Most Reliable Cheap Website Builder in 2022
If you want to establish an online presence for yourself or your business, but you don’t have the time, expertise, or money for a custom website, a cheap website builder might be just what you need. These services let you build, design, host, and manage a professional-looking and functional website, with no coding knowledge needed and using a user-friendly visual interface. Below, you’ll find 10 of the best affordable website builders you can use today.
Fact-checked
May 29, 2022
1. Weebly
Weebly is one of the best website hosting platforms for those who want to build and launch their first website. What’s more, you can get unlimited hosting for just $12/month, or test it risk-free thanks to the free plan. Full Review
- Automatic tax calculations
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- App marketplaces
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Weebly is one of the best website hosting platforms for those who want to build and launch their first website. What’s more, you can get unlimited hosting for just $12/month, or test it risk-free thanks to the free plan. Full Review
5/5
3/5
3/5
5/5
2. Zyro
With Zyro, you can start building and customizing your website to your heart’s content, completely free. The customization tools are not only intuitive, but truly fun to use. Only pay when you’re ready to show your website to the world! Full Review
- AI web design tool.
- 70+ payment methods.
- Built-in multilingual support.
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With Zyro, you can start building and customizing your website to your heart’s content, completely free. The customization tools are not only intuitive, but truly fun to use. Only pay when you’re ready to show your website to the world! Full Review
5/5
3/5
4/5
4/5
3. 1&1 IONOS
With 1&1 IONOS, you can build and launch a website as well as start selling products for as little as $0.50/month. And, it’s also one of the only cheap website builders that can help you reach and convert customers using CDN targeting and personalization. Full Review
- Targeted CDN
- Dynamic personalization
- 99.99% Uptime guarantee
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With 1&1 IONOS, you can build and launch a website as well as start selling products for as little as $0.50/month. And, it’s also one of the only cheap website builders that can help you reach and convert customers using CDN targeting and personalization. Full Review
5/5
4/5
3/5
4.5/5
4. Strikingly
Why settle for a website builder that only lets you create one website, when you can create up to 5 with a single Strikingly account? On top of that, you’ll be able to kit out your websites with an amazing design thanks to Strikingly’s superb theme library. Full Review
- No ads
- Multiple websites per account
- Built-in multi-lingual support
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Why settle for a website builder that only lets you create one website, when you can create up to 5 with a single Strikingly account? On top of that, you’ll be able to kit out your websites with an amazing design thanks to Strikingly’s superb theme library. Full Review
3/5
3/5
5/5
4/5
5. Jimdo
If you just want to get your online business online ASAP, Jimdo is your ideal partner. Tell the AI wizard exactly what you want, and it will generate a professional business site for you. As the cheapest ecommerce website builder, you don’t even need a paid plan to start selling. Full Review
- 0% transaction fees
- Host multiple websites with one account
- Support SLAs
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If you just want to get your online business online ASAP, Jimdo is your ideal partner. Tell the AI wizard exactly what you want, and it will generate a professional business site for you. As the cheapest ecommerce website builder, you don’t even need a paid plan to start selling. Full Review
5/5
3/5
4/5
4/5
6. WordPress.com
If you want to create a content-based site to market yourself, your business, or just to become an influencer, WordPress.com is one of the best cheap website builders for the job. With a large app market, you can also morph your site into whatever you want it to be. Full Review
- Large plugin library
- Third-party themes are available
- Multiple admin accounts
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If you want to create a content-based site to market yourself, your business, or just to become an influencer, WordPress.com is one of the best cheap website builders for the job. With a large app market, you can also morph your site into whatever you want it to be. Full Review
3.5/5
4.5/5
4/5
4/5
7. GoDaddy
If you’re looking for a cheap easy website builder to help grow and empower your business in various ways, GoDaddy should be one of your go-to options. They offer extensive e-commerce and marketing capabilities, as well as integration with PoS sales. Full Review
- Email marketing campaign
- PoS integrations
- Built-in multi-lingual support
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If you’re looking for a cheap easy website builder to help grow and empower your business in various ways, GoDaddy should be one of your go-to options. They offer extensive e-commerce and marketing capabilities, as well as integration with PoS sales. Full Review
3.5/5
4.5/5
5/5
3.5/5
8. Wix
If you need an affordable website builder that’s easy to use but still gives you freedom to customize your website exactly according to your vision, Wix is right for you. It has a best-in-class pixel-perfect editor with an exceptional selection of templates. Full Review
- Pixel-perfect visual editor
- App marketplace
- Large template library
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If you need an affordable website builder that’s easy to use but still gives you freedom to customize your website exactly according to your vision, Wix is right for you. It has a best-in-class pixel-perfect editor with an exceptional selection of templates. Full Review
4/5
5/5
3.5/5
4/5
9. Webnode
If you want a personal website, blog, or online store, but don’t want to dedicate a lot of time and effort to customizing and maintaining your website, you can’t do much better than Webnode. With this cheap website builder, your professional-looking online presence is only minutes away! Full Review
- User registration and membership tools
- Marketing add-ons
- Automatic backups
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If you want a personal website, blog, or online store, but don’t want to dedicate a lot of time and effort to customizing and maintaining your website, you can’t do much better than Webnode. With this cheap website builder, your professional-looking online presence is only minutes away! Full Review
5/5
3/5
3/5
4/5
10. HostGator
HostGator is easily one of the cheapest website builders to get started with. Choosing from hundreds of templates to get going and using the complete marketing toolkit to spread the word, you can build your website with confidence, knowing you’re backed by excellent customer support. Full Review
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- 24/7 support
- Email campaign tools
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HostGator is easily one of the cheapest website builders to get started with. Choosing from hundreds of templates to get going and using the complete marketing toolkit to spread the word, you can build your website with confidence, knowing you’re backed by excellent customer support. Full Review
4.5/5
4/5
5/5
4/5
Our Methodology
There’s a lot to consider when figuring out which website builder is best for you. To make sure these options appeal to as many users as possible, we used the following factors to choose the best candidates:
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Features
Many different features make a website builder more functional, including marketing, social media integration, custom coding, APIs, e-commerce capabilities, themes, plugins, etc.
