Best Website Builder in 2026

Last reviewed 30 August 2026Data verified 30 August 2026Four picks, one role each

The short answer

Wix is the best website builder for most people, because it is the easiest here to get a real site out of. WordPress.com costs a quarter as much and asks more of you. Webflow is the only one you can leave with your code. Every price below is twelve months of a plan that actually gives you a website.

Every price on this page is twelve months of the cheapest plan that gives you your own domain and no vendor advertising, read from the vendor on 30 August 2026.

That anchor exists because the numbers in this category are theatre. When we read the two largest competing pages on 30 August 2026, TechRadar's website builder ranking quoted Hostinger at $2.69 a month, and Website Builder Expert quoted Wix at $15.30 "with code TAKE10" and Squarespace at $17.10 "with code WBE10". None of those is what anyone pays for a year of a working website, and the free plans are worse: every one of them puts you on a vendor subdomain with vendor branding attached.

What the best website builders cost for a year

WordPress.com Personal is $48 for twelve months, the cheapest here. Framer Basic is $120. Hostinger is $131.88 at its renewal rate, which is the subject of a section below. Webflow Basic is $180. Wix Light is $204. Shopify Basic is $348, the dearest, and no domain with it.

Squarespace is missing from that list, and its absence gets its own section.

The free plans are demos

Wix, Webflow, Framer and WordPress.com all offer a free plan. All four put you on a vendor subdomain, which means you do not have a website, you have a page on somebody else's website.

All four also brand it. Wix puts Wix branding on the site. Webflow keeps a Made in Webflow badge. Framer keeps a Made in Framer badge until you connect a domain or upgrade, and states so plainly. WordPress.com goes furthest and shows its own advertising to your visitors.

Framer's is still the most generous of the four, with three editors and published project limits of 1,000 pages and 10 CMS collections, and Framer says openly that it is meant for non-commercial use rather than implying otherwise.

Squarespace and Hostinger offer no free plan at all, fourteen day trials instead, and on this page that reads as the more honest arrangement rather than the meaner one.

Use a free plan to find out whether an editor suits you. Do not use one to have a website.

What it costs to leave

This is the most expensive thing in the category and almost nobody prices it.

Webflow is the only platform here with real code export, and it is not on the site plan you buy to publish. Export sits on the Workspace plans, $228 a year on top of the $180 site plan. And Webflow states that dynamic content, meaning CMS items and pages, cannot be exported. So you leave with your static pages and your design, and your content stays.

WordPress.com has no export button of that kind and does not need one. It runs WordPress, so content, themes and plugins all move to a host of your choosing without a rebuild. That is why it scores second of the seven on scalability, behind only Shopify, and first among the platforms here you would use to make a website.

Shopify downloads theme files and exports product data to CSV.

Wix, Squarespace, Framer and Hostinger offer nothing. At Wix it is worse than nothing: changing template means rebuilding the site, so you are locked in not only to the platform but to the design you picked in week one.

The cheapest real year is the one nobody quotes

WordPress.com Personal, $48 for twelve months, with a free domain in year one and no advertising shown to your visitors. That is less than half the next cheapest plan on this page, and the reason nobody quotes it is that the WordPress.com pricing page has four billing toggles and the one everybody screenshots is the monthly rate, $9 a month.

And the thing that makes it a finding rather than a price: plugins now install on every paid plan. The WordPress.com pricing page lists plugin installation as a Personal plan feature and answers the question directly in its own FAQ. Most comparison pages in this category still tell readers plugins require the Business plan at $300 a year. That is about two hundred and fifty dollars a year of advice the category has not updated.

What Business actually buys is SFTP, SSH and Git. That is a developer's requirement, not a plugin one.

The $2.99 that is four years long

Hostinger advertises its builder at $2.99 a month, and that number is on half the comparison pages in this category.

What it buys is 48 months paid upfront, $143.52 at once, renewing at $10.99 a month afterwards. There is no twelve month version of it, which is why this page anchors Hostinger at the renewal rate.

