Currently, Webflow attaches all configuration aspects of Hosting to the Billing status. If billing is canceled, all of the configuration is wiped out. Before billing & hosting are established many of the important pre-launch configuration steps cannot be performed.

In further detail, these are the two main problems we face;

1 - If Billing is canceled, all hosting and configurations settings are completely *wiped out*

This just happened to us for the first time today on a major client, due to a corporate merger. We woke up to their website down, all host names deleted, all redirects deleted, all billing history deleted - and had to completely setup billing and hosting again completely from scratch.

Most of this is doable in short order, but certain elements like the list of redirects for their marketing brochures, billboard campaigns, etc. are entirely gone and don't exist anywhere else.

( This brings up a separate issue, that these configuration settings should be part of the site backup )

2 - We cannot configure host names or redirects until after billing and hosting are activated.

The current experience for us is...

1. build the website

2. setup client hosting

3. wait some unknown number of days for them to get around to entering their credit card billing details...

4. then, urgently and as quickly as possible, try to setup all of the domain names, redirects, and hosting settings needed to bring the site live.

PREFERRED DESIGN

1. Allow all hosting configuration to be done fully, including host names and redirects, prior to the hosting being switched on.

2. Save all configuration data as part of the site backup. Allow it to be viewed read-only in the backup history.

3. Client accounts are created, and remembered, independently of billing. If a card fails 3 times, the client is not deleted- the site is simply unpublished and they are forced to enter a new card before the site is publishable again. New cards can be added / replaced at any time. At no point is that Client account or billing history ever deleted.
   See https://wishlist.webflow.com/ideas/WEBFLOW-I-1533

4. At no point is any data lost, including billing history, if the billing is canceled.
   
   

Admin Note:

All DNS records and hosting configurations are created outside of Webflow, however we'd like to note that configuring 301 re-directs would be a very useful feature before adding a site plan to a project.