Website Builder Index - Ranking of All Website Builders

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Hi, I'm Christian! I'm here to review and rank all the best website builders out there so you can stop wasting time and money and start building your business. See all the categories or scroll down to go through each one.

Want to skip comparison shopping and dive right in?
Try Wix for a simple, generic builder (free plan available) or Shopify for the best ecommerce solution.
 

Best Website Builders

These builders are flexible and can be used as a blog, a brochure website, a store or a niche website, depending on the chosen template. They usually lack niche-specific tools when compared to more focused website builders.

WordPress
The most flexible website builder, powers 25% of the web

WordPress started off as a blogging platform a long time ago and now powers over a quarter of the Internet.

How did it get here? Well, there are actually two ways you can use WordPress:

  1. WordPress.org allows you do download the source code and host it on your own, which means you get full control over how everything works. In that sense, WordPress.com is an open-source CMS (Content Management System), with the downside that you also need to worry about upgrades, security and everything else that could go wrong with hosting a website and managing the code.
  2. WordPress.com is where you get the website builder experience: you create an account and they take care of everything for you (for a fee or for free on the ad-supported version). It used to be that WordPress.com was the cleaner, sanitized version, where you could only install plugins and themes that were carefully selected and vetted by the WordPress team (very few compared to the vast WordPress plugins/themes universe).

Recently WordPress.com has decided to allow any custom plugin and theme to be installed on the $25/month plan. This is huge, because if there's one thing that sets WordPress apart from all the other website builders it's the ocean of plugins and themes it taps into. Basically, almost anything a website can do, there's a plugin for that. Most niches and needs are covered, and lots of the plugins and themes are also free.

One area where WordPress stands behind the competition is the usability. This is somewhat to be expected given the sheer power WordPress has, it's very tough to hide away all that complexity. Plus, all those custom themes and plugins each have their particular way of doing things, which can get very messy when you have dozens of plugins installed.

Another reason WordPress is a bit cumbersome to use is it's not a drag and drop editor, but content is entered in forms. This separates the design from the content and makes everything less enjoyable. If you have previous experience with the WordPress admin area you'll be ok, otherwise prepare for a bit of head scratching at first.

There's a free version available if you want to test the waters. Paid plans start at $4/month

Wix
Most popular website builder, very user friendly

Powering over 100.000.000, Wix is the most popular website builder out there, not counting Wordpress, which threads the line between a CMS and a website builder.

Wix excels at being accessible, both from a user friendliness perspective and price-wise. It has one of the most easy to use editors and the next steps seem to be logical throughout the building process.

Wix also has very strong blogging and ecommerce features, and it's always adding more features. There's also a huge app store available, which can augment your website should you need any niche features.

You can hire a web designer that specializes in Wix, right from the wix platform. You can also see a list of their previous projects in the portfolio section.

There's a forever free plan available that is ad supported (the ads promote the Wix platform) and plans start at $8.50/month, free domain included.

Squarespace
Best designs, very clean editor, great blogging tools

While Wix is the Swiss Army knife of website builders (lots of features but looking a bit clunky), Squarespace is like a chef's knife (elegant, very focused).

All the templates look great on desktop and mobile and can be edited in depth with the style editor (each text, link or icon can be customized to look just the way you want). If that's not enough, you can jump in the CSS code and geek it out until the cows come home.

Unlike some competitors, Squarespace doesn't allow for backups.

There are also some great ecommerce features available, should you need to sell a few items through your website. Blogging is also available for all plans, and it's very polished.

There's no free plan but a 14 day free trial is available. Paid plans start at $12/month (for the yearly plan), which also includes a free domain.

Weebly
Very intuitive, lots of value for the small price

Weebly comes of as very user friendly, even playful. The drag and drop editor is very intuitive and the templates are modern looking and fully responsive.

There is no undo and there are no backups, so be careful with what you delete!

There are apps for iPhone, Android phones, tablets and even smartwatches. You can easily edit your website on the go and follow stats and form entries.

There are also some great membership features available, making Weebly a strong competitor if you're looking for a membership website.

Other features like the form editor, blogging and ecommerce are also well done and show that Weebly is a well-rounded website builder.

There's a forever free plan available with 500MB of storage and a weebly.com subdomain. Email and chat support is available to all plans and phone support is available with the $12/month plan.

Strikingly
Best for one page sites, great smartphone apps

Strikingly specializes in creating one page websites, which means all the different sections are on the same page and you can scroll between them. The templates are very well done and work great on all resolutions. Speaking of which, you can use the iOS or Android apps to update your website on the go or just check the analytics.

There is a blog section with all the standard features included and a very basic contact form.

There is a free plan available which allows for unlimited websites, 5GB bandwidth and even a "store" where you can sell one product per site. You won't be able to sell digital products through the store though.

For $8/month you'll get 50GB bandwidth, a free domain and 5 products per store.

I would recommend Strikingly if you want great looking one-page websites that are not very information-heavy.

Voog
Good for small multi-language websites

Voog has a clean and intuitive interface and it's very well suited for small websites or blogs. You can even sell a few products with the handy ecommerce features, but I wouldn't recommend having a large inventory with them or you'll get frustrated pretty fast.

The blog is pretty standard, with the possibility of posting in the future. You can add a contact form that emails you the entries.

There is a lot of support for multi-language pages: each page can have different language versions.

There are not a lot of themes, but they look good and are fully responsive.

There's no free plan, but a free trial is available and paid plans start at $6/month.

Ukit
Lots of similar templates, great backups, no free plan

Ukit is a relatively new website builder, it comes from Russia and it puts up a decent fight against the established leaders like Wix, Squarespace and Weebly.

There are over 250 templates available to choose from, but most of them look alike and the best ones can only be used on the Premium+ plan ($8 / month)

Another shortcoming on the templates front, not all of them have the same functionality (widgets) and you kind of have to guess what works where.

There are a few translations available for the admin area (English, Portuguese, Romanian and Russian).

There is no membership functionality but a nice surprise is the unlimited SMS notifications for contact form entries, available for all the paid plans.

Speaking of which, there is not free plan available, only a 14 days free trial. After that you'll need to choose a paid plan, starting at $4 / month, which is very competitive with no ads and unlimited storage.

For $9.60 per month you get access to the Ecommerce functionality, which keep getting better, lately they've added in-house payment processing, which means visitors don't leave the site when they make a purchase.

One other nice feature is the ability to undo/redo almost any access and more importantly, you can save the whole website instance (10 backups available), which means you can restore the whole website in a previous state.

There is also a service where they build a website or landing page for $100, in 10 days. I wouldn't expect anything spectacular, but it could be a good starting point.

Ucraft
Simple but pretty templates, good for small websites

With Ucraft you need to pick one of the three plans: Landing Page (Free), Website ($6/month) or Ecommerce ($13/month).

There is a 14 day free trial available, but you need to enter your credit card details to access it.

Ucraft is a much newer addition to the website builder world and that's reflected in the template collection (which is fairly large). Most if not all templates are very trendy, with large resolution photos and lots of white space.

You can add a whole team to edit your website and you can grant them roles (like Designer, Editor, etc) as well as specific privileges.

There's also a image editor available and you can easily import images into Ucraft thanks to their integration with Unsplash.

They even give you access to a logo creation tool, which is nice, I guess.

There's also an Ecommerce plan and it has most of the features you'd expect, especially at the low price of $13/month.

Duda
A bit expensive, focuses on whitelabels, limited support

Duda is a website builder that power a lot of hosting companies with their whitelabel offering. 1&1, 123 Reg, Register.it are among the many hhosting providers that also resell the Duda Website Builder under their own brand.

They also have a "retail" option that feels a bit pricey, at $14.25 per month.

Among their best features are a very well done form builder, lots of styling settings for the templates and especially their "personalization rules". That means that you can customize the content on the page according to certain rules like what time it is or where the visitors arrived from.

The Enterprise plan allows you to export the full website in a zip archive.

Notably there is no live chat or phone support number available.

