The Best Website Builders and Design Services of 2024

Wix’s web design software comes with a large selection of responsive templates (over 500) and customizable tools. Not only is this website creator easy to use, but its large selection of responsive templates surpasses those of its competitors, earning our pick for the best website builder templates for small businesses. The platform has comprehensive drag-and-drop tools to add any element you may need to your website, which is ideal for small business owners with no technical experience. Those with advanced technical capabilities can take advantage of Wix’s Dev Mode to create custom coding. Each website builder plan comes with website analytics so you can assess how well your site is performing.

Wix Website Builder Pricing and Plans

Wix offers several website builder plans for freelancers, entrepreneurs and businesses. You can try out Wix’s premium plans risk-free with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Here is a breakdown of each plan: 

Combo

• Cost: $13 per month, paid annually
• Includes: 2GB bandwidth, 3GB storage, connection to your domain, option to remove Wix ads, 30 video minutes and free domain for one year
• Who it’s for: Individuals who want a basic site for a hobby

Unlimited

• Cost: $17 per month, paid annually
• Includes: Unlimited bandwidth, 10GB storage, connection to your domain, option to remove Wix ads, one video hour, free domain for one year, $300 ad vouchers, Site Booster app ($60 value) and Visitor Analytics app ($60 value)
• Who it’s for: Entrepreneurs and freelancers 

Pro

• Cost: $22 per month, paid annually
• Includes: Unlimited bandwidth, 20GB storage, connection to your domain, option to remove Wix ads, two video hours, free domain for one year, $300 ad vouchers, Site Booster app ($60 value), Visitor Analytics app ($60 value), events calendar ($48 value), professional logo ($50 value) and social media logo files
• Who it’s for: Companies that want complete online branding

VIP

• Cost: $39 per month, paid annually
• Includes: Everything in the Pro plan, plus priority response and VIP support
• Who it’s for: Companies that need complete online branding with quick access to customer support

If you are looking for a business website plan that includes e-commerce capabilities, Wix has additional plans to support those needs. Costs range from $23 to $49 per month, paid annually.

If you no longer wish to keep your Wix account, you can cancel your subscription. However, to close your account, you will first have to delete all of the sites in it. If your site has any premium plans or domains connected to it, you’ll need to cancel or transfer them first.

Wix Features

Creating a website with Wix is incredibly easy. You can either create a site on your own or find a Wix partner (freelancer or agency) to help you. There’s also the Wix ADI option, which asks a series of questions about your business and then creates your website based on your responses. Wix also recently rolled out an advanced editing interface, Editor X, which allows website designers and web agencies to create more complex designs.

Templates and Customization

Wix has not only the greatest number of templates available (500 choices), but also the most diverse and organized templates. You can choose one of the industry-specific templates and customize it with the drag-and-drop tool. For professional web designers, the software has an HTML editor to customize each page. With this web-based program, you can edit your websites from either your desktop or mobile device. The software allows multiple editors to make changes to the website.

Web Hosting and Domain Names

Every Wix website comes with a free Wix-branded URL (e.g., username.wixsite.com/sitename) with a 20-character limit. When you purchase a plan, you get a free custom domain for the first year. After that, you must pay an annual fee to keep it, which is standard for web hosting sites. On premium plans, you can connect a domain name you already own. 

Storage

Whether you need a simple blog or an image- and video-heavy website, Wix has plans to fit your storage needs. Storage ranges from 3GB to 50GB, depending on the plan. You’ll have access to unlimited bandwidth, and each plan includes a certain number of hours for video on your site.

Analytics

All paid plans except Combo include the Visitor Analytics app and the Site Booster app, each of which are originally priced at a $60 value. Your website analytics let you see how well your site is performing. With standard data points such as page views, unique visitors, bounce rates and forms submitted, you can determine what parts of your site need altering.

Mobile Responsiveness

Wix has responsive templates that adjust to the screen size of the device the website is being viewed from. Since many users access websites via mobile devices, this is an especially important feature.

E-commerce

When you sign up for one of Wix’s business and e-commerce plans, you can sell products on your Wix site. The software has its own shopping cart you can enable, and it integrates with PayPal to accept online payments. Your customers will receive real-time shipping rates calculated by USPS.

Additional Features

Wix offers several additional features on some of the plans. One of its standout features is the advertising vouchers. Wix gives you several hundred dollars of credit that you can use to increase visibility for your business ($100 in Google Ads with a $25 purchase, $100 in Microsoft Advertising and $100 in local listings). This website design software also has strong SEO integration features to get you noticed on search engines. Another helpful feature is the social media integration and logos.

