10 Best Website Builders for Small Business Ranked (March 2023)
Elizabeth Kraus has more than a decade of first-hand experience building and growing a boutique digital marketing agency and double that in small and mid-size business marketing management. She provides expert answers to marketing questions related to branding, content marketing, web development, email, social media, and SEO.
The best website builders make online brand-building easy for startups and small businesses. They have intuitive page-building tools, modern premade templates, and feature-rich plans. To help you decide which is best for your business, we ranked the best small business website builders below based on features, cost, and our firsthand experience with each platform.
- Best overall site builder for small businesses: Wix
- Best for ecommerce and restaurants: Weebly
- Cheapest for small businesses on a budget: IONOS
- Best for appointment and meeting booking: GoDaddy
- Best for business-to-business sales: HubSpot
- Best for building on WordPress: DreamHost
- Most visually impactful web design: Squarespace
- Best for ecommerce-ready WordPress plans: Bluehost
- Best integrated artificial intelligence (AI) features: Zyro
- Best for member and subscription sites: Dorik
Best Website Builders for Small Businesses at a Glance
Website Builder | Expert Score out of 5 | Starting Cost per Month* | Starting Cost for Ecommerce | Free Plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 4.7 | $16 | $27 | ✓ |
 | 4.6 | $12 | $0 | ✓ |
 | 4.6 | $1 | $1 | ✕ |
 | 4.3 | $9.99 | $16.99 | ✓ |
 | 4.2 | $23 | $23 | ✓ |
 | 4.2 | $2.95 | $2.95 | ✕ |
 | 4.0 | $16 | $23 | ✕ |
 | 4.0 | $2.95 | $9.99 | ✕ |
 | 3.8 | $3.29 | $4.99 | ✕ |
 | 3.5 | $4 | $4 | ✓ |
*First year cost per month with annual payment
Wix: Best Website Builder for Small Businesses Overall
Overall Score:
4.7 / 5
Pros
- Free-forever plan
- Maximum design freedom
- Beginner-friendly, drag-and-drop editor
- Most full-featured for ecommerce
- Large app marketplace
- Best for SEO
- Great for blogging
Cons
- Starting cost of paid plans is more expensive than most rivals
- Limited storage and bandwidth on free and base plan
- Weebly offers automated sales tax calculation at a lower cost
- GoDaddy and Dorik are cheaper for memberships and subscriptions
Best Website Builder for SEO
For businesses wanting to get found online, Wix’s superior search engine optimization (SEO) tools and built-in features put it at the top of our list of the best SEO site builders. It comes with an SEO Wizard, keyword research and Google Analytics in the dashboard, automatic schema markup, and image compression. Plus, you can embed code right in the page settings.
Best Drag & Drop Editing
Wix also wins out as the best drag-and-drop website builder. It’s well-known for having a true drag-and-drop editor; the only other site builder to offer this type of design freedom is Squarespace.
Best for Blogging
Whether blogging is your main gig, side hustle, or just a hobby, there’s a Wix plan that will work for you, starting with the free version. Wix tops our list of the best blogging platforms partly for its superior SEO features (since getting found online is essential to most bloggers). There are premade designs for nearly any type of blog topic and plans that scale with additional storage and features as your business blog grows.
Best Free Plan
Wix hit all the right notes with our team this year, also winning out as the best free website builder. However, this was a close call as HubSpot’s free plan allows you to build a website on your own domain, which is more credible and trustworthy for businesses than any site builder that hosts your free site on a subdomain.
Wix is hard to beat as the best website builder for small businesses right now. Its drag-and-drop site editor gives you the design freedom to create a highly customized website. Integrations, features, and capabilities are there for just about any business need, making it a good choice for many different types of businesses—from hotels and omnichannel retailers to businesses looking to sell online courses.
Key Features:
- Maximum design freedom with a true drag-and-drop page builder
- 800-plus templates and hundreds of premade content block variations
- The most robust ecommerce plan of any site builder (online stores, events, appointments, subscriptions, online ordering, reservations, bookings, and more)
- Advanced search engine optimization (SEO) like automatic schema markup, image compression, and page code
- Unlike Squarespace, online booking and restaurant tools come in all ecommerce plans
- Marketplace of over 250 paid and free integrations to extend functionality even more
While full-featured, it’s easy to use, even for beginners. Check out our guide and video tutorial on how to make a website with Wix.
Wix Plans & Pricing Overview
Click on the tabs below to find out which plan you’ll need depending on the features you want for your company’s website. As you do, take note of some new features Wix recently added, including online engagement with site visitors through chat and messaging and custom lead generation forms.
Best Alternatives to Wix
If we’re talking about the downsides to using Wix, there aren’t many. If you feel Wix isn’t quite right for your website, here are some top considerations:
- For true beginners, having so much at your fingertips could be overwhelming vs a less full-featured platform like GoDaddy or an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered template using the Square Online builder in Weebly.
- Squarespace is the best alternative to Wix, with true drag-and-drop editing design freedom.
