Building a website for the first time? You can do it fast with a website builder — a visual design tools for creating websites without any code or technical experience. Most website builders also come bundled with web hosting, making it easy to publish your site to the internet. However, these tools are often proprietary, making it difficult to transfer your site to a different company later on. This makes it important to choose the right website builder from the start, especially if you’re creating a small business that’ll rely on a website for revenue.
I’ve evaluated all of the most popular website builders — and some you might not have heard of — to determine which ones provide the best user experience, design options and server performance. I’ve also analyzed each website builder’s tools for things like appointment booking, e-commerce and marketing to determine their value for small businesses. I used the data from this research and testing process to create this list of the best website builders for small business.
Best website builder for small business in 2025
Wix is the best website builder for service-based businesses because it offers built-in tools for booking appointments and taking reservations on the lowest-tier plan. More expensive plans include even more tools for service-based businesses, including course creation software and monetizing digital content. Moreover, my hands-on testing revealed that Wix offers fast and reliable server performance, intuitive site building tools and robust security protocols.
Shopify is the best website builder for e-commerce stores, especially stores selling physical products, thanks to its mostly-intuitive store builder, inventory management system and shipping discounts with USPS, UPS and DHL. Furthermore, I tested Shopify and discovered that it also has excellent uptime and better site speed than any other host I’ve reviewed, ensuring that your site will be fast and reliable for its visitors.
Best website builders for small business
Best for service-based businesses
Pros
- Over 900 templates
- Simple yet flexible website editor
- Specialized tools for several types of small businesses
- Fast customer service
Cons
- Strict storage limits, especially on the lowest-tier plan
- Can’t easily switch your template easily
- Most business tools, including e-commerce functionality, are restricted to higher-tier plans
- AI site builder is awful
Who it’s best for
Wix is great if you’re a service-based business owner like a coach or consultant and you want high-quality tools for business operations like booking appointments or creating online courses.
Why we like it
Wix impressed me with its wide selection of high-quality templates, remarkable ease of use and excellent server performance. Wix also offers better customer support than many competitors, emphasizing speed — both live chat and phone service representatives resolved my issues in under 10 minutes. I’m not the only person who had a good experience with Wix: the company has a 4.6 out of 5 star ranking on Trustpilot, based on over 21,000 reviews.
Wix offers specialized tools for booking appointments, taking hotel or restaurant reservations, building online courses and monetizing content. Most of these tools are restricted to higher-tier plans, but you can get them pre-installed on your site with an appropriate plan. This is easier than searching through an app marketplace and dealing with separate fees for extensions like you would on Shopify or Squarespace.
Wix also has comprehensive security. You’ll get the secure socket layer certification to encrypt data sent to or from your site, firewall protection to keep most malware away from your site and distributed denial of service protection against your site from being overwhelmed by malicious traffic. You can enable two-factor authentication to keep unauthorized users out of your account. Moreover, Wix employs a 24/7 security monitoring team to identify and remove vulnerabilities in its servers and the website builder software.
Pricing
Wix plans start at $17 a month (billed annually) for enough storage to create at least 20 pages and unmetered bandwidth.
For e-commerce functionality, you’ll need to spring for the Core plan at $29 a month (billed annually). The Core plan includes enough storage for at least 500 pages and unlimited bandwidth.
All Wix plans provide a free domain for the first year. You’ll need to add $20 to $30 (depending on your domain extension) to your annual budget after that. You may be able to lower this ongoing cost by using a separate domain registrar like Namecheap.
Best for e-commerce
Pros
- E-commerce focused builder
- Email marketing tools
- Advanced inventory management
- Shipping discounts
- Tools for selling internationally and in-person
Cons
- More expensive than other options
- Must buy additional apps to access tools for service-based businesses, such as appointment booking systems
Who it’s best for
Shopify is your best bet if you want to build an e-commerce store. The shipping discounts for DHL, USPS and UPS are especially helpful if you’re planning to ship physical products. You can also use Shopify’s in-person point-of-sale tools to sell at pop-up markets or even permanent retail locations.
Why we like it
Shopify offers various responsive store templates, an easy-to-use yet flexible store builder and a simple checkout process that encourages users to buy. It also performed well during my hands-on review, with a mostly intuitive site editor and excellent server performance.
