When I first became a small business owner, the thought of building a website pushed me out of my comfort zone. There are so many plates in the air when you’re trying to get a business off the ground and, while I knew I needed a website, I didn’t think I had the skills or budget to bring it to life.
Affordable, easy website builders were the key for elevating my business — and fast. I found these budget-friendly website builders to be intuitive, inexpensive, and quick to work with. I have a personal favorite, but I’ll be diving into five of the leading cheap website builders so you can pick the right one for your blog or business.
Table of Contents
- What is the best cheap website builder?
- What should you look for in a cheap website builder?
- Best Cheap Website Builders
- Bonus: Learn More about Content Hub from HubSpot
What is the best cheap website builder?
When I’m looking to build a website with a small budget, I’m also generally looking to get it done fast. So, for me, intuitiveness, price efficacy, and pre-made templates are three important traits of a great website builder.
However, it depends a bit on what you’re looking to accomplish. If you’re an e-commerce business, you’ll need to find a cheap website builder that can support a digital storefront.
Start by defining your goals before hitting the market so you can more easily sift through your options. The right cheap website builder varies from person to person: a blogger won’t need a storefront, a videographer will need more video capacity, etc.
If you’re a fan of Hubspot, one of the best cheap website builders on the market is Content Hub. This is Hubspot’s drag-and-drop website builder that fits directly into your CMS so you can share your content to your site easily.
Content Hub is the perfect choice for content-oriented sites with frequently updated blogs. It’s a code-free option for businesses looking to get a great site up and running in minutes.
What should you look for in a cheap website builder?
There are a lot of different variables to keep in mind while you’re investigating cheap website builders. Here’s a list of some of the things I recommend you to consider:
- Pricing tiers
- An intuitive, easy-to-use interface
- Robust customer support
- A broad library of templates
- Customizability
- A professional-looking appearance
- SEO optimization tools
- Analytics capabilities
- Scalability
If you don’t have coding experience, a professional appearance, templates, and an easy-to-use interface are a must-have. You don’t want to sacrifice professionalism just because you aren’t a software engineer.
Best Cheap Website Builders
- Squarespace
- Wix
- WordPress
- Weebly
- Hostinger
1. Squarespace
Squarespace is a professional-looking, easy-to-use website builder that offers over 200 templates for building your site. The capabilities of Squarespace are broad, but the site doesn’t feel complicated at all.
You can change your website layout, template, and style whenever you want at no additional cost, and the entire site is customizable at every pricing tier.
Some other core features include:
- Built-in SEO tools
- Strong customer service
- Mobile optimization
- Comprehensive analytics
- Unlimited storage space
- AI-powered features
Pricing
There are four pricing tiers + a free trial. Here’s a quick breakdown of the tiers:
- Personal Plan ($25/mo or $192 annually): The personal plan is the simplest option, offering access to templates, mobile optimization, domain customization, and the ability to sell content and memberships. You can also send invoices for free.
- Business Plan ($36/mo or $276 annually): This plan features the above capabilities, richer website analytics, checkout directly on your domain, and the ability to sell products and services (with a 3% transaction fee).
- Commerce Basic ($40/mo or $336 annually): Building on the above plan, Commerce Basic enables premium merchandising tools like product waitlists to boost your e-commerce store even more.
- Commerce Advanced ($72/mo or $624 annually): The premium Squarespace plan includes everything in the prior plans, as well as advanced shipping, discounting, and the ability to sell subscriptions.
What I like:
Squarespace is a great option for folks looking to build a professional website on a slim budget — especially if you don’t have very much technological know-how.
While the lowest tier is a bit on the expensive side, it comes with a lot of capabilities, including analytics and the ability to host an e-commerce storefront. It gets more expensive for folks looking to offer robust e-commerce, but, all things considered, it’s probably a worthy investment.
What I don’t like:
There wasn’t much I didn’t like about this option. I built a sleek homepage in under 10 minutes using Squarespace’s templates that felt totally on-brand. The only drawback here is the financial investment.
HubSpot's Free Website Builder
Create and customize your own business website with an easy drag-and-drop website builder.
- Build a website without any coding skills.
- Pre-built themes and templates.
- Built-in marketing tools and features.
- And more!
2. Wix
Wix is a great spot to start for those on tight budgets. One of the standout features of Wix is access to over 900 templates. You’ll be able to find the perfect match for your brand in their template library.
Wix is also notably easy to use and quick to build on. In fact, you can use Wix’s AI Website Builder and create an entire site in under a minute. If you’re launching a business quickly, Wix is a great option.
Some other features include:
- Scalable web hosting
- E-commerce capabilities
- An app that makes it easy to track and run your business from your phone
- Marketing tools
- Analytics with customized recommendations on routes to improve
- 24/7 customer support
- SEO tools
Pricing
Wix features four pricing tiers as well as a 14-day refund policy. Here’s what the tiers look like:
- Light ($17/mo): This option provides access to two collaborators, 2 GB of storage space, an entry-level marketing suite, and a free domain for a year.
