The Best Free Website Builders for Small Businesses in 2024

If you’re currently shopping around for a website builder, you’ve probably realized that most of the time, they don’t come cheap. This is especially true if you want features like an online store. Luckily, if you’re just looking for an easy-to-use small business website builder, there are several good options to choose from – even if you don’t want to pay anything at all.

After extensive user testing, I believe that the best free website builder right now is Wix. It offers an unmatched selection of features in a clean, tidy interface, and doesn’t cost a cent. It’s ideal for small businesses and solo users who want to get a site live quickly with a capable website builder, but don’t want to pay for a year-long subscription costing hundreds of dollars.

Wix isn’t the only free website builder out there, though. I’ve also tested GoDaddy, Square Online, Site123, and Jimdo (although they weren’t quite as impressive). Read on to learn more and find the best free website builder for your needs.

In this guide:

• Best Free Website Builders
• Should You Upgrade to a Paid Plan?
• How to Choose a Website Builder
• Our Methodology: About Our Research
• Verdict: What’s the Best Free Website Builder?
• Frequently Asked Questions

The 5 Best Free Website Builders for Small Businesses

After hours of in-depth research, we’ve determined that the providers below are the best free website builders you can find:

1. Wix — Best free website builder overall
2. GoDaddy — Best for setting up free and fast
3. Square Online — Best for free online store creation
4. Site 123 – Good for informational pages
5. Jimdo — Good for beginners

1. Wix for Small Businesses

Best free website builder overall

Wix is widely considered to be the best website builder for both businesses and solo users. In fact, the website builder is used by more than 220 million companies and individuals to create everything from blogs to portfolios and multi-level online stores.

Wix’s free plan includes access to hundreds of the provider’s templates, and you can use Wix’s artificial design intelligence (ADI) platform to do a lot of the initial heavy lifting for you when you’re setting up as well.

What I liked about Wix

When it comes to Wix’s free plan, there is a lot to like. It strikes a nice balance of being easy to use by deploying the traditional drag-and-drop editing approach providers like Jimdo don’t utilize, yet powerful enough to generate unique and usable websites, which you can do without all the bells and whistles of Wix’s paid plans.

The choice of templates Wix provides for free users is just unmatched. If you’re dead set on not paying anything, Wix’s free plan is going to make your website look a lot more professional than Site123’s free plan (more on this later), which is much more restrictive. After using plenty of free website builders, I’d advise saving yourself the time experimenting with providers like this and jumping straight to Wix.

It’s great that free plan users access Wix’s AI tools, as it just makes all of the initial setup stages so much quicker to complete. If you’re not wedded to any particular design and are happy to let Wix decide for you, you can be set up in less than a minute.

Check out our guide to the best website builders for beginners or read our Wix review for more information

I liked Wix’s text generator. I needed to make some edits to the copy, but it saved me from starting from scratch. Image: Tech.co testing

What Wix could improve

Wix doesn’t have a lot of downsides, which is why it’s at the top of our list. Still, the free plan comes with a few downsides, like the lack of a custom URL and Wix ads all over your website – but in my experience, it’s pretty normal for free plan providers to include their branding in this way.

Also, it doesn’t have enough ecommerce features or storage to run a small ecommerce operation, so you’ll be better off with Square Online if you’re looking to do this for free.

The Wix ad that appears at the top of my homepage when I preview my website. Image: Tech.co testing

If you’re feeling limited by the free plan and you want to upgrade, however, you’ll pay premium prices for Wix’s paid plans. In fact, the Wix starting price is more expensive than GoDaddy, Site123, and Jimdo, and that’s just the options on this list. On top of that, SEO guidance is lacking a bit, as our research found it’s missing alt text and header assistance –  Still, Wix is our top pick for a reason.

Wix pricing

In addition to the free plan, Wix offers four other pricing plans that cost, $17 per month, $29 per month, $36 per month, and $159 per month, respectively.

The paid plans add features like access to Google Analytics, which will let you obtain valuable insights about your content and online visibility, as well as ecommerce functionalities like online payments. However, if you just want to create a space to host your work or a page for your restaurant’s information, you probably won’t need this.

All paid plan users can access 24/7 priority support, which isn’t available to those using the free plan. What’s more, paid plan storage capacity starts from 2GB and bandwidth capacity from 1GB, which is a significant upgrade on the free plan’s 500MB allowance for both.

If you’d like to try out one of the paid plans, you can get a 14-day free trial of any premium package, so you can still test out these features without taking a hit to your budget.

