Why is it that I’m going to have to spend money out of my own pocket on hosting just to develop a site - before it even goes live? 50 Collection items max? It’s only giving me 25.
This doesn’t make sense when I’m already paying you every month just to use your software…
Hi,
(I’m not staff)
I think that the Enhanced Staging is to help you develop using the CMS versus on the usual free staging and it’s included free in all Lite, Pro & Team plans. It’s practically like a bulked-up free plan, you pay nothing for it (which is a godsend).
Think about it like this (though it’s bad to compare apples and oranges), Webflow versus Squarespace. On Squarespace I’d get 14 days to build and launch my client’s site. While on Webflow I get to pay my usual monthly plan and have a site “staged” for as long as I want. This helps especially when I have large corporate clients where things need to go through approval processes.
An alternative if you will, would be paying for your own server and hosting there, but you still pay a monthly (or yearly) fee BUT you are limited to how many you can host. (I think there is a limit to the Lite plan, but for Pro & Team you get unlimited sites).
The small limitations for “Enhanced” staging make it annoying to test larger websites. Zapier integration especially gives rhyme and reason for this. During my testing, I find that on average I use 140 collection items.
Anyone going to respond to this - Would be nice if staff didn’t just ignore the ‘difficult’ topics. This was #1 google listing when I searched for ‘Webflow Enhanced Staging’.
That’s what they say on paper. In reality, they allow you to extend/renew the trial endless times. We’ve had an artist site owner with whom it took half a year to set up the site, and there were no issues at all renewing the trial again and again.
There is still a lot of room for growth in every way. Webflow looks polished and you would think something like this doesn’t have to be an issue, but just give them credit for existing. I’ve come to accept that it isn’t everything I want. But it’s definitely a useful tool to my company just enough. Although I have to say Webflow would be making a lot more money from me if they could better address things like this.
There are a lot of options out there that are free to host mock-ups. For instance Business Catalyst. That does require a subscription to Adobe Muse. It is ten bucks a month I think but you get the whole CMS, no limitations, the site is “Live” just not able to be seen but by the team or who you invite. That works best if you know how to code because Muse sites are pretty slow from the code the generate.
What about Wordpress? That is free. I think there should be a free option like BC. One that you and the team can only see. It works just like a live site. What about Github Pages? Totally free as long as you use Jeykll. Using Markdown to write the site. No CMS really there though.
That brings up the question is it really a CMS at all? Content Management System yes, sort of, but on a very basic no bells or whistles level. No way to modify. I thought it was 35 bucks a month to host ten sites (to good to be true) but then I come to find out you have to pay 16 bucks a month to host for each site.
It sounds like I am jumping on Webflow and I am kinda am but I do like the editor. It is so very easy to mark up a Foundation for Sites type of site and super fast. I wonder what the code looks like but that isn’t what this tool is for, is it? More of a mock up tool right now. Maybe in a bit it will be worth that kind of money. For now, for me, I love the editor.
Either set up client billing for CMS hosting, build the assumed cost into a deposit or down payment, or eat the cost until you collect hosting fees are the only options that we’re left with really.
I think this is pretty much the norm now. Frontend dev is a tough business right now.
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