Best Cheap Website Builders and Ecommerce Platforms 2023

Our research shows that Wix is the best cheap website builder. It’s simple, intuitive, easy-to-use, and packs in a ton of features that we found other cheap website builders were missing. And, with prices as low as $16 per month, it’ll cost you less than two coffees a week. Wix isn't the only affordable website builder we've reviewed though, GoDaddy and Squarespace battled it out for the second and third positions.

While business websites are an excellent way to showcase your brand — profitable sites are even better. Therefore, if you're also looking for an affordable way to sell your goods or services online, we also offer a rundown of the best cheap e-commerce platforms. Spoiler alert, Square tops our chart, but Squarespace and Wix also offer great value solutions. Read our how to guide for more tips on building a profitable site.

Thanks to our independent research, user-testing and expert analysis, we're able to determine which cheap website builders and e-commerce platforms might be best for your business. To see how the prices, functionalities, and features of these providers weigh up against each other read on. You can also see how they compare at a glance in our table below:

Best Cheap Website Builders and Ecommerce Platforms

Our listing isn't just based on the cost of the web builders' plans. We've also rated these affordable website builders based on their features, functionality and customization tools, so you can find the best cheap website builder for you without having to compromise on quality.

In this guide:

• Best Cheap Website Builders
• How Much Should a Website Builder Cost?
• Best Cheap Ecommerce Platforms
• Why You Should Avoid Free Website Builder Plans
• Verdict: What is the best cheap website builder?
• Frequently Asked Questions

Best Cheap Website Builders

The seven best cheap website builders are Wix, GoDaddy, Squarespace, Weebly, Hostinger, Jimbo and 1&1 IONOS, according to our research. Affordability and versatility were key in our evaluation process so, some of the things we focused on when ranking the best cheap website builders in order were their cost, number of features, and how easy they were to set up and maintain.

• • 1. Wix – Best cheap website builder overall
    2. Squarespace – Best cheap website builder for growing businesses
    3. GoDaddy – Best cheap website builder for easy set up
    4. Weebly – Best cheap website builder for businesses on a budget
    5. Hostinger – Best cheap website builder for beginners
    6. Jimdo – Best cheap website builder for ease of use
    7. 1&1 IONOS – Best cheap website builder for international businesses

We explain more in our in-depth review of the best cheap website builders below.

1. Wix – The best cheap website builder overall

Our independent reviewers spent hours testing the best cheap website builders on the market, and Wix proved to be the overall winner, for a number of reasons.

With significantly more templates than other website builders, Wix offers the most flexibility in design – with hundreds of customizable templates to choose from. Our research also found Wix to be one of the most feature-rich website builders on the market, scoring 4.9/5 in our final feature rating. Its logo maker, POS, payment, scheduling and email marketing features provide massive value to small business in the U.S, and with a video maker, and social media integrations, Wix really does provide the most bang for your buck.

Wix also proved to be a customer favorite, scoring the highest overall customer rating in our independent review, at 4.8/5. Its translation functionality also makes it ideal for businesses looking to manage, expand or diversify its existing client-base, as it allows you to display your content in multiple languages, making your business' website all the more accessible. Help and support functionality is fundamental too, and Wix came out on top with a score of 4.6/ 5  in our review.

Thanks to an exclusive with Semrush, Wix users are able to access the platform’s database of over 21 billion keywords to make it easier to improve search rankings. This, alongside Wix’s new SEO settings that give users greater control over the process, cements its place as the best builder for advanced search engine optimization.

Whether you’re in retail, finance, construction or the restaurant business, Wix is the most adaptable platform, making it a suitable platform for a number of businesses. Our research found it to be beautiful in design, simple to use, and includes everything a business would need to advertise and attract new business online. With its extensive list of features and huge variety of templates, it's no surprise that our research found Wix's website builder to be the best of the bunch. Its advanced business features like CRM, makes Wix a powerful platform, providing more value for money than other website builders on the market.

