8 Best Website Builders for Small Business: Compared for 2024

Wix truly shines when it comes to offering internal functionality to its users, from built-in marketing tools to powerful SEO support. Other providers, such as Shopify, rely heavily on third-party apps instead.

One of the main features we want to draw your attention to is Wix’s suite of SEO tools. Boosting your business website’s rankings across search engines can help you stay ahead of the competition, and Wix offers plenty of support:

• Wix SEO Wiz: This feature will create a bespoke SEO plan with tips on how to improve the visibility of your website
• Semrush: Wix’s recent integration with Semrush, an SEO tool, means you can now carry out keyword research from your Wix dashboard
• SEO Learning Hub: Full of guides and information on all things SEO, such as topic research and local search optimization

As for marketing, Wix Ascend is a comprehensive marketing package. It helps connect your business with customers, create personalized messages for each user, post on social media, and send emails.

It’s clear that Wix’s in-house features have pretty much everything covered, but Wix’s App Market can help fill in any gaps.

If you’re looking to sell online, all of Wix’s ecommerce plans offer the following features:

• Unlimited products
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Sell on social channels

As you upgrade to Unlimited or VIP, you’ll get access to advanced sales features, including a dropshipping service, subscriptions, and shipping tools.

You can take payments from all major debit and credit card brands, as well as Apple Pay, and others. You’ll face a transaction fee of 2.9% of the transaction amount, plus $0.30.

With Wix, you don’t need any technical or design skills to build a professional, eye-catching website for your small business. Its editing interface uses the beginner-friendly drag-and-drop style, letting you design your site by moving elements to where you want them.

One of our website testers said this of the platform:

“Wix is pretty simple to use and easy to wrap your head around! Plus, I really love the customization available, the templates, and the pre-designed elements.”

But we know this level of control isn’t ideal for everyone. Another tester had this differing opinion:

“It’s a funny one because so much of it is really easy, and then some things just feel like they’re a headache for no reason.”

If you’d rather avoid anything too technical, you can even use Wix’s ADI builder to create a site for you. Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) will ask you a few questions about your website, then generate a fully-fledged online store based on your answers.

There are more than 800 professionally designed templates to choose from, covering all types of businesses, from makeup artists to vintage car dealers.

It’s also super easy to add extra functionality to any Wix template. For example, you can:

• Add contact forms and online booking elements to take appointments
• Create and send invoices and track payments, helping you manage your finances in one place
• Add customizable quizzes, surveys, and contact forms that let you find out what your customers think

The only drawback – which doesn’t impact Wix too negatively in our research – is that you can’t use a different template once you’ve published your site. So make sure you’re happy with your choice the first time around!

For the more tech-savvy among you, there’s Velo by Wix, which allows you to integrate custom code into your Wix site. It’s entirely optional, but it grants you the freedom to create a totally original business website.

Wix saw a drop in its value for money score since 2022, from 3.8 to its new score of 3.4 out of 5 in this year’s research. For any cost-conscious small businesses, just note that you will have to spend a little more to get the best out of the builder – but, in our opinion, the cost is worth it.

Wix has four paid plans to choose between, as well as an Enterprise plan for very large businesses. Wix also has a generous free plan that you can stay on forever.

Pricing starts at $16 per month with the Light plan and goes up to $159 per month with the Business Elite plan. If you’re only just dipping your toe into the world of ecommerce, we’d recommend the Core plan at $27 per month because it gives you access to a ton of strong features. If you’ve already established your online store, we’d recommend opting for the Business plan at $32 per month. It comes with a suite of sales tools, including advanced shipping and subscriptions.

We know that quick and efficient support is incredibly important for small businesses, especially if you want to avoid any technical issues that could hinder sales or customer experiences. Take a look at what Wix has to offer:

• 24/7 phone support
• 24/7 live chat support
• VIP care on select premium plans
• Help Center

Wix’s standout feature is its helpful in-editor support, which shares tips and guidance as you build your site. There are also help buttons across Wix, so if you’re having trouble building a specific element or section, you can find the answer in no time!

One person went so far as to say:

“I love it! Having worked on creating a website the other day with another builder, Wix is a breath of fresh air! It’s so simple and easy that it makes a mockery of other builders.”

