Jimdo Website Builder Review and Comparison

Jimdo is a user-friendly website builder that's perfect for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and individuals who want to create a professional online presence.

Jimdo offers a free plan, which is great for those who want to test the waters before committing to a paid plan.

With Jimdo, you can choose from over 5,000 templates to find the perfect design for your website.

Jimdo's drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to customize your website without needing any coding knowledge.

Jimdo is a website builder that allows users to create a website in just a few minutes. It's a popular choice for small businesses and individuals who want a professional online presence.

Jimdo was founded in 2007 by Matthias Henze, a German entrepreneur. He had a vision to make website creation accessible to everyone.

You can create a Jimdo website using a drag-and-drop editor, which means you don't need to know how to code. This makes it easy to customize your website and add features like contact forms and e-commerce functionality.

Jimdo offers a range of templates and design options to help you get started. You can choose from a variety of themes and customize them to fit your brand.

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Jimdo's blogging functionality is a great starting point for businesses, covering the basics like scheduling posts, editing URLs, and including social media sharing buttons. You can even use the built-in commenting system or integrate with Disqus for more advanced features.

Jimdo's blog is also compatible with the Facebook commenting system, making it easy to engage with your audience. Blog posts can be categorized using both tags and categories, or archived for easy reference.

One notable omission from Jimdo's blogging features is multiple contributor functionality, which can be a limitation for professional publications. This is because Jimdo doesn't allow multiple staff accounts, making it difficult to have multiple contributors to your blog.

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Jimdo's features are geared towards beginners and simplified websites, making it easier to navigate than many hosts I've tested. The settings controls are well-organized and structured, which is a big plus.

Jimdo offers two different website builders, which is a helpful option for newer site builders. This flexibility allows users to choose the builder that best suits their needs.

Jimdo's plans start at $0 and go up to $14 a month for the most expensive, making it a great option for people on a budget. This affordability is a major draw for those who need a site for a specific purpose.

Here are some examples of who Jimdo is best for:

Jimdo's import and export functionality is a bit limited, which can be a problem for some users. You can't import content or products, which might be a hassle for those building a website from scratch.

Most users, however, won't find this a dealbreaker, as they're likely building a fairly simple website. The lack of an export tool is a more serious issue, though. If you outgrow Jimdo and need to switch to another platform, you won't be able to export your content easily.

This can be a big problem if you have a large inventory of products, like if you're using Jimdo for ecommerce purposes. You might have to manually enter a lot of content or product data into your new site.

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Here are some options to help you work around this limitation:

It's worth noting that Jimdo is geared more towards website building novices than professionals, so this limitation might not be a big issue for most users. However, if you're planning to build a complex website or switch to a different platform, be prepared for this limitation.

Jimdo's integrations make it easy to add extra functionality to your website. You can use code snippets from third-party apps to add things like forms, calendars, or maps.

Jimdo's Smart Apps feature allows you to add interactive content from popular services like Calendly, Google, and Twitter by copying and pasting a URL. This content will then be embedded automatically on your Jimdo website.

POWR plugins can also be used to beef up your Jimdo site's functionality. However, if you're looking for a deep integration between your Jimdo website and an accounting, CRM, or dropshipping app, you might be slightly disappointed.

Jimdo's free website builder makes it easy to add block elements like slideshows and banners, and change up the design as you go along.

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Managing pages and navigation on Jimdo is surprisingly easy. You can add or edit pages by hovering over the site-navigation links, where a blue Edit Navigation button will appear.

This button lets you add a new page, reorder existing pages, or remove them altogether. You can even create nested page links by using the > button to move the selected page as a subset of the one above.

Jimdo's page addition feature has one drawback: if you add more pages than the navigation can accommodate, a second row of links is created. This isn't the most elegant solution, and it's not something you typically see on well-designed sites.

Free accounts on Jimdo can use a custom favicon, but you'll need to upload an image with exactly the right pixel dimensions. This is a bit of a limitation compared to other site builders, which can resize the image for you.

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Jimdo offers two website builders, Creator and Dolphin, each with its own strengths.

Dolphin is an ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) platform that creates a website based on your answers to a series of questions, making it perfect for users with basic computer skills or those short on time.