Wix Pricing

Wix offers four pricing plans: Combo, Unlimited, Pro and VIP, including a free option. The free version of Wix is a good website builder to try, we wouldn’t recommend it for your business. While it will allow you to construct a website, your capabilities are limited, and with Wix-branded ads, it won't provide the professional finish your website will need to attract, and retain new customers.

Instead, the Combo plan – which starts at $16 per month,  allows you to connect a domain name to your Wix site, remove the Wix adverts that blight the free version, plus enjoy plenty of bandwidth and storage. You'll also have full access to Wix’s website building tools, including its user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, generous templates, and range of third-party extensions.

The big news here, however, is that you won't have to pay Wix any commission on the sales you make from your website.

The Combo plan comes in at $16 per month, the Unlimited plan is $22 per month, Wix's Pro package is $27 per month, and $45 per month for VIP.

For more information, you can check out our Wix Pricing guide or you can get started with Wix straightaway

Our final verdict on Wix

Side by side with the cheap website builders in the market, our research found that Wix was the overall winner – not only because it offers the most value for money, but it also provided the most creative freedom.

When compared to Squarespace, GoDaddy and Weebly, Wix offered the best overall website features, scoring 4.9/5 in our independent research. Its customizability and drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for businesses with little to no coding experience, and its massive features catalog makes it great value for money, and the best cheap website builder overall.

While it offers a variety of templates, Wix isn't confined to grids and blocks, which is great, as it gives businesses more flexibility in their final design, when compared to other website builders, like Jimdo and Hostinger.

2. Squarespace – Best cheap website builder for growing businesses

If you're trying to grow your business — and who isn't? — Squarespace is uniquely positioned to help, thanks to its robust marketing functionality – and, it's why in comparison to other cheap website builders, it almost topped our list at second place.

Our research found that Squarespace's marketing functionality was pretty top tier, and its features – specifically designed to attract new customers, boost retention and improve businesses over time, made it a solid website builder for small to medium size businesses.

We also found Squarespace to offer some of the most beautiful templates on the market but it didn't quite compare to Wix when it came to customization.

Squarespace Pricing

Unlike Wix, Squarespace doesn't offer a free version of its platform, but there is a 14-day free Squarespace trial which will allow you to test out their offering.

Squarespace’s Personal plan, and cheapest tier is $16 per month (with annual billing), and offers a host of features normally reserved for tiers that are more costly when we compared it to other website builders in our research. With Squarespace's Personal plan you'll get unlimited storage and bandwidth, free custom domains, and 24/7 customer support. If you choose monthly billing, it'll set you back $23 per month.

Squarespace's Business plan costs $23 per month with annual billing or $33 per month with monthly billing. You'll be able to register an unlimited number of contributors to your site, as well as getting professional, branded email and Workspace tools from Google.

Squarespace also offers two other plans specifically aimed at online stores. The Basic Commerce plan costs $27 per month when paid annually or $36 per month with monthly billing. You won't have to pay any transaction fees on the sales you make and you get a fully mobile-optimized checkout and improved commercial metrics.

The Advanced Commerce plan, on the other hand, costs $49 per month or $65 per month with monthly or annual billing, respectively. You get a bunch of new features including advanced shipping rate calculations, flexible discounts, and access to the Orders API which allows you to build custom third-party integrations.

Use TECHCO10 at checkout to save 10%.

If you want to learn more about Squarespace, check out our full Pricing Guide. However, if you need to build an online store, we'd try Squarespace's 14-day free trial

Our final verdict on Squarespace

While Squarespace does offer some of the most beautiful templates we’ve seen, the variety in design doesn’t compare to Wix’s offering, which offers over 800 templates for businesses to choose from.

Customization, in comparison to Wix, is also a bit rigid, but it’s more likely that this was done to maintain integrity of the beautiful templates as opposed to a design flaw. Still, it can be a bit of a drag when you're trying to make the website fit your particular needs, but other than these limitations, it’s a strong competitor for the best cheap website builder.

3. GoDaddy – Best cheap website builder for easy setup

GoDaddy is a great all-around choice as a good, cheap website builder if you're a small business in the US with minimal needs. It's efficient, easy to use, and offers smooth guidance on how to get a website live as quickly as possible.

