Weebly Review: Is It the Right Website Builder for You?
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Best for
Good free plan
Overall rating
3.5 out of 5 stars
If you’re thinking about going with Weebly, you might want to know how it measures up against other website builders in our 2023 research:
How does Weebly compare to other website builders?
- Wix – Best overall website builder
- Squarespace – Best value for money
- Shopify – Best for scaling your online store
- GoDaddy – Fastest way to build a website
- Square Online – Sell online for free
- Weebly – Good free plan
What Are Weebly’s Pros and Cons?
Weebly Pros
- Free plan – Weebly has a free plan that gives you similar functions and features to Wix and Squarespace but without the depth and scalability
- App store improvements – Weebly has really improved its app store since our last round of testing, jumping up 66.67% in our rankings!
- Really helpful SEO guides in Weebly’s help and support center, for advice on coding, keyword optimization, and tips on boosting your site’s ranking.
Weebly Cons
- Drag-and-drop customization is limited – the editor is pretty restrictive, and you might find Weebly frustrating in its lack of creative freedom.
- Outdated designs – its templates aren’t as modern and contemporary as its competitors, making it hard to build a website that really stands out.
- Poor mobile optimization – Weebly’s mobile formatting is lacking, meaning that often your website won’t look as it should do on a smaller screen.
Overview of Weebly
Powering over 50 million websites worldwide, Weebly is one of the most well-known and popular website builders out there. This is thanks to its beginner-friendly structure and affordable prices. However, after our most recent round of testing, Weebly has dropped from an overall score of 4 out of 5 to 3.4. That’s a fall of 15.1% and means Weebly is no longer in our top five builders.
That’s not to say it’s all doom and gloom. Let’s check out its scores and see how it did across all our testing categories:
We test every website builder we review here at Website Builder Expert, so that we can bring you the most accurate results and recommendations possible. After carrying out in-depth research, using the builder ourselves and asking non-techy people to test it too, we give each builder a score out of five for the most important categories.
Here’s a helpful guide to what our star ratings mean:
Overall, Weebly scores 3.4 out of 5, placing in sixth position. Weebly’s standout strength used to be its value for money – last year it came top in this category with full marks thanks to its free plan and its selection of affordable premium packages. Sadly, Weebly has dropped in its value-for-money score by 36% from a perfect 5 all the way to a 3.2 out of 5! A lack of updates and features really dragged the value of this builder down, even though its prices stayed relatively cheap.
Where Weebly now shines is its ease of use. You see, while Weebly’s features feel outdated, this has actually led to a simpler web-building experience according to our testers, with Weebly’s ease of use score rising by 7.8% from last year’s 3.4 to a new score of 3.7 out of 5, now its best performing category.
Scoring 3.1 out of 5 for its features, it’s safe to say that although Weebly isn’t the best of the bunch, it does cover all the basics and it has an impressive app store. This makes it perfect if you’re just starting out. We particularly like the way it eases users into Search Engine Optimization (SEO), providing in-depth knowledge guides and tips to help you get your head around it.
However, where once we might have recommended this website builder for new businesses, our latest research shows it’s not your best choice. It no longer offers a high enough standard of tools to promote good growth and scalability in comparison to the competition. Instead, it’s better suited for websites that want to stay small.
Why is this the case? Well, after testing 50 different platforms, we observed customer importance being placed on ecommerce and marketing functions. Unfortunately, since Square acquired Weebly in 2018, we’ve noticed that ecommerce and marketing developments are reserved for the new store-building platform Square Online, rather than Weebly’s classic editor.
This is not to say that Weebly is a bad choice for ecommerce. It’s one of the only builders that allows you to sell for free. However, if you are planning to start an online store, it would make more sense to head straight to Square Online, which is a purpose-made ecommerce solution.
One of the good things about Weebly is that it caters to users of all abilities. Its drag-and-drop editor is pretty basic, but it’s designed so that anyone can build a Weebly website once you’ve got a grip on the basics.
