Best Website Builders For Small Businesses

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• Updated on: Mar 10, 2020
• Posted by: Jason Vissers

Building a small business isn’t easy. As you work through the day-to-day challenges that occupy your time and energy, creating a business website might not top your list of concerns. You might even be tempted to set up a social media presence and let that suffice as your online footprint. However, you shouldn’t be reliant on someone else’s platform to get the word out about your services.

With the abundance of DIY website builders out there, finding the platform that best fits your business needs will require some research. Luckily, we can help with that. That’s our whole deal!

We want you to be able to make an informed decision — one that will give your business an attractive, functional website that properly showcases all that you’ve worked so hard to build. Read on to learn the pros and cons of 2020’s leading small business website builders.

Learn More About Our Top Picks

Other Featured Options:

• Shopify: Best for online sellers large and small.
• MotoCMS: Best for online publishers and other businesses requiring extensive data management.
• Carrd: Best for freelancers, photographers, designers, and anyone else looking for a simple, attractive landing page.
• Ucraft: Best for businesses looking for simple, no-nonsense block-based website creation.

Read more below to learn why we chose these options.

1. Wix

Wix	Visit Site Read our Review

Best overall choice for its near-universal appeal to the widest possible variety of businesses.

Wix occupies a singular place in the world of DIY website building. With 150 million users around the world, no competing website builder offers as much versatility and functionality to your business as Wix does.

The Wix ecosystem truly has something for just about every type of business, large and small. While anybody can create a great-looking site using Wix’s platform, the company offers special packages to particular industries in the form of Wix Restaurants, Wix Hotels, Wix Events, and Wix Photography, so if your business falls into these categories, take note.

Wix Pricing

While Wix offers a relatively bare-bones free plan, paid plans run from $13 to $49 per month, with the more expensive plans offering the most features. For enterprise-level businesses, Wix offers a special package for $500/month.

Note that if you integrate apps from the Wix App Market into your site, most of these apps have a “freemium” pricing structure similar to that of Wix itself, so you’ll be paying more than $13-$49/month if you want advanced features.

Features & Web Design

Wix essentially offers three different editing platforms. There’s the standard editor, which is more than sufficient for most users. There’s also Wix ADI, a partially-automated site creation tool for those who prefer to let Wix do the heavy lifting. Finally, there’s Corvid by Wix, a unique and comprehensive web development platform that allows developers to create and manage databases, create custom API interactions, connect and embed outside apps, and more.

Beyond providing a seamless and flexible website building experience, Wix is unmatched in the number of compatible apps it offers. Through the Wix App Market, you’ll gain access to a plethora of in-house and third-party apps for just about any business function you can think of. And for eCommerce vendors, Wix offers a solid online store along with its own payment processor (Wix Payments). Several other payment processing options, including Square, Stripe, PayPal, and Braintree, are offered as well.

It all adds up to a great business-friendly package, though Wix’s customer support is a bit threadbare and has received a lot of criticism.

When To Use Wix

Restaurateurs, hoteliers, event planners, photographers, and low- to mid-volume online merchants all have a lot of reasons to look into Wix. However, with the high level of customization allowed for and the extensive variety of third-party integrations, there’s something for just about everybody here.

Get Started with Wix

Read our in-depth review

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2. Weebly

Weebly	Visit Site Read our Review

Best for businesses looking for the easiest website creation process.

Weebly has a lot in common with Wix, from the freemium pricing structure to the intuitive website creation to the extensive collection of in-house apps and third-party integrations available. However, what truly makes Weebly stand out is its supreme ease of use. No website builder provides an easier site-building experience than Weebly — and in this industry, that’s really saying something.

From unlimited levels of site navigation to blogging to eCommerce, Weebly provides a great platform for small businesses to show off what they do and who they are. Let’s explore.

Weebly Pricing

Like Wix, Weebly offers a limited free plan along with paid plans that offer a higher level of features. Paid plans run from $6/month to $26/month, making Weebly one of the most affordable website builders out there (though like Wix, many of the apps in the App Center require subscriptions themselves).

