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HubSpot website builder review (2024): Pros and cons, features tested by our experts

April 25, 2024 No Comments

In addition to advanced CMS tools, does this popular CRM platform provide a beginner-friendly website builder?

If you’re in search of the best website builder to create an eye-catching website for your startup or side hustle, HubSpot website builder is certainly worth a look. In our hands-on review, we’ll dive deep into HubSpot’s offering and decide whether it’s a game-changer for solo entrepreneurs and small business owners looking to make their mark online.

After all, HubSpot is more than just one of the best free website builders – it’s the heart of HubSpot’s comprehensive content management system (CMS) suite. Whether you’re launching a side hustle or rebuilding your current site, this tool streamlines website creation. Despite a slight learning curve associated with advanced tools, HubSpot provides a powerful tool to support your online efforts.

To help you make the right choice, we’ve rolled up our sleeves and delved into the nitty-gritty of the HubSpot website builder. Our team of experts has rigorously tested this builder, creating multiple websites to assess its user interface, design flexibility, and integration with HubSpot’s ecosystem.

So, whether you’re a first-time website creator or want to level up your game, our Hubspot website builder review can serve as your roadmap to navigating this tricky tool.

IS HUBSPOT THE RIGHT WEBSITE BUILDER FOR ME?

Choosing the right site builder is crucial for the success of your online presence. Let’s break down who HubSpot is best for and who might find it less suitable.

Who is HubSpot best for?

HubSpot drag-and-drop website builder is an excellent choice for solo entrepreneurs entering the online realm, especially those prioritizing inbound marketing. It provides tools to create and promote content that resonates with the target audience.

Additionally, HubSpot is one of the best small business website builders on the market, allowing entrepreneurs and marketers to benefit from its all-in-one solution with strong integration capabilities. If you’re seeking a platform where your website, CRM, live chat, email marketing, and automation are interconnected, HubSpot is a solid choice. It also supports up to three languages with automatic connections between language variations.

Who might find HubSpot less suitable?

HubSpot’s pricing structure can be confusing and costs significantly increase with advanced features. If you’re on a tight budget, the leap from the entry-level plan to more advanced tiers might be limiting.

The user interface of HubSpot’s builder can also be overwhelming, which might not be suitable for those who prefer a simpler, more straightforward dashboard. In such cases, a site builder like Wix, with a more intuitive design, could be a better fit.

HUBSPOT FEATURES AND TOOLS

TEMPLATES

Screenshot of Hubspot website builder in use — HubSpot’s themes are clean and bold, a great way to make a statement about your business. (Image credit: HubSpot)

HubSpot boasts a collection of over 170 themes, covering a diverse range of categories and you’re invited to preview themes before installation. And if that’s not enough, you can even spice things up by adding themes purchased from ThemeForest, expanding your design options.

When it comes to customization and adding a personal touch, the theme editor is your creative playground. You can easily tweak colours, fonts, and spacing to match your brand’s vibe. What’s best, these changes ripple across all your pages, saving you time and effort.

One advantage that sets HubSpot and Wix apart is HubSpot’s ability to switch themes without bidding farewell to your content – it’s really a rare gem in the website-building realm.

HUBSPOT WEBSITE EDITOR

Screenshot of hubspots website editor being used to view a website on mobile — HubSpot’s website editor is easy to use, but lacks flexibility (Image credit: HubSpot)

Now, the heart of the matter – HubSpot’s drag-and-drop editor takes centre stage, offering an array of content elements and modules to elegantly populate your pages.

From dynamic galleries and testimonials to structured columns and vibrant videos, the editor is there to empower your creative choices. Tweak the finer details of your website’s appearance effortlessly, from global fonts and spacing to typography, buttons, forms, and tables, ensuring a polished and cohesive design throughout.

However, despite the decent creative potential, HubSpot’s website editor is far from being a champion of flexibility. Precise placement can sometimes feel like orchestrating a dance routine without mastering all the moves. Text editing takes a brief detour into a separate pane, introducing a slight interruption to the flow. For those meticulous about the alignment of elements like text and images, you might find yourself desiring a bit more control.

DOMAIN

HubSpot offers a free subdomain, providing a starting point for your online presence. If you’re seeking a personalized touch, HubSpot simplifies the domain registration process right within its platform. However, you don’t need to upgrade to a paid plan right away.

Unlike many other of the best free website builders, with HubSpot, you have the benefit of connecting your own domain name for free – and it offers a simple step-by-step guide to help you do it.

If you don’t own a domain, registering one usually falls in the range of $10-20, though it can vary based on factors such as popularity and the registrar you choose.

HUBSPOT ECOMMERCE

screenshot of hubspot's ecommerce tools — HubSpot’s app marketplace is the go-to for those looking for advanced ecommerce tools. (Image credit: HubSpot)

When it comes to ecommerce functionality, HubSpot CMS doesn’t provide native features for selling products. Still, the platform allows you to receive payments through your site, primarily suitable for processes like donations or simple payments, but this functionality is limited to users based in the US.

Despite this limitation, HubSpot extends its ecommerce potential through its app marketplace. Here, you’ll find plenty of free ecommerce Apps compatible with HubSpot, such as WooCommerce, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento, and more.