It might not be the most flashy or modern of builders, but Weebly has everything you need to create functional websites without spending too much time or money. Compared to its competition, Weebly is outdated in some areas, but it gets the job done and is a favorite of those who aren’t particularly tech-savvy.
Who Is Weebly Best For?
Weebly is best for those who want a good free plan. As far as website builders go, it’s pretty basic, but the advantage of this is that you can get your site up and running in no time. It also comes with a great app store, meaning you can add extra tools to your site as and when you need them.
It’s also a good choice for personal websites such as blogs or CVs. Its simple themes make the ideal backdrop for your writing or various achievements. It also allows multiple user profiles, blog-specific SEO, comments, and social sharing.
We don’t recommend Weebly if you want a lot of customization control over your website. Because of the structure of its editor, Weebly is limited here. Wix provides tons more creative freedom, and Squarespace’s designs are much more professional. The chances are, you’ll find Weebly limiting if you’re after anything too advanced, or scalable for that matter.
Weebly’s ecommerce functionality is actually powered by popular online store builder Square Online. In fact, if you are wanting to sell products online, we’d encourage you to go directly to Square Online from the start, as this is where Weebly will redirect you if you say you want to build an ecommerce site.
In our Weebly review, we’ll be walking you through each of the areas we tested – including Weebly’s ease of use, designs, pricing, and features – to help you decide if it’s the right website builder for you!
Weebly Video Review
In a rush? If you don’t want to sit and read this whole review, we get it (it is pretty long!) Instead, you can watch as we talk you through Weebly’s features, pricing, ease of use, design, and more. Sit back and relax as we show you what Weebly is all about, and if it’s right for you:
Is Weebly Easy to Use?
In our latest round of testing though, Weebly’s ease of use score increased from 3.4 out of 5 to 3.7 – an increase of 7.8%. While Wix and Squarespace have improved their editors with new features consistently, Weebly hasn’t, leading to an outdated yet simpler-to-use service. Without all the bells and whistles to distract you, Weebly provides an easy-to-use website builder.
Weebly is a “what you see is what you get” website builder, meaning you build your page exactly as you’d see it online. No skipping between a backend and a front-end, or having to edit raw code just to move an image.
With Weebly’s drag-and-drop editor, you simply use your mouse to move elements such as text boxes, forms, buttons, and images around your page. This makes building your website super easy – if you’ve ever made a Powerpoint presentation, you can build a Weebly website!
Since its purchase by Square, the Weebly editor seems to have been somewhat neglected. This means that where other website builders have been working hard to update their interfaces and make them even simpler, Weebly has stagnated.
While Weebly has dropped in our overall rankings, we actually found the opposite effect when it came to ease of use testing. Many people found the more outdated editor easier to use than other web-builders. As one of our testers said:
“Weebly has a really good UX logic for building a website. Everything you do has a clear step-by-step process.”
However not all their comments were positive. Weebly still has issues compared to other builders, especially in the design department:
“It’s not sleek, it’s not fun, it’s just drab and boring – I wasn’t excited about my website.”
In the end, Weebly only scored 3.7 out of 5 in our latest ease-of-use testing. It’s beginner-friendly and straightforward, but it could be easier still and it would benefit from a bit of developer attention.
Another area Weebly fell down in during our ease-of-use testing was its customizability. People found the basics on Weebly super simple – but when it came to making their website look exactly how they wanted, they ran into difficulty. We’ll go into more detail on this in the themes section of this Weebly review!
On the whole, though, Weebly is a straightforward and uncomplicated builder. Once you’ve learned your way around, you’ll be creating websites quickly and easily – especially if you don’t need to push the boundaries of Weebly’s templates too far.
Find Out More
- In testing, we found that Wix was easier to use and offered better customization than Weebly. Read more about Wix in our full Wix Review.
Customer Satisfaction
Okay, so we keep talking about our user testing and research – we’re pretty proud of it, because we go the extra mile compared to a lot of other reviews sites. But what exactly did our users have to say about Weebly?