What distinguishes Weebly’s pricing structure from most of the competition is free eCommerce — you can sell items from your website with a free plan. While most online vendors aren’t going to like the restrictions that come with a free plan (the Weebly ad in the footer and the Weebly-branded URL come to mind), it’s great for casual sellers looking to sell a few items online — and you can always upgrade your Weebly subscription later.

Features & Web Design

Like Wix, Weebly offers multiple options for editing your website. There’s the Legacy editor, which is extraordinarily easy to use and allows users to add and arrange individual elements, and then there’s Editor Prime, which is even easier to use than the Legacy editor, but which restricts you to adding blocks of content (composed of multiple elements) to your page and does not allow for individual element placement.

Weebly’s extensive repository of add-ons — both in-house apps and third-party integrations — means that whatever it is you want to add to your business website, there’s likely an app for that. Weebly also delivers a strong eCommerce package for small- to mid-size merchants — and with Weebly’s recent acquisition by Square, expect Weebly’s eCommerce to be well-supported into the future. Naturally, this means you can use Square for payment processing, though you have the option of using Stripe or PayPal as well.

On the downside, websites made with Weebly don’t quite have the visual appeal of sites created with an editor like Squarespace. Likewise, Weebly’s customer service isn’t always fast or helpful, and users have reported occasional software glitches.

When To Use Weebly

Small businesses looking for a website builder that is both supremely easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and versatile enough to handle a variety of tasks should take a closer look at Weebly, as should anyone who wants to try selling a few items from home without paying for a pricey eCommerce package.

Get Started with Weebly

Read our in-depth review

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3. Squarespace

Squarespace	Start Trial Read our Review

Best for artists, photographers, and podcasters seeking a visually spectacular web presence.

Squarespace has long been known for the exemplary aesthetic appeal of its websites. Simply put, Squarespace’s templates are among the very best in the industry, meaning websites made with Squarespace tend not to look like they were created by amateurs. Artists and photographers, take note!

Thankfully, Squarespace brings much more to the table than just visual appeal. Let’s take a closer look at Squarespace’s website building platform.

Squarespace Pricing

Unfortunately, Squarespace doesn’t offer a free subscription plan, though it does allow you to try the product freely for 14 days.

Squarespace offers four paid plans, ranging from $12/month to $40/month. Squarespace’s plans are a touch pricier than those of many competitors.

Features & Web Design

I’ve mentioned the beauty of Squarespace’s templates, but what I haven’t mentioned is the fact that you can switch templates without losing your existing content — something you can’t do with many website builders.

Squarespace’s site editor shouldn’t give you too much trouble, though I did find it a bit more difficult to use than that of Wix and Weebly. Blogging is another area in which Squarespace excels. In fact, you can even use Squarespace’s blogging engine to host a podcast. As for eCommerce, Squarespace’s online store is quite robust and is customizable in the extreme — you can really build a gorgeous eCommerce site with Squarespace if you are so inclined. Stripe and PayPal are your payment processing choices. You can even accept payment via Apple Pay.

Squarespace recently introduced a Point of Sale system that uses Squarespace’s Commerce app and integrates with Square’s credit card reader, giving brick-and-mortar retailers another reason to be Squarespace-curious.

As for downsides, Squarespace doesn’t provide any phone support, its subscription plans are on the pricey side, and I’ve seen complaints from artists about the fact that you can’t add more than 100 images to a page.

When To Use Squarespace

If your business is reliant on projecting a classy, elegant image, Squarespace may be for you. Podcasters and bloggers also stand to benefit from Squarespace’s platform, as do merchants of all sorts.

Get Started with Squarespace

Read our in-depth review

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4. Duda

Duda	Visit Site Read our Review

Best for designers and agencies looking to sell websites to clients.

Duda isn’t as well-known as the previous three choices listed here, but for its 15+ million users, Duda provides a powerful website building experience with such features as mobile site customization, sharp design, and something Duda refers to as “website personalization,” which I’ll explain in a bit.

