When it comes to establishing an online presence for your small business, a website is essential. A website can not only increase the reach of your business, but also help you establish credibility and improve customer satisfaction.
Building a website from scratch can be both costly and time-consuming for businesses that lack technical expertise. Fortunately, there are a range of website builders available that offer an easy-to-use platform and affordable solutions to guide small businesses in setting up their own websites without any hassle.
In this blog post, we will be looking at some of the best website builders out there designed specifically for small businesses in 2023. We have tested various candidates and compared them based on their features, pricing plans, user interface, customer support, web hosting services and more in order to provide you with the most comprehensive list when it comes to selecting the right platform for your company's needs.
From well-known giants such as Wix or Shopify to newcomers like Weebly or Squarespace, our selection covers all bases when it comes to creating professional websites on any budget quickly and easily.
What is the Best Website Builder for Small Businesses?
Here is the best website builder platforms for small businesses:
- Wix
- Duda
- Shopify
- Squarespace
- HubSpot CMS
1. Wix
Ultimately, Wix is the perfect website builder for small businesses. It is a popular website builder with an incredibly easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor that makes it suitable even for novices and provides 900+ templates to choose from. The user interface simplifies the website building process and allows you to create a professional looking website in no time.
Wix also provides powerful features and resources that allow you to grow your business without any coding skills required. You can connect a custom domain quickly and easily so that your website can be accessed immediately and attract potential customers. Using Wix, you can customize any of your eCommerce websites easily with convenient tools like drop-down menus, product categories, payment methods, and more.
Wix is an ideal choice for small businesses who want to create and promote their online presence quickly yet efficiently without the need of any coding experience.
Wi x's Unique Features for Small Businesses
Wix is one of the leading website builders, offering a powerful suite of features that small businesses can use to boost their online presence. Small business owners using Wix have access to tools and resources that put their website in a league of its own when it comes to design, content creation, and analytic capabilities.
From SEO marketing to ecommerce features and web analytics, Wix has almost all the features you need built into the site itself. There are plenty of options for customizations too so you can tailor your website’s design, layout and user experience to fit your specific business needs.
You get access to plug-and-play templates for a variety of page elements like forms, galleries, stores and much more. No coding or design skills are necessary to use this platform. Additionally, Wix simplifies managing your social media accounts so you don’t have to log in and out each time you post something new; this helps save time while staying efficient with your marketing efforts.
Some of these notable features include:
- Wix ADI: Wix's Artificial Design Intelligence creates a personalized website based on a few questions, making it ideal for those new to web design.
- App Market: Wix boasts a vast library of apps, providing small businesses with additional functionality, such as online bookings, e-commerce capabilities, and more.
- Scores out most website builders with its ease of use.
- One of the most intuitive drag-and-drop builders.
- Beginner-friendly with a wide range of templates and design options.
- Powerful e-commerce features for online stores.
- Competitive pricing plans for small businesses.
- Self-explanatory: no need to understand coding or technicalities.
- Design options and templates are extensive, even in the free version.
- Top-notch customer support.
- 24/7 infrastructure monitoring.
- You can change a template without loosing content for your site.
- No domain personalization with free plans. (i.e., accountname.wixsite.com/siteaddress).
- Only one person can edit at a time.
- Advanced customization might require a learning curve for beginners.
Wix Pricing
Wix offers a free plan with limited features, while premium plans range from $4.50 to $24.50 per month (VIP Plan), depending on the business needs. The Business and eCommerce plan starts from $17/month - best for small businesses giving you advanced features and the Unlimited goes for $12.50/month. With
The most popular website builder.
Wix
This website builder is ideal for small business websites that don't demand complicated designs.
2. Duda
Duda is one of the best website builder platforms available today. With a broad selection of templates and tools, it makes creating beautiful websites an easy process. The platform caters to anyone from novice designers to experienced coders, so regardless of knowledge level, you’ll find something that works for you.
