Best website builders for small business

Wix

Wix is the broadest of the mainstream builders: you can start on a free plan, build with a drag-and-drop editor on top of 2,000+ templates, and switch on a store, bookings or a blog as the business grows. The catch is that the cheapest paid plan, Light at $17 a month, does not accept payments, so selling starts at the $29 Core plan. Every paid plan includes a free domain for the first year and 24/7 customer care. If you want one tool that can cover almost any small business site without moving platforms later, this is the default pick.

Squarespace

Squarespace is the design-first option: a smaller, tightly art-directed template set that makes a good-looking site hard to get wrong, plus built-in AI tools and analytics. Every paid plan can sell, so the $19 Basic plan is enough for a small shop, but Basic charges a 2% transaction fee on online store sales that disappears on the $29 Core plan. There is no free tier, only a 14-day trial, and an annual plan includes a free custom domain for the first year. Best suited to a business whose site is mostly brand and portfolio with some selling attached.

Shopify

Shopify is a commerce platform first and a website builder second, and it shows: storefront, checkout, inventory, shipping and point of sale are one system. The $29 Basic plan is aimed at solo sellers and takes cards from 2.9% + 30 cents, with an extra 2% only if you use a third-party payment gateway instead of Shopify Payments. There is no free plan, just a 3-day trial (then $1 a month for three months), and domains are bought separately from about $9 a year. Choose it when selling is the point of the site rather than a feature bolted onto it.

GoDaddy Website Builder

GoDaddy rebuilt its builder around Airo, which generates a whole site, its pages and even simple web apps from a description of your business. It is the cheapest full route into a small business site here: the $9.99 Starter plan already includes a free domain, unlimited products and services, and 24/7 expert support, and there is a free tier with 50 credits a month for trying it out. Paid plans are metered in credits rather than features, so heavy regeneration, not selling, is what pushes you up a tier. Sensible if you want a site produced for you in minutes and would rather not fuss with layout.

Hostinger Website Builder

Hostinger bundles its builder with hosting and sells it on price: $2.99 a month for the Premium plan, with a free domain for the first year, 400+ templates and 24/7 support. Read the term carefully, because that headline rate is a 48-month prepayment of about $143 and renews at $10.99 a month, and the $3.99 Unlimited plan is the first one with ecommerce. There is no free plan, only a 30-day money-back guarantee. Good value if you are happy to commit for years, less so if you want to pay yearly like almost everyone else in this table.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the hosted version of the software behind a large share of the web, and it is still the strongest choice when writing is central to the business: the editor, taxonomies and SEO plumbing are built for content. The free plan never expires but shows WordPress.com ads, Personal at $4 a month removes them and includes a free domain for the first year, and a real store needs the $45 Commerce plan. Support on the entry plans is the email-based Happiness team rather than round-the-clock chat. Pick it for a blog-led or content-marketing site you may eventually want to move to self-hosted WordPress.

Webflow

Webflow is a visual development tool aimed at marketing and design teams rather than template pickers: you lay out a site on a canvas that writes real HTML and CSS, with a CMS behind it. That power costs setup time, and pricing is per site: a free Starter plan to build on, $15 a month Basic to publish a simple site, $25 Premium for CMS-heavy sites, and a separate $29 ecommerce plan carrying a 2% transaction fee that drops to 0% on the higher tiers. Domains are not included and the entry plans advertise no round-the-clock support. Worth it when someone on your side is comfortable with structure and layout, overkill for a five-page site.

Square Online

Square Online is the website arm of the Square payments business, and its distinguishing move is a genuinely free online store: $0 a month, with 3.3% + 30 cents taken on each online sale. Paid tiers start at $49 a month and mainly buy lower processing rates, more site customization and extras like QR ordering and subscriptions; the 24/7 support line is listed on the $149 Premium tier. Domains are bought separately, from $19.95. The obvious pick for a shop, cafe or restaurant already running Square's point of sale, since online and in-person sales land in one system.

Duda

Duda is built for the people who make websites for other people: agencies, freelancers and hosting companies running many client sites, with team roles, client-facing editing limits and white-label options. Site plans start at $19 a month on annual billing and come with a 14-day trial that needs no card, though support at that tier is email rather than live chat. Ecommerce is priced separately, starting around $7 a month on top of a site plan, which is why the store column here is blank. A solo owner building one site will find it capable but expensive for the part of it they actually use.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an enterprise-leaning store platform that starts at $29 a month for its Core plan, the same headline as Shopify Basic but with more included before you start adding paid apps. Sales through its embedded payment providers carry no BigCommerce fee, and every plan lists 24/7 chat and email support; the trial is 15 days and needs no card. There is no free tier and no bundled domain. The thing to watch is that plans carry annual sales thresholds, so growth can push you into the next tier whether or not you want its features.

Durable

Durable is an AI business builder aimed squarely at solo service businesses: landscapers, cleaners, coaches, photographers. You describe what you do and it produces a site in seconds, then adds the parts those businesses actually need, including online booking, invoices and a customer list. The free plan is enough to see what it makes, and Launch at $25 a month adds a registered domain worth up to $20 plus priority human support. It has no real online store, and the company says so itself, so treat it as a lead-and-booking site rather than a shop.