Other benefits of Shopify include major shipping discounts, advanced inventory management and tools for selling internationally. You’ll even get advanced email marketing for unlimited contacts with options for automated marketing campaigns and abandoned cart recovery emails.
Shopify secures all stores hosted on its servers with SSL certification, an advanced firewall with DDoS protection, two-factor authentication and 24/7 security monitoring.
Despite its apparent benefits, Shopify has over 2,000 negative reviews on Trustpilot. Most cite poor customer service, something that may not impact your experience, as many users go years without needing customer support from their web host. Other reviews mention more severe issues like not receiving funds from Shopify Pay. These reviews are small in number compared to the 4.9 million stores powered by Shopify, suggesting that these problems are uncommon. Still, if you’re concerned about customer service, consider Wix or Ionos instead.
Pricing
Shopify starts at $29 a month, billed annually. This plan includes all of Shopify’s core e-commerce and email marketing features, as well as unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth.
All Shopify plans include a free domain for the first year. You’ll need to factor an additional $20 to $30 per year into your annual budget for future years.
Best value
Pros
- Highly affordable
- Good server performance
- Very easy to use
- Includes email hosting for up to 100 email addresses
Cons
- Must buy a four-year plan to access the best discount
- E-commerce is limited to 500 products with website builder plans
- No 24/7 security monitoring
- Customer service only available via live chat and can sometimes be slow
Who it’s best for
Hostinger is your best choice if you want to build a website without spending much money.
Why we like it
Hostinger earned top marks in our hands-on Hostinger review thanks to its remarkable ease of use and good server performance — and it’s also received over 31,000 five-star reviews on Trustpilot. Part of Hostinger’s appeal is the great value it offers, with the lowest-cost website builder plan starting at just $3 a month and rising to $8 a month on renewal, much less than the $15 to $20 a month you’ll spend on other website builders like Wix.
The e-commerce version of the website builder only lets you have 500 products available at any given time, but this is more than enough for most small businesses. You’ll also get tools for inventory management, creating discounts and booking client consultations. There are no advanced marketing tools, but you can integrate the Hostinger website builder with a wide range of third-party marketing tools, including Google Analytics and Facebook Pixels.
Both versions of the Hostinger website builder use SSL certification and an advanced firewall with anti-DDoS protocols. You’ll also get a free domain for the first year and email hosting for up to 100 custom email addresses (like yourname@yourdomain.com).
Pricing
Hostinger’s Premium Website Builder plan starts at $3 a month (based on a four-year contract) and rises to $8 a month on renewal. This plan includes enough storage for at least 1,000 pages and unlimited bandwidth.
For e-commerce features, you’ll need the Business Website Builder plan, priced at $4 a month (based on a four-year contract) for the first term and $9 a month on renewal. This plan features enough storage for at least 2,000 pages, unlimited bandwidth, e-commerce functionality and Hostinger’s full range of AI tools.
Every Hostinger plan includes a free domain for the first year. You’ll need to pay $20 to $30 per year to keep your domain registered with Hostinger after that.
Best AI tools
Pros
- Beautiful designer-made templates
- Collaborative AI builder creates unique, high-quality sites
- E-commerce and content monetization tools available on all plans
Cons
- High transaction fees on lower-tier plans
- Poor customer service
- Tools like appointment booking systems require paid add-ons
Who it’s best for
Squarespace is an excellent choice if you want some of the most elegant site designs available and you’re willing to overcome a slight learning curve.
Why we like it
Squarespace offers some of the most beautiful website templates you’ll find in any website builder. If you don’t want to work with a template, you can collaborate with the Squarespace AI website builder to design an attractive website that’s unique to your brand. (It’s worth noting that there are some legal and ethical concerns around the use of most generative AI tools.)
Squarespace includes e-commerce and content monetization tools with all plans. Users on the lowest-tier plan are charged a 2% online store fee on every transaction and a 7% digital content subscription and membership transaction fee. Squarespace charges these fees on top of payment processing fees (usually around 3%), so a full 5% of every purchase made in your store — and 10% of membership payments — will be deducted from customers’ payments. This means you’ll lose $1.50 when someone buys a $30 item and $3 when they pay a $30 membership fee.