The Duda templates are particularly helpful for people who want to save time during the website building process. You can pick one up or customize it in seconds, giving you a great starting point for your project.
The Duda template library features modern designs with full responsiveness and compatibility with multiple browsers and devices. Each template also comes with intuitive layout options that help keep your site organized through drag-and-drop page elements like sliders and image galleries.
There are more than 90 ready-to-use designs in the library, so no matter what kind of website you’re looking to create, you’re sure to find a great-looking template here. And, if you want to get creative, there are tons of customization options too, like font type and sizes, colors and background images. With these options, you transform any template into something completely unique.
Duda Unique Features for Small Businesses
- Personalization engine: Duda’s personalization engine helps you deliver more personalized website experiences for each user by automatically creating targeted content.
- Integrations: The platform integrates with a variety of marketing and analytics tools, including Google Analytics, MailChimp, and many others.
- Mobile friendly editor: You can use the mobile-friendly editor to make changes to your website from anywhere.
- Template library enhances the website builder platform, making it favorable for small businesses.
- More professional business templates
- Great for team collaboration with admin roles, blog writing and editing tools, sales team management plus more
- The advanced paid plans offer a widget builder great for creating great designs
- Best for integrating SaaS platforms and has some of the best templates in the market.
- Duda is that the basic plan, and even the team plan are limited in features
- No widget builder, dynamic pages, custom domains and branded client communication modules in the basic plans.
Duda Pricing
For small businesses, the basic plan is the most suitable as it comes with all the features you need to create a stunning website from scratch. The plan starts at $14/month and includes access to all template designs, unlimited pages, SEO optimization tools, analytics and more. There are also some great add-ons and integrations which can be added to customize your website for a fee.
Other plans include:
- Team plan is $22 per user per month billed annually
- Agency plan is $44 per user per month billed annually
- While Label is $44 per user per month billed annually for now, but prices may vary
Highly Customizable
Duda
This website builder is ideal for small business websites that don't demand complicated designs.
3. Shopify
Shopify is an ecommerce website builder that has established itself as a popular choice for small businesses looking to create easy-to-use, yet powerful online stores. It allows users to quickly set up shop, with lots of customizable options including store designs and payment options. It's no surprise Shopify is one of the most trusted names in ecommerce website building given its well-rounded performance, user-friendly and intuitive interface and rich feature set.
The platform makes it very simple for entrepreneurs to get their products up and running by providing them with pre-made templates that can be easily edited or customized using Shopify’s drag and drop editor. With this setup, merchants can immediately start setting up product listings, capturing payments, taking orders and delivering good customer service.
Taking it further, advanced sellers are able to benefit from Shopify's expansive app library which offers tons of third party integrations as well as native features like abandoned cart recovery solutions or smart shipping solutions - all designed to maximize conversions across channels.
Shopify unique features for small businesses
- Point of sale system: The platform offers a comprehensive point of sale system for merchants to manage in-store transactions.
- Built-in payment gateway: Shopify's built-in payment gateway allows you to accept payments quickly and securely.
- Inventory management: With the help of its inventory management feature, you can keep track of your products and customers from one place.
- Shopify is an incredibly powerful platform for small businesses that want to grow their online presence. It's easy to use and offers a range of features that make managing your store easier than ever before.
- With its mobile-friendly design, you can access your shop from any device and make changes on the go. Plus, Shopify’s powerful analytics suite helps you track user engagement and sales performance in real-time.
- You can design an online store with little to zero coding
- Drag and drop editor, means no knowledge of computer languages like CSS or HTML is necessary.
- Extensive e-commerce features and robust inventory management.
- Wide selection of attractive and mobile-responsive themes.
- Excellent scalability for businesses with growing needs.
- Great for inventory tracking
- Free SSL certificates for better encryptions of customer data
- Accept credit card purchases
- Free web hosting services.
- Unlimited storage of your ecommerce data
- Might not be ideal for growth
- Transaction fees on certain payment gateways.
