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DotCom Secrets Review: Is Russell Brunson's Funnel Book Worth Reading?
The ClickFunnels co-founder's first book, on what to build instead of a plain website. Here is what is actually inside it, who it is built for, and what the free-plus-shipping offer really costs.
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TL;DR
DotCom Secrets is Russell Brunson's 2015 book on replacing a plain website with a sales funnel: a specific sequence of pages built around one offer. It is free, you pay shipping only, and it runs 393 pages across three parts, what a funnel is and why it outperforms a website, the specific funnel types themselves, and word-for-word scripts to fill each one in with. It is the mechanics half of Brunson's two-book pair; Expert Secrets covers the audience-and-message half.
- Author
- Russell Brunson, foreword by Dan Kennedy
- Format
- Hardcover, 393 pages
- Price
- Free, plus shipping ($9.95 US / $19.95 international)
- First published
- 2015
- Publisher claim
- Over 100,000 copies sold, 4.6 stars on Amazon (2,340 ratings)
- Optional upgrades
- Audiobook $37, DotCom Secrets Live course $97
Which one this is: The book called "DotCom Secrets", by Russell Brunson, ISBN not listed on the official order page. Not to be confused with the domain-name industry term "dot-com secrets" used elsewhere online, or with Brunson's other books, Expert Secrets and Traffic Secrets.
What DotCom Secrets Actually Is
DotCom Secrets is not a book about building a website. Its entire argument is that a website, a homepage with a menu of links, is the wrong tool if the goal is a sale. What it teaches instead is a funnel: one offer, one sequence of pages, each with a single job, that carries a visitor from curious to customer. That reframe is the book's one real idea, and everything else in it is the mechanics of building that sequence.
The book is organized in three parts. The first lays out the concepts: the Value Ladder (why you need more than one offer, arranged from cheap to expensive), the attractive character (the person the reader follows, not just the brand), and the Dream 100 (finding where an audience already congregates instead of building one from nothing). The second part is a catalog of specific, named funnel types: the free-plus-shipping funnel (the same one this book uses to reach you), the webinar funnel, the product-launch funnel, membership and continuity funnels. The third part hands over scripts, page by page and, for video, word for word, to fill whichever funnel type fits.
Who This Book Is Actually For
It assumes you already have something to sell, or a clear idea of what that will be. It is not a book about finding a business idea or building an audience from zero; that is closer to the territory of Expert Secrets. What it answers well is the next question: once there is an offer, what sequence of pages turns a visitor into a buyer, and in what order should those pages exist.
Reading it makes the most sense for someone selling, or about to sell, a digital product, a course, a coaching offer or a service online, who is currently sending traffic at a homepage or a single sales page and wants a structural answer for why conversion is flat. It is less useful for someone selling a purely physical, in-store product with no online funnel at all, and it is not a marketing-fundamentals book: it assumes you already understand who your customer is.
Where It Holds Up, Where It Shows Its Age
What works
- The Value Ladder is a genuinely useful mental model, and it is explained clearly enough to sketch on a napkin after one read.
- The funnel-type catalog in Part 2 gives specific, nameable structures instead of vague advice, which is the part most readers actually reference later.
- Software-agnostic: nothing in the mechanics requires ClickFunnels specifically, despite the examples defaulting to it.
Worth knowing before you start
- First published in 2015. The funnel logic holds; specific platform references and a handful of screenshots read as dated.
- It is genuinely one half of a pair. Skipping Expert Secrets leaves the audience-and-message side of the equation unaddressed.
- Every example naturally routes back to ClickFunnels. The advice does not require it, but the book was written by its co-founder, so read the case studies with that in mind.
The Free-Plus-Shipping Offer, Explained By The Book Itself
Worth stating plainly since it is the first thing anyone notices: the book costs nothing and the checkout only charges shipping. That is not a loophole, it is the first funnel type the book itself teaches, used on you before you have read the chapter that names it. Read that as either a clean piece of show-don't-tell, or slightly on the nose, depending on taste. Either way, the checkout also offers two optional upgrades, an audiobook read by Brunson himself and a paid course called DotCom Secrets Live; neither is required to get the book or read every page of it.
DotCom Secrets: Common Questions
Is DotCom Secrets actually free?
The book itself is free. You pay shipping only, $9.95 in the US or $19.95 internationally at the time this was written. The checkout also offers paid upgrades (an audiobook read by Russell Brunson, and a course called DotCom Secrets Live), but none of them are required to get the book.
Why is a whole book about funnels offered for free plus shipping?
Because a free-plus-shipping offer is itself one of the funnel types the book teaches. Getting the book this way means you see the mechanism working on you before you read the chapter that explains it, which is either a neat demonstration or slightly on the nose, depending on how you look at it.
Do I need ClickFunnels to use what's in DotCom Secrets?
No. The frameworks (the Value Ladder, the funnel types, the scripts) are software-agnostic and can be built with any page builder or checkout tool. Russell Brunson co-founded ClickFunnels, so the examples and screenshots default to it, but nothing in the book requires buying it.
How long is DotCom Secrets and how is it organized?
393 pages in hardcover, split into three parts: the foundational concepts (why a funnel beats a plain website, the Value Ladder, finding your audience), the specific funnel types themselves, and then word-for-word scripts to fill each funnel in with.
Is DotCom Secrets or Expert Secrets the one to read first?
DotCom Secrets covers the mechanics: the funnel types and the pages that make them up. Expert Secrets covers the front end: building the audience and the message that fills those funnels. Most readers get more out of starting with DotCom Secrets, since it gives you the container Expert Secrets later fills.
Is DotCom Secrets still relevant? It was first published in 2015.
The funnel types and the underlying psychology have not changed; what has moved on is some of the specific tooling mentioned. Treat it as a manual for how to structure an offer and a sequence of pages, not a tutorial for any one piece of software.
DotCom Secrets In One Paragraph
A website is not a business tool, a funnel is. Build a Value Ladder from a cheap or free entry offer up to your most expensive one. Find your audience where it already gathers (the Dream 100) instead of building one from zero. Pick a funnel type that matches the offer, free-plus-shipping, webinar, product launch or continuity, and fill it in with the page-by-page scripts in Part 3. That is the entire book compressed to five sentences; the value in reading the full 393 pages is in the specific mechanics behind each piece.
How It Compares To Expert Secrets
DotCom Secrets and Expert Secrets are a matched pair, not two overlapping books. This one is the mechanics: the funnel types and the pages that make them up. Expert Secrets is the front end: the audience, the belief shift and the offer message that gets poured into those funnels. Reading DotCom Secrets alone gives you a container with nothing built to fill it; reading Expert Secrets alone gives you a message with nowhere structured to put it. Most readers get more starting here, with the container, then moving to Expert Secrets for what goes inside it.
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Explore More Of Russell Brunson's Free Offers
Expert Secrets: the audience-and-message half of this book's pair, on finding your voice and pitching to many people at once.
AI Secrets Challenge: his free 5-day live event with ClickFunnels co-founder Todd Dickerson, on running a one-person business with AI.
One Comma Club Challenge: his free 5-day event built around ClickFunnels' entry-level sales award, for a first online sale.
Selling Online: another free resource from the same program. We have not reviewed this one yet, so this link goes straight to the official page.
Who is Russell Brunson? Our full profile of the ClickFunnels co-founder, with his track record and every free offer of his we cover.
This is an independent review. This site is not the official DotCom Secrets website and is not operated by or endorsed by Russell Brunson or ClickFunnels. DotCom Secrets™ and ClickFunnels™ are trademarks of their respective owners. We may earn a commission from orders made through links on this page, at no extra cost to you.
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