Web.com review: Pros and cons in 2024

Teresa Bitler

BLUEPRINT

Updated 11:45 a.m. UTC Feb. 29, 2024

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Blueprint Rating

Learn More

Via Web.com's website

Pros

Drag-and-drop interface.
AI tools for many tasks.
Low introductory rate.

Cons

Limited functionality.
Expensive after first year.
Pay-per-month for enhanced SEO.

Why trust our small business experts

Our team of experts evaluates hundreds of business products and analyzes thousands of data points to help you find the best product for your situation. We use a data-driven methodology to determine each rating. Advertisers do not influence our editorial content. You can read more about our methodology below.

20 companies reviewed.
69 products reviewed.
3,121 data points analyzed.

Founded in 1999, Web.com caters to small businesses that need a website, hosting and help growing their business online. It has AI tools and a drag-and-drop interface to make designing a website as easy as possible, and as a result, its website builder won a Bronze Stevie Award in 2023 in the “E-Commerce Solution” category. Today, it is one of the most popular website builders on the market.

Here, we review Web.com’s pricing and the features it has to offer, including its AI tools, and we’ll compare it to its top competitors.

Featured website builder offers

Wix

Learn More

Via Wix’s website

Monthly fee

$17

Free domain

For one year

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Web.com

Learn More

Via Web.com’s website

Monthly fee

$19.99

Free domain

Only when paying annually

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Squarespace

Learn More

Via Squarespace’s website

Monthly fee

$23

Free domain

For one year

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Web.com overview

Web.com is a website-building platform, hosting and domain provider with two plan options for e-commerce businesses. It’s a good choice for small businesses that don’t have a lot of experience creating stores online because its AI tools can do everything from generating a domain name to designing a website and creating blog posts. Additionally, it offers professional services to help with marketing and SEO (search engine optimization).

Web.com pros and cons

Every e-commerce platform has its advantages and disadvantages. Web.com excels in making the process of designing a website easy, but it has limited features once your website is live. Here are the pros and cons to consider when looking at Web.com.

Pros

Simple, straightforward solution: Web.com walks business owners with little tech experience through the process of creating an online store. It has minimal available apps to confuse new users. Although basic, it is easy to use.
AI tools to help with design and blogs: The platform incorporates AI tools to help with setting up and maintaining your site. With basic input, AI can generate a domain name and design your website, and if you provide the topic, AI Writer will even create a blog post with keywords.
Low initial fees: Web.com has a low monthly fee of $13.94 for the first year, allowing new businesses time to get established before increasing rates. Additionally, if you pay the annual rate, your domain name is free for the first year.

Cons

Can’t integrate with dropshipping services: Because Web.com does have apps, it can’t accommodate dropshipping services. You have to sell products that you maintain in-house.
Monthly charge for advanced marketing and SEO: Web.com provides minimal marketing and SEO tools for free. To get more robust tools, users need to purchase the SEO tool, which starts at $29.95 per month. Additional marketing tools cost even more.
Rates increase sharply after the first year: Not only do you pay extra on a monthly basis for your online store, but you’ll be charged annually for domain renewal, domain privacy protection, email and an SSL certificate after the first year.

Web.com pricing and value

	PRICING	UNLIMITED ITEMS	SELL ON AMAZON AND EBAY	SALES TAX CALCULATOR	AI TOOLS	ANALYTICS
Website	$19.99 per month	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Website + Marketing	$24.99 per month	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Online Store Plan	$34.99 per month	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Online Marketplace Plan	$49.99 per month	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Because of its low introductory pricing, Web.com can be a good option for new businesses who need more than a free trial to give their store a chance but have limited funds. Its standard plan for an online store costs $13.95 per month for the first year and includes unlimited inventory, the ability to sell on social media sites and analytics. For $19.95 per month, the premium plan provides an automated sales tax calculator, inventory management and other upgrades.

After the first year, Web.com becomes pricey. Not only does the monthly rate go up ($29.99 per month for the standard plan and $44.99 for the premium plan), but you’ll have to pay an extra $40 for the domain renewal and another $15 for domain privacy protection annually. You’ll also be charged annually $35 for email and $89.88 for an SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate.

Web editor

Web.com is perfect for small business owners who have little experience building their own websites. After purchasing a plan, you’ll have the option to use AI to create a site or build one on your own. If you choose to do it on your own, you’ll have access to a library of industry-specific templates, which you can customize using the drag-and-drop builder. The result will be a basic but professional-looking website unless you know some coding.

