Web.com is one of the largest and oldest website builders and web hosting solutions on the market today, servicing more than 3 million customers around the world and managing 9 million domain names. In a side-by-side comparison with other leading website builders, Web.com stacks up to be one of the fastest ways to build a website and go live. But is it all that it’s cracked up to be? By looking at the good and the bad, let’s find out if Web.com is the right platform for you.
Comparing Web.com to The Best Website Builders
Despite not coming out on top, Web.com is still our #4 pick, as it’s the fastest tool we found to build a new website. It offers a wide range of advanced ecommerce features for online stores and gives you the option for easy customization during the building stage. Whether you want to create a website or build an online store, Web.com can help you do this in minutes.
We reviewed dozens of website builders on the market and narrowed it down to the top seven. We looked at each option to see who it’s best for, what features to consider, and how to find the best option for your needs. Want to scope out all of your options? See all of our top picks here.
Web.com: The Good and The Bad
Just like for all website builders on the market today, there will be both good and bad features to consider. In our experience, unfortunately, Web.com has more drawbacks than positive qualities, which is the number one thing to consider before investing. Let’s take a deep dive into both sides of the spectrum, and you can decide what works best for you.
The Good
Easy to Build: The best aspect of using Web.com is how easy it is to build your website from scratch. You get access to all of the tools you need to start a project quickly and finish it efficiently with Web.com’s DIY website builder. What’s especially great about the DIY website builder is the layout, which is a simple and sleek design, making it easy for you to manage your websites without clutter.
Web.com also makes it easy for you to find everything you need, as the website builder lets you view any websites you’ve built alongside analytics, templates, and files for management purposes. You can build your website in a matter of clicks—all you have to do is click Create Site, choose a template, add content, and you’re done—it’s that simple.
Maximum Customization: When it comes to adding content to your website, Web.com offers maximum customization with tools that you can use within seconds. You don’t need to have previous experience building websites, and Web.com proves this well by providing drag-and-drop functions, block editors, pre-existing templates, and tutorial documentation. Unlike some website builders, Web.com lets you fully customize your template colors, fonts, headings, links, buttons, quotes, and dividers.
Web.com also gives you access to full settings features, which will help you enable certain functions, like giving you the option to create a “Back To Top” button, which automatically appears when users scroll down your page and is excellent for functionality.
Advanced Ecommerce Features: If you are specifically looking to create an online store, you are in luck with Web.com’s advanced ecommerce features and functionalities. Web.com offers a suite of robust features that include an online store builder, marketplace selling, and simple shipping solutions. With access to drag-and-drop features, pre-designed building blocks, custom code blocks, and more than 2 million stock photos—you will have your store up and running in no time.
Web.com also gives you access to advanced ecommerce reporting, where you can view visitors, page views, sales performance, top-selling items, and the cost of goods sold. Need to make changes to multiple products? There’s no need to worry, as Web.com offers a bulk editing tool that lets you do just that, allowing you to make changes to your products quickly with pre-built templates and customizable formats. You can also use secure payment options, purchase order management tools, and advanced SEO tools.
The Bad
Poor Customer Support: All website builders will have disadvantages and fall short somewhere, and for Web.com, its first downfall involves customer support. Website builders should offer adequate support, especially for technical issues, as the customer support team are responsible for solving these problems. Unfortunately, Web.com has a high number of negative customer experiences on review sites and customer forums involving the lack of customer support.
Many users found that the most common problem was the long wait times for phone calls and web chats, ranging from 20 minutes to three hours. Not only that, but many users complained that most calls would end up being referred to other staff multiple times, leading the customer on a goose chase that never resolved the issue. However, it’s not all bad, as Web.com still offers extensive resources within its help center, covering topics like domain, email, hosting, security, account management, marketing services, and website builders.
Constant Upselling and Outdated Processes: Many users have found that Web.com’s customer service representatives are constantly upselling products, even when it’s not directly related to an inquiry. Again, this is all hearsay, but sometimes when a product or service has overwhelmingly negative customer reviews, it’s best to listen to them. When it comes to Web.com’s outdated system, many users feel forced to call customer service for seemingly simple tasks like canceling an account and customer onboarding—which is not user-friendly or sustainable for users trying to do things quickly.
Backend Features: The backend of most websites can sometimes be difficult to navigate, but Web.com makes this process a whole lot harder. Ideally, you should be able to find everything you need in the backend, as most website builders will give you the tools you need to navigate this function properly. Many users found that Web.com hides basic server information, such as DNS functions, which are currently only available via customer support. If Web.com didn’t have such negative reviews regarding its customer service, this may have been an okay alternative, but having to call customer support every time you need relevant information is not an ideal way to get a website up and running.
Repeated Charges After Cancellation: Now, this disadvantage is more on the niche side of the bad aspects of Web.com, but because there were so many instances of it, we felt that it was worth mentioning. There have been many user experiences that have mentioned Web.com continuing to charge customers even after they had canceled their accounts. While we can’t know for sure how common this issue is, there was a pattern in the dozens of reviews we read, and it’s something to consider before investing in Web.com.
Web.com Pricing and Options
Web.com offers a pricing package for everyone, whether you are building an online store or a standard website. Currently, there are four different pricing options to choose from, including Website Essentials, Business Essentials, Ecommerce Essentials, and Ecommerce Premium.
