It can be bit difficult to choose a website builder because there are more than 60+ to choose from.
To make a website based on reliability, price, technical support, web hosting services, SEO, site speed, ease of use, template design, features, etc. Gethst has ranked and reviewed the best website builder in this guide.
In this, we are going to compare:
- The best website builders for small businesses.
- The best free and cheap options.
- The ones with the best SEO.
- The best platforms with online store capabilities.
- The best builders for agencies.
- And the best options for photographers and artists.
So, let’s get started with this.
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What is the Best Website Builder?
To build a presence of your brand or online business, a quick and easy way to do this is using a website builder. Site management by combing hosting, domain registration, and site design into one platform can be simplified by using these tools.
Well, if you don’t know much about web design and management, you will have to choose between a drop editor or an easy drag.
You can do it as per your wish.
Here are some of the best picks by Gethst for the best website builder to use this year.
1. Wix
Get the best website builder for a small business just at $4.50/month
Wix has over 100 million users and has been the most popular website builder on the internet market.
There are already 500+ ready-to-use templates on Wix for designing your website in any industry. These templates have 100 fonts to choose from and are mobile optimized. (You can upload your own as well).
The advanced design features like video backgrounds and animation make their design very beautiful. In addition, they also have scroll effects to them.
They make it super easy when you want to register your domain in wix.com or even if you have a domain on GoDaddy already. There\’s a plan which starts at $24.50/month if you’d like to add e-commerce to your site and sell your products and services online.
To start a small business, Gethst recommends Wix as the best online store builder for your site. Wix website owners who intend to add e-commerce to their website can get these amazing features as there is no need of having more advanced feature options like BigCommerce and Shopify.
As Wix is the most user-friendly website tool on the market, it gives you the advantage to get your site customized endlessly. Additionally, you don’t need to have any coding language for it otherwise you can read their blogs on how to create a Wix website from scratch.
They also have the first artificial intelligence website builder, a tool called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI). Wix ADI uses the information after learning about the site to design it in a way that matches all your specific needs.
Ultimately, Wix is your best option if you are looking for the best website builder for your small businesses.
Along with this, the ADI tool in the Wix leverages AI that chooses billions of combinations of texts, layouts, images, and contact forms.
So, Get the best deal and start your online journey with Wix.
2. Squarespace
Get the best website builder for personal sites just at $14/month.
Whenever there’s a word about Squarespace, all that comes into Gethst review is their beautifully designed homepage. For both small businesses and personal websites, Squarespace truly knows to create high-quality and beautiful sites that certainly look great.
When it comes to designing, Squarespace leads the pack as they make more than 100 templates available to choose from. Every detail like fonts, color schemes, and images in the Squarespace templates mesh perfectly for any website.
Apart from design, this platform is really excellent for bloggers. Even if you have a doubt that is Squarespace good for blogging then, their WYSIWYG blog editor was also tested out by Gethst, and it’s very congenital.
In this, you can be able to drag headings, images, positions, and text onto the page wherever you like. They also offer you to schedule your posts, Google AMP functionality, and offer multiple user permissions.
There are some SEO limitations on Squarespace that hold it back from being number 1 in Gethst recommendation list.
With their editing tools, sites are elementary to build and the ease of use is top-notch. Even if you are not using Google Analytics, steady data site visitors are provided by an in-built analytics tool. And in addition, there are much more features for just $14/month on this beautifully designed website.
The price range for the monthly Online store plan (Advances plan) is $49/month and $14/month for the personal plan. Squarespace provides a free domain and the monthly price range is based on their yearly plans.
In a personal plan, they provide you a free domain name, unlimited storage, and bandwidth, 24/7 customer support with blogs on ‘how to add keywords to the website, Squarespace good for blogging, etc., and free SSL.
So, Squarespace is a reliable choice if you are a blogger who wants to make their content look excellent or a small business that needs a classy web design
3. Weebly
Weebly is considered best for people without much technical knowledge for choosing an easy website builder and powers over 530,000 domains. They have many excellent features to offer. As a blogger, you can use this website builder to pick the domain name for your website and use their editor to add your images, texts, and content.
Apart from this, they also have a mobile app in which you can track your website’s performance. With the help of their tool, you can send newsletters to your subscribers from email marketing tools.
Although, they provide a free plan in which you get a free SSL certificate, 500 MB of storage, and a domain name with Weebly branding. You are forced to have a Weebly branding throughout your site with your custom domain in a free plan. There is no phone support but chat and email support are provided in this plan.
