What users complain about in Universe Website Builder

Paid for a lifetime membership the app is now shutting down

Do not give ANY MONEY SCAM

videos don’t work

your auto play feature is broken af

AWFUL. Completely Lost the Plot

There’s just so much that went wrong, it’s hard to know where to begin. I was an original supporter of this service back in ~2020. I purchased 3 legacy plans with them that promised lifetime DNS and web hosting, zero fees on transactions, unlimited pages, etc. around 2023 they changed that without notice, putting me on the “pro” plan which has transaction fees and a 100 page limit. When I asked about them holding up their end of the bargain I got no real validation that they had done away with the promises. Instead I got, “after studying usage, we find 100 page limit is plenty. If you want zero transaction fees you can upgrade to our top tier plan.” Really gross. The service itself is also buggy. DNS servers are unstable and sometimes throw visitors the “unsafe website” screen. Customer support used to exist, now the button for it links to a 404 page, lol. The actual webpages are not good - the builder feels halfway broken most of the time and it’s a lot of effort to get stack elements to hold their shape with the intent ended design. Oh the other thing, I have tried with a couple sites to restart them, and when I did, I didn’t realize I was deleting my legacy privileges so now I only have one legacy account remaining. AWFUL service.

Free Version Ridiculous

Won’t let you utilize your own domain that you purchased elsewhere than through them. Gross.

Ridiculous

Something is simple as creating a page and saving it should not force any user to go to the health articles or try to find any tech-support whatsoever for this ridiculous product. All I want to do is add one page! I save it it says it's successful I go to look at it online there it is. I go into the app to edit it it's nowhere to be found! I've restarted the computer unloaded reloaded the app nothing! Now I can't even edit the page because I don't know how to get to it because it's not listed anywhere in Universe. I pay a lot of money for my website and now I don't have any support whatsoever. So guess what I'm going somewhere else this is ridiculous! Locking out the very customers that pay you and you don't even give them tech-support!? Total ridiculousness!

App Issues

I’m not receiving Donations made to my website. It’s been weeks since the donations were sent and I didn’t get them. I even sent one to myself as a test and the commerce is showing no payout history. I tried getting help through the app with consistent fails. Also, I was charged for 2 plans in one day.

Bugs

Paid for menu that won’t work and can’t get refunded, app is difficult to use on phone. Layout is bad on computer

Bad Customer service

I have been waiting for days to get any kind of response from Universe and am loosing a great deal of business because if it . I feel so frustrated there is no way to contact them even at this point to transfer my domain name to a company that is more responsive . I love designing on here but its not worth the neglect .

a lot of wasted time

Slowly developing multiple websites for almost a year only to find out later that they do not allow you to sell items or sell downloads on their sites unless you’re in America. Pointless to upgrade for e-commerce if you’re not a US merchant. Nowhere does it mention this up front when you join the entry level service and they show costs in your own home country currency so no reason to suspect this huge red flag that it’s just got US merchants. Universe is a poor name choice, should change the name to “we only serve United States customers”. Not sure if we can copy over the website to a better platform that allows sales/downloads worldwide… the search begins now. Latest: developer response seems to have missed the point entirely - downgraded to 1 star. This is just ridiculous now. Oh and stay away from WIX if you’re also moving your universe websites elsewhere - shockingly lacking.

Expensive paywall for the bare minimum… not worth it

Don't bother with this app. They believe in expensive subscription tiers and giving you limited abilities and access. Look at other options. This app lost the plot

UPDATE IS THE WORST!!

wow, what a beautiful paywall anytime i click to access help!!! wow, what a beautiful new grid that absolutely destroyed my website! wow! so exciting that padding is gone and i can’t even adjust my site to the new grid because of it!! way to ruin the beautiful thing you had, my god. you developers simply don’t know when to QUIT!! not everything needs to be revamped, im heartbroken that all my work is essentially useless now.

just bad

this app use to be reallllyyyy good! but to customize the websites is terriblely hard now. if you want to add images and the image is not properly cropped it just messes up the layout. it looks weird when building it but looks fine when viewing the page. or the opposite. it is so annoying.

i USED to love this

i used to love and recommend this app for everyone but now you can only have 4 pages without paying. If it was cheaper i'd consider it but come on :(

What just happened to this app

All of a sudden the app has been down for a week. No word on why and no contact information. Everything is just gone. All the hard work. Gone. Terrible customer service and doesn’t respond.

Many problems

No customer service number or text hotline so you can never get your problem fixed immediately, when their is an error for the customer during payment you’ll never know because it doesn’t show anything wrong with your website so you lose money. The system problem is ridiculous and the lack of adequate customer support is even worse.

the app will not even load

the app will not even load for me to login, i cannot access my website 😤

PLEASE, fix this.

The app is telling me to update to the latest, but I already am, I cant’t edit one of my web pages because it says I have to update to the latest, but overall, great app, just please fix this.

the app got really buggy after the web app update

the block size is flexible and it makes it so hard to design and made my previous designs weird. i cant even go back.

Bad services

Lack of important updates, no improvements, no customers support!!! The app is always with bugs!!

