Framekit is the better choice for agencies without dedicated developers who need to deliver 5+ client sites per month at price points under $5,000. Webflow is the better choice for agencies with technical teams who can bill $10,000+ for custom development work.
That's the direct answer. Everything below explains why.
We've built over 40 client sites across both platforms in the past 18 months. Not theoretical comparisons—actual client work with real deadlines, real budgets, and real feedback. The difference isn't about which platform is "better." It's about which platform matches your agency's business model.
Why This Comparison Matters Right Now
The agency landscape shifted in 2024-2025. AI tools compressed timelines. Clients expect faster delivery. And the gap between "custom development" pricing and "template customization" pricing widened.
Agencies stuck in the middle—charging mid-range prices while spending premium-tool time—are getting squeezed. You either need to move upmarket (Webflow, higher prices, longer timelines) or optimize for volume (Framekit, lower prices, faster delivery).
Choosing the wrong platform locks you into the wrong business model. That's expensive to fix.
The 30-Second Technical Difference
Webflow is a visual development environment. You're writing CSS through a GUI. Every margin, padding, font-weight, and animation curve is yours to control. This power requires understanding web development concepts—the box model, flexbox, CSS grid, responsive breakpoints.
Framekit is an AI-assisted design system. The AI was trained by senior designers with 10+ years of experience, which is why it produces genuinely professional results. You select a template, customize through natural language or simple controls, and the AI maintains design coherence automatically.
The real power for agencies: you can add complete template pages instantly from Framekit's library, and every component adapts automatically to your existing color scheme and typography. Need a pricing section, testimonial block, or contact form? Add it from the components library and it matches your site immediately.
Even more useful: upload an image from Pinterest or a competitor's site, and Framekit's AI can reference that design to help you recreate similar looks. Your team can browse inspiration sites, combine favorite elements, and create unique designs without any formal design training.
The tradeoff is control versus speed. Webflow gives you 100% control and takes 15-25 hours per site. Framekit gives you 80% control and takes 2-4 hours.
That missing 20% matters for some projects. For most agency work, it doesn't.
The Real Numbers from Actual Projects
Here's what we've measured across our own agency work:
Time to complete a portfolio/small business site:
| Task | Webflow | Framekit |
|---|---|---|
| Initial setup & structure | 3-4 hours | 30 min |
| Design implementation | 8-12 hours | 1-2 hours |
| Content population | 2-3 hours | 1 hour |
| Responsive adjustments | 3-5 hours | 0 (automatic) |
| Client revisions | 2-4 hours | 30-60 min |
| Total | 18-28 hours | 3-5 hours |
Those Webflow numbers assume proficiency. Our first 10 Webflow projects averaged 35 hours each because we were still learning. Framekit had no learning curve—our first project took 4 hours, our twentieth took 3 hours.
Platform costs for a 20-client portfolio:
Webflow: $14/site/month × 20 sites × 12 months = $3,360/year (ongoing forever)
Plus your time maintaining each site when things break.
Framekit: $349/site one-time × 20 sites = $6,980 total (no recurring fees after)
Over 5 years: Webflow costs $16,800 in hosting. Framekit costs $6,980 once. That's $9,820 in savings—plus you never worry about monthly fees again.
When Framekit Is the Right Choice
Your agency charges $1,500-5,000 per website.
At these price points, you're competing on efficiency. A 3-hour build versus a 20-hour build is the difference between $500/hour effective rate and $75/hour. Framekit's speed makes this tier profitable. Webflow makes it a grind.
Your team doesn't include developers.
Maybe you're a strategist who started offering websites. Maybe you're a designer who can use Figma but never learned CSS. Maybe you're a marketer who needs to deliver landing pages fast.
Webflow requires developer thinking. Not full coding, but understanding how browsers render layouts. Framekit's AI handles that layer. Your non-technical team becomes productive immediately instead of after months of training.
You serve photographers, designers, coaches, consultants, or local businesses.
