page contained 5 key elements, with detailed features accessible through benefit-focused expandable sections.
Results Tracking
Monitored conversion rates, engagement metrics, and trial-to-paid progression over 6 weeks of split testing between old and new approaches.
The results exceeded even my optimistic expectations. Here's what happened when we simplified that feature page:
Conversion Metrics:
Trial signups increased by 127% within the first month
Time on page increased from 1:47 to 4:23 on average
Bounce rate dropped from 78% to 31%
Trial-to-paid conversion improved by 23% (the simplified page attracted more qualified leads)
But the qualitative feedback was even more revealing. Customer interviews revealed that prospects could now clearly articulate what the product did and why they needed it. Sales calls became more efficient because visitors arrived with better understanding.
One customer told us: "Finally, a SaaS company that doesn't make me work to understand what they do. I knew within 30 seconds this could solve my problem."
The simplified page also had an unexpected side effect: it improved the sales team's messaging. When the website clearly communicated three core benefits, sales conversations naturally focused on those same three points, creating consistency across the entire customer journey.
Most surprisingly, we saw zero decrease in enterprise deal size or complexity. The fear that simpler messaging would attract only smaller customers proved unfounded. Enterprise buyers actually appreciated the clarity—it helped them explain the value to their own stakeholders.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After running this experiment across multiple clients, here are the seven lessons that consistently emerge:
Clarity beats comprehensiveness every time. Visitors would rather understand three things perfectly than be confused by thirty things.
Internal teams resist simplification. Everyone wants their features highlighted, but successful pages require brutal prioritization from leadership.
Simple doesn't mean stupid. You can communicate sophisticated solutions simply by focusing on outcomes rather than features.
Progressive disclosure works. Give visitors the choice to dive deeper rather than forcing complexity upfront.
Test everything. Your assumptions about what visitors need are probably wrong. Let data decide what stays and what goes.
Enterprise buyers appreciate clarity too. The myth that complex buyers need complex pages is exactly that—a myth.
Simple pages improve the entire funnel. When visitors understand your value clearly, sales conversations become more efficient and trial conversion improves.
The biggest mistake I see teams make is treating their feature page like a museum exhibit—comprehensive but static. Instead, think of it as a conversation starter. Your goal isn't to answer every possible question; it's to answer the right questions clearly enough that visitors want to learn more.
Remember: you're not competing for the most thorough documentation award. You're competing for customer attention in a world where attention spans are measured in seconds, not minutes.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS teams looking to implement this approach:
Start with user interviews to identify the 3 core problems your product solves
Map features to user outcomes rather than internal team structures
Use progressive disclosure for detailed technical specifications
A/B test simplified versions against your current feature pages
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores applying simplification principles:
Focus product pages on primary use cases rather than comprehensive feature lists
Use tabs or expandable sections for detailed specifications
Prioritize benefits that directly impact the customer's buying decision
Test single-benefit headlines against multi-feature approaches