If you want a few examples, Wix can be ideal for:

• Restaurants – Wix has specific restaurant templates and features, including a menu creator and built-in ordering tool
• Music or brand promotion – Wix’s detailed music analytics gives you stats on the number of plays, shares, sales, and downloads
• Tech & IT businesses – Browse Wix’s future-forward technology templates
• Entertainment & events – The free Wix Events app makes it easy to sell tickets, manage RSVPs, and promote events

• Wix Improves SEO With AI Meta Tag Creator: Wix can now generate meta tags for images using AI. Meta tags provide important info to search engines through HTML, but writing tags for every image can be time-consuming. Wix can now generate three potential AI meta tags for users to choose from, saving you time on a nevertheless important role.

Here’s just a handful of what Squarespace is capable of:

• Squarespace Extensions: Add plugins and extensions from third parties to your website via Squarespace’s version of an app market.
• SEO: If SERP (search engine results page) domination is high on your agenda – and for most small businesses, it should be – then Squarespace is the builder for you. Our in-depth Squarespace SEO review highlights why Squarespace’s SEO features are so good.
• Squarespace Scheduling: An easy online booking tool that lets clients view your availability, book or reschedule appointments, and even pay online.
• Social media: You can integrate your Squarespace site with a raft of social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. Squarespace also allows you to pull content from certain platforms straight onto your page.
• Domains: You can buy a domain from Squarespace, or connect your own existing domain without a fuss. And, with an annual paid plan, you’ll get a free domain for one year.

That being said, if you’re looking to sell online, Squarespace is best suited for businesses with few products to sell since its inventory features are not as advanced as other providers.

You can take payments via PayPal, Stripe, Square, Apple Pay, and more. On the cheapest ecommerce plan, Business, you’ll need to pay a 3% transaction fee. If you upgrade to the Basic or Advanced Commerce plan, you won’t be charged any transaction fees.

As one tester said:

“The tutorial on how to edit the site was a nice touch for new builders.”

And another went on to say:

“I loved the background grid for organizing your layout – it was so good for making sure everything was aligned properly. My page ended up looking sleeker and neater than other platforms.”

All of Squarespace’s templates are polished, aesthetically pleasing, and modern in style – resulting in a stylish appearance without the need for any coding experience.

You’re able to customize your website to fit your brand with ease, right down to the fonts, colors, sidebar width, and background images. Though Wix offers slightly more creative control when editing, Squarespace at least lets you change your template once your site is live.

Pricing starts at $16 per month with the Personal plan, rising to $49 per month with the Advanced Commerce plan.

Despite packing a powerful punch within its plans, Squarespace isn’t the most affordable starting point and won’t be suitable for every small business. And, with prices increasing across the market, it’s no surprise that Squarespace’s value for money score is 3.4 out of 5.

Like its range of templates, Squarespace’s help and support options are comprehensive and of high quality. If you find yourself getting stuck, you can use its various channels:

• Live chat Monday to Friday
• 24/7 email support
• 24/7 social media support
• In-depth knowledge base
• Community forum
• Video tutorials

Squarespace’s knowledge base is particularly helpful, with a huge range of detailed guides. The only downside is that Squarespace doesn’t offer phone support, so bear this in mind if you prefer talking to someone directly.

The good news is that the support options available are accessible on every Squarespace plan, meaning priority support isn’t reserved for certain customers.

• Marketing & ads – Create a marketing website using the tools Squarespace has to offer, such as branded email campaigns, a built-in studio feature, and the ability to craft social media posts
• Photography & videography – Squarespace is a very visual builder and it has plenty of templates designed with imagery in mind
• Blogging – Squarespace allows you to create blog posts, tag posts, add them to social channels, and enable comments to engage with your readers
• Real estate – Squarespace has real estate templates, so you can show off properties with style

• Squarespace AI Crawler Causes Alarm: Squarespace’s recent Refresh update announced a number of new features, especially in the realm of AI features. One new feature that was not advertised in the update was that all Squarespace would be automatically opted in for the AI’s database. Users who discovered this were pretty upset that Squarespace had allowed AI to learn from their sites without a heads-up. If you have a Squarespace site, you can go to your Settings, go to the Crawlers section, and toggle the switch for AI crawling.

