糖心Vlog

As a small business owner, you may not have dedicated technical staff on your team. So when it comes to your online presence, you need the best website builder for small business.

The right software will help you build a great-looking website without needing to be a web developer. Plus, you won't need to sacrifice on design and features, as you can access beautiful premade themes and key functionality like ecommerce tools and appointment booking.

In this post, I've used my 10+ years of experience building websites to come up with my picks for the seven best website builders for small businesses, including some unique tools you might not find on other lists.

Table of Contents

• Best Website Builders for Small Businesses
• What makes a good website builder for small businesses?
• How I Evaluated the Best Website Builder Tools for Small Businesses
• FAQs About Website Builders for Small Business
• Get started with the best website builder for small business.

What makes a good website builder for small businesses?

With all the website builder options out there, small businesses often struggle with decision overwhelm, along with technical uncertainties and confusion about pricing.

To help you decide, glance at this quick comparison table before diving into my detailed reviews below:

Now, back to the criteria that make a good website builder for small businesses: I recommend looking for the following key elements and features (which are also the areas that I focused on when coming up with this list).

Easy to Use for Non-Technical Staff

While large enterprises might have dedicated development teams, your small business doesn’t necessarily have those resources. That’s why it‘s important that your website builder offers a no-code way to set up and manage your site, even if you don’t know anything about HTML.

Online Payments/Ecommerce Capabilities

If you plan to accept online payments or sell products/services directly from your website, make sure that your website builder supports that and doesn't charge large transaction fees (which can cut into your bottom line).

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Built-In Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Features

If you want your potential customers to find you in a Google search, it's important that your website builder gives you the SEO tools that you need for your website to rank.

Business Tools and/or 糖心Vlog Features

Depending on your business and your approach to marketing, you might also want access to other tools with your website builder. For example, if you rely on appointment bookings, it’s convenient to choose a website builder with a built-in appointment booking feature. For marketing-specific features, you might want to look for blogging/content tools, a built-in CRM, marketing automation features, and so on.

Integrations with Your Existing Tools

To avoid fragmented workflows, it’s helpful if your website builder integrates with other tools your business already uses. For example, , you'll want to choose a website builder that lets you integrate with HubSpot (the good news is that most do).

Analytics and Reporting

Tracking traffic and conversions on your site helps you gauge whether your efforts are working. Look for a website builder with a built-in analytics tool or support for third-party analytics platforms like Google Analytics.

Responsive Support

If you do run into any issues, you'll want to be able to reach out to support and/or find community learning resources to help you solve the problem. This is especially true for small businesses without a dedicated developer.

Of course, these are not the only features that matter, and your small business might have unique needs. But in general, I think that looking for a website builder that ticks these boxes for your small business should set you up for long-term success.

How I Evaluated the Best Website Builder Tools for Small Businesses

To come up with this list of tools, I leaned heavily on my own personal experience in a few different areas:

• My prior experience with all of these tools. I've used and reviewed all of these builders multiple times over the years, with over five years of experience with most of them.
• Hands-on testing with all of these tools as they exist now. I tested every single tool on this list again as I was writing this post. This helped me ensure that all of my knowledge and opinions were still up to date with any changes that the tool has made over the past few years.
• My experience building small business websites. I've built my own websites and worked with a lot of small businesses, which helps me understand the specific features that are most relevant to the small business use case.

Best Website Builders for Small Businesses

1. HubSpot Content Hub
2. WordPress.com (or Self-Hosted WordPress)
3. Wix

Now, let‘s take a detailed look at my picks for the seven best website builders for small businesses. To give you a hands-on look at how each website builder works, I’ll show you what it's like to build a website for my fictional “HubSpot Cafe” small business.

1.

Best For

Content Hub is best for small businesses that want to use their website as a marketing engine, with a built-in CRM and tools for content marketing, sales, and more.

Content Hub offers a that lets you easily build a website connected to the for the ultimate customer personalization. Upgrade to a paid plan when you’re ready to access more advanced features.

You can set up your website using AI tools or premade themes. Either way, you'll be able to customize everything using a visual, no-code editor.

I think that one area where HubSpot Content Hub stands out is when it comes to the marketing tools that you get access to. You can easily launch a blog as part of your content marketing strategy, set up , and run A/B tests to optimize everything, all without ever needing to install third-party plugins or apps.

Small businesses choose HubSpot so that all their business growth tools are on one platform, with all data flowing seamlessly among them.

Key Features

• 500+ website themes. You can choose from over 500 different website themes, including themes that come directly from HubSpot as well as a bunch of themes from third-party developers (many of which are free). You can .
• Built-in CRM. Your website is automatically integrated with the free HubSpot CRM so you can log interactions with customers and nurture relationships.
• 1,000+ website modules. In addition to the wide variety of themes, you can also access to customize your site. These are templates for specific sections of a page, such as an FAQ section or a timeline.
• Powerful blogging tools. You can easily write blog posts to grow your small business with content marketing.
• AI writing tools. You can use these to help you more effectively implement your content marketing plans, either by generating new text or refining what you’ve written.
• Ecommerce functionality. Use the built-in commerce tools to easily sell products or services via your website.
• Easy A/B testing. Run smart A/B tests to find which version of your site performs the best when it comes to achieving your business's goals.
• Built-in analytics. While you‘re always free to add third-party analytics tools, you can already access built-in analytics to track everything that’s happening on your website.

