The Total Economic Impact™ Of Webflow
Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Webflow
A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study Commissioned By Webflow, September 2024
In today’s fast-paced digital enterprise, the ability to rapidly create, design, and publish digital experiences has become an essential part of the overall marketing strategy. Organizations seek user-friendly, scalable technology platforms that allow their teams to focus on impactful work to drive marketing performance through collaboration, management, and faster time to market.
Webflow is a website experience platform that allows in-house teams and agencies to create dynamic websites that traditionally require a team of developers, saving time and reducing costs by eliminating the need for highly skilled developers. Enterprises across all industries use Webflow to build best in class digital experiences.
Webflow commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying Webflow.1 The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Webflow on their organizations.
Return on investment (ROI)
332%
Net present value (NPV)
$2.12M
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forrester interviewed five representatives from organizations currently using Webflow. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the interviewees’ experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization that is an agnostic organization with revenue of $2 billion per year.
Interviewees said that prior to using Webflow, their organizations relied on complex content management systems (CMS) that demanded extensive technical expertise. They also used cumbersome, siloed tech stacks that impeded scalability and left their organizations with complicated processes for simple content updates and new page development. These processes often took months and overburdened full-stack/back-end developers and visual designers. These limitations led to frequent website outages, the inability to align business needs to marketing strategies, lengthy and costly development cycles, and high labor costs — all of which hampered their agility and market responsiveness.
Key Findings
Quantified benefits. Three-year, risk-adjusted present value (PV) quantified benefits for the composite organization include:
- Better business outcomes due to new customer acquisition through the website. With Webflow, the composite organization can collaborate, build, launch, scale, and optimize its web properties. Webflow’s visual-first website experience platform allows the composite’s marketing teams to have more agility and autonomy in the page-building process, translating their messaging into a better visual brand representation. This ultimately leads to increased website traffic, profitability, and growth.
- Up to 94% faster time to market due to increased content management efficiencies. The composite organization experiences a 94% improvement in the time required to create and develop digital experiences due to Webflow’s user interface that allows nontechnical users to build, launch, scale, and optimize content experiences and collaborate with designers and developers in real time. The AI Copilot built into Webflow’s Designer feature helps marketers at the composite create and iterate on content faster, including styling and content changes. Additionally, Webflow’s headless APIs support composability, further increasing content management efficiencies by plugging into adjacent software systems.
- Efficiency gains of 80% for web content editing cycles. The composite organization experiences an 80% efficiency improvement in the time needed to make changes and corrections on its main website and microsites. Prior to using Webflow, making a change or correction required opening a support ticket for the development team to address, followed by rounds of feedback. With Webflow, users at the composite can now create new content or make changes to existing content items directly on this canvas in the visual-first CMS, bypassing a lengthy development process. This new content editing process empowers marketing teams and frees up developers to focus on more business-critical tasks.
- More than $850,000 in cost savings on decommissioned legacy systems and reallocated labor. After implementing Webflow, the composite organization decommissions its previous content management system and associated hosting over a three-year period. This is because Webflow’s hosting capabilities are included in enterprise service-level agreements. Additionally, the number of full-stack developers needed to maintain and work on Webflow is reduced due to efficiency enhancements in content management development. This allows full-stack developers to focus on other areas of the business.
Unquantified benefits. Benefits that provide value for the composite organization but are not quantified for this study include:
- User-friendly platform and team empowerment. Webflow’s visual canvas has empowered nontechnical teams to engage in creative and development activities for the website. Webflow opens the door to more team collaborations, thanks to its streamlined creation-development process. Multiple teams at the composite organization are now empowered to create and shape messaging on the website given the speed at which the visual-first platform allows teams to transition their ideas to execution.
- Reliable managed hosting environment. Webflow’s hosting infrastructure allows internal IT and engineering teams at the composite organization to save time that would otherwise be spent on maintaining and optimizing their own hosting environment.
- Enhanced scalability through composable integrations. Webflow’s approach to scalability is multifaceted, focusing on a robust core while embracing third-party integrations through turnkey connectors. By leveraging content from adjacent systems, Webflow users at the composite organization can rapidly create, edit, and deploy experiences that would otherwise demand additional development and content creation time. This strategy not only accelerates the rollout of new experiences but also allows businesses to scale faster globally.
- Efficiency gains through localization features. Webflow’s native localizations capabilities translate and localize content for different geographies quickly, permit live previews for changes, and include the ability to conduct user testing before launch, therefore providing the composite with the ability to manage multiple international sites with minimal effort.
