WebStarts Review

WebStarts is a pretty good website builder, but comes with an interface that's pretty tough to master. However, once you've mastered the learning curve, it's a powerful application, as you can read in our full WebStarts review.

By Theo Porutiu
— Last Updated:
2019-04-15T09:15:06+00:00
Starts from $ 978 per month

Though it has a weird homepage design, WebStarts looks promising. It’s support team is top-notch and you get the features you need to make a complete website for a low price: blogging, search engine optimization and e-commerce.

The website builder is harder to use than most of its competitors, with a lot of toolbars and buttons at your disposal. After a day of playing around, you should get the hang of it, but the learning curve is still steep.

With that in mind, if you’re just a bit tech-savvy, it shouldn’t be an issue. If you’re looking for something more user-friendly, you can check for alternatives in our best website builders piece. Otherwise, stick with us as we take a closer look at WebStarts in this WebStarts review.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths:

  • Easy to use with practice
  • Quality image editor
  • Great support

Weaknesses:

  • Features not exhaustive
  • Steep learning curve
  • Unpleasant design

Alternatives for WebStarts

  1. 1
    • Premade Themes
    • Form Builder
    • HTML Editor
    • Mobile Support
    • SSL Certificate
    • Domain Name
  2. 2
    • Premade Themes
    • Form Builder
    • HTML Editor
    • Mobile Support
    • SSL Certificate
    • Domain Name
  3. 3
    • Premade Themes
    • Form Builder
    • Limited HTML Editor
    • Mobile Support
    • SSL Certificate
    • Domain Name
    Free
  4. 4
    • Premade Themes
    • Form Builder
    • HTML Editor
    • Mobile Support
    • SSL Certificate
    • Domain Name
  5. 5
    • Premade Themes
    • Form Builder
    • HTML Editor
    • Mobile Support
    • SSL Certificate
    • Domain Name
    Free

Features

75 % – Good

WebStarts’s features aren’t the most robust out there. Though it checks every box, its tools aren’t that powerful. It lacks deep customization in almost every aspect. For example, you can’t format the text of a blog post or batch process.

WebStarts Blogging

Clicking the pencil icon in the editor will take you to WebStarts’s blogging interface.

One helpful feature of the content management system is that you can schedule posts. That’s handy if you want to optimize your workflow.

webstarts-blog-tab

Unfortunately, WebStarts’s blogging feature has limitations. You can’t edit elements on a blog page like you would be able to on a regular website page and adding images or video in a blog post is cumbersome.

Plus, text formatting isn’t high-quality. You can do the regular bold, italic, add hyperlinks and make headers, but that’s about all you can do. There are no options to do underlining, subscripting, special elements or tables.

If you want complex blog posts, WebStarts isn’t for you. If you want an easy-to-use website builder that also features a powerful blogging tool, read our Voog review to learn about one. If you just want a place to update your audience on what’s happening with your enterprise, WebStarts should be enough.

Besides, you can counter some of its drawbacks with a standardized formatting language, such as markdown.

WebStarts Image Editing

Image editing in WebStarts is easy and powerful.

webstarts-image-editing

When inserting media on your page, you can choose from already-uploaded content, pictures from your Facebook page, taking a still with your webcam or even stock options.

webstarts-choose-image

That makes your job much easier. Anyone who’s tried getting stock content for their website knows it can be a hassle. Once you settle on an image, you can edit it with Aviary tools, even after publishing the content on your website.

The image editor boasts options such as lighting adjustments, effects, filters and even blemish removal, in addition to cropping and adding animations.

Another cool thing about images in WebStarts is the galleries option. Adding slideshows is easy and looks good. Plus, they can be viewed in full screen by visitors, which helps if you want to display how a project or case study went.

If you want a similar tool, but in a more beautiful package, read our Wix review. That tool provides similar functionality, but it’s much easier to use and more powerful.

WebStarts SEO

Unfortunately, WebStarts doesn’t have a quality SEO tool.

The first “SEO” feature you get is a glorified stats tab. At the highest price point — around $40 per month — you get real-time data, visitor demographics and general audience preferences.

That’s nothing you can’t get for free if you connect your website to Google Analytics, which is, unfortunately, not possible with WebStarts. There’s a SEO wizard that you can integrate from the app market, though.

webstarts-seo-tool

It’s primitive, but it can help with general rank. That said, there’s nothing too specific, and you won’t get help with individual pages.

