8 Best Website Builders for Small Business: Compared for 2024

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Our research shows that Wix is the best website builder for small businesses, offering superb customization options and ecommerce functionality. The easy-to-use platform covers a wide range of industries, meaning you can confidently set up an online store and establish your brand.

In second place, we have the design-focused Squarespace, which is ideal for creatives and marketing-based small businesses thanks to its stunning templates and scheduling tools.

Here’s a rundown of the best website builders for small businesses:

Best Website Builders for Small Businesses

  1. Wix Best overall small business website builder
  2. Squarespace Best for creative businesses
  3. GoDaddy Best for fitness and health websites
  4. Shopify Best for online stores
  5. Square Online Best for food-based businesses
  6. Hostinger Best for side hustles
  7. Jimdo Best for service-based businesses
  8. IONOS Best for blue collar businesses

But what makes a good website builder for small businesses? Ideally, a builder should be simple, quick to set up, have great SEO tools, and offer affordable – yet scalable – price plans.

We’ve created this list of eight website builders using our in-house research process, providing you with accurate and reliable recommendations. You can read more about our methodology in our dedicated section at the end of the article.

Best Website Builders for Small Business: Quick Overview

These eight platforms came out on top in our research of the best website builders for small businesses. Use the arrows to see the different platforms and compare them side by side:

Swipe right to see more
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Wix

Squarespace

GoDaddy

Shopify

Square Online

Hostinger

Jimdo

IONOS

Overall Rating
4.7
Overall Rating
4.3
Overall Rating
4.1
Overall Rating
4.0
Overall Rating
3.5
Overall Rating
3.2
Overall Rating
3.0
Overall Rating
2.9
Ease of Use Rating
4.4
Ease of Use Rating
4.4
Ease of Use Rating
4.1
Ease of Use Rating
3.5
Ease of Use Rating
3.7
Ease of Use Rating
3.9
Ease of Use Rating
2.2
Ease of Use Rating
2.8
Features vs Price
3.0
Features vs Price
5.0
Features vs Price
4.0
Features vs Price
4.0
Features vs Price
4.0
Features vs Price
4.0
Features vs Price
4.0
Features vs Price
2.0
Starting from
Starting from
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$9.99

Starting from
Starting from

($0 on the Free plan)

$29

Starting from

$11.99

$2.49 + 3 months free (with the 48-month plan)

Starting from

$9

Starting from

$1

Free plan or free trial

Free plan

Free plan or free trial

14-day free trial

Free plan or free trial

Free plan

Free plan or free trial

Free trial

Free plan or free trial

Free plan

Free plan or free trial

No

Free plan or free trial

Free plan

Free plan or free trial

No

Help and Support
4.8
Help and Support
4.8
Help and Support
4.3
Help and Support
3.9
Help and Support
3.6
Help and Support
3.3
Help and Support
2.3
Help and Support
4.8
Visit Wix View Squarespace Visit GoDaddy Visit Shopify Visit Square Visit Hostinger Visit Jimdo Visit IONOS

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1. Wix

Best Overall Small Business Website Builder

Pricing range: free – $159 per month

See it in action: 9 Wing 1 Coaching

Editor's Choice

Wix

Best overall small business website builder

Excellent

4.7

out of 5
  • Advanced functionality
  • Easy to use
  • 800+ website templates

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $16 - $159 / month

Pros

  • Reliable builder for all needs
  • Amazing industry-specific templates
  • Powerful ecommerce tools

Cons

  • Overwhelming creative control
  • Can't edit template once live
  • Pay more to unlock best features
Wix Review

Wix Overview

Looking for the best website builder for small businesses? Wix is our top choice, scoring 4.7 out of 5 in our 2023 product testing. The builder is incredibly easy to use, it boasts over 800 templates, and its drag-and-drop editor is perfect for beginners.

You’ll find Wix at the top of many of our lists, but it’s for a reason. Wix performs well across almost all of our small business research categories, making it a reliable option for any business looking to promote itself or sell online.

With Wix, you have total creative control when it comes to your website and brand image, and its advanced ecommerce tools, including inventory management software and shipping solutions, make it a tough builder to beat.

Wix Features

Wix has the best website features for small businesses, scoring 4.8 out of 5 which is miles ahead of any other builder we tested. Squarespace, in second place for features, only scores 3.7 out of 5. Wix offers a wide range of powerful website features, with almost all of it built into the platform itself, from SEO and marketing to ecommerce and website analytics. We’ll share more about these features in the detailed section below.

Wix Pricing

Wix has four premium plans to choose from, with three plans targeting ecommerce sites specifically: Core, Business, and Business Elite. With prices rising across the industry, it’s worth noting that Wix isn’t as affordable as other website builders, scoring 3.4 out of 5 in our price research.

Annual prices start at $16 per month with Wix’s Light plan. If you’re looking to sell online, the Core plan costs $27 per month, the Business plan costs $32 per month, and the Business Elite plan costs $159 per month – all billed annually.

Wix is the best website builder for features, scoring the highest rating in our research – 4.8 out of 5.

Wix truly shines when it comes to offering internal functionality to its users, from built-in marketing tools to powerful SEO support. Other providers, such as Shopify, rely heavily on third-party apps instead.

One of the main features we want to draw your attention to is Wix’s suite of SEO tools. Boosting your business website’s rankings across search engines can help you stay ahead of the competition, and Wix offers plenty of support:

  • Wix SEO Wiz: This feature will create a bespoke SEO plan with tips on how to improve the visibility of your website
  • Semrush: Wix’s recent integration with Semrush, an SEO tool, means you can now carry out keyword research from your Wix dashboard
  • SEO Learning Hub: Full of guides and information on all things SEO, such as topic research and local search optimization

As for marketing, Wix Ascend is a comprehensive marketing package. It helps connect your business with customers, create personalized messages for each user, post on social media, and send emails.

It’s clear that Wix’s in-house features have pretty much everything covered, but Wix’s App Market can help fill in any gaps.

Thanks to Wix’s impressive ecommerce functionality and improvements to stock management, Wix scores 4.5 out of 5 for its sales features – a boost from last year’s score of 4.4.

If you’re looking to sell online, all of Wix’s ecommerce plans offer the following features:

  • Unlimited products
  • Abandoned cart recovery
  • Sell on social channels

As you upgrade to Unlimited or VIP, you’ll get access to advanced sales features, including a dropshipping service, subscriptions, and shipping tools.

You can take payments from all major debit and credit card brands, as well as Apple Pay, and others. You’ll face a transaction fee of 2.9% of the transaction amount, plus $0.30.

If you want to keep things simple, then Wix is definitely the builder for you. In our ease of use testing, Wix scores a high 4.4 out of 5 – putting Wix in first place alongside Squarespace.

With Wix, you don’t need any technical or design skills to build a professional, eye-catching website for your small business. Its editing interface uses the beginner-friendly drag-and-drop style, letting you design your site by moving elements to where you want them.

One of our website testers said this of the platform:

“Wix is pretty simple to use and easy to wrap your head around! Plus, I really love the customization available, the templates, and the pre-designed elements.”

But we know this level of control isn’t ideal for everyone. Another tester had this differing opinion:

“It’s a funny one because so much of it is really easy, and then some things just feel like they’re a headache for no reason.”

If you’d rather avoid anything too technical, you can even use Wix’s ADI builder to create a site for you. Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) will ask you a few questions about your website, then generate a fully-fledged online store based on your answers.

Wix is the best option for design and creative control. It scores 4.6 out of 5 in this category – a huge increase from last year’s score of 3.9 out of 5. In fact, Wix beats all other builders, including the design-powerhouse, Squarespace, which scores 4.5 out of 5 for its design flexibility.

There are more than 800 professionally designed templates to choose from, covering all types of businesses, from makeup artists to vintage car dealers.

It’s also super easy to add extra functionality to any Wix template. For example, you can:

  • Add contact forms and online booking elements to take appointments
  • Create and send invoices and track payments, helping you manage your finances in one place
  • Add customizable quizzes, surveys, and contact forms that let you find out what your customers think

The only drawback – which doesn’t impact Wix too negatively in our research – is that you can’t use a different template once you’ve published your site. So make sure you’re happy with your choice the first time around!

For the more tech-savvy among you, there’s Velo by Wix, which allows you to integrate custom code into your Wix site. It’s entirely optional, but it grants you the freedom to create a totally original business website.

Prices across the website builder industry have increased since last year, resulting in our algorithm shifting to place greater emphasis on “feature vs price”, as opposed to just the cheapest pricing plan.

Wix saw a drop in its value for money score since 2022, from 3.8 to its new score of 3.4 out of 5 in this year’s research. For any cost-conscious small businesses, just note that you will have to spend a little more to get the best out of the builder – but, in our opinion, the cost is worth it.

Wix has four paid plans to choose between, as well as an Enterprise plan for very large businesses. Wix also has a generous free plan that you can stay on forever.

Pricing starts at $16 per month with the Light plan and goes up to $159 per month with the Business Elite plan. If you’re only just dipping your toe into the world of ecommerce, we’d recommend the Core plan at $27 per month because it gives you access to a ton of strong features. If you’ve already established your online store, we’d recommend opting for the Business plan at $32 per month. It comes with a suite of sales tools, including advanced shipping and subscriptions.

Wix provides fantastic customer support, scoring 4.8 out of 5 in our research – an improvement of last year’s score of 4.5 out of 5. This puts Wix in joint first for support with Squarespace and IONOS.

We know that quick and efficient support is incredibly important for small businesses, especially if you want to avoid any technical issues that could hinder sales or customer experiences. Take a look at what Wix has to offer:

  • 24/7 phone support
  • 24/7 live chat support
  • VIP care on select premium plans
  • Help Center

Wix’s standout feature is its helpful in-editor support, which shares tips and guidance as you build your site. There are also help buttons across Wix, so if you’re having trouble building a specific element or section, you can find the answer in no time!

In our recent product testing, we found that users are very satisfied with Wix as a service. It scores 4.4 out of 5 in our customer satisfaction category, putting the builder in second place behind Shopify. In fact, 80% of the users that tested Wix said they would recommend it to others.