The price range for Weebly is from $5 to $25 per month. But, on the high end, in their business plan, you get a free domain, $200 Google ad credits, and advanced e-commerce functionality.
The e-commerce features they provide contain a shipping calculator, shipping labels, product options/variants, the ability to accept payments through Square, inventory management, coupon codes, and much more.
The level of customer support you get depends on your subscription. They provide a live chat, phone support, and email. Along with this, you can get assistance in many areas such as support centers, community forums, social media, blogs, and developer documentation.
Gethst highly recommends you go for Weebly if you are looking for a simple website creator.
4. Shopify
Shopify is an extremely popular platform that is used to sell products and services online by over 800,000 online businesses. It was founded in 2006 in Canada and due its dashboard and integrations with several app partners, they quickly became a powerhouse.
To set up a website, any small businesses could use Shopify because not every website just needs product selling functionality.
Take a desert making website for instance.
With the help of Shopify, you could not only be able to set a blog, contact information, a map of your location, appointment scheduling but also sell the products that helps in making desserts online. With this, you create an online source of revenue for your business along with a website.
They have many features to provide such as marketing as SEO features, your domain name, hosting and 70+ professional themes such as best Shopify themes for jewellery, Best Shopify themes for Blog as well as best Shopify themes for clothing.
There are turbo Shopify theme free download options along with best Shopify theme for mobile that are made available for bloggers and sellers to set up their businesses.
Shopify have 100+ payment gateways, automatic carrier shipping rates, mobile commerce, automatic tax rates and a full checkout experience to offer its user. Along with this, as a user you can also enjoy an omnichannel selling across eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram and many more.
According to Gethst, it is better to start with Shopify if you are up for setting a website initially and may think about selling products in future instead of using another tool that doesn’t take online shopping seriously.
So overall, they have three plans that range from $29/month to $299/month.
They offer a basic plan of Shopify which includes a full website, blog features, online store with unlimited products, 24/7 support and much more just at $29.
You can give it a try at Shopify with 14-day free trial even without using a credit card.
5. Elementor
Elementor boasts a visual editor and mainly designed to empower web creators. Users can take benefit of the platform’s intuitive and use their features to customize and tweak their website.
In this way, the users can easily create a stunning, design, and professional WordPress websites.
You may have a common doubt that mainly people have that What is Elementor in WordPress? Elementor is a WordPress website builder so its users have a choice for choosing from the thousands of already designed, fully responsive templates. Along with this, users can also use Elementor’s popular Hello theme.
Elementor enables you to control design element, website functionality with custom code and every aspect that it has to offer.
Elementor has a powerful and vast network of web creators with 4.3 of all the websites built with it. To create a perfect site, a user can new sources of inspiration and hacks through Elementor’s constant sharing of knowledge on numerous social media platforms.
As an Elementor user, you have an additional benefit of hosting your website on WordPress hosting provider. Alternatively, have the website building platform host their website for them and along with this, subscribe to Elementor cloud.
An average hosting plan comes with SSL option to keep your Content Delivery Network which can decrease page loading at times and secure the site. It costs you between $4 to $16 per month.
Pricing:
There are several guides written on their blogs about how to use Elementor in WordPress, how to use Elementor templates and many more through which you can get an idea of its usage.
Users can choose a free plan or choose a subscription plan from variety of plans that are made available. In a free plan, a user can get access to the platform’s drag and drop editor, Elementor’s Hello theme and mobile editing. (Hello theme is the fastest theme on WordPress).
You can get access to all of the website’s widgets, features and plugins which the Elementor’s subscription packages.
The price ranges from $49 per year to $999 per year from more inclusive and comprehensive subscription to the professional developers
For professional developers, they will likely find the best plans that fits their needs. The plans include the expert (25 Pro websites for just $199 per year), Studio (100 Pro websites for just $499 per year), or an Agency (1000 pro Websites at just $999 per year).
The users who are looking to benefit from a comprehensive, WordPress website without having to code then Elementor is the best choice for them to choose.
Even Inexperienced web developers can use its powerful editor to build stunning websites at scale and leverage on Elementor’s widget.
Get the best deal and start your online journey through Elementor.
6. Ucraft
The best multi-functional website builder with many built-in tools (ranges from free to $69 per month)
Ucraft is a very popular landing page builder that has recently launched a multi-functional website builder. Very useful tools are been provided by them such as landing page creator, logo maker, a blogging platform as well as ecommerce functionality.
Even a small business can use Ucraft to launch their new website, create logo and sell products online.