Pros of Wix

The biggest benefit of Wix’s website design software is its templates. This platform has more than enough templates to choose from, so you’re sure to find the right one for your business. The industry-specific templates are completely customizable, so you can create a unique website that matches your style. You can use the simple drag-and-drop capabilities to add features like text, images, galleries, vector art, shapes, buttons, boxes, strips, lists and grids, videos, music, social icons, contact forms, menus, lightboxes, and content elements.

Not only does the Wix software have comprehensive, easy-to-use designs, it is also easily customizable for users with any level of technical capabilities. You can watch one of the many video tutorials or jump right into the website design process with the easy-to-follow setup wizard. If you are familiar with website development, you can turn on Wix’s Dev Mode, which allows you to add your own custom code, connect Wix business or external APIs, use internal and external development tools, and use serverless Node.js with zero setup.

Cons of Wix

Though Wix’s plans are affordable and come with a 14-day money-back guarantee, they may be a bit tricky to cancel after the trial period. To cancel your Wix account, you must wait for everything to expire – no refunds. You must cancel each premium service individually, which is not a dealbreaker but can be cumbersome if you have several services to cancel.

Customer Support

Wix’s in-depth tutorials and FAQs mean you can find the answer to just about any issue you may have. However, if you are looking for more personal online help, you may find Wix lacking. When you contact customer support online, you are directed to a webpage with a click-through sequence that takes you to a tutorial to answer your questions. It was actually very helpful and user-friendly, but we would have preferred it to direct us to a representative. Wix is accredited with the Better Business Bureau and has an A+ rating on the site.

Hibu offers a unique solution for businesses that need a website and marketing that targets a local audience; it is our choice as the best website design service for small businesses. In addition to website design, Hibu’s other services include listings management, management of online reviews, reputation management and e-commerce.

Hibu Pricing and Plans

Hibu is a full-service web design agency that can create a professional website for businesses in any industry. Since it is a service, not software, there isn’t a free trial or a money-back guarantee. To discuss your needs and if Hibu can help your company, you can set up a consultation with a Hibu representative to discuss your goals.

Websites are offered on a month-to-month basis, and the cost varies, depending on the program you select. For example, you can have a comprehensive plan where Hibu builds your website, and promotes it through ad campaigns and social media. Or you can have a simple website built with routine maintenance and upkeep done by Hibu. Marketing contracts have a duration of six months.

At the time this review was written, Hibu offered a promotion where the cost of its website design and setup fee was reduced to $99 (normally, Hibu charges $449) for new clients who purchase Smart Site Pro as part of a qualifying digital advertising package. (Monthly fees apply, and there is a minimum contractual term.) Since every website is tailored to each business, you’ll need to contact Hibu directly for a custom price quote.

Hibu Features

Hibu offers an all-in-one package to not only build your small business’s website but also manage it to ensure it ranks well.  Below are the other features we liked about Hibu:

• Web design and appearance: After a consultation, Hibu professionals work one on one with you to create a website that fits your needs and engages your customers. Hibu Smart Sites are designed to talk to both your audience and Google. Hibu uses drag-and-drop technology to create a website based on your requirements. Hibu offers other services as well (see “Additional services” below) that, unless you’re a professional web designer, you may not be able to do yourself. Hibu takes all the guesswork out of building a website.
• Web hosting and domain names: For no added cost, Hibu sets up domain registration and hosting for your site.
• SEO and analytics: You have 24/7 access to website analytics with the Hibu dashboard. This is a key feature in assessing how your business is currently performing and where your website can improve.
• Social media: Hibu focuses on local business listings. This is a helpful service, especially if you own a mom-and-pop shop, and want current and potential customers to find you online. In addition to building your website, Hibu can create social pages on Facebook and Twitter for your business. To drive traffic to your website, Hibu creates ads for your business tailored for search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
• Mobile responsive: Hibu offers responsive web design so your website looks great and works well on desktop browsers, tablets and smartphones. And unlike many of its competitors, Hibu websites are optimized for voice search. This unique feature is great for modern technology.
• E-commerce: Hibu can help you set up an online store, but it has a maximum of 10 products. If you plan to sell more than 10 products, an option is to incorporate a third-party e-commerce portal. Hibu does not charge an additional fee for this, but keep in mind that you will be paying for e-commerce separately. Hibu plans are scalable, so you can start with the 10-product limit and then add a third-party e-commerce portal when your business scales.
• Additional services: Hibu is a full-service agency and offers much more than website design. It also provides services like listings management, reputation management, management of online reviews, social and search marketing, and search engine optimization. Your business can benefit from having an all-in-one agency like Hibu keep all of these various aspects of your marketing unified.