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Website Building Experience

When you first get started with HubSpot Content Hub, it will ask you some basic questions about your business, such as its name and industry.

Then, if you choose to use its , all you need to do is provide a short description of your business and choose your preferred design style. Once you've done that, HubSpot will use its AI tools to build a starter website for you.

If you like the design, you can just jump in and start customizing using the visual drag-and-drop builder. For example, you can edit the starter text just by clicking and typing on the live preview.

If you'd rather try a different design, you can easily install new themes and change your site to use one of those themes.

You can also use the theme editor to customize your chosen theme via a code-free interface.

Content Hub also excels at publishing blog posts. You can manage these by going to Content > Blog and easily create posts from scratch or with the help of AI.

You can then manage your post content using a simple text editor.

Pros and Cons of HubSpot Content Hub

Pros:

• Large template/theme library. With 500+ different templates to choose from, you can probably find a premade design that fits your small business's needs.
• CRM-connected personalization. Because HubSpot Content Hub is built on the HubSpot CRM, you can more easily personalize your content marketing to grow your small business.
• Strong content marketing tools. Easily publish a blog and other types of content to grow your small business. There are also AI tools to help you work more efficiently.
• Connect a custom domain name for free. HubSpot's website builder lets you use your own custom domain name for free (e.g., yoursmallbusiness.com), whereas a lot of other website builders only let you use a custom domain name if you use a paid plan. Note: You still need to purchase your custom domain somewhere else, however, as HubSpot is not a domain registrar.

Cons:

• Somewhat limited third-party app selection. While over 1,900 apps in total, most of those apps are for the CRM, and there aren't as many . You can still find some great tools to help with things like SEO, multilingual content, and more.

Pricing

is as follows:

• Free plan. No credit card required to sign up. Free for up to two users. Includes up to 30 website pages (with HubSpot branding), up to 30 landing pages, basic SEO recommendations and optimizations, website themes, and live chat for website visitors (with HubSpot branding).
• Starter: $9/month/seat (was $15) billed annually. Up to 30 website pages (no HubSpot branding), 30 landing pages (no HubSpot branding), email and in-app technical support, intent signals, smart properties, AI image generator, AI assistants, and CTAs.
• Professional: $450/month for 3 Core Seats, billed annually. Up to 10,000 website pages, 10,000 landing pages, Breeze Customer Agent, Content Remix, password-protected pages, advanced SEO recommendations, unlimited number of subdomains on one root domain, CTAS with custom targeting, phone support, A/B testing, AI translation, Brand Identity, and memberships.
• Enterprise: $1,500/mo for 5 Core Seats, billed annually. Content Remix (up to 50 pieces per day), standard sandbox account, custom objects, multisites, content partitioning, AI call transcript enrichment, Sensitive Data, Content Sync, serverless functions, content approvals, and activity logging.

2. (or Self-Hosted WordPress)

Best For

WordPress is best for small businesses that want the most flexibility and integrations (plugins).

Important distinction between WordPress.com versus WordPress.org:

• is the hosted SaaS version of this CMS, meaning the CMS, website builder, and web host are all on one platform, making it easier and faster to launch a site. You simply sign up and start building with a no-code editor.
• is where you download the free CMS software, but then you must acquire your own web hosting and install the CMS there. It’s a tad more technical (though plenty of non-developers have done this on their own), but it’s often the most recommended due to its higher flexibility.

The open-source WordPress software is the most popular way to make a website, powering about , including tons of small business websites. It's also what I use for all of my own personal websites, which is why I think it deserves a prominent spot on this list.

With the open-source software found at WordPress.org, you need to purchase your own web hosting and install the software on your hosting server.

But with , you can access more of a website builder-like experience for WordPress in one place, which is great for small businesses that don't want to get bogged down in the technical details.*

We actually have a whole post that explains the difference between the open-source WordPress software and WordPress.com.

Overall, using WordPress.com gives you a ton of flexibility for building any type of small business website and adding pretty much any feature imaginable, which is why I think it's a great starting point for many small businesses.

*With that being said, I do think that self-hosting the open-source WordPress software can also be a great option for small businesses, though the self-hosted approach isn't quite as simple.

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Key Features

• Easy setup. You can launch your website just by registering for a WordPress.com account. Unlike using the self-hosted WordPress approach, there's no need to purchase your own hosting and install the WordPress software because WordPress.com already offers built-in hosting.
• Code-free editor. You can manage all of your content (and even your site's design) using the drag-and-drop .
• Use any WordPress plugin or theme. With a paid WordPress.com plan, you can install any WordPress plugin on your site, including plugins from third-party developers. This lets you unlock the full flexibility of the 60,000+ WordPress plugins that are available. Keep in mind that to access all premium themes, you’ll need the Premium plan or higher.
  Pro tip: There are some WordPress.org plugins that are incompatible with WordPress.com due to the fact that the latter is managed hosting. You can .
• Ecommerce functionality. If you want to sell products or services, you can add full ecommerce functionality using the . WordPress.com also offers built-in features for accepting payments, which can work well if you don't need the full ecommerce experience.
• Tons of SEO features. WordPress.com includes built-in SEO tools, and you can also install SEO plugins to access more features.
• Dedicated support. You can get one-on-one support directly from WordPress.com staff, which is another advantage that WordPress.com has over self-hosted WordPress.

