This page is a quick-take that can help you choose the right approach for your Webflow setup. It is simplified, so read
Things you need to know
Site Plans
- Are needed to make a site public and give it a custom domain
- An "unhosted site" has the free starter site plan.
- A "hosted site" has a paid site plan of some kind.
- Different site plans give your site different capabilities
- Enterprise site plans are customized to your site capability needs
- Site plans also have add-ons, such as localization
Workspace Plans
- Give you all of the tools you need to build sites before you make them public
- Are charged per team member seat
- Different workspace plans affect your team size limits and unhosted site limites ( test and in-development projects
- Enterprise workspace plans have added development capabilities such as multiple designers working on the same project simultaneously
About Building Sites
- Building sites on a free starter workspace + free starter plan is highly limited
- Add a paid site plan or a paid workspace plan to increase those limits, especially when you need;
- Custom code or embeds
- To do localization work
- If you're building a no-CMS site that you plan to export, you need a workspace plan
Webflow's Workspaces
I'm going to focus on Webflow's workspaces and hosting plans from the perspective of freelancers and small agencies.
If you're a large agency looking for the full range of advanced capabilities, check out Webflow Enterprise.
Webflow's Workspaces determine;
- How many users you can have on your account
- How many unhosted sites you can have
- Whether you can use custom code in your sites ( including HTML embeds as well )
- Whether you can code-export your sites, for hosting elsewhere
As of Nov 2022, Webflow is completing the migration process into workspaces, and currently has them divided into two groups;
- In-house teams, which I think of as "old plans"
- > Includes Starter, Core, Growth, and Enterprise
- Freelancers & agencies, which I think of as "new plans"
- > Includes Starter, Freelancer, and Agency
Note, those associations probably aren't correct, as there are a range of differences between these plans. But I find myself using those associations anyway.
NOTE: As far as I can see, the Starter plan is identical across In-House teams, and the Freelancers & Agencies category.
Webflow's Site Plans
Webflow's Site plans determine the capabilities of an individual site;
- Whether you can have a custom domain
- Whether you have CMS access
- How many form submissions to allow per month
- The number of client "guest" editors allowed to access the site
- e-Commerce support
See the Breakdown video for details.
Important Notes
Custom Code, and Free Workspaces
I have not tested this personally. The Starter plan appears to be the same between the In-House and Freelancer/Agency plans, but there is a language difference in how custom code is described.
In In-House, it's written as;
Design features. Custom code. Add custom code and scripts that apply to your entire site or individual pages.
For the Freelancer & Agency plans, it's written as;
Unhosted site limits. Custom code on unhosted sites. Add custom code and scripts that apply to your entire site or individual pages.
Looking at the Site Plans, my interpretation is that the custom code feature in Workspaces only relates to unhosted sites. Once a site is hosted, custom code support depends on the the plan you've chosen.
Code Export
Is a feature of the Workspace, and not of a Site Hosting Plan. If you are exporting code, make sure you've chosen the right plan first.
Can I go with the Free Workspace or Site Plan?
For most professional sites, the free plan is simply not an option.
Here's why;
- The Free Starter Site Plan;
- Doesn't support custom domains, which means https://yourclient.webflow.io. Not a good look.
- Has no CMS capabilities, which most sites will need at some point. Static sites are possible, but limited to very simple uses, where the 100 page limit works for you.
- The Free Starter Workspace;
- Doesn't support custom code
- Doesn't support code export
With the elimination of Client Billing, many freelancers have chosen to setup a Starter Workspace for their clients, and the transfer the site there. This way, the client could use their own credit card to pay for the monthly hosting, and the freelancer could keep being a freelancer rather than a hosting provider.
There is a gotcha to that plan, which is that on the free Starter Workspace, you cannot use custom code. As long as your client's site is custom-code-free, you're all good.
But if they have code, you need a paid Workspace, which nearly doubles their monthly hosting costs.
Sefket Nouri (Webflow Support Portal)
Nov 7, 2022
Both Logic, and Memberships are included in our Site Plans.