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Ease of Use
Website builders make it possible to create a website without technical skills, so we gave credit for being a cheap easy website builder.
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Customer Support
Technical issues can really hamper your website’s success, so it’s important that support is available fast to help you solve any problems.
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Customer Satisfaction
No one knows a web host better than its previous customers, so we looked at the general user satisfaction with the service.
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Upgrades, Add-ons, Limitations
These factors influence how much you can grow your website’s size and capabilities, so it’s important to understand them from a long-term perspective.
Website Builders Reviewed & Compared
- No strings attached free plan
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- Beginner-friendly marketing guides and add-ons
- Easy, but limiting customization tools
- Could do with more themes
Literally, anyone can use Weebly to build an online store without any experience. Weebly achieves this thanks to its affordable pricing, easy-to-use themes, and beginner-friendly page builder.
Features
Weebly isn’t the most feature-rich website builder, but does come with all the basics:
Themes
Weebly offers a simple, yet effective collection of around 40 themes. The largest categories are for business, portfolio, and online store themes, with a decent number of personal, event, or blog themes too.
Add-ons
Likewise, Weebly has a relatively small app marketplace with free and premium apps that largely focus on social media integration, sales, and SEO. However, Weebly also offers some interactive elements in the form of tabs, price charts, teams, etc.
Domain Name
Like any good cheap website builder, Weebly offers domain registration services. Pro users and above get a free domain for a year, while Connect users can link an external domain.
| Storage | 500MB – Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | 500MB – Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | Yes (Free, Connect) |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes (Pro, Business, Business Plus) |
| Social Media Integration Options | Facebook, Instagram, Social Sharing |
| API (for custom integrations) | Yes (Basic REST API) |
| Stock Photography | Yes |
| Language Choices | Almost all languages via paid apps |
| Favicon | Yes |
| Pages Limit | None |
Ease of Use
Weebly’s drag-and-drop page builder is what puts it among the top cheap website builders. It has drag-and-drop functionality with basic yet effective customization options and an all-in-one dashboard. The knowledge base is really helpful with 300 articles, although no video tutorials.
Pricing
The pricing plans are as follows:
Free: $0/month
- Free SSL security
- Unlimited products
- SEO
- Chat & email support
- Best for testing Weebly with small, non-business projects
Personal: $6/month billed annually or $9/month billed month-to-month
- Custom domain
- Small projects or business websites with their own domain
Professional: $12/month billed annually or $16/month billed month-to-month
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- No square branding
- Free domain
- Phone support
- Small-to-medium business websites or blogs with lots of media
Performance: $26/month billed annually or $29/month billed month-to-month
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- Custom and free domain
- No square branding
- Priority support
- Medium to large-sized businesses/e-commerce sites
Customer Satisfaction
Weebly’s reviews are mixed with high scores from experts and relatively low (3.2/5 on Trustpilot) scores from customers. Some users claim customer support went downhill after Weebly was acquired by Square. However, as a cheap simple website builder, users usually love how beginner-friendly it is.
Competition Overview
Where Weebly dominates: Weebly is an extremely beginner-friendly page builder with streamlined website building.
Where Weebly falls short: Weebly could do with improved customer support and add-ons.
- Very affordable and flexible pricing
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage on all plans
- Build your website forever, completely free
- Fun to use
- No free website hosting plan
- Seems to be frequent issues with domain registration
Zyro was created by one of the most popular web-hosting providers, Hostinger, as an alternative to traditional web hosting. It’s a fun and intuitive platform to build simple personal or business websites as well as online stores.
Features
Zyro offers an extremely streamlined and fun approach to building a website.
Themes
Zyro comes with a surprisingly large library of pre-built templates, offering over 150 options with minimalist, modern, and creative designs. You can also let the AI tool design your website based on your input.
Add-ons
Unfortunately, Zyro is a cheap simple website builder that doesn’t offer any add-ons or apps.
