7 best website builders for small businesses in 2024

Gone are the days of needing to spend thousands of pounds getting a web developer to build and maintain a website for your business. Website builders make it affordable and easy to do it yourself, even without any prior expertise. With costs that can come in at under £100 per year, and simple templates to get you started, a website builder is our top reocmmended way of creating a business site.

So when you’re searching for your website builder, you want to ensure it’s highly functional, offers beautiful designs, loads quickly, and equips you with all the analytics tools you need to help your website traffic grow. But which website builder is right for your business?

From our first hand user testing, we found that Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify are the best providers to choose if you want to create a professional site.

In this comprehensive ranking, we give you all the details about what each provider offers in terms of features, user friendliness, value for money, customer service, pros, cons, and more. Our recommendations are fruit of hundreds of hours of in-house product research and testing. With our focus on what small businesses, this guide should give you the confidence to choose the website builder that works best for your brand.

We also collaborated with real-life small business owners to find out the common pain points, such as social media integrations, page loading time, and which platforms were the best at helping them overcome these obstacles.

Read on for our take on the best website builders to choose for creating your own business site.

Website Builder comparison table

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BEST ALL ROUND	BEST FOR ONLINE STORES
Wix	Shopify	Squarespace	GoDaddy	Site123	WordPress.com	Hostinger
BEST FOR Best all-round website builder for small businesses	BEST FOR Best for dedicated sales features when selling online	BEST FOR Design flexibility & businesses looking to scale	BEST FOR Ease of use and simplicity	BEST FOR Help and support	BEST FOR Blogging tools	BEST FOR Cheap builder
Overall Score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 4.8	Overall Score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 4.0	Overall Score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 4.6	Overall Score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 4.4	Overall Score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 3.7	Overall Score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 3.6	Overall Score Based on our in-depth research and user testing 3.6
Price £9-£119 per month £8.10-£107.10 with code “TAKE10”	Price £5-£259 per month, billed annually £1 for first month	Price £12-£35 per month, billed annually Use code “SU10” to receive a 10% discount on all Squarespace plans	Price £6.99-£12.99 per month, billed annually (first term discounts available)	Price $0 – 12.80 per month (about £10.22)	Price £3-£20 per month, billed annually	Price £2.59-£8.99 per month Up to 81% discounted with code “STARTUPS”
Free trial	Free trial	Free trial	Free trial	Free trial	Free trial	Free trial

Prices correct as of January 2024

Our research shows that the best website builder for small businesses is Wix. It boasts an unbeatable range of website features, has over 800 templates, and offers free 24/7 phone and live chat support. Plus, it’s a highly affordable product – its full premium plans start from just £7.50 per month, and you can save 10% of any annual or monthly plans using the code “TAKE10” at checkout.

Squarespace is close behind, offering users design flexibility and stunning templates that certainly give Wix a run for its money.

1. Wix

Best all-round website builder for small businesses

Wix

4.8

Number one website builder for price, features, and usability.

Full Wix Review

• Free trial 14-day
• Price from £9 per month

• Flexible pricing plans
• Good balance of usability and complex features
• Customisable, 'drag-and-drop' templates

Summary Wix is the most popular website builder in the UK. The platform has undoubtedly earned these accolades, with an unparalleled list of features and wide-ranging payment options for every budget. Whether you’re new to website building, or a seasoned expert looking for endless customisability, Wix is an excellent choice. Its pricing is also practical for small businesses, with the Business plan particularly good value at just £25 per month.

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What’s it like building a website with Wix?

The main reason we’ve picked Wix as our top website builder for small businesses is just how easy it makes things when creating a professional looking site. Most small business owners won’t have endless time for learning to code their own site, nor an unlimited budget for paying a web developer to do it for you. Wix makes everything straightforward thanks to its huge range of professional-looking templates. You can choose from any of these, then customise as you go by dropping in your own imagery and text.

It’s no exaggeration to say that with Wix, you can go from having no website at all, to a full, published website in under a day.

