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Your company wants an online page, period. This might send shivers down the spine of some small business owners, but it doesn’t have to be. With the help of one of the many ideal online page developers found on the market today. , you can get your business online in less than an hour and for free. In this review, Forbes Advisor looks at the most productive free online site developers for small businesses, based on the most important features and factors, such as ease of use, customization, and sales tools.
The Forbes Advisor Small Business team is committed to bringing you unbiased rankings and information with full editorial independence. We use product data, strategic methodologies and expert insights to inform all of our content and guide you in making the best decisions for your business journey.
We’ve analyzed online page developers using a detailed method to help you find the top 10 most sensible online page developers for small businesses. Since offering their installs for free as part of an entry-level plan was a no-brainer, we looked at what the initial value of an online page builder was for their paid plans, as well as key features including drag-and-drop capability and cellular responsiveness. We also looked at what real users of an online page builder think about the equipment and amenities they may have. to arrive at a definitive investigation by our trained panel. All ratings are made solely by our editorial team.
Learn more: How we verify builders
GoDaddy is an option for many online marketers who buy domain names for logos that they may or may not possibly create one day. Its creator allows you to take the next step in creating your logo online.
With a flexible plan, you can create an online page, drag-and-drop editor, and built-in themes. You can create an online store with PayPal invoices and update it to access more payment options.
A free site comes with a yoursite. godaddysites. com domain, and if you upgrade to a paid account starting at $83. 88 per year (for the former), get a free traditional domain for a year.
A free site comes with on-platform email and social media marketing, as well as limited templates and photographs through GoDaddy Studio.
Learn more: Read our full GoDaddy review.
Who uses it:
GoDaddy’s online page builder is designed for any type of online business, from content to training to products. But it emphasizes the e-commerce and visitor service features that make it the most suitable solution for online stores. As long as you settle for PayPal invoices. , you can create your online store for free.
Wix offers a free builder, as well as several paid tiers that you can upgrade to for more features as your business grows.
The free builder offers a similar experience to the paid versions. You get customizable drag-and-drop site templates, free inventory images, web hosting, and mobile-friendly design. Email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and visitors. Control equipment is integrated.
With a free account, use an assigned address, which is a bit complicated compared to the competition: nombredecuenta. wixsite. com/direccióndelsitio. You’ll get up to 500MB of storage and 500MB of bandwidth. Like many free builders, Wix works classically on its site and features the Wix favicon next to the URL instead of its logo.
Learn more: Read our full Wix review.
Who uses it:
Use Wix to create an online presence for your brick-and-mortar business, such as an accounting firm, money planner, small legal business, or service.
Mailchimp, best known for its email marketing tools, has grown to meet all your marketing needs.
Mailchimp’s free online page builder includes a drag-and-drop editor with the same user experience (UX) as its email control service. You have free themes and designed color palettes, and you can set up your own color palette to suit your needs. brand.
Mailchimp’s builder doesn’t come with a domain, so you can’t get started 100% for free. You’ll need to purchase a third-party domain, which costs around $10 for the first year, and stick to the commands listed. to your Mailchimp site.
As you grow, you can upgrade to paid plans for more features, paid email marketing plans if your list exceeds 2000.
Learn more: Read our full Mailchimp review.
Who uses it:
With its free eCommerce and appointment scheduling features, Mailchimp is an excellent support for micro-businesses that promote products like physical products or training.
Weebly has long been a popular choice for e-commerce, so it’s no surprise that payment processing company Block (formerly Square, Inc. ) acquired it in 2018.
Weebly’s free online page builder includes physically powerful eCommerce teams to promote physical products, add an online store, unlimited items, badges and item options, stock management, coupons, and Square gift cards. The drag-and-drop builder includes search engine optimization and lead capture equipment and you can transfer it to Weebly Promote for email and social media marketing.
Learn more: Read our full Weebly review.