Check out our in-depth guide to Wix pricing for more information

2. GoDaddy for Small Businesses

Best for setting up quickly

Although almost all free plans are pretty quick to set up,  you’ll be able to get your site up and running faster with GoDaddy than any other website builder I’ve tested, and that’s saying something for a service that offers a free forever plan.

The free plan for GoDaddy is pretty limited, although you do get some basic marketing features and the ability to set up an online store and accept payments with GoDaddy Payments. What’s more, 24/7 support is available, which providers like Jimdo don’t offer to their free users. Still, if you want anything more advanced than those basics, you’ll need to pay.

Check out our GoDaddy website builder review for more information

What we like about GoDaddy

First and foremost, GoDaddy is probably the easiest-to-use provider on this list, and when I tested the platform, I generated a website in just two steps (30 seconds) – that’s even quicker than Wix.

Like its big-name competitors, GoDaddy makes its AI tools available to all users, including users who haven’t paid anything. For example, GoDaddy has an AI logo generator you can use to make a unique and unmistakable calling card for your business.

Editing the theme of my GoDaddy website. Image: Tech.co testing

GoDaddy has extremely responsive customer support – some of the test queries I submitted were responded to within 10 seconds. As we’ve covered, this is far better than the support offered to free users of Jimdo, who can only contact the company via email. It’s even better than Square online, which provides phone support to free plan users, but only on weekdays between 6 am and 6 pm.

What GoDaddy could improve

GoDaddy has a lot going for it, particularly as a free option. However, clear gaps mean it isn’t great for everyone.

For example, GoDaddy has drastically improved its ecommerce features in recent times – but features like digital gift cards and product syncing between your site and Walmart/Amazon are only available on its most expensive plan. So, the free plan should be avoided by people who want to start an online store – Shopify is much more scalable.

What’s more, there’s also no app store provided by GoDaddy, which puts it at another major disadvantage when it comes to planning for the long term. One of the key things big-name providers like Wix have going for them is they can evolve along with your business. Having an extensive app store and plugin library means you can upgrade your site’s functionality in increments, focusing on what you need to prioritize.

GoDaddy pricing

Other than the free plan, GoDaddy also provides three different pricing plans that cost $10.99 per month, $14.99 per month, and $20.99 per month, respectively.

These paid plans unlock a number of features, including a range of online store tools, appointment and booking functionalities for recurring and one-off events, and email marketing tools.

Our research suggests GoDaddy is currently the best value pick across all website builders, offering one of the lower starting prices and the most affordable premium plans that come with advanced features. The provider also offers a 15-day free trial, so you can test out premium plans before you commit to purchasing them.

Check out our guide to GoDaddy vs Wix for more information.

3. Square Online for Small Businesses

Best for ecommerce

If you’ve shopped at a small business brick-and-mortar store in the last few years, you’ve likely interacted with Square technology. The company is famous for its smartphone-compatible card readers, and it’s also broken into the ecommerce website builder market recently thanks to Square Online.

This free website builder is a go-to option for businesses that need ecommerce functionality on a budget. You’ll be able to launch a fully operational online store at no cost to your business, and Square sets no limits on how many items and products you can upload to your store.

The catch? You’ll have to endure hefty transaction fees, even if you opt for a paid plan, which will cut directly into your profits. Still, if you can’t afford the subscription right now, it’s the best way to get your online store up and running today.

What I like about Square Online

While Wix is definitely the easiest-to-use website builder, Square Online makes setting up an online store pretty straightforward. The interface is smooth and intuitive, making everything from shipping and selling to web design and customer support simple enough for beginners.

Another big plus is you can manage more than one site in Square online, which means you can have different websites corresponding to different physical store locations, and assign different items to them. There are lots of great ecommerce features included in the free plan too, including an age verification component, a small range of SEO tools, and lead capture forms.

I found Square Online’s extensive guides really useful, and I felt confident I had everything set up properly once I’d completed them all. Image: Tech.co testing

You can also sync your online store with your social media pages and Google business profile, which means you can make the most out of the buzz you’ve already drummed up through marketing and promotion. However, it’s still a lot more basic than more powerful ecommerce builders like BigCommerce – but crucially, there’s no free plan.

Square has also rolled out a range of time-saving features, making it even easier for newbies to get to grips with the process. For instance, the builder released an AI text generator to streamline the copy writing and SEO process, and a photo background editor to help sellers improve the quality of their images in a flash.

Check out our guide to the best ecommerce website builders or read our Square Online review for more information

What Square Online could improve

While you can get an online store up and running at no cost to your business with Square Online, it’s pretty limited when it comes to basic website design functionalities.

