Seven years ago, I moved my clients to Webflow in large part because I liked the client-facing content editor, the client billing feature, and, of course, the designer.
It felt like the right combination of features, and as I rebuilt each of 50 client sites on Webflow, life was smooth. I built a site, clients got hosting bills from Webflow, and I moved on to the next one.
A few years later client billing was shut down, and that little paradise fell apart.
Finding a new billing solution that worked for us, and transitioning 50 clients was a nightmare. New hosting costs, new pricing, new billing approaches, everything was different.
It took months of work.
But now, my clients and I are much happier.
This is a story of how I rebuilt a new paradise, and why it turned out to be a better one.
The Challenges
Under Webflow's new setup, the account owner of the hosted site is responsible for the hosting payments, and their credit card is used for all billing.
That means that if the hosted sites are in your workspace...
- You have to bill your client yourself for ongoing hosting
- You're responsible even if the client doesn't pay you
- You may have to add local taxes to the bill, for clients who are in your tax region
That transition was difficult and painful, and my credit card suddenly had an extra $20k/yr of charges on it.
Platform Improvements
In the years after client billing was shut down, Webflow's made a number of important improvements-
- The ability to transfer a site from one workspace to another
- The ability to transfer a site hosting plan from one site to another within the same workspace
These added some safety and flexibility in how you approach client site hosting, and opened the door to a brand new solution.
The Client-owned Workspace Approach
Perhaps the most popular approach now is to;
- build the site in your freelancer / agency workspace
- setup a free workspace for the client
- invite yourself as a guest into that client's workspace
- transfer your client's site to the client's workspace
- setup a hosting plan there, on the client's credit card
This is a great approach, but it has limitations, and it became an option long after we'd finished migrating all of our clients to our new White-labeled billing approach, which works better for us.
An Approach that works
These are the tactics that worked for me...
#1 - Use a reliable platform
We first tried Webflow's recommend solution of Bonsai and hated it. Tons of problems. Tons of failed billing. Tons of support requests. No fixes. It was pure pain.
Ultimately we decided to try using our Stripe account directly, and haven't looked back. With zero monthly fee, it offers;
- A solid customer database,
- Subscription invoicing, with lots of options including pro-rated payments and variable pricing
- Emailed invoices, and adequate branding
- Automatic retry of any failed subscription payments
- Ability to adjust subscription amounts
- Easy refunding to the card, including partial refunds
This is why everyone, including Bonsai, uses Stripe as the underlying billing platform.
Note: as a product, Stripe is designed for geeks. It's highly technical and packed with features, so the interface has a learning curve. It was worth it, and- bonus- we save $400/yr on Bonsai fees too.
#2 - Mitigate the billing risk
Two basic tactics to reduce your risk...
Setup your subscription billing cycles so that you collect payment before it's due to Webflow. You'll sleep better, especially on annual plans. Annual plans come with a high risk, so bill 2 or even 3 months before the Webflow cycle to ensure that you can resolve issues or ( if necessary ) cancel the client's Webflow annual plan or revert it to monthly if necessary.
Add a bit to the monthly hosting fee, to cover taxes, small updates, general monitoring and support. This small additional profit scales well as you have more clients, because you're more protected the more hosted sites you have.
Those are the basics of how to get into managing your client's Webflow hosting costs safely. Now let's look at why this is to your and your clients' advantage.
White-labeled hosting
I refer to this approach as white-labeled hosting because the custom is paying you directly. The invoices have your own branding, and Webflow hosting is simply a service that's included as a part of your monthly fees.
In addition to hosting, there are two other types of costs that should be factored into the monthly fees;
Add a Monthly Time Allotment
On top of Webflow hosting, you should add a small margin for ongoing time costs;
- Small site updates
- General email support, e.g. I forgot my password
- Time for reviewing analytics, adwords, uptime reports, and so on
- Regularly reviewing automations and lead delivery to ensure that they are running smoothly
Add a Monthly Shared Services Fee
A portion of the cost of shared services that you are using as part of your hosting solution;
- Form submission handling, to eliminate SPAM and ensure deliverability. We use Basin.
- Automation platforms like Make, Zapier, n8n, Pipedream
- Monitoring platforms that ensure you know the moment a site's service is interrupted
Shared services are different from client-specific services in that you can typically run all of your clients under a single account, and bill those costs fractionally.
The client pays a bit more for hosting but on the whole is much happier with a phenomenally better end results and level of service.
The Massive, Secret, Hidden Benefits
Now for the fun part.
Better Client Relationships
I didn't anticipate the perspective and relationship benefits that would come with white-labeled hosting.
First, my mentality had to shift from "build, finish, next" to a much more long-term and agency-like mentality, with a deeper ongoing connection with my clients.
Instead of handing them over to Webflow's care until they call again, my perspective has switched towards that of an ongoing service provider.
- I keep their site in top shape
- I know first about any issues, and resolve them
- I ensure business is flowing, and leads are delivered
From my customers' perspectives, they're in a strategic partnership with an agency that they can call anytime.
This has changed everything.
Aside from better, stronger relationships and happier clients, it's meant a lot more business-
- My more active client sites have generated well over 10x the revenue that the initial build itself generated, with ongoing changes and feature requests. Their business grows, mine does too.
- Referrals. These sites are vibrant hubs that feed a successful businesses. Their business partners see that, and I get a lot of referrals without spending a dime in advertising.
And I'm no longer in the sales game of "how do I get more clients"? I don't need more clients. My current clients keep my schedule full and income flowing.
Complete Hosting Flexibility
With a strong client relationship and a proven track record, there is a lot of trust. Clients look to me to deliver an end result and they trust that I'll make the right decisions to deliver those results.
For them, my choice of Webflow and Webflow hosting is entirely at my discretion, and if I ever thought it was best to change that, they would have zero concerns.
Here's an example of where that matters.
I also have clients with low-velocity sites, by which I mean a near-zero rate-of-change. The sites are busy with visitors and feed their business consistently, and the client is perfectly happy with that.
I refer to these as "low-velocity", or "low-flux" sites because the rate-of-change is very low.
- Virtually no changes are needed, ever
- The client doesn't have any interest in expanding the site or adding new features
- Even CMS changes are rare, or else products / blog are integrated from a non-Webflow source
In many cases, these sites are also "simple," meaning that they do not rely on Webflow's localization, ecom, or user accounts.
In the low-velocity simple-site scenario, Webflow's hosting is overpriced for the value it can provide, and we have the option to export and re-host those sites on another platform like Netlify or Cloudflare Pages.
Basic-plan sites can be exported and rehosted directly. CMS-plan sites require more rehosting work, or a tool like Udesly's JAMstack.
Rehosting can result in a saving of $400+ per year, per site, which covers the time cost of rehosting, and then some. Sites are also noticeably faster, and you can reduce your client's monthly hosting fees.
Afterword
The reason I've written this article is that many freelancers run away from the idea of hosting sites in their own account, and the risk of accepting responsibility for the client's monthly hosting fees.
I encourage you to rethink that.