Who uses it:
With physically powerful eCommerce tools, Weebly is a smart choice for promoting products online. Its loose edition allows your consumers to order parts online for pickup at your physical store, or you can upgrade to sell virtual goods, calculate shipping costs, and print. Shipping labels to ship parts directly to your consumers.
WordPress has been the dominant force in the development of free online pages for years, as its WordPress. com service is one of the first professional online page developers to offer you the domain, hosting, and design you want to get started completely free of charge.
With a free site, the cloud-based WordPress. com builder, you get a drag-and-drop editor with dozens of themes, yoursite. wordpress. com domain, and hosting.
WordPress features classified ads on its free site, and you can’t do eCommerce with teams without upgrading to a paid account. However, the cost of upgrading is less than most competitors: the cheapest plan costs only $48 per year and can remove classified ads. classifieds and collect payments.
If you need a more customizable site with access to the open-source plugins that WordPress is known for, you can create a self-managed WordPress site with the WordPress. org software.
WordPress. org is best known for its paid website builders, but it is possible to use the software for free. If you want to find free or cheap web hosting, you can download free WordPress themes to use the drag and drop editor. and CMS. It requires more technical knowledge than any cloud-based option, so you may want to hire a WordPress developer to set up the site for you.
Learn more: Read our full WordPress review.
Who uses it:
WordPress is designed for blogs and includes one of the most robust content management systems broadly available. That functionality could be unnecessary or overwhelming unless content is central to your business, so WordPress is best suited for content-based businesses, such as blogs, magazines, news sites and other online publications.
Webflow is a no-code drag-and-drop website editor that offers more design customization than many others. The builder is intuitive and easy for nearly anyone on your team to adopt, with an editor reminiscent of word processors that most will be familiar with.
The builder supports animations and scroll-based parallax for a modern interface and dynamic layout.
The back-end is intuitive and simple. Webflow includes a built-in CMS for managing a blog or other site content, adding search engine optimization features, but its features are physically just as powerful for content-based sites as a builder like WordPress.
Learn more: Read our full Webflow review.
Who uses it:
Webflow is a developing favorite among emerging tech startups. It offers modern design features that will allow you to keep up with your competitors, without having to dedicate all your resources to designing and maintaining online pages.
Ucraft is a free website builder with a drag-and-drop editor, hosting, CMS and e-commerce functions. You can build and publish a website for free and connect it to your own domain—a function that’s unusual for totally free site builders.
The platform also includes a logo maker and a blogging platform with paid plans, so have everything you want to launch a new business at one low monthly price.
Who should use it:
Ucraft is a free alternative to Squarespace and could be a better option for small business owners who need a no-frills static website to establish an online presence for a low cost.
SITE123 is a basic, easy-to-use builder that offers packages suitable for small businesses, eCommerce, bloggers, and more. You can get up and running for free with a subdomain on 123. com or upgrade to a premium plan for additional features and a relaxed tradition domain for a year.
SITE123 also offers online page templates, so you don’t want to start your design from scratch. However, the models feature simplistic designs and don’t conform to the trendy design trends endorsed by some competitors.
Who uses it:
SITE123 might be a simple and affordable option for a small business or project that needs a quick and easy online presence.
Jimdo is a free online website builder designed to make it easy for small businesses to connect temporarily. You can create amazing page layouts that are optimized for mobile devices. Customization is simple with an editor that provides flexibility without complexity. Keep in mind that a free site is published on a subdomain of jimdosite. com and presentation ads.
The builder allows you to upload an online store or appointment scheduler starting at $18 per month, and you may not pay transaction fees for online orders. Jimdo’s logo maker is also free, so you can design a logo and get the registration formats you want. You want to advertise your company online and in print.
Who uses it:
Jimdo is a simple and affordable platform for startup online retail businesses. If you’re moving your brick-and-mortar online or starting an e-commerce business from scratch, it could be one of the easiest and most frugal ways to do it.