As for transaction fees, HubSpot adopts a transparent approach with no setup fees, monthly fees, minimums, or hidden charges. The cost structure is based on a percentage of each transaction, ensuring you only pay for the service when it’s actively utilized.

The specific fees, however, depend on the payment processing option you choose within HubSpot. If you opt for HubSpot Payments, expect to incur a 2.9% charge on all credit card transactions and a 0.5% fee (capped at $10) on ACH payments. Alternatively, if you integrate your Stripe account as the payment processor, HubSpot applies a platform fee of 0.5% per transaction, alongside the processing fee agreed upon with Stripe.

HUBSPOT MARKETING INTEGRATIONS

screenshot of HubSpot's app marketplace — HubSpot’s marketing integrations are plentiful and high powered. (Image credit: HubSpot)

HubSpot shines in the realm of marketing integrations, providing powerful SEO tools to boost your online presence. With features like personalized content, email marketing, and seamless integration with CRM and automation tools, HubSpot provides an all-in-one suite for managing various marketing aspects.

The platform’s Marketing Hub is aimed at experienced marketers, offering capabilities like email campaigns, SEO strategy development, ad management, automated campaigns, content uploading, and detailed reporting. This makes it an attractive choice for businesses seeking streamlined lead generation and nurturing processes.

HubSpot doesn’t stop there – it also integrates seamlessly with various social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, further enhancing your ability to reach and engage with your audience.

WEBSITE SECURITY

Screenshot of hubspot security details — HubSpot offers top-notch security for your website. (Image credit: HubSpot)

As soon as you connect your domain, HubSpot will automatically set you up with a standard SSL certificate through Google Trust Services, giving your site a secure foundation.

Behind the scenes, HubSpot entrusts your website’s security to top-tier cloud providers like Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services. These providers adhere to strict security standards like ISO 27001 and SOC 2 compliance, ensuring your website is in good hands.

HubSpot employs a web application firewall (WAF) to safeguard against attacks, including DDoS threats. Real-time monitoring keeps an eye on traffic, promptly identifying and thwarting any malicious activity.

And when it comes to data protection, HubSpot has it covered. Your information is securely replicated and backed up across multiple storage locations ensuring your data’s safety and quick recovery if needed.

To keep a pulse on your website’s security, HubSpot’s Security Health is your go-to tool. It provides a comprehensive overview of your security measures, pointing out areas for improvement. You just need to follow the links to address any concerns and strengthen your account’s security.

HUBSPOT PRICING: IS HUBSPOT GOOD VALUE FOR MONEY?

Hubspot pricing page screenshot — HubSpot offers a great free plan and an affordable starter plan, but for advance features the jumps in price are significant. (Image credit: HubSpot)

To start your journey with HubSpot, you’ll have to choose from their CMS Hub plans, each tailored to cater to specific business needs.

There’s a forever-free plan and it comes packed with essential tools for marketing, sales, service, content management, operations, and commerce. They’re perfect for small businesses looking for budget-friendly yet impactful solutions that can be simply upgraded as their business grows. However, keep in mind that this fee plan comes with certain limitations, such as up to 25 website pages, no dynamic content, and includes HubSpot branding with a non-customizable favicon.

The next in line, the Starter plan ($20/month paid yearly) is likely enough for most small-to-medium businesses, but if you crave advanced features, the Professional plan ($360/month paid yearly) offers personalization, A/B testing, custom reporting, and more.

The Enterprise plan ($1,200 /month paid yearly) goes further with advanced development-focused features such as additional root domains, memberships, adaptive testing, web apps, and custom objects – everything needed to build a robust foundation for wide-ranging business growth.

HubSpot lets you create custom bundles for your business. The four key products – HubSpot CRM (free), Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub – come in Free, Starter, Professional, and Enterprise plans. For an all-inclusive approach, the Growth Suite bundles them together at a discounted price.

You have the option to optimize your HubSpot experience with expert assistance, ensuring you make the most of the platform’s capabilities. To dive deeper into specifics about HubSpot’s plans and pricing, check out their pricing page.

HUBSPOT HELP AND SUPPORT

screenshot of HubSpot's support page — HubSpot offers several good ways to get support and learn more about the platform. (Image credit: HubSpot)

Even on the Starter plan, you’ve got the backup of both email and live chat support, and the team is quick to respond and genuinely helpful when you’re facing challenges. Also, if you’re ever curious or need quick updates, hit up HubSpot support on X (Twitter) – they even encourage their users to do so.

The knowledge base is like a gold mine, covering a ton of topics. It might seem a bit overpacked at first glance, but think of it as your go-to resource, helping you through common issues and diving into advanced features.

There’s also a community forum where you can chat with fellow users, tap into their collective wisdom, and pick up strategies to grow better with HubSpot. Plus, HubSpot keeps you in the loop with real-time updates on system status and security – just visit their status page.

However, to get round-the-clock phone support, you’ll have to go with the Professional or Enterprise plans. For a pretty penny, this will add that extra layer of assistance for a smooth website-building journey.

HUBSPOT: WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED? WHAT COULD BE BETTER?

While HubSpot CMS Hub offers an extensive array of business-focused, particularly marketing features, the platform could benefit from increased flexibility within its editor. Design flexibility is limited, requiring potential reliance on developers for precise customization, making it more akin to a comprehensive content management system like WordPress than other DIY website builders such as Wix and Squarespace.

