Why I'm quitting Webflow (premium, rather)

Look at Webydo like I mentioned before. Similar plans but the tool itself isn’t nearly as good Webflow and the CMS can’t be used as a real blog…just editing spots of content.

You are paying for the design tool, it’s that simple. [quote=“Dylan_Hunt, post:14, topic:25047”]
Wix is a direct competitor to Webflow – they are a “designer”, but they are also a a platform host, as is Webflow, and wouldn’t dare to charge monthly if I already paid for my domain name. Like I said, challenge still on. Find 1 - designer, hybrid, not designer, whatever it is.
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Comparing Webflow to Wix isn’t a close comparison in features or flexibility but I . Webflow allows you to build and structure your site based on HTML5 standards for starters. But if you did compare pricing http://www.wix.com/upgrade/website it’s per site. So you would pay for the design tool they offer per site.

Did you purchase a template with CMS? I’m confident Webflow is not doing anything underhanded or sneaky. Removing CMS from a site that already has it is time consuming and a bit confusing when you first try it but doable. You have to start with the pages and remove used CMS content then head to the database empty connected fields and then you can start removing collections.

If Webflow doesn’t work for you because of how it works or you don’t find value in the software because of the pricing structure then it just not the right tool for your business needs.

For me, it’s a Professional tool that achieves what other options in it’s class don’t – a visual builder that lets you work the div/HTML structure, allows for custom SEO, custom code and scripts, exporting the site or using the quality hosting (fast, reliable). I’ve set several clients up on it already and they are super happy with the results, performance and the pricing hasn’t been an obstacle at all. In fact, one client told me this was significantly cheaper than WP hosting through her previous designer/developer.

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I love the webflow, and my company always uses, but for me to sell my client CMS is being complicated because it costs a lot per month, hosting elsewhere cost much cheaper.

The tool is the best in the market and will not stop using it. But really, host site is still not a reality for me.

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Goodbye…

This is your argument? Seriously. You found Webflow on Google by searching for a web host? I don’t believe it. Media Temple doesn’t even show up until like page 5 on a google search… I imagine Webflow is on like page 50 if you are looking for just a web host…

Remember, you are using what many believe to be the worlds most advanced visual front end development tool - far cry from the your over simplification of “website editor”. You, me, and everyone reading this entire post knows that is what you are paying for in your monthly subscription. Period.

Export and do whatever you want with your code… Or… Hosting is $5 dollars, great hosting. Want to use the ONLY VISUAL CMS in the world right now that actually allows you to setup dynamic content? $10 to host… All of which are costs passed onto your client (I’m assuming, since you keep talking about mass quantities of web projects. You buy your domain for 99 cents to $10 per year like the rest of us.

Are you an advanced developer that has some server side skills? Then choose to code your work by hand, get your cheap shared hosting, integrate it into whatever free CMS you want, and host it on said cheap hosting. No?, okay then… Wix, Weebly, Muse, blah blah, on & on can all make a website but if you can’t discern the massive difference between what these type of “web editors” are compared to the value & flexibility provided by Webflow then I simply do not know what else to say to you.

Webflow isn’t perfect, yet. They are doing a damn fine job of trying to revolutionize front-end development. Two years ago people were saying things like “awesome tool but it would be cool if we could make more than a one pager with this, are multiple pages coming soon?”. Look how far they have come in such a short amount of time. Site storage is coming soon. API is coming soon. eCommerce is coming soon… and more stuff you, me, and the rest of us don’t even know about.

That is what your $16-$20 bucks a month is going towards. Later dude.

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We already did this whole thing with the CMS hosting… Webflow listened and took care of their user base.

Sorry if you have an issue convincing your client that the price of a couple of starbucks coffee’s per month is just not worth it for a professional business to host what is most likely their most effective marketing tool. You might try that approach.

Also, discussing the difference between the real costs of hosting a WP site versus what Webflow offers (beautiful interface that doesn’t look like the cockpit of an airliner to non-technical users, i.e. your clients - on page editing, virtually no training costs because it’s literally that simple to use, on & on).

That extra $5 a month might start to sound pretty sweet to them…

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I just wanted to pipe in and say that I think it’s good of you to give careful feedback, so that the Webflow people can decide whether they want to address specific concerns or not.