One person went so far as to say:

“I love it! Having worked on creating a website the other day with another builder, Wix is a breath of fresh air! It’s so simple and easy that it makes a mockery of other builders.”

Our research found that Wix is a great all-around website builder, suitable for any small business, whether you want to sell online or simply advertise your brand.

If you want a few examples, Wix can be ideal for:

  • Restaurants – Wix has specific restaurant templates and features, including a menu creator and built-in ordering tool
  • Music or brand promotion – Wix’s detailed music analytics gives you stats on the number of plays, shares, sales, and downloads
  • Tech & IT businesses – Browse Wix’s future-forward technology templates
  • Entertainment & events – The free Wix Events app makes it easy to sell tickets, manage RSVPs, and promote events

What’s new with Wix this month?

  • Wix Improves SEO With AI Meta Tag Creator: Wix can now generate meta tags for images using AI. Meta tags provide important info to search engines through HTML, but writing tags for every image can be time-consuming. Wix can now generate three potential AI meta tags for users to choose from, saving you time on a nevertheless important role.

Wix in Action: 9 Wing 1 Coaching

midhsot of a woman with mug and green jumper
Myrna Scales
Founder
Myrna Scales is a certified Enneagram Coach and blogger. She created a Wix website about the Enneagram system to help moms with Enneagram coaching for childcare, offering her services in both free and paid sessions.
I chose Wix because it is so easy to use, and everything you need to manage your website is on your dashboard.

Q&A

Why did you choose Wix for your website?

I wanted to build a website so moms could find me for Enneagram coaching and so that I could post helpful information to help them grow as individuals. I chose Wix because it is so easy to use, and everything you need to manage your website is on your dashboard.

How long have you been using Wix?

I started using Wix at the end of July this year. It took me about two days to build a website. It could have been faster, but I’m a stay-at-home mom to two young boys.

What makes Wix a good website builder for small businesses?

My favorite thing about Wix is how easy it is to drag and drop sections to your website. You can make a beautiful and professional website within minutes. I also love that they have AI to help you create text, which makes it so helpful.

Is there anything you would change about Wix?

I would keep everything the same about Wix. I love using it. I have heard many people say that WordPress is better for SEO and has better templates and plugins, but I have yet to use WordPress, so I wouldn’t know if that’s true.

Did you get any support when building the site?

I used Wix’s customer service, which was pretty good. I put in my question and found my answer in one of the answer suggestions in the chat box.

Would you recommend Wix?

I am extremely satisfied with my website. I am continuously watching Wix’s courses on YouTube and learning so much. I keep adding to my website to make it more user-friendly.

I recommend Wix. It’s easy and fast. Everyone should get started today!

wix logo

Looking for a Reliable Website Builder?

Wix is our top choice for small businesses because it comes jam-packed with useful website features, sales tools, design options, and efficient support.

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2. Squarespace

Best for Creative Businesses

Pricing Range: $16 – $49 per month

See it in action: Stone’s Throw Productions

Squarespace

Best for creative businesses

Very Good

4.3

out of 5
  • Award-winning templates
  • Great for building brands
  • Amazing analytics tools

Free trial available

Paid Plans: $16 - $49 / month

Pros

  • High-quality, built-in features
  • Stylish and aesthetic designs
  • Ideal for online bookings

Cons

  • No phone support
  • Can't autosave when editing
  • Less creative control than Wix
Squarespace Review

Squarespace Overview

Squarespace is one of the top website builders for small businesses, especially if you’re looking for style and substance. It scores 4.3 out of 5 in our overall small business testing, which is a slight drop since last year’s score of 4.7 out of 5.

While it hasn’t been able to beat Wix in our rankings, Squarespace’s high design score of 4.5 out of 5, as well as its beginner-friendly editor and incredible support channels, make it a very strong option for small businesses.

You’ll have no trouble creating a brand from scratch with Squarespace since it’s one of the simplest builders to use, scoring 4.4 out of 5 in our ease of use category – putting it on par with Wix in this area.

The only reason Squarespace doesn’t take the top position is because of its features. They’re not as well-rounded as Wix’s, and Squarespace’s ecommerce plans target smaller businesses. We’d recommend Squarespace for marketing or creative-type businesses that don’t need to sell large amounts.

Squarespace Features

Squarespace has seen a drop in its score for website features, from 4.1 out of 5 last year to this year’s score of 3.7 out of 5. However, we were impressed to see improvements to Squarespace’s in-house offering, including an online bookings tool and advanced marketing features.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace has four plans, which start from $16 per month: Personal, Business, Basic Commerce, and Advanced Commerce. Similar to Wix, Squarespace has fallen victim to the change in our pricing algorithm, and its costly plans have resulted in a value for money score of 3.4 out of 5.

After Wix, Squarespace has the next-best website features of all the small business website builders we’ve tested, scoring 3.7 out of 5 in the category. While this is a drop since last year’s score of 4.1 out of 5, Squarespace’s third-party apps and internal extensions are a real credit to the platform.

Here’s just a handful of what Squarespace is capable of:

  • Squarespace Extensions: Add plugins and extensions from third parties to your website via Squarespace’s version of an app market.
  • SEO: If SERP (search engine results page) domination is high on your agenda – and for most small businesses, it should be – then Squarespace is the builder for you. Our in-depth Squarespace SEO review highlights why Squarespace’s SEO features are so good.
  • Squarespace Scheduling: An easy online booking tool that lets clients view your availability, book or reschedule appointments, and even pay online.
  • Social media: You can integrate your Squarespace site with a raft of social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. Squarespace also allows you to pull content from certain platforms straight onto your page.
  • Domains: You can buy a domain from Squarespace, or connect your own existing domain without a fuss. And, with an annual paid plan, you’ll get a free domain for one year.

Squarespace is a design-focused website builder, but its sales features have improved by almost 10% since last year’s research, reaching a new score of 3.7 out of 5. What caused such a big leap, you might ask? We noticed an increase in payment options, data offerings, and promotional elements.

That being said, if you’re looking to sell online, Squarespace is best suited for businesses with few products to sell since its inventory features are not as advanced as other providers.

You can take payments via PayPal, Stripe, Square, Apple Pay, and more. On the cheapest ecommerce plan, Business, you’ll need to pay a 3% transaction fee. If you upgrade to the Basic or Advanced Commerce plan, you won’t be charged any transaction fees.

For small businesses, Squarespace is one of the easiest to use, alongside Wix – both builders score 4.4 out of 5 in our latest round of research. Squarespace’s stunning designs and elements make for a smooth building experience, no matter your skill level.

As one tester said:

“The tutorial on how to edit the site was a nice touch for new builders.”

And another went on to say:

“I loved the background grid for organizing your layout – it was so good for making sure everything was aligned properly. My page ended up looking sleeker and neater than other platforms.”

Squarespace is one of the best for design, sitting in second place with a score of 4.5 out of 5. It has over 100 professionally-designed templates to choose from, which cover all of the main industries, from local businesses to real estate.

All of Squarespace’s templates are polished, aesthetically pleasing, and modern in style – resulting in a stylish appearance without the need for any coding experience.

You’re able to customize your website to fit your brand with ease, right down to the fonts, colors, sidebar width, and background images. Though Wix offers slightly more creative control when editing, Squarespace at least lets you change your template once your site is live.

Squarespace has four paid plans: Personal, Business, Basic Commerce, and Advanced Commerce. It also has a 14-day free trial, allowing you to give the builder a test run.

Pricing starts at $16 per month with the Personal plan, rising to $49 per month with the Advanced Commerce plan.

Despite packing a powerful punch within its plans, Squarespace isn’t the most affordable starting point and won’t be suitable for every small business. And, with prices increasing across the market, it’s no surprise that Squarespace’s value for money score is 3.4 out of 5.

Squarespace has some of the best help and support for small businesses – it scores a near-perfect 4.8 out of 5, making it our top choice in this category along with Wix and IONOS.

Like its range of templates, Squarespace’s help and support options are comprehensive and of high quality. If you find yourself getting stuck, you can use its various channels:

  • Live chat Monday to Friday
  • 24/7 email support
  • 24/7 social media support
  • In-depth knowledge base
  • Community forum
  • Video tutorials

Squarespace’s knowledge base is particularly helpful, with a huge range of detailed guides. The only downside is that Squarespace doesn’t offer phone support, so bear this in mind if you prefer talking to someone directly.

The good news is that the support options available are accessible on every Squarespace plan, meaning priority support isn’t reserved for certain customers.

With an impressive score of 4.2 out of 5 for customer satisfaction, Squarespace is definitely a hit with its users. Based on our recent research, Squarespace’s simple grid-style editor received a lot of praise, and the sleek UX of the builder became a real standout point. It was also the builder that our testers would recommend to others the most!
Squarespace is incredible if you want to build a website for a creative or visually-heavy small business. Take a look at some example industries below:

  • Marketing & ads – Create a marketing website using the tools Squarespace has to offer, such as branded email campaigns, a built-in studio feature, and the ability to craft social media posts
  • Photography & videography – Squarespace is a very visual builder and it has plenty of templates designed with imagery in mind
  • Blogging – Squarespace allows you to create blog posts, tag posts, add them to social channels, and enable comments to engage with your readers
  • Real estate – Squarespace has real estate templates, so you can show off properties with style

What’s new with Squarespace this month?

  • Squarespace AI Crawler Causes Alarm: Squarespace’s recent Refresh update announced a number of new features, especially in the realm of AI features. One new feature that was not advertised in the update was that all Squarespace would be automatically opted in for the AI’s database. Users who discovered this were pretty upset that Squarespace had allowed AI to learn from their sites without a heads-up. If you have a Squarespace site, you can go to your Settings, go to the Crawlers section, and toggle the switch for AI crawling.

Squarespace in Action: Stone's Throw Productions

man posing with camera with logo on the lenscap
Will Weeks
Founder & President
Will Weeks started Stone’s Throw Productions in 2021 after getting fed up with his job in project management. People started asking to hire him for pictures and just saw an opportunity and ran with it!
The nice thing about Squarespace is, if I notice something I need to change, or want to update pictures in my portfolio, it is a super quick change to make and I know that I won’t mess up the look and functionality of my site.

Q&A

Why did you choose Squarespace for your website?