Show more website builders
Yola
Messy interface, outdated templates

The editor throws a lot of buttons and menus at you and it's a bit overwhelming for beginners.

There is a free plan available and paid plans start at $4.95/month. You need to pay $9.95 to get rid of the Yola branding in the footer and more importantly a mobile-ready website, which should really be included in every package by now.

Yola tries to upsell you at every corner and it's not always useful stuff either, like an SEO package that consists of a bunch of tools you could find for free with the help of Google.

The templates look two decades old, enough said.

The Good

  • On the plus side, they have a small dialogue pop-up in the corner where you can enter a query like "How can I ad a map?". For the most common questions it seems to find answers automatically, but for the more complex ones you'll need to go to Chat or Email. Email was the only option available for me during testing. It didn't help that they asked for my name and email while I was already logged in.

The Bad

  • Yola tries to squeeze some dollars (29.95 monthly to be exact) for SEO optimization, which is just a SEO scanner with suggestions. You can find many good ones for free online, so this seems just a way to make a quick buck from less technical users.

The Ugly

  • The editor feels unstable and the interface consists of throwing together random buttons together, adding to the confusion of a first-time user.
  • You can add an online store to your site, which has some decent options but nothing to write home about.

Overall Yola seems a bit confusing, backward but stable solution to build a site. I wouldn't recommend starting a new site with Yola now, given the fierce competition they have in the likes of Squarespace or Weebly.

IMCreator
Lots of great themes, confusing editor

ImCreator (formerly XPRS) has lots of slick looking, responsive themes. You also get to play around with the menus and arrange it just the way you like it.

Unfortunately aside from the nice looking templates there's not much to recommend it. The editor is very glitchy and confusing (although it does look nice, it's not very intuitive) and the website elements are pretty basic (forms, blogs, store) are all lacking. There are no membership or multilingual options either/

There's a cery limited free plan, with only 50mb of storage available. Also, when you switch a template you lose your content and have to enter it again.

A big plus is that you can export your website and move it elsewhere, which is unfortunately not that common in the website builder world.

Simvoly
Beautiful themes, limited features, focused on agencies

Simvoly is a newcomer in the website builder world and it seems to focus on agencies and developers that want to build websites for their clients. That doesn't mean you can't use it for yourself though.

Simvoly has a couple of feature it does very well: blogging and ecommerce. They also offer a membership option so you can create private content.

The form builder is decent and covers most needs.

Unfortunately that's about it for Simvoly, there are is no app store and barely any 3rd party integrations to speak of, which puts it in the bottom of the list, way behind the likes of Wix or Squarespace.

There's no forever free plan but there is a free trial available, no credit card required. Website and Logo design is also available for a decent price.

Overall I'd say Simvoly is a good option for beginners if you only need a fairly simple website where you can even sell a few products. You'll probably outgrow it quickly and find yourself looking for a more developed alternative.

Snappages
Good editor, cheap, too few themes

SnapPages is a website builder made for small sites and is friendly to beginners. It doesn't have too many advanced features and the ones it does have are well presented by the editor interface.

There are just a handful of templates but they look good and can be customized pretty heavily.

The editor is slick and it has a nice feel overall, but it can be confusing at times, for example when adding a section. You get a bunch of images dropped on the page (presumably the way the sections will look), but no titles and no descriptions of the sections, so you sort of have to squint and try to understand what each section is about.

On the plus side, pages have page versions, so you can restore them to certain states in the past.

The form editor is well made, it has some elements that other simple website builders lack, like checkbox, radio and even a map item.

There's no free plan but a 14 day free trial is available. Paid plans start at $4/month but for a custom domain and no Snappages branding you'll have to pay $10, which is still not bad.

Zoho
Few and plain looking themes, good integrations

Zoho is a huge cloud software company and the website builder is just a small (and somewhat ignored) corner of their empire. As such, don't expect to find anything impressive with their offering, it's just a standard website builder that may have been a hit 10 years ago but now is just another drop in the ocean.

While the form builder and the blogging tools are well done, it's not enough to convince in such a competitive market.

Zoho does allow for header and footer code to be added, so you can include some javascript plugins and widgets from third parties.

An interesting features is the possibility to add 301 redirects, which is especially helpful if you switched to Zoho from another host and you want to redirect the old links to your new website.

The paid plans start at $5/site/month for 1GB storage and 10 GB bandwidth which is not a lot, especially if you plan to post pictures on your website. There is a limited free plan available.

Zoho does shine in one aspect, it's well integrated with the rest of their offering like databases and CRM. So if you plan on building a data intensive website it may still be a good choice, otherwise, the boring themes and the stale feature set won't make any heads turn.

Webstarts
Confusing editor, bad mobile experience, decent blogging

With Webstarts it's win some, lose some. Some features, like the blogging options (set post time, decent formatting) and the form builder are well done, while in other areas it's really lacking.

The editor is particularly confusing, with a "Pages" button on the left that is actually meant for SEO and a drop-down on the upper left side that is where you can switch and edit pages. It takes a while to find your bearings and this can be a big hurdle for newcomers.

There is a membership option where you can set pages that can be seen by certain members only, which is a welcome surprise.

Another minus is with the mobile experience. Webstarts allows you to place the page items wherever you want by dragging (snapping and guides are available). Unfortunately this does not translate well on the infinite mobile screen sizes, with hit and miss results. Sometimes everything looks just the way you meant to, other times some elements are nowhere to be found.

There is a (limited) forever free plan you can use to see if you like it but you'll need the Pro Plus plan ($7.16/month) for any serious website (mobile optimization and 1000 contact form enquiries).

Cindr
Outdated, too basic and behind the competition

Cindr brands itself as a truly simple website builder and it tries to deliver on that promise buy keeping the featureset to a bare minimum. There are only 8 templates to pick from and the editor is very basic and restrictive (you can't move the blocks wherever you want).

Cindr is built around the "blocks" that you can add to the page (image, text, forms, etc). Unfortunately the blocks aren't very customizable and you start hitting walls pretty soon. Overall it seems like Cindr is underdeveloped and stuck in time, which is a pitty because simplicity is always a strong selling point, as long as it comes with enough funtionality.

There's a forever free plan if you want to play around with it but even at the price of zero there are better alternatives out there.

1and1
1&1 is actually a front for the Duda builder

1&1 is a web hosting company that resells the Duda website builder. Check out the Duda Review for a review of the same builder

Other than that, you need to enter your credit card details to enter the free trial and you need to call them to cancel your plan. The are also known to have some bad billing practices and to always try to upsell you.

 

Ecommerce Website Builders

While many general purpose stores allow you to sell products it takes a specialized ecommerce builder to create a full-featured store. These builders will give you all kind of store tools and customization options and you need to take into acount your store size and specific needs when you make your pick.

Squarespace
Beautiful templates, great usability, limited flexibility

Squarespace shines at design and usability, and their ecommerce offering doesn't disappoint. You get a standard store complete with coupons, variable sizes, physical and digital products and flexible shipping. Sales taxes are only available for the US and Canada right now.

Pros:

  • Very good looking themes
  • Great blogs
  • Easy to use
  • 24/7 Support

Cons:

  • Limited flexibility if you want lots of customizations

Pricing starts at $26 / month which is not prohibitive.

Conclusion: Squarespace gives you a beautiful looking store, well-suited if you want to start selling just a few products right away. You'll probably not be happy with it if you have tons of products and need many custom features.

BigCommerce
Lots of great built-in features at a fair price

BigCommerce is an established player in the ecommerce space, mainly directed towards the bigger stores (as the name implies). All the ususal features are there, like integrations with lots of payment gateways, good SEO, extensive reporting and product reviews.

Bigcommerce has lots of features built in, while other platforms (looking at you Shopify) depend on third party apps. It already contains product reviews and ratings, shipping quotes and gift cards.

Pricing starts at @29.95 / month, for which you'll get a fully-functioning standard store, unlimited bandwidth, storage and products.

There are only 7 free themes but for about $150 you can get any of the 120 premium themes.

BigCommerce also offers an abandoned cart feature which is better than the competition, allowing for multiple reminder emails.

