Picking the wrong Webflow exit wastes money either way. A simple framework — how often your content changes and who needs to change it — for choosing between a static export and a real CMS.
Key takeaways
- A static export is the cheapest, fastest option for a mostly-finished site with no ongoing content changes.
- The moment a non-technical person needs to publish content without a code editor, a static export becomes a liability rather than a saving.
- When it's close to a tie, default to the CMS — redoing a static export from scratch costs more than a CMS panel that sits mostly unused.
Not every Webflow exit looks the same, and picking the wrong one wastes money either way — paying for CMS Collections you'll never edit, or outgrowing a static export within a year. The right call comes down to two questions: how often does the content actually change, and who needs to change it.
When a static export is enough
If your site is mostly finished — a handful of pages that rarely change, no blog, no team of editors — a static export is the cheapest, fastest option. There's no CMS to pay for, no login to manage, and no plan Webflow can restructure out from under you. Our Static Export tier ($490) covers exactly this: your Webflow site, exported and hosted as plain files.
When you need a real CMS
The moment a non-technical person needs to publish something — a new blog post, a new service, a new price — without opening a code editor, a static export becomes a liability instead of a saving. That's what a CMS is for: a panel where content changes without a deploy. If your Webflow site never used CMS Collections, our Astro + CMS – Basic tier ($990) rebuilds it on a real CMS panel. If it already relies on Collections — a blog, a portfolio, a set of services — Astro + CMS – Collections ($1,390) migrates those too, not just the static pages around them.
The deciding questions
- Does anyone who isn't a developer need to publish new content regularly?
- Does your current Webflow site use CMS Collections at all?
- Is the site likely to grow — new services, new locations, new content types — over the next year or two?
- Is speed and hosting cost the main complaint, or is it the editing experience itself?
A “no” to the first question and a site that's genuinely close to finished points to a static export. Anything else points to a CMS — the only real question left is whether Collections need to come with it.
What we recommend
When it's close, we default to the CMS. A static export that turns out to need editing six months later means redoing the work from scratch; a CMS a client barely touches costs nothing extra to have sitting there, ready. The wrong direction to guess wrong in is usually the cheaper one.
Not sure which one your own site needs? Start with this pre-migration checklist — it's a good way to see exactly what you're dealing with before you decide.
Compare all four fixed-price ways to move off Webflow and see which one matches your site.