Wondering how you can start or create a website for free? Webstart is one of the tools you can use and this post reviews this site builder touching topics such as pricing, reviews, features, templates. It also has a comparison of Webstart against Wix and Weebly, other site builders.
Webstarts was founded by Adam Barger.
You can check the Webstarts website here.
Here is a brief 1-minute video to introduce this site builder:
Table of Contents
Creating a site for free with Webstarts:
Steps 1: Click on ‘Get Started’ button on the homepage
Step 2: Choose a design
On the design page, you’ll see Webstart templates and themes for several categories of niches such as travel, fashion, online stores, photography, events, music, business, health, and wellness, among others.
You can preview a theme before choosing it. Below is a preview of a Webstarts fashion theme:
They’ll want to send a text message to verify that you are not a bot.
Once you’ve entered your phone number and verify the code with the code that you receive, you can choose between a free and paid website:
Choose Domain:
I opted for free website option and entered 10webtools.webstarts.com and the next page that loaded has a 7-minute tutorial on how to set up Webstarts blog:
After watching the video, you can opt for any of the following; edit the website, upgrage or get a custom domain:
If you choose to edit the site, you’ll be directed to the backend shown below:
Search google:
Webstarts Vs Wix
The table below shows a comparison of Webstarts vs Wix:
| WebStarts | Wix |
| 1. WebStarts, for a regular website, is a few bucks cheaper: It provides a free plan, a Pro Plus (perfect for clubs, groups, teams, and non-profits) for $7.16/month and a business plan for $19.99/month: both billed yearly. | 1. Wix has a wide range of pricing plans with specific website development criteria for various types of users. For a store with a free plan, Wix is somewhat cheaper. |
| 2. Webstarts has just over 100 different designs, although you are fairly limited as to where you can move those template’s elements. | 2. Wix has numerous, diverse and highly customizable templates to get started. |
| 3. WebStarts uses the drag-and-drop editor that is flexible and easy to uses to edit a selected template manually and create a truly unique site. | 3. Answer a few simple questions and Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) will instantly create your own customized website, complete with custom text and pictures. |
| 4. Uses mobile optimization tools to create the website’s great-looking mobile version. | 4. Automatically, the Wix website comes with a mobile-optimized edition that looks great on smaller screens. The Wix Mobile editor makes it even easier to configure your mobile site. |
| 5. It has a small app store and this is where you’ll find features that you can add to your site such as social media follow buttons, calendar, and video integration. | 5. It has App Market that is larger than WebStarts and provides over 260 complementary apps, all conveniently bolted to your site. |
| 6. WebStarts makes it easy for you to set up your shop and start selling online physical or digital products. You can control your inventory, apply tax and shipping rates, give discounts to customers and accept payments through Stripe or PayPal. | 6. Wix’s eCommerce platform helps create an appealing e-store: Wix accepts direct credit card and PayPal wallets payments (0 percent commission); manages your inventory and delivery operations end-to-end, and handles tax on your behalf. |
| 7. Webstarts helps you to add various integration features to the site, such as social media follow buttons, calendars, and video integration. In-built SEO software helps search engines such as Google, Yahoo, to discover hosted websites easily. | 7. Wix ensures that it integrates efficiently with a range of third-party platforms, including major marketplaces, advertising applications, and communications tools. It also makes it possible to streamline social media integration to promote your products as well as a customized SEO plan. |
| 8. Wix is a better choice, but as you can now create and manage blog categories, Webstarts is catching up. | 8. Automatic blog style, organized category blogging, tagging, scheduling posts that will be published automatically at any given time, and visitors can leave their comments and views. |
| 9. You can browse to help articles in their knowledge base or inquire via live chat. You get phone support and email support with the Pro Plus account. | 9. In their help center, you can browse categorized help articles. Depending on the plan chosen, Wix also offers support through email, web, live chat and ticket training. |
Webstarts Vs Weebly
| Webstarts | Weebly |
| 1. Webstarts assures ease of use with a drag-and-drop editor that is flexible to create truly unique sites; you can actually type your own code. It allows your site that extra touch by adding a favicon, as well over 700 fonts and images from a built-in library. | 1. Weebly has bold and beautiful responsive themes, multiple customizable design features such as color backgrounds, text, image slideshow maker and video backgrounds that give you full control over each web template. |
