8 Best Small Business Website Builders
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Building a website for your small business will help you promote your brand and reach new customers. As the world gets more and more digital, it’s never been more important (or fun!) to create an online space for your business.
But which are the best builders for small business websites to use? To find out, we tested over 50 platforms, looking for the builders that are easy to use, have great SEO tools, and offer plans that are both affordable and scalable. And now the results are in:
Best Website Builders for Small Business
- Wix – Best overall website builder for small business.
- Squarespace – Best for building your brand.
- Weebly – Best for businesses on a budget.
- GoDaddy – Best for businesses that need to get online quickly.
- Duda – Best for those who value ease of use over personalized branding.
- Strikingly – Best for selling services, not products.
- Site123 – Best for those who dread creating a business website.
- Jimdo Creator – Easy, but lacks quality features.
We’re pretty proud of our research process, because not many sites can say they’ve carried out such in-depth testing before making recommendations. First, our in-house research team investigates every builder in the following areas:
- Ease of use
- Design flexibility
- Value for money
- Feature quality
- Help and support
- Customer satisfaction
This helps us rate and compare the builders fairly, focusing on important factors that users have told us matter most. Each builder gets a score in all six areas, which we also average into an overall rating.
But it’s not enough to know how each builder scores in general. So, we updated our scoring calculations to add more weight to the categories that small business website owners have told us are most important – namely, ease of use, feature quality (with heightened focus on SEO capabilities), and value for money.
Need to Sell Products Online?
The builders in this review are perfect for promoting your small business, and giving customers a place to learn more about what you do. You can also use these builders to sell a handful of products, but it’s definitely not a requirement!
On the other hand, if you’re running a larger store and need to sell more than 10 items through your website, then you’ll need to choose an ecommerce-specific website builder instead.
Small Business Website Builder Comparison
In a rush? Not to worry. Check out our comparison chart for a quick overview of each website builder…
| Overall Score (/5) | Free Plan/Trial? | Starting Plan (/month) | Templates | Apps | 24/7 Support | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | 4.4 | Free plan | $14 | 500+ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Squarespace | 4.1 | 14-day free trial | $12 | 60+ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Weebly | 4.1 | Free plan | $6 | 50+ | ✔ | ✔ |
| GoDaddy | 3.8 | 30-day free trial | $10 | 100+ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Duda | 3.7 | 14-day free trial | $14 | 90+ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Strikingly | 3.7 | Free plan | $8 | 29 | ✔ | ✔ |
| Site123 | 3.6 | Free plan | $12.80 | 180+ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Jimdo Creator | 3.4 | Free plan | $10 | 16 | ✔ | ✘ |
Which Builder Is Right for You?
Or, you can take our word for it:
- For the perfect balance of ease of use and powerful features, try Wix
- For the most professional template designs, try Squarespace
- For cheap plans, try Weebly
Now, on to our in-depth reviews.
Wix
Best Overall Website Builder for Small Business
See it in action: Mane Ethical Hairdressing
| Wix Pros | Wix Cons |
|---|---|
| Platform most likely to be recommended by our users after testing. It requires zero coding knowledge, offering excellent creative control with no complications | May have to purchase third party apps for more scalability |
| In-house SEO tools offer step-by-step optimization help | You can’t switch templates once your site goes live |
Ease of Use: 4.3/5
If you want to keep things simple, then Wix is definitely the builder for you. You don’t need any technical or design skills to build a professional, eye-catching small business website. Instead, Wix’s editing interface lets you design your site by dragging and dropping text boxes and images to where you want them. A lot of other builders do this too, but our research participants were most likely to recommend Wix because its editor is easy to use and doesn’t sacrifice your creative freedom.
With Wix, you have the freedom to create a small business website that oozes real personality. There are more than 500 professionally designed templates to choose from, covering all types of business from makeup artists to vintage car dealers.
If you’re a longtime resident of the “not techy” camp, you can even use Wix’s ADI builder to create your site. Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) will ask you a few questions about your website, then generate a fully-fledged business website for you based on your answers.
Design Flexibility: 4.0/5
With Wix, you have the freedom to create a small business website that oozes real personality. There are more than 500 professionally designed templates to choose from, covering all types of business from makeup artists to vintage car dealers.