These clients need professional sites with specific sections: portfolios, service pages, about pages, contact forms, testimonials. They don't need custom web applications.
Framekit's template pages and components library makes this fast. Need to add an about page or testimonials section? Add it from the library and it adapts to the client's color scheme instantly. Found a design the client loves on another site? Upload a screenshot and use Framekit's AI to recreate that look.
Framekit templates are designed for exactly these use cases. The photography template has gallery layouts that actually work. The consultant template has credibility-building sections in the right order. You're not building from scratch—you're customizing purpose-built starting points.
You want to offer hosting without managing servers.
Framekit's lifetime pricing means you can white-label hosting and charge clients $50-100/month with pure margin. No ongoing platform costs eating into that revenue. No AWS bills to manage.
With Webflow, every hosted client is $14-39/month in platform fees before you see a dollar of profit.
You're tired of the "update one thing, break three things" cycle.
Webflow's power comes with fragility. Custom CSS means custom bugs. Change a font size and suddenly your mobile navigation is broken. Update one section's padding and throw off alignment across 12 pages.
Framekit's design system maintains consistency automatically. Add a new section and it inherits your existing typography, spacing, and color scheme. The AI ensures coherence. Three years from now, updates still work without archaeology.
When Webflow Is the Right Choice
Your agency charges $8,000-25,000+ per website.
At premium price points, clients expect unique deliverables. They're paying for custom design, not template customization. Webflow's flexibility justifies these prices in a way Framekit can't.
A client spending $15,000 wants to see designs they've never seen before. Framekit templates, however good, are recognizable as templates. Webflow lets you build genuinely original work.
You have developers on staff (or want to become one).
If someone on your team thinks in CSS, Webflow becomes an efficiency tool rather than a learning burden. The visual interface is faster than writing code by hand. The complexity becomes competitive advantage—clients can't replicate your work in Squarespace.
The learning investment makes sense if you're building a technical skill set you'll use for years.
Clients need functionality beyond standard sites.
Member portals with gated content. E-commerce with complex filtering and custom product logic. CMS structures with relational databases. Multi-language sites with sophisticated content management.
Framekit handles portfolios and business sites excellently. Webflow handles these plus application-level features. If 30%+ of your projects need complex functionality, Webflow's flexibility matters.
You're building for brands with rigid design systems.
Enterprise clients with 200-page brand guidelines need exact implementation. Pantone 286 C, not "close to blue." Exactly 24px between elements, not "appropriate spacing." Specific font loading behavior and fallback chains.
Framekit's AI makes smart design decisions. But it makes decisions. If clients need to override those decisions with pixel-perfect specifications, you'll spend more time fighting the system than a manual build would take.
The Hidden Costs Nobody Mentions
Webflow's hidden costs:
Learning curve: 40-80 hours before your first efficient build. At $100/hour opportunity cost, that's $4,000-8,000 in lost productivity before the platform pays off.
Ongoing education: Webflow updates constantly. New features mean new learning. Budget 5-10 hours/month staying current.
Client handoff disasters: We've had clients break their Webflow sites within hours of handoff. The interface looks intuitive but isn't. Budget unexpected maintenance hours.
Responsive time sink: Desktop-first design means rebuilding for tablet and mobile. That's not a bug—it's the architecture. Budget 3-5 hours per project for responsive work alone.
Framekit's hidden costs:
Customization ceiling: About 5% of client requests hit Framekit's limits. "Can you make the navigation do this specific animation?" Sometimes the answer is no. You need a plan for these situations.
Template recognition: Clients in highly competitive creative industries might recognize templates. This is rare but real. Have a conversation about whether custom design matters for their market position.
Feature gaps: Framekit doesn't do everything Webflow does. Complex e-commerce, member portals, CMS relationships—if you need these, you need Webflow or a different solution.
A Framework for Your Decision
Answer these honestly:
What's your target project price?
Under $5,000: Framekit. The math doesn't work otherwise.
$5,000-10,000: Either platform, depending on other factors.