I chose Squarespace because it was marketed as being very user-friendly. I know nothing about programming and wanted an easy experience building my site. It is really easy to add plugins to the site as well which means I can expand the features of my site as needed. You can also get your domain through Squarespace, further simplifying the whole process.

Is Squarespace easy to use?

Yes, Squarespace is easy to use. It also got a lot easier once they updated to their new fluid engine, allowing you to freely move elements around your site. Building a nice-looking site is very easy to do and you could probably figure it out without any tutorials. There are a lot of complex things to consider to get your site SEO optimized and with a great client experience, so you will still need to do a fair amount of research on that. But, once you know what you need to do, Squarespace makes it easy to do it.

How long did it take you to make your website with Squarespace?

My first draft of my website only took me a few days to make. This included multiple pages with my photography portfolios on them, a contact form, an about page, a blog, etc. So all things considered, I thought it was pretty fast. That being said, it has taken me over 2 years to get my site to where it’s at now and I’m far from done. The nice thing about Squarespace is, if I notice something I need to change, or want to update pictures in my portfolio, it is a super quick change to make and I know that I won’t mess up the look and functionality of my site. Sometimes I will have to set up a store page to sell products from an event I photographed or took videos of. I can put up one of these store pages in just a couple of hours, allowing me to take payments and track orders from that event, then remove it once I no longer need it. It’s super easy!

What do you like most about Squarespace?

How easily it integrates with other platforms. It is super simple to connect to Google Analytics to track website traffic. My contact form is from my CRM platform which is a simple copy and paste of a code block and makes my workflow a lot smoother. I can easily embed YouTube videos instead of just putting them on the site, significantly increasing load times. I am starting a newsletter and they have tons of options for integrating email hosting platforms etc. My website is the central hub for my business, so it’s really nice that Squarespace makes it easy to integrate with other platforms and doesn’t just force you into an ecosystem where you have to use their products for everything.

Is there anything you'd change about Squarespace?

I don’t want to get too technical here, but there are some strange implementations of their page editing software that make certain pages very difficult to edit. Blogs, for example, seem to follow an entirely different set of rules when it comes to creating the look and layout. It can feel clunky at times to achieve the look you’re going for so I’d say improving the usability of the page editing across all page types would be a great improvement Squarespace could make.

Is Squarespace a good website builder for small businesses?

Squarespace is cheap and easy to use. As my business grows, I would consider switching off of Squarespace to get a more customized site from a hired developer. Squarespace does slightly limit you on the layout of your site, but it is more than enough to get you a nice-looking website to look professional for your customers when you’re getting started.
squarespace logo

Want a Professional Site for Your Business?

Whether you’re promoting your small business online, or want to sell products to customers, Squarespace can help you do it all with style.

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3. GoDaddy

Best for Fitness and Health Websites

Pricing range: $9.99 – $29.99 per month

See it in action: Qilafi Public Relations

GoDaddy

Best for fitness and health websites

Very Good

4.1

out of 5
  • Fastest to set up
  • Limited creative control
  • ADI website builder

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $6.99 - $469.99 / month

Pros

  • Strong digital marketing tools
  • Ideal for beginners
  • Better for basic sites

Cons

  • Very little creative control
  • Unsuitable for complex sites
  • Difficult for brand customization
GoDaddy Review

GoDaddy Overview

Rounding out our top three, we have GoDaddy with an overall score of 4.1 out of 5 in our small business research.

To put it simply, GoDaddy is ideal for small businesses that want to get up and running quickly. And, if you’re really in a hurry, GoDaddy’s ADI function is perfect for you. Rather than having to choose a template and edit it until you’re happy with the design, GoDaddy’s short questionnaire will determine what you want from your site and build it for you. It couldn’t get any easier!

The only downside is that GoDaddy isn’t made for complex websites or growing businesses – its features, with a low score of 3.4 out of 5, and its restricted customization, can feel limiting. If you compare it with our top two choices, Wix and Squarespace, GoDaddy lacks their creative power.

GoDaddy Features

GoDaddy sits fairly middle of the road when it comes to website features, scoring 3.4 out of 5 in our recent product testing – dropping slightly from last year’s score of 3.6 out of 5. It’s mostly let down by its basic marketing features, a lack of powerful in-house features to rely on, and no app store.

GoDaddy Pricing

GoDaddy has four plans to choose from: Basic, Premium, Commerce, and Commerce Plus. Pricing ranges from $9.99 to $29.99 per month, making it one of the most affordable options on this list. You’ll need to upgrade to one of the two commerce plans if you want to start selling online, but all four plans accept payments, come with marketing tools, and allow online bookings.

GoDaddy receives a fairly average score for website features – with a rating of 3.4 out of 5 in our 2023 research, the builder sits in third place for features behind Shopify.

That being said, GoDaddy has some great features for small business websites:

  • SEO: GoDaddy’s SEO feature will automatically review your website and optimize it for search engines, but it’s not available on the cheapest plan. We also noticed significant improvements to SEO since last year, notably in the addition of custom headers and URLs.
  • Google Analytics: Unlike most website builders that use their own analytics tools, GoDaddy has seamlessly integrated its software with Google Analytics, providing brilliant data and analysis at your fingertips.
  • Domains: GoDaddy is one of the largest domain registrars in the world, so it’s really easy to set up your domain with this builder.

What holds GoDaddy back from receiving a higher score comes down to two things: its basic marketing features, and its lack of an app store. GoDaddy’s marketing features fall short of our top two builders, simply offering basic tools like social post creation and email campaigns. This isn’t ideal for a small business looking to grow online.

Plus, without an app store, GoDaddy makes its users reliant on its in-house features. So you’re stuck with what you get.

GoDaddy is one of the lowest-rated builders for sales features, scoring an underwhelming 2.8 out of 5. The most powerful sales features are locked behind the most expensive plan, such as unlimited products and automated sales tax.

The majority of cards are accepted with GoDaddy, as well as PayPal. And, interestingly, GoDaddy’s transaction fees – 2.3% + $0.30 – are pretty low in comparison to other builders, like Squarespace. However, with Squarespace, your transaction fees will disappear as you upgrade your plan. With GoDaddy, the transaction fees remain the same across every plan, meaning you can’t upgrade your plan to avoid them.

GoDaddy is a really easy website builder to use thanks to its ADI feature. This makes GoDaddy an ideal choice if you want to get online quickly, especially if you don’t want to build your site from scratch.

Our research awards GoDaddy with a score of 4.1 out of 5 for its ease of use, seeing no change from last year’s rating.

But why doesn’t it score more highly if GoDaddy’s ADI does the building for you? While it’s no secret that GoDaddy can create a website in a matter of minutes, requiring minimal effort from you, the builder can feel quite restrictive after that.

One GoDaddy tester felt Squarespace was easier to use:

“Squarespace gives you a better feel that the world is your oyster – especially with templates. On GoDaddy, it feels like you don’t have as much room to explore.”

GoDaddy offers decent design flexibility, scoring 3.7 out of 5 and putting the builder level with Hostinger, but just behind Shopify.

Though GoDaddy’s designs aren’t as sleek or modern as Squarespace’s, GoDaddy’s templates do cover a wide range of industries, including fashion, food, sports, and more. Its themes are basic, but GoDadddy helps you get the job done quickly.

Unlike Wix, GoDaddy lets you switch your template at any time, meaning you have the flexibility to redesign your site later down the line.

However, it’s disappointing that GoDaddy doesn’t give users a mobile editor, especially since mobile devices are a core source of traffic for the majority of websites. Instead, the view is controlled by GoDaddy.

The marketwide price increases and the subsequent shift to our pricing algorithm have left GoDaddy as one of the better options when looking at value for money. With a score of 4.5 out of 5, GoDaddy sits in second place for price, sharing the silver medal with Square Online.

GoDaddy has four plans to choose from, as well as a free plan to sink your teeth into first. The Basic plan costs $9.99 per month, the Premium plan costs $14.99 per month, the Commerce plan costs $16.99 per month, and the Commerce Plus plan costs $29.99 per month.

The Premium plan is a great starting point for small businesses since it offers:

  • Unlimited social media platforms
  • 25,000 email marketing sends per month
  • Recurring appointments
  • Payments for appointments
  • Email and text appointment reminders

Of course, if you want to sell products online, you’ll need to opt for either the Commerce or Commerce Plus plan.

What we really like about GoDaddy is that the platform does a little bit of everything – you can manage your domain registration, web hosting, and website building, all in one place.

GoDaddy scores an impressive 4.3 out of 5 for its help and support options, making it a strong choice for small businesses that need a dependable website builder in times of need.

You can access the following support options across the four plans:

  • 24/7 phone support
  • 24/7 live chat
  • Knowledge base
  • How-to videos
  • Community forum

The knowledge base and community forum can help you find answers to simple questions, but you’ll need to contact the customer team directly if you want help with something niche or specific.

Of all the website builders we tested, GoDaddy sits in the top three with its customer satisfaction score of 4.3 out of 5. This puts it just behind Shopify and Wix, and slightly ahead of Squarespace.

With an easy-to-use builder thanks to GoDaddy’s ADI, as well as its affordable pricing plans, it’s no surprise that customers are satisfied with GoDaddy’s service. Naturally, it falls short in certain areas, such as features and ecommerce functionality, but if you’re just looking to get your business online quickly, GoDaddy could be for you.

GoDaddy isn’t just a speedy builder, we’d recommend it for the following industries:

  • Fitness & Health – The efficiency of GoDaddy’s builder and simple features make it an ideal fit for those in the fitness, health, or wellness industry

What’s new with GoDaddy this month?

  • GoDaddy Unveils Tailored Small-to-Medium Business Web Design: GoDaddy has introduced an ‘Essential Design Service’ for $499.99 which lets a GoDaddy professional build the website for you. The service includes four web pages, a sign-up form or Contact Us form for lead capture, as well as 500 copywritten words. For a one-time fee, you can have a professionally designed website for small businesses ready to start selling immediately.