I found it a little difficult to edit things like header size, color schemes, and branding, which isn’t ideal for any business trying to take control of its online presence. Plus, there aren’t really templates, just “styles” – so there isn’t much choice at all.

Square Online only provides two ways to display a social media feed on your site. Image: Tech.co

What’s more, just like Wix and GoDaddy, you’ll have to show ads for Square on your site. If you’re looking for an ecommerce website builder, Shopify offers better ecommerce features than Square Online and the design element is nowhere near as clunky. However, it’s not as cheap!

Square Online pricing

Square Online is a bit different than other options on this list when it comes to pricing, as it’s aimed exclusively at ecommerce businesses trying to start an online store. As a result, even the free plan comes with some cost, as you’ll be subject to a 2.9% + 30¢ transaction fee.

On top of the free plan, Square Online offers two other pricing plans that cost $29 per month and $79 per month, respectively. Each still comes with the same transaction fee, but you’ll get features like website themes, customer accounts, and real-time shipping rates.

Check out our Square Online review for more information

4. Site123 for Small Businesses

Good for informational pages

We’ll be the first to admit, we’re entering the part of the list with some less than recognizable names. You may not have heard of Site123, but you have now – and it offers a free website builder that can get your site up and running without costing your business a single penny.

It’s limited though, and not on the same level as Wix or GoDaddy when it comes to features. Site123 is ideal for individuals and small businesses that are looking for nothing more than an informational site, as it doesn’t offer much when it comes to advanced business features.

What I like about Site123

I loved how easy it was to get started with Site123 – after signing up, it generated a basic website for me with several different pages in seconds, based on a small amount of information I provided. It’s a lot more lightweight than Wix and GoDaddy, so if you make a mistake, you can’t just press ctrl + z and it’ll quickly revert back to the previous iteration.

Another big plus for Site123 users is the customer support options. All users get access to 24/7 live support, so you can bring up any problem at any time of day and you’ll have an actual person communicating with you to solve it.  In fact, Site123 was one of the best in our research for customer support, which is very impressive considering it is a relatively lesser-known option.

I low how responsive site123 is – it didn’t take me long at all to build my About Me page. Image: Tech.co testing

What Site123 could improve

If we’ve said it once, we’ll say it again; Site123 has some seriously limited functionality overall. It received some of the lowest scores for website features and design flexibility in our research, which makes it far less functional than the likes of Wix and Squarespace. So, while it takes less time to set up, you’re also more likely to outgrow it.

I couldn’t access any plugins for Site123 without upgrading. Image: Tech.co testing

Another big downside is that Site123’s paid plan will show adverts on your site, which is going to be a big turnoff for lots of people, especially if you want a free website builder to host your professional work. On the topic of hosting content, you’ll only get 250 MB of storage – half of what’s on offer on Wix’s free plan – so you’ll be restricted on what you can upload.

Site123 pricing

Beyond the free plan, Site123 offers a single Premium plan, which costs $12.80 per month – much less than Squarespace costs. You’ll get to increase your storage and bandwidth to 3 GB each, which is much more than is made available on the free plan, and you’ll get a free domain for a year. You’ll also get access to ecommerce functionality, which will allow you to launch your online store.

If you want to test out the paid version, there is no free trial, but you can take advantage of the 14-day money-back guarantee for a refund if it’s not working out for you.

5. Jimdo for Small Businesses

Good for beginners

There’s nothing worse than being unfamiliar with new business software, and some website builders can be quite intimidating. Fortunately, website builders like Jimdo are built for beginners and prioritize ease of use for all users – and it’s completely free to use.

Jimdo takes a lot of the guesswork out of creating your site, providing you with a questionnaire to get you started quickly and easily. You’ll be recommended a template and a website type, so you’ll just have to answer the provider’s questions and be on your way.

What I like about Jimdo

As I alluded to above, Jimdo is great for beginners because it’s so easy to use, and provides so much help – the setup questions are pretty extensive. However, once it’s generated a basic website for you and you get down to editing, you begin to realize why it’s so easy to use – there’s very limited customizability.

But that won’t bother everyone – the speedy setup process makes Jimdo an excellent choice for those just dipping their toes in the website-building waters. You’ll also be more than happy with it if you just need a free website for a “one-off” event, or if you’re a business that just needs a digital storefront, rather than a way to sell online.

Setting up my basic site structure and linking in Jimdo. Image: Tech.co testing

Jimdo’s color palette selection tool is pretty neat. Once I’d selected one, I could edit things like the saturation and then Jimdo automatically applied it across the site. If getting up and running quickly is your priority and you don’t have a clear idea of what you want your site to look like, Jimdo can take over.