Like its fairly average ease of use score, our users found Weebly to be slightly underwhelming. It received a customer score of 3.6 out of 5, placing it towards the bottom of the scale for this category.
Here are just some of the things people said after using Weebly for themselves – both the good and the bad!
Our users enjoyed how simple Weebly’s editor was:
“Lots of user-friendly prompts that make recommendations to better integrate the features you add.”
However, Weebly isn’t for everyone – and that’s okay!
“It’s so outdated – it was like trying to build a website on Microsoft Word.”
Finally, we recommend taking the time to explore Weebly before jumping straight into building. Although the free plan can be tantalizing to new users, remember you’ll always get more features if you pay for them – and Weebly isn’t shy to let you know as this tester found out:
“It felt like it was forcing me to upgrade to a paid plan the entire time. It has no analytics on the free plan and that’s shocking. It felt like they were withholding really important features.”
That said, the free plan is undeniably helpful for seeing if you like Weebly, and a very affordable way of creating a basic site, if you don’t mind missing out on some key features.
The one thing we can’t tell you about Weebly is whether or not you’ll enjoy using it for yourself – that depends on your own preferences. The only way to find out is to try it out yourself.
Find Out More
- Need a helping hand getting used to Weebly? Our handy guide on How to Use Weebly walks you through building a Weebly website step-by-step
What Kind of Website Can You Make With Weebly?
Weebly has a huge app store, and like many website builders out there, it also comes with a ton of built-in features to help you build the website of your dreams. However, Weebly also has strengths and weaknesses that make it a better fit for some users than others. Let’s take a look at who Weebly is best for, to help you make the right decision.
Business
Businesses are Weebly’s main target audience. Visit Weebly’s website, and you’ll see a lot of messaging focused on helping businesses get started, grow online, find customers, and sell products. It’s also one of the few builders that have ad-support built-in, meaning if you want to be showing ads and earn a pretty bit of income on the side for your business, Weebly facilitates this.
There’s a reason for this, namely that Weebly’s features are all tailored towards building an online business presence:
- Business-specific themes
- Logo maker
- Strong SEO tools and support
- Ecommerce tools on all plans (yep, even the free plan!)
- Marketing tools such as blogging and newsletters
- Analytics to provide insights on your performance and visitor interactions
Weebly also has seamless integrations with Square’s payment suite – making it easier than ever for pop-up shops, brick and mortar stores, and ecommerce websites to start selling online.
However, our research found that Weebly is no longer top choice for business scalability. It lacks the tools to really help your business grow, partly down to the fact that, as we mentioned earlier, much of Square’s attention remains fixed on its ecommerce platform rather than on Weebly. As a result, Weebly has fallen behind the majority of its competitors, dropping -50% in our rankings from a 4 last year to a 2 out of 5 for ecommerce features this year. If you are deadset on starting a small online business and want to see it grow, Wix and Squarespace would be better suited.
So, what does this mean? Well, don’t write Weebly off just yet. If you’re looking for a small business website that acts as a point of information for your clients, it’ll do exactly what you need it to. As long as you’re looking to stay small, Weebly is a perfect small business builder.
Find Out More
- Discover How to Build a Business Website in five easy steps
- Check out the Best Small Business Website Builders to see how Weebly compares to its rivals (spoiler: it places in the top three!)
Ecommerce
Many of Weebly’s business features plus its integration with Square Online also make it a sensible choice for small online stores. Strong SEO and marketing tools are still vital, and your theme will be optimized for ecommerce.
When you create your account, you’ll be prompted to select the kind of website you want to build. If you want to sell online, you’ll be directed to try Square Online rather than Weebly, although you can still add ecommerce functions to your Weebly site.
However, given that Square Online is a purpose-made ecommerce platform, it’s the smarter choice between the two. Overall, Weebly’s ecommerce offerings lack the depth needed to create a successful and scalable online store. If you want a custom-branded storefront, you’re better off with Wix or Shopify.
