On April 26, 2018, the company Square announced that they’ve reached an agreement to acquire Weebly for $365 million in cash and stock. The announcement seemed odd for a payment provider company to acquire a website builder company.

Other Square Acquisitions

If you never knew, Square has been exploring other areas such as Caviar which is a food delivery service and Zesty which is a food catering service. Both of these companies have also been acquired in 2014 and 2018.

When Weebly was acquired, its competitor Squarespace had raised $200 million at a $1.7 billion dollar valuation at the end of 2017.

Square believes that buying Weebly can create “one cohesive solution” for entrepreneurs looking to build an online and offline business. Weebly has 40 percent of its paid customers outside of the U.S. which helps Square expand its brand globally.

Square Weebly

With all of that said, how does this acquisition affect Weebly one year later? The website builder is still regarded as one of the easiest website builders to use. It’s not as flexible as Wix and it’s not as sophisticated as Squarespace, but Weebly might have an advantage over its competition when it comes to e-commerce features. This particular website builder can provide you many e-commerce features such as selling gift cards, adding customer accounts, deal with abandoned shopping cart details, and it has an in-store pickup feature. There are even more e-commerce features that can help your e-commerce business. Weebly is the only website builder that makes e-commerce easy to use. Weebly has been building its e-commerce features aggressively since being acquired from Square.

Weebly has a substantial amount of subscribers at 625,000. Merchant payment processor Square acquired Weebly for $365 million. Square intends on global expansion via this acquisition. A great portion of Weebly users lie outside of the United States, allowing Square to address a bigger audience of entrepreneurs. Revenues are expected to rise from $744 MM to $764 MM. The team members are also included in the merger. Most of the team from Weebly will be joining forces with the Square team.

The merger occurred during late April 2018. The merger is slated to help businesses all over the world. The services of both companies will line up well together. The CFO of Square stated that she feels both companies are culturally aligned. Backers of the acquisition include Floodgate, Sequoia Capital, Tencent, Felicis Ventures, and Y Combinator.

Not surprisingly, most people judge a photography company by the quality of the images on their site. If you are trying to break into the business or build upon an existing clientele, you need a website builder or CMS provider capable of supporting huge galleries without compromising the quality of your stunning photos. You should also look into platforms that make uploading new images easy, ensuring that you regularly update your content.

That's a lot to look for, especially if your search is up against a time crunch. We've curated the top seven photography website builders below to help you focus your search on only the providers that can meet your needs. Happy hunting!

1. SmugMug

SmugMug is the standard others are compared to for photography sites because it is focused on photography and nothing else. They recently acquired Flickr, the online photo giant, adding yet another tool to its impressive repertoire for photographers to consider.

2. Weebly

Weebly is an excellent choice for all of the technophobes out there. Its interface is incredibly intuitive, allowing you to design a beautiful site without ever working in code. This makes it accessible to nearly any photographer interested in showing off their work.

3. Duda

Duda's platform places a strong emphasis on mobile, widely considered the future of the internet. They also offer powerful collaboration options if your company consists of more than one photographer. Its drag and drop functionality is also helpful if you're uncomfortable with computers.

4. StudioPress Sites

If you've ever wanted to use the popular WordPress platform, this is the way to do it. StudioPress Sites is hosted by the highest-rated WordPress theme developer, giving you SEO-friendly themes through the popular Genesis framework for maximum visibility. It also offers a long list of additional features to help you customize your site to your liking.