Credit where it is owed. Hostinger prints that renewal figure on the same card as the offer, in plain text. Wix, Squarespace and Webflow publish nothing of the kind. The misleading thing about $2.99 is not what Hostinger says about it, it is what other pages do when they lift the number and leave the sentence underneath behind.

Two of these will not show you a dollar

Squarespace and Framer both render the currency of the country they detect, with no reference figure and no way to switch.

Framer resolves to dollars when the page is fetched from a United States address, so this site publishes its prices. Squarespace draws its numbers client side and resolves to nothing, so this site publishes none. From central Europe the three Squarespace plans read as eleven, seventeen and twenty nine euros a month billed annually, on 30 August 2026.

The reason that counts against Squarespace rather than against geography is Wix. Wix localises its prices too, and prints one line under the table saying dollar prices are displayed for reference. That line is why a reader anywhere can compare Wix against anything, and it costs a vendor nothing.

Pick order is not score order

Two of our four picks are not the highest scores on the page.

Shopify scores 8.1, above three of the four, and sits outside them because it is a commerce platform rather than a website builder. It is the right answer to a question this page is not asking.

Wix takes Best Overall at 7.8 while WordPress.com scores 8.2, the highest of the seven. The head term asks for a builder, and the WordPress.com block editor is the hardest thing here for somebody who has never built a site. WordPress.com takes the value role instead, which is where its score comes from.

Squarespace sits outside the four because a page anchored to what twelve months costs cannot pick a platform that will not say.

Why there are no speed tests on this page

You will find load-time tables and testing-hour counts on the pages competing with this one, and they are not decoration. TechRadar states it has tested over 80 platforms. Website Builder Expert states 300 hours across 12, with a published weighting.

We did none of that. We compared published pricing, renewal terms, plan contents, export terms, transaction fees and free-plan limits, all read from the vendors and dated. That is what this page is for, and if load time under real traffic is your deciding factor, those two test properly and publish their method, and you should use them for it rather than take a number from a page that did not run one.

Both pages state that they earn affiliate commission, and both disclose it clearly. We earn nothing from any link on this page. Neither of those facts settles anything on its own, and a page that measures things and takes commission is more useful than a page that does neither.

The four picks

Best Overall

Wix

7.8/10

The easiest capable builder here, and the only one that prints a dollar price for an overseas reader.

From $17/mo

Visit WixRead the full Wix review

Best Value

WordPress.com

8.2/10

Less than half the price of anything else here for a real year, and plugins now work on the cheapest plan.

From $4/mo

Visit WordPress.comRead the full WordPress.com review

Best free plan

Framer

7.7/10

The most usable free tier on offer, and a paid year that costs less than everything except WordPress.com.

From $10/mo

Visit FramerRead the full Framer review

Best for designers and agencies

Webflow

7.4/10

The only builder here that will hand you your HTML and CSS, for a second subscription and minus your CMS.

From $15/mo

Visit WebflowRead the full Webflow review

Side by side

Side by side comparison of the four picks
	Wix	WordPress.com	Framer	Webflow
Score	7.8	8.2	7.7	7.4
Starting price	$17/mo	$4/mo	$10/mo	$15/mo
Free tier	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Own domain from	Light, $204 a year	Personal, $48 a year	Basic, $120 a year	Basic site plan, $180 a year
Code export terms	None. Content and design stay on Wix	Full export of content and, on Business, database and SFTP access	None. Framer publishes and hosts, it does not hand over the site	Workspace Core at $228 a year on top, and CMS content is excluded
Free plan	Yes, subdomain with Wix branding	Yes, subdomain with vendor ads	Yes, subdomain with a Made in Framer badge	Yes, subdomain with a Webflow badge
USD price readable

How we picked

What we scored, and how heavily

Criteria set: Platforms and hosting. The same set applies to every product of this type across the site, so a score means the same thing wherever you find it.

25%Performance. Speed and reliability under real load.
20%Usability. How quickly you can ship something usable.
20%Value. Total cost of running it, including fees and add-ons.
15%Scalability. What happens when traffic or catalog size grows.
10%Support. Documentation, response times, available channels.
10%Ecosystem. Apps, themes, integrations, available expertise.