- Advanced functionality often requires the use of paid apps, adding to the overall cost.
- May require a steep learning curve as you grow your business
Shopify Pricing
Shopify offers pricing plans ranging from $24 to $299 per month(when billed annually), for the basic to the advanced plan. These depend on the features and scale of the business. They also have a Lite plan starting at $9 per month for businesses with basic requirements.
You can try Shopify for free with their 3 day free trial by only entering your email address.
Great ecommerce management tools
Shopify
This website builder is ideal for small business ecommerce websites to start selling right away.
4. Squarespace
Squarespace is another popular choice for small businesses looking to get a website up and running quickly. This website builder software offers an array of templates that are easy to customize with drag-and-drop tools, allowing you to create a unique and professional site in no time.
Squarespace also features powerful SEO tools, built-in analytics capabilities, easy ecommerce integration and more . These features make it a great choice for businesses of all sizes.
Square space provides a comprehensive solution for website creation and maintenance, including hosting, domain registration, and customer support. The software's drag-and-drop interface allows for easy website building without requiring design expertise.
Squarespace is a popular website builder known for its aesthetic appeal and ease of use. It is commonly utilized by small businesses, photographers, artists, and individuals seeking to establish an online presence.
Squarespace Unique Features for Small Businesses
- Advanced design tools: Squarespace offers advanced design tools to allow users to create beautiful, modern websites without any coding experience.
- CMS functionality: Squarespace’s content management system (CMS) allows you to easily manage and edit your website content.
- Built-in blogging platform: The built-in blogging platform makes it easy to keep your customers up to date with your latest news and updates.
- Squarespace is a great choice for small business owners who need an affordable website builder that is easy to use and offers plenty of features. It’s also useful for entrepreneurs who don’t have the time or skills to learn complex web development tools.
- With its powerful SEO capabilities and easy-to-use design tools, Squarespace is a great platform for businesses looking to make an impact online.
- High-quality, built-in features
- Simple interface to build your website
- Stylish and aesthetic designs with built in blogging tools
- Ideal for online bookings
- No phone support
- Can't autosave when editing
- Less creative control than Wix
Squarespace Pricing
Squarespace has four plans, which start from $16 per month: Personal, Business, Basic Commerce, and Advanced Commerce for more ecommerce features.
Great ecommerce management tools
Squarespace
This website builder is ideal for small business for modern designs to keep up with new design trends.
5. HubSpot CMS
HubSpot offers an all-in-one platform for small businesses to grow and scale their online presence. It combines marketing, sales, and customer service tools, including a website builder.
The HubSpot CMS (Website Builder) is a game changer when it comes to marketing automation and CRM. It’s incredibly easy for businesses to create and manage an effective website with this builder. Utilizing drag-and-drop technology, you’re able to quickly build up web pages that are optimized for any device, providing an optimal experience regardless of the specific user.
Businesses are also able to customize their website for every visitor they have, creating a personalized browsing experience. HubSpot offers an all-in-one platform for small businesses to grow and scale their online presence. It combines marketing, sales, and customer service tools, including a website builder.
The HubSpot Website Builder is suited towards small businesses due to its pre-built templates that allow businesses to create posts, landing pages, site pages, and emails without going into any coding at all. Additionally, a unique feature of the website builder is its adaptive testing tool.
This enables companies to test out five different versions of any particular page on their site without having to create separate copies or pages from scratch. All these features make this website builder one of the best choices out there for small business owners looking for efficient and flexible marketing automation solutions.
HubSpot's Unique Features for Small Businesses
This site builder allows you to create a website on your own domain for free. Further information is available on why it is considered one of the best free website builders. With HubSpot it is simple for small business owners to incorporate any of HubSpot's free or paid tools.
A variety of business tools, including marketing, CRM, sales, and customer service apps, are available for free. There are over 1,000 third-party integrations available to enhance functionality. All HubSpot plans, including the free option, have the option to include embed code on your website. HUbSpot's software offers high-level security and functionality, all at an affordable price for small businesses.
