Pieter, keeping UA is not free. The downside is the ongoing support costs, the huge frustration and panic that comes with users discovering how limited it is after they've already sold it to a client, and the fact that all other platform development becomes more complex and expensive with UA in the mix.
If you look at the dev trajectory - component slots, variants, localization, page builder... all of that passes through user accounts, which increases the cost of all development, documentation, support, and platform infrastructure. Ultimately, that bill ends up passed to us.
I totally agree with the assessment "this stinks." but I see it as a choice between two paths-
(a) Keep UA in its extremely limited feature set. Continue the support costs and user frustrations. Slow development and the release of other valuable features that would benefit everyone. Eventually see these excess costs in plan price hikes. (b) Drop UA, reduce those costs and friction points, and have clients use solid far more capable 3rd party platforms instead. Focus on integration through apps and APIs so that the can become more directly integrated into the platform.
agree. Even if it was a small feature with a lot of limitations it was doing the job in many cases. They could just keep it as it is and everything will be fine.
There's a reason User Accounts is being removed in 2026. The use cases it can support are extremely limited. Basically you can gate static pages or entire collections by user group, and if you purchase ECom, you can bill users for that. Outside of a "paid blog" kind of setup, it's too limited for 98% of the use cases Webflow customers were asking for-
Ability for a customer to see their ECom order history, and re-order
Ability to personalize the site with the user's name and photo
Ability to link individual CMS items to an individual user, so that they "own" them ( Auction listing, Classified sites )
Ability to store private individual CMS items with an individual user so that only they can access it ( AI systems that generate content )
Ability to client-side JS to store info with a user
Most of those features can not be reasonably added without massive investment, support, and ongoing dev teams which would require it to become a paid service.
In the end it didn't make sense, far too limited, expensive to support, too limiting to the rest of the infrastructure since gating has to be supported everywhere... it becomes a mess. I agree it's not an ideal situation, but even though I've invested a ton in User Accounts, I feel it's the right choice.
A recommend Memberstack 100%, and they're making the migration as easy as possible, with far more capabilities that User Accounts was able to provide. So worth it.
This is utterly ridiculous, what about the countless hours spent on setting up users and all the protected pages?
Do you expect us to just pay thousands of $ to some approved designer or spend weeks migrating to a different platform?
Do you guys even think about the end customer? WTF are we supposed to tell our own customers now?
Really disappointing to see useful features removed. It was a shame when client billing was removed. I was looking forward to utilising user accounts for an upcoming build, but I would be begrudged to rely on third party solutions, when Webflow is clearly capable of it.
People don't want to have to resort to a bunch of overpriced 3rd party apps, especially since the features they offer were already IN Webflow to begin with. Like.. Who greenlights these sorts of ideas?
Was planning on moving my website over to Webflow, but idk, them sunsetting the most basic of features literally all other website builders provide has me already looking for alternatives. Not sure what the long term vision is behind these choices, but i feel like they're only shooting themselves in the foot lol.
Please dont remove it ... enhance it or buy companies like memberstack .. Having a page but using thousands of other applications for basic needs, will turn Webflow slowly into Wordpress. Please Webflow you so much better than that!
Justin Willemet
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nice, if this feature is taken off I'm leaving webflow as I need this feature
Pieter, keeping UA is not free. The downside is the ongoing support costs, the huge frustration and panic that comes with users discovering how limited it is after they've already sold it to a client, and the fact that all other platform development becomes more complex and expensive with UA in the mix.
If you look at the dev trajectory - component slots, variants, localization, page builder... all of that passes through user accounts, which increases the cost of all development, documentation, support, and platform infrastructure. Ultimately, that bill ends up passed to us.
I totally agree with the assessment "this stinks." but I see it as a choice between two paths-
(a) Keep UA in its extremely limited feature set. Continue the support costs and user frustrations. Slow development and the release of other valuable features that would benefit everyone. Eventually see these excess costs in plan price hikes.
(b) Drop UA, reduce those costs and friction points, and have clients use solid far more capable 3rd party platforms instead. Focus on integration through apps and APIs so that the can become more directly integrated into the platform.
Between those I have to vote for B.
agree. Even if it was a small feature with a lot of limitations it was doing the job in many cases. They could just keep it as it is and everything will be fine.
There's a reason User Accounts is being removed in 2026. The use cases it can support are extremely limited. Basically you can gate static pages or entire collections by user group, and if you purchase ECom, you can bill users for that. Outside of a "paid blog" kind of setup, it's too limited for 98% of the use cases Webflow customers were asking for-
Ability for a customer to see their ECom order history, and re-order
Ability to personalize the site with the user's name and photo
Ability to link individual CMS items to an individual user, so that they "own" them ( Auction listing, Classified sites )
Ability to store private individual CMS items with an individual user so that only they can access it ( AI systems that generate content )
Ability to client-side JS to store info with a user
Most of those features can not be reasonably added without massive investment, support, and ongoing dev teams which would require it to become a paid service.
In the end it didn't make sense, far too limited, expensive to support, too limiting to the rest of the infrastructure since gating has to be supported everywhere... it becomes a mess. I agree it's not an ideal situation, but even though I've invested a ton in User Accounts, I feel it's the right choice.
A recommend Memberstack 100%, and they're making the migration as easy as possible, with far more capabilities that User Accounts was able to provide. So worth it.
Really disappointing to see useful features removed. It was a shame when client billing was removed. I was looking forward to utilising user accounts for an upcoming build, but I would be begrudged to rely on third party solutions, when Webflow is clearly capable of it.
People don't want to have to resort to a bunch of overpriced 3rd party apps, especially since the features they offer were already IN Webflow to begin with. Like.. Who greenlights these sorts of ideas?
Was planning on moving my website over to Webflow, but idk, them sunsetting the most basic of features literally all other website builders provide has me already looking for alternatives.
Not sure what the long term vision is behind these choices, but i feel like they're only shooting themselves in the foot lol.
Please dont remove it ... enhance it or buy companies like memberstack .. Having a page but using thousands of other applications for basic needs, will turn Webflow slowly into Wordpress. Please Webflow you so much better than that!