One notable downside is the platform’s learning curve, attributed to the multitude of features available. Less tech-savvy users may find it challenging to familiarize themselves with the different interfaces and editors for various tasks. The editor’s rigidity, despite offering drag-and-drop functionality, might make it a bit challenging to customize the design exactly as you want.

Still, if you’re willing to invest time in navigating the learning curve, HubSpot website builder can be a powerful choice, particularly if you’re already using HubSpot’s CRM or marketing tools.

HUBSPOT REVIEW: FINAL THOUGHTS

In summary, HubSpot’s website builder comes as a compelling all-in-one solution, especially when integrated with HubSpot’s CRM or email marketing tools. It might not be the most beginner-friendly choice out there and isn’t as flexible as some of its competitors, even free website builders. Nevertheless, HubSpot is a marketing powerhouse that excels with robust tools for SEO, blogging, and lead generation.

If you’ve decided on HubSpot but are looking for superior customization or lack the time to navigate the learning curve, consider collaborating with a developer. When understood and utilized effectively, this comprehensive solution can empower your online presence and marketing endeavours.

The bottom line is, if you are a small or growing business that wants an all-in solution for CRM, marketing tools, and website building, there is little out there that can beat HubSpot’s offering. However, if you want more flexibility in your website design, assessing other options will be worthwhile.

HUBSPOT WEBSITE BUILDER FAQS

Is HubSpot really free?

Yes, HubSpot offers a forever-free version but with basic features, including CRM tools. For more advanced features and capabilities, you’ll want to check out their paid plans.

Is it hard to learn HubSpot?

HubSpot can have a steep learning curve due to its extensive feature set. While it provides user-friendly interfaces, the diverse range of tools may require some time to master. Fortunately, HubSpot offers training resources and solid customer support to help you navigate the platform effectively.

Is HubSpot good for SEO?

Yes, HubSpot is in high demand for its SEO capabilities. The CMS Hub, in particular, provides robust tools for optimizing content, managing keywords, and enhancing website visibility on search engines. It is considered a powerful option for businesses focused on inbound marketing and SEO strategies.

By Mirza Bahic

Mirza Bahic is a freelance tech journalist and blogger from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. For the past four years, Mirza has been ghostwriting for a number of tech start-ups from various industries, including cloud, retail and B2B technology.

With contributions from

Owain WilliamsB2B Editor, Website Builders

Sourced from techradar pro

In News

1and1 IONOS Website Builder review: More than just a slick TV ad campaign

March 13, 2023 No Comments

By Stuart Andrews

1and1 IONOS is a good option for building business websites and online stores with a little more hands-on control

Pros

Low costs in first six months or year

Impressive and thoughtful online store features

Good range of basic and intermediate design tools

Well-designed, customisable templates

Cons

Limited range of templates

Lacks features for blogging and social media feeds

Sometimes tricky to find tools or settings

1and1 was one of the UK’s best known web hosts long before it merged into Germany’s IONOS, and it’s developed more of a profile as a website builder with its attention-grabbing ‘Aunt Helga’ TV campaigns. There, Aunt Helga promises to build a business website in a jiffy, which is pretty much what the IONOS Website Builder claims to do. But are you going to be happy with the options and the results, or left wishing that you’d signed up with another host?

View offers at 1and1 IONOS

1and1 IONOS Website Builder review: What do you get for the money?

IONOS Website Builder packages start at £9/mth (ex VAT) for the Starter package and go up to £25/mth for the high-end Pro package, with the £15/mth Plus package coming in-between. All three packages come with limited period deals to entice you in, with the Starter plan costing just £5/mth for the first six months, Pro costing £15 on the same terms, and Plus coming in at only £1/mth for the whole first year. That takes a lot of the risk away if you’re just trying it out, though you’re committed to a one year contract before you can leave.

The Starter package is aimed at beginners, with basic editing tools and ready-made templates, plus a maximum of 10GB of webspace and just ten pages, though IONOS throws in one year’s domain registration and an email address with a 2GB mailbox. The Plus package gives you more customisation options, more flexible editing features and 50GB/200 pages, along with site analytics and an online booking tool. The free email mailbox swells by another 10GB. Go Pro, and you can expect unlimited webspace and pages, a 50GB mailbox and more sophisticated analytics tools. You also get SEO features through the rankingCoach Essential tool.

1and1 IONOS Website Builder review: How easy is it to set up?

You won’t have any major problems or delays setting up your website. However, where other website builders get you up and running even before you have to set up an account or enter any credit card details, IONOS Website Builder makes you sign up and pay first, with no free trial or plan.

Beyond that, though, it’s relatively easy. You need to select whether you want or don’t want ecommerce features when you select your plan, but after that you just select a template, enter the basic details of your business and get to work.

IONOS doesn’t offer as many templates or categories as rival website builders, which might be a bad thing if you want choice or a good thing if you struggle to make up your mind. However, those you do get are well-designed and easily customised (on the Plus or Pro plans) with different colour themes, fonts and graphic elements. Just because there isn’t a template for, say, an artist’s portfolio or online video games store, that doesn’t mean you can’t build one with a little creativity and ingenuity.

1and1 IONOS Website Builder review: What’s it like to use?