- If cost is an issue, IONOS is a clear standout, as its mid-tier site builder plan has solid design features and apps for as little as $12 the first year.
- With HubSpot, you can build a website on your own domain for free, or for cheap ecommerce, you can get started on Weebly completely free.
Our Expert Opinion
Wix is the overall best website builder for small businesses. You get unparalleled design freedom within a code-free and relatively beginner-friendly interface. It also has some of the most advanced SEO tools we’ve seen in a website builder, so you can easily get found online. Start building your website for free, or read more about it in our Wix review.
Weebly: Best for Ecommerce & Restaurant Websites
Overall Score:
4.6 / 5
Pros
- Full ecommerce starting with free plan
- Ad-free monthly plans with a free domain and SSL from $12
- Sell unlimited products on all plans
- Online ordering and reservations
- Real estate MLS integration available
- Large third-party app marketplace
- Best for dropshipping
Cons
- Limited storage in low-end plans
- Far less design freedom than Wix Free ecommerce only for U.S. sellers
- 3% transaction fee
- Third-party apps aren’t available to free users or in the Square Editor
- Cart abandonment and PayPal require the most expensive plan
Best for Casual Ecommerce Websites
It’s easy to build a Weebly ecommerce store and you can get a fully functional online store built in less than a day for free if that’s the only plan that fits your budget. With the payment processing tools of its parent company, Square, built in, it’s ideal for traditional ecommerce online stores, creatives, events, and even for bloggers selling merchandise. Find out why Weebly is on our list of the best blogging platforms.
Best Restaurant Site Builder
Weebly is known for its built-in ecommerce features for online retailers, thanks to its parent company, Square. Weebly is also the best restaurant website builder for providing online ordering with robust ecommerce tools starting from free.
Unlike Wix or other website builders that require higher-tier plans to sell online, all Weebly plans are ecommerce-enabled. They even come with advanced tools like a shopping cart, automatic tax calculation, and gift cards, all starting for free. And Weebly comes packed with similar features at a fraction of the cost of dedicated ecommerce platforms like Shopify.
Key Features:
- Designed for ecommerce, with parent company Square Payments system
- Unlimited ecommerce, starting from free
- Online ordering and in-store pickup
- Accept recurring payments
- Automatically calculate sales tax
- Manage inventory
- Sell gift cards and extend coupons
- Accept donations
- Upgrade to any paid plan to calculate shipping, sell digital goods, or create a paid membership site
You have the option to use the original section-based Weebly editor or opt for the Square Online editor, which uses AI to build a template based on the features you want. As a bonus, no matter which editor you go with, it’s beginner-friendly—see how easy it is to build a Weebly website.
Weebly Plans & Pricing Overview
Click on the tabs below to see which Weebly plan includes the features you want for your online store, restaurant, or ecommerce website.
Best Alternatives to Weebly (& Square Online)
Weebly offers the most cost-effective way to build a website with payment processing features built in. However, it does have some drawbacks. For example:
- Templates and design tools are lackluster compared to Wix and Squarespace.
- It’s beginner-friendly but not as intuitive or easy to use as GoDaddy.
- If ecommerce is just a sideline, IONOS has more general business features and comes in at $12 the first year, inclusive of a domain, SSL, and business email.
- If your product is subscription-based or you want a membership site, Dorik is far more cost-efficient at $4 a month vs Weebly’s Professional plan.
Our Expert Opinion
Weebly is the best website builder for small businesses looking to sell online. While it doesn’t offer the most intuitive website editor, it has comprehensive online selling tools and systems. It’s ideal for startups or small ecommerce businesses and restaurants, especially those on a budget. For more details, read our Weebly review.
IONOS: Cheapest Website Builder for Small Businesses
Overall Score:
4.6 / 5
Pros
- Cheap: from $1 per month, including ecommerce
- $1 plan includes a free domain, SSL, and business email
- Dedicated success consultant
- Great for international sellers
- Strong SEO features
- Variety of payment processing options, including PayPal
Cons
- No free plan or trial—no way to test the builder out without a paid plan
- No monthly billing option
- Costs increase after intro period
- Limited design customizability vs Wix
- No dropshipping features
- Need the Pro or Expert online store plan to sell digital products
Most Affordable All-in-one Site Builder
IONOS is a one-stop shop. All site builder plans (including the $1 per month Plus plan) come with a free domain, SSL, and business email. Plus, website builder features include email marketing, online stores, appointments, social selling, and competitor tracking to jump-start your small business’ digital marketing strategy. You can also get standalone services to help with Google Ads and online directory listings.
With prices starting at just $1 per month the first year, IONOS edges out everyone but Weebly on our list of the cheapest website builders. Though your plan’s cost will increase after one year, plans are still extremely reasonable. For example, the mid-tier plus plan costs $1 per month the first year, then renews at just $15 per month (or $25 for ecommerce).