There’s a great variety of templates on Wix, but one major drawback is that you can’t use a different template once you’ve published your website. So, make sure you’re happy with your choice the first time around!
It’s easy to add extra functionality to any Wix template. You can:
- Add contact forms and online booking forms for appointments
- Create and send invoices and track payments, helping you manage your finances in one place
- Add customized quizzes, surveys, and contact forms that let you find out what your customers think
For the more tech-savvy among you, there’s Wix Corvid, 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.
Value for Money: 3.1/5
Wix has eight price plans to choose from, with four plans for non-ecommerce websites and four ecommerce-specific plans:
For small business websites, we recommend Wix’s Pro plan, which starts at $23/month. You’ll get access to Ascend, Wix’s in-house marketing tool, and can even get a free logo designed if you want one. However, it’s also worth noting that the cheaper Unlimited plan ($18/month) still comes with $300 ad vouchers, which are split evenly across Google Ads, Bing Ads, and Local Listings and can really give you a leg up when it comes to promoting your small business site.
Keep Reading About Wix:
Wix App Market: choose from over 200 apps and services, covering everything from shipping features to make sending out products easier, to email tools that help you reach out to customers and expand your user base (such as Contact Collection and Mailchimp).
Wix SEO Wiz: enter some information about your industry, location, and target keywords, and this feature will create a bespoke SEO plan with tips on how to improve the visibility of your website on search engines.
Wix Ascend: the all-in-one marketing package, helping you connect with customers, create personalized messages for each user, post on social media, and send marketing emails, all in one place.
We also like Wix because it provides fantastic customer support. There are help buttons everywhere on the Wix site, so if you’re having trouble building a specific section of your site, you can click on the button and find a specific answer to your question.
These help buttons make it easy to fix issues by yourself, without having to wait for customer service. That said, you can Wix directly over the phone from Monday to Thursday, 5am-5pm EST. Wix doesn’t offer 24/7 phone support, but its editor is so easy to use that you won’t feel like you’re missing out.
USER REVIEW: CLOUD NINE KNITS
Sara’s Wix website allows her to manage bookings and take sales for her knitting business.
Inspired by her passion for knitting, Sara started her small business, Cloud Nine Knits, to teach people across the UK how to crochet and arm knit using giant yarn. Sara created her website because she needed a place online where she could manage bookings for her workshops, as well as sell a small selection of handmade knitted products.
Q&A with Sara
How did you decide that Wix was the right website builder for you?
“After struggling with another website builder in the past and feeling limited by its templates, I turned to Wix because of its claim of simplicity. I instantly loved the Wix Editor, which gave me professional results with zero coding knowledge.”
How easy was it to build your website?
“I found Wix super intuitive. I chose to have a bit of design freedom using the Wix Editor (rather than use a template), and the drag-and-drop features made it so simple to start building out the pages. I loved how I could toggle through layouts and design features and see them update on screen, until finally selecting the one I liked best. The Wix apps made the process of adding instant functionality to my site a breeze, too.”
“I highly recommend Wix to every small business owner I meet, for its ease of use, centralised business functions and for the convenience of being able to manage it all from my phone.”
How long did it take to build your website?
“It took a couple of hours to get the main pages as I wanted them. That was the easy part. Then it took a few more days of tweaking and rewriting my own content – being a perfectionist can be time-consuming!”
What’s one improvement you’d make to Wix?
“I’d love there to be a little more functionality within the booking system: for example, being able to give my customers specific options, such as letting them pick their yarn color from a list of options prior to the workshop.”
How has having a website benefited your business?
“It is the central hub for my business. I’d be lost without it, and my business far less a success! I use it to take all bookings, sell products, manage my customer community, share video tutorials, send invoices and manage payments, run email marketing campaigns, and track visitors to the site in real time. And the most wonderful part is that I do it all for the most part from the Wix app on my phone, wherever I am.”
- Wix Review – for an in-depth look at Wix
- Wix Pricing Review – which plan is right for you?
- Wix eCommerce Review – should you sell online with Wix?