Costs. Three-year, risk-adjusted PV costs for the composite organization include:
- Enterprise service-level agreement. Ongoing licensing spend is based on the composite’s project plan and the number of sites run on Webflow. Hosting capabilities are also included in the platform cost. The composite organization, which is a scalable enterprise, is billed annually for its multiyear subscription, incurring costs of around $470,000 over three years.
- Agency implementation and maintenance fees. The composite organization chooses to engage with an external agency to support the initial implementation that includes the lift-and-shift of one main site and two landing pages. Once the implementation is completed, the composite organization retains the agency services for ad hoc projects throughout the years, incurring $143,000 in costs over three years for the composite organization.
- Training and ongoing costs. Webflow’s users at the composite organization have different titles and roles and, therefore, different levels of technical expertise. Training and ongoing learning processes are minimized for development roles, making them more design- and content-oriented for business teams in shorter stints. This cost is about $22,000 over three years for the composite organization.
The representative interviews and financial analysis found that a composite organization experiences benefits of $2.76 million over three years versus costs of $638,000, adding up to a net present value (NPV) of $2.12 million and an ROI of 332%.
Key Statistics
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Return on investment (ROI)
332%
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Benefits PV
$2.76M
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Net present value (NPV)
$2.12M
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Payback
<6 months
Benefits (Three-Year)
Increased profit due to new customer acquisition through the website Increased productivity on content management development Operational efficiencies due to improved content quality Cost savings from labor and licensing costs
TEI Framework And Methodology
From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a Total Economic Impact™ framework for those organizations considering an investment Webflow.
The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep approach to evaluate the impact that Webflow can have on an organization.
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Due Diligence
Interviewed Webflow stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data relative to Webflow.
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Interviews
Interviewed five representatives at organizations using Webflow to obtain data about costs, benefits, and risks.
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Composite Organization
Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of the interviewees’ organizations.
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Financial Model Framework
Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues and concerns of the interviewees.
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Case Study
Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling the investment impact: benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophistication of ROI analyses related to IT investments, Forrester’s TEI methodology provides a complete picture of the total economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for additional information on the TEI methodology.
Disclosures
Readers should be aware of the following:
This study is commissioned by Webflow and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.
Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that other organizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own estimates within the framework provided in the study to determine the appropriateness of an investment in Webflow.
Webflow reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes to the study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of the study.
Webflow provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate in the interviews.
Consulting Team:
Carmen Serradilla Ortiz
Maria Kulikova
Drivers leading to the Webflow investment
Interviews
| Role | Industry | Region | Revenue | Employees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CIO | Waste management | HQ in Ontario, Canada and US operations | $8 billion | 22,500 |
| Senior manager, digital and marketing operations | Banking hardware, software, and services | HQ in GA, US operations | $4.4 billion | 19,000 |
| Director of web strategy | Security software | HQ in CA, US operations | $52.5 million | 250 |
| Product manager, growth and SEO | Human resources software | HQ in UT, US operations | $63 million | 300 |
| Tech lead | Software | HQ in Norway, Europe and LATAM operations | $2.4 billion | 15,000 |
Key Challenges
Prior to investing in Webflow, the interviewees’ organizations used other content management systems that required a higher amount of technical expertise labor and large and siloed tech stacks that hindered scalability. The complexity attached to simple content changes, or the development of new pages would imply months of preparation and a heavy lift on full-stack developers and designers.
The interviewees noted how their organizations struggled with common challenges, including:
- The inability to keep up with marketing plans. According to interviewees, their organizations’ previous content management systems required a higher number of full-stack developers working on component changes that took a long time to complete. Given this technical complexity, marketing teams struggled to keep up with their plans as business needs evolved rapidly.
- Complex and expensive content management systems. Interviewees noted that, along with their previous content management systems, they had to use several other solutions to complement their custom-coded platform. The complexity of managing the previous tech stacks was because they were siloed and required heavy maintenance, redundant work, and significant time spent trying to fix website outages as fast as they could.
- Long and tedious timelines that delayed marketing initiatives. Interviewees noted the disruption in the collaboration between marketing, design, and development teams. The process started with the marketing and design team that would design the idea. They would then hand this to the developers who would take weeks to develop the code. The next step would require the marketing and design team to review and provide feedback to the developers and repeat this process several times until the end product was polished. This long and tedious process caused bottlenecks and numerous rounds of back-and-forth reviews that heavily delayed the process from idea to completion.