Creator, on the other hand, is a more traditional builder that's being phased out in favor of Dolphin.

Both builders offer the ability to quickly toggle between desktop, mobile, and tablet views to check for design issues across platforms, which is a huge time-saver during the website creation process.

Overall, Dolphin seems to be the preferred choice, but it's worth trying out both to see which one suits your needs best.

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Jimdo's website builder is quite versatile, and it's worth exploring their different options to see which one suits you best. The company's philosophy is to make website creation more accessible, and they offer a range of tools to achieve this.

Jimdo's Dolphin builder uses AI to create a website for you based on a series of questions, making it a great option for users with basic computer skills or those short on time. The builder is also easy to use, with a streamlined design process that's specific to your needs.

The free plan offered by Jimdo is fairly generous, allowing anyone to build a simple website quickly and easily. For just $11 a month, you can put a fully functional website together using the platform, making it a great option for those on a budget.

Jimdo's website creation process can be broken down into two options: the AI-powered Dolphin builder and the more customizable Creator. The quick toggle between desktop, mobile, and tablet views is a standout feature, allowing you to check for design issues across platforms.

Here are some key differences between Jimdo's Dolphin and Creator builders:

Ultimately, Jimdo's website builder is well-suited for small businesses or individuals with simple online presence needs. However, those with more advanced requirements may find other website building platforms better suited to their needs.

Jimdo offers an array of ecommerce features to get your store off the ground, including access to a professional domain, the ability to add product galleries, and the option to hook up worldwide payment methods such as PayPal or Visa.

You can track your product inventory easily via Jimdo and specify the number of items currently in stock. If you run out of a particular item, Jimdo will automatically place a 'sold out' notice next to it.

Jimdo doesn't have its own payment gateway, but out of the box facilitates payments via PayPal and Stripe. Users in Switzerland can also make use of an additional payment gateway: PostFinance, but this involves purchasing a 'Payment Options Plus' add-on.

Here are the Jimdo ecommerce plans and their features:

It's worth noting that Jimdo doesn't charge any fees for sales made from your site, but payment companies take a small percentage of each transaction.

If you opt for one of the more expensive Jimdo plans, you get access to ecommerce functionality. This includes the ability to add products, set terms and conditions for your store, and create automated response emails easily.

You can track your product inventory easily via Jimdo and specify the number of items currently in stock. If you run out of a particular item, Jimdo will automatically place a 'sold out' notice next to it.

One thing you should note about inventory is that you can only display product variants if you are on either a $21 'Business' plan or $28 'VIP' plan. These payment companies take a small percentage of each transaction, but unlike some competing website building products, Jimdo does not charge any fees for sales made from your site.

Jimdo doesn't have its own payment gateway, but out of the box facilitates payments via PayPal and Stripe. Users in Switzerland can also make use of an additional payment gateway: PostFinance, but this involves purchasing a 'Payment Options Plus' add-on.

You can sell in up to 23 different currencies if you use PayPal as your Jimdo payment processor.

Here are some ecommerce features you can expect from Jimdo's more expensive plans:

Data capture is a crucial aspect of any online store, and Jimdo makes it easy to collect valuable information from customers.

You can add forms to your site with just a few clicks, allowing visitors to message you or subscribe to newsletters. These forms come with pre-built templates for inquiries, quotes, feedback, and registrations.

Jimdo's form builder lets you customize your forms with different types of fields, including short answers, long answers, multi-selection answers, and single selection answers. This flexibility helps you tailor your forms to your specific needs.

One of the most useful features of Jimdo's form builder is the ability to add file upload fields, which allows customers to submit images, documents, or other files as part of their inquiries or orders. This feature is available on paid Jimdo plans only.

Form submissions are automatically emailed to an address you specify, and they're also saved in the back end of Jimdo. This makes it easy to keep track of customer interactions.

Jimdo offers a basic reporting dashboard for top-level site statistics, but for more in-depth analysis, you can connect your Google Analytics account to Jimdo.

You can access Google Analytics data within your Jimdo dashboard, which is convenient, or simply use the full-blown version of Google Analytics.