That being said, GoDaddy has some great features for small business websites:

• SEO: GoDaddy’s SEO feature will automatically review your website and optimize it for search engines, but it’s not available on the cheapest plan. We also noticed significant improvements to SEO since last year, notably in the addition of custom headers and URLs.
• Google Analytics: Unlike most website builders that use their own analytics tools, GoDaddy has seamlessly integrated its software with Google Analytics, providing brilliant data and analysis at your fingertips.
• Domains: GoDaddy is one of the largest domain registrars in the world, so it’s really easy to set up your domain with this builder.

What holds GoDaddy back from receiving a higher score comes down to two things: its basic marketing features, and its lack of an app store. GoDaddy’s marketing features fall short of our top two builders, simply offering basic tools like social post creation and email campaigns. This isn’t ideal for a small business looking to grow online.

Plus, without an app store, GoDaddy makes its users reliant on its in-house features. So you’re stuck with what you get.

The majority of cards are accepted with GoDaddy, as well as PayPal. And, interestingly, GoDaddy’s transaction fees – 2.3% + $0.30 – are pretty low in comparison to other builders, like Squarespace. However, with Squarespace, your transaction fees will disappear as you upgrade your plan. With GoDaddy, the transaction fees remain the same across every plan, meaning you can’t upgrade your plan to avoid them.

Our research awards GoDaddy with a score of 4.1 out of 5 for its ease of use, seeing no change from last year’s rating.

But why doesn’t it score more highly if GoDaddy’s ADI does the building for you? While it’s no secret that GoDaddy can create a website in a matter of minutes, requiring minimal effort from you, the builder can feel quite restrictive after that.

One GoDaddy tester felt Squarespace was easier to use:

“Squarespace gives you a better feel that the world is your oyster – especially with templates. On GoDaddy, it feels like you don’t have as much room to explore.”

Though GoDaddy’s designs aren’t as sleek or modern as Squarespace’s, GoDaddy’s templates do cover a wide range of industries, including fashion, food, sports, and more. Its themes are basic, but GoDadddy helps you get the job done quickly.

Unlike Wix, GoDaddy lets you switch your template at any time, meaning you have the flexibility to redesign your site later down the line.

However, it’s disappointing that GoDaddy doesn’t give users a mobile editor, especially since mobile devices are a core source of traffic for the majority of websites. Instead, the view is controlled by GoDaddy.

GoDaddy has four plans to choose from, as well as a free plan to sink your teeth into first. The Basic plan costs $9.99 per month, the Premium plan costs $14.99 per month, the Commerce plan costs $16.99 per month, and the Commerce Plus plan costs $29.99 per month.

The Premium plan is a great starting point for small businesses since it offers:

• Unlimited social media platforms
• 25,000 email marketing sends per month
• Recurring appointments
• Payments for appointments
• Email and text appointment reminders

Of course, if you want to sell products online, you’ll need to opt for either the Commerce or Commerce Plus plan.

What we really like about GoDaddy is that the platform does a little bit of everything – you can manage your domain registration, web hosting, and website building, all in one place.

You can access the following support options across the four plans:

• 24/7 phone support
• 24/7 live chat
• Knowledge base
• How-to videos
• Community forum

The knowledge base and community forum can help you find answers to simple questions, but you’ll need to contact the customer team directly if you want help with something niche or specific.

With an easy-to-use builder thanks to GoDaddy’s ADI, as well as its affordable pricing plans, it’s no surprise that customers are satisfied with GoDaddy’s service. Naturally, it falls short in certain areas, such as features and ecommerce functionality, but if you’re just looking to get your business online quickly, GoDaddy could be for you.

• Fitness & Health – The efficiency of GoDaddy’s builder and simple features make it an ideal fit for those in the fitness, health, or wellness industry

• GoDaddy Unveils Tailored Small-to-Medium Business Web Design: GoDaddy has introduced an ‘Essential Design Service’ for $499.99 which lets a GoDaddy professional build the website for you. The service includes four web pages, a sign-up form or Contact Us form for lead capture, as well as 500 copywritten words. For a one-time fee, you can have a professionally designed website for small businesses ready to start selling immediately.

