Top 7 Cheapest Website Builders in 2023: From $1/month

In general, our testers had the impression that IONOS’s ease of use was more for efficiency than for sparking any love of website building in the user.

One tester said:

“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.”

On the other hand, it is very easy to add additional pages and expand your website. Plus, each new page is a blank canvas, meaning you can structure it however you like. This is great if you like to have a bit more control over your design, but it could pose problems if you just want to get your website up and running as quickly as possible.

There are three website builder plans to choose from:

• Starter: $5 per month
• Plus: $1 per month
• Pro: $15 per month
• Pro (with an online store): $25 per month

It’s worth noting that these are introductory prices, meaning that when you renew your plan for the second year, the price will increase. This increases the yearly cost of the Starter plan to $9, the Plus plan to $15, and the Pro plan to $25 per month. If you choose the online store version, the renewal prices are $19 for the Starter plan, $25 for the Plus plan, and $50 for the Pro plan.

As we mentioned, having the cheapest prices doesn’t automatically make it the best value for money option. Unfortunately, its $1 per month pricing and feature set don’t match up well against its competitors.

While its templates may have improved slightly from last year, getting creative control with this website builder is still tricky. Customization is limited, and you’re often restricted by the template you’ve chosen, unlike Squarespace.

The MyWebsite Now builder is specifically designed to help beginners get online quickly. It’s ideal if you aren’t bothered about creating a website with all the bells and whistles attached, but instead, want something functional to promote your business.

With the beginning Starter plan, you get to sell 500 products; a free domain for one year; integrated payment and shipping methods; cross-platform selling with social media sites, like Facebook and Instagram; and marketing Radar software to track the activity of your competitors.

“Drag and drop when adding elements made it highly customizable while also keeping things tidy.”

This is perfect if you’re looking for a straightforward, no-frills website to accompany your business.

However, the reason for its simplicity is that it isn’t as feature-rich as some of the other builders out there. It provides the basics, but if you want anything advanced, you’ll need to have a bit of coding knowledge to get there –  not exactly what we’d call beginner-friendly!

There is only one plan to choose from:

• Website: $2.99 per month

Keep an eye on Hostinger’s prices because it often runs sales, reducing the total cost by up to 75%.

Hostinger used to stumble when it came to customization possibilities. To keep things simple, you couldn’t do too much to your templates to make them stand out from the crowd. It was the trade-off for the easy-to-use editor. But in our research, Hostinger shot up by a dramatic 16% in design functionality, going from a 3.1 to a 3.6 out of 5 since we last tested it.

Its templates jumped from 3 all the way to a perfect 5 out of 5’s, and its aesthetic capabilities rose 200% from 1 to a 3 out of 5. You can use visual guides and dynamic columns to snap elements exactly where you want them, which is helpful for beginners who are new to web building.

However, its cheapest Website plan does include a free email address for three months, a free domain for one year, basic SEO tools to help with growth, Google Analytics integration, and unlimited storage space and bandwidth. Not bad for just $2.99 per month!

All Hostinger’s plans come with a set of unique AI tools that make it feel like a contemporary builder. These include an AI writer for acing keyword-rich copy as well as a logo builder that’s super useful if you need to keep costs down and don’t want to hire a designer.

You also get a free domain and free unlimited SSL certificates.

“It was easy to use. I could find everything I needed to find. If I needed to make a simple website for a business, this is the one I would choose.”

The ADI builder means that your template comes with relevant features already built-in, and you can jump straight into making it your own, filling out your own content before publishing.

• Basic: $9.99 per month
• Premium: $14.99 per month
• Commerce: $16.99 per month
• Commerce Plus: $29.99 per month

While the Basic plan gives you a decent set of tools, it’s designed for very basic websites. Due to its lack of SEO tools, limited social media integrations, and restrictive appointment features, most small businesses are likely to feel its limitations.

GoDaddy’s overall design functionality score took a small dip in our research based on last year’s scores, falling -5.8% overall from 4.3 to a 4.1 out of 5. This was due to a lack of template updates and mobile optimization, two factors of high importance for our users.