- High costs associated with a large stack of highly skilled labor. Interviewees noted that because their previous content management systems were custom coded, they required a large investment in a technical team and the platform itself. The tech lead of a software organization noted that, in order to meet strategic plans and achieve scalability, they needed to reallocate headcount for website development internationalization efforts: “We can’t have one person per national site per country and also, we can’t have a huge full stack of developers just to keep this alive. I was very quickly gravitating towards low-code or no-code solutions”.
Investment Objectives
The interviewees’ organizations searched for a solution that could:
- Provide a quick adoption process and a fast website migration to avoid digital presence disruption.
- Enhance capabilities of nontechnical teams to improve collaboration efficiency and streamline design workflows.
- Increase security and process efficiencies due to reduced reliance on other systems though platform consolidation capabilities.
- Provide enterprise-grade security and performance.
After a request for proposal (RFP) and business case process evaluating multiple vendors, the interviewees’ organizations chose Webflow and began deployment.
- All five interviewees’ organizations chose to collaborate with an external agency for the initial migration efforts.
- Interviewees told Forrester that they spent most of their time designing their main dot-com websites (around six months) and then migrated them to Webflow in approximately 1.5 months.
Composite Organization
Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, a composite company, and an ROI analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected. The composite organization is representative of the five interviewees, and it is used to present the aggregate financial analysis in the next section. The composite organization has the following characteristics:
Description of composite. The global enterprise organization has an annual revenue of $2 billion and uses its main website to establish a digital presence and brand awareness while providing customer service support and lead generation. As the composite organization plans to expand its sites to other geographical areas, it collaborates with Webflow to switch from its previous and high technical content management system to Webflow’s visual-first CMS platform.
Deployment characteristics. The composite organization partners with an external agency for the initial lift-and-shift of its main site and landing pages. The agency provides technical and design assistance for the migration, and the collaborating team includes an enterprise senior project manager, a content strategist, a UX designer, and a technical engineer. The composite organization also involves its in-house team comprised of a website manager, an SEO, a tech lead, and a content manager.
The initial migration was completed in Year 1 and further developments for geographical expansion are ongoing throughout Years 2 and 3, carried out by Webflow users with occasional support from the agency for ad hoc projects.
Quantified benefit data as applied to the composite
Total Benefits
| Ref. | Benefit | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atr | Increased profit due to new customer acquisition through the website | $255,000 | $255,000 | $255,000 | $765,000 | $634,147 |
| Btr | Increased productivity on content management development | $498,047 | $498,047 | $498,047 | $1,494,141 | $1,238,569 |
| Ctr | Operational efficiencies due to improved content quality | $8,500 | $8,500 | $8,500 | $25,500 | $21,138 |
| Dtr | Cost savings from labor and licensing costs | $246,500 | $325,125 | $493,000 | $1,064,625 | $863,187 |
| Total benefits (risk-adjusted) | $1,008,047 | $1,086,672 | $1,254,547 | $3,349,266 | $2,757,041 | |
Increased Profit Due To New Customer Acquisition Through The Website
Evidence and data. The ability to collaborate, build, launch, scale, and optimize digital experiences on a visual-first platform brought significant benefits to the interviewees’ organizations, particularly the enhanced collaboration between marketing and technical development teams. The interviewees reported an improvement in flexibility and control over page creation. This enhanced collaboration positively impacted the end product — the website. As a result of a more polished and better designed website, the interviewees were able to more effectively position their branding and communicate the value of their products, leading to an increase in traffic. This, in turn, enabled the interviewees to devise a strategy for channeling this traffic to the appropriate segment pages.
After observing positive results, in-house teams began adopting a new approach to developing ideas for their digital marketing efforts, as the tech lead of a software organization mentioned, “Being able to create [the website] in such a good way and setting all of those things up, it’s completely changed the way that we think about getting ideas for what we can do next.”
With a better designed website, a more streamlined process for presenting ideas, and improved website traffic, the subsequent impact for the interviewees’ organizations was an increase in leads. This was due to the proper funneling of information and a clear value proposition. Additionally, the CIO at the waste management organization reported this progress brought operational efficiencies to their organization. They shared that they had developed a customer service system on their webpage using chatbots and voice bots to triage customer requests. This system then relayed the information to customer service representatives. The integration of these capabilities resulted in a 17.5% reduction in call volumes from May 2023 to May 2024 for the waste management organization.
From increased organic traffic to higher lead generation, the director of web strategy noted their security software organization reported a 10% rise in sitewide conversion rates in the first month following the launch of a program. This was made possible because Webflow facilitated testing and experimentation at a pace that directly benefited the sales pipeline and, as the director of web strategy said, “The quicker you can get some of these early wins, the more that scales, the more you’re able to capitalize on those wins.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The composite organization has a total revenue of $2 billion per year.