This being said, one of the biggest perks for new sellers in the US is that Weebly is one of the only builders we’ve reviewed that lets you sell for free. Historically, this has been its biggest selling point in the ecommerce world. Although, it is slightly less impressive when you consider that Square Online also provides a free plan with a much more impressive suite of sales tools.
Find Out More
- If you want to sell online, read our Weebly Ecommerce Review to help decide if Weebly is right for your business
- Check out our guide on How to Build an Online Store for top tips on creating a successful ecommerce site
- Read our Square Online Review for an insight into how it works and if it’s a better fit for you than Weebly.
- Find the best builder for your store in our Best Online Store Builders Comparison Chart
Personal and Portfolio
Weebly has a lot to offer for personal projects, too. Weebly’s designs aren’t the most flashy on the market, only scoring 2.3 out of 5 for design in our research. They are simple and uncluttered though and do the job. If you really want your site to be stylish and up-to-date, options like Squarespace certainly fit the bill.
Here just some of the features that make Weebly a popular choice for personal and portfolio sites:
- Built-in image editor
- Parallax and reveal animation effects
- Custom fonts
- Video backgrounds
- Newsletters
- Social media marketing
Weebly is best if you want to focus on your work, rather than on perfecting your site’s design. If you want creative freedom then you’re better off with Wix or Squarespace, but overall, Weebly is a solid choice for personal websites.
Find Out More
- Which are the Best Portfolio Website Builders? Find out in our helpful review!
- Check out our guide on How to Make a Resume Online for tips on getting started
- Squarespace beats Weebly when it comes to creating a truly impressive portfolio. Find out why in our full Squarespace Review
Blogging
When it comes to blogging, Weebly has always been a long-standing favorite. Its list of blogging features have always been rock solid, but Weebly outdid itself this year scoring a perfect 5 out of 5 for blogging in our research, a rise of 25% from last year!
Whether you’re looking to start a blogging website, or you just want to run a small blog alongside your store or business, Weebly has an awesome set of blogging tools to keep you and your readers happy. These include:
- Blog-specific themes
- RSS and social sharing features automatically built-in
- Scheduled sharing across Facebook and Twitter
- Media integrations in your blog dashboard and app store
- Category, tag, and sidebar customizations
- Advanced comment management
You also get strong blog SEO options, such as adding custom header and footer code to your pages, as well as custom URLs, title tags, and meta descriptions. Weebly makes it easy to create attractive but powerful blog content, and then share it with your readers.
Find Out More
- Discover the Best Blogging Platforms to make sure you choose the best builder for your blog
- Read our Squarespace Review to find out why it’s the best blogging platform on the web
Scalability
Is Weebly scalable? In short, not really. Although it comes with tools for small growth, it’s not built to support rapidly growing and expanding websites. This isn’t helped by the fact that the platform hasn’t seen much innovation in recent years. You’ll start off small… and you won’t really be able to go anywhere from there.
We also wouldn’t say Weebly is ideal for very large online stores. If you’re serious about selling online, then a dedicated ecommerce builder like Shopify or BigCommerce is a better fit. Or, if you want a platform that still comes with all the website features Weebly has and more, take a look at Wix.
Another serious knock on Weebly’s scalability is its complete removal of multilingual support. If you were planning to try and appeal to foreign audiences to grow your site then you can no longer do that with Weebly’s support. Instead, it offers a third-party service called Multilanguage or self-uploads via a drop-down menu.
This definitely affects both the accessibility and scalability of your site and is quite a glaring hole in Weebly’s platform.
How Good Are Weebly’s Themes?
Weebly doesn’t have the biggest range of themes – there are around 50 to choose from in total – but the ones it does have aren’t the most spectacular. They aren’t bad and you can switch templates at any time– but they equally can’t compare to those offered by the likes of Wix and Squarespace.
