To help you decide whether GoDaddy is ideal for your business, here’s a quick rundown of its strengths and weaknesses:

When booting up GoDaddy, I was asked what features I wanted for my website. I could choose between three options: “Sell with an online store”, “Book appointments online” or the ominously named “Something else”.

Building With AI

This is the first step of GoDaddy’s AI website builder which can build a personal template from scratch. Our testing found GoDaddy to have the simplest and fastest AI setup – generating unique template in under 30 seconds. Because of this, I recommended GoDaddy’s artificial design intelligence (ADI) for anyone completely new to building websites.

However, personalization suffers at the hands of this streamlined setup, and GoDaddy’s templates can feel generic and outdated. Alternatives like Squarespace’s Blueprint AI and Wix’s AI Website Builder add a few extra steps to the setup but provide a more developed and tailored starting template.

Once complete, you’ll be prompted to choose a pricing plan, but you can ignore it and continue on GoDaddy’s free plan for as long as you’d like – but be warned, features like SEO can’t be accessed unless you upgrade. 

Editor Checklist

Once I’d made it into GoDaddy’s editor, a pop-up checklist of ready-made features I could add to my website appeared. This included:

• Image Galleries: To display a carousel of high-quality imagery.
• Reviews: I could connect my business website to Facebook and pull customer reviews onto the homepage.
• Contact Us: A contact form alongside somewhere to display company details like emails, phone numbers and opening times if your business has a physical location.
• Online Appointments: Add an online appointments section to your GoDaddy website where customers can book your services. However, you’ll need to be on the Premium plan to accept payments for these appointments.
• Privacy Policy: Appearing near the bottom of your homepage, this is where you can clearly explain how your website uses user data and keeps it secure.
• Subscription Forms: Where website users can sign up to your email list. Useful if your business has a regular newsletter.
• Menu/Price Lists: Ideal for businesses with products or services, you can showcase your prices on your website in a sleek list.

I thought that this was a really nice touch since it saved time from having to find and add these features in the editor. You’re then able to “Take a Tour” of your new website, showing you exactly where the most important tools are.

Using GoDaddy’s Editor

With GoDaddy’s block-based editor, I could click the “Add Section” button, make my choice from the menu and see it inserted onto the page. In our group testing, my fellow writers also enjoyed how simple GoDaddy was to use. All of us were able to have a website live in around 30 minutes of editing.

While building a website with GoDaddy is simple, it’s also quite surface-level with limited customization. For a more visually exciting website, I recommend exploring Squarespace and Wix, which use a more fluid drag-and-drop editor and have plenty of design tools.

GoDaddy has a free-forever plan as well as three paid plans, starting at $9.99 per month, when billed annually. 

For context, Wix’s pricing starts at a much steeper $17 per month (billed annually). I was pleased to see that GoDaddy also brought back its free year-long Microsoft Email Essentials trial for those paying annually, which makes it even better value for money.

You can see the full breakdown of GoDaddy’s plans in this table:

While these prices are good, they’re introductory deals. After a year they’ll renew at a higher price. Here’s a full list of the renewal prices:

1. Basic plan: $16.99 per month (billed annually)
2. Premium plan: $29.99 per month (billed annually)
3. Commerce plan: $34.99 per month (billed annually)

I was a little disappointed to see the prices go up rapidly after a year, though you can still test out GoDaddy without committing to a full year with its free plan.

I should mention the free plan has some limitations, such as banner ads advertising GoDaddy and no custom domain name – which is a big drawback for small businesses. But this free plan is great for giving the website builder a spin without having to commit any payments straight away.

Are There Additional Fees I Should Know About?

GoDaddy charges a number of additional fees on top of the initial plan subscription. Some of these are avoidable by going to other providers, or are waived for the first year of your subscription. However, selling fees are unavoidable.

Domains

• Price: One year free, then prices start from $12.99 per month (billed annually)

GoDaddy is one of the biggest domain registrars on the web and offers those using its website builder a free domain for a year. Afterward, you’ll have to renew it. Regular “.com” domains are the cheapest, but more sought-after domains will have more expensive renewal fees.

Professional email

• Price: One year free, then prices start from $7.99 per month (billed annually)

After your first year, you’ll also have to start paying GoDaddy to continue using your professional Microsoft 365 email. These plans are quite affordable, and worthwhile to have a branded domain email account.

Selling fees

• Transaction fee: 2.7% +$0.30 on each ecommerce transaction
• Processing fee: Varies between 2.6% + $0.10 and 3.5% + $0.49, depending on credit card carrier

If you’re planning on selling with GoDaddy, you’ll need to use GoDaddy Payments, which comes with the GoDaddy Commerce plan, a payment-processing service that charges both processing and transaction fees on all sales.

