Founded in 2013 by two brothers who wanted to create an easy way for people to make beautiful websites, Webflow offers a set of tools designed specifically to help nontechnical people create high-quality sites quickly and easily.
Webflow has become one of the most successful startups in recent years. But how did they manage to get there? And why haven’t others followed suit? In this article, you will learn about the Webflow revenue model, and see how they made millions from web design software.
Webflow operates on a SaaS (Software as a Service) model. They make their money from two different subscription options: Site Plans and Account plans. Free and paid members alike can access the core functionality, but they need to pay for some additional features.
Both types of plans include most of Webflow‘s features but differ in price and site count.
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About Webflow
Webflow is a “no code” web-building marketplace platform that doesn’t require plugins because it has its own content management system (CMS) inside. Its revenues aren’t too unusual but its marketing methods guarantee a steady stream through those sources.
With this drag-and-drop approach, designers and developers can focus on designing and developing without having to spend time debugging their own codes or getting their websites to work on all browsers.
With its platform for creating custom websites without coding, Webflow generates a steady stream of organic traffic, which leads to a natural conversion rate for its products and services.
Business Model of Webflow
Webflow offers its services through a freemium business model. Users can use some of their templates for free, but most of them need a paid plan to be used.
Product
A web design tool that allows you to create responsive websites with visual editor tools for browsers.
Webflow’s templates are no-code web builders which don’t need plugins because they use their own CMS (content management system).
Websites that are built on Webflow run on Amazon Cloudfront and are hosted on Fastly.
You can create different layouts using various templates available online. For example, you can use one template to create a landing page and another template to create an e-commerce site.
Webflow competitors include:
- Magnolia
- Figma
- Pantheon
- Weebly
- Squarespace
- Wix
Marketing
Webflow markets its company by using its marketplace for templates. Many companies rely on Webflow to bring them new clients and that brings Webflow a lot of business.
Because Webflow partners and web designers qualify as Webflow partners and web developers, they benefit from Webflow’s growth and therefore have an inherent motivation to promote Webflow.
There are many respectable companies who have used Webflow and have published their findings, including but not limited to:
- Dell
- Zendesk
- Rakuten
- Upwork
- Lattice
It should also be mentioned that Webflow automatically generates lots of organic visits. In fact, it was referred to by Thoughtlyrics.com as a “content monster”.
Active Marketing: What else does Webflow offer?
- It has its own blog with many popular blog posts.
- Ebooks
- Video materials
- Reading list content clusters
- Content funnel
It would be wrong not to talk about the company’s marketing strategy before discussing its product offerings. After all, the company offers a wide range of paid products for designers and developers.
The Freelancers’ Journey is one of the company’s most popular courses that is referred to as “a freelancing Bootcamp.” It is clear from the title and from CEO Vlad Magdalin’s own interview that this course is called in memory of his own journey as a freelancer to become a billionaire. He wasn’t always a billion-dollars CEO.
The comprehensive course outlines for the Freelancers’ Journey include:
- Getting clients
- Developing a content strategy
- Design principles
- Site build
- Site launch
- Portfolio
There are other courses available at Webflow University including but not limited to:
- Use Adobe After Effects and Lottie for adding web animations to your site.
- Webflow eCommerce
- SEO fundamentals
- CMS & dynamic content
- CSS grid in Webflow
- CSS layout & positioning
- CSS styling
Expenses
Since Webflow isn’t really a physical store, they don’t need to spend a ton of money on building out a storefront or paying rent. Instead, they focus on making sure their software works well so they can provide value to their clients.
Additionally, Webflow has the costs associated with any other software service:
- Hosting
- Payroll
- Sales
Plan for Profit
In order to make money, they must offer something unique and valuable to the market. They can do so by providing a service that others cannot provide, such as building an entire website without coding.
As stated earlier, they don’t need to spend any money on advertising because their organic traffic is so high. They’ve been endorsed by companies like Dell, so people who are in the know already know them.
How Does Webflow Make Money?
As a freemium SaaS, WebFlow generates income from its subscriptions which can be divided into two different types of revenues:
- Site Plans
- Account Plans
Those two income streams can be divided into several different types. And those different types could be divided into ten different groups.
Website plans vary by company size and the number of websites they host. For smaller sites, a single site plan might be best; however, larger sites often need multiple account plans.
First, we can divide site plans into two categories:
- Ecommerce Plans
A site plan is good for:
- Personal sites
- Blogs
- Business websites
There are four plan tiers available, starting at $12 per month and going up to $36 per month.
- Basic
- CMS
- Business
- Enterprise
The Basic plan is suitable for a simple website that doesn’t require a CMS. It offers a low CDN bandwidth and low maximums per month and monthly visits.