Additionally, Wix and Squarespace have continually developed and added to their templates, while Weebly has remained stagnant. The good thing is that they come in a range of styles, although they do favor grid layouts and full-screen image backgrounds. This makes for quite a pleasing look on desktops, but things start to go a little wrong when you move to a mobile device.
Unfortunately, despite their claims, Weebly’s templates aren’t mobile-responsive. Its designs don’t translate well to smaller screens, and very often, the formatting is completely wrong. This is disappointing considering that mobile accounts for around half of web traffic worldwide, and plays a large role in Google rankings!
This is just one of the reasons that design emerged as Weebly’s weakest area in our research. It scores a very disappointing 2.3 out of 5, which is an 8% decrease from last year’s design score, which itself had a 36% decrease from its pre-2021 score. Once again, this shows Weebly’s lack of development and innovation in recent years, leaving it trailing behind other platforms that have moved with the times.
Weebly’s themes are split into categories to help you find the best design for your site. You can get an overview of these categories and their themes below, or read on to find out how customizable Weebly’s themes are.
On the whole, Weebly’s business themes feature large background images and banners, creating a modern feel. Some have calls to action above the fold, which lend themselves to a more commercial website. There are 14 business themes in total.
Weebly’s seven portfolio designs favor full-screen background images, making them a great choice if you have high quality photos or graphics to show off.
You’ll find some crossover from the portfolio category here, but Weebly’s seven personal themes have more of a focus on resumes. Helpful features include a “contact me” button on the homepage, for example.
Weebly’s six event themes often feature big, bold headings, and some also include a helpful “RSVP” button on the homepage.
This is probably Weebly’s most diverse category, ranging from creative designs to more functional, minimal, or text-based layouts. Featured categories and “read more” buttons are just two things you can expect to see across Weebly’s eight blog themes.
Since its purchase by Square, Weebly no longer offers a selection of online store themes. This is because users are encouraged to try the ecommerce platform instead of sticking with Weebly. Despite this, you can still add ecommerce features and functions to any of the other templates once you get into the editor.
How Customizable Are Weebly’s Themes?
Despite being pretty underwhelming, Weebly’s themes tick most of the basic boxes – they look okay, they’re all free, and there’s a variety of different designs to choose from. You can even switch themes at any time. There’s one more important box left to check off, though, and that’s customizability.
You want to make your website unique and stand out from the crowd – you might even want to change the design of your theme to do this. This is where Weebly makes it super easy to edit your website, as it allows you to change your template during editing – it even reformats all your previous edits from the old template into the new. Though Wix offers more creativity within the builder, it won’t let you swap templates like Weebly. For this, we gave Weebly a 5 out of 5 for flexibility.
Once you begin editing your theme, you’ll see that Weebly’s themes are more structured – you can’t simply drag anything anywhere you like. This is a positive if you’re nervous about designing your site, because it acts as a guide for your page layout. But, if you want total control over your website, Wix is a better choice. Weebly’s structured themes may become frustrating as you try to customize your site exactly how you want.
If you’re after total creative control, then Weebly’s structured themes may become frustrating as you try to customize your site exactly how you want.
For example, when changing your color scheme, you only have a few color options to choose from in the sidebar, and it only applies to areas such as buttons and menus:
You can manually edit the color of other blocks, but not buttons – this can take a while to get used to, but it’s intended to help create a more consistent design across your website.
There are, of course, good sides to Weebly’s design process, such as the fact that it’s easy to add new elements from the sidebar. As one of our testers commented:
“I find it really intuitive using Weebly’s top bar and sidebar menus to find what I need.”
Plus, if you’re feeling confident, you can even input your own code to edit your theme.
Unfortunately, these positives aren’t enough to outweigh the fact that lots of our users found the design process to be frustrating and at times, a bit clunky because of the template restrictions. In our research, we could only give Weebly a 2 out of 5 for theme choice due to lacking templates for educational sites, real estate, fashion and beauty, and medical, among others. This, paired with its outdated designs and lack of mobile optimization, makes Weebly one of our worst-rated builders for design functionalities.
