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Jimdo Review: It’s Simple & Fast, So What’s the Catch? [2024]

Ezequiel Bruni Ezequiel Bruni Website Development Expert

At this point in time, Jimdo’s alright. It’s still missing a few important features (like blogging), but the framework for something greater is certainly there. That said, I can’t – in good conscience – tell you to open your wallet for the mere promise of greatness. 

If you need to make a website right now, I’d say to go with one of the big-name competitors.

Overview

💯Free PlanYes
💲Starting Price$9.00
📄Number of Templates100+
🔌Apps/IntegrationsYes
🛒E-commerce ToolsYes
Shared Reseller Dedicated Cloud WordPress

Jimdo vs The World: Can It Hold Its Ground?

Jimdo is a site builder that aims to compete at the highest level of site building. It’s simple, it’s fast, and the tutorial wizard that pops up when you first create a website can do a lot of the work for you. Not all of it, but a lot.

So, what’s not to love?

Jimdo’s biggest problem is that it’s competing against quite a number of strong alternatives: Wix with its design flexibility, Squarespace with its sleek experience, Zyro with its myriad AI tools. How does Jimdo hold up against these industry giants?

Well, it mostly doesn’t. I’ll tell you right now: Jimdo struggles to keep up with the rest in terms of features.

On the other hand, it has a solid free plan, and does not lack for polish. If you don’t need any of the features it doesn’t have, it might just be right for your business. Read on to find out.

4.5

Templates

Jimdo Sites Look Good, but They’re Not Too Customizable

With over 100 templates to choose from, it’s easy to make your site look fancy with Jimdo. Some of the templates stick to the classic minimalism that’s usually associated with site builders, but others pop off the page with a heavier use of bright colors and vibrant imagery.

I did find, however, that you can’t really just pick and choose a template. The site startup wizard (which I will talk about more below) will choose a couple for you to start from, and then you can change the basic style later.

jimdo's-base-templates
Jimdo’s templates are vibrant and varied.

Jimdo very much belongs to the “we do it so you don’t have to” school of thought, and this is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, Jimdo makes it easier to build a website. But at the same time, the page editor is not particularly flexible in terms of layout or customization. You can change your site’s color scheme, and pick from a few different color combinations, but that’s about it.

All sections of content must be chosen from pre-created mini-layouts, and the content is confined to the pre-set mini-layouts you choose. Thankfully, there are several on offer.

the-jimdo-page-editor
The page editor is sleek and simple, but not very flexible.

Don’t get me wrong: the site editor is fine. That comparative lack of control works for people who just want to build a site and go. You can still put in your text and images, upload a video, and even throw in a slideshow. The theme customization gives you just enough to generally meet your branding guidelines…

But I wouldn’t try to meet any super-specific branding guidelines.

4.0

Features

Jimdo Does Some Things Right, and Doesn’t Do Others At All

I once remarked that Jimdo sounds like someone’s nickname, and honestly, I still wonder where that name came from. Well, odd name aside, Jimdo makes me think of the kind of guy who’s friendly, and has his life together, but has apparently never heard of blogging.

No, that’s not a silly analogy. Jimdo is — in its current iteration — flat-out missing a blog feature. Where most site builders treat blogging as something of an afterthought, Jimdo doesn’t think about it at all.

And in fact, it’s missing quite a lot of features that we’ve found in almost every other site builder that we compared it to.

On the other hand, Jimdo does come with some nice extras here and there. For example, while buying domains through Jimdo is nothing special, it’s not often that a site builder will handle your emails for you. Jimdo can do that.

In addition, the things that Jimdo actually does, it mostly does well. Here are a few examples:

There’s A Pretty Solid Free Plan

You get 5 pages, 2GB of bandwidth and 500MB of storage, which you can use indefinitely. However, your site is limited to a Jimdo subdomain, and there’s a Jimdo ad on every page.

Now, 5 pages doesn’t sound like a lot, but most brochure-style business sites don’t really need more.