- The composite experiences an increase in sales of 0.5% per year.
- Thirty percent of this increase in sales can be attributed to Webflow.
Risks. Factors that could impact the size of this benefit for organizations include:
- The size and revenue of the organization.
- The specific use case and purpose of the organization’s website.
- The level of Webflow’s implementation and usage.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $634,000.
Increased Profit Due To New Customer Acquisition Through The Website
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | Total revenue | Composite | $2,000,000,000 | $2,000,000,000 | $2,000,000,000 | |
| A2 | Increase in sales | Interviews | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | |
| A3 | Attribution to Webflow | Interviews | 30% | 30% | 30% | |
| A4 | Increased revenue due to added customer base | A1*A2*A3 | $3,000,000 | $3,000,000 | $3,000,000 | |
| A5 | Operating margin | TEI standard | 10% | 10% | 10% | |
| At | Increased profit due to new customer acquisition through the website | A4*A5 | $300,000 | $300,000 | $300,000 | |
| Risk adjustment | ↓15% | |||||
| Atr | Increased profit due to new customer acquisition through the website (risk-adjusted) | $255,000 | $255,000 | $255,000 | ||
| Three-year total: $765,000 | Three-year present value: $634,147 | |||||
Increased Productivity On Content Management Development
Evidence and data. Interviewees shared with Forrester that the design of digital experiences with their previous content management systems, whether they were main sites or landing pages, involved a very large highly skilled technical team. As the senior manager of digital and marketing operations at a banking hardware, software, and services organization shared with Forrester, “The nature of [previous solution] just made it a really painful, long, long process to get anything done.”
Since some interviewees’ organizations used highly complex design user interfaces, they were also required to manage and handle technical issues. The senior manager of digital and marketing operations at a banking hardware, software, and services company informed Forrester that their previous content management systems included a managed service, which meant they were responsible for providing maintenance. Consequently, when they encountered several outages, it necessitated collaboration between in-house technical teams and the engineers from the previous system to resolve the issues. With Webflow, all interviewees confirmed that they had not yet experienced any website outages throughout the entirety of their partnership.
With a more streamlined process for creating digital experiences and the avoidance of large technical hurdles, interviewees reported that switching to Webflow enabled them to reduce IT efforts dedicated to resolving tickets. This reflected the increased productivity that IT teams experienced with Webflow.
Interviewees had the option to either implement the transition to Webflow with their in-house team or collaborate with an agency for the initial lift-and-shift. Some interviewees noted their organizations preferred agency collaboration because they lacked an internal team equipped for this task and hiring one would have been costly.
Agencies helped interviewees with technical and design operations and, because these agencies had experience building pages with Webflow, they were able to complete the migration three times faster than the previous content management system.
Interviewees noted that creating, editing, and publishing content with their previous content management system took months. The senior manager of digital and marketing operations at a banking hardware, software, and services shared how long it took before to build out a template, “You were looking at roughly about a six-week turn in the [previous solution] era because it had to go through the sprint, it had to go through QA, and they would get slotted into a deployment.”
After switching to Webflow, the time to market decreased considerably for the interviewees’ organizations. This improvement was due to the ability to quickly build components, visually inspect them, and test across various breakpoints and devices. The senior manager of digital and marketing operations at a banking hardware, software, and services also noted: “That was 10 to 12 weeks roughly for something a little bit more complex. You’re looking at a quarter basically. Whereas in Webflow, building a similar component, you may take about a week to do it, to test it end to end.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The composite organization needs a combination of Webflow users for the creation, editing, and publishing content, including website developers, website designers, and content owners.
- The average fully burdened salary is calculated as an average of salaries for website developers, website designers, and content owners. The average fully burdened annual salary for these employees is $125,000.
- The composite organization experiences a 94% decrease in time to market after switching to Webflow.
- There is a productivity recapture of 50%. Not all time savings translate into completion of additional work. Users convert 50% of hours saved into productive time.
Risks. Factors that could impact the size of this benefit for organizations include:
- The size of the team involved in content management development.
- The average fully burdened salary of the employees involved in website and content development.
- The decision to collaborate with an agency for the implementation or work with an in-house team.
- The number of sites required to lift and shift.
- The complexity of the previous system.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.2 million.