Over $10,000: Webflow, unless you're doing exceptional volume.
What's your monthly project volume?
1-2 sites: Either platform works.
3-6 sites: Framekit's speed becomes significant.
7+ sites: Framekit, unless you're building a development team.
What does your team look like?
No developers: Framekit.
One developer: Either, lean toward Webflow.
Development team: Webflow.
What industries do you serve?
Creatives, coaches, consultants, local service businesses: Framekit.
Tech companies, e-commerce, enterprise brands: Webflow.
Mix of both: Consider offering both platforms for different client tiers.
What's your growth model?
Volume and efficiency: Framekit.
Premium positioning and custom work: Webflow.
Productized service: Framekit.
Boutique agency: Webflow.
Real Scenarios from Real Agencies
Scenario: Two-person creative agency, design background
Partners: One handles client relationships and strategy. One handles design and delivery. Neither wants to become a developer.
Old model: Webflow. The design partner spent 3 months getting proficient. During that time, project timelines doubled. Client satisfaction dropped. The agency almost folded.
New model: Switched to Framekit. Both partners can now build sites. Capacity doubled. Projects that took 25 hours now take 4. They increased volume from 3 sites/month to 9 sites/month with the same team.
Revenue impact: Monthly revenue went from $9,000 to $22,500 while working fewer total hours.
Scenario: Solo consultant offering websites as an add-on
Background: Marketing consultant who started offering websites to clients who asked. No technical background.
Webflow attempt: Spent $2,000 on courses. Still couldn't deliver confidently after 2 months. Referred clients elsewhere.
Framekit reality: Built first client site in an afternoon. Now offers $2,500 website packages as part of larger consulting engagements. Added $60,000/year in revenue with minimal additional time investment.
Scenario: Growing agency targeting funded startups
Team: 3 designers, 2 developers, 1 project manager, 2 account managers.
Platform choice: Webflow. Their clients need custom functionality—user dashboards, integrations, complex forms. They charge $15,000-40,000 per project. Webflow's flexibility justifies these prices.
Why not Framekit: Their business model depends on complexity. Framekit would commoditize their offering. Clients paying $25,000 expect custom development, not template customization.
Scenario: Productized website service
Model: Fixed-price websites at $2,997. Unlimited revisions. 7-day delivery.
Platform: Framekit. At this price point, every hour matters. 3-hour builds mean $999/hour effective rate. 20-hour builds mean $150/hour. The business only works with Framekit-level efficiency.
Scale: One person delivers 8-10 sites per month. Revenue: $24,000-30,000/month. Wouldn't be possible with Webflow timelines.
What We Actually Recommend
If you're asking "Framekit or Webflow?"—start with Framekit.
Here's why: You'll know within your first 2-3 projects whether you need more flexibility. If Framekit handles 90% of client requests well, you've found your platform. The 10% that need more can be referred out or priced as custom projects.
Starting with Webflow is riskier. You invest 60+ hours learning, build your processes around it, then realize you're spending 20 hours on projects you could finish in 3. Switching feels like waste. So you stay, working inefficiently, convinced the problem is your skill level rather than platform fit.
The agencies that thrive have clear positioning. Either you're a premium custom shop (Webflow, high prices, long timelines) or you're an efficient delivery machine (Framekit, competitive prices, fast turnaround). The middle is where agencies struggle.
Pick your lane. Then pick the platform that matches.
Getting Started
If you choose Framekit: Start free and build a real client site this week. Not a test project—an actual deliverable. You'll understand the workflow immediately. Most agencies ship their first paying project within 48 hours of signing up.
If you choose Webflow: Budget 60-80 hours for learning before taking client work. Consider Webflow University courses and Flux Academy. Don't underestimate the timeline—agencies that rush into client work before reaching proficiency deliver embarrassing work and damage their reputation.
Either choice can work. The wrong choice is no choice—staying undecided while competitors commit to a direction and optimize around it.
Make the call. Execute. Adjust later if needed.