Jimdo's SEO features are pretty comprehensive, including SEO-friendly headings, alt text, and Google-friendly URLs based on page titles.

Here are some of the SEO features you can use on Jimdo:

However, you won't have control over the speed of your hosting, which can impact your website's performance and search engine rankings.

Jimdo's SEO settings are quite comprehensive, but it's essential to know what you're getting. On all Jimdo plans except the free one, you can use SEO-friendly headings (H1s, H2s, etc.), add alt text, and create Google-friendly URLs based on your page titles.

You'll also have control over page title and meta description, as well as the ability to edit page URLs and create 301 redirects. These redirects are used to tell search engines when a page has moved to a new location.

However, you won't have control over the speed of your hosting, which is a key part of technical SEO. Unlike a WordPress setup, you won't be able to host your site on ultra-fast servers.

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Here are the SEO features you can expect on Jimdo's paid plans:

Keep in mind that you won't be able to add any SEO tools or plugins to your Jimdo site, but you can make use of resources like Google Search Console, Pingdom, and Yoast's Real Time Content Analysis tool to help with search engine optimization.

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GDPR compliance is crucial for any website, especially with the introduction of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation and California's CCPA privacy act. Fines for non-compliance are considerable.

The EU's GDPR requires website owners to follow five key rules with regard to cookie consent. These rules include letting site visitors know that cookies are being used, explaining how cookies are being used, providing visitors with a means to consent to 'non-essential' cookies, logging consent of cookie use, and allowing users to withdraw their consent.

Jimdo has some built-in functionality to meet most of these requirements. You can add a list of cookies and their type to Jimdo's cookie notice settings.

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To get cookie consent right with Jimdo, you'll need to add a list of cookies and their type, and trigger them by adding some code to your site. The instructions are provided under a 'cookie policy' instructions page.

GDPR compliance can be a bit tricky to get right, especially with technical aspects like cookie consent. Getting it wrong can result in significant fines.

Here are the 5 key rules for GDPR cookie consent:

Jimdo offers a range of plans to suit different needs and budgets.

The free plan is a great starting point, allowing you to build a basic site with 500MB storage, 2GB bandwidth, and limited features.

There are five paid plans available: Start, Grow, Business, VIP, and Creator. The Start plan costs $11 a month and includes 5GB storage and 10GB bandwidth.

The Grow plan costs $17 a month and offers 15GB storage and 20GB bandwidth. The Business plan costs $21 a month and includes 15GB storage and 20GB bandwidth.

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The VIP plan costs $28 a month and offers unlimited storage and bandwidth. The Creator plan costs $40 a month and includes full code access for customization.

Here's a breakdown of the plans and their features:

Jimdo's pricing is competitive, with the Start plan costing the same as Wix's bottom-tier premium plan.

Jimdo's ease of use is a major selling point, especially for beginners. It's easy to create a website in just a few minutes, thanks to its AI-powered website builder.

Jimdo's interface is intuitive, with a clear guide to personalizing your site and a tidy, intuitive interface. It uses a block-based editing system, making it easy to add new sections and edit elements.

However, some users may find the editor a bit confusing, especially when it comes to customizing certain features. But overall, Jimdo's ease of use is a major advantage, making it a great choice for those who want to build a website quickly and easily.

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Jimdo's support is available through various channels, including email, online ticket submission, and a chat bot. However, some users may find the support to be slow, especially if they're on a free plan. According to the support team, paid customers can expect a response within a day, while free customers may have to wait up to 3 days.

Here's a comparison of Jimdo's support options:

Keep in mind that Jimdo's support options may not be as robust as some other website builders, but it's still a great choice for those who want to build a simple website quickly and easily.

Jimdo's website builder is designed to be user-friendly, even for those without previous experience. It's more "click and edit" than "drag and drop", making it a great option for beginners.

Jimdo's menus are well organized, which helps to reduce frustration when trying to find customization features. This is one of the reasons why first-time site builders are less likely to get stuck.

The Dolphin editor is a block-based system that allows you to add new sections at the click of a button. This makes it easy to create a website without needing to know how to code.