Hopefully, an encouraging voice from the peanut gallery…:grinning:

@tkister I’m surprised you are still participating in the forums since you noted you were leaving Webflow in this other post. Must be something worth sticking around for after all.

http://forum.webflow.com/t/review-for-prospective-customers/23841

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It’s just another upset tinkerer wanting to mess around on the internet for free. I sickens me to think that after 30 years the internet is still considered this ‘toy’ along with everything in it.

Webflow is a development tool for the profesionals. It is not designed for the tinkerer or tire kickers. You keep mentioning Wix which kind of answers the question of where your head’s at in terms of skill and how you’re using this tool.

The price is not an issue at all if you are using it how it was meant to be used. As a tool to design your own personal business site or to design for clients. Each of those use cases makes Webflow a very valuable tool.

Webflow pays for itself after one project, if it’s not for you then you’re doing it wrong and this might not be the scene for you my friend. You said there is tons of competition. Enjoy.

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@Darian ABSOLUTELY agree!

@Darian hate to make enemy’s or upset anyone that doesn’t agree, but you’ve nailed it with your post.

An apt and clear understanding of what webflow is!

That word “unlimited”, followed by “cheap”. Its like “Bugatti” followed by “affordable”. Google domains host cheaper than your solution. Have you actually used cheap unlimited shared/business hosting? Have you priced out a dedicated server with all the bell and whistles? To each his own. If you love legacy code blocks and shared substandard unlimited shared hosting and them some theres plenty to choose from. Feel the review is more of a personal gripe rather than a fair evaluation. Yeah Im a premium user too.

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No need for me to state all the great reasons why Webflow is great and worth every penny we pay. In another post I’ve made my argument about some issues I do have with the pricing model as a developer once you get into the realm of having developed 20,30,40, 50 or 100 or more websites for clients using webflow with a need to either keep them all in the system for future updates or export/import them as necessary. But thats another thread.

But I did want to point out the inaccuracy as well as contradiction no one has really defined in @Dylan_Hunt post, mainly the part about how Webflow is a great designer and he is paying $420 a year for minimal platform features (referencing it seems hosting features such as FTP, server side incudes, php etc). IN reality, yes, Webflow is a great designer. That is what you are paying $420 a year for (not actually sure where he gets that price from because according to the pricing plan it is either more or less depending on annual vs monthly and plan chosen and I don’t see one that comes to $420.

In reality, per his argument, you are paying $60 a year for hosting not $420 and that is pretty cheap hosting. $420 is for the designer. And if you are simply designing a one-off website design for your fledgling little business that would probably be a little expensive and in such case you’d be better served if you were going to use Webflow to simply pay a one month personal plan then downgrade it to free once you export your site and then upgrade back to personal if you need to make changes on the site at some later date.

Surely we can find other design programs for less money. But as a developer nothing compares to Webflow for lots of reasons and so as a business it becomes a necessary expense. But then he said it when he stated “Webflow is a GREAT” designer." He just misses the point when comparing the cost of having and using the designer on an ongoing basis versus cost of hosting said website with Webflow. So, no it is not greed there is no evidence of greed anywhere in their model. I think it is very fair to a certain or even great extent when you consider all of its technology and development and what it offers and the need for them to be able to capitalize growth and improvement to our benefit.

Using this as a developer and having dozens or hundreds of websites under your belt I do have issue with how the pricing model works as you have more and more sites in the system and I think they’ll work that out hopefully more favorably for us developers at some point before we reach a point of diminishing returns in needing to keep sites in the system that might not get touched often but have to remain in the system all the same. But overall no greed I can see. They are running a business and seem to be doing it very well.

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Every now and then, we come across some individual who are seemingly, sorry for the direct approach; people who want every single thing tailored to them. I don’t agree with most of your points at all, when a lot of the things you mentioned like “tinkering” with stuff could be easily done with some workarounds. You just need to squeeze your brain a little, learn a little more and get creative.

Recreating a template without CMS was difficult? Then perhaps your HTML, CSS and JS understanding weren’t strong to begin with.

Webflow is great, and I respect your decision. But seriously, most of your points seems like lazy-complaints than being close to a factual statement.

Learn, get creative and improve. Webflow promotes that. It gives you the tools. You just need to get creative.

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16/mo plus 4 sites without cms 5/mo, that’s… Actually 36/mo, more than I had said. You don’t use any hosting outside of webflow.io at all? Strange…

The designer IS great, but it’s so great that I finished all 4 sites in less than 1 month and update only text and images after that, which any 3rd grader could edit in any IDE or even notepad/notepad++.