Key Features:
- Plans from $12 (the first year) with hosting, domain, SSL, and email
- Free business apps for appointments, built-in email marketing sends, and more
- Turn any plan into an online store with robust ecommerce features
- Solid SEO features, tutorials, image compression, content delivery network (CDN), and Google PageSpeed optimization
- Multi-language sites (45 languages), multi-currency, and international payment processors
- Multiple payment processing options, including PayPal (all plans)
- Competitor tracking tools
- Social and marketplace selling
- Huge media library, and automatically finds images for your site based on your industry
It may come as a surprise that low prices don’t necessarily mean it skimps on features. IONOS’ plans are feature-rich, and all come with a free SSL certificate, free domain, and business email. You can add an online store to any plan, including the $1 monthly plan. It’s also the only website builder to provide you with a dedicated success consultant to help build your IONOS website and get the most from your plan.
IONOS Plans & Pricing Overview
Since our last review of the best website builders for small businesses, IONOS has consolidated its site builder plans to make them easier to evaluate and choose from. Click on the tabs below to see which plan has the best mix of features for your business’ website.
Best Alternatives to IONOS
The IONOS website builder offers great SEO and robust features for online stores and non-commerce websites alike—and does so at a cheap cost the first year. But no one site builder is right for everyone, so here are the best alternatives to IONOS website builder:
- The Starter plan for non-commerce sites lacks some of the business apps that you get with Wix, Weebly, and even GoDaddy.
- IONOS’ section-based editor can’t match the design versatility provided by Squarespace and Wix, or their template selection either, for that matter.
- Cheap is great, but sometimes free is better—HubSpot is the only site builder that allows you to build for free on your own domain.
- Dorik is better (and cheaper) for subscription and membership websites and Weebly is the cheapest long-term for basic ecommerce.
Our Expert Opinion
IONOS offers good value for the money with business and ecommerce features and solid SEO. It’s super-affordable, starting at just $1 monthly, even for an ecommerce website. It’s the best website builder for small businesses on a tight budget, with plans that scale as your site’s traffic, sales, and needs take off.
GoDaddy: Best Website Builder for Appointment-based Services
Overall Score:
4.3 / 5
Pros
- Easiest website builder to use
- Appointments and website chatbots with all plans, starting for free
- Change your template any time
- IDX integration for real estate
- GoDaddy Studio to create branded graphics and videos
Cons
- Paid plans don’t include a domain (most site builders do)
- Costs jump after the first year
- Limited design freedom and customizations
- No third-party app marketplace
- Unlimited ecommerce requires the highest plan
Best Website Builder for Appointment & Meeting Booking
Sales and service-based businesses alike will appreciate GoDaddy’s robust online tools for appointment and meeting bookings. They allow you to create simple to complex booking schedules, allowing site visitors to select specific services and the service provider they want to meet with.
Sales teams and agencies can use the same tools to allow site visitors to book demos, consultations, and discovery calls. Customer service teams and businesses like residential contractors can set availability and let customers book service calls when it’s most convenient for them. Read our full GoDaddy website builder review to learn more.
GoDaddy’s robust appointment booking system makes it our top website builder for service and sales-based businesses. It’s ideal for salons, spas, fitness centers, consulting companies, and sales-forward companies relying on demos and presentations.
Key Features:
- Free SSL and unlimited storage and bandwidth with paid plans
- One year of Microsoft Email Essentials with paid plans
- AI-generated template with layout variations you can change anytime
- Intuitive site-wide controls for fonts, colors, and elements like buttons and dividers
- Appointment booking and website chatbots starting from free
- Connect and post to social accounts from the dashboard
- Large global content delivery network to help your site load fast from anywhere
- Connect and manage Google and Yelp business profiles from the interface
- Advanced ecommerce features like abandoned cart recovery and real-time shipping rates on basic commerce plan
- Decent integrations (like IDX for real estate and restaurant apps like ChowNow)
- GoDaddy Studio to create logos, social media and web graphics, and videos
The GoDaddy website builder may well be the easiest for beginners, as outlined in our instructions for how to build a website on GoDaddy. Its simple sectional interface means you can build a website quickly and then add tools like appointment booking, social media and business listings management, and website engagement chatbots—all for free.
Marketing your small business is also made easier with the GoDaddy site builder. You can connect and manage your Google Business Profile and Yelp accounts. You can also connect and post to three social media platforms from the dashboard.
GoDaddy Plans & Pricing Overview
GoDaddy offers solid inclusions from the free plan up, although keep in mind that your costs will increase after the intro term is up, and no plans come with a domain (unlike Wix and others). We listed pricing below based on annual payments, but monthly and 24- and 36-month payment options are also available. Click on the tabs to learn what’s included in GoDaddy site builder plans.
Best Alternatives to GoDaddy
GoDaddy is one of the most recognized names for websites and domain names. But ironically, site builder plans don’t come with a domain (unlike most of its rivals) and there are a few other aspects where alternatives are better:
- Wix, HubSpot, and Squarespace all offer more built-in features for helping your site get found online, including SEO guides and checklists.
- The 24/7 support available with GoDaddy extends no further than ensuring their servers are working correctly. If you want help setting up and troubleshooting your website, IONOS’ dedicated success consultant and 24/7 live service are a much better choice.
