The 9 best website builders for small businesses in 2023

The height of a building depends on the strength of its foundation. The same applies to what you build in the digital space. How you design a website depends on what you want to build.

What is a website designer?

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Web development platforms have exploded in popularity over the last decade, but what exactly are they for? A website builder is a tool that allows a user to build a website from scratch using pre-defined templates, without having to create the design or code. These platforms offer a range of different design templates to choose from.

But not all businesses have the same needs, and there are many platforms for small businesses. Whether you're looking to create a fully customized website with lots of features or something quick and easy.

Below we've rated the 9 best website builders for small businesses (in no particular order), explaining their advantages, disadvantages, prices and where they're best suited.

Fast and intuitive for beginners

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is clearly a platform for small businesses, as it has been designed to be as convenient and user-friendly as possible. As such, it takes care of details like hosting, content delivery networks (for faster load times), SSL certificates and Google SEO integration.

Benefits:

Fast and easy to use

Supports hosting and DRCs

AI helps you create your design

Free hosting of a significant amount of files, including for online sales sites with 3% transaction fee (but there will be banner ads)

Disadvantages :

No third-party extensions: you only have Constant Contact's native features

Price:

Free

Standard: 8,90€/month

Business: 17,70€/month90

Jimdo

Like Constant Contact, Jimdo is another fast and efficient web development platform for small businesses. It too offers artificial intelligence, making it an ideal choice for beginners and those who just need a low-maintenance website, such as a portfolio. Jimdo also handles some of the technical aspects, such as hosting and domain names.

Advantages:

Intuitive drag-and-drop tool perfect for beginners

Accessible from mobile devices

Paid package includes hosting and domain

All templates are mobile friendly

Disadvantages:

Email support only

Limited customisation options

May not be sufficient for large companies

Price :

Free trial

Pro: €8.90/month (annual payment)

Business: €17.70/month (annual payment)

GoDaddy

GoDaddy offers more customisation options than Constant Contact, for example, by offering a choice of colours and fonts, it offers fewer options in terms of the features available for free.

Advantages:

Offers slightly more customisation options than other quick platforms

The interface is intuitive, ideal for beginners

The editor can be used on mobile devices

Disadvantages:

SEO is not really optimised

Negative feedback suggests management issues when using GoDaddy

You have to choose the premium package to access a real SEO, social media and emailing service

Price :

Basic: €13.30/month

Business: 17.70€/month

Premium: 22,10€/month

E-commerce: 26,50€/month

Advanced and highly customisable

Wix

Consistently ranked as one of the best website builders for small businesses, Wix is the reigning champion and for good reason. With affordable pricing and an intuitive interface, Wix appeals to website managers of all kinds.

Advantages :

Ideal interface, both easy to use (drag and drop) and many customisation options

Use of AI or design from scratch

Generous free package (with Wix ads)

Unlimited package includes hosting and SSL certificates

Interesting design options, including animated effects

Unlimited number of pages and hundreds of templates

SEO and marketing tools

Disadvantages:

You can't change your template, you have to start from scratch

Requires some learning

You have to subscribe to a paid package to remove the advertising

No live chat option

Price :

Domain (with ads): €4/month

Combo: 7.50€/month

Unlimited: 11€/month

VIP: 21,60€/month

WordPress

Although WordPress was (for a long time) the best platform for website creation in the early 2010s, the arrival of other more intuitive platforms such as Wix has somewhat diminished its popularity. WordPress remains relevant and competitive with unique features.

Avantages:

A huge number of features, themes and customization options thanks to the strong 3P plugin community

This community offers tons of support and feedback if you need technical assistance

Best platform for blogs, especially given the ability to use additional SEO plug-ins, such as Yoast

Disadvantages:

Requires a lot of learning and sometimes use is not always obvious; WordPress is time consuming

The best features are available through plug-ins, so it costs more

Price:

This platform is not as simple as the others. Technically, it is a free tool, but you will have to pay for hosting separately. In addition, the most useful plug-ins also cost money, so you may have to spend more money than you originally planned. It's estimated to cost around £90 for the basic set-up, but to create a truly unique and customised site, this figure could well rise into the thousands.

