The topic, anyone has an answer on that?
Hi Heather,
I hear you. It can seem tough when you first start out too (if you are just getting going that is). I remember starting out many years ago, now I look back and see I was way to cheap and also did not take the right approach or have all the skills. If you can demonstrate customer value, they will pay. If not, and they just see you are another person to do a website then its a race to the bottom of âwho is cheapestâ and I walk away from those now. I am worth more than that, and I think that is true for most designers who care about what they deliver.
I would also say, whilst you can make a reasonable income from hosting, I found that having a monthly retainer is much better for me (where I include ongoing reviews, site updates, SEO etc based on user engagement, experience and goals completed) There lots of ways to add value that should be really important to your customers. Youâll be surprised how much a small company will pay if you can deliver a Return on the Investment.
I not sure about other plans, but on team plan, its easy to add a mark-up. However, on my monthly retainers, because that is ÂŁ100âs a month or more, I will invoice that from Xero accounts and use GoCardless to set-up a monthly direct debit which takes minutes. With that all on auto pilot, I get to focus on the important stuff - user experience improvements and lead generation for my clients.
Webflow do certainly monitor forums so we all have a voice which is great.
best
Dave
1 Like
I am unclear on the email issue. Can I not set up emails based on the domain name with Webflow Hosting like I do with Hostgator? Like contact@mydomain.com?
Hi Koen,
I am not convinced Webflow would be the ideal solution for big and complex sites.
I love the fact that I can a)publish to webflow to hosting when that is the right solution or b)output code which I can then pass to my custom web developer if that the best route. He can import the code in a couple of hours into a custom CMS and then write any specific features the client needs, that are not possible in Webflow. Can can work really well as the site still looks like it did in webflow and as the designer wants it.
So, for me, I think Webflow needs to focus on Designers / developers and be an amazing product in that space, new features will mean bigger customers, but overall should not try to go so far it gets too complex and lose its key benefits of being a rapid visual builder. If Webflow wanted enterprise customers, might be better to create that as a premium platform, with a full Webflow âexport to premiumâ where collections can come across too.
me too, this is really imteresting, I hope something gets out of this, maybe ceo will bet his head out of hisâŠ
OkâŠIâve been following this and have been designing and developing sites and branding companies for like 15 years.
-
Good shared hosting is around 15/monthâŠbut its unmanaged. WIth 40+ sites it takes about 10 hours/week for management and you can very well be hacked. $20/month for managed hosting is incredibly helpful because it doesnât have to be managed as closely and takes no time. So the $5/month extra very well takes care of the 10/hours/week. My business nets me around $50/hour so itâs very much time I could be building.
-
The Webflow system isnât for developers or complex sites, although it can be if you donât have a devleoper and are being paid to build a complex site. Webflow just bridges the gap between a web designer and web developer. Being both I can tell you they are two VERY different things and many times you design things you canât actually develop. Webflow gives you that possibility with MUCH less Googling & Stack Overflowâing
-
There are no good CMSâs with APIâs on Zapier that can get you up and running with a GREAT site completely connected to so many services SO FAST. No installations, no plugin libraries, no poorly built themes, no finding out this company grew too fast and isnât supporting their themeâŠIts just finally really easy to get traction really fast.
-
NO SERVER MANAGEMENT!!! omg this alone took like 10/hrs a week from my weeks. When youâve got 40+ sites on a server you manage, its a nightmare. They completely remove support. Now they just need an Editor app
-
Hosting is worth the $20/month simply because of the time save, but when I get to my tenth site in here, youâre paying $200/month which is the cost of a dedicated server. When you get to 100 sites, you can hire a developer to build the CMS/API/Form parts and get on Zapierâs developer program. Its just not feasible for that many sites without a significant discount to make it less than just hiring a developer.
6 Likes
thatâs partially why I run my own server.
1 Like
no unless you create a dns record that points to an external server.
My main sites are setup for that www points to a Linux server
but mail is handled by an Exchange Server.