Want to see it in action? Here’s an effective overview video from Wix itself:

We also like that Wix is on trend with its Wix ADI and Wix Studio functions that let you build a website using AI within a matter of minutes. All you have to do is give the system some descriptions of your business and Wix will do the rest for you.

When you need to adjust your site design, Wix is an intuitive drag-and-drop website builder that’s a great option for those new to website building. We consider it the easiest platform to use, and it’s only narrowly beaten by Squarespace when it comes to template design and customisability.

The only big drawback with Wix is that once you’ve published your site, you can’t change the template. This means that you can’t make any large-scale or universal changes to your website at a template level once it’s live. If you wanted to rework your template, you’d need to start from scratch.

Nonetheless, Wix has over 800 stunning templates, excellent ecommerce capabilities, and the best drag-and-drop tool we tested. This means that whether you’re completely new to creating websites or keen to customise every inch of your online identity, we think you’ll be pleased with Wix’s offering.

Wix pricing

Wix is one of the best value website builders around, even if it isn’t the lowest cost of all. We have a full Wix pricing guide that breaks down what you’ll get for each tier, though the quick version of plans and costs is as follows:

• Wix free plan – £0 per month
• Wix Light plan – £9 per month
• Wix Core plan  – £16 per month
• Wix Business plan – £25 per month
• Wix Business Elite plan – £119 per month
• Wix Enterprise plan – Bespoke quote

See our table, below, for more on what you get for each Wix pricing point:

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Free plan	Light	Core	Business	Business Elite	Enterprise
Price Free	Price £9 per month £8.10 with code ‘TAKE10’	Price £16 per month £14.40 with code ‘TAKE10’	Price £25 per month £22.50 with code ‘TAKE10’	Price £119 per month £107.10 with code ‘TAKE10’	Price Bespoke

Compare plans at Wix and check for discounts Compare Costs

Wix versus key competitors

Squarespace: While Wix and Squarespace do most of the same things, Squarespace is a little slicker in the design of its website templates. Those with a key aesthetic eye may prefer to opt for Squarespace – say if you’re a photographer, designer or creative freelancer wanting to show off the best of your portfolio. But, for most users looking to create a business website, Wix trumps Squarespace on ease of use.

Shopify: If you’re looking to build an online store, then Shopify is the best ecommerce website builder we’d recommend. Its brilliant range of features are highly optimised for store inventory management and taking payments across various sales channels. Wix is no slouch, though – Wix Ecommerce is our second-ranked online store builder. But Shopify is narrowly the better option.

WordPress: If you’ve the time and expertise for getting under the bonnet of your website, then WordPress will let you code and customise with greater freedom than Wix. This isn’t something that all busy small business owners will want to do, of course. But, for the sheer creative freedom of breaking away from templates and customising a unique site, WordPress is hard to beat.

GoDaddy: While we consider Wix to offer better features and templates, there’s no arguing that you can get a site up and live in record time with GoDaddy. A simple, streamlined approach guides you from scratch with GoDaddy’s website builder – arguably, it’s more limited than the creative freedom you et with Wix, but a small business owner in a hurry may appreciate GoDaddy’s no-nonsense approach and good value plans.

Read our in-depth Wix review for more information

2. Squarespace

Best for design flexibility & creative businesses

Squarespace

4.6

Ideal for professional, creative website building and businesses that appreciate the best help and support available on the web builder market.

Squarespace Full Review

• Free trial 14-day
• Price from £12 per month Use code "SU10" to receive a 10% discount on all Squarespace plans

• Over 100 stunning ready to use templates
• Best knowledge centre on the market
• Use code "SU10" to receive a 10% discount on all Squarespace plans

Summary Squarespace scores extremely highly for creative professionals, and boasts impressive blogging tools. It features over 100 template designs which are fully adaptable to mobile devices, and visually, its websites are unmatched. Recently, vast improvements have been made in vital areas like UX, and the expanded feature list makes great value for money at £17 per month for businesses. However, these incredible designs and templates mean Squarespace's sitespeed can be affected and this is definitely an area that needs improvement. The customisation of the site's features and functions could also be further improved, particularly when compared to Wix.

