Web.com Review: Powerful, but Not for Experts (In 2024)

Web.com at a Glance

Should You Use Web.com?

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Web.com has a well-earned place in website builder history. But coasting on legacy alone isn’t enough in an industry that thrives on adapting to the cutting edge – something that Web.com hasn’t always proven capable of. After a massive overhaul, however, Web.com is looking to reclaim its place as an industry giant.

After hours upon hours of in-depth testing of everything that it has to offer, I’m happy to report that Web.com is now an impressive and well-rounded website builder – with some caveats. I have my gripes with its ease of use, and its selection of advanced tools (there’s no dedicated builder for professionals) puts it in an awkward spot.

Still, as it stands today, Web.com is an outstanding tool for intermediate designers looking to take their skills to the next level. The feature-packed plans and advanced editor will be a major benefit if you need design flexibility and power, even if it’s not the best builder for a quick-and-easy website.

Will Web.com meet your needs, or are you better off with something different? Read on to find out.

Elegant and Eye-Catching Templates for a Variety of Niches

Each one of Web.com’s 200+ templates showcases its flexibility for adapting to a wide range of styles. Almost no template is over or under-designed, as is sometimes the case for other builders. For example, the template for a legal service looks sleek and professional, with minimalistic design choices and only the essential information. Meanwhile, a punk band or a gaming blog needs to feel way more dynamic and fun, so the templates include a ton of elements, contrasting colors, and eye-catching visuals.

You can find templates under the Business, Blog, Store (only available with e-commerce plans), Personal, Portfolio, Health, Beauty, and Restaurant categories. It’s far from the widest range of categories I’ve seen, but you have to keep in mind that Web.com is aimed at people who don’t mind putting some time into website customization. This means that while there might not be templates specifically made for a business that sells pajamas for dogs, it does give you every tool you need to create that website.

Ironically, I found that Web.com’s attention to making each template stand out isn’t always a good thing. While it certainly looks great and shows you the builder’s capabilities, it can also make the prospect of modifying any template to make it unique to your website seem daunting and time-consuming.

Design and Customization

All my favorite builders let you customize the broad strokes of design, as well as provide tools that let you get as meticulous about each detail as you want. In that regard, Web.com absolutely delivers.

For starters, each template has a one-page and multi-page version, so you can choose which one works best for your vision. I recommend going for a single page if you’re just trying to get one message across (like announcing your professional services or promoting an event) and multi-page for anything that involves a larger amount of information (like a blog, online store, or portfolio).

Once you’ve picked a template you like, you can change the overarching design of your site by going to the “Theme” menu on the left-hand-side navigation bar. There, you’ll be able to modify your fonts, colors, and button styles. One feature I particularly like is the color wizard, which lets you automatically adapt your site’s color scheme to match that of any image of your choosing. This ensures that if you already have a logo or a design document ready, the rest of your site can perfectly match its colors.

For adding content, you can just select entire pre-made sections by adding a block from the “Build” menu. There is a wide selection of blocks for everything from banners and featured images to client testimonials and progress reports. If you’re not a fan of pre-made sections, you can also add, edit, and replace specific elements and widgets to your heart’s content.

Overall, Web.com gives you a truly impressive level of customization over your site. It’s great for design-conscious users, but do keep in mind that things can quickly get out of hand if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Powerful Features for In-Depth Design

Web.com takes an interesting direction with its features. Though it offers a wide variety of tools to let you fine-tune the design and capabilities of your site, it doesn’t get as in-depth as other builders that cater to professional designers and agencies. The end result is a toolbox that’s considerably more extensive than that of traditional website builders. That said, it doesn’t have essential components like a variety of spacing measurements or direct CSS editing.

That also puts it in a bit of an awkward position. Since it offers more advanced customization than beginner-friendly builders, I wouldn’t call it ideal for setting up a site quickly and forgetting about it either. However, it is a builder that offers just the right amount and selection of features if you’re a web-design intermediate or looking to ease into more advanced design concepts.