GoDaddy in Action: Qilafi Public Relations

a smiling woman in an ochre dress
Brooke Qilafi
Owner
Qilafi Public Relations focuses on earned media and public relations consulting for brands and individuals, using years of experience and knowledge to get clients featured in the media, whether that's a consumer packaged good or an expert in a particular field. Their clients have been featured in everything from People Magazine, Yahoo! News, Men's Health, Los Angeles Times, and more.
As a small business, GoDaddy is affordable, easy to use, and provides tech support for SMEs that may not have an IT department.

Q&A

How long have you been using GoDaddy?

I created my website in October of 2022, so about 1 year now.

Why did you choose GoDaddy?

I chose GoDaddy as it is an affordable option and also includes Microsoft Office within my package, so I use my website domain, email domain, and Microsoft Exchange account all through GoDaddy.

Are there any improvements you'd make to GoDaddy?

When using GoDaddy for Microsoft, you do not have access to Microsoft support, except for through GoDaddy which sometimes can feel like having a middleman. This has led to some frustration when there are technical issues, although in due time all my issues have been resolved – it just took longer than what I would have wished.

Would you recommend GoDaddy?

Yes, I would. As a small business, GoDaddy is affordable, easy to use, and provides tech support for SMEs that may not have an IT department.
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Need To Get Online Fast?

GoDaddy can have you up and running in a flash, especially with its ADI builder on hand. You can try it out for free today!

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4. Shopify

Best for Online Stores

Pricing range: $29 – $299 per month 

See it in action: EcoBranders

Shopify

Best for online stores

Very Good

4

out of 5
  • Ideal for larger stores
  • Amazing sales tools
  • Excellent app store

Free trial available

Paid Plans: $29 - $299 / month

Pros

  • Multiplatform selling
  • Extensive payment options
  • Best for scaling your business

Cons

  • Expensive pricing plans
  • High transaction fees
  • Very reliant on apps
Shopify Review

Shopify Overview

With an overall score of 4 out of 5, Shopify is ideal for small businesses that want to grow over time. We’d recommend it primarily for businesses looking to sell online as opposed to simply promoting their brand and products because Shopify gives you plenty of tools to manage inventory.

With a whole catalog of ecommerce tools, Shopify scores a mighty 4.7 out of 5 for its sales features, putting the builder in first place for this research category. Some of its most useful features include templates for purchase orders and shipping labels, a QR code generator, a logo design tool, and a profit margin calculator.

Although Shopify’s plans are the most expensive on the list, and its platform can be a lot to get your head around, Shopify still receives the highest score for customer satisfaction with a rating of 4.5 out of 5. Let’s take a closer look at the builder below:

Shopify Features

Shopify’s generic website features aren’t anything to shout home about, scoring 3.4 out of 5 in our latest round of product testing. Its in-house functionality covers the basics, but Shopify relies heavily on its app store. That being said, Shopify shines when it comes to ecommerce, scoring 4.7 out of 5 for its sales features.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify has three core plans: Basic, Shopify, and Advanced. When billed annually, prices range from $29 per month to $299 per month. If you want to start selling online but don’t feel ready to fully commit, Shopify’s Starter plan only costs $5 per month and lets you sell via social media platforms.

Shopify’s website features cover the basics, giving small business owners what they need to build a website and grow online. For this category, Shopify receives a score of 3.4 out of 5, putting it level with GoDaddy for features.

Unlike other builders that focus on delivering high-quality internal features, Shopify relies heavily on its enormous app store. You can choose from over 6,000 apps and widgets to integrate with your site, so the growth potential with Shopify is pretty vast!

We know that marketing is an important factor for small businesses, and Shopify offers a great deal. Its in-house email newsletter feature and multi-channel outreach, for example, can really help your brand expand online. That being said, the most advanced marketing features are available as third-party apps, such as social campaigns with Remarkety or popups with Kevy.

Though having a wealth of apps at your fingertips is great, it’s a shame that it doesn’t offer more internal functionality since the cost of all these extra add-ons – well, adds up.

Shopify’s sales feature score has improved since last year, increasing by 4% from 4.5 to its new score of 4.7 out of 5. There’s no doubt that Shopify is a go-to when it comes to running a business online, and it boasts a real goodie bag of features.

All of Shopify’s plans come with:

  • Unlimited products
  • Multiple sales channels
  • Abandoned cart recovery
  • Discount codes
  • Shopify Payments

… and more! It’s also worth mentioning that the new Shopify Starter plan is a great testing ground for new businesses – you can dip your toe into the world of selling through social and messaging apps.

Shopify scores an above-average 3.5 out of 5 in our ease of use testing. It can be a little tricky wrapping your head around Shopify’s editor since it splits it into two interfaces. The frontend can be used to edit your website or store, but you need to switch over to the backend to manage your product information and finer details.

One website tester said this of Shopify’s structure:

“It doesn’t let you do much in the frontend editor, you shouldn’t have to return to the dashboard to complete basic tasks. Adding pages and products shouldn’t be done in the dashboard, they should be upfront and center, or else it feels like they’re being hidden away.”

Compared to the beginner-friendly style of other builders, such as Wix and Squarespace, Shopify has a steeper learning curve. Still, with its powerful sales features, it can be worth getting to grips with!

Another tester shared how much they enjoyed the platform:

“It’s definitely suited for those with more experience with web design, but this makes it fun to use as you can feel the potential for customization.” 

When it gets down to designing your online store, Shopify provides a choice of 135 professionally-designed templates. Unfortunately, only 12 of these themes are free at the time of writing, and the rest will rely on you shelling out between $180-$360 to use it.

That being said, the free themes are fairly stylish, so they’re a good starting point if you don’t want to break the bank purely for aesthetics. If you want advanced customization, you will need to upgrade to a paid template.

But, for an online store, we have to say that we were particularly impressed by Shopify’s product page options. You can add all of the key information easily, allowing customers to filter products quickly if desired.

Of the eight builders on this list, Shopify is the worst value for money, scoring a low 3.2 out of 5 in our testing.

As with every other platform in the industry, Shopify’s prices have increased since last year, making it a very expensive option. Plus, Shopify’s reliance on third-party apps doesn’t help if you’re looking to save costs.

Shopify has three plans: Basic, Shopify, and Advanced. The Basic plan starts at $29 per month, the Shopify plan starts at $79 per month, and the Advanced plan starts at $299 per month.

There’s also the Shopify Starter plan for $5 per month if you want to sell across socials and messaging apps.

Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t offer a free plan, but it does have a three-day free trial on select plans. You then get a killer deal of $1 per month for the first three months, meaning you won’t have to pay for Shopify’s expensive service straight away.

Shopify has a lot going for it when it comes to help and support, scoring 4 out of 5 in our recent research. As a customer, you’ll get access to:

  • 24/7 live chat
  • 24/7 phone
  • Email support
  • Social media support
  • Help Center
  • Shopify Community

Its help center is extensive, covering everything from starting with Shopify to expanding your online store.

With a score of 4.5 out of 5, Shopify performs the best in our customer satisfaction category. Though Shopify isn’t the easiest to use, at least when compared with the drag-and-drop editor style of Wix or the swiftness of GoDaddy’s ADI builder, Shopify maintains a positive image thanks to its powerful ecommerce tools.
We’d recommend Shopify to small businesses looking to scale up, or businesses with more than a handful of products to sell. Its inventory management tools, marketing features, and giant app market make it easy to grow your website or store as your business expands.
What’s new with Shopify this month?

  • Shopify Breaks Black Friday Records: Shopify merchants set a new record with $9.3 billion in sales made over Black Friday weekend. Over 55,000 Shopify stores had their best sales day ever, with the average checkout being $110.71! If you’re looking for an ecommerce platform in the new year, these results should be pretty encouraging in Shopify’s favor.

Shopify in Action: EcoBranders

headshot of well-lit woman with glasess smiling
Stacee Matheson
CEO & Founder
EcoBranders launched in 2007 out of Founder and CEO Stacee Matheson's desire to find meaningful ways to tread more lightly on our planet and to help others do the same. Born and raised in the majestic Pacific Northwest, her love and respect for nature runs deep, so finding ways to protect it is always in her consciousness and a top priority.
I think Shopify is great for small businesses because of its affordability, which is really important. Also, you don’t need to hire a website designer or tech person to help you set things up.

Q&A

Why did you choose Shopify for your website?

Our store at EcoBranders is built on Shopify. After trying several other e-commerce platforms, we decided to go with Shopify a few years ago because it’s very easy to use, looks great, and works really well. I also liked the fact that Shopify takes care of the updates for you, rather than having to do it manually. In addition, I felt the pricing was reasonable.

How long did it take you to make your website with Shopify?

Our original store on Shopify took a couple of months to build because we had roughly 200 products at the time. The non-product pages were quick and easy to set up. Setting up around 200 product pages definitely took a fair share of time, but that’s no reflection on the platform, as Shopify makes it very easy to set up product pages, which we appreciate.

Is Shopify a good website builder for small businesses? Does it support growth?

I think Shopify is great for small businesses because of its affordability, which is really important. Also, you don’t need to hire a website designer or tech person to help you set things up- it’s really intuitive and easy for beginners but sophisticated enough that people who are well-versed in setting up stores can also appreciate it.

What do you like most about Shopify?

One of my favorite features with Shopify is one that you don’t hear people talk about too much. Because it was so difficult for me in the past with other platforms, I really appreciate how Shopify makes it very easy to create 301 redirects and has an intuitive interface for doing so. It even creates 301 redirects where it thinks they need to exist, but you have full control over that. It may not be very exciting, but it’s so important for SEO.

Is Shopify easy to use?

Another great thing about Shopify is that, because it’s such a large platform, it’s very easy to find people who are experienced and trained to work in Shopify stores. That’s a nice feature for somebody who needs a little help with their website and doesn’t have the ability or the time to train somebody on how to take care of whatever they need.

Do you plan to continue to use Shopify?

Overall, I’d say it’s a really great platform, and after a few years of using it, I couldn’t be happier. I definitely plan to continue building out our store on Shopify, and we’ll probably have a look at Shopify Plus down the road.
shopify

Looking To Grow Your Business?

Shopify gives your small business plenty of room to grow online – its plans offer high-quality sales features, marketing tools, and multichannel integration.

