Best Free Website Builders Of 2024

• GoDaddy: Best overall
• Wix: Best for local businesses
• Mailchimp: Best for solopreneurs and microbusinesses
• Weebly: Best for free online stores with Square
• WordPress: Best for developers and bloggers
• Webflow: Best for startups with minimal content publishing
• Ucraft: Best for using your own domain
• SITE123: Best for quick and easy setup
• Jimdo: Best for fee-free e-commerce
• Strikingly: Best for a free online store

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 analyzed website builders using a detailed methodology to help you find the 10 best free website builders for small businesses. Since offering their services as part of an entry-level plan for free was a given, we looked at what a website builder’s starting price was for its paid plans as well as key features that included drag-and-drop functionality and being mobile-responsive. We also considered how real users of the web builders felt about the tools and amenities that were available to come up with a final analysis by our panel of experts. All ratings are determined solely by our editorial team.

Learn more: How We Test Website Builders

A website builder is software that lets you design and build a website. Many website builders also include hosting and file storage and may include marketing capabilities, 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.

Hosting and file storage is often included with the website builder, so you can start with design. If those aren’t included, you’ll have to purchase hosting and follow a hosting site’s instructions to install your website builder 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 website through the website builder, which typically includes a WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) editor and might also include an HTML editor. You can create pages for the site and add images, media, text and elements such as a newsletter sign-up as needed. You can also change the design elements included with the theme to match your brand fonts and colors.

When your site is ready to go public, you can publish it through the website builder and make it public at a temporary domain or at a domain you’ve purchased through the website 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.

Which website builder is the best fit for you or your team depends on what your business needs. Consider these factors as you choose the right tool for you.

Hosting and Domain

Does the free builder come with shared hosting and a free domain? The easiest way to get online is to use a website builder that includes hosting and a temporary domain. To stay consistent with your brand, make sure you can also register a domain through the builder or connect one you own through a third party. Also, check how much traffic a free site can handle—will you have to quickly upgrade to a paid option to accommodate your volume or will you be able to use a free site for a while?

Design

Do the available themes, templates and customization options fit your brand, or are you going to have to compromise your brand identity to use a free site? Do the free themes and templates include features that serve your needs? For example, make sure the website builder offers your brand’s preferred font!

Content Management System (CMS)

Is the blog and CMS sophisticated enough (or too complicated) for the ways you use content in your business? Different website builders manage content in very different ways to accommodate different business needs. Consider what you’ll do with your website—i.e., have a blog, upload videos, invite multiple contributors, host a podcast, run an online store or book client appointments. Does the CMS support that activity? If you just need a static web page with information about your business, is the website builder overly complex for you?

Ease of Use and Support

How easily can you make updates and changes? If you’re looking for a free website builder, you might not be interested in hiring a web designer or other specialist to keep the website up to date, so make sure it’s something you or your existing staff can easily change when needed.

Autonomy and Customization Options

How much control do you have over the look and feel of your website? Some builders offer strict templates with few options for customization, while others give you complete freedom to adjust design and functionality down to the back-end code. Make sure you know exactly what’s available with the free version of a website builder so you can ensure you’ll have the design and functionality options your business needs. Also, find out whether the free version displays ads on your site, as this might interfere with your customers’ experience of your business.

Mobile Compatibility

Every modern website builder should automatically include mobile-responsive design, so visitors have the same (or equally pleasing) experience no matter where they view the site. If you don’t see that, opt for a different builder.

Essential Features

When you’re shopping around for website builders, look for these must-have features:

• Design themes and templates: The main benefit of a website builder is the ability to build a site with limited design or coding skills. The level of technical know-how needed varies across services, so make sure the builder you choose aligns with the skills and resources available to you.
• Support for video, audio and images: No one wants to browse a text-only site anymore, so make sure you use a builder that has sufficient storage and functionality to embed videos, audio files and images on your web pages.
• Easy-to-use editor: Most website builders offer a WYSIWYG editor, so you don’t have to edit code. If you employ a developer to build the site, make sure the builder has an option to toggle to a code editor, as well.
• Security: Your website builder and host should have built-in security, so your site is safe on the web. Look for malware detection and a web application firewall (WAF) that protects your site from malicious attacks.
• Speed optimization: Some website builders bog your site down with unnecessary code that makes it slow to load—that means lost visitors. Check reviews and product details for site speed and opt for a page-load time of no more than one to three seconds.
• Hosting and storage: It’s unusual to find a website builder that doesn’t include hosting and file storage these days, but they’re still out there! Make sure you’ll be able to get your site online and store all of the site’s content through the same builder you use to design the site. (These features are so common, they might not even warrant a mention; all of the website builders listed in this review include hosting and storage.)
• Blogging and SEO: Make sure your website builder has a blog function so you can add dynamic content if you want to, even if you don’t plan to right away. It should also include support for SEO features, such as the ability to change URLs, add tags and alt text, and include SEO-specific headlines and descriptions to blog content. Also, look for technical SEO features that make your site friendly to search engines, including an SSL certificate, schema markup and XML sitemaps (you don’t have to manage those; just make sure the builder supports them on the back end).