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Squarespace pricing

Squarespace’s pricing plans are fairly straightforward, and split between the main website builder tiers and the ecommerce plans:

• Personal: £12 a month – not recommended for business sites
• Business: £17 a month – includes ecommerce functionality with 3% transaction fees
• Commerce Basic: £23 a month – ecommerce functionality with 0% transaction fees
• Commerce Advanced: £35 a month – advanced functionality for online selling and shipping with 0% transaction fees

You can read our dedicated Squarespace pricing page for an in-depth look at the different plans.

Squarespace versus key competitors:

Wix: This is a tough one to call. We would say overall that Wix is the easier website builder to use, and it’s the one we’d recommend top for small businesses. But, Squarespace has Wix licked when it comes to the attractiveness of its website templates. That’s not to say Wix’s templates are in any way basic or ugly – but Squarespace is head and shoulders above all competitors on the design front. We’d also say that Wix is the better choice for ecommerce, though you can certainly create a good online store with Squarespace, too. Read our Wix vs Squarespace for small businesses guide to learn more about how they each stack up.

Shopify: As we mentioned in our Wix summary, above, Shopify is as good as it gets when it comes to creating an online store. While a Squarespace online store will look the part thanks to those brilliant templates, Shopify makes things just that bit easier behind the scenes, thanks to its peerless sales functions and inventory management.

WordPress: We definitely prefer the templates Squarespace offers you to when building a site from scratch, to those you can use with WordPress. But, if you want to get stuck into the coding and truly let loose with the design and technical setup of the site, WordPress is the way to go. That’s great news if you’re a confident website designer, but if you’d rather focus on running your business, then we’d steer you towards the far easier-to-use Squarespace.

Read our in-depth Squarespace review for more information

3. GoDaddy

Best for ease of use and simplicity

GoDaddy

4.4

An easy-to-use website builder with good support for beginners

GoDaddy Full Review

• Free plan Yes
• Price from £6.99

• Great value for money
• Excellent SEO support
• Quick and easy to create a website

Summary GoDaddy is known for making it easy for small business owners with little or no website building experience to start growing their business online. Whereas most website builders focus on giving users absolute freedom to create whatever type of website they desire, GoDaddy gets that for a website to be successful online, it needs to be optimised to ensure you're driving as much business as possible. Prices range from £6.99-£12.99 per month for a website.

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GoDaddy pricing

Godaddy’s plans differ in cost depending on whether you choose to pay yearly or monthly:

• GoDaddy Basic plan costs £7.99 per month (annual rate is £4.99 per month).
• GoDaddy Standard plan costs £11.99 per month (annual rate is £7.99 per month).
• GoDaddy Premium plan costs £16.99 per month (annual rate is £11.99 per month).
• GoDaddy Ecommerce plan costs £19.99 per month (annual rate is £13.99 per month).

For a deeper insight into the different GoDaddy pricing plans and what they offer, visit our GoDaddy pricing page.

GoDaddy versus key competitors

Wix: We’d highlight a richer feature set as one of the main reasons to choose Wix over GoDaddy. You’ve a better selection of design templates to choose between with Wix, and more creative control when it comes to customising them. But, there’s a flip-side to that coin. If you don’t want to get stuck in to the nitty gritty, and just want to get a good-looking, reliable website live, fast, then you really can’t miss with GoDaddy. It helps time-poor small business owners to achieve everything they need with minimal friction.

WordPress: You could almost think of WordPress as the opposite of GoDaddy, in some regards. Where GoDaddy will help you launch a site without breaking a sweat, WordPress will encourage you to sweat the small stuff. Want to code and customise? WordPress is your friend. Want to get on with running a business, not working out how to create a website for it? GoDaddy has your back.

Squarespace: GoDaddy and Squarespace are quite closely similar, these days. For years, Squarespace would have been the far better choice because of its much slicker design templates – and that’s still largely true. But GoDaddy’s own templates are catching up fast. They’re not quite as customisable, so those with a design-eye might prefer to stick to Squarespace. That said, GoDaddy is significantly cheaper, especially if you pay for an annual or multi-year plan.