If you want to get started building your own first website, and want an experience that doesn’t feel overly limited in terms of features, Jimdo’s free plan might just do that for you. If nothing else, it’s a decent place to put your business’ contact information until you’re ready to invest in a bigger site.

the-jimdo-ad-on-a-free-site
A small Jimdo ad will appear on every page of a free site.

There Are E-commerce Features Galore

You have to pay extra for the store plans, but they give you just that: a big old store to sell things on. There are a ton of features to this, which I will list below, but this is my favorite bit: you can edit product pages like just about any other page, with much of the same functionality.

Here’s a sample product I made, with dummy text… and a screenshot I took in Cyberpunk 2077.

a-jimdo-product-page
You can edit product pages just like any other page.

Once you’ve got some products up, you can accept payments from PayPal, Stripe, and (through those services) all major credit cards.

Some of the other handy features include:

  • No transaction fees – You only have to pay PayPal’s (or Stripe’s) cut.
  • Integration with Facebook and Instagram – Because having more storefronts is never a bad thing.
  • Free shipping for large orders
  • Product variants – So you don’t need a dozen product pages to sell different-color versions of the same shirt.
  • Custom order confirmations
  • Tag-based (or weight-based) shipping costs – You can use tags to set shipping costs for entire categories of items at once.
  • Discount codes

There’s A Strong Focus On SEO & Marketing

Jimdo wants your website to grow in popularity. You know, so you’ll stay on Jimdo. To that end, the company has implemented a bunch of SEO and stat-tracking features, so you can decide how best to expand your online operations.

SEO features include:

  • SEO homepage descriptions
  • Homepage title
  • SEO subpages descriptions
  • Subpage title
  • Custom Page URLs

And there are other marketing tools as well, such as:

  • RankingCoach Add-On (optional)
  • Google Preview
  • Google Indexing
  • XML Sitemap
  • Robot Meta Tags
  • URL Redirects
  • Mention statistics

Addons & Apps

There isn’t a huge marketplace full of addons, but there are a couple of extra useful tools. For example, the Business Listings (which costs a bit extra on most plans) will automatically submit your site to listings sites all over the web, to help you drum up more business elsewhere.

The Legal Text Generator can partially assist you in safeguarding your interests by creating a fundamental Terms of Service document and Privacy Policy. However, it’s important to note that no algorithm can replace the expertise of a local lawyer who is familiar with your jurisdiction’s laws. It’s advisable to consider upgrading to professional legal counsel sooner for optimal protection.

4.6

Ease of use

Jimdo Is Easy To Use, but Not Always Self-Explanatory

The basic site editor is easy stuff, once you learn how to access all of the relevant menus and settings. It doesn’t have the most traditional interface, but it works. It’s that initial learning curve that might trip up new users, especially those who’ve never used a site builder before.

And when you don’t know what to do, there is a pretty good knowledge base designed to teach you all about Jimdo.

jimdo's-knowledge-base
Jimdo’s knowledge base is here to help you find your footing.

The Site Creation Wizard Does a Fair Bit of Work for You 

No, really. It goes beyond picking a business category and a template. The wizard will actually change the sample text in the website, depending on whether you’re making a website for a business or an individual.

It will guide you through all the necessary steps to define your website’s goals and purpose. Only after that, it will present you with options for colors, fonts, and templates.

jimdo's-wizard
Jimdo’s new site wizard makes things easy.

My only issue is that this creation wizard only offers around two template choices at a time. And if you want to see more, you have to go through the wizard again. It’s an oddly unintuitive choice for what is otherwise a very intuitive tool.

Easy Social Media Integration

There are a number of tools designed to make it easier for you to share bits of your site directly on social media, sell your products on Facebook and Instagram (as mentioned above), and generally reach an audience beyond your immediate website.

Good stuff all around.

Professional Design Analysis

Yep, you can hire a designer directly from Jimdo to look through your site, and show you how to make it better. It’s always good to have an extra set of eyes on any project, and experts in the tools you’re using don’t hurt either.