- Core ($29/mo): The Core plan builds on the Light plan, but can host 5 collaborators and store 50 GB of data. The marketing suite is more robust, though still basic. This plan also adds basic site analytics and e-Commerce capabilities, as well as the ability to accept payments.
- Business ($36/mo): This tier features ten collaborators and 100 GB of storage space, as well as the capabilities in the other plans. There are also standard marketing suites, site analytics, and e-Commerce capabilities.
- Business Elite ($159/mo): The premium plan offered by Wix hosts 15 collaborators and unlimited storage space. The marketing suite, site analytics, and e-Commerce are all advanced, and this tier also offers a robust developer platform.
What I like:
I was amazed by Wix’s template options — 900+ is a lot to choose from! I also appreciated Wix’s process. When I logged onto Wix’s site building tool, they immediately asked me, “What do you want to call your site?” From there, the tool ushered me quickly through the site-building process.
It didn’t take long for me to have a site that looked like it was built by a pro. The AI assistant did everything for me, but I still had full customization power.
What I don’t like:
The drawback to Wix is that not much comes with the cheapest plan. If you’re uploading photographs or video, you’ll fill the storage space quickly. I also wanted more advanced analytics capabilities in the base plan.
3. WordPress
WordPress is one of the most well-known cheap website builders, and for good reason. Its customizability is nearly unmatched and, in many spaces, WordPress is the standard site building tool.
One thing that really stood out to me was the library of plug-ins WordPress offered. There are over 50,000 compatible plug-ins, including marketing tools, page builders, and analytics tools.
The site also offered:
- Over 200 pre-built block patterns and layouts
- E-commerce capabilities
- SEO tools
- JetPack Social, a tool that automatically shares new posts across social media profiles
- Great customer support
- Comprehensive analytics
Pricing
WordPress offers a lot of pricing tiers, ranging from a free trial to a cloud-based plan. Let’s take a look at the options.
- Personal ($4/mo): This plan offers a free domain for a year, access to dozens of premium themes, and an ad-free user interface. It also includes 6 GB of storage and an 8% transaction fee for payments made in your e-Commerce store (+ standard processing fees).
- Premium ($8/mo): Building on the personal plan, Premium offers access to all themes, 13 GB of storage, and a 4% transaction fee for payments (+ standard processing fees). At this tier, you also get customized fonts and colors, ability to upload videos, unlimited automatic shares to social media, a site analytics dashboard, and customer support.
- Business ($25/mo): The Business plan offers everything in Premium, plus 50 GB storage and 2% transaction fee for payments (+ standard processing fees). It also includes the ability to install plugins and themes, priority 24/7 support, unrestricted bandwidth, unlimited site visitors, and a free staging site.
- Commerce ($45/mo): The Commerce plan is an extension of the business plan, offering 0% transaction fees for payments (+ standard processing fees) and 50 GB storage. You can also benefit from premium store themes and store design tools, unlimited product listing, product add-ons, inventory management, and custom marketing automation.
- Cloud ($65/mo): Finally, the cloud-based option offers 24/7 priority support, real-time backups, 225 GB of storage, and access to Yoast SEO Free, a great asset for those optimizing their site for SERPs.
For enterprise companies, you can also submit a quote for a personalized plan.
A drawback about WordPress pricing is that you have to pay to host your website in another spot. WordPress is just a website builder and not a host like many of the other options.
What I like:
WordPress has a lot of advantages. It has one of the broadest feature ranges of all the cheap website builders on this list, from SEO to marketing to analytics. With WordPress, you can design a professional, robust blog or e-Commerce site.
What I don’t like:
There are a few drawbacks about WordPress, though. The site was definitely the least user-friendly of the bunch. Once I selected a web domain, template, and price plan, I was dropped into the builder with no tutorial.
Not to mention, most of the things that make WordPress great aren’t available in the cheapest plan. You really can’t enjoy WordPress’s capabilities until you’re up to the Business plan and putting the features into action definitely has a learning curve.
HubSpot's Free Website Builder
Create and customize your own business website with an easy drag-and-drop website builder.
- Build a website without any coding skills.
- Pre-built themes and templates.
- Built-in marketing tools and features.
- And more!
4. Weebly
Weebly is a well-known user-friendly site builder that’s perfect for folks on a budget. This builder had a notably easy-to-use interface, as well as a starting guide to help you get your bearings.
The tool also boasts great SEO capabilities, from an SEO checklist to an advanced SEO setting feature. It struck me as a great spot for users looking for SERP dominance.