Unlike other builders that focus on delivering high-quality internal features, Shopify relies heavily on its enormous app store. You can choose from over 6,000 apps and widgets to integrate with your site, so the growth potential with Shopify is pretty vast!

We know that marketing is an important factor for small businesses, and Shopify offers a great deal. Its in-house email newsletter feature and multi-channel outreach, for example, can really help your brand expand online. That being said, the most advanced marketing features are available as third-party apps, such as social campaigns with Remarkety or popups with Kevy.

Though having a wealth of apps at your fingertips is great, it’s a shame that it doesn’t offer more internal functionality since the cost of all these extra add-ons – well, adds up.

All of Shopify’s plans come with:

• Unlimited products
• Multiple sales channels
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Discount codes
• Shopify Payments

… and more! It’s also worth mentioning that the new Shopify Starter plan is a great testing ground for new businesses – you can dip your toe into the world of selling through social and messaging apps.

One website tester said this of Shopify’s structure:

“It doesn’t let you do much in the frontend editor, you shouldn’t have to return to the dashboard to complete basic tasks. Adding pages and products shouldn’t be done in the dashboard, they should be upfront and center, or else it feels like they’re being hidden away.”

Compared to the beginner-friendly style of other builders, such as Wix and Squarespace, Shopify has a steeper learning curve. Still, with its powerful sales features, it can be worth getting to grips with!

Another tester shared how much they enjoyed the platform:

“It’s definitely suited for those with more experience with web design, but this makes it fun to use as you can feel the potential for customization.” 

That being said, the free themes are fairly stylish, so they’re a good starting point if you don’t want to break the bank purely for aesthetics. If you want advanced customization, you will need to upgrade to a paid template.

But, for an online store, we have to say that we were particularly impressed by Shopify’s product page options. You can add all of the key information easily, allowing customers to filter products quickly if desired.

As with every other platform in the industry, Shopify’s prices have increased since last year, making it a very expensive option. Plus, Shopify’s reliance on third-party apps doesn’t help if you’re looking to save costs.

Shopify has three plans: Basic, Shopify, and Advanced. The Basic plan starts at $29 per month, the Shopify plan starts at $79 per month, and the Advanced plan starts at $299 per month.

There’s also the Shopify Starter plan for $5 per month if you want to sell across socials and messaging apps.

Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t offer a free plan, but it does have a three-day free trial on select plans. You then get a killer deal of $1 per month for the first three months, meaning you won’t have to pay for Shopify’s expensive service straight away.

• 24/7 live chat
• 24/7 phone
• Email support
• Social media support
• Help Center
• Shopify Community

Its help center is extensive, covering everything from starting with Shopify to expanding your online store.

• Shopify Breaks Black Friday Records: Shopify merchants set a new record with $9.3 billion in sales made over Black Friday weekend. Over 55,000 Shopify stores had their best sales day ever, with the average checkout being $110.71! If you’re looking for an ecommerce platform in the new year, these results should be pretty encouraging in Shopify’s favor.

But you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan if you want to unlock Square Online’s stronger features. The Plus and Premium plans include the following:

• Free domain for one year
• Removal of Square Online ads
• Customer accounts
• Password-protected pages
• Website analytics

Square Online’s free plan covers the basics, including:

• Delivery and shipping management tools
• Automatic tax calculator
• Unlimited products

You’ll need to upgrade to the Plus or Premium plan if you want access to advanced ecommerce statistics, product reviews, abandoned cart emails, and order status alerts – to name just a few sales features.

In comparison to other builders, Square Online’s sales features are a little lackluster. If you need room to expand your business or a plan packed with features, then we’d recommend one of the options higher up on this list.

That being said, one of our Square Online testers particularly loved the simplicity of the builder:

“It gave you just the right amount of options, it never felt like it was overloading you. This always makes the process easier when you’re not overwhelmed with choice.”

Other builders, such as Wix, can be guilty of being overwhelming at the start.

Square Online falls short in this department because it simply can’t keep up with the competition, failing to update or release many new design options over the last year. It offers users a small range of templates, including industry-specific themes for restaurants and retail.

