Minute Verdict
Framer puts the design canvas, the CMS, the hosting and the analytics in one product, so a site goes from a layout to a live page without a build step. Basic is $15 a month billed monthly, or $10 billed yearly at $120 a year, and it is the plan that fits a personal site, a portfolio or a landing page.
Best for: a designer or a small studio shipping marketing sites without waiting on a developer. Not for: a project that needs its own backend, a database and a login. From: $15/mo billed monthly, or $10/mo billed yearly, checked November 8, 2026
What Framer does
Framer started in Amsterdam in 2014 as a prototyping tool built by Koen Bok and Jorn van Dijk, after the studio they ran together, Sofa, was bought by Facebook. It rebuilt the product in 2022 so the same canvas could publish a live site, and in 2026 it put agents on that canvas. In August 2025 the company announced $100 million in Series D funding at a $2 billion valuation, led by Meritech and Atomico.
The product is one canvas with the services attached: pages, components, breakpoints, a CMS, hosting on a CDN, analytics, redirects and SEO settings. Publishing is a button, not a pipeline. Framer advertises 99.99% uptime on its home page and lists an uptime guarantee only on Enterprise. The community library is the other half of the offer, with 27,685 templates, components and vectors counted on the home page, a figure the company reports about itself.
The AI layer is what changed this year. A design agent generates layouts, sections and components in place, a CMS agent sets up and updates collections, and a code agent writes custom effects. External agents connect through an MCP server, so Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or a terminal can edit a project. On November 2, 2026 Framer published Harness 2, which it says runs workflows in 2x fewer tool steps and 39% fewer cached input tokens per message. Those are the company’s numbers, not a measurement of ours.
What it is not: a code-first framework, and not a host for a backend. A JavaScript product with a database and a login is a different purchase, which is the ground Lovable and Base44 occupy. Framer sells the marketing surface of a company, and it does that one job well enough to replace a theme, a plugin stack and a deploy.
On this page
What you get for the money
| Plan | Price | What is included | The limit that matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 500 AI credits to try, a Framer domain, 1 GB bandwidth, design pages, MCP server | No custom domain, so nothing commercial ships on it |
| Basic | $15 a month billed monthly, $10 billed yearly | Custom domain, built-in SEO, 2 CMS collections, 50 GB bandwidth, 30 pages, 1,000 AI credits a month | 30 pages and 2 collections cap a content site early |
| Pro | $45 a month billed monthly, $30 billed yearly | 150 pages, 10 collections, 2,500 CMS items, 100 GB bandwidth, staging, branching, redirects | A/B testing and advanced hosting remain add-ons |
| Enterprise | Custom | Unlimited editors, SSO, SCIM, uptime guarantee, annual billing | Quoted on a call, with a trial on request |
Twelve months of Basic at the monthly rate is $180, against $120 paid yearly, so the yearly view saves $60. Pro runs $540 a year at the monthly rate against $360 billed yearly, a gap of $180. The pricing page adds that every amount is monthly and billed according to the cycle chosen at checkout, with sales tax added there.
Every cap has a price once it is reached. Extra pages are $20 per 100 up to 700, extra CMS collections $40 per 10, extra items $20 per 10,000, extra bandwidth $40 per 100 GB, a translation locale $20 a month up to 20, an additional editor $20 a month and a content editor $10 a month. Convert, the A/B testing and funnel add-on, is $50 per 500,000 events, and advanced hosting is $200.
One buyer pays nothing: students apply for a free plan that the company values at a portfolio or personal site worth $120 a year, with 1,000 AI credits a month. That is the Basic yearly price, handed over on proof of enrollment.
Where it falls short
The free plan cannot connect a custom domain. Everything built there stays on a Framer address, which makes the free tier a design sandbox rather than a way to launch, and the domain is the first thing the first paid dollar buys.
The page caps are the limit buyers hit first. Basic stops at 30 pages and Pro at 150, and a site with a blog, a services section and one landing page per campaign reaches 30 faster than the plan suggests. The same goes for content: 1,000 CMS items on Basic, 2,500 on Pro.
AI credits are metered, and the meter is not priced on the page. Basic carries 1,000 credits a month and Pro 3,000, with the option to buy more, but the credit rate is not published next to the plans, so the cost of an agent-heavy month is unknown until checkout. The MCP server is in preview and free during preview, which means the external agent workflow has no committed price at all.