Strikingly is an undeniable builder with undeniable, mobile-optimized designs for landing pages, eCommerce, and blogs. You can upload an eCommerce store with its Simple Store feature – you can even sell up to a product with a free account.
Strikingly offers everything an undeniable company wants to connect, but its design features are amazing. You can create an undeniable page, but the platform lacks modern design features, such as animation and more complex layouts.
Who uses it:
Strikingly is an excellent compatibility for a small business that wants an undeniable online presence and doesn’t have design resources.
A builder is software that allows you to design and create an array. Many developers also come with hosting and log storage and would possibly include marketing features, such as blogging, email newsletters, SEO, and more.
Most modern website builders are online, and they offer no-code website design as well as hosting and file storage. That is, they do all the coding for you and get your site online; all you have to do is add images, text and other media to your desired pages.
File hosting and garage are included with the online page builder, so you can get started with the design. If they’re not included, you’ll want to purchase hosting and follow a hosting site’s commands to install their online page-building software on your domain.
Typically, you’ll start a website with a design theme or template. That includes the front-end design, such as colors, fonts and page elements, as well as the back-end functionality, such as blogging and e-commerce. Different themes include different capabilities and designs, and you can shop around through the website builder or a third party for themes you can download and install on your site.
Once you’ve installed a theme, you can edit the page online through the online page builder, which comes with a WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) editor and can also come with an HTML editor. You can create pages for the site and upload images, media, text, and things like a newsletter subscription if needed. You can also replace the design elements included in the theme to fit your brand’s fonts and colors.
When your site is ready to go public, you can publish it through the online page builder and make it public on a transient domain or on a domain that you have purchased through the online page builder or a third party.
You’ll be able to edit the site through the website builder as often as you want, including updating static pages and publishing dynamic content, such as blog posts and podcast episodes. If multiple people in your business will be responsible for website updates, make sure you choose a website builder (and a subscription level) that allows for multiple users to log in and make changes.
The most productive builder for you or your team depends on your business needs. Consider those points when opting for the right tool for you.
Does the free builder come with shared hosting and a free domain?The easiest way to log in is to use an online page builder that includes hosting and a transient domain. To stay consistent with your brand, make sure you can also log into a domain through the creator or attach one you own through a third party. Also, check how much traffic a free site can handle: will you want to temporarily upgrade to a paid option to meet your volume, or will you use a free site for a while?
Do the available themes, templates, and customization features fit your logo, or will you have to compromise your logo identity to use a loose site?Do loose themes and templates come with features that meet your needs?For example, make sure the online page builder provides your favorite font for your logo!
Is the blog and CMS complicated enough (or too complicated) for how you use content in your business?Different website developers deal with content in very different ways to meet other business needs. Think about what you can do with your website: create a blog, upload videos, invite multiple collaborators, host a podcast, run an online store, or book e-appointments with clients. Does the CMS help with this activity? If you just want a static internet page with data about your business, is the internet site builder too complex for you?
How easy is it for you to make updates and upgrades?If you’re looking for a free website builder, you might not want to hire a web designer or other specialist to keep the website up to date, so make sure it’s anything. that you or your existing staff can seamlessly replace when needed.
How much control do you have over the look and feel of your online page?Some developers offer strict templates with few customization features, while others give you complete freedom to fine-tune the design and capability down to the background code. Make sure you know exactly what you can get with the loose editing of an online page builder to ensure that you will have the design features and features that your business needs. Also, check if the loose edition features classified ads on your site, as this can interfere with your customers’ pleasure in engaging with your business.
Any modern online page builder automatically comes with a mobile-friendly layout, so visitors get the same (or equally fun) experience no matter where they stop on the site. If you don’t see this, opt for another creator.
When looking for online page builders, look for those must-have features:
Business features: Do you need support for e-commerce or a live chatbot, for example? Does the website builder integrate with your preferred CRM and email management system? Does it offer the level of site analytics and reporting your business needs?