| 2. WebStarts has mobile optimization tools, so its software-built sites are ready for mobile use. | 2. Weebly has apps available for ios, iPad, and Android today, so everywhere you go you can make amazing content. |
| 3. WebStarts offers a free plan, but you can upgrade to a Pro Plus plan for $7.16/month or a Business Plan for $19.99/month, both billed annually, to get even more advanced features for your business or organization. | 3. It has a free plan and several paid plans as follows; connect for $5, Pro $12 and Business for $25 per month paid annually for websites and online stores. |
| 4. WebStarts provides several integrations, including blogs, online stores, social media, calendars, and video. Some features such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools can only be found on paid plans: you can also upload a site map and help with SEO. | 4. Weebly’s integrations include a blog, an online store, and powerful SEO tools. All its sites feature a sitemap, SEO-enabled HTML formatting, meta descriptions, responsive design and more. |
| 5. It offers automatic domain setup and custom email addresses to match your custom domain for all paid plans. Domain transfer from another site is also available. | 5. A perfect domain name can be searched for or transferred from another site. Custom domains are only available for paid plans. |
| 6. You can browse to help articles in their knowledge base or inquire via live chat. You get phone support and email support with the Pro Plus account. | 6. It only provides community forums, chat and email support for the two lowest plans and additional phone support for the top two paid plans. |
Webstarts vs WordPress
| Webstarts | WordPress |
| 1. Webstarts assures ease of use with a drag-and-drop editor that is flexible to create truly unique sites; you can actually type your own code. It allows your site that extra touch by adding a favicon, as well over 700 fonts and images from a built-in library. | 1. It is a versatile, safe and efficient content management system with a range of features and is best suited for blogging. There are no features available for “drag-and-drop,” but normally you can download a plugin. |
| 2. It offers automatic domain setup and custom email addresses to match your custom domain for all paid plans. Domain transfer from another site is also available. | 2. It offers hosting and personalized domain name for as little as $4 a month for a personal plan payable yearly. |
| 3. WebStarts offers a free plan, but you can upgrade to a Pro Plus plan for $7.16/month or a Business Plan for $19.99/month, both billed annually, to get even more advanced features for your business or organization. | 3. It provides a free package and the following monthly payment options; a $4 Personal Package, an $8 Premium Plan, a $25 Business Plan, and a $45 eCommerce Plan: all plans are billed annually, providing trouble-free updates, secure hosting, and spam security. |
| 4. Webstarts has just over 100 different designs, although you are fairly limited as to where you can move those elements and the template’s limits will soon become evident. | 4. It offers numerous themes, while storage and design options ensure that, depending on your plan, you can upload anything you need and give your work the stage it deserves. |
| 5. You can browse to help articles in their knowledge base or inquire via live chat. You get phone support and email support with the Pro Plus account | 5. It only provides online community forum support for a free plan and additional email and live chat support for all paid plans. |
| 6. WebStarts provides several integrations, including blogs, online stores, social media, calendars, and video. Some features such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools can only be found on paid plans: you can also upload a site map and help with SEO. | 6. Has Jetpack an all – in – one WordPress toolkit for trouble-free design, marketing, performance monitoring, security, social networking, and SEO tools: Jetpack can also be installed on other hosting sites: WordPress also provides a multilingual blog interface, a full range of eCommerce options, and incorporates Google Analytics. |
Webstarts Pricing
Copy this table:
| Free | Pro Plus | Business |
| Does not come with a domain name | Comes with a domain name | Comes with a domain name |
| Does not enable automatic search engine submission | Has automatic submission of a blog to Google for indexing | Has automatic submission of a blog to Google, Yahoo and Bing for indexing |
| No advertising | $250-worth of advertising with this plan | $500-worth of advertising with this plan |
| No social integration | Has Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest integrations | Has Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest integrations |
| No business email address offered. | Grants 1 email address | Grants 5 email addresses |
| SEO disabled | SEO enabled via the WebStarts Search Engine Optimization Wizard | SEO enabled via the WebStarts Search Engine Optimization Wizard |