There are over 80 pre-designed website templates that are responsive and cover the niches like photography, fashion, ecommerce, sports, events, business, restaurants, and plenty of others. Along with this, they also have 100 pre-designed blocks that you can add paged to include forms, CTA buttons, testimonials, footers, etc.
You get free blogger templates without copyright.
In the free plan they will let you:
- Connect your domain name.
- Obtain SSL security.
- Create up to 15 pages.
- Add basic page elements.
- Add Google Analytics.
- Access to 24/7 support.
Apart from this, the free site has Ucraft branding and limitations. According to the Gethst reviews, their logo maker is very impressive because it lets you add custom icons, shapes and texts to create your logo. This article offers free shipping on qualified Face mask products, or buy online and pick up in store today at Medical Department
If you plan to create a professional website then you can get started with $10 / month and that adds few more features.
The features for paid plans include removal of Ucraft branding, SEO tools, Unlimited web pages, design tools and blogging tools. You also have the option to add and invite multiple team members to edit your site, start with an ecommerce and add integrations.
In short, if you are a small business who needs a website builder that has many built-in tools to help you in creating logos, sell products online, landing pages then Ucraft is the best choice.
7.Webflow
Best for professional designers. Plans at $16/month.
Webflow is a website builder that allows you to build, launch and host websites.
As a user of webflow designer tool, you can leverage on semantic HTML, CSS and JavaScript to align your requirements with your website. You can either choose all the pre-designed elements like background videos, tabs, sliders, etc.
For different portfolio, business and blog types, you get over 100 free and paid customizable templates.
Webflow lets you add content directly and import CSV files as it works as content management system. You can also integrate other data sources with CMS (Webflow).
They key features of Webflow includes:
- You can edit and add content to your live website.
- On a single dashboard, you can invite other team members to collaborate.
- Add up to 100 pages to your website.
- Uptime is guaranteed by 99.9% and SSL certificate.
- Automated backup.
- Custom fonts available.
- Create custom 404 pages.
- Customer support – help centre, email and webflow community forum.
- Add up to 3000 products with ecommerce support
- You can connect to the tools like Slack, MailChimp and Asana with the integration of Zapier.
Pricing:
Webflow has two plans – site plan and account plan.
Site Plans:
This plan helps you to connect your custom domain, enable checkout to your ecommerce and collaborate with other members.
- Basic: $12 per month
- CMS: $16 per month
- Business: $36 per month
- Enterprise: Custom-pricing
Account plans:
This plan allows you to adda logo, create a team dashboard, add more projects and much more.
- Starter: $0 per month
- Lite: $16 per month
- Pro: $35 per month
In the free plan, you can try and experiment both the plans before upgrading to advanced plans.
Get the best deal and start your online journey through Webflow.
8. HubSpot content management system
Best tool with integrated CRM tools. Ranges starts from $3 – $400/month
HubSpot has a full featured CMS and website builder and is a top-notch CRM tool. You can be able to create blog posts, website pages, landing pages with their pre-built templates or by a scratch.
To help you in creating a website, they have an option for drag-and-drop editor to use responsive design.
HubSpot has integrated with a vast range of marketing software and includes the tools to get found online, email marketing, capture, engage with and understand leads.
All the parts of integrated marketing for customer lifestyle is covered:
- Live chats regarding how to add HubSpot chat to website, forms, conversational capture leads etc.
- Analytical tools, contact report builder, list segmentation helps you in understanding you leads.
- Calls-to-action, personalized experiences and smart content
- Retargeting, email marketing, messenger integration.
HubSpot is the best option for you if you are looking for a website builder with full-featured set of CRM and marketing tools.
9. WordPress.com
WordPress is hosting over 75 million websites and have become the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world after its release in 2003.
You can either choose their self-hosted website builder or choose a web host and create a website on WordPress.
With WordPress, you can create a website for anything you want like – a blog, an online store, a local business and much more. The options are limitless. You can get access to 3GB storage, customer support and best free WordPress themes for blogs in their free plan. Along with this, in their free plan you get the benefit of downloading free WordPress themes with demo content, best free responsive WordPress themes, and WordPress themes free download professional.
Basic SEO, social sharing, and site analytics are some of the built-in essential features that are included in WordPress.
Customer support for the website also has the blog written answers for what is WordPress in Hindi as well as how to install WordPress on windows 10 and much more basic doubts.
The price range starts from $4/month for a simple blog set-up while $45 for ecommerce functionality. Normally, many users opt for premium plan of $8/month that allows to edit, design and control the content in website.
Get the best deal and start your online journey through WordPress.
10. SITE123
Easy website builder for small businesses. Price starts from $5.80/month.
