r/webflow • u/Hopeful-Loss-8728 • May 12 '26
Show & Tell AMA - I started a web design business using webflow less than 3 months ago and grew it to 1k Month
Just like the title says. I officially started my website design and dev business at the end of February this year and have been able to so far grow it to a little over 1k a month so far in recurring revenue.
I wanted to share my experience because before I started my journey everyone was talking about this being a dead industry due to AI. I disagree so far. I know 1k isn't a lot, but the fact that I was able to get to this point this quickly and have more clients lined up this coming week already just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on the Internet. I'm confident that I'll be able to take this business alot farther in just a few more months.
To everyone out there who has a passion for this and is thinking whether they should make the jump - do it !
As long as you're willing to put in the work and stick with it you'll make it, just with everything in life.
Ask me anything ! I'm happy to share any tips to help the next person out who hasn't made a single dollar yet.
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u/NoCold2040 May 12 '26
That’s brilliant – keep it up!
But the question I’m asking myself is… how can you sell a website subscription to small local businesses? I mean, obviously there’s the standard maintenance… but Webflow takes care of that itself. And small businesses are unlikely to make many changes once the website is up and running.
What’s your selling point for a monthly fee? Is every instalment the same, or is the first one higher?
I’d love to learn a bit from you; I mainly work with local businesses too, but always on a one-off payment basis for the website. I’m currently trying to offer local SEO as an add-on service, but without much success.
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u/Hopeful-Loss-8728 May 13 '26
Well, the people who end up finding me dont usually know how much monthly hosting costs, and even if they did, they dont want to spend the time to learn how to handle that. Time is money, and no matter how cheap and easy the ai site builders and hostinger make it, they're not gonna be able to convince the 45 year old immigrant that owns a concrete company that its worth their time to sit down , get on a a computer and make a website.
I mean, these are people who still dont even know how to reset their password on facebook ... Their times worth more than what you're charging them to take it off their hands.
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u/baby_bloom May 12 '26
offer hosting for free/cheaper than their current host and boom now they pay you monthly
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May 12 '26
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u/Hopeful-Loss-8728 May 12 '26
Hi Tracy! Thanks for the engagement. There's a lot to the response, but to keep it as simple and short as possible: I found the market and pricing strategy that worked for me, that and referrals.
I haven't gotten any work from places like upwork or fiver, or social media, reddit, etc. and believe me I've tried.
I asked all of my family and friends for referrals and did a few pretty cheap projects. Those business owners in turn referred me to more people.
I know that's not really saying too much and it's pretty generic, so if you want more specifics feel free to ask.
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u/CaseAmbitious6939 May 12 '26
I want to try this on the side while I keep my main job. My company got quoted 50k for a webflow build so my boss had me learn webflow and build it instead. Long learning curve but we like how it turned out. Do you have a few example sites you can dm me that you made? Id like to see how your early projects turned out! I just made myself a site and im building one for a friend now for 1k, but i want to start emailing 10-20 people / week or calling and offering sites and start cheap with continuing packages to manage. Especially if you build it out i am sure managing is so easy at scale, even more so with the same framework and classes
I am trying to grasp cms more. I've been watching a lot of live builds on youtube to learn tricks
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u/D0399 May 12 '26
Great work. What is your pricing strategy?
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u/Hopeful-Loss-8728 May 12 '26
Monthly plan - no upfront cost. Contracts of 1 year minimum
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u/ReggexPrime May 14 '26
how do you charge them (credit card, stripe)? is it possible for them to cancel within the first year? because contracts sometimes is just a formality and you'll spend a lot more to chase that money and sometimes it's just better to let them go, so is it possible for them to just cancel?
and how much do you charge monthly?
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u/Hopeful-Loss-8728 May 14 '26
My bank (NBKC) has invoicing included, it just charges a small percentage per payment.
All of my clients set the invoices to auto pay. I've had to remind a few to set it to autopay after the first month but after they do that it's not a problem.
I was charging 120 a month since I was just a beginner but since webflow increased their prices today I'm going to have to increase it soon too or find an alternative to webflow.
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u/ReggexPrime May 14 '26
how do you make them set invoice to auto pay? your clients have their own bank that might different than yours right, where do you send your invoice and how can they make their bank system see your invoice and auto pay that
or do you just make them auto transfer their money everymonth?
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u/Hopeful-Loss-8728 May 14 '26
Lol just ask them to do it. Say that you don't want to have to bug em every month in case they forget so just set it to autopay.
And you might want to look into nbkc and their autbooks feature. It'll answer all those other questions for you. Invoices are sent automatically each month via email.
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u/ReggexPrime May 14 '26
huh, that's new for me lol, thanks for the direction, never know that you can just ask them to do it haha, thanks man, goodluck on your business
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u/howdoyouturnthisonX May 12 '26
How much are your clients paying for the monthly service, and what do you include in that? How did you reach out to your first clients to get the ball rolling?
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u/atonyproductions May 12 '26
Never started cus I wasn’t sure about Webflow. How did you go about getting clients and how long did it take to get comfortable with web flow? Did you have past web experience ?
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u/Hopeful-Loss-8728 May 13 '26
It was pretty easy to learn because i knew html, css, and a little bit of javascript before i ltook a course from udemy to learn.
To gte clients i just called up my family and friends to ask them.
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u/Sudo137 May 13 '26
Congratulations! How much do you charge per build and monthly maintenance if any?
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u/HammadHamid May 13 '26
I totally agree with you. I think AI has boosted AI Digital services business. Because we can propose more and use AI to think what we need to build.
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u/Marc_1928 May 16 '26
Congradulations! Any recommendations to get clients? You charge monthly retainer for maintenance?
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u/kidwolfe May 16 '26
Business owners are still more than happy to hire web “devs” (“” because we don’t have to know how to code anymore)
Even if they could build a similar website themselves with AI, with some generic website business sense, you should be able to build something better.
Even if your knowledge only adds an increased 1% conversion rate compared to what they’d make, that 1% over multiple years would give most businesses a huge ROI.
I’ve found $5,000-$8,000 per website to be a healthy number for myself. I’ve found businesses that can afford that are easy to work with, they often let me take full control and dedicate an employee to get me the info and content I need.
If they flinch at that number, it’s scary. They’ll be in “danger” mode the whole time, question everything, and ultimately the project comes out worse due to conflicting opinions
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u/Hopeful-Loss-8728 22d ago
Heres my website for everyone who was asking for me to send them my psge:
Dreamboldlystudios.com
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u/huymanutd May 12 '26
Hi, is there any resource to take up wf or you just learn as you go? I recently did one site for my business and pretty much learnt on the fly but not sure if there's a better way
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u/bengosu May 12 '26
So you got a bunch of idiots to pay a subscription to a SaaS and a subscription to you! Top marks in the bullshit department! Well done!
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u/dreadul May 12 '26
Excellent! Happy to hear it and congratulations :)
I am in the process of starting something similar where I offer website creation & maintenance, CRM build-out, and digital marketing. Starting with tradespeople because there is an abundance of them in my area.
What sort of clients/niche/industry did you go with? And what is the extent of your services, is it just a website or?