- How to Use Wix – our easy step-by-step guide on making a Wix website
Squarespace
Best for Building Your Brand
See it in action: Art Cafe
| Squarespace Pros | Squarespace Cons |
|---|---|
| Templates are the most professionally designed of any builder, and still don’t require technical knowledge to customize | There’s a slight learning curve, so it’s not as easy to use as Wix |
| Built-in online scheduling tool lets clients easily view your availability and book appointments | Doesn’t offer phone support |
Ease of Use: 3.4/5
Squarespace offers more advanced design tools than Wix, which means there is a slightly steeper learning curve. Generally, Squarespace isn’t as intuitive as Wix, and it can take longer to make changes to your website. However, if you have basic tech skills and know your way around a computer, you’ll pick up Squarespace quite quickly – and you’ll love the different template styles available, which make it nearly impossible to go wrong.
Design Flexibility: 4.3/5
Squarespace’s templates are polished, and their clean lines give off a really professional vibe. More than any other builder, you can make your small business website look like it’s been professionally designed without having to play around with any code yourself. What’s more, layout features like Cover Pages – also known as single scrolling pages – can really make your small business website stand out from the crowd.
What’s more, you’re able to stamp your mark on your website by easily customizing your design, from the fonts and colors right down to the sidebar width and background images. It’s also very simple to switch your cover page templates when you feel your site needs a revamp.
You can also add features like an announcement bar (great if you want to show off your new product), or a mobile information bar, which streamlines your website for visitors using a mobile phone and displays a shortcut menu with key information like contact details and opening hours.
Value for Money: 3.5/5
Unlike Wix, Squarespace does not offer a free plan, but it does offer a 14-day free trial period. Squarespace has four price plans, with two generic website builder plans and two ecommerce-specific plans.
We recommend the $18/month Business plan for small business websites, because it’s not as pricey as the two fully-fledged ecommerce plans, but you can still sell a few products and create modern, professional pages.
That said, you’ll have to pay a 3% transaction fee for sales you make on the Business plan, which would be waived if you were to scale up to either the Basic or Advanced Commerce plans. So if you plan to sell a lot of products, it’s worth skipping straight to the Basic Commerce plan!
Keep Reading About Squarespace:
Super SEO: Squarespace’s SEO features are really strong, too. 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. We’ve gone into a ton of detail on exactly what makes Squarespace’s SEO features so good in our Squarespace SEO review.
Organization: Squarespace Scheduling is an easy online booking tool that lets clients view your availability, book or reschedule their appointments, and even pay online. You can also sync Squarespace Scheduling with your existing Google, iCloud, Office 365 or Outlook calendar.
Social media integration: You can integrate your Squarespace site with a raft of social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, and even pull in 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. You’ll get a free domain for one year if you sign up to an annual paid plan, too.
Like its range of templates, Squarespace’s help and support options are comprehensive and high quality. Whenever you become stuck, you can benefit from:
- Live chat Monday to Friday
- 24/7 Twitter support
- 24/7 email support
- An in-depth knowledge base
- A community forum
- Video tutorials
That said, Squarespace only earns a 3.8/5 here because it doesn’t offer phone support, which can be frustrating for some.
USER REVIEW: LINDIS CONSULTING
Terry’s Squarespace website allows him to promote his services.
By now, it’s no secret that Squarespace is a powerful builder with impressive template designs. We spoke to Terry, founder and director of Lindis Consulting, about why he chose Squarespace for his professional presence online.
After 20+ years of working for consultancies and insurance companies, Terry started his own practice offering business and pension scheme management to a versatile range of companies. He uses his Squarespace site as a sort of “online brochure” to showcase the different consulting services he offers.
Q&A with Terry
How did you decide that Squarespace was the right website builder for you?
“Squarespace sites look professional and offer analytics capabilities, the cost isn’t too bad, and you can easily integrate with G Suite. I’d be very likely to recommend Squarespace to others.”
What is the one thing you like most about Squarespace?
“Squarespace’s variety of template options make it possible to develop a pretty professional looking site quite quickly, with no prior experience.”
What did you find most challenging about Squarespace?
“Some of the functionality wasn’t totally intuitive, and I ended up having to contact the support team with questions. But their staff were amazingly helpful.”
