This is a case study, not a tutorial. I’m going to walk you through an actual SaaS landing page I built — the decisions I made, the tools I used, the copy process, and what happened when it went live.
The product: a lightweight competitor monitoring tool aimed at solo founders and small marketing teams. The goal: a waitlist landing page to validate demand before building anything.
Total build time: 4 hours 10 minutes. Signups in the first 48 hours: 31. Not viral, but enough to know the idea has legs.
Here’s how it came together.
Starting point: the brief
Before touching any tool I wrote a brief. Short, but specific. This is word for word what I wrote:
Product: Competitor pulse — a tool that monitors competitor websites, pricing pages, and social profiles and sends a weekly digest of what changed.
Audience: Solo founders and 1-3 person marketing teams who don’t have time to manually check competitors but need to stay informed.
Core value: Know what your competitors are doing without spending 3 hours a week checking manually.
Goal of the page: Email signups for early access waitlist.
Tone: Direct, a bit informal. Smart but not techy.
What I’m NOT doing: Long feature lists, enterprise positioning, anything that says “platform” or “solution.”
That brief took 15 minutes to write and saved me two hours of going in circles mid-build. The “what I’m NOT doing” section is something I started adding recently — it keeps the AI from defaulting to generic SaaS copy patterns.
Deciding on page structure
SaaS landing pages have a well-worn structure for good reason. I didn’t try to reinvent it — I mapped out exactly which sections I needed and what each one needed to do:
- Hero: Headline + subheadline + email signup form. Primary job: make the value immediately obvious and capture the email.
- Problem section: 3 short pain points my audience feels. Job: make them feel understood.
- Solution/how it works: 3 steps showing how the product works. Job: make it feel simple and believable.
- Features: 4–6 specific capabilities. Job: answer “but does it do X?”
- Social proof: Since this is pre-launch, I used a quote from a founder I’d interviewed during validation, plus a specific number (“17 founders on the waitlist already”).
- Final CTA: Same email form as the hero, repeated. Job: capture the people who scrolled all the way down before deciding.
Six sections. That’s it. Every section has a specific job. No section is there just to fill space.
Building in Framer
I used Framer’s AI generation to get the initial layout. My prompt:
“Build a SaaS waitlist landing page for a competitor monitoring tool. Target audience: solo founders and small marketing teams. Sections in order: hero with email signup, 3-item problem section, 3-step how it works, 4-feature grid, social proof quote, second CTA. Color palette: dark background (#0D0D0D), white text, a single teal accent color. Typography: clean sans-serif. No stock photos. Use abstract geometric shapes or none at all.”
Framer generated three layout options. I picked the darkest one — it had the right weight for a tool aimed at serious founders. The shape usage was a bit heavy so I stripped most of it out. The grid for features was good but the spacing was tight — I increased padding across the board.
Total time in Framer before starting copy: about 45 minutes. Mostly spent on the feature section and getting the hero form right (Framer’s form components are good but need careful setup to connect to external tools).
One thing I did that made a big difference: I used Framer’s scroll animations for the feature icons. Subtle — they fade in as you scroll. Takes about 10 minutes to set up and makes the page feel significantly more polished.
Writing the copy with Claude
I wrote every section of copy in a Claude conversation, not inside Framer. The workflow: write in Claude, copy into Framer, read in context, revise as needed.
Here’s what I prompted for each section and what I got:
Hero headline
Prompt: “Write 5 headline options for a SaaS tool that monitors competitor websites and sends a weekly digest of changes. Audience: busy solo founders. They fear missing something important while wasting time checking manually. Make headlines specific, outcome-focused, under 10 words. No questions. No ‘never miss’ or ‘stay ahead’.”
Best output: “Your competitors changed something this week. Did you notice?”
I modified it slightly to make it more direct, but the structure was right on the first try. The question format worked because it immediately triggers the anxiety the product solves.
Subheadline
Prompt: “Write a subheadline for a competitor monitoring tool. It should expand on the headline, explain specifically what the product does in one sentence, and end with the core outcome. Max 25 words.”
Output: “Competitor Pulse tracks pricing, feature, and messaging changes across your competitors’ sites — and delivers a clean weekly digest to your inbox.”
Used it almost verbatim. Specific, clear, no jargon.
Problem section
Prompt: “Write 3 short pain point statements for founders who need to monitor competitors. Format: bold 4-word title + 1-sentence description. These should make the reader feel understood, not lectured. Conversational tone.”
This section needed the most editing — the AI version was too polished and a bit preachy. I rewrote two of the three in my own voice after using the AI output as a skeleton.