Domain Name
Zyro offers domain registration services as well as a free domain for 1 year with all plans. However, keep in mind that many users have reported issues with Zyro’s domains.
| Storage | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | No |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes (Business, Online Store, Advanced Store) |
| Social Media Integration Options | Facebook, Messenger, and Twitter |
| API (for custom integrations) | Yes |
| Stock Photography | Yes (search for images via Unsplash) |
| Language Choices | Support for most languages built-in |
| Favicon | Yes, with Favicon generator |
| Pages Limit | None |
Ease of Use
If you never want to worry about running out of storage or bandwidth, Zyro is one of the most convenient cheapest website hosting and builder services. It’s also a genuinely fun tool to use, on top of being beginner-friendly.
Pricing
Free: $0/month
- Best for testing Zyro’s website building capabilities without launching your site live.
Website: $8.99/month | $107.88/1 year | $215.76/2 years
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited storage
- Free domain for 1 year
- Blogs, personal sites, or business sites with no e-commerce
Business: $11.49/month | $137.88/1 year | $275.76/2 years
- Up to 100 products
- 20+ payment methods
- 1% processing fee
- Small business or basic e-commerce websites
Online Store: $15.90/month | $190.80/1 year | $381.60/2 years
- 70+ payment methods
- 0% processing fee
- Discounts, gift cards
- Sell on Facebook and Instagram
- Medium-sized e-commerce businesses with social selling
Advanced Store: $25.90/month | $310.80/1 tear | $621.60/2 years
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Advanced product management
- Sell on Amazon & eBay
- Serious e-commerce businesses with omnichannel selling
Customer Satisfaction
Zyro’s cheap web hosting reviews are exceptional, with a 4.5-star rating on Trustpilot from nearly 500 reviewers. Most positive reviews praise the support, user-friendliness, and fun of using the platform, while most negative reviews are about billing mistakes, especially regarding domains.
Competition Overview
Where Zyro dominates: Zyro is one of the only cheap website builders that let you use all their website building and customization tools for free.
Where Zyro falls short: The free plan doesn’t let you launch your website.
- Extremely affordable prices for websites
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- Extremely beginner-friendly website builder
- Not much customization freedom
- No free plan
In addition to being one of the cheapest ecommerce website builder options, 1&1 IONOS is also one of the best ecommerce hosting providers around, with built-in shopping cart functionality at just $0.50/month. 1&1 IONOS are known for their reliable, high-performance infrastructure with a 99.99% uptime guarantee.
Features
Weebly is not the most feature-rich website builder, but does come with all the basics:
Themes
1&1 IONOS has a rather small selection of 18 themes. However, most of the designs are really unique and creative, with reliable responsive design. Although most are business themes, there are some options for NGOs, portfolios, etc.
Add-ons
The 1&1 IONOS website builder doesn’t have any app marketplace or add-ons, but it does offer handy interactive widgets to add to your website. It’s also one of the cheapest website builders to provide geo-targeted CDN capabilities.
Domain Name
1&1 IONOS provides domain registration with prices starting at just $0.50/month. Most plans also come with a free domain for 1 year, and you even get free domain privacy with each purchase.
| Storage | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | No |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes |
| Social Media Integration Options | Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping |
| API (for custom integrations) | No |
| Stock Photography | No (but demo content is included, and you can search for images via Flickr) |
| Language Choices | Almost all languages via paid Apps |
| Favicon | Yes |
| Pages Limit | None |
Ease of Use
1&1 IONOS is another top option if you’re looking for a cheap easy website builder. However, the downside is that it limits the amount of customization you’re able to do. While not everyone has the skills, the ability to edit HTML and CSS makes it easy for developers to tweak the website’s look and feel.
Pricing
Business: $0.50/month initially, then $10/month
- Free domain 1 year
- Unlimited storage
- Simple tools to launch websites quickly
- Larger web projects
Essential: $4/month initially, then $6/month
- 1 website
- 10 GB storage
- Free domain 1 year
- For small projects
Expert: $8/month initially, then $16/month
- Targeted CDN and personalization options
- Unlimited websites
- Unlimited storage
- Multiple large web projects
Customer Satisfaction
If user reviews are to be believed, 1&1 IONOS is one of the best cheap website builders with a 4.1-star rating from nearly 15,000 reviewers on Trustpilot. Most users are very happy with the excellent phone support, while the few negative reviews typically focus on billing errors.
Competition Overview
Where 1&1 IONOS dominates: One of the only options that offer built-in targeted CDN and personalization options.
Where 1&1 IONOS falls short: There are no free terms of use for the platform at all.
- Host up to 5 sites on a single account
- Fantastic selection of themes
- Outstanding customer support
- The page builder is somewhat clunky
- Strikingly is relatively expensive
Strikingly is a website builder and hosting service aimed at modern brands, startups, and change-focused organizations such as NGOs. Strikingly’s plans allow you to create multiple websites with flexible payment terms. It’s also one of the best free website builders, allowing you to sell on the free plan.
