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Weebly Review – Free Website Builder for All

Last updated on January 8, 2020 by Jeremy in Website Builders, Weebly | Comments {21}

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Weebly is a website builder that allows anybody to build their own websites quickly and with ease.

It is a very popular platform, and has more than 12 million registered users for one very simple reason – Weebly is a free website builder, and it’s darn easy to use (click here to see our review of Weebly).

This free website builder allows you to build beautiful websites in a very short period of time – even if you do not have any programming background. If you have aspirations to create business websites, e-commerce websites, blogs or just general interest websites, Weebly is an ideal free website builder for you. Need proof? Check out these success stories of websites built on Weebly.

Easiest To Use Website Builder

4.1

Ease Of Use

Help and Support

Design Flexibility

Value For Money

Try For Free

Read Full Review

Free Versus Paid (Pro)

Yes it’s true, Weebly does have a paid feature where once you sign up for its Pro plan, you are granted access to more interesting website builder tools. But fear not, you don’t actually need the paid version of Weebly to build awesome websites. The free version of Weebly is more than enough to get the job done.

Free Features

So what tools do you have access to under Weebly’s free website builder program? Let’s just say you get ALL the basic tools, except for the following:

Header Slideshow
Search box
Video player (but you can get around this by uploading your video on to YouTube as Weebly’s free version allows you to play YouTube videos)
Audio player
Embedded document – allowing you to embed documents such as PDF to your web pages
Password protection for selected web pages
Increased file size limit
Visitors could upload files to your Weebly website

As you can see, Weebly’s free website builder program is fully capable of allowing you to build a functional website. Should you need the tools that the paid version provides, you can always upgrade later once you are satisfied with Weebly’s free website builder.

Full HTML / CSS Control

One of the best parts about this free website builder is that Weebly does not restrict you in how you want to design your website. By granting you full control of Weebly HTML and CSS access, if you are savvy with coding, you can pretty much create any design you want that suits your website. If you don’t have the necessary expertise to play around with the codes to create your ideal design, there are independent Weebly templates providers (such as Webfire Themes) that serve up some really beautiful and creative templates that could be integrated with your free or paid Weebly account in a matter of seconds.

Conclusion

Weebly is one of the best free website builders in the market today, for all the reasons provided above. It’s very intuitive to use, and its simple drag-and-drop platform has effectively created a way for everybody to build websites in a very quick and painless manner. For a comprehensive overview that summarizes the pros and cons of Weebly as well as its functionalities, visit our Weebly Review.

Click to Try Weebly for Free!

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About Jeremy

Maybe just like you, at first we didn't have a darn clue about how to build a website, nevermind write half a line of code if our life depended on it! We wanted to build a website to start a side business, and felt overwhelmed, confused & scared about how to actually do it, which builder to use, and making wrong decisions. After years of trials & errors using different website builders, we're here to share our experiences with you.

View all posts by Jeremy →

21 comments

stephen goulet 2 years ago

My website has a lot of math and I can't figure out how to write the powers of a number, such as 10 to the 5th power. The old way 10^5 , is confusing. Does Weebly have a superscript function?

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1 reply
- Lucy Carney 2 years ago
  
  Hi Stephen, Thanks for your question, that would definitely be a useful feature to have for your website! Unfortunately Weebly doesn't have a function in its editor to make inserting superscript easy. But it is possible if you use the code "^text". Here's a link to Weebly's support page where there's a discussion on superscript coding. I'm sorry I don't have a simpler answer for you! Researching around, it seems Weebly is not alone in this - all the major website builders I looked at for your query require coding for superscript and subscript. I hope that's helped and best of luck with your website, Lucy
  
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Jordan Porter 2 years ago

I understand Weebly allows free website building, but connecting a domain to that website is where the pricing plans come into play right? In order for me to avoid paying, I would have to use Weebly's own domain? Not sure I understand how it's really free.

