Landing page headline examples: 8 formulas and 40 hero headlines

Visitors decide in a few seconds whether a page is for them, and the headline does most of that work. A good hero headline says what the product does, who it's for and why it's better, in words the visitor already uses. Below are 8 formulas, 40 example headlines and before/after rewrites you can adapt.

The 5-second test

Show your hero section to someone for five seconds, then hide it. Ask: what does this product do, and who is it for? If they can't answer both, the headline is too clever, too vague or too long. The examples below are written to pass this test.

Before and after

8 headline formulas

1. [Outcome] without [pain]. "Ship your app to the App Store without touching Xcode."
2. [Do the job] for [audience]. "Bookkeeping for freelance designers."
3. [Job] in [time]. "Launch a documentation site in 10 minutes."
4. The [category] that [differentiator]. "The calendar that schedules your tasks for you."
5. Stop [pain]. Start [outcome]. "Stop chasing invoices. Start getting paid."
6. [Number] [audience] use [product] to [outcome]. Only with a real, current number.
7. Turn [input] into [output]. "Turn customer calls into product roadmaps."
8. Question that names the pain. "Still copying data between spreadsheets by hand?" Use sparingly, and answer it right away in the subheadline.

40 hero headline examples by type

SaaS and B2B tools

• Close your books in days, not weeks
• Customer support inbox built for teams of 2 to 20
• Know why users churn before they cancel
• Contracts signed in minutes, from any device
• One dashboard for every Stripe metric that matters
• Hire engineers who've already passed your take-home
• Status pages that update themselves
• Security reviews your enterprise buyers will accept
• Find the bug in the replay, not in the ticket thread
• Plan sprints your team will actually finish

Developer tools

• Deploy from git push to production in 30 seconds
• Postgres that scales to zero when you're asleep
• Feature flags without the vendor lock-in
• Catch breaking API changes before your users do
• Background jobs in three lines of code
• Logs you can search as fast as you can type
• Auth for your app, done by lunch
• Test every pull request in a real browser
• Cron jobs that tell you when they fail
• Type-safe APIs from your existing database

Consumer and mobile apps

• Learn Spanish in 10 minutes a day
• Every subscription you pay for, in one list
• Meal plans built from what's already in your fridge
• Split rent and bills without the awkward texts
• Your photos, organized by who and where, automatically

Services and agencies

• Shopify stores that load in under 2 seconds
• Bookkeeping done for you, every month, for a flat fee
• Your podcast edited and published within 48 hours
• Product photos that sell, delivered in 5 days
• Webflow sites for B2B startups, launched in 3 weeks

E-commerce and products

• The backpack that fits a 16" laptop and a weekend
• Coffee roasted the week you drink it
• Running shoes fitted to your stride, delivered free
• Desk chairs your back will thank you for, with a 100-night trial
• Skincare with five ingredients you can pronounce

Courses, newsletters and info products

• Learn SQL by answering real business questions
• One email a week with the best indie SaaS launches
• The 6-week course for your first 100 customers
• Design fundamentals for developers, in 12 short lessons
• Weekly salary data for remote engineers

The subheadline does the rest

The headline earns attention; the subheadline earns the click. Use one or two sentences to say how it works or what's included, and remove the main objection ("No code required", "Works with Stripe and Paddle"). Then a single primary button with outcome-focused text; see 60 CTA button text examples.

Common headline mistakes

• Clever over clear. Puns and metaphors cost you the visitors who don't get them.
• Buzzwords. "AI-powered", "seamless", "next-generation" describe nothing on their own.
• Talking about yourself. "We are a leading provider of…" puts the brand before the visitor.
• Too long. Aim for under 10 words. Move details into the subheadline.
• Mismatch with the ad or post. If the visitor clicked "invoice reminders", the headline should say invoice reminders.
• Claims you can't back. "Trusted by thousands" needs proof nearby, or it hurts trust.

For everything below the hero, use the 30-point landing page checklist.