Read the full rating methodology

The picks in detail

1. Best Overall

Wix

The most capable builder here, and the only one that prints a USD reference price.

7.8/10

ARecommended

The most capable builder for a beginner, and the most expensive one to walk away from.

What works

The easiest editor here for somebody with no experience
Round the clock support on the cheapest paid plan
Prints a USD reference price, which nothing else here does for an overseas reader
More than two thousand templates and a real app market

What does not

No code export at all, so leaving means rebuilding somewhere else
Changing template means rebuilding the site rather than reskinning it
The free domain voucher covers year one only and never a renewal
The free plan is a wix.com subdomain carrying Wix branding

Best for

A first website, built by the person who will run it
Small businesses that want bookings, payments and a site in one place

Not for

Anyone who expects to move the site elsewhere later
Designers who want control over the markup that ships

What it costs

From $17 per month · free tier available · 14-day money back

Wix pricing tiers
Plan	Monthly	Annual, per month	What you get
Light	Not published	$17	$204 for twelve months, the figure this comparison uses · Custom domain, Wix branding removed, 2 GB storage · Free domain voucher on a first yearly purchase only, never on renewal
Core	Not published	$29	$348 for twelve months · Payments, standard ecommerce and customer accounts, 50 GB storage · The first tier that can actually sell something
Business	Not published	$39	$468 for twelve months · Free domain for one year, 100 GB storage, standard marketing suite · Scheduling and services
Business Elite	Not published	$159	$1,908 for twelve months · Custom API access, multiple languages and currencies · Priced for a business rather than a site
Free1 site	$0		A wix.com subdomain, not your own domain · Wix branding on the site · A way to try the editor

Four paid tiers, the cheapest of which meets our anchor: Light at $17 a month billed yearly, $204 for twelve months, with a custom domain and Wix branding removed. Storage is the thing the tier list is really selling: 2 GB on Light, 50 GB on Core and 100 GB on Business. Wix states that every premium plan removes Wix branding, and that the one year free domain voucher applies only to a first yearly purchase and never to a renewal, so budget for the domain from year two. What Wix does that nothing else in this comparison does: it prints "USD prices displayed for reference only" beneath the table, so somebody comparing from outside the United States can. Squarespace and Framer both render local currency with no such reference. The free plan is a wix.com subdomain carrying Wix branding. A 14-day money-back guarantee applies to the paid plans.

Score breakdown for wix, criteria set Platforms and hosting
Criterion	Weight	Score
Performance A 99.99 percent uptime claim and multi-cloud hosting, behind Framer and Webflow on published page weight because an editor that lets you drag anything anywhere buys that flexibility with markup. Architecture rather than a measurement, and we did not take one.	25%	8.0
Usability The easiest of the seven for somebody who has never built a site, with genuine drag-and-drop rather than a section system, and an AI first draft that gets you to something editable in minutes.	20%	9.0
Value Two hundred and four dollars for twelve months is the middle of this comparison and buys the most capable editor, while the domain voucher expiring after year one is a cost the pricing page does not lead with.	20%	7.5
Scalability The hardest platform here to leave: no code export, and changing template means rebuilding the site, so growth inside Wix is easy and growth away from Wix is a project.	15%	5.5
Support Round the clock support on every paid plan including the cheapest, which is more than Webflow, Framer or WordPress.com offer at that price.	10%	8.5
Ecosystem More than two thousand templates and a large app market, all of it inside Wix and none of it portable anywhere else.	10%	8.5
Weighted total	100%	7.8

Visit WixFull Wix review

2. Best Value

WordPress.com

The cheapest twelve months here, and plugins now work on every paid plan.

8.2/10

ARecommended

The cheapest honest year in the category, bought with a harder editor than anything else here.

