12 Best Website Builders for Small Businesses to Save Time and Budget

Building a website can seem complicated and overwhelming for small business owners. However, with so many website builders available, it is possible to create a professional website without coding knowledge. In this article, we will explore some of the most popular website builders and discuss their features and benefits, as well as prices and some disadvantages of each.

In today’s highly competitive business landscape, website builders for small businesses can be a lifeline for small enterprises that struggle to convert and retain customers through their online presence. Now more than ever, it is easier to spin up a website and publish it within hours, even without prior coding or website design knowledge. 

Since every business has unique needs and clientele, there are business website builders for specific use cases such as e-commerce, blogs, and stores.

The best website builder for small businesses also considers affordability, and there are many options available at a very low price, as we will shortly see. In this article, we have sampled the best website builders for small businesses. Our evaluation is based on pricing, ease of use, storage options, bandwidth, and user reviews, among other aspects.

What Makes a Website Builder a Good Option for Small Business?

 

Easy to use: Unlike coding, which can be complex and requires specialized knowledge, website builders make it easy through a drag-and-drop interface.

Cost-effective: With flexible pricing and free options, website builders include features allowing small businesses to build websites cheaply.

Lots of customization options: Apart from predesigned templates, web page builders offer solid customization options that allow you to personalize your site to match your branding needs. 

Mobile friendly: Most website builders offer a responsive design allowing you to design a site that looks and works well on mobile devices.

SEO tools: Most website builders include SEO tools to help you optimize and increase your site visibility on SERPs.

Ecommerce tools: Many website builders have e-commerce tools integrated right into your dashboard, allowing you to set up your store, easily add new products, manage your inventory and sales, and track orders.

The table below provides a quick overview of the top website builders for small businesses including their pricing, best use case, and key features. For a more in-depth analysis please continue reading the article.

Website Builders to Consider for a Small Business Website

1. Wix

Wix is a robust website builder with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface allowing you to set up your site quickly and easily. With access to over 900 templates, many functionalities, and customization options, you can design and manage professional-looking websites that serve virtually all small business needs.

What makes Wix a good choice for small businesses?

Wix is a cloud-based website builder with many features that make it the best website builder for small businesses. Here are some of them:

• Easy of use: Wix has one of the most intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces making it the easiest website builder for small businesses.
• Customizable templates: Wix has one of the most robust collections of themes. 
• With Wix ADI and AI power generator, small businesses can generate unique templates every time by answering a few questions.
• Wix lets you extend its functionality via its App Market; with access to over 250 apps, small businesses can reliably add features to their sites as they grow.
• Built-in SEO tools and integration with popular social media platforms where small businesses can promote their business.

Disadvantages

• You’ll need to upgrade to the Combo or Unlimited plan to avoid ads.
• You still need to purchase your domain name separately. 
• Storage limitations across all plans.

Pricing

Wix has website plans starting at $4.50/month, business and ecommerce plans starting at $17/month, and enterprise plans that require booking a call with the Wix team.

2. Squarespace

Squarespace is an all-in-one website builder with extensive features that allow businesses of all types and sizes to build stunning websites and establish an online presence with minimal effort. 

What makes Squarespace a good choice for small businesses?

Squarespace offers a suite of tools that establish it as the best website builder for small businesses.

• Access to over 110+ predesigned and aesthetically appealing templates.
• Hosting package, allowing small businesses to focus on growing their site. 
• Integrated ecommerce plan allowing small businesses to set up stores and manage inventory, coupons, discounts, and more.
• Marketing and SEO tools to help businesses promote their products..

Disadvantages

• Squarespace has a bit of a learning curve and may lack functions for those looking to build complex stores.
• One may need to upgrade to the business plan to access powerful features.

Pricing

Plans include a  personal plan for $16/per month, a business plan for $23 per month, a basic commerce plan for $27, and an advanced commerce plan for $49 per month. 

3. Gator

The Gator builder by HostGator is simple and the perfect website builder for small businesses looking to build simple sites. This builder also comes with two types of editors (traditional and express) with a drag-and-drop interface.