At first, IONOS Website Builder can seem a bit inflexible. It’s not immediately obvious how you customise page elements or edit sections, and some elements seem to be fixed in terms of size and styling. For instance, the heading in the site header on the template I worked with had a fixed square container, which made it impossible to fit the heading I wanted in at a decent size. I settled for a smaller font size and a slightly ugly text shape, where simply being able to resize or reshape the container would have been a more elegant and satisfactory approach.

The more you use it, though, the more IONOS Website Builder gives you a good balance between modern-looking, responsive site design with consistency and control. You can change the style of most elements, add new sections and new pages. Likewise, adding image galleries, videos and interactive modules can be done with just a couple of clicks.

It’s also got some great features for handling backgrounds and nesting multiple images, plus some useful image-handling options to shift and scale your images so that you can see the right area if they’re going to be cropped. It’s not always the most flexible editor when it comes to setting fonts, highlighting words or moving elements around, but it does make it easy to create good-looking sites with surprisingly advanced effects. We also like the way it uses responsive design to avoid you having to design separate sites for desktop and mobile, as well as the ability to preview for desktop, smartphone and tablet screens with just one click.

One more thing that we would like, though, is a little extra speed. It’s hard to make apples to apples comparisons as connection speeds can vary so much, but IONOS Website Builder occasionally took its time to upload images or switch to a different tab or settings page. SquareSpace, Wix and GoDaddy Site Builder all felt a little faster and more responsive.

View offers at 1and1 IONOS

1and1 IONOS Website Builder review: Is it good for ecommerce?

IONOS pushes the business angle, so it’s not surprising that IONOS Website Builder has a strong set of ecommerce features. If you’re more interested in services than sales then you might want something with more video chat and subscription features along with the provided online booking support.

For physical and digital sales, though, you’re in safe hands. Adding products to your catalogue is easier, as is organising them into categories. IONOS Website Builder has some useful bulk editing features, so that you can add a whole bunch of products to a category or change their availability in one go. IONOS even makes short work of providing different options for a product, such as size, colour or finish, with different price points. You can set one base price for your product, then set a premium or discount for each of your options.

There are built-in guides for advertising through Facebook or Google, or for connecting your store to Facebook Shop and Instagram Shopping. Website Builder also includes Kliken Stats for a store dashboard and reporting, and can also tie into Google Analytics. What’s more, you can get updates and reports on the move through the IONOS Mobile app.

We also found that the editor gives you plenty of control over how your storefront looks, which is one area where IONOS Website Builder pulls ahead of dedicated ecommerce builders like Shopify. Not everything could be customised – we couldn’t find an obvious way to change the plain fonts used in the categories thumbnails – but you have a good level of control over how products are displayed and listed, and over which information or option is shown or hidden on each page.

IONOS offers Lightspeed Payments, Stripe, Square and PayPal as payment options, and you can also setup shipping through UPS, FedEx and DHL. If you’re happy to do things manually, you can set free shipping or flat rate shipping options by setting up the costs, your packing times and the service’s estimated delivery times; a useful feature.

1and1 IONOS Website Builder review: What other features does it have?

IONOS comes with some effective templates for showcasing video content on YouTube, and the gallery sections are nicely laid-out, with easily customised designs. Many of the modular sections also feature more flexible layout options where you can assign page elements to specific slots, though it sometimes seems impossible to find a slot that will fit certain elements, like the BookingPress Form, even when you’ve cleared other elements from the page. These tools could be a little more intuitive.

It’s also possible to embed HTML elements in your page through a dedicated module, so there’s some added flexibility there.

1and1 IONOS Website Builder review: Is there anything it could do better?

Other Website Builders have more features for integrating a range of media content or social media feeds, and IONOS’s toolkit doesn’t seem to include any blogging features. You can add articles manually to a page as sections, but we couldn’t find anything to add or manage posts in a standard layout.

Another minor grumble is that if you’re starting up an online store in the UK, it shouldn’t be too much to expect GBP as the default currency. You can change this fairly quickly, but it’s buried in a settings menu, and the step-by-step tutorial doesn’t take you there until after you’ve added products to your catalogue. When we switched from dollars to pounds all the prices went blank.

1and1 IONOS Website Builder review: Should you sign up?

1and1 IONOS Website Builder is a solid all-rounder for business and ecommerce sites. GoDaddy Website Builder is faster, but more limited in terms of creative control, and while SquareSpace is hard to beat on templates and design tools, IONOS is arguably easier to use – at least at first.

There are times when IONOS Website Builder also feels restrictive, or where the right tool or setting can be tricky to track down, but you can develop an impressive-looking website without putting in a lot of time or effort. Wix still beats it on features, flexibility and pricing, but IONOS is a great alternative if you want to build a business website fast.

By Stuart Andrews

Sourced from expertreviews

In News

Wix vs. Squarespace vs. WordPress: Which Website Builder Is Best in 2021

July 19, 2021 No Comments

By Krista Fabregas,

Compare the strengths and weaknesses of each platform to help you decide between Wix vs. Squarespace vs. WordPress.

If you’re looking for an e-commerce platform to launch a small business website, Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress are names that rise to the top of any search. Each is a multipurpose platform that supports various online pursuits, from blogging, ecommerce sales, and online bookings, to event tickets, music and photography sales, and more.

Where these top website platforms differ is in their ease of use, control over design, overall functionality, and expandability. We’ll dive into the specifics below, but let’s start with the highlights of each.