What works

Forty eight dollars for twelve months with a domain and no advertising, less than half the next cheapest
Third-party plugins on every paid plan, including the $48 one
Content and software both portable to self-hosted WordPress
The largest theme and plugin ecosystem of any platform in this comparison

What does not

The block editor is harder to learn than any drag-and-drop builder here
The free plan shows WordPress.com advertising to your visitors
SFTP and database access still require the Business plan at $300 a year
No published uptime guarantee on the lower plans

Best for

Anyone who wants a real site cheaply and does not need drag-and-drop
Publishers and bloggers, which is what the platform was built for

Not for

Somebody who wants to drag a box and be finished in an afternoon
Stores, where Shopify does the job this platform charges $540 for

What it costs

From $4 per month · free tier available

WordPress.com pricing tiers
Plan	Monthly	Annual, per month	What you get
Personal1 site, unlimited users	$9	$4	$48 for twelve months, by a wide margin the cheapest qualifying year in this comparison · Free custom domain for year one and no visitor advertising · Third-party plugins installable, which used to require the Business plan
Premium1 site, unlimited users	$18	$8	$96 for twelve months · Every premium theme, premium stats, payment buttons and video hosting · 13 GB storage against 6 GB on Personal
Business1 site, unlimited users	$40	$25	$300 for twelve months · SFTP, SSH, WP-CLI, Git and GitHub deployments · The tier most guides still say you need for plugins
Commerce1 site, unlimited users	$70	$45	$540 for twelve months · WooCommerce, 60+ countries and 135+ currencies · Priced against Shopify rather than against a builder
Free1 site	$0		A wordpress.com subdomain, not your own domain · WordPress.com advertising shown to your visitors · 1 GB storage, and no plugins

The cheapest twelve months of any platform in this comparison that meets our anchor, at $48 for the Personal plan billed yearly, including a free custom domain for the first year and no advertising shown to visitors. Read the billing toggle carefully, because the same plan carries four different rates: Personal is $9 a month billed monthly, $4 billed yearly, $3.25 over two years and $2.75 over three. This page uses the yearly rate throughout. A first-year promotional discount was also running when we checked, below the standing yearly rate, and we anchor on the standing rate rather than the promotion. The important change is the plugin rule. WordPress.com lists plugin installation as a feature of the Personal plan on its own pricing page and answers it directly in the page FAQ, and most comparison pages in this category still tell readers plugins require the Business plan. Storage runs 6 GB on Personal, 13 GB on Premium and 50 GB above. The free plan is a wordpress.com subdomain carrying WordPress.com advertising, with no plugins and 1 GB of storage.

Score breakdown for wordpress-com, criteria set Platforms and hosting
Criterion	Weight	Score
Performance Automattic hosting is fast and dependable at the scale a small site works at, and the platform publishes no uptime figure for the lower tiers, which is the reason this is not higher.	25%	8.0
Usability The weakest editor here by some distance: the block editor asks more of a beginner than any drag-and-drop builder on this page, and rewards the patience with far more control.	20%	6.5
Value Forty eight dollars for twelve months with a domain, no advertising and third-party plugins is not merely the cheapest real year in this comparison, it is less than half the next one, and the plugin change adds a few hundred dollars more to the gap than most guides think.	20%	9.5
Scalability The only platform here you can leave without rebuilding, because the content and the software are both portable to self-hosted WordPress at any point, and second on this criterion only to Shopify, which scales in a different direction entirely.	15%	9.0
Support Documentation is enormous and the community is larger than every other platform here combined, while direct support on the lower plans is slower than Wix or Squarespace.	10%	7.0
Ecosystem The largest theme and plugin ecosystem in existence by a wide margin, and now reachable from the cheapest paid plan rather than from the $300 one.	10%	9.5
Weighted total	100%	8.2

Visit WordPress.comFull WordPress.com review

3. Best free plan

Framer

A design tool that publishes, at the second cheapest real year here.

7.7/10

ARecommended

The best-looking sites here and the lightest output, for one person who can design, priced per person after that.