- The trade-off for being the most beginner-friendly site builder comes at the cost of design flexibility and site customizations. Try Wix and Squarespace for maximum design freedom.
- GoDaddy does offer a type of payment processing (paylinks) and virtual and physical point-of-sale (POS) equipment. However, it can’t match the ease of using Square payment processing in Weebly and doesn’t have an ecommerce plan as robust as Wix’s.
- GoDaddy site builder plans don’t have a free domain, unlike Wix, Squarespace, Weebly, IONOS, DreamHost, and Bluehost.
Our Expert Opinion
GoDaddy’s built-in appointment booking system makes it the best website builder for service and sales-focused businesses that need online booking tools. Coupled with chatbots with every plan, GoDaddy makes it easy and affordable to turn your small business website into a 24/7 marketing machine and virtual receptionist.
HubSpot: Best for Business-to-Business (B2B) Companies
Overall Score:
4.2 / 5
Pros
- Free-forever plan to build a website on your own domain name
- Wealth of freemium HubSpot tools to scale as your business grows
- SSL certificate and multilingual feature included in all plans
- Enterprise-class security and SEO
- Affordable Starter plan is all most small businesses need
Cons
- No plans include a free domain
- Less beginner-friendly than others
- Plans get expensive quickly
- No email marketing on free plan
- Membership features (gated content) require the most expensive plan
- All plans have page and blog limits
Best Website Builder for B2B Lead Generation & Nurturing
The HubSpot CMS is the best website builder for lead generation and nurturing. From high-converting landing pages to advanced SEO, contact management, and automated email lead nurturing, it provides everything B2B organizations need to get started and grow. Read our HubSpot CMS review to learn more.
HubSpot’s world-famous content management system (CMS) is free for anyone to use. This is excellent for B2B websites, in particular, as it comes with a wealth of integrated marketing, customer relationship management (CRM), and sales tools. To add even more value, the free versions of HubSpot’s other tools (email marketing, CRM, customer support, operations) can seamlessly integrate with your HubSpot CMS website, starting with the free plan.
Key Features:
- Only site builder to let you build a website on your own domain for free—learn more about why it’s one of the best free website builders
- Easy to integrate any of HubSpot’s other free and paid tools
- Advanced marketing, CRM, sales tools, and customer service apps, all starting free
- Over 1,000 third-party integrations to extend functionality even more
- Embed code on all plans, including the free plan
- Enterprise-grade software and security at a low cost of entry
- SEO recommendations on all plans and a top SEO site builder
- Multi-language and multi-currency websites
With HubSpot, small businesses have everything they need to lead their customers through the sales funnel. You’ll find tools for everything from creating high-conversion landing pages to attract new customers to nurturing leads and supporting customers through HubSpot’s CRM tools and integrations (like live chatbots and ticketing). See how easy it is to build a HubSpot website in our tutorial.
HubSpot Plans & Pricing Overview
Unlike other site builders, HubSpot CMS plans jump steeply after the first paid plan—as do plan limits. Fortunately, the free and Starter plans have almost everything a small and even mid-size business would need, including full access to over 1,000 integrations in the marketplace. Click through the tabs below to see which plan would best serve your site.
Best Alternatives to HubSpot
HubSpot is a bit of a unicorn in that none of the website builders included can match its extensive range of software solutions. However, HubSpot CMS has some drawbacks when comparing site builders on an apples-to-apples basis. The best alternatives include:
- HubSpot’s website templates and design tools come up short compared to most site builders. For the best templates and site customization capabilities, use Squarespace or Wix. Squarespace templates are built for visual impact, and both platforms have true drag-and-drop editing tools, modern templates, and a variety of premade content blocks to build a custom-looking website quickly.
- HubSpot’s free plan is quite limited regarding the number of pages you can have. You won’t find this restriction with Weebly, and Wix’s free plan limits are much higher (100 pages vs 25 with HubSpot).
- HubSpot’s first paid plan has the highest starting cost of any site builder on this list. For $1 a month for the first year, you can use IONOS to build a website with features (like dynamic content) that you can only get on expensive plans with HubSpot.
Our Expert Opinion
Building a website using the HubSpot CMS puts a variety of marketing, customer service and relationship, and sales tools at your disposal. We highly recommend it as the best website builder for business-to-business (B2B) companies of any size needing integrated systems for lead generation, nurturing, contact management, and customer support, in particular. Plus, there’s no risk to trying out the free version to get started.
DreamHost: Best Website Builder for WordPress Websites
Overall Score:
4.2 / 5
Pros
- $2.95/month Shared Unlimited plan for unlimited sites, a free domain and SSL, business email, and the BoldGrid WordPress page builder
- Shorter WordPress learning curve
- 55,000+ plugins (limitless functionality)
- Tons of free and paid themes
- Automated daily backups
- 97-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- WordPress isn’t beginner-friendly, even with a page builder
- Plugins and themes require constant maintenance, updates, and compatibility checks
- All functionality, including templates, requires some type of plugin (no native features like you get in all-in-one site builders)
Easiest Way to Build on WordPress
WordPress isn’t all that intuitive to use or easy to learn, but web hosting companies like DreamHost make it easier. Unlimited hosting plans come with everything you need to build a WordPress website, including hosting for unlimited sites, a free domain, SSL security, unlimited business emails on your domain, and the BoldGrid WordPress page builder.
