Yeah… Even Weglot, which is expensive, is not matched by these prices and feature sets.
More features need to be included in the essential tier, or a middle tier needs to be set up with a more balanced cost/benefit to make localization more attractive. I can’t sell a setup to a customer and tell them language translations will double or triple the hosting costs…
Yes absolutely ridiculous especially since they raised the hosting prices as well.
I was waiting for it for so long, but Unfortunately I have to say it is very much Webflow style: the automatic translation is amazing… but there is a BUT like usual …you you can’t change styles for localized languages… Of course German and French would be such a long words compared to English.
And you charge TWENTY NINE per locale with assets customization?? Without being able to have custom CSS per local, this thing is only worth for translating paragraphs that auto reflow. You can’t do any custom deign like this.
I have a feeling that Webflow collecting funds for development by overcharging the users, instead of finding a proper investor.
Sad and unfortunate. I mentioned it on the YT comments how translation services like Polylang and WPML would cost $0/mo. or $3.25/mo. or at most $8.25/mo. for a website with 3 locales. And these include localized URLs and asset localization. Compare that to Webflow, $87/mo. (105 monthly)
The reality is we’ll always pay more for Webflow, but this time the difference (26X) is absurd. There are no running costs besides machine-powered translations, and even that doesn’t warrant a subscription this expensive with other services, and forcing users to pay for it to unlock manual localization is not sitting right with me.
I had to resort to WP for an ongoing project, because I can’t justify making a client pay $134/mo. to just “keep the website live” despite how much I wanted to use Webflow for it. And while venture-backed startups can easily eat these costs without justifying them, it has to make sense business-wise for independents, designers, and agencies.
I’m glad to see it’s not just me, as I look forward to how the Webflow team would handle this, there could be a spark of hope yet.
I think you don’t need that $16 for a Freelancer Workspace. When clients create their own account, they are already on a workspace and have that editing button in the Designer. It should be easier accessible without going into the Designer first, though.
When it comes to pricing, I think Webflow looks at it like this: Does your client earn more money with another language added to the site? Do they get more clients through that additional language? If the answer is yes, then those $27 for that locale should be well spend.
What none of my clients understands, though:
Why is that localization feature alone, for every single locale, more expensive than all the trillion features of the Designer including hosting and CMS?
I could still find some good points, if the automatic translation feature was good, at least.
But it’s mediocre at best and considering languages like Chinese I got a client feedback of being “catastrophic”. Then, I have no arguments left why to pay money for this.
I have no experience with Chinese in Webflow yet, but the language that I translated was pretty good. I see it more as a start and let a human copy writer in that language take another look. I imagine that a translation service or a translator normally take more time. So you actually save time, but that is my opinion. And that is not even taking into account how easy it is to translate whole pages. Time is money.
Your phrasing makes it seem that automatic translations were just invented, they haven’t been. Even Weglot still only costs $32/mo. for 3 languages instead of $105/mo.
I think the frustrations are because most of us would rather use a first-party native solution by Webflow than a 3rd-party one, but right now the single translation feature costs more than all of Webflow’s features in the designer combined. I don’t know why this wasn’t a new feature released as part of Webflow’s platform even if only available on CMS+ or something, with automatic translations being a “Pay-as-you-go model”.
WPML (for WordPress) & Wix Studio have the base functionality (manual translation) at $8.25/mo. and $0/mo. respectively and Pay-As-You-Go for the automatic translations for how much you consume (with WPML also giving you 90k credits for the original subscription, before you have to pay). This makes a lot of sense as a pricing model, and I’d happily pay more for it on Webflow, just not 10 times more.
I’m only using numbers to illustrate how big the difference is, not suggesting Webflow price at or lower than these prices. It’s their right to charge more after all, but at which point is more too much?
To me this is more about ROI, if you need more languages, you probably want to sell more. I can’t imagine a business that only makes 105$ month so that it can’t even pay that for this feature. But that is besides the point. You have other options to sell, can always put those on Wordpress or Weglot.