What works

The lightest published output here, because a design tool emits markup rather than assembling widgets
A free custom domain included with yearly billing
A real design tool, so the result does not look like a template
A hundred and twenty dollars for twelve months, second cheapest here

What does not

Extra editors are billed per seat on top of the plan
AI features run on a credit allowance, so the plan price is not the whole bill
Thirty pages and two CMS collections on the entry plan
No dollar price shown unless the site places you in a dollar country

Best for

Designers, and anyone comfortable in Figma
Marketing sites and portfolios where the look is the product

Not for

Somebody who wants to pick a template and fill it in
Teams of editors, where the per-seat charge changes the price completely

What it costs

From $10 per month · free tier available

Framer pricing tiers
Plan	Monthly	Annual, per month	What you get
Basic1 editor, extra editors billed separately	Not published	$10	$120 for twelve months, the figure this comparison uses · Free custom domain, a free .com is included on yearly billing · 30 pages, 2 CMS collections, 50 GB bandwidth
Pro10 seats	Not published	$30	$360 for twelve months · 10 CMS collections, 100 GB bandwidth, staging and branching · Site search, redirects and password protection
FreeUp to 3 editors	$0		A framer.website subdomain, not your own domain, and a Made in Framer badge until you connect one · Framer states the free plan carries 10 CMS collections, 1,000 pages, 5 MB file uploads and one locale · 1 GB bandwidth, 500 AI credits, and Framer describes it as ideal for non-commercial use

The second cheapest qualifying year here at $120, and the one whose bill is hardest to predict. Basic is $10 a month billed yearly with a free custom domain, 30 pages, 2 CMS collections and 50 GB of bandwidth. Pro is $30. Two things the headline does not carry. Additional editors are billed per seat on top of the plan, which turns a $120 site into a several hundred dollar one the moment a second person needs to edit it. And AI features run on a monthly credit allowance shared across the workspace, so the cost of the plan and the cost of using it are not the same number. Framer renders the currency of the country it detects and offers no reference price: read from central Europe it quotes koruna. The dollar figures here came from a US-located fetch of the same page. There is no free trial, only a free plan on a framer.website subdomain, and Framer states the badge disappears once you connect a custom domain or upgrade. One oddity worth knowing before comparing the tiers: Framer publishes generous limits for the free plan, 10 CMS collections and 1,000 pages, which look larger than the 2 collections and 30 pages on paid Basic. They are project limits for design work rather than published-site limits, so the two numbers are not measuring the same thing.

Score breakdown for framer, criteria set Platforms and hosting
Criterion	Weight	Score
Performance Lighter published output than any template engine here, delivered from a twenty location network, level with Shopify on this criterion and reaching it from the opposite direction: Shopify is built for checkout under load, this is built to emit markup.	25%	9.0
Usability A genuine design tool rather than a builder, which is exactly right if you have used Figma and a wall if you have not, and no template rescue if you cannot design.	20%	7.5
Value A hundred and twenty dollars for twelve months with a domain included is the second cheapest here, and the per-seat editor charge and the AI credit allowance both sit outside that figure.	20%	8.0
Scalability Thirty pages and two CMS collections on the entry plan is a small site by design, and the step to Pro triples the bill before any add-on.	15%	6.0
Support Documentation and an academy rather than staffed support at this price, with an uptime guarantee reserved for Enterprise.	10%	6.5
Ecosystem A lively marketplace of templates, components and plugins, all of it inside Framer, and a strong Figma import path in.	10%	7.5
Weighted total	100%	7.7

Visit FramerFull Framer review

4. Best for designers and agencies

Webflow

The only builder here you can leave with your code, sold as a second subscription.

7.4/10

BRecommended with a reservation

The best exit route in the category, sold as an add-on and incomplete when you use it.

