Website platform TCO calculator: Webflow vs Framer vs WordPress

How the 3-year total is built

Each column is four lines, and all four are shown so nothing is hidden:

• Build (one-time). Estimated hours to design and build the site, driven by your page count, CMS size and whether you need a store or a member area, multiplied by your blended rate. Framer is modelled as the fastest to build a marketing site, WordPress as the most setup, Webflow in between. Choosing "agency" adds a disclosed 30% for project management and margin on the same hours.
• Platform (36 months). The subscription. For Webflow and Framer the tool picks the plan tier your CMS size and traffic actually require (for example Webflow CMS vs Business vs Ecommerce). This is the plan itself; per-editor seats are billed on top and are not in this baseline. On Framer, after its 27 May 2026 overhaul that retired the Scale plan, a full editor seat is a flat $20 a month and a content-only seat $10, so a team of several editors adds a line that can rival the plan. WordPress software is free, so this line is zero for it.
• Hosting (36 months). Webflow and Framer bundle hosting into the plan, so this shows "included". WordPress needs separate managed hosting, sized by your traffic using Kinsta and WP Engine ballparks.
• Plugins and maintenance (36 months). The ongoing work and licenses. WordPress carries premium plugin and theme licenses plus more maintenance hours (updates, security, backups, the occasional broken plugin). Webflow and Framer carry far fewer maintenance hours, plus any paid add-on a feature forces, such as a membership tool.

The total is build plus the three 36-month lines. The verdict is deliberately separate from the cheapest column: the tool names the platform that best fits your use case, and when that is not the cheapest it tells you the gap so you can decide whether the extra capability is worth it.

How the best-fit verdict is decided

Cost is not the only thing that matters; capability is. The verdict follows a few honest rules:

• Selling products. A larger or higher-traffic store points to WordPress and WooCommerce, the most capable and extensible checkout of the three. A smaller, design-led store points to Webflow Ecommerce. Framer is ruled out for serious selling: it has no first-class checkout.
• Membership or gated content. A serious membership site is WordPress territory thanks to mature membership plugins and access control. A smaller gated area is fine on Webflow with an add-on. Framer would force an external gating tool.
• Marketing and content. A focused marketing site with a modest CMS is where Framer wins outright on speed and cost. A large content library or a mid-size site leans to Webflow for its stronger CMS and design control without WordPress upkeep.

Switching later is possible but it is the moment sites lose rankings if the move is careless. The migration checklist above is the exact sequence we follow to move a site between these platforms without dropping traffic. Unlock it with your email and you also get a note whenever we update it.

Where the numbers come from

The plan prices are 2026 list-price ballparks billed annually, and the build-hour and maintenance assumptions are disclosed in the tool's code and shown next to every figure. They are a planning baseline to frame the decision, not a quote. Vendor pricing and plan limits change often, so verify the current plan on each platform before you commit. This tool sits one level above our managed hosting cost calculator: choose the platform here, then size the hosting there.

The line this calculator does not compute: the per-sale cost of a store

The three-year total prices what it takes to run the site, the platform, hosting, plugins and maintenance. For a store it stops there, and does not price the cost of each sale, which sits on a separate axis and can flip the selling verdict. Two per-sale lines are missing, and only one of them changes the answer.

Payment processing is the line that is common to all three, so it does not move the comparison: taking a card costs about 2.9% plus 0.30 dollars through Stripe, PayPal or WooPayments whether you build on Webflow or WordPress. It is still worth knowing it dwarfs the plan at real volume (2.9% of 200,000 dollars in yearly sales is about 5,800 dollars before the fixed fee), but it is not what decides between the platforms.

The platform-specific line is the one that does. Webflow Ecommerce charges its own 2% transaction fee on top of processing on the entry Standard plan, and only removes it on Plus (about 74 dollars a month) and Advanced. WooCommerce on WordPress charges no platform transaction fee at all; you pay only the gateway. Framer has no first-class checkout, which is why the verdict above already rules it out for serious selling. So a small, design-led store the verdict points at Webflow Ecommerce carries a 2% Webflow cut on every order at the Standard tier that the same store on WooCommerce does not. That 2% overtakes the roughly 45-dollar-a-month saving of staying on Standard at about 2,250 dollars a month in sales, above which Webflow Plus at 0% or WooCommerce is cheaper on the per-sale math even though the platform line here still shows Standard as the cheaper subscription. If you are selling, price your expected monthly sales against that 2% before you take the store verdict as final.

Who this is for

Anyone at the start of a website project or weighing a replatform: a founder deciding where to build, a marketer who inherited a slow WordPress install, or an agency standardising on one stack. If you would rather skip the platform debate entirely and have a fast, low-maintenance site built and run for you, that is exactly what Mue does.

Website platform cost questions, answered