If you want to build a website without GoDaddy’s AI builder, GoDaddy has over 200 templates to choose from. Each template contains:

• A mobile-friendly preview, which makes it easier than ever to ensure all of your site visitors have a positive experience – especially important since mobile users make up over 60% of online traffic.
• 22 Theme Customizer options which give you different layout variations. This speeds up the editing process and gives you some degree of choice, but this is as much creative freedom as you’ll get.

AI Templates

Primarily, GoDaddy relies on its AI website builder to make a custom template for you. While these templates are decent, and come with the benefit of already being specified to your answers, they can’t hide that, design-wise, GoDaddy is a bit outdated.

When I saw my own site, GoDaddy had filled it with images and text, giving me a really solid idea of what it should look like. However, when I tried to be a bit creative, GoDaddy’s design tools restricted me.

If I were to describe GoDaddy’s features, I would call them “Wix-Lite”. Like Wix, GoDaddy has all the features a small business owner would need to run a successful website. These include:

• Blog functionality
• Image galleries
• Embedded video and music
• Google Maps integration
• Contact forms
• Promo banners
• Call-to-action buttons
• GoDaddy InSight scores

However, while GoDaddy’s features get the job done, they aren’t as specialized as Wix’s — partly because GoDaddy has no App Market. If you need a specific tool or third-party plugin for your website, GoDaddy doesn’t have an easy fix for you, which dragged down its overall features score in our research.

But that doesn’t mean GoDaddy is useless. Far from it. Here I’ll highlight some of the features that GoDaddy does best:

📱 Social Media

With GoDaddy’s Studio app, you can use AI to create branded content for social media in the form of videos or ads for Facebook and Instagram. These are a great, creative way to get the word out about your website, as 92% of internet users consume online video in some form each day.

On top of this, GoDaddy offers:

• Facebook and Instagram integrations: This lets you synchronize posts and content across both platforms.
• Post analytics: I was very impressed that I was able to track my posts’ performance – such as impressions and likes – all from the GoDaddy dashboard.
• A social media calendar: Create, schedule and manage your marketing efforts from a user-friendly calendar.
• Post planner: Get personalized AI post suggestions added to your social media calendar, based around holidays, celebrations and your brand

📨 Email Marketing

GoDaddy offers email marketing across all of its plans, letting you send promotional emails, welcome emails and even newsletters from the GoDaddy dashboard. You are able to send up to 100 emails per month on the Basic plan, and up to 100,000 on the most expensive Commerce plan.

Once sent, you can track their analytics like any email campaign. You can automate these emails and, if you’re on the Commerce plan, you’ll also get automated emails to confirm orders, or encourage customers to return to their abandoned carts.

📅 Bookings

GoDaddy has set itself up as a solid option for online booking websites, like those for yoga instructors or therapists. Its built-in booking tool performed as well in our testing as those on Wix and Squarespace, thanks to the following features:

• Accept card payments, without having to pay for full ecommerce capabilities
• Charge deposits and cancellation fees
• Create group and one-to-one bookings 
• Share a schedule of recurring classes and events
• Integrate to third-party calendars 
• Text and email notifications for both you and your clients

What I noticed most of all was how integrated it was with GoDaddy’s other marketing tools – from emails to social media and texting. It also adds great organizational tools, like class lists and staff members.

While you can have one-time appointments on all plans, you’ll have to upgrade to at least the Premium plan to have access to recurring bookings and appointments. This means you can take appointments for as little as $14.99 per month (billed annually).

🔎 SEO

GoDaddy wasn’t the strongest SEO website builder we tested this year, but I loved how easy it was to use and understand. SEO can be a tricky skill to learn, and an even harder one to master – yet all new websites need to drive traffic to their pages.

Here’s what you can do with GoDaddy’s SEO tools:

• Edit meta titles and meta descriptions: You can tweak these to change how your pages appear on search engine results.
• Change URL slugs: Make sure that these URLs are SEO-friendly and clearly indicate the contents of each page.
• Add image alt text: You can use this feature to describe the contents of your website’s imagery. This makes your website accessible for visually impaired users.
• Receive keyword support: I could access GoDaddy’s SEO Wizard from the dashboard to generate relevant keywords for my website.
• Use mobile responsive themes: This will enhance your website’s technical SEO and keep your website user friendly.

⌨️ Domains

GoDaddy is one of the leading domain registrars on the web, with 84 million domains and counting. The price for a domain is anywhere between $5.99 – $12.99 (VAT not included) to purchase a domain for one year, but competitive top-level domains like “.com” and “.ai” can go for more.