Pros of Hibu

One of the biggest advantages of using Hibu is its affordability. Many full-service design agencies charge thousands of dollars to create a website, but Hibu focuses on providing small and midsize businesses great services that won’t break their budgets. This is especially helpful for small businesses that need multiple services (e.g., web design, marketing, reviews) or that lack personnel with the skills and/or time to build a website and manage all of the constantly changing elements that come with maintaining an online presence.

Another advantage of Hibu is that it builds “smart” websites that are tailored for search engines and audiences. This is essential, since both search engines and consumers need to be able to find and understand your website. 

Cons of Hibu

Hibu offers great website design services for small businesses, but its e-commerce platform is limited – your online store can only sell 10 products. This is only an issue for businesses that intend to sell a large number of online products. If you want to partner with Hibu, but you have or plan to sell more than 10 products, talk with them about integrating a third-party e-commerce portal. Hibu does not charge fees for users to do so.

Customer Support

Hibu has a few resources available for users to learn more about its products and services. For example, it has a custom marketing plan, a marketing checklist, a Facebook calculator, a business listings scan, a digital marketing score and marketing guides. You can also read Hibu’s blog for more content.

You can contact the company a few different ways. You can chat live with a representative on Hibu’s website, call the company on their toll-free line, or fill out and submit a contact form on its website to have a representative follow up with you.

When we posed as a small business owner inquiring about its website design services, we were satisfied with Hibu’s customer service. Representatives were helpful and were not pushy. Hibu is a Better Business Bureau-accredited company with an A+ rating.

Weebly offers multiple plans with affordable pricing to fit your business’s website needs, whether you are starting a blog or running an e-commerce business (e-commerce is powered by Square). You can use the free plan if you just want basic website capabilities and then, as your business grows, scale up to the Personal, Professional or Performance plan. These have tiered pricing with the features to match.

Every new paid plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and a free professional domain for the first year. This allows you to try out Weebly’s website design software risk-free. If you want to cancel or downgrade your plan at any time after the 30 days, you can opt out of the automatic renewal, but your service will stay active until your expiration date. You may be partially refunded if you cancel or downgrade.

Weebly’s paid plans are available on an annual or month-to-month basis to fit your needs and budget. Annual plans have a discounted rate.

Personal

• Cost: $6 per month billed annually or $9 month to month
• Includes: Marketing, e-commerce, support, SSL security, custom domain, advanced site stats, site search, option for third-party embed code
• Who it’s for: Individuals who want to create a personal website

Professional

• Cost: $12 per month billed annually or $16 month to month
• Includes: Everything in the Personal plan plus a free domain for the first year, unlimited storage, removable Square ads, password protection and a shipping calculator
• Who it’s for: Businesses that need a professional, branded website

Performance

• Cost: $26 per month billed annually or $29 month to month
• Includes: Everything in the Professional plan plus advanced e-commerce, marketing and support features
• Who it’s for: Businesses that want to grow their website with integrated e-commerce tools

Weebly Features

Weebly earns our praise for its ease of use and comprehensive features. With just a few clicks, you can create an account and be on your way to building the business website you desire. You can create a simple landing page and “about us” section that introduces potential customers to your business or develop a site with any number of subdomains.

Templates and Customization

Weebly has more than 40 website templates organized into the categories of online store, business, portfolio, personal, event, blog and other. The clean interface has a standard drag-and-drop capability that makes it easy to add elements to your website and view your changes in real time. These elements include text, images, galleries, slideshows, HD and YouTube videos, spacers, dividers, buttons, social icons, products, categories, maps, search boxes, block quotes, newsletter forms, contact forms, RSVP forms, surveys, audio, files, Scribd documents, Google Ads, Flash and cookie opt-out. Advanced users can take advantage of Weebly’s HTML editor to add custom code.

Web Hosting and Domain Names

Weebly allows for unique domains, emails and free hosting. With new plans, your custom domain is free for the first year, but you must pay for it annually after that. While the cost for domain names is small, many website experts recommend getting a domain name from a third party anyway, so it’s not tied to your web host.