If you’re not looking to reinvent the wheel or design isn’t your strongest area, then Square Online could be for you. You can present visitors with a familiar-looking site that lets your products shine. This minimalist approach is especially useful for businesses in the food industry since your services, menu, and imagery can steal the show.

Square Online has one free plan (which permits selling but features ads), and two paid plans: Plus and Premium. The Plus plan costs $29 per month, and the Premium plan costs $79 per month. Similar prices to Shopify but with the addition of a free plan!

Since you can sell across all three plans, transaction fees are set at 2.9% + $0.30. However, if you upgrade to the Premium plan, they’ll be 2.6% + $0.30. Most payment types are accepted, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, but the free plan doesn’t allow PayPal.

• Live chat
• Phone support Monday to Friday
• Support Center – guides, how-to articles, tips
• Seller Community – learn from other businesses
• Video tutorials

Without dependable 24/7 support, Square Online struggles to compete with others in the market, such as our top choice for support, Jimdo.

One person also said the onboarding was great:

“The recommended tasks at the beginning are well thought out. They are exactly what a business owner has to consider when first setting up their site.”

Other testers found Square Online lacking in customization options and slow to load, with one tester suggesting that businesses should avoid the platform altogether:

“If someone already had an online business, I wouldn’t recommend they switch to Square. They may find the lack of creative control frustrating.”

• Restaurants – Square Online offers restaurant-specific templates and custom elements for food-based businesses, including an online ordering page that accepts orders across your website and socials

• Square Online Introduces Tap to Pay on iPhone in the UK: Tap to Pay on iPhone comes to the UK, making it the third market globally Square Online offers this technology to its sellers. Available within the Square Point of Sale, Square for Retail, and Square Appointments iOS apps, Tap to Pay on iPhone lets sellers of all sizes accept contactless payments directly from their iPhone, with no additional hardware required and at no additional cost.

On its Website Builder + Web Hosting plan, business owners can expect:

• A free domain
• Free email
• Ecommerce tools, including inventory management and online bookings
• Marketing integrations, including Google Analytics
• Free SSL certificate
• Unmetered traffic
• Unlimited storage
• AI tools for content and data

Another major downside is Hostinger’s poor SEO tools, limiting your growth as a small business.

“The things that I could do I found quite easy, but there were a lot of things I couldn’t do and I found it frustrating that Hostinger was lacking certain features.”

However, plenty of users loved how easy it is to use generally, saying:

“It’s pretty good for businesses that are just starting out. It’s not like you’re using a Maserati to go to the shops. It feels like the right size for the market it’s going for.”

Despite this, Hostinger lacks the design flexibility of other builders, locking users into certain design choices. The templates can feel quite restrictive, simple, and basic. And, similarly to Wix, you can’t swap your template once your site is live – so choose carefully!

Its plan costs $2.99 per month, and if you subscribe to a 48-month term, you’ll get the first three months for free. For the limited features and customization on offer, it’s a decent deal.

There’s only really one way to contact Hostinger about issues, but it offers plenty of resources to find an answer yourself:

• 24/7 live chat
• Knowledge base
• Tutorials
• Hostinger Academy

Unfortunately, Hostinger has moved away from offering phone support, so you’re out of luck if you want to talk to someone directly.

• Side hustle – With such an affordable plan, anyone looking to test the waters with a business idea or maintain something on the side can create a website that’s easy to manage and simple to design

• Hostinger Introduces AI-Powered WordPress Troubleshooter: Hostinger has introduced a new AI troubleshooter for its WordPress plans. This tool offers AI-driven solutions to the myriad of tricky technical issues that often plague WordPress. This is a gamechanger as it’s an important ally to have when using WordPress, reducing those headaches and meaning users can get on with their day and not spend it slumped in front of the monitor, head in hand.

• Image library
• Contact forms
• HTTPs security

After that, you’ll need to be on one of its four paid plans to access greater functionality. But even then, its features can feel limiting – unless you’re on the most expensive plan. Only on this plan will you unlock unlimited storage and bandwidth, unlimited website pages, and Business Listings.

As one user said of Jimdo’s features:

“If you have to upgrade for basic features right away then what extra costs will there be further down the line?”

A good question! To unlock the Business Listings feature, for example, which costs an additional $4 per month, you’ll need to subscribe to the Grow plan from $14 per month, or the online-store VIP plan from $24 per month.

