Best Website Builders for Small Business 2021

The best website builders will allow any business, whatever their level of tech expertise, to create a brilliant experience for customers and clients.

At the moment, the best website builder for small businesses is Wix. That being said, Wix would work for a business of almost any size – it's a seriously powerful piece of software.

However, it's not the only website builder you should consider. Weebly has a great range of features, particularly when it comes to marketing. Squarespace is unrivaled when it comes to design quality, and is a great choice for ecommerce sites and portfolios. GoDaddy, meanwhile, is super straightforward.

We'll go into more detail on each website builder below.

In this guide:

• What is the Best Website Builder for Small Business?
• What to Look for in a Website Builder for Small Business
• How Much Does a Website Builder for Small Business Cost?
• Should Small Business use a Free Website Builder?

*Use code ‘TECHCO10′ for a 10% discount on Squarespace

What is the Best Website Builder for Small Business?

Every website builder claims to do the same thing: they'll allow you to create your dream website quickly, easily and cheaply. However, not all website builders are cut out for the demands of modern businesses, no matter how big or small.

1. Wix – The best for businesses thanks to its excellent features, attractive pricing, and great templates
2. Squarespace – The best choice for creative business, thanks to class-leading template designs
3. Weebly – Almost as good as Wix, but slightly more expensive
4. GoDaddy – Very straightforward, though there are limits to its features and customization

Wix for Small Business

Best for marketing tools and versatility

Wix is our favorite website builder, and it’s the perfect way to get your business online. It’s simply unmatched for the amount and quality of the features it offers – everything from SEO tools to accounting and invoicing apps and excellent online store tools.

Wix offers a range of great-looking website templates, all of which are mobile responsive – a crucial feature for this day and age, as most internet traffic now comes from mobile devices.

Wix business pricing plans

It also offers a great variety of pricing plans, which makes it an ideal website builder that will scale alongside your business as it grows. Wix price plans cost between $8.50 and $35 per month. Its ecommerce plan, which gives you access to an online store from $20 per month, is a great choice for anyone in the retail industry.

Squarespace for Small Business

Best for exceptional design

Squarespace prides itself on having the best-looking website builder templates on the market, and we have to agree. Squarespace only offers 91 templates, but each of them is fantastic, and will set you well on your way to creating a stunning website.

However, that's not to say that Squarespace sites are all style and no substance. Each template is designed to work seamlessly, whether viewed on mobile phones, tablets, or a regular old computer. This attention to detail is perfect for businesses in the creative industries – a photographer, musician, or writer, for example.

Using Squarespace for ecommerce

And that's not all. Squarespace, thanks to its excellent ecommerce platform, would make a great choice for businesses that sell products online. You're able to add products in bulk, and edit them within the same window. Adding payment options, from credit cards to Apple Pay, is a walk in the park as well.

Find out more in our full Squarespace for Ecommerce Review

Weebly for Small Business

Best for a straightforward set-up 

Weebly can’t quite match Wix, but it's still an excellent website builder. Creating an account and starting to create your website is incredibly straightforward and fast – you can even sign up with a Facebook account alone. You’ll then be able to take a look at the excellent website templates on offer, which – unlike with Wix – can be changed later after you’ve first published your site.

As with Wix, there’s a great variety of apps – everything from Facebook Messenger chat boxes to product review widgets. Integrating these apps into your site is straightforward, and you won’t need to add a single line of code. They will help to enhance the usability and usefulness of your business’ website, and should keep customers coming back for more!

Weebly Free vs Professional

Weebly also offers a free version, which you can use indefinitely. However, business users will prefer to pick one of the four paid versions. The Performance plan costs $26 per month, and gives you functionality for hosting an online shop. The Professional plan costs $12 per month and is great for service businesses, such as construction companies or restaurants.

GoDaddy for Small Business

Best for a streamlined experience

GoDaddy's more stripped down website builder offers a few solid features, but is ultimately more limited than similar offerings which those in need of a website might turn to instead. It's certainly a big brand, however, with 76 million domains to its name. Here are the benefits and disadvantages to consider.

First, the good: GoDaddy is easy to use. You can sign up quickly, figure out the simple website editor with ease, and if you're stuck at any point, there's always 24/7 phone support to help you along.

Unfortunately, the website editor's simplicity is also a negative, as you can't do a lot with it. Other downers: There's no live chat or email support, a limited selection of apps, a blogging system that won't even allow hyperlinks or H2 headings, and an overall lack of versatility.

GoDaddy pricing plans

Four plans are available, plus a 30-day free trial, with prices ranging from $5.99/month to $29.99/month. However, the negatives outweigh the positives on this one. Unless you're already using GoDaddy, you're likely better off with a website builder that has more to offer.

Why use a Website Builder for your Small Business?

A website builder will help any small business, regardless of industry, to attract and retain customers and make more money, namely because studies show that 94% of your business' first impression comes from how you design your look.

By creating a slick, professional-looking website using a builder, you'll have a range of tools at your disposal that you wouldn't have otherwise.

For example, you'll be able create contact and booking forms to get more information out of your customers earlier. When do they want an appointment? What sort of service are they looking for? All these questions can be answered by the customer, without you wasting time on the phone. Many website builders will also help you craft email marketing campaigns to bring customers to your site – if you're running a promotion, for example.