Speed isn’t everything though, and GoDaddy’s lackluster aesthetic and simple design proves it. In comparison to Wix, GoDaddy’s templates and themes leave a lot to be desired. While it does, for instance, offer basic SEO features, other providers offer better SEO options – and the platform is limited in other aspects too.

GoDaddy Pricing

GoDaddy's pricing isn't bad, though. It offers a free plan plus four different pricing plans: Basic, Standard, Premium, Commerce and Commerce Plus.

The Basic plan will set you back $6.99 per month, and offers the basic features you need to get your website going. With the Basic plan you’ll get an SSL certificate, custom domain, website dashboard, and access to simple marketing, ecommerce, and design functionality.

With a Premium plan, at $13.99 per month, you’ll get a little more, with a few additional marketing tools to improve your customer reach, plus the functionality you’ll need to take appointments.

As you may have guessed from the name, the Commerce plan — which costs $14.99 per month — adds the ability to host an online store and marketplace. You'll get all the standard features that come with it, including gift cards, discounts, and real-time shopping rates.

With the Commerce Plus plan, at $29.99 per month, you’ll be able to increase the cap on how many products can be sold, or listed through third-party marketplaces like Amazon or Etsy, which is a great benefit for businesses looking to expand their offering.

Our final verdict on GoDaddy

If you’re looking for a quick, no-frills, cheap website builder for a good reasonable price, GoDaddy is not a bad bet. It’s fast, efficient and easy to set up, but it doesn’t offer the same customization and versatility as Wix, which is why we could only score it second place in value for money.

Our research did find GoDaddy to be the fastest and most efficient website building experience across all brands though, so depending on your needs, it could still be one to consider

Despite its benefits, the main purpose of a website is to promote your services and attract new customer leads, and our research suggests that the simplicity in design and limited customization outweighed the pros of its ease when compared to Wix, so we could only justifiably score GoDaddy in our top three. It's not nearly as robust as Wix, but it does offer plenty of features, templates, and an intuitive interface that even beginners will figure out in no time.

4. Weebly – Best cheap website builder for businesses on a budget

As far as cheap website builders go, outside of seasonal discounts and offers, you can't get much cheaper than Weebly. Our research found that not only does it have the best free plan on this list, you'll also be able to get a website live right away, with ecommerce features, marketing functionality, and even some SEO help, for free.

Unfortunately, in this case, “cheap” has two meanings. While Weebly's free plan does offer a host of useful features, in comparison to Wix, unfortunately it doesn't offer much for growth. Meaning, you'll likely outgrow the platform before you’ve had a chance to benefit from it. Additionally, the platform provides some staggeringly bland templates, which is unfortunate given the kinds of templates you can find on other platforms.

Weebly Pricing

Weebly has four pricing tiers, including a free version. That free version does allow you to create and publish a site — even an online store — for free, forever. However, your site will have to display Weebly adverts and it is limited to 500Mb of storage, which isn't desirable.

The cheapest paid-for plan, Personal, costs $10 per month billed annually or $13 per month billed monthly. You can connect a custom domain name but that's about it. The Professional plan, on the other hand, costs $12 per month when billed yearly or $16 per month is good for small business sites. You'll get unlimited storage and a free domain name.

The $26 per month with yearly billing ($29 per month with monthly billing) Performance plan gives you some more advanced ecommerce tools such as shipping labels and abandoned cart emails.

Our final verdict on Weebly

While Weebly does offer the best free website builder plan in the pack, its limitations and inability to grow with a business means that it doesn’t cater to business needs in the same way our research found that Wix does.

Basically, this is a classic “you get what you pay for” situation, as Weebly provides a lot of value for very little money, but the overall experience will likely leave you wanting.

5. Hostinger – Best cheap website builder for beginners

If you're looking for a no-frills alternative to Wix that won't cost you an arm and a leg, you just found it. Hostinger (formerly known as Zyro) is certainly not one of the more well-known website builder options out there, but our research suggests it has a lot of potential, and it is certainly very affordable, with its cheapest deal available to tech.co readers for under $3 a month!

