You need a website. But with so many options, how do you pick the right one without wasting money or starting over six months from now? Here’s the honest breakdown.
WHAT YOU’LL GET FROM THIS POST
- A side-by-side comparison of 6 popular website platforms
- What each one actually costs (including the stuff they don’t put in the ads)
- The pros and cons of each — no sugarcoating
- A clear answer to “Which one is right for my business?”
- Why we recommend self-hosted WordPress for most small business owners (and when we don’t)
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
- About 15 minutes to read
- A general idea of what your business needs from a website (even if it’s just “I need one”)
You Need a Home Online. The Question Is Where to Build It.
If you’re starting a business — or growing one — you need a website. That’s not really up for debate anymore. The question isn’t whether to build one. It’s where.
And that question can feel overwhelming fast.
There are dozens of website builders out there, each one promising they’re the easiest, the cheapest, the best. Their ads make it look like you’ll have a beautiful website by lunchtime. Some of them are telling the truth. Most of them are leaving out the fine print.
Here’s what we’re going to do: look at the six most popular options, side by side, and tell you what each one is actually like to use — the good, the bad, and the stuff nobody mentions until you’re already paying.
We’ll be honest: we have a favorite. We use self-hosted WordPress ourselves, and we think it’s the best choice for most small business owners who are serious about growing. But we’ll explain exactly why — and we’ll also tell you when it’s not the right fit.
Let’s break it all down.
The Quick Comparison
Before we dive into the details, here’s the big picture. This table shows you how the six platforms compare on the things that matter most.p>
(A note on pricing: most of these platforms show you the monthly price when you pay for a full year upfront. If you pay month-to-month, it’s usually more. The prices below are the annual-billing rates.)
| Platform | Starting Price | Ease of Setup | Customization | Long-Term Cost | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | $17/mo | Very easy | Moderate | Moderate | Visual portfolios and simple sites |
| Squarespace | $16/mo | Easy | Moderate | Moderate | Creatives and design-focused sites |
| Shopify | $39/mo | Moderate | Moderate | High | Online stores (that’s basically it) |
| GoDaddy | $10/mo | Very easy | Limited | Low–Moderate | Very basic business sites |
| WordPress.com | Free–$4/mo | Easy | Limited–Moderate | Low–High | Blogs and simple content sites |
| Self-Hosted WordPress ⭐ | ~$19/mo | Moderate | Unlimited | Moderate | Serious businesses that want full control |
Now let’s look at each one in detail.
Wix
What it is: A drag-and-drop website builder that lets you pick a template and customize it visually. It’s one of the most popular options out there, and you’ve probably seen their ads everywhere.
What it costs:
- Light plan: $17/month
- Core plan (what most people need): $29/month
- That’s roughly $200–$350 per year
What’s good about it:
Wix is genuinely easy to use. You pick a template, drag things around, type your text, and publish. If you’ve ever made a slideshow or edited a photo on your phone, you can figure out Wix. Their AI tool can even generate a starter site for you based on a few questions.
The template library is huge, and the designs look modern. For someone who wants a good-looking website up fast without hiring anyone, Wix delivers on that promise.
What’s not so good:
Once you pick a template, you can’t switch to a different one without starting over from scratch. That’s a bigger deal than it sounds — because your taste might change, or your business might grow in a direction the template wasn’t designed for.
The free plan puts Wix ads on your site (not a great look for a business). And as you add features — a scheduling tool here, an email form there — you’ll often need third-party apps that cost $3–$20 per month each. Those add up quietly.
You also don’t truly own your site. If Wix changes their pricing, shuts down a feature, or goes out of business, your website goes with it. You can’t pack it up and move it somewhere else.
Best for: Someone who needs a simple, visually appealing website quickly — like a portfolio, a small local business site, or a personal brand page — and doesn’t plan to do much beyond that.
Squarespace
What it is: A website builder known for beautiful, polished templates. It’s especially popular with photographers, designers, and anyone who wants their site to look like a magazine spread.
What it costs:
- Basic plan: $16/month
- Core plan: $23/month
- Plus plan: $39/month
- That’s roughly $192–$468 per year
What’s good about it:
The templates are gorgeous. If design matters to you — and for many businesses, it should — Squarespace consistently produces the most visually polished sites of any builder. Everything looks clean, modern, and professional right out of the box.
It also includes hosting, security, and a free domain for your first year — all in one price. You don’t have to worry about connecting separate services. For someone who just wants things to work without thinking about the technical side, that’s a real advantage.
What’s not so good:
Customization has a ceiling. You can adjust fonts, colors, and layouts within the template’s structure — but if you want something the template doesn’t support, you’re stuck. Custom code is only available on higher-tier plans, and even then it’s limited compared to what you can do with WordPress.
The Basic plan only allows 2 contributors, so if you’re working with a helper or virtual assistant, you’ll need to upgrade. And while Squarespace handles simple online stores, it’s not built for serious ecommerce — things like multi-currency support and advanced shipping options are either limited or missing.
