Does anyone else find this ridiculous that Webflow is trying to charge more for more pages ?
1 Like
Hi @JibbyFlow thanks for your honest feedback 
While it is true that we have a cap of 80 static pages for Personal and Pro plans, and a cap of 100 static pages for Team plans , I want to emphasize that that is ONLY for static pages.
For most marketing sites, less than 30 static pages are really needed.
If someone is running a site with dynamic content (e.g. blog, news, real estate, e-commerce), they would still only need less than 80 static pages. But, when pulling in dynamic content to a dynamic template page, only 1 dynamic page template is really needed to create hundreds of dynamic pages.
For example, our blog (https://webflow.com/blog):
- Home page (static)
- Category page (dynamic template page)
- Blog post page (dynamic template page)
So in total, we are using 1 static page and 2 dynamic template pages. The dynamic pages are used to create dozens of new pages for our dynamic content but are still counted as 1 dynamic page.
So, there may be some confusion over our cap of pages, but I hope my message clears it up. If not, Iām happy to go into further detail. 
3 Likes
I am not sure I fully understand. I am pretty sure I am using mostly Static pages and have no use currently for Dynamic pages. I thought the dynamic pages are more a part of the CMS. The website I am building is zoning in on many different softwares. This means I need a static page for each of these softwares to show full visibility and also to rank in Google better. What would I be able to do to create these pages as Dynamic in order to save page count ? And or is there an unlimited plan that is a few bucks more. The idea of continuing to pay more money as my website expands is ridiculous to me and has never been a practice I am used to . I have been building websites over 10 years and this is my first through Webflow. The experience has been great up until now.
Think about it this wayā¦
you have a front / landing page
an about us page
and a contact usā¦ thatās 3 pages.
Most websites that have more than 1 productā¦
have a generic product list page that displays a list of products
within a search criteria. (thatās 4 pages now)
Here is Staples page for ācoffeeā. Everything on this page is about their coffee product. (this would be like Page 4 mentioned above)
Staples also has a generic product detail page.
You get to this page by clicking on a product (from probably the product list page)
Hereās their product detail page for a specific ādeskā
this is āpage 5ā
http://www.staples.com/Ameriwood-Tiverton-Executive-Desk-Expert-Plum/product_718416
and hereās another product detail page for a āfaucetā
http://www.staples.com/Elements-of-Design-Classic-5-8-Comp-Angle-Stop-with-Lever-Handles-Polished-Brass/product_WYF078276293087
notice that page look exactly like the ādeskā detail page - except the content / data on the page is different. This is also āpage 5āā¦ but with different data.
Because the ā2 page 5āsā are differentā¦ search engines will index them as 2 different pages.
The content here is the important part. āNot the pageā. (this is not to be confused with the URL)
Hereās another way to think about itā¦ your About Us Page. A search engine doesnāt know its an āAbout Usā page. The content of that pageā¦ tells the search enginesā¦ its āAbout Usā.
And the āfaucet pageā mentioned above ?
tells the search enginesā¦ that specific page is about a faucetā¦ specifically - this one
āElements of Design Classic 5/8 Comp Angle Stop with Lever Handles; Polished Brassā
and even though the page styling may alikeā¦ it is not the same product as this faucet
which using the above examplesā¦ would also be āpage 5ā
1 Like
Iām guessing, what you are calling ā50 pagesāā¦
- are the pages connected to ā1shoppingcart.comā, ā3dcartā, ā800 cartāā¦ etc ???
Each of these pages has the exact same layout. The only difference is the content.
For example: your H1 says āIntegrate payments on your website with < INSERT NAME HERE >ā
The logo, product description and directions are also different. And the URL is different of course.
Other than thatā¦ thereās nothing different. They are the same exact page.
In factā¦ to create the pages
- you probably created a template page
- and cloned the template to āthe other 50 pagesā.
The problem you (will) encounter with this method isā¦
- say you wanted to add a LinkedIn badge on the page.
- You would have to create this badge on every page.
If you ran this system through a databaseā¦
- You can use a scripting language such as php / cf / asp to load a generic template page.
And. If you ever needed to change something
- you would have to only change it once
- regardless if you had 1 product or a million products.
Down-the-road maintenance can be a bitchā¦
- Thatās why you place as much effort as you can āup frontā.
There are different ways to implement this. (And I normally get paid a lot of $ to do this)ā¦
- you can use the variable route or a static route.
A variable route is easier to accomplish. The static is much more difficult.
The variable route passes a variable (hence the term variable) to a page.
That page can be a php / cf / asp script that figures out what you want to see.
Hereās an example: (from a link)
http://www.mydomain.com/product/hardware/index.php?solution=800%20cart
The %20 indicates a space.
The viewer wants to see the Integrated Payment solution from ā800 cartā
- index.php will āreadā the variable āsolutionā.