SITE123 offers a free plan to test a new site. After sign-up, its users get 500GB storage, 1GB of bandwidth and a free sub-domain. With the premium plan of $5.80/month, you can connect your own domain to it. You can even purchase it within their dashboard.
There are over 200 design templates, ecommerce plans starting from $22/month and a stable uptime of 99.97%.
To create a website, you need to follow three simple steps:
- Select your website type
- Upload your content
- Publish your site
After your site is live, you have SEO tools to optimize the titles, meta descriptions and other needed items to increase your ranking.
There are advances, professional and gold plans that come with email accounts. You can also buy additional email accounts separately from their plans as well.
You can also upgrade your current plan just by paying the difference in the amount.
Those to want to get into website building without the knowledge of coding or even if you don’t have a web designer then SITE123 is the best choice.
11. Hibu
For local businesses, best digital marketing website builder ($99)
Hibu is best known for its integrated digital marketing solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. They help with the features like – website design, online reviews, local listings management, display advertising, and SEO services.
The digital marketing of Hibu is pretty impressive as it has provided websites with over 225 million ad clicks, 800 million visits and over 6 million phone calls.
Their local listings and SEO services are quite helpful as they develop the websites visibility by building online presence through Google My Business, Bing, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, Yelp and social media.
Hibu does not offer fixed prices hosting. It uses custom pricing strategy plus a $100/month fee.
Hibu is your best choice if you run a local business and want some help in support, web design and visibility in local listings.
12. Jimdo
A personalized website builder with AI (from $9 to $39/month)
Jimdo will help you to create a website in just 3 minutes by leading you to make right design choices by asking you questions about your business.
For small businesses, they automatically navigate the pages to fit your industry and also menus. For example, a local salon can automatically get its map page along with its logo, text blocks, address, hours and much more.
With the steps given below, you can create a website using Jimdo :
- Create a free Jimdo account.
- By answering a few questions, Jimdo collects your business information from Facebook and Google.
- You can choose a pre-made design. Jimdo uses the texts and photos that you already have from your listings and provide more personalized content.
- Make any final edits and finishing touches.
- Publish your new website.
With limited features and on-site ads, they have made a free plan available. When you upgrade a plan with $9/month then you get a free domain for one year, advances SEO features, analytics reporting and a ad-free site.
Get the best deal and start your online journey through Jimdo.
13. BigCommerce
Best website builder for online stores ($29.95/month)
BigCommerce is a powerful ecommerce platform that has excellent website functionality plus zero transaction fees.
Gethst has added BigCommerce in their recommendation list because it has very advanced feature set. The feature set includes – conversion rate-optimized themes, 600+ product options, best in SEO (URL structure, site speed, uptime).
If you intend to sell products in future and build a website then look no further than BigCommerce because of its advanced functionality. They offer the advanced tools just at $29.95/month plus there is no other website builder like BigCommerce in the list that can match BigCommerce in ecommerce.
They offer to add shopping cart software to your website. There are incredible free themes to consider because the with your web pages, conversion rate optimization remains a top priority.
The sites build in BigCommerce load fast, looks great and optimize conversion. Just by installing BigCommerce you can increase the conversion rate faster as compared to the other services.
The retail plans range from $29.95/month to $299.95/month. Along with this, BigCommerce offer 15-day trail to set up a website.
14. Pixpa
Best website builder for artists and photographers ($5/month)
Pixpa is tailored for creative professionals and is the best website builder for artists and photographers.
To check whether it suits your needs or not, they offer a 15-day trial.
Here, you do not need to learn coding to build a website. All the themes available are made suitable for photographers, designers and artists. If you are a creative professional, you will like the image friendly themes they offer.
Their multi-blog feature will surely attract you if you are a blogger. They have more than 35 themes to choose and they work best on mobile devices.
Pixpa has several gallery layouts options that helps you in displaying the images in different ways. SEO data for every page can be managed as well.
Along with this, Pixpa provides 24/7 customer support through a chat and email. Remember that you cannot directly call and ask questions because there is no direct helpline number available.
Pricing:
Their monthly price starts at a very reasonable price at just $5/month and $3/month when paid on monthly and annually, respectively. However, the price gradually increases if you want to add more space for original files and sell more products.
In the basic plan, you get 2GB space and 10 products can get added in ecommerce store. After one year, you will have to pay separately for the domain name to the service provider.
If you are a creative professional then Pixpa is definitely the best option. If you want to manage your client galleries, your website, blogs in one place then Pixpa is the best software to choose.
