Let us take a look at the Now discontinued bookmark.com website builder and hosting service. I learnt about this page builder + web host through appsumo. The specifications they offered did not impress me much initially. But upon closer look, there was one feature about bookmark made me sign up: the AI backed website builder (AIDA).
Update June 2023: By mid-2023, bookmark service will cease to operate. This post is retained for posterity.
Signing up and pricing plans
Bookmark also follows the freemium model. Like other services, in order to use a custom domain, one has to sign up for the paid plans, which start at 12 US dollars a month on an annual subscription. This tier puts you in the ‘unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage’ category- something I am skeptical about. I had purchased the 2 website plan from appsumo, the one time fee made the pricing attractive.
Creating a website
Initially I found AIDA to be gimmicky! But creating a website is fast and super easy with AIDA. In the included video, you can see how I have created a sample website in a very short time.
Customizing the fields
Once the website is created, you can change the fields to your liking: fonts, colours, images and more. This can be done manually or using AIDA, again. It is difficult to change the type of website- for example, from a blog to a photo gallery. Also, the layout cannot be changed easily once it has been chosen. You might be better off re-creating the website. You can save as many sites as you like, until you publish them. The upper limit to the number of published sites is the number of sites included in your plan.
Sample website created using Bookmark
Websites in Draft Folder
I liked the option of a drafts folder- where you can save layouts before choosing one for the actual site. This is useful if you are creating website for a client or stakeholders, and you would need approval for doing the same. You can store multiple draft websites, and delete the ones you no longer need.
Images and videos
Bookmark offers integration with stock image websites, and you can replace the images that come with the stock website. You can also upload your own images, or save them from google drive onto your bookmark.com folder. The site claims there is no upper limit on the number of images or their size. I have not stress-tested the system, so I cannot comment on the actual limits if any.
e-Learning Courses
Bookmark offers some e-learning courses as a part of their paid packages, or you can subscribe to them independently.
Concluding remarks
Bookmark is largely catered towards web designers and agencies who want to use the white label service for their clients. But the ease of creating a website using AIDA may make it an attractive option for the non-technically-inclined user. Pricing wise, it becomes quite expensive for the causal user beyond the $12 a month plan.
Additional notes:
a. Facebook group – for an year (most of 2019) they were under active development. The options are great, if you want a site created in a few minute; similar to carrd.co – you can use Bookmark. They also have a web store (E commerce) option in addition to blog option. I have not tired that so cannot comment on its usefulness.
b. Fonts are rather quirky. That is, they do not use the standard ones. Every time I have had to change the fonts. If there was a way to set the default fonts, it would be great.
This needs further exploration.
Resources:
- You can read other posts on the topic of web hosting on this blog by clicking here.
- Bookmark’s YouTube Channel with tororials https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpveN7TnqBLdosVK30yKlFw
- Reviews:
Capterra – https://www.capterra.com/
This post was updated and archived on 13 June 2023.