The Best Website Builders for Nonprofit and Charity Organizations in 2024

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If you’re looking to create a website for a nonprofit or charity organization, be sure to read this guide. It will save you both time and money. In this guide, I’ll cover the best website builders for nonprofits – those website creation platforms that are particularly well-suited for building nonprofit sites.

It’s important to understand that a standard nonprofit organization’s website is not just a simple brochure site. It has specific functional and visual features that need to be addressed. I would like to highlight two of these features.

Distinctive Design for Nonprofit Organizations:

Not all website builders offer web templates for nonprofits or charity themes. This means you might spend a lot of effort and time adapting templates from other themes for nonprofit purposes. All the nonprofit website builders reviewed in this guide come with nonprofit templates, saving you the hassle of modifying them.

Donation Option Availability:

The main purpose of nonprofit websites is to collect donations. It’s clear that choosing the best website builders for a nonprofit should primarily depend on whether they include a donation option. Some advanced website builders (like Wix), do not have a built-in donation option but offer it as an additional widget.

Of course, the list of criteria doesn’t end with these two. Keep reading, and you’ll learn everything you need to know.

Best Website Builders for Non-profit Organizations

There are plenty of website builders that I have analyzed and assessed. From all those options, the ones most suitable for nonprofit and charity organizations are discussed below.

Wix – the Best Website Builder for Nonprofits

Wix, perhaps, is the most appropriate website builder for creating non-profit websites. You’ll soon see why.

wix nonprofit website builder

First of all, Wix has got the largest collection of free templates for nonprofits and charity organizations. Their collection is the widest among all online website builders. Plus, Wix also has a powerful yet simple-to-use drag-and-drop editor. The website builder also has some additional non-profits apps that help in making your website even better. There are membership options too, designed specifically to build non-profit websites with membership systems. And above all this, Wix is free. Even when you decide to scale to the premium plans, the cost won’t scare you.

Now, let us study the advantages of Wix in detail.

A Large Selection of Nonprofit Templates

Wix has got the largest collection of quality (and free!) non-profit website templates. And they are fully responsive, which means they’ll display perfectly on any device.

Check all non-profit Wix templates

Moreover, Wix has separate templates for creating websites for charity organizations.

Check all charity Wix templates

Wix also has a religious website templates category. This category has nice solutions for non-profit religious organizations.

Check all religious Wix templates

Simple and User-friendly

Wix is designed in a way so as to ensure that every user (even beginners) can create a website independently. This means you would be able to build a website without having to put in several days or weeks of work and without anyone’s additional help. It’s very important to consider simplicity in a website builder because not all builders that claim to be simple are actually so.

The main advantage of using Wix (after its templates, of course) is an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. Simply stated, this is what will allow you to turn a basic template into a ready website filled with pages and content.

Wix’s drag-and-drop editor is powerful and responsive and comes with lots of settings. It’s the most advanced drag-and-drop editor among all those I’ve seen. And yet, it remains simple and user-friendly.

NOTE: Some website builders have even simpler drag-and-drop editors but that is achieved upon reducing functional capacities. Such platforms are those that never bothered to develop a cool visual editor. So they have just the basic capacities for template editing and that’s why they’re so simple. But that’s not the case with Wix.

Wix Donation and Charity Apps

Another great advantage of Wix is the Wix App Market, where you can find additional apps and widgets for improving your website. Both free and premium options are available here.

Wix Donation and Charity Apps

Some useful free apps for non-profit websites include:

PayPal Button – You can install this button on your website and accept PayPal donations (one-off or by subscription). It allows accepting donations in 25 different currencies.

Get Funding – If you install the Get Funding app on your website, you can get donations safely and reliably through credit cards or PayPal. You’ll also have the option to collect donation statistics and share this data with your website’s users.

Site Badges – This app lets you install badges on single products or pages. Using the badges, you can state, for example, that 50% of the money from sales will go to charity. This is a good way to attract user attention and increase sales.

If you need a more powerful solution for collecting donations, then Wix supports integration with Donorbox.

Donorbox is a comprehensive solution for donation collection through credit cards, bank transfers, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and so on. Donorbox is not just a donation button. It also has configurable donation forms with many additional possibilities.

For example, you can not just accept regular payments, but also collect extra information about your donors. Later you can use this data to form closer relations with donors and ensure their continued cooperation.

Building Nonprofit Websites with Membership System

You can take your nonprofit organization’s website to the next level using closed access areas for the members of your organization.

Wix membership system integration

Members can access certain private sections on the website and browse through the information addressed only to them. Non-member visitors on your website won’t be able to access these sections.

This may also be a convenient option for your donors including large business owners and some corporations that donate to your organization. They can see how much donation they have made so far and the goals for which this money will be utilized in the members-only zone on your website.

Such a level of transparency will aid the reputation and trust-building efforts of your non-profit organization.

Wix can help you with this since it has a built-in membership system. With this, you’ll be able to configure access to certain sections for all members or only selected members or paying customers.

Costs

Wix is a free website builder by default. But I don’t recommend the free plan for creating non-profit websites. With the free plan, you’ll have to make do with a free subdomain, for example, non-profit.wix.com. This won’t contribute towards building people’s confidence in your non-profit organization.

Upgrading from the free plan to one of the premium ones will allow you to use any desirable domain name and your website’s address would look something like non-profit.com.

Advice: The best domain category for nonprofits and fundraising organizations is .ORG. As opposed to .COM (popular in the business field), .ORG domains imply that the website is run by an organization that has nothing to do with money-making.

Wix has several premium plans that you can choose from. The most affordable one is Combo, which costs $14 monthly (when paid annually). The Combo plan allows building a simple non-profit website with basic functionalities. Plus, you also get a free domain name for 1 year and a free SSL certificate.

Learn more about Wix plans on the official website.

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Squarespace – Make a Nonprofit Site More Spectacular

Squarespace is a premium website builder that offers ample opportunities for creating websites for non-profit organizations. Just like Wix, it is one of the few website builders that have their own non-profit website templates.

squarespace nonprofit website builder

Originally, Squarespace positioned itself as a platform for launching online portfolios and websites for photographers, artists, and entertainers. But with constant and admittedly successful steps for development, Squarespace today allows building websites of all kinds. This also includes websites for nonprofit organizations.

Beautiful Nonprofit Templates

Squarespace has a collection of beautiful and user-friendly nonprofit templates. Surely it doesn’t have as many templates as Wix, but the available options are spectacular and professional-looking in design and definitely deserve attention.

Check all non-profit Squarespace templates

The thing that I like most about Squarespace is its attitude towards website appearance. Beautiful, minimalistic templates have traditionally been Squarespace’s strong point. These templates are stylish, have a minimalistic design, lay emphasis on even the smallest details, have carefully balanced design elements and harmoniously chosen colors. All this makes Squarespace a highly valued choice for those who consider the look of the website as an important factor.

Special Blocks with Donation Buttons

In addition to non-profit templates, Squarespace can help you collect donations via special donation blocks. These donation buttons can be edited the way you like. You can change the amount of donation, the button’s color, and its design as well, along with the text on the button.

Information Collection forms

Squarespace also