Wix vs. Squarespace vs. WordPress: At-a-glance

	Wix	Squarespace	WordPress
Best for	Beginners and basic online sales needs	Image-driven brands, influencers, and online sellers	Growth-oriented online brands, bloggers, and ecommerce businesses
Basic pricing	Free to $39/month	$16 to $26/month	From $3.95/month
Ecommerce pricing	$23 to $49/month	$30 to $46/month	From $6.95/month
Ease of use	Easiest option	Easy to moderate	Moderate to difficult
Design options	500+ free customizable templates	40+ free customizable templates	1000s free and paid themes
Blogging features	Basic	Moderate	Unlimited
Sales functionality	Products and services	Products, services, and memberships	Unlimited
Customer service	Help center, email, and phone	Help center, email, and live chat	Online tutorials and forums

Wix vs. Squarespace vs. WordPress: In-depth review

Clearly, there are similarities and differences between these top-rated website platforms. Once you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each and compare those to your needs, choosing between Wix vs. Squarespace vs. WordPress isn’t difficult. Below, we explore each in-depth to help you find the best fit for your unique small business website needs.

Wix: The basics

Wix is an ideal platform for anyone new to website building and in need of a simple, economical, and functional promotional website or online store. Of the three, only Wix offers a completely free plan, however, the free site displays Wix’s network ads and doesn’t support a unique domain name. For a fully branded website, you’ll need a paid plan.

Wix delivers an incredibly user-friendly turnkey solution with website hosting, design templates, and website functionality—like ecommerce and other online sales features—all in one tidy package. Where Wix falls short of the others is in design versatility. While you have many customization features within the template you select, once you publish your website, you can’t swap it over to a completely new look.

Wix: Pricing

Wix separates its pricing into “Website” and “Business & Ecommerce” plans. It does offer a very basic free plan, but any serious branded service website, blogger, or online business will want the ad-free, custom-domain features available with Wix’s paid website plans. You can seamlessly upgrade your free or lower-level Wix website to a higher plan at any time to extend functionality.

wix vs squarespace vs wordpress — You can toggle between Wix’s “Website” and “Business & Ecommerce” plans to compare features and pricing. Image source: Wix.

Wix’s “Website” plans range from $13 to $39 per month and suit the blogger or promotional website builder. Features such as website analytics, SEO, and video increase with plan pricing, but none of the “Website” plans supports online sales or accepting payments online.

To sell anything online using Wix, you need a “Business & Ecommerce” plan, and these range from $23 to $49 per month. These plans enable online payments for all types of ecommerce functionality, including product sales, digital downloads, and event tickets. Recurring payments for membership and subscription sales require Wix Payments, Stripe, or PayPal as your payment solution.

Your Wix website’s address—also called a domain name or URL— is free for your first year with any paid plan. After that, Wix charges you $14.95 per year for your domain. You might save by registering your domain elsewhere, like GoDaddy, Google, or Bluehost, and connecting it to your Wix website. However, Wix’s domain cost is competitive, and handling everything within one platform is simple and convenient.

Wix: Ease of use and design options

The biggest challenge that most new website owners face is making their website functional and visually appealing. Here, Wix has you covered in both respects. Wix offers over 500 plug-and-play mobile-friendly website design themes that you can customize using simple drag-and-drop tools.

Wix also provides design themes geared for specialty websites such as event promotion and ticket sales, restaurants, real estate, online stores, music portals, salons, and the list goes on. In short, Wix lets you build a website that looks and works the way you want it to.

However, once you publish your Wix website, you can’t easily change to another theme. Here, Wix differs from most modern website builders. Its competitors, including Squarespace and WordPress, let you quickly change your entire look by swapping themes. With Wix, you can edit elements of your website using built-in design tools; but to update your look entirely, you need to rebuild your website within a new Wix theme.

Wix: Features and functionality

Wix offers a sound set of promotional and online selling features that suit many small business needs. All paid plans include a custom domain name for branding and a professional email address. You also get built-in search engine optimization (SEO), chat, and analytics tools, along with social media link icons and email marketing tools.

Wix ecommerce plans support online bookings and prepaid services, event tickets, music streaming and downloads, physical product sales, and photography and art sales. Wix doesn’t offer built-in membership and subscription sales, but there are some third-party apps that you can connect to expand your sales functionality.

Blogging tools are built into every Wix plan as well. However, its blogging features are basic compared to both Squarespace and WordPress. You can manage multiple authors and contributors, but content-focused brands that manage hundreds of blog posts might find Wix’s single-tier category structure and menu options too simplistic.

Squarespace overview

Like Wix, Squarespace delivers an all-in-one website builder platform that supports promotional, blogging, and online sales functionality. Squarespace is also extremely user-friendly and you can build and launch a beautifully branded website in just a few hours. However, unlike Wix, Squarespace doesn’t offer a free plan. In fact, with a starting price of $16 per month, it can be the most expensive of the Wix vs. Squarespace vs. WordPress matchup.

Squarespace’s blogging features are more robust than Wix’s offering, but WordPress is the recognized leader for blogging and content-focused websites. Squarespace provides fewer design templates than the other two—around 40—but all are ultra-modern and visually stunning. Plus, you can easily swap out Squarespace templates to change your overall design, unlike Wix.