However, unless you’re a brand new small business, you may find the features on the cheapest plan limiting. A big let down is a lack of recurring online appointment bookings, as well as having no free domain!

However, while GoDaddy’s overall feature score has fallen -6.7% from 3.3 to a  3.1 out of 5, it has made some improvements by adding a logo maker and the ability to add customer testimonials to your site.

You can have up to 5,000 products to sell, plus the GoDaddy Insights helps you keep track of all your purchases. The Marketplace feature lets you sell across Amazon, Etsy, and more – and GoDaddy also has no transaction payments!

The lack of any real scalability is a downside, as are the general lack of features GoDaddy suffers from. In our research, we gave GoDaddy an overall ecommerce score of 3 out of 5.

“It’s good for people who are willing to invest a lot of time and money to build something that is professional and scalable.”

In our research, we gave it a 4 out of 5 for ease of use, putting Shopify just behind GoDaddy in this category.

A large part of Shopify’s modus operandi is its app market. Most functions and features that aren’t immediately found in the in-editor navigation bar can be downloaded from the app store.

• Shopify Basic: $29 per month
• Shopify: $79 per month
• Advanced Shopify: $299 per month

The prices increase quickly between plans, so it’s best to think ahead before committing.

If you want to start selling immediately and don’t need a fancy store, then the Starter plan might be for you. You can only sell on social media, but with monetized links and all the robust sales features of a Shopify store, it’s definitely worth it for some. Despite this, Shopify’s plans are still pretty expensive which is why it scores 3 out of 5 in our value for money research.

There are nine free themes, but most of them need to be purchased – the cheapest of these costs around $100, with the most expensive costing $180. If you don’t like any of Shopify’s free themes, this is a big upfront cost that you’ll need to budget for.

In terms of design, Shopify’s themes look great, scoring 4 out of 5 in our design functionality research.

They’re all mobile responsive, cover a range of industries, and some come with multiple styles to choose from. Themes are tailored to specific industries, with relevant features automatically included.

Shopify’s greatest asset is its huge app store – it’s pretty reliant on third-party integrations, so chances are you’ll need to install at least a few apps to get the most out of your store. We recommend browsing Shopify’s app store and adding up which apps you might need to get an idea of the extra costs to budget. In our research, we gave its app store a perfect 5 out of 5!

• Two staff accounts
• Multichannel selling across marketplaces and social media
• Inventory syncing with up to four locations
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Discount codes
• Gift cards
• Shipping discounts
• Print shipping labels
• Fraud analysis
• Shopify POS Lite – accept in-person payments
• Sell in 133 currencies and up to 20 languages

There are even more exciting features on the advanced plans, including real-time shipping rates, manual foreign exchange rates, and professional reports. We gave it a 4.7out of 5 for sales features in our research, a rise of 4.2% from 4.5 since last year.

“So many elements are available to add. Everything is there premade and you only have to customize it for your site”

We should mention that while Wix is easy to use, it can be daunting for beginners because it gives you so many features and options! However, it also offers helpful hints and tips as you build, too, so you can just follow Wix’s lead. In our research, it got joint first for ease of use with a score of 4.4 out of 5.

• Light: $16 per month
• Core: $27 per month
• Business: $32 per month
• Business Elite: $159 per month

There’s also an additional Enterprise plan tailored for large-scale businesses that need custom plans.

While these plans are a little pricey, our independent research shows that Wix does indeed offer the best website building service. Its low value for money score comes down to a lack of features offered when prices rose due to economic factors. However, if you want a good deal, Wix is offering our readers an exclusive 10% off when using GET10! at checkout.

Additionally, Wix also has a free plan that you can use indefinitely! Naturally, there are some caveats, like having to use a Wix domain name and have Wix adverts displayed on your site. You also can’t sell online and you won’t have access to Google Analytics.

You also get free reign over your template’s customization – you can change fonts, colors, and the layout as much as you like. This can be great for creating a unique brand, but can also be overwhelming, and result in a cluttered design if you’re not used to best practices. That being said, Wix actually improved their design score from last year by 4.5%, rising from 4.5 to 4.6 out of 5, thanks to improved template offerings and UX.