Plus, WordPress installation and core and security updates are managed for you. However, you’ll still have to do some site maintenance yourself—see our list of WordPress tips and tricks to get an idea of what might be involved.
DreamHost is a leading web hosting company for WordPress. All its web hosting plans come with a drag-and-drop WordPress website builder called BoldGrid. The WordPress installation comes automatically in Shared WordPress plans or with one click in the Shared Unlimited hosting dashboard. Core and security updates for WordPress are managed for you by the DreamHost team, or you can opt for fully managed WordPress hosting for more support.
Key Features:
- WordPress pre-installed (or one-click from the custom cPanel)
- Free site migration to move your WordPress site from another host
- Free domain, SSL, and business email included in Unlimited Plans
- Email available as an add-on in the Starter plan
- Unlimited subdomains (learn what a subdomain is and how to use them)
- 24/7 support
- Affordable fully managed WordPress services available (DreamPress plans)
While you will still need some knowledge of WordPress to build a website, the BoldGrid page builder that comes with DreamHost greatly simplifies the mechanics of building your site’s pages. You can test the BoldGrid page builder online for free, or get an idea of what you’ll need to know in our 10-step tutorial for how to build a WordPress website.
Unless you have time to learn WordPress, an all-in-one website builder like Wix or Squarespace will be much easier to use. Also, keep in mind that hosting plans don’t include the cost of plugins and tools your website might need—read our article detailing all the costs of building a WordPress website.
DreamHost Plans & Pricing Overview
Shared hosting plans with DreamHost have everything needed to build a website on WordPress. Or, for more support and fewer headaches with maintenance, check out the fully managed DreamHost and WooCommerce (for ecommerce) plans in the tabs below.
Best Alternatives to DreamHost
There are times when WordPress is the best option, especially if you need niche features all-in-one site builders don’t account for. If this isn’t the case for you, we recommend the following options:
- Wix offers general to niche features that rival the scope you can get through WordPress, and it’s much easier to use.
- IONOS plans also come with business email, domain, SSL, and hosting at a lower cost (and with an easier site builder).
- The WooCommerce plugin is free, but Weebly offers additional ecommerce functionality you’d have to get paid WooCommerce add-ons for with WordPress.
Also, we have one more recommendation that’s not necessarily an alternative, but more just a workaround. If you want to bypass some of the learning curves and speed up the process of building a WordPress website, you can visit Fiverr and hire a freelance WordPress developer for as little as $5 to a few hundred dollars.
Our Expert Opinion
DreamHost’s low-cost, high-value Shared Unlimited plan makes it the best website builder for small businesses wanting a WordPress website. A WordPress site is the way to go if you want an extremely custom website, and DreamHost is the best option for building one in a beginner-friendly way, with everything needed for building a website (e.g., domain and SSL) plus unlimited email hosting to boot.
Squarespace: Best Website Builder for High Visual Impact
Overall Score:
4.00 / 5
Pros
- 14-day free trial (no card required)
- Fluid Engine drag-and-drop editing
- Unlimited storage and bandwidth
- Fully responsive, modern templates
- 0% transaction fees on higher plans
- Video Studio for on-brand marketing videos is included
Cons
- No free plan, unlike Wix or Weebly
- App marketplace is smaller than most
- No free image library
- Not great for dropshipping—use Weebly instead
- To get membership capabilities, email marketing, or appointment booking you have to buy add-ons
- Features like subscriptions and cart abandonment are less expensive with most other builders
Best Way to Build a Visually Impactful Website
Squarespace has long been known for modern templates that pack a visual punch. But now, you can also use its true drag-and-drop page editing with the new Fluid Engine editor for design freedom on par with Wix. Sites are also fully responsive, and themes can be changed any time, making Squarespace the best website builder for small businesses looking to stand out with a strong website design.
Squarespace is one of the best website builders for small businesses wanting to build a strong brand presence. It has a sleek library of templates and now offers more intuitive-than-ever drag-and-drop page building with the Fluid Engine editor. In addition, Squarespace users get access to a Video Studio to create highly visually engaging branded content.
For these reasons, Squarespace is an especially good choice for brands wanting visually strong site designs to engage and convert site visitors. Plus, it’s easy to use—learn how to build a Squarespace website in a few simple steps.
Key Features:
- Inclusive plans with free domain, SSL, and unlimited storage and bandwidth
- One year of Google Workspace with the second-tier plan and up
- Beautiful, modern templates, including industry-specific themes
- Themes are fully responsive and can be changed easily
- Easily embed a Google Map to your site to help local customers find your business
- 14-day free trial with no card required to test everything
- Solid SEO features and built-in guides
- Good features and tools for online stores selling physical products
- Pay monthly or save up to 30% with annual billing
- 0% transaction fees with Commerce plans
While Squarespace doesn’t currently come out in the top spot in our guides, it’s a strong contender for the best drag-and-drop website builder and one of the best for SEO. Learn more in our expert Squarespace review.
