Strikingly Review (2024) Affordable site builder for single page layouts

Last updated: See Updates

This article has been written and researched by our expert tooltesters through a precise methodology. Learn more about our methodology

Robert Brandl

Robert Brandl

Author

Inka Wibowo

Inka Wibowo

Researcher

Tooltester is supported by readers like yourself. We may earn an affiliate commission when you purchase through our links, which enables us to offer our research for free.

Strikingly is kind of the new kid on the block in the website builder market. It was launched in 2012 - years later than its main competitors - and has gained quite some popularity since then. The website builder’s focus is creating single page websites without any programming skills.

This makes it very interesting for marketers and small businesses. Typical examples are portfolios, product landing pages or events where you show all your information on one good-looking page. In addition to your showcase, you can also add an online store and a blog.

The designs look very modern and will be displayed perfectly on smartphones and tablets. You can even enhance the mobile experience by adding a mobile action such as an easy access ‘call’ or ‘send email’ button. This will make browsing your website even easier on smartphones and tablets.

Their entry plan is free forever, allowing you to create a basic website and test Strikingly's main features. Strikingly expanded the 1-page limit to 5 pages under the Limited plan, enabling you to move beyond single-page websites. However, if you require more, the Pro plan is your go-to option. It supports up to 100 pages, which is likely more than sufficient for most websites.

Let’s find out what else Strikingly has to offer! We’ll take a deep dive at what shines and what they need to improve.

Videos

  • Strikingly in action
Strikingly in action video

Strikingly offers a free plan. You can sign up for it here.

Screenshots

Strikingly Pricing

$0

Free

Good enough to check out how the editor works. 5 pages and single product store included.

$8

Limited

Contains a domain and the online store with five products. Includes up to 2 websites. Still shows Strikingly ads.

$16

Pro

Password protection, members areas and site search unlocked. Create up to 3 individual websites with up to 100 pages each.

$49

VIP

All features including newsletter tool, live chat widget, and English phone support. Includes up to 5 sites, and the ability to sell unlimited products.

Prices are quoted for 1-year contracts, with a domain included for 1 year. You can also opt for a monthly subscription. For a more economical option, there are 2, 3, or even 5-year plans available. The entire fee for these long-term plans must be paid upfront, but doing so will enable you to save up to 30% on your subscription.

There’s also an add-on Audience plan, which lets you add live chat, email campaigns and paid membership subscriptions. It starts at $10/month.

Custom email addresses using your own domain can also be purchased through Strikingly – these are offered at $25/year.

Pros and Cons of Strikingly

  • Pros
  • Cons

Pros

  • Best in class support

    With their fast, friendly and efficient help center, Strikingly came out 1st in our support test.

  • Very affordable, especially for multiple websites

    The Limited plan includes 2 websites. The Pro plan provides 3 websites for only $16 per month, which is a good deal considering that nearly all other website builders charge extra for additional websites.

  • Ease of Use

    It’s not complicated to create a website with Strikingly. The editor is a drag ‘n drop solution which makes it really beginner-friendly. Coding skills aren’t required.

  • Single Page Focus

    The editor is great if you want to create a slick-looking single page layout.

Rating Details

Ease of use Info popup

The editor is well structured and easy to use. You can edit sections by choosing between different layouts, or by switching to ‘drag & drop’ mode.

Choice and flexibility of design (templates) Info popup

Around 100 templates are available, although most seem to be single-page designs. You can of course add extra pages if you need. Strikingly recently added to their template library so the designs look pretty modern.

It’s great that you can switch the design without losing any content – we’ve found that very few website builders offer this functionality these days. This means you don’t have to start from scratch all over again when you think it’s time for a different looking layout. Also the style editor gives you full control of the general appearance of your headlines, navigation, buttons etc.

Advertisement-free Info popup

You have to pick the Pro or VIP plan. Otherwise Strikingly will show a logo in the footer and add “on Strikingly” in the SEO-title.

Languages Info popup

Best alternative: Hostinger Website Builder

The editor itself is available in 15+ languages. The best way to create a multilingual website is to use the Multi-Language feature (requires the PRO plan at least). This feature adds a language switcher to your site, allowing you to link different Strikingly websites together via sub-domains (e.g., fr.mysite.com, de.mysite.com). Note that each language will consume one of your Pro plan’s three website allowances.

While subfolders are generally considered a better solution for multilingual websites in terms of SEO, Strikingly’s subdomain system performs quite well otherwise. It’s possible to add both manual translations and auto-translations (via Google Translate), although the latter requires the VIP plan.

Your own domain name (e.g. .com or .net) Info popup

Purchase a domain for $24.95 per year or connect an existing one with any paid plan. Although you can find cheaper options elsewhere (e.g., Namecheap for around $12-15), the small savings often don’t justify the additional hassle.