Specific to online sales sites

Shopify

Shopify is one of the web development platforms specialising in e-commerce. Fast and easy to use, the platform allows you to choose a theme and then customise it. However, there are very few designs and customisation options available. Shopify is designed for those who want to focus more on their sales than on site creation.

Advantages:

Lightning fast setup (although it will still take some time if you have a lot of products)

Most intuitive interface of any platform in this category

All necessary sales functionality, some built-in and some available via add-ons

Ideal for social network integration

Unlimited package includes hosting

24/7 telephone support

High customer satisfaction

Disadvantages :

Limited design options and templates (not ideal for customisation)

Chances are your site will look like other sites created with the same Shopify template

Can be expensive, especially if you use a 3P payment gateway

Price :

Shopify Lite: £7.90/month

Shopify Basic: €25.65/month

Shopify: €69.90/month

Shopify Advanced: 265€/month

Shopify Plus: 1750€ - 35 300€/month

Weebly

Weebly is more complex than Shopify, but not as complex as BigCommerce. It is essentially an intermediary platform. While it is not exclusively e-commerce, it still seems to have been designed with that audience in mind. That's why we put it in this category. Weebly offers more design options than you might expect, but not an insane amount either.

Advantages:

Deep integration very useful for beginners

Easy to use drag and drop interface

Most templates are mobile friendly

Package includes hosting and backend support

More design features than other platforms, including contact forms, sliders and photo galleries

Social media integration

Useful SEO guides and support

Cons:

No 3P add-ons, you have to make do with what Weebly offers

Requirement to take out a paid plan to remove advertising

Price :

Professional: 10,60€/month (annual payment)

Performance: 23€/month (annual payment)

Premium: 63,70€/month (annual payment)

BigCommerce

A real heavyweight among e-commerce web development platforms, BigCommerce offers more features and design options, but costs more and requires more effort. BigCommerce is designed for big brands, so startups and those just starting out would find themselves paying for features they don't need yet. But for the rest of us, there's no better way.

Benefits:

Advanced selling options such as cart abandonment tools, product reviews and coupons

Many customisation options to create truly unique sites

Unlimited product pages

Disadvantages:

Expensive

Requires a long learning curve

Difficult to migrate the shop away from BigCommerce later on

Price :

Basic: 26,45€/month

Plus: €70.60/month

Pro: 220.75€/month

Square Online Store

Square offers a complete service, especially for small businesses. Unlike BigCommerce and Magento, Square keeps it simple by taking care of the backend (SSL certificates, hosting, SEO). While this is a good advantage for those who don't want to worry about these things, it actually limits the potential of what a skilled developer could do with this platform.

The price is also affordable with a full range of features available for free, although you still have to pay a commission of 2.9% + 30 cents per sale and agree to run Square ads on your site.

Advantages :

Backend support (SSL certificates and hosting)

Intuitive interface and quick setup

Affordable and excellent value for money

Integrated marketing features

Full sales functionality and stock management tools

Support via email, phone and live chat.

Disadvantages:

Basic features are great, but advanced features are not necessarily so

Limited design options and templates (not optimised for customisation)

You have to pay extra for the best delivery options

Lack of payment processing options (Square and PayPal only)

Price:

Free: no monthly fee; 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction

Professional: €10.60/month (annual payment); 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction

Performance: 23€/month (annual payment); 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction

Premium: 63,59€/month (annual payment); 2,9% + 30 cents per transaction

You don't have to do everything yourself

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What if you want to use a web development platform, but also want to have a customised and visually pleasing site, but don't have the time or design expertise to create it yourself? Use a developer, of course! They will be able to customise the template of your choice for you. Some designers and developers are even specialists in particular platforms. If you have a project to create a website contact us by mail we will be happy to help you.

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