weebly's business site is discontinued

[Shauna369]

I received an email from Weebly stating the 'Business site Plan has been discontinued and I will automatically be updated to the Premium Site Plan on my next renewal date. The price I pay now is $300 a year or $35 a month. According to this email The Premium Site will cost $864 a year or $72 a month. 

However, when I'm logged on to my Weebly account and I go to extend my payment plan, There is NO mention of any price increase or how the one I'm using has been discontinued. Which is weird. I would think that if this is true, why am I not seeing anything about these changes directly from the Weebly dashboard, where I would be making my payment from. 

Is it possible that I got a scam email and it's NOT from Weebly? 

If this is true about the price increase, I guess I will be leaving. My business is so small that it can not take a hit like that.

[blueskyes]

I did that and there are no other options available to sign up for. They told me the same thing. Then switched it to they will show up when my subscription expires. Like you, I do NOT need the premium plan that they are pushing. The Performance is fine if it is the price they are currently quoting on the website.

[blueskyes]

The only problem for me with the Pro site is that it does not allow the use of PayPal as an additional payment option based on the website plan listing. It looks like the Performance will do that. That's really the only thing I need from Performance.

[WebEVT1]

Hello. I received the same email yesterday and spoke to an  assistant through the chat. He did not want to  switch me to a plan except the business plus. 

When you say "cancel your plan", do you mean to use the cancel link in my  account (link in the picture below)? No risk the website disappears while we  wait for the new plans to be visible?

Thanks.

[blueskyes]

I hope that is true. I got reassured the same thing. 

I am not thrilled to wait until the last minute. If I have cancelled, I don't know why they don't let me see it now. 

[blueskyes]

I just received this same email with the charge of $1638 for 2 years when my site renews in Sept. 

I spent quite a bit of time in chat with weebly support and they told me to cancel my current level which will stop the automatic renewal to $1638. 

I was then told that a day before or the day that it expires I will be able to choose a different level. 

In the email, the plan they referred me to was the "Premium Site" plan which isn't even an option on the site they linked that lists the features of the site. Weebly Pricing - Compare Website Builder Plans and Pricing

Given those prices, I would be doing the Performance site which a LOT less than $800+ a year.

I have cancelled and have tried to upgrade or even reactivate but I don't get the new plans/prices shown above so I can't sign up for anything else. 

What is going on?!

[CelticStudio]

My business plan expired 12 days ago after I pulled my payment method when the price hike email was sent. The website is still live and in Account -> Services -> Extend my plan it still shows the old pricing and same pricing when I click the "Upgrade" orange text in top right.

I previously called customer support but they gave misinformation and were no help. Said cancel or wait until expired and the new pricing will show. They said despite it giving me the option to renew at the old rates it wouldn't work.... I might give this a try anyway and hope to be grandfathered in to the old pricing.

What a mess this is!

[blueskyes]

I went and renewed for a year. It let me renew at the plan and lower price that I always had. We will see what happens.

[CelticStudio]

I did the same for a one month renewal after they stopped the service and my website wasn't reachable a week and a half after my plan expired. It worked at the old rate to get my site back up, so far so good.

[Shauna369]

Oh goodness. I hope it keeps working for you. So far I'm still getting the old prices. If they ever do raise them, I will be forced to go elsewhere. My business is just too small to afford any new price increase.

[Shauna369]

I usually do a year at a time, but I wont be able to do that until December. In the meantime, I'm doing it month to month. So far I'm still getting the old price. I just received another email today about the same subject, price increase. It's confusing because, they are saying this but nothing has changed on the website. Just weird.

[CelticStudio]

The month just renewed at the new $79 (month to month) premium pricing. I will not be renewing again at this rate and will instead focus on our Shopify website.

[Shauna369]

I received another email about the price changes. They gave me an October 6th date as that's when my next renewal is due. If it does in fact go up, I will not be renewing as well.  How do you like Shopify? 

[CelticStudio]

It is the best for eCommerce, much better than Weebly. I have been using it for for many years my primary website but left the old Weebly site up because it didn't cost too much.

Shopify has great website building tools, it's the most popular so has a lot of support and apps to use. You can use it to transfer listings directly to Amazon, Etsy, Ebay etc. To transfer listings back and forth with Etsy I use a third-party app called Shuttle which makes things really easy.

The cost is free until you publish the site and I think $30 USD per month for the basic plan which has everything you need.

[Shauna369]

I am so frazzled today with trying to figure out what to do. Square/Weebly has gotten too confusing and I'm seeing conflicting pricing. I think I will check out Shopify. It seems to be popular.

So, I can start my website & get it going, but until I pay for my service, then it wont be activated, is that correct. As in I wont be able to sell from it until that point? $30 a month is doable for me. I'm having a hard time remembering if I am able to still sell from the free Weebly subscription one. I need to be able to still sell while making the transition. I currently use square invoices 😅, so I'm thinking of hanging on to that a while longer until I complete the transition. It's an easy way to collect money, & since I'm already hooked up. I'm sure there are other invoice apps I could use, If need be. Thanks for your input. I appreciate it. 

Do you sell on any other platforms. I have been staying away from Etsy & Amazon, but I'm now thinking about whether or not I should give it a go. 

[CelticStudio]

Yes, I believe with Shopify you can build your site for as long as you want but don't actually start paying until it is published and live online. There are different free or paid themes that you can choose and you could probably find a "Shopify Expert" that will rebuild your website on Shopify for a cost.

If you can drive all traffic to your own website it gives you the most control with least fees so this should always be the goal. Etsy looks like it would be a good fit for your products but the fees are quite high unfortunately. If you increase the price by 15 or 20 % to cover fees It might be worth it. You can opt in to Off-site advertising and set a daily $ budget for within Etsy ads. It works but adds to the selling costs.

Feel free to private message me if you or anyone else have any questions, I've been selling on Shopify, Etsy & Amazon Handmade for a long time.

[Shauna369]

Thank you so much for your insight. I appreciate your help. I think today I will start with opening a Shopify account & getting my website going. I have a lot of products to add, so this will give me time before I get it launched. I assume they have a community page there as well? Am I able to find you there under this name, perhaps? Are you on Facebook, IG or TikTok by chance. I use FB mostly as that seems to be the platform where I can reach more people. I'm on IG & TikTok as well, tho I don't engage there as often I would like. Look me up, if you like, under the name Jynger Moon Jynger. 

I will be considering Etsy & Amazon eventually as well. 

Thanks again for all of your input.

[Watercolours1]

I received the "moving you to premium" email a few days ago. This would increase my 2-year subscription from $469 (which has remained the same since I joined in 2014) to $1632, nearly 4 times as much!!  And they're offering no additional features to those in the existing plan, which hasn't been upgraded for years, despite multiple requests for sorting out stupid things like account customers being able to change their email address but not their physical address.  I've told Weebly what they can do with their programme, and am now busy building my new Shopify website. What annoys me is that they've basically given me 4 weeks notice from the end of October, so I'm having to create a new site while going into the busiest time of year for retailers. Luckily I reopened my Etsy shop a few months ago, so if the new website isn't ready by the end of my subscription, I at least have somewhere for customers to buy. Not a happy bunny!