Carrd Review: No-Code One-Page Website Builder

At Bubble, we want to enable you to create all your ideas without code, so we’re exploring and reviewing the many tools and software that freelancers, startups, and entrepreneurs might use to build websites. The goal of these reviews is to provide an honest, practical, differentiated comparison of features and help you learn about tools in the no-code ecosystem so that you can evaluate how these services fit together and serve your needs.

What is Carrd?

A no-code website building tool, Carrd is a simple website builder that allows you to create one-page websites. Its fully responsive one-page sites can be used for personal sites, landing pages, submission forms or one-page portfolios.

If you’re interested in using Carrd for building a simple e-commerce online store, the no-code platform allows for integration with Stripe, Paypal, and other widgets.

There’s also a big emphasis on starting with templates, and the Carrd website builder offers a robust template gallery, with over 100 options to choose from.

The easy-to-use user interface provides helpful instructions for new users so that you can begin building right away. It includes built-in references that offer additional guidance as you’re designing your Carrd website. Besides basic features such as text, images, buttons, and links, Carrd websites can support more advanced elements, including forms, audio, video, and galleries.

In short: Carrd is a useful tool for beginners with no coding knowledge who want to create single-page sites. With Carrd templates, you can easily begin creating a single page website in the Carrd editor. And if you get stuck, Carrd has step-by-step instructions to help walk you through all the features.

Who is Carrd for?

Carrd is best for small businesses, freelancers, startups, entrepreneurs, and others who require extremely simple websites.

For example, people who want to build simple, templated, single-page websites that allow for integration with Stripe and PayPal — or those who need a beautiful landing page for their business or personal portfolio — could benefit from using Carrd.

Carrd pricing

(Pricing model evaluation in USD: September 2023)

Carrd users can choose from 4 payment plans: Basic, Pro Lite, Pro Standard, and Pro Plus. They also offer a free 7-day Pro trial. All the pricing plans include access to Carrd’s core features, as well as free hosting for your website. 

Basic: The Basic plan is free and allows you to build up to three websites. With this option, you receive Carrd branding, standard images, “.carrd.co” URLS, and a 100-element limit per site.  An element refers to any item you place on your site, such as text boxes, buttons, images, section dividers, containers and so on.

Pro Lite: At $9 per year, Pro Lite is a cost-effective option that also includes up to three websites, but this plan comes with quite a few additional benefits. Pro Lite users gain access to premium URLs, no element limit, Pro templates, the option to remove Carrd branding, high quality images and backgrounds (images/GIFs up to 16MB and videos up to 32MB), and other premium features.

Pro Standard: The Pro Standard option costs $19 per year and comes with same benefits as the Pro Lite plan, as well as the ability to use a custom domain with full SSL support, contact forms like Mailchimp and Revue, Widgets + Embeds with third-party services like Stripe and PayPal, custom site icons, meta tags, and the ability to add Google Analytics tracking ID to each of your sites. In addition, users can create up to 10 sites. 

Pro Plus: The Pro Plus plan is $49 per year and includes up to 25 sites, advanced forms, password protection, redirections to other websites, and other advanced features. Pro Plus subscribers receive the same benefits that are offered by the Pro plan as well. 

Carrd vs. Bubble: A comparison

How does Carrd compare to Bubble?

Similarities between Carrd and Bubble:

• Both Carrd and Bubble allow you to build your project using drag-and-drop tools.
• Both provide property editors for modifying images.
• Both Carrd and Bubble have documentation that explains how to use important features.
• Both no-code platforms enable you to use templates to build your ideas.
• Both platforms currently offer a free plan.
• Both platforms offer SEO functionality, such as the ability to add a Google Analytics ID to your site and optimize your site for search engines.
• Both no-code tools integrate with payment tools so that you can create an e-commerce site.

The key differences between Carrd and Bubble:

Page limit: With Carrd, you're limited to one-page websites, which is ideal for building a personal profile or a landing page to capture emails. But if the one-page concept behind Carrd isn't enough for your site, other website builders might better suit your needs. For example, building a website on Bubble allows for a multi-page website. Each Bubble app comes with a built-in “index” homepage and user management system.

Front-end workflows: Similar to other no-code tools like Webflow, Carrd’s front-end is not completely freeform, as you can only drag-and-drop elements to specific places. This limited malleability helps ensure that your page layout is beautiful and that your style remains consistent across the board. If you want more customizable templates, Bubble allows for full freedom and pixel-perfect placement of any element, but it requires designers to carefully and consistently enforce element placement.

Back-end capabilities: Bubble allows for both front and back-end events and element triggers. The no-code platform comes with full database functionality beyond CMS, allowing Bubble to handle bulky websites easily, while Carrd can’t. Things like handling internal workflows and creating conditional events are possible on Bubble, but impossible to achieve in Carrd.

Templates: Carrd offers both custom templates as well as basic templates to use in the Carrd website builder. Keep in mind that some templates are only available for Pro users. Carrd has templates for profiles, basic landing pages, portfolios, business sites, and sectional templates that simulate a multi page site. Bubble also offers a comprehensive library of templates, but with far more use cases. With Bubble, you can create CRMs, project management tools, social networks, online stores and marketplaces, blogs, portfolios, and more. 

Carrd review: The bottom line

Carrd offers a simple and beautiful website builder and provides a good value for money, with Pro plans starting at just $9 annually. This makes it a great choice for individuals, freelancers, and startups who need a simple, one-page website and a no-code tool to create landing pages. 

For individuals or companies who need multiple pages for their sites and more advanced settings or functionality, other tools like Bubble may be better.

Carrd alternatives

Alternative no-code tools that allow you to build a website without code include:If you’re looking for a platform that has support for native or mobile apps, take a look at no-code tools like Adalo, Glide, or Thunkable.

If you only need basic landing pages and simple CMS but require more than one page for your website, consider other website builders like Squarespace, Wix, or Weebly as alternatives to Carrd.

If you’re looking for a no-code tool to streamline your team’s internal communications, and you want something that is more powerful than a traditional spreadsheet, check out Coda.

If you are planning to launch a blog or an e-commerce site and you want an open-source CMS platform with robust plugins, try WordPress.

If you’re looking for a no-code platform with an enterprise focus, Unqork, Retool, and Betty Blocks are good options.

And if your project extends beyond a CMS (like building an upvoting system on a social network) into web app territory, which requires full backend database functionality built-in, Bubble is the best alternative to Carrd.