That was a good read Ash,
Basically a landing page or squeeze page is an individually styled template page for your site, usually stripping away the sidebar, header and menu and footer, or replacing the footer with a new one with only policies, etc. I'm building a new website for my brand that uses the theme "x" by x-themes, and it allows for unlimited amount of squeeze-pages to be built, because you can define to remove those features on a page by page basis.
What you should keep in mind with using plugins is how you are capturing the leads, and where does it output the data, either in your database or into your mailing lists or both, can it include capture or spam prevention methods, can you run scripts on the page like heat-map overlays, to monitor where you should improve the form. Can you run live a/b tests on the page. Are you after a popup overlay or an exit intent squeeze overlay. Or just a page. Are you wanting it to be self hosted or managed by a third-party. Maybe your willing to pay a fee per month or buy the plugin out right and install and run it your self. I personally use optinarchitect Its been created by an Internet marketing Agency, at the moment their running a sale $97pa and it pretty much has taken all the stuff that's in leadpages and combined it with everything else you wish it had. I happened to get in on beta one price for lifetime use, so I'm a little biased, but I was in your shoes as well trying to find a squeeze page that didn't cost the earth but allowed as much customisation as well. The only thing I can say that I like the most with the hosted version, is that I can use it on any of my sites, without installing anything. Just embedding a script. So when I change themes, or build the site again. I don't need to re-install and set it up again.