- Squarespace Review – for a detailed review of Squarespace
- Squarespace Pricing Review – for an in-depth breakdown of Squarespace’s pricing plans
- Squarespace Offer Code – get 10% off any Squarespace plan with our exclusive discount code
- Squarespace Ecommerce Review – find out how we rate Squarespace for ecommerce
- How to Use Squarespace – our simple nine step guide on creating a Squarespace website
Weebly
Best for Businesses on a Budget
See it in action: Wall’in (check this site out in English or French!)
| Weebly Pros | Weebly Cons |
|---|---|
| Excellent value for money means you newer businesses can save on startup costs | Premium plan is required to install the majority of apps |
| Huge app market gives you lots of opportunity to add functionalities to your site | Simple themes get the job done, but you’re better off with Squarespace if you’re trying to build a brand |
Ease of Use: 3.5/5
Like Wix, Weebly uses a drag-and-drop editor which allows you to view your edits in real time, with no switching between editing and preview modes. However, from our user testing, we discovered that Weebly is quite difficult to use in comparison with other builders, with Wix and Duda coming out as the easiest-to-use website builders.
When designing your website, Weebly leaves you to your own devices, providing little in the way of visual cues or design intuitiveness.
Design Flexibility: 3.4/5
Weebly has recently renovated its themes gallery, offering around 50 templates to suit all sorts of industries. The templates cannot match those on Squarespace in terms of minimalist beauty, but they will be more than suitable for small business websites that are just looking to showcase their services in a clear, simple, affordable manner.
For the coders out there, you can use Weebly’s Code Editor to gain access to the HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and customize the layout of your web pages to add a greater level of personalization.
Value for Money: 4.1/5
This is where Weebly comes into its own. For just over a dollar per week, you can access the premium features on its Personal Plan, including 500MB storage and the ability to connect your own domain. Below are Weebly’s three premium plans:
Weebly’s paid plans are noticeably cheaper than its competitors’, so it’s definitely worth upgrading from the free subscription. On the free plan, you’ll be tied to an unprofessional Weebly.com subdomain, but you can remove that blemish for just $6 per month.
That said, we recommend the $26/month Performance plan because it opens up your website to accept PayPal payments, which is one of the most popular payment gateways. This is something your business might need sooner rather than later, so why wait to upgrade?
Keep Reading About Weebly:
- Huge App Center: choose from over 300 apps across categories such as marketing, communications, ecommerce, social media, and more. One of the best ways that apps can help your website is by connecting Facebook Messenger, allowing you to chat with Facebook users straight from your own website.
- Membership Options: available on the Professional and Performance Plans, this feature lets you grant registered members access to restricted pages. This is useful if you want to create private clubs, or share private information with certain visitors.
- SEO: Weebly makes it easy to edit your meta titles and descriptions, customize your URLs, and add alt text to images, which can all help your website get found by search engine users more easily. There are also a number of excellent SEO apps, such as RabbitSEO and MarketGoo, to help bolster your SEO efforts.
You can reach the Weebly support team in three different ways:
- Support tickets (answered 24/7)
- Live chat (available Monday to Friday 6am-6pm PST, and Saturday to Sunday 8am-5pm PST)
- Phone (6am-6pm PST)
Weebly also offers a Support Center showcasing numerous how-to guides, and a Community Forum where you’ll find plenty of tips from existing users.
However, one thing Weebly lacks is a personal restore option. This means that if your site goes down, you’re totally reliant on the support team to restore it for you.
- Weebly Review – 12 key things you need to know about Weebly
- Weebly Pricing Review – are the plans really worth it?
- Weebly Ecommerce Review – a detailed look at Weebly’s online selling tools
- How to Use Weebly – an easy-to-follow guide on building a Weebly website
GoDaddy
Best for Businesses That Need to Get Online Quickly
See it in action: Skuna Boats
| GoDaddy Pros | GoDaddy Cons |
|---|---|
| ADI capabilities do all the heavy lifting for you, and you can get a finished site up and running fast | Simple templates and limited design flexibility make GoDaddy a poor choice for creative businesses, which are better off with Squarespace |
| Add up to 5,000 products and customize your shipping options easily | Lacks depth and power in some of its features, making it unsuitable for very large business or ecommerce websites. |
Ease of Use: 3.8/5
Yes, GoDaddy can create a website for you in a matter of minutes with its ADI feature, which requires minimal effort on your part – but after that, GoDaddy feels quite restrictive. And if you don’t use the ADI, you’ll need to use GoDaddy’s drag-and-drop feature, which can’t match Wix for creative freedom.
