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.

Square Weebly Limitations

Weebly still seems to have the same issues that they have before being acquired by Square such as limited theme customization. Many users still want the option to grow their email newsletter providers with Constant Contact or MailChimp instead of being forced to use Weebly’s built-in newsletter software. Maybe this will change sometime in the future.

How much does Weebly cost?

Square Weebly has a total of 4 pricing plans. There’s a free plan for basic use. There’s the connect plan to connect a domain which will cost you $5 a month. They have a pro plan which is for groups and organizations that will cost you $12 a month. The last plan is the business plan which is for small businesses and stores that will cost you $25 a month.

Square Weebly is not the only website builder in town. As stated above, Wix and Squarespace have been their competitors over the past few years. There are even more website builders like Wordpress and dozens more. Every one of these website builders has its pros and cons. They all have different features. Many will say that Squarespace is the best, but it’s all about preference in the end. Some of these website builders are worth experimenting with to see what website builder is best for you and your passions.

Overall, not much has changed for Weebly and it seems that the acquisition was made for Square to expand its brand globally. There could be drastic changes in the later years to come, but Weebly still seems to be a worthy competitor to other website builders.

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