Your business's website is likely the first and strongest impression you'll make with millions of potential customers online, so you want to ensure it's a good one. There are many popular platforms out there to help you launch a website for your business, but CNBC Select rounded up some of the best website builders for small businesses on the market. See below for our methodology.
Best website builders for small businesses
Best for e-commerce businesses
Shopify
Cost
Plans start at $29/month
Free trial available?
Yes, 3-day free trial; after, you'll have to select a plan
Standout features
Shopify offers several ways to customize your shop whether you're selling in-person or online, including tons of shop templates/themes, apps for managing your business and the ability to create customer discounts and offer gift cards.
Pros
- Offers many different app integrations
- Offers 3-day free trial
- After the free trial, users get the first month for just $1
- Offers resources for those who are just getting started or need guidance
Cons
- Short free trial period
- Free website themes are fairly basic; you'll need to purchase a premium theme for more variety
Who's this for? Shopify is well-known as a platform for facilitating e-commerce sales and accepting payments, so it offers features tailored to launching and growing online businesses. When you use the Shopify website builder, you'll also be able to list an unlimited number of products in your store, access their point-of-sale system to accept and process payments and leverage free apps that can help you market your business and manage operations and inventory.
Standout benefits: Shopify offers a three-day free trial and the first month for just $1 no matter which pricing plan you choose.
Best for affordability
GoDaddy
Cost
$9.99/month for Basic plan; $14.99/month for Premium plan; $20.99/month for Commerce plan
Free trial available?
GoDaddy users can create an account and get started for free but will need to upgrade to a paid plan to publish their website. GoDaddy offers a 7-day money back guarantee across all annual plan purchases.
Standout features
GoDaddy offers over 100 templates to choose from as well as mobile-friendly site designs. Users can also access a marketing dashboard to help their business grow.
Pros
- Basic plan is affordably priced at just $9.99 per month for the first year and $16.99 per month after that
- Offers a plan tailored to commerce businesses
- Offers 24/7 expert support
Cons
- Doesn't offer as many templates compared to its competitors
Who's this for? GoDaddy's most basic plan starts at $9.99 per month for the first year (with a discount) and offers over 100 templates to choose from, payment processing capabilities, a marketing dashboard, connection to a custom domain and more. The pricing on GoDaddy's plans is fairly affordable, making the company worth a look if your budget is tight.
Standout benefits: In order to help you generate leads and grow your business, GoDaddy lets you send hundreds to thousands of marketing emails per month. If you have the Basic plan, you can send up to 100 marketing emails monthly. The Premium and Commerce plans allow you to send 25,000 and 100,000 marketing emails per month, respectively.
Best for free trial
Squarespace
Cost
$16/month for Basic plan; $23/month for Core plan; $39/month for Plus plan; $99/month for Advanced plan
Free trial available?
14-day free trial
Standout features
Squarespace offers several features for building yourself a website, including a wide variety of templates to choose from, support from a Squarespace web designer, marketing tools, a logo maker and more. Its offerings cater to several industries and website uses including blogs, portfolios, fitness, beauty, restaurants, artists, photographers and weddings to name a few.
Pros
- Offers 14-day free trial
- More advanced plans let you add unlimited contributors
- Annual plan purchase includes free domain name for one year
- Offers domain hosting
- Offers a student discount of 50% off for your first year
Cons
- Doesn't offer as many templates as some of its competitors
Who's this for? Squarespace offers new users a 14-day free trial to build their website, a longer period than most. Users can choose from many themes for businesses across a variety of industries. Themes can also be customized to remove and add elements, change fonts and color palettes and more — even during the free trial period. While you can build your website during the trial period, you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan to take your work live.
Standout benefits: If you purchase an annual plan, Squarespace gives you a custom domain name for free for one year. After that you'll be charged the standard price for the domain name each year.
Best for a variety of templates
Wix
Cost
Plans start at $17/month
Free trial available?
No free trial but Wix offers a 14-day money back guarantee
Standout features
Squarespace offers over 900 website templates, and a website building tool that leverages AI to design a site based on your desired customizations.
Pros
- Offers AI tools to help you build a website
- Plans include domain hosting
- Offers 24/7 customer support
- Offers over 800 templates to choose from
Cons
- Doesn't offer a free trial
Who's this for? Wix offers over 800 templates across more than 24 categories and industries. These include health and wellness, beauty, restaurants, food and beverage, finance, law, travel, technology, real estate, consulting and more. Wix also offers simple landing page templates, resume/CV templates and "coming soon" page templates, so there's a lot to choose from.