Website Building Experience

As I mentioned above, I recommend WordPress.com over self-hosting the WordPress software if you're looking for more of a “website builder” experience for your business.

When you use WordPress.com, all you need to do is register for an account to start building your site using WordPress.com's guided setup wizard.

Upon signup, WordPress.com will prompt you to claim a domain. Enter any name you’d like to here, but do not panic: You don’t have to actually purchase a domain yet.

After you click “Search domains,” if you want to try WordPress.com for free, be sure to click the “Start Free” button.

It will then prompt you to pick a plan. Select “Free” to get started.

Now, you’re all set up inside WordPress.com’s editor. To choose your website’s design, go to Appearance > Themes.

Unfortunately, all of the restaurant-focused themes require one of the paid WordPress.com plans. Because I'm using the free plan for these example screenshots, I had to choose a generic theme.

Once you select your theme, WordPress.com will set up your basic website for you. Then, you can customize everything using the WordPress Block Editor (also referred to as the Gutenberg editor).

You can just click and type to add text. Then, you can use blocks to add other types of content or control the layout. We have entire posts on how to use the Block Editor and what blocks are.

You can also manage your site's overall content from the main WordPress dashboard area.

If you're on any of the paid plans, you can also install WordPress plugins to add functionality to your website. Because of how popular WordPress is, you can find a plugin for pretty much any feature imaginable.

For example, if you'd prefer a different design experience to the default WordPress editor, you could install a visual page builder plugin such as Elementor or Divi.

We've actually written about a lot of these plugins on the HubSpot blog. Here are some posts that cover plugins that might be useful for a small business website:

• Overall best WordPress plugins
• Best WordPress plugins for marketers
• Top SEO plugins
• Best email marketing plugins

Upgrade to at least the Personal plan to be able to , in addition to the large selection of themes that WordPress.com already offers.

Pros and Cons of WordPress.com

Pros:

• Ultimate flexibility. WordPress.com gives you the most flexibility for building your site, including adding specific features you need via plugins, integrating with your favorite tools via the REST API, and exporting your site to move it to self-hosted WordPress or other platforms.
• The most plugins to extend functionality. With , WordPress is unmatched in giving you an easy way to add functionality to your site without resorting to coding. On paid plans, you can install custom plugins, giving you access to more flexibility than any other website builder can offer.
• Super popular and lots of learning resources. Because WordPress is so massively popular, it's easy to find learning resources and community support (in addition to the direct support that you get from WordPress.com).

Cons:

• A slightly higher learning curve. Even if you use WordPress.com instead of self-hosted WordPress, I would say that WordPress in general still has a slightly higher learning curve than some other builders on this list.
• Multiple ways to do things (which can add complexity). While having multiple ways to do things is an advantage from a flexibility standpoint, it also adds some complexity, which I think ties in with the point above. For example, you can choose from lots of different visual design plugins, whereas other website builders just give you one single option.

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Pricing

WordPress.com has a free plan and . For small businesses, I recommend at least the Premium plan. The Personal plan may feel too restrictive, as you don’t have access to all of the premium themes, and you can’t , which is kind of the gold standard in measuring and analyzing site traffic.

• Free plan. 1GB of storage, unlimited pages and users, unrestricted bandwidth, last seven days of basic stats, access to free themes, and an AI assistant (up to 20 requests).
• Personal: $4/mo on annual billing. 6GB of storage, unlimited pages/posts/users/visitors, free domain for the first year, no ads, dozens of premium themes, stats, ability to install plugins, and an AI assistant.
• Premium: $8/mo on annual billing. 13 GB of storage, access to all premium themes, fast support from the expert team, premium stats, sitewide font and color customization, no-code Google Analytics connection, and video uploads.
• Business: $25/mo on annual billing. 50 GB of storage, priority 24/7 support, and advanced developer tools, including SFTP/SSH, WP-CLI, Git commands, and GitHub Deployments.
• Commerce: $45/mo on annual billing. 50 GB of storage, access to all premium and store themes, and an optimized WooCommerce experience.
• Enterprise (starts at $25,000/year). WordPress VIP is designed for large and complex websites and isn’t the best fit for a small business.

3.

Best For

Wix is best for small business owners who want an easy-to-use website builder with a built-in basic CRM, plus marketing and ecommerce tools.

The is one of the most well-known and definitely one of the top options for small businesses. According to , it's the third most popular CMS, powering over 4.2% of websites on the internet.

In addition to its large template library and visual drag-and-drop builder, I think one of the most attractive parts of Wix for small businesses is all the other tools that it offers to help you run your business.

For example, Wix includes features to let you accept online payments from customers, manage online bookings and appointments, chat with customers over live chat or web forms, manage customer relationships in a basic CRM, and so on.

These are features that can be very helpful to most small businesses, so having them all built right into the website builder is super convenient.