Squarespace: Pricing

Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan, but it does provide a 14-day free trial so you can test-drive Squarespace risk-free. If you decide Squarespace is the right option, you can convert your free trial to one of four paid plans and keep building without interruption.

Promotional websites or blogs that don’t need online sales or payment processing features cost $16 or $26 per month on Squarespace, depending on the features you need. Ecommerce plans run $30 or $46 per month, with sales-driving features like discount coupons, shipping tools, and marketing options included in the higher plan.

Squarespace’s ecommerce features beat Wix for small-to-moderate sales needs. However, for the money, volume sellers and ecommerce-focused brands are generally better off with more robust ecommerce platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce running on WordPress.

When you launch a Squarespace website, your site’s domain name is free for the first year. After that, Squarespace charges an annual fee, which can cost from $20 to $70 per year, depending on your URL and plan. You might save by registering your domain with a lower-cost solution like GoDaddy or Bluehost and connecting it to your Squarespace website.

Squarespace: Ease of use and design options

For those new to building websites, Squarespace is slightly more complex than Wix but far easier to grasp out-of-the-box than WordPress. Squarespace has a section-based website editor that takes a little getting used to, but its sleek and modern designs offer plenty of drag-and-drop customization options. If you’re able to save a web-optimized image and uploaded it to a dashboard, setting up a Squarespace website will take you no time at all.

Squarespace offers around 40 plug-and-play design templates, which is low compared to Wix’s 500 and WordPress’s near-infinite options. However, all are visually stunning, which explains Squarespace’s popularity with visual brands and style-focused influencers.

Squarespace templates are mobile-friendly and cater to specific businesses, too. Pre-configured designs for blogs, online stores, music and photography sites, membership sales, and more, make setting up a specialized website a cinch.

An added design plus over Wix, you can completely change or update your Squarespace website’s look at any time by simply changing your design template.

Squarespace: Features and functionality

Squarespace’s blogging features are a solid step above what you get with Wix. If you’re planning a content-rich website and want multiple blog categories, tag options, and stunning visuals all wrapped up in a very user-friendly system, try Squarespace.

In fact, many power bloggers and affiliate marketing brands pick Squarespace over WordPress. It delivers plenty of blogging, SEO, social media, and site analytics power, but it doesn’t require the continual plugin updates and theme maintenance of WordPress.

Its ecommerce functionality is impressive, too, and particularly great for image-focused brands that sell digital products like music subscriptions and downloads, photography, or artwork. It supports physical product sales, event management and tickets, and various services, plus it recently rolled out subscription and membership sales with recurring payments.

Squarespace also integrates with many popular third-party services for marketing, shipping, and bookkeeping functions, including MailChimp, ShipStation, and Xero.

WordPress: The basics

WordPress powers over half of the world’s websites and its popularity is driven by its virtually unlimited functionality and low cost. However, new users typically find that WordPress’s impressive power comes with a steep learning curve compared to platforms like Wix and Squarespace. You’ll definitely spend some time learning the WordPress platform—but it’s worth the effort if you want a site with unlimited capabilities.

WordPress isn’t an all-in-one solution like Wix and Squarespace. It’s a free, standalone platform that works on your choice of hosting service, like Bluehost, GoDaddy, WPEngine, or any number of WordPress hosting options on the market. For example, Bluehost’s basic WordPress hosting packages start at about $3.95 per month, and ecommerce hosting starts at $6.95 per month due to added security features.

WordPress is also infinitely expandable via plugins that add all types of functionality, and free ecommerce themes that deliver endless design possibilities. Pairing WordPress with various plugins and design themes lets you create anything imaginable on the internet. Influencer blogs, ecommerce stores, promotional websites, affiliate marketing websites, video lesson portals, membership sites, and more can all be powered by WordPress.

WordPress: Pricing

WordPress itself is a free platform and for small, basic websites, it can be nearly free to operate. However, as your website traffic and functionality needs expand, your costs can grow. Below are the basic costs you’ll encounter when setting up a WordPress website.

WordPress website hosting costs

Hosting a WordPress website can cost just $3.95 or $6.95 per month for basic websites or ecommerce stores. However, if you receive a lot of traffic or have a large site that demands added storage or bandwidth, your monthly hosting costs can quickly increase. Well-trafficked small business WordPress websites tend to average between $20 to $50 in monthly hosting, due to added security, backup, and storage or bandwidth needs.

Website domain name costs

Like Wix and Squarespace, most WordPress hosting plans include a year of domain name registration for free. After the first year, your domain renews at the hosting service’s annual fee. Most WordPress hosting options offer discounted multi-year domain registration to reduce your cost and to reserve your website address for several years at a time.

WordPress theme and plugin costs

As we’ve mentioned before, unlike Wix and Squarespace, WordPress isn’t an all-in-one solution that lets you increase functionality by simply upgrading your plan. WordPress is just a basic framework. You make your website come to life by adding a design theme and, in most cases, functionality plugins.

There are thousands of themes and plugins to explore. Some are free, but most offer a free basic version plus a paid version that expands functionality, design features, and so on. Selecting the right theme and plugins all depend on your specific needs. For example, if you’re publishing a simple blog, a free WordPress blog theme and add a few free plugins, like Yoast for SEO and MailChimp for email marketing, might be all you ever need.

