The Best Website Builders for Small Businesses in 2024

Every business has unique needs — hopefully, my experiences with these tools will help you find the best site builder for you.

Would you be surprised if I told you Carrd was the best website builder for small businesses in 2024? It will be for some. There are no have-tos in building a website for your small business.

I hear it and read about it all the time:

“You need to be on WordPress,” or “Shopify is the only way to go.”

These types of comments frustrate me.

(There’s also the rare case where a website may not even really move the needle for a small business in a niche, hyper-local market).

So, generalizations make little sense.

For most small businesses, especially ones with limited time and resources, you want something that works for you now and has the potential to grow with your company. The right builder can make your growth easier; the wrong one could hold it back.

My Experiences With These Site Builders

A decade of graphic design and web building has brought me across many tools. The most frustrating web builder I’ve used is Blox CMS when helping manage a site for a newspaper site. Some are great. Others stink. But here’s how I evaluated these tools and named the best website builders in 2024.

My prior experience with all of these tools. I’ve used and reviewed these builders multiple times and have over seven years of experience with most of them.
I’ve used these site builders in their current forms. I have either recently used these tools on a client project or tested their current interfaces.
My network and reading habits. Not only have I used these tools, but I have many professional connections that keep me informed of their use and what’s working and what’s not. I also regularly read marketing literature and review sites to know what users say.

Best Website Builder for Small Business in 2024

When choosing the best website builder, it’s important to consider the following factors:

Ease of Use: When talking about small business websites, we’re usually talking about drag-and-drop website builders. Most small businesses want to do it themselves or hire someone to efficiently build their site without dishing out a lot of moola. Does the site builder come with helpful guides? Have other DIYers left good reviews? These are the things to think about.

Cost: You can buy a single Elementor Pro license for around $5 monthly. Wix starts at $17 monthly. There’s no way around it. A website takes work and money. Budget is always a concern for a small business, so considering what you can do now without choosing a platform that will hamstring you late is important.

Scalability: Some platforms are great when starting. They give you a reach feature set to get your site up and running but cost an arm and leg when you need to add more features to meet your business demands.

E-commerce Capabilities: Robust e-commerce features are critical if you’re selling products.

SEO and Marketing Features: People are more likely to find your website if it’s easy to search for. You need a well-planned strategy. Speed. Keywords. Backlinks. Find out if the site builder has built-in SEO tools, marketing features, or third-party integrations to help.

Wix

Wix provides small business clients with a convenient means of building a professional-looking website without needing to hire a developer. I’ve used Wix on occasion — but not necessarily in a way that gives props to the platform.

I recently helped Skyepack.com transition from Wix to WordPress. At first, the goal was to test the Wix environment to see if there were ways to train the in-house team to use Wix to create a better-looking site while maintaining a fast editing environment and the large content needs of the company.

It was a struggle.

In the past, I’ve found Wix to work well with sites needing ten to 20 pages. This site had 50-plus pages, and Wix struggled with it. If you’re looking for a site that has about ten pages or so, Wix is fine. Much more, and its editor becomes slow.

Even when following best practices — using a supported browser, keeping servers cached, and using web images and RAM at a maximum, Wix isn’t as easy for large websites. If your offerings remain the same, it’s fine, but if you’re hoping to scale your services and test market fit quickly, using HubSpot or WordPress may be a better fit.

Strengths of Wix

Drag-And-Drop: Wix’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface means anyone can build professional-looking sites without a background in programming.

Large template library: More than 800 templates to choose from, plus the ability to customize almost every aspect, means you can have a site tailored just how you want.

Extensive App Market: Wix’s app market contains marketing tools, e-commerce, and social integration tools, allowing you to add more advanced functionality to your marketing and business operations.

Velo for Developers: Wix includes Velo, which lets you add custom code and more advanced functionality.

Weaknesses of Wix

Slow editor: The Wix editor is slow and bulky compared to others on the list.