Two features a buyer assumes are included, A/B testing and advanced hosting, are add-ons at $50 per 500,000 events and $200. Neither is expensive in isolation, and both change the real monthly cost of a site that needs them, which is the number to compare against a competitor.
Finally, the monthly rate is the expensive one and it is not the one on screen. The page opens on the yearly billing view at $10, so the $15 figure only appears after the toggle moves.
Framer alternatives
- Lovable, from $25 a month, or $21 billed yearly, for a prompt that has to produce a full-stack app with a database and login rather than a design canvas: the Lovable review.
- Emergent, from $20 a month, or $17 billed yearly, which builds and deploys web and mobile apps from a chat: the Emergent review.
- Base44, from $20 a month, or $16 billed yearly, with a backend included and a free plan that carries 25 credits: the Base44 review.
Who it is for: Framer
It fits a designer, a small studio or a founder who needs the marketing site of a company live this week and has no patience for a plugin stack. The canvas is the deliverable, the CMS covers a blog and a case study list, and the CDN, the redirects and the analytics arrive without a separate decision. A freelance web designer billing three or four sites a year gets the Pro plan back on the first project, since staging and branching keep a client site away from the live one.
It does not fit a product that needs to store user data, run a job queue or serve an API, and it does not fit a team that wants the HTML files in its own repository, because the site lives on Framer’s hosting. A buyer who wants a builder with a backend reads the same list we do on the AI app builders page, and the rest of the catalogue sits in the tools directory. A buyer who came for the deck rather than the site follows the Gamma review, which covers the presentation half of the same prompt-to-page job.
How we checked
This is a research review. We have not used Framer, so there is no hands-on score, no timing and no sample site. Every price and limit was read on November 8, 2026 on the pricing page in both billing views, and the company record, the student programme, the updates and the developer pages were read the same day. A test would settle what a document cannot: how the agents behave on a real brief and what one credit actually buys.
Timeline
- 2014: Framer launches in Amsterdam as a prototyping tool for designers, from the team that built Sofa.
- August 2025: $100 million Series D at a $2 billion valuation, led by Meritech and Atomico.
- 2026: Agents arrive on the canvas, with an MCP server that lets external agents edit a project.
What to do next
Start on the free plan and build the page you actually need, then move to Basic only when the custom domain is the blocker, which is the moment the free tier stops being useful. Pay yearly if the site will live for a year, since $120 beats $180, and check the page count before the campaign landing pages arrive. If the project needs a database, stop here and price an app builder instead.
FAQ
Is Framer free? A free plan at $0 exists. It carries 500 AI credits to try, a Framer domain, 1 GB of bandwidth, 10 CMS collections, 1,000 pages and up to three editors, but no custom domain.
How much does Framer cost? Basic is $15 a month billed monthly, or $10 a month billed yearly at $120 a year. Pro is $45 a month billed monthly, or $30 a month billed yearly at $360 a year. Enterprise is quoted on request.
Does Framer have a free trial? There is no timed trial. The free plan plays that role, and Enterprise trials are available on request.
Can I use my own domain on Framer? Yes, on every paid plan. The yearly view of the pricing page also includes a complimentary domain.
Is Framer good for a portfolio? Yes. A portfolio fits inside the 30 pages of Basic, and students can apply for a free plan that covers a portfolio or personal site worth $120 a year.
Is Framer worth the money? At $10 a month billed yearly for a site with a custom domain, yes. At $15 billed monthly for a site that needs more than 30 pages and its own backend, look at an app builder instead.
Is there a Framer discount? Students apply for free access worth $120 a year. Every other buyer saves by paying yearly: $60 a year on Basic and $180 a year on Pro against the monthly rate.
Sources
Sources
- https://www.framer.com/pricing/ (checked November 8, 2026)
- https://www.framer.com/about/ (checked November 8, 2026)
- https://www.framer.com/students/ (checked November 8, 2026)
- https://www.framer.com/updates/ (checked November 8, 2026)
- https://www.framer.com/agents/ (checked November 8, 2026)
- https://www.framer.com/developers/ (checked November 8, 2026)
Update log
Published November 8, 2026. Prices and limits checked November 8, 2026 on the pricing page in both billing views, with the about, students, updates and developers pages read the same day.