Find Out More
- Do you want to take your customizations to the next level? Discover the Best Online Coding Courses in our helpful top 10 list!
- See Weebly websites in action. This list of the Best School Websites features a few great Weebly examples
What Are Weebly’s Key Tools and Features?
When it comes to features, Weebly can’t quite compete with the high scores earned by Wix and Squarespace, earning just 3.1 out of 5, with a disappointing drop of -25% in its quality features since last year, going from a quality score of 4 to 3 out of 5. Below we’ll dig deeper into all its most important features.
App Center
Weebly has actually made real improvements to its app center since our last round of testing, rising 66.67% from last year’s 3 out of 5 score to a perfect 5 out of 5! A big feature added was having customer testimonials as its own supporting app, allowing for deeper usage of these features.
You get all the basic features built into your Weebly editor, such as text blocks and image galleries, but the Weebly App Center is perfect for adding more advanced tools and features to your website – such as FAQ sections or “Back to Top” buttons.
Apps are sorted into the following categories:
- Ecommerce
- Communication
- Marketing
- Social
- Site tools and features
This is useful for finding the app you’re looking for, as there’s hundreds to choose from in total. Useful apps include pricing tables, accordion tabs, an Instagram feed, and Facebook Like buttons. You can even integrate Facebook Messenger into your website so you can chat with your visitors!
The reason Weebly’s App Center is so important is that it lets you customize and expand your website without needing to code. You can add any of these apps with a single click, making it easy to pick and install any extra features you need for your unique project.
Some apps are free, while others require a monthly subscription – paid apps vary in price, but usually cost around $10 to $30 per month. That said, there are 56 free apps in the Weebly App Center right now, so there are plenty to choose from that won’t cost you a cent!
SEO
Search Engine Optimization is the art of trying to boost your website’s ranking in search engine results. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine – so good SEO is vital if you want to grow your online presence!
Website builders have often got a bad rep for SEO in the past, and it’s true that some website builders still let the side down. However, you don’t need to worry about that with Weebly, because it’s always had a strong set of SEO tools. In our research, we gave it a 4 out of 5 for SEO. The only thing it lacks is mobile optimization, though this is an issue that plagues Weebly as a whole.
All Weebly sites come with:
- A sitemap
- SEO-friendly HTML formatting
- Meta descriptions
You can also edit your meta titles and descriptions, customize URLs, and benefit from more advanced SEO features, including adding alt text to images and page-specific descriptions.
A new feature added since we last tested is keyword support. This advanced SEO tool is perfect for small online businesses as it allows you to search and see what others are searching for, meaning you can optimize and hone in on your specific keyword searches and target audience.
However, it’s not all perfect. When we carried out our site speed test, Weebly came in last for its poor 1.4-second server response time and the slowest index time of 3.3 seconds. Once, this might not have mattered too much, but since the introduction of Google’s Core Web Vitals, loading time is more important than ever.
Despite this, Weebly is still a good choice if you’re new to SEO. Weebly has a truly awesome Ultimate SEO Guide to walk you through optimizing your website from start to finish. From carrying out keyword research to analyzing your site’s performance, Weebly’s guide covers it all!
You can install Google Analytics to your site to make it easier to monitor how well your site is doing. Weebly also has its own built-in website statistics tracker called Insights, which gives you real-time statistics on your site’s data and traffic patterns.
All-in-all, Weebly has a strong SEO offering, particularly for those who are new to the world of website building and might be feeling a little lost. However, those with more experience under their belt might find its lack of advanced functionality frustrating.
Find Out More
- Discover the 5 Best Website Builders for SEO in our helpful review, to give your site the best chance of ranking well
Ecommerce
Since the acquisition by Square, Weebly hasn’t focused all that much on its ecommerce features. In our research, we saw a drop of -50% since last year, from a 4 out of 5 down to a 2. A lack of attention has left it pretty bare, but you still are able to sell for free on the Free plan, which has a modest suite of ecommerce tools.