The majority of users in our research mentioned they wanted more creative control when using the builder. However, 76% of our participants also said they would recommend GoDaddy to a friend who’s looking to get online. So in short, if you value ease of use over creative freedom, then GoDaddy won’t disappoint.
Design Flexibility: 3.8/5
As we’ve just explained, GoDaddy offers little design flexibility. But if you need a simple small business website created quickly, and you’re not too bothered about getting creative yourself, then GoDaddy is a good option.
Having said that, GoDaddy offers over 100 themes (compared to Weebly’s ~50), and its new Theme Customizer feature gives you a sneak preview of your new theme in 20 different styles without losing your content – which helps set it apart from Wix.
All in all, while Squarepsace is the place to go for sleek templates, GoDaddy is more of a quick fix.
Value for Money: 3.1/5
GoDaddy’s prices are fairly reasonable, but you can find a wider range of features and stronger customer support for what you pay with Weebly, Wix, or Squarespace. GoDaddy has four plans in total:
We recommend the $14.99/month Standard Plan because you’ll get to benefit from GoDaddy’s SEO tools. What we really like about GoDaddy is that this platform does a bit of everything – you can manage your domain registration, web hosting, and website building, all in one place.
Keep Reading About GoDaddy:
GoDaddy has some great features for small business websites:
- GoDaddy SEO: this feature will automatically review your website and optimize it for search engines, but it’s not available on the cheapest price plan. GoDaddy claims that websites using GoDaddy SEO saw their Google traffic increase 2.5 times compared to those not using it.
- Google Analytics: unlike most website builders which use their own analytics tools, GoDaddy has seamlessly integrated its software with Google Analytics, providing brilliant analysis ready 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. Pricing starts at $9.99 to purchase a domain for one year.
That said, GoDaddy offers limited social media integration: Currently, you can only add icons to link out to your social media channels. Not being able to feature more of your social feeds on your business website is a disadvantage, since 43% of internet users use social media when researching things to buy. You don’t want customers to have to leave your site to find the information they want!
GoDaddy doesn’t offer the best customer support around, but you can still request help using these methods:
- 24/7 phone support
- Live chat (Monday to Friday, 5am-6pm)
- Knowledge Base
- Help Forum
You can find answers to simple questions in the forum and knowledge base, but you’ll need to speak to an expert to get answers for specific or niche questions.
- GoDaddy Website Builder Review – get the full details on GoDaddy’s website builder
- GoDaddy Ecommerce Review – is it the right choice for selling online?
- How to Build a Website on GoDaddy – our easy, step-by-step guide to getting started
Duda
Best for Those Who Value Ease of Use over Personalized Branding
See it in action: Newman Decorators
| Duda Pros | Duda Cons |
|---|---|
| Ease of use really feels like the top priority with Duda | Duda lets you customize user journeys for different customers, but that freedom doesn’t extend to template designs |
| Option to create personalized user journeys, even on the cheapest plan | Pretty expensive price plans, starting at $14/month, with no free plan available |
Ease of Use: 4.1/5
Duda is a drag-and-drop builder, making it easy to move elements around the page and to update text boxes. Its templates are visually appealing but very structured, meaning you can only place items within certain areas on the page.
The rigidity of Duda’s themes makes it less creatively flexible than Wix, but it’s definitely a beginner-friendly platform. Compared to Sqaurespace, Duda’s themes are much easier for beginners to customize, but they aren’t as modern or minimalist.
Design Flexibility: 4.6/5
Duda’s flexibility comes from its personalized user journey options. With this feature, you can tailor the way different customers see your website, and it’s available even on the cheapest price plan.
For example, you can choose to display a video about your services to users who are visiting your website for the first time, or you can add a widget asking users to call you if they are visiting from a nearby location.