With over 84 million domains, GoDaddy may be your best bet on securing that perfect domain name. If you need a bit of help, GoDaddy has an AI-powered domain search tool to help you brainstorm the perfect one.

GoDaddy has really embraced the current AI website builder revolution. I’ve already mentioned a few of the AI features in this review, but here’s a quick recap of some of GoDaddy’s AI tools:

• ADI – Artificial design intelligence used to build a custom template
• AI branded content – Used in the GoDaddy Studio app to generate video content and social ads
• AI domain search – Used to help users find the perfect domain name

GoDaddy Airo

GoDaddy Airo uses AI to help small businesses create an online presence even faster. This fully integrated feature will handle a lot of the work required in starting a new small business website, with GoDaddy’s research saying it will save new users $4,000 and roughly 300 hours of work. Handy!

GoDaddy came fifth in our AI website builder testing this year. While it doesn’t offer quite as many AI features as Wix or as high-quality AI designs as Squarespace, GoDaddy Airo is a low cost, beginner-friendly solution. Here’s what you can expect from Airo:

• Logo designs: GoDaddy Airo can generate a unique logo for your business, which can help you get recognized online.
• Create a “coming soon” website: Use this when you’re not ready to fully launch your business online yet.
• Set up a professional email account and suggest social media handles: GoDaddy Airo bases these on your registered domain name, helping your business appear more professional within the market.
• Generate product descriptions based on your uploaded product photos: This is similar to the Shopify Magic tool launched in 2023.
• Register your business for a free LLC: All thanks to GoDaddy’s partnership with ZenBusiness.
• Create email marketing campaigns: AI email templates can be automated which helps your business engage with your existing customers and target audience.
• Generate a social media calendar and publish content: GoDaddy’s social media calendar tells you about important holidays and the best times to post. Airo can then fill the calendar with suggested ready-to-post content.
• Create social media ads: GoDaddy Airo will help you build ads that can be placed on Google, Instagram or Facebook.
• AI-powered SEO: This makes it easy to optimize your site for search engines.
• Generated responses to customers: Using GoDaddy Airo, you can collect and reply to all customer interactions from across all your platforms.

GoDaddy Airo is being rolled out to users who purchase a GoDaddy domain and is currently available in English only.

GoDaddy’s ecommerce tools are only available on the Commerce plan, costing $20.99 per month (billed annually).

On the Commerce plan, you get:

• To sell unlimited products
• SSL Security to protect customer payments and transactions
• To sell on social media and marketplaces
• Abandoned cart recovery which sends reminders to customers when they’ve left an item in their cart
• To accept payments from PayPal, Google Pay and Apple Pay
• Promotions and discounts, such as digital gift cards or promotional banners
• Free and paid shipping options
• Site performance tracking from the dashboard’s built-in analytics

GoDaddy Poynt POS

Additionally, you can integrate your GoDaddy website with in-person sales. Once you’ve bought a GoDaddy Poynt Card Reader, which cost $99 each, you can start accepting payments from anywhere, be it your bricks-and-mortar store or a market stall. Just be aware that its in-person transaction fees are 2.3% per sale.

Are GoDaddy's sales tools any good?

Compared with other platforms on the market, GoDaddy’s ecommerce tools aren’t much to shout about. If you’re a small business and just plan to sell a few homemade products, then GoDaddy will be perfectly suitable. Anything more than that and you’ll need a powerful ecommerce provider like Shopify that’s better suited to businesses with a large or scaling inventory.

Emma Ryan Lead Writer

What happens when you get stuck? GoDaddy offers a fair amount of help and support for customers, including:

• 24/7 phone, text and live chat which is accessible from GoDaddy’s “Contact Us” page
• Social media messaging, with GoDaddy’s business chat available from the official Instagram account
• A knowledge center containing resources on account management, domains, marketing and other essential topics
• A community forum, where you can ask other GoDaddy users for help
• Additional video courses, webinars and podcasts

With GoDaddy being so streamlined to use, I rarely had to use these help and support features at all, but it’s reassuring to know that they’re there. However, there were two issues:

• Unclear feature signposting: For example, I went to the knowledge center only to find an article for a feature GoDaddy didn’t have.
• Poor responses: In our testing, GoDaddy’s live chat had one of the slowest response times. And when I did receive a response, it took lots of back and forth before I got an adequate answer.

For this in-depth review, I took a magnifying glass to GoDaddy to bring you a comprehensive run-down of its most relevant features and capabilities.