Its pricing is very competitive, it offers a few advanced features, including a logo maker, and it provides a lot of very easy-to-use templates that make website building simple.

Check out our Hostinger vs Wix comparison guide for more info.

Hostinger doesn't have an app store, which decidedly limits its customizability, however, it offers a wide range of cool additional features that can really help you when it comes to building your site, including an AI writer, which provides unique, engaging written content on your site without you having to lift a finger.

You'll also be able to utilize the platform's logo maker to better establish your brand. From an analytics standpoint, Hostinger offers a comprehensive heatmap, which will help you better understand how your users interact with your website. However, if you’re not fussed about the design, don't have a lot of experience (or money), and just need to get your website going, Hostinger, for its cost alone, is certainly worth a try.

Hostinger Pricing

The most attractive feature of Hostinger is the price. It's cheaper than your average website builder, by a lot, so if you're looking to save some money, Hostinger is a great place to start.

With Tech.co's unique code, “TECH”, that reduces Hostinger's price by 78%, Hostinger's joint website and ecommerce builder is available for $2.69 per month for the first term, down from $11.99 if you pay monthly.

Renewal prices vary depending on the length of the subscription you choose. The plan renews at $8.99 per month for 12 months subscriptions, $7.99 per month for 24 months subscriptions, and $6.99 per month for 48 months subscriptions.

Check out our Hostinger review for more information.

Our final verdict on Hostinger

In comparison to Wix, GoDaddy, Squarespace and Weebly, Hostinger didn’t match the ease and flexibility that we found in the other cheap website builders. While Hostinger offers an affordable platform, our research found that its limited marketing features and lack of an app store meant that it couldn’t provide the same value to a business, as other cheap website builders.

Overall, Hostinger is a good cheap website builder if you’re a business only focused on price, and not functionality, but if you care about the design, ease of use and customizability, Wix website builder is still your best bet.

6. Jimdo – Best cheap website builder for ease of use

Jimdo isn't the best website builder on the list, but dollar for dollar, it offers the best value as far as cost per feature is concerned. Simply put, you can get a lot for a little – especially if you’re new to website building software.

There are, of course, some limitations that come with Jimdo though. For one, our research found that there is no blogging functionality, so you won't be able to target your audience or attract customers using a blog.

Because of this, there’s very little SEO guidance and virtually no internal marketing features, which could have an impact on your audience reach. Still, if you need to get up and running quickly and easily, for cheap, our researchers say Jimdo is still a valid option, but when it comes to the best cheap website builder, Wix still comes out on top.

Jimdo Pricing

When it comes to pricing, Jimdo does offer a free plan, like Wix, called Play, but it also features two other pricing plans; Start and Grow, to cater to different business budgets.

The Play plan is completely free, but our research concluded that it doesn't offer much functionality. You'll get a ready-branded domain, which is never ideal, and there's no help with SEO, which obviously hurts when it comes to attracting new customers. Still, you'll be able to get a site live, which still counts for something.

Now, the Start plan will cost you $9 per month, and definitely adds some serious functionality. You'll get a custom domain, some SEO help, better support options, and a generally more functional website across the board.

The Grow plan is aimed at companies looking to scale, and will cost you $14 per month. This plan gives you more bandwidth and more storage, so you'll be able to handle more visitors. You'll also get even more SEO help as well as social media marketing capabilities, so you can really grow your business.

Our final verdict on Jimdo

Jimdo isn't the best cheap website builder on this list, but as it’s still good value money it still counts as a good, cheap website builder. There are some limitations to the platform, as mentioned, especially when it comes to expanding your audience reach, but it is easy to use, and could be of even better use, if you paid for the marketing add-on, at $4 a month.

7. 1&1 IONOS – Best cheap website builder for international businesses

1&1 IONOS may not be one of the better known options, but it still provides some solid options when it comes to website building. For one, it had the quickest server response time and the best mobile site speed in all of our tests, which is nothing to scoff at. Plus, it allows for simple SEO help within the editor, so you can optimize your site easily without a lot of back and forth.