- then do a lookup in a database (mysql / sql svr / etc)
- and pull the appropriate data out
- then php will start to display the screen
- filling in āvariable dataā with the data found in the lookup.
It doesnāt matter which product it isā¦ or how many products you have.
- index.php is just 1 pageā¦ for 1 productā¦ or a million.
If you make a change to index.phpā¦ it spreads throughout every product.
Still with me ?
Now the static route / method - is what I refer.
In my experienceā¦
- since Iām mostly a developer / database admin / and seo personā¦ less so designer
- is that search engines love html pages. Much more so than php pages.
For myselfā¦ I actually create a php āengineā - that in turn creates the html filesā¦
So when you visit
http://www.mydomain.com/product/hardware/
you are not loading index.phpā¦ you actually loading index.htm
- and again - from my experienceā¦ search engines prefer that.
If you really wanted to get slickā¦
- latelyā¦ Iāve been learning AngularJS and trying to incorporate it into a webflow design.
From what Iāve seen farā¦
- Iāve been able to successfully load data directly into an html page.
This eliminates
- the need to create the php engine
- the generation of the html files
- and of courseā¦ this eliminates php itself - which is a resource hog.
I still get the html file that the SEās prefer
- but the method of designing page is completely different.
I hope this hasnāt been to confusing
- I know a lot of people would say āblow itā¦ I canāt do what you are sayingāā¦
- but everything I said above (and much more) is possibleā¦
- because I actually do it everyday.
The system you are designing is really not that complicated
- maybeā¦ 6 to 10 pages ? from my limited view of your site.
Personally I would sayā¦
- you need to charge this client between 5k to 10kā¦ depending on your comfort level
- to build out the product (depending on how detailed the client wants).
The actual page design can be done for about $1.5k.
There are some on webflow who will charge the client $600 for the layoutā¦ just to get the work.
Sorry I really canāt provide much more detail. I took a day off for christmasā¦ now have a ton of work to get back to.
I hope you charged this client enough to pay the bills and make a profit.
Good luck
3 Likes
@Revolution Just read this reply, thought it was amazing that you explained this so well. Nicely done!
That was a great response and very detailed. Let me begin by letting you know I am the client / web designer. I have experience building front end websites only through wysiwyg editors (i.e. Homestead) I understand what PHP and MYSQL do because I am interested in it and I have friends that our developers. I am unable at this time to utilize any of those procedures in building out this website. I have had enormous success in building mainly front end websites using HTML editors and creating many static pages and manipulating them to be SEO friendly. The products or software in this case are not being resold. They are simply being integrated to a payment processor. These software pages will all eventually lead to an online application page for payment processing. With the ability to have more pages I can simply continue building out my front end because that is all I really need. I do not have any plans to sell any products. I am simply aiming at getting merchants / developers to sign up for integration.
A guy like you could probably build this out 100 different ways and make it much cooler and in depth than I can. I am only capable of what I currently know. Webflow has been great to learn and I really got into using them because of the Responsive Design Nature. It was something all my old websites lacked and I saw a ton of lost traffic and conversions due to my neglect of not transitioning. I since have fell in love with the Webflow interface and community and would never go back to my old editors. The only issue I have come across is that my vision is too big and my lack of knowledge constrains me from being able to think outside the box. I continue to be a one trick pony and I wish I could become a developer with coding skills. The reality is I have tremendous connections in the merchant services industry and I piggy back off these platforms to build my mammoth websites that attract clients.
The best fix for me is to allow for Unlimited Pages in Webflow. I can create and innovate well by utlizing html pages and connecting the dots on the back end with my providers. I just need infinite blank pages and I will create something that looks and feel like it was build by a developer even know I am aware and ashamed that I am only a web designer.
Thank You for your in depth analysis and I wish there was an easier way for me.
Jibbyflow
1 Like
Good luck maintaining that kind of behemoth 
Site with that size will probably be very, very hard to maintain and in 3-12 months it becomes content-obsolete.
Good luck anyway.
I agree and disagree. Iāve maintained large sites before with detorarating content. You either delete page or make minor adjustments and or just leave and people tend to still search and find you through old content and gravitate towards whatās available new. So old content becomes a lead resource. Iāve been in this industry ten years and the sites I started in 2006 still generate business. Itās a matter of how much up to date you want each thing. In my case Iām building a technology edge into the future because of the companies I promote or regulations change I am essentially just marketing the outer layer enabling me not have to manage much on the back end.
I have not read all of the posts but just from the original few posts, my opinion is that as the CMS features getting more versatile we should be able to use dynamic pages more and I really do like dynamic pages in my case since it is so convenient and I donāt need all static pages. However the current constraints in Webflow CMS features has forced me to use static pages. I like Webflow since I am not a website developer but just a small business owner that try to limit cost by doing my own website. Platforms like Webflow is great for me but I have to say the limitation is quite frustrating sometimes.