WebStarts E-commerce

Selling products online with WebStarts is straightforward.

webstarts-store-tab

After a small store set-up, during which you can choose from nine store templates, you’ll be ready to sell online. The process isn’t streamlined because there’s no PayPal button element to insert, but you can access the shop options through the “shop” tab in the editor.

Once you decide on a product to add, a wizard will guide you through setting things up. It’s straightforward and easy.

WebStarts features all the necessary prerequisites of a good online store: users can log in to keep track of their shopping cart and previous purchases, and browsing any of the nine e-commerce themes is easy. Plus, the platform accepts payments through PayPal, Stripe and WePay, so you know users will find a way to pay you.

Add to the mix a good email marketing tool and you’re bound to have a decent store. Unfortunately, you can’t integrate with any of the major shipping companies and you can’t do batch processing. If you’re selling a service or exclusive items, that might not be an issue, but most people for whom e-commerce is a top priority will be better off with a different builder.

If e-commerce is important for your enterprise, you should go with Shopify instead. It’s a builder made for online stores, but it’s complicated, so read our beginner’s guide to Shopify first.

Webstarts Features Overview

  • Design

    • Premade Themes
    • Form Builder
    • HTML Editor
    • Forum Support
    • Vector Art Gallary
    • Audio
    • HD Video
  • Usability

    • Drag and Drop interface
    • SEO Editor
    • Mobile Support
    • App Center
    • Blog Support
    • eCommerce Support
    • Page Editor
  • Services

    • SEO
    • Marketing
    • Website Design
  • Extras

    • SSL Certificate
    • Domain Name
    • Ad Credits
    • Site Review
  • Support

    • Help Center
    • Forum
    • Live Chat
    • Phone
    • Email
    • 24/7 Support
    • Video Tutorials
    • Text Tutorials
  • Misc

    • Free Plan

Pricing

80 % – Good

Pro
  • Social integration,Unlimited pages,100 contacts,5 galleries,5GB cloud storage,Ad free,Notification center,Live chat Details
Pro Plus
  • Custom domain name,$250 in advertising,SEO tools,1,000 contacts,Unlimited galleries,10GB cloud storage,Mobile optimization,HTML editor,Membership features Details
Business
  • $500 in advertising,5 email addresses,Unlimited contacts,40GB cloud storage,Online store Details

The Pro plan, selling for around $10 per month, is a good choice for a small business that doesn’t need much from its website. It doesn’t come with a domain name, but it boasts a decent 5GB of storage, priority email support and unlimited pages.

Upgrade to the Pro Plus plan for $14.32 a month and you’ll get a free domain, mobile optimization, the SEO stats tool and double the storage. That’s ideal for the same audience as the Pro plan, but only if you have more funds to spend.

The Business plan, which costs $39.98 per month, doesn’t come with a lot of upgrades. It’s geared toward service or online businesses, because it comes with a lot of customer relationship management tools, such as email marketing. You should only go for this tier if you want to use WebStarts for an online store.

There’s a free plan, too, which you should take advantage of considering Webstarts doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee.

Design &Tools

80 % – Good

Though easy to use once you get used to it, WebStarts’s editor is cumbersome.

webstarts-editor

There are just too many toolbars and options for the human eye to comprehend and make sense of at first. The video tutorial helps, but using this editor to its full extent will take getting used to.

The top toolbar lets you edit back-end stuff, such as formatting, uploading media and connecting apps.

webstarts-bar1

Compared to other Webstarts functionalities, it’s helpful. Imagine Wix’s dashboard in the editor. That’s what you get here.

A bit lower, you’ll find a different more complicated toolbar.

webstarts-bar2

It lets you quickly undo, add pages and format the content you’re working on. It features necessary editing options, but the process could be streamlined if they were available on-page rather than in a toolbar. That’d declutter the screen and make everything run smoother, too.

Move to the left and you’ll find the main buttons for editing with WebStarts. The “add” section features premade blocks and elements that you can insert into any page.

webstarts-add-tab

The problem with it is that it isn’t drag and drop. You have to choose the section of the page where you want your element to be inserted, and once you do, it’ll automatically be placed there.