Increased Productivity On Content Management Development
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | Number of FTEs involved in website and content development | Composite | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| B2 | Fully burdened annual salary for employees | Composite | $125,000 | $125,000 | $125,000 |
| B3 | Time spent creating, editing, and publishing content on website prior to Webflow (weeks) | Interviews | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| B4 | Time spent creating, editing, and publishing content on website with Webflow (weeks) | Interviews | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| B5 | Subtotal: Time to market decrease | 1-(B4/B3) | 94% | 94% | 94% |
| B6 | Percentage of productivity savings captured | TEI standard | 50% | 50% | 50% |
| Bt | Increased productivity on content management development | B1*B2*B5*B6 | $585,938 | $585,938 | $585,938 |
| Risk adjustment | ↓15% | ||||
| Btr | Increased productivity on content management development (risk-adjusted) | $498,047 | $498,047 | $498,047 | |
| Three-year total: $1,494,141 | Three-year present value: $1,238,569 | ||||
Operational Efficiencies Due To Improved Content Quality
Evidence and data. Webflow’s visual-first CMS enhanced operational efficiency for in-house teams, enabling faster changes and corrections without agency intervention. Interviewees reported that the platform’s flexibility allowed for quick, independent updates, and ad hoc collaboration with the agency on larger cascading styles sheets (CSS) modifications.
For simpler tasks, interviewees observed operational efficiencies as in-house teams collaborated directly on the canvas for content editing cycles, bypassing ticket submissions and often multiple rounds of feedback. Efficiencies also arose from the need for fewer FTEs to manage those changes, thanks to the enhanced simplicity, user-friendly interface, and consequently faster resolution content editing processes. The senior manager of digital and marketing operations at the banking hardware, software, and services organization shared: “I can now build authoring experience. I can have our team do it or the agencies do it. If we were to staff up and have it in house, we would have maybe three authors and then a front-end designer. That would probably suffice for the size of our business as opposed to a much larger team prior.”
In critical situations where timing was crucial, the senior manager of digital and marketing operations at the banking hardware, software, and services organization reported that with their prior system, they experienced workflow disruptions due to their need to reallocate staff from other projects to expedite workload completion: “We would just start pulling people off of other projects and then scramble to go ahead and get it up there as fast as we could. That was just disruptive to our workflow. Now, he’s able to author it now. It takes him maybe a couple minutes and then he’s done.”
Interviewees enhanced cross-collaboration across different parts of their organizations due to the visual-first experience platform that Webflow provided. Previously, engineering and technical teams had to be heavily involved in the content editing process. However, the empowerment of nontechnical teams made it easier to build, visualize their ideas, and execute them directly on the platform. The director of web strategy at the security software shared: “The ticket was submitted, the problem was identified, fixed, and rolled out literally within 20 minutes of us identifying the problem and actually fixing it and that was without any developer involved. That division of labor [is] a benefit on both ends because it frees our developer up to continue working on the tasks that require development and then it lets [non-technical teams] address those, if there’s any maintenance issues.”
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The composite organization utilizes two FTEs for changes and corrections.
- The composite organization experiences an 80% reduction in time spent on changes and corrections with Webflow.
- There is a productivity recapture of 50%. Not all time savings translate into completion of additional work. Users convert 50% of hours saved into productive time.
Risks. Factors that could impact the size of this benefit for organizations include:
- The size of the team involved in content management changes and corrections.
- The average fully burdened salary of the employees involved in content management changes and corrections.
- The size and number of sites.
- The complexity of the previous system.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $21,000.
Operational Efficiencies Due To Improved Content Quality
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Number of Webflow users needed to make corrections | Composite | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| C2 | Fully burdened annual salary for employees | Composite | $125,000 | $125,000 | $125,000 |
| C3 | Percentage of time spent on corrections prior to Webflow | Interviews | 10% | 10% | 10% |
| C4 | Percentage of time spent reduced on corrections due to Webflow | Interviews | 80% | 80% | 80% |
| C5 | Subtotal: Productivity savings | C1*C2*C3*C4 | $20,000 | $20,000 | $20,000 |
| C6 | Percentage of productivity savings captured by organization | TEI standard | 50% | 50% | 50% |
| Ct | Operational efficiencies due to improved content quality | C5*C6 | $10,000 | $10,000 | $10,000 |
| Risk adjustment | ↓15% | ||||
| Ctr | Operational efficiencies due to improved content quality (risk-adjusted) | $8,500 | $8,500 | $8,500 | |
| Three-year total: $25,500 | Three-year present value: $21,138 | ||||
Cost Savings From Labor And Licensing Costs
Evidence and data. Prior to Webflow’s deployment, some interviewees reported that due to complexity and need for large technical teams of highly skilled full-stack/back-end developers and technical support, previous CMS providers required a financial investment double that of Webflow’s system. The previous content management systems were adopted as a managed service, making it essential for the interviewees’ organizations to have an IT team in place to ensure continuous maintenance and support.
