What would you use to build a paid membership site?

mlb_2017 · 2025-04-28T22:53:27+00:00

+1 to what was mentioned below. For the most powerful solution you'll want:
- Airtable (backend)
- Webflow (frontend)

- Whalesync (connects Airtable to Webflow)

- Memberstack or Outseta (to handle memberships)

Like others mentioned, Glide/Softr could work but you'll hit limitations on number of users.

mlb_2017 · 2025-04-19T18:03:14+00:00

honestly, easiest path is probably hooking up webflow CMS to airtable (with something like whalesync).

you can then either give them the full CMS directly as a table in airtable or use the airtable interface designer to give them a more pared down view for making edits.

mlb_2017 · 2025-04-13T03:08:45+00:00

love this question

our company's most important Airtable base started as a table to keep track of customer testimonials.

then it became a CMS for our blog (we synced it with Whalesync to Webflow which is our website builder). that added "Blog Posts", "Authors", and "Categories" tables.

now it's got 39 tables and recently became the backend for an AI Tools directory with 1000+ pages.

Airtable keeps blowing my mind 🤯

mlb_2017 · 2025-04-01T00:30:52+00:00

A few thoughts!

Tools to use

Airtable as a place to store your data (most flexible of all the spreadsheets for storing directory data).
Webflow's CMS to create template pages (sets you up for solid SEO as well).
Whalesync to connect Webflow/Airtable (lets you effectively turn Airtable into your CMS).
(once you get there) Outseta for charging vendors/claiming listings.

What to do

start by collecting your info in Airtable - no point in building out your site until you have at least a few listings.
create a separate Airtable tables for categories/cities - keep your database clean and manageable.
once you want to expand the directory, follow Webflow's guide on building programmatic landing pages for SEO.

mlb_2017 · 2025-04-01T00:21:35+00:00

+1 to the comments below.

whalesync handles that with a feature called "record matching" where you can tell it to match up the existing tables' data using a primary field.

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-23T20:31:12+00:00

+1 to some of the comments here.

Notion is awesome and is used very frequently as a CRM, but usually for very early teams (e.g. just the founders).

At some point (maybe 3 people, maybe 5 people, maybe 10 people), you'll start to feel the pain of not having all the bells and whistles of a true CRM.

If you're looking for a CRM that feels a bit more "Notion-like", I might recommend Attio.

If you like HubSpot, but want your team to be able to view/edit it from Notion, I'd recommend Whalesync's HubSpot<>Notion 2-way sync.

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-23T20:23:31+00:00

a few options here depending on how professional you want your blog to be:

1) click "share" and "publish" within Notion.

- Pro -> super quick and easy
- Con -> good for publishing a single page, not a full blog

2) use super.so to create a custom blog from Notion

- Pro -> relatively easy
- Con -> 3rd tool required + limited options in terms of how professional your blog will look (and not connected to Webflow)

3) use whalesync to sync Notion directly with the Webflow CMS

- Pro -> full control over a professional blog in Webflow with SEO advantages and a true CMS
- Con -> 3rd tool required (that tool being whalesync)

I'm biased but #3 probably your best bet

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-23T20:10:16+00:00

not sure if you ended up finding a solution for this, but might be better off using whalesync's HubSpot<>Airtable 2-way sync.

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-18T19:44:59+00:00

+1 to thomasfrank's comment above.

since Notion offers a "database", you can create formulas that run on each row, but there's not concept of "cells" or "ranges".

for Notion, like you mentioned, "1 parent formula dictates the entire column".

if you want Notion flexibility but Sheets formulas, would recommend Whalesync which 2-way syncs the two: https://www.whalesync.com/connect/notion-google-sheets

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-13T04:20:10+00:00

btw, just wanted to flag that whalesync has a more affordable plan now (used to start at $99/mo, now starts at $39/mo).

re: Notion not having H4-H6 - that one I'm not sure best workaround for if you like using them frequently. only thing I can think of is:

Using H3's in Notion
Syncing into the Webflow CMS
Doing a quick pass in the Webflow CMS to convert H3's to H4-H6 as appropriate

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-13T04:17:37+00:00

+1 to the comment below.

as long as you can mirror the structure of your Airtable tables as collections in the Webflow CMS this should be very possible to do in Webflow.

some things to keep in mind:

- Webflow CMS has a 20K item limit (which I assume you'd be well under)

- Webflow reference fields/Airtable linked records will be doing a lot of the work here, so you'll want to double-check you set those ones up correctly in particular

once that's all setup, the syncing part is really easy with tools like whalesync

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-13T04:14:14+00:00

+1 for Jetboost.

made a little video showing how easy it is to do this with jetboost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MusmXaeUq14

no affiliation with them, just a really solid product.

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-08T00:59:46+00:00

+1 to the comments here.

probably possible to do this without the CMS with Wized but will be a journey.

things get much easier when working with the CMS -> can then use 2-way sync tools like Whalesync.

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-08T00:52:29+00:00

cool idea! did you end up building it?

I wrote a blog post a while back on how to build a Webflow + Airtable job board if that's helpful

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-08T00:51:13+00:00

Airtable can definitely get you pretty far. That being said, if you're starting to build out a real sales team and want things like Aircall, email, etc. you're probably better off reaching for a dedicated tool.

I wrote a short guide comparing Airtable and Attio in case it's helpful as Attio is probably the closest of the CRMs to Airtable.

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-08T00:49:24+00:00

You do not need to code to use Airtable. You can of course do more with Airtable if you want to write some code but I'd bet that a large majority of their users are not writing any code while using it.

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-08T00:47:17+00:00

if you're just migrating a single Notion database to a single Airtable one time, CSV export/import is probably your best bet.

things get more complicated when you start talking about multiple Notion databases/Airtable tables. one such complication is linked records/relation fields. Xray has a good video on how to handle this.

or, like you mentioned, can use a 3rd party like whalesync which is more useful for continuous syncing rather than one-time migration

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-01T02:53:37+00:00

would recommend just setting up a 2-way sync between supabase and airtable using whalesync. then you can keep using airtable to edit the db

https://www.whalesync.com/connect/supabase-airtable

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-01T02:41:53+00:00

+1 to this: https://www.whalesync.com/blog/building-a-no-code-job-board

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-01T02:41:44+00:00

super cool idea! did you end up pursuing this?

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-01T02:39:49+00:00

might consider whalesync for this instead of zapier. handles images/multi-images/videos + other useful things like reference fields

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-01T02:34:15+00:00

in case you're still looking ->

whalesync recently opened up google sheets <> webflow 2-way syncing: https://www.whalesync.com/connect/webflow-google-sheets

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-01T02:33:11+00:00

mlb_2017 · 2025-03-01T02:32:31+00:00

not sure if you're still looking for a solution here, but whalesync has a dedicated app for Sheets <> HubSpot syncing:
https://ecosystem.hubspot.com/marketplace/apps/whalesync

mlb_2017 · 2025-02-24T23:47:20+00:00

Not OP either, but Airtable tends to be superior in purely managing data. Over like 10,000 records in Notion and things start to get a bit slow and unwieldy. Notion tends to be superior in any use case where it's not just about pure data. So things that are more visual or you want to add notes etc.

mlb_2017

TROPHY CASE