What makes Gator a good choice for small businesses?

Gator is an all-in-one solution with a website builder and hosting solution, features that position it as the best website builder for small businesses.

• A drag-and-drop interface allows you to drag an element and place it anywhere on the page.
• Marketing tools such as lead capture forms, email marketing, and social media integration allow small businesses to market themselves.
• Mobile-friendly templates: 100+ predesigned templates that small businesses can choose from and customize to match their style. 
• Gator includes an ecommerce functionality in all its plans allowing small businesses that want to sell products to set up stores.
• All plans starting from the Express start plan come with a free domain for the first 12 months, an SSL certificate, and three email campaigns monthly.

Disadvantages

• Renewal rates may double.
• Does not have a free plan.
• Limited image editing capabilities.

Pricing

Gator is a cheap website builder for small businesses with a starting price of $3.84 per month for the first two years (billed $92.16), Express Site at $3.84 per month for the first two years (billed $92.16), and Express Store at $9.22 per month for the first two years (billed $221.28).

4. 10Web AI Website Builder

The 10Web AI Website Builder allows you to automatically generate a website with unique content and images tailored to your business needs using the power of AI in minutes that will become your own property. All you need to do is to answer a few questions about your company, such as the company name, type, description, and services you provide. The website will be populated with customizable elements, content sections and paddings, and forms and sliders. 

You can also recreate the landing page you like automatically by inserting the web page URL you desire to replicate. The AI will then provide the exact copy of the site’s structure and styling. 10Web AI Website Builder also offers premade pages that automatically inherit your homepage style and design. All you’ll have to do is add the content of your newly added pages.

What makes 10Web AI Builder a good choice for small businesses?

• Fast and efficient: 10Web Builder’s AI-powered website creation process is fast and efficient, saving small businesses time and money.
• Consistency and coherence:  Pages automatically inherit the styling and design elements of your homepage to provide consistency within your website
• You can select from available prebuilt pages to add to your site or generate new ones using the AI recreation tool.
• Affordable: The free trial of 10Web AI Builder allows for up to 10 pages, which can be suitable for small businesses. You can get unlimited pages by simply upgrading to one of the hosting plans.
• No coding expertise required: 10Web Builder’s user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop editor based on Elementor makes it easy to customize your site.
  
• Automated hosting, page speed booster, Cloudflare CDN add-on, backend speed optimization, and more come with Pro plans.

Disadvantages

There is a one-week free period during which you can create a website with a 10-page limit. After the free period elapses, you need to upgrade.

Pricing

With the one-week free period, you can create a website with a 10-page limitation. To add more pages or to extend the trial period you need to upgrade to one of 10Web platform plans. 

For instance, with the AI Starter plan starting at $20/month, you get 5 generations, 10 generations with the AI Premium plan starting at $30/month, and 20 generations for the AI Ultimate plan starting at $45/month.

With the billed annually plan, the AI Starter plan starts at $10/month, the AI Premium plan starts at $15/month, and the AI Ultimate plan starts at $23/month. 

5. GoDaddy

GoDaddy is an all-in-one solution and cheap website builder for small businesses looking to build a simple website with little to no coding expertise needed. All you have to do is answer simple questions about the nature of your business and what you need, and the builder will create a customizable site. Alternatively, you can choose and customize from a range of available themes.

What makes GoDaddy a good choice for small businesses?

GoDaddy hosting solution makes it a comprehensive solution for small businesses. Others include:

• GoDaddy is one of the easiest-to-use website builders with a beginner-friendly interface.
• This builder has a free version with limited features and  GoDaddy branded domain.
• Small businesses can access blogging features such as category management and commenting.
• Social media integration features allow small businesses to tap into social media audiences.
•  Unlike Wix, GoDaddy has no limit to bandwidth and storage usage.
• ECommerce functionality to set up a store.
• An SEO wizard allows businesses to generate optimized titles, headers, and descriptions easily. 

Disadvantages

• With limited App integration, GoDaddy does not give you much freedom in extending functionality.
• SEO tools are limited and do not fully optimize your site. 