One person said it was “hard to complete even the simplest of tasks.”

But, it’s not all doom and gloom, despite the low score – a few testers really enjoyed their experience with Jimdo, which might be the case for you too! One person shared their thoughts on the builder:

“It was very easy to keep things clean. When you added a new section it immediately asked you what this block was for, making elements easy to implement.”

When you first sign up, Jimdo’s questionnaire helps you get started with a custom design. However, this tends to lead to users getting stuck with one industry or style throughout the editing experience. Someone who tested the website spoke on this frustration:

“Jimdo is too simplistic to really be able to recommend to anyone. It really railroads you into its own idea of whatever industry it prescribes you and gives you very little customization.”

One positive of Jimdo is its ADI builder. Like GoDaddy, its purpose is to help customers build a website quickly and without hassle. Unfortunately, Jimdo’s limitations when it comes to features and design mean you’d be better off going with GoDaddy.

• Start plan costs $9 per month
• Grow plan costs $14 per month
• Business plan costs $18 per month
• VIP plan costs $24 per month

The latter two are specifically for ecommerce stores.

In fact, Jimdo classes help and support as a “feature”, and it isn’t available on its free plan at all.

If you do need to contact Jimdo, you can either search for an answer yourself via its Help Center, or send Jimdo a message through your account. That’s it – no live chat, no phone support, no email.

It’s no surprise that only 28% of the people who tested the builder would recommend it to others.

• Service-based business – If you’ve got services to offer, Jimdo has plenty of product features, pricing support, and social selling to help make those sales

• Jimdo Smart Apps: With Jimdo Smart Apps, you can add interactive content from the web’s most popular platforms, like Calendly, Google, Airbnb, Twitter, and Canva. Simply copy and paste in the link and Jimdo will automatically embed it into your site. You can have a range of media from live video, music, gifs, feeds, polls infographics, and more.

If this disappoints you, we’re happy to share that IONOS does offer strong multilingual tools, which is useful for any small business expanding to international markets.

That being said, small businesses need to tick off powerful ecommerce, marketing, and SEO tools when they’re searching for a website builder. Unfortunately for IONOS, it simply doesn’t match up to its competitors in this arena.

One person shared their thoughts on the building process:

“It definitely feels like a website builder run by a company that doesn’t really care about website building, more just pumping out a functional product.”

Once a template’s been selected, you’re faced with a basic and outdated design that can’t be tweaked too heavily. So, if you’re looking for control over the design of your website, Wix or Squarespace would be more suitable because they offer user-friendly editors.

IONOS has three plans to choose between: Starter, Plus, and Pro. You can opt for a website only, or you can upgrade to include an online store with your plan – at an increase to the cost, of course.

The Starter plan costs $5 per month (for six months), the Plus plan costs $1 per month (for 12 months), and the Pro plan costs $15 per month (for six months). Once the offer’s run dry, the plans will continue at a higher fee depending on your website type:

• Starter: $9 per month (website) or $19 per month (online store)
• Plus: $15 per month (website) or $25 per month (online store)
• Pro: $25 per month (website) or $50 per month (online store)

As you can see, IONOS’ introductory deals differ across plans, so make sure you know what you’re signing up for ahead of time!

There’s also no free plan or free trial to enjoy, and without powerful features to support IONOS’ plans, the price doesn’t seem to match up to the value.

• 24/7 phone support
• 24/7 live chat
• Help Center

We will share that whenever we’ve investigated IONOS’ 24/7 live chat function, it always seems to be temporarily unavailable – but its phone support seems to be more reliable.

• Service-based business – For small businesses wanting to use a website as their primary storefront, IONOS’ cheap plans could be a good fit
• Blue collar business – IONOS’ industry-specific templates include basic business themes, as well as bespoke options, like gardening services

• IONOS Reveals Important AI Study for Americans: As well as providing website-building tools, IONOS often engages in first-party research to see where certain trends are heading (same as us!). In the most recent survey centered on AI in the workplace, IONOS discovered that 63% of people feel positive about the use of AI in business. However, 75% also believed AI should have some oversight and be regulated by the government, with some of the largest concerns about AI being the dangers of misinformation and lack of quality control.