Interviewees noted that Webflow streamlined these processes thanks to its visual-first capabilities and turnkey integrations, so other nontechnical team members could collaborate, build, launch, scale, and optimize their web properties without involving full-stack and back-end developers. The senior manager of digital and marketing operations at a banking hardware, software, and services shared: “We had about 22 people on my team. We now have roughly six. That would be impossible if we were doing things with the old (previous) setup. It just would not work. We would be so underwater.”
Interviewees reported that their organizations experienced an increase in cost-saving benefits. They opted for a phased decommissioning where they used their previous system alongside Webflow for one or two years until the transition was fully completed.
In addition to the costs associated with previous systems and larger IT teams, interviewees noted that they also had to consider associated hosting expenses. With Webflow, the enterprise service-level agreement encompassed both support and hosting expenses, thereby providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform-level support and cost-effectiveness within the same environment.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The composite organization reallocates two full-stack engineers to other tasks. The average fully burdened annual salary for a full-stack engineer is $140,000.
- The percentage of labor and licensing costs avoided progressively increases as it completes the switch to Webflow for all the composite organization’s sites from Year 1 to Year 3.
Risks. Factors that could impact the size of this benefit for organizations include:
- The size of the team involved in the previous content management system.
- The average fully burdened salary of the full-stack engineers involved in content management development.
- The time it takes to complete the switch to Webflow for all the sites.
- The cost of the previous system.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $863,000.
Cost Savings From Labor And Licensing Costs
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | License cost of prior CMS and hosting capabilities | Interviews | $300,000 | $300,000 | $300,000 |
| D2 | Number of full-stack developers reallocated | Interviews | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| D3 | Fully burdened annual salary for a full-stack developer | Composite | $140,000 | $140,000 | $140,000 |
| D4 | Cost savings from reallocation of full stack developers | D2*D3 | $280,000 | $210,000 | $280,000 |
| D5 | Percentage of labor and licensing costs avoided | Interviews | 50% | 75% | 100% |
| Dt | Cost savings from labor and licensing costs | D5*(D4+D1) | $290,000 | $382,500 | $580,000 |
| Risk adjustment | ↓15% | ||||
| Dtr | Cost savings from labor and licensing costs (risk-adjusted) | $246,500 | $325,125 | $493,000 | |
| Three-year total: $1,064,625 | Three-year present value: $863,187 | ||||
Unquantified Benefits
Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:
- User-friendly platform and team empowerment. The interviewees noted that the visual-first capabilities offered by Webflow significantly empowered nontechnical teams to take ownership of collaborating, building, launching, scaling and optimizing their web properties without the need for engineering or developer involvement, thanks in part to the ability to visualize the end result during the design process. For more complex projects, teams such as product, marketing, or content owners could easily envision a new content experience, construct it, deploy it, test it, and publish it in collaboration with developers through a much more streamlined process, courtesy of Webflow’s visual collaboration platform. This avoided the lengthy processes that typically required support tickets, multiple rounds of feedback, and, sometimes, weeks of waiting if the developers were in a completely different time zone, which could impede swift communication.
- Reliable managed hosting environment. In addition to full-stack developers who gained efficiencies in switching to Webflow, the platform’s hosting infrastructure also allowed internal IT and engineering teams at the interviewees’ organization to save time. These resources no longer dedicated time to maintaining and optimizing their own hosting environment.
- Enhanced scalability through composable integrations. Interviewees noted that Webflow is a platform that supported and accelerated scalability through third-party turnkey integrations. Users could leverage an easy-to-use interface tailored to their specific tasks. They could utilize these capabilities by accessing Webflow’s app marketplace and leveraging content from adjacent systems, eliminating the need to wait for Webflow to develop integrations one by one. The time savings Webflow users experienced in data automation — by building an integrated ecosystem as opposed to using different platforms — significantly impacted scalability and speed to market. This was due to the platform’s easy setup and troubleshooting, made possible by Webflow’s visual-first capabilities. Webflow also enhanced efficiency by avoiding manual accessibility checks and automating accessibility issue alerts through page-level recommendations, helping to maintain accessibility standards without the need for plugins.
