The Best Builders For Small Businesses

Are you a small business owner looking to build an online presence? If you’ve never built a website it’s hard to know which website builder platform is best. That’s why we’ve created detailed reviews of the leading platforms to help you decide where to grow your business.
Updated: July 2020 Advertiser Disclosure
Most Popular
Wix
User ranking
  • 500+ Templates
  • Most popular worldwide
  • 150 million websites
  • Drag & drop editor
  • Ecommerce ready
9.5
Total Ninja Ranking

Ideal For

  • Online stores & ecommerce
  • Portfolio & CV’s
  • Photographers
  • Personal trainers
  • Hotels & event services
  • Food & drink businesses
  • Fashion & artist pages
  • Bloggers
  • Business consulting
  • Bookings pages

Highlight Features

Wix ADI (Artificial design intelligence) will help you get your website online faster by creating a professionally designed website with all the functions you need from just a few clicks.

Flexible pricing gives you the choice to pick the plan that’s right for you, starting with a free plan right through to the most premium.

Code editing with Corvid allows you to build custom web applications, get total design freedom, and connect to 100s of APIs.

Creative freedom from the Wix drag and drop editor that allows you to edit everything and move elements wherever you want so you can make the site exactly how you want it.

Ninja Ranking

  • Beginner Friendly
    8.7
  • Design Capabilities
    9.9
  • Variety of Features
    9.7
  • Value for Money
    9.5
Read Our Expert Review
Squarespace
User ranking
  • Third-party extensions
  • Mobile optimized design
  • Drag & drop editor
  • Ecommerce ready
  • 60+ templates
9.3
Total Ninja Ranking

Ideal For

  • Portfolios
  • Photographers
  • Online stores
  • Blogs & podcasts
  • Professional services
  • Local businesses
  • Weddings & events
  • Musicians & bands
  • Restaurants
  • Launch pages

Highlight Features

Award-winning designs allow you to look like a professional quickly, affordably and effortlessly. The Squarespace template designs are in a league of their own.

Email marketing with Squarespace allows you to create custom email campaigns to promote products or let your readers know about new content with a few simple steps.

Squarespace commerce app allows you to manage your store on-the-go; fulfill orders, manage product inventories, and speak to customers all from your mobile.

Connected accounts is a great feature for pushing out content automatically to your social channels, speeding up and simplifying how you promote your new content or products.

Ninja Ranking

  • Beginner Friendly
    8.9
  • Design Capabilities
    9.6
  • Variety of Features
    9.2
  • Value for Money
    9.3
Read Our Expert Review
Webnode
User ranking
  • 100+ responsive designs
  • Ecommerce ready
  • Drag & drop editor
  • Mobile editor app
  • Online backups
8.7
Total Ninja Ranking

Ideal For

  • Businesses
  • Ecommerce
  • Personal websites
  • Bloggers
  • Restaurants and food
  • Musicians
  • Portfolio & CVs
  • Weddings

Highlight Features

Embed HTML code to add in any additional functions or designs that you or your business might need, giving you the ultimate flexibility.

Mobile editor means that you can edit your site from any device and any location, nothing can stop you from making the changes you need.

Free images and videos are available with a Webnode subscription so you can make a stunning website that grabs attention.

Fast loading times are great for SEO, overall user experience, and reducing bounce rate. Webnode scored the highest on the Google page speed test compared to other builders.

Ninja Ranking

  • Beginner Friendly
    8.6
  • Design Capabilities
    8.9
  • Variety of Features
    8.0
  • Value for Money
    9.1
Read Our Expert Review
Shopify
User ranking
  • 70+ professional templates
  • Third-party extensions
  • 100+ payment gateways
  • Advanced SEO
  • 24/7 support
9.4
Total Ninja Ranking

Ideal For

  • Art & photography
  • Clothing & fashion
  • Jewelry & accessories
  • Electronics
  • Food & drink
  • Home & garden
  • Furniture
  • Health & beauty
  • Sports & recreation
  • Toys & games

Highlight Features

Shopify app market has over 4000 apps that enable you to add advanced features to your website and optimize performance.

Centralized inventories allow you to track sales, process, and ship orders across multiple channels such as Amazon, eBay & Facebook Shop from the Shopify dashboard.