The security protocols at Squarespace are similar to what you’ll get with other popular website builders: SSL certification, an advanced firewall with DDoS protection, two-factor authentication and 24/7 security monitoring. My tests also showed similar server performance, with 100% uptime during my week of testing and reliably fast site speed in most locations.
I was underwhelmed by Squarespace’s customer service in my hands-on testing. Many others have experienced poor customer support with Squarespace, too, judging by the reviews on Trustpilot. The number of reviews is small compared to the 5.4 million active sites hosted by Squarespace. Moreover, you’ll probably be able to build and maintain your site without needing support beyond the comprehensive self-serve Help Center.
If customer service is one of your primary concerns, we recommend choosing Wix or Ionos. Ionos received the highest customer service rankings for companies with website builders during our hands-on testing.
Pricing
Squarespace starts at $16 a month, billed annually, for access to all of the website builder’s core features (including e-commerce features), unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. If you want to build an e-commerce store without paying the 2% online store transaction fee, you’ll need to buy the Squarespace Core plan at $23 a month (billed annually).
All Squarespace plans include a free domain for the first year. You’ll have to pay $20 to $30 per year to keep your domain registration after that.
Best customer service
Pros
- Excellent customer service
- Access to 17,000 stock images
- Professional email address available
Cons
- AI tools are limited to higher-tier plans
- Adding e-commerce functionality significantly increases price
Who it’s best for
Ionos is your best choice if you want to create a professional portfolio or a simple website for a primarily offline business.
Why we like it
Ionos performed admirably during our hands-on Ionos testing with good server performance and great value. Most impressively, Ionos had the best customer service of any web host I’ve tested so far, thanks to the speed and helpfulness of its customer support representatives.
The main benefits of the Ionos website builder for small businesses are the custom email address, advanced contact form and social media integration. You’ll also get access to 17,000 stock images. Higher-tier plans include AI image generation, plus tools for online booking. You can also turn any Ionos website builder plan into a store builder plan. This nearly doubles the cost, making the store builder option more expensive than e-commerce plans from some of the other website builders on this list.
Ionos also offers extensive security, including SSL certification, an advanced firewall with DDoS protection, malware scanning/removal, secure file transfer protocol and two-factor authentication.
Pricing
The most affordable Ionos website builder plan starts at $6 a month for the first six months of a one-year contract, then rises to $12 a month. This plan includes enough storage for at least 10 web pages, unlimited bandwidth, full access to the basic Ionos website builder (without e-commerce tools) and a professional email inbox with 2GB of storage.
Ionos’s Plus plan starts at just $1 for the first six months but increases to $18 a month afterward. This makes it more affordable upfront, but more expensive in the long run. If you do spring for this plan, you’ll get enough storage for at least 200 web pages, AI image generation, online booking tools and 10GB of email storage.
You can upgrade any website builder to use the online store builder. Your first six months will have the same introductory pricing, but the monthly increase afterward is much more significant, with Starter rising to $24 a month and Plus rising to $30 a month.
All Ionos website builder plans include a free domain for the first year. You’ll need to pay $20 to $30 per year after that to keep your domain registered with Ionos.
Factors to consider when choosing a website builder
Type of hosting
There are two types of web hosting commonly used by website builders:
- Shared hosting, which stores many websites on one server. This means each website has limited resources (like bandwidth and storage), but it also keeps costs low. Traditional hosting companies like Hostinger use shared hosting for their website builder plans.
- Cloud hosting, which stores a website on several interconnected servers in different geographical locations. This makes it easy for the host to provide more resources (like bandwidth and storage) as your site grows. Cloud hosting may also provide better uptime and site speed than traditional hosting types. Cloud hosting is more expensive than shared hosting. Companies like Wix and Squarespace use cloud hosting.
Shared hosting may be the best option if you’re building a small business website and you want to keep costs low. Cloud hosting is a great option if you’ve got a bigger budget and/or you expect your small business to experience rapid growth.
Templates
Website builders typically use templates to dictate your site’s appearance. You can customize most elements of your site, the template gives you a starting point with preset places for images, text and interactive elements like buttons. Templates also feature preset color schemes and fonts.
The best website builders for small businesses have templates for various industries like fashion, tech and marketing. Many also have functionality-focused templates for things like e-commerce stores, blogs or portfolios. There should be a broad selection of designer-made templates and a search function to help you find the right one.