Who said difficult? Shall I quote myself? [quote=“jdesign, post:16, topic:25047”]
it’s just frustrating.
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^ Quote from myself: Frustrating because it IS … I shouldn’t have had to do that. It was confirmed bugged by support and, months later, it’s still not fixed.

You are a fan of workarounds. I am a fan of solutions. Workaround are what’s lazy – I’d rather be creative with things that could actually benefit from creativity, rather than spending time consumed with technical workarounds leading to the same result.

Sure, I could use AJAX calls instead of PHP, but even then, it’s a pain in the ass to do any form of GET/POST or really anything truly dynamic within Webflow in the form of DATA (they do dynamic VISUALS very well). Sure, there’s always a way, or I could pay $420+ less a month and have the solution in front of me.

The fact is, I brought many good points, and so have others from another perspective.

Well freaking said, Sir. :clap:

I’m surprised this thread is even going on this long when a vast majority of us love Webflow as a tool for building sites. Just like Photoshop is to editing photos, doing prototypes, etc. Webflow is on the same level in it’s ability to visually create fully custom web designs without code, yet with really clean code. Comparing it to Wix is like comparing a real v12 Lamborghini to a cheap Lambo kit car with a 1992 honda civic engine. It seems like Webflow is just not for you. We will see you again in a couple of years when it surpasses everything else out there and redefines the landscape of not only responsive web design, but web design and development in general.

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Not sure where you intimated that from but I don’t host any websites with webflow at all. I am a hosting company amongst other things and we have our own dedicated servers. But what does seem rather apparent is that you paying $16 a month for webflow is not cost effective to you. I think webflow is only going to be cost effective for active web designers that get new design projects every month.

I’m always surprised by any body complaining about the price tag of $16 - $20 a month for what many people consider to be the best responsive front end design/development tool around. It’s $20 bucks. Two fast food meals, half a cell phone bill, 4 starbucks coffee’s, the price of a shirt…

I’m a designer first - so most of the stuff I work on is identity/print based, working towards landing web projects monthly. Not there yet but the price is totally worth it even if you are using it purely for educational purposes. I guess that’s why my earlier post got a little snarky…

I went from using Brackets & Tutsplus, Treehouse, and Codecademy tutorials into the wee hours of the night trying to get proficient enough in html/css to code my own front end design projects for obvious reasons (make more money, control over how well the final working product is, no cheap/hacky dev teams chopping up my work, etc…) to stumbling into Webflow. I wasn’t exactly struggling or anything, but when you find a tool like this for someone who is rather new (just months into learning on their own the in’s/out’s of responsive front end dev) the word epiphany comes to mind.

Talk about creating a mental bridge for a person new this to really grasp how html/css/js all work together, efficiently. I liken it to a motocross guy wanting to do a back flip, and then all of sudden Webflow is like “go for it little homey, we just put a bunch of those giant cushy foam things under there, you got this man!!!” I was immediately given supreme confidence in pulling off whatever my mind comes up with.

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i agree almost all with you Mogeek.
But small companies i work with pay here 7,- euro’s for hosting a complete wordpress site with domain. and i get 20% of that. they don’t know about the perfect design tool… from Webflow and they don’t care.

But they all are sick off abonnements…
i pay:
3 euro per site for the designer
10 euro per site for the hosting
1 euro for myself to make a bill
1 euro for the domain
thats 15 euro total…

1,- euro for myself… thats to less…

i am 100% honnest… its worth it… no doubt.

But still 3 out of 10 excisting clients want to stay at the 7,- euro and don’t want me do build a webflow site.
But they want me to buy a new template at Wordpress.

and yes with a lot more options like 10 logins and so and so on…

And in the compatition with other webdesigners here arround me, i loose a lot of new clients to them, because i don’t offer new Wordpress sites to new customers anymore. with only one argument:
i am double expensive in a month and they don’t understand.

i stay at webflow, 100%!!
but i want all of my customers also go to webflow!!

and I think:
if you have more than 100 sites at webflow
there must be some kind of bonus for the designers fee
in case off doubling making it 700,- dollar with 101 sites…

i feel i will be punished… because of my great sales.
yes, i am alone… no i dont need 4 logins…

yes i like webflow
yes i like everything
yes i never leave webflow
yes i like the support

But i understand small clients…
(and there tons more small than big clients)
for every bigger company, we have 100small companies
they don’t now. and are getting sick of all montly payments…

and i want all the little ones!!!