Varied and Powerful Widgets for Broadening Your Site’s Functionality

Just like most other modern website builders, you add individual elements to your Web.com site through a widgets menu, which includes basic tools like headings, images, and buttons. However, Web.com’s widget menu stands out thanks to its wide variety of options and advanced features for editing each individual element.

Besides the basics, you can add unique elements like custom forms, countdowns, and progress reports. Not to mention complete freedom to add custom snippets of CSS code, which opens your possibilities to thousands of third-party widgets. Though a proper app market would have been nice.

For each element you add to your site, Web.com provides a surprisingly vast selection of advanced editing tools. You can change the colors, animations, effects, and meta descriptions of just about everything. This means that you can tailor every detail – big and small – of your site to fit the exact look and function you envision.

Advanced Editing Options for Full Control Over Your Final Product

Web design is as much about what you don’t add as what you do. A good understanding of negative space and the importance of spacing can make or break a website. Though it lacks tools (like relative spacing units that automatically adjust to the screen size), Web.com gives you a lot more control over your site’s spacing than other popular builders.

Besides giving you access to highly customizable tools for alignment and spacing, Web.com allows you to look at your website’s overall structure through the layout view. It’s a great tool for visualizing how each element of your site works in relationship to the rest. Also, it allows you to fine-tune spacing between elements on desktop, tablet, and mobile versions of your site.

E-Commerce Tools Galore

Starting from the Online Store plan, you get access to a wide variety of e-commerce features to create and grow an online storefront. Web.com’s e-commerce dashboard includes all the tried-and-tested features of a quality e-commerce portal, like product categorization and variations, sales tracking, and customer management. Since the dashboards for e-commerce and website building are completely different, it can also help you keep things organized.

Web.com’s e-commerce features aren’t restricted to just sales either. If you provide any sort of professional service, you can access useful appointment and scheduling features to allow customers to book you and pay directly from your site.

That said, it’s worth noting that for as much functionality as it offers, Web.com is not a dedicated e-commerce platform. That becomes clear when you look at its limited list of available payment processors and its limited (but useful) reporting capabilities.

Useful Branding and Content Features

Web.com’s selection of branding and marketing tools is truly impressive, and it makes it a great builder if you’re looking for high-quality features to help you leave your mark. Starting from the Online Store plan and onwards, you also get access to a separate content dashboard. There, you can plan future campaigns, create content roadmaps, and even access basic image editing tools. On the marketing side of things, you’ll be able to create email campaigns and newsletters, integrate ads with major social media channels and search engines, and create a landing page that connects to all your socials.

But the true standout is the dedicated branding dashboard (I agree, there are a lot of dedicated dashboards). You can use each of these tools to help you on a different stage of your brand’s journey. If you’re just getting started, the AI business name generator and domain name checker will be useful resources. If you’re a little more advanced, you can also access a proprietary logo builder to carve an identity for yourself. Finally, you even get options for creating custom merch with your branding on it.

I didn’t get a chance to try it myself but theoretically, you could create your brand directly from the name up and create a complete merch store without ever switching tabs.

Outstanding Ease-Of-Use Tools, but a Confusing User-Experience

Web.com drops the ball a little regarding user-accessibility. Since it’s geared towards a more design-minded user base, it’s only natural that its learning curve can often turn steep. I’ve found this to be the case for most builders that require a higher degree of proficiency, like Editor X or Duda, so I can’t blame Web.com too much on that front. However, there’s no excuse for the frustrating user interface (UI) which often involves confusing and unnecessary navigation.

To give you an example, you won’t find any of the e-commerce tools if you create your site starting from the “Website” section of your dashboard. Instead, you’ll have to select “eCommerce,” and click on the “manage store” button. There, you’ll be redirected to a different dashboard that also has a “website” tab. If you click on it, you’ll get redirected to the exact same builder interface, with the only notable difference being that now you’ll be able to access the tools you paid for.

This also means that if you wanted to design a site with a storefront, but you got confused and started building from the first “Website” section, well… tough luck. You’ll have to start over from the correct submenu.

