Best Website Builders for Small Businesses 2021

Despite facing some stiff competition, Wix emerged as the clear winner of our website testing. This drag-and-drop builder has it all: it’s easy to use, creates beautiful websites, and lets you customize almost anything you can think of. In fact, we gave it top marks on usability, design, and customizability.

Of course, one builder can’t be all things to all people, and Wix might not work for every small-business website. Its prices, while reasonable, aren’t the lowest, and it doesn’t offer the most plugins or the best ecommerce store tools. So if you’re on an ultra-tight budget or you plan to sell thousands of percale cotton sheet sets each month, you might want to move on to the other builders on our list.

Even with its (few) limitations, Wix’s quality and versatility make it the best website builder for most people.

Squarespace offers all the features a smaller online store needs. It has built-in functionality that lets you accept credit card payments, track your customers, create gift cards, and so much more. Other builders would require plugins to do all that.

But if you get some plugins, Squarespace has even more ecommerce tools. You can get plugins that add fabric swatch previews to clothing products, plugins that track your inventory, and plugins that highlight certain products.

While large online stores with thousands of orders each month might want a dedicated ecommerce builder, Squarespace offers all the tools a smaller e-store could want. Plus, it creates striking, clean websites with ease, so you’ll have the perfect online storefront for your bath bomb boutique or cosplay supply store.

Weebly excels at making good-looking websites on the cheap—provided you don’t need lots of fancy features. Its drag-and-drop functionality lets you easily set up your pages just the way you want them, and its default templates look great on desktop and mobile.

But while the Weebly platform technically has lots of ecommerce tools, you’ll have to pay more for a pricier premium plan to get them—and at that point, why not go with one of our top two builders? Likewise, Weebly has blogging capabilities, but they’re not nearly as impressive as some of the other builders on our list.

Those strengths and limitations make Weebly ideal for brick-and-mortar stores that need a basic (but beautiful) website to direct people into their store.

If you don’t want to spend much time building your website, GoDaddy might be the platform for you. With this easy-breezy site builder, we had a finished site in just 38 minutes.

Now, that ultra-fast build time does come with some limitations; GoDaddy has the most limited customization options of any of our recommended builders, and its web design is better described as “perfectly competent” than “stunning.” So if your food blog is your business, you might want something more customizable, and if your literature-inspired T-shirts keep selling like hotcakes, you’ll want a builder with a little more ecommerce oomph.

But if you want a simple website to point people at your lawn service business or you just need a small online store for your wildlife-themed jewelry, then GoDaddy offers unparalleled speed and ease of use.

WordPress can do just about anything. It has tons of themes for any kind of website you want to build, it comes with exceptional built-in blogging, and with a plugin or two, it can provide powerful ecommerce solutions that can compete with the best ecommerce website builders. The trade-off? WordPress requires more work and know-how on your part.

In fact, WordPress’s steep learning curve and time-intensive customization process keeps us from recommending it to businesses that just want a small, simple website. Because if you’re not going to harness WordPress’s full capabilities (which you’ll need the Business plan to do), you might as well use an easier website builder.

But if you want control and features—and lots of them—then WordPress stands in a class of its own. Daily bloggers will love its customizability and SEO tools, and online sellers will enjoy the many ecommerce plugins. With all its plugins and templates, WordPress can make feature-filled, good-looking small-business websites.

BigCommerce is a dedicated ecommerce builder, which means it comes packed with tools for your online store. With tons of built-in functionality and even more available through apps, BigCommerce can handle all the sales and products you throw at it. Plans start at $29.95 per month, so you’ll pay a pretty penny for all that—but it’s probably worth it for large online stores.

Another dedicated ecommerce builder, Shopify offers plenty of resources to business owners building a website for the first time. From name generators to logo makers to tutorials, it can help you get your online store off the ground. Just buckle up for some frustration: Shopify is expensive ($29 per month to start), it can be tricky to use, and you need apps and paid themes to unlock its true potential