Depth of navigation Info popup

If you want to have more than one level, you have to upgrade to their Pro plan. It allows you to add a dropdown menu.

Widgets (small tools to add extra functionality) Info popup

A few Strikingly widgets are available, such as a basic booking form for appointments, events and classes. A small app market for external apps is also available. Some apps like MailChimp and Ecwid will require a Pro plan though. Also, if you want to add a new feature via HTML, you’ll need a paid plan.

Mobile App Info popup

  • iOS
  • Android

Strikingly’s mobile app lets you edit your site on a basic level. You can change text and images but can’t adjust styles or use the drag and drop feature. Functionally, it’s a little clunky – changes are automatically saved and there’s no undo button.

You can also view site stats, receive live chat messages, manage orders and respond to form submitters. It’s also possible to access the full editor by logging into strikingly.com on your mobile.

E-Commerce Info popup

Best alternative: Wix

The online store is a nice add-on that might be interesting if you also want to sell (works for both physical and digital products). Stripe, Square and Paypal are all available as payment gateways. To showcase your products, you can add images, videos, and you can also invite your customers to leave reviews. You are also able to send abandoned cart recovery emails.

Please note that the Pro plan is limited to 300 products and you’be charged a 2% transaction fee, whereas VIP features unlimited items and scraps the transaction fee (unless it’s for a recurring payment).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Info popup

Optimizing your titles and meta-description isn’t an issue. However, don’t expect outstanding SEO results when your entire content is displayed on one page only. In order to create more focused content, you’ll need the Pro plan. This allows you to optimize each page (100 max.) for a different keyword.

Blog

Even though it’s not really common, you can add a blog to your one-page layout. The articles open up on a page with a different design, which is not the most elegant solution. On the bright side, there is a commenting feature, RSS support and AMP available to boost loading speeds. You can also copy posts for one Strikingly site to another.

 

Visitor statistics Info popup

Strikingly has its own statistics module that provides the most basic information. It’s also possible to add Google Analytics (GA4).

Contact form

The contact form comes with a handful of default fields but you cannot add your own. You can create a custom form as a workaround, but – you guessed it – it’s only available on Pro or VIP plans.

With these plans, you can also send customized autoresponders to anyone who fills in the form.

Password protection & member areas Info popup

You can password-protect your website with the Pro plan. Strikingly also offers a Site Membership feature that allows your visitors to sign up to view member-only content. You can even charge your audience a subscription fee for membership (available in the Pro plan and above). The VIP plan enables you to create different membership tiers at varying prices.

Newsletter tool Info popup

A simple newsletter tool is available. VIP users can send up to 10,000 emails per month to 2,000 different email contacts. Alternatively you can purchase the Audience plan add-on. Of course, you can also use an external newsletter service. Email automations are also available.

Add HTML code Info popup

You need to upgrade to the PRO plan (at $16 per month) to add HTML-code to your page. A feature you usually get in the free plan of most other website builders!

Storage space

500MB - 100GB

Depends on the plan. The free plan gives you 500MB per site, while Pro gives you 20GB. The maximum amount of storage you can have is 100GB on the VIP plan, which is huge – you’d really only need this if you were uploading a lot of images and videos.

Backups & Restore Info popup

Available on Pro and VIP plans. Lets you restore one of the previous 20 versions of your site.

Support

  • FAQ
  • Chat
  • Email
  • Telephone

If you are looking for great 24/7 support, Strikingly is your best bet. They came out 1st in our support tests, scoring top marks in both speed and support quality. Their VIP plan comes with telephone support.

Fun Factor Info popup

The editor does a great job, especially when you really just need a single page design. The menu is well designed so no need to deal with confusing settings.

Overall Rating

3.9

Strikingly is a great and economical solution for single page layouts or very small sites. Putting such a site together is fairly easy and can be done quickly thanks to the easy interface. If you want more standard features, you’ll need at least their Pro plan though.

Strikingly Review: Conclusion

Strikingly is a website builder that shines when you want to create a single page layout. These designs have become quite popular, because they give you a good overview without having to navigate several pages. You just scroll up and down.

Every page is divided in several sections. You just click on the spot where you want a certain feature and add it. This can be a picture, some text or a contact form. You can even add more advanced features like booking forms or popups, although we found these to still be quite basic compared to the tools offered by other website builders (for example, we couldn’t find a way to accept payments through the booking tool).

If you don’t find what you need, you might find it in their app store (which, unfortunately, doesn’t hold a huge selection of apps) or you can also add some HTML directly. Keep in mind that you will need a paid plan for this.