The app store is decent with over 600 apps available but Shopify clearly wins this one with more than 2000 apps.

Support is another strong point here, with phone support available for everyone. There is a free trial available, as you'd expect.

Wix
Ecommerce features on top of a great website builder

Wix started out a long time ago as a very affordable website builder and has a huge number of satisfied clients. They recently went full speed into the ecommerce world and have been well-received because of their affordable prices and great flexibility.

For $16.50 you get your standard ecommerce needs met. You can upgrade your store with a well-stocked app-store.

Over 500 templates should be enough and a forever free plan lets you customize your website as you'd please (but not sell anything yet).

Wix is a big favorite for small businesses, so if you don't see your store growing past 100 products go for it.

WooCommerce
Flexible WordPress plugin with a steep learning curve

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, which means you'll need to take care of web hosting, upgrades and security. The upside is that you get total freedom and you can customize it to your liking with the help of add-ons.

The plugin is free and open source, but you will need to pay for web hosting and probably some add-ons, although there are plenty of free ones also.

The only fees you'll pay are for the payment gateway (Paypal, Stripe, etc). Since you manage hosting, you also need to take care of backups, but you have control over your data, which can't be said for most of the other builders on this list.

If you don't mind tweaking code and handling hosting by yourself WooCommerce is a very strong candidate. Otherwise stick with something like Shopify or Squarespace.

BigCartel
Easy selling solution for artists and beginners

Big Cartel focuses on artists who want to sale their creations and as such is better suited for beginning entrepreneurs in general.

With BigCartel, the Pros are pretty much the same as the Cons: simplicity, fewer features, affordable, easy to use. What makes it approachable by beginners also makes it unsuitable for more advanced stores.

The pricing tiers are also beginner-friendly, with a Forever Free plan that enables you to sell up to 5 products on the bigcartel.com domain.

For $9.99 you get 25 products, control over the code, inventory tracking and discount codes.

If you only need to sell a few products and don't mind sticking to standard ecommerce features, BigCartel might be the one for you. Some sellers find that as they grow they need to switch to more customizable solutions, like Shopify.

Zoey
B2B (wholesale) ecommerce platform

Zoey is built on top of Magento (a hosted ecommerce solution) but is sold as software as a service (SAAS), so you don't need to touch any code to get the most out of it. Zoey combines Magento's flexibility with Shopify's user-friendliness and is the go-to solution if you run a wholesale business. It's mainly aimed at B2B stores and as such it's pricing can be a bit discouraging for startups, starting at $299 per month.

Aside from the high-end ecommerce features, Zoey really shines in the design department, with some great templates and lots of ways to tweak them just the way you want.

Shopify
Good solution for small and medium shops

Shopify is used and loved by over half a million store owners and it's still growing like a weed.

Pros:

  • Turn-key solution, just add products and start selling
  • Tons of Apps that cover any particular function your store may need (many of them free)
  • Awesome customer support
  • Good looking out of the box, with lots of themes available
  • Many developers/designers specializing in Shopify

Cons:

  • Not as much control as other options like Wordpress / WooCommerce or Magento
  • Pricey for small shops, especially if you have enough technical know-how to handle Wordpress/Magento
  • Enterprise solution available for big brands in the form of Shopify Plus

Conclusion: If you're starting out with ecommerce and need a one-size-fits-all solution, look no further than Shopify for a flexible online storefront

Prices start at $39 / month, with the first month at $1.

Weebly
Basic stores with a focus on ease of use but not scalable

Weebly is another general purpose website builder that can also be used as a store.

Even if you can sell on the lower plans (for a 3% fee), you really need the Business plan ($25/month and unlimited products at 0% fee) to use basic ecommerce features like inventory management, product reviews, tax calculator and coupons. For $38/month you also get the abandoned cart feature.

Weebly is not an ecommerce solution at heart, all that is just added on top of their main website builder business and you can see this pretty quickly as your store grows. There are very few ways to customize your store functionality if what you get out of the box is not enough.

If you think your store will grow beyond a few dozen items you may look at more established providers like Shopify. Otherwise you may find yourself in the position to switch providers, which is a major pain regardless of the website builder you use.

On the other hand, if you just need a quick way to sell some products and you don't want to tweak the settings that much, Weebly could be the one.

Show more ecommerce builders
Jumpseller
Best multi-language and local features

Jumpseller is not the overall winner in this category but it does outshines the rest in one area: multi-language features. It supports over 30 languages by default and it also has the option of using a language-specific admin area, which is something most builders lack.

Localization is at the heart of Jumpseller, and they integrate lots of local shipping carriers and payment methods.

You can also customize the checkoutflow, another area that is usually restricted by other vendors. There are no transaction fees and pricing starts at $19 / month. SSL and a free domain are also included in all plans.

On the other hand, it lacks some more advanced ecommerce features like recurring products and gift cards. Also, there are just a couple dozen themes available which is very poor compared to the hunderds offered by Shopify and the likes.

Volusion
Popular, limited and pricey

Volusion powers over 30,000 stores and has the basic features working well. It also offers a nice abandoned cart feature and if you need any extras, there's a decent app store available.

Volusion doesn't charge a transaction fee, but it does charge a bandwidth fee for all plans. This means that every visit to your website (including bots) will count towards your overall bandwidth, and it adds up fast, even with 2-3 pictures per product page. 1Gb bandwidth could mean 20-30 visitors per day, which is what the $15/month plan will get you. Additional bandwidth is $7/month, so even if the pricing plans seem accessible at first, this bandwidth limit can run up fast.

Volusion also doesn't offer SSL (secure pages that start with https) by default and will charge you for that, which most other providers will give you out of the box. This also can get quite costly ($49 to $990 per year).

Overall I feel like the usability and competitive features you get with Volusion are outweighed by the somewhat predatory pricing, which could catch the beginner entrepreneur by surprise.

Godaddy
Cheap but very limited

You really do get what you pay for with GoDaddy

 

Landing Page Builders

Landing pages are web pages focused on a very clear goal, like getting a lead or selling a product.

Some landing page builders cover the whole marketing funnel from ad management to the checkout process while others will just help you build a single page website.

You'll have to scan the list to see which builder will better fit for your needs.

Carrd
Affordable one page sites

Carrd is an impressive addition to this list. It allows you to build simple one-page sites that can be used as a landing page, an online profile page, a form that collects emails or more.

It has a smooth learning page and very affordable pricing, with up to 3 sites on the forever free plan. $19 / year will get you 10 websites and lots of goodies like domain mapping, script embeds and unlimited page elements.

That said, Carrd is not a full fledged marketing solution, it's main use is to ship a simple one-page website right now for cheap. If you need a full marketing funnel solution, check out ClickFunnels or LeadPages.

ClickFunnels
Best marketing funnels tool

Clickfunnels is the most popular all-in-one marketing funnels tool. Besides well crafted landing pages it lets you create membership sites, order forms, one-click upsells, affiliate centers, automated webinars and more.

Because there's so much you can do with it, Clickfunnels can be a bit overwhelming at first and some of the integrations have been a little buggy at times.

Plans start at $97/month for 20 funnels, 100 pages and 20k visitors. There's a 14 days free trial available, but a credit card is needed.

LeadPages
Versatile, trendy, lots of hand-holding and guiding

I wouldn't want to compete with Leadpages. Their tool has it all: lots and lots of flexible, customizable templates, great integrations and an unbeatable price, starting at $25/month.

You can even use their leadbox popup forms on your own website and collect leads into your Leadpages account. They do a lot of coaching, webinars and workshops so beginners will be taken care of.

They will also create Facebook Ads straight from your landing page text, you just tweak it and you're ready to go.

There is a free trial available but a credit card is required.

Unbounce
Very powerful, very popular, not for beginners

Unbounce is probably the most popular solution on this list. Their content marketing is very effective and many marketers consume their blog posts or ebooks even if they're not customers.

The landing page builder is a rocket, both in strength and control panels. The editor greets you with dozens of buttons and panels and can be overwhelming for the beginner marketer. That's the main reason Unbounce doesn't get a full five star rating.