All plans include SEO recommendations and there is a SEO site builder available and support websites with multiple languages and currencies. HubSpot provides small businesses with all the necessary tools to guide their customers through the sales funnel.
HubSpot offers a range of tools, including landing page creation and CRM tools with integrations like live chatbots and ticketing, to attract and support customers. One such tool is the Hubspot academy where you get access to lessons about how to use HubSpot and other marketing reflected courses.
- A/B testing: Test different versions of a page to optimize its performance.
- Drag-and-drop builder: Create pages quickly and easily with the drag-and-drop interface.
- Built-in analytics: Track website performance with an integrated dashboard.
- Highly customizable
- Easy to use
- Affordable plans
- Integration with the free HubSpot CRM.
- All content is on one platform.
- It's simple and intuitive t o to use
- It offers exclusive features like email marketing, live chat, and adaptive testing.
- HubSpot is a bit simpler.
- No phone connections in some locations
- Some users may find the additional features overwhelming.
- Advanced features come at a steeper price as its a much more than just a website builder with marketing, sales, operations and CMS features.
HubSpot CMS Pricing
The HubSpot CMS pricing starts at $25 per month.
6. Web.com
Web.com is the perfect platform for small businesses looking to get started with a website. During our testing, we found Web.com to be user-friendly and the lowest priced choice for starting an online presence. It makes website building uncomplicated, enabling anyone to create a functional and good-looking site with their intuitive drag-and-drop editor without needing any technical knowledge.
In addition to price and usability, which are both major factors when choosing a web builder, there’s plenty of great features available on Web.com that make it especially useful for small business owners on a budget.
It includes free domain registration as well as a business email address. These Two must-haves for creating your professional brand identity online. You also get access to SEO tools and website analytics to help you track your website's performance from the very beginning. All in all, if you're just getting started with building your first website or need an affordable web hosting solution, Web.com is definitely worth considering.
Web.com Unique Features for Small Businesses
- Free domain registration
- SEO tools
- Mobile-friendly website designs
- Easy-to-use drag and drop editor
- Business email address included
- Analytics and reporting tools
- 24/7 customer service
- Intuitive drag-and-drop website builder with features like photo galleries, social media buttons, testimonial sliders, and more
- Professionally designed website templates that you can customize in a couple of clicks
- Access to thousands of stock images
- Ability to add unlimited web pages to your site
- eCommerce tools to set up an online store
- Fast website loading times
- Comes with a free domain name, business email address, SEO tools, website analytics, and more
- The eCommerce plan only allows you to add 50 products. This is plenty for most small businesses, but it's a drawback for those wanting to build a larger online store.
- Switching to a different platform in the future would be difficult since Web.com is a proprietary website builder.
Web.com Pricing
Web.com's basic website plan starts at only $4.95/month.
7. GoDaddy Website Builder
GoDaddy is an essential part of the web hosting platform for those who want to quickly and easily get their website up and running. The GoDaddy Website Builder is a great option if you need a quick site with hosting included. It offers simple drag-and-drop capabilities, along with an image library, which allow users to construct unique posts and pages without the need for coding.
The downside to GoDaddy’s Website Builder is its relative lack of features in comparison to other platforms. If you are looking for full customizability and more advanced design elements, then this isn't the builder you're looking for. However, if speed and simplicity are most important and you only need basic features, then this might be a good fit for you. All in all, it's a decent option if all you’re trying to do is just run a personal blog or hosting site.
GoDaddy Website Builder Unique features for Beginners
GoDaddy's Website Builder solution includes numerous features that make it a suitable choice for novice website builders. The drag-and-drop editor simplifies customization, enabling users to add content blocks and photo galleries without any specialized knowledge.
GoDaddy is a website builder platform that offers more than 400 website templates designed by professionals. It provides solutions for small business websites and e-commerce stores, allowing users to choose a template that aligns with their brand's appearance.