Features
Strikingly comes with everything you need to create a functional and attractive online presence:
Themes
Strikingly has a decent collection of just under 70 demos. The quality of the designs varies somewhat, and it’s not the best cheap website builder if you’re looking for fantastic themes. However, the pre-built templates for creative professionals and even for a one-page website are quite good.
Add-ons
Strikingly doesn’t provide any add-ons or app marketplace.
Domain Name
Strikingly doesn’t offer domain registration.
| Storage | 1 GB – 100 GB per site (up to 5 sites) |
| Bandwidth | 50 GB – Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | No |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes |
| Social Media Integration Options | Facebook, Instagram, Twitter |
| API (for custom integrations) | No |
| Stock Photography | Yes (search for images via Unsplash) |
| Language Choices | Yes, around 16 languages are supported |
| Favicon | Yes |
| Pages Limit | 5 – unlimited per site |
Ease of Use
One of Strikingly’s strengths is that you can really just use one of the themes and launch a website with barely any effort. So, it’s one of the cheapest and easy website builders to get started with, which is good because the actual builder isn’t one of our favorites, as the interface is a bit non-standard and clunky.
Pricing
Free: $0/month
- Unlimited free sites.
- Strikingly.com subdomain.
- 5 GB bandwidth.
- 500 MB storage per site.
- 5 pages per site.
- 1 product per site
Limited: $12/month to $6/month for five years
- Link custom domain
- Up to 2 Limited sites
- 1 GB storage
- 50 GB bandwidth
- Up to 5 pages per site
- Sell up to 5 products
- 5% transaction fee
- For basic websites with minimal e-commerce
Pro: $20/month to $11.20/month for five years
- Up to 3 Pro sites
- 20 GB storage per site
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Up to 100 pages per site
- Up to 300 products
- 2.5%transaction fee
- Growing businesses with significant e-commerce
VIP: $59/month to $34.40/month for five years
- Up to 5 VIP sites
- 100 GB per site
- 2,000 active contacts
- Sell unlimited products
- 0% transaction fees
- Sell memberships
- Large business websites or membership-based sites
Customer Satisfaction
Strikingly customer reviews are mixed, with a 1.8-star rating on Trustpilot. Most complaints are regarding Strikingly’s renewal and billing practices, but many users still think Strikingly is a good cheap website builder for how easy it is to use.
Competition Overview
Where Strikingly dominates: Strikingly lets you host up to five separate websites on a single domain.
Where Strikingly falls short: Strikingly is more expensive than the average low-cost hosting provider.
- No transaction fees
- Incredibly simple and user-friendly
- Free logo creator
- Create up to 10 sites on a single account
- Starting prices are somewhat high for limited resources
- Relatively weak template offering
Jimdo used to operate as a standalone CMS that could be installed as a website builder with other hosting services. However, it now also offers a hosted solution simplified for a beginner crowd looking for an easy way to launch a website or online store. Because Jimdo lets you sell on the free plan, it can be considered the cheapest website builder for small businesses.
Features
Jimdo just about offers the bare essentials so you have less to worry about when building your online presence:
Themes
The good news is that Jimdo offers over 100 pre-built templates. The bad news is that they’re not the most modern or attractive on this list, but they’re exceptionally easy to customize.
Add-ons
Jimdo doesn’t provide any website apps or add-ons.
Domain Name
Jimdo offers domain registration services, and all paid plans come with an optional free domain provided by Jimdo for the first year.
| Storage | 500MB – Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | 2 GB – Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | Yes (Play) |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes |
| Social Media Integration Options | Facebook, Instagram |
| API (for custom integrations) | No |
| Stock Photography | No (but demo content is included) |
| Language Choices | 7 Languages – English, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Italian, Dutch |
| Favicon | Yes |
| Pages Limit | 5 – Unlimited |
Ease of Use
Jimdo is one of the cheapest website builders and hosting combos designed to not only help you launch a website but an entire online business from scratch, within minutes. The wizard narrows down exactly what you need, and even lets you select what pages you want. The customizer itself is extremely simple, with almost no learning curve.
Pricing
Play: $0/month
- 500 MB storage
- 2 GB bandwidth
- .jimdosite.com subdomain
- No customer support
- Up to 5 pages
- Best for testing Jimdo with small, non-business project
Start: $9/month
- 5 GB storage
- 10 GB bandwidth
- Link custom domain
- Advanced SEO and statistics
- Up to 10 pages
- 1–2-day support response time
- Small projects or business websites with own domain
Grow: $14/month
- 15 GB storage
- 20 GB bandwidth
- Up to 50 pages
- 4-hour support response time
- Small-to-medium business websites
Online store plans: $18/month (Business) – $24/month (VIP)
- 10 GB – Unlimited storage
- 10 GB – Unlimited bandwidth
- 4–1-hour support response time
- 10 unlimited pages
Customer Satisfaction
Overall, customers are really happy with their experience using Jimdo. It has an excellent 4.4-star score on Trustpilot from over 2,000 reviews, partly due to being the cheapest eCommerce website builder. Jimdo’s simplicity is both its biggest pro and con, with some appreciating it and others feeling limited.