Read our in-depth GoDaddy review for more information

4. Shopify

Best for dedicated sales features when selling online

Shopify

4

Shopify is the ideal platform for small retail businesses that want to build a website and start selling right away.

Shopify Full Review

• FREE TRIAL 3-day
• PRICE FROM £5 per month

• Best range of apps and extensions for ecommerce sites
• Preempts and predicts what a merchant might need next in all aspects of creating a website
• Easy drag-and-drop functionality allowing you to design your website with limited fuss

Summary Shopify is perfect for users looking for that all in one online store solution. Its ability to predict what a merchant will need next when creating a website is a brilliant feature, and its countless apps give you complete control over your business, enabling you to grow through diverse multi channel integration options and automated SMS and email marketing. It is definitely better suited to store owners with complex, larger inventories and because there are fewer built in features, using the platform can get expensive compared to other feature-filled competitors like Squarespace and Wix. As a web builder, it offers reliable website hosting, domain name registration, and stock photos. And to top it off, you'll get access to a 24/7 customer support team.

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Shopify pricing

Shopify isn’t the most affordable web builder available for small businesses, but you do get plenty of bang for your buck. Other website builders will allow you to sell online for cheaper plans – the difference is that Shopify is oriented towards those who are seriously looking to scale their business and want to access more advanced ecommerce features.

• Shopify Starter – starting from £5 per month, Shopify Starter is a great simple option for those that don’t have the time to bother with coding or design. However, this tier is really aimed at those looking to sell via their social feeds, rather than by creating an online store. For that task, you’ll need one of the higher-paid plans, below.
• Basic Shopify – from £19 per month (billed annually), this plan is great for small businesses with a low monthly sales volume. It includes basic reports, up to four reporting locations, and two staff accounts.
• Shopify – from £49 per month (billed annually), the Shopify plan gives you more powerful reporting tools and the ability to create country-specific domains to optimise your international SEO. This is great for growing and international online businesses.
• Advanced Shopify – from £259 per month (billed annually) you can get your hands on a custom report builder, lower credit card rates, and third-party calculated shipping rates. This powerful plan is best for large online stores with an international presence and a substantial customer base.

Head to our dedicated Shopify Pricing page to learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of each tier

Shopify versus key competitors

Wix: Shopify and Wix are our two top platforms for building an online store. We’d highly recommend either if you’re looking to sell online, but, depending on the scale and needs of your business, one may suit you better than the other. If you’re building a small or boutique store, then Wix may prove preferable – it has a larger selection of templates, which you can easily customise, and its less complex sales tools may better suit a smaller-scale business. If you’re looking to scale fast, then Shopify wins out based on sheer depth of sales features. It offers everything you’d need for selling products online, analysing your customer buying habits, managing your store inventory, and tying everything in with customer database and contact management. You can do all the above on Wix, too, through various apps and plug-ins, but Shopify offers a holistic ecommerce platform that’s hard to beat.

WordPress: You can build a fully featured online store using WordPress and the WooCommerce plugin, which is freely available to WordPress users. But, there is lot of coding to get your head around to do this all justice. While WordPress has templates to support you, they tend to require more expertise to customise. Shopify’s templates are far more approachable for users who don’t know how to code, or for business owners that don’t have masses of time to put aside into creating an online store. Your ecommerce site will look brilliant on Shopify; it can also look first-class if built on WordPress, but you’ll have to put in a lot more work to get it looking that way.

Squarespace: We wouldn’t call out Squarespace as being the best ecommerce platform all round, and it certainly doesn’t have the depth of features that make Shopify such a powerhouse for selling online. But, its secret weapon is the range of stunning templates that Squarespace offers. If you’re creating a store to sell clothing, art, accessories or anything where visuals will make the most important impact with your customers, then you’ll be able to wow them from the word go with Squarespace.

