3 March 2022

Trying to find the best website builder for a small business site?
You’re not alone. These days, there are plenty of easy-to-use website builders made for beginners. They let you create a professional-looking site without spending money on a developer.
We tested a wide range of popular website builders to see how they really perform. After comparing features, ease of use, and value, we narrowed it down. This post shares our picks for the best website builders for small businesses, so you can choose the right one with confidence.
Let’s dive in!
When it comes to deciding on the best web builders for you, you should consider ten main factors.
If you’re deciding which site builder to use, be sure it’s simple to use, even for absolute beginners. It should have a drag-and-drop builder, as well as powerful editing tools and customization tools.
Make sure you select a website builder that offers a good selection of professional website templates along with the flexibility to add additional features like Google Analytics, CRM, third-party marketing tools, etc.
People now use their mobile phones more to access the internet rather than their laptops or computers. Your website must be mobile-friendly to be used by the vast majority of visitors. The best approach is to create a responsive website.
The website builder you use should make it simple for you to make your website responsive. Offering responsive designs is a good choice since it means you don’t have to do anything extra to make your website mobile-friendly.
Templates are useful for making the process of creating a website easier, but you should make sure you can customize it to make it your own.
A good web builder will provide you with a lot of customization options. You should be able to change the colors, upload your own images, and customize the shapes and sizes of the icons and buttons as you like.
A great website builder with SEO features may offer you a massive advantage by assisting you in optimizing your website’s pages for search engine visibility.
Once your websites start to grow, you want to promote them. You want people who like your site to promote it, too.
Social sharing features can be beneficial in both aspects. You can easily upload new content to your social networks to keep your followers up to date, and you can also make it easy for visitors to share your web pages with their followers with a single click.
You most likely don’t have a lot of money to invest in your website. And because website builders are usually billed on a subscription basis, you’ll need to think about the long-term costs and what you can pay right now.
Choose a website builder that is within your website’s continuing budget.
All websites need images because images are vital in how people experience the site.
A website builder that offers an image library may help you save time, get your website up and running faster, and make it look great.
Check to see whether the website builder you select has tutorials on how to use it. You’ll benefit more from your website builder if you’re able to fully understand everything it can do for you and how to make use of it all.
Look for a site builder that provides customer support 24/7 when they need it. Hopefully, you don’t ever need customer service, but it’s important to know it’s there and reliable if you ever do.
With all this in mind, let’s look at the best website builder for small businesses.

WordPress.org is the world’s most popular website-building tool. It powers over 43% of all websites on the internet.
The self-hosted WordPress content management system is at the top of our list of the best website builders for small businesses because of its popularity, powerful features, scalability, and simplicity of use.
WordPress is an open-source and free website builder for beginners. This shows that you have maximum control over your website compared to any other online website builder on this list.
With WordPress, you have full control over your website, with no third-party interference, ensuring the highest level of privacy.
This is why many popular websites, such as WhiteHouse.gov, The New York Times, and Microsoft, among many other small businesses, use WordPress to create their websites.
Self-hosted WordPress is free.
But if you want a site that looks and feels professional, you’ll still need a domain name and a shared hosting plan. Those usually come with a small fee, and that’s what most serious websites use.
We recommend Hostinger. Plans start at $2.99 a month and include a free domain for the first year. You also get a professional email address, a free SSL certificate, and a few other helpful extras.

Web.com is one of the easiest website builders out there, and its affordable pricing makes it especially appealing if you’re creating your first website.
There’s a lot to like about it. You get a free domain name and a business email right away, which is a nice bonus. It also includes SEO tools and website analytics, so you can start understanding how people find and use your site from day one.
While it doesn’t offer the same level of flexibility or customization as WordPress, Web.com still holds its own. It’s a solid option if you’re building a site on your own, want something simple, and are just starting to learn how everything works.
Web.com’s basic website plan starts at only $4.99/month.