Ecommerce sellers often use the popular free WooCommerce ecommerce plugin on WordPress with an ecommerce theme, but plugins for online lessons, subscription sales, online bookings, event ticket sales, and other specialty sales generally aren’t free. In short, what WordPress costs you really depends on your specific plugin functionality and theme design needs.

WordPress: Ease of use and design options

After reading the above, you’re probably thinking that assembling a WordPress website takes some doing—and you’d be right. That’s why WordPress gets a “moderate-to-difficult” rating for ease of use. However, its design options are virtually limitless thanks to thousands of themes available, so it gets an A-plus on that.

Your initial setup steps are simple if you go with a major WordPress hosting provider. Bluehost and other top services come with WordPress pre-installed. From there, you just need to install your theme and plugins, then set up your website. This is where the work begins.

Selecting a design theme and functionality plugins can be time-consuming and a bit overwhelming for those new to WordPress. However, at the same time, it’s fun to see the many possibilities open to your website, brand, or business.

The best way to get started down the WordPress path is to visit YouTube and search for “WordPress starter tutorials,” there are plenty to choose from. These offer a quick education on installing and setting up WordPress themes and selecting the right plugins for your specific needs. You’ll find that much of this is trial-and-error and even seasoned WordPress users are constantly trying out new theme and plugin solutions.

You’ll also need to periodically update your themes and plugins. This is generally just a quick click in your WordPress dashboard, but it’s a task you won’t have with a Wix or Squarespace website.

WordPress: Features and functionality

Vast, unlimited, and endless are three very appropriate terms that describe WordPress’s functional capabilities. Essentially, if you can dream up a need, there’s probably a WordPress plugin that fills it.

Consider these popular plugins to kick-start your WordPress website build:

WooCommerce: Free ecommerce plugin for WordPress for physical, digital, and service sales
Yoast: Free SEO tools for any type of WordPress website
Sucuri: WordPress security, many hosting platforms include this or a similar plugin for free
Jetpack: Multi-feature tool that offers marketing, social icons, security, backups and more
MailChimp: Free basic email marketing; paid version adds more features
Memberpress: Adds membership and subscription features to WordPress
LearnDash: Adds online learning and lesson sales to WordPress
WooZone: Turns a WordPress website into an Amazon affiliate store
AffiliateWP: Affiliate marketing content creation tool for affiliate bloggers

These are just a few of the thousands of plugins that can take your WordPress website in any direction. You can explore the full universe of WordPress plugins on ThemeForest and WordPress.org.

Many WordPress themes come pre-loaded with needed plugins to help simplify your WordPress website build. You can find theme/plugin packages for ecommerce, real estate, restaurants, blogs, affiliate marketing, online lessons, and membership websites, to name just a few.

Most of these are “Premium” themes and they generally cost from $20 to $150—though most average around $49. These premium theme/plugin pairings are generally worth every cent since they save you a ton of time searching and testing various plugins.

Wix vs. Squarespace vs. WordPress: The bottom line

Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress are all leading website builders with features and benefits that cater to different types of users. Wix and Squarespace are simple-to-use platforms that bundle hosting, design, and functionality into an all-in-one package. Wix is the simplest startup solution, while Squarespace offers more control over content, blogging, and design.

WordPress, in contrast, is infinitely customizable and gives users complete control over hosting, design, content elements, and website functionality. However, WordPress’s versatility comes with a far bigger learning curve compared to Wix and Squarespace.

Remember, it doesn’t cost a dime to set up a free Wix website, or free trials with Squarespace and some of WordPress’s hosting services. Diving in is really the only way to know what each platform offers on both the front and back ends. After test driving each, you’re sure to find the clear winner in the Wix vs. Squarespace vs. WordPress showdown for your unique needs.

This article originally appeared on Fundera, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.

By Krista Fabregas

About the author: Krista Fabregas is a freelance writer, specializing in e-commerce and retail. Read more

Sourced from nerdwallet

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Wix vs Squarespace: which is better?

June 16, 2021 No Comments

By Anna Sevilla,

Flexibility or structure, the choice is all yours

When it comes to picking the best website builder for you to build an online presence, many have similar features that could make picking the right one for you quite challenging.

Two of the most popular names in easy-to-use website builders are Wix and Squarespace.

Behind over 50% of the websites created using website builders, on the surface you may think that there’s not much distinction between Wix and Squarespace in terms of their offerings, but there are actually key differences you may want to consider before making a final decision on which one to pick.

From awesome templates to user-friendly navigation, website builders gaining popularity these days is not at all surprising. After all, these website building tools are a big help for businesses to gain online presence.

In this article, we will thoroughly examine the differences between Wix and Squarespace, highlighting all their pros and cons so that you can then decide for yourself which of the two is right for you.

1. Wix – a top-notch website builder
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No coding skills? No problem. Both Wix and Squarespace utilize tools known as ‘software as a service’ or SaaS, which allows the creation and maintenance of a website to be done by a novice. Be that as it may, here are some identified differences between the two.

Wix relatively makes creating the website without coding skills a lot easier than Squarespace. The latter, however, becomes easier with practice, and for website builders who don’t have a lot of time to spare, Wix is an easy choice.

Wix vs Squarespace: the main difference

Wix allows a lot more freedom to customize your website pages whereas Squarespace has a structured editor. Wix has more overall features to work with but Squarespace is designed to make the features it does have easier to apply and use.