3.5

Support

The Support (at Least for Free SItes) Is Helpful, but Slow

Where Jimdo’s site editor is like a good fast-food restaurant — decent and quick — the support team seems to have opted for the gourmet experience. You get good answers to your question, but they take a long while to show up. Specifically, every response I got took until at least the next day.

That’s how it is on the free plan anyway. Paying for the Grow plan or higher will get you guaranteed support within 4 hours. But I’ll be honest: that should be the offer for every paying customer, so this policy is going to cost Jimdo a few points.

And even then, 4 hours is not great in an emergency, and many of Jimdo’s competitors do better. Like, a lot better. I’m talking minutes.

Also, the only way to get support that I have found is to click that little question mark at the bottom right of the site editor itself. That opens up a form which lets you leave a ticket/email for the support team.

Technically, support is available 24/7… though that doesn’t mean much on anything lower than the Grow plan.

the-jimdo-help-button
This is the only way to get help on Jimdo.

On my initial request, I inquired if I could control my subdomains from Jimdo and point them to another site, such as a blog or membership site. The representative responded to me with tips on how to acquire and link a domain from a different place, allowing me to control subdomains as I wanted. They also proposed a temporary solution for the absence of blogging and membership features.

I’ll say this: the support agents do work hard.

my-first-email-from-jimdo
My first email from Jimdo was very detailed.

Next up, I asked if I could embed GIFs and videos in my web page. The short answer? Videos, yes. GIFs, no.

my-second-email-from-jimdo
This one was short and to-the-point. I love it.

Lastly, I asked if it was possible to sell subscriptions via the online store. It’s not, but again, the agent outlined some possible workarounds. I appreciate that sort of thing.

my-third-email-from-jimdo
Again, the support agents do put work into these emails.

If you like to really do things for yourself, you can search the aforementioned knowledge base for solutions to problems, or check out Jimdo’s blog. Yeah, they have a blog, despite not having one in the site builder. GO figure.

3.8

Pricing

Jimdo’s Prices Are… Okay

Honestly, they’d be pretty good, if not for some arbitrary page count limits put on your site.

The cheapest paid plan starts at $9.00 per month, which isn’t bad at all. It gives you access to all the basic site builder features. However, you’re limited to an incredibly arbitrary 10 pages. That’s just… silly. I’m sorry, but it is.

More expensive plans will get you access to more SEO features, the e-commerce features, social media integrations, and more. But even then, there are page limits. The most you can have on any plan is 50 pages.

Cancellations & Refunds

You can cancel at any time, but you only get your money back if you cancel within the first 14 days. I’d prefer 30, but you can demo the basic features of Jimdo for as long as you want on the free plan, so it’s not too bad.

You can even demo the e-commerce features on the free plan, though you have to upgrade your plan to actually accept payments.

Comparison

How does Jimdo match up to the competition?

WixCompareOur Score4.9Compare
SquarespaceCompareOur Score4.8Compare
JimdoCompareOur Score4.2Compare
SimpleSiteCompareOur Score2.5Compare

Jimdo REVIEW: BOTTOM LINE

Jimdo’s alright. It’s missing a few features for now (like blogging), but the framework for something greater is certainly there. However, I can’t tell you to open your wallet for the mere promise of greatness.

I’d like to see Jimdo make some real strides towards being feature-complete before too long. Also, what’s with those page limits on the paid plans?

If you need to make a website right now, I’d say to go with one of the big-name competitors, such as Wix or SITE123. If you have time to wait, keep an eye on Jimdo. See what it does.

FAQ

Is Jimdo a free website builder?

Well, Jimdo has one of the better free plans I’ve seen. You can use it indefinitely, build up to 5 pages (which is the standard size for most small business sites), and you get access to most of the features. There will be an ad for Jimdo on all pages, but it’s not that big a deal.

You will also receive 2GB of bandwidth and 500MB of storage. If you are looking to build your very first small website and want to familiarize yourself with site builders, Jimdo could be an excellent starting point.

