5 Most Customizable Website Builders For Small Businesses

Customizable website builders let you fine-tune your website so it’s able to match your specific vision and reflect your brand’s unique identity. They also ensure your site contains all the components it needs to be functional, which is why we think it should be one of the top priorities for users building a site.

After extensively researching and user-testing the best website builders for small businesses, we found that Wix offers the most flexibility, due to its vast selection of templates, and army of useful integrations. Squarespace came in a close second though, due to its granular drag-and-drop builder that lets you customize your site’s look down to the pixel.

We’ve ranked and reviewed the most customizable website builders on the market, taking into consideration factors like template selections, design flexibility, and app stores. Read on to see how our favorites weigh up — whether you’re planning to build a simple landing page or an all-singing-all-dancing online store.

In this guide:

• What Is the Most Customizable Website Builder?
• Why Should Customization Be a Top Priority?
• What Key Features To Look For in a Customizable Website Builder?
• Should I Use a Website Builder or Hire a Web Developer?
• How Did We Research The Most Customizable Website Builders?
• Our Verdict: Wix is the Most Customizable Website Builder

If you want to leave cookie-cutter websites in the past, see which of our best-rated website builders offer the best customizability. Or, for a quick digest of how these solutions compare, check out our website builder comparison page to weigh them up at a glance.

What Is the Most Customizable Website Builder?

If you want to build a website that’s as unique as your business, you’re in the right place. Click the links below for in-depth reviews of the most customizable website builders on the market.

1. Wix — Most customizable website builder overall
2. Squarespace – Most precise drag-and-drop website editor
3. Hostinger – Best AI customization tools
4. Shopify – Most customizable ecommerce website builder
5. GoDaddy – Best customizable builder for a fast set-up

1. Wix

• Most customizable website builder overall
• Pricing from: $17 per month

Wix is an industry-leading website builder that performed incredibly well in our independent user testing and testing, due to its impressive stack of features and its wide selection of customizable templates.

In fact, Wix is the best website builder we reviewed overall, and will be a reliable option for most small businesses – especially those who want full control over the look of their website.

Check out our Wix website builder review for more information

How customizable is Wix?

If you want your website to stand out from the search engine results page (SERPs), Wix’s extensive template library gives you a great jump-off point. The website builder currently lets you choose between over 900 website templates – more than any other provider on this list. Wix offers themes for niche industries like electronics and music & entertainment too, which can’t be said for alternatives like Squarespace and Shopify.

Furthermore, even if you choose a popular template, you can heavily customize the layout of your website using Wix’s drag-and-drop builder. Wix’s intuitive editor lets you add, move, and edit elements easily, and its grid system helps you ensure everything is in alignment. If you don’t want to use one of Wix’s pre-selected color palettes, the provider even gives you the chance to customize the colors in your theme by using your cursor or entering the exact color in HEX, RGB, or HSB values.

We found the text editor in Wix easy to use. Source: Tech.co’s user testing

In addition to choosing from Wix’s vast gallery of stock images, the provider even lets you create visual content using its AI-powered image generator. I was really impressed with this capability when we were building a test site. All I had to do was enter a descriptive prompt, and Wix’s tool created an image that matched what I was looking for.

Wix AI image generator let me create a one-of-a-kind image to use on my website. Source: Tech.co user testing

Whether you’re creating a blog or an online store, Wix’s built-in solutions ensure that your one-of-a-kind website is highly functional as well. For example, the platform seamlessly integrates with schedule and booking features, as well as ecommerce tools to ensure your website fulfills its purpose. Even if Wix’s in-house toolkit falls short, Wix’s App Market lets you integrate with over 800 third-party apps, boosting its potential even further.

However, for all of Wix’s strengths, the builder doesn’t let you edit your website after it’s live. Due to its wealth of features its interface isn’t as easy to navigate as design-focused builders like Squarespace either. As a result, if you’re looking for an ultra-low learning curve, and want to regularly switch up the look of your website, we’d recommend using Squarespace instead.