With the Light plan for $16 per month (or $14.40 is use code GET1O!), you get 2GB of storage and 30 video minutes to put on your website. Recent improvements made to the provider include Semrush integration, allowing you to keyword search directly from the platform. This is a massive ease of convenience for users who can now use built-in SEO tools to optimize their site.

• Core: $27 per month
• Business: $32 per month
• Business Elite: $159 per month

Wix’s cheapest Core plan is designed for new or small online stores, providing basic ecommerce tools to get you started. These include:

• Up to 50,000 products
• 20GB storage space
• 5 hours allowance of video on site
• Sell on social channels

You also have access to advanced tools that will help you grow your store, including abandoned cart recovery, customer accounts, and $300 worth of ad vouchers.

“My page ended up looking so much sleeker and neater than when I used Wix.”

As a result, it’s now ranked as one of our easiest website builders to use, scoring 4.4 out of 5 in our user testing. That’s a massive 11% increase from its previous rating!

Its editor uses rows to organize its designs, giving you the ability to reorganize elements within a section. This might be too restrictive if you like free reign to drag-and-drop wherever you please, but it’s great for those with little design experience, and who want to keep their website tidy and attractive.

Its annual plans range from $16 to $49 per month if you choose to pay the full cost upfront:

• Personal: $16 per month
• Business: $23 per month
• Basic Commerce: $27 per month
• Advanced Commerce: $49 per month

If $16 per month sounds a little pricey to you, we’ve got some good news: you can get 10% off the full price when you use our exclusive WBE discount code. Simply enter the code ‘WBE’ at checkout, and you’ll reduce your monthly payments to $14.40.

It is worth noting that you won’t be able to edit your website’s base code if you’re on the Personal plan. This kind of advanced customization is only available from the Business plan up. If you’re a beginner, this limitation will give you a safety net, so you won’t ever accidentally edit the code by mistake and affect your website’s stylish look!

The Personal plan benefits from a fantastic set of blogging tools, high-quality SEO features, and space for up to two website contributors. Its basic analytics also give you a good overview of your performance.

If you need any additional functionality, be sure to take a look at Squarespace’s extensions library. This is the equivalent of an app store and gives you access to plugins such as Delighted, Quickbooks, Mailchimp, and Smart SEO. Major improvements were made to it since last year, and it raised Squarespace’s overall feature score by 4% from a 4.4 to a 4.6 out of 5.

In our research, we gave Squarespace a 4.4 out of 5 for ecommerce overall, a slight drop of -2.3% from last year’s score, due to a lack of additional features when compared with Wix and Shopify.

However, things do get trickier once you enter the editor. This is because Square uses its own terminology for well-known ecommerce features, and sometimes it’s difficult to find the element you’re looking for among the many tabs in the toolbar.

Once you’re familiar with it, it couldn’t be easier to get your store up and running. One of our testers said:

“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 getting overwhelmed with choice.”

To remove adverts from your storefront, you’ll need to choose one of Square Online’s two premium plans, which start at $29 per month when you pay annually:

• Plus: $29 per month
• Premium: $79 per month

We should also mention that each of the plans comes with different transaction fees, too. On the free and Plus plans you can expect to pay 2.9% + $0.30 on each payment, whereas the Premium plan has a fee of 2.6% + $0.30.

The cheapest Plus plan removes adverts and provides a free domain for one year, or you can connect to your own custom domain if you have one. Other features on this plan include Instagram integration, Square POS syncing, curbside pickup, order status text alerts for customers, gift cards, and more.

However, Square was the only ecommerce builder to see a reduction in Sitespeed performance, decreasing by 10% since last year.

It also throws in some great bonus features, which shows that Square Online is paying attention to sellers’ needs and moving with the times. Examples include order text alerts, curbside pickup, and in-store customization, which lets customers edit their orders and set their pickup hours. All of these features are available on the cheapest plan.