Squarespace Plans & Pricing Overview
Squarespace offers affordable plans for basic and ecommerce business websites, though you may find some features require upgrading to more expensive plans. See how the plans stack up by clicking the tabs below.
Best Alternatives to Squarespace
Squarespace has a few shortcomings compared to other platforms on our list of the best small business website builders. Here are some examples of when a competitor would be better:
- Appointments require an add-on, whereas it’s included in every GoDaddy plan.
- Email marketing also requires an add-on, but it’s included with IONOS and HubSpot paid plans.
- You can’t incorporate member areas on Squarespace without an add-on, but any page of a Weebly, GoDaddy, or IONOS site can be password protected.
- Restaurant features are limited on Squarespace outside of a very expensive partner add-on (Tock). Weebly offers native tools for restaurants starting in the free plan, and Wix’s base ecommerce tier has robust restaurant features and tools.
Our Expert Opinion
Even true beginners won’t have trouble building a professional-looking website with Squarespace thanks to sophisticated templates and full drag-and-drop editing. For creatives and image-based brands and professionals, it’s the best way to build a website that gets site visitors’ attention through strong design. Get started risk-free with a 14-day free trial today.
Bluehost: Best Ecommerce Site Builder for WordPress
Overall Score:
4.00 / 5
Pros
- Ecommerce-ready Online Store plan costs $9.95/month for the first 12 months
- All plans include unlimited website hosting, a free domain, SSL, email, and a custom WordPress page builder
- Low-cost plans from $2.95
- Option to pay monthly, annually, or every three years
Cons
- Cost increases after intro period
- Will still have the higher learning curve that comes with WordPress
- Takes longer to build vs all-in-one site builders
- Time needed to vet, install, and maintain themes and plugins
Best Online Store Plans for WordPress Websites
Bluehost’s proprietary Bluehost Builder and its value-packed Online Store plan put everything you need for advanced and unlimited ecommerce into a beginner-friendly plan. For $9.95 a month for the first year, build as many ecommerce sites as you want with free SSL, unlimited email addresses, and a domain to save even more.
Your plan includes WordPress installation and management, WooCommerce, custom pricing and packaging templates, and tax management. It also has extras like online appointment booking, premium templates, subscriptions, and free email marketing.
The value-packed Online Store plan catapults Bluehost into the top spot for small businesses wanting to build an ecommerce website on WordPress. The Bluehost Builder and WooCommerce are included, as are truly advanced and robust features for online ecommerce and service businesses.
Key Features:
- Unlimited websites (all plans)
- From five to business email addresses on your domain
- Free domain and SSL
- Free email marketing
- 300-plus free premade templates to choose from
- Unlimited ecommerce, domain privacy, and premium templates (Pro and Online Store)
- Appointments, subscriptions, and memberships (Online Store)
- In-cart customization, auto-tax management, and advanced backups (Online Store)
While it’s not directly related to the platform’s capabilities for website building, it’s worth noting that Bluehost plans come with free business email in low-cost plans. So much so that both Bluehost (and DreamHost) also made our list of the best email hosting services for small businesses.
Bluehost Plans & Pricing Overview
From building a basic website on WordPress to a full-blown ecommerce operation, there’s a Bluehost plan that has you covered. Click on the tabs below to learn more about what’s included so that you can pick the best option for your small business website.
Best Alternatives to Bluehost
Bluehost is a stellar, WordPress-recommended web hosting company that includes a free website builder in all plans. However, it’s not the cheapest option, especially after the first year. Here are the best alternatives to consider:
- Like Bluehost, DreamHost levels the learning curve of WordPress a bit by including a page builder, but neither is as easy to use as Wix or Weebly, both of which have robust ecommerce plans.
- Bluehost’s Online Store plan makes building an ecommerce website easy and cheap in the first year. But after the intro period, Wix’s Business Basic plan is more robust and will save you quite a bit of money.
- IONOS offers similar all-in-one solutions with WordPress hosting, domain, SSL, and business email at a lower cost. While its WordPress plans don’t come with a page builder, you can easily add more intuitive page builder themes like Elementor or Beaver Builder to your site. Learn more about the best WordPress website builders.
- None of Bluehost’s plans come with restaurant features and tools, whereas they come standard with Weebly for free.
Our Expert Opinion
Bluehost is one of the best WordPress web hosting companies for ecommerce websites. It offers online store-ready plans that do the work of WordPress as well as WooCommerce setup and configuration, and it comes with a site builder, which makes it the best website builder for small businesses wanting a WordPress ecommerce site. Get started today.