5. Site123

Best for site speed and storage space

Site123

3.7

Generous in storage and speedy

• Free trial Free plan with up to 250MB storage
• Price from $12.80 per month

• 10GB storage
• Connect your domain
• Free domain for 1 year

Summary Site123 scored a perfect 5 out of 5 in our research into website builder storage space, as you can access 30GB for just $12.80 per year on the professional plan. For the amount you're paying, you get a good return on your investment compared to others like Squarespace or Wix, which score just a 4 out of 5 and 3 out of 5 respectively. It also has Speedy-Gonzalez like speed when it comes to loading. It scores the highest performance score (92/100) in our speed research, with a speed index of just 1.1sec.

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Site123 pricing

This one’s easy to explain. Site123 offers a free tier, which isn’t strictly ideal for creating a small business site anyway – this is one for bloggers, not entrepreneurs.

If you’re ready to spend, the premium Site123 tier is $12.80 per month.

Site123 versus key competitors

Wix: Wix may not offer as much storage space as Site123, unless you push up the Wix pricing plans, but the depth of features you get from Wix is far superior. As well as many more templates (Wix has over 800) to choose from when building your site, Wix has a richer app store for adding integrations, and a much slicker editor tool for customising your site.

Squarespace: Site123’s designs are rather show up by Squarespace. The quality of the website templates you get from Squarespace leave Site123’s in the dust. If you want to impress your customers from the moment they land on your website, then Squarespace really is the best option.

Shopify: If you’re building an online store, Site123 isn’t a strong option. We’d steer you towards Shopify for its depth of sales features and its excellent ecommerce site templates. Shopify can be a little intimidating for first-timers, so, if you’re building a smaller, boutique store, then the ecommerce plans from Wix or Squarespace may be perfect for you.

6. WordPress.com

Best value for SEO features

WordPress.com

3.6

The standout choice if you want access to endless apps or unmatched blogging tools.

• Free plan? Yes
• Price from £3 per month for WordPress Business (billed annually)

• Huge app marketplace for integrations
• Rare free plan
• Steeper learning curve than most web builders

Summary WordPress is a powerful software that's less beginner-friendly than most website builder platforms. Favoured by blogging and journaling types, WordPress is a popular website builder option that comes with some quite sophisticated tools and integration capabilities, making your websites endlessly customisable. However, there is a competitive price tag of £20 per month attached. We recommend it for small businesses that need to host lots of content.

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WordPress.com pricing

The WordPress plans have a straightforward pricing structure. We wouldn’t recommend the Personal plan for business users. If you’re a small business with a site that doesn’t anticipate heavy traffic (think thousands of visitors per month) then the Premium plan may suit better than the Business plan:

• WordPress.com Personal – £3 per month
• WordPress Premium – £7 per month
• WordPress Business – £20 per month

WordPress.com: The Verdict

If you’re on the lookout for a powerful website builder that has a stellar offering of SEO features, WordPress.com could be the option for you. It comes equipped with virtually all the SEO features on offer in the market, so if your goal is to boost your organic reach through SEO, WordPress.com would be a logical choice.

However, keep in mind that WordPress.com doesn’t necessarily have the best range of website features or design functionalities, so you might feel a bit restrained when trying to scale your site.

7. Hostinger

Best cheap website builder

Hostinger Website Builder

3.8

Great first term discounts make this a very affordable website builder.

• Free plan No
• Renewal price from £1.49

• Affordable first term deals
• Easy to use for beginners
• Free domain

Summary Hostinger is a simplistic and low cost website builder with decent first term discounts. However, it's features are not as sophisticated as rival website builders and it doesn't offer much in the way of design flexibility. If you sign for any subscription between 12 and 48 months in length and use our code "STARTUPS" you can get up to 81% off, which includes a free domain, and a free 3 months!

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Hostinger: The Verdict

If you want to get your website up and running with minimal fuss (and with plenty of support should you need it), Hostinger is the website builder for you. Instead of offering you a bewildering array of templates, Hostinger just chooses one of its simple but effective website designs for you based on your answers to a few questions.