However, the Creator interface, which is geared towards more advanced users, can be confusing and hard to get the hang of. Unless you're willing to code your own template from scratch, you'll be limited to predefined element positions.

Here are some key features that make Jimdo's website builder easy to use:

Overall, Jimdo scored 3.4 out of 5 for ease of use in our research, which is a middle-of-the-road score.

Jimdo users generally enjoy the platform's virtual assistant, which does a lot of the work for you.

However, the virtual assistant remains limited and basic in terms of personalization, which might be a drawback for some users.

Jimdo's page editor lacks flexibility in terms of layout and personalization, making it less versatile than other platforms.

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On the bright side, Jimdo offers a lot of different themes to help you make your site look professional, with templates already selected for you to modify the style.

Unfortunately, Jimdo doesn't have any dedicated internal marketing capabilities, which might be a concern for users who want to get involved with the marketing side of their website.

If you're looking for a platform with a better marketing framework, you might want to consider alternatives like Wix or Squarespace.

Customer support can be a make-or-break feature for website builders, and Jimdo's support offering is a mixed bag. You can get basic contextual help from a "support" button in the Jimdo interface, which is usually pretty good.

However, if you need more in-depth assistance, Jimdo's Support Centre can be a bit confusing, especially since there are two versions of Jimdo to seek support on. This can lead to frustration if you're not on the right help site.

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Jimdo only offers email support, which can be slow, especially if you're on a "Start" plan – you're looking at a 1-2 day wait time. This can be particularly frustrating if you need to send multiple emails back and forth to resolve an issue.

Things are a bit better with the "Grow" and "Business" plans, which offer premium customer support with a promised response within 4 hours. However, even with these plans, you may not get a response until Monday if you contact Jimdo on Friday afternoon.

Free accounts get access to support documentation and a chat bot, but if that fails, you can contact a helpful person via email. However, be prepared for a response time of 1-2 days (up to 3 days in the high season).

If you're looking for more immediate support, you may want to consider another service – Jimdo's support is limited to paid-for plans, and phone support is not available, even for premium customers.

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Jimdo offers a range of 16 templates to choose from, each suitable for a specific field such as photography or fashion.

You can switch between templates without losing any content, which is a big plus for those who are new to building websites.

Jimdo's templates are professional in appearance, but they may lack a certain "wow" factor compared to some other website builders.

The navigation in Jimdo templates only goes as far as two levels, which may not be enough for users who plan to include a lot of pages or content on their site.

However, most similar products don't facilitate complex navigation structures either, so two levels is usually enough.

Jimdo's templates are responsive, meaning they'll resize to suit the device they're being viewed on.

You can check how your site will display on mobile devices by clicking the mobile icon in the top-left corner of the Jimdo interface.

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Jimdo used to have over 100 templates but has since cut back to a more manageable 19, plus a blank template.

Each of Jimdo's templates looks tremendous and provides a good range of different styles and aesthetics.

Jimdo's integrated Mobile Editor ensures that all templates are mobile-ready, scaling seamlessly whether on a desktop or mobile.

Jimdo doesn't particularly hand over too much control over the templates it provides you, which may be a drawback for those who want more design freedom.

However, if you're just looking for something that looks nice and does the job, then Jimdo is a very viable option.

Jimdo's site-building interface strikes a compromise between showing the whole site while hiding the controls, and always showing a toolbar.

You can customize your site's style using the paint-roller icon, which changes the hover-over options to font and color options.

Jimdo allows full HTML and CSS customization for those with web development expertise.

Jimdo offers simple blogging functionality on all its plans, including the free one, which covers the basics like scheduling posts, editing URLs, and including social media sharing buttons.

You can use the built-in Jimdo system for reader comments or work with Disqus, which offers more advanced commenting features. Jimdo's blog is also compatible with the Facebook commenting system.

Blog posts can be categorized using both tags and categories, or archived. However, the blogging features are aimed more at basic users rather than professional ones, and there's no multiple contributor functionality.

This means you can only have one contributor to your blog, making it hard to turn your Jimdo website into a professional publication involving a wide range of authors.