Or, if you’d like to see how Jimdo’s free plan stacks up against the competition, see our list of the top website builders in 2024.

How do I create a Jimdo website?

Just sign up and go. The site creator will ask you a couple of questions about what kind of website you want to make (a hobby site, a business site, a portfolio, online store, etc.), let you choose a starter template, and then launch you into the site editor itself.

All in all, it’s a simple enough process.

How much does Jimdo cost?

The basic site builder, without an online store, starts at $9.00 per month. It’s a decent price for a decent product, and it gives you a fair number of features. More expensive plans will get you extra SEO and marketing features, and then access to all of the online store-related things you could want.

That being said, you can get a lot more for the price, feature-wise, with the competition. Any of the big names, including Wix and Squarespace will offer more design options, more design flexibility, and a lot more add-ons and third-party integrations.

If you’d like to get started with Jimdo (or any other site builder) for cheap, be sure to check out our coupons for site builders.

Is Jimdo better than Wix?

As a full product, Jimdo is certainly nothing to sneeze at. It’s pretty decent, and will get the job done in most small-to-medium business use cases. But no, it’s not better than Wix.

Wix is considered one of the powerhouses of the site builder world, and for good reason. It has one of the most flexible site builders, over 900 templates to choose from, as well as a truly massive library of addons and features for most small-to-medium website needs. You can just plain do more with Wix.
Ezequiel Bruni Ezequiel Bruni
Ezequiel Bruni is biologically Canadian, legally Mexican, and self identifies as a total nerd. He’s been a web and experience designer off and on since he was a teenager, and loves sharing the kind of beginner’s advice he really wishes he’d had when he first started. He also loves video games, tacos, open source software, video games, sci-fi and fantasy in all their forms, and video games. He does not love writing in the third person.
2.1
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They fined me 214€ for something I’ve never used!

Jimdo is a scam. They use Pair Finance to come after you and ask you to pay for subscriptions you’ve never used. I canceled mine in 2021 after the new subscription almost doubled. I decided to don’t renew it and now they ask me for cancellation proofs otherwise a 214€ fine. The page was deleted nearly 2 years ago, of course, I can’t prove I canceled it when the page doesn’t even exist anymore. I tried to talk to them and ask how I got into this situation and why there are so many people in the same situation as I am. None of my questions was answered, they keep insisting I have to address these questions to Pair Finance. Guess what? Pair Finance didn’t clarify anything, only sent me an invoice and urged me to pay. Stay away from Jimdo, you might end up paying money for a service you’ve never used like many others !!!

avatar
Diana, Germany
January 05, 2023
1
Can’t cancel the subscription and it costs more than 200€

Jimdo is definitely not the ideal option. Created an account in 2020(a paid subscription) and one year later the subscription doubled so I canceled it. I registered 2 emails with Jimdo, the main one which was the email I created specifically for my website and a second one- my personal one. After cancellation I stopped using the main one. I canceled the subscription in June 2021 and in December 2022(1,5 years later) I received a letter from Pair Finance asking me to pay for my last year subscription which I canceled it more than 200€. Note that I didn’t use the website all this time, is not even there, was blocked after I canceled my subscription. Went on Jimdo website to check if I made a mistake and really haven’t canceled it, but there’s no cancellation button, no way of contacting any support and no help regarding this problem. I went to my old email to check if I got any emails from them. I got my first payment reminder on 8 June 2021 and a second one on 28 June 2021. No additional email on my personal email(the second one listed ). I still don’t know how to “cancel my subscription “ so I guess I’ll have to pay for this year as well. Don’t recall signing up for a life-time subscription. Be careful with Jimdo!

avatar
Oana, Germany
December 14, 2022
1
My cancelled Jimdo – Pro Website

I really like Jimdo, but I didn't know, that once you cancel a website it is free for all. I used my website, which had my full name. com to display my artwork. Now I find that this website has pornographic content with my full name plus my email address. I still have Jimdo free websites to display my art, but I am so very upset that my name has been blackened. I would give 5 stars, but after what happened to me I can not do that.