Like Wix, your site lives on their platform. You can’t take it with you if you leave.
Best for: Creative professionals — photographers, artists, designers, writers — who want a beautiful site and don’t need heavy customization or a full online store.
Shopify
What it is: An online store builder. That’s what it does, and it does it well. Everything about Shopify is designed around selling products online.
What it costs:
- Basic plan: $39/month (or $29/month if you pay annually)
- Standard plan: $105/month (or $79/month annually)
- Plus transaction fees on every sale: 2.6%–2.9% + $0.30 per transaction
- That’s roughly $350–$950 per year before transaction fees
What’s good about it:
If you’re selling physical products online — especially if you’re shipping them — Shopify is hard to beat. Inventory tracking, shipping calculations, abandoned cart emails, multiple payment options — it handles all of it. The app store has thousands of add-ons for everything from dropshipping to loyalty programs.
Shopify also handles the scary stuff well: payment security compliance, fraud detection, and tax calculations. If ecommerce is your core business, Shopify takes a lot of the technical burden off your plate.
What’s not so good:
It’s expensive. The monthly fees are higher than other builders, and the transaction fees eat into your margins on every single sale. If you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments, they charge an additional 1–2% fee on top of the payment processor’s fees.
And here’s the thing nobody says out loud: Shopify is not great for anything that isn’t a store. If you want a blog, a resource library, or content pages that bring people to your site through search engines, Shopify is clunky for that. The blogging tools are basic, the templates are store-focused, and the whole platform is built around checkout, not content.
For someone who sells a service, teaches something, or wants to build an audience before they have products — Shopify is the wrong tool.
Best for: Businesses that sell physical products online and need serious ecommerce features: inventory tracking, shipping, product variants, and payment processing. Not ideal for service businesses or content-first brands.
GoDaddy Website Builder
What it is: A simple, AI-powered website builder from GoDaddy — the company most people know for selling domain names. Their builder promises a website in minutes.
What it costs:
- Basic plan: $10/month (billed annually)
- Premium plan: $16/month
- Commerce plan: $20/month
- That’s roughly $120–$240 per year
- Important: GoDaddy is known for raising prices significantly after your first year
What’s good about it:
It’s the cheapest option on this list, and the AI setup tool can generate a starter website from a few quick answers. If your only goal is to have something online — a basic page with your business name, hours, phone number, and a contact form — GoDaddy can do that in about 20 minutes.
It also includes basic appointment scheduling, which is handy for service businesses like hair salons, consultants, or personal trainers.
What’s not so good:
The design tools are rigid. You can’t drag and drop elements freely — you’re working within a grid system that limits where things can go. If you have a specific vision for how your site should look, GoDaddy will frustrate you.
The ecommerce features are bare-bones. You can’t customize the checkout page, you can’t add custom fields (like gift messages or special instructions), and applying sales tax correctly is difficult.
The biggest issue is the ceiling. GoDaddy gets you started fast, but there’s almost nowhere to grow. As your business evolves, you’ll hit the limits of what the builder can do — and then you’ll be starting over on a different platform anyway, having lost the time and money you invested here.
Best for: Someone who needs the simplest, cheapest possible website — a digital business card, essentially. Not recommended if you plan to grow, sell online, or do anything beyond the basics.
WordPress.com (the Hosted Version)
What it is: A hosted version of WordPress, run by a company called Automattic. It’s important to understand that WordPress.com and WordPress.org are two different things — same name, very different products. WordPress.com is a managed platform where you pay a monthly fee and they handle everything. WordPress.org is free software you install on your own hosting (we’ll cover that next).
What it costs:
- Free plan: $0 (but your site address will be yourname.wordpress.com)
- Personal plan: $4/month
- Premium plan: $8/month
- Business plan: $25/month
- Commerce plan: $45/month
- That’s anywhere from $0 to $540 per year
What’s good about it:
The free plan is genuinely free — no trial period, no credit card required. It’s a real option if you just want to start writing and see if blogging is for you. WordPress.com was built for content, and the writing experience is clean and simple.
The paid plans add a custom domain, more storage, and better design options. If you’re primarily a writer or content creator, WordPress.com gives you a solid foundation without much technical fuss.
What’s not so good:
The free and lower-tier plans are severely limited. You can’t install plugins (the tools that add features to WordPress), you’re stuck with a handful of themes, and WordPress.com puts their own ads on your free site.
Here’s the confusing part: WordPress is famous for being infinitely customizable. But that’s WordPress.org — the self-hosted version. WordPress.com locks down most of that flexibility. People sign up for WordPress.com expecting the full WordPress experience and end up disappointed.
The Business plan ($25/month) does unlock plugins and themes, but at that price you could get fully-managed WordPress hosting with more features and no restrictions. You’d be paying a premium for less control.