The primary draw of 1&1 IONOS though, is that it offers some serious internationalization features. Between the ability to make your website multilingual and the ability to utilize international domains, you can set yourself up to be an international business in no time.

1&1 IONOS Pricing

1&1 offers three different pricing plans: Starter, Plus, and Pro.

The Starter plan starts at $5 per month, although you do get it for $1 per month for the first year. You start with unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth, so no stress about visitor counts. You'll also get access to some pre-built templates for specific sections, which limits customizability but makes it easy to use.

The Plus plan is your next option, at $10 per month, although you can get it for $5 per month for the first year. This plan adds a whole bunch of customizable templates, so you can really create what you want. Plus, you'll be able to set up the site to be multilingual, which will significantly increase your potential visitor numbers.

Finally, the Pro plan will cost you $15 per month, although you can get it for $10 per month for the first year. Most notably, this plan adds targeted content delivery and personalization, so you can take customer retention to a whole new level.

Our final verdict on 1&1 IONOS

While our research found that 1&1 IONOS does offer the best server response time and mobile speed performance, its lack of customization and marketing features mean that it doesn’t provide the same capabilities and flexibility in design that we found with Wix.

There are some good features though, like the ability to user international domains, but with no free trial and limited customization, we found that the other website builders in this list provided better value.

How Much Should a Website Cost?

The top website builder companies — Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace — charge different amounts. Some offer free trials, while others will give you a free website indefinitely. However, you’ll need to be realistic about the level of features that you'll need and you'll need to be prepared to pay for them.

After all, the needs of a student looking to create an online portfolio are pretty different from the needs of a sole trader looking to attract customers and are different again to someone looking to sell their wares online.

You’ll also need to factor in the costs of domains, hosting, plugins, and third-party apps, which can all add up.

• For a portfolio site – Expect to pay around $12 per month. You’ll need a website builder that offers a lot of storage so you can upload images of your work – Squarespace could be a good choice.
• For a blog – Expect to pay $6-14 per month. We’d recommend WordPress here, and you can easily build a blog with the Personal plan, which costs $4 a month. If you’re looking for more customization, you can move up to the Premium plan, which costs $8 per month.
• For a small business site – Expect to pay around $12-26 per month. If you’re happy to have a pretty basic website, you could definitely get by spending only $10 per month. However, if you’re looking for more advanced features such as appointment booking or contact forms, you’ll be looking at closer to $20 per month – although the extra outlay will be worth it.
• For a larger business site – Expect to pay $20-40 per month. If you’re running a larger business, your customers will be expecting more from your site, making site uptime and bandwidth essential. Make sure you find a good website hosting service to increase uptime, and look for a website builder with generous bandwidth to make sure customers can get to your site. You’ll also need advanced features such as contact forms, appointment booking, and SEO tools to compete in competitive markets.
• For an ecommerce site – Expect to pay $30+. Ecommerce websites are expensive and complicated to run. So much so, in fact, that there are dedicated platforms for running these kinds of sites. You’ll need to make sure that the platform you choose doesn’t have transaction fees, supports multiple payment options, and doesn’t limit the number of sales you can make in a month.

Best Cheap Ecommerce Platforms

If you're looking to create a slick online store without learning how to code, ecommerce platforms will be your best bet. Fortunately, thanks to a number of affordable solutions, selling your goods or services online doesn't need to cost the world either.

With monthly prices starting at $12, our research suggests that Square Online provides the cheapest ecommerce platform out there. However, Squarespace and Wix are both cost-effection options too, with both of the platforms receiving value scores of 4/5.

Scroll down to discover the best cheap ecommerce platforms, or skip to the providers using the links below:

1. Square – Best for businesses on a budget
2. Squarespace – Best for marketing features
3. Wix – Best overall ecommerce website builder

Square – Best for businesses on a budget

After reviewing the top ecommerce platforms on the market, our team of in-house researchers decided that Square was the best value solution we tested. In fact, securing an impressive value score of 4.8/5, Square's affordability is truly in a league of its own.