What works

The only platform in this comparison that will hand you your HTML and CSS
A real CMS with staging, rather than a blog bolted onto a builder
Clean, fast published output
A large professional community and freelancer pool

What does not

Code export needs a second subscription at $228 a year on top of the site plan
Webflow states that dynamic CMS content cannot be exported at all
The hardest learning curve of the seven
No domain included at any site plan tier

Best for

Designers and agencies building for clients
Anyone who wants the option of leaving with the front end intact

Not for

A first website built by somebody with no web background
Anyone comparing on the entry price, which is not the price they will pay

What it costs

From $15 per month · free tier available

Webflow pricing tiers
Plan	Monthly	Annual, per month	What you get
Basic site plan1 site	Not published	$15	$180 for twelve months, the figure this comparison uses · Custom domain and the Made in Webflow badge removed · No domain included, so budget for it separately
CMS site plan1 site	Not published	$25	$300 for twelve months · The full CMS, code components and site search · The tier most Webflow sites actually need
Core workspace plan1 full seat	Not published	$19	$228 for twelve months, paid on top of a site plan · This is where code export lives · Webflow states that dynamic CMS content cannot be exported
Ecommerce standard1 site	Not published	$29	$348 for twelve months · 500 items and a 2 percent transaction fee · Plus at $74 and Advanced at $212 a month remove the fee
Starter, free1 site	$0		A webflow.io subdomain, not your own domain · The Made in Webflow badge stays · 2 static pages, 50 CMS items, 1 GB bandwidth

Two ladders that have to be added together, which is the thing to understand before comparing Webflow with anything else on this page. Site plans carry the site: Basic at $15 a month billed yearly, $180 for twelve months, is the cheapest that gives you a custom domain and removes the Made in Webflow badge, and it includes no domain. CMS at $25 is the tier most real sites need. Workspace plans carry the people and the tooling, and code export is on those rather than on the site plan: Core is $19 a month, $228 a year, on top. So the honest price of a Webflow site you can walk away from is $180 plus $228, and Webflow states that dynamic CMS content cannot be exported even then. Ecommerce is a third ladder starting at $29 a month with a 2 percent transaction fee. The free Starter plan is a webflow.io subdomain with the badge attached.

Score breakdown for webflow, criteria set Platforms and hosting
Criterion	Weight	Score
Performance Clean semantic output on a serious hosting stack, behind Framer and Shopify among the seven and comfortably ahead of the template engines, with no published uptime figure on the site plans.	25%	8.5
Usability The steepest learning curve here by a wide margin, because the interface is the CSS box model with a visual skin on it, and that is a deliberate trade rather than a flaw.	20%	5.5
Value A hundred and eighty dollars for twelve months looks mid-table until you add the workspace plan that code export requires, at which point the real figure is over four hundred.	20%	6.5
Scalability A proper CMS, staging, and the only export path in this comparison, so a site that outgrows the platform has somewhere to go, minus its CMS content.	15%	8.5
Support Excellent documentation and a large professional community, with staffed support that is slower to reach than Wix at the same money.	10%	7.0
Ecosystem A deep template marketplace, an app store, and the largest pool of freelancers of any platform here except WordPress.	10%	8.5
Weighted total	100%	7.4

Visit WebflowFull Webflow review

Also considered

These are good products that lost on a specific point. A higher score than one of our picks does not automatically win a slot, because each slot answers a different question.

Shopify8.1/10
Scores above three of our four picks and is not a website builder, which is why it is here rather than in them. It is a commerce platform with a site attached, and for a portfolio, a brochure site or a blog every other platform on this page does the job better and for less. If you are selling physical products it is the right answer to a different question, and the fees rather than the $348 a year are where the money goes.
Squarespace7.4/10
The best template library in the category and the only vendor here we could not price in dollars. Its pricing page renders the currency of wherever it places you, with no reference figure and no way to switch, and the numbers are drawn client side so a United States fetch returned nothing either. On a page anchored to what twelve months costs, that is disqualifying. The 2 percent transaction fee on store sales at the entry tier is the other thing to know.
Hostinger Website Builder7.3/10
The cheapest advertised price in the category at $2.99 a month, which is 48 months paid upfront at $143.52 and then $10.99 a month. There is no twelve month version of the advertised rate, so we anchor it at the renewal price. Credit where it is owed: Hostinger prints that renewal figure on the same card as the offer, which Wix, Squarespace and Webflow do not do at all.

How to choose between them

Start with two questions, not with a feature list. How much web do you already understand, and does this site need to sell anything? Those two answers separate the seven platforms here more cleanly than anything on a comparison table.