Email Marketing with Shopify allows you to communicate with your customers better with ready-made email templates, customer segmentation, and a business email address.

Mobile commerce solutions from Shopify gives you the ability to manage orders, track performance, and make edits to your web pages from any location with the mobile app.

Ninja Ranking

  • Beginner-friendly
    9.8
  • Design capabilities
    9.5
  • Main features
    9.9
  • Value for money
    8.5
Read Our Expert Review
BigCommerce
User ranking
  • Ecommerce specialist
  • 140+ template designs
  • Mobile responsive
  • Shipping and fulfillment
  • Integrate existing stores
9.1
Total Ninja Ranking

Ideal For

  • Fashion & jewelry
  • Electronics
  • Luxury businesses
  • Health & beauty
  • Sports & outdoors
  • Food & beverage
  • Home & garden
  • Automotive
  • Toys & games
  • Education & publishing

Highlight Features

BigCommerce app market allows you to add additional features to your website from over 750+ third-party apps.

Channel manager enables you to connect to Amazon, Facebook, eBay, and Pinterest with just a few clicks and process, track and fulfill all sales from the BigCommerce dashboard.

Advanced store search built using Elasticsearch creates refined searching capabilities so customers can find products quicker on your online store. built using Elasticsearch creates refined searching capabilities so customers can find products quicker on your online store.

Google customer reviews integration allows you to easily improve shopper confidence and increase sales by displaying a seller rating based on your customers’ reviews.

Ninja Ranking

  • Beginner friendly
    9.0
  • Design capabilities
    8.5
  • Main features
    9.5
  • Value for money
    9.5
Read Our Expert Review
SITE123
User ranking
  • 180 templates
  • Ecommerce ready
  • 24/7 support
  • Responsive designs
  • Third-party extensions
8.4
Total Ninja Ranking

Ideal For

  • Business services
  • Bloggers
  • Photographers
  • Musicians
  • Events organizers
  • Restaurants
  • Creative artists
  • CV and portfolios
  • Landing pages
  • Online stores

Highlight Features

Translator tool allows you to automatically translate your web content into multiple languages to maximize your potential audience.

App market gives you access to thousands of third-party extensions so that you can create a site packed full of advanced features, making you look like a true professional.

Thousands of free stock images are provided with the SITE123 editor so you will have plenty of options to make your website stand out from the crowd.

Manage an online store with the SITE123 ecommerce solution, get paid in 80 different currencies, create coupons, sell physical and digital products, and much more!

Ninja Ranking

  • Beginner Friendly
    9.5
  • Design Capabilities
    7.2
  • Variety of Features
    8.8
  • Value for Money
    7.9
Read Our Expert Review

Frequently Asked Questions View All Questions

How long will it take me to create a website for my small business using a website builder?

Most of the website builders that we review have a very fast-onboarding process and easy-to-use editors which means that you could potentially have a website live and ready to receive visitors within a couple of hours. However, if you have the time we recommend spending at least one to three days building and editing to make sure everything is perfect and looks as good as possible. 

If you’ve never built a website before and you’re wondering what you need to do, take a read of our website checklist which covers all the steps you need to take before launching a successful website.

What’s the most easy-to-use website builder for small businesses?

All of our top-ranked website builder platforms are beginner-friendly and often have detailed onboarding videos and guides to help you get started on the platform. So, you will be able to create a stunning website whichever one you choose.
However, we did find that getting up to speed came easier on some platforms. If you take a look at our ratings you’ll notice that we scored Shopify, Weebly, Site123, and Bookmark very highly on our beginner-friendly rating so one of these builders might be a good place to start. Read our in-depth reviews to find out if they could be a good fit for you and your business.

How can I build traffic to my website?

It’s important to remember that you won’t get thousands of people arriving on your site the moment you hit publish – building traffic can take time and patience (trust us, we’ve been there and done it!). Some of the best things to focus on are creating video content, search engine optimization (SEO), starting a blog within the website, building a social media strategy, and lots more.

Generating traffic is definitely an art form and there’s lots to learn. We’ve written an article about 5 ways to boost your website traffic for free to get you started.