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5. Square Online

Best for Food-Based Businesses

Pricing range: free – $79 per month

See it in action: Unique NOLA Tours

Square Online

Best for food-based businesses

Good

3.5

out of 5
  • Quick and simple
  • Sell for free
  • Dated template designs

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $12 - $79 / month

Pros

  • Easy to navigate dashboard
  • Built-in marketing
  • Great value for money

Cons

  • Difficult to customize
  • Can only use Square payment
  • Steep learning curve
Square Online Review

Square Online Overview

Kicking off the second half of our list, Square Online scores an overall 3.5 out of 5 in our recent research. Square Online is aimed at small businesses looking to sell online, with a particular operational focus on those with a restaurant or food-based business.

What makes Square Online stand out is its free plan that allows users to sell without needing to upgrade to a paid plan. Plus, if you’re already in the Square ecosystem – meaning you’re using Square POS (Point of Sale) with your business already – then it’s super simple to sync it all with your new website.

The reason Square Online doesn’t sit higher on this list is because of its weak design options and lack of advanced features.

Square Online Features

For its website features, Square Online scores 3 out of 5. This is largely because you need to pay more for the best features – its free plan is pretty restrictive and features ads. But all of Square Online’s plans come with SEO tools, unlimited products, and social media integration. If you want the best sales features, you’d be better off upgrading to one of Square Online’s paid plans.

Square Online Pricing

Square Online is one of our top choices for price, scoring 4.5 out of 5 – putting it in the same position as GoDaddy, and just below Jimdo. You can choose from one of Square Online’s two paid plans: Plus and Premium. It also offers a free plan which, unlike other builders, lets you start selling right away.

Square Online sits in the middle of the pack with an average website features score of 3 out of 5. Its free plan is fairly generous, offering the SEO basics and a number of ecommerce tools, which we’ll look at in more detail later.

But you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan if you want to unlock Square Online’s stronger features. The Plus and Premium plans include the following:

  • Free domain for one year
  • Removal of Square Online ads
  • Customer accounts
  • Password-protected pages
  • Website analytics

When it comes to sales features, Square Online scores 3.6 out of 5 – a small improvement from last year’s score of 3.5 out of 5. It’s perfect for small businesses that want to sync a brick-and-mortar store with an online presence – especially if you’re already using Square POS.

Square Online’s free plan covers the basics, including:

  • Delivery and shipping management tools
  • Automatic tax calculator
  • Unlimited products

You’ll need to upgrade to the Plus or Premium plan if you want access to advanced ecommerce statistics, product reviews, abandoned cart emails, and order status alerts – to name just a few sales features.

In comparison to other builders, Square Online’s sales features are a little lackluster. If you need room to expand your business or a plan packed with features, then we’d recommend one of the options higher up on this list.

Square Online scores 3.7 out of 5 in our ease of use research. It definitely isn’t as flexible or as customizable as Wix, for example, but it’s more user-friendly than Shopify. Our research shows that Square Online’s detailed product pages and easy-to-navigate interface made it a breeze to use, but its limited nature won’t be ideal for everyone.

That being said, one of our Square Online testers particularly loved the simplicity of the builder:

“It gave you just the right amount of options, it never felt like it was overloading you. This always makes the process easier when you’re not overwhelmed with choice.”

Other builders, such as Wix, can be guilty of being overwhelming at the start.

Out of the eight builders in this list, Square Online is the least customizable, scoring a disappointing 2.2 out of 5.

Square Online falls short in this department because it simply can’t keep up with the competition, failing to update or release many new design options over the last year. It offers users a small range of templates, including industry-specific themes for restaurants and retail.

If you’re not looking to reinvent the wheel or design isn’t your strongest area, then Square Online could be for you. You can present visitors with a familiar-looking site that lets your products shine. This minimalist approach is especially useful for businesses in the food industry since your services, menu, and imagery can steal the show.

Square Online is one of the best value for money builders that we tested, with an amazing score of 4.5 out of 5. This puts Square Online at the same level as GoDaddy in our research for this category.

Square Online has one free plan (which permits selling but features ads), and two paid plans: Plus and Premium. The Plus plan costs $29 per month, and the Premium plan costs $79 per month. Similar prices to Shopify but with the addition of a free plan!

Since you can sell across all three plans, transaction fees are set at 2.9% + $0.30. However, if you upgrade to the Premium plan, they’ll be 2.6% + $0.30. Most payment types are accepted, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, but the free plan doesn’t allow PayPal.

Square Online isn’t one of our top choices for help and support, scoring 3.3 out of 5 in our product testing. It offers multiple support channels:

  • Live chat
  • Phone support Monday to Friday
  • Support Center – guides, how-to articles, tips
  • Seller Community – learn from other businesses
  • Video tutorials

Without dependable 24/7 support, Square Online struggles to compete with others in the market, such as our top choice for support, Jimdo.

Square Online separates the group with its above average score of 3.3 out of 5. We had a group of users test out the platform during our research, and they had a lot to share. Many agreed that Square Online is easy to navigate, and they particularly loved its product pages.

One person also said the onboarding was great:

“The recommended tasks at the beginning are well thought out. They are exactly what a business owner has to consider when first setting up their site.”

Other testers found Square Online lacking in customization options and slow to load, with one tester suggesting that businesses should avoid the platform altogether:

“If someone already had an online business, I wouldn’t recommend they switch to Square. They may find the lack of creative control frustrating.”

Interested in Square Online? We’d highly recommend the platform for the following industries:

  • Restaurants – Square Online offers restaurant-specific templates and custom elements for food-based businesses, including an online ordering page that accepts orders across your website and socials

What’s new with Square Online this month?

  • Square Online Introduces Tap to Pay on iPhone in the UK: Tap to Pay on iPhone comes to the UK, making it the third market globally Square Online offers this technology to its sellers. Available within the Square Point of Sale, Square for Retail, and Square Appointments iOS apps, Tap to Pay on iPhone lets sellers of all sizes accept contactless payments directly from their iPhone, with no additional hardware required and at no additional cost.

Square Online in Action: Unique NOLA Tours

a headshot of a man with glasses and wild hair
Christopher Falvey
Co-Founder
Christopher and co-founder Monique Hamilton run Unique NOLA Tours, a combination curio shop and tour guide company for the New Orleans area. With Square Online, they brought their little shop of horrors online, and users can now peruse everything from tarot cards, voodoo supplies and taxidermized bats!
Both myself and my partner (Monique Hamilton) are web developers, so it has some hooks where we can code custom stuff special only to us.

Q&A

How long did it take you to build your website with Square Online?

We started in September and our website will be live this week. So about 3 months, give or take.

Is Square Online easy to use?

It’s not great, and it is a bit clunky when integrating it with WordPress and WooCommerce. But we’ve ironed out a lot of kinks. Both I and my partner (Monique Hamilton) are web developers, so it has some hooks where we can code custom stuff special only to us.

What makes Square Online a good website builder for small businesses?

The fact that we can extend this system with Elementor makes the design much easier. The data flow back and forth takes some time to get right and is a little flaky, but once set… it finally does just work. Then with the flexibility of Elementor, we can design exactly as we want (we don’t want to look like a template website, our quirkiness is our brand!)

What is your favorite feature of Square Online?

The fact that the inventory is live and items are removed once they are not available. We have a lot of pieces that are 1-of-1 or very low quantity. This is critical. Someone may buy in the store today, and it needs to be not available on the web at that moment.

Are there any improvements you would like to make?

Nothing. I got this and so do you!
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Do You Want a Simple Site for Your Business?

Square Online isn’t the most stylish builder, but it does deliver high-quality pages to let your products shine.

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6. Hostinger

Best for Side Hustles

Pricing range: $2.99 per month

See it in action: Learn Thai in Singapore

Hostinger

Best for side hustles

Above Average

3.4

out of 5
  • Suitable for small stores
  • Drag-and-drop editor
  • Affordable single plan

Paid Plans: $2.99 - $109.99 / month

Pros

  • A basic platform for beginners
  • Simple templates
  • 24/7 live chat support

Cons

  • Lack of creative control
  • Difficult to grow online
  • Limited tools to work with
Hostinger Review

Hostinger Overview

Hostinger recently rolled out its very own website builder after acquiring Zyro. For small businesses, it scores a decent 3.2 out of 5 in our research, putting Hostinger in sixth place.

What sets Hostinger apart from the other builders on this list is the fact that it has one plan. This definitely limits its scalability, but Hostinger’s affordable builder keeps things simple.

We’d recommend Hostinger for any small business looking to get online quickly and cheaply – its simple features and editor make it ideal for beginners or anyone less tech-savvy.

Hostinger Features

Hostinger has some of the lowest-scoring website features of the bunch. Its features aren’t very advanced, especially when compared with its competitors, and it has no app market or additional plans to upgrade to – this is why it scores 2.4 out of 5.

Hostinger Pricing

Hostinger has one plan to keep things simple, starting at $2.99 per month. If you commit to its longest term of 48 months, you can even get three months for free! However, we’ll warn you to be aware of Hostinger’s renewal costs since they can be a considerable jump up following the initial term. For example, if you sign up for a year at $2.99 per month, it’ll renew at $8.99 per month.

You can get 10% off Hostinger if you use our code WBE at checkout.
One of Hostinger’s weakest areas is its website features, scoring 2.4 out of 5 in our recent round of small business research. What lets Hostinger down is that it only offers a few basic features, and doesn’t even have an app store, meaning you only have access to a limited number of tools.

On its Website Builder + Web Hosting plan, business owners can expect:

  • A free domain
  • Free email
  • Ecommerce tools, including inventory management and online bookings
  • Marketing integrations, including Google Analytics
  • Free SSL certificate
  • Unmetered traffic
  • Unlimited storage
  • AI tools for content and data

Another major downside is Hostinger’s poor SEO tools, limiting your growth as a small business.

Hostinger uses a drag-and-drop editor for its website builder, scoring 3.9 out of 5 for its ease of use. While this is a super beginner-friendly interface, the lack of features and limited design options make it difficult to show off your brand. One tester said this of Hostinger’s offering:

“The things that I could do I found quite easy, but there were a lot of things I couldn’t do and I found it frustrating that Hostinger was lacking certain features.”

However, plenty of users loved how easy it is to use generally, saying:

“It’s pretty good for businesses that are just starting out. It’s not like you’re using a Maserati to go to the shops. It feels like the right size for the market it’s going for.”

