An online portfolio is virtually a requirement to be hired in many industries, but who has time to learn how to code a website? Enter website builders like Web.com that make it extra simple to build a website using drag-and-drop tools.
In this Web.com review, we look at the site’s pricing, features, and usability to help you decide whether it’s the best website builder for your portfolio or online project.
Web.com review: Plans and pricing
Web.com boldly displays its introductory rates – $1.95/month for a starter package, $2.95 for a package with marketing, and $3.95/month for an e-commerce site. Wow, sounds great!
But that’s just for the first month. After the initial month, you’ll be paying $10, $15, or $20 for the same packages, respectively. This higher pricing is hidden away in a supplementary page that we expect many people miss when first signing up.
This isn’t as bad as it used to be, though. Web.com previously sold the same packages for $22.95, $29.95, and $39.95 per month, ten times its introductory rates.
You can also choose to pay annually. For the starter package, this means $50 for the first year and $100 for following years. For the marketing package, this rises to $75 for the first year and $150 for subsequent years. The e-commerce package, paid annually, is $100 for the first year and $200 for following years.
On the main pricing page, you’re advised you get a "complimentary domain name offer valid until website builder service is canceled". But another page states your free domain only lasts for a year and then you’ll be charged a whopping $37.99 each year for renewal. We reached out to Web.com representatives, who confirmed you are indeed charged for a domain after the first year.
In fact, you’re automatically charged $1.95/month after your very first month for "perfect privacy" on your domain. This keeps your name and address out of domain name registries, but it’s something competitors like Squarespace include for free.
Web.com review: Features
Web.com offers the basic features of a website builder. You choose a domain, select from a template, and edit the template until it reflects your business or portfolio.
Despite advertising 150+ professionally designed templates, Web.com has 125 templates in all. The vast majority of these reflect specific brick-and-mortar businesses and trades – plumbers, restaurants, hairdressers, beauty salons, construction companies, etc.
If you’re looking to use Web.com for a portfolio site, there are just six templates. For a personal site, there’s only one.
Compared to competitors like Wix that have nearly 1,000 high-quality templates, the template choice on Web.com is limited and lacks variety.
Web.com’s website editor is decent. It doesn’t offer the flexibility of a more complex editor like Wix, but you can quickly change the colors, fonts, and styles of your site in the Theme menu, add and remove pages in the Pages menu, and drag new elements to your pages in the Build menu.
The elements you can drag and drop onto your pages aren’t extensive, but all the big hitters are here. You can add image galleries, testimonials, maps, and video content with ease. The pre-designed layouts are great, allowing you to put together a professional-looking site in no time.
Another positive is that the designs are all responsive. This means they’ll work perfectly on smaller screens like tablets and phones without you needing to make a new design for each type of device.
If you pay for the Marketing or E-Commerce plans from Web.com, you’ll get access to the Online Marketing Services tab. But the marketing tools offered here, compared to what you get with competitors like Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace, are virtually non-existent.
The only tool on offer for the extra $5 you pay a month is for submitting your website to search engines and local listings. As Google states, to get a website listed in search results, you “usually don't even need to do anything except post it on the web”. Listing a business in directories like Google’s My Business is free and you only need to do it once, too, so why this service costs $5/month isn’t clear.
Web.com review: Interface
Setting up Web.com is relatively quick as you only need to choose a domain name, select from one of the three packages, and enter your contact details and payment details.
But too much detail hides in the often-contradictory small print, such as the fact that your domain name won’t transfer to you until after you have made your second payment to Web.com. This could be annoying in the case you got cold feet during the first week. Competitors like Wix and Weebly offer a free-forever plan so you can test them out without worry.
Once you’ve signed up, the Web.com site feels somewhat sluggish. Sometimes, you need to refresh the page to get it to load. On the plus side, it’s easy to navigate the website management interface, as it only has a few pages.
Web.com review: Security
None of the plans, even the e-commerce plan, come with SSL support as standard, so you’ll need to pay between $27.69 and $480.00 per year for an SSL certificate if you want transactions to and from your site to be secure. Competitors like Wix and Squarespace include this for free.
Web.com sells a Cyber Security Solution for $49.95/year. With this, the company will "prevent security breaches" to your website. This begs the question, is your Web.com website hosting insecure if you don’t get this solution? You also get a mobile app with a VPN and lost device location tracker, which, though nice, seems unconnected to your website.
Web.com review: Support
Support is available through live chat, Monday to Friday 8 AM to 8 PM EST. We found live chat support to be prompt and friendly, but the agents staffing the lines seemed unaccustomed with the product and struggled to answer our basic questions.
Though the web administration interface lists options for how-tos, user guides, and forums, these links all take you to the same small knowledge base, as no forum actually exists. The knowledge base offers a handful of basic articles on hosting, emails, domains, and websites, but nothing particularly useful.
This is perhaps to encourage the use of Web.com’s professional services. Web.com offers custom website design, search engine optimisation, and pay-per-click advertising for a bespoke price. But the promise that the search engine optimisation services will "get your business listed in up to 24 popular directories"—a dismal contribution to any SEO campaign – suggests these services will be overpriced and ineffective.
Web.com: An outdated, expensive option
Web.com is a website builder aimed at people who don’t like using computers. It’s possible to throw together a website based on a template, change a few sections of text, and you’ve got yourself a semi-professional site you can direct people to when they ask if you’re online.
But the service leaves much to be desired. Competitors like Wix and Squarespace (see our Wix review and Squarespace review) offer a longer list of templates, more versatile website editing tools, stronger SEO and marketing tools, and better customer support.
Web.com’s pricing, for what you get, is awful. We dislike how it promotes itself as a cheap option only to jack up the price after you’ve purchased a domain name and are already somewhat locked in to using Web.com.
Overall, it’s difficult to recommend Web.com when so many better website builders have risen to replace it in the market.
Read more: WordPress vs Squarespace: which is best for you?