These include:
- Shopping Cart
- Items
- Quick Shop
- Inventory management
- In-store pickup
However, as always, we recommend upgrading to a paid plan for a more professional store – on more advanced plans, you unlock better ecommerce tools, such as item reviews and the ability to accept payments through PayPal.
Weebly is decent for small online stores. For serious sellers, we recommend a builder like Shopify or BigCommerce, as Weebly’s features are designed for smaller-scale selling.
Find Out More
- Shopify is our top-rated ecommerce builder. Find out if it’s right for you in our Shopify Review
- Discover what makes BigCommerce ideal for fast-growing, ambitious stores in our BigCommerce Review
- Not sure what you need? Our Shopify vs Weebly Comparison will help you find your perfect selling platform
Marketing: Weebly Promote
Marketing is a huge part of growing and succeeding online. There are plenty of marketing apps in Weebly’s App Center – for example, you can add an Instagram feed, create popups, or run Google Ads campaigns using apps found in the Marketing category of the Weebly App Center.
Weebly actually has stagnated a bit when it comes to marketing, remaining at only a 2 out of 5 in our rankings. Don’t get too discouraged, as one of the biggest marketing methods is email marketing, which is where Weebly Promote comes in. This is Weebly’s own newsletter tool, which aims to make email marketing as easy and effective as possible for Weebly users.
Weebly Promote syncs automatically with your Weebly website, comes with ready-made layouts for you to customize using drag-and-drop, makes it easy to import contacts, and gives you reports showing how many people have opened or clicked on your emails.
If email marketing is one of your main marketing tactics, then Weebly Promote is definitely worth checking out.
Help and Support
What happens if you get stuck while building your site? The good news is, Weebly has a ton of guides in its Support Center to walk you through any common questions, and you can email Weebly support 24/7.
All plans include access to Weebly’s community forum and email support. However, you won’t get access to phone support unless you’re on the more expensive Pro or Performance plans, and you have to be in the US to get live chat or phone support.
It’s a shame that those on cheaper plans don’t get access to all of Weebly’s support channels. Perhaps because of this, Weebly scored a fairly uninspiring 3.3 out of 5 for its customer support in our research. While it has competent help and support, its knowledge center (like a lot of Weebly) hasn’t seen many updates and attention given to it, instead being rolled into Square Online support making it difficult to find straightforward Weebly-relevant answers.
That said, it’s not all dust and rust. Weebly has implemented auto-save to its editor, meaning you shouldn’t lose any progress if you accidentally click out. If you happen to, then you can now use a Restore Option by contacting Weebly support directly.
Weebly’s live chat is available from Monday to Friday, 6am-6pm Pacific Standard Time (PST), and Saturday to Sunday 8am-5pm PST.
Phone support is available with the Pro and Performance plans. Call 1-844-493-3259 from 6am-6pm PST.
Alternatively, try posting a question on Weebly’s Facebook page, or contact the team via Twitter.
Hosting and Security
Weebly hosts your website for you, so you don’t need to worry about finding or paying for hosting separately – it’s all included in your Weebly plan.
The same goes for security. Although it’s always worth implementing extra security measures just in case, Weebly protects its websites from DDoS attacks, providing advanced cyber attack protection.
You can also automatically activate an SSL certificate for your site, which encrypts any data (such as passwords and payment details) passing between you and your visitors.
How Much Does Weebly Cost?
Value for money used to be Weebly’s strongest area with a great 5 out of 5 overall score in our rankings last year. However, we found that this wasn’t the case in our most recent testing. The average price plan and the features on offer vs price are just not as good value for money as they were, and these categories took a -36% dive in our rankings from perfect 5 out of 5 to 3.2.