Competition Overview
Where Jimdo dominates: Jimdo is one of the few cheap web hosting companies with no transaction fees.
Where Jimdo falls short: Jimdo is one of the most limiting platforms in terms of design and content freedom.
WordPress.com
Best for starting a blog or online publication with monetization and advanced marketing
Visit Website- Simple, transparent, and affordable pricing
- Very strong in terms of creating a content-based site
- Over 160 pre-built templates to choose from
- Many features are dependent on plugins
- Must pay for premium themes
WordPress.com is the original CMS that democratized access to the web, and it carries on that legacy by offering a user-friendly and streamlined website builder so users can get online with less time and effort.
Features
The WordPress.com platform is one of the best cheap professional website builders for blogs, but its true potential can be unlocked through themes and plugins:
Themes
WordPress.com has one of the largest collections of themes on this list. However, most are aimed at blogging or content-based sites, and although the majority are free, there are a handful of premium themes at $50 each.
Add-ons
WordPress.com allows you to install third-party plugins from its plugin repository. These link with popular services like MailChimp, Google, or various social media channels, and there are also some powerful WordPress business-oriented plugins to bring more advanced functionality or interactivity to your site.
Domain Name
If you’re looking for a cheap domain and website builder, WordPress.com’s domain rates should appeal to you. All paid plans also come with a free domain for the first year.
| Storage | 1 GB – 50 GB |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | Yes (Free) |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes (Pro) |
| Social Media Integration Options | Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and more |
| API (for custom integrations) | Yes (Basic REST API) |
| Stock Photography | Yes, search Pexels and OpenVerse |
| Language Choices | Yes, supports over 100 languages |
| Favicon | Yes |
| Pages Limit | None |
Ease of Use
If you’re looking to publish a lot of content, you’ll find WordPress.com is one of the cheapest and easy website builders. However, although it’s very easy to use once you get familiar with it, it’s not nearly as intuitive as some other options on this list for complete beginners.
Pricing
Free: $0/month
- 1 GB storage
- Unlimited Bandwidth
- 1 website admin
- Display WordPress ads
- Best for small projects to test WordPress.com
Pro: $15/month
- 50 GB storage
- Unlimited website admins
- No ads
- Accept payments
- Advanced SEO, social media, and marketing
- To start growing your audience and monetizing content
Customer Satisfaction
With a 2.5-star rating on Trustpilot, WordPress.com reviews are mixed, with some reporting excellent experiences while others claim the exact opposite. The main issue seems to be WordPress.com’s inconsistent support, but few disagree that the builder itself counts as one of the top cheap website builders.
Competition Overview
Where WordPress.com dominates: WordPress.com is one of the most convenient and powerful platforms for blogging.
Where WordPress.com falls short: WordPress.com isn’t as versatile for different types of sites without plugins.
- Powerful ecommerce tools with PoS integration
- Free email with large email allotments
- A large collection of high-quality website templates
- The customization options are somewhat limited
- The dashboard can be confusing to navigate
GoDaddy is easily one of the best domain registrars and website hosts in the world. Their website builder service is oriented toward businesses that want to grow with powerful e-commerce and e-mail marketing tools.
Features
GoDaddy offers an extensive website creation platform that’s continuously updated with new capabilities:
Themes
GoDaddy has a decent selection of around 100 templates across a large variety of business-related categories. There are even coming soon pages that you can use to start drumming up support for your business. So, it really is one of the top cheap professional website builders when it comes to out-of-the-box designs.
Add-ons
GoDaddy doesn’t use any plugins or apps.
Domain Name
GoDaddy is easily one of the most used domain registrars in the world where you can buy all types of domains and get an advanced domain and DNS management. Unfortunately, they don’t offer any free domains.
| Storage | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | No |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes |
| Social Media Integration Options | Social selling on Facebook, Google, Instagram, etc. |
| API (for custom integrations) | Yes |
| Stock Photography | No |
| Language Choices | Yes, supports over 100 languages |
| Favicon | Yes |
| Pages Limit | None |
Ease of Use
GoDaddy is a website builder that sacrifices some design freedom for ease of use. Unfortunately, while it’s definitely one of the cheapest and easy website builders to use, the same can’t be said for the clunky GoDaddy account dashboard. That being said, the documentation is very thorough.
Pricing
Basic: $6.99/month ($11.99/month when you renew)
- Unlimited bandwidth and storage
- 100 emails/month
- No e-commerce
- Best for small businesses with appointments
Premium: $13.99/month ($21.99/month when you renew)
- 25,000 emails/month
- Best for small/medium businesses with significant email marketing
Commerce: $14.99/month ($24.99/month when you renew)
- 25,000 emails/month
- List 5,000 products
- 50 orders/month
- Small/medium e-commerce businesses
Commerce Plus: $29.99/month ($44.99/month when you renew)
- 50,000 emails/month
- Unlimited products
- 1,000 orders per month
- Large e-commerce businesses that rely on email marketing
Customer Satisfaction
It’s fair to say most GoDaddy customers feel it’s one of the top cheap website builders. GoDaddy has one of the highest customer satisfaction ratings, with 4.6/5 from over 40,000 reviewers.
