Framer vs Figma: A Site Builder or Figma Sites in Beta

The short answer: if your designers already hold Figma Professional Full seats, $16 a month each on annual billing, Figma Sites can publish a small marketing site with no new subscription; it is still an open beta, though, editing and publishing a site file needs a Full seat, and the code cannot be exported (Figma pricing, beta notes, publishing article, checked on 26 October 2026). Framer is the stronger home once marketers publish every week: Pro, $30 a month billed yearly, adds staging and branches, holds 2,500 CMS items and seats content editors at $10 each (Framer pricing). Choose Figma if your job is a small site the design team designs and ships. Choose Framer if your job is a marketing site a mixed team runs.

Disclosure: I may earn a commission through some links on this site. It does not change what this page says.

Framer is a website builder on a design canvas, with hosting, CMS, analytics, SEO and AEO in the same product (homepage). Figma is a design platform that now publishes too: Figma Sites turns Design frames into responsive pages, reuses your libraries, and adds a CMS whose layout stays locked while collaborators change text and images (Figma Sites). It comes only inside the Full seat, since Figma does not sell products one by one (Figma pricing). The question is not which tool designs better. It is who changes the site on a Tuesday afternoon.

Before anyone builds:

1. Price the people, not the product. For example, three marketers who must edit a Figma Site need three more Full seats, 3 x $16 = $48 a month on annual billing, if the designers are already paid for. On Framer Pro billed yearly, the same three as content editors cost $30 + 3 x $10 = $60 a month, with the workspace owner free (Figma pricing, Framer pricing).
2. Start from the design system you have. Sites reuses your libraries, styles and components as they are (Figma Sites). Framer's official plugin brings Figma layers across as editable elements, whose fonts, images and breakpoints you then check (Framer Academy).
3. Count the content. Posts, case studies, job listings. Framer's limits are published: 1,000 CMS items on Basic, 2,500 on Pro, up to 40,000 with add-ons (Framer pricing). The Figma pages read for this comparison state no item limit, so ask before migrating a blog.
4. Count the waiting. Every Friday for a month, note how many site changes sit in a designer's queue. Whichever tool you pick should shrink that number.

Eight points, side by side

Read on 26 October 2026: Framer pricing, Framer MCP, Figma pricing, Figma pricing FAQ, Figma's beta notes, publishing article and MCP guide.

What separates them

A beta has open terms. Figma's pricing FAQ still calls Sites' custom domains, bandwidth and storage free of charge through 2025, with limits subject to change after 2025, and stated no 2026 terms on 26 October 2026 (pricing FAQ, domain article). Every page on the canvas also goes live with the site, so Figma suggests moving unfinished pages to another file. Framer Pro holds changes on staging or a branch until someone deploys.

Seats decide who can touch it. A marketer who edits a Figma Site occupies the same Full seat as a product designer, Design, Make and Motion attached. Framer prices the roles apart: a content editor for the CMS, localisation and on-page text is $10 a month, and viewers are free (Framer pricing). With two designers and five editors, that row outweighs the rest.

What the seats and plans cost

Checked on 26 October 2026 on the Framer and Figma pricing pages, in USD. Framer charges per site plus people; Figma per person, with Sites riding along.

A Figma frame becomes a Framer page, by agent

This is the handover teams using both tools make. Figma's MCP server gives an agent the design context of a frame, its variables, components and layout; Framer's MCP server lets the same agent build in a Framer project, where changes stay in the project or a branch until someone publishes.

1. Connect both remote servers to one client, such as Claude: mcp.figma.com/mcp and mcp.framer.com/mcp.
2. Give the agent the link to the approved frame and ask it to read the design context, then list the Framer components and styles it intends to reuse. No building yet.
3. Ask it to build the page on a branch of the Framer project, from those components; branches come with Pro.
4. The human check: the designer compares branch and frame at desktop, tablet and phone width, and the content owner reads every line against the brief. A person merges and publishes.

Without an agent, Framer's official Figma plugin does the copying (Framer Academy).

Try it on what you already pay for

If your designers have Full seats, publishing one landing page with Figma Sites costs nothing extra; Framer's free plan builds the same page on a Framer domain (Figma beta notes, Framer pricing). Then give the person who will update the site next month one change to make in each; on Figma, that already means a Full seat.

Check one billing rule before adding that marketer to Figma. Its pricing FAQ says a paid seat added during an annual Professional term becomes a separate monthly subscription at the monthly price, and stays monthly until someone moves it to the annual plan, so the editor you add in March costs $20 a month rather than $16 until an admin acts (pricing FAQ). Put a date in the calendar to move the seat.

Choose Framer if your job is

• A marketing site that content editors update weekly without design seats.
• Reviewing changes on a staging environment or branch before visitors see them.
• A CMS with published limits, up to 40,000 items on Pro with add-ons (Framer pricing).

Choose Figma if your job is

• A small site or campaign page designed and shipped by designers already on Full seats.
• Keeping site, design system and prototypes in one file and one bill.
• A page you could rebuild without pain if the beta's terms change.

Background: the Framer entry, how to use Framer, and Framer vs Webflow for the content-heavy alternative. Figma has no entry on this site.

When the real dispute behind this comparison is whether design or marketing owns the website, a seat model will not settle it. Deciding who owns which page, and handing it over in writing, is the kind of team question I take on as an interim CMO, a role I sell.

FAQ

Is Figma Sites free?

Not on its own. Sites is available on the Full seat of paid plans, publishing to a live domain needs a paid plan, and Figma says a limited Starter version is coming (pricing FAQ, beta notes).

Can a marketer with a Collab seat edit a Figma Site?

No. Figma's beta notes say a Full seat is required to edit and publish site files; Dev, Collab and View seats can only view them (beta notes).

Does Framer replace Figma for designers?

For website work it can: pages are designed on Framer's canvas, and its FAQ suggests the free plan for use as a design tool (Framer pricing). Designing apps is a different job, and this page does not weigh it.