How Long Should a Sales Page Be? The Data-Backed Answer

You Are Asking the Wrong Question

"How long should my sales page be?"

I have heard this question hundreds of times over a 30-year career in direct response. Business owners ask it before I write a single word. Marketers debate it in Slack channels. Entire blog posts are written around arbitrary word counts as if there is a magic number that unlocks conversions.

There is not.

The question itself is the problem. It assumes that page length is a variable you choose — like selecting a font size or picking a colour for a button. In reality, sales page length is an output, not an input. It is determined by the amount of persuasion the sale requires.

The better question is: How much does my prospect need to see, believe, and feel before they will hand over their money?

That question has a specific answer for every offer. And once you know it, the "right" length reveals itself.

I have written sales pages under 800 words that generated six figures, and I have written pages north of 8,000 words that generated eight. Across $523 million in tracked results spanning health, finance, SaaS, e-commerce, and information marketing, the pages that converted were not the ones that hit an arbitrary word count. They were the ones that matched their length to the persuasion job.

The Five Factors That Determine Page Length

Before you write a word of copy — and certainly before you set a word count target — you need to evaluate five variables. These five factors determine whether your sales page needs to be 800 words or 8,000.

1. Price Point

This is the single strongest predictor of required page length. The higher the price, the more justification the prospect needs before parting with their money.

A $19 digital download is an impulse purchase. The prospect needs a clear headline, a few bullets, a testimonial or two, and a buy button. Five hundred words will do the job.

A $997 online course requires the prospect to believe in the methodology, trust the instructor, see evidence from past students, understand why their previous attempts failed, and feel confident the investment will pay for itself. That argument cannot be made in 500 words. It typically requires 4,000 to 8,000.

A $10,000 consulting engagement? You are likely looking at a comprehensive long-form sales page — or a combination of long-form content, a webinar, and a sales call.

2. Traffic Temperature

Where your prospect is coming from changes everything about how much persuasion they need.

Cold traffic — people who have never heard of you, your brand, or your product — requires the full persuasion architecture. They do not trust you. They do not understand your solution. They do not believe your claims. A landing page that works beautifully for your email list will fall flat when you point Facebook ads at it.

Warm traffic — people on your email list, retargeting audiences, or repeat visitors — already have context. They know who you are and what you offer. A shorter, more focused page that presents the offer and makes it easy to buy will often outperform a lengthy page that rehashes arguments they have already accepted.

This is why the same offer can convert with 1,200 words from an email sequence and require 5,000 words from a paid ad. The prospect has not changed. Their starting point has.

3. Product Complexity

The less familiar the prospect is with what you sell, the more education your page must provide. This goes beyond explaining features — it means establishing the entire conceptual framework that makes your product make sense.

A replacement phone case does not need a mechanism section. The prospect already understands the product category and the value proposition. But a supplement with a novel delivery mechanism, a SaaS tool that redefines a workflow, or a coaching programme built on an unfamiliar methodology — these require explanation. And explanation requires words.

The mechanism section — the explanation of your unique approach that makes your solution work — is often the longest section on a high-converting page. It is also the section most marketers cut when they decide their page is "too long." That is a mistake. Conversion copywriting research consistently shows that the mechanism is where belief is built.

4. Audience Trust Level

An established brand with years of market presence can sell with fewer words than an unknown company making the identical offer. Trust that already exists does not need to be rebuilt on every page.

If Apple releases a new product, the sales page can be minimal — the brand does the heavy lifting. If an unknown startup launches the same product, the page needs credibility sections, founder stories, media mentions, case studies, and a comprehensive proof stack.

This is also why sales page examples from major brands can be misleading. Those pages are short because the brand carries decades of established trust. Replicating their brevity without replicating their trust equity is a recipe for low conversion rates.

5. Competitive Landscape

In a market with one option, short copy works — the prospect has nowhere else to go. In a crowded market with fifty alternatives, you need the space to differentiate. That means a more thorough mechanism section, a deeper proof stack, and more systematic objection handling.

The competitive landscape also affects how much your prospect already knows about the solution category. In mature markets, prospects have been exposed to dozens of pitches. They are skeptical. They have seen the claims before. Your page needs to overcome that accumulated resistance, and that takes more copy than a fresh market where no one has heard the pitch.

Short Pages (500-1,500 Words): When They Win

Short sales pages are not inferior. They are a specific tool for specific conditions. When those conditions are present, a short page will outperform a long one — because the extra words create friction rather than persuasion.