This feature could help you gain new customers, with 80% of companies reporting an uplift in sales since implementing personalization.
Personalization is a really smart feature that sets Duda apart from other builders.
Value for Money: 1.2/5
Duda is the most expensive builder we’ve tested. There is no free plan, and a 14-day free trial period only applies on one of its paid plans. Duda has four paid plans in total, one being a custom Enterprise plan for large companies with multiple websites:
We recommend the Team plan, not just because it comes with a free trial, but because it offers analytics capabilities and branded marketing materials that you won’t get on the Basic plan.
Keep Reading About Duda:
Duda lacks basic marketing features, such as a newsletter tool. It has no app store, which means you can’t easily add extra functionality when you need it. This is quite the downside, as marketing tools are crucial for growing a small business website.
There isn’t much SEO support, either. You won’t benefit from the SEO prompts and guides you’ll find on Weebly or Squarespace, so you’ll need to research everything yourself.
Duda is far from the best small business website builder, but it’s suitable for users who want a well-designed website and aren’t too bothered about marketing features. For example, if you’re running a website for an established local business that isn’t looking to grow, the Duda is a fine choice.
The support you get on Duda depends on the price plan you choose. You won’t have access to phone support on Duda’s cheapest plan, which is definitely a drawback. That said, we recommend the Team plan for small businesses, which has all of the support options you’ll need:
- Basic: Email
- Team: Email, live chat, and phone
- Agency: Priority email, live chat, and phone
Duda’s standout support feature is its Resource Center, which presents educational webinars and information about product updates.
- Duda Review – get the full lowdown on Duda, including all of its pros and cons
Strikingly
Best for Selling Services, Not Products
See it in action: Lever & Bloom Coffee
| Strikingly Pros | Strikingly Cons |
|---|---|
| Helpful and proactive customer support team | You can only create one-page sites on the cheapest plan, meaning you’ll have to pay more if you’re looking to sell or grow |
| You can create two different websites on the cheapest plan ($8/month) and sell up to five products | Low quality features |
Ease of Use: 3.7/5
As you can see, Strikingly’s score is pretty average. This builder is simple to use if you want to build a single-page website quickly and cheaply. In a similar fashion to Duda, the templates on Strikingly are rigid – so if it’s creative freedom you’re looking for, then head over to Wix.
Design Flexibility: 3.1/5
You can only build one-page websites on Strikingly. This is the epitome of inflexibility.
Why are one-page sites a no-no? They’re just too long! The average person scrolls 22.7 meters on their phone every day, and let’s just say your one-page website would be responsible for the bulk of that. It’s virtually impossible to add blogs or product categories to a one-page site without the page getting extremely long.
Value for Money: 3.1/5
Strikingly’s plans are very reasonable, offering an impressive range of benefits for the amount you pay.
Strikingly also has a free plan, but we recommend the Limited Plan at $8/month. It lets you build two sites, sell up to five products, and bag a free domain for the first year. Quite the package!
Keep Reading About Strikingly:
Strikingly is not suitable for small businesses looking to grow quickly. For example, Squarespace’s solid SEO features make a much better option for fast-growing startups.
That said, Strikingly still offers a few important tools:
- Email marketing integration with MailChimp
- Basic SEO checklist covering best practices
- Ability to link social media accounts
- Ability to purchase and register a domain for up to 10 years
If you’re on the Pro plan, you can also add a live chat function to your site through Facebook Messenger. Overall, though, Strikingly is far from striking in the website features department.
Not only does Strikingly have the most wholesomely named support team – the Happiness Officers – but it boasts one of the most active one, too.
Throughout your website-building journey, you’ll find a chat box pop-up inviting you to talk to your Happiness Officer, who is available 24/7. It also offers plenty of helpful tutorial videos. Simply put, you’re never left feeling stuck using Strikingly.
