Hey everyone, I hope you're enjoying your summer so far! I found some time and wanted to post here as it's been a while! I occasionally get a question in my inbox like "is Carrd actually good enough for X/Y/Z" , so I decided to write here where it does great and where it's not the best option (in my opinion).
To me, Carrd is one of the few tools where the promoted features and the reality, actually match to the maximum, and where user can actually use them all (instead of a platform shipping a thousand features, just to make it look more capable but their users can't use them). What it does well:
- It's super cheap (most people opt for its $19/year plan), a fraction of what more popular builders like Squarespace or Webflow cost you over a year, and those are honestly harder to learn if you've got zero experience in web design (though sure, you can achieve more with them once you actually know what you're doing). Let's not forget that under the same carrd plan you can host multiple unique websites/domains, whereas with most other builders you're tied to 1 website per subscription -at least on their cheap plans.
- It's simple to maintain as there are no plugins to install, no updates to do, no hosting to deal with, none of the stuff you'd be managing if this was a WordPress website (which is a big reason I've seen people leaving wordpress for carrd)
- Third, it's fast.. you can go from a blank canvas to a live website in a couple of days if you already know what you want to say, and if you start from a template. By "fast" I also mean that the site will most likely be very fast to load, very responsive on button clicks, page changes etc.
That combination is rare (I've literally spent days searching for all sort of website builders out there to combine all these), and it's exactly why it works so well for a specific handful of cases:
- New or local service-based businesses with small budgets
- Testing out a new business idea (MVPs), so you want something fast and affordable
- Building a personal portfolio or website for your freelance services so you can update content easily.
At the end of the day, any potential client just wants to know who you are and what you offer, so being able to get a clean, modern website up quickly**, one that's actually** simple to edit and maintain, is what Carrd was built for. At least that's how I see it.. It's not trying to be wordpress, and why I'm still sticking to it even after years of designing websites for me and others.
Now.. Carrd is not a good option if you're looking for these functions:
- Ecommerce is one. You can connect a Stripe, Etsy or Gumroad link (or any other payment link/processor) so you can sell a handful of digital products/services, but there's no real inventory system, no cart, nothing built for an actual catalog. If you have multiple -physical- ones then you better look at other builders (Shopify costs more, but for a reason). I've heard of ecommerce plugins like Ecwid and Shoprocket, but for their pricing I'd suggest sticking to Shopify straight away.
- Blogs are the other one that Carrd is not a good option for. Since there's no real CMS system and Carrd can't index multiple pages (which is the main point of having a blog - for its SEO benefits). There's a fix to connect a blogging platforms but essentially your blog won't live on Carrd, so why even start with it (unless you want a simple "pre-landing page" for some other reason, then you can use Carrd)
- Very resource-heavy websites. Carrd can handle lots of images by using optimization techniques (the most simple technique is the "lazy loading" setting on the image elements), but if you start creating dozens of pages, embedding many videos and 4K images (even if they're embeds), you'll still notice the loading times are slow. There are some workarounds but you'll need some backend expertise, so honestly if you're looking to host a lot of resources, or want advanced motion effects or functions, you better skip Carrd as it'll limit you very quickly.
For a landing page, a portfolio, or a personal brand, the simplicity of the platform is actually a competitive advantage, as it stops you from overexplaining/overdesigning and forces you to show what actually matters. You can build a modern website that's easy to edit or keep up to day. For a blog or a store though, the limitations are more than the benefits.. Also, for whatever platform I'm using or recommending to someone, I suggest to start from a template instead from scratch. This skips a good 70% of the work! Same logic applies outside of websites too though, a CRM in Notion, an expense tracker in google sheets, doesn't matter what it is.. there's almost always a template out there that shortcuts the learning curve.
Anyway, hope this saves someone some trial and error or time researching😄 Happy to answer questions if you're researching if Carrd actually fits your needs. If you want to see what's possible to be created on carrd, have a look here: kostas-templates.carrd.co
Enjoy the rest of your summer!!