Key Features

• Build with AI or templates. To start your site, you can use Wix’s AI builder to generate a website based on text prompts. Or, you can choose a premade template from Wix’s collection of 2,000+ templates and adjust it using Wix's visual builder.
• Visual drag-and-drop design. You can fully customize your site's design without needing to know any code.
• Ecommerce functionality. If you want to sell products or services, Wix offers full-service ecommerce functionality that works for selling a couple of products or .
• Useful business tools for small businesses. Wix has a bunch of features tailored toward small businesses, such as a scheduling tool, a tool for restaurant menus and reservations, a lightweight CRM, and more.
• Blog functionality. Wix lets you launch your own blog, which I think is a great way to market your small business.
• SEO tools. Wix's paid plans include SEO features and tools to help you rank in search engines like Google.
• Third-party apps. While isn't as large as WordPress’s, you can still access 500+ official and third-party apps.
• Advanced options for developers. If you do want to work more closely with code for added flexibility, Wix also offers tools and features to do that. For ultimate flexibility, you could even use , which is Wix‘s full-stack development platform. I don’t recommend this unless your small business has a dedicated development team, though.

• 24/7 support. With the paid plans, you can get 24/7 support, including VIP phone support on the highest plan.

Website Building Experience

To create your small business website with Wix, you can choose from two approaches:

• Wix AI. Provide some basic information via text prompts, and Wix will use AI to generate a completed website for you.
• Premade template. Choose one of the many premade templates and then easily customize it using Wix's visual drag-and-drop builder.

While the AI tool offers the fastest way to make a website, I still prefer the template approach because it lets me generate a better end product, even if it does take longer to set up everything.

However, if you just want something fast that’s “good enough,” you might prefer Wix AI. For these examples, though, I’m going to be using the premade template method.

For my HubSpot Cafe website, I was able to find 30+ different templates for restaurant and cafe websites. I ended up choosing .

After choosing the template, you’re able to customize everything using Wix’s visual builder.

You can also switch to a mobile preview to customize the mobile version of your site.

The Wix editor can feel a little overwhelming at first with everything that’s going on. If you want to simplify things while you’re editing, I recommend clicking the Hide Controls arrow at the top to enable a more immersive full-screen editing mode.

Pros and Cons of Wix

Pros:

• Easy website building experience. Wix’s no-code editor makes it super easy to launch a functioning site, which I think is great for non-technical users who want the smallest learning curve possible.
• Tools for small businesses. Wix offers some useful tools for small businesses, such as appointment booking, live chat, a lightweight CRM, and more.
• Easy ecommerce functionality. If you ever want to sell products or services, Wix offers ecommerce functionality that's powerful enough for most use cases.
• Large app marketplace for a website builder. While Wix’s app marketplace can’t compete with WordPress, it is still a lot larger than most other website builders.

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Cons:

• No option to change your website template after building your site. With something like WordPress, you can easily change your website theme at any time without losing your content. However, with Wix, you can't change themes without completely rebuilding your site.
• Lock-in. While Wix does give you some ways to export some of your website‘s content, it doesn’t make it as easy as some other platforms. There's also . This can mean that you might feel a bit “locked in” if you ever want to switch to a different website platform.

Pricing

include a free plan, plus four paid plans. For small businesses, I recommend at least the Core plan, and ideally the Business plan. These plans give you access to extra tools and marketing features that are important for small businesses.

• Free. Wix has a limited free plan that lets you create a website on a Wix subdomain (e.g., yoursite.wix.com).
• Light: $17/mo paid annually. Free domain for the first year, 2GB of storage, light marketing suite, and no payment tools.
• Core: $29/mo paid annually. 50 GB of storage, basic marketing suite, payment tools, ecommerce tools (abandoned cart recovery, automatic discounts, loyalty program, etc.), and a bookings platform.
• Business: $39/mo paid annually. 100GB of storage, standard marketing suite, automated sales tax for 100 transactions per month, more ecommerce tools (unlock loyalty tiers, referral program, and loyalty points expiration).
• Business Elite: $159/mo paid annually. Unlimited storage, advanced marketing suite, automated sales tax for 500 transactions per month, and advanced developer platform.

4.

Best For

Dorik is best for small businesses that want to launch a website fast using generative AI, or agencies that want to white-label sites for their clients.

is one of the best no-code website builders powered by AI. It comes with many tools to run a small business smoothly, including built-in SEO, contact forms, and integrations with popular software like Google Analytics, Airtable, and PayPal.

What I liked most about Dorik is its fast and easy website-building process. You just write a prompt describing your business, and AI does the rest. Dorik also lets you create websites using its pre-built templates or design them from scratch. It offers 110+ website templates and 250+ UI blocks.

With Dorik, you don’t need to worry about marketing, analytics, and payment tools. You can easily integrate different third-party tools to enhance the functionalities of your business site.

