Are you considering the Weebly website builder but you’re unsure if it’s the right fit? You’re not alone. Many small business owners and entrepreneurs are drawn to Weebly’s reputation for its robust free plan, affordable paid plans, and user-friendly interface. Not to mention, its superior e-commerce tools make it a popular choice for online stores.
But no website builder is without flaws, and you might be wondering if Weebly’s limited design flexibility and lack of a universal undo button will hinder your creativity and efficiency.
In this comprehensive Weebly website builder review, we’ll delve into the platform’s strengths and weaknesses to help you determine if it meets your specific needs. Read on to see if Weebly is the best website builder for your next online venture.
What Is Weebly?
In May 2018, Weebly became part of Square, a large company operating across multiple domains and offering a range of mobile, retail, e-commerce, and business management tools. This merger brought mostly good news for both companies and their users. Square gained a reputable user-friendly website builder with e-commerce capabilities, while Weebly gained one of the best payment systems.
The integration of Weebly and Square provides businesses with one cohesive solution. Customers can now get a great website builder and an excellent payment platform all in one place. On the downside, the acquisition has caused some confusion, which still lingers, even though the Weebly website builder platform continues to operate as its own independent company. More on this below.
What Happened To Weebly?
As mentioned, Weebly was acquired by Square in May 2018. The two companies worked together to create Square Online, a website builder with Weebly technology.
However, the Weebly and Square merger has caused quite a bit of confusion among existing Weebly users. After it took place, customers were asked to replace their accounts with Square accounts to sign in and receive updates in the future. Also, Square branding replaced some of Weebly’s logos and branding, and Square ads began appearing on Weebly’s websites.
All of the above led many Weebly users to think the Weebly website builder has been discontinued. But that’s not the case.
Weebly continues to exist, and there are no plans to discontinue it, at least not at this time. The company has promised to provide Weebly support through July 2025, so Weebly users can relax and enjoy their service. Customers will receive timely notice if the company’s plans change, giving everyone enough time to plan their next step.
Weebly Review – Plans & Pricing
Weebly offers a range of pricing options, including an excellent free plan. This plan can help you establish an online presence or even build an online store without breaking the bank. In fact, it’s one of the most affordable and accessible website builders on the market.
A Weebly subscription can be paid monthly or annually, the latter offering significant savings. Let’s examine Weebly’s plans in more detail.
Weebly Plans | Free Plan | Personal | Professional | Performance |
---|---|---|---|---|
Starting Price (annually) | $0/month | $10/month | $12/month | $26/month |
Free Custom Domain | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Storage & Bandwidth | 500 MB | 500 MB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
SSL Certificate | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Ecommerce Capabilities | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
The Weebly website builder does not offer a free trial, considering people can try out most of its features by subscribing to its free plan. For those who purchase a paid plan and pay the annual fee, Weebly offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
This means that unsatisfied users are free to cancel their accounts within 30 days of activation or within 30 days of their contract being renewed.
Weebly Key Features
Weebly offers tons of features that make building websites and managing online store operations a breeze.
Weebly is famous for its beginner-friendly drag-and-drop editor. The setup is basic, which can be a great asset for newbies but might not be enough for more advanced users eager to show off their capabilities and creativity. Unlike most competitors, Weebly doesn’t have an AI site builder option.
All Weebly themes are free, mobile-responsive, and can be personalized. Users can switch themes whenever they feel like it.
That said, Weebly’s themes haven’t changed for the last few years and it’s quite restrictive when it comes to color schemes. Users have only two options: light and dark mode, which doesn’t leave much freedom to choose brand colors.
All Weebly plans offer everything needed to set up an online store, including inventory management. So, you don’t need to spend a dime to start selling things online – which is quite rare in the realm of website builders.
The free plan includes a satisfactory range of Weebly e-commerce features, including a shopping cart, item badges, inventory management, a quick shop function, in-store pickup, an automatic tax calculator, and coupons and gift cards.
Upgrading to higher-tier plans gives you access to a shipping calculator, shipping labels, item reviews, and abandoned cart emails. You can also download the Ecwid app. We’ll talk more in-depth about Weebly’s ecommerce features below.
Weebly users can accept payments through Square or third-party providers like PayPal and Stripe. No matter which option a user chooses, there’s a processing fee (up to 2.5% per transaction).
Weebly offers powerful SEO tools on all plans that help search engines find your Weebly website. Users can add an Instagram feed or a customized form to start collecting leads.
Pop-up notifications are reserved for higher-tier subscribers, while only Performance plan users can count on advanced e-commerce insights.
Weebly features a dedicated hosting infrastructure and optimizes websites for satisfying performance on multiple devices. You won’t have to struggle with complex server configurations to enjoy fast loading times and a seamless browsing experience. With Weebly’s unlimited storage provision, the sky is the limit when it comes to your website growth.