Zyro: Best Website Builder for Integrated AI
Overall Score:
3.8 / 5
Pros
- Low-cost plans from $2.59
- Ecommerce from $3.59
- AI-writer in the dashboard
- AI heatmap to increase engagement
- Jump-start branding with a business name, slogan, and AI-generated logo
- Connect Messenger and WhatsApp
- Google and Facebook remarketing
- Free trial
Cons
- Cost increases after 12- or 24-month intro period
- No free plan
- Templates are pretty basic, and you can’t change templates without starting over
- No video storage
Best Integrated AI
Zyro puts artificial intelligence (AI) at your fingertips. This includes AI to create a logo for your business that aligns with your name and business tagline, a heatmap to show you where to put the most essential information on a web page, and AI text generation tools right in the dashboard.
Best Website Builder for Fast Brand Building Online
Zyro has done a great job putting everything small businesses need to build a brand presence online into its intuitive site builder interface. Plans include a free domain for the first year and free SSL at a low cost per month with 12- and 24-month billing plans. Communicate seamlessly with WhatsApp and Messenger integrations, and set up remarketing to past site visitors on Google and Facebook.
No logo? No problem. You can create one from the Zyro dashboard in minutes and download it for free on all your marketing materials with the purchase of a site builder plan, or for $5 without.
Zyro (by Hostinger) is an impressive website builder that was just launched within the past three years. It has an impressive array of digital marketing integrations and AI-powered features for those wanting to quickly establish and build a brand presence online.
Key Features:
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- Free domain and SSL
- AI logo maker and branding tools
- AI heatmap shows you where to put important information and calls to action
- Google Tag Manager and Facebook Pixel for ad integration, including remarketing
- Integrate Messenger and WhatsApp live chat
- Business plan for online stores with up to 500 products and 20-plus payment options
- Free image library
- Custom web forms
- Ability to embed a Google Map
- Embed an Instagram Feed
- 24/7 support
Zyro’s section-based editor is easy to use, and there’s a Start Guide to walk you through the process. Start with one of about 100 templates, and then add premade sections and widgets to edit and customize your site. While templates are somewhat basic, they’re built with a lot of white space, which adds visual impact reminiscent of Squarespace.
Access Website Styles to quickly apply changes to your site’s colors, fonts, and elements, or add animations to increase site visitor engagement. In SEO settings, AI generates a meta description for you based on the description you type in about a given page, or you can add your own to the settings.
Zyro Plans & Pricing Overview
Zyro doesn’t offer a free plan, but you can get started with their free trial to see if it’s the best website builder for your project. Its plans are straightforward and affordable, though you’ll need to plan for an increase in cost after the first year. Click the tabs below to learn more.
Best Alternatives to Zyro
The downsides of using Zyro lie mainly in “growing pain” types of design and plan features. For example, templates are pretty basic, and it lacks ecommerce capabilities needed by restaurants and membership sites. Here’s what to use instead:
- Wix has a much larger template selection, and both Squarespace and Wix offer drag-and-drop editing, which is missing in Zyro.
- Weebly (all plans) and Wix’s Business plan have essential tools for restaurants that Zyro doesn’t yet address.
- Zyro has an image library, but Wix and IONOS’ offer a larger selection when building your site.
Our Expert Opinion
Zyro has a thoughtfully curated set of features and tools that speed up website and brand building. While not as sophisticated in terms of premade designs and editing as rivals who have been in the space longer, it’s a great choice for those wanting AI-powered website marketing and customer engagement integrated into one platform. Try it for free today.
Dorik: Best Website Builder for Memberships & Subscriptions
Overall Score:
3.5 / 5
Pros
- Build a membership site for free
- Paid member sites from $4/month
- Affordable options for multi-site creators and agencies
- Unlimited blog posts
- High customer satisfaction ratings
Cons
- Ecommerce capabilities seem limited to subscriptions/memberships
- Low page limits in free tier
- Fewer features than other site builders
Best for Subscription Sales
With Dorik, you can build a membership website starting for free or spend $4 a month to build on your own domain and connect up to three different payment options. Start with any of its 60-plus templates, edit your site using hundreds of premade content blocks, and add functionality easily with widget-style elements.
Like Zyro, Dorik is a relative newcomer to the market as well as in our list of the best website builders for small businesses. It was introduced to the public in August 2020 and now boasts over 30,000 customers.
While you can use Dorik to build a basic website, its best use case is for membership or subscription-based sites, as that is its only ecommerce functionality at present. As such, it’s best-suited for blogs looking to monetize with memberships, software as a service (SaaS) business models, retainer-based agencies and consultants, and appointment-based services.
Key Features:
- All plans with free SSL and full membership site functionality, including payments
- Cloud hosted plus content delivery network (CDN)
- Free plan with up to 25 pages and 500 members (paid plan required to take payments)
- Annual plan for $48 for up to 3,000 members with 100 pages and unlimited blog posts
- Agency plans for up to 25 or up to 100 white label websites with unlimited pages
- Invite from five to unlimited collaborators
- Custom fields for lead generation
- Appointment scheduling using forms
- Ability to add header and footer code
- Third-party integrations
The section-based Dorik editor is fairly intuitive, but lacks the sophistication of more mature and advanced site builders like Wix and Squarespace. There are premade templates and content blocks, including dozens of pricing tables, to speed up your site-building process. Click on any element, and an editing box will pop up where you can make changes to the section’s content, add style settings, and even set scroll animations and hover transitions.