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Efficiency gains through localization features. According to the interviewees, the localization features, which are natively integrated into the platform, were a differentiator for Webflow. Webflow platform brought financial and time-saving efficiencies to the interviewees’ organizations at various levels. The multilanguage feature allowed for the adaptation of content to be displayed, offering detailed control over all aspects of localization. This included the ability to hide blocks on pages from different countries when a product or service may not be available there. Webflow users could employ templated pages for different countries that share the same language, such as those in the LATAM territory. These features brought efficiency gains in the form of time savings, as the interviewees’ organizations didn’t have to build new pages from scratch and allowed testing before launch. This cut down the development time from what previously took months to just a week, enabling a small team to manage extensive localization tasks efficiently.
Flexibility
The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Webflow and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:
- Scalability. Interviewees expected to continue developing their websites’ use case and capabilities with Webflow. They were exploring new enhancements that improved the customer experience at various levels. The advantages of significantly reducing time to market, eliminating disruptive workflows between technical and nontechnical teams, and empowering teams to collaborate on these efforts were critical to how the interviewees’ organization shifted the way they wanted ideas to be created and presented. With the support of native integrations and the app marketplace, Webflow could support faster scalability. The tech lead at the software company shared an example of a new use case they decided to explore with Webflow — a career portal, “We just spent three months creating a new career portal for all the countries and that is something that would have taken us a year with the previous solution”.
- Segment personalization. By utilizing Webflow’s modular system, the interviewees noted their businesses could create a dynamic and adaptable website that responded to the unique preferences and behaviors of different groups. This customization not only enhanced the relevance of the content but also allowed for efficient testing to refine marketing strategies. Interviewees expected to build a more sophisticated and engaging experience that resonated with each segment, potentially leading to increased engagement and conversion rates. Essentially, it was about leveraging technology to deliver a more personalized and effective user journey.
Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Appendix A).
Quantified cost data as applied to the composite
Total Costs
| Ref. | Cost | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Etr | Enterprise service-level agreement | $135,450 | $135,450 | $135,450 | $135,450 | $541,800 | $472,294 |
| Ftr | Agency implementation and maintenance fees | $57,500 | $34,500 | $34,500 | $34,500 | $161,000 | $143,296 |
| Gtr | Training and onboarding costs | $11,687 | $11,376 | $0 | $0 | $23,063 | $22,029 |
| Total costs (risk-adjusted) | $204,637 | $181,326 | $169,950 | $169,950 | $725,863 | $637,619 | |
Enterprise Service-Level Agreement
Evidence and data. Interviewees noted primary ongoing costs consisting of Webflow’s licensing fees. The enterprise service-level agreement included full enterprise support from Webflow and a dedicated service team to support any technical issues with the platform.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The composite organization includes localization features.
- Webflow provides a hosting infrastructure, so the cost for hosting websites is included in the enterprise service-level agreement.
- This pricing is based on the composite organization assumption for one main site and two landing pages.
Risks. Costs may be higher than projected due to the number of sites, scale, and localization features.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $472,000.
Enterprise Service-Level Agreement
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E1 | License fees | Composite | $129,000 | $129,000 | $129,000 | $129,000 |
| Et | Enterprise service-level agreement | Composite | $129,000 | $129,000 | $129,000 | $129,000 |
| Risk adjustment | ↑5% | |||||
| Etr | Enterprise service-level agreement (risk-adjusted) | $135,450 | $135,450 | $135,450 | $135,450 | |
| Three-year total: $541,800 | Three-year present value: $472,294 | |||||
Agency Implementation And Maintenance Fees
Evidence and data. Interviewees contracted an external agency for initial implementation and migration efforts and then they decided to keep their support for ad hoc projects.
- The initial lift-and-shift involved the transition of the website to Webflow platform from their old CMS.
- Implementation efforts required collaboration between the agency and the in-house team for a smooth and faster transition. Agencies helped lift technical and design efforts.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- The composite organization spends $50,000 on the agency for the initial implementation.
- The composite organization pays $30,000 a year to the agency for ad hoc projects and maintenance.
Risks. Costs may be higher than projected due to the following factors:
- Some organizations may choose to deploy Webflow fully in-house and not require agency implementation and maintenance fees.
- The complexity of the previous systems and the overall architecture.
- The number of sites to lift and shift for the initial transition.
- The agency fees.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $143,000.
Agency Implementation And Maintenance Fees
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Agency web design and implementation costs | Composite | $50,000 | |||
| F2 | Agency maintenance costs | Composite | $30,000 | $30,000 | $30,000 | |
| Ft | Agency implementation and maintenance fees | D1+D2 | $50,000 | $30,000 | $30,000 | $30,000 |
| Risk adjustment | ↑15% | |||||
| Ftr | Agency implementation and maintenance fees (risk-adjusted) | $57,500 | $34,500 | $34,500 | $34,500 | |
| Three-year total: $161,000 | Three-year present value: $143,296 | |||||
Training And Onboarding Costs
Evidence and data. Interviewees shared different training and ongoing management efforts depending on the technical level of Webflow users.