That’s not to say it’s all bad. In spite of those annoying quirks, the actual site editor is still surprisingly easy to understand considering how in-depth it can go. Besides, Web.com has outstanding additional features that go a long way toward improving accessibility.

A Professional Design Service at Your Fingertips

It takes a bit of professional design experience to get the most out of Web.com’s service, especially during the initial stage when you want to set up everything to be as close to your vision as possible. Thankfully, Web.com gives you the possibility of having your website designed by an experienced professional.

For an additional, one-time fee of $149, you can hire Web.com’s Quickstart service. It’s a big initial investment but with Quickstart, you’ll get access to a design professional who will listen to your vision for your website, your needs, and any other additional specifications. Then, all you have to do is wait for them to design the ideal site for you. Once they’re done, your tailor-made website will be entirely available to edit from your website builder. So, if there is anything about the final product you want to change, you’re at complete liberty to do so.

While Quickstart does represent a significant initial investment, it’s still quite affordable when compared to other professional design services. If you’re planning on sticking with Web.com for the long haul, I think that Quickstart is more than worth its value.

Powerful AI Copywriting To Attract New and Returning Visitors

If you don’t have a full-time copywriter on your team, the AI copywriter tool can help you write all sorts of impressive copy. All you have to do is go to your “store” submenu, select “content,” then “AI Copywriter.” From there, you can choose which language you’re writing for, the content you want to create (landing page, SEO article, Ad, etc…), write a brief description of your content, and specify the tone.

The results are outstanding, especially for matching the correct tone and voice you’re looking for. And even if the generated text isn’t up to your standards, you can use it as a starting point or inspiration to create unique copy that works for you.

Undo Any Mistakes With the Click of a Button

This last one is a little thing, but it can go a long way toward making your building experience go a lot more smoothly. The website builder’s undo button can help you quickly get rid of any mistake you might have made accidentally. For larger issues, Web.com makes automatic backups of your site, as well as letting you create manual backups anytime. If you ever want to revert to a previous version, all you have to do is click on the “Site Backups” button in the upper left corner, and choose which version you want to restore.

I started my testing of Web.com by royally messing up. See, since Web.com doesn’t offer any free trial periods, I had to purchase a plan to review. The problem is that I initially signed up for the Website plan, which doesn’t offer some of the most interesting e-commerce features, and there isn’t really an easy upgrade option.

Since I have a nasty habit of eating and paying rent, I try to avoid paying for something twice whenever possible. I immediately got in touch with customer support to try to resolve my situation. My support representative went above-and-beyond to help me solve my problem.

My representative was prompt and friendly, and even though I was supposed to be beyond the cancellation window, they helped me get a refund for the Website plan and even signed me up with the discounted initial price for the Online store plan. Honestly, there’s not much more I could add here to show just how good the live-chat support was.

That said, my experience with phone support wasn’t as good. Though the representative was more than willing to help, I ended up waiting on hold for more than half an hour for a response on whether Web.com was available in other languages. When they couldn’t find a straightforward answer to my questions, they just unceremoniously hung up.

I can’t be too mad though. In the end not only did support solve my most important concern, it even went the extra mile to make sure I was pleased.

Great Initial Pricing, but Beware of Renewal Fees

Considering the vast selection of tools it offers, Web.com’s initial pricing is more than fair. If you’re not interested in advanced e-commerce and branding tools, the Website plan offers in-depth design flexibility for just $4.95. If you are interested in e-commerce, the Online Store plan comes with more than enough tools to help you build a store and brand identity from the ground up.

Considering the sheer amount of tools jam-packed into every one of Web.com’s plans, each is more than worth its price. At least at first. I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that after the first billing cycle, the renewal prices are considerably steeper.

Not only are the renewal prices more than double the original ones, but you’ll have to pay for your domain hosting, SSL certificate, and business email. All of these services are free for the first year, but they come at a cost afterward.

Even after all the upfees though, I wouldn’t say that Web.com is ever unreasonably priced. Once again, you have to consider the quality and quantity of tools available with every plan. Still, it’s easy to get carried away by the initial pricing, but you should definitely consider if the renewal fees are worth it to you.