Unlike other major e-commerce platforms, Square lets you start selling stuff online for completely free. Offering SEO, delivery & shipping, and Afterpay tools — its free plan doesn't skimp on useful features either. However, like Square's other plans, Professional, Performance, and Premium, its free tier does charge transaction fees on all sales. This means that while start-up costs are rock bottom, costs may add up over time.

Find out more about Square's pricing structure here.

Value for money aside, Square is also one of the easiest platforms to get started with. The platform's interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, and it doesn't overload you with unnecessary details. This makes the system ideal for businesses just getting to grips with ecommerce software, as well as those with tighter budgets.

Squarespace – Best for marketing features

If you're in need of a slightly more feature-rich platform, Squarespace is another affordable e-commerce platform. Our researchers awarded it a value for money score of 4/5, which lags some way behind Square's rating but is still very solid.

Squarespace offers two e-commerce focused plans: Basic Commerce for $27 per month, and Advanced Commerce for $49 per month. Businesses don't need to fork out for the advanced plan to build a high-quality online store though, with Squarespace Basic Commerce offering an impressive set of website building and marketing and ecommerce features.

If you'd like to learn more about this ecommerce platform, read our Squarespace feature and pricing review here.

Wix – Best overall ecommerce website builder

With Wix donning the title of our best overall ecommerce website builder, this solution ranks very highly across the board. But crucially, with its prices starting at $27 per month, Wix is one of our top cheap ecommerce platforms too. In fact, with a value for money score of 4/5, our research suggests the tool is just as affordable as Squarespace.

Thanks to Wix's streamlined design tools, seemingly endless array of templates, and slick usability, the ecommerce platform will be an asset to almost any business looking to sell online. The platform even allows you to create multilingual online stores, which is especially – for businesses with a global reach.

Just like Squarespace, Wix's ecommerce plans start at $27 per month. For this price, businesses can have their own custom domain, secure online payments, and store up to 50GB of data. The provider also offers a Business Unlimited plan for $32 per month and a Business VIP plan for $59 per month for those after slightly more robust ecommerce features.

You can learn more about Wix's different pricing plans here.

Honorable mention: Shopify

You can't go wrong with any of the solutions we've listed above. However, we can't talk about ecommerce building platforms without mentioning our #1 frontrunner, Shopify.

Shopify is one of the most widely used ecommerce website builders — and for good reason. From its in-built sales system to its diverse range of sales integrations, Shopify is essentially a one-stop-shop for businesses looking to shift stock fast. The platform lets users add and manage goods in a few simple clicks,  and even track sales on third-party platforms like Instagram and Google Shopping. Shopify also received an impressive customer satisfaction score of 4.5/5, ranking it first in this field overall.

The software isn't unaffordable either. While Shopify's value for money score (3/5) is lower than Square's, Squarespace's, and Wix's, its plan ‘Shopify Lite' is available for as little as $9 per month. This basic package may contain slightly less advanced features than pricier tiers, but its still a decent option for businesses watching their bottom line.

However, if your business can shell out a little extra for Shopify's Basic and Shopify plans (which cost $29 and $79 per month respectively) it may be a better decision in the long run. With both of these plans offering sophisticated selling and reporting tools, they are likely to provide your business with a much better return on investment.

You don't need to take our word for it either. Click here to start your 14-day free trial with Shopify, or read our Shopify review to learn more about the ecommerce solution.

Why You Should Avoid Free Website Builder Plans

While lots of the website builders above offer free plans, they’re often very limited in terms of features. And, when you can build a good website from as little as $2.61 per month from Hostinger, there’s no real reason to compromise.

With a paid-for site, even one that’s only a few dollars a month, you won't have to put up with adverts, website builder branding, a fixed domain name (e.g. username.wixsite.com/website) and limited functionality

You'll also get better support and analytics, which free users won't have access to. Better security is another benefit, and one that's particularly important for modern ecommerce websites. If you bump the price up a little (to the value of two or three fancy coffees a month, rather than one) you'll get a professional-looking site, improved features, like social media integration, contact forms and the possibility to monetize your site.

Frequently Asked Questions