Best Website Builder for Artists

According to our research, Squarespace is the best website builder for showcasing art, thanks to its stylish templates and overall stunning design, while Shopify is the best website builder for selling art, with its bountiful ecommerce features and multichannel integrations.

The right website builder can make a huge difference for artists looking to sell and showcase their art. Between the ecommerce capabilities and the portfolio templates, you'll be able to truly get your masterpieces out there to encourage future fans to support your work.

Fortunately, if you need some help finding the right fit for you, we've done a whole bunch of research on website builders to give you the best information to make the best decision. You can also check out our handy website builder comparison page to get even more information.

First off, let's start with a basic breakdown of how our top website builders for artists match up against each other on pros, cons, price, and templates.

In this guide:

• Best Website Builders for Showcasing Art
• Best Website Builders for Selling Art
• How to Make a Free Artist Website
• Verdict: What is the best website builder for artists?
• Frequently Asked Questions

Best Website Builders for Showcasing Art

The most important aspects of a website builder for showcasing art are design and flexibility. What you really want is website visitors to find your art attractive, and the best way to do that is to showcase your art on an attractive website. That's where great templates come in handy, as they look good and can more stylishly showcase your art.

Additionally, as an artist, you'll likely want to have as much creative control over your website as possible. This means you're going to want a website builder that has mailable design controls, like the ability to change templates after you've decided.

Finally, some of the most important considerations for website builder for artists are Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and ease of use. With SEO, you'll be able to get discovered more easily, providing a chance to really showcase your art on a bigger stage. For ease of use, the last thing you want to be spending your time on is navigating a complicated website builder instead of working on your art, so simple set up is key in this category.

With that in mind, we've ranked these three website builders as the best for showcasing art. Take a look at the in-depth reviews below to see how these each match up against each other.

• Squarespace – Best for stylish templates
• Wix – Best overall website builder
• GoDaddy – Best for easy set up

Squarespace

Best for stylish templates

When it comes to design, Squarespace is in a league of its own, particularly for artists. Its 100+ templates are some of the most attractive, beautiful options on the market today, providing a white-space-heavy aesthetic with minimalistic vibe. You'll also get a wide range of unique design features that can make virtually any website look like it was made by a professional organization.

Outside of its stellar design and aesthetic, Squarespace offers some top-tier user experience, with an easy-to-use website builder that you don't need to be an expert to understand. It also provides robust analytics, so you can see how visitors are viewing your art and where you can improve. It could perform better when it comes to site speed, but that's far from a dealbreaker with a website builder this good.

Check out our Squarespace review for more information

Squarespace Pricing

For showcasing art, Squarespace offers two distinct plans that will work best: Personal and Business.

The Personal plan, as you can guess, is aimed more at individuals looking to get an online presence off the ground. It provides all the basics of a paid website builder plan, like custom domain, unlimited bandwidth, SSL security certification. You'll also get access to all of Squarespace's templates, which is the crown jewel of this website builder.

The Business plan opens things up a bit more, adding basic ecommerce features to sell products like your art, as well as added customization features, advanced analytics, and unlimited contributors to your website.

Wix

The best overall website builder

That's right, our research shows that Wix is truly the best website builder overall. It has an unmatched number of features, stylish templates for everyone, and a general ease of use that is inviting to non-experts and experts alike.

However, when it comes to use for artists, it has one major downfall that may be a dealbreaker: Once you pick your template, you cannot change it under any circumstance. This can be a bit limiting for artists, as the ability to change themes can be an integral aspect of showcasing art. Still, that's really the only downside compared to the likes of Squarespace, so if you're surefooted when it comes to these kinds of decisions, we highly recommend Wix.

Check out our Wix review for more information

Wix Pricing

When it comes to showcasing art, Wix offers considerably more plans than Squarespace. You'll be able to choose from four differently priced options, as well as the free plan, which is obviously quite limited, with no custom domain and Wix ads throughout your site.

The first two plans, Combo and Unlimited, are fairly similar. Each provides the basic website builder features you need, like custom domain, no ads, and SSL security certification. The only difference is that the Combo plan has less storage and limited bandwidth, whereas the Unlimited plan, as you can guess, offers unlimited bandwidth for bigger sites.

The next two plans, Pro and VIP, add a lot more, particularly when it comes to selling products. The biggest difference comes in the form of ecommerce features, which allow to you set up an online store. You'll also get a bit more storage and access to advanced features like event calendar and visitor analytics. The only difference between the two plans is that VIP comes with priority support, so you always get helped first.

GoDaddy

Best for easy setup

Whether you've seen the Super Bowl commercials or just like easy-to-use website builders, there's a good chance you've heard of GoDaddy before. What you might not know is that this website builder is great for artists, particularly because it comes at such a low price that you can easily absorb into your budget. Starting at only $7 per month, it's one of the most affordable options on this list. 30-day free trials are available for all plans.

Compared to Wix and Squarespace, though, GoDaddy templates aren't all that attractive. Other than that, GoDaddy provides a solid all-around option that will get your site up and running quickly and easily, so you won't need an IT professional to help you get started.

GoDaddy Pricing

Like Wix, GoDaddy offers a whole bunch of pricing plans, so you can find the right one to fit what you need. You'll find four different pricing plans, as well as the notably limited free plan, which you should likely avoid for long term use if you actually want your art to get noticed.

First off, we've got the Basic plan, which is on the more affordable side of the spectrum when it comes to website builders. You'll get a custom domain, SSL security certification, and access to the analytics dashboard.