However, this simplicity does come at the expense of in-depth features and design flexibility – businesses after a more complex website may want to look elsewhere.

How to choose a website builder

Every website builder seems to make the same boasts – ‘stunning templates,’ ‘happy customers,’ and ‘get online with ease’ among them. And it’s true, a lot of website builders will help you do much the same thing – create a website for your business or personal brand.

But, there are some key differences in how they go about this, and some brands have better strengths than others. Below, we will talk you through some of the main considerations when making a site with a website builder.

What type of site are you making?

This is particularly key to your choice of website builder. Do you just need a simple landing page or two to explain your business and how to get in touch? Or, are you creating an online store with thousands of products listed to sell? As well as affecting which site builder you should choose, these kinds of questions have quite an impact on how much money you should spend to make your site (see section below).

Here are a few pointers from our own research and time spent testing the best website builders on the market:

• If you’re creating an online store: then your best options are Wix (for smaller, boutique stores), Shopify (for larger stores that handle higher volumes of transactions) and Squarespace (for design-focused stores selling clothers, art and accessories). Any of these platforms will give you everything you need to process online payments, manage your store inventory, and create a genuinely impressive shop-front to wow your customers. You’ll need to pay more for an ecommerce store, with prices typically starting from £20 per month. You’ll also need to factor in transaction fees on your sales.
• If you’re creating a simple business information site: then you can’t go wrong with Wix, GoDaddy or Squarespace. Both of these brands offer fantastic templates for creating a landing page or two that let you describe your business – whether it’s a construction firm, consultancy or restaurant. You can then easily customise your site with your own words, imagery and logos. You can create a site like this in under a day, and the costs tend to be lower, typically in the £10-£15 per month range.
• If you’re creating a portfolio site: to show off your designs, photos or inspiring examples of your past work, we’d highly recommend Squarespace. Its beautiful templates can give you a professional-looking site with spot-on visuals that are bound to impress.

How much time do you have to spend on creating a site?

As a time-strapped business owner, if you’re creating a website for yourself, then you’re not going to want to spend endless weeks and months getting it ready. This is why website builders are the perfect support.

If you’re keen to get a site live, and fast, then you can use the AI-assisted website building processes from the likes of Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy. These will typically ask you a few questions about the type of site you’re looking to build, and ask you to feed back on styles of design you do or don’t like. You’ll then be offered a selection of templates to choose from, and you can be looking at a skeleton version of your site in a matter of minutes.

You can then customise this skeleton layout with your own imagery (replacing the placeholder images) and text. If you don’t already have a business logo, some of the website builders can even help you create one, for an added cost. Of course, this customisation step can be as quick or as thorough as you’d like it to be. You can chip away at it slowly before feeling ready to publish, or throw everything together as fast as possible and still produce a professional-looking site within a day or two.

If, however, you want to really get under the hood of your site, then you may want to take longer with the customisation and with adding integrations and deeper features. Building an online store tends to take longer, because of the process of importing (or creating) a product inventory and setting up the sales process and ways to take payments. You’ll find a website builder will support you throughout, with clear tutorials and teady-made templates for integrations, but it’s definitely more than a day’s work to create an online store. Think weeks, rather than months, though!

Code versus no code

If you want to get under the hood of your site and delve into the coding and customisation, then you’ll find most website builders make this possible. However, if this is your level of expertise, it may be better to choose WordPress over typical website builders such as Wix or Squarespace. Thanks to its endless ability to let you customise, WordPress is the more powerful tool for advanced users to rely on.

But, anyone who lacks this level of expertise would do better to avoid WordPress and trust a website builder. A tool such as GoDaddy can have your site up and running for you without ever requiring you to go near the code. Wix can also shield you from the complexities of coding, but keep the option there for you if you ever decide you need it.

The great thing about website builders is that they democratise access to building sites – you don’t have to be experienced or technical to create something that genuinely looks impressive.

How much do you want to spend?

Of course, the answer to this is usually “as little as you can get away with” – business overheads are dreadful enough as they are.

