6 Best Website Builders in 2020

For some, the most difficult part of building a website is choosing which platform to use. To help narrow it down, we’ve reviewed dozens of the top website builders and found out which are actually the best options in 2020 for small businesses based on ease of use, features and capabilities, affordability, and flexibility. In return, we found that the six best website builders are Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy, Spotify, Weebly, and WordPress.

Tip: If you’re in the initial stages of building a business website, start by learning everything you need about building a small business website.

6 Best Website Builders at a Glance

Which Website Builder Is Right for You?

Best Website Builder Methodology

With new website builders cropping up all the time and a laundry list of options, it can be difficult to decipher between the good and the bad—and never mind which is right for your business. To help, we’ve found the best website builders based on overall usability, real customer reviews, features and capabilities, and value for the price. We looked at dozens of the top website builders and narrowed down to the top six.

• Ease of use: The point of using a site builder is that it makes it easy for anyone to build their own site, and so we put ease of use at the forefront of our methodology.
• Availability of templates and themes: Part of what makes site builders easy to build a professional website with is its prebuilt templates (or themes). We looked at the variety of templates available, including industry-specific templates, and the overall template design quality.
• Customer reviews: What users have to say about a platform speaks volumes, so we reviewed overall ratings and reviews to get a better understanding of how good a platform is, according to the majority.
• Plans, pricing, and inclusions: Good platforms should be affordable for startups and new ventures, so we looked at value for price and availability of plans. To do this, we considered what was included for the price, such as a free domain name, an SSL certificate, business email, and web hosting.
• Features and capabilities: Anyone who has used website builders knows that they’re not all created equal. We analyzed each platform to determine which offer the most robust array of features and capabilities to help ensure that they are suitable for any business type or website use.
• Scalability: While it’s great to have a way to build a simple site quickly and easily, growing businesses need websites that can grow with them. So we looked at the features and tools available across platforms to see which are the most scalable.

Based on these factors, the best overall website builder for small businesses is Squarespace. It’s affordable, offers dozens of professionally designed templates that can easily be customized with its user-friendly site editor, and it truly is an all-in-one site builder complete with a domain name and web hosting.

Squarespace: Best Overall Website Builder for Small Businesses

Squarespace website editor

Squarespace is a leading website builder—and for good reason. It takes the No. 1 position on our list as it’s the best overall website builder and is a good choice for any industry or business type. It stands out for its modern templates, easy-to-use site editor, and its competitively priced, all-in-one plans that include everything you need to build and launch a professional business website for just $12 per month.

Squarespace Plans & Pricing

How to Build a Squarespace Website

Squarespace has a user-friendly live editor where users can customize site elements and add new ones, such as content blocks, text, images, and contact forms. It’s possible to build a Squarespace website in just a few steps. First, go to Squarespace, then browse and select a template. Then, customize your header and footer, add pages, and customize pages. Lastly, publish your site by selecting a premium plan and choosing a domain name.

Tip: Want more details? Get the step-by-step instructions on how to build a website with Squarespace.

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Wix: Best Website Builder for Drag & Drop Design Control

Wix site editor interface

Wix is a well-regarded site builder that has a true drag-and-drop site editing interface that is very easy to use. It offers a vast amount of customization capabilities, though this degree of design freedom can lead to poorly designed sites if users break from the template a lot and fail to maintain a cohesive design. It has a free plan, which gives users a good way to build a site, but businesses will need to purchase a premium plan to connect a domain and remove Wix ads.

Wix Plans & Pricing

How to Build a Wix Website

It’s easy to build a simple website with Wix. To get started, go to Wix.com and create an account, then answer a few quick questions. Next, browse and select a prebuilt template based on your business type or website needs, and then use the Wix site editor to customize your template. Finally, upgrade to a premium plan to connect your own domain and launch your Wix website.

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GoDaddy: Best Website Builder for Selling Services Online

GoDaddy website builder

GoDaddy may be better known for its domain name registration and web hosting services, but it also has a comprehensive website builder where you can easily create a custom business website. It stands out for its sophisticated online appointment booking system, which makes it a great choice for service-based businesses, such as salons, spas, fitness centers, and consulting businesses.

GoDaddy Plans & Pricing

How to Build a GoDaddy Website

GoDaddy makes it super-easy to build a website, even if you don’t have any web design experience. To build a GoDaddy site, you’ll first need to visit the GoDaddy website and navigate to the “Websites + Marketing” tab. From there, create an account and choose a template. Next, customize your template by adding and customizing pages. Finally, launch your site by clicking the “Publish” button and then selecting a domain name and a premium plan.

Get the step-by-step instructions on how to build a GoDaddy website.

Visit GoDaddy

Shopify: Best Website Builder for Dropshipping

Shopify site editor

Shopify is a leader in easy-to-use ecommerce site builders. It’s designed to give anyone an easy way of building and managing an online store. Since it’s designed for ecommerce websites, it comes with a great deal of built-in online selling features, from abandoned cart recovery to a wide range of dropshipping integrations.