Best for: Bloggers and writers who want to start publishing quickly, or anyone who wants to test the waters before committing to a more powerful platform. Not the best value if you need plugins, customization, or ecommerce.
Self-Hosted WordPress (WordPress.org)
What it is: WordPress is the software that powers over 40% of all websites on the internet — from personal blogs to major news sites to Fortune 500 companies. When people say “WordPress” in professional conversations, this is what they mean.
The software itself is completely free. You download it, install it on a hosting account you choose, and build whatever you want. You own everything — the design, the content, the data, the entire site. No one can change the rules on you or take it away.
What it costs:
- WordPress software: Free (always)
- Hosting: $19–$30/month for managed hosting (roughly $228–$360 per year)
- A premium theme like Divi: $89/year or $249 one-time
- Domain name: about $12–$15/year
- Total first year: roughly $330–$430
- Following years: roughly $240–$370
What’s good about it:
You own your website. This is the single biggest advantage, and it’s the one most people don’t think about until it’s too late. With every other platform on this list, your site lives on someone else’s property. If they raise prices, change features, or shut down, you’re scrambling. With self-hosted WordPress, your site is yours. You can move it to any hosting company, redesign it anytime, and you’re never locked in.
You can build literally anything. A blog. An online store. A course platform. A membership site. A booking system. A portfolio. A resource library. A community. WordPress has over 60,000 free plugins — small tools that add features to your site — plus thousands of premium ones. If you can imagine it, someone has probably built a plugin for it.
It grows with your business. This is what separates WordPress from the website builders. Wix, Squarespace, and GoDaddy are designed for simple sites. When your business outgrows them, you start over. WordPress is designed to grow with you. You can start with a simple 4-page website and grow it into a full business platform — without ever switching tools.
It’s better for showing up in search results. WordPress gives you complete control over the things search engines care about — your page structure, your URLs, your loading speed, your meta descriptions. With a good plugin like SmartCrawl, you can fine-tune every page to help people find you when they search for what you offer.
The long-term cost is actually lower. Yes, it costs more upfront than a basic Wix or GoDaddy plan. But there are no transaction fees eating into your sales, no surprise charges for features that should be included, and no pressure to upgrade to a more expensive tier every time you need something new. Over two or three years, self-hosted WordPress often costs less than the platforms that seemed cheaper on day one.
What’s not so good:
Let’s be real: WordPress has a steeper learning curve than a drag-and-drop builder. You won’t have a finished site in 20 minutes. There are more decisions to make — which hosting company, which theme, which plugins — and that can feel overwhelming at first.
If you’re doing it completely on your own with no guidance, the first week can be rough. This is why choosing good hosting matters. A fully-managed WordPress host handles the technical side — security, updates, backups, speed — so you can focus on building your site, not managing a server.
And honestly, this is exactly why we built Marketer Blvd on self-hosted WordPress and provide managed hosting services for our clients. We believe it’s the right foundation for a serious business, and our guides are designed to walk you through the setup step by step.
Best for: Anyone who is serious about growing a business online and wants full control over their website — now and in the future. Especially strong for people who want to build an audience, create content, sell products or services, and use tools like AI and email to bring in customers.
So Which One Should You Choose?
Here’s the honest answer.
If you’re building a real business and you plan to stick with it, go with self-hosted WordPress. Yes, it takes a little more effort at the start. But you’ll never outgrow it, you’ll never be forced to start over, and you’ll own every piece of what you build. That matters more than most people realize — until the day they wish they’d made a different choice.
If you sell physical products online and that’s your main business, Shopify is worth a look. It’s expensive, but it handles the complexity of ecommerce better than anything else on this list.
If you’re a creative professional who needs a beautiful portfolio site and nothing more, Squarespace is a fine choice. The templates are stunning, and you won’t need much beyond what it offers.
If you literally just need a page with your phone number and hours — and you’re sure that’s all you’ll ever need — GoDaddy is the cheapest way to get that done.
If you want to experiment with blogging before committing to anything, the free WordPress.com plan is a no-risk way to start writing.
We’d skip Wix. At its price point, you’re paying nearly as much as self-hosted WordPress but getting a fraction of the flexibility and none of the ownership. It’s in an awkward middle ground — too expensive for a basic site, too limited for a growing business.
What to Do Next
If you’re leaning toward self-hosted WordPress — or even just curious about it — here’s what to do:
Step 1: Read our website setup guide (coming soon) — it’ll walk you through every step of getting your site online, from choosing hosting to publishing your first page.
Step 2: Grab The ChatGPT Cheat Code — our free guide includes a prompt that will plan your entire website content for you, so you’re not staring at a blank page wondering what to write.
Step 3: Already have a website on another platform and thinking about switching? That’s more common than you’d think. WordPress makes migration possible, and most managed hosts will help you move your site over for free.
The platform you choose today will affect everything you build tomorrow. Choose the one that gives you room to grow.