Short pages work when the price point is low ($7-$47), the audience is warm (email subscribers, retargeting, returning visitors), the product is simple and well-understood, the brand is already trusted, or the prospect has been pre-sold through earlier funnel stages — a webinar, an email sequence, or a piece of long-form content that did the heavy persuasion before the prospect reached the page.

The classic example is a tripwire offer — a low-cost product offered immediately after an email opt-in. The prospect just engaged with your content. They are warm. The price is minimal. A tight 500-word page with a compelling headline, three bullet points, a testimonial, and a buy button is all that is needed. Adding 3,000 more words would hurt this page, not help it.

Medium Pages (1,500-4,000 Words): The Sweet Spot for Most Offers

For the majority of online offers — digital products between $47 and $297, mid-tier services, SaaS subscriptions, and membership programmes — a medium-length page hits the sweet spot.

This length gives you enough room to build a complete AIDA framework: attention, interest, desire, action. You can open with a strong headline and hook, agitate the problem, present your mechanism, include a meaningful proof stack, detail the offer, and close with urgency and risk reversal. You cannot go as deep as a long-form page, but you can cover the essential persuasion architecture without leaving critical gaps.

Medium pages work particularly well for mixed traffic — a combination of cold visitors from ads and warm visitors from organic search, social media, and referrals. The page is long enough to persuade the cold prospects who need more convincing and concise enough to avoid frustrating the warm prospects who are ready to buy.

The key discipline at this length is ruthless prioritisation. You cannot address every objection, so you must address the top five or six. You cannot include twenty testimonials, so you choose the three most compelling. Every section must earn its place.

“The more you tell, the more you sell. An advertisement's chance for success invariably increases as the number of pertinent merchandise facts included in the advertisement increases.”

Ogilvy's principle holds — but the operative word is "pertinent." Every fact must be relevant to the sale. At 1,500-4,000 words, you have room for pertinent facts. You do not have room for tangents.

Long Pages (4,000-10,000+ Words): When You Need the Full Arsenal

Long-form sales pages are the backbone of high-ticket direct-response marketing. When the conditions demand it — high price, cold traffic, complex product, unfamiliar brand — no other format comes close.

A long page gives you the space for a thorough problem agitation section that makes the prospect feel deeply understood. It accommodates a full mechanism explanation that reframes how the prospect thinks about their problem. It allows a comprehensive proof stack — testimonials, case studies, data, credentials, endorsements — woven throughout the copy rather than crammed into a single section. It provides room to address every significant objection before the prospect reaches the offer.

This is the territory of long-form sales copy, VSL scripts, and classic direct-mail sales letters. The format has driven billions of dollars in revenue since the days of Gary Halbert and Gene Schwartz because it works. Not because long is inherently better, but because certain sales cannot be closed without it.

If you are selling a $2,000 coaching programme to cold traffic from Facebook ads, a 1,500-word page will fail. It will fail not because the copy is bad, but because 1,500 words cannot address the volume of objections, build the depth of trust, and present the weight of proof that a $2,000 purchase from a stranger requires. The prospect will leave with unanswered questions — and unanswered questions do not convert.

The Principle: Long Enough to Convince, Short Enough to Maintain Interest

There is a principle I have used for three decades that resolves the length question more reliably than any word count guideline: your sales page should be exactly long enough to overcome every objection, build sufficient desire, and close the sale — and not one word longer.

That principle has two halves, and both matter equally.

The first half — "long enough to convince" — prevents the most common mistake I see with sales pages: cutting them short because someone on the team decided the page was "too long." Every time you remove a proof element, skip an objection, or trim the mechanism section to save words, you are making a bet that the prospect does not need that information. Sometimes the bet pays off. More often, it costs you conversions.

The second half — "short enough to maintain interest" — prevents the second most common mistake: padding a page with filler to hit a word count target. Redundant paragraphs, unnecessary repetition, sections that serve the writer's ego rather than the reader's needs — these do not just waste space. They actively hurt conversion by training the reader to skim, which means they might skip the sections that actually matter.

The discipline is not about being short or being long. It is about being complete and concise simultaneously. Every sentence should advance the persuasion argument. When it stops advancing, the page is done.

This is where understanding copywriting psychology and proven copywriting formulas becomes essential. Frameworks like AIDA give you the architecture to build a complete persuasion argument without wandering. They tell you what the prospect needs to experience at each stage — attention, interest, desire, action — and in what order. When you follow the structure, the length takes care of itself.

How to Test Sales Page Length

Theory is useful. Data is better. Here is how to test page length for your specific offer and audience.