Which of these is closest to you?

Price the second year, not the first

Almost every figure quoted in this category is a first-year figure. Hostinger advertises $2.99 a month, which is 48 months paid upfront and then $10.99 a month. Wix states its free domain voucher covers a first yearly purchase and never a renewal, and WordPress.com and Hostinger include the domain for year one only. Work out what year two costs before you pick, because that is the year you find out.

Three things worth more than the brand you choose.

Decide now whether you will ever need to leave. Only Webflow exports the front end, and only for static pages, on a plan bought separately. WordPress.com moves without a rebuild because it runs WordPress, and Shopify hands back theme files and a product CSV. Wix, Squarespace, Framer and Hostinger are one-way doors, and at Wix even changing template means starting again.

If the site sells things, price the fees before the plan. Shopify charges 2.9 percent plus 30 cents on Basic and a further 2 percent if you use another processor. Squarespace takes 2 percent on store sales at its entry tier and nothing from Core. Hostinger and Wix charge nothing of their own. And stay on the cheap Shopify plan far longer than the category tells you: Grow does not overtake Basic until roughly twenty five thousand dollars a month in sales.

Use the free plans as trials and nothing else. All four of them are vendor subdomains with vendor branding or advertising attached. Squarespace and Hostinger skip the free plan and give you fourteen days instead, which tells you the same thing faster.

One caution about the order of these decisions. The editor is what you will feel in week one and the export terms are what you will feel in year three, and almost everybody chooses on week one. That is usually right. It is only wrong if you already know the site is going to matter, in which case read the section on leaving before you read anything about templates.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best website builder?

Wix for most people, because it is the easiest of the seven to build a real site in and it supports the cheapest paid plan round the clock. WordPress.com is the better buy if you can live with a harder editor: $48 for twelve months against $204, with a free domain in year one either way.

What does a website builder actually cost for a year?

For a plan that gives you your own domain and no vendor advertising, billed yearly: WordPress.com $48, Framer $120, Hostinger $131.88 at its renewal rate, Webflow $180, Wix $204, Shopify $348. Squarespace publishes no dollar figure we could read. Verified on 30 August 2026.

Are free website builders any good?

They are demos rather than websites. Wix, Webflow, Framer and WordPress.com all have free plans, and all four put you on a vendor subdomain with vendor branding or advertising attached. They are a good way to try the editor before paying and they are not a way to have a website.

Which website builder lets me export my site?

Only Webflow, and not on the plan you buy to publish. Export sits on the Workspace plans at $228 a year on top of the site plan, and Webflow states that dynamic CMS content cannot be exported. Wix, Squarespace, Framer and Hostinger offer no export at all.

Why is Hostinger advertised at $2.99 a month?

Because it is 48 months paid upfront, $143.52 at once, renewing at $10.99 a month afterwards. The figure is real and it is not a monthly price. Hostinger publishes the renewal rate beside it, which is more than most of this category manages.

Do I need Shopify for a small shop?

Not necessarily. Hostinger charges no transaction fee on its ecommerce, Squarespace charges 2 percent at the entry tier and 0 from Core, and Wix charges none of its own. Shopify wins on the platform and charges 2.9 percent plus 30 cents in card fees, plus a further 2 percent on Basic if you use another processor. If you do go to Shopify, stay on Basic longer than most pages suggest: Grow does not overtake it until roughly $25,000 a month in online sales.

What the best website builders cost for a year

The free plans are demos

What it costs to leave

The cheapest real year is the one nobody quotes

The $2.99 that is four years long

Two of these will not show you a dollar

Pick order is not score order

Why there are no speed tests on this page

The four picks

Side by side

How we picked

What we scored, and how heavily

The picks in detail

Wix

What works

What does not

Best for

Not for

What it costs

WordPress.com

What works

What does not

Best for

Not for

What it costs

Framer

What works

What does not

Best for

Not for

What it costs

Webflow

What works

What does not

Best for

Not for

What it costs

Also considered

How to choose between them

Frequently asked questions

Where the numbers come from