Competition Overview
Where GoDaddy dominates: GoDaddy is one of the most complete platforms for businesses with a digital and physical side.
Where GoDaddy falls short: GoDaddy doesn’t offer any free version or plan.
- Good customizability and design freedom
- One of the largest and best template libraries
- Beginner-friendly marketing guides and add-ons
- Easy, but limiting customization tools
- Could do with more themes
Wix was one of the first affordable website builders to reach mainstream status. It’s still one of the most feature-rich and versatile website builder platforms for any type of user and business, and its capabilities are continuously expanding.
Features
Wix is one of the more feature-rich cheap website creator options catering to a variety of users. If you’re into custom coding, Wix also has a pretty advanced developer mode. The versatility of the platform means it’s not only one of the cheapest website builders for small businesses but for any type of site.
Themes
Wix comes pre-loaded with an astounding library of nearly 700 templates, covering all niches and website types. Even better, the quality and design standard of the templates are pretty high compared with the competition.
Add-ons
There’s an official Wix app market with over 250 free, freemium, and premium apps. Most apps are for marketing, social media, online selling, and media management, and there’s even an app to add social feeds to your pages. Generally, they have quite good reviews.
Domain Name
Wix does provide domain registration services. All paid plans (except for the Connect plan) also come with a free domain for one year.
| Storage | 500 MB – 50 GB |
| Bandwidth | 500 MB – Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | Yes (Free) |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes |
| Social Media Integration Options | Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Tumblr, and Pinterest |
| API (for custom integrations) | Yes (REST API) |
| Stock Photography | Yes |
| Language Choices | English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Polish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Chinese, Thai, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, Hindi, and Czech |
| Favicon | Yes |
| Pages Limit | 100 |
Ease of Use
Wix isn’t just another cheap simple website builder. Although its dashboard has a lot of areas that may seem overwhelming at first, the website editor offers a good balance between customization freedom and ease of use. You’ll be able to take full control over each part of your website pages, such as the header, footer, navigation bar, and even popups.
Pricing
Free: $0/month
- 500 MB bandwidth and storage
- No payments
- Wix ads
- Best for testing Wix with small, non-business projects
Combo: $16/month
- 2 GB bandwidth and storage
- 30 minutes video streaming
- Free domain
- No ads
- For small personal websites or blogs
Unlimited: $22/month
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 5 GB storage
- 1 hour of video streaming
- Site Booster and Visit Analytics app
- Medium-sized businesses or e-commerce-focused sites
Pro: $27/month
- 50 GB storage
- 2 hours of video streaming
- Site Booster and Visit Analytics app
- Events Calendar app
- Professional logo
- For complete on-line branding
VIP: $45/month
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 100 GB storage
- 5 hours of video streaming
- Professional logo
- Priority support
- For professionals and non-e-commerce businesses
Business and eCommerce Plans: Starting at $27/month–$59/month
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 50 GB–unlimited storage
- 5–unlimited hours of video streaming
- Up to unlimited Dropshipping products by Modalyst
- Up to 500 transactions with automated tax calculations
- Small to large online eCommerce retailers
Customer Satisfaction
With a 1.7-star rating on Trustpilot, Wix’s customer reviews aren’t great. The major reasons behind the negative reviews are errors with the platform and the lack of solid technical support. However, in terms of features and flexibility, it’s still one of the top cheap professional website builders.
Competition Overview
Where Wix dominates: Wix offers one of the most powerful website builder tools that gives you plenty of freedom.
Where Wix falls short: Wix has fairly poor customer reviews for a number of different reasons.
- Easily edit and manage your website with mobile or tablet apps
- Incredibly simple and intuitive page editor
- Beginner-friendly marketing guides and add-ons
- Relatively tight storage and bandwidth limits
- Even some paid plans have Webnode branding
- Very limited customization
Webnode makes it clear that they aim to make building a website as effortless and fuss-free as possible. The whole system is designed to get you online within a matter of minutes without having to make extensive customization changes or configurations.
Features
As a good cheap website builder, Webnode’s main focus is on ease of use and not features:
Themes
Webnode offers over 100 website templates to choose from, most of which come with modern, user-friendly, and attractive designs. All categories are well represented, and new templates are frequently added.
Add-ons
Webnode doesn’t make use of any add-ons, apps, or plugins.
Domain Name
You can register a domain with Webnode or link an external domain. Mini, Standard, and Profi users will get a free domain for 1 year.
| Storage | 100MB – 7 GB |
| Bandwidth | 1 GB Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | Yes (Free, Limited, Mini) |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes (Standard, Profi) |
| Social Media Integration Options | Social media icons |
| API (for custom integrations) | No |
| Stock Photography | Yes |
| Language Choices | Up to 5 languages |
| Favicon | Yes |
| Pages Limit | None |
Ease of Use
As one of the simplest and cheapest website builder and hosting options, Webnode has one of the smoothest signup processes—just choose a website name and your template, and you can immediately start building your site. The documentation is full of useful and easy-to-follow step-by-step guides, but few video tutorials.