Though that creates a cleaner code, which means better SEO, it’s more cumbersome than just dragging an element onto the page.

The “pages” tab lets you manage pages and subcategories of your website.

webstarts-pages-tab

Adding a new page is easy and the menu will automatically be modified to accommodate the change.

What’s great about the tab is that you can add anchors and hyperlinks to pages from it. It’s not the easiest process, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to quickly link your pages together.

The “design” tab isn’t complex. It lets you modify aesthetic details.

webstarts-design-tab

You can modify the background color or use an image for the background. You can’t add many effects to it, but that can be solved if you edit the picture beforehand.

Plus, you can edit the color palette and the typography of your website. The options aren’t complex, but they’re enough to get a nice look if you don’t want anything too special.

We’ve talked about blogging on WebStarts, but let’s cover the “blog” tab. The first time you click it, you’ll be sent to a wizard to set up your blog. Managing your blog is simple in the dedicated screen.

webstarts-blog-tab

You can save drafts and schedule posts, which makes it easy to optimize your workflow. That’s it for technical details, but you can scroll up for more information on blogging with WebStarts.

The “store” tab works in the same way as the “blog” tab.

webstarts-store-tab

The first time you click it, it’ll send you to a wizard to set up the back-end e-commerce details.

The store management screen is more complex, but anyone can get the hang of it after adding one or two products.

The “manage” tab lets you work with back-end data.

webstarts-manage-tab

It’s where you can add a sitemap, change your website’s favicon and manage metadata about individual pages. It’s not exhaustive, but options such as the favicon work in the favor of beginners who need time to get accustomed to the online world.

Besides using the toolbars, you can make on-page edits.

webstarts-on-page

Editing elements is self-explanatory. An interesting thing about editing elements after inserting them into a page is that you can resize and reshape them as much as you want.

That’s a double-edged sword because you’ll mess up your website’s code if you overdo it. That leads to longer loading times and lower ranking, which makes it harder to generate organic traffic.

All in all, even if the WebStarts platform isn’t pretty, you can create something beautiful with it.

You can’t make something perfect, though, which is why you should read our SquareSpace review, too. It’s a builder that lets you create something stunning in no time.

Ease of Use

70 % – Decent

WebStarts is easy to use. Registering and getting started with a website takes less than five minutes, so you can jump into it quickly.

webstarts-register

The templates aren’t revolutionary, but they look nice and they’re easy to work on.

webstarts-template

You might run into hurdles once you start editing the website. With toolbars on top of toolbars, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the options. That’s why the video tutorial at the beginning is helpful.

webstarts-video-tutorial

Though the video tutorial is great, it’s not exhaustive, so you might need to reach out to the developers when trying to do complicated edits. For example, stacking elements on top of one another is hard because there’s no drag-and-drop feature.

There’s no need to despair, though, because WebStarts’s support team is top notch.

Support

80 % – Good

WebStarts’s support team is marketed heavily on the company’s homepage. Though support shouldn’t be the selling point of any enterprise, we have to agree that WebStarts’s support is good.

The first way WebStarts helps you is with a video tutorial as soon as you get into the software. If that and experimenting with the software aren’t enough, you can check the knowledgebase.

webstarts-help-center

It features nine categories of Q&As, each with its own subsections of common issues. All in all, it’s an exhaustive help center, and we didn’t didn’t need to contact the developers.

That said, if you need extra help, the WebStarts team is reachable by live chat, with an average response time of a few hours. Even if you have to wait for an answer, its response is helpful and complete.

If you want instant chat response, you can try Site123. Its support is far superior to WebStarts’s, which you can read about in our Site123 review.

Lastly, you can get in touch with the company via live call, but there’s no schedule for when you can contact them. We tried at various times of the day, but all we got was elevator music.

The Verdict

WebStarts is a great tool. It’s easy to use once you get the hang of it, inexpensive and has decent features.

Unfortunately, the tool isn’t up there with our best website builders. The blogging, SEO and e-commerce capabilities are limited, even if you do get a great image editor.

If you want a better blogging platform, read our best web hosting guide. We recommend WordPress, but something else may suit your needs. Before you choose WordPress though, make sure to read our beginner’s guide to WordPress. It’s a powerful but complex platform.

Was our take on WebStarts fair? Did you have a different experience with it? Let us know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.

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