You can always start with essential and see how this helps the business, it is not that hard for users to click a language toggle. And when the business grows and is comfortable go a tier higher.
Webflow is about more features than localisation alone. Fast deployment, free to design anything, customize with code. But for really small clients this could be to expensive, but like I said there are other options.
It would be a smart move from Webflow to let all tiers translate urls, this is a pretty weird decision to not have this basic feature in essential. As it’s such a integral part from a SEO perspective for languages.
It’s absurd if I have to pay for Enterprise just to pick a font for a new language. Styles should also “translate” without needing to make a whole new set of classes. I mean, come on. Images I can design around. I found in the docs that Editors can edit (makes sense, given subdirectories). But, I still feel like I have not much confidence in telling someone in Finance to kill our Weglot subscription and switch. I mean… the “documentation” is very lacking. Appreciate getting it out fast and into our hands, but… so many uncertainties I feel. And, yes, I am currently “trying” it out.
Like many of you, we’ve been eagerly anticipating the introduction of a robust localisation feature in Webflow. After a two-year wait, we unfortunately learned that to accommodate our need for more than five languages, we would have to upgrade to their enterprise plan.
Our localisation costs, managed through Weglot, amount to €5,000 annually. However, transitioning to Webflow’s enterprise plan would skyrocket our expenses to over $40,000 annually. This price jump seems excessive and has led us to consider alternative platforms.
We’re exploring different avenues and would greatly appreciate insights from this community. So far, we’ve looked into options like WordPress, which offers extensive multilingual plugins, and various headless CMS platforms known for their flexibility and scalability.
Udemy could aid the migration process, but we are still weighing our options. Our primary goal is to find a cost-effective, efficient solution for managing our website in multiple languages.
Your advice will be invaluable if anyone has experience transitioning away from Webflow, particularly for multilingual site management. What platforms have you found effective? Can you share any specific challenges or tips about the migration process?
Thank you in advance for your suggestions and support.
We are in the same process of searching for platform alternatives for sites with many languages. The cost of localization alone is one thing, but the biggest problem for us is that the client will have to buy full design access (Workspace seats) for every editor that needs to do language editing.
We do not want to go down the WordPress road again for many reasons! So far we have found Hubspot CMS to have some potential, but this will force us into the “outdated” workflow of doing design and development separately.
We are also considering going back to Weglot, but then offering a “we-will-handle-the-translations” service for the client, since most clients are hesitant to use the Weglot UI.
I would look deeper into tools like Statamic, where there a base pro license is for as many editors as you desire, plus the flexibility that a Bard field type (and dozens of others) offers the editors, along with powerful multi-site functionality which is perfect for multi-lingual installations.
Sure, you need to go back to a separation of content and code, but that is not going backward; instead, that allows you to overcome all the limitations of a product like Webflow, where you get the sink, but it’s not yours. Designers can’t code, and nor should they. You can achieve the goal as long as the content creators can perform their tasks efficiently and with the freedom to break out of traditional field-based limitations. Imagine choosing from an array of layouts dynamically for any item. That is freedom.
Webflow is not a suitable product for all scenarios, and it is tough to find that out down the road after investing time and resources.
or at lease include in the advanced what they have in enterprise it is unfair that you can’t style on the other local. i don’t know why all these breakdowns. one site plan that include everything with price adjustment it would be better.
I really regret that I told my client to use Webflow Localization. They are at the beginning, so they have small website. To have a localized slugs - they need to pay 35$ per month. Okay, can skip slugs for now. To have localized images - they have to pay 35$ per month. Then, with the Essential plan you can have up to 3 locales, but you need to pay for each language separately… That doesn’t have any sense, and it’s also confusing.
I doubt I’ll advise webflow localization for furute clients. Hopу Webflow will re-evaluate their pricing policy.