Key Features

• User-friendly interface. Even if you‘re not tech-savvy, you can design a professional site with Dorik in no time. Dorik’s drag-and-drop builder makes it easy for you to create and customize your website without any coding skills.
• Pre-built templates and elements. With over 110 professional templates and 250+ UI blocks, you can build your website quickly and easily. This helps you create a site that looks professional and fits your brand — all without coding skills.
• AI-powered website generation. Just provide a description, and the AI builds the site for you, including content and images. Plus, AI text and image generation let you quickly fill your site with engaging content that resonates with your audience.
• Ecommerce capabilities. You can accept payments through integrations with Stripe, PayPal, and Gumroad. You can even integrate your website with popular e-commerce platforms like Shopify and Ecwid.
• Built-In SEO tools. Dorik includes SEO settings that help your website rank better in search engines like Google. You can easily add meta titles, descriptions, alt text, custom schema, keywords, and many more to improve your site's visibility.

Website Building Experience

Dorik offers three methods to create your small business website, catering to different needs and skill levels:

• AI Website Generation. Simply describe your business, and Dorik's AI will generate a complete website for you in seconds. This includes tailored content and images, reducing time to launch.
• Using a Template. Choose from over 85 professionally designed templates suited for various industries. You can customize these templates to match your brand by adjusting colors, fonts, and layouts using the intuitive drag-and-drop editor.
• Building from Scratch. If you have a specific vision, start with a blank canvas. Use Dorik's extensive library of over 250 pre-made UI blocks and 20+ elements to build your site exactly how you want it.

For this example, I‘ll focus on the AI method because it’s the fastest way to get a professional site up and running.

Type your business‘s name and a brief description, choose your preferred language, hit the “Generate Your Website” button, and let Dorik’s AI generate a professional website in seconds.

Pro tip: To get the best outcome, be as detailed as possible in your prompt. For instance, give it details on the colors you want, providing specific color codes when possible.

Dorik creates tailored layouts, content, and images instantly.

Once the AI has created your site, you can start customizing it using Dorik's intuitive drag-and-drop builder.

If you want to refine any section, you can easily regenerate or customize it. Dorik allows you to regenerate full layouts or specific sections with one click.

The “AI Quick Style” feature also lets you quickly adjust your site's color palette and typography. This makes it simple to match your brand’s look without diving into complex settings.

As you customize your site, you can preview how it looks on different devices to ensure it's mobile-responsive.

Once you're happy with your website, click “Publish,” and your site will go live.

Pros and Cons of Dorik

Pros:

• Easy for beginners. If you‘re not tech-savvy, Dorik’s intuitive drag-and-drop builder makes it simple to create a professional website without any coding knowledge.
• Saves time with AI tools. Dorik's AI can generate a complete website in seconds based on your description. This helps you get online quickly without spending hours on design.
• Helpful customer support. for being responsive and supportive. You can get assistance when you run into issues.

Cons:

• Can be buggy. While most AI websites generate quickly, occasionally, the process might take a few extra seconds. Additionally, one time when I tried to generate a new design, an error popped up, and I had to try again. There were also a couple of instances where I tried to regenerate sections, but the sections didn’t change at all.
• Free trial limitations. The 14-day free trial limits you to five static pages per site (up to five sites) and doesn't let you add custom code or membership features, which can be limiting if you want to get a true feel for the platform.

Pricing

is based on one-month, one-year, and two-year plans (with increasing discounts as you increase the contract length). Below, I'll give pricing based on the one-year plans.

• Free 14-day trial. The free trial grants you five websites on a Dorik subdomain, up to five static pages per site, and access to templates and the AI builder.
• Personal: $20.75/mo billed $249 annually on a one-year plan. One custom domain, unlimited sites on Dorik subdomain, no Dorik branding, live chat support, and 25 static pages per site.
• Business: $41.50/mo billed $498 annually. Three custom domains, unlimited pages, password-protected pages, custom forms, and API access.
• Agency: Tailored pricing. If you're an agency, Dorik offers tailored pricing for a plan that unlocks unlimited custom domains, white labeling, and client billing.

5.

Best For

Neo is best for small businesses that want an affordable AI website builder connected to their business email account on the same platform.

Neo is another AI website builder, but its pricing is substantially lower than Dorik, and its platform also sells business email accounts so you can easily connect your AI-generated website to a professional-looking email account (contact@yourbusiness.com instead of contact@gmail.com, for example).

Key Features

• AI-driven design & content creation: Neo can build a complete website from scratch or help update design and content instantly. Simply input your brand details, and AI will generate a custom design that suits your business needs.
• No coding required: Easily add sections, move elements around, and customize text, images, and buttons without touching a single line of code.
• Customizable design: Use the design tab to tweak color themes, fonts, and overall layout. Choose from various templates, or personalize your site with manual design adjustments.
• Integrated image library & content tools: Upload your own images or select from a rich library of free images. AI-generated content helps you quickly craft headlines, descriptions, and call-to-actions so your website stands out.

Website Building Experience

To create with Neo’s AI, simply type a description of your website. Neo generates multiple designs for you, and lets you select which one you’d like to edit.

Begin by customizing individual sections of your website through the intuitive editor on the left pane. Add elements like headers, galleries, testimonials, and more, adjusting the layout to suit your brand.

Head to the design tab to choose template color themes and fonts. Use Neo’s AI button feature to generate a new design from scratch or generate text and images for your existing layout.

Customize text, images, and links for each section. AI can help you craft content quickly, saving you time while maintaining a professional tone. You can also easily add service descriptions, product listings, customer testimonials, and more. Or move sections around by clicking the up or down arrows.

