This Weebly review breaks down features, pricing, pros, cons and more of this website builder.
Discover the outstanding features, affordable pricing options, pros, cons, and more of Weebly, a leading website builder. Read on to find out why Weebly is a top choice and explore alternative options to make the best decision for your online presence.
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Weebly is a top website tool known for its ease of use and approachability. It’s a user-friendly and affordable platform, capable of providing the essential tools to build a website, blog or e-commerce store.
With a focus on simplicity, mobility and affordability, Weebly is probably best suited for smaller businesses, especially those that are just starting out. Businesses that need more customization and features than Weebly can offer might consider a more advanced web builder or e-commerce platform alternative, like Wix or Shopify. This detailed review will help you decide if Weebly might be right for your business.
Features
Drag-and-drop editor
After choosing from the various free Weebly themes, you can use the drag-and-drop editor tool to customize your site, including adding content elements (text, photos, maps, videos), editing text and changing backgrounds or fonts. You can add video backgrounds, create custom headers and add slideshows. You also have the option to use custom HTML, CSS and JavaScript, if you prefer to edit your website using code.
Domain and web hosting
Weebly provides free web hosting, with a cloud-based infrastructure to provide reliable performance and ensure that your site loads quickly. Its free plan comes with a Weebly-branded domain; however, with its paid plans you can purchase or import a custom domain. A custom domain is free for your first year with its two highest-level plans.
Blogging
With Weebly, you can set up and start a blog, whether on its own or as part of a larger website or online store. You have the ability to control the layout and structure of your blog posts; create custom URLs; manage comments; integrate media, comment or social media systems; utilize sharing and scheduling capabilities and more.
SEO and marketing
To help promote your website, Weebly provides built-in SEO tools and tracks your visitors and website statistics, displaying them through your Weebly dashboard. You can also add Google Analytics code for advanced tracking.
Furthermore, with Weebly Promote, you can create email marketing campaigns using pre-designed email templates or your own. Build an email list and track performance in the dashboard.
E-commerce
All of Weeblys plans include e-commerce capabilities, allowing you to sell online with online shopping cart functionality and secure checkout. Youll also be able to add products, track your inventory and sell digital goods, physical products and services.
Weebly also offers additional e-commerce features such as:
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Product descriptions with slideshows and videos.
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Product sharing on social media.
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Mobile shopping cart and checkout.
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Integrations with Square, PayPal, Stripe and more.
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Confirmation emails, shipment tracking notifications, refunds and returns processing and real-time reporting.
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Multiple shipping options, real-time shipping rates and adjusted rates for geographic locations.
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Promotions and discounts.
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Automatic tax rates for U.S. and Canada.
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Bulk import and export capabilities between platforms.
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Automated abandoned-cart emails.
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Custom branded gift cards.
Integrations and mobile
Weebly gives you the ability to integrate with hundreds of third-party applications using its App Center, including Google Ads, Eventbrite, Shipstation, Facebook chat and rankingCoach.
In addition, Weeblys mobile app, available for iOS and Android, gives you the ability to build and manage your website or online store from anywhere, even allowing you to work offline.
» MORE: NerdWallet’s best small-business apps
Customer support
For both its free and paid customers, Weebly provides support in a number of ways. Depending on your specific plan, youll have access to phone support, in addition to the chat and email support thats offered with all of Weeblys services. Plus, Weebly includes a support center with a knowledge base, blog and community forum.
Costs
Below is an overview of Weeblys plans and pricing. Keep in mind, each plan builds on the previous ones so youll receive more features in the higher-level plans.
Plans and pricing
Pros
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Price: With all of its plans under $30 per month and a completely free option with e-commerce functionality, Weeblys affordability is one of the platforms greatest benefits. Although the free offering has its limitations, it provides the essential tools you would need to get started — plus, you can upgrade at any time without having to start from scratch.