Learn more about how the providers compare in our Wix vs Squarespace guide.

Wix Pricing

Wix offers four main pricing plans, and users are capable of upgrading to different packages if their needs evolve over time. Wix also offers a free plan, but it will limit you to using Wix-branded subdomains and you’ll also have to deal with adverts appearing on your site.

Take a look at how Wix’s pricing plans weigh up in or comparison table below, or check out our guide to Wix pricing for more information.

2. Squarespace

• Most precise drag-and-drop website editor
• Pricing from: $16 per month

Squarespace is a design-focused website builder that gives Wix a run for its money when it comes to customizability. Specifically, its drag-and-drop editor Fluid Engine lets you fine-tune every aspect of your site design, making the builder especially useful for creative businesses with a very precise vision. Our research also found Squarespace to be the easiest website beginner for beginners, due to its low-learning curve and simple interface.

However, with only 177 templates, and slightly more limited design flexibility than Wix and Hostinger, we were unable to place the provider higher on this list.

How customizable is Squarespace?

Squarespace’s template selection may pale in comparison to Wix’s, but they can’t be faulted on design. All of Squarespace’s professionally designed 177+ templates are fully responsive and can be customized to align with your specific needs and preferences. Unlike with our frontrunner, you’re able to switch your website’s template after publishing, giving you the option to experiment with your site’s design over time.

Squarespace offers some of the best-designed templates in the industry, including this Graphic Design Website Template. Source: Tech.co user testing

The provider’s drag-and-drop editor – Fluid Engine – uses a 24-column grid system that lets users precisely position content anywhere on the page. Users can also resize content blocks within sections, allowing them to make more granular changes than they would be able to with other website builders on this list.

Squarespace’s Fluid Engine let me customize my website to the pixel, using its drag-and-drop capability. Source: Tech.co user testing

If you want to save time, the provider’s AI builder Squarespace Blueprint is capable of building a highly unique site too. Just enter a simple site brief that describes what you want for your website and wait for Squarespace to work its magic. After a template site is created based on your specific preferences, you can use input additional prompts to personalize every detail of your website, including its layout, content, and images.

However, after trying out Squarespace Blueprint, I found that its AI-generated websites were slightly more generic than AI builders like Wix and Hosinger. Therefore, if creating a highly unique website is your top priority, we’d recommend using Squarespace’s manual builder instead.

Want to build a website in a couple of minutes? See how the best AI website builders compare.

Squarespace Pricing

Squarespace offers two web-building packages: Personal ($16 per month) and Business ($23 per month), and two eccomerce packages: Basic ($27 per month), or Advanced ($49 per month).

While the provider’s prices can’t compete with cheaper alternatives like Hostinger and GoDaddy, its user experience and superior feature offering make it a better value overall. Take a look at how Squarespace’s plans compare side by side:

3. Hostinger

• Best AI-powered customization features
• Pricing from: $1.95 Black Friday Deal (Usually $2.49 per month) 

Hostinger is a user-friendly website builder with an ever-evolving raft of AI features. The website builder lets you choose between over 150 professionally designed templates. While this selection might not be as vast as Wix’s, all of its themes are fully customizable, so you don’t have to worry about your website looking generic.

Hostinger’s entry price of $2.49 per month (though currently discounted to $1.95 for Black Friday) makes it one of the cheapest website builders out there as well, making it a great choice for small businesses creating a site for the first time.

How customizable is Hostinger?

Just like with Wix, all of Hostinger’s templates are able to be extensively edited using the provider’s drag-and-drop builder. Specifically, users are able to move around content blocks to suit their preferences and rearrange elements with a couple of clicks.

In addition to fine-tuning the look of your website, Hostinger also lets you create custom brand-building material like logos from scratch. To use Hostinger’s AI logo maker, all you need to do is submit your brand details and what you want from the design, and voilà! If you aren’t happy with how it initially turns out you’re also able to tweak it until it matches your vision.