With a score of 3.7 out of 5 for design, Hostinger shares the same position as GoDaddy. Hostinger’s drag-and-drop editor makes the website builder incredibly accessible for beginners and tech wizards alike, and users can choose from over 100 pre-designed templates.

Despite this, Hostinger lacks the design flexibility of other builders, locking users into certain design choices. The templates can feel quite restrictive, simple, and basic. And, similarly to Wix, you can’t swap your template once your site is live – so choose carefully!

Hostinger scores a respectable 3.8 out of 5 in our value for money testing, putting it just behind GoDaddy and Square Online. With a single plan – Website Builder + Web Hosting – Hostinger can keep things cheap and simple.

Its plan costs $2.99 per month, and if you subscribe to a 48-month term, you’ll get the first three months for free. For the limited features and customization on offer, it’s a decent deal.

Hostinger advertises help and support around the clock on its website builder plan. Our research shows it has some room to improve, scoring Hostinger 3.3 out of 5 for its support options.

There’s only really one way to contact Hostinger about issues, but it offers plenty of resources to find an answer yourself:

  • 24/7 live chat
  • Knowledge base
  • Tutorials
  • Hostinger Academy

Unfortunately, Hostinger has moved away from offering phone support, so you’re out of luck if you want to talk to someone directly.

Hostinger scores 2.7 out of 5 for customer satisfaction, making it one of the lowest-performing builders in this category. But why? Despite a cheap cost, what Hostinger has to offer isn’t too appealing – its weak website features, limited support channels, and restrictive design elements, make it difficult to shape your website into what you want it to be.
Hostinger could be a really good website builder option for these industries:

  • Side hustle – With such an affordable plan, anyone looking to test the waters with a business idea or maintain something on the side can create a website that’s easy to manage and simple to design

What’s new with Hostinger this month?

  • Hostinger Introduces AI-Powered WordPress Troubleshooter: Hostinger has introduced a new AI troubleshooter for its WordPress plans. This tool offers AI-driven solutions to the myriad of tricky technical issues that often plague WordPress. This is a gamechanger as it’s an important ally to have when using WordPress, reducing those headaches and meaning users can get on with their day and not spend it slumped in front of the monitor, head in hand.

Hostinger in Action: Learn Thai in Singapore

a headshot of a woman smiling against a white background
Joanne Tan
Founder
Joanne Tan is an SEO specialist who uses her own experience of living in Thailand for 8 years to help provide translation advice for others with her website, Learn Thai in Singapore. She also uses the site to try out new SEO techniques, resulting in the website raking in profits after only a year!
Small website owners like myself have to do everything on our own and we cannot afford a web developer. Hence when we run into technical issues, we need a support team that can respond to us quickly and help us troubleshoot problems.

Q&A

Why did you choose Hostinger for your business website?

I chose Hostinger for three reasons:

1. Cost – I signed up during a Black Friday sale and paid SGD 90.30 for 48 months, which is an excellent deal.
2. Online reviews showed that Hostinger has a good support team. I need this because I’m not a web developer and I will need help to troubleshoot technical issues.
3. There was a server based in Singapore (Which turned out to be a secondary consideration now).

How long did it take you to build your website with Hostinger?

Without a web development background it, took me one day to set up my website’s skeleton (homepage, one service page, and one blog page).

Is Hostinger easy to use?

Yes, the interface is intuitive and user-friendly, plus the help articles online are clear.

What makes Hostinger a good website builder for small businesses?

Cost:
I got Hostinger during a promotion. But even without that, it is still one of the more affordable hosting platforms. Now my friend is setting up her website on Hostinger and it’s costing her SGD 140 for 4 years, which is a really good deal.

Support:
Small website owners like myself have to do everything on their own and cannot afford a web developer. Hence when we run into technical issues, we need a support team that can respond to us quickly and help us troubleshoot problems, which Hostinger does.

What is your favorite feature of Hostinger?

The support team is excellent. They reply quickly and help you fix problems, without being pushy about upsells. Once my website had a 403 error. I contacted them immediately. They gave me clear instructions on why it could have happened, checked my file backend, and even searched my website’s public records on Cloudflare and GoDaddy to provide me with instructions to communicate with them.

Are there any improvements you would like to make?

I think Hostinger is perfect as it is. Very happy with it and will recommend it to anyone who is setting up their first website to try it out.
hostinger logo

Looking for an Affordable Website Builder?

Hostinger offers a single website builder plan. It’s simple, affordable, and easy to navigate – we’d recommend it for anyone with a smaller store or side hustle.

More Information

7. Jimdo

Best for Service-Based Businesses

Pricing range: free – $24 per month 

See it in action: HiStylePicks LLC

Jimdo

Best for service-based businesses

Above Average

3

out of 5
  • Very cheap pricing plans
  • Rigid designs
  • Ideal for beginners

Free plan available

Paid Plans: $9 - $24 / month

Pros

  • Affordable and ad-free
  • Simple to navigate
  • ADI website builder

Cons

  • Lack of creative control
  • No 24/7 support available
  • Not a user-friendly builder
Jimdo Review

Jimdo Overview

In seventh place, we have Jimdo with an overall score of 3 out of 5 from our latest round of testing. Similarly to Hostinger, Jimdo offers a simple website builder with basic tools, all for an affordable price. In fact, Jimdo is the best value for money out of the eight platforms on the list.

Unfortunately, that’s where Jimdo’s selling points end. It sits at the bottom of the group for ease of use, help and support, and customer satisfaction – all key performance areas for a small business. The customization options are limited, its SEO features are weak, and the support available depends on your chosen plan.

Jimdo Features

Jimdo’s website features score is 3.2 out of 5, ranking just above Square Online but falling short of GoDaddy and Shopify. Small business owners will struggle with Jimdo’s lack of marketing tools and basic SEO capabilities. But if you’re looking for a simple builder, Jimdo could be for you.

Jimdo Pricing

For small businesses, our research shows that Jimdo is the best value for money, scoring 4.8 out of 5. It offers a free plan to get you started, and four additional paid plans – two of these focus on supporting online stores. Jimdo’s prices range from $9 per month to $24 per month.

Jimdo’s website features aren’t too exciting, scoring 3.2 out of 5 in our 2023 testing. All of Jimdo’s plans come with the following basic features and tools, including its free plan:

  • Image library
  • Contact forms
  • HTTPs security

After that, you’ll need to be on one of its four paid plans to access greater functionality. But even then, its features can feel limiting – unless you’re on the most expensive plan. Only on this plan will you unlock unlimited storage and bandwidth, unlimited website pages, and Business Listings.

As one user said of Jimdo’s features:

“If you have to upgrade for basic features right away then what extra costs will there be further down the line?”

A good question! To unlock the Business Listings feature, for example, which costs an additional $4 per month, you’ll need to subscribe to the Grow plan from $14 per month, or the online-store VIP plan from $24 per month.

Jimdo receives the lowest score for ease of use with a rating of 2.2 out of 5. Despite having an ADI builder, Jimdo’s interface and tools can be difficult to understand. Plus, some of our website testers felt that Jimdo cornered them into a certain box right away, making personalization or customization nearly impossible.

One person said it was “hard to complete even the simplest of tasks.”

But, it’s not all doom and gloom, despite the low score – a few testers really enjoyed their experience with Jimdo, which might be the case for you too! One person shared their thoughts on the builder:

“It was very easy to keep things clean. When you added a new section it immediately asked you what this block was for, making elements easy to implement.”

Jimdo offers users basic designs when building a website for your small business, resulting in its score of 3.4 out of 5. It’s ideal for anyone looking to get online quickly or for those who don’t want to deal with too many creative choices.

When you first sign up, Jimdo’s questionnaire helps you get started with a custom design. However, this tends to lead to users getting stuck with one industry or style throughout the editing experience. Someone who tested the website spoke on this frustration:

“Jimdo is too simplistic to really be able to recommend to anyone. It really railroads you into its own idea of whatever industry it prescribes you and gives you very little customization.”

One positive of Jimdo is its ADI builder. Like GoDaddy, its purpose is to help customers build a website quickly and without hassle. Unfortunately, Jimdo’s limitations when it comes to features and design mean you’d be better off going with GoDaddy.

If value for money is important for your small business, then Jimdo is our top choice with a score of 4.8 out of 5. You can kick off your business without spending a cent thanks to Jimdo’s free plan, or you can upgrade to one of its four paid plans for advanced features.

  • Start plan costs $9 per month
  • Grow plan costs $14 per month
  • Business plan costs $18 per month
  • VIP plan costs $24 per month

The latter two are specifically for ecommerce stores.

We know that dependable help and support is crucial for small businesses, and sadly Jimdo has the worst support out of every builder on this list. Scoring 2.3 out of 5 in our research, Jimdo operates a pay-for-support system. This means that the more premium your plan, the better support you’ll receive.

In fact, Jimdo classes help and support as a “feature”, and it isn’t available on its free plan at all.

If you do need to contact Jimdo, you can either search for an answer yourself via its Help Center, or send Jimdo a message through your account. That’s it – no live chat, no phone support, no email.

Jimdo is the lowest-rated builder for customer satisfaction, scoring 2.3 out of 5. To summarize all of the points above, its restrictive editor, lack of reliable support, and basic features combine to make a mediocre website builder.

It’s no surprise that only 28% of the people who tested the builder would recommend it to others.

Thanks to Jimdo’s ADI builder, we’d recommend the builder to anyone looking to build a simple site quickly:

  • Service-based business – If you’ve got services to offer, Jimdo has plenty of product features, pricing support, and social selling to help make those sales

Here’s a feature from Jimdo we’d like to spotlight:

  • Jimdo Smart Apps: With Jimdo Smart Apps, you can add interactive content from the web’s most popular platforms, like Calendly, Google, Airbnb, Twitter, and Canva. Simply copy and paste in the link and Jimdo will automatically embed it into your site. You can have a range of media from live video, music, gifs, feeds, polls infographics, and more.