Learning Curve for Advanced Features: Simple use is straightforward, but advanced features such as SEO settings or complex design tools (e.g., animations) can be daunting for beginners.

E-commerce Shortcomings: Though adequate for simple online stores, Wix’s e-commerce features are less robust than standalone solutions such as Shopify.

Carrd

Carrd is lightweight. It’s powerful. Start here if you run a service-based business and don’t have a site yet. Carrd is perfect for small businesses that don’t have a site and could benefit from a static site that shares all of their contact information and services.

It’s not as popular as Wix or Squarespace, but it’s ideal for building simple single-page websites quickly and cheaply. I’d recommend Carrd for anyone who needs a stripped-back web presence – a portfolio, a landing page, or a “coming soon” page.

Carrd is laser-focused on simplicity. The interface is clean and simple. The editor is quick and easy to learn.

It’s one of the least expensive website builders around. While you can create and publish a basic website for free, the paid plans start at $19 per year. (Just in case you think that’s a typo, it’s not. The price is $19 annually, not monthly.)

Carrd does not have the customization and advanced capabilities, though. If you plan to build a website that grows beyond simple, single-page functionality, Carrd won’t scale well. However, most Carrd websites are easy and fast to put together, so moving platforms — if needed — wouldn’t pose an issue.

Strengths of Carrd

Simplicity: Carrd is one of the easiest site builders on this list. You can build a site in minutes.

Affordability: Carrd offers some of the most affordable paid plans, with the lowest tier starting at $19 per year.

Responsive Design: Carrd sites respond and look great on mobile devices from the start.

Weaknesses of Carrd

Limited customization: Compared to more robust platforms, Carrd cannot add advanced functionality and get the exact branding you may want.

Single-page experience: Building a multi-page website on Carrd is not straightforward.

No E-Commerce: Carrd does not support e-commerce, so you’ll need to look elsewhere to sell products online.

HubSpot

HubSpot’s site editor may make the most sense for small businesses using the HubSpot customer relationship management (CRM) software in their sales and marketing operations.

Many companies we work with seek to integrate HubSpot with their current content management systems (CMS) like WordPress. However, our team builds and works on HubSpot for a handful of clients.

Often, we help set up landing pages for particular campaigns. HubSpot shines when it comes to setting up calls-to-action and forms that directly align with sales efforts within an organization.

And its site editor? I wouldn’t build out my whole ecosystem on it. It’s quite expensive to match the functionality of a tool like WordPress. Even if you leverage the HubSpot CRM, you can use plugins and third-party connections to do the bulk of the work you would need.

HubSpot’s editor is not as intuitive as a platform like Carrd or Wix. HubSpot’s editor is not as intuitive as Squarespace’s or WordPress’s. Each template you purchase comes with varying degrees of functionality. Have a certain look in mind?

HubSpot may cost quite a bit to get there.

Big companies I’ve worked with, like WeVideo, utilize HubSpot well because they have the budgets for it. They have developers and the money needed to purchase templates that match their brand. Small businesses often do not have those kinds of resources.

The more powerful features behind their Marketing Hub can be pricey. But if your business is all about inbound marketing, and you need a website that integrates with sales and marketing, HubSpot has an unbeatable amount of functionality.

Strengths of HubSpot

CRM Integration: HubSpot’s website builder is tightly integrated with its powerful CRM so you can manage leads and customers directly from your website.

Marketing All-in-One: From SEO to email marketing and automation, HubSpot has your marketing tools ready to go.

Optimized for Lead Generation: HubSpot websites are designed to convert browsers into leads and customers with easy-to-deploy forms, CTAs, and analytics.

Weaknesses of HubSpot

Price and scaling: Getting the full feature set from HubSpot isn’t cheap. They give you a lot to work with on their free and starter tiers, but as soon as you need to scale, you’ll need to cough up some real cash.