Hosting is included with all plans, and it incorporates a free SSL certificate and DDoS protection to guard websites from hackers. Since Weebly functions as a domain registrar, it is easy to manage domains, too.
Thanks to the Google Workspace interface, Weebly handles email hosting and allows its customers to use their own custom domain name in their email addresses.
Visiting the Weebly website opens doors to an excellent App Market packed with helpful third-party apps, both free and paid. The App Center is easy to navigate and covers all the main areas of website building, from e-commerce to SEO and social network integration.
Users who wish to add original content to their website can do so via Weebly’s built-in blog. Moreover, they can password-protect certain pages to keep them private or available only for paying members and subscribers.
The Weebly Knowledge Base is a bright spot and is an extensive database packed with helpful articles. Here, users can access the Weebly blog, inspiration center, and vast community of other Weebly users.
Is Weebly Any Good For Ecommerce?
As we discussed above, Weebly is a solid choice for ecommerce, especially due to its integration with Square. If you’re looking for an easy-to-use website builder platform with essential ecommerce features at a reasonable cost, it’s a great option, especially for those who aren’t particularly tech-savvy. Let’s look at some of the reasons why:
- Ease of Use: Weebly’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes it easy for newbies without technical skills to set up and manage an online store.
- Ecommerce Features: Weebly offers a comprehensive suite of ecommerce tools, including product listings, inventory management, payment processing (through PayPal, Stripe, and Square), and shipping options.
- Weebly Templates: Weebly comes with a nice variety of professionally designed, mobile-responsive templates tailored for ecommerce, so you can find one that suits whatever service or product you’re looking to sell.
- Pricing: Compared to many other website builders on the market, Weebly offers competitive pricing plans with good value for an ecommerce platform.
- App Center: Weebly’s App Center provides access to several third-party apps that can help with email marketing, social media integration, and analytics.
- SEO & Marketing: Weebly comes with a good number of built-in SEO tools and features to help improve your store’s visibility on search engines.
- Customer Support: If you’re starting an online store for the first time, Weebly offers reliable customer support, including chat and email, to assist you with any ecommerce issues.
Weebly Vs. Top Providers
The website-building global market is growing at light speed, resulting in tough competition. Let’s see how Weebly stacks up against it.
Website Builder | Starting Price | Top 3 Features (bullet) | Free Domain | Storage & Bandwidth |
---|---|---|---|---|
Weebly | $0/month | Beginner-friendly editor, Square payments integration, Extensive knowledge base | ✅ | ● Free – 500 MB storage, unlimited bandwidth ● Personal – 500 MB storage, unlimited bandwidth ● Professional – Unlimited ● Performance – Unlimited |
Square Online | $0/month | Intuitive interface, Multi-location support, Centralized directory of customer data | ❌ | ● Free – 500MB storage, 500MB bandwidth ● Plus – Unlimited ● Premium – Unlimited |
Wix | $0/month | Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence), Beginner-friendly editor, Robust suite of SEO tools | ✅ | ● Free – 500 MB storage, 1 GB bandwidth ● Light – 2 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth ● Core – 50 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth ● Business – 100 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth ● Business Elite – unlimited storage and bandwidth |
Squarespace | $16/month | Beautiful, mobile-friendly themes, Omnichannel capabilities, Seamless integration with social media sites | ✅ | ● Unlimited |
WordPress | $0/month | Excellent online community support, Superior security suite, Huge choice of themes and WordPress plug-ins | ✅ | ● Free – 3 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth ● Starter – 6 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth ● Explorer – 13 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth ● Creator – 50 GB storage, unlimited bandwidth ● Entrepreneur – Unlimited |
Shopify | $24/month | Scalability, Secure environment, Global accessibility | ❌ | ● Unlimited |
Weebly Customer Reviews
Weebly has earned some pretty poor feedback from its users on Trustpilot, where it only has a score of 1.3 out of 5 from 692 reviews.
While this feedback is important, we know that many people only tend to leave a review if it’s negative, and great service is often underreported, so it’s good to form a balanced opinion of your own after conducting research.
Many users describe Weebly as a beginner-friendly, easy-to-use, and powerful website development tool. They also praise Square’s payment system and the Weebly free version has numerous fans, too.
It’s our general impression that Weebly customers liked the website builder a lot more before the Square acquisition. Most recent reviews highlight some negative experiences, from dissatisfaction with Weebly customer support to concerns about pricing and technical limitations. A few users reported having trouble logging in, recovering their old Weebly account, or canceling their subscriptions.
So even though Weebly remains an affordable, user-friendly website builder with an excellent free plan, it does seem to lag behind some other website builders that are more in tune with the latest technology and provide better user support.