What is a Website Builder?
A software program that helps you to build a website in called as website builder. In other words, it is a tool that helps you in managing a domain name and a website without any manual coding.
It was very common in old days in web that HTML and CSS was mandatory for programmers to create a website. Today things have changed. There\’s a steep learning curve of having an extensive knowledge of JavaScript and PHP if you intend to code a site. But if you choose website builders then there’s no need to do so.
These tools given above are very helpful to everyone including small businesses, eCommerce businesses, bloggers as well as news sites and create a website in minutes.
For small businesses, what can be the best Website Builder?
To set everything very quickly for small businesses, there are many best Website Builders that give you everything that you need. To make sure that your site doesn’t go down, the builders need steady time. Along with this, it should also be able to provide email accounts to your employees.
The unique website features like maps and directions, ability to share coupons, store hours, photo galleries, social media integrations, etc., have become a need for local small businesses.
The list of the software tools mentioned have covered the basic of hat small business websites need and then there are a few that rise above the rest.
Here are some of the pics by Gethst for best website builder for small businesses:
1. Wix
Wix is the easiest and feature rich platform on the market which makes it a number one choice of Gethst for small businesses. They also have some one of the best themes.
Now, businesses can easily add their information, choose the theme for their site and connect their domain with Wix and simply click publish. Although you can get best free responsive blogger templates as well and along with that you get Wix installer tutorial and a Wix free plan.
However, like the basic editors Hibu , SITE123, Wix isn\’t easy to use but the features like SEO and themes make it standout for the companies which are looking out to build an online presence.
- Wix can be the great choice for small businesses for its unique features as mentioned below:
- You can sync your Google my Business Page and get easily found.
- To get you site indexed by Google, you can directly connect to Google Search Console and your business will start showing up in search results within few minutes.
- To book appointments, you can use their Built-in scheduler.
- You can create and send invoices.
- With the help of Built-in Email marketing tools, you can quickly build your customer email list.
- To collect the website visitor information, you can add custom forms like surveys, quizzes, contact forms as well as polls.
Generally, even in a single afternoon session, a solid business website can be built with the help of Wix.
2. Hibu
Hibu has the second position in the Gethst rankings for business because of its amazing digital marketing features. A strong online presence on Facebook, Google and all the directories matters a lot to get a traction as a local business.
Including the online presence, some more steps to improve your local rankings are also necessary. Note that – local Ranking are totally based on distance, prominence and relevance by Google.
Hibu helps you in all these aspects of digital marketing along with online reviews, social media marketing, local listings management, search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM).
3. SITE123
If you want people to find your online business and just want a simple website even if you don’t know much of technology then, SITE123 is the best choice for you.
It has the simple 3 step process to set up the website so any business owner can get a simple 3-5page website with their software.
SITE123 makes the process easy but if you want something really quick then Gethst highly recommends you the two above.
FAQ for website builders
How much does it cost to build a website?
Based on the features, website builders normally charge a monthly fee with different pricing plans. Although, a website builder price ranges between $3 to $50 per month. However, you need to purchase you domain name. They support file management and hosting as well.
A website builder offers the ecommerce plans with $20 to $30 per month. If you upgrade your plans with these pricing plans if you need an ecommerce platform functionality.
How much does a website monthly cost?
Monthly cost for managing a website range from $3 to $50 per month. You need to average out the yearly cost of your domain name after factoring the monthly pricing of your website. Example:
If your monthly Weebly plan is about $6 per month and $10 per year then the overall cost comes out to be $6.83 per month. In this calculation, there is no third-party services involved like email marketing and SEO tools.
Is Wix better than WordPress?
Choosing in between Wix and WordPress will come down to your needs because they both have their own strengths and weaknesses. In WordPress, you will have to get a separate web hosting while in Wix, it is easier to use and covers hosting and building of a website.
Apart from this, WordPress is great in customization, SEO and blogging features.
Overall, Wix is a smart choice if you run a small business that requires a simple website whereas if you need a complex website and want to add some blogs then WordPress is better for you.
Can I get a free website for my business?
With some limitations, yes you can definitely get a free website for your business.
Example: In Wix, you won’t get your own custom name in a free plan they provide. You will have to choose a paid plan and buy your domain if you want to have your own “dot com” domain name.
Does Google have a website builder?
There is a single-page website builder by Google called as “website”. It allows small businesses to manage and build a website on the desktop or a mobile quickly and its free to use. This tool is extremely easy to use but it cannot be the best website tool. The reason for it is that it lacks SEO tools, custom features and other key featured tools that help to run a website.