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Hello all,

Yes I have to agree on some points such as billing mechanism and overly complicated pricing model but I think what people need to advocate to the clients they build sites for is the value they get from you. Regardless of the platform you use. What value add extras can you give that the cost of monthly hosting doesn’t matter?
I don’t charge my clients the cost to use webflow (personal plan etc) as that is a business expense like paying crap loads for photoshop or my internet provider costs. I do charge them for the website creation, template (should they choose one) and hosting. But I also set everything up for them and give them biannual analytics reports to show them how their site is improving and how they can make changes to better themselves in search which they usually pay to have done because they don’t have time + more. It’s a long term game and very little (if anything) is made up-front but the average loss per site up front is made up easily the next year in either revisions or pure hosting profit (my mark up on the hosting fees).

Last time I checked (5 mins ago) wix does charge for hosting. ($4.08/month) but does not charge for their design tool… And there is a reason… It’s good but not a professional solution. Which is fine for the tinkerers. But they soon come asking for us to make a better version when their site performs poorly.

While I do think it’s an expensive option for single use, it’s really a professional solution (like photoshop or premier pro) which as a tool I pay for to stay current in a changing environment.

Enjoy in good health!

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On a side note, I wonder if it’s possible to get the Micro plan back. The gap between the Free and Personal plan seems too large. Micro plan would fill this nicely.

Something like $8 - 9 per month, with 2 sites and unlimited pages, and code export.

I’ve been following this thread with interest, I’ve been in web development and SEO since 2004 and won’t bore you with my journey but would like to pick up on a couple of points. I agree with some of Dylan_Hunts original gripes.

Web flow is charging a ridiculous amount for web hosting, you guys who say “they aren’t you pay for the designer” actually you are not otherwise the plan would say so, you are paying for web hosting. Web flow should have more transparency in its pricing plans and be more up front instead of trying to bury its costs. Just charge for the designer period.

I say this because the web hosting price is simply ludicrous. There are lots of hosts providing top quality service now for unlimited domain hosting and its a few bucks. Its not like the old days when most cheap hosts got DOS hacked or there was loads of downtime etc. Smallish company’s like a Small Orange https://asmallorange.com offer incredible value with fanatical support and great packages for designers wanting to host a lot of websites. Frankly $78 per month billed in advance is serious money to host 100 web sites, thats $936 a year!! A small Orange is less than half that and offers complete white label with control panel and client ticket support and all the bells and whistles. Really Webflow isn’t viable in this market - and there are others cheaper but I like quality.

Don’t get me wrong I’m a fan of the Webflow app, I think they’re doing a great job and I’ve discussed this with the team already, but there’s another issue. There are other design apps like Flexi Layouts from Extend Studio who also do a Wordpress Theme Designer, once you pay the very reasonable fee for the software its yours, no more payments and they work fairly well in my opinion, but you do need Dreamweaver. Of course that’s another thing, Adobe will be watching what web flow and mobirise are doing and will be building the features in which webflow has developed very soon. And Adobe’s full creative suite (which has vast capabilities across the creative environment from graphic design, web design and app implementation to video and sound editing etc) only costs $49.99 per month, so actually you can have the full suite of the best software collection available AND great hosting with A Small Orange and still have change in your pocket from using Webflow.

Then of course there’s Mobirise which I mentioned earlier and is proper Open Source - does a lot of what Webflow does but doesn’t tie you in at all, all the forms and coding etc are fully yours for you to host anywhere. True Mobirise doesn’t have all the Webflow features yet, the animation interactions are great on Webflow but the drag and drop design is there with more features coming AND its flat file!!

So, my point finally is that webflow need to sort out what their place in the market is. I am no longer using this app because I don’t want to host with web flow but that means theres key features I can’t use. I can do the rest of the things I need to without webflow. Of course, I code and appreciate a lot of users will be designers who don’t and just want everything easy and thats what webflow offers.

My comments here are for the webflow team. I think guys you need to identify your place in the market, price specifically for the product or service you are offering to the market you are aiming at and keep one eye on Adobe, Mobirise and the others that will be soon offering what you currently have but with much more and a keener price. Sorry but thats business!

If someone like Adobe built all your features into Dreamweaver (which is easy for them and will happen) and being less than $20 a month on its own with the ability to host anywhere where does that leave Webflow? Are you guys planning for the future, what you’re doing is courageous but is it viable and does it have business longevity?

I understand all the webflow chums won’t like this but this is meant to be helpful to this project. I will occasional still use this software, I hope in the future it develops to a point where its viable for me to use it a lot more.