I have Website Builder Expert’s excellent research methodology to rely on, formulated by our team of researchers. They conducted over 300 hours of testing across six categories, with each category weighted uniquely based on its importance to business owners:

1. Website functionality: 30%
2. Design features: 25%
3. Pricing: 15%
4. User experience: 15%
5. Help and support: 10%
6. Reputation: 5%

Each year, we evaluate top website builders across these categories, building with and testing each builder ourselves, and collecting our findings to form the scores you see in this piece.

For GoDaddy, I was impressed by its particular strengths for new users; its super easy and quick builder, and its impressive list of business features. GoDaddy makes for a great website builder for those who need a business website but have limited technical knowledge.

We recommend GoDaddy for anyone looking to build a website quickly without compromising too much on professionalism. For both entrepreneurs and small businesses, GoDaddy is an ideal choice. Its ADI editor makes building your site as easy as possible and also gives you options for customization.

GoDaddy’s website builder is great for selling online in small quantities, making it ideal for small businesses who are time-conscious and need a site live ASAP. However, if you want a personal website or your business is in an artistic industry, it may not be your best bet.

Let’s not forget that GoDaddy has made great headway in improving its SEO and site speed capabilities, so we can only expect it to level up from here – watch this space!

• Curious to see where GoDaddy ranks overall? See our list of the best website builders.

Squarespace has four premium plans to choose between: Basic, Core, Plus, and Advanced. Pricing has increased this year, now ranging from $16 to $99 per month (billed annually).

See the table below for a quick overview of each plan:

You can save up to 28% by paying annually instead of every month, or you could save 10% on your Squarespace plan by using our exclusive code “WBE10” at checkout.

If you’re not ready to sign up for a premium plan just yet, Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial so you can get familiar with the platform and its settings before spending a cent. No card details are necessary at this stage. Unlike Wix, Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan, so the trial period is the only chance you get to explore the platform.

Squarespace the easiest website builder I’ve tested, thanks to its intuitive interface and drag-and-drop editor, but it isn’t the most cost-effective option for businesses, especially with its recent price increase. Squarespace has a lot of great features, but prices do increase quite steeply as you upgrade, and you’ll need to pay extra for select tools.

Other top platforms, including Wix and Hostinger, are much better value for money. For example, Wix offers a free plan, in addition to a range of premium plans (with high-quality website features included). And, Hostinger provides a good range of tools at a very affordable price point.

Watch our video to see if Squarespace seems like a good fit for your business:

Play

Squarespace’s Basic plan is the cheapest option available, and you can sell online with the Basic plan – this is more affordable than Wix’s first ecommerce plan which costs $29 per month.

As the entry plan into Squarespace’s website builder, you’ll unlock the majority of the platform’s features:

• Blueprint AI (Squarespace’s AI website builder)
• Free custom domain, for your first year
• Squarespace ecommerce features
• 2% transaction fee for physical products and services
• 2.9% + $0.30 credit card processing rate
• SEO tools, including an SEO checklist
• Unlimited bandwidth and storage space
• Up to 30 minutes of video storage
• 24/7 support
• Drag-and-drop editor
• 2 contributors
• Basic website metrics
• Free SSL certificates
• Squarespace’s AI tools
• Squarespace Extensions (to install third-party apps)
• Custom print-on-demand merch
• Audience management tools

Who Do I Recommend the Basic Plan For?

If you’re simply looking to showcase work and share information, the Basic plan is the right choice. All of these features create a great starting point for anyone looking to get online or build a website. And, while you can sell products with the Basic plan, you’ll get better ecommerce functionality on the Core plan or above. For this reason, I recommend the Basic plan for simple sites, digital portfolios, and creatives that don’t need all the added features on the more expensive plans.

The Core plan, which costs $23 per month (billed annually), is Squarespace’s recommended plan, according to the builder. It’s only a slightly step up in price from the Basic plan, but it delivers plenty of additional features, including:

• 0% transaction fees
• 2.9% + $0.30 credit card processing rate
• Advanced sales analytics
• Unlimited contributors
• Add promotional pop-ups and banners
• Offer unique discounts (previously only available on the most expensive plan)
• Branded Google email address
• Google Shopping integration
• Five hours of video storage
• Advanced shipping tools, including shipping labels

Who Do I Recommend the Core Plan For?

I recommend the Core plan for small businesses since you’ll get access to all of Squarespace’s features for just $23 per month, and you won’t be charged transaction fees with any online orders. The more expensive plans, Plus and Advanced, only reduce processing fees, so you probably won’t need to upgrade beyond this point.