An even easier option is to take advantage of Web.com’s AI Builder. The process begins with AI asking for:

Your industry.
Company name.
What makes your company unique.

After receiving your answers, AI Builder designs your site within minutes, and its Take a Tour feature shows you its main features. If you don’t like the result, you can ask it to try again, or you can make changes by using the drag-and-drop feature. Most users should be able to get a simple site up in an hour or two, but customization is limited, and you may not be able to add advanced features like online booking or popups.

E-commerce functionality

Compared to other e-commerce platforms, Web.com has limited functionality. It’s an out-of-the-box solution, meaning you don’t need any additional code or a developer to get it working. The simplicity comes at a cost, though. Web.com doesn’t have apps, and to get upgrades that increase your SEO, for example, you need to pay for a Web.com expert to help.

Additionally, Web.com can’t accept recurring payments, integrate dropshipping or work with POS devices. If you opt for the basic Online Store plan, you get even less. That plan doesn’t include a built-in tax calculator or allow for selling on other channels like Amazon. With that in mind, Web.com is good for people who want a no-frills online store, but those who want more functionality would probably be better off with another provider.

Blogging

You can start a blog on any Web.com online store and either write the content yourself or let the platform’s AI Writer do it for you. If you take advantage of AI Writer, the tool will ask for your topic, tone and keywords before generating content. You can then edit the result, add photos, maximize SEO and publish.

It’s worth noting that using AI doesn’t hurt your website’s rankings in search results. Google says it considers the quality of the content — not whether an actual person wrote it — when ranking pages.

Marketing and SEO

Web.com provides minimal marketing and SEO tools for free. Built-in SEO tools let you set keywords for blogs and create a meta description to display in search results, but for much more, you’ll need to purchase Web.com’s SEO tool, which starts at $29.99. Web.com claims the tool will analyze your website and provide optimization tasks for you to complete.

The platform also sells a business listing tool that puts your company into business directories and monitors your brand’s reputation. This service starts at $15 per month. For even more marketing help, you can hire a Web.com expert to provide dedicated help in these areas:

Pay-per-click advertising.
SEO.
Directory services.

Performance and security

Each Web.com store comes with a free SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate that encrypts online transactions and data transfers. However, the SSL certificate is only free for the first month. After that, you have to pay annually for an SSL certificate, which starts at $119.88 for e-commerce store plans.

Web.com adds another layer of protection with its Cyber Security Operations Center, which monitors for cyber-attacks ranging from stolen usernames and passwords to debit and credit card fraud. Although Web.com doesn’t guarantee the security center can stop all cyber-attacks, it does help minimize major threats.

Mobile app

Web.com does not have a marketplace where you can purchase apps to enhance the function of your website. Because of this, you can’t integrate with dropshipping providers such as Doba or Worldwide Brands or POS devices that let you sell to customers in person. This greatly limits your ability to grow or add features that consumers expect while shopping online.

On the other hand, many apps can complicate website building for new retailers, and many apps charge a monthly fee for their service.

Web.com vs. top competitors

	STARTING PRICE FOR E-COMMERCE (PER MONTH)	FREE TRIAL	FREE SSL	PRODUCT LIMIT	TRANSACTION FEES	24/7 SUPPORT
Web.com	$35	No	Yes, for one month	No	No	Live chat and phone 24/7
Shopify	$39	3 days	Yes	No	From 2.9% plus $0.30	Live chat 24/7
Shift4Shop	Free	No	Yes	No	No	Live chat 24/7
Squarespace	$33	14 days	Yes	No	3%	Live chat, no phone support

Web.com’s AI tools and enticing introductory rates make it an attractive option, especially for businesses just getting started. However, pricing and AI aren’t the only factors worth considering. Below, we look at how it stacks up to three top competitors: Shopify, Shift4Shop and Squarespace.

Web.com vs Shopify

While Web.com isn’t compatible with apps, Shopify has a marketplace with more than 8,000. This allows you to create a highly customized site with Shopify. Want to create an email campaign targeting customers who make recurring purchases? You’ll find an app for that with Shopify. What about an app that allows you to donate a percentage of each purchase to a cause? Shopify has apps for that, too. Web.com has neither.

To take advantage of those apps, you need to know what apps are available, how to install them and how to make them work the way you want them to. If you are just getting started, apps can be frustrating.

