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). 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.

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