Page Editor

Here's some of the Wix templates available — Here’s some of the Wix templates available (Image credit: Wix)

Wix offers drag-and-drop by the pixel. That means any element can be moved to any space on the page. This drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to start designing your website as you can do so freely. Wix’s editor is intuitive, which is ideal for beginners who have very little experience of building a website. This also makes reverting to previous versions easier as well as recovering content in the event that the need arises.

Squarespace has a more structured drag-and-drop feature in that it’s more section-based as opposed to the drag-and-drop anywhere feature that Wix offers. This means that when you drag elements, you’ll essentially be dropping them into specific columns and rows where they can snap into. This takes away a great deal of the creative freedom Wix offers, but it only takes some getting used to and it becomes just as easy to manoeuvre.

Pricing

Wix offers a free plan where the most basic tools can be utilized. Its paid plans are divided into two categories: website plans for when you’re creating a professional website, and business and eCommerce plans for when the website needs to accept online payments.

With prices ranging from US $4.50 to $24.50 per month, users who avail of the website plans get from 1GB to unlimited bandwidth, up to 35GB of storage space, up to five hours of video, Site Booster and Visitor Analytics apps free for an entire year, a professional logo, social media logo files, and 24/7 dedicated customer support.

Business and eCommerce plans, on the other hand, range from US $17 to $35 per month. These plans allow users not only to accept online payments, but also scale their business and access to the full VIP suite. All plans offer unlimited bandwidth, 20, 35, and 50GB of storage, and the same level of dedicated customer care as the website plans.

Choosing a Squarespace plan is less complicated as there are only four. It follows the logic of getting more features made available the higher the tier of the plan users choose. The cheapest plan called the Personal plan gives a user a custom domain whereas Wix’s Connect or most basic plan doesn’t. This basic plan also gives users unlimited bandwidth and storage, as opposed to Wix’s 1GB bandwidth and 500MB of storage for the same plan.

Though noticeably different in features, it is important to consider the price difference between the two basic plans. Wix Connect Domain plan has a monthly recurring charge of US $4.50, whereas Squarespace Personal plan costs $12 per month. It is also worth noting that Wix Connect Domain plan displays Wix ads, something a user would not have to deal with if they went with Squarespace.

For users who aren’t as concerned about bandwidth and storage and want to focus on design and having a website and don’t mind ads, Wix is a cheaper option.

Extra Features

Squarespace extensions — Squarespace’s extra features can be added in-house unlike Wix’s preferred method of using apps (Image credit: Squarespace)

With over 200 apps for third party integration (both paid and free) found exclusively in its own dedicated App Market, Wix lets users maximize how they can personalize their website even further. The App Market offers a wide selection of “made by Wix” apps as well as third party apps that help add an extra layer of functionality to sites easily. The apps featured in the App Market include email marketing apps, call conversion apps, interactive videos, dropshipping tools, calendars, notification tools, and a lot more.

Squarespace, on the other hand, doesn’t offer extra features in the form of apps. Instead, anything that isn’t already offered by Squarespace in-house can be added via third-party integration. Instead of an app store, Squarespace has extensions that help users manage, optimize, and expand their site. There are extensions for shipping and fulfilment, finance, inventory and products, and sales and marketing.

Wix definitely outdoes Squarespace in the number of apps to choose from, making customization much easier, however, quality-wise, we think Squarespace has the edge over Wix.

Ecommerce: Wix Store vs Squarespace Shop

Squarespace online store — Squarespace’s online store has a slick overall design (Image credit: Squarespace)

Wix Store lets users create a professional online store with features such as custom product pages, shopping cart, multiple sales channels, and a lot more. Mainly, it’s geared towards small and medium online stores alike, and it’s affordable and convenient.

Squarespace does not fall behind Wix in terms of features, and certainly has the upper hand when it comes to a sleek overall design. It’s main disadvantage, however, is that it does not have its own store, which means if the feature is not built-in, it can’t be implemented.

Verdict

If you’re ready for your business to take off, choosing the best builder can help you get started. Unless you’ve found the perfect tools and have found comfort in either option, you can opt to try them both and see where the most benefits are.

As Wix is for anyone who wants to give website creation a try, it comes highly recommended as the interface is intuitive, and there are tons of extra options. You can get your creativity working, and personalize your site as much as you need to.

Squarespace is the perfect option if you want to achieve giving your site a sleek look with premium features, never mind how limited the options are.

Feature Image Credit: Wix vs Squarespace: which is better? (Image credit: Pixabay)

By Anna Sevilla,

Sourced from techradar.pro

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Design your own website with no coding knowledge necessarily using this app

March 11, 2020 No Comments

Sourced from pocketnow.

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Blueprints Website Builder is a simple-to-use app with a clean, intuitive visual builder interface. It’s easy to customize to best suit your small business or personal needs. The templates and blocks are based on Bootstrap 4 framework, HTML, and JavaScript, but you don’t need any coding experience to operate. Best of all, Blueprints Website Builder automatically boosts searchability thanks to the built-in SEO.

Once you’ve designed your successful website, export the ready-to-web publishing HTML flat file in literally 1 second. Get Blueprints Website Builder: Lifetime Subscription today for $39, which is 73% off the original price.

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