Pricing
Free: $0/month
- 100 MB storage
- 1 GB bandwidth
- Webnode branding
- No custom domain
- Best for testing Webnode
Limited: $3.90/month
- Link custom domain
- 200 MB storage
- 1 GB bandwidth
- Limited website statistics
- Webnode branding
- Small, personal projects with their own domain
Mini: $7.50/month
- 1 GB storage
- 3 GB bandwidth
- Full website statistics
- 1 email account
- Free domain
- Video background and form builder
- Small personal websites, blogs, or business sites
Standard: $12.90/month
- 3 GB storage
- 10 GB bandwidth
- 100 email accounts
- Online store
- No Webnode branding
- Up to 100 members
- 2 languages
- 5 backups
- Medium-sized businesses or e-commerce-focused sites
Profi: $22.90/month
- 7 GB storage
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 20 email accounts
- Unlimited members
- Unlimited languages
- Unlimited backups
- Medium-sized businesses with a large audience
Customer Satisfaction
With a rating of 2.8/5 from nearly 300 Trustpilot reviews, Webnode may not seem like the best cheap website builder and hosting service at first. However, most reviewers are highly positive about the ease of use and how fun the platform is, although many complain about the lack of fast and helpful customer support.
Competition Overview
Where Webnode dominates: Webnode lets you create and launch a website in a matter of minutes.
Where Webnode falls short: Webnode is relatively restrictive when it comes to growing and customizing your website.
- Super cheap introductory rates
- 24/7 customer support (live chat, phone, email)
- Massive selection of website templates
- Great marketing and social media tools
- No free plan or trial
- Renewal rates can be quite high
- Very basic design tool
HostGator is one of the most popular low-cost hosting providers in the world. Their website builder has been around for some time but has gone through numerous updates. It’s a simple builder, but with advanced marketing capabilities.
Features
HostGator is one of the best and cheapest website builder options in some aspects, and less impressive in others. However, you get everything you need to run a website, including advanced marketing tools:
Themes
The HostGator website builder comes with hundreds of out-of-the-box website templates. Of course, there’s plenty of variety, with a strong focus on special interests and hobby themes.
Add-ons
With HostGator, you have access to a basic selection of apps to add integration and widgets to your website, which includes calendars, audio or podcasts, Twitch streaming, and donations, for example.
Domain Name
HostGator provides a free domain for 1 year with all of its plans as long as you subscribe for a year or more. It has a pretty extensive domain marketplace, so all extensions are available. And, with affordable domain rates, it stays one of the cheapest website hosting and builder combos available.
| Storage | Unlimited |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited |
| SSL | Yes |
| Ads (Included or not) | No |
| Option To Sell Products | Yes |
| Social Media Integration Options | Yes |
| API (for custom integrations) | No |
| Stock Photography | Yes |
| Language Choices | Yes, but no multilingual site support |
| Favicon | Yes |
| Pages Limit | 6 – Unlimited |
Ease of Use
Like some others on this list, HostGator sacrifices design freedom for ease of use. The website editor is really straightforward, but you’ll be limited in long-term flexibility. Luckily, they have very comprehensive support resources.
Pricing
Hatchling: $10.95/month, or 2.75/month for 36 months
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free domain
- Single website
- One-click WordPress installs
Baby Plan: $11.95/month, or 3.50/month for 36 months
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Free domain
- Unlimited websites
- One-click WordPress installs
Business Plan: $16.95/month, or $5.25/month for 36 months
- Unmetered bandwidth
- Unlimited websites
- Free domain
- Free dedicated IP
Customer Satisfaction
As one of the most popular cheap website builders, HostGator does a good job of keeping its customers happy. They have a 3.9 rating on Trustpilot from nearly 2,000 reviews, with many praising HostGator’s customer support.
Competition Overview
Where HostGator dominates: HostGator stands out in terms of its marketing capabilities as well as round-the-clock customer support.
Where HostGator falls short: HostGator’s design tool can do with a refresh to be more modern.
Cheap Website Builder – Buyer’s Guide
As you can see, there are a lot of factors to consider when choosing the ideal affordable website builder. Below, we’ll give you some more advice on how to narrow down your options to the best choice for you.
How to Choose the Best Budget-friendly Website Builder
When choosing a new website builder, here are the most important factors to consider:
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The Resources You Need
Even the best and cheapest website builder services have caps on the resources you can use, so you need to carefully measure these limits in terms of your requirements. For example, a blog with a large readership may need a lot of bandwidth, but not necessarily storage. However, a website with lots of media will need a lot of storage, regardless of the traffic.
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The Purpose of the Site
The most popular uses for a website today are as a portfolio, blog, business portal, or online store. Some builders have features aimed specifically at different website types. For example, business and blog website owners will benefit a lot from SEO and marketing tools.
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Whether You Need a Domain Too
Usually, free plans give you a free subdomain, such as mysite.wix.com. However, you can typically get a free domain for one year with a paid plan, and you can also look for deals on an extra cheap domain and website builder combo.