Some of its other features include:
- Professional appearance
- Thousands of free templates
- All-in-one e-Commerce tools
- Integrated marketing tools
- Square product suite
- Customer service
- Great customization (even in the free plan)
- Real-time analytics
Pricing
Weebly has some really attainable prices, split into four tiers. They are:
- Free ($0/mo): The free option of Weebly offers SSL security, a shopping cart, inventory management, an automatic tax calculator, and SEO capabilities. You can also add a 3rd-party embed code at this tier.
- Personal ($10/mo): The first paid tier features all the capabilities of the free tier as well as the ability to connect a custom domain.
- Professional ($12/mo): The professional tier offers the features of the lower tiers, as well as unlimited storage, advanced site stats, free domains, password protection, and the ability to remove Square ads.
- Performance ($26/mo): The final tier includes the capabilities of the Professional tier and two other features: the ability to accept payments through PayPal and an Abandoned Cart Email capability.
What I like:
Weebly very likely offers the best bang for your buck. You can build a pretty robust website for free (though most businesses will at least want to reach the $10 plan so they can customize their domain).
It was very simple to navigate this site because their website builder led me through each step. I customized my home page, built a portfolio, and customized some SEO configurations in under 15 minutes.
What I don’t like:
The drawbacks here are minimal. For e-Commerce sites, you don’t have a lot of options for payment methods. Until the Performance tier, Square is the only way to process payments and, even at the highest tier, there are only two options.
5. Hostinger
Hostinger is a website builder I hadn’t heard of before, but it offers some really great and unique capabilities. Hostinger is, in many ways, supported robustly by AI, leading to a quick, optimized site-building process.
The tool has 150 customizable templates as well as drag and drops, making it really easy to make your site tailored to your brand. You also get a free domain when you use Hostinger.
Some other features include:
- AI guide to website building
- Desktop and mobile editing
- Built-in e-Commerce features
- Analytics features
- 24/7 customer support
- SEO tools
- Marketing integrations
- The ability to chat with customers
Pricing
Hostinger only offers both tiers of pricing accompanied with 2 months free. However, you can only access the free months when you purchase an annual membership, so you won’t really be able to explore for 2 months free-of-charge. The tiers are:
- Premium ($12/mo + 2 months free): The premium plan comes with the AI website builder as well as a free email.
- Business ($14/mo + 2 months free): This plan offers the email and AI website builder from the first plan, but also features more robust AI capabilities, including and AI image generator, AI writer, AI blog generator, AI heatmaps, and AI SEO tools.
This plan also features 0% transaction fees and 20+ payment methods — perfect for folks using their site for e-Commerce.
What I like:
Hostinger was very easy to use and unique because of the rich host of AI tools. It’s a great choice for folks looking to get their site running quickly for that reason.
Another advantage of Hostinger is that it takes more payment options than any other option, making it easy for customers to finish their orders.
What I don’t like:
A drawback of Hostinger is its customization options are a bit more limited. Hostinger has a bigger reputation as being a website host, so its builder is less extensive than some of the options.
Bonus: Learn More about Content Hub from HubSpot
Content Hub is a content marketing software that features a long list of capabilities to streamline your content marketing flow. It’s an AI-powered tool that makes creating, managing, and distributing content easy.
The tool features content generation, lead capture tools, video hosting, A/B testing, and more — and a drag-and-drop website that makes it simple for you to build a site for your content, fast.
Content Hub’s website builder features an informational guide, free themes and templates, and access to website inspiration from other businesses.
Access to the website builder is available in Content Hub’s free plan, though there are also three tiers of paid plans. They are:
- Starter ($20/mo per seat): This plan features additional website pages & blog posts, live chat & email support, and no HubSpot branding.
- Professional ($500/mo per seat): At the Professional level, you have access to everything in the Starter plan as well as content remix tools, brand voice tools, podcasting, content management, memberships ad gated content, and content optimiation and reporting.
- Enterprise ($1,500/mo per seat): The highest tier of our Content Hub features multisites, content approval, and permissioning. You can also access activity logging, custom objects, and serverless functions for more in-depth customization.
The Best Builders for a Tight Budget
Each of these website builders has some incredible features. Some offer hundreds of templates, while others are ideal for those looking to leverage AI. There’s no one right option, so be sure to experiment with the tools that best match your goals.
In terms of surprises, I didn’t previously consider the impact AI would have on website development for solopreneurs and small businesses. As a solopreneur myself, I know how hard it is to feel like we have to be experts in everything. AI can really help to lift the weight.
My personal favorite after navigating these options is Squarespace. Squarespace is an all-in-one option with a sleek, user-friendly interface that makes it easy to build a gorgeous website. With blog, subscription, and e-Commerce capabilities, Squarespace is one of the most scalable website builders available.
HubSpot's Free Website Builder
Create and customize your own business website with an easy drag-and-drop website builder.
- Build a website without any coding skills.
- Pre-built themes and templates.
- Built-in marketing tools and features.
- And more!