Lots of integrations, templates and control over the Javascript and CSS code make Unbounce a complete tool and a go-to for many professionals. Plans start at $79/month and there's a 30-day free trial as well as a preview of the editor that doesn't require any prior information to be entered.

Instapage
Great integrations, lots of templates, very flexible editor

Instapage has a very strong feature set, basically giving you complete freedom over how your landing pages look and what they do. You get to pick from a vast range of templates or start with a blank slate. The drag and drop editor is very intuitive and it allows you to design each element just the way you want it, no code required. If you do want to tinker with the code you can override the CSS code for any element on the page.

A/B testing, heatmaps, dynamic text, conversion analytics are all there and working great. Instapage works great for teams, with roles and accounts neatly built in.

There are also plenty of integrations available so no mater the CRM you're using, you'll probably be able to use it seamlessly. Zapier is also available should you want to get creative with the data.

Pricing starts at $149/month which I find too costly for new entrepreneurs despite the benefits that Instapage offers. Enterprise clients are welcome on the custom plan, which offers concierge services.

Wishpond
Complete lead generation tool

Wishpond is much more than a landing page builder, it can help you create and manage full marketing funnels with social contests, popups, drip campaigns and marketing automation.

As such, it's priced per lead and it's not the cheapest tool of it's kind, with $49/month for maximum 1000 leads and $199/month for 10,000 leads plus implementation coaching.

You need to book a demo if you want to take a look inside but Wishpond is definitiely a crowd favorite in the marketing world

Landingi
Affordable, smooth learning curve

Landingi is a good option for landing page beginners because of the good price, smooth onboarding and additional services. You can easily find your way in the editor as it guides you to select a landing page goal and then a template (there are plenty available). All the elements on the page are customizable to the pixel, no coding required.

Plans start at $29/month for aunlimited landing pages, but you'll need to pay $49 for crm integrations, A/B testing, autoresponders and more goodies.

They also offer services like landing page design ($390) or landing page import ($99), where you send your own design (PSD, HTML or JPG) and they import it into your Landingi account.

A 16 days free trial is available and support is always nearby should you need it.

Show more landing page builders
Pagewiz
All you'd expect from a decent landing page creator

Pagewiz doesn't impress and doesn't dissapoint. It has the basics covered in terms of A/B testing, integrations, good editor, standard support (no weekends chat operators)

With plans starting at $29 for 5000 unique visitors it's pretty competitive, and the free trial allows you to test it with up to 200 visitors

Strikingly
Full-featured one page websites

Strikingly is not a standard landing page builder, but it does specialize in one-page websites so it gets a spot on this list.

With the Pro plan ($16/month) you can create up to 20 pages, but single page websites are what Strikingly does best. It's very easy to find your way around the admin area and the templates, although few in number, are quite eye-grabbing.

Use this one if all you want is a one-page presentation website, but know that you can do lots of things on that one-page like sell products or show a portfolio.

LanderApp
Unimpressive templates and a squicky editor

For $16/month (with the annual plan) you get some standard templates with a functional but a bit outdated drag and drop editor. Among the features you'll get are dynamic text replacement (which allows you to match the landing page text with Adwords ads) and auto-filled forms (if visitors to your landing page have entered their data in other Landerapp landing pages, the form will be auto-completed)

Nothing to write home about, but there is a free 14 days trial, no credit card required if you're interested

LaunchRock
Way too basic and not maintained anymore

LaunchRock was a big hit when it launched, years and year ago. It was one of the first website builders that just gave you a "Coming soon" page and nothing else. Unfortunately it never grew beyond that phase, and even with the rock-bottom pricing ($5/month premium plan) it still offers too little in today's competitive world.

There are only 8 templates to pick from, and even those are very basic and have too little meat on them. Besides from a form to collect emails there's not much more that Launchrock has to offer. I still see it in use here and there, especially on the free plan, so if all you want is a couple of paragraphs of text and a signup form give it a try.

 

Portfolio Builders

Digital creatives are some of the most active online professionals and they don't mind to pay for the best tools. That's why they have lots and lots of options when it comes to displaying their work. There are portfolio builders out there for any need and price range.

"But I'm a creator, I'll build my own!" you may say. And I'm sure you could, but until you do that, take a bit of time to put something out there. "The cobler's child has no shoes" as they say, and the digital creative usually has no portfolio to show. Don't let that be you.

Smugmug
Best price/quality ratio around, very user-friendly

Smugmug is a mature, solid website builder that somehow still is nimble like a startup. It's very easy to get started with it, you can import photos from Dropbox, Amazon Drive or Flickr. Speaking of which, they recently bought Flickr! Even if the Flickr had been loosing its luster since Yahoo bought it, it was stil a huge watering hole for photographers and it still holds some of that former fame, so I can't wait to see if Smugmug can turn that ship around.

There are also Android, iOS and Lightroom apps available.

A photo editor is available with lots of editing options plus you can add titles, captions, comments and keywords to each picture.

The store is also well equipped, with packages, coupons, prints and more. They have amazing customer service, with a lot of hand-holding and instant replies.

The plans are very accessible, starting at $3.99/month and up to $29.99/month. All plans come with unlimited photos and videos and there's also a 14 days free trial available.

Wherever you are in your photographic journey Smugmug can facilitate your passion so try it out and let me know how it went.

Format
Super quality at every corner plus always-on support

Format is one of the most loved portfolio builders among professionals and amateurs alike.

The themes look great and are very flexible but there's not that many of them, I guess they're going for quality over quantity here. You also get access to the theme's code files (CSS, JS and HTML) so you can tweak each theme as much as you like.

Proofing is available for the Pro and Unlimited plans. Speaking of which, Format is not the cheapest builder on the list but pricing is accessible, starting at $6/month for the 100 images plan, and going up to $25/month for the Unlimited plan.

For the cheapest plan you can sell 3 products, and the store supports physical products, digital products or services. Product options and shipping fees are also supported.

Overall, the editor is very well crafted with great accessibility and plenty of power under the hood.

Support is available 24/7 and there's a 14 days free trial available, as you'd expect.

Squarespace
Excellent designs and a very intuitive editor

Squarespace is a top favorite for creatives everywhere even if it doesn't specifically address them as a generic website builder. It does have a very modern feel and one of the most intuitive editors out there. Everything looks so simple and within reach, you can tell that a lot of thought went into each tiny detail.

Pricing starts at $12/month for a basic website and $18 will also get you the Business plan which allows you to also sell your art, but you will be charged a 3% fee for each transaction.

If you want the full online store experience you will have to subscribe to a Commerce plan, starting at $26/month, which will also get you a zero transaction fee, on top of inventory tracking, tax features, coupons and all other kinds of e-commerce good stuff.

There's a 14 days free trial and it's definitely worth a test run.

Pixpa
Lots and lots of features for a very good price

Pixpa is not one of the most known portfolio builders out there, but that should change, because it's certainly the one that offers the most bang for the buck.

Even the $5/month starting plan offers 200 images, a custom domain, a commission-free store where you can sell 3 products, proofing, photo editing and much more. There are lots of design options you can tweak and also unlimited pages, including a blog.

For the $8/month plan you get unlimited images, which is really hard to beat.

Ecommerce is available through Paypal or a local indian payment processor (for indian users only)

SEO settings for each portfolio item

Customer support is available 24/7 and the 30 days trial is enough to make up your mind.

Photoshelter
Full-featured photography websites

Photoshelter is an all-in-one solution for professional photographers to stay on top of their business.

The editor does a good job of presenting the many features when they're needed. You get the usual marketing tools like SEO and social sharing, plus a lot of security and privacy features like custom watermarks, multiple logins for the same gallery/collection and download limits.

You can upload your photos through FTP, by providing a link (if they're already online somewhere) or by uploading a zip archive.

Client Proofing is available, which grants your clients special access so they can search and rate the photos they like. This is cool because client collaboration can be done on-site, faster and easier, especially for the less technical clients which won't have to use third-party products.