Less Design Flexibility: HubSpot’s templates are very professional, but the design options are not as flexible or customizable as others.

Shopify

If you want to sell anything online, Shopify is one of the best e-commerce platforms. Having worked with a handful of e-commerce businesses over the years and having built our fundraising branch on the platform, Shopify has always been my go-to recommendation for any company serious about selling things online.

What makes Shopify powerful is its user experience for customers. The editor is difficult to learn. The plugins are expensive. The dashboard is a nightmare. But there is no better platform for selling products. Once the site is live, users can shop and pay with ease.

WooCommerce on WordPress is ugly. Squarespace shops have poor user flow. Shopify focuses on that one element and does it better than anyone.

In the end, this means more sales. Sales are good. Sales are life.

Many small businesses start with the core functionality of Shopify and then begin adding apps as they grow. You can also integrate Shopify to sell on third-party platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon.

Strengths of Shopify

E-commerce Perfect: Shopify is built for online stores, offers hundreds of third-party apps, and has tools for running an online business.

Easy Multi-Channel Selling: Sell on Facebook, Instagram, and other channels. You can even do physical retail with Shopify POS. Different platforms have this ability, but setting it up is a pain.

Good For Scaling: Shopify scales with your business. If you run a small business and plan to grow your sales on the internet, Shopify is a great option.

Weaknesses of Shopify

Content Marketing: If you need to add case studies, white papers, or run a blog with many verticals, Shopify is not the perfect fit.

Price: The base price is good, but Shopify can get expensive by adding apps and plugins or upgrading to higher-tier plans.

WordPress

WordPress comes with its own builder: the Block Editor, also known as Gutenberg. You can also choose third-party drag-and-drop editors like Elementor, Beaver Builder, and Bricks. Your experience largely depends on the plugin you choose.

WordPress is the most complicated tool on this list. But it’s also the one that works best for businesses looking to scale.

Why?

You can do tons of things with WordPress. For example, many of the sites I build utilize these main tools:

WordPress as the overall housing unit
HubSpot plugin to connect forms to the CRM
10Web to make the site fast
Wordfence to make the site more secure
Elementor to give it the look and feel it needs

One of the biggest benefits of WordPress.com is its all-in-one approach. You can use it for a blog, an online store, a portfolio, a business website, or anything else.

It has a huge selection of professionally designed themes you can customize for your brand. It doesn’t require coding knowledge, but you can dig into the code.

Strengths of WordPress

Flexibility: WordPress.com can be used by various business types, from bloggers to online stores, and has a robust plugin ecosystem to support it.

Scale: WordPress can achieve almost anything you need as a small business owner.

Speed and responsiveness: WordPress is a powerful platform that helps users create a professional and well-performing site.

Weaknesses of WordPress

Complex: WordPress isn’t user-friendly. It’s clunky. Your hosting and running the dashboard are not great for beginners.

Security: You’ll need to stay on top of your site. If you want to build something and forget about it, don’t choose WordPress. The plugins and versions make it a huge security issue.

Quick Summary

When choosing a site builder, a growing small business needs to consider ease of use, cost, scalability, and e-commerce capabilities. I’ve worked with Carrd, Wix, Shopify, and WordPress, and shared their strengths and weaknesses.

Companies like Wix offer an intuitive drag-and-drop interface but can struggle with large sites; Shopify favors e-commerce and can be costly when extra features are added; Carrd is a no-frills, low-cost solution for single-page sites; and WordPress is flexible and scalable for more complex needs. These are some of the best site builders for small businesses in 2024. Have questions about any of them? Feel free to get in touch.

Tyler Agnew, M.Ed.

Tyler Agnew is the CEO of Made with Heart. He has contributed sports stories to USA Today and has traveled abroad to teach English and write for international brands like Traveling and Living in Peru. His current work with rising SaaS platforms such as WeVideo and GreenPal keep him in tune with best practices in content marketing, SEO, and AI.