| Has unlimited pages | Has unlimited pages | Has unlimited pages |
| No contact forms | Allows up to 1000 contacts | Has unlimited contact forms |
| No slideshows and galleries | Has unlimited slideshows and galleries | Has unlimited slideshows and galleries |
| Avails 1GB cloud storage | Avails 10GB cloud storage | Avails 40GB cloud storage |
| Has 1GB/mo bandwidth | Has 10GB/mo bandwidth | Has unlimited bandwidth |
| ads are displayed on all pages | Its ads-free | Its ads-free |
| Has a notification center | Has a notification center | Has a notification center |
| Live chat enabled | Live chat enabled | Live chat enabled |
| It’s not mobile optimized | It is mobile-optimized | It is mobile-optimized |
| No HTML access | Has HTML access | Has HTML access |
| Has no membership features | Has membership features | Has membership features |
| Limited styles & effects | Limited styles & effects | Unlimited styles & effects |
| No online store | No online store | Has an online store |
| Normal CDN | Normal CDN | Lightning Fast CDN |
| Limited site-building assistance | Limited site-building assistance | Full site-building assistance |
Webstarts Email
Summarize this: https://help.webstarts.com/article/634-logging-in-and-accessing-your-business-email-address
Creating an email account:
- On the WebStarts account dashboard, click the
Business Emailpanel - Click
Add New Email Box button - Enter your First and Last Name, the Username for the new email box, domain to add the email to (in case you have multiple), choose a password and then click the
Submit button
Your new email box will be added in minutes allowing you to send and receive emails right from your account dashboard
Managing the email account:
- On the WebStarts account dashboard, select the
Business Emailpanel - Select the
Openicon next to the email address that you wish to access. - On the Email Login page, enter the email address, its password and then click Login.
Once logged in you can view your new emails, compose a new email among other functions
In the Business Email panel, you can create, delete and even edit existing emails for all your domain names.
Setting up email:
You can set up email clients on android phones and tablets, iPhone and iPad as well as On Your Computer
Webstarts Blog
Webstarts blog gives you info and helpful material such as how to start a blog and what makes Webstarts different compared to other site builders such as Wix and WordPress.
Webstarts Reviews
Trustpilot Reviews, 265 reviews:
Summary of Webstarts Reviews on Trust pilot: 265 web builders have used Webstarts to built their website and they rated Webstarts at 4.5/5.
List five positive reviews here:
- Most excellent customer service with live customer support
- Easy to use, easy to learn, user-friendly and seamless design.
- A favorable price and more features with the free plan than any other website builder
- Inbuilt SEO tools though not on the free plan
- All-round professionalism in marketing, products, and customer service
List 5 negative reviews here:
- You cant view client information submitted through a contact form yet usually this comes free on other sites.
- Less flexible and customizable than other web builders
- Unauthorized early renewal charges although Webstart assures that it is done to protect user’s domain name
- Unprofessional customer service claims by a few customers
- Expensive, for instance, it is $30 to renew a domain, which is 200% higher than any other company out there.
PCMag Review:
Summarize this: https://www.pcmag.com/review/351073/webstarts
- Costly than competing website builders, such as Squarespace and Wix.
- It has over 40 mostly standard, but fairly charming site design categories.
- WebStarts allows you to move and resize elements wherever you like.
- Webstarts receives high points with online Aviary image editing tools for image editing and management.
- The store and email commercialization tools are fairly robust.
- WebStarts is mobile optimized.
- It has a blog manager, where you can write, schedule, and post your thoughts even though the editor is quite limited compared to other site-building services’ blogging tools.
- In contrast to competitors like Wix, which allows you to decide if your website is ready to go live and to make unpublished previews, your latest changes are made live once you hit the WebStarts Save icon.
- Site and SEO stats are available only at an additional charge.
- It does not support a third-party widget library
Webstarts Features
The snapshot below summarizes the key 6 features of Webstarts web builder:
Webstarts templates, themes, website examples
The snapshot below shows a sample of Websites built on Webstarts: Using the link, ‘sample’ you can check out 50+ websites built on Webststarts templates and themes.
Webstarts Help/customer service/Phone NUmber
Webstarts customer service phone number is 1-800-805-0920 but you can also send them a message using their website support form here
Webstarts help page also has very helpful material that you can read to help you set up your free or premium-domain blog or website today.