After finalizing the design and content, preview your site to ensure everything looks perfect. Then, click “Publish” to go live.

Your site will be live and ready to share across platforms.

Pros and Cons of Neo

Pros:

• Ease of use: Perfect for users with no coding skills. The intuitive no-code editor and AI-powered tools make building a website quick and simple. Note: One difference between Neo’s editor and Dorik’s is that, with Dorik, you can drag and drop individual elements right within the website layout. With Neo, you can rearrange the order of sections (groups of elements, like photos and headlines) by clicking arrows within the website design, but to rearrange individual photos, you must drag and drop them in the left-side pane. This, to me, is less intuitive.

• Customizable design: Many options exist to tweak and personalize your website’s appearance.
• Fast & efficient: With AI, you can generate content, design, and layout in seconds, saving time and effort.

Cons:

• Limited advanced customization: While perfect for beginners, users seeking more advanced customization might find the options somewhat limited.
• Template variety: Although Neo continues to expand its offerings, more template options could be beneficial.

Pricing

has increasing discounts for committing to one-year, two-year, or four-year plans, but I'll list one-year plan pricing below. For small businesses, I recommend the Plus plan, since it removes the Neo branding. Neo also offers a 15-day free trial.

• Basic: $3.59/mo billed annually. 1GB of storage, custom domain, AI website generation (20 times), templates, stock images (50), visitor analytics, and Neo branding.
• Plus: $4.79/mo billed annually. 10GB of storage, AI website generation (500 times), templates, unlimited stock images, testimonials (6), contact forms (1,000), and removes Neo branding.
• Growth: $11.99/mo billed annually. 50GB of storage, unlimited AI website generation, premium fonts, unlimited testimonials, unlimited contact forms, and priority chat support 24/7.

6.

Best For

Squarespace is best for small businesses that want a clean, simple approach to website building, while still having access to ecommerce and appointment scheduling features.

is another popular website builder for small businesses, especially businesses in creative spaces (though it's certainly not limited to that).

I like Squarespace because it contrasts really well with a small business website builder like Wix. While both offer the same fundamental product (a website builder), they go about it in different ways.

Wix tries to give you everything. It's packed with apps, it gives you all kinds of features and settings, and it even lets you work directly with code and databases. While this is nice from a flexibility perspective, it makes the Wix interface seem a bit busy, and I think that Wix can be a bit overwhelming to use for some people.

In contrast, everything about Squarespace is clean and simple. Compared to Wix‘s busy interfaces, I think that Squarespace’s interfaces are a breath of fresh air. And if you felt a little overwhelmed when you were looking at the screenshots of Wix, I think you might enjoy Squarespace.

Key Features

• 190+ templates. Squarespace offers over 190 different premade templates to start your site with, spanning a variety of small business niches. You can find templates for restaurants, service businesses, and lots more. Squarespace designs are clean, modern, and beautiful.
• AI website builder (Blueprint). While you‘re free to manually customize your website based on one of Squarespace’s templates, Squarespace also has an AI website builder tool that lets you design your site using AI and a guided wizard.
• Flexible drag-and-drop design editor. Squarespace lets you easily position each element on your site using a flexible drag-and-drop builder with gridlines. You can also access separate views for desktop and mobile devices, which lets you customize your website's responsive design.
• Online payments/ecommerce. You can accept online payments or sell products/services via a full ecommerce store. There's even an invoicing tool, along with support for subscriptions and gift cards.
• Appointment scheduling. If your small business runs on appointments, Squarespace offers its own booking tool.
• Important SEO tools. Squarespace offers all the SEO essentials that small business websites need to rank in Google, including Google Search Console integration, an SEO checklist, page titles and descriptions, and structured data markup.

Website Building Experience

When you start building your small business website with Squarespace, you'll be able to choose from two different approaches:

• Squarespace Blueprint AI. This lets you use Squarespace's AI tools to set you up with a customized website.
• Premade template. You can choose a premade template and then customize it for your business.

In general, I share the same opinion that I have for Wix‘s AI tools. While Squarespace’s Blueprint tools offer a faster way of building a website, I still prefer starting from a template because it gives me more control over the end product.

For my HubSpot Cafe example site, I chose to go with the premade template approach and selected from the list of options. For a cafe/restaurant website, there , though some other business types have more options.

Once you've chosen your template, you can provide some basic information, such as the name of your business. Then, you can customize all the default content using the visual drag-and-drop editor.

I think that the Squarespace editor is very clear and minimalist, especially when compared to something like Wix. It uses a section-based approach, which makes it easy to divide your page into different parts.

Within each section, you can now access its . You can drag an element pretty much anywhere on the page, guided by gridlines that appear. It’s a more fine-tuned drag-and-drop experience than what Squarespace previously offered, and I really appreciate the flexibility.

You can also access separate views for desktop and mobile devices, which lets you easily customize your site's responsive design.

In general, the editor feels a lot cleaner than something like Wix, which might be an advantage for non-technical people. The main site dashboard is also very clean, making it easy to access different parts of your website.