There are also lots of commerce features including VAT/taxes collection, coupons, custom backprinting, packages and much more. Did I mention there's also a mobile app available?

The free trial lasts for 14 days, after which you will pay starting at $10/month, $25 if you also need the Client Proofing tool. Unlimited storage is $45, which also gets you a personal website consultation, which at this price seems like a requirement.

22Slides
Simple websites, simple pricing

22Slides is a simple builder with a simple offer: $10/month.

There's no proofing, but they do offer a Dropbox add-on that you can use for that purpose. You get 1000 images and a Flickr add-on to pull-in more pictures. The ecommerce features are very limited, delivered through Paypal. You're starting to get the picture, no? 22Slides outsources a lot of their core features and focuses on a very simple interface and streamlined experience.

While it may work fine for the hobby photographers, it's not a great option for the pros. The fact that they don't offer a simple way to export all your work is not encouraging for when you may want to switch to another builder.

There's 30 days a free trial waiting for you if you want to take it for a test run.

PortfolioBox
Efficient editor and a decent forever free plan

Portfoliobox is a great option if you're on a tight budget and want to put something out there as soon as possible. The editor is very easy to use and you can get a basic portfolio site started within minutes. You can also sell your products through Paypal, Stripe or invoice.

An original feature is a checklist with marketing ideas that is a big help in an area where many users get stuck quickly: "I've built this website, now how do I get users to visit it?".

There's a forever free plan that gives you 50 images and 10 products, so a great starting place.

For only $8.9 per month you get 1000 images and unlimited pages. With the paid plan you can also add custom CSS/Javascript code to your site, as well as connect your own domain

FotoMerchant
Lots of ecommerce features but high prices

FotoMerchant is true to it's name as it has the most ecommerce features of any builder on this list, including fulfillment through their own printing center. They also allow you to sell digital products (for an extra charge per megabye), and lost of other sales features. They are based in Australia and their customer support is above industry average.

Plans start at $12/month, going up to $99/month for digital downloads delivery and extra searching and tagging features. Plus, there's a transaction fee that starts from 15% for the lowest plan and goes down to 2.5% for the high rollers.

Is it worth it? Hundreds of their clients say so, and with the 30 days free trial you can decide for yourself.

Carbonmade
Ex new kid on the block, now growing old

Carbonmade successfully disrupted the online portfolio space almost almost a decade ago with it's simple editor, simple themes and simple pricing (only one tier back then).

It was a breath of fresh air for artists looking for a solution that just works and stays out of their way. Plus it was one of the first to offer an unlimited number of images to their plan.

Meanwhile (some of) the competition caught up in terms of usability, with improved workflows and better designs. Carbonmade hasn't changed much though, and it quickly turned from hot new startup to just another drop in the sea. Which is not great for them, because they still have very limited features (no ecommerce for example) and their pricing is no longer that competitive.

Plans start at $6 per month, for which you are forced to keep the Carbonmade branding, can't use your own domain and are limited to 10 projects.

A free trial is available so check it out for your self.

PortfolioLounge
Definitely the simplest builder, a bit too expensive

Portfoliolounge makes porfolios and nothing more. There are no content pages except for the about page, no ecommerce and very few templates to pick from. The only reason it's so high on this list is exactly the simplicity, which is what makes it attractive especially to less technical users.

The pricing is a bit on the high side given the poor feature set, with $12/month for 1000 uploads and $24 for 10000 uploads. A free domain is included with both plans and not much more.

You have to appreciate the simplicity, so try it out for free if you just want a place to put your photos.

Show more portfolio builders
AdobePortfolio
Included in Creative Cloud, decent but too simple

AdobePortfolio comes with the CreativeCloud suite at $53 / month, or separate at $10/month

The main thing AdobePortfolio has going for it is that you also get access to Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC, plus 20GB storage. Oh, and a bunch of fonts from Typekit, another Adobe product. That's why lots of photographers already have an account to AdobePortfolio but never use it.

The functionality of the actual portfolio builder is very basic and there's no ecommerce available.

If you're already a CreativeCloud subscriber, give it a shot, you're already paying for it :)

Zenfolio
Cheap unlimited plans, stale themes, little support

Zenfolio as one big pro argument: unlimited pictures and videos for all plans. And starting at $5 per month, that is a pretty compelling offer. The downside is that customer support from a real person is only available on the highest plan ($30 per month for an annual payment), which is a pretty big one in today's competitive landscape. Most service providers already know that outstanding customer support is one of the things that can really set them apart, so it feels like Zenfolio is dropping the ball here.

The themes are a little stale and there's not a lot of customizing you can do. Also, the editor is a bit confusing, it's a bit difficult to find your way around it at times.

There's a 14 days free trial

Foliolink
Old, expensive, but with good support

Foliolink has been around for a long time and while they've been working on their builder all this time, their competition has left them in the dust lately. The plans are above average starting at $19/month and the editor shows its age and it still has Flash modules in some places.

You can seel up to 100 products for zero commission in the lower plan and they offer phone/email support to everyone.

There's also a 30 days free trial available.

Photodeck
Plenty of features but nothing out of the ordinary

There are lots of ways to customize your site's content and design, but the SEO part is lacking, except from the homepage options.

Pricing starts at $12/month and goes up to $60 or much more, depending on how much storage you'll need - you get 10Gb for the smallest tier.

Selling your work is available on the $25/month plan, with plenty of options available, including partners around the globe that can handle printing and fulfillment for you. You can also sell digital products, for zero commission. There's a 14 days free trial available, no credit card required.

You can group clients and email subscribers and send them one-off emails or prompt them to create an account on the store (not recommended). Unfortunately email is sent from photodeck.com and not from a dedicated email sending service, which means most of the emails will be marked as spam, at least by Gmail. There's also no way to use a third party for delivering emails, so that's a big minus.

Another downside are the templates, which are found wanting to say the least. There are only 10 desktop templates and 2 mobile templates available, which also look outdated especially on the font side.

In conclusion it looks like Photodeck is trying to a bit too much - while they do get a lot covered, they don't really shine anywhere and they seem to botch up the marketing part in particular.

Viewbook
Simplistic templates with very little customization

Viewbook is an online photo album, with limited flexibility design-wise. Unlimited number of pictures is a tempting offer, but in this extremely competitive space it's not enough to set it apart at the price-tag of $16/month

You can also activate the online store and use your own domain name.

There's a free trial available and support seems snappy enough.

Clickbooq
Big prices for small websites

Clickbooq is really a standard run-of-the-mill website builder with nothing to set it apart except for the high prices compared with the low features. Plans start at $8/month, for which you only get 250 images and still don't get rid of the Clickbooq branding.

Not a lot more to say, except that you can't sell your work and the trial period is 14 days

AllYou
Too basic, not being developed anymore and expensive

It seems like Allyou is not being developed anymore, the templates are few and old, there's no ecommerce and it's way to expensive at $20/month for 10 Gb of storage. There are also other issues, like the lack of forms (or really any kind of widgets), for which they suggest using Wufoo (third party).

I can't really see a compelling reason to use Allyou when there are so many better alternatives feature and price-wise.

 

Website Builders for Artists

The notion of starving artists is not lost on the website builder world, and their pricing is very friendly, with plenty of free trials or plans starting at $1 / year. Some of the sites on this list have pretty simple, even brutalist themes, which makes them look like they were designed in the nineties. That is on purpose though, because an extremely simple theme will focus the viewer's attention even more on the artwork.

Make sure you also look at the extensive list of Portfolio builders for a lot more suggestions.

CargoCollective
Full control over how each page looks and behaves

CargoCollective is a very versatile website builder made for perfectionists. You can tweak the design of each page to make it look juuust right and if needed you can go into the raw code and add your own CSS and Javascript for even more ways to play with (and possibly break) your site.

Pricing starts at $99/year and it has a free trial. You can sell your art after you open an account with the Stripe payment processor and CargoCollective won't take a cut of your profits.

They are also hugely popular and have great customer support so I'd definitely take a look at Cargo before going down the list.