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anonymus, USA
January 19, 2021
3
Disappointing

Simply put, Jimdo is disappointing. The website-builder feels outdated and is quite difficult to use. As a small business owner, being able to put together a simple website should be one of the easier parts of running my business. Jimdo is clearly not for individuals or businesses who are not able to design their own websites using HTML or CSS. For the sake of the person who took the time to read this review, STAY AWAY FROM JIMDO!

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David, Switzerland
June 09, 2020
2
Absolutely Spectacular

There's always room for improvement but Jimdo simply works. It's the most robust website builder I've found and I've explored about thirty alternatives including some of the big names. You can actually build a very sophisticated site with the cheaper of the pro packages they offer, upgrade anytime if you require even more bells and whistles and the learning curve isn't too steep. They have servers on three continents and sites load extremely fast. Their online store options, included in each package, are powerful and include linkable product view sliders and numerous appearance/layout options. Jimdo templates are extremely flexible and a joy to work with. You can build anything from a few pages and a blog at pro level, to a massive site streaming thousands of videos with their business offering, as bandwidth and storage are both unlimited. SEO tools are included and of course you can add as many external widgets as you like with full the built-in html editor. They even have a mobile app. If you like to edit on the move and all their templates are responsive and resize beautifully on all devices - except toasters :) What's not to like!

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Declan Cody, Ireland
December 01, 2018
5
Jimdo Review

We have loved the ease of use and beauty of customer service from Jimdo for years. But with their recent unwillingness to work with google for us, we view them with suspicion. Google has website providers who routinely work with website hosters for getting the clients good email addresses. Jimdo instead of working with google attacked us, and that is unacceptable. We are hugely disappointed in Jimdo and will be working on moving our website to another host provider asap. The ease of use of an email is critical to a business; Jimdo seems to have something to hide from google given all the work they went into trying to attack us for doing so. Wow, we are hugely sad at jimdo. If they think google is a competitor, they are not. If they want to battle google, they may as well battle the universe. We as a business who uses google's tools can't have a provider who battles google. Can anyone truthfully?
BTW, google gave us two phone numbers for jimdo to call them so google could help them with the process and coding. Instead jimdo turned on us as a client, ignored us/pretended to escalate during a chat but hung up on us, and had a senior manager email us his disapproval when we became mad. All we wanted was help to get a good google email. Instead our web host provider jimdo ignored us, hung up on us, attacked us. Not the best choice if you are a start up. We'll ask google who to go to now, someone who at least can work with them.

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Lynn Adams, USA
October 16, 2017
4
Jimdo Review

A great way to launch your storefront. Simple to use and easy to customize. Very search engine friendly and installing new plugins is a snap.

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Tim Shaw, USA
October 05, 2017
4
Jimdo Review

Jimdo was my first experience with a website builder tool and I must say, it was an excellent start into this area. I decided for Jimdo based upon it's shop features and it's ease of use. I wanted something that would take me a minimum amount of time to build and manage... and that I HAVE :)

On the down side, in order to build a "multi-language" site, you'll be forced to use the "menu structure"... considering that there isn't a huge choice of templates this really limits you in the possible looks the moment you want to build a multi-language site.

For the Shop, I think it's great, easy, there is a good tracking and order process system, on the other hand the templates... again down allow you to make the best possible use of this shop unless you use a bit of imagination to make it CLEAR that there is a shopping cart on your site ;)

In this review it also mentions that the shop is it's best feature... I have to say, I may not have found all the "options" or "features" but I don't think they are extraordinary and would be surprised if others are less?! But like said, I have not tried many others to date.

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Daniel Luchinger, USA
September 09, 2017
4
Family sharingMulti User SharingExpert SupportBackupSmart syncPersonal SolutionBusiness SolutionTeams optionsOffline foldersFile history and recovery Read more reviews
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