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1 reply
- Lucy Carney 2 years ago
  
  Hi Jordan, Thanks for your comment! That's a good question, and I can understand your confusion. You can create, publish, and update your website with Weebly absolutely free. There are no hidden costs or sneaky fees to catch you out - we've tested it ourselves and you don't have to pay a cent on Weebly's free plan. But, like most website builders, you can't connect your own domain when you're on the free plan. This is really common and is one of the main reasons we do recommend upgrading to a paid plan. On the free plan your website address will look something like this: wwww.mywebsite.weebly.com So yes, to have a Weebly website for free you also have to have that weebly subdomain included in your website address. You don't pay for that domain, which is why it has the builder's name included. That's why we recommend the free plan for starting out and building your site, and then upgrading to a paid plan once you're ready. Weebly's cheapest plan is the $8 per month Starter plan - this allows you to connect your own domain (and removes Weebly adverts from your site too). If you sign up to this annual plan you actually get a free domain for the first year! If you'd like more information on domain names, check out our in-depth guide which covers everything from free vs paid domains to transferring them between sites. I hope that's helped answer your question, and that you enjoyed the Weebly Review. Thanks so much for reading, Lucy
  
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Cathy Lyons 2 years ago

Hi , I am a teacher and have use my Free Weebly Website for years. I have like 8 tabs with information under all of them. On my editing side everything looks the same and I am able to navigate perfectly but when I publish only 2 tabs show up. Do I need to upgrade to pay version? I have never had limited space using the weebly domain. please advice

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1 reply
- Lucy Carney 2 years ago
  
  Hi Cathy, That's great you've has such success using Weebly for so long! I'm sorry you're having problems now - I would recommend contacting Weebly's help and support through the Help Center (you'll have to login), or have a look in the community forum. It seems there have been other people with a similar problem from a while ago, and it was easily solved. There shouldn't be a limit on the number of pages you have, even on the free plan. So if you're having problems I'm sure Weebly would appreciate you alerting them so they can solve it for you. I hope this helps and best of luck getting this sorted quickly! Thanks for reading, Lucy
  
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Victoria 2 years ago

Hello, I am wanting to build a site for our school and I was wondering about language translation. Is there a feature on Weebly that will translate your site into another language? Wix is very limited in that you have to duplicate the site and translate everything on your own. I am trying to avoid having to translate everything.

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1 reply
- Natasha Willett 2 years ago
  
  Hi Victoria, Welcome to the community, what a great question. Translations are a challenging one, and Weebly just as you have come across with Wix will need to you to manually translate any copy. Both Weebly and Wix do however support Google translations should you want to create a website with either of these builders. This said, you could also consider 1&1, check out our review here. With 1&1 MyWebsite and an integrated Google translator which works directly within the editor rather than off site as seen with other builders, will offer you the possibility to translate your website content into 60 languages! 1&1 also cam out as the best website builder should you want to create a multi-lingual site within a recent research investigation we conducted. I hope this has helped. Natasha.
  
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syed 3 years ago

thanks

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kursus 3 years ago

I also really like the weebly blog I think this is the easiest to make and the design can fit my taste and is the best weebly

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rexmon 5 years ago

Hello, I'm thinking to built my own blog site since I've Heard about 'Google Adsense'. I just want to know if I can monitize my blog site with google adsense with out having to pay monthly for hosting or if I can monitize the websites that uses weebly ? Thank you.