How it works (3 steps)
Prompt: “Write a 3-step ‘how it works’ section for a competitor monitoring SaaS. Steps: 1) connect your competitors’ URLs, 2) set what you want tracked, 3) receive a weekly digest. Make each step feel simple and fast. One headline + one sentence per step.”
Clean on the first try. This is where AI copy tends to work best — structured, factual, low subjectivity.
CTA button text
Prompt: “Write 6 CTA button label options for a waitlist signup. The product is a competitor monitoring tool. Avoid: ‘Sign up’, ‘Get started’, ‘Join now’. Make it specific to what they’re getting.”
Best option: “Join the early access list”. Simple but more specific than a generic “Sign up.”
Setting up the waitlist mechanics
I used Beehiiv for the waitlist email collection — free plan, clean interface, and easy to set up a welcome automation. The Framer form connects to Beehiiv via a webhook. Setup took about 20 minutes including the confirmation email.
The confirmation email I kept minimal:
- Subject: “You’re on the list — here’s what happens next”
- Body: thank you, what the product does in one sentence, timeline expectation (“aiming for beta in Q2”), one question (“what’s the one competitor thing you most need to track?”) — that last part generated useful research data from early signups
One thing I didn’t set up but would add next time: a referral mechanism. Something like “share your unique link and move up the waitlist” dramatically increases organic sharing. Tools like Viral Loops or a simple custom solution in Bolt can handle this.
What worked, what didn’t
What worked
The question headline. Multiple signups mentioned the headline specifically in their responses to my welcome email question. It immediately triggered recognition of the problem.
The “17 founders on the waitlist already” social proof. Even a small number creates legitimacy. I updated this manually as signups came in for the first week.
Keeping the page short. Scroll depth data (via Fathom) showed 78% of visitors reached the second CTA. A longer page would have lost them before they got there.
What didn’t work
The features section. Too early in a pre-launch page to go deep on features — people don’t care yet, they care about the problem. I eventually removed two features and compressed the section.
No clear pricing signal. Several people emailed asking what it would cost. Adding “free during beta” to the hero form increased conversions noticeably when I tested it a week later.
The full prompt stack
For anyone who wants to replicate this process, here’s the complete list of prompts I used, in order:
- Brief writing: not an AI prompt — written by hand in a notes app
- Framer layout generation: see the prompt in the “Building in Framer” section above
- Hero headline: 5 options, outcome-focused, under 10 words, no clichés
- Subheadline: 1 sentence, what it does + core outcome, max 25 words
- Problem section: 3 pain points, bold title + 1 sentence, conversational
- How it works: 3 steps, simple and fast, headline + 1 sentence
- Feature descriptions: 4 features, title + 1-sentence benefit, no technical jargon
- CTA button: 6 options, specific to the offer, no generic labels
- Confirmation email: welcome email, max 150 words, include one question
Total time in Claude: about 40 minutes. Most of that was iteration on the headline and problem section.
What to build next
- → [LINK: How to Build a Landing Page with AI in One Day] — the general process this case study is based on
- → [LINK: How to Build a SaaS MVP with AI in One Day] — what comes after the waitlist fills up
- → Back to the Build with AI pillar
FAQ
What’s the difference between a SaaS landing page and a regular landing page?
A SaaS landing page typically needs to do more explaining — the product is often invisible (software), the value is less immediately obvious, and trust is harder to establish for an unknown product. This means more emphasis on how it works, specific outcomes, and credibility signals. The structure is similar, but the copy requirements are higher.
Do i need a working product to build a SaaS landing page?
No. A waitlist landing page is specifically designed for the pre-product stage — you’re validating demand before building. The page describes what the product will do, collects emails, and helps you understand whether real people want what you’re planning to build. It’s one of the best validation tools available.
How many signups do i need to validate a SaaS idea?
There’s no universal number, but a useful threshold is 50–100 people who sign up without being personally asked by you. That indicates some organic demand. More useful than the number: email those signups and ask what problem they’re trying to solve. The quality of those conversations tells you more than the signup count.
Which email tool should i use for a SaaS waitlist?
Beehiiv for simplicity and a clean free tier. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) if you want more sophisticated automations. Mailchimp works but the free tier has gotten more limited. All three connect easily to Framer forms via webhook.
Should my SaaS landing page have pricing?
At the waitlist stage: not necessarily, but add a signal. “Free during beta” or “Starts at $X/month” reduces friction by answering the unspoken question. If you don’t have pricing figured out yet, “pricing TBD — early access members get locked-in rates” works well and creates an incentive to sign up now.