AI tools
Most website builders include some generative artificial intelligence tools, ranging from full AI site generation to simple text creation. If you’re interested in using AI, look for reviews and tutorials that document the AI processes of the website builder you’re considering. You can also test it yourself if there’s a free trial or plan.
Before you commit to using AI, make sure you understand the potential ethical and legal implications of using these tools. Many generative AI tools are trained by scraping content from the web, often without the original creators’ consent. Creators aren’t compensated for this work either. This has led to many ethical concerns and some lawsuits against generative AI companies, including a class action lawsuit against Stable Diffusion. AI work also can’t be copyrighted in the US at this time.
Ease of use
All website builders are designed to make site creation easy for people without any tech experience, but they still require different skill levels. What’s simple for one user isn’t necessarily easy for another, either. I found Wix easier to work with than Squarespace. The opposite might be true for you.
You can learn how intuitive it is to use a specific website builder by reading reviews, watching tutorials and, if there’s a free plan or trial, testing it yourself.
Flexibility
Some website builders, like the GoDaddy website builder, ensure ease of use by limiting design options. This is fine if you’re looking to build a simple site, like a freelance writing portfolio, but it’s not great if you’re looking to build something truly unique or showcase your design skills.
If you want to build something unique to your business, look for a website builder that lets you customize everything, from overall fonts and color schemes to the placement and formatting of individual content blocks.
E-commerce and other monetization tools
There are three things to pay attention to here:
- Types of monetization tools: Some website builders offer built-in tools for a range of monetization strategies, including gated content and appointment booking systems. Others only offer basic e-commerce functionality and require add-ons for other types of monetization.
- Plan limitations: Many website builders restrict some or all of their e-commerce tools to higher-tier plans. This can result in significant costs — often $30 or more per month — if you’re starting an online store.
- Transaction fees: These come out of your customers’ payments. Most payment processors charge 2.9% + 0.30 USD for transactions from US-based credit cards. Some website builders charge more. Squarespace, for example, charges a 2% online store fee and a 7% transaction fee on content subscriptions on the lowest-tier hosting plan. You’ll need to factor these costs into your pricing to avoid losing money on sales.
Storage
Storage dictates the number of images, videos and pages you can host on your website. Many popular website builders have unlimited storage but others, like Wix, restrict your storage based on your plan. Understanding how much storage you’ll need to start your website is important.
You can generally expect to host 10 large pages (like image-heavy product pages) or 100 small pages (like blog posts with only one or two images) per GB of storage. Some estimates claim you can host up to 1,000 pages per GB, but I prefer to stick with the smaller estimates because having more storage than you’ll need is better than running out.
Bandwidth/data transfer
Bandwidth is the amount of data your site can send per second. Most web hosting companies use bandwidth interchangeably with data transfer, the measurement of how much data your site can send in a given month.
Most website builders offer unlimited or unmetered data transfer. There are often technical limits, but they’re so high that the company assumes most sites won’t exceed them. You can often find out what these limits are by reading the terms of service or asking customer service.
Some website builders list data transfer limitations with specific measurements in MB or GB. You can ask customer service how many monthly visitors these plans can accommodate.
Uptime
The percentage of time your site spends online. Uptime is important because users who can’t load your site will often go elsewhere, resulting in lost traffic, audience trust and potential revenue.
Most website builders guarantee 99.9% uptime, meaning your website won’t go down due to server issues for more than 10 minutes a week. Some promise 99.99% uptime, meaning your site won’t experience server-related downtime for more than two minutes per week.
Site speed
The number of seconds it takes for your site to load. Your site speed should be under three seconds because the bounce rate (the percentage of users who leave your site after only viewing one page) decreases by 32% when your site speed goes from three to one seconds.
Most website builders don’t promise a specific site speed because it’s largely dictated by the layout of your site. They may offer two tools to improve your site speed:
- Caching: A protocol for storing data in specialized “caches” that connect to a server’s CPU or central processing unit instead of the random access memory or RAM. This improves site speed because the CPU processes data more quickly than RAM.
- Content delivery network: A CDN stores website data in multiple interconnected servers spread across the globe. This allows users’ devices to access sites more quickly by pulling data from the server closest to them instead of being forced to retrieve information from the other side of the world.