Step 1: Build the Long Version First

Write the most thorough version of your sales page — the version that addresses every objection, includes every proof element, and leaves nothing unanswered. Do not edit for length. Edit for relevance and persuasion quality, but let the page be as long as the sale requires.

This is your baseline. It represents the complete persuasion argument.

Step 2: Create a Shorter Variation

Take the long version and create a condensed variation. Keep the headline, the opening hook, the core mechanism, the top three proof elements, and the offer stack. Remove the secondary objection handling, the additional testimonials, and the extended problem agitation.

The short version should be roughly 40-60% of the long version's length.

Step 3: Split Test Against the Same Traffic

Run both versions against the same traffic source with sufficient volume to reach statistical significance. Do not test against different traffic sources — cold traffic will almost always favour the longer page, and warm traffic will often favour the shorter page. You need an apples-to-apples comparison.

Step 4: Look Beyond Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the primary metric, but also examine revenue per visitor, average order value (if you have upsells), and refund rate. A shorter page might convert at a higher rate but attract less committed buyers who refund more often. A longer page might convert fewer prospects but produce buyers who spend more and stick longer.

Step 5: Iterate

The first test gives you a direction. If the long version wins, test an even longer version with additional proof or an expanded mechanism. If the short version wins, test an even shorter version. Keep iterating until you find the point where adding or removing content no longer moves the needle.

This process is identical to what a professional sales page copywriter uses when optimising a page post-launch. The initial page is an informed hypothesis. The data tells you whether the hypothesis was right.

The Format Dimension: VSLs vs. Written Pages

Page length is not just about word count — it is also about format. A VSL (video sales letter) and a written sales page can deliver the same persuasion argument, but the optimal length dynamics differ.

VSLs control pacing — the viewer cannot skip ahead to the price or skim past the mechanism. This means a VSL can often deliver the same persuasion power in fewer perceived words because the viewer experiences every word in sequence. A 20-minute VSL (roughly 3,000 words of script) can accomplish what a 5,000-word written page does, because the written page must account for skimmers and scanners.

However, written sales pages have a decisive advantage in flexibility and testing. You can change a headline in minutes. A VSL headline change requires re-recording and re-editing. If you are in the iteration phase — and you should always be iterating — a written sales page gives you dramatically faster feedback loops.

For many offers, the best approach is a hybrid: a VSL embedded above the fold with a full written sales page beneath it. The video captures prospects who prefer to watch. The text captures prospects who prefer to read. And the page delivers SEO value that a standalone VSL cannot.

What the Data Consistently Shows

After 30 years of writing and testing sales pages — across every major direct-response vertical, for offers ranging from $7 to $25,000 — here is what the data consistently shows:

For cold traffic, longer almost always wins. Not because long is inherently better, but because cold prospects have the most objections, the least trust, and the highest number of questions. A longer page answers more of those questions. The exceptions are rare and usually involve extremely simple, low-risk offers.

For warm traffic, the gap narrows. A well-crafted medium-length page can match or beat a long page when the audience already trusts you. The extra sections become redundant — not harmful, but unnecessary.

The biggest mistake is being too short, not too long. A page that leaves three major objections unanswered will lose more sales than a page that includes two unnecessary paragraphs. The cost of missing information is higher than the cost of extra information — as long as the extra information is relevant.

Engagement metrics lie without context. A high scroll depth does not mean your page is working. A low scroll depth does not mean your page is too long. The only metric that tells the truth about page length is conversion rate — ideally tracked alongside revenue per visitor and customer lifetime value.

This is the same pattern I see in sales letter writing and across every headline formula I have tested. The copy that converts is the copy that matches its depth to the sale it needs to make.

Stop Counting Words and Start Counting Objections

Here is the framework I use — and the one I recommend — for determining sales page length:

List every objection a reasonable prospect might have about your product, your company, your price, your claims, and your guarantee. Count them. If the list has four items, a short page might suffice. If it has twelve — which is common for cold traffic, complex offers, and competitive markets — you need a long page.

Then list every proof element you have — testimonials, case studies, data, credentials, endorsements, media mentions. Determine which ones the prospect needs to see before they will buy. If two testimonials are enough, keep the page lean. If you need to layer six types of proof to overcome deep skepticism, give yourself the space.

The page length is not a decision you make. It is a consequence of the persuasion requirements you have identified. When you approach it this way, the question "how long should a sales page be?" answers itself.

If you are building a sales page and unsure whether it needs 1,500 words or 8,000 — or if you want a professional assessment of the copy architecture that fits your offer, your audience, and your funnel — let us talk. I will walk you through the length, structure, and strategy your page needs to convert. No templates. No arbitrary word counts. Just the page that makes the sale.