Wix is one of the well-known no-code website builders on the market and arguably the best free website builder for small businesses. It comes with a large selection of templates, an easy drag-and-drop editor, and a solid app marketplace. It even offers email marketing tools for business promotion and personalized SEO support for site optimization.
That said, it’s not perfect. While Wix is simple to use, design customization can feel a bit restrictive at times. Changing templates after you’ve already built your site can also be tricky and time-consuming.
Wix still earned a spot on our list of top small business website builders, largely thanks to its Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI). The ADI scans the web to gather details about your business and helps create a site based on that information.
Wix offers a free plan that includes a Wix-branded subdomain. Paid plans start at $17/month for the Lite plan with 2GB of storage and a light marketing suite.

Squarespace is often seen as one of the top website builders for businesses, and it’s especially known for its clean, modern designs. That reputation is well earned.
There’s a lot to like about using Squarespace. The templates are some of the best-looking we came across during our testing. Building a site was quick and straightforward, even without much setup. You also get a custom domain option, and hosting is included, which keeps things simple.
That said, Squarespace does have its limits. The biggest downside is the lack of access to third-party apps. With a builder like WordPress, there’s a plugin for almost anything you can imagine. Squarespace doesn’t offer that same freedom, so you may run into restrictions as your needs grow.
In the end, Squarespace is a strong choice if you want a polished, visually appealing website without much hassle. Just keep in mind that it doesn’t offer the same flexibility or customization that WordPress.org does.
Squarespace Basic plan starts from $9/month with 14 days free.

Weebly often shows up on lists of the best free website builders for small businesses, mainly because you can start without paying anything. That’s a big plus. Still, it’s worth noting that costs can rise pretty quickly. Many of Weebly’s strongest features are locked behind higher-tier plans.
From our experience, building a simple site with Weebly was straightforward. It works well if your goal is to get a basic online presence up and running without much hassle.
The interface is clean and easy to use, and there’s a solid range of templates to choose from. While it doesn’t offer as many features as some competing platforms, it’s a dependable option for small businesses that want something simple.
We’ve also used Weebly to build an online store, and it handled the basics just fine. That said, the customization options felt a bit limited, especially when compared to other website builders.
Weebly offers a free plan to get started. The Personal plan starts at $10/month (billed annually) with Weebly branding.

Trying to figure out which eCommerce website builder is right for you? Shopify is often at the top of the list—and for good reason. It’s one of the most popular platforms built specifically for online stores and small eCommerce businesses. Today, more than 500,000 businesses use Shopify, and over $40 billion in products have been sold through the platform.
Building a site with Shopify is fairly straightforward. You don’t need to stress about software updates or backups, since everything is managed for you. That’s a big plus for business owners who want to focus on selling instead of dealing with tech issues. Shopify also comes packed with helpful features, which makes it easy to see why so many people choose it as their go-to eCommerce builder.
That said, it’s worth thinking long-term before you commit. Moving a Shopify site to another platform can be tricky. If you decide to migrate later, you may lose some of the features that make Shopify appealing in the first place. So while it’s a strong option, make sure it’s one you’re ready to stick with.
The basic Shopify plan costs $29 per month. Shopify also has a $9 per month Shopify Lite package that allows you to put a buy button on any website.

GoDaddy Website Builder is made by one of the biggest names in domains and web hosting, so it starts with a lot of brand recognition. It works well if your goal is simple: get a website online fast without worrying about setting up hosting separately.
When we tested it, the drag-and-drop editor felt straightforward and beginner-friendly. Adding content was easy, and the built-in image library made it quick to drop photos into posts without extra work.
That said, GoDaddy’s builder is pretty limited compared to many other platforms. If you care about advanced design options or want to customize your site in detail, this probably isn’t the right tool for you.
Still, for a basic personal blog or a no-frills website, GoDaddy gets the job done. It’s not fancy, but it’s simple, functional, and easy to use.
GoDaddy plan starts from $9.99 per month. However, if you want to sell online, you’ll need an eCommerce plan, which costs $16.99 per month.