Strikingly also comes with ecommerce. Of course, this makes only sense for small online stores. Managing a store with hundreds of products on a single page might not be very user-friendly and you will clearly have some SEO disadvantages.

Why is that? Normally, you optimize every single page for a specific keyword. Since you put all your information on one page, your info will get watered-down for Google. Is your content mainly a contact page, product page or just a portfolio of your best works? I guess you see the problem here. If SEO is important to you, you would most likely need multiple pages with more focused content.

That being said, recent updates suggest that ecommerce is an area that Strikingly is focusing more on, so we wouldn’t be surprised if this is something they address in the near future.

Where Strikingly really shines, is support. They won our extensive support test, beating established website builders like Wix and Squarespace.

Strikingly is also a very affordable option: while almost all the other website builders kept on increasing their prices over the years, Strikingly kept their subscription fees steady.

So if you just need a small website for an event, a personal portfolio or some other kind of landing page, Strikingly might be perfectly fine for you. You will set it up in no time. In case you plan to create a more complex structure, you should check out Weebly. Their website is also very intuitive, but you can add an unlimited amount of subpages.

Start creating a free Strikingly website!

Leave us a comment if you have any questions or feedback about Strikingly?

Is Strikingly the right website builder for you?

  • Recommended If
  • Not Recommended If
  • You want to create a stylish single page website.

  • You need a support team that goes the extra mile.

  • You want to quickly set up a small layout.

  • You need more than just one website.

Strikingly Example Sites

strikingly example 3

PackPoint

This website showcases a packing list app. It's a one-pager, which is a very typical use-case for Strikingly. Since the business mainly happens on the app stores, this seems to be sufficient.

Industry

Ecommerce

Traffic

300

strikingly examples portfolio

Tile

Started by students in Portland, Oregon, TILE is a network of student-run chapters hosting conversations with fascinating people. The Strikingly website embeds YouTube videos and offers you to subscribe to a mailing list.

strikingly example 1

Rachel Rose Reid

This landing page promotes Rachel's book and through the Strikingly ecommerce feature it can also be purchased.

FAQ

Yes. They cost $25/ year. You have to register a domain through Strikingly or transfer an existing one.

Only possible with paid plans since you can’t add external code (like Google Adsense) to the free plan.

No. The Pro plan allows you to have a max. of 100 pages. Special pages like Terms & Conditions, product pages or blog posts don’t count as a single page.

Strikingly Alternatives

Wix: The sleek designs will enable you to create a pixel-perfect website. Crafting a one-page layout with fancy scrolling effects and background videos isn’t a problem at all. Wix is more expensive but also has a much greater range of professional marketing features that will help you promote your website.

Hostinger Website Builder: Hostinger offers an intriguing Wix alternative that is much more affordable. You also have the option to build your website using the AI editor, and it’s possible to add multiple language versions to your website.

Weebly: The editor makes website creation a walk in the park. It is particularly suitable for more complex website structures but lacks classy template designs. As expected, an online store, blog, and app store are included. Moreover, you can create and maintain your website on the go with their Android and iOS app.

The authors

Learn more about us

Robert Brandl

Founder and CEO

Hi, my name is Robert Brandl! I used to work in a digital marketing agency where I managed website and email marketing projects. To optimize my client's campaigns, I always had to find the optimal web tools. Tooltester offers this knowledge to you, hopefully saving you endless hours of research.

Inka Wibowo

Content Manager

Hi, I'm Inka! I started using website builders and content management systems over 10 years ago, when I managed websites for clients in my first marketing role. Since then, I've worked on hundreds of web and digital projects. Now, at Tooltester, I'm happy to be able to use my experience to help users like you find the right website builder for your needs.

Learn more about us

We keep our content up to date

10 Oct 2023 - Complete review update
13 Jun 2022 - Page limit increased on free plan, multi-page templates now available
19 May 2022 - New abandoned cart recovery, booking and popup features
22 Feb 2022 - Increased storage, auto-translations added, email automations now available
17 Dec 2021 - Mobile app rating added
10 Nov 2021 - General updates
09 Jul 2021 - Customer reviews for ecommerce
03 May 2021 - More languages and blog updates
11 Sep 2020 - Small pricing changes
06 May 2020 - New Multi-Language feature
17 Apr 2020 - Paid Membership subscriptions available.
26 Nov 2019 - New Site Membership feature.
31 Oct 2019 - A few smaller updates mostly related to ecommerce.
03 Jun 2019 - General review update
23 Oct 2018 - Added results of our support test
05 Sept 2018 - Change in Adding HTML code
27 April 2018 - Initial review

THE BEHIND THE SCENES OF THIS REVIEW

This article has been written and researched following a precise methodology.

Our methodology

Comments