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Usability: Another of the most notable benefits of Weebly is the simplicity and ease of use of the platform. With pre-designed templates to choose from, Weebly makes it quick and easy to set up your website and customize it using its drag-and-drop editor. If you prefer, you can also edit your site through its code. Additionally, the Weebly interface is intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy for you to manage your operations, make changes and find new ways to grow and promote your business.
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Mobile options: With the mobile options Weebly offers, you not only have the ability to build and manage your website or online store from anywhere, but you also have an opportunity to take advantage of mobile traffic and mobile ordering from customers. With its mobile-responsive designs, mobile shopping cart and mobile checkout, Weebly helps you attract visitors and customers who are browsing via smartphone or tablet.
Cons
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Features: Although Weebly offers a number of different plans with essential and useful capabilities, this platform is lacking when it comes to advanced features. Many similar competitors generally provide greater built-in functionality and a wider variety of features and tools. This lack of more advanced tools and capabilities may be an issue for larger or quickly growing small businesses.
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Scalability: Directly related to Weeblys lack of advanced features is another drawback — Weebly is also generally limited in terms of both customization and scalability. Overall, its templates are limited and not nearly as customizable as some of the web builders that also use drag-and-drop editing. And with limited customization and advanced feature options, it can really only accommodate so much growth. Thus, larger or quickly growing businesses may find Weebly to be too restricting.
Reviews
What do Weebly users have to say about their experience with this platform? On the whole, Weebly reviews are generally positive, with users writing most frequently about Weeblys ease of use and its free and inexpensive plan options. However, many reviewers also comment on the limitations of Weebly in terms of its specific features and customization capabilities.
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Jenny Wilson of Wilson Marketing Consulting, told us that she recommends Weebly to other business owners, especially those who have little knowledge about building websites. In her experience, she likes Weebly because of its drag-and-drop interface, built-in contact forms, maps, galleries and e-commerce option, as well as its ability to get your website set up quickly. However, Wilson also found that it doesnt have as many optional widgets as other web builders — plus, its not sufficient to accommodate large or complex sites.
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Glenn Mueller Jr. of Mueller Chocolate Co., says that he would recommend Weebly and used it to build his companys website. Overall, Mueller found Weebly to be reasonably priced and reliable. He also felt that it is missing features he expected to see, including solutions for spam messages, announcement bars, disabling shipping and more.
Alternatives
Before you decide whether Weebly is the right tool for your business, its worth exploring some top competitors. There are a number of solutions, both web builders and e-commerce platforms that you might consider as alternatives to Weebly. Here are two:
Wix
As a web builder that also offers e-commerce functionality, Wix is one of Weeblys biggest competitors. Like Weebly, Wix gives you the ability to create a business website using its free plan or opt for one of its paid premium plans, which range in price from $13 to $49 per month. While these are slightly more expensive than Weebly, Wix provides a greater variety of theme templates as well as ways to build your site — with a standard web editor, AI-based tool and an open development platform.
Whether youre starting an online store or event, photography or restaurant website, Wix includes various specific capabilities for these types of businesses. Overall, with over 1,000 features available within its platform, Wix can give you more options and opportunities than Weebly can.
Shopify
On the other hand, if youre looking for a platform that specializes in e-commerce, you might think about selling on Shopify. As one of the most popular e-commerce platforms out there, Shopify is known for its overall functionality, user-friendly system and integration abilities. Although at $29 per month, the Basic Shopify plan is going to be much more expensive than Weebly right off the bat, youll be able to create your online store with unlimited products, multiple sales channels, abandoned cart recovery, discount codes and 24/7 customer support. From there, you can choose a higher-level plan for even more tools and capabilities.
As a platform created specifically for e-commerce, Shopifys features, template options, workflows and add-on tools will be much more conducive to the development, customization and growth of your online store — in comparison to Weebly or Wix, both of which are better known as website builders.
A version of this article was first published on Fundera, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.
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Weebly Review