Another website builder worth mentioning is Gator Website Builder from HostGator. It’s a popular choice for small businesses that want to put together a simple website without a lot of hassle.
When we tried it out, Gator offered more flexibility than GoDaddy’s Website Builder. It also came in at a lower introductory price. We liked that it had more theme options and let us add more than just images, including other types of media.
On top of that, Gator Website Builder includes a custom domain, free SSL, and hosting right out of the box. All of this makes it one of the more complete packages available for building a basic website, especially if you care about having more design and media options.
That said, it’s not the best choice if you’re planning to run an online store. The eCommerce features are fairly limited. If selling products online is your main goal, you’ll probably want to look at other platforms we tested, such as Shopify or WordPress.
The Gator Website Builder starts at $3.84 per month. It includes hosting and the domain name, making it cost-effective for small businesses.
Get Started with Gator by HostGator

BigCommerce is the best eCommerce website builder that makes it simple to create a scaled online store. It has all the necessary features built-in, allowing you to keep your overhead low and your profit margins high.
All BigCommerce plans provide a 15-day free trial. Their basic plan costs $29.95 per month and includes all of the features you’ll need. However, plus plan costs $79.95 per month for extra conversion optimization features. Their pro plan costs $299.95 per month and includes all of the advanced features you may need.

WordPress.com is the best blogging platform and website hosting provider run by Automattic. It was founded by Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of the open-source software WordPress, thus the name WordPress.com.
WordPress.com is not the same as the self-hosted WordPress.org builder platforms that we recommended as our top pick. Instead, this is a customized hosting service focusing primarily on blogging.
WordPress.com’s free plan is extremely limited. Their personal plan starts at $5.08 per month. However, the premium plan costs $9.95 per month, and it gives you the ability to monetize your site and advanced design customization.
But to build professional websites, you’ll need either their Business plan ($15.23 per month) or their eCommerce plan ($27.08 per month), which is far more expensive than self-hosted WordPress.
Get Started with WordPress.com

WooCommerce is the most widely used eCommerce website builder for creating an online store. It’s an open-source eCommerce platform built on WordPress.
According to some research, 8.8% of all websites on the internet use WooCommerce as their eCommerce website builder, making it twice as popular as Shopify.
WooCommerce is a free eCommerce web builder. However, to start an online store, you will need a domain name and web hosting.
This cost will vary depending on your website’s traffic and popularity.

Domain.com is the best domain registrar that also provides web hosting, a website builder, corporate email, and other services.
Their drag-and-drop website builder allows you to quickly create a small business website, blog, and eCommerce website.
Domain.com website builder plans start from $1.99 per month for the Starter, $6.99 per month for the Business, and $12.99 per month for the eCommerce plan.
All plans include a free SSL certificate, unlimited storage, blog functionality, and phone support.
After carefully examining all of the popular website builders, we feel that WordPress.org beats all website builders in terms of overall performance, simplicity of use, pricing, and flexibility.
WordPress is a great platform for beginners, personal websites, and small businesses. Some of the world’s top brands are using WordPress on their websites.
We hope our website builder list helps you select the best website builders for small businesses.
For more, check out these other helpful resources:
Lastly, follow us on Facebook and X (Formerly Twitter) to stay updated on the latest WordPress and blogging-related articles.
Yes, overall, website builders are a very cost-effective approach to creating a website. Instead of paying thousands of dollars to hire a web developer, you can use website builders to build your own website for a low monthly fee.
Yes, you can create a website for free, but if you require a professional website, the answer is no. While there are free website builders available, you will still need a budget to get things up and running.
WordPress is the best website builder for SEO. We use it to develop all of our websites, and we’re not alone.
Every SEO expert thinks that WordPress is the most SEO-friendly website builder, which is why WordPress powers over 43% of all websites.
Check our guide on how to create a website with WordPress.
Almost every website builder claims to have eCommerce functionality, but WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify are the best website builders for eCommerce.
No, except WordPress, most website builders make switching away from them quite difficult. This is why it is crucial to pick a website builder with which you can grow.
Check our guide on how to switch from blogger to WordPress.
Website builders for small businesses usually cost between $12 to $30 per month. If it does not contain a hosting solution, hosting platforms range in price from $15 to $240, depending on the hosting type.
Wix is the most user-friendly website builder, allowing you to easily build websites from scratch that look professional.