The new wave of startups offering free, simple website-building tools seems to be perfect for folks who want to build a personal site for fun -- after all, their main selling point is ease-of-use, rather than an extensive list of features. But small, non-techie businesses are using these tools too, and now, Jimdo is launching a version aimed specifically at that audience.
The Hamburg, Germany-based company already offers a pro account for $5 per month; the small business version expands on the pro features and costs twice as much. The features include two website domains instead of just one, 50 gigabytes of storage instead of five, and five email accounts instead of one. I'm not sure if these features will convince a ton of businesses that they have to switch to Jimdo, but the company says many of its existing business customers are struggling with the limits of the pro account, so there's a big opportunity to sell them a more expensive account.
The combination of a free website builder with premium features (that some users pay for) is becoming an established business model for Jimdo, as well as competitors such as Weebly and Yola. Jimdo is taking that model further by creating more layers than just free and pro accounts. On the other hand, it looks like Jimdo's business account is missing one money-making feature -- while it integrates with e-commerce tools like PayPal, but it doesn't have specific tools to create online stores.
Jimdo has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding. It also says it crossed the 1 million user mark last month, giving it a significant user base, though smaller than Weebly's and Yola's.