Web.com vs Shift4Shop

Both Web.com and Shift4Shop have a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to design a website without having to know how to code. However, Shift4Shop comes with more than 200 built-in tools. If you are someone who doesn’t know much about setting up a website, there can be a bigger learning curve with Shift4Shop.

On the other hand, Web.com has an AI tool that will design your store for you, and since it has no apps, there shouldn’t be much of a learning curve. The downside is that Web.com has limited capabilities, and despite the low introductory pricing, Web.com’s prices climb steeply after the first year. Shift4Shop is free.

Web.com vs Squarespace

Like Web.com, Squarespace makes designing an e-commerce store easy with its drag-and-drop interface. It doesn’t have an AI tool to build your site for you, though, so if you want to put minimal effort into the design, Web.com is the way to go. However, Squarespace allows you to customize your site with apps, which it calls extensions.

Squarespace also gives you more options when it comes to the products you sell. It integrates with dropshipping services and integrates with a service that allows you to design and sell custom merchandise online. Web.com simply allows you to upload existing merchandise and sell it.

Methodology

We extensively research the key competitors within an industry to determine the best products and services for your business. Our experts identify the factors that matter most to business owners, including pricing, features and customer support, to ensure that our recommendations offer well-rounded products that will meet the needs of various small businesses.

We collect extensive data to narrow our best list to reputable, easy-to-use products with stand-out features at a reasonable price point. And we look at user reviews to ensure that business owners like you are satisfied with our top picks’ services. We use the same rubric to assess companies within a particular space so you can confidently follow our blueprint to the best website builders.

The best website builders have positive user reviews on customer review sites. Website builders should provide customers with fast and reliable support. Using a combination of phone support, live chat and knowledge bases, customers should be able to quickly resolve issues 24/7.

Website builders should include prebuilt, industry-specific templates and drag-and-drop tools to make building your website quick and easy. All templates should be mobile-optimized to ensure they appear correctly on desktop and mobile devices. E-commerce functionality should be offered to allow businesses to sell physical and digital goods and services online. Website builders should provide ample storage and bandwidth to customers along with free SSL certificates, domain names and backup/restoration services. Additional security features should be built into the website to keep customers’ data safe and private. And all of these basic features should be affordable compared to competitors.

All website builders should expand on this basic feature set with built-in SEO and email marketing tools. Integrations should allow you to connect social media platforms and dropshipping services. And e-commerce tools should allow you to sell subscriptions and online courses, book online appointments and accept recurring payments. Additionally, blogging features and the option to add custom code should be available on all websites.

Featured website builder offers

Wix

Learn More

Via Wix’s website

Monthly fee

$17

Free domain

For one year

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Web.com

Learn More

Via Web.com’s website

Monthly fee

$19.99

Free domain

Only when paying annually

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Squarespace

Learn More

Via Squarespace’s website

Monthly fee

$23

Free domain

For one year

Drag-and-drop builder

Yes

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Web.com does have a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy to design a website, but it also has an AI tool that will build a site for you after you answer three simple prompts.

If you commit to a year of annual billing, Web.com costs $13.95 per month for the first year for its Online Store and $19.95 per month for the first year for its Online Marketplaces. After that, the rates jump to $29.99 and $44.99 per month, respectively. Other monthly and annual charges make Web.com one of the more expensive options on the market.

Blueprint is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor. The information provided is for educational purposes only and we encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific financial decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Blueprint has an advertiser disclosure policy. The opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Blueprint editorial staff alone. Blueprint adheres to strict editorial integrity standards. The information is accurate as of the publish date, but always check the provider’s website for the most current information.

Teresa Bitler

BLUEPRINT

Teresa Bitler has over 10 years of experience writing about personal finance and real estate as well as consumer and business product reviews. Her work has appeared at CreditCards, The Penny Hoarder, Yahoo, MSN, HuffPost, U.S. News & World Report, Moving, and Personal Real Estate Investor.

Sierra Campbell

BLUEPRINT

Sierra Campbell is a small business editor for USA Today Blueprint. She specializes in writing, editing and fact-checking content centered around helping businesses. She has worked as a digital content and show producer for several local TV stations, an editor for U.S. News & World Report and a freelance writer and editor for many companies. Sierra prides herself in delivering accurate and up-to-date information to readers. Her expertise includes credit card processing companies, e-commerce platforms, payroll software, accounting software and virtual private networks (VPNs). She also owns Editing by Sierra, where she offers editing services to writers of all backgrounds, including self-published and traditionally published authors.