Faso
Most marketing focused builder on the list

Faso is not the cheapest option here, but it has a few aces up it's sleeves that other builders don't. Your artwork will get in front of their large audience of collectors and art enthusiasts. (80.000+ subscribers) They also help you promote your art with the help of your own newsletter.

All plans come with a free domain name (if you already own one you can transfer it and you won't have to pay a renewal fee afterwards). You can easily sell art through the site, commission free. Also, they will transfer up to 50 pictures from your old site for free, with more available for a fee.

Now for the minuses, the biggest one being that Faso seems like the most stingy builder on the list. For $8/month you get a mere 25 images and get this you have to pay 35 cents per month per extra image. Also on this plan, you are allowed a maximum of 50 subscribers (total) to your email newsletter.

That said, the good stuff is available for the higher plans, $25 and $35 per month, which will allow you to upload unlimited images. You'll even have unlimited newsletter subscribers (but up to 15.000 emails per month, not sure how that would work). A 10% discount is available for yearly plans, which should soften the blow a bit.

Event and workshop listings plus a blog are other tools that you can use to get your name out there. Give it a try now, with the free 30 days trial, no credit card needed.

Zhibit
Cheap artist websites that look like the nineties

Zhibit started back in 2005, even-though their websites look like it's still the nineties. Don't let the brutalist designs fool you, they're quite popular within the artist community, and their very friendly plans surely help: if you are convinced by the private forever free tier you can publish your site for $1/year (yes, that much).

For $5/month you get more space and higher res pictures. $9/month will give you your own domain name and more goodies.

All plans (including the $1/year one) will allow you to sell your art with zero commission, which is awesome.

Give Zhibit a try now, you may end up sticking with it for good.

IndieMade
Very simple sites for artists for a good price

Indiemade is a standard website builder that focuses on the artists niche but doesn't really offer too many specialized tools for artists except for an pushing products to Etsy.com automatically (for the Pro, $14.95 plan).

Support is responsive enough and the plans are fair, starting at $4.95. The editor is easy to use which is not what I can say about other builders on this list (I'm looking at you OPP).

There's a free 30 days trial mode so give it a try and decide for yourself.

Artwork Archive
A catalogue of your art pieces, not a full website

ArtworkArchive, as the name implies, is a place to list your art pieces and track sales, locations and shows. The "website" is actually a standard listing of your art pieces and not much else, so not a website in the real sense of the words (you can't manage themes, pages, or other content aside from news)

So if all you're looking for is a place to manage your artwork ArtworkArchive is for you, with a starting price of $6/month for 100 pieces and 10 locations.

You get a 30 days free trial so try it out if it sounds interesting

Show more site builders for artists
Other People's Pixels
Popular with artists but a low usability editor

Other People's Pixels have a unique theme system was built from scratch and while there's a lot of customizing you can do, there's also a lot of fumbling around to find what you're looking for, because the controls are not presented in the most intuitive fashion.

It costs $16/month ($24 if you also want hosted video) and for that price you get a nice website complete with ecommerce capability, at zero fees from OPP.

There's a free trial available and it seems to be a popular choice for many artists out there, so give this one a try, but make sure you have time to fiddle around with the menus.

Wix
Simple websites for artists plus a great app store

Wix is one of the most popular generic website builders, which means it's not specifically made for artists, but it's also flexible enough to showcase and sell your art. It has a forever free plan and several paid tiers that you can switch between with ease as your needs increase.

It has some artist-y templates but whichever one you end up choosing make sure you don't stick with the custom pictures, because lots of other websites out there will be showing them also. With you being an artist it will be a breeze to fill your website with unique pictures that set you apart and make your website unique.

Wix also has a great app store that you can use to customize your website according to your particular needs. Some apps are paid but some are totally free, like the "Wix Art Store" app that helps you sell your art online with ease.

You'll probably want to use your own domain name which will cost you $4.50 and will also increase your bandwidth to 1Gb

HeavyBubble
Too expensive for what it delivers

HeavyBubble focuses on artists with a simple website builder that is unfortunately too expensive.

$20/month will limit you to 40 published images, you'll need to pay $70 per month for 200 images. Plus, there's no ecommerce capability. They do offer email newsletters and promote their artists on a section of their site called "Artlife", but that's not enough to justify the high price.

The free trial is not instant, they need to get back to you with details for access.

 

Wedding Website Builders

There are two types of website builders you can use for your wedding site:

WithJoy
Free, great looking wedding websites packed with features

Joy has a very fresh feel to it and a set of features that can compete which any other builder in the space. And yes, it's free.

Joy gives you modern themes that include (optional) count-down timers, guest lists, RSVP forms, schedules, private events and more. Did I mention you also get matching Android / iOS apps with your website?

You don't get custom domains (for now)

So yes, go for it and open a free account, nothing to lose with this one!

PS: my only concern with Joy is that they're giving so much away for free that I worry they have a stable business plan. Hopefully they do and they'll be in business for many years ahead.

AppyCouple
Modern wedding website themes plus smartphones apps

For a one time fee of $50 or $150 AppyCouple gives you more than nice looking wedding websites. (Custom domains are an extra $20)

Features include stylish responsive templates, password protected website or private events for certain guests, custom RSVP forms and much more. As a nice extra you get a smart-phone for the bride and groom and a separate app for guests (for notifications).

Plus, your notes, photos and videos are kept for as long as you want, no extra payment needed.

As a minus, there's no free trial, you can just browse the available templates before you're shown the payment page.

Overall AppyCouple is definitely one of the best choices you can make for the big day

The Knot
Free wedding website builder that checks all the boxes

You can't get much better than free, and TheKnot offers you a fully featured wedding website for exactly that. (Custom domains will still cost you $20 though)

With TheKnot you edit your site content in blocks, not the usual What You See Is What You Get way that you may be used to from other builders. This means you'll do a lot of saving and reloading the site to see your changes. On the plus side the blocks will act as a checklist for yourself.

Free always comes with a price though, so be prepared to be pitched to frequently, including for a photo sharing smartphone app called Veri.com, that TheKnot also owns.

Minted
A basic site for free, with lots of restrictions

Minted is one of the biggest players in the wedding space, and websites is just one of their many offerings.

You get a simple site for free, with a "mywebsite.minted.us" URL, no photo page and no extra pages besides the default ones (events, guests, travel, gift registry). You unlock those upgrades for a $20 one time fee.

They have over 1000 free templates, so you're bound to find one to fit your theme.

Definitely take a look at their free offering and if you're convinced, the price tag is pretty compelling also.

It does get only 4 stars because the features are pretty basic and the competition is fierce

Show more wedding website builders
Weebly
Plain sites from a generic website builder

With Weebly you can make a nice looking wedding site, for free.

While they don't have the custom wedding features (special smartphone apps for guests, seat planner, custom wedding designs, etc), you can make a site like this one quite easily

With Weebly you get the stability of one of the biggest names in the Website Builder space, so the site will be stable and the interface is very friendly.

There's only one wedding theme on the site, which should give you the bare-bones of your future wedding site.

Wedsite
Buggy interface and old looking template(s), for free

Wedsite looks and feels really old, so the best thing it has going for it is the free price, minus some premium features:

  • Buy a custom domain for $19/year (as far as I can't tell you can't use a domain you bought somewhere else)
  • Get a CD with your media for $39
  • Remove the "wedsite.com" link in the footer for $29

Free is attractive but even at this price tag there are stronger competitors like The Knot

SayI.do
Very simple sites, big price tag for the features

The site is a very basic one page site, which you get for free. A nice touch is the ability to import guest list from a CSV / Excel file.

But you won't even be able to create image galleries for free, which seems a bit restrictive.