Pricing

GoDaddy has a free plan with limited features. GoDaddy pricing for the basic plan starts at $3.99 a month. The standard and premium plans range between $5 and $9 per month, while the ecommerce plan starts at $9.99 monthly. 

6. Weebly

Weebly is also one of the easiest website builder for small businesses looking to build attractive and responsive websites by choosing from different layout options. 

What makes Weebly a good choice for small businesses?

• Weebly includes a free forever plan.
• An easy-to-use interface: Weebly’s popular editor is flexible enough, allowing any business to set up their site just the way they like it.
• Flexible themes: You can choose and swap different themes later, retaining your content.
• Unlimited bandwidth and storage options are suitable for small businesses that handle a lot of media.
• Weebly allows you to use your domain when using the paid plan, and when using the professional plan, you get a free domain.
• An app center allowing small businesses gradually add new features to their sites as they grow.

Disadvantages

Weebly includes ads on its free plan that can only be removed by upgrading to a paid plan.

Pricing

Weebly has a free plan and paid plans, namely personal, professional, and performance, for $10, $12, and $26 per month and billed annually, respectively. 

7. Zyro

Zyro is also one of the easiest website builder for small businesses, with plenty of templates that allow you to set up beautiful business or ecommerce websites without any prior knowledge of setting up websites.

What makes Zyro a good choice for small businesses?

Here are some features that make Zyro the best website builder for small businesses:

• Lowest introductory prices, making it attractive for small businesses with budget limitations.
• This website builder has AI tools such as an AI writer, image resizer, and logo maker that can save small businesses time and money.
• Ability to import an existing website into its platform.
• With over 100 clean and professionally designed templates, small businesses can easily find a theme that aligns with their style and brand. 
• Blogging features and integration with SEO tools allow small businesses to promote themselves.
• Zyro has tools for small businesses to set up online stores and manage inventory and orders.

Disadvantages

• Renewal costs can be extremely high.
• No free domain.

Pricing

Zyro has two affordable pricing plans. The website plan starts at $2.59 per month and allows you to set up personal and business websites, while the business plan starts at $3.59 per month and is perfect for creating online stores. 

8. IONOS by 1&1

IONOS, popularly known as a hosting service provider, also has a website builder suitable for building all kinds of websites. Ionos matches some of the popular builders’ dues due to its intuitive interface, flexible design, and easy setup process. 

What makes IONOS a good choice for small businesses?

• Exceptionally low starting offers and discounts for the first year.
• Designer and industry-specific templates for small businesses.
• Unlimited storage and bandwidth across its plans.
• IONOS hosting plan is one of the most affordable solutions starting at $1 per month.
• IONOS also has a web design service that includes planning, creating, maintaining, and SEO for your site. 
• With IONOS pro plan, you can create personalized content for each user. 

Disadvantages

• Pricing increases after the first year.
• Ads are included in the starter plan, while templates may be limited and dated.

Pricing

IONOS has three pricing plans (without the store builder).

• Starter plan: $6 per month for the first six months, then $9 per month 
• Plus plan: $1 per month for the first year, then $15 per month
• Pro plan: $15 monthly for the first six months, then $25 monthly.

9. Webflow

Whether you’re a designer, market, developer, agency, small business, or large enterprise, you can find value in Webflow. Webflow stands out as one of the best DIY website builder for small businesses due to its flexible design and easy-to-use features that allow small businesses to build fully functional and aesthetically appealing websites. 

What makes Webflow a good choice for small businesses?

Webflow exhibits many features that make it the best website builder for small businesses:

• An intuitive visual editor that gives businesses control over their site. 
• Collaborate with your teammates or clients and see changes in real-time.
• A powerful web designer.
• Access to an ever-growing list of over 100 responsive templates.

Disadvantages

• Limited support via email.
• Due to its limited plugin library, small businesses can have a challenge extending the functionality of this builder.
• Learning curve.

Pricing

Webflow has a free starter plan great for trying Webflow. However, to access and unlock more features, host, and publish, you can upgrade to the basic plan, CMS, or Business plan that goes for $14, $23, and 39 per month, respectively. 