Hostinger’s AI website builder allows you to download an AI-generated logo for free. Source: Tech.co user testing

While Hostinger offers businesses a low-cost way to make a unique-looking site, it’s not perfect. Unlike every other provider on this list, Hostinger doesn’t have an app marketplace. This means that if the builder doesn’t offer the capability you need, there’s no option for you to access the tool externally.

While this shouldn’t be an issue for those building a simple business site, users looking for specific functions like chatbot integrations and advanced SEO tools will probably be best going for Wix or Squarespace, which all things considered, are marginally more customizable and expansive.

Hostinger pricing

In contrast to many website builders, Hostinger’s pricing structure is about as simple as it gets. The provider offers two affordable plans: Premium ($2.49 per month) and Business ($3.49 per month). However, the catch is that the plans stay at this price for two years, before rising to $7.99 per month and $8.99 per month respectively.

Both packages include a free domain name, but if you’re building an online store, or want to make the most of the provider’s AI tools, you’ll have to go for Hostinger Premium.

See how the pricing tiers compare below:

4. Shopify

• Most customizable ecommerce website builder
• Pricing from: $29 per month

Shopify is a popular ecommerce website builder stacked with just about every sales and marketing feature imaginable. After Wix, it topped our list of the best ecommerce website builders due to its stand-out features like social media selling and global delivery, native POS integration, and slick usability

According to our research and first-hand testing, it’s fully capable of creating a highly unique website too, with the ecommerce builder offering tons of customization options for themes, products, and checkouts.

How customizable is Shopify?

Shopify’s Theme Store is home to over 100 free and premium ecommerce website themes. Users are able to customize most aspects of the templates, including their color, layout, and fonts. What’s more, Advanced plan users are able to make custom code edits to their themes using CCS code. While this requires a little bit of technical expertise, it enables users to make enhanced tweaks like adding animations and interactive maps and displaying different content based on user preferences.

Shopify also offers a wealth of product customization options. You’re able to edit products by size, color, and style, and you can also create variations based on these choices, up to a limit of 100 variants per product. Unlike other website builders on this list, Shopify also lets you edit the appearance of your checkout by adding logos or editing its fonts and colors.

Shopify’s expansive app store let me integrate my POS with a wide range of apps. Source: Tech.co user testing

If you want to make more sophisticated customizations to your site, you can use a variety of Shopify add-ons to take it a step further. For example, Shopify’s PageFly integration lets you create custom landing pages, homepages, and producer pages using an intuitive drag-and-drop builder, while Bold Product Options allows you to add features like custom fields to your items.

Shopify definitely has a leg up over other ecommerce builders in this domain, with the builder letting augment the platform with over 8,000 apps, with competitors like BigCommerce offering around 100 in comparison.

Shopify pricing

Since Shopify is an ecommerce-focused website builder, its plans are slightly more expensive than basic website building packages. The provider offers three website building plans in total: Basic ($29 per month), Shopify ($79 per month), and Advanced ($299 per month).

If you already have a website up and running and are just looking to benefit from Shopify’s social media selling feature, you can use its Starter plan for as little as $5 per month.

See how Shopify’s main plans compare below:

5. GoDaddy

• Best customizable builder for a fast set-up
• Pricing from: $9.99 per month

GoDaddy is a simple yet effective website builder that helps you set up a website in under 30 seconds, a unique feat that no other website on this list is able to achieve. While it doesn’t boast as many advanced features as Wix and Squarespace, the builder is perfectly capable of building a unique website, due to its flexible templates and suite of useful AI features.

How customizable is GoDaddy?

GoDaddy’s AI builder – GoDaddy Airo™ – lets you set up a fully customizable website in a few short steps. All you need to do is enter some key site details, including your business name, category, and purpose, and GoDaddy does the hard work for you.

You can then personalize the content, layout, and design to fit your vision. What’s more, if you’re an advanced user you’re able to take it one step further by editing the websites code. This custom code feature gives you the option to add custom forms, maps, and special-function buttons, and incorporate third-party widgets using CSS, HTML, or JavaScript code.

