5 best website builders for small businesses in 2024

What’s it like building a website with Wix?

So, what makes Wix the best all-in-one website builder for small businesses? Thanks to Wix’s templates and drag-and-drop editor, I could get a fully polished website live within a day. My favourite part about Wix’s onboarding process was the AI chatbot, as its conversational approach made it feel very natural.

All I had to do was respond to a few simple questions about my site and business needs to get a personalised site built for me.

Wix’s AI chatbot adapted to my responses and asked detailed questions to help build a customised site. Source: Startups.co.uk

Alternatively, I could choose from over 900+ professional-looking templates across various industries, such as ‘Wellness’ and ‘Travel Services’. These stunning website themes, alongside Wix’s versatile drag-and-drop editor, make it incredibly easy for small businesses to design a website without any prior building experience.

I had the freedom to drag elements wherever I wanted with Wix’s editor. Source: Startups.co.uk

That said, while the design process with Wix is incredibly straightforward and intuitive, beginners might feel overwhelmed by the number of choices. I test website builders for a living, and even I get lost or need to browse Wix’s Help Center to seek advice at times. Thankfully, Wix is one of the best builders for support, offering 24/7 phone support and live chat to website owners.

How much does Wix cost?

Wix’s breadth of high-quality features may make it our top choice for small businesses overall, but the downside of all this functionality is that Wix isn’t the most cost-effective or cheap option. For a better value builder, I’d recommend choosing Squarespace or GoDaddy.

You can read our full Wix pricing guide for a breakdown of each pricing tier, but here’s a quick summary of the available plans (billed annually):

• Free: £0 per month
• Light plan: £9 per month
• Core plan: £16 per month
• Business: £25 per month
• Business Elite: £119 per month
• Enterprise: Bespoke quote

What’s it like building a website with Squarespace?

In comparison to other builders, like Wix, Squarespace is a real walk in the park and the easiest platform I’ve tested.

The setup process took me no time at all, but I advise picking one of the 150+ templates instead of using Squarespace’s AI (known as Squarespace Blueprint) to design a site for you. The AI themes don’t compare to the stylish look of Squarespace’s ready-to-use templates.

I found Squarespace Blueprint easy to use, but the template it generated was pretty generic, so I’d recommend choosing from the template library instead. Source: Startups.co.uk

Once I selected a template, it was time to edit with Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor.

What makes Squarespace stand out from our top choice Wix is the smart grid it adds to the editor. I found this so useful to align elements and keep my pages tidy – Hostinger offers the same feature in its editor as well. Despite this perk, Squarespace doesn’t offer the same level of creative freedom as Wix. With Wix, you can drag elements and sections anywhere on the page, whereas Squarespace locks you into the grid layout. That said, with Squarespace’s designs, you won’t need to make as many tweaks.

Squarespace’s editor made it easy for me to move elements around. Source: Startups.co.uk

Of all the builders I’ve tested, Squarespace is the easiest to use and offers great help and support. This is key for small business owners who are having to create a website for themselves from scratch.

You can reach out for help 24/7 via email or live chat, or you could even hire a Squarespace Expert for additional support to save you the hassle of fixing any problems yourself.

How much does Squarespace cost?

Squarespace’s pricing plans are incredibly good value for money. Our research found that it’s up there with GoDaddy – another affordable website builder – as the best value for money platform. Squarespace has four plans to choose from – their annual pricing is listed below:

• Personal: £12 per month
• Business: £17 per month
• Commerce Basic: £23 per month
• Commerce Advanced: £35 per month

You can read our dedicated Squarespace pricing review for an in-depth look at the different plans.

What’s it like building a website with GoDaddy?

GoDaddy is one of the simplest website builders you can choose, with a user-friendly focus and straightforwardness that meant I could get a basic business site ready in under an hour. This makes it a great choice for small business owners who are short on time and looking to get online fast.

GoDaddy gave me the option to choose from suggested sections before getting into the editor. Source: Startups.co.uk

If you’ve got no tech or coding skills, don’t fear – GoDaddy keeps these complexities far away. To set up my site quickly, I could simply select new sections to add to my pages and make basic edits.

Unfortunately, I’d argue that GoDaddy keeps things almost too streamlined. Its section-based editor lacks the functionality and flexibility of other builders such as Wix and Squarespace, which use a drag-and-drop style instead. With GoDaddy, I could only move blocks up or down within the page structure.

I found that my customisation options were quite limited with GoDaddy. Source: Startups.co.uk

On the plus side, GoDaddy is one of the better builders for help and support I’ve tested. Whenever I stumbled or came across a hurdle, I could find a solution through its 24/7 live chat or look through its online guides and resources.

How much does GoDaddy cost?

GoDaddy is one of the best value builders we tested in 2024 with its cheapest plan starting from as low as £7.99 per month.

You can read our GoDaddy pricing page for a deeper insight into the different packages, but here’s a summary of its four affordable plans (billed annually):

• Basic: £7.99 per month
• Standard: £9.99 per month
• Premium: £11.99 per month
• Ecommerce: £13.99 per month

What’s it like building a website with Shopify?