Pros and Cons of Squarespace

Pros:

• Clean design aesthetic. All of Squarespace‘s templates and designs have a very clean aesthetic, which is one of the most recognizable things about Squarespace. This is why Squarespace is especially popular with small businesses in the creative space (though again, it’s not limited to that).
• Flexible grid-based builder. With Squarespace’s Fluid Engine, you have more control over how you rearrange elements on your site. When you drag an element, gridlines show up to guide you, which I think is a great experience for non-technical users.
• Simple, clean dashboards. While I think some other tools can feel a bit busy, all of Squarespace's dashboards are very clean and never feel overwhelming.
• Ecommerce capabilities even on the cheapest plan. Unlike Wix, Squarespace offers online payment and ecommerce features even on its lowest tier. This makes it an affordable option for small businesses that have an online store.

Cons:

• Limited third-party extensions/apps. While Squarespace does now offer a very small , it‘s very limited compared to WordPress and Wix. This means you won’t have quite as much flexibility for integrating your site with third-party tools and services that you might be using.

Pricing

is listed below. It does not offer a free plan, but it does offer a free 14-day trial. For small businesses using Squarespace, I recommend the Basic plan — unless you have high-volume sales, at which point it might be worth it to upgrade to Plus or Advanced for lower payment processing fees (which might save you money in the long run).

• Basic: $16/mo billed annually. One year of free domain registration, up to two contributors, Squarespace Payments, credit card payment processing rate of 2.9% + $0.30, online store transaction fee of 2%, no invoice transaction fees, fully integrated ecommerce with unlimited products and services.
• Core: $23/mo billed annually. Unlimited contributors, advanced website analytics, professional email from Google Workspace, ability to customize with CSS, HTML, iFrames, JavaScript, code injection, and the online transaction fee drops to 0% on this plan.
• Plus: $39/mo billed annually. Credit card payment processing rate lowers to 2.7% + $0.30, and digital content and memberships transaction fee drops to 1%.
• Advanced: $99/mo billed annually. Credit card payment processing rate lowers to 2.5% + $0.30, and digital content and memberships transaction fee drops to 0%.

7.

Best For

SpreadSimple is best for small business owners who need a simple website and like managing website content via a spreadsheet, instead of a visual website builder interface.

is a bit of a curveball that you probably won‘t find in other recommendation lists. However, I think it’s worth including because it has a totally unique approach compared to the other small business website builders on this list.

More importantly, I think that a unique approach can work really well for certain types of small businesses. It's certainly not the right builder for all small businesses. But if you like this approach, I think it's a really great option to consider.

In a nutshell, SpreadSimple works like this:

• You choose from one of SpreadSimple's many templates.
• SpreadSimple gives you a spreadsheet based on that template.
• You add all of your site's data to that spreadsheet using Google Sheets.
• SpreadSimple takes the data from your sheet and turns it into a working website.

If you’re already relying on spreadsheets in the day-to-day of running your business, I think being able to use that same interface for your website can be really convenient. Of course, the downside is that this approach doesn’t give you as much flexibility for customizing your site.

Key Features

• 35 to choose from. More importantly, you can find templates for a lot of different small business niches and industries.
• Spreadsheet-based data management. You can use a spreadsheet to manage most of your site's data. For example, if you have a restaurant, you can just add each item on your menu as a row in the spreadsheet.
• SEO tools. With the paid plans, you can get tools to optimize your content for search engines, including meta tags, image alt tags, and a sitemap.
• Ecommerce functionality. You can use SpreadSimple's lightweight ecommerce tools to easily sell products. It offers a shopping cart, item quantity limits, promo codes, order notifications, and more.
• Webhooks support. While webhooks are a somewhat advanced topic, they let you connect your website with other services and build automations. You can also use webhooks to easily connect to Zapier.

Website Building Experience

As I mentioned earlier, SpreadSimple has the most unique website-building experience of any tool on this list.

To get started, you‘ll choose one of the premade website templates that SpreadSimple offers. Currently, you’ll find around 35 different templates, with options for a number of different small business spaces.

For my example HubSpot Cafe website, I chose .

Once you choose the template, SpreadSimple will create your website for you using some sample data. Then, it will give you a spreadsheet for that website template, which you can use to easily add your own content.

You also get some basic settings in the editor to control how to display the information from your spreadsheet.

You'll use this spreadsheet to manage most of your site's content. For example, for HubSpot Cafe, I can just add the items from the HubSpot Cafe menu as rows in the spreadsheet.

You can also edit some static content from the sidebar in the editor.

If you want to add more pages to your site, you can control the content of those pages using a simple text editor, which offers markdown support.

From a visual perspective, I think that this editing experience is nowhere close to other tools. But if you just want a quick and easy way to add some extra information about your small business, it's fairly easy to use.

Pros and Cons of SpreadSimple

Pros:

• Manage your site's data in a spreadsheet. This is the biggest advantage of using a website builder like SpreadSimple. If you already feel comfortable working with spreadsheets and don't want to learn a new interface, this approach is super simple.
• Supports online payments. You can easily sell products or services directly from your website and accept payments online. It supports PayPal and Stripe, along with a number of smaller payment gateways.