Storage

You get unlimited storage in Weebly’s Professional and Performance packages. This is useful for businesses that have image- or video-heavy websites or lengthy text pages. 

Analytics

Monitoring your site performance can help you understand your potential customers and pinpoint where your site needs improvement. Weebly makes this easy by providing a dashboard with an insights tab dedicated to reporting your analytics. You can see your site’s traffic, page views, unique visits, average page views per visit, top referring sites, sales data, top-selling items, abandoned carts, coupon performance, marketing information, email engagement, ad impact and more.

Mobile Responsiveness

All of Weebly’s templates are mobile responsive. This means it modifies your website for a smartphone or tablet based on the site visitor’s device. You can view your website in either desktop or mobile format from your dashboard, making it easy to adjust your website so it looks good on both device types.

E-commerce

Weebly’s Personal, Professional and Performance plans all have e-commerce features with flexible selling options and unlimited item listings. Weebly partners with Square for online payments (with a processing rate of 2.9% + 30 cents), and Performance plan users can also accept payments through PayPal. Its comprehensive e-commerce features include item badges and reviews, digital goods, inventory management, in-store pickup, an automatic tax calculator, and coupon capabilities. It’s easy to view and edit your online store information on the Weebly dashboard.

Additional Features

Weebly also offers marketing features like custom email, automation, Facebook Ads Manager, mailing lists, segmenting and social profile sync. You can integrate additional applications as needed.

Pros of Weebly

Building a website with Weebly is incredibly easy. Its intuitive interface and familiar tools let you start designing an attractive site without any prior experience. It offers professional-looking templates and images to make a site that looks great on both desktop and mobile devices. It’s the best website builder because you can jump right in and make your own website. With explanations of the tools right on the interface, thorough tutorials and responsive live chat support, it is well suited for novices and experienced designers alike.

A primary concern for most businesses is money. With its free and affordable plans, any business can use Weebly to get its website up and running within budget. There are multiple plans (with annual and monthly rates) to suit any business size, whether you are a first-time blogger or an established business that needs an extensive site.

Weebly is also great for those who want a personally branded website. In our increasingly digital world, a website is key to build awareness of your brand, but it can’t do a thing for your business unless people see it. This webpage design software offers excellent tools for marketing and branding your website. With a paid account, Weebly removes its own branding from your website and site address. This makes the site fully yours and projects a professional image. If you use your site for a business and not a hobby, you want a brand that is exclusively yours.

Cons of Weebly

Weebly provides excellent website-building tools and features, but it does have a few drawbacks to be aware of – one of them being domain names. Although the Professional and Performance plans offer a free custom domain name for the first year, it is only for new plans, and you will be charged an annual fee for any following years. This is a common drawback for website builders. Some businesses choose to partner with a third-party site to buy their domain name so they are not tied to one web host forever.

Weebly has great e-commerce capabilities, but those who want an online store should be aware of Weebly’s payment limitations. Businesses that pair an online store with their Weebly website must process their sales through Square’s credit card processing services. Since Square is a great credit card processor, this is only an issue for businesses that specifically want to partner with another credit card processing company for their online store. This drawback also does not affect those who simply want to build a business website without an online store.

Customer Support

Weebly offers a variety of support solutions. It dedicates an entire page of its site to helping you find the answers you need. You can search through suggested articles, browse the knowledgebase, read the Weebly blog or collaborate with the Weebly community.

You can reach a customer service representative by phone, email or live chat. When we posed as small business owners inquiring about products and services, we were pleased with the help we received from Weebly. Although the agents were not overly friendly, they were polite and answered all of our questions completely. Helpful customer support can be essential if you have questions while (or before) designing your website.

As our pick for the best design software for mobile websites, Duda is a great choice for any business owner who wants an affordable way to build a mobile-responsive website. The platform is easy to use, whether you are a novice or professional web designer. It has excellent features, like unlimited storage and bandwidth, drag-and-drop elements, and mobile-responsive templates. Businesses that need online store capabilities can easily add on a Duda e-commerce solution. You can create a website with Duda risk-free by signing up for a 14-day free trial. 

Duda Website Builder Pricing and Plans

Businesses and entrepreneurs can access Duda’s website design software risk-free. The 14-day free trial let you test out the features of the Team plan, with no credit card required. Accounts canceled in the first 30 days are automatically issued a full refund; if you cancel after that, any refund requests must be made within 60 days of cancellation.