Horrible Antiquated App

Downloaded hoping to use AI to quickly develop a web site, purchased a domain through them, only to find out they have discontinued their AI tool Gus that is all over YouTube being advertised as AI to create a site. Emailed them and they wanted to know how I had even heard about Gus, since they discontinued it and seem to no longer have any AI capabilities. They told me they could help me design a site- that defeats the whole purpose! And now my domain is held hostage by them for 60 days! Don’t use this app- it’s horrible!

Newest update is a joke

The app used to be so intuitive but the recent update with the constantly shifting block sizes is so frustrating and useless. Can’t get anything to look right. Had considered upgrading to a paid domain but won’t be after this. (Also, taking away free features and putting them behind a paywall is a cheap trick. Don’t think I haven’t noticed I can’t use custom colours anymore) Feeling like I may bite the bullet and switch to square space if this isn’t resolved

Horrible.

The app usually works pretty great. But when it glitches, it’s impossible to get help. They’ll respond to the first request, but no follow ups. Which means no solutions. Actually, one time, they did follow up. However, every reply was from a new person, they didn’t read the previous emails to get up to date on the issue, and my issue was never solved. Such a huge bummer to spend so much time building a website I love, paying $100 for a year, and now having to find a new platform to build my website on. I’m so throughly disappointed. Save yourself the grief and find another app to build your site on.

No Support. Other wise a simple but good solution

Universe is easy to use and you can build a website on an iPad. But there is no support. I’ve got a bug with loading images? And my domain provider isn’t on Universe’s list of domain provider. Help button doesn’t work so Emailed Universe as they advised and no email back. Have used Webflow in the past but it you need a laptop for webflow. Be cause of the lack of support I’ve bought a laptop. Yes, I’d recommend Universe, but check domain providers first and keep it simple. More than simple then Universe might not be for you. Personally get I’d recommend getting a laptop and thus Universe becomes a bit less appealing.

Worst we site builder ever

Programmers will block any of your code you add on your website without telling you. Because they dont want you to be smart enough to create your code and help your customers with a search bar. In 2023, what website doesnt have a search bar ?

Nice but extremely limited

Shopped around over 30 other solutions, yours although being nice and simple is enterily stuck on iOS, Mac OS. No way to edit the site in a year if I don't own those products. Wont commit to the pricing plans considering 30% going to Apple.

Not accurate description

Developer says subscription is not needed to use the app. This is not true. I downloaded to test out the website building feature but it all sits behind a paywall.

Waste of space and money

Shop function does not work in all countries. So make sure to check before paying for a subscription on functions what don't work. Help and support is minimal to none. Been trying to talk to someone on the website for 2 days now. No response at all.

Hate but love

Once you gey the hang of the app, its easy to use. HOWEVER, currently this app keeps crashing on m me, not saving any of the work I just did. Furthermore, there is no undo button which also makes it hard to use when a mistake is done. Lastly, it doesn’t cater for Australians because to promote your products l, it’s only in USD. Disappointing. UPDATE. I bought pro mode as I was under the impression that after I pay, Australian merchants could start selling. This is not the case. As of using pro mode the app has crashed three times in the time span of one minute. I’m not very happy and would like a refund

Connection issues

Had to delete and redownload twice due to the app freezing on the home screen with no pop up message

Its okay?

I love this app alothough i have a problem, when i fo to copy the libk of my site it kicks me off and then deletes it? Ive tried updating the apo but it still wont work This app is amazing apet feom that problem if tjis can be fixed it would be a 5 star :(

No support for e-commerce in Australia

I just wasted $200 on a product which I can not use as there is no support in Australia for e-commerce store. Could’ve told me this before I wasted that money.

Wanted to try it

Crashes after it opens.

Disappointed

I used this app because I got married and people send me money for may honeymoon.. they took a % and now they are asking a lot of questions, I didn’t get my money yet .. I did Venmo too and I didn’t have any problem !! Hoping get my money 😒

Digital handcuffs -- Awful to use

Universe is frankly AWFUL. it feels clunky and restrictive. Even the most basic website builders don't feel THIS limiting. Terribly uncreative and a pain to use. I've been using the app to build a new portfolio site for a couple months. Normally, when I'm critical of an app I begin to appreciate it subtleties after a working with it a while. My criticism softens. not with Universe. It only gets worse the longer I use it. New features come slow. Useful features disappear with updates. Don't expect to be able to insert transparent-background pngs or TIFFs! You get white or black backgrounds and that it! The app just made it introduction recently and it already feels ten years out of date.

Terrible

This app is terrible it won’t let us log in.

Pro

I bought pro subscription and I keep having to restore it and it never works. I’ve had support fix this once and it fixed but now I don’t have pro subscription again. Great idea bad execution

High hopes but not worth the money

I had high hopes when this launched. However, after comparing with Squarespace it is no where near as powerful nor as beautiful and it’s not expensive. There is still opportunity for a startup to disrupt the leaders but this ain’t it.

Was good till update

I just started using this app and it was really good until it needed an update the day after I started using and got 50% the way though building my site... now it doesn’t open (get splash screen and then black screen) and there was no way for me to save the work and progress I made before hand.... was impressed but now now disappointed.

Garbage

I don’t wanna pay 300$ to Rick roll someone

Trash

Was advertised that this was free but you can’t make any domain names or sell stuff. Smh