Duda is unique in that it bills itself as a website builder for design agencies and SaaS platforms to build websites for their clients. It also provides a white label solution — if you’re a designer or an agency, you can offer your clients white label access to Duda’s website editor, letting them edit their website on their own, but under your brand.

Duda Pricing

Duda offers a Basic plan for $14/month (pricey for an entry-level subscription tier), a Team plan for $22/month, and an Agency plan for $74/month. Unfortunately, a Basic subscription doesn’t get you live chat or phone support.

Features & Web Design

Duda’s design-oriented website builder sports plenty of strong features, from a nice blogging tool to solid eCommerce and a Developer Mode for web developers looking to edit the template being used. What really makes Duda stand out, however, is website personalization. What does this mean, exactly?

Duda’s website personalization tools allow you to add interactive elements that appear to the site visitor only when certain specified conditions are met. For instance, you can have a greeting message pop up the first time someone visits your site, or an individualized offer based on the location of the site visitor. You can even have different elements pop up depending on the device the site visitor is using. The possibilities are exponential!

While Duda doesn’t have a full app store, you’ll still find some key integrations that help plug any feature gaps.

When To Use Duda

Freelancers, web designers, and design agencies seeking to create websites at scale for clients have a great site builder option in Duda. However, there’s nothing stopping a small business owner from creating his or her own Duda site. The website personalization tools give just about any business a substantive way to interact with people based on their individual circumstances.

Read our in-depth review

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5. Square Online Store

Square Online Store	Start Trial Read our Review

Best for lower-volume merchants who use Square as their payment processor.

Square has long been known for being the payment processor with the iconic square card readers. Following the company’s acquisition of Weebly in 2018, the company re-launched its old online store builder, which now uses Weebly’s software.

The Square Online Store provides a lot of value for merchants who already use Square to process payments. The marriage of Weebly’s site editing software and Square’s payment infrastructure has produced a solid eCommerce platform — one especially well-suited to low-volume merchants.

Square Online Store Pricing

The Square Online Store offers a free plan that is, by the standards of the industry, quite generous and well-featured. There is no limit on the number of items you can offer with a free plan, though there is a 500 MB storage limit.

The three paid plans run from $12/month to $72/month. I should mention that only the most expensive plan offers Square’s standard payment processing rate of 2.6% + $0.30 per transaction — the other plans charge 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction for Square’s processing.

Features & Web Design

As Square uses Weebly’s site editor for its Online Store, creating an attractive eCommerce site should be a breeze. You can use it to sell physical and digital products, event tickets, offer online booking, and even accept donations.

As for the features offered, they should be more than sufficient to power a lower-volume merchant, though we’ve found that the limitations of the platform make the Square Online Store a less-than-ideal choice for larger sellers. What’s more, the Square Online Store can only sync with inventory for one physical location, so it’s not well-suited to businesses with more than one brick-and-mortar store.

With a paid subscription, you gain access to a large collection of add-ons and third-party integrations. The Square Online Store also offers APIs for developers to implement custom apps and add-ons. Square even integrates with other eCommerce software

When To Use Square Online Store

Lower-volume merchants — especially those already using Square to process payments — stand to benefit from using the Square Online Store. Higher-volume merchants will likely want to look elsewhere.

Get Started with Square Online Store

Read our in-depth review

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6. Shopify

Shopify	Start Trial Read our Review

Best for online sellers large and small.

If you’ve been considering your eCommerce website options, you’ve almost certainly heard of Shopify. Shopify combines payment processing with an online store flexible and scalable enough to accommodate businesses of all sizes, from startup to enterprise.