Shopify Plans & Pricing

On May 4, 2020 Shopify released POS Pro for $89/month in addition to the free POS app. We will update this article to reflect the new pricing and features.

How to Build a Shopify Website

Those looking for a simple way to build an online store will find Shopify provides a straightforward means to do so. To start, go to Shopify.com and create an account. From there, you can choose a new template or customize the template that was automatically assigned. Add apps via the Shopify app store to add functionalities to your Shopify site, such as adding dropshipping integrations and page builders. Once you’ve finished customizing your site, connect a domain, upgrade to a premium plan (if you haven’t done so already), and launch your site.

Visit Shopify

Weebly: Best Website Builder for Selling Products Online

Weebly site editor

Weebly is an all-in-one site builder that makes it easy for anyone to build a website or blog. Aside from being an ultra-simple site builder, it’s also one of the most competitively priced CMS platforms, with premium plans starting at just $8 per month. It also offers free plans, but these are not sufficient for business websites as they display Weebly ads.

Weebly Plans & Pricing

How to Build a Weebly Website

What users love is how easy it is to build a small business website using Weebly. All you have to do is go to Weebly.com and create an account. Then, browse and choose a template, and begin customizing your template with your business logo, navigation, and page. After you’re done customizing your site, launch it by clicking the “Publish” button in the upper right-hand corner. From there, you can upgrade to a premium plan to connect your domain.

Visit Weebly

WordPress: Best Website CMS for Maximum Flexibility & SEO

WordPress editor with Elementor

WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system (CMS). While it’s not an all-in-one site builder, it is possible to build a WordPress website without any code or web design experience with the help of themes and site builder plugins. Since it’s possible to code a WordPress site, it has vast customization capabilities that make it a good option for nearly any business website.

WordPress Costs

WordPress is a free, open-source CMS platform. While it’s free to use, there are costs involved with building and maintaining a WordPress website. For example, businesses will need to get their own domain name (approximately $12 per year from a domain name registrar) and web hosting (approximately $3 to $10 per month from web hosts). Businesses may also choose to use premium plugins and themes that involve varying additional costs.

How to Build a WordPress Website

WordPress is not the easiest way to build a site, though it is possible to build a WordPress website without coding knowledge or web design experience with the help of a drag-and-drop page builder plugin such as Elementor or Beaver Builder. To start, purchase a web hosting plan that comes with a domain and one-click installation. Then install and activate a theme, add plugins, build out your header and footer, add pages, and customize pages.

Tip: Want more details? Follow these step-by-step instructions on how to make a WordPress website.

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Website Builders That Didn’t Make the List (& Why)

There are tons of website builders out there, but that doesn’t mean they’re all good. To find the best website builders, we looked at dozens of platforms and providers and cut through the noise by eliminating those that lack functionality, have bad reviews, aren’t affordable, and aren’t user-friendly. Below are the other top website builders that didn’t make our list and why we don’t recommend them.

• Webnode: It’s missing key website builder features that users would need to build a business website.
• Webs: It simply has too many bad user reviews.
• Webflow: While its well-rated, it doesn’t offer any plans with unlimited bandwidth, and ecommerce plans get way too expensive for what it is (e.g., $84 per month for a 0% transaction fee, though your payment processor will still charge standard fees).
• Websitebuilder.com: Annoying upsells and poorly rated by professionals.
• Format: This website builder geared toward portfolio websites is highly rated by users, but it lacks online booking tools—a key feature that turns a portfolio site, such a professional photography business website, into a marketing tool that generates clients.
• Duda: It’s features are too limited as there’s no app store to add more features.
• Jimdo: No ecommerce option.
• Strikingly: Basic one-page websites aren’t generally sufficient for professional use.
• Carrd: Same as Strikingly, it only offers one-page sites, which generally don’t qualify for business use.
• Homestead: It has a poor editing interface, which makes it difficult to use.
• Site123: It displays ads, so it’s not sufficient for business websites.
• Ucraft: Its site editor doesn’t lend to enough customization capabilities and its free plan is only for a single page.

Tip: Interested in learning more? Check out the best drag-and-drop website builders.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How much does a website cost?

Websites are surprisingly affordable. You can have one professionally built for as little as a few hundred dollars, but you can also build your own website—even if you don’t have any web design experience—with the help of a site builder such as Squarespace or Wix, which cost nothing to build and around $12 per month. It’s also possible to build your own WordPress site for $3 per month with a low-cost host such as Bluehost. Get the full breakdown of website costs.

What’s the difference between a CRM & a CMS?

Though often confused, a CRM and a CMS are two different things. CRM stands for customer relationship management, whereas a CMS stands for a content management system. In other words, a CRM is used by sales and marketing teams to manage contacts and leads, whereas as a CMS is a platform a website is built with, such as WordPress. If you’re still unclear on the differences, learn more about a CRM vs CMS.

Bottom Line

The best website builder for your business website will depend on your unique needs. However, the overall best website builder for the average small business looking for an easy and affordable way to build a professional business website is Squarespace. Other top website builders include Wix, Weebly, GoDaddy, Shopify, and WordPress.