You will save 60% on all plans billed on a first-time yearly basis, which then automatically renews at the current rate per month.
Here’s a general overview of each plan to help you choose:
Web.com Website Essentials
- $4.95 per month for the first billing cycle, renews at $9.99 per month.
The Website Essentials pricing plan is the perfect option for anyone looking for the absolute basics in website building. You get all the features you need, from a free domain and secure website hosting to 150 mobile-optimized templates and free expert design support.
This package also supports social media tools and Google site verification, so you can increase your page views in no time. You also get basic website analytics, Google analytics and tag manager setup, customer support, and five professional email inboxes.
Web.com Business Essentials
- $7.95 per month for the first billing cycle, renews at $14.99 per month.
The Business Essentials plan is very similar to the Website Essentials plan. The only real difference is that the Business Essentials plan includes Web.com’s full suite of marketing tools. If you run a website with a blog, these features are essential for your success and might be worth checking out.
You get the opportunity to create a unique logo with its logo builder, advertise your business profile in local directories, and receive monthly SEO health checks to make sure your content is ranking well.
Web.com Ecommerce Essentials
- $13.95 per month for the first billing cycle, renews at $25.99 per month.
The Ecommerce Essentials plan is Web.com’s most popular package, as it comes with everything you need to start selling online. This plan stands out for its appointment scheduling features, which lets your customers book unlimited appointments, group events, classes, or workshops. The appointment scheduling feature also has a reminders functionality, sending out automatic emails to remind your customers of their appointments.
You get access to powerful ecommerce reporting, so you can dive deep into your analytics and figure out what’s working well and what isn’t. You can also enjoy unlimited products and categories, secure online payment options, 24/7 automated sync technology, and real-time shipping rates.
Web.com Ecommerce Premium
- $19.95 per month for the first billing cycle, renews at $39.99 per month.
The Ecommerce Premium plan is the most comprehensive package that Web.com offers and is an excellent option for anyone selling a high volume of products. Not only can you create custom discount codes, sell on Facebook and Instagram, and receive unlimited inventory locations, but you can also automate sales tax, edit in bulk, and quick-fill listing templates.
You can also create custom barcodes and manage all your restock needs, which helps you send purchase orders to your supplier and get notifications for when you need to order more products.
WordPress Hosting
Web.com offers a few decent products outside of website building, including WordPress hosting. WordPress is one of the most popular website builders for bloggers and content creators, and Web.com can help you host and get your site online quickly.
Web.com gives you everything you need to host your WordPress site with minimal complications. You can reap all of the benefits of its hosting service with 99.99% uptime and unmetered bandwidth that you can use as much as you like.
You can also experience an easier way to build your WordPress site if you run it through Web.com. With access to thousands of free themes, plugins, and additional support when you need it—you can build your website within an hour.
However, if you don’t have the time or energy to build your website from scratch, Web.com offers design services specifically for your WordPress site. You can hire an expert to design your website and content with quality control from start to finish and save money and time.
The Web.com WordPress hosting comes with separate packages. Here’s a quick overview of what to expect:
- Basic — $2.95 per month
- Plus — $4.95 per month
- Premium — $6.95 per month
Every package includes automatic WordPress installation, open exchange email, automatic WordPress updates, one year of domain registration, and 100 domain pointers.
Cyber Security
One of the more unique products that Web.com offers is its cyber security solution for your mobile device. You should always make sure that your website is optimized for mobile because many customers scroll from their phones. But to make it that little bit safer, Web.com provides you with a security solution that will protect the devices you use every day.
With Web.com’s cyber security solution, you get 24/7 access to a team of world-class security experts that will help you protect and prevent your device from potential security threats. You also get device monitoring for app scanning, theft prevention with lost device location services, and safe browsing with a built-in mobile VPN client.
You can get full identify protection with personalized threat alerts, ongoing updates for products and training, and privacy scans that inspect all apps, sites, and links on your device.
Here’s a list of more features you can expect:
- Detailed reports with risk information and breach alerts
- Wifi scanning with warnings for unsafe wifi networks
- Remote access that lets you lock your phone and wipe data remotely
- Contact backup that saves copies of contacts in the cloud
- Photo and call log that stores photos and call history online
The Web.com cyber security solution also comes with separate pricing, at $49.90 per year or $4.99 per month.
How Web.com Ranks
Web.com is certainly higher in the ranks when compared to other website builders on the market today. With its wide variety of advanced ecommerce features and customizable platform for building, it makes sense for Web.com to be one of the fastest ways to build a new website.
Here is a short overview of the top website builders:
- Wix – Best website builder for most users
- Squarespace – Best website builder for creatives
- Web.com – Fastest way to build a new website
- Shopify – Best ecommerce website builder
- WordPress – Best for bloggers and content creators
- Weebly – Best free website builder
Overall, Web.com is an excellent website builder for customization and fast building, and with its extensive ecommerce features, it would be perfect for anyone looking to sell online.
Especially with additional product offerings such as WordPress hosting and cyber security, you would be able to successfully build a website while managing and protecting it at an affordable price.
However, you should consider its drawbacks before investing, as it falls short in a few areas that other website builders may do well in.