With its supreme ease-of-use, gorgeous themes, and a plethora of integrations that connect Shopify to the larger eCommerce universe, Shopify deserves your consideration as an eCommerce solution.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify doesn’t offer a free plan, though a free 14-day trial is available. Paid plans start at $9/month, though you’ll need at least a Basic plan ($29/month) if you want an online store. Shopify’s other primary plans go for $79/month and $299/month. For enterprise businesses making over a million per year in sales, Shopify offers its Shopify Plus service, which goes for $2,000/month or 0.25% of eligible platform transactions, whichever is higher.

Note that Shopify’s paid plans don’t charge a platform fee on top of the payment processing fee — but only if you use Shopify Payments as your payment gateway. Use another gateway (impressively, over 100 are available), and you’ll have to pay a per-transaction platform fee on top of your payment processing fee.

Features & Web Design

Shopify has some great templates on offer, but where Shopify truly excels is in the jaw-dropping range of features it offers. While smaller merchants may be able to make do with the built-in features, other merchants may find themselves needing to take advantage of the add-ons on offer — and this can get expensive, as many add-ons require their own subscription. On the plus side, with over 2,000 add-ons available, you’re extremely likely to find just what you need.

With its seamless ease-of-use, great templates, countless integrations, and solid customer service, Shopify makes a strong case for your eCommerce business. On the downside, you may end up spending a lot on add-on services if you require advanced functionality.

When To Use Shopify

Shopify is an excellent eCommerce platform for online sellers of all types. However, merchants operating on a shoestring budget may find some of the advanced functionality to be out of their price range.

Get Started with Shopify

Read our in-depth review

Jump back to comparison chart

7. MotoCMS

MotoCMS	Visit Site Read our Review

Best for online publishers and other businesses requiring extensive data management.

As is obvious from the name, MotoCMS is more than just a website builder. It aims to provide CMS (Content Management System) functionality along the lines of WordPress. Unlike WordPress, however, MotoCMS offers a user-friendly DIY website builder so you won’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a web designer. With its website building solution, MotoCMS aims to merge CMS functionality with easy code-free website creation.

MotoCMS Pricing

Unlike most website builders, which offer monthly or yearly subscription plans that include web hosting and basic website features, MotoCMS sells templates for a one-time fee, with prices ranging from $29 to $139 depending on whether you need a landing page, an HTML template, a MotoCMS 3 template, or an eStore template. You’ll also need a $39/year subscription to the website editor to keep it updated.

Features such as eCommerce, SEO optimization, and an advanced contact form are offered separately, also for a one-time charge.

In another departure from website builder norms, MotoCMS doesn’t include web hosting in its services. This is great for businesses that don’t want to be locked into using a website builder’s own hosting service, like most other website builders require. Don’t love your web host? Just take your site to another host! Of course, this means you’ll have to find and pay for web hosting yourself, which many businesses may prefer not to do.

Features & Web Design

With over 2,500 attractive templates available, there’s something here for just about any type of business. And with additional features such as a solid eCommerce widget (sold for $39) and a customizable contact form ($19), you’ll get the website functionality you’ve come to expect from a website builder.

However, it’s the advanced CMS functions that make MotoCMS stand out. If you don’t need a CMS, you may be better served by going with a more traditional website builder. However, with such a vast collection of templates available, you may just find a template you can’t turn down.

One thing MotoCMS users seem to love is the quality of the customer support offered. This is not the norm for most website builders!

When To Use MotoCMS

Online publishers — or any other businesses that requires serious data management — fall squarely into MotoCMS’s wheelhouse. Businesses that don’t need such functions, or that don’t want to bother with finding a host, may want a simpler website solution.

Get Started with MotoCMS

Read our in-depth review

Jump back to comparison chart

8. Carrd

Carrd	Visit Site Read our Review

Best for freelancers, photographers, designers, and anyone else who needs an attractive landing page.

Carrd isn’t trying to compete with the likes of Wix or Shopify, so don’t expect anything along those lines. What Carrd offers is very simple: a clean, crisp, inexpensive single-page website to promote your business and/or yourself.

If you have a significant social media presence or an email list, a Carrd landing page can be the home base that directs people to what you’ve devoted time and energy toward building. If your business doesn’t need an extensive website or advanced features, have a look at Carrd.

