Strikingly Website Builder Review: Is Strikingly Good?

What Is Strikingly Website Builder?

Strikingly lives on the end of the spectrum of all-inclusive website-building solutions that provide everything you need to get started and grow your website. It differs from solutions in which you purchase, install, and manage each “piece” of your website separately.

Using Strikingly is similar to leasing and customizing an apartment in a high-end development rather than purchasing and owning your own home. You retain control over the decor, cleaning, and other aspects of living, but the property owner is in charge of the construction, plumbing, security, and infrastructure. This is significant because there is typically a direct tradeoff between convenience and control.

With a website builder like Strikingly, everything may fit together perfectly, but you may need something else.

Strikingly competes with all-inclusive website builders such as GoDaddy, Wix, Squarespace, Jimdo, and WordPress.com (and Shopify for online stores).

When compared to their direct competitors, they prioritize speed and usability. Strikingly provides several website templates you can customize without coding or design experience.

Who Shoud Use Strikingly?

Strikingly isn’t for everyone, so let’s look at which industries could benefit the most from this website builder.

• Blogging: Strikingly’s blogging features are one of its strongest points. It includes analytics, an RSS feed, social bookmarking, a comments section, search features, and display categories to help you get started with your blog.
• Business: If you own a business, you will have different requirements for a website builder. Strikingly, as you may have guessed, is not the best choice for a large or rapidly growing business due to its limited scalability features.

However, if you’re a freelancer looking to promote your brand or a small business looking to establish an online presence, Strikingly may be for you. It’s especially useful if you’re on a tight budget or need to get online quickly.

• Personal: Strikingly’s templates are generally aesthetically pleasing and feature large and high-quality images. Strikingly is suitable for a small portfolio or personal site because of its additional add-on options, such as the gallery and large media sections.

The aesthetics of Strikingly are sleek and stylish, but the template limitations limit how creative you can be when displaying your portfolio on the web page. To be honest, Strikingly doesn’t push itself too far in terms of design and functionality. Consider Squarespace if you want complete creative freedom.

If design and creative control aren’t important to you and you want to get online quickly at a low cost, Strikingly might be the right website builder for you.

Strikingly Pros

Here are the benefits of using the Strikingly website builder, not just in comparison to direct competitors as a website builder like GoDaddy and Wix, but as an overall website solution.

Simple Registration Process

One of the most significant advantages of using Strikingly is how simple it is to get started. It’s really only two steps: enter your information, choose a theme, and you’re done!

This is ideal for DIYers who want to get started as soon as possible without creating a detailed account, choosing a niche, and so on.

Template and Functionality

Strikingly also provides a large number of responsive template designs (AKA they look good on a mobile device, tablet, and computer). There are many options to choose from and Strikingly categorizes them by niche so you can find a template that includes the functionality your business requires.

Strikingly isn’t technically drag-and-drop (you choose from premade sections and “drop” them onto your page), but it is very easy to use. You can change the page’s styles (such as fonts and colors) and add premade sections and blocks, but you can’t add elements at will.

The entire setup is similar to painting by numbers.

This setup has obvious drawbacks, which I will discuss in the disadvantages section, but having limited but accessible design options is a real advantage. Strikingly is an excellent choice for entrepreneurs and do-it-yourselfers who want a website that looks professionally designed without having to hire someone to build something custom or spend a lot of time tweaking the design themselves.

Free Trial and Plan

Strikingly also offers a 14-day free trial and a free plan.

Strikingly allows you to try out any plan for 14 days before committing. This is ideal for DIYers who want to put a plan through its paces before committing to it.

They also provide a free plan with a reasonable number of features compared to competitors, such as unlimited sites and limited eCommerce functionality.

The free plan has some drawbacks, such as limited storage, limited pages, the requirement to use a subdomain (ex: yourname.strikingly.com), and extremely limited integrations — but if you need a simple site for a short-term project, this could be a good option.

Product Integration

Strikingly does provide some product integration, such as eCommerce functionality and apps in their app store, despite its limitations (which give you the ability to add maps, forms, and other functionality to your site).

Custom email can be added for an additional $25 per year. One thing to keep in mind is that these additional integrations and functionality are only available with paid plans. This isn’t necessarily a disadvantage, but it is something to consider, especially since you can get a lot of this functionality for less with other website builders (particularly if you go the self-hosted WordPress route).

Strikingly Cons

Of course, no review would be complete without examining the drawbacks. There will be complaints about every piece of software. Let’s look at the specific disadvantages of using Strikingly as your website builder.

Pricing and Plans

While Strikingly is relatively simple and convenient for DIYers and small businesses, their pricing leaves much to be desired. All of their plans include some limitations, whether it’s a limit on the number of “pro” sites you can publish or storage.

The VIP plan is also inaccessible via the monthly payment option. Again, this isn’t necessarily a disadvantage unless you require VIP features and want to pay monthly. You’re out of luck, then. The price also varies depending on how long you commit, which is advantageous if you are looking for a long-term solution but disadvantageous if you are looking for a short-term solution.

Limited Features: Templates/Design

There is always a trade-off between convenience and control with any technology product (think Android vs. iOS)

And the Strikingly website builder clearly demonstrates this trade-off. Their design setup is extremely convenient. It’s simple and quick, and it focuses your attention on getting your content into a premade template. You can put pages and sections based on your specific needs, but it has everything you need for the most part.

However, the builder is limited if you want to go further into the basics of design. You can’t change anything within the premade sections, and the elements you can give tweaks on the overall template are fairly limited.

If your website is expanding or becoming an important part of your business, design constraints can be crippling. There is no means for a Strikingly website builder website, unlike other famous website builders that attempt to solve this issue through extensions, apps, or access to the website’s code or HTML. A pro plan allows you to embed HTML/CSS/Javascript, but you cannot change the template itself.

Limited Feature: Technical

Design constraints bleed over into technical limitations.

Technical limitations are features that you only realize you want once you need them and discover you can’t have them.

Examples of this include integrating with Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google Ads, social sharing options, blogging, and a lot of other intermediate to advanced marketing tools. As previously stated, Strikingly does provide some integrations, such as DNS / hosting services and email, for a fee. They also allow you to insert code into your website’s header for things like analytics tracking (but only on Pro plans).

However, Strikingly either does not have or has severely limited access to a slew of technical features.

Take a look at Strikingly’s SEO features, for example. You can change the site title and description and add a category and social share image. There are no options for Schema, Open Graph settings, or anything else – let alone highly advanced options.

Even the add-on products and integrations are limited. Aside from adding code for Google Analytics and Facebook Analytics or putting code into your website’s header, which is only available for Pro plans, there is little to address in marketing your site.

Finally, Strikingly needs to improve when it comes to product integrations and additional technical features that can help you market your website more effectively.

Strikingly Website Builder Review: Final Verdict

Strikingly makes it simple and quick to get your website up and running, making it an excellent choice for DIYers looking for a quick and easy way to build a nice website without the hassle of getting into code or having something custom-made.

However, as with most all-inclusive website builders, there comes a point where there is a tradeoff between convenience and control, particularly when the price is considered. Pricing leaves a lot to be desired, particularly when you get into the higher-priced plans and consider the technical limitations, even with the higher-priced options. If you’re looking for more control and scalability, you’d be better off looking elsewhere.