Dorik Plans & Pricing Overview
Dorik offers a free and basic plan for individual websites and agency plans for those who want to build multiple websites in one plan. The agency plans also allow for white labeling, making it a good option for freelance web developers and web design agencies. Click the tabs below to learn more about its CMS plans.
While not explored here, Dorik also offers Classic plans (formerly Static Sites) for free, $79 per year, and $199 per year. Limits are roughly the same as the CMS plans detailed above, except there is no blog functionality.
Best Alternatives to Dorik
We’re impressed with Dorik’s initial offering, but there are currently some gaps in their plans. For example, the interface is not as intuitive, nor are the design tools as advanced as other site builders. Also, ecommerce functionality is limited to subscription or service appointment-type payments. The best alternatives to consider are:
- GoDaddy offers one-time appointments that can be billed via paylinks in the free plan that could work for service-based ecommerce.
- You’ll need a paid plan to blog, whereas this comes in IONOS’ $12 per first-year plan and for free with Wix and Weebly.
- Weebly is a better choice for small business websites needing an online store or online ordering capabilities (like for restaurants).
- Wix and Squarespace offer far more design freedom and intuitive editing tools.
- IONOS’ $1 per month plans for basic and ecommerce sites include a free domain and business email, which could make it a cheaper option vs Dorik’s base plan.
- No image library, unlike IONOS, Wix, Weebly, and even Zyro.
Our Expert Opinion
We were excited to discover this young site builder when researching the best website builders for small businesses. Dorik makes it easy to build a member site or sell subscriptions and services at a very affordable cost, and has super-affordable plans if you want to build multiple websites. There’s no risk to trying it as you can start with the free version, so try it today.
How We Evaluated the Best Website Builders for Small Businesses
With several all-in-one site builders already on the market and new platforms emerging all the time, it can be challenging to decipher which to use. To help you choose, we compared dozens of site builders hands-on and researched customer reviews, features and capabilities, and value for the price. Then we identified unique features and tools that point to a best use case for small businesses.
Click on the tabs to learn more about the criteria we used to determine the best website builders for small businesses:
30%
Pricing
20%
General Features
20%
Niche Features
10%
Customer Support
20%
Expert Score
30% of Overall Score
The best website builders for small businesses offer competitively priced plans for creating and managing a site. We analyzed and compared providers not only by entry-level pricing, but the cost to sell online as well as the availability of contract-free plans, free trial lengths, and money-back guarantees.
20% of Overall Score
Though site builders are generally all-in-one solutions, each offers different inclusions. We chose platforms that provide ample storage and bandwidth, extras like free domains, SSL, and business email, as well as built-in SEO and analytics.
20% of Overall Score
We looked at each provider’s niche features and capabilities—from the ability to accept online appointment bookings and reservations to functionalities involved in creating a membership with gated content or accepting recurring payments.
10% of Overall Score
We compared providers based on the hours support teams are available and the different support channels, such as live chat, phone, email, and ticketing systems. Additionally, we factored in our own experience in terms of the quality of support, as well as each platform’s online help centers, guides, and documentation.
20% of Overall Score
There’s only so much you can glean from the site builders until using them extensively. We incorporated our expert opinion based on a good deal of firsthand experience building websites with each of the leading website builders. We considered ease of use, general usability, value for price, popularity, and features.
*Percentages of overall score
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How much does it cost to build a website?
The cost to build a website ranges from free with some all-in-one site builders to tens of thousands of dollars. Ultimately, it depends on the features and functionality you need, whether you can do the work yourself or need to outsource, and associated costs like hosting, artwork, content creation, and so on. Get more info in our article on how much a website costs, comparing costs for do-it-yourself (DIY) web building vs outsourced.
What is the #1 website builder?
For the average small business, Wix is our pick as the best site builder. Not only does Wix have an intuitive interface, but it also has 800-plus modern templates and a powerful drag-and-drop editor that will allow you to build a highly customized website without knowing any code. It also has hundreds of integrations for increased functionality and a ton of advanced features (like SEO) that come baked into each plan.
Is Wix good for a small business?
Yes. Wix is good for small businesses in almost any industry looking to build a website. It’s beginner-friendly yet has a highly flexible drag-and-drop site builder, and hundreds of integrations for more functionality. All this makes Wix the perfect builder to try out if you’re looking for a way to build a site that can eventually grow and scale with your business.
Bottom Line
The best website builders provide all the tools needed to make a good website capable of serving as an effective marketing and sales tool. While there are many solid options, we ranked our top picks based on cost, features, ease of use, support, and firsthand experience with each one. Based on this, the best option for a small business is Wix. It has a top drag-and-drop editor, advanced native features, and hundreds of integrations—all for affordable prices.