Carrd Pricing

Carrd offers a free plan, though it comes with the limitations all free website builder plans come with (advertising and a branded URL). However, the Pro Standard plan gets rid of those limitations while costing only $19 per year — that’s $1.58 a month! (While there is a plan (Pro Lite) that costs just $9/year, your URL will still sport Carrd branding, so I wouldn’t recommend it.)

Carrd’s more advanced plans cost $4.08/month and $8.25/month, respectively.

Features & Web Design

Carrd’s one-page sites are ideal for businesses that just need a clean, simple website with social links and a contact form. The editor is extremely user-friendly, even by the standards of a modern DIY website builder. And while you’re limited to a one-page site, you can add section breaks to your page and link to each section at the top (or wherever) of your page, thus simulating the effect of having a multi-page site.

This being such a minimalist website builder, you’ll find very few advanced features and even fewer third-party integrations. But while there’s no full-fledged eCommerce on offer, you can, in fact, add buy buttons to your site that connect to your Stripe, PayPal, or Gumroad accounts, thus allowing you to sell a few items from your page if you wish.

Unfortunately, customer support is offered via email only.

When To Use Carrd

Carrd’s crisp landing pages and one-page sites are great for freelancers, photographers, and designers. However, any small business owner who just wants a landing page that directs people to their social media accounts and/or email list should consider getting a Carrd website on the cheap.

Read our in-depth review

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9. Ucraft

Ucraft	Visit Site Read our Review

Best for businesses looking for simple, no-nonsense block-based website creation.

Ucraft is another website builder specializing in single-page websites, though multi-page sites are offered as well. It’s a more fully-featured website solution than that provided by Carrd, however, making Ucraft a solid website builder for small businesses that need something more advanced than Carrd but simpler and more streamlined than Squarespace or Wix.

(Note: Ucraft should not be confused with uKit, a completely different website builder)

Ucraft Pricing

Like many website builders, Ucraft offers a limited free plan and three different paid subscription tiers, costing $10/month, $21/month, and $69/month, respectively.

Features & Web Design

Ucraft’s editor is simple and straightforward. Thankfully, it’s versatile enough to allow for both block-based editing and element-based editing. By “block-based,” I mean you can plop pre-formatted content blocks comprised of attractively-arranged individual elements into your site. If you want to create a small business website with as little fuss as possible, this is the way to go.

Thankfully, you can also just add individual elements to your site and arrange them as you wish. Website builders will often force you into one editing scheme or another, so the fact that Ucraft allows for both is a big plus.

Features provided include a good blogging tool, solid eCommerce provided by Ecwid, and a Team App that allows for a team of collaborators to each work on your website remotely. You’ll also find a healthy number of third-party integrations, though there’s no actual app store a la Wix or Weebly. Ucraft’s customer service is pretty robust as well.

When To Use Ucraft

Small businesses seeking to create a functional, unfussy website with as little hassle as possible would be well-advised to consider Ucraft.

Read our in-depth review

Jump back to comparison chart

What To Look For In A Good Website Builder

The website builders we’ve highlighted in this article represent just a fraction of the myriad options out there. When trying to absorb all this information about your choices, you might want some additional input as to what you should be looking for.

Know Your Business Needs

What is your company seeking to accomplish with its website? Do you intend it to be for promotional purposes only — an old-fashioned “digital billboard,” if you will? Do you just want a site that points visitors toward your social media channels and allows people to sign up for your mailing list?

If your business requires a website that does more than this, consider the kind of features you’ll need. Will you need a company blog to keep people updated on your business developments? Do you want to sell items on your website? If so, how many items? Do you want a website that can integrate with any of your existing software?

Two things your business will almost certainly require to look professional are a custom domain name and one or more branded email addresses. While many website builders have a free plan available, these features are never offered for free, so you’re going to need to spring for a paid plan.