These features often aren’t listed on website builders’ pricing pages. You can find out if they’re offered by a specific website builder by searching the company’s help center or asking customer service.
Security
At minimum, your website builder should offer two layers of security:
- Secure socket layer certification: An encryption protocol that translates data sent to and from your site (like payment information) into a language only computers can understand. This makes it difficult for malicious users to intercept your data. SSL certification also indicates that your site is safe. Some browsers and VPNs won’t open sites without it. Google also penalizes sites without SSL.
- Firewall protection: Filtration software that scans all data sent to your site, blocking most malware and other threats. Think of it like the website equivalent of wearing a mask during COVID or flu season: the majority of viruses are kept out, while the good stuff (air or, in this case, regular website traffic) is allowed through.
Many popular website builders also offer things like distributed denial of service protection to keep your site from being overwhelmed by malicious traffic and two-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized users from accessing your account.
Customer service
Customer service should be available 24/7 through your preferred method of communication, whether that’s live chat, email or phone. Many of the best website builders offer customer support through two or more of these channels. Channel availability doesn’t make the customer support good — website builder customer support is often slow and representatives may or may not be knowledgeable enough to help with your issues.
You can get a feel for a company’s customer service by reading their reviews on sites like Trustpilot, looking at their Better Business Bureau profiles and reading hands-on website builder tests right here on CNET.
Pricing
There are two pricing models you’ll encounter when looking at website builders: traditional web hosting pricing and website builder pricing.
Traditional web hosting pricing offers steep introductory discounts for your first contract term if you commit to two to four years of hosting. These prices often rise by 50% or more when your contract renews. This pricing model is used by companies like Hostinger and Ionos.
Website builder pricing has one permanent price point for each plan, billed annually. You can’t get a discount by paying for two or more years up front, but you won’t have to worry about the price increasing significantly when your contract renews either.
You’ll also need to consider some additional costs:
- Domain registration: Registering a domain (like cnet.com) typically costs around $20 or $30 per year. Many website builder plans come with a free domain for the first year, but you’ll need to pay for it yourself after that, even if you’re on a multi-year hosting plan.
- Add-ons: You may need to pay additional fees for things like email hosting and marketing. Some website builder companies offer these tools directly, while others require you to work with third-party services like Mailerlite.
How CNET tests website builders
Our selection process starts with researching website builder companies’ websites to assess the features, pricing and overall value of their plans. We then read reviews on sites like Trustpilot to get a sense of users’ general experience with each website builder. If the company has a Better Business Bureau page, we consider the number of open complaints and/or any warnings for things like fraud.
If the website builder has a free plan or trial, we create an account to evaluate the website builder’s template library, AI tools, overall ease of use and design flexibility. We’ve also performed extensive hands-on testing using our framework for testing web hosting services for most of the hosting companies on this list. This involves purchasing a plan and publishing a website to test the following aspects of the website builder experience:
- Ease of use
- Performance (uptime and site speed)
- Customer service
- Value
Our hands-on testing of companies like Hostinger and Ionos has so far focused on shared hosting, so we’ve excluded notes about ease of use from these listings. Many of the other categories — like server performance and customer service — are applicable to both regular hosting and website builder hosting, so we’ve added those notes where relevant.
Other website builders we’ve tested
GoDaddy
GoDaddy performed reasonably well in our hands-on testing, with great server performance and good customer service. The GoDaddy website builder gives you access to these benefits, plus both template-based website building and AI site generation. The editing tools are overly simplistic, limiting your ability to customize your site’s design.
The GoDaddy website builder Basic plan starts at $10 a month (based on a one-year contract) and rises to $17 a month on renewal. You can create up to 50 pages on this plan. You’ll also get unmetered bandwidth with a recommended maximum of 10,000 monthly visitors.
Read our GoDaddy review.
Site123
Site123 is one of the best free website builders. Its AI-powered website builder generates attractive websites in seconds based on minimal information. The site editor is intuitive and flexible. You’ll also get access to top-notch tools for blogging and search engine optimization. Site123 has strict storage and bandwidth limits, even for its highest-tier plan.
The most affordable paid Site123 plan costs $12.80 per month and provides enough storage for three large pages or 30 smaller pages. You’ll also get enough bandwidth for a few hundred monthly visitors.
Website builder for small business FAQs