With the platform's toolbox of features, you can design stunning logos, social media posts, and ads even if you're not a pro. No design skills required! This is perfect for beginners looking to create a website that looks like it was done by a seasoned designer. GoDaddy understands small businesses and has included built-in marketing tools to help you achieve your goals. With them you get access to an image library to use royalty free on your new website.
- With the free plan, you get email and social media marketing solutions.
- Find designer website templates in various categories.
- Mobile devices allow for easy website design and editing.
- Easily manage your website with click-and-drag backup, restore, and reorder options.
- Make amazing social media and email content with GoDaddy Studio's templates and graphics.
- Website builders can have better features.
- Renewing domains and premium plans can be expensive for users.
GoDaddy Pricing
GoDaddy is a popular website building tool used by various industries such as cosmetics, e-learning, apparel & fashion, health, wellness and fitness, and computer software.
- The free plan offered by GoDaddy includes various features such as customer support, SSL certificate, appointment scheduling, and marketing tools including email and social media. Additionally, it offers branded content creation through GoDaddy Studio.
- The premium plans offer various features, including online payment acceptance, order and inventory synchronization, custom domain connection, SEO solutions, and additional benefits.
- The starting price for the Basic plan is $11.99 per month, while the Premium plan starts at $21.99 per month.
- The starting prices for the Commerce plan and Commerce Plus plan are $24.99 and $44.99 per month, respectively.
Best for Beginners
GoDaddy
The GoDaddy website builder is best for complete beginners looking for ecommerce basic functionalities
8. Pixpa
Pixpa is the perfect go-to platform for creatives looking to easily build and manage a beautiful professional website with all the features they need. It provides them with an easy to use no-code website builder, giving them full responsibility and freedom to customize their site’s look and feel.
They can choose from many pre-made stylish templates or design custom themes from scratch for complete customization. Furthermore, Pixpa also comes with built-in SEO tools to help the site rank high up on search engines so it can be easily discoverable by potential customers.
Pixpa unique features for small businesses
Pixpa is an excellent platform for small businesses, offering features that make it easy to manage their website. It comes with e-commerce functionality so they can create an online store and start selling products or services. It also includes a client proofing feature, which allows them to easily share images and work samples with clients.
The drag-and-drop website builder also allows users to create stunning photo galleries and portfolios, which makes it ideal for photographers, designers, and other creatives. Other features include website analytics to track website performance and a blogging platform to easily write blog posts.
- Many templates available and all are modern and responsive.
- Custom CSS and HTML code are available for advanced customization.
- Easier proofing for photographers' clients.
- Powerful SEO and marketing tools.
- Works with 50+ other tools through integrations.
- Pixpa has no commission fees on website sales.
- Pixpa requires payment for their service.
- Buy custom domains from a third party.
- Multilanguage sites can be complex.
- The interface may take some time to learn.
Pixpa Pricing
The pricing includes a 15-day trial period without the need for a credit card, and the option to subscribe at any time with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
There are two plans available for a personal website. The basic plan costs $6 per month, billed annually and includes essential features. The Professional plan is the most popular option, costing $18 per month, billed annually.
Best for creatives
Pixpa
The GoDaddy website builder is best for complete beginners looking for ecommerce basic functionalities
What is a Small Business Website Builder?
Small business website builders are a great tool for entrepreneurs who want to have a functional online presence without investing too much time, money or effort into it. Website builders offer customizable templates and easy drag-and-drop features that make it easy to create an attractive, professional website in no time. They take care of the technical aspects of hosting and coding, allowing you to focus on creating content that will help your website grow.
Choosing the right website builder for your small business is an important step in ensuring that you get the most out of your online presence, so it’s important to find one that best suits your needs. Some of the things to look at are things like ease of use, ecommerce functionality if you need to sell online, and the ability to be fully SEO optimized.