The Plus plan costs just $39 per month (billed annually), providing additional support for growing businesses. With the Plus plan, you’ll unlock everything from the Basic and Core plan, as well as:

• 50 hours of video storage
• 0% transaction fees
• 2.7% + $0.30 credit card processing rate

Who Do I Recommend the Plus Plan For?

The Plus plan is great if you run a growing small business, but you won’t really get any new features for your money, besides reduced processing fees. Most online stores will be content with Squarespace’s Core plan, since this provides everything you need. But, the Plus plan’s cheaper card processing rate will help you save money as your sales continue to increase. That said, if you’re happy to pay nearly $40 for your subscription, I’d recommend one of our top-rated ecommerce builders, like Shopify or Wix, to support your business instead.

Like the Plus plan, the only added benefit of Squarespace’s most expensive plan is reduced payment processing fees. Pricing on the Advanced plan starts from $99 per month, having recently increased from $52 per month.

You’ll have access to all of the features on the Basic, Core, and Plus plan, as well as a few extras:

• Unlimited video storage
• 0% transaction fees
• 2.5% + $0.30 credit card processing rate

Who Do I Recommend the Advanced Plan For?

The Advanced plan is ideal if your online store is growing rapidly or looking to expand in the future – but there’s nowhere up from here. It helps you take your store to the next level thanks to the reduced card processing fees, but other website builders, like Shopify, offer greater scalability to help your business succeed in the long run. With Squarespace, you pretty much hit a ceiling after the Core plan, since this is when you unlock all of Squarespace’s advanced features.

With Squarespace, you’ll get a free custom domain name for one year (if you choose an annual plan), but it’ll cost around $20 per year once it’s time to renew. In comparison, you’ll need to pay for a custom domain name immediately with a builder like Shopify, which can cost an extra $15 per year.

Besides the custom domain name, there are no other hidden fees with Squarespace, just optional extras. There are plenty of add-ons available with Squarespace that you can integrate into your website builder, such as:

• Acuity Scheduling – use this if you’re looking to offer bookable services to customers (pricing starts from $16 per month, billed annually)
• Squarespace Email Campaigns – use this to engage with your target audience and customize emails, newsletters, and more (pricing starts from $7 per month, billed annually)
• Squarespace Members Area – use this to help monetize your content and build a community online (pricing starts from $9 per month, billed annually)
• Digital Products Add On – use this to sell digital products like courses, lower transaction fees, and increase your site’s video storage capacity (pricing starts from $9 per month, billed annually)

Setting up a website or establishing an online business can quickly make a dent in the budget, but there are ways to keep the costs low with Squarespace:

• Select an annual plan instead of paying monthly – save up to 28% if you pay for the year
• Choose the right plan for your needs – the Core plan ($23 per month) is my top choice for online stores
• Limit your extra features – make sure you’re only paying for what your website or business needs

I also recommend checking out our guide to Squarespace’s promo codes for all the latest deals and offers. And, remember, you can get 10% off your Squarespace plan with our exclusive code “WBE10”.

How do we determine if Squarespace is good value for money or not? Our in-house research team has clocked over 300 hours of data collection and testing to help us bring you accurate and up-to-date recommendations.

Our research process reviews six core research categories, covering user experience, website features, and more.

However, when we’re writing about how much a builder costs, we focus solely on our pricing category. This looks at:

✅ Whether a website builder offers a free trial or plan
✅ The quality of features for the price you pay
✅ The average costs of plans
✅ How much you have to pay for standard features, such as SEO and unlimited storage

Squarespace remains one of the best website builders we’ve tested, offering four premium plans and a 14-day free trial. It’s the easiest website builder to use, offering beginners and designers an intuitive editor, stylish templates, and great booking tools. To recap, pricing ranges from $16 to $99 per month (billed annually).

Ultimately, the plan you pick will depend on your business needs. All plans let you sell online, so it’ll come down to things like advanced tools, video storage, contributors, and transaction fees.

My thoughts on Squarespace's plans...

With its recent pricing changes, Squarespace now offers a very affordable entry point for businesses looking to sell online. But, for a slight jump up from the Basic plan, I recommend picking the Core plan above all other options. The Core plan gives you access to impressive sales tools, including ecommerce analytics and discounts, for a cheaper price than Wix or Shopify! And it removes transaction fees entirely. 

However, I’d call it quits after the Core plan. Squarespace’s Plus and Advanced plan don’t give you much bang for your buck (besides reduced card rates), so I’d recommend looking at alternative platforms if your business is growing rapidly. That said, most small businesses will have everything they need with Squarespace’s Core plan.

Emma Ryan Lead Writer