You don’t need to spend a fortune to create an impressive website using any of the tools we’ve included on this page. As a general rule of thumb, expect to spend in the region of the following:

• For a basic business or restaurant site: from £7 – £15 per month (paid annually)
• For a small online store: around £20 per month is typical
• For a larger ecommerce store: costs can rise to over £200 per month for larger online stores processing a lot of transactions

There are some additional costs to consider, too

• Purchasing a domain with your business name in the URL (from around £10 per year, but this can rise considerably for in-demand domains)
• Getting a business email address: this will typically cost around £5 per address, per month
• Hosting your website: some website builders will include this for free; otherwise, it can cost over £50 per year for a small site without a huge volume of trfafic

How does a website builder work?

There are two types of website builder: offline and online. Online is the most popular, and it can be opened on your computer as easily as starting a new search tab. On the other hand, offline website builders are for apps you can download meaning you don’t have to be ‘online’ to be able to edit your website. We recommend the online version simply because it requires no coding, is more user friendly, and doesn’t take up space in your software from having to download an app. Keep in mind all of the website builders on this list are online.

Website builders typically use a simple drag-and-drop interface so that every aspect of the website is flexible and adaptable. It then converts every change you make on the front end (the part that users will see) into code for the backend (the part that controls a site’s structure, data, logic).

To make things even easier, online website builders offer templates or themes based on the type of website you are trying to create.

For example, if you are a dentistry firm, Squarespace (our number one platform for templates) will give you a suitable, clean-looking theme to edit from – saving you time and therefore money.

What types of businesses are website builders suitable for?

Website builders offer users a DIY platform, helping them avoid the need to hire a third-party web designer. This means they tend to be favoured by small or microbusinesses that just need a simple virtual shopfront to start selling or advertising from.

Another appeal for this group is that you can get set it up quickly. Wix is an example of a website builder that is very easy to use and is great for those wanting to launch a side hustle or don’t have a lot of free time.

Ecommerce website builders are a specific subgenre of website builder. These tools allow you to set up an online store and control things like product inventory, sales, and promotions from one space. This makes them a popular choice among online retailers or dropshipping companies.

How we test website builders for small businesses

We tested 10 website builders to evaluate them in terms of functionality, usability, accuracy, and aesthetics so we can make the most useful recommendations to small UK-based businesses.

Our rigorous testing process means these products have been scored and rated in six main categories of investigation and 33 subcategories – in fact, we covered 251 areas of investigation in total. We then gave each category score a ‘relevance weighting' to ensure the product's final score perfectly reflects the needs of our Startups.co.uk readers.

Our main testing categories for website builders are:

Website Features: the capabilities and functionalities offered by a website builder, e.g. blog functionality, SEO capability, and marketing capacity.

Design: the aesthetic appeal and visual layout of a website created using a website builder. It encompasses aspects such as page templates and customisable themes.

Customer Score: external customer opinion; the feedback and ratings given by customers who have used a particular website builder – the market position and reputation a website builder holds.

Ease of Use: how user-friendly and intuitive a website builder is for people with varying levels of technical expertise.

Value for Money: the balance between the cost of a website builder and the benefits it provides. It considers factors such as pricing plans, subscription models, and available features.

Help and Support: the assistance and resources available to users when they encounter issues or need guidance while using a website builder.

The Startups product testing process

Our verdict and next steps

Although all of the website builders that feature on our list have their strengths and weaknesses, it’s Wix that comes out strongest as the best overall choice for building a small business website.

Squarespace runs Wix close, and arguably betters it when it comes to the attractiveness of its templates – making it a great choice for creative businesses. And, if you’re looking to create an online store, then Shopify offers an exceptional depth of sales features that can set you up for huge growth.

Whichever website builder you choose, make sure it fits the needs of your business and your ambitions to scale in future. Many website builders offer free plans and free trials, so it’s easy to try out a few and find one that works for you. With AI-powered website builders letting you see what your site could look like in just a few minutes, there’s never been a better time to dive in and see what you can create.