You need to pay a one time fee of $25 to get access to the good stuff:

  • Seating Planner, which is a nice add-on that can help you with the daunting task of pleasing every guest. (Pro Tip: don't try to please every guest on every matter!).
  • Custom RSVP questions

For $70 you can add a custom domain

My verdict: cute, but there's better options on the list

 

Church Website Builders

When choosing a website builder for your church you have to take into account the size of your organization. Some of the builders on this list are targeting big churches and their pricing shows it: $1000 setup fee on top of the monthly fee. That can be a great deal for a big church that needs custom design and more of a concierge service, but it's prohibitive for smaller organizations. Fortunately there are solutions for the small church also, in the form of the generic website builders that start from free (Weebly) or more affordable church-focused website builders.

ChurchPlant Media
Excellent builder from a gospel focused company

Church Plant Media is a pricey builder but it's the best one on this list.

They have a clear pricing plan of $1000 setup fee plus $50 / month, for which you get unlimited everything. Their builder is very polished and their support is responsive.

A customizable sermon module and the possibility to host multiple podcasts are some of their more appreciated features. Should you be so inclined, you can also get access to add you own code like CSS and Javascript.

They also won't allow other clients to use the same template you do within a 10 miles radius, in order to protect your brand. Whether that's enough of a distance is your call.

They are very resolved that you sign and follow their Gospel Agreement, so if you have a conflicting statement of faith from theirs your application will probably be rejected.

There's no free tier so you'll have to contact them for more info.

Faith Connector
Nice designs that can be customized to your liking

Faith Connector is one of the oldest players in the field of church website builders, starting back in 1999. The pricing seems competitive but at a closer looks the plans are not much different from the bigger players on the list. The cheapest plan is $18 per month for a very basic site (basically just pages, no forms, media, emails, etc).

For $45 / month you start to see the good stuff, with 100Gb of storage for your sermons, videos and pictures a member management system, calendar and more. You also get free content migration from your old website.

For a setup fee of $250 you can get your designed personalized. (the cheapest plan only allows for colors and fonts to be changed, this presumably offers you more customization options)

Apple and Android apps are also on offer for the $45 and $70 plans.

There's no free tier but a demo account is available, including the admin side, which you can use to see all the available features in action.

Ministry Designs
Big setup fee that covers a lot of hand-holding

Ministry Designs has great templates, a nice clean editor, easy to use sermon archive and also giving tools that cover online, sms and a kiosk for the church lobby.

They also have great customer support that will guide you through the whole process of creating, populating and updating your website.

The only downisde is the hefty setup fee ($1000), after which you're left with a monthly $20 charge. If your church can handle the price tag and you want to give it a try you'll need to book a reservation on the site and see if it's a good fit.

Weebly
Cheapest solution for a simple church site

Website builders usually offer ad-enabled free tiers to attract customers. This is a sensitive issue because most ads are not appropriate for a church website. I recommend Weebly here because their free plan only advertises Weebly itself, so no third party advertisers means you know what your visitors will see, which is pretty innocuous up-sells for their premium plans.

If you're on the lookout for a standard site but your congregation can't afford to pay too much (or anything), Weebly gives you just that: a basic online presence that you can count on. And when you're ready you can easily upgrade to use your own domain ($4 per month), or tap into their more advanced features like membership areas, online store (for donations), password protection and unlimited storage.

You won't get the flashy templates the other church-focused builders on the list offer, or the free content population for your website, but the support is good and the websites are stable and secure, so give them a try for free.

Clover Sites
Clean sites but nothing that stands out

Clover is owned by the huge organization that is Ministry Brands, together with Elexio and other church website builders.

While the builder gives you most of the standard features, plus a giving option that covers website, text-to-give, kiosk, or recurring, their custom editor is not very intuitive and the templates are a bit too generic.

For $1000 setup fee plus $25 monthly fee, Clover is a decent option but not really fit to lead this very competitive pack. There is a demo account ready to try before you make a decision, so give it a spin.

Show more builders for church websites
Elexio
Enterprise level solution for churches

Elexio are the most expensive option on this list (starting at $500 one time fee plus $60 per month, up to $295 per month).

Their target are mainly big established churches and for the price they will deliver an excellent product and support. Even at the high price, their lower plans are quite limited, with only 20 pages and one form allowed for the $60/month version. This is the main reason their rating is low, but if your church can handle the (relative) high fees, definitely give them a try.

Before you do be advised that they require all their clients to adhere to the National Association of Evangelicals statement of faith, contact them for more info on that.

Aboundant
Full-featured websites built on top of Wordpress

Aboundant is a website builder based on Wordpress, so you may find the editor familiar.

Price-wise they are in the middle of the pack, not requiring a setup fee but with a forced yearly plan starting at $180 / year.

They don't have a free tier but they offer some demo sites so you can get a feel of the features. Speaking of features, they meet the needs of most churches, starting with 5 GB for sermons, an events calendar and donations (For the $336/year plan).

They allow any organization to use the service (as long as they don't promote hate or violence), as opposed to some of their competitors who are more restrictive based on doctrine.

They do have some strong competition so make sure you've checked out the rest before you take a look at them

 

Site Builders for Restaurants

How many times have you landed on a restaurant website that hasn't been updated in the last ten years? It's very common because the restaurant business is very demanding already, without having to tinker with web hosting and coding issues. That's why I think website builders are the perfect solution for the vast majority of restaurants,

BentoBox
The premium (read expensive) solution for restaurants

Bento is the most expensive option on this list ($100 to $500 per month), but for that hefty charge you get the best possible solution for your restaurant, and one less head-ache to worry about.

The editor manages to hide away the complexity of the many features on offer. You can get your site up to speed quickly and the customer support is on call for any help you may need with updating your site.

Bento is definitely not for everyone, and you can build a simple site for much cheaper (or even free). But if you want the most features, best user interface and fastest support - and you also have an established restaurant that can easily handle the monthly cost - Bento is a no-brainer if only for the time saved.

They power over 1500 restaurants and don't have a free trial, so you'll have to schedule a demo to see it in action.

Wix
Most competitive offer for an effective restaurant website

Unlike the other builders on this list, Wix is a generic website builder, meaning it doesn't specifically focus on restaurants. That said, it does offer plenty of restaurant website features like Reservations, Menu Builder, Online orders and payments (with no commissions) and more.

They also have a free tier, but I only advise you use that for testing purposes, since it comes with ads and you definitely don't want those on your restaurant website.

Wix doesn't come with concierge service like the pricier alternatives, so if you need someone to make frequent changes to your menus, photos, etc, consider something like RestauranEngine or BentoBox.

I would definitely give Wix a try, you may find it checks all your boxes.

RestaurantEngine
The concierge service is where RE stands out most

Restaurant Engine raises the bar for website builders for restaurants with a strong concierge offering: for a $499 one-time setup fee they will customize your design, move your content and menus on your new site and connect your social media profiles.

After that you pay a $49 monthly fee that also gets you covered with the routine changes of content upload (menus, pictures).

Online ordering is an extra $39 per month (or $89 if you also need to connect your POS)

Restaurant Engine is built on top of Wordpress so if the Admin side may look familiar if you have any previous Wordpress experience.

There's no free tier or trial period, but you do get a 30 day money back guarantee. You can schedule a free consultation with them to find out more, and they do have some raving supporters.

FlavorPlate
Decent websites but no online ordering

Starting at $15 per month, FlavorPlate is more affordable than the bigger players on this list, but for that price you'll onlu get 2 menus and one custom page, which is pretty limited.

You'll need to pay $35 per month to unlock unlimited pages and menus, and even then you won't get online ordering.

Optionally you can pay $400 for them to also to add your logo, menus and photos for you.

The fact that you still have to use a third party for ordering makes the price tag too big, especially compared to a generic website builder like Wix.

It does have a 14 days free trial without a credit card so give it a spin and see if it suits your needs.

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RestaurantHill
Lots of features but a slow, crowded editor

RestaurantHill is another restaurant website builder on top of Wordpress.

It uses WooCommerce for online orders, which gives you lots of options like shipping charges, follow-up emails, coupons and more

Gallery, events, reservations are just a few of the features on offer.

There is a free tier available which gives you the basics but for $29 per month you get the works, including Android/iOS apps.

