"Pausing" a Webflow Site Plan

Webflow currently does not have any feature to "pause" a site plan subscription. You must cancel the site plan entirely.

Unfortunately cancelling a plan means;

• You must first remove all add-ons like localization, via the designer
• You will lose all of your 301 redirects
• Your domains will be disconnected
• Possibly other impacts to apps, etc.

This creates an issue for freelancers and agencies who are hosting client sites, and who need to "pause" hosting on a past-due account to ensure no further losses.

However cancelling a plan and re-instating it comes at a significant cost-

• Re-localizing everything
• Re-establishing 301's
• Re-establishing domain names  
  

The Workaround

A huge thanks to Vikas from Webflow Support for sharing a workaround. Cloning a localized site will preserve all localized content, even though there is no localized plan attached.

I'm embellishing this a bit based on my understanding of how the overall process needs to work.

"Pause" Process

• Clone the site to a new unhosted site. This will preserve the localized content, without a plan.
• Backup the 301's by exporting as CSV. Store this somewhere safe.
  • Note that when you delete a site plan, you lose access to 301's but they should still exist. Still this is an important safeguard.
• Record the domains and primary domain to make "resume" easier.
• Record any SEO settings, app settings, hosting plan details that you need to be able to recall easily later.
• Shut down the hosted site;
  • In the designer, remove all secondary locales
  • In the hosting plan, delete all add-ons
  • Remove the hosting plan

Vikas indicates-

[ When a localized site is cloned ], the locales will not be removed or deleted and will remain in a locked state. When you add back the site hosting plan and the localisation plan, the locale will be again enabled for use again.

"Resume" Process

• Add the site plan to the cloned site
  • Add the number of locale add-ons you need
• In the designer, enable your locales
• In settings;
  • add your domains, set your default domain
  • import your 301's from CSV
• Review your SEO settings, e.g. canonical setting
• Publish and retest

Notes

If you're an agency or freelancer and pausing a past-due client, this will minimize the work and make re-instating service much less costly-

However this generally works best on a monthly site plan.

If you're using Optimize, the situation is the same as Localize- duplicating the site will preserve those settings so that adding a site plan will give you access again.

I have not yet tested this full process, if you have any notes or corrections to add, please share them in comments.