A free online page builder is a great position to start if you’re going to publish your logo for the first time. But the features and customization features are limited, so you may want to upgrade to a paid edition as your business desires change. .
A flexible builder comes with a flexible transience domain that includes the host domain, such as votresite. wordpress. com. You want to upgrade to a paid plan to use your own domain (votresite. com).
In some cases, the loose edition of an online page will include classified ads, so your online page will display classified ads for other businesses along with your content. You don’t get any benefit from it, but your consumers will get advantages from classified ads. announcements. Upgrading to a paid edition removes classified ads.
If your online page includes e-commerce, a loose edition would possibly result in high transaction fees. This would possibly make sense if you have a low volume of online transactions. Upgrading to a paid service can reduce transaction fees, which can also save you a lot of cash if your business records a high volume of online purchases.
Finally, some features would possibly be limited to other levels of the plan. Some free developers come with physically powerful features, however, many of them only offer you the basic minimum and require you to upgrade to a paid site to upload features like eCommerce. Email marketing and analytics.
Even with a flexible builder, getting your business online can lead to some upfront costs, including:
To determine the best website builders for small businesses, Forbes Advisor did a deep dive into the industry and determined the top 10 contenders in the field based on their strengths, such as those that were suited better for local business, easier to get your site up and running faster or geared more toward bloggers. We scored these providers across four categories of features using 14 different metrics that were weighted to favor features that small business owners find valuable in a site builder.
Offering an online page building plan for single people, a certain expectation is on our list, so the providers were then evaluated on the merits of what could be obtained with their free plans and then on affordability and price of its paid plans for users. The higher price a user is likely to simply upgrade to paid online page building plans, the better the provider did in that category. More affordable pricing plans have also been welcomed. This accounted for 20% of our weighted score.
One challenge with some flexible plans is that there are few features available, or the features can only be obtained for an additional fee. For overall functionality, we looked at what an online page builder presented as a component of their fundamental plan, and then what can be obtained, either through an upgrade to paid plans or by paying for add-ons, such as add-ons. Some of the features we considered must-haves in the foundational packages included the ability to create mobile-friendly sites, drag out-of-the-box features, unlimited garage and bandwidth, email marketing, and social marketing tools. Features accounted for 40% of our overall score.
How well real users of these website builders viewed their experiences with them was also important to our final review. We turned to third-party review sites, such as G2, and Trustpilot, looking to gauge their opinion of each provider in regard to usefulness, customer support and other factors. Seeking reviews of at least 3.5 or higher out of 5, we were able to get a clearer picture of the best website builders available today. These accounted for 10% of the total score.
Collectively, we also ranked other criteria such as ease of use, notable and detailed features, popularity, and money. In total, these criteria represented 30% of the final score.
The most productive creator depends on their needs. Most free developers offer the same basic features, but some platforms emphasize one feature over another. WordPress. com is great for new bloggers, while Weebly and GoDaddy are great for online stores. Mailchimp is very productive for solopreneurs and Wix is great for local businesses.
Wix and Weebly offer some of the simplest equipment for creating an online page without any design or coding knowledge. Mailchimp and GoDaddy are strong competitors, focusing on marketing suites can make the team more complex for beginners. WordPress is the most physically powerful option and also the most complex due to its complicated content control options.
There are several platforms that make it simple to create and publish an online page for free, adding the developers of previously indexed loose online pages. Once you’ve selected a creator, you can create a theme or template for your site’s design and functionality, then upload your content and publish it when you’re ready.
There is free website hosting, but it’s a risky option. You may be exposing yourself to security issues with a free web host, so a paid provider is a safer option. Many of the free website developers listed above come with reputable free web hosting services. hosting with your loose plans; You’ll just need to use their branded domain.
Many free developers offer a free subdomain, such as votresite. wordpress. com or votresite. squarespace. com, that you can use to publish without buying a domain name. There are free or cheap domain names available, but you may have to. settle for an unusual domain extension, such as Arrayxyz.