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?

Free vs. Paid Website Builders

A free website builder is a great place to start if you’re getting your brand online for the first time. But the functionality and options for customization are typically limited, so you might need to upgrade to a paid version as your business needs evolve.

A free builder generally comes with a free temporary domain that includes the host domain—for example, yoursite.wordpress.com. You generally have to upgrade to a paid plan to use your own domain (yoursite.com).

In some cases, the free version of a website will include ads, so your website will display ads for other businesses alongside your content. You don’t get the revenue from that, but your customers will experience the ads. Upgrading to paid usually gets rid of the ads.

If your website includes e-commerce, a free version might come with high transaction fees. That might make sense if you have a low volume of online transactions. Upgrading to paid might reduce or eliminate transaction fees, which could save you a lot of money if your business sees a high volume of online purchases.

Finally, some functionalities might be limited to different plan tiers. Some free website builders include robust functionality, but many of them give you only the bare minimum for free and require you to upgrade to paid to add functions such as e-commerce, email marketing and analytics.

Even with a free website builder, getting your business online might come with a few startup costs, including:

• Domain: Most—but not all—website builders include a free shared domain such as yoursite.wordpress.com. To use a customized, memorable domain such as yoursite.com, you have to buy the domain, which usually costs about $10 for the first year and $12 or more per year after that. Learn more about the best domain name registrars.
• Hosting: All of the website builders in this list include shared hosting for free. If you want to use software such as WordPress.org, you’ll have to set up your own hosting, which can vary in cost but can start as low as $3 per month.
• Web designer: If you don’t have the time or skills to set up the website yourself, you’ll have to hire someone to build it for you. Drag-and-drop builders mean you don’t have to hire a developer, but you might want someone with design or copywriting skills to give your site a professional face.
• Marketing: As your business grows, you might outgrow the free marketing tools available with most web builders. Email marketing services through web builders could get pricey, so look into alternatives such as SEO software early if you expect to grow beyond the limits of the free tools.
• Payment processing fees: Even if you can build an online store for free, nearly every e-commerce option you find will charge you small fees for sales. The exact amount depends on the processor, but around 2% plus 30 cents per transaction is common for small businesses.

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.

Pricing

Offering a website building plan for free was a given expectation to qualify for our list, so providers were then gauged on the merits of what was available with their free plans and then by how affordable and valuable their paid plans were to users. The more value a user was able to get from upgrading to paid website builder plans, the better a provider did in this category. More affordable pricing plans were also looked upon favorably. This accounted for 20% of our weighted scoring.

Features

One catch that comes with some free plans is that there are either few features available or that the features are only available for additional fees. For general features, we looked at what a web builder offered as part of its base plan and then what was available either through upgrading to paid plans or by paying for add-ons, such as plugins. Some of the features we considered essential in base plans included offering the ability to create mobile-responsive sites, drag-and-drop functionality, unlimited storage and bandwidth, email marketing and social marketing tools. Features accounted for 40% of our total score.

Third-party Reviews

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.

Expert Analysis

Tying all of this together, we also ranked additional criteria such as ease of use, stand-out and detailed features, popularity and value for the money. Altogether, these criteria made up 30% of the final score.

Featured Partners

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1

Wix

Starting Price

$17 per month

Drag & Drop Editor

Yes

E-commerce (low-priced plan)

Yes

1

Wix

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On Wix's Website

2

Web.com

Starting price

$1.95 per month

Website Building

Yes

Standout Features

Customizable templates, Easy drag-and-drop technology, SSL certificate

2

Web.com

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On Web.com's Website

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Squarespace

Starting Price

$16 per month

Drag & Drop Editor

Yes

E-commerce (low-priced plan)

Yes

3

Squarespace

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On Squarespace's Website

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