Confused about pricing site vs account plans

I am new to webflow. Yesterday I upgraded my free plan to paid site plan. I have multiple Wordpress sites. I do my own sites, not for other people. If I have understood things correctly, the pricing on webflow is geared towards designers/developers as they are the people who often design webflow sites for their clients, thereby selling it as a product with their service, which is fine and understandable.

However, if I want multiple sites, what is the benefit in an account plan? Because based on what I can see, I can add multiple sites to my account already. Also, from what I read, if I have an account plan, the Lite Plan as an example at $16 per month which gives me 10 projects/sites, then I still have to pay per site on top to publish them to my domain, right?

So, what am I missing. I am sure, I must have misunderstood some part of it because right now it doesn’t make much sense to pay for an account plan.

BTW, I have about 4 sites I am considering moving to Webflow. Is it worth me being on an Account Plan? If so, how?

Please help if you know the answer to this. Thank you.

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Hi Ryan,

an account plan would be suitable if you had a focus on designing projects. It doesn’t include any hosting for these projects.

If you are just using Webflow to build your own websites and if you are planning to host all these sites on Webflow, well, then you’ll need a site plan for each website. You wouldn’t need an account plan after all as hosted projects do not count against the two unhosted projects limit of the free account plan.

Check out this video for some further explanation:

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Thanks Chris. I didn’t realise you cost host WF content elsewhere. Although, if I am using WF I would want to host it with them.

I think for now I’ll stick with site plan. However, if anyone wants me to do design sites for them (sometimes friends and family ask), then I’ll consider adding an account plan.

In order to use either the CMS or Ecommerce features you’d need to host with Webflow specifically (along with form processing and site search) so typically non-dev folks prefer to have everything under one roof.

I have an Account plan myself but I am grandfathered into a pretty good deal so it makes sense to keep it—plus I like having some “playground” sites that don’t need hosting along with more robust staging sites for any client projects.

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Guys, just one thing I want double check. If I have a the “Lite Account” can I have up to 10 sites with most of the tools like being able to embed. I realise these would be webflow.io subdomains. I ask because on the free account, you can’t embed anything. A few basic features like this are missing will a paid account like the Lite solve this issue? Thanks.

With a Lite Plan you cannot use File Upload elements but can use embeds, custom code, > 2 pages and site export.

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Thank you, appreciate it.

On the lite ‘account plan’ the sites can only have 2 pages, unless you buy site license!

Thats what you are saying, right? I find that shocking because its a paid plan. I thought designers would use it built the site with ALL the pages and when its time publish then add/pay for a site license.

Btw, thanks for reply.

Lite Plan:
Up to 100 static pages and 50 CMS items.
No problem.

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Thanks Gail.

Out of interest if I want to integrate Memberstack do I HAVE TO be on an ecommerce plan? I was understand the impression I could just be on a CMS or Basic plan since Memberstack is doing all the ecommerce/heavy lifting!

If anyone knows, can you please clarify, thank you.

Hey Ryan,
I think you might be confused and it’s a fairly common misunderstanding. The Account plan is just for being able to have mulitple projects. But each project that needs to be published to ‘Live’ i.e. an actual domain and not on xxxxx.webflow.io requires a site plan.

This means even if you have 10 projects and all need to go Live. You’ll need to pay a site plan for each one. Each site plan also has limitations. e.g. if you need a CMS but not e-commerce.

EDIT: Memberstack - If you do not use any CMS elements and it is just purely static pages, then you can use Memberstack with your basic plan. BUT if you want to configure it, so that the data you collect from Memberstack is then fed back into your site using any ‘Collections’ then you will need to pay for a CMS site plan for that site.

Hope that helps.

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Hi Tim, Thanks for clarifying. One other thing I am desperate need to get an answer on.

Situation 1) If I buy an e-commerce webflow template because I like the design, and don’t do any checkout with webflow (I keep the e-commerce pages a draft), and use Memberstack, can I still be on the CMS plan?

Situation 2) If I buy an e-commerce webflow template because I want to future proof my project a bit because I am not sure if I will use webflow e-commerce, but for the moment I keep e-commerce disabled on the webflow template, then will I be able be on the CMS plan?

I am mainly concerned about the template as I have multiple sites on webflow and most of the templates I buy is e-commerce based but not looking to use the e-commerce features for some time.

I have been desperately trying to get an answer on the above, I can’t find the answer anywhere.

Thank you.

Hi Ryan,
So the answer to both is the same, which is Yes. However, you will need to recreate anything that uses the e-commerce part of webflow if you want to use that template like normal. For example, if you have a product template (e-commerce) and you want a product template but without e-commerce, you’ll need to rebuild that page in your collections. It’s a bit tricky if you’ve never done it before but it is possible. The same applies to ‘Add to cart’.

There is a trick to speed it up a bit which is copy the template twice but only one of them has the CMS site plan. Then when you recreate the pages, you copy the elements from the other duplicated template and into this paid one. You won’t be able to copy anything that has a dynamic element but you can unlink it and copy across.

Hope that helps.

Tim

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So, YES means I can buy an e-commerce template and stay on the CMS plan, right?

Regards, to the other steps you mentioned. As I wasn’t going to use the e-commerce features now, my plan was to keep the checkout or product pages in draft mode so that it’s not public or visible.

Tim, if I have understood you are right, I think what you are saying is YES I can use an e-commerce template on a CMS site plan but I would have to delete all the e-commerce pages, right? If this is what you are saying, this seems like Webflow almost like punishing its customers.

I know it’s not you, and you are trying to help me, and you are probably explaining company policy.

Thank you,

In conclusion, webflow charges the designer so we can design, and charges the customer, yikes.

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:wink: why not if you can.

but why would you like to spend more if there are other alternatives with for functionalities :confused:

Hoping this will still get some eyes even though it is an older thread. I fell victim to the very confusing pricing structure. I want to publish multiple individual sites (with limited functionality eg 1 or 2 pages no e-commerce no CMS) but they need to have both password protection and be hosted on a custom domain.
I thought that the pro account plan was the right thing as it had unlimited projects, white labeling and password protection.
Now it is clear that this was the wrong thing to do. Is there a way to transfer the payment from account plan to multiple sites - or is an account plan still needed in order to have password protection and multiple sites?

Hi Pauline, I cannot say either way. I think a Webflow staff member may know.

However, I am assuming these sites you are hosting are ONLY going to use the Webflow subdomain, and won’t use a top level domain right?

Although I am fan of Webflow, I am fully aware of the negative side of Webflow (like any product), and one of those is that hosting lots of tiny websites is not always economical with Webflow. However, if its just one tiny website, and its your main business, then maybe it can make business sense in terms of the time saved from firefighting and maintenance and other issues you would have had to do if you had Wordpress as an example.