Now the Con's:

  • the editor is quite slow and while there are a lot of features, there is also a bit of clutter which make it difficult to use for newbies.
  • they don't offer a concierge service, which is slowly becoming a must-have for the busy restaurant administrator

Conclusion: while RestaurantHill could be a strong player in the field, but I think it needs to step up it's support offering and make the editor snappier and more intuitive.

Food It
Confusing editor and 10% comission on online orders

Foodit has a complex offering:

  • website builder
  • ordering system if you already have a website
  • smartphone app builder for restaurants

Unfortunately this leads to a bit of confusion for new customers and their complicated website builder admin does not help.

They have a £79 setup-fee (a bit over $100), and a 10% + VAT commission on online orders.

It may work for large businesses (or restaurant chains, which they also cater to), but there are better options on this list for small businesses.

 

Site builders for Musicians

We get it, musicians would rather tend to their craft then tweak a website. Still, a well-made website will help grow the fan-base and even sell some merch. With a site builder that specifically targets musicians even the smallest bands can get up and running in no time and on the cheap.

Bandzoogle
One of the first builders for musicians, still relevant today

Bandzoogle is the oldest player in this niche, but it's definitely not outdated.

The editor was recently updated and it's very easy to use. You also get a forum and a newsletter builder to keep in touch with your fans.

Sell your merch, dvd's or mp3's by connecting your account to stripe or paypal, at zero commission. You can even sell tickets to your shows right from the site.

Great customer support is always there to help you out if you get stuck, so now you know why Bandzoogle tops this list.

You have a month free trial after which you can pay starting at $8 /month, free domain name included.

BandVista
Another strong builder for musicians, at a fair price

BandVista is another good competitor in this space, with a strong site builder and extras like a commission-free store, polls, calendar, and guest book.

Starting at $9.95 / month with a 30 days free trial, it's not the cheapest of the bunch but it does get the job done and it's worth the money, especially if you're going to have lots of newsletter fans ($15.85 will get you 25.000 fans that you can email through BandVista)

Definitely try this one out

ReverbNation
All-in-one social platform for musicians and fans

ReverbNation is more than a website builder, it started off as a MySpace alternative and now offers everything you'll need to promote and sell your music through email, Facebook and other channels.

The website builder is secondary to their main goal of becoming the hub for all your promotion and marketing needs. You only get the website builder with their Premium Plan (19.95/month), which is a bit pricey if that's all you're going to use. But that would be a shame, since the Premium Plan also includes features like distribution on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and dozens more, plus a free domain name.

The free option is just a ReverbNation profile page to keep in contact with your fans and also sell your music, but it's ad supported.

In conclusion, if you're only looking for a site builder, keep looking, but if you want the whole package, try it free for 30 days (credit cart required)

Wix
Affordable solution for the beginning musician

If you're just starting out and need a professional website for a good price, Wix may just be the thing for you. While there is a forever free version, it's ad supported so you may want to pay $8.50/month to get the ad-free version, plus a free domain.

Wix is a general website builder, so you'll have to pick and choose from it's many features the ones you'll need most.

What I like most about it is that you can start with free and the site will grow with you, plus you'll also have access to a good support team and a huge app store.

HostBaby
Meh websites but 5 CDBaby credits

HostBaby is the CDBaby's baby, and as such it already has a strong foot in all the musician's proverbial doors.

Their $20 price tag seems a bit much but they do offer the basics for building a decent website, even if the themes aren't the most hip around. Where HostBaby really shines is exactly their connection with CDbaby: you get 5 free CDBaby coupons per year, which means you can promote your music through their strong platform.

That is the main reason why HostBaby is a strong contender for musicians with music to sell, which is most.

MusicGlue
Mainly used for selling merch & downloads

MusicGlue is not a full website builder, but many bands (including big names) use it to sell their merch, so it's best used as a sidekick for your main site.

The store is the main feature here, and you can add unlimited products plus vouchers, ticketing, bundles and more through the app store.

It costs 10% per sale, so you only pay when/if you get paid.

And they sure have a lot of street cred with artists like Metallica and Led Zeppelin using them, so why not take them for a spin.

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FourFour
Very old looking websites with lots of features

Fourfour looks like it's stuck in time back when it was founded, in 2008.

That's too bad, because all the features are there: mailinglist, ecommerce store powered by Paypal, photos / videos / music uploads and lots of little website customizations.

All this is available in their free tier by the way, which does mean you get ads on your site. To get rid of the ads and get a custom domain you need to cough up $39 per year.

Which would be totally worth it, if it weren't for the very old, stale templates, lack of mobile responsiveness and overall old myspace-y vibe. Which some may not mind, but Google for one probably will.

You can see that a lot of work went into this website builder, but it also looks like the founders have moved on a long time ago.

Shobands
Messy templates, very limited, skip this one

Shobands looks like it was a school project: while a good amount of work went into it, it lacks the pro touch like secure pages, optimized images, usability touches and so on.

There is a 30 days demo version so feel free to take a look, but there are far better options out there.

 

Website Builders for Music Teachers

Music teachers are taken care of too with at three great options in the website builder space. Which one you'll choose depends on your studio size and admin style.

Music Teacher's Helper
Full-featured studio admin, basic website features

Music Teacher's Helper (MTH) is much more than a website builder. It offers full featured studio administration for music teachers: Student Administration (with practice log and lending library), Calendar, Invoicing, Reports and Website.

Parents and students get their own accounts so they can interact with the teacher and pay invoices.

MTH is the big dog in this small niche, it's been around for over a decade and has a team of over two dozen people behind it. It also received a full face-lift recently, so it looks nice and polished.

Website Address Example: mywebsite.musicteachershelper.com

Pros:

  • Full featured teacher studio
  • Live chat and phone support
  • Thousands of music teachers around the world swear by it for their studios
  • Self-scheduling feature for students
  • Website has register form for students/parents
  • Website has a Blog section
  • iOS and Android apps available

Cons:

  • Gets expensive for studios with more students (over 40 students = $49/month, $490/year)
  • Doesn't support multiple teachers per studio
  • Website themes look outdated
  • The user interface is a bit cumbersome and sometimes glitchy, but the team is quick to fix problems once they're reported

Conclusion: There's a bit work to get the most out of MTH: you need to enter all of your student data in and instruct the students and parents on how to use it. But once you get the ball rolling you may wonder how you ever lived without it.

Should I buy? If you want all the bells and whistles for your Music Studio, MTH will fit the bill nicely - but if you only want a presentation website, you're overpaying.

There isn't a free version, but you can try it for free for 30 days (no card required)

My Music Staff
Affordable studio admin with unlimited students

My Music Staff offers a full set of studio admin features for an affordable price ($12.95 for unlimited students and unlimited storage)

Website Address: sitename.mymusicstaff.com

Pros:

  • Affordable, especially for bigger studios
  • Fully featured studio management
  • Handles multiple teachers per studio ($3.95/mo per extra teacher)

Cons:

  • Very limited website templates
  • No smartphone apps

Conclusion: My Music Staff is a cheaper alternative to Music Teacher's Helper

Should I buy: If you want a fully featured studio management solution and you have lots of students or you need more than one teacher, My Music Staff comes ahead of Music Teacher's Helper so go ahead and take it for a spin.

If you just want a nice looking website and not much else in the way of teacher admin features, go for a generic website builder for a better price and more website versatility.

30 day free trial (no credit card required) is available

Wix
Customizable solution for studios of all sizes

Even-though it's a general purpose website builder, Wix offers enough tools to build a full Music Studio admin solution.

It has a forever free plan that comes with ads to their service. For $4.50 you can connect your own domain and for $9 you get booking, payments, invoicing, calendar synchronization and more.

Website address example: username.wixsite.com/sitename (you can see why you'd want to connect your own domain)

With Wix you also get access to their ever growing apps marketplace, which you can use to enhance your site as you please (apps can be free or paid)

On the Cons side, the fact that it's not tailored specifically for Music Teachers can make Wix a bit difficult to use for beginners.

Conclusion: Wix gives you all the tools you'll need for your Music Studio and more. The main advantage is that you can start with the forever free plan and pay for functionality as you need it.

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