Weebly’s performance in this area comes down to a few things. First and foremost among these is the fact that it has a free plan. That means it’s 100% free to build, publish, and even sell with Weebly – there’s no time limit, and no hidden costs to catch you out. The free plan is perfect for trying out Weebly to see if it’s the right web builder for you, or saving money while you get your site ready to publish.
However, we don’t recommend staying on Weebly’s free plan. Why? Well, you’ll have ads displayed on your site, you only have limited features (such as 500MB storage), and you can’t use a custom domain.
Those are three big drawbacks, which make it sensible to upgrade to a paid plan if you’re planning on anybody else seeing your website. Upgrading will also give you an extra shine of professionalism, so more people will take your website seriously.
Weebly has three paid plans, ranging from $10 to $26 per month
- Personal plan: $10 per month
- Professional plan: $12 per month
- Performance plan: $26 per month
The $10 per month Personal plan is pretty similar to the free plan in terms of the features you get, except that it lets you connect a custom domain. We don’t recommend this plan, because it doesn’t offer great value for money.
The $12 per month Professional plan is best for any portfolio, small business, or blog that needs to make a good impression. Why? Because it’s the cheapest plan that removes Weebly adverts from your website. On top of that, you also unlock unlimited storage, plus a free domain!
The $26 per month Performance plan is ideal for growing businesses, or any online store looking to boost sales – you get access to more advanced ecommerce tools, such as shipping labels and abandoned cart emails.
Just watch out for monthly versus annual plans. Weebly displays its prices per month, billed annually. This is because signing up for an annual plan saves you money – but it can be a nasty shock at checkout to find you have to pay for the year upfront!
The good news is, you can pay monthly if you want more flexibility, but this will cost more per month – check out the table below for a comparison of monthly versus annual prices.
You could save anywhere between 10% to 33%, depending on which plan you subscribe to and the length of your subscription. The longer you commit, the more significant the discount:
| Weebly Pricing Plans | 1 Month ($/month) | 1-Year ($/month) | Savings (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | $13 | $10 | 33% |
| Professional | $16 | $12 | 25% |
| Performance | $29 | $26 | 10% |
As you can see, there’s a lot to be gained from committing to a year plan!
Find Out More
- Read our Weebly Pricing Review for a more detailed look at Weebly’s costs, and to discover which plan is best for you.
- Building on a budget? We’ve got your back with our guide to the Cheapest Website Builders on the market.
Weebly Review: Summary
Although it’s not the very best website builder out there, after giving it a thorough test, we can confidently say that Weebly is a great option for beginners looking to get online quickly and easily.
Its overall score of 3.4 out of 5 places it in our top six web builders. If you want a no-frills builder that isn’t as feature-stuffed like top competitors Wix and Squarespace, plus the financial freedom of a free plan and don’t mind sacrificing a few features for it, then Weebly is an easy one to recommend.
The real thing holding it back is the lack of development in recent years, meaning other platforms have improved, while Weebly has remained pretty much unchanged. This is partly responsible for its lower design score, too.
However, we can’t question how kind it is to your wallet! To get the best out of Weebly, we recommend that you start with a free website. This is your chance to get to know the editing interface and judge for yourself how easy (and difficult) its various features are, as well as give you the chance to check out its templates.
Once you’re ready to upgrade, we recommend skipping the Personal plan – you get more for your money on the Professional plan!
If Weebly sounds right for you, jump on its free plan today and start trying it out for yourself – it’s the only way to know if Weebly is your perfect builder!
Weebly Review: FAQs
However, some find the more simplistic editor to be appealing and more natural to use. The best way to see the disadvantages are for you to check out the builder yourself and see.
However, be warned that you can lose access to your content if you don’t provide payments/fail to update your site regularly. Typically, this will happen after 12 to 18 months.
Also, you can’t take any guarantees of the moves of Weebly either. As of 1st of August 2022, Weebly discontinued its Weebly for Education platform, meaning many users found they could no longer access their sites. It’s best to always keep yourself updated by signing up for your builder’s newsletters so you can get the announcements and prepare.
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