After I created my website using AI, I could choose between different themes to have control over the look of my site. Source: Tech.co user testing

While GoDaddy’s simple platform will be ideal for some businesses, it has a number of number of limitations that prevent it from appearing any higher on this list. Specifically, its drag-and-drop editor is much less intuitive than the ones provided by other website builders. For instance, when I tested GoDaddy, I found it quite hard to edit the size of large headers and images. There were also certain restrictions in place when I tried to change the placement of elements.

This, and GoDaddy’s limited third-party app store, makes the builder a lot less capable than Wix and Squarespace at producing one-of-a-kind sites. However, if you’re looking to build a relatively simple site, like a landing page or business profile, GoDaddy’s customization options should be able to meet your needs.

Learn more about the provider in our GoDaddy website builder review

GoDaddy pricing

GoDaddy offers two website builder plans: Basic ($9.99 per month) and Premium ($14.99 per month), and one ecommerce plan: Commerce ($20.99 per month).

GoDaddy may not offer a free tier, but it’s entry price is very competitive. GoDaddy’s Basic plan is pretty rudimentary though, so if you aren’t able to get by without features like SEO or social media integration, we’d recommend opting for Basic and Premium instead.

What Key Features To Look For in a Customizable Website Builder?

Finding a website builder that prioritizes customizability isn’t always smooth sailing. If you want to create a highly distinctive website without outsourcing the job to a professional, keep an eye out for the following attributes when shopping for a website builder:

• Range of templates – Templates give you an excellent jump-off point to build a unique site. While themes can always be personalized, we’d recommend prioritizing builders with a wide selection of templates in the first place so it’s even easier to differentiate your site from competitors.
• Intuitive drag-and-drop editors – In 2024, most website builders rely on drag-and-drop editors, but some allow you to make much more precise modifications than others. If you have a really specific vision in mind when it comes to your site layout, we’d recommend prioritizing builders like Squarespace that let you control your site’s design down to the pixel.
• App stores – If you want your website to carry out specific purposes, it’s likely that builders won’t have the features you need in their in-house software. To make sure that your needs will always be met, even if your business evolves over time, we recommend choosing a builder with a large selection of third-party integrations.
• Custom code edits – If you have a little coding experience, it is also worth considering website builders that give you the option to add your own code to a page you are editing. Using this capability will help you take site customization to the next level, by enabling you to add custom elements and make granular changes to the design of your pages.

Should I Use a Website Builder or Hire a Web Developer?

Website builders have come a very long way in recent years. In 2024, websites built with DIY builders are able to be highly unique, and practically indistinguishable from those crafted by professional designers. Moreover, thanks to the affordable price of code-free platforms, and the rise of AI website builders, it’s much quicker and cheaper to use a website builder than ever before.

However, while website builders let you customize your site to a high degree, web designers build your website from scratch – ensuring it will be completely one-of-a-kind and designed to match your brief perfectly. Therefore, for businesses with very unique site requirements, standard website builders may not be able to cut the mustard. To help you decide which course of action is best for you, we’ve outlined some additional pointers below:

You should use a website builder if…

• You’re building a standard website or ecommerce store
• You have the time to build a website yourself
• You don’t have a big budget to invest in site design
• You want to get a site live quickly

You should hire a web designer if…

• You have complex or highly specific site requirements
• You run an enterprise-level business and need a site to match
• You lack technical experience or don’t have the time to build a website

How Did We Rate the Best Website Builder?

We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we’re giving you the clearest, most useful product recommendations.

Based on years of market and user needs research, we’ve established a website builder testing methodology that scores each product in six main categories of investigation, including website building features, design, customer satisfaction, ease of use, value for money, and help and support. We use this research framework to identify the leading website builders on the market, and to assess how capable they are of meeting the needs of different types of businesses.

Then, when figuring out which of these builders prioritize customizability, we assess factors like template libraries, the precision of their drag-and-drop builders, the presence of advanced customized options like code editors, and whether or not they offer expansive app stores. By comparing these factors, alongside the strength of the builders as a whole, we were able to rank the solutions in order of their overall suitability.

Learn more about our research.