Cons:

• Limited design flexibility. There‘s no way to customize your website’s design using a drag-and-drop builder, which is a feature that pretty much all of these other builders offer. The template selection also isn't as large as the other website builders on this list.
• Not as many tools as other website builders. With about 47 add-ons at the time of writing, SpreadSimple’s extensibility is nowhere near as vast as WordPress’s or Wix’s. But it does integrate with some popular software services, such as HubSpot.

• Might be too simple for some small business websites. This kind of ties in with the two points above, but I think some small businesses will just generally need a more robust website builder like WordPress.com, HubSpot Content Hub, Wix, or Squarespace.

Pricing

SpreadSimple offers a 14-day free trial. include:

• Free. Three websites, 50 rows Google Sheet limit, unlimited visitors, SpreadSimple branding and domain.
• Starter: $12.90/mo billed annually. Three websites, white labeling, removes SpreadSimple branding, password protection, connect a custom domain, 500 Google Sheet rows limit, SEO tools (image alt tags, sitemap, etc.).
• Business: $13.90/mo billed annually. Three websites, accept payments, 5,000 Google Sheet rows, and webhooks.
• Connect: $20.90/mo billed annually. Three websites, 10,000 Google Sheet rows, priority support, content access restrictions, and user groups.

FAQs About Website Builders for Small Business

What is the best website maker for small businesses?

The best website maker for small businesses is probably Wix, WordPress.com, Squarespace, or HubSpot Content Hub — depending on your needs.

• HubSpot is best if you’re already using or plan to use the HubSpot CRM or its marketing, sales, or service tools. If your business is focused on growth and personalization, consider HubSpot Content Hub. Its built upon the HubSpot Smart CRM, so your website builder and customer relationship management software share data seamlessly. This means you can more deeply understand your audience, personalize your content, and measure website ROI. On top of that, Content Hub includes HubSpot’s free sales, marketing, and service tools.
• Wix is best if you want a beginner-friendly basic business website builder. Wix’s website builder consistently tops lists for being easy to use, especially for beginners. Wix even has a basic CRM, which is useful for tracking interactions with customers.
• WordPress.com is the best for extensibility and flexibility since it has, by far, the most plugins. If you want a plugin for every possible feature you could want to add to your site, you cannot beat WordPress.com. Its plugin directory has over 60,000 options to extend your website, from embedding contact forms to adding a shopping cart to backing up your website.
• Squarespace is best if you want the sleekest, cleanest designs, plus ecommerce features on the cheapest plan. Hands down, Squarespace’s professionally designed templates are the most modern, sleek designs, and the Squarespace drag-and-drop editor’s UI is clean and intuitive. Unlike Wix, Squarespace offers ecommerce features even on its lowest-tier plan.

Is Wix or Google Sites better?

Google Sites is a good free website builder for small business. But given that Google Sites is 100% free and has limited features, and Wix offers paid plans with more robust features, Wix is better. However, if you’re comparing strictly the against Google Sites (which is always free), then Google Sites is better because Wix’s free plan includes Wix branding and doesn’t allow a custom domain connection, whereas Google Sites has no branding or ads and lets you connect a custom domain.

Do I need an LLC to start a website?

No, you do not need an LLC to start a website. An LLC (limited liability company) is a type of business structure that provides liability protection, but deciding whether to form an LLC is a decision that is separate from starting a website. Anyone (whether they own a business or not) can start a website. To decide what kind of business structure your small business should have, consult a tax and/or legal professional.

How do I create a website for my small business?

To create a website for your small business:

• Choose a website builder for small business. A good website builder for small business is one that’s easy for non-technical beginners to use, offers affordable plans, has built-in SEO, integrates with existing tools, and has responsive support. The best website builders for small business include Content Hub, Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress.com.
• Select a premade template. While many website builders now offer AI that can generate a design based on your text prompt, I still recommend starting by looking through the website builder’s template library, as these tend to have the best designs and do not require you to be good at AI prompting.
• Customize the template using the no-code editor. Website builders feature no-code visual editors, where you can typically drag and drop elements, change colors, adjust spacing, etc., all without having to use code.
• Register a domain and connect it to your website. It is absolutely worth it to register a custom domain so you can have a professional-looking yourbusiness.com domain instead of yourbusiness.wixsite.com domain. A domain itself is fairly cheap, about $12 per year. Once you buy it, you must connect it to your website.
• Review to ensure everything is correct and functions properly. In web design and development, this is known as the quality assurance (QA) stage. Proofread the text on your website to spot any errors, click the links to ensure they lead to the correct webpage, and make sure your website functions the way you expect.
• Launch your site. With a website builder, launching a website is typically as simple as clicking a button.

Get started with the best website builder for small business.

Among the list of seven solid options above, you’re bound to find the best website platform for small business — or, rather, the best one for your small business. All of these options are quality tools in their own right, so it really just comes down to your goals for your website, what type of website-building experience you want, and your budget.

For example, if you want the most flexibility for adding custom features and integrations, I don't think you can beat WordPress, and WordPress.com offers a true “website building” experience for making a WordPress site.

On the other hand, if you want to be able to easily implement content marketing and marketing automation strategies to grow your small business, I think you might prefer a tool like because it excels in those areas.

Try to think about the specific features that your small business needs, and that should help you choose the best website builder for long-term success.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in June 2024 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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