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1 reply
- Jeremy 5 years ago
  
  Hi Rexmon, You can definitely use Weebly's free plan to place Google Adsense. But I think Weebly will receive a portion of your Adsense earnings under the free plan. But if you upgrade to one of their paid plans, then you get to keep all of the Adsense earnings yourself. Jeremy
  
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Heather Craig 5 years ago

Hi, I have built what I thought was a free website, but now I am trying to publish it - they are wanting me to pay? I already have my domain name. could you help Thanks

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1 reply
- Jeremy 5 years ago
  
  Hi Heather, You can use and publish a website built with Weebly for free. However, there are certain limitations with their free plan, such as having to use their subdomain name (not being able to connect your own custom domain name to the website), having a Weebly advertisement in the footer area, and not having full access to their tools. It's a reasonable trade off, as you are using the free plan after all! So if you want to connect your own domain name to the website, remove the advertisement (so people won't know you're using Weebly) and gain access to more of their website building tools, you'll have to upgrade. Take a look at this discussion of what you get with their upgraded plans. Jeremy
  
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  - Stephen Sivo 3 years ago
    
    Weebly doesn't let me use its subdomain name. It's forcing me to identify a domain, otherwise I don't have one. So, it does not appear that Weebly is free. If it is, how do I just use it subdomain name? It won't even let me specify a subdomain name with "weebly.com"
    
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  - Steve 3 years ago
    
    I built my website on Weebly in 2012 and been using it and updating it and have had my OWN domain which I paid for, since I started and NEVER had a problem.....but today, during editing my site, NOW, it says I HAVE to upgrade to a paid plan......I called and this was confirmed.....That I now have to pay IF I want to keep using my domain name and NOT become a "sub" domain of weebly...... WHAT A CROCK!!!! BEEN USING THIS SERVICE FOR 6 YEARS AND NOW THEY CHANGING IT AND FORCING PEOPLE TO PAY!!! I can understand them wanting to make money, but if you start charging people, it should be new customers or users, not people who have been with you and using the same services and features for YEARS FOR FREE! That's BS! I'm not trying to get any different service or use any different features, than I have been using for the LAST 6 YEARS..... I could even see it if I was wanting to use a new feature, BUT IM NOT....I just wanted to continue using the same features and site that I have for the many past years and currently.......ALL I CAN SAY IS "BEWARE WEEBLY USERS, NEW AND FORMER".....YOU WILL BUILD YOUR SITE AND IT MAY BE A GREAT SITE BUT THEY WILL CHANGE THEIR TERMS ON YOU!!! COUNT ON IT!!! IM A 6 YEAR CUSTOMER OF THIS BUSINESS AND THOUGHT CALLING THEM AND DISCUSSING IT WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE BUT THEY DON'T SEEM TO CARE IN THE LEAST!!!!
    
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    1 reply
    - Michelle 3 years ago
      
      The same has happened to me I use my own domain name and have been using Weebly for years. I just went to update details on my website and I now have to upgrade and pay to publish.
      
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Rosemary Hansen 6 years ago

We built our website in 2 months, updating our old website (then completely changing everything). Weebly has been excellent, easy to use & the support was good, (if not slightly awkward as they only have U.S help & sometimes you need to talk.) The only difficulty we had was that Weebly don't support 'Worldpay' which we needed. We used 'Shop Integrator' which worked brilliantly. If you are in a similar position and want to see what you can do feel free to have a look. 'www.darkmattercomposites.com

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1 reply
- Jeremy 6 years ago
  
  hey Rosemary, You're right. Weebly doesn't integrate Worldpay (yet). Currently, you can use PayPal, Square, Stripe or Authorize.net to power your Weebly ecommerce shopping cart. Jeremy
  
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Meghan Snyder 7 years ago

Thanks for the good Weebly review. One great thing I noticed about weebly is it allows custom domain names even for free accounts (most of these website builder sites charge monthly fee for custom doamin). One thing I'm wondering is how easy to use Weebly is, and how you would rate the ease of use of weebly, compared to a more simple one pager website builder tool like 'www.scrollysite.com or www.strikingly.com?

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1 reply
- Jeremy & Connie 7 years ago
  
  HI Meghan, Actually Weebly just updated their platform so that if you want to use your own custom domain name for your website, you have to upgrade to either their Starter or Pro plan. I think Weebly is very easy to use, and is a very powerful platform. I haven't used the other two builders that you mentioned so I can't compare them for you. But we really like Weebly. - Jeremy
  
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