1 Like
Sorry â I was the first one who posted, off topic. Sorry for hijacking your thread. I also think that Webflow staff should give an answer to you here. Hello, 5-star-service Webflow team! @PixelGeek
No, you canât. Webflow also donât offer domain hosting (but you can run your site under your own domain that is hosted elsewhere). For email, youâre best off using a dedicated email service anyway.
Webflow offers domain hosting as long as you create a cname that points to Webflow.
As for the email⊠the only email you get is what from your website form.
Example: you have a form on a website. The forms posts. Webflow will forward the contents of the form to a pre-determined email address that you setup in Webflow.
You cannot use it as âan email addressâ.
Can you describe a use case that required more than 2 user logins? Iâm curious how you use it.
WHHHAAAAAAAT Zapier is the best thing ever. How can you not want to use Zapier? Totally transformative for my web business.
3 Likes
2 user logins ⊠are you talking about editing ?
Iâm the only user on my account.
I donât provide a login to my client.
When the product is done⊠I deliver it to the client.
Ok, here goes an example:
A micro firm with a hand full of staff. Because they are busy with running their business, one login goes to their external PR guy who helps them with writing and adding articles to their site pre-launch, so that it doesnât look bare when they announce that their new site has gone live.
Meanwhile, we have three of them on a Skype call to show them how to edit the site. They say, âCan you set up an editor account for each of us?â (Perhaps they havenât decided yet whoâs going to be in charge of site edits in the long-run). â âNo, I canât. Youâll have to share or pay $20 extra a month (double) for hostingâ.
And my boss who sits in another country asks, âI want to take a look how it is like to edit a site with that new platform youâre using. Send me an editor invite. And I want your colleague to be able to make edits too as a backup when youâre unavailable.â â âNo, I canât youâll all have to use my designer login.â
Iâm not saying that most instances canât be forced into the 3 account limit. But I told people âFor more than 3 itâs double the hosting cost.â All the other increased limits were irrelevant for them, so it didnât sound great with regards to ânew platformâ and âvalue for moneyâ.
Hey spirelli
That interesting. Personally I think its a bit risky giving everyone who wants a login to edit the site, a editor login. I have found its better to have a process in place and tell custimers why they need this. So, for example the PR person writes the article which is sent to management to approve and onto the web editor to add to site. Otherwise who knows who is doing what, saying what and how can you be sure individuals with editor access are even following âContentâ and âStyleâ guidelines.
I would guess most Webflow sites are not enterprise level with 100âs or 1000âs of pages so the number of people who need to edit is more limited. If someone owns the pages, that person can have a process for being notified when a page needs to be updated, deleted etc - experience has taught me this rarely happens if there are multiple editors with a free reign.
Spirelli, so you think, if you have a documented process and recommendations, you could get them to buy into that process? - If so, that could eliminate or diffuse those situations where everyone expects a login.
Zapier is how I kept an entire web company running almost entirely by myself while allowing myself to sleep. 990 automatically running tasks passing tickets from clients and me directly to my outsourced developers working in Slack, Basecamp and Zendesk. Even through the timezone difference.
It connected TrackDuck to Google Sheets to Basecamp to Zendesk and Slack acting as an automated project manager while I concentrated on Designing new sites and communicating with the clients.
Zapier allowed me to sleep at night.
3 Likes
What I described was an example of how things were going at the time before a site launch â just to answer the question how I could possibly be talking about more than 2 collaborators. I agree that for the day-to-day running of the site 3 editor accounts should be sufficient. I just argue that there are instances where more would be good. (If you had a proper in-CMS approval workflow, youâd need more, but thatâs not really being discussed now)
Yep, I donât disagree with you, workflows could be helpful and would increase editors. I guess even if it was $5 for each additional user, that migt help us all more then a jump to $20.00 - Maybe webflow will look at the feedback they are getting on this.
But, when it does makes sense, giving users a workflow and having a route to one or two site editors can eliminate the need to need more editors than 3 in many cases, which can help.
All the best
David
1 Like