Standout benefits: Wix also lets you build a website using AI. You'll be directed to log into your Wix account and use an AI chatbot to describe your business and target customers. Wix will then generate images, copy and a color palette to match the essence of your business.
Best for building a landing page
Canva
Cost
$0/month for free plan; $15/month for Canva Pro; $10/month for Canva Teams
Free trial available?
No, but there is a completely free plan
Standout features
Canva offers a wide array of unique design elements and templates for a wide variety of needs whether you're looking to design a website, a logo, a portfolio, a resume/CV, fliers and so much more.
Pros
- Offers a completely free plan
- Offers over 1 million design templates across a wide variety of categories and needs
- More advanced plans come with access to brand kits and additional editing tools
Cons
- Some website templates err on the more basic side in terms of functionality
Who's this for? A graphic design platform, Canva also allows users to design website landing pages and publish a live site at a low cost. If you don't need a website with a ton of bells and whistles and don't intend on selling directly through the website, this can be a quick and affordable way to get a website up and running.
Standout benefits: You can get started with a free website, which will have a "my.canva.site" domain. For a custom domain you can purchase the name through Canva for a small fee, which can vary. Upgrading to Canva Pro also gives you access to more design features and elements.
More on our picks
Shopify
When it comes to building a website for your business, Shopify offers several free themes and many paid themes, which are often more dynamic. Paid themes range in cost from $140 to $450.
Cost
Starts at $39 per month
GoDaddy
GoDaddy offers a pricing plan specifically for e-commerce businesses. This plan offers everything in the Basic and Premium plans plus access to automatic sales tax calculations, automated inventory updates across all sales channels and more.
Cost
Starts at $9.99 per month for the first year
Squarespace
Squarespace offers four pricing plans: Basic, Core, Plus and Advanced. You have a 14-day free trial before you'll have to pay for a plan. Users can save up to 36% by opting to pay annually instead of monthly.
Cost
Starts at $16 per month
Wix
Wix offers four pricing plans to choose from: Light, Core, Business and Business Elite. All plans include access to 24/7 customer support, AI website-building tools, a custom domain that's free for one year and website hosting.
Cost
Starts at $17 per month
Canva
Because its website-building capabilities are a bit basic, Canva may be a good choice for businesses that just need a standout landing page with some basic contact information. Canva can also be an ideal way to build a portfolio to showcase your services and send to clients.
Cost
Get started for free; Custom domain name costs can vary
FAQs
How much does it cost to build a website for a small business?
The cost can depend on a variety of factors including which website builder you opt for and which pricing plan and features you choose. Most website builders charge between $16 and $20 per month for their most basic pricing plan.
How many hours does it take to build a website?
The time it takes to build a website can depend on your familiarity and comfort level with building websites as well as how user-friendly the platform is. It can also depend on the complexity of the website you need. A simple landing page may take a few hours while a more robust website for selling products can take a few days.
Can I pay someone to make a website for me?
Yes, you can hire a professional to do the leg work required to build a website. Some website builders may even offer their own team of experts to help you build your site for an additional fee. But if your goal is to get it done as affordably as possible, you may try your hand at doing it yourself.
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Why trust CNBC Select?
At CNBC Select, our mission is to provide our readers with high-quality service journalism and comprehensive consumer advice so they can make informed decisions with their money. Every article is based on rigorous reporting by our team of expert writers and editors with extensive knowledge of small business products. While CNBC Select earns a commission from affiliate partners on many offers and links, we create all our content without input from our commercial team or any outside third parties, and we pride ourselves on our journalistic standards and ethics. See our methodology for more information on how we choose the best website builders for small businesses.
Our methodology
To determine the best website builders for small businesses, CNBC Select analyzed several website builders.
We considered a range of features for each platform including:
- Pricing
- Features within each plan
- Free trial offer or money-back guarantee where applicable
- Templates offered and industries covered
- Online payments acceptance
- Customer support
- Marketing tools available
- Customer reviews where applicable
After reviewing the above features, we organized our recommendations by best for e-commerce businesses, best for building a landing page, best for affordability, best for free trial and best for a variety of templates.
The fee structures for website-building platforms are subject to change without notice.
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