HiStylePicks LLC

Robert Thorpe
CFO and Co-Founder
HiStylePicks is a platform for collecting clothes, beauty products and accessories from different online stores. They are here to help you shop online in an informed way.
The Jimdo experience makes it easy to create a website that is both informative and appealing to the eye. I would recommend using Jimdo to anyone who is looking to start a website.

Q&A

How long have you been using Jimdo?

I have been using Jimdo for about a year now. I like how easy it is to use, and it suits my needs. The Jimdo experience makes it easy to create a website that is both informative and appealing to the eye. I would recommend using Jimdo to anyone who is looking to start a website.

What do you like most about Jimdo?

What I like about Jimdo is how easy it is to create a website with. I’ve tried other free website builders, but none of them were as user friendly as Jimdo. It literally took me less than 5 minutes to create my website. Plus, they have a gorgeous template selection. I knew I could trust Jimdo to deliver when they said they had the best templates. I was shocked when I saw how beautiful they were. I was able to create the website I had dreamed of without any of the stress I had seen in others. Jimdo is incredible and I will tell all of my friends to use them!

Is there anything you'd change about Jimdo?

There’s not much I’d change about Jimdo. One thing that I would change is the ability to have more than one website on my account. I have an account for both my personal blog as well as my website for my business. However, since both of them are under the same Jimdo account, I’m limited to the same amount of storage, bandwidth and features for both. I would change that because I’d like to have a lot more storage for my personal blog. I know that I’m using it for my business, but I’d really like to have the ability to have my own dedicated account for my personal blog.

Would you recommend Jimdo?

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, free website builder, Jimdo will fit the bill. I highly recommend it. You can easily create a website in minutes, and it’s simple to edit or add anything to your site as you go. Jimdo is especially great for personal blogs, but it’s also a good option for small business owners. A few features I like about Jimdo: it has a strong SEO base, so you don’t have to worry about search engines not being able to access your website; it’s mobile-friendly, so visitors can browse your website from their phones, tablets, and other devices; and it has a free option with only a few limitations, like a maximum of 15 pages

Want the Best Value for Money?

Jimdo has a free plan, but we’d recommend upgrading to one of its four paid plans if you want to unlock the best features.

More Information

  • Jimdo Review: See if Jimdo’s the right fit for your small business.

8. IONOS

Best for Blue Collar Businesses

Pricing range: $1 – $25 per month  

See it in action: Restaurant POS Hacks

IONOS

Best for blue collar businesses

Average

2.9

out of 5
  • Basic tools and features
  • Multilingual options
  • Cheap pricing deals

Paid Plans: $0.5 - $35 / month

Pros

  • 24/7 phone and live chat
  • Templates cover wide industry range
  • Good web hosting support

Cons

  • Platform feels behind the times
  • No free plan or trial
  • Confusing to navigate
IONOS Review

IONOS Overview

To complete our top eight website builders for small businesses, we have IONOS with an overall score of 2.9 out of 5. Like most of our recommendations in the latter half of this list, IONOS offers users basic tools and features to help them grow online.

For small businesses, we recognize that powerful website features are important – in this case, IONOS is the worst of the group, scoring an incredibly low 1.9 out of 5. It’s also pretty average when it comes to design and price, which we’ll dig into further down.

All in all, it sounds like you’ll need to rely on IONOS’ help and support a lot! The good news is it has amazing help and support, scoring 4.8 out of 5 and coming joint first with Wix and Squarespace.

IONOS Features

IONOS’ website features are very disappointing, only scoring 1.9 out of 5 in our research. As a small business owner, you’ll be equipped with the basics, such as email marketing tools and multilingual features. And for the cheap price, its limited features make sense.

IONOS Pricing

IONOS offers three different website builder plans, as well as an additional Enterprise plan for sizable businesses. Pricing can get confusing with IONOS and its varied introductory deals, but these offers range between $1 per month to $35 per month.

IONOS scores an incredibly low 1.9 out of 5 thanks to its basic features and limited tools – this puts the builder in last place for features. Even if you are happy to pay more for advanced features on its higher plans, you’re still getting the bare minimum in comparison to other website builders.

If this disappoints you, we’re happy to share that IONOS does offer strong multilingual tools, which is useful for any small business expanding to international markets.

That being said, small businesses need to tick off powerful ecommerce, marketing, and SEO tools when they’re searching for a website builder. Unfortunately for IONOS, it simply doesn’t match up to its competitors in this arena.

Basic features are usually paired with an uninspiring experience, which is the case for IONOS. It scores 2.8 out of 5 for its ease of use, with many of our website testers finding the experience restrictive and the platform difficult to navigate.

One person shared their thoughts on the building process:

“It definitely feels like a website builder run by a company that doesn’t really care about website building, more just pumping out a functional product.”

While IONOS isn’t the weakest builder for design, beating Square Online by just a few points, it definitely isn’t IONOS’ saving grace. With a score of 3.1 out of 5, IONOS’ templates cover a range of industries, including gardening services and real estate, but there aren’t many to browse between.

Once a template’s been selected, you’re faced with a basic and outdated design that can’t be tweaked too heavily. So, if you’re looking for control over the design of your website, Wix or Squarespace would be more suitable because they offer user-friendly editors.

Thanks to its great introductory deals, IONOS scores 3.3 out of 5 in our value for money testing. It can get a little confusing to navigate its different plans and prices, so let’s break it down for you.

IONOS has three plans to choose between: Starter, Plus, and Pro. You can opt for a website only, or you can upgrade to include an online store with your plan – at an increase to the cost, of course.

The Starter plan costs $5 per month (for six months), the Plus plan costs $1 per month (for 12 months), and the Pro plan costs $15 per month (for six months). Once the offer’s run dry, the plans will continue at a higher fee depending on your website type:

  • Starter: $9 per month (website) or $19 per month (online store)
  • Plus: $15 per month (website) or $25 per month (online store)
  • Pro: $25 per month (website) or $50 per month (online store)

As you can see, IONOS’ introductory deals differ across plans, so make sure you know what you’re signing up for ahead of time!

There’s also no free plan or free trial to enjoy, and without powerful features to support IONOS’ plans, the price doesn’t seem to match up to the value.

IONOS comes joint first for help and support alongside Wix and Squarespace, with all three scoring 4.8 out of 5. Since our last round of research, we’ve noticed improvements to its knowledge center, and the platform offers a great range of support channels:

  • 24/7 phone support
  • 24/7 live chat
  • Help Center

We will share that whenever we’ve investigated IONOS’ 24/7 live chat function, it always seems to be temporarily unavailable – but its phone support seems to be more reliable.

IONOS’ customer satisfaction score of 2.8 out of 5 is fairly underwhelming, but not too surprising. Many of our website testers found the experience too restrictive, and with such a poor performance across our ease of use and features categories, we’d recommend checking out those higher on this list, such as Wix and Squarespace.
Similarly to Jimdo, IONOS is a viable option for small businesses or entrepreneurs across these industries:

  • Service-based business – For small businesses wanting to use a website as their primary storefront, IONOS’ cheap plans could be a good fit
  • Blue collar business – IONOS’ industry-specific templates include basic business themes, as well as bespoke options, like gardening services

What’s new with IONOS this month?

  • IONOS Reveals Important AI Study for Americans: As well as providing website-building tools, IONOS often engages in first-party research to see where certain trends are heading (same as us!). In the most recent survey centered on AI in the workplace, IONOS discovered that 63% of people feel positive about the use of AI in business. However, 75% also believed AI should have some oversight and be regulated by the government, with some of the largest concerns about AI being the dangers of misinformation and lack of quality control.

Restaurant POS Hacks

headshot of man on blue background
Jacob Clark
CEO
Restaurant POS Hacks are passionate about helping restaurant owners unlock the full potential of their business. Their mission is to provide the knowledge, tools, and resources a restaurant owner needs to maximize profits and streamline operations through POS systems.
I chose IONOS for my business website for its price, functionality, and enterprise-level support, which I found more valuable than expensive creative tools.

Q&A

Why did you choose IONOS?

I chose IONOS for my business website for its price, functionality, and enterprise-level support, which I found more valuable than expensive creative tools.

How long did it take you to make your website?

It took me three days to create my website with IONOS.

Is building with IONOS easy?

Building my website with IONOS was straightforward, providing me with the essentials for a functional site relatively quickly.

What makes IONOS good for small businesses?

The ease of access paired with superb and incredibly responsive customer support is what makes IONOS a great option for small businesses.

What is your favourite feature?

My favorite feature is the platform’s reliability, with 99% uptime and quick page loads.

Is there anything you'd change about IONOS?

I’d like to see improvements in the dated interface.
IONOS blue logo on white background

Interested in IONOS?

IONOS might not be the best of the best, but it has some amazing introductory deals on its plans and plenty of support for whenever your business gets in trouble.

More Information

Buying Guide: How to Choose a Small Business Website Builder

Before you dive in and start building your website, it’s important to figure out which factors and features are most important to your small business website.

Consider the following questions when deciding what your website needs, and read on to find out which website builders excel in each area:

Some platforms, like Wix and GoDaddy, make it super easy to get online thanks to their ADI builders that take away the hassle of building a website yourself!

Shopify scores the highest in our customer satisfaction research with an impressive 4.5 out of 5. This means our test participants loved using Shopify and would highly recommend it. Its ecommerce features are also incredibly powerful, helping small businesses find success online.

Your website needs to run smoothly without any glitches, but it also needs to look smart and professional to impress your visitors. So, if looks do matter to you (and they should), then it’s important to have a wide selection of sleek templates available.

Our top choices for design are Wix and Squarespace. With over 800 expertly-designed templates, Wix just takes the lead. It also offers users an insane level of creative control when designing their website.

Squarespace, on the other hand, is well-known for its stylish and modern templates – if your focus is on branding or visual promotion, this is the builder for you.

Sometimes the built-in features just aren’t enough. Having access to an app market grants you the freedom to add extra functionality to your website. But which are the “appiest” platforms?

Wix and Shopify both offer users access to impressive app markets, but Shopify is the winner since it has thousands of extensions and plugins to choose from. This makes Shopify a great option for any small business looking to grow online and expand to new markets – its reliance on third-party apps will help you overcome any potential hurdle for a fee.