Website builders are significantly cheaper than hiring a website developer to build you a site from scratch. Plus, you won't be locked into a lengthy retainer with a developer, and you'll be able to update your own website quickly and easily.

If you're looking to sell products online, a website builder is the best way to get started, with dedicated ecommerce templates and built-in features to help you add products and manage your inventory.

What to Look for in a Website Builder for Small Business

Of course, different types of website require different features. As you’re running a business site, a platform that’s great for blogging isn’t likely to be at the top of your priority list. However, easy-to-use contact forms might be. Below, we run through the most important website builder features for businesses.

Choice of Templates

First impressions count, and if your website looks great, customers will likely think that your business is great, too.

This means you’ll need to find a builder with a good range of template designs, and hopefully ones that are tailored for the industry you’re working in. This should make things far less stressful when it comes to building and running your website. For instance, many web builder platforms have excellent templates for restaurants, or for building firms.

Ecommerce Options

If your business sells products, you’ll need an ecommerce function. Most website builders offer you the ability to sell products on the site you’re building. However, some do it better than others.

Wix’s eCommerce package is great value for money, but you’ll have to do a fair amount of manual setup. Site123’s package, however, takes care of everything apart from adding your products. Website builders often add fees per transaction on cheaper ecommerce plans – if you’re selling in high volumes, or work on low profit margins, you’ll want to read the small print.

Tracking and Analytics

These might sound complicated, but they're basically the way to track how customers come to, interact with, and leave your website – the same way you’d want to know how many people come into your store every day.

This will help you work out whether you need to change your design, move things around, or change the tools you use. It’ll also help you understand how customers arrive on your website. Are they searching for businesses like yours on Google, or are they coming straight to your site? This type of information will help you adapt your website, and pick up customers you might be missing out on.

Most website builders will offer some analytics software baked into your package. However, these solutions can be a bit limited, so look for ones that will allow you to install a Google Analytics plugin – this is really the gold standard for analytics tracking.

App Selection

A website builder needs to have a good app selection if you’re planning to create a business website. These apps can help turn your website from a boring, bland text fest into an all-singing, all-dancing, clickable extravaganza.

Contact forms, appointment or reservation booking, coupon codes, gift cards, chat bots and more can all be added to your site – as long as you pick the right website builder.

Branding

If you've spent years building up your brand’s name and logo recognition, the last thing you want is to have a website covered with someone else’s branding. Or, even worse – someone else’s adverts.

Most website builders will remove adverts when you sign up to a paid-for package, but not all of them will remove their own branding from your site. Make sure the website builder you choose will keep your branding front and center – not someone else’s.

How Much Does a Website Builder for Small Business Cost?

When building a website for your small business, you should expect to pay somewhere between $20-40 per month.

Of course, the price you pay will depend on the features you need from your website.

For example, if you're looking to make a fairly straightforward site with a contact or booking form, testimonials, and some online marketing tools, you could certainly use Wix's $17 per month Unlimited plan.

The unlimited plan will give you all the features you need to run a small business website. For example, you'll get unlimited bandwidth — meaning that there are no restrictions on the amount of people that can visit your site every month. Plus, you'll get 10GB of storage for videos, photos, or other content you want to upload.

What's more, you'll also get access to the Site Booster and Form Builder apps. The Site Booster app gives you a range of SEO tools, while the Form Builder app lets you create interactive forms to engage with potential customers.

However, if you're looking to run a small online store, you should expect to pay slightly more.

Wix's ecommerce plans start from $20 per month. However, we like Squarespace for ecommerce.

Squarespace's ecommerce plans start from $26 per month. They'll give you all the tools to run a small online store, with easy accounting and product management features.

To see how much each website builder will cost you, check out our interactive comparison chart here.

Should a Small Business use a Free Website Builder?

If we're honest, no. There are simply too many downsides to using a free website builder for your business for us to recommend this as a smart business decision.

Pros and cons of free website builders:

Pros

• It's free
• You can get your business online quickly

Cons

• Limited customization
• Poor SEO, meaning no one will find your site
• Weak branding
• Little to no customer support

Branding

If you opt for a free website builder, it's likely that your site will be covered with adverts for the website builder you've used – or even worse, other companies. This won't make your business look particularly trustworthy or professional.

It's also likely that you'll still have the website builder's name at the end of your site's URL – meaning it would read as something like “yourbusiness.weebly.com”. Again, there's a reason the biggest businesses in the world don't do this.

Features

With a free site, you won't have access to the same roster of features as you would with a paid-for package. This can leave you missing out on analytics, or even ecommerce features.

This might mean that you could miss out on potential customers, as you won't be able to optimize your site to give them the best experience.

Availability

Not all website builders even offer free packages. Big names such as GoDaddy completely eschew a free version in favor of giving their paying website owners access to 24/7, on-the-phone support in case they have any problems – useful if your site goes down in the middle of the night just before Thanksgiving.

Even popular services, such as Squarespace, offer limited time free trials (typically between a week and a month), so you might not be able to access the service you want for free anyway.

Overall, if you're serious about your business, you should be serious about its website. Opt for a paid-for package, rather than a free one, and you won't regret it.