Up next is the Premium plan, which most notably adds a wide range of online appointment functionality, which probably isn't super helpful to an artist showcasing their work. Still, you'll also get social media integration and SEO support, which is always helpful to a budding artist. Finally, we've got the Commerce plan, which you can likely guess provides ecommerce features to sell products from your site.

Best Website Builders for Selling Art

Let's be honest, showcasing art and selling art are two very different beasts. While you might be looking for a certain aesthetic to showcase your art, arguably the most important thing to consider when selling your art is ecommerce features. Otherwise, you won't be able to effectively produce revenue and build your business by selling your art.

Subsequently, the best website builders for selling art are often the best ecommerce website builders that can enable this kind of functionality. Take a look at some of the options below to get a better idea of what you're working with when it comes to selling your art.

• Shopify – best for larger ecommerce businesses
• BigCommerce – best for inventory management
• Wix – best overall website builder

Shopify

Best for larger ecommerce businesses

If you're looking to sell your art — or anything really — Shopify has to be your go-to option across the board. Between the massive selection of ecommerce features and the multichannel integrations, this platform provides everything you need to set up and online store and then some.

Unfortunately, from an aesthetic standpoint, Shopify is not nearly as impressive as Wix or Squarespace. The design functionality is much more limited, so you won't have as much control over what your site looks like. Still, you really can't beat Shopify when it comes to actually selling stuff, which is why it's our top choice for artists looking to sell their art.

Shopify Pricing

Shopify offers five different pricing plans with a wide range of varying features and functionalities for your online store. One of the primary differences between the pricing plans — Lite, Basic, Shopify, Advanced, and Plus — is that the transaction rates differ from plan to plan. This could end up saving you money in the long run, if you take note of how they affect your business.

Outside of that, the different plans offer increasingly robust analytics the more you pay, so you can see how your art is selling in a comprehensive way. The standard Shopify plan is our most recommended option, as it comes with a lot of features and discounts while keeping the price relatively low for your business.

BigCommerce

Best for inventory management

Well-established artists looking to sell a lot of art will find BigCommerce a stellar option for website building. It provides some top-tier inventory management features that will help you keep track of your many pieces and sell them in a quick and efficient manner. Plus, you won't have to endure any transaction fees, which is always a great sign in an ecommerce website builder.

Additionally, BigCommerce is geared towards larger companies, so smaller art selling operations should probably stay away. You'll also have to endure some complicated pricing plans based on annual turnover, which is not ideal if you aren't a larger organization. On the other hand, it's a very user-centric design for artists, so your potential customers will have an easy time supporting you.

BigCommerce Pricing

There are no two ways about it; BigCommerce is pretty expensive. With the cheapest plan at $30 per month and the most expensive plan coming in at $270 per month, it would be easy to spend too much. However, because BigCommerce is aimed at larger companies and provides its service with no transaction fees, you could end up saving money if you're the right business.

It is worth noting that each progressive plan allows for more maximum sales, with only the bespoke Enterprise plan allowing for unlimited sales. Subsequently, this should be one of the main drivers in deciding which pricing plan to opt for.

Wix

Best overall website builder

That's right, Wix is not only a great option for showcasing art, but it also has a wide range of ecommerce features that can help you sell your art as well. The stylish design makes for an attractive website for artists, and you'll be able to get your online store set up quickly thanks to its dedicated ecommerce plans.

There are obvious downsides, though. While the standard Wix platform is easy to use, the ecommerce features throw a wrench in the works, making the website building process a bit more complicated than you'd like. Still, if you're looking for a combination of stylish and functional when it comes to showcasing and selling art, Wix is likely going to be your best option.

Wix Pricing

We've been over Wix pricing for business plans, but Wix has another set of pricing plans just for ecommerce businesses. The three plans — Basic, Unlimited, and VIP — offer many of the same tools, varying almost exclusively on how much storage they provide users.

The more expensive plans add some advanced features as well, including subscriptions, loyalty program integrations, drop shipping functionality, and product reviews. These plans are quite competitively priced, and again Wix is our top-rated website builder overall, so you could do a lot worse for your art than selling it on this website builder.

How to Make a Free Artist Website

The stereotype of “starving artists” is anything but exaggeration. The need to keep your budget tight and your revenue flowing is an important one and trying to save money with a free website builder is more than understandable.

Fortunately, there are a few options. In regard to the options on this list, Wix and GoDaddy both offer free forever plans that will allow you to make a website, get it live, and showcase your art without dipping into your own profits. Additionally, other cheap website builders we've reviewed like Jimdo provide free options, so you don't have to pay to get your site live.

Unfortunately, these free plans are quite limited. In most cases, that don't allow for custom URLs, which can be a serious hit to your SEO, and they rarely provide ecommerce features for actually selling your art. Moreover, the design aspect of these free plans is often seriously lacking, which will impede your own ability to be as artistic as you need.

Simply put, website builders often cost less than $10 per month, and the return on investment can make a serious impact on your own artistic endeavors.

Verdict: What is the best website builder for artists?

We've done the research, and we found that Squarespace remains the best website builder for artists, as it provides an unmatched aesthetic experience that pairs well with showcasing art. It offers creative flexibility, minimalistic design, and an overall vibe that is perfect for artists looking to get their work out there for potentials customers to enjoy.

However, if you're specifically looking to sell your art, our research found that Shopify is likely your best option, as it provides the most robust ecommerce tools on the market, including diverse multichannel integrations to build an all-in-one platform for your art.

If you're looking to get started with a website builder today, we recommend you check out our website builder comparison page for more information. You'll be able to find out exactly how much a top-quality website builder will cost your business, without any commitment to buy.

Frequently Asked Questions