Weebly is one of the free site building tools offering many features including site builder, email, hosting and domain registration. What you need is a computer and an internet connection without out the need of downloading and installing any software. The sign up process is also very easy and you will be ready to start building your dream site in minutes.
Related: How to install Weebly in Bluehost domain?
Brief History of Weebly
Weebly is a private web company founded in 2007 offering various tools for building a web site. Three college friends David Rusenko, Dan Veltri and Chris Fanini built Weebly site builder to provide an easy platform for the people to publish their work online. It became quickly famous among webmaster’s community due to the easy to use WYSIWYG drag and drop site editor. Weebly claims that they power over 40 million websites.
During 2019, the payment processing company Square purchased Weebly.
Why Weebly?
The major advantage of Weebly is that it does not need any prior technical skills to start building a site. You can just drag and drop elements on a page to build your content.
Weebly Features
Users can create a content site, blog or an online store using various features with the same drag and drop builder interface. Weebly offers four different plans to cover all type of audience and the complete list of features are shown below:
| Feature | Performance | Business | Pro | Starter | Free |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Site Builder | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free Hosting | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free Domain | Yes | 1 Year | 1 Year | 1 Year | No |
| Number of Pages | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storage Limit | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | 500 MB |
| Search Engine Indexing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Expanded Site Statistics | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Connect with Custom Domain | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Remove Weebly Footer Message | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Drag & Drop Customizable Footer | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Password Protect at Site Level | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Own Favicon | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Site Search Box | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Video Backgrounds | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| HD Video and Audio Players | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Editor Permissions | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| File Upload | 250MB | 250MB | 250MB | 100MB | 100MB |
| SSL Certificate | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Membership | Unlimited | Unlimited | 100 | No | No |
| User Registration | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Email Marketing | $96 for a year | No | No | No | No |
| Google AdWords Coupon | $100 | $100 | $100 | $100 | No |
| Support Model | Forum + Email + Chat + Phone | Forum + Email + Chat + Phone | Forum + Email + Chat + Phone | Forum + Email + Chat | Forum + Email + Chat |
| Email Campaigns | 5 per month to 500 sender per mail | No | No | No | No |
| Ecommerce Features | |||||
| Number of Product Elements | Unlimited | Unlimited | 25 | 10 | 0 |
| Payment Transaction Fee | 0% | 0% | 3% | 3% | Not Eligible |
| Shopping Cart | On Your Own Domain | On Your Own Domain | checkout.weebly.com | checkout.weebly.com | Not Eligible |
| Selling Digital Goods | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Inventory Tracking | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Shipping Details | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Tax Calculator | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Offering Coupon Codes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Realtime Shipping Rates | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Abandoned Cart Emails | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Gift Cards | Yes | No | No | No | No |
All the plans have the following common features for free:
- 10 sites per account
- Free image editor
- Access and edit source CSS / HTML
- Unlimited storage
- Free hosting
- WYSIWYG drag & drop site builder
- Mobile app for iPhone, Android and iPad
- Mobile site and editor
Related: How to install Weebly on SiteGround domain?
Weebly Platforms
The services are offered for three different target audiences:
- Web platform – individual site owners.
- Designer platform – white labelled solution targeting designers and resellers who maintain client sites.
- Education platform – targeting teachers and students of schools and colleges.
Many paid hosting companies like Bluehost, SiteGround and HostGator also offers Weebly website builder as part of the paid hosting plans.
Weebly Competitors
There are many companies offering similar product portfolio like Weebly and having equal popularity among webmasters. Some of the competitors are:
- Wix
- Yola
- WordPress.com
- WordPress.org
- Squarespace
- Blogger
Pricing Plans
Weebly offers four plans to cover different needs of users and the summary of the plans are as below:
Weebly Plans Pricing Details
| Plan | Number of Sites | Price Per Month (Monthly Plan) | Price Per Month (6 Months Plan) | Price Per Month (1 Year Plan) | Price Per Month (2 Years Plan) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | 10 | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Starter Plan | 10 | No Plan | $9 | $8 | $5 |
| Pro Plan | 10 | No Plan | $14 | $12 | $9 |
| Business Plan | 10 | $35 | $34 | $25 | $21 |
| Performance Plan | 10 | $59 | No Plan | $49 | $45 |
Products Offered
In addition to site building and hosting Weebly also offers the following services:
- Domain registration.
- Email marketing solution called Weebly promote.
- Google mail integration service.
- App Center – marketplace for selling apps and other subscription services.
Is Weebly Completely Free?
The answer is – to certain extent. Weebly offers free subdomains with hosting without a need of providing any credit card or billing information. You simply need to register with an email id and you are ready to go.
In return for a free hosting and site builder Weebly displays a footer message in your site and offers premium upgrade packages.
No site builder offers a customized set of tools for building your site. What you can do is to list down all your requirements and check whether Weebly can help fulfilling most of your needs before start building a site.
Summary
Weebly is an easy to use free site builder tools allows you to create a wonderful site in minutes. Though Weebly offers many features and the option to edit source HTML/CSS, it still lags many features needed by individual users and businesses. Learn complete Weebly features.
Pros
- Want to create quick and small site? – Weebly is the best option.
- Build online store to sell your products.
- No hassle of hosting and security.
- One stop solution for hosting, domain, emails and marketing campaigns.
Cons
- Want to create a large site provides more value to the customer? – Weebly is not an option for you.
- High cost per site and domain purchase.
- No backup option and migrating to other platform is difficult.
- Not all types of sites are allowed.
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