The CMS Plan is best suited for blogs and other types of sites where there’s a lot of text and images. It improves CDN (caching) bandwidth and increases the maximum number of forms you can submit per month, and it lets you increase your maximum monthly page views.
- API requests
- Content editors
- Site search
The Business Plan is designed for a high-traffic marketing website or blog. It includes some enhancements to most of the features mentioned above, but not the ability to create custom pages.
The Enterprise plan is suitable for growing your business from small scale to large scale. It lets you:
- Security audits help ensure compliance with industry standards for protecting sensitive customer
- To protect yourself from DDoS attacks, use AWS Shield Advanced, which provides powerful protections for your websites, applications, and infrastructure.
- Single Sign On (SSO) allows for easier login processes by allowing multiple
- Ensure reliability with 99.9 percent uptime SLA
- Through a grade scale and global hosting network, we provide custom traffic solutions for your business.
- Make sure your SSL certificate is customized for your site.
You can choose between three different eCommerce plans depending on your budget. They range from $29 to $213 per month.
- Standard
- Plus
- Advanced
The Standard Plan is designed for new business owners who want to get up and running quickly. It offers limited functionality but comes at a lower price than the Premium Plan.
- Custom checkout
- Custom shopping cart
- Custom product fields
- Email customization
- Integrated CMS for blogs
The Plus Plan is best for businesses that require extra functionality because it has twice the number of maximum items as the Standard plan and three times the maximum number of user account types (employees) as well as four times the maximum annual revenue per user.
It also has all of the features found in the Standard plan plus branded email addresses.
The Advanced plan includes all of the features of our plus plan but also offers six times the number of items, more than five times the sales accounts, and unlimited annual sales volume.
All Ecommerce Plans include:
- Stripe powered payments
- Automatic tax calculation
- Apple Pay and Web Payments
- Paypal support
- Facebook and Instagram Integration
- Google Shopping Integration
- Google Analytics Integration
- MailChimp Integration
- Custom code
- Configure manual shipping rules
All plans include:
- Backups & versioning
- Password protection
- Advanced SEO controls
- Super-fast page loads
- SSL and security built-in
- Immediate scaling
An account plan charges for each individual website. If you run multiple websites, an account plan would be best.
There are three types of plans available for Facebook Ads accounts: the cheapest one is completely free; the next one costs $10 per day, and the most expensive one costs $35 per day.
- Starter
- Lite
- Pro
The Starter Plan is completely free. You get everything for free when you sign up for
- Staging
- Client billing
- 2 projects
The Lite Plan allows you to export your code and access more pages for hosted sites, but it costs $9 per month. It comes with all of the benefits of the Starter plan, plus:
- 10 projects
- Enhanced staging
- Unlimited project transfers
The Pro Plan is suitable for active freelancers and web developers who want more jobs, more features, and better support. It includes all of the features of both the Lite Plan and the Plus Plan.
- Unlimited projects
- White labeling
- Site password protection
All Account Plans include:
- Unlimited hosted projects
- Interactions and animations
- 100+ responsive templates
- 3D platforms
- Global swatches
- Custom fonts
- Flexbox and CSS Grid
- Reusable symbols
Webflow Funding, Valuation, and Revenues
Webflow doesn’t need any external funding because they’ve been able to raise $5 million from investment firms like SilverSmith Capital Partners and RainfallCapital.
Webflow’S valuation has been growing exponentially since 2019 when its value was $100 million. By 2021, its value had grown to $600 million.
The growth rate isn’t bad either. Webflow’s revenues have increased by three times since last July.
Is Webflow Profitable?
Webflow is a successful company with a bright outlook. It enables customers to create beautiful, mobile websites without any programming experience.
With its own funds, Webflow has been able to grow steadily for years. It’s also profitable and one of the fastest growing companies in the industry.
Webflow was actually named one of the top 69 startups to watch out for in 2021 by Forbes.com in its annual Cloud 100 list. The Cloud 100 is an exclusive list of innovative and valuable private companies in the cloud technology sector.
Conclusion: How Does Webflow Make Money?
Webflow is a tool for creating websites quickly without coding knowledge. With a simple drag-and-drop interface, users can create stunning sites with ease. Similar to Squarespace and Weebly, Webflow offers a range of templates to choose from. However, unlike those two services, Webflow does not require any programming skills to build your site. You can also customize your template further if you wish.
One of the best things about Webflow is that they’re an all-in-one website creation tool. They offer everything you need to create a professional-looking website from start to finish. There are plenty of competitions that provide similar features but Webflow has something no one else offers. They want to be a place where designers and developers can focus on creative projects instead of having to learn code.
Webflow is a relatively young company when it came to web design. However, since its inception, it has grown quickly by adding new features and services at affordable prices.
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