Webflow templates overview

Using Webflow templates is a great way to jump-start your website process if you’re short on time or need a little extra design inspiration.

To be able to make the most of templates, it’s important to familiarize yourself with Webflow basics using our introductory Webflow 101 Crash Course. This course provides an overview of the Webflow UI, basic building blocks of the web, and positioning and layout basics — all of which you’ll need to know to get you up and running with your template.

In this lesson, you’ll learn all about Webflow templates with the following:

1. Understand how Webflow templates work
2. Be aware of template usage and licenses
3. Test templates before purchase
4. Choose Free templates
5. Purchase premium templates
6. Apply a template promo code
7. Add templates to a Team account
8. Export template-based projects
9. Sell your own templates

Understand how Webflow templates work

Webflow offers a large number of free and premium responsive website templates for designers, businesses, and personal use to help you jump into the design side of things more quickly.

Once you select either a free or premium paid template, that template will be added to your Dashboard as a brand new project with all the template pages included in that project. From there you can customize your template as much or as little as you want. 

Pro tip: If you need to access your template’s original, unedited design in the future, you can do so via the project's backups. However, keep in mind this does reset everything to the backup you select.

Start using your template

If you’ve previously used Wordpress, you may be familiar with its use of themes to help style designs. Wordpress themes can be applied to content and data that’s already present in a Wordpress design. 

Webflow’s templates behave differently than Wordpress themes. The design and layout of a Webflow template will not automatically replace the design and layout of an existing website or project in your account. Templates come as-is and may require customization.

To speed up this customization, you can migrate CMS Collection data or copy and paste elements from other projects in your account to your new template-based project. 

Collection item import limits

If your template-based project doesn't have a CMS or Business site plan, you may need to add or upgrade your site plan to import a CSV with more than 50 Collection items. Check Collection item limits for each hosting plan.

Page limits 

If you are on a free Webflow Starter account plan, and if your template-based project does not have a Site plan added to it, the project will be limited to 2 pages only. You can still access and edit all the pages included in the paid template (unless you have deleted them). However, you will not be able to duplicate a page or add a new page to the template-based project without first upgrading your account plan, adding a site plan to the project, or deleting all pages in the template until the total page count is brought down to under 2 pages. 

Even if you’re not ready to add a site plan to your template-based project, you can still customize the existing pages in the template.

If you see a page limit error after adding a site plan to your template-based project, or if you have any additional questions about page limits, please contact us so our support team can help further. 

Template support 

If you are new to Webflow, templates that use complex interactions, custom menus, or popup modals might be challenging to edit at first. However, if you need support for your template, you can reach out to the template creator for help (and many template creators include help documentation within their templates). 

To get support from the template creator: 

1. Visit the template’s page on Webflow’s Template marketplace
2. Scroll down until you see the template Overview (the template creator might have specific support instructions in this area)
3. Click the Support tab (if the template creator didn’t have specific support instructions included in the Overview area)
4. Click the Contact button to contact the template creator

Be aware of template usage and licenses

All paid templates come with a single use license, which means you can use your purchased template for one project. 

If you want to use your purchased template for a different client or project, you will need to purchase another license (by purchasing the template again). 

You can do this by duplicating your template:

1. Go o to your template-based project's settings‍
2. Click the "duplicate" icon (read more about duplicating projects)
3. Choose whether the template is for the same client or project (you won't need to repurchase the license), or a new client or project (you will need to repurchase the license)

All templates can be customized (you can add, alter, or remove text, images, graphics, layout, design, etc.) to fit your project's needs.

Learn more about Webflow Templates and the Single Use License.

Test templates before purchase

You can preview a template in the Designer before committing to its purchase. We highly recommend doing this so you can ensure the template fits your design needs. 

1. Go to Webflow’s Template marketplace and locate the template you want to test
2. Press the Preview in Designer button to open the template in the Designer in a new window
3. Turn off preview by clicking the eye icon
4. Click into the template’s Pages panel and Navigator to get an idea of the template’s included components and design structure
5. Go back to the template’s page in the marketplace and press the Buy button to purchase the template if you like what you see

Choose Free templates

Webflow has many free templates that can get you started, ranging from one-page sites to complex multi-page business websites. Search our free templates.

To choose a Free template: 

1. Go to Webflow’s Template marketplace to choose the free template you would like to use
2. Press the Use for Free button, which opens your Dashboard
3. Give your project a name or use the default provided name
4. Press the Create project button, which will open the project in the Designer
5. Open your Dashboard to see your template-based project located inside it
   

Purchase premium templates

You can also purchase premium paid templates to use for only one person, business, or project.

To select and purchase a premium template:

1. Go to Webflow's Template marketplace to find the premium template you'd like to use for your project
2. Click Buy on the template's landing page (you’ll be prompted to sign up for a free Webflow account if you don’t already have one or can log into your existing account if you’re logged out)
3. Type your payment information into the checkout modal (or click “Edit credit card” to update your payment information if you’ve added it previously)
4. Press the Pay now button to complete your purchase 
5. Press Continue after reviewing your payment confirmation
6. Give your new project a name and press Create project to open your newly purchased template in the Webflow Designer

Note: You can find template purchase invoices within the Purchases tab of your account. 

Apply a template promo code

If you have a template promo code, you can apply the promo code to your template purchase when you confirm your selection:

1. Go to Webflow's Template marketplace to find the template you'd like to use for your project
2. Click Buy on the template's landing page (you’ll be prompted to sign up for a free Webflow account if you don’t already have one or can log into your existing account if you’re logged out)
3. Click Add promo code from the checkout modal
4. Enter the promo code in the input field and click the Apply button to adjust your total due
5. Press the Pay now button to complete your purchase
6. Press Continue after reviewing your payment confirmation
7. Give your new project a name and press Create project to open your newly purchased template in the Webflow Designer
   

Add templates to a Team account

Your Team may also benefit from using templates. 

To add purchased templates to your Team’s Dashboard:

1. Create a project within your personal account using the template you have purchased 
2. Transfer the new template-based project to your Team (read about transferring projects to your Team)

Export template-based projects

If you would like to export a template-based project, you first need to purchase a paid account plan to activate the export feature. Read more about exporting code. 

Sell your own templates

If you enjoy creating templates, you can apply to sell your template designs in the Webflow Template marketplace. Before you begin template submission, be sure to check out our Template Submission Guidelines.

Related reading: How Medium Rare has grown its business selling templates