Determine Your Budget

It’s obviously a good idea to know how much you’re willing to spend on a quality website building platform. However, it’s important to consider more than just the up-front monthly cost. For example, you may sign up for an inexpensive website plan only to discover that you need additional functionality, at which point you may need to pay for additional software integrations to fill the feature gap.

On the flip side, you don’t want to pay for more than what you need. If a website plan offers sophisticated eCommerce and CMS features but you don’t need either of those things, look for a more pared-down subscription and save some money.

Know What Qualities To Look For In Your Website Builder’s Features

If you determine that you need the following features, these tips should help you assess said features.

• Blogging: If you determine that you only need a basic blog, that’s one thing, but if you need advanced blogging features, let’s go over what you might want to look for. Some blogging engines allow you to schedule your posts in advance. Some blogging engines allow for multiple contributors, thus letting you grant blogging privileges to a team of contributors. You can even host a podcast from your blog if your website builder allows for it. And if you want the ability to receive feedback, you’ll need a blogging engine that can handle comments. If your business is active on social media, you may want the ability to cross-post your posts to your Facebook, Twitter etc. You’ll probably want the ability to add video to your posts as well.
• eCommerce: It wouldn’t be possible for me to list every conceivable eCommerce feature here, so let’s examine the basics. You’ll want to know how many items your subscription level allows you to sell. You may want some form of inventory management and the ability to customize tax rates. If you want to sell digital items, you’ll need to make sure this is supported. You may want the ability to integrate with accounting and/or invoicing apps. Also, check to see if the website builder imposes its own per-transaction platform fee on top of the payment processing fee.
• Contact Forms: A contact form should be highly customizable to fit the needs of particular businesses. Also, consider what kind of feedback you want to solicit. Do you want site visitors to see a simple contact form, or something more? Maybe an event registration form? A job application form? A “subscribe to our newsletter” form? If you want any of these things, you’ll either need a form builder flexible enough to support it or the ability to integrate a form building app that supports what you want. For instance, Wix integrates with an app called 123 Form Builder which offers all these options and more. However, you’ll need a separate paid subscription to the app to access the most advanced features.

One thing you’ll want to do right away is to go through the templates or themes offered by a website builder to determine whether what’s on offer is adaptable to fit your business. That is, unless you’re comfortable with starting from a blank slate.

It’s also a good idea to use a website builder that integrates with Google Analytics so you can examine the behavior of your site visitors. This can be crucial to generating leads and conversions.

Naturally, you should weigh each of these factors differently depending on the needs of your business. That’s why it’s so important to know what you need before making a decision.

Choosing The Right Website Builder For Your Business

Given all the information you’ve had to digest in this article, I thought it would be helpful to distill the selection process down to a few pertinent questions:

1. What features does my website need to perform the business functions I need it to perform?
2. How important is ease of use/simplicity to me?
3. Do I need my website to integrate with my existing applications?
4. How much am I willing to spend on a website?
5. What do existing customers say about the website builder?

If you ask yourself these questions in the course of your search, you can save some time and energy by discarding options that don’t meet your business needs. And if the website builder in question offers a free trial or a free plan (most do!), take advantage of it to see if the product feels right.

If you’ve used any of the website builders in this article to build a business website, we’d love to get your input! Drop us a comment and tell us about your experience!

In Summary: Best Website Builders For Small Businesses

1. Wix: Best overall choice for its near-universal appeal to the widest possible variety of businesses.
2. Weebly: Best for businesses looking for the easiest website creation process.
3. Squarespace: Best for artists, photographers, and podcasters seeking a visually spectacular web presence.
4. Duda: Best for designers and agencies looking to sell websites to clients.
5. Square Online Store: Best for lower-volume merchants who use Square as their payment processor.
6. Shopify: Best for online sellers large and small.
7. MotoCMS: Best for online publishers and other businesses requiring extensive data management.
8. Carrd: Best for freelancers, photographers, designers, and anyone else looking for a simple, attractive landing page.
9. Ucraft: Best for businesses looking for simple, no-nonsense block-based website creation.

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