I had been surprised how positive the Webflow community has been to JibbyFlow after the kind of stubborn, plain refusal to learn new things and egoistical statement he has made. Makes me feel very happy to see that they are trying to assist and help you Jibby.
But on a side note, this is just my opinion and nothing more; I do recommend that you invest some time into learning the concepts of dynamic pages in Webflow. I fully understand you have extensive āyearsā of experience in whatever industry you came from and that the āoldā methods work for you. But letās be honest, the world is changing, and even for a lot of other professionals like the rest of us, whom may had 30 years of experience at any point, we still find ourselves needing to learn new things every day. Itās surely a taxing task, annoying at best. But itās definitely worth the effort and time to learn and not be contented with just āwhat already worksā. I donāt think it is at all necessary to have that many static pages, because after reading what you said, your layout is about the same but the content differs.
Getting to know the dynamic feature sets isnāt difficult. The links to the tutorials are available on your dashboard, and others have even posted it for your convenience. Essentially all the ābackendā stuff that youāre so afraid of like the rest of us who donāt come from strong programming backgrounds, itās easy to us. Just takes a short while to wrap your head around it.
Another word of advise, donāt just drop a āsuggestedā accusation that Webflow is scamming you or us. Thereās a solution, just take your time and learn. Learning keeps us alive, you should try too.
2 Likes
Great reply! I especially love your last line.
This is what I try to tell everyone! If you want to continue to excel in your industry, you have to always learn new things. For us Web Designers, we always have to learn how to deal with new things like responsive design, 3D, UX (and maybe VR next?).
For doctors, you have to always learn new techniques and medicine. For engineers, you have to learn better techniques and maths everyday. Etc etc etc.
If you stay stagnant, then youāre welcome to stay put. But donāt expect the world to stop just for you.
LEARN EVERYDAY!
3 Likes
I sincerely apologize and furthermore I will retract my statement so it is know longer viewable to the public. It was an ignorant comment made out of frustration and anger. Although I am not capable of creating extensive dynamic web pages it creates huge frustration for myself and after investing as much time as I did building this website I started to feel cornered and reacted out of anger and ignorance. Honestly. I want to thank the Webflow community as they have been more than helpful throughout this whole learning process and I thank them for not attacking me back but helping me. Itās a support that allowed me not to freak out further and keeps me in the game wanting to learn. Itās hard to teach an old dog new tricks and I am stuck in my ways I agree. It was too harsh to say Webflow was trying to scam me. Just didnāt add up at the time and I saw my pages closing in on me. Sincerely sorry everyone and thank you guys so much for being an amazing community and technical team.
5 Likes
1 Like
@JibbyFlow apology accepted 
When something new comes along, itās always hard to accept the fact that you have to learn it. I totally understand. Itās human nature that we are afraid of things we donāt know or understand.
But once we learn, we accept it, smile at it, and move on. Itās how we as a species evolve.
Webflow was built to help designers of all types create Websites. Yes, this presents a new thing for all designers to learn, but in the long run, it is worth it because youāll be building websites so fast that people will want to go to YOU with their next project, instead of the guy who is stuck doing things the slow and old way. 
So keep asking those questions. Keep experimenting with all the new features the Webflow team creates. And keep making awesome stuff.
And lastly, when you do become a Webflow Pro, all I ask is for you to āpay it forwardā by teaching the new Webflow beginner how to become as good or better than yourself
To @alexanderwong @jarda & @Revolution , thank you for helping make this community honest and helpful. 
3 Likes
Glad to see this Jibby. I understand that taking up new knowledge can be challenging. I too started off from a static-only background and built my websites off fixed pixel widths. When the idea and concept of responsive design came about, it was hell for me. But what to do? We got to learn, adapt and improve ourselves. I am very sure you have gone through these challenges before.
All the best to you in your upcoming endeavors, Iām sure it wonāt take you long to learn up some of the new features offered by Webflow. Cheers mate!
I actually want to learn code desperately. I build all my own websites for my own businesses and optomize them myself and have been doing so for 10 years. Maintenance can be overwhelming but it beats punching a clock. I am dedicated to my system but I know code will make me that much more powerful of a resource. Time is hard to find when unraveling these websites in my head. Building from blank pages and then selling and managing clients.
I in no way wanted to put a negative vibe through the community. I have been very thankful for the response I receive from Webflow users and the staff whenever I have had any issues or problems with building my site.
Letās start fresh in 2016. I need you guys on my side and I will pay it forward for sure when I become a webflow pro. Iām still learning but want to progress and dedicate more time to using the builder and potentially move over my old sites as well.
BIG Thanks to everyone from the Webflow staff and beyond who have helped me in the past. I hope to build a huge business in the future and hopefully Webflow can promote me as a feature site that was built using their amazing editor !!!
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 60 days. New replies are no longer allowed.