Website builders like Wix often come with ecommerce functionality, meaning you can add an online store to your small business website if you need to. Lots of them offer an impressive suite of tools, but it’s always worth checking that they offer everything you need. Wix is our top-rated website builder for small businesses, but if you’re looking to open a massive online store, or manage a very complex inventory, we’d recommend taking a look at Shopify instead.

There are a few steps to set in motion ahead of selling online:

  1. Identify your target market
  2. Create a rough brand identity (logos, style, themes)
  3. Shape your website content for your target market
  4. Build a website using an ecommerce website builder
  5. Market your products

You can sell products online for free on Facebook Marketplace or craigslist. A professional approach would be to use a free ecommerce builder. With Square Online, you can build your own website and start selling completely free and for as long as you like.

The domain is the name of your website – ours is websitebuilderexpert.com, for example. So, just like the design of your website, it’s important that your domain appears professional. With an unprofessional domain, you risk losing the trust of your visitors.

You can buy your domain through a domain name registrar (websites that manage and sell domains), such as GoDaddy (which is both a website builder and a domain name registrar). Registering a new domain usually costs between $10 and $20 per year, depending on the domain registrar you use and the type of domain you’d like to use, e.g. .com, .org or .net.

The best website builders for small businesses will be equipped with mighty marketing tools. If your business generates sales and interacts with customers on social media, then you’ll need a website builder that can build a bridge between your website and your social media channels.

Nearly 50% of the world’s population uses social media – can your small business really afford to miss out on advertising to these 4 billion users worldwide?

Wix has really strong social media offerings. On Wix, you can easily display live feeds of your social media channels, post content from your site straight onto your social platforms, and add a Facebook icon popup that takes users to your business profile.

Email marketing is another crucial strategy for growing your small business. Squarespace offers integration with MailChimp, a fantastic email tool that’s designed on the same drag-and-drop principles as website builders.

It’s fair to say that the best small business website builders will also have strong SEO features. After all, SEO helps to bring more search engine users to your website.

Wix also has super SEO tools, namely its Wix SEO Wiz feature, which asks you a few questions about your website, location, and keywords. It then generates your own SEO plan to help your website rank higher on the search engine results page.

Running a small business isn’t cheap. So why spend more on your website builder than you need to? If you’re cost-conscious, then you want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth with your website.

Jimdo scores an impressive 4.8 out of 5 in our value for money research, with Square Online and GoDaddy just behind with a score of 4.5 out of 5. Jimdo has a generous free plan to get started with and, when you’re ready, you can opt for one of its four affordable premium plans. However, Jimdo lacks powerful features, so if that’s a concern, we’d recommend choosing Square Online or GoDaddy.

The less time you spend figuring out how to add functions, change styling, or fix a bug, the more time you have to focus on growing your small business. This is where a website builder’s customer support can be invaluable.

Our research shows that three builders offer impeccable support: Wix, Squarespace, and IONOS. Business owners will be able to contact these three no matter the time or day, and they all provide detailed Help Centers complete with guides, how-tos and tips for website success.

While Wix has the best score for design thanks to the high-level of creative control it gives users, Squarespace’s template designs are hard to beat. They’re stylish, modern-looking, and cover a wide range of industries.

Our top choices for design, Wix and Squarespace, can be fully optimized for mobile devices. Wix has its own mobile editor, which means you can tweak things on the mobile view of your site without changing anything on the desktop version.

All of Squarespace’s themes are mobile-responsive, so they look great across every device.

All of the website builders in this guide have extremely intuitive editors, which means you can get to grips with their features in no time at all. You can have a perfectly functional website ready in under a day. Of course, some are better than others – and if you’re looking to get online quickly, we’d recommend GoDaddy thanks to its helpful ADI builder.

Yes, you can always use free website builders – but they often come at the cost of professionalism! You’ll need a paid plan in order to remove subdomains, like yourdomain.buildername.com, and the respective website builder ads that appear on every page.

If you’re looking to sell online, you’ll need to find a website builder that offers ecommerce-specific plans, such as Wix or Squarespace. These plans generally cost more than a regular website builder plan, but builders like Square Online let you start selling for free. Of course, if you’re simply after a home for your business to promote your services and connect with customers, you can opt for a cheaper website builder plan.

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Our Testing Methodology

We’ve carried out in-depth testing on over 50 of the top website builders to bring you the best data-led recommendations. Our goal is to help you find a website builder that meets your needs, so we make sure to include the good, the bad, and everything in-between in our reviews. If you’re going to make an informed decision, you need to know all of the facts!

To get started, our expert in-house research team tests each builder on the following:

  • Website features
  • Design flexibility
  • Value for money
  • Help and support
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Ease of use

But that’s not all. Each category contains multiple sub-criteria we also test for, all based on our years of independent research. We’ve also come to realize that consumer needs change over time and that not all categories should be weighted the same when we evaluate each builder with an overall score.

Let’s take a closer look at these categories:

  • Website features – weighting: 15%

For website features, we compare the quality and quantity of what is offered by a website builder, including domain names, email addresses, blogging functionality, internalization capabilities, members area, SEO and marketing functionalities, and app market – plus an analysis of site speed and storage space.

It’s a necessary category, with things like marketing and scaling your site being crucial for small business owners, so we have weighted it a respectable and decent 15%.

  • Design functionalities – weighting: 15%

This covers a website builder’s aesthetic capabilities, such as the quality and quantity of the templates, a mobile editor, an image editor, UX design, whether it has ADI, and if you are able to switch templates once you’ve started.

This category is equal to website features in importance, as having good design and UX will stand you out against the competition.

  • Value for money – weighting: 25%

More weighting is attributed to this category due to its importance to our readers; they want to know they’re being told about the best deal possible. The sub-criteria we look for in this category is the average pricing plan, the features versus the price, and an evaluation of the free trial (if offered).

This is our highest weighting, due to its importance to small business owners. We have acknowledged various price hikes over the years and how the start-up costs can really affect small businesses, and so made this category the most important.

  • Help and support – weighting: 15%

The support options offered by the website builder – especially important for first-time builders. We evaluate what support options are available for customers, the knowledge center, restore options, and what help features are available on the lowest cost plan.

A respectable weighting of 15% references how important that small businesses get the help and support they need right away. Having a problem could be literally costing them money!

  • Customer satisfaction – weighting: 10%

A category dedicated to other reviews. Sub-criteria include Trustpilot scores, brand recognition, market analysis, UX, and whether current customers would be likely to recommend.

This category is less crucial to small businesses, and so is weighted less. While others’ opinions may affect your decision, the choice will ultimately come down to you and your belief in the business.

  • Ease of use – weighting: 20%

How easy it is to actually build a website using the builder. We rely on regular in-house user testing for this, testing each platform ourselves, and compiling quotes and scores from real testers to give you honest, undoctored views.

Having an easy-to-use website means you can make changes faster, jump on trends, and change designs without a massive headache. A huge bonus for those trying to get ahead, and a reason to weigh this category a little more heavily with 20%.

These categories have been weighted specifically for small business owners. We spoke to as many online business owners, small-time entrepreneurs, and side hustlers as we could (many of which you can read about in our interviews section), to make sure we understood their pain points and had the most accurate methodology possible.

The Website Builder Expert product testing process

Website Builder Expert Product Testing Process diagram

8 Best Small Business Website Builders: Roundup

Whichever builder you choose, you’ll be able to create a functional website that establishes your small business online, without any technical know-how.

However, the best platforms will help your business thrive. That’s why we recommend Wix as the best website builder for small businesses. Its plans are jam-packed with powerful features and ecommerce tools, it’s incredibly easy to use, and Wix is ready to lend a helping hand 24/7.

But let’s recap our list of the top eight builders one last time:

Best Website Builders for Small Businesses

  1. Wix Best overall small business website builder
  2. Squarespace Best for creative businesses
  3. GoDaddy Best for fitness and health websites
  4. Shopify Best for online stores
  5. Square Online Best for food-based businesses
  6. Hostinger Best for side hustles
  7. Jimdo Best for service-based businesses
  8. IONOS Best for blue collar businesses

With the right website builder, you can turn your small business into the next big thing. For now, though, we wish you and your business the very best of luck. Remember to keep us in the loop on your journey in the comments section!

FAQs

There are many website builders that offer free plans, including Wix, while others offer a free trial. The builder with the best value for money score is Jimdo – it has one free plan and four paid plans to choose between. To get a better insight into the best free builder for your needs, read our article on the best free website builders.
Several website builders offer a free plan, including Wix, GoDaddy, Square Online, and Jimdo. These are free to use for as long as you want, but you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan if you want access to advanced features.
You will be able to connect an existing domain to your new website very easily, as it is quite a common practice. Most website builders will have an option somewhere within the settings. Just remember it can take up to 48 hours for the DNS settings to fully sync.
Written by:
headshot of Sam Jagger
Being a Writer for Website Builder Expert isn’t just typing words on a laptop. Each day, I’m finding new and innovative ways to help you get online in a mode you feel comfortable with. And it’s a task I do with enthusiasm and gusto. Not only do I have experience building with all the providers we talk about - creating websites such as this Strikingly demo - but we also have our wonderful, constantly updated research fielded by our researchers, so you can be reassured that what we say is an honest reflection of our professional opinions. I’ve written articles and featured guest posts for apps like UXPin on web design in the modern age, as well as answered over 100 user comments on the site and delved into the world of choosing a domain name and adding Bitcoin payments to your site in my own pitched articles. All of this is to say that when I want to get you online - I mean it! Outside the office, I have attended the eCommerce Expo and built up a ton of industry knowledge through talks, workshops, and guided learning sessions with noted experts. The internet is made for everyone, so come online and let us help you get there.
Researched by:
natasha_willett
I love to understand human behavior and the cognitive biases that drive us to do what we do. For over nine years I have worked as a mixed method researcher – research using a mix of numerical data and personal experiences – across a range of sectors, from insurance and policy development to finally arriving at Website Builder Expert five years ago. Fascinated by consumer decision-making, I meticulously built our leading ranking methodology to explore where providers like Wix sit within a competitive industry and what value they truly bring to our audience.
As a member of the Market Research Society, I’m an advocate for high ethical, commercial, and methodological best practices. All of this combines to give you the most ethical recommendations based on real data.

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