Webflow CMS limits the number of items, collections, and fields you can use depending on your plan: 2,000 items on the CMS plan, up to 20,000 on Business, and custom limits on Enterprise. If you've hit — or are approaching — one of these limits, here's everything you need to know and the best ways to work around them.
Webflow CMS Limits by Plan
| Plan | CMS Items | Collections |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | 0 | 0 |
| CMS | 2,000 | 20 |
| Business | up to 20,000 | 40 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom |
SEO-friendly Solutions
If your content needs to be public and easily indexed by search engines, but you have reached or are close to the 20,000-item limit in Webflow CMS, you have two main options:
1. Webflow CMS Automation (or Enterprise Plan)
The simplest workaround that keeps you inside Webflow is to continue using Webflow CMS and create an automation to remove items from the CMS that are no longer needed and store them in an external database (for example, if an item doesn't need to be public after X days). Alternatively, you can upgrade to the Webflow Enterprise plan (which can cost from $15k to $60k per year). This limitation exists because SEO-friendly content must be generated on the backend, and within Webflow, this is only possible using their built-in CMS.
2. Reverse Proxy
A reverse proxy allows you to host your content on an external platform—such as a Next.js application—while making it appear seamlessly under your main Webflow domain. For instance, you could serve yoursite.com/blog from a completely separate server without your visitors ever noticing the transition.
Since the content lives outside of Webflow's infrastructure, this effectively removes the CMS item limit while keeping everything fully SEO-friendly.
The Content Editing Experience One of the main concerns when moving away from Webflow CMS is losing its intuitive editor. Fortunately, by using an external framework, you can easily connect a Headless CMS (like Payload, Sanity, or Contentful). This allows your content team to continue managing articles through a dedicated, user-friendly interface that is just as good—if not better—than Webflow's, while the frontend remains fully integrated under your Webflow domain.
There are two main ways to set this up:
The Classic Reverse Proxy
Historically, setting up a reverse proxy was a technically complex process — requiring external server configuration, DNS management, and ongoing maintenance.
The main trade-off: being hosted outside of Webflow meant losing access to the Webflow Designer. Your external platform wouldn't share Webflow's built-in UI components and templates, so you needed to rebuild your frontend separately.
Native Reverse Proxy (Webflow Cloud)
To solve these issues, Webflow introduced a native reverse proxy solution through Webflow Cloud. This allows you to host apps built with traditional code (like Next.js) directly inside Webflow's hosting infrastructure.
With this approach, you simply specify which route your custom app should be served from (for example, /blog), and Webflow handles the proxying natively.
Even better, it solves the UI trade-off. By using Webflow DevLink, you can visually design components inside Webflow (like your Navbar and Footer) and import them directly into your Next.js project as React components. This gives you the best of both worlds: infinite scalability for your CMS content through code, while keeping your visual components perfectly in sync with the Webflow Designer.
Non SEO-friendly Solutions
The WWX Stack
If it's not necessary for your content to be indexed — for example, everything inside a restricted or members-only area — there are other solutions that don't require upgrading to the Enterprise plan, saving a significant amount of money.
The best solution, in my opinion, is to use the WWX stack because it is scalable and robust. However, unlike the first solution, it is more advanced and may be more complex for those unfamiliar with web development. Let's first look at the individual tools and then see how they work together to solve the 20k limit problem.
WWX stands for Webflow, Wized, and Xano.
What is Wized?
Wized is similar to Webflow but for creating front-end logic. It allows you to create requests, conditions, and many other features to add dynamism to your Webflow project. It should not be confused with Zapier, which works on the backend. Wized generates JavaScript and operates in the browser.
What is Xano?
Xano is, in my opinion, the best no-code tool for building a backend. It includes backend logic similar to Zapier and a database. Xano was built with scalability and security in mind.
How it works
You use Webflow to create the site and its various components. You then convert these components into Wized elements to use them within Wized. On Wized, you can retrieve data from Xano or other databases or platforms and insert that data into Webflow. This way, you can eliminate Webflow CMS and consequently the 20k item limit!
Unlike Webflow CMS, which generates content on the backend so Google finds it fully rendered, with Wized the content is generated on the client side. This means that Google won't find the content immediately available because the Wized JavaScript script that retrieves the data needs to run first1. This is why it's excellent for creating web apps or dynamic websites. If you need to generate SEO-friendly content, it's better to use Webflow CMS or a Reverse Proxy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Webflow CMS item limit?
The Webflow CMS item limit depends on your plan: 2,000 items on the CMS plan, up to 20,000 on Business, and custom limits on Enterprise. The Basic plan doesn't include CMS access.
What are the Webflow CMS collection and field limits?
On the CMS plan you get 20 collections, on Business 40. Each collection supports up to 60 fields regardless of plan.
Can I increase the Webflow CMS item limit without upgrading to Enterprise?
Yes. If your content doesn't need to be SEO-indexed, you can bypass the limit entirely using an external database like Xano combined with Wized to fetch and display data client-side. If SEO is required, you can either automate the removal of old items to stay under the limit, or use a Native Reverse Proxy (Webflow Cloud) with a Headless CMS to serve unlimited pages under your existing Webflow domain.
What happens when I hit the Webflow CMS limit?
Webflow will prevent you from adding new items to any collection until you either delete existing items, upgrade your plan, or move content to an external database.
Is Webflow CMS good for large-scale content?
For up to 20,000 SEO-indexed items it works well. Beyond that, you'll need the Enterprise plan, or an alternative scalable architecture like a Webflow Cloud native reverse proxy combined with a Headless CMS (like Payload or Sanity) and a framework like Next.js.
To Recap
If your goal is to generate SEO-friendly content and you are under the 20k item limit, the best option is to stick with Webflow CMS. If SEO is not a priority, you can use Wized and Xano to generate content client-side. If you've outgrown Webflow's CMS limits but want to keep SEO and design consistency, using a native reverse proxy via Webflow Cloud combined with DevLink and a Headless CMS is the ultimate solution for infinite scalability without losing the Webflow design experience.
Footnotes
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To be exact, since 2014, Google has claimed to be quite skilled in rendering JavaScript websites but has always advised caution on this topic because rendering isn't always guaranteed. If the JavaScript code is incorrect or generates errors, Google may not be able to render the page correctly. Therefore, if you want to ensure that crawlers can read your content reliably, the best and safest option is still server-side rendering. This way, the content is generated on the server and delivered fully formed to the crawlers, without requiring them to interpret any JavaScript. ↩