Choosing the color palette I want to use for my website in Jimdo. Image: Tech.co testing

What Jimdo could improve

When you go with a budget website builder, you get budget website builder functionality, and that’s definitely the case with Jimdo. There’s no app store, so you’re very limited to the provider’s out-of-the-box functionality. There’s also no 24/7 support, so you’ll have to wait for them to reply to your emails.

It doesn’t even have blogging capabilities, which is a bare minimum for many options on the market. If you need to blog, WordPress is one of the best options for people who want a space to house their writing.

Jimdo doesn’t have many SEO tools on its paid plans, and there are even fewer on its paid plans, so it won’t be great for people looking to build traffic-driving content and convert it into a revenue stream. You also have very little control over how fast your hosting is, and by association your page loading times.

Jimdo pricing

Not only does Jimdo have a free forever plan, but it also provides the lowest starting price for a website builder in our research, making it one of the best cheap website builders on the market. You can get a premium plan for as little as $9 per month, and its most expensive plan is only $14 per month, making it the cheapest option on the list.

Unlike other options on this list, Jimdo does not offer a free trial for its premium plans, you’ll have to test it out with the free plan instead.

Should You Upgrade to a Paid Plan?

Although the free plans we’ve selected are perfectly serviceable for creating a basic website or online store, most businesses will need to upgrade to a paid plan. For example, most paid plans have very limited storage – even Wix only provides 500MB – so you won’t be able to store many images or videos for articles at all.

What’s more, lots of providers with free plans force you to display advertisements for their products on your web pages – and if you’re trying to convince users to buy your products or read your content, this won’t send out the best signals. You’ll also likely have to deal with the provider’s name in your URL too.

Of course, many providers keep their best ecommerce and SEO tools that will help you increase your visibility and sell products at scale for their most expensive plans. But if you’re a small business looking to expand beyond the physical confines of your bricks-and-mortar store, it’s the best way to do it.

It’s really all about your use case. There will be a ceiling to how much traffic you can pull in or how many sales you can make with free plans, and if you truly want to make your site look like it’s your own, you should definitely consider a paid subscription.

How to Choose the Best Free Website Builder for Your Business

There is a lot to consider when it comes to choosing a website builder for your business. Firstly, you need to decide – or recognize – what your site will primarily be for.

For example, are you planning to sell products/create an online store, do you need an accessible home for all of your photography, or are you starting a blog? This is the first and most important question you need to ask yourself.

Bloggers who want their content to reach audiences quickly should look for website builders with lots of SEO support, whereas entrepreneurs with grand plans for an online store should look at ecommerce focused providers like Square and Shopify.

Photographers, on the other hand – as well as other artists and creatives – will appreciate the design functionalities and incredible template selection provided by Squarespace.

Squarespace is known for its unique templates, which will provide the perfect foundation for your photography portfolio. Image: Tech.co testing.

Of course, if you’re looking for free plans, you’re probably not going to want to spend much on your website builder – and ideally, nothing at all. So, it’s important to avoid providers that will charge you extra for add-ons for crucial features, or those that charge for integrations or plugins you’ll need. Squarespace, for example, has some extensions that charge you every time you use them. Luckily, most major website builders make most of this information available.

While free plans can provide a good jumping-off point for beginners and solo users, in most cases, free plans aren’t going to cut it for businesses, as they have some notable limitations, like no custom URLs, no ecommerce functionality, and provider ads on sites. Simply put, website builders are a classic “get-what-you-pay-for” situation – and the free plans are usually quite limited.

Our Methodology: About Our Research

At Tech.co, we conduct independent research into all of the products, services, and software that we review. To ensure we’re conducting our investigations in ways beneficial to our readers, before we start testing providers, we conduct extensive market research to scope out the best platforms currently available and speak to businesses about what features and functions matter most to them.

We’ve established a website builder testing methodology that scores each product in six main categories of investigation and 33 subcategories; this covers everything from customer feedback to design, ease of use, and more. Overall, there are more than 250 areas of investigation.

The overarching assessment areas we focused on in 2024 for website builders are: User experience, Design Functionality, Help & Support, Customer Score, and Website Features. We used a separate algorithm to score free website builders, naturally taking into account only the website features and support options available on the providers’ respective no-fee options.

Importantly, this research allows us to remain editorially independent. Although we have some partnerships with providers that appear on our site, these never impact our rankings, ratings, and recommendations, which are derived solely from the results of our research and testing sprints.

Best Free Website Builders: FAQs