Read all customer reviews on Trustpilot
How to Use Weebly - A Quick Guide
Even though Weebly seems to be earning some negative feedback since being acquired by Square, it is still a go-to solution for those looking for a simple website builder. For those still on the fence about becoming Weebly users, we'll show the entire process of building a Weebly website.
Register with Weebly
To register, go to Weebly.com and click “Get Started” or “Sign Up”. This takes you to the signup page, where you can type in your first and last name and email address. Before continuing, you also must choose a password and agree with Weebly’s Terms and Privacy Policy at the bottom of the page.
Select Build a Weebly Website
At this stage, users are presented with two options – to try Square Online or Weebly websites. If you’re looking to just build a Weebly personal website, you should select the latter. Choosing the “I want a business site option” will take you to the Square Online platform.
Select a Weebly Theme
Choose your theme and continue to the next step by clicking “Start Editing” in the top right corner. It is good to know that, unlike some website builders, the template can be changed at any time by clicking the “Themes” header found in the top toolbar of the Weebly editor.
Choose a Domain for Your Weebly Website
Before you can start editing the newly created website, the pop-up window will urge you to select a domain name (website address). Just type it in and check if it is available. Choosing a free domain name means that your website address will contain “.weebly.com.”
If you already have a personal domain, you can transfer it to Weebly by clicking “connect or transfer it now” and entering your URL.
Use the Weebly Editor to Customize Your Website
Once you reach this point, you can find website editing tools on the left-hand side. A separate menu at the top of the page grants you access to your settings, pages, themes, and apps.
To edit text, users can simply click the textbox and type. New elements are added by selecting them in the left-hand menu and dragging them onto the page. For example, to add an image, just drag the image icon onto the page and click “Upload Image.”
To edit or add new pages, click “Pages” in the top Navigation Menu. This will let you choose a different page from the menu or click the plus icon and add a new page to your website.
Add Apps from the Weebly App Center
Clicking “Apps” in the top Navigation Bar will take you to the Weebly App Center, where you can download applications needed to customize your website. There are 350+ apps to choose from, all user-rated and neatly categorized. Some are free, too.
To install an app, click the “Add” button. This will trigger a pop-up box prompting you to click ‘Connect’ and agree to the terms. Once installed, the app automatically appears in the “Installed Apps” section of the Weebly editor, and you can drag it onto any page.
Publish Your Weebly Website
Once you are finished editing your website, click the “Publish” button in the top right corner. Published websites can be updated or edited at any time. If you change your mind,
just go to Settings and unpublish your site.
To provide our readers with accurate and well-informed recommendations, we test the most popular website builders on the market to find the best options for you. Our methodology consists of the following criteria:How We Review And Test Website Builders
How To Choose The Best Website Builder
With so many website builders on the market, finding the one that best fits your needs might feel like searching for the needle in the haystack. This is why we have comprised a list of the most important points to pay attention to:
All builders have their strengths and weaknesses. Hence, it is wise to answer a few questions before starting the quest for the one that best fits your needs.
What’s the main purpose of your website? Do you want a quick and easy solution or a website builder that can help you show off your creativity? Do you plan to write a blog, open an online store, or build a business website? Your answers will help narrow the choices and find what you really need.
Most website-building platforms offer both free and paid plans. However, even though keeping all your money to yourself sounds tempting, free plans usually have a lot of restrictions. Therefore, to unlock all the needed features and establish a respectable online presence, users have to pay up.
Tech-savvy users with enviable coding skills rarely (if ever) use website builders. Thus, these platforms should be designed with average internet users in mind, offering user-friendly editors and easy customization options. They should also provide ample customer support.
When looking at website builders, consider your personal needs and preferences. For example, if you want to open an online store, look for features like inventory management and other ecommerce features, while creative individuals should focus on the choice of templates and customization options.
Think about what other features you might need. What about a custom domain or SEO tools? When it comes to support, are you looking for phone support or is just email assistance okay? If you want to create a website, what kind of website editor is best for you? Even the most basic features should be considered before making your choice.
It would be best to find a website builder that offers a plethora of stylish templates and customization options allowing users to choose their colors, fonts, and logos. The more control users have over the design of their website, the more unique it will be.
No matter the user’s skills, responsive and helpful customer support is a must! It is best to have live support via online chat or phone. When users encounter a problem, they need a quick and easy fix. No one wants to wait for an email that might not even provide a valid solution.
FAQs
What is Weebly good for?
Is Weebly free or paid?
What are the disadvantages of Weebly?
Is Weebly or Wix better?
Is Weebly being discontinued?
References
- Weebly Launches Weebly 4, a Complete Platform That Intelligently Unites Websites, E-commerce, and Marketing in One Place (BusinessWire Magazine)
- Company Info (Weebly)
- Terms of Service (Weebly)
- Weebly Support (Weebly)
- Website Builders – Global Market Trajectory & Analytics (BusinessWire Magazine)
- Weebly Website Builder Support Update (Weebly)