Here’s a breakdown of each of Duda’s plans.

Basic

• Cost: $14 per month billed annually, or $19 month to month
• Includes: One website, sites hosted on AWS, email support, HTTPS encryption and multi-language capabilities
• Who it’s for: Individuals who want to create a basic personal website

Team

• Cost: $22 per month billed annually, or $29 month to month
• Includes: Everything in the Basic plan plus chat and phone support, your brand and logo on every part of the platform, and access to team and client management features
• Who it’s for: Companies that want to grow their business with a fully functional website

Agency

• Cost: $74 per month billed annually, or $99 month to month
• Includes: Everything in the Team plan, eight websites, priority support, dynamic pages connected to customer data, extensible widget builder and robust API
• Who it’s for: Businesses that need multiple sites with advanced functionality

E-commerce Add-ons

E-commerce capabilities can be added to each plan for an extra fee. The Standard e-commerce plan (100 products) is $7.25 per site per month, the Advanced plan (2,500 products) is $19.25 per site per month, and the Unlimited plan (infinite products) is $39 per site per month.

Duda Features

Duda has a host of useful features, including its own e-commerce solution. The features make it easy to create impressive, mobile-responsive websites.

Templates and Customization

Duda’s website builder is customizable and easy to use. It guides you through the setup process, allowing you to choose from many mobile-friendly templates. Once you select a template, you can edit the design to match your branding and begin adding pages. As you work, you can switch between desktop, tablet and mobile phone view. If you’re a novice web designer, you can drag and drop elements, import images, and change the formatting and color scheme all very easily. If you have coding experience, you can customize the HTML.

Web Hosting and Domain Names

Duda websites are hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Hosting is included with every paid Duda plan. The Team and Agency plans come with custom branding and domain capabilities as well.

Storage

There is no limit on how much storage or bandwidth your site can use. This is great for websites that have a lot of videos or images.

Analytics

The Team and Agency plans include white-label statistics, analytics and email reports. These features allow you to track how your site is performing and where it’s lacking. It can take up to 24 hours before you start seeing stats for your published sites.

Mobile Responsiveness

The flexibility of Duda’s mobile responsiveness is something many of its competitors lack. As soon as you purchase a Basic, Team or Agency plan, it’s entirely up to you whether the websites included in your plan are mobile only or completely responsive. This customized feature allows you to set up your website to best suit your intended audience.

E-commerce

Duda offers e-commerce capabilities, but they are add-ons to the standard website builder plans. This lets you pick both the website builder plan and the e-commerce plan that best suits your business. The Standard e-commerce plan is $7.25 a month per site for 100 products, the Advanced e-commerce plan is $19.25 a month per site for 2,500 products, and the Unlimited e-commerce plan is $39 a month per site for infinite products. The site, font style and look imitate your main website to be uniform with your brand.

Pros of Duda

There are several great features to take advantage of when using Duda to build a website, a primary one being its mobile responsiveness. When creating a website, you can access an industry-specific template and edit it in different viewing modes. You can view the most recent version of your site in desktop, tablet and mobile format – either separately or all at once. You have the choice to make your website primarily mobile or responsive to your consumers’ devices.

Creating a website with Duda is extremely simple – especially if you have a team doing the creation. Duda allows users to collaborate on template and website creation. You can also set user permissions and control with the client management tab. This is great for businesses that have clients or multiple people working on the website creation. 

Cons of Duda

Although Duda has many great advantages, it has a couple downsides to note. For starters, we did not find a free starter plan option. It does offer a 14-day free trial for users to test out the services, but those seeking an entirely free website builder will have to look at other options.

Also, since the customer support is tiered, businesses that choose a minimal plan may find it lacking. Basic plan users only have email support; Team plan users have email, chat and phone support; and Agency users have full-service priority email, chat and phone support. Although this is not a dealbreaker for most, it may be an issue for Basic plan users who need immediate assistance.

Customer Support

Duda has a wealth of information under its resources tab for those who wish to learn more about building websites. It shares success stories, a blog, webinars, marketing materials, a fulfillment channel, a developer portal, a help center and product updates. In the help center, you can find resources with a search bar or by category (website builder, account and billing, developer portal, product updates, marketing, users and permissions, and white-label features).

When we tested the free trial, a live chat opened with a demo tutorial video. The tutorial was helpful for learning the basics of building a site. When we contacted a support representative for assistance, they were friendly and accommodating.