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Getting Started with Jimdo is a breeze. You can create your perfect website by answering Jimdo's Starter Quiz, which gives the platform a better understanding of your online requirements and business goals.

This initial design is super helpful, as you can still add or delete blocks of content as you go along. You can even pull content from social media or existing websites onto your new site pretty instantly.

However, keep in mind that Jimdo's platform is limited in terms of how much you can edit yourself. If you're looking for more control over your website's design, you might want to consider other options.

Overall, Jimdo seems like a good first website option, especially for those new to website building. The website builders are fairly straightforward and offer a good introduction to working with templates.

You can start designing a Jimdo website without even signing up for an account.

The free account is generous, capping storage at 500MB and bandwidth at 2GB, and you can have more than one free site.

This is a great perk, especially compared to other site builders that often charge more for similar features.

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Jimdo's free account is limited, but it's a great way to get started and see if the platform is right for you.

With the Pro plan, you'll get custom domains, increased commerce limits, and more storage, all for $7.50 per month billed annually.

The Business plan takes it up a notch, removing Jimdo branding, adding online store functionality, and including premium support, all for $20 per month.

This is a good deal, especially considering that other site builders often charge upwards of $25 per month for similar features.

Jimdo seems like a good first website option, especially for those new to website building. It offers straightforward website builders and a good introduction to working with templates.

The options for adding custom coding templates leave room to grow for those wanting to learn code or those with the budget to hire occasional coding help. This flexibility is a plus for users who want to take their website to the next level.

Storage space is generous compared to other providers for the price range, making it a great value for users. Basic analytics and contact forms are also nice additions to the paid plans.

However, the lack of strong customer support is a concern, and users should carefully review all terms of use and billing documents before signing up. This will help avoid any potential billing issues down the line.

Jimdo is a great platform for building a website, especially for small businesses and individuals who want a simple and easy-to-use interface.

The drag-and-drop editor, as mentioned in the "Design and Customization" section, allows users to create a website without needing to know how to code.

Jimdo's website builder is also very user-friendly, with a wide range of templates and design options to choose from, as seen in the "Features and Pricing" section.

Overall, Jimdo is a solid choice for anyone looking to create a professional-looking website without breaking the bank.

Its affordable pricing plans, starting at just $9 per month, make it an attractive option for small businesses and individuals who want to establish an online presence without overspending.

Jimdo is an all-in-one website builder and web host that's perfect for beginners who want to get online fast. It's economical and has well-defined plans that are easy to understand.

The free plan offers a de facto unlimited time free trial to test out the service before committing to a paid plan. Unfortunately, you're on your own with customer support, as it's not included with the free plan.

Jimdo's website builders, Dolphin and Creator, have their limitations. The Dolphin builder is great for absolute beginners, but it's extremely limited in terms of editing tools. The Creator, on the other hand, is not as flexible as Jimdo claims, and its interface can be confusing.

You can build a decent-looking website with Jimdo, even with automated site creation. However, its e-commerce options are limited, which might be a drawback for some users.

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Jimdo vs. Wix is a comparison that's worth exploring, especially when considering the pricing and features of both website builders. Jimdo offers a free plan, which is a rare find among its competitors, including Wix.

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Wix, on the other hand, has a huge marketing presence, but its premium plans come with a higher price tag. In fact, Wix's prices range from $17 to $159 per month, depending on the plan, which is roughly the same as Jimdo's pricing.

Jimdo's pricing is also more competitive than Squarespace, which costs between $25 to $139 per month, and Shopify, which costs between $29 to $399 per month. The choice between Jimdo and Wix ultimately depends on which features you need to justify the costs.

Here's a quick comparison of Jimdo and Wix's pricing:

Jimdo's free plan is a major advantage, as it doesn't require you to enter your credit card details, and there's no time limit or pressure to upgrade.

Jimdo Creator has been phased out in favor of Jimdo Dolphin, which is now the preferred platform.

Jimdo Dolphin is more in line with traditional builders, making it a good option for those who want a more traditional website-building experience.

If you've built your site with Jimdo, we recommend considering an upgrade to one of Jimdo's premium plans before putting it live.

Overall, it's a good idea to try before you buy and experiment with different options to find what works best for you.