CMS hosting pricing a bit expensive for small websites

Hello,

I love Webflow, I’m building all my static websites using Webflow, and I’d like to switch from Wordpress to Webflow for the CMS websites now.
I see that the cheapest CMS hosting plan including custom domain mapping starts at $16 per month and to be honest I think it’s a bit too expensive. In my opinion there should be a basic CMS hosting plan around $10/month (for small websites where users just need to update contents and portfolio from time to time for example).
Hopefully there’s a 50% discount on the hosting subscriptions performed before July, but I really hope that you secretly plan to apply this discount by default after this date. If not, can you please at least think about adding 200 CMS items to the basic hosting plan at $12?

Thanks in advance!

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I’m with you on this - for people who just need minor CMS capabilities - $192 dollars paid annually is a bit too much. Some other option around the $100 mark would be great.

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Agree: what I’d like to see is:

• Additional cheaper plan without any CMS – $144/year for just a simple site is still quite steep.

• Add CMS capabilities to current Basic plan – but without allowing for any Collections, so just ability to add text on static pages.

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Yeah this price hike has left me looking like a bit of an idiot with my clients.

I promised them $10USD per month to only find out it’s now double that…

It’s almost impossible in some instances to compete with Squarespace now, who sit at $12 per month.
I’ll probably have to spend my money with them instead, for now.

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If you make a website that generate profit to their business your client will be happy to pay the cost of webflow or squarespace. So what’s the point of paying $12 on squarespace if your website don’t bring value to your company?

Most of the clients want a website because everyone has one and don’t understand the potencial of having a good one.

But if they don’t want to pay the webflow cms and still want a website with a cms then just tell them that you have other options like worpdress, hugo or grav and once you tell them how much it’s going to cost this will be the time to compare dev and design cost.

The same website in wordpress could cost $1,800, in webflow $1,000. They can spend the 800 to pay for the webflow hosting. So what they’re going to choose?

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I really think this needs a bump, the sector is getting more and more competitive and the current cost of hosting in WebFlow is enough to make people look elsewhere.

SquareSpace is $12 per month
Wix is $7 per month

Both advertise to potential clients constantly via social channels once they start searching for website designers and both include custom hosting and logins for the client to make their own content edits.

Webflow will be $20 per month from July for a custom domain and for a content editor. That’s a tough sell especially if you are trying to get someone online for the first time.

Can we not have a $10 package with Custom Domain and 1 Content Editor, Has to remain branded in HTML and has e.g. 10 - 20 static pages? The CMS level is too much for small clients but is the only option if they want to make their own changes.

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I agree, Tim. It is a hard sell for the smaller solopreneurs … Webflow was talking about giving bulk deals so the more clients we had on the webflow platform, the smaller our rate would be. Don’t know what has happened to that. It’s been crickets around here as far as updates/upgrades have been concerned.

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As a bootstrapping solopreneur I must agree here.
Multi-website plans for solopreneurs would be great!

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Wait til you get to the part where you can’t add anymore fields in one of
your collections and you already have the top plan with them. I pay for
the best they offer (on site) and i’m about to be facing this issue.

Clearly a more affordable, scalable solution should be implemented HOWEVER
(and I have said this before) if Webflow gets on point and makes this thing
as robust as they know it needs to be to the point where you can create a
“soup to nuts” environment for design and development - there’s no price I
wouldn’t pay for it. We wouldn’t be here griping if we were that willing
to walk away right? :slight_smile:

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A bulk package would be ideal. I can only hope they address this before July. Glad to hear I’m not the only one getting this push back from clients.

SquareSpace is $12 per month
Wix is $7 per month

I realize you include these 3rd party options available to us web site makers, and we can take our money elsewhere so in that sense they’re equivalent, but you do know these aren’t comparable, right? Neither includes the in-browser Designer, which is really what Webflow is all about. Squarespace only allows limited customizations of existing templates and, speaking frankly, every Wix template / site I’ve ever seen is utter garbage – no way that would ever count as professional work. Apples and oranges comparison.

If the cost is such an issue, why not just design your site, export it, and host it elsewhere? I’m sure you can find some Wordpress host for $10 / month. The Designer is what sets them apart… As far as I’m concerned, the CMS and hosting options are just gravy if you want them.

I agree. It also looks like you have to pay hosting on each site. Are you kidding me? At $20/m per site + $24 for the project creation. For 3 side projects you’re looking at 24 + 40 = $64.00? That’s ridiculous. Please consider adjusting this. Ideally the $25 plan would give us the hosting and other 3 websites. Beyond that maybe charging a small fee for extra sites would be more reasonable.

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I do completly agree, I love what can be done in Webflow and the CMS hosting is brilliant. These are some of the features that make me work on Webflow. But, if I’m working with smaller clients, start-ups etc. they are seeing constant ads for ‘do it yourself’ solutions, if I come along with a design they like but can’t offer them hosting or the ability to edit without taking them to another platform. Then that right there is a problem, its a barrier for entry for smaller clients and it feels like a gap in the price plans.

I don’t think anyone here is saying that they want the full CMS plan for less, but something that allows for basic hosting e.g one collaborator and static content only. This would let me get them started and I can move them up plans within Webflow as they grow.

That moving them to another CMS is a legitimate suggestion for smaller clients really emphasises the gap here.

I’m building a website for a nonprofit I am trying to start and I’ve been paying around $30 CAD a month which is kind of a lot for a website I haven’t been close to launching for months now. Since the plan is to build into the CMS I can’t build the site without paying for hosting.

It would be nice if there was a way to build with the CMS and publish the changes but not pay until it’s live. I’m not ready to launch and I’m still a while away but I guess that’s the price you pay for the build?

Maybe if they allowed you to build and publish but you couldn’t change the domain name without paying? But then again it still takes up room on the servers which costs them money.

It’s a lot out of pocket but I think it’s pretty much a sunk cost.

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Hey there,

I didn’t see this feature of enhanced staging. I have a little more than 50
CMS items (probably closer to 100. Is there a way to add CMS items for a
fee? Say a $10 add-on for +100 items?

From a design aspect nothing is even comparable to Webflow. Squarespace and Wix are not even reasonable comparisons. The closest thing you are going to get to Webflow is Adobe Dreamweaver in a CSS design tool. Outside of that, they too are worlds apart.

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Man… I was super excited about using Webflow for my personal projects and client projects but the hosting prices are just way too high. I pay ~$150 a year with godaddy and host many sites. To do this on Webflow I’d be paying over $100 per month in hosting fees alone.

Such a bummer. I hope the prices can come to a more reasonable place.

Thanks,
Josh

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Read more here:

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I’m new to Webflow but have gone down the rabbit hole on this one . . . all of it including the CDN. Love it. Hosting $$$ not a problem for me or my clients. You get what you pay for.

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Its a bit expensive honestly, however I think its value for money RE: CDN, SSL, Security and a great design experience. I’ll suck it up for now :slight_smile: