Best Website Builders for Small Business : Top Free and Paid Website Builders

With one of the best website builders for small business needs, you’ll be able to drag and drop your dream website into fruition, customize it, and you’re set to bring visitors to your site.

However, every business’ needs vary, and finding one best suited to your needs and budget can be difficult.

With that said, we’ve curated and reviewed the market’s best small business website builders — from the easiest to use, the best free website builders, and those best suited for eCommerce websites; here we explore the cream of the crop in depth to help you make an informed decision on finding the one best suited to your business.

Our Pick for Best Free Website Builder for Small Business 2024: Site123

• If you’re a small business, you probably will need a user-friendly, flexible, and cost-efficient website builder. We compared the top-rated website builders in the industry and found Site123 to beat the competition.
• Site123 is one of the most robust and flexible website builders on the market. It provides hundreds of templates to choose from, meaning your website can come together in a breeze.
• It also offers great site loading speed and a great library of marketing tools for your website, as well as excellent customer support.

Key Takeaways: Best Website Builders for Small Business

1. Variety of Options: There’s a wide array of website builders tailored to different needs, including ease of use, free options, and eCommerce capabilities.
2. Customization and Speed: The best builders offer rapid deployment and customization, ensuring your site reflects your brand with minimal effort.
3. User-Friendly Interfaces: Prioritize platforms that offer drag-and-drop functionalities and intuitive design for a hassle-free setup.
4. Consider Your Business Needs: Whether you’re focused on eCommerce, blogging, or showcasing a portfolio, there’s a builder specifically suited to your goals.
5. Free vs. Paid Plans: Weigh the benefits of free plans against the features and scalability offered by paid options to find the best fit for your business’s growth trajectory.
6. Support and Resources: Look for builders with strong customer support and comprehensive resources to assist you in building and maintaining your site.

Best Website Builder for Small Business : Reviewed

Whether you need a basic or luxurious website, we’ve included a variety of tools to ensure that you find one suitable for your business — both in terms of functionality, pricing, and scalability.

Read on for all the nitty-gritty details on the best website builders for small business needs.

1. Site123

Before developing a custom template with all the features you require, Site123 will ask you a few questions, such as the type of website you desire and the site’s name. Isn’t it cool?

That Site123 is designed for people and businesses who want a website up and running quickly is no surprise.

Even though it’s not the ideal choice for highly sophisticated or powerful websites, it’s hard to beat for speed and efficiency (as well as tons of helpful support along the way!).

Key Features

• Impressive Analytics – A site’s analytics are an essential part of its operation. It doesn’t matter if you want to know how long a person spends on one of your pages or how many views your most recent blog post has received. Site123 makes use of Google Analytics instead of its own in-house tracking system. Because Google Analytics has been around for a long time, you can rely on it to give you accurate and immediate results.
• SEO – Site123 provides search engine optimization (SEO) solutions to help ensure that your website ranks as high as possible on search engines like Google. Things like the ability to alter the meta title and description (the language that displays on Google’s search page), the ability to customize URLs, and the ability to add alt text to images all contribute to better SEO. That may sound a little hard, but don’t worry; Site123 has detailed tutorials to walk you through the process.

Pricing per Month

• Free
• Premium – $5.80

2. Strikingly

With Strikingly, anyone can develop a modern and appealing website even if they have no previous web design knowledge. Seth Godin, a well-known marketing expert, and author, endorses it.

Using Strikingly, you can easily build a website for yourself, your small business, or even an e-commerce site. There’s no need for any coding experience.

You’ll get access to a drag-and-drop website builder that provides easy-to-use custom templates and stunning design tools.

Key Features

• Single-Page Scrolling Websites – Multi-page websites are supported by most similar systems. In contrast, Strikingly focuses on developing single-page websites with minimal content. To achieve this, the company offers layouts that heavily rely on vertical scrolling.
• Easy to Use – Strikingly is a simple drag-and-and-drop site builder. You won’t have to write a single line of code, thanks to the graphical editor. It’s as simple as dragging and dropping page items onto different sections and then changing their settings.
• Theme Selections – Ten major templates are available from Strikingly. There are a variety of subcategories available, including business, personal, and portfolio. Even though there are only a few, these templates offer a vast variety of options.

Pricing per Month

• Limited – $8
• Pro – $8
• VIP – $49

3. SquareSpace

Small business owners and “solopreneurs” are the primary target audience for Squarespace’s website builder. At the time of its founding, Squarespace was a solution for non-web developers to create and manage their own websites.

Squarespace began as a tool for creating static, brochure-style websites, but it has since expanded into a platform that includes built-in eCommerce and marketing tools.

Key Features

• Design Customization Tools – Squarespace has an extensive library of over 300 free templates. But the beauty of Squarespace is its ability to customize these templates by tweaking their colors, fonts, backgrounds, and layouts.
• Built-in Marketing Tools – Squarespace has built-in Google Analytics and a Salesforce-like dashboard that gives you real-time reports on your website’s performance. They also offer integrated social media functionality and APIs for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms.
• Drag and Drop Builder – Squarespace offers a drag-and-drop builder that makes it easy for you to create a static website by dragging and dropping various elements, such as images, text, and media.

Price per Month

• Personal – $19
• Business – $33
• Commerce – $36
• Advanced Commerce – $65

4. Wix

Wix is an incredibly robust website builder application that offers you the flexibility to make a high-quality website for your small business. It’s easy to use and has plenty of features.

Plus, Wix offers a variety of templates from which you can choose a design that best works for your business.

Key Features

• Wix ADI – By far, the highlight of Wix is its Artificial Design Intelligence. Wix ADI is a design feature that allows you to build a website without any coding. You simply pick a template and then drag and drop the relevant content. Wix does all of the code generations for you. All you need to do is feed it the content and wait for it to design the perfect website for you.
• Template Library – Wix has a massive library of more than 1 million different templates from which to choose. There are plenty of options for all types of businesses, from restaurants and retail stores to healthcare providers and service providers.
• Advanced SEO Toolkit – Wix offers a variety of powerful tools for search engine optimization. This includes a page builder that enables you to create content easily and quickly. They also offer their own Search Engine Optimization toolbar, which helps you optimize your website for search engines automatically with no need for programming skills.

Pricing per Month

• Website Plans
  • Connect Domain – $4.50
  • Combo – $8.50
  • Unlimited – $12.50
  • VIP – $24.50
• Business and eCommerce Plans
  • Business Basic – $17
  • Business Unlimited – $25
  • Business VIP – $35

5. Weebly

Weebly is an extremely easy-to-use website builder that features a simple drag-and-drop system for creating sites. Weebly is a good option for those who aren’t experienced with web design applications.

Weebly helps you create beautiful websites quickly, alongside many of the tools that you would expect in a more advanced platform.

For example, their drag-and-drop interface automatically detects all images on the page, allowing you to upload your own images simply by dragging them onto the page.

Key Features

• Complete eCommerce Solution – Weebly offers a built-in shopping cart and CRM functionality. This means that you can manage your customers’ orders, sales, and subscriptions all in one place. They even allow you to send email invoices to your customers. It’s basically got everything you need to run a complete eCommerce site.
• Year-Round Customer Support – Weebly offers a robust customer support system with live chat. They also offer phone and email support.
• Built-in SEO – Weebly offers a built-in SEO toolkit that helps you optimize your website for search engines. The tools are completely comprehensive, allowing you to optimize your site for search engines in a variety of ways, including choosing the most relevant keywords for your website and ensuring your site is mobile-friendly.

Price per Month

• For Websites
  • Free
  • Connect – $5
  • Pro – $12
  • Business – $25
• For Online Stores
  • Pro – $12
  • Business – $25
  • Business Plus – $38

Best Free Website Builder for Small Businesses

Not everyone has money to spend on their website from the get-go. Some business owners are content with a subdomain and a storefront that just shows off what their brand is about until they start earning money from their brand.

It’s important to keep in mind there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, we’ve rounded up 5 of the best free website builders for small businesses below

1. Google Sites

Created by Google, Google Sites is a free website builder that lets you build simple, clean websites. It’s perfect for resource pages, eCommerce sites, blogs, and more. The best part about sites is their ease of use and speed.

Google Sites is primarily aimed at education, but it also makes an excellent alternative for small business owners who don’t want to shell out their hard-earned money for a website that isn’t going to pay off in the short term.

Key Features

• Google App Integration – The most attractive part of Google Sites is its integration with Google’s other apps. These apps include Gmail, Drive, and Calendar. You can connect your site to these apps by linking a Google account. This adds a “Drive” feature to your site that allows you to add and share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with clients and colleagues.
• Live Collaborative Editing – Google Sites has a unique feature that allows you to edit your page simultaneously as others. This will enable you to work with colleagues and clients on projects and updates simultaneously.
• WYSIWYG Interface – Google Sites has a “what you see is what you get” user interface that shows you what your site will look like while you’re editing it. You don’t have to worry about messing things up because it’s not quite finished yet.

Price per Month

Google Sites is absolutely free. In fact, it doesn’t have a paid plan at all. It comes with unlimited storage and visitors per month, so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

2. Webflow

Webflow is a fantastic free website builder that gives you a great range of tools and templates to choose from. It’s a little more challenging to use than Google Sites, but it is easier than Evermotion, which we will discuss shortly.

You can build simple websites with Webflow’s drag-and-drop interface or use its layout system to create unique templates for your site. Webflow makes it easy for you to upload the content you need for your site.

Key Features

• Design Tool – The Webflow design tool assists users in creating the perfect website for their small business. Its biggest perk is that it writes code for you, so you don’t have to learn how to code by hand.
• CMS – Webflow has a content management system that allows you to manage your site’s content. You can add new content, edit existing content, and delete sections of your site as you see fit in order to keep your site fresh and up to date.
• Webflow University – The platform has an extensive collection of web design tools and resources to help you learn how to use the platform. Plus, it’s an excellent resource for understanding web design principles that you can apply to your own website.

Pricing per Month

• Site Plans
  • Free
  • Basic – $12
  • CMS – $16
  • Business – $36
  • Enterprise – Custom
• eCommerce
  • Standard – $29
  • Plus – $74
  • Advanced – $212

3. Carrd

When it comes to creating responsive, one-page websites, Carrd is the tool of choice. A professional-looking website can be made in a matter of minutes with minimal effort.

So you’ll most probably be able to discover something that works for you out of the 75+ templates available. Using the editor couldn’t be simpler. Only one page may be published on your website.

Therefore, if you want to create a more complex, multi-page website, take a look at our list of the best website builders.

Key Features

• Easy to Use Drag and Drop – Carrd is a very easy to use the drag and drop website builder. It allows you to create your website without the need for coding. It’s so simple, in fact, that you can create a professional-looking website in a matter of minutes.
• Animations – Carrd’s drag-and-drop builder allows you to add animated visual effects and animations to your site easily. The builder is straightforward to use, and all the animations can be added within a few quick clicks.
• Tons of Templates – Carrd has an extensive collection of mobile-friendly templates to choose from. Because there are so many templates available, you’ll easily be able to find one that works for you.

Pricing per Year

• Pro Lite – $9
• Pro Standard – $19
• Pro Plus – $49

4. Square Up

With Square Up, online sales are a breeze. It’s easy to use, so anyone can take advantage of this new manner of selling when you join up for their digital plan. When it comes to ease of use, this product is just like the rest of the Square offerings.

As a newbie, you don’t need any knowledge of web design or coding to begin. However, this means that Square Up’s experience may not be as advanced as that of more enterprise-focused designers.

Key Features

• Cataloging and Categorization – Square Up’s inventory management tools let you easily catalog and categorize your products. This allows you to create a clean, organized database that makes it easy to find any product you’re looking for.
• Conversion Tracking – This helps you track the activity of your website visitors. It allows you to view all the information you need on a single page so that you can see each customer’s travel path and see how they got to your site.
• Easy Signup – Creating an account with Square Up is just as easy as signing up for any other online banking or payment system. Take a look at our list of the best internet marketing tools so that you’ll know what kind of tools are available to help make selling online more accessible.

Pricing per Month

• Free
• Professional – $12
• Performance – $26
• Premium – $72

5. Jimdo

You don’t have to spend a fortune to create a website using Jimdo’s simple-to-use tools and ad-free environment.

Wix and Squarespace competitors Jimdo and Weebly are also free to use, and Jimdo is an excellent choice if you’re trying to stay within a tighter budget.

Key Features

• Creative Gallery – Jimdo has very simple tools for creating your website’s design. Once you select from a gallery of templates, you can use the drag-and-drop editor to change the colors, photos, or fonts on the site.
• Simple Web Page Creator – Jimdo makes it easy for anyone to create web pages. There are so many templates available that your options are nearly unlimited. Plus, it works with all modern browsers and mobile devices.
• SEO Toolkit – Jimdo has a built-in SEO toolkit that helps you optimize your site for search engines. This allows your site to show up higher on the search engine results pages.
• Excellent Customer Support – Jimdo’s customer support is excellent. They email you a link to your site once it is complete and it’s been approved by the site owner. Plus, the staff can answer any questions about the site until you are satisfied with it.

Pricing per Month

• Start – $9
• Grow – $15

Best Ecommerce Website Builder for Small Businesses

Finding the perfect eCommerce website builder for a small business is not easy. You have to find one that can offer all the options you need for your site and won’t cost you a fortune. Here are our top picks:

1. Ecwid

For more than a decade, Ecwid has been the go-to choice for small eCommerce companies. Not only that, but their new website builder is the perfect combination of features, usability, and simplicity for creating an online store.

It also includes a powerful built-in shopping cart that allows you to sell products easily without any hassle.

Key Features

• Easy to Use – The Ecwid website builder is very easy to use. You can take a look at their library of templates before deciding on your own design. The templates are simple and help you create an online storefront that’s straight to the point.
• Completely Free – Ecwid comes with a free plan that’s perfect for any small business just starting out. This is the best option for small businesses and online retailers who don’t have much money to spend and still want to look good.
• Customer Support – Ecwid’s customer support team works hard to keep you satisfied with its products. They allow you to reach them through several channels (email, chat, phone), and they are very responsive to any questions you might have.

Pricing per Month

• Free
• Venture – $12.50
• Business – $29.17
• Unlimited – $82.50

2. Shopify

Creating an online store with Shopify is a simple process. It allows you to sell both physical and digital products and gives you a variety of ‘themes’ to choose from. Each of these themes can be customized to meet your specific branding needs.

When it comes to building an online store, you don’t need to know any coding at all if you use Shopify. However, the platform also provides full access to CSS, HTML, and Liquid (Shopify’s templating language).

Key Features

• Theme Library – Each of Shopify’s 15 free eCommerce templates (or ‘themes’) comes with two or three different variations, allowing you to choose from a reasonable number of options. Although limited, they’re highly customizable via code or drag and drop.
• Ease of Use – Using Shopify is a breeze thanks to its easy-to-navigate interface and the positive user experience it offers. Like other content management systems, Shopify uses a left-hand menu to access features and content, which can be customized or edited on the right.
• Content Formatting – Most free Shopify themes still use a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, which works fine but doesn’t give you as much control over how your content is laid out on a page as other website builders do.

Pricing per Month

• Basic – $29
• Shopify – $79
• Advanced Shopify – $299

3. Zyro

Using Zyro’s DIY website builder, you can have complete control over your online presence thanks to its intuitive user interface and unique, powerful tools.

A lack of a free option and a few design restrictions may limit your choices, but the service is ideal for small businesses that want to open an online presence.

Key Features

• Mobile-responsive Sites – When viewed on a smartphone or tablet, Zyro’s automatically generated responsive mobile sites look fantastic. Even when you’re editing a desktop site, you can switch to the mobile editing view by clicking the mobile icon.
• Blogging – Create posts with Zyro’s easy-to-use blogging tool. Bluehost and Wix’s content management systems are more robust and user-friendly, but this one has gotten better with more categories and social sharing options. Many WordPress users may find it strange to have separate text and image sections in a post rather than simply typing words and sprinkling images in.
• eCommerce – The e-commerce tools provided by Zyro provide numerous ways to make money. A store that supports one or more of these languages, as well as automatic shipping estimates, real-time tracking, discounting options, and the ability to create favorites or wish lists, can be created with these options. WYSIWYG editors in the storefront allow you to add multimedia and HTML product descriptions.

Pricing per Month

• Website – $2.90
• Business – $4.90
• Online Store – $8.90
• Advanced Store – $15.90

Easy Website Builder for Small Business

Some website builders are more advanced. However, that might also mean they’re much more complex to use. And if you don’t have the time or resources to waste learning the ropes, then they’re not the right choice for you.

Below, we’ve rounded up some of the easiest-to-use website builders for small businesses we think you might like:

1. Web.com

Web.com’s target audience is small enterprises, and we think that this builder is ideal for that demographic. An appealing and professional-looking website may be built in less than an hour using this platform.

If you’re looking to expand your business online, this is a great option.

Key Features

• Theme Library – Web.com’s templates, while not groundbreaking, are all neat and tidy. So that you can quickly locate a template that applies to your specific situation, you can categorize them by industry. When it comes to customizing templates, certain businesses have fewer options than others, but at least one is available for everyone, and you can make it your own.
• User-friendly Editor – There are a lot of editors out there, and Web.com isn’t any different. Because it only allows you to drop and drag a restricted number of elements, you can arrange them any way you wish. As a result, customizing your template is a breeze.
• Extensive Knowledge Base – Using the search bar, you can go through a plethora of articles in Web.com’s knowledge base to find solutions to your problems. However, we had a difficult time finding what we were looking for. This is because Web.com also sells hosting and domains, so our search results weren’t always about website-building software.

Pricing per Month

• Starter – $10
• Online Marketing Package – $15
• eCommerce – $20

2. WordPress

WordPress got its beginnings in 2003 as a simple blogging tool. A content management system and an application development framework have been developed since then.

Using WordPress, you can create almost any kind of website you can imagine. See how WordPress’s user interface has evolved over time in our article on WordPress’s history of user interface changes.

Key Features

• Extremely Flexible – The primary reason WordPress is so popular for creating websites is that it’s so flexible. WordPress may be used to create a wide variety of websites. Use it to start a blog, build an online store, run a membership site or marketplace, sell online courses, and more.
• Extensive Theme Library – A strong templating engine in WordPress controls the website’s look. It’s possible to create a set of ‘Themes’ using this templating engine. There are literally tens of thousands of pre-built WordPress themes to choose from.
• Plugins and Widgets – As a result of its popularity, WordPress has become the platform of choice for developers to create their own plugins. Plugins are the name given to these types of add-ons. You can think of WordPress plugins as apps for your site. WordPress plugins, like mobile apps, allow you to extend the functionality of your website.

Pricing per Month

• Free
• Personal – $4
• Premium – $8
• Business – $25
• eCommerce – $45

3. LeadPages

Using Leadpages, you may collect email addresses from visitors to your website.

Leadpages is designed to help you do just that, and they offer a plethora of beautiful templates for lead magnets, webinars, and landing pages that you can use to build your email list.

Key Features

• Customizable Pages – As a result of the platform’s customizability, customers can create their landing pages to their liking. Simple drag-and-and-drop operations allow users to customize their pages regardless of whether they’re being used on a desktop or a mobile device. Users have the option to add photographs, texts, and widgets to their content in order to make it more appealing to their audience.
• Ready-Made Templates – With Leadpages, you get access to a wide variety of pre-designed themes. These templates have the benefit of being professionally created while still meeting user expectations. Users can pick from a variety of templates, depending on their company’s size.
• A/B Split Testing – The platform’s A/B testing can be used by users to see how their site is doing. Making a final copy of the design before checking for design flaws is a good idea.

Pricing per Month

• Standard – $49
• Pro – $99
• Advanced – $399

Top Website Builders for Small Businesses – Compared

Here’s a brief comparison of all website builders:

How to Build My Own Website On a Website Builder for Small Business: Tutorial

Below, we’re teaching you how to build your own website using Wix.

Step One: Create an Account

When you land on the Wix homepage, you’ll be greeted with a floating window like the one above. Input your email address, and click the Start now button.

After that, you’ll be prompted to create an account. Here, you’ll need to input basic information such as your email address and preferred password.

Step Two: Get Started

Once you’ve created an account, click the Get Started Button.

From here, you’ll input important information about your websites, such as the kind of business you’re in, the name of your store, and the kind of features you want to add to your websites, such as an online store, forms, or a chat button.

Step Three: Choose a Theme

Next, you’ll need to decide whether you want Wix to build your website for you in under 5 minutes or if you want to customize a theme to fit your needs. Take your time deciding here because if you decide to switch themes, you’ll lose all progress.

Step Four: Customize Your Site

Add content, find out what the finished product will look like, and customize it to your liking.

The website builder has a wide range of design templates to choose from, but you can also upload your own images and text before your browser begins building your site.

Step Five: Publish

Lastly, click the publish button to publish your site. When you do this, you’ll need to select what type of domain you want as well, so it will determine whether you’ll proceed with a free plan or a paid plan.

Conclusion: What’s the Best Website Builder for Small Businesses in 2024?

While there is no such thing as the best website builder for small businesses, we’ve compiled some of the best choices in this article for you.

Keep in mind that what works for us may not work for you, so you want to consider the following before making a decision. Site123 has the most features, with 100 million websites under its belt since 2006.

The service is free for now, which is great for free users and allows you to become familiar with the site before making your first purchase. It’s an easy website builder to use and helps you publish your website quite quickly.

FAQs