[BONUS] 3 Best eCommerce Website Builders for Small Businesses

1. Shopify

Shopify is one of the best ecommerce website builder for small businesses. With Shopify, small to medium businesses can go from creating a store to selling products online in hours, even without any web design experience. You can access them all in one place, from web design to hosting, order management, inventory management, and payment processing.  

What makes Shopify the best ecommerce website builder for small businesses?

Unsurprisingly, Shopify is one of the most popular and best ecommerce website builders for small businesses. Here are some features that make it popular:

• Merchants can access a range of integrations, including marketing tools.
• Shopify allows you to list as many products as you want, allowing small businesses to grow and expand over time.
• Unlimited bandwidth and storage allow small businesses to grow and expand without worrying about running out of storage. 
• Shopify accepts recurring payments and subscriptions.
• Shopify includes tools to help track and manage inventory, making product count and restocking easier for small, understaffed businesses to track. 
• Access via mobile (Android and IOS apps), built-in SEO tools, and blog features.

Disadvantages

• Costs can stack up really quickly when trying to access premium themes or linking various apps.
• Limited customization on Shopify compared to WordPress.
• Not so well-developed blogging feature.

Pricing

Shopify has monthly plans, namely, basic, Shopify, and advanced, for $32, $92, and $399 per month, respectively.

2. BigCommerce

Like Shopify, BigCommerce is one of the best diy website builder for small businesses that want to set up online stores where they can sell products.  BigCommerce is one of the most trusted ecommerce solutions and comes with essential features that allow you to showcase your products and manage orders and customers like a pro. 

What makes BigCommerce a good choice for small businesses?

Here are the capabilities that make BigCommerce the best website builder for small businesses:

• BigCommerce is a fully hosted platform, so small businesses can focus on growing their business.
• Native integration with WordPress, allowing your business to leverage the power of WordPress. 
• Allows small businesses to collect payments using popular payment platforms such as Stripe and Paypal at no extra charge.
• Unlimited storage and bandwidth.
• Premade templates that can be customized according to your business style and brand.
• BigCommerce dashboard and metrics to monitor your business.
• Tools to create incentives and gifts to grow customer loyalty and trust.
• You can also segment customers into different groups.

Disadvantages

• For small businesses with a limited budget, BigCommerce may be an expensive option. 
• BigCommerce is geared more toward people with some website design experience. 

Pricing

You can try BigCommerce for 15 days. BigCommerce paid plans start with the standard plan at $29 per month, while the Plus and Pro plans go for $79 and $299, respectively. 

3. Square Online

Square is among the best ecommerce website builder for small businesses of all types to set up stores and sell products without incurring huge costs. Square online provides businesses with a built-in inventory manager, a point-of-sale system, and the means to accept online customer payments.

What makes Square Online a good choice for small businesses?

Here are some reasons why Square is among the best ecommerce website builder for small businesses, and medium and large enterprises alike:

• Free plan: Small businesses with limited can start selling products with no upfront costs.
• Affordable paid plans: access advanced features such as custom domain and advanced reporting at reasonable prices.
• With Square online businesses can sell unlimited products on your site, Facebook, and Instagram without managing multiple storefronts.
• With a built-in inventory manager, small businesses avoid issues such as overselling.
• When using the paid plans, your business will get a free custom domain.
• Cart recovery feature and advanced reporting to help you monitor your business performance.

Disadvantages

• Limited customer support options.
• Transaction fees can pile up for high-volume sellers.
• Limited customization options.

Pricing

Square online has different pricing plans. For starters, there is a free plan, a plus plan for $29 per month, and a premium plan with custom pricing. Note that all these plans also include processing fees for each sale made on their platform.

Conclusion

Website builders are vital for small businesses that want to establish an online presence or sell products cost-effectively. This guide recommends some of the best website builders for small businesses, but the ultimate decision depends on your unique needs. Remember important factors such as features, pricing, customization options, templates, support, and ease of use when making your final selection.

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