- Strikingly Review – a detailed review of Strikingly’s features, prices, and more
Site123
Best for Those Who Dread Creating a Business Website
See it in action: Mike’s House
| Site123 Pros | Site123 Cons |
|---|---|
| Design-assisted approach makes it a super quick and easy builder to use | Only equipped to create basic websites. If you need ease of use and powerful features, you’re better off with Wix |
| Awesome support team available via live chat | Hard work pays off – and in this case, easy setup means bland template designs |
Ease of Use: 4/5
Site123 asks you a couple of questions about your website desires, then generates a template with relevant features based on the information you provided. You can think of it like a less powerful version of Wix’s ADI tool.
72% of participants in our research said they’d recommend Site123 to a friend, but many users also said they would use a different website builder if they needed a complex website.
Design Flexibility: 2.8/5
Site123’s simplicity translates into basic templates. Even though this platform is quick and easy to use, you’ll get better results by using Wix ADI or GoDaddy, which both offer slicker templates and a greater level of creative freedom.
Value for Money: 2.8/5
Despite its free plan, Site123 doesn’t have great value for money because of its lack of useful features. This builder only has one paid plan, which costs $12.80 per month – so unlike both other builders, Site123 doesn’t allow you to choose between different pricing tiers depending on the amount of features you want.
Keep Reading About Site123:
Site123 lacks many useful features for small businesses, earning a low score in this area. You can’t embed any social media feeds to your site, and SEO help is limited, too – you won’t get any support when it comes to keyword research.
Site 123 does offer a Google Analytics integration, and you can add CTAs to your site – but that’s about as far as it goes in terms of marketing features.
For a combination of strong features and ease of use, we recommend using Wix instead.
You can get support via email, social media, and a knowledge base forum, but Site123’s standout feature is its live chat option. Live chat is available 24/7, offering quick responses so it feels like you’re never editing alone.
- SITE123 Review – learn all about this builder in our full review
Jimdo Creator
Easy, but Lacks Quality Features
See it in action: Blue-Sky Consulting
| Jimdo Creator Pros | Jimdo Creator Cons |
|---|---|
| Reasonable value for money, with a free plan available and premium plans starting at $9 per month | Using Jimdo is simple, but not as simple as using Wix or even Site123 |
| It's also cheap to make your website ad-free, which is vital for a professional business site! | You won’t get personalized support on the free plan or the cheapest paid plan |
Ease of Use: 3.7/5
Jimdo Creator is very simple, yes – but that’s no longer anything special in the world of website builders. The big players like Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace are constantly evolving to improve their ease of use and depth of features, while platforms like Jimdo Creator can’t supplement their ease of use with any powerful features.
Design Flexibility: 2.3/5
Using Jimdo Creator can be frustrating, as you don’t get much creative control when trying to edit your template. Jimdo’s templates pose the same problem as Duda’s and Strikingly’s: they’re just too restrictive.
Value for Money: 3.2/5
Jimdo Creator redeems itself with its reasonable pricing. There is a free plan and four premium plans, and despite its flaws, this platform does offer some of the cheapest pricing around.
We recommend the $20/month Business plan, because it’s the cheapest Jimdo plan that allows you to sell online – and even if you’re not selling, you’ll still benefit from its unlimited bandwidth and storage space.
Keep Reading About Jimdo Creator:
As we mentioned earlier, Jimdo brings good ease of use to the table, but it doesn’t combine that with any outstanding features. You’ll have the basics covered, but Jimdo doesn’t exactly go the extra mile.
Take SEO, for example. You can edit your meta descriptions and titles, customize your URLs, and add alt text to your images, but you’ll need to add third party apps to go further than that – and the majority of apps on Jimdo will require coding knowledge.
You can get a free custom domain for one year on any of Jimdo’s premium plans, but the annual cost of renewing that domain after the year is $80. That’s the highest of any website builder we’ve tested.
Jimdo only offers support over email, which accounts for its poor performance in this area. You even have to be on Jimdo’s most expensive price plan to be guaranteed a response in under an hour.
In short, if help and support is your top priority, you’re better off with Strikingly!
- Jimdo Review – find out more and see if Jimdo is right for you
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.
Got a few products to sell through your small business website?
There’s an easy way to make a few bucks online without breaking the bank. Check out Square Online Checkout Links, which you can add to your small business website for free to take payments directly from visitors.
These buttons allow customers to purchase products through your website, making it ideal for small business sites selling a few items to monetize their online presence.