- Both web developers and web designers spent a little more time on training and upskilling their abilities in the platform.
- Webflow provided education libraries that helped interviewees’ employees learn the platform much faster.
Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:
- One web developer spends 40 hours a year for two years for initial training and ongoing maintenance efforts.
- Three web designers spends 40 hours a year for two years for initial training and ongoing maintenance efforts.
- Six content owner spends 1 hour on training.
- The fully burdened hourly rate for a web developer is $67. The fully burdened hourly rate for a web designer is $60 and for a content owner, it is $45.
Risks. Costs may be higher than projected due to the following factors:
- The available capacity and skill set of web developers and web designers.
- The average hourly rate of web developers, web designers, and content owners.
Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $22,000.
Training And Onboarding Costs
| Ref. | Metric | Source | Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | Number of web developers | Composite | 1 | 1 | ||
| G2 | Fully burdened hourly rate for a developer | Composite | $67 | $67 | ||
| G3 | Total hours spent on training and onboarding | Interviews | 40 | 40 | ||
| G4 | Subtotal: Total web developer training and onboarding costs | G1*G2*G3 | $2,692 | $2,692 | ||
| G5 | Number of web designers | Composite | 3 | 3 | ||
| G6 | Fully burdened hourly rate for a web designer | Composite | $60 | $60 | ||
| G7 | Total hours spent on training and onboarding | Interviews | 40 | 40 | ||
| G8 | Subtotal: Total web designer training and onboarding costs | G5*G6*G7 | $7,200 | $7,200 | ||
| G9 | Number of content owners | Composite | 6 | |||
| G10 | Fully burdened hourly rate for a content owner | Composite | $45 | |||
| G11 | Total hours spent on training | Interviews | 1 | |||
| G12 | Subtotal: Total content owner training and onboarding costs | G9*G10*G11 | $270 | |||
| Gt | Training and onboarding costs | G4+G8+G12 | $10,162 | $9,892 | $0 | $0 |
| Risk adjustment | ↑15% | |||||
| Gtr | Training and onboarding costs (risk-adjusted) | $11,687 | $11,376 | $0 | $0 | |
| Three-year total: $23,063 | Three-year present value: $22,029 | |||||
Consolidated Three-Year, Risk-Adjusted Metrics
Cash Flow Chart (Risk-Adjusted)
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The financial results calculated in the Benefits and Costs sections can be used to determine the ROI, NPV, and payback period for the composite organization’s investment. Forrester assumes a yearly discount rate of 10% for this analysis.
These risk-adjusted ROI, NPV, and payback period values are determined by applying risk-adjustment factors to the unadjusted results in each Benefit and Cost section.
Cash Flow Analysis (Risk-Adjusted Estimates)
| Initial | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Total | Present Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total costs | ($204,637) | ($181,326) | ($169,950) | ($169,950) | ($725,863) | ($637,619) |
| Total benefits | $0 | $1,008,047 | $1,086,672 | $1,254,547 | $3,349,266 | $2,757,041 |
| Net benefits | ($204,637) | $826,721 | $916,722 | $1,084,597 | $2,623,403 | $2,119,422 |
| ROI | 332% | |||||
| Payback | <6 months | |||||
Appendix A: Total Economic Impact
Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists vendors in communicating the value proposition of their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT initiatives to both senior management and other key business stakeholders.
Total Economic Impact Approach
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Benefits represent the value delivered to the business by the product. The TEI methodology places equal weight on the measure of benefits and the measure of costs, allowing for a full examination of the effect of the technology on the entire organization.
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Costs consider all expenses necessary to deliver the proposed value, or benefits, of the product. The cost category within TEI captures incremental costs over the existing environment for ongoing costs associated with the solution.
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Flexibility represents the strategic value that can be obtained for some future additional investment building on top of the initial investment already made. Having the ability to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated.
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Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular distribution.”
The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated for each total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year. Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, and Cash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.
Appendix B: Supplemental Material
Related Forrester Research
Reduce Technical Debt By Understanding CMS Capabilities Before RFP, Forrester Research, Inc., April 4, 2023.
The Web Content Management Software Market Forecast, 2024 To 2028, Forrester Research, Inc., May 28, 2024.
Appendix C: Endnotes
1 Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making processes and assists vendors in communicating the value proposition of their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT initiatives to both senior management and other key business stakeholders.
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