Shopify is one of the best ecommerce website builders, and it’s very popular with large brands, such as Gymshark, and celebrities, like Kylie Jenner and Jennifer Aniston. From our research, it’s easy to see why – Shopify is well-equipped to help businesses grow online thanks to its unparalleled sales features.

When testing Shopify myself, I did find its editor difficult to use. It took me longer to create a visually pleasing site with Shopify than it did with other builders, such as Squarespace. This is mostly because of Shopify’s section-based editor – which doesn’t give you as much freedom as a drag-and-drop – and its lack of free templates.

However, small business owners can now use the AI-powered Shopify Magic tool to generate templates. All I had to do was input one or two words that described my brand or products, and it generated three templates in less than a minute. I recommend using Shopify Magic if you want a lot of the creative work done for you.

Shopify Magic helped me create a stylish-looking online store. Source: Startups.co.uk

Despite its design shortcomings, Shopify excels when it comes to functionality, especially for ecommerce. Its industry-leading range of sales features, such as abandoned cart recovery, will help you streamline the sales process, increase conversions, and make selling to your customers as simple as possible.

The recent Shopify Editions: Summer ‘24 announcement unveiled over 100 products and updates, such as split shipping and improved website analytics. This goes to show that Shopify considers its users and continues to make improvements for its merchants.

But, if things get overly complicated, don’t give up! Shopify – alongside Wix – is one of our two top-performing builders for help and support. I found Shopify’s 24/7 live chat to be super responsive, and I appreciated having the option to hire a Shopify Expert should I need an extra helping hand.

I always got a helpful answer from Shopify’s virtual assistant, but I could connect with a human Support Advisor if I needed more help. Source: Startups.co.uk

How much does Shopify cost?

Shopify isn’t the most affordable website builder for small businesses, but you get plenty of bang for your buck. While the other options on this list are more affordable, Shopify is oriented towards those who are seriously looking to scale their business and want access to more advanced ecommerce features.

When billed annually, Shopify pricing is as follows:

• Basic: £19 per month
• Shopify: £49 per month
• Advanced: £259 per month

Head to our dedicated Shopify pricing page to learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of each pricing tier.

What’s it like building a website with Hostinger?

Rounding out our list of the top five website builders for small businesses is Hostinger. I could sign up and get started with building in less than a minute – all I had to do was fill out a simple form to let Hostinger’s AI build a site for me.

I got a personalised template built for me using Hostinger’s AI builder. Source: Startups.co.uk

The template it generated needed a little work, but Hostinger’s AI website builder is pretty impressive nonetheless, and I had no trouble making edits with the drag-and-drop editor. In fact, Hostinger gave me more creative freedom than Squarespace because I could place design elements anywhere on the page.

With Hostinger, you can kit out your website in no time. The pre-designed sections provide a great starting point, with options for a contact form and social icons.

Like Wix, Hostinger let me move and place elements wherever I wanted. Source: Startups.co.uk

Unfortunately, Hostinger is let down by its limited built-in features and basic support options. You won’t be able to create email marketing campaigns with Hostinger directly, and its ecommerce functionality is limited to 500 products.

However, users can build a business logo with Hostinger, and I recommend making the most of Hostinger’s suite of AI tools to set up a professional-looking website. For online stores, the platform recently introduced the AI-Powered Product Information Generator to help you save time when adding new products to your inventory.

How much does Hostinger cost?

Hostinger’s biggest pull factor is undoubtedly its low-cost pricing plans, which make it a great option for startups looking for minimal overhead spending. That said, Hostinger didn’t perform well in our value for money tests, as the cheap price comes at the expense of powerful features.

The cheapest pricing is available with a 48-month subscription:

• Premium Website Builder: £2.59 per month
• Business Website Builder: £3.79 per month – this plan was introduced in early 2024

How we test website builders for small businesses

Why can you trust us? We tested 16 website builders to deliver our 2024 recommendations to UK-based small businesses.

Our rigorous testing process means these builders have been scored and rated in six main categories of investigation and 46 subcategories. We’ve also given each category score a ‘relevance weighting’ to ensure the categories that are most important to our readers contribute more to each builder’s overall score.

Our main testing categories for website builders are:

• Website Features: 25% – the capabilities and functionalities offered by a builder, such as SEO and marketing tools.
• Value for Money: 20% – looking at pricing plans, free trials, and the balance between the cost of a website builder and the benefits included.
• Help and Support: 20% – the assistance and resources available to users when they encounter issues or need guidance while using a website builder.
• Design Functionality: 15% – the aesthetic appeal and visual layout of a website created using the website builder, encompassing areas such as templates and customisation options.
• User Experience: 15% – how user-friendly and intuitive a website builder is for people with varying levels of technical expertise.
• Customer Score: 5% – this covers external customer opinions, such as feedback and ratings, as well as the builder’s market position and reputation.