The best small business website builders make it easy to build not just a website using drag-and-drop functionality, but also a website that's ready for use for a range of small business purposes. Every business needs a website to showcase their products and services, as well as communicate with their consumers. To create a website, many companies offer the best website builder (opens in new tab) software platforms, which allow you to build anything from a simple single-page website to a professional web store, with no coding or web design experience.
Each business will need a website for slightly different reasons and not all website builders are perfect in every scenario. For example, certain website builders are better suited to musicians (opens in new tab), photographers (opens in new tab), or creatives building a portfolio (opens in new tab). For small businesses, the primary concern is likely to be budget. Thankfully, there are plenty of affordable options out there that allow small businesses to build fully functional websites with all the features they might need.
We've brought to you a rundown of the best website builders for small businesses. To determine how well they perform, we've tested and compared these website builders across various points. We looked at what types of sites they're best suited to create, the diversity of their templates, and their overall speed and performance. We evaluated their storage options, bandwidth, and pricing, among many other aspects.
These are the best small business website builders of 2023 in full:
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Wix (opens in new tab) is one of the most comprehensive website builders we’ve encountered, and this is no different when it comes to small business websites. With such a wide range of features, it’s no wonder Wix is the go-to platform for over 200 million registered users.
The free version provides a basic service with limited bandwidth and storage (500MB). However, opting for any of the paid plans - such as the Business Basic package for ecommerce at $17/month (yearly subscription) - will get you unlimited bandwidth and 20GB storage, a free domain for one year, Google Ad vouchers, and more. There’s also a 14-day money-back guarantee if things don’t work out.
Wix’s website editor operates under the simple drag-and-drop principle, offering hundreds of different attractive and customizable design options, tools. It also includes features such as an image editor, animations, video backgrounds, and proprietary and third-party apps.
Businesses can also take advantage of additional tools like Wix Turbo, Wix Bookings, Wix Restaurants and Wix Hotels.
- Read our Wix website builder review (opens in new tab).
Weebly (opens in new tab) is another powerful player in the website builder market, excelling with its broad offering that includes a free tier with Weebly branded ads, as well as a range of paid plans for various budgets and businesses.
The free plan limits you to 500MB of storage space, but the paid packages - starting with the Pro plan at $12/month (paid annually) - remove such restrictions.
With the Pro plan, you’ll also get access to a free domain, $100 Google Ads credit, SEO tools, advanced site stats, phone customer service, and support for a web store with up to 25 items. If this isn’t enough, the powerful Business plan at $25/month removes the item count limitation and adds more high-end features like coupon codes, item reviews, a shipping calculator, and so on.
Like Wix, Weebly's is a drag-and-drop editing platform, which is exceptionally simple to use - even for novices. We only had a couple of bones to pick with it, surrounding the lack of certain customization options and the missing global Undo feature. That said, there are plenty of professionally designed templates to choose from, suitable for any kind of business, as well as access to free images for your website.
- Read our Weebly review (opens in new tab)
BigCommerce (opens in new tab) has all the necessary tools and features to help you build, maintain, and grow your ecommerce website. The WYSIWYG editor is limited to only seven free templates, but more can be acquired via the theme store for around $145.
Starting at $29.95/month, BigCommerce can hardly be called cheap, but this deep and high-quality platform is certainly worth the spend.
The Standard package includes hundreds of built-in features, including in a branded online store, dedicated SSL, coupons, discounts, gift cards, product reviews, social/marketplace integrations, POS, a blog, BigCommerce mobile app, 24/7 live support and more.
If you’re unsure about whether this platform is suitable for you, there’s a 15-day free trial, plus three months of BigCommerce (opens in new tab) for free once your trial ends, if you do end up pulling the trigger on a subscription.
- Read our BigCommerce review (opens in new tab)
Unlike some competitors, Squarespace (opens in new tab) doesn’t offer a free plan, but at $12/month its cheapest package is more than generous, making it a very price competitive small business website builder. You’ll get access to unlimited storage and bandwidth, an SSL certificate, SEO features, image/video galleries, intelligent image optimization, professional web store, performance boosting CDN support, free fonts, a free domain for a year, and more.
However, this package doesn’t include an online store. If that's what you're after, you'll need the Business plan at $18/month (billed annually) or one of the commerce plans starting at $26/month.
The drag-and-drop editor is exceptionally easy to master, letting you customize each element of your website. It might appear a little basic, but you get to choose from a host of beautiful templates that you can tweak to your liking.
All users can take advantage of the 14-day free trial before making up their mind about any of the pricing plans.
- Read our Squarespace website builder review (opens in new tab)
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One of the cheapest website builders in the industry is offered by HostGator (opens in new tab), a popular web hosting provider that has affordable plans for every budget.
For as little as $3.84/month if you take the two-year package, HostGator will supply you with unlimited bandwidth and storage for your website, with no limitations on the number of pages. You’ll also get a free domain for one year, website hosting, a free SSL certificate, as well as $200 in ad vouchers. If your business requires a store, going for the most expensive plan (still cheaper than some) at $9.22/month will also net you full ecommerce functionality.
HostGator provides an intuitive website editing process through its drag-and-drop platform, allowing you to choose from more than 200 mobile-friendly templates that you can tailor to your needs and preferences. All users will also get access to analytics, SEO optimization, and live feeds from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Unfortunately, some blogging options offered by the competition are missing, such as the ability to schedule posts. Regardless, HostGator provides a powerful and efficient website building solution.
- Read our HostGator Website Builder review (opens in new tab)
Small business website builder FAQs
The best small business website builders: How we test
In the same way we test web hosting (opens in new tab) services, our reviewers also sign up and purchase plans from website builders and go through the same process a beginner would when creating a website for the first time.
We look at the features offered, ease-of-use, pricing, functionality, support and other add-ons like blogging and ecommerce capabilities. A key feature we look for in a website builder is if it offers you a free trial period to make up your mind and have a feel of the website builder before making a more permanent commitment.
Once our reviewers sign up to each website builder, they create a website to get an accurate depiction of what you can expect. We have tested and reviewed all website builders listed below.
Because nothing can be 100% perfect, we made sure to dig out the positives and negatives of each website builder so that you have a clear understanding of what to expect.
We also look at the packages each website builder offers to small businesses and compare them against each other.
How to choose the best small business website builders for you?
When choosing the best small business website builder for you, you'll want to evaluate what your digital business requirements are. Is your site going to be more focused on blogging or ecommerce?
You'll want to check how easy and intuitive the website builder is, its variety of templates, the overall speed and performance, and the quality of customer support. Look out for the web builder's security features, bandwidth, storage, and pricing plans, among other things.
What is a website builder?
The answer to the question "What is a website builder? (opens in new tab)" is simple. A website builder is a tool that lets you build a website without any coding experience.
The tool lets you create, manage and maintain your online presence, with most builder services offering backend support so you can focus on designing a site that suits your business needs.
Most website builders offer a drag and drop option for you to create a website using a template that fits your site's needs. A website builder lets you do everything you need for your website by yourself.
To grow your online presence, you can also utilize a website design service without the need of design knowledge.
A website builder does not just help you save time in coding a website, most have a huge portfolio of templates that helps you select a visual appearance for your website.