What’s even better is that it doesn’t cost anything. You don’t need to shell out on an expensive ecommerce builder – it’s free to set up a Square Online account, and the checkout links are totally free too. The only charge is Square’s 2.5% transaction fee – much more affordable than a $20/month ecommerce subscription!
Below, we’ve included the most important factors to consider when deciding what your website needs, and which website builders excel in each area:
Running a small business is not easy. Why risk picking a website builder that only adds to your stress levels? Stress not – when you’ve got invoices lying all over the place, these platforms will make you feel easy like a Sunday morning…
Wix received a perfect 5/5 customer score in our user testing. This means our test participants loved using Wix and would definitely recommend it.
Why did Wix score so highly? The answer’s easy. No, literally – it’s really easy to use. Its intuitive drag-and-drop design tool can turn the Average Joe into a web design pro.
Then there’s Wix ADI. This feature uses artificial design intelligence to generate a professional website for you in a matter of minutes, after you’ve answered a few questions about the site you need.
Your website needs to run smoothly without any glitches, but it also needs to look smart and professional in order to impress your visitors. 75% of users judge a company’s credibility by its website. So, if looks do matter to you (and they should!), then it’s important that you have a wide selection of sleek templates available.
Duda pitches itself as a website builder for web designers, offering over 90 stunning templates to choose from. Duda isn’t just for pros, though – anyone can create a single-page website on Duda without a fuss. If you’re after a small yet stylish website, then Duda is your dude.
Squarespace is the best website builder for image-led websites like portfolios or photography sites. The modern, minimalist templates allow your pictures to speak a thousand words.
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 Weebly have ample options, with 200+ and 300+ apps to choose from, respectively. Weebly edges Wix in terms of numbers, but you’ll find a greater number of free apps in Wix’s App Market.
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 3 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 straight from your site straight onto your social platforms, and add a Facebook icon popup that takes users to your Facebook page.
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, 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.
Weebly scored an impressive 4.1/5 ‘value for money’ score in our research. This shows that it offers an excellent range of built-in features along with fairly-priced subscription plans (as well as a free plan). You won’t ever feel ripped off while using Weebly.
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.
In our experience, Wix’s Help Center provides the most in-depth collection of tutorials and videos to help answer all your questions.
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 website builders for small businesses will help your business not only appear online, but shine. That’s why we recommend Wix as the best option for creating websites for business. But let’s recap our list of eight one last time…
Best Website Builders for Small Business
- Wix ($13/month): Best overall website builder for small business.
- Squarespace ($12/month): Best for building your brand.
- Weebly ($6/month): Best for businesses on a budget.
- GoDaddy ($10/month): Best for businesses that need to get online quickly.
- Duda ($14/month): Best for those who value ease of use over personalized branding.
- Strikingly ($8/month): Best for selling services, not products.
- Site123 ($12.80/month): Best for those who dread creating a business website.
- Jimdo Creator ($9/month): Easy, but lacks quality features.
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!
FAQs
None of the website builders in this guide require any technical knowledge. But for a really simple website building experience, we recommend GoDaddy as its editor is extremely quick to get to grips with.
While this is true, you might find another website builder, such as Weebly, suits you better. That’s why we recommend taking a couple of website builders for a test run before settling on a final choice.
Squarespace is the only website builder in this guide that doesn’t offer a free plan. Both Wix and Weebly are free to use for as long as you want. They also have very reasonable premium plans that are worth considering if you want to take your site to the next level.
Duda is the number one for a design-focused small business website. Its templates are all stunning and professional.
Wix has its own mobile editor which means you can tweak things on the mobile version of your site without changing anything on the desktop version.
All of Squarespace’s themes are mobile responsive so they look great on all devices, which is a big plus point.
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!
This means you could have your small business website set up in a matter of hours!
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.
We take great care to ensure the information we publish is reliable and accurate. However, WBE takes no responsibility for any inaccuracy in information supplied to us by users, research participants, or other entities.
Please note the insight contained within this article is for general information purposes only. We’re glad to answer any questions you may have about this article and its supporting research. For further information, please contact Website Builder Expert directly via email at info@websitebuilderexpert.com.
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