notion sites

TLDR; Currently, notion sites lack most of the features that other website builders have but it is just a starting point. We hope the team at Notion brings more advanced features in the future. So if you have a blog with lots of visitors or want to create product documentation then I feel it is one of the best solutions.

Notion Sites are a revolutionary way to create and share your content online. These sites are built using the powerful and flexible Notion platform, allowing you to pull together all kinds of content in a cohesive, accessible way. Whether you’re creating a portfolio, startup website, product marketing page, company wiki, or personal blog, Notion Sites allows you to shape your online presence exactly the way you want.

Is it easy to use Notion Sites to create your website?

To be honest, it is really simple to start with.

  1. Create a page on notion.
  2. add content or you can use anyone of the 10k+ templates already available on notion.
  3. Click on Share button on top right corner and click Publish.
  4. Select from the already added domains list or add a new domain. [you will need to pay $10 / month / domain]
  5. Follow the instructions on the screen to update your domain’s DNS.
  6. Verify your DNS setup by clicking verify.

Things to keep in mind. When you publish your page you get a notion.site sub-site link. To use Your Own Domain, you need to have a paid account.

    Caveats —

    1. Notion Sites custom domain plan and site customizer is available for premium users only.
    2. Site customizer, set up public domain or add your custom domain feature don’t work on the desktop app at the moment. You need to go to notion.so , login and use the customizer and set the custom domain using the browser app.
    3. Currently, Notion is charging $10 per month per domain. So basically it is currently on the slightly expensive sites for the non-power users. The good thing is that there is no metered billing like other apps. Your site can have millions of views, still you need to pay just $10 / month / domain.
    4. Minimum cost to host your first website on Notion is $20 monthly. [ Paid plan + Charges per Custom Domain]

    Things that Notion sites don’t have

    but would be awesome if it would —

    1. CSS customization option — A confession, many times I used notion as a website builder. Download the pages as HTML, add a CSS stylesheet, and host them for free on GitHub or Render. It is the fastest and cheapest way to create and host a simple website. But now as notion has site features it would be awesome to have a CSS customization option to make it look stunning.
    2. Custom Blocks — While making this website I tried to add a Convertkit subscription form. I used the notion’s embedded block but it just flickering too much. So removed it. It would be awesome to have a custom blocks option. It will really help notion sites to be more interactive and engaging.
    3. Add scripts — third-party scripts give a website the power to do a lot of things. For example, add a chat widget, subscription form, analytics tool etc. For analytics, you can use Google Analytics tag in notion sites but if you like to use other alternatives like plausible or fathom then there are no options at the moment.
    4. Plugins — to take your website to the next level, you need to have feature-rich advanced plugins to add features like add a survey, SEO, chatbot, eCommerce store etc.
    5. Pause Live Publish — the ability to pause auto-publish changes on the live site while editing the page.

    these are the things that I noticed while writing this page, if you have more then drop me a message I’ll add them here.

    Notion Sites Alternatives and where it stands —

    Notion

    No customizer at the moment. Only a simple header customizer.

    $10 / month/domain but no metered billing. You can have millions of viewers but still need to pay only $10 monthly per domain.

    WordPress

    Has many robust customizers and custom themes, plugins, and blocks

    Hosting charges depend on the usable and bandwidth

    Webflow

    Has in-built advanced website customizer and third-party themes

    Hosting charges depend per domain, number of pages, CMS collection size, and has a metered billing where bandwidth and visitor counts are restricted.

    3rd-party Notion Apps

    Use notion as CMS and add customization and stylesheet over it.

    Similar pricing like Webflow and Framer.

    Primary Thoughts:

    It seems like the Notion Team is looking at Notion sites feature as a way for teams to collaborate on a white-label workspace or a content-sharing platform.

    But micropreneurs like me see Notion sites as a minimal website builder and CMS to create startup websites, marketing pages, blogs, documentation, and everything in between.

    It was Notion’s easy-to-use editor that helped many entrepreneurs build tools like blog builder, website builder, etc on top of Notion’s CMS and earn $100k+ in the process because many people were looking exactly for this.

    Some quick FAQs —

    How to add a domain to notion sites?

    Click on share on the right top corner of your screen, click on publish, and add your domain. But before that, you need to —

    • Login to notion.so website. At the moment site customization and add domain features are not working on the desktop app.
    • upgrade to notion paid account.
    • Pay $10 / month / domain

    Can I add a domain to my free notion site?

    Currently, Notion is not providing custom domain and site customization features in the free plan. You need to have a paid account to use these features.

    Why are domain and site customizer features not visible on my notion setup?

    You need to use Notion’s website for that. Login to notion.so and use these features if you have a paid account.