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Design Customization Options
Pre-built templates can be a great starting point for a professional and attractive website, but you also need some design flexibility to make it fit in with your brand. Most website builders today offer no-code visual editors.
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Ease of Use
Although website builders don’t require technical expertise for hosting, some builders are easier to use than others. However, remember that more beginner-friendly builders typically have limited customization freedom, so you’ll need to find a balance that suits you.
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Upgrade Options or Add-Ons
Website builders are meant to be simple and easy to use, which typically means fewer out-of-the-box features. Upgrades or add-ons let users pay or install separate features they really need, but some of the cheapest website builders don’t have this option, which you should keep in mind when shopping around.
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Images Library
Images are the primary decorative element for most website pages, so being able to search from large image libraries is important for creating an attractive and unique design.
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Customer Support
If you have experience using website builders or managing a website, you probably won’t need as much support. However, if you’re inexperienced, support is incredibly important to minimize the impact of technical issues.
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Limitations
Other limitations might apply, such as the number of websites you can create with a single account, the number of pages you can have, email campaigns, user accounts, or the number of unique visits a month. Always read the fine print and make sure they fit your needs—some free plans don’t even qualify as a cheap website builder and hosting option, as you can’t launch your site live.
What Should You Look for in a Website Builder?
First and foremost, you should always look for a cheap website builder that satisfies your requirements, especially if you plan to run an online business.
How many visitors do you expect? What features do you need? How many or what type of products do you want to sell? How important is design or customizability? How many employees do you have and do they need access to your website? Do you want users to be able to register an account? What marketing campaigns do you plan to run?
You should consider these and many other questions to narrow down your exact requirements and choose the best cheap website builder based on which one satisfies most of your needs.
Is it Worth Using a Website Builder?
Yes! For those who don’t have coding or professional web design experience, a website builder can be a great way to get online. They usually provide everything you need, including a free domain, SSL certificates, professional templates, marketing tools, content management systems, and e-commerce tools. Some even let you create personalized experiences with dynamic pages without any code.
Even if you’re able to build and design websites, a website builder can be a great time-saver, as designing and building a custom website from scratch can take weeks and requires constant maintenance.
Typically, website builders cost anywhere from a couple of dollars to $20/month, which is really cheap considering everything you get. If you go with one of the more beginner-friendly options, you can literally launch a website within an hour with little-to-no prior experience.
Cheapest Website Builder Solutions at a Glance
| Lowest-priced plan | Free trial/report | Storage | Bandwidth | Best for | |
| Weebly | $6/month | Free plan + 30-day money-back guarantee | 500 MB–Unlimited | 500 MB–Unlimited | Beginner website owners. |
| Zyro | $8.99/month | 30-day money-back guarantee | Unlimited | Unlimited | Quickly building and launching a website. |
| 1&1 IONOS | $0.50/month | 30-day money-back guarantee | Unlimited | Unlimited | Best for low-cost e-commerce hosting. |
| Strikingly | $12/month | Free plan + 14-day free trial | 1 GB–100 GB per site | 5 GB–Unlimited per site | Best for multiple website hosting. |
| Jimdo | $9/month | Free plan + 14-day money-back guarantee. | 500 MB–Unlimited | 2 GB–Unlimited | Best for no-fee e-commerce. |
| WordPress.com | $15/month | Free plan + 14-day money-back guarantee. | 1 GB–50 GB | Unlimited | Best for blogging or content-based sites. |
| GoDaddy | $6.99/month | Free 7-day trial | Unlimited | Unlimited | Best for businesses with a physical store. |
| Wix | $16/month | Free plan + 14-day refund | 500 MB–50 GB | 500 MB–Unlimited | Best for design and customization freedom. |
| Webnode | $3.90/month | Free plan + 15-day refunds | 100 MB–7 GB | 1 GB–Unlimited | Best for simple, no-fuss business sites. |
| HostGator | $2.75/month | 45-day money-back guarantee | Unlimited | Unmetered | Best for 24/7 customer support. |
Wrap Up
So, if you’re looking for a fast, easy, and affordable way to build an online presence, a website builder is a great way to go. On top of being accessible for beginners, you’ll usually be able to start small with a trial or risk-free money-back guarantee. Just remember to use the information in this guide, and choose an option that aligns with your goals for your website.
FAQ
Technically, you can use a website builder for free with most of these options, within certain limitations. However, the cheapest host with no ads and ecommerce capabilities is 1&1 IONOS. That being said, other options might be cheaper for specific features or capabilities.
It depends. Free website builders usually have very limited storage and bandwidth, which means you won’t be able to host a lot of media or visitors. Some even make you host on a subdomain or display ads/branding on your website, making it less professional. Free hosting is typically only good for small projects or as a test.
Once again, 1&1 IONOS is the cheapest at just $0.50/month, including the ability to sell products. However, the ideal cheap website builder for your small businesses depends on what you need. GoDaddy is great for integrating with a physical PoS, while Jimdo has no transaction fees.
