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 fast. Check out our handy website builder comparison quiz to expedite your search with personalized recommendations based on your answers.

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 and 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 and Selling Art

In our research, we found that there are a lot of website builders that could be a good fit for artists looking to showcase and sell their art. To rate these providers, we focused on their design functionality score for our in-depth research, as this category focused on the ability to impact how the website actually looks to your visitors.

Here are the top website builders for showcasing and selling art:

• Squarespace – Best for stylish templates
• Wix – Best overall website builder
• Shopify – best for selling art online
• GoDaddy – Best for easy set up
• Hostinger – best for businesses on a budget

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.

For selling art, Squarespace offers plenty of ecommerce features that get the job done, although they aren't nearly as robust as options from Wix or Shopify. However, Squarespace shines when it comes to marketing, with the platform recently adding a bevy of app store integrations that focus on marketing your products to new customers.

Check out our Squarespace pricing guide for more information

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace offers four different pricing plans, although only three of them will allow you to sell your art from the site.

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. No ecommerce features are available for this plan, though, so you can't sell your art.

The Business plan opens things up a bit more, adding very basic ecommerce features to sell products like your art, as well as added customization features, advanced analytics, and unlimited contributors to your website. You will have a 3% transaction fee too, which can really cut into your sales.

The Basic Commerce plan is where the more advanced ecommerce features come in, like customer profiles, product reviews, and the ability to sell on social channels. Plus, you get rid of transaction fees, so all your sales go to you.

The Advanced Commerce plan really ramps up these features, adding abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping, and the ability to sell subscriptions.

Wix

The best overall website builder

Our research may show that Wix is the best website builder overall, but it did fall short of Squarespace when it comes to showcasing and selling art, only because it doesn't offer the same beautiful templates and design flexibility. Still, it has an unmatched number of features, plenty of templates for everyone, and a general ease of use that is inviting to non-experts and experts alike.

The platform is great at driving in traffic too, thanks to its partnership with Semrush which gives users access to over 21 billion keywords, and its revised SEO settings which let you control your data from one central dashboard. Plus, it offers some solid ecommerce features that allow for the sale of unlimited products, even at the lowest price point of $27 per month.

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. That's really the only downside compared to the likes of Squarespace, though, 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 and selling art, Wix offers considerably more plans than Squarespace. You'll be able to choose from three standard website plans and four ecommerce plans, 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.

Then, there are the three ecommerce plans, Basic, Unlimited, and VIP, which enable you to sell your art. Each plan allows for unlimited products, customer accounts, and abandoned cart recovery. The more expensive plans add features like subscriptions and loyalty programs.

Shopify

Best for selling art online

If you want to focus on selling 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 — Starter, 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.

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 $9.99 per month, it's one of the most affordable options on this list, although you'll have to pay at least $16.99 per month if you want access to ecommerce features to sell your art. There's no free plan like Wix, either, but you can take advantage of the lengthy 30-day free trials for all plans.

Compared to the likes of Squarespace, 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.

Check out our GoDaddy review for more information

For selling art, GoDaddy ecommerce plans are still quite affordable compared to other options on this list, although the features are a bit limited and you'll have to endure transaction fees, even on the most expensive plan. Still, if you're worried about getting set up fast and don't want to spend too much, GoDaddy could be your best bet.

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 up to 5,000 products from your site, and the Commerce Pro plan, which allows for unlimited products while adding some automation features to speed up your tax processing.

Hostinger

Best for businesses on a budget

As the most affordable option on the list at only $2.99 per month, Hostinger is very clearly the budget choice on the list. Unfortunately, what it has in affordability it makes up for with limited functionality, as its feature catalog is dwarfed by other website builders like Wix and Squarespace.

Check out our Hostinger review for more information

Still, from an artist's perspective, Hostinger offers more templates than you'd expect and ecommerce features are available at the low starting point, so you really can't ask for a more affordable option. Remember, though, if you want to scale down the line, it's going to be a lot easier with other providers, as Hostinger is pretty limiting for larger site.

Hostinger Pricing

Hostinger only has one pricing plan that costs $2.99 per month. Simply, easy, not much to ponder over if you're going for the most affordable option. This plan comes with the more than 100 templates from Hostinger, ecommerce features, marketing integrations, a free domain, and 24/7 customer support.

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 offers a free forever plan 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 doesn'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.

Frequently Asked Questions