Please - Newbie question on webflow.io website

Ray_of_Light · June 9, 2021, 5:09pm

Just starting with Webflow and love it! I was recently looking at travel websites to see what the program can do and on a list of great webflow websites I found this one: http://endless-safaris.webflow.io/ which I absolutely love.

I’m just wondering. I thought the .weblow.io websites were basically the two free 2-static page websites that the free tier offers, but this website seems to have a lot more pages than that. Is this, in fact, a free website (and therefore my understanding of a “page” is faulty) or is it just a paid site that they decided they didn’t need to buy a domain for? Or maybe it has to do with the type of plan the designer had, whereby the .io sites can have more than 2 pages?

Please help me understand this. Thanks.

mikeyevin · June 9, 2021, 5:45pm

Hey @Ray_of_Light, welcome to the Community

The webflow.io domain (called a “staging site”) is limited based on the Account plan you’re on. Just like you mentioned, the free Account plan has a limit on these staging sites of 2 static pages and 50 collection items. If you pay for an Account plan, that limit goes up to 100 static pages:

Other than the Account plans, there are also Site plans which are added per project which give you the ability to attach a custom domain, remove the “Made in Webflow” branding, and have different page/collection limits than the staging sites (based on the level). For the Basic Site plan you get 100 static pages but no collection items, with the CMS and above Site plans increasing the amount of collection items:

One thing to note regarding the templates and staging sites—the page limit is essentially ignored and you will get access to the amount of pages included in the template you choose/purchase. This means that if it includes 50 static pages, you’ll have access to all 50 static pages, even on the free tier. That said, you won’t be able to add any additional pages so you’ll either need to make due with what’s included, add a Site plan, or enroll in an Account plan.

Hopefully that helps clarify things a bit, but you can always take a closer look at all of the different plan limits and pricing at the link below:

If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to reach out

Ray_of_Light · June 11, 2021, 4:59am

Thanks for getting back to me, Mike. I’ve been trying to read and understand the different plans as well as reading the forums, but I must be slow, because there are still some things that aren’t clear to me. As per my questions yesterday. Let me know if I’m correct.

If I want to make a website with more than two pages and publish it to webflow.io, what do I have to do? Are you saying I can get a webflow template (free or paid) and with that I can publish as many pages as the template contains even under the free account?
If I understand correctly, I can get a light (or pro) account and also have more than two pages on a webflow.io site. Is that right? In that case is the hosting also free? Or paid? And how many of these sites could I have?
With the lite plan it looks like I work on up to 10 sites at a time, but once the customer pays for a site plan that frees up space for another. Correct?
Finally, it seems that if I want to use a client’s own domain for a site on webflow’s servers, then I/they have to buy a site plan and that now allows me to manage the site, but if I want to give them an administrator dashboard I would have to go Pro account. Is that correct?

Just in case, It’s not my goal to get free hosting. I’m certainly expecting to be able to get enough customers to pay for a pro account, and I expect my customers will be happy with the hosting options. But I’m still in the learning phase and until I get a few clients under my belt I’d like to understand my options as I scale up.

Thanks so much for your time.

chris_loggins · June 11, 2021, 6:13am

Hey Ray,

So allow me to answer some of these questions for you:

If I want to make a website with more than two pages and publish it to webflow.io, what do I have to do?
You would simply have to upgrade your account plan.

Are you saying I can get a Webflow template (free or paid) and with that I can publish as many pages as the template contains even under the free account?

Yes but if you delete any pages from that project, you won’t be able to get it back. It’s definitely a workaround to getting the paid plan, but you’d still only be able to have 2 sites on the free plan.

If I understand correctly, I can get a light (or pro) account and also have more than two pages on a webflow.io site. Is that right? In that case, is the hosting also free? Or paid? And how many of these sites could I have?

Yes, you can have more than two pages on your projects if you upgrade your account plan. The hosting isn’t free if you upgrade your account plan because the site plans and the account plans are two separate things. Without a site plan, your site isn’t hosted and can’t have a custom domain (yoursite.com).

With the lite plan it looks like I work on up to 10 sites at a time, but once the customer pays for a site plan that frees up space for another. Correct?

That is correct, once your client pays for a site plan, then that does mean you have another free slot for a staging site.

Finally, it seems that if I want to use a client’s own domain for a site on Webflow’s servers, then I/they have to buy a site plan and that now allows me to manage the site, but if I want to give them an administrator dashboard I would have to go Pro account. Is that correct?

You don’t have to pay for a site plan to allow the client to go in and use the Editor and test it out before they plan, but as I said earlier they would need to pay for a site plan to get a custom domain. Also, the Pro account allows you to white label Webflow’s editor and the invoices you send to your customer.

Here is a video by @Ran_Segall that explains a little more in-depth What Webflow Plan is right for you? - YouTube

and some videos video by @PixelGeek aka Nelson about the limitations of Webflow A list of lesser known Webflow limitations (2021) - YouTube and a video on starting out your business on Webflow Using Webflow for free on client projects - Webflow Basics - YouTube

Let me know if you have anymore questions.

Ray_of_Light · June 11, 2021, 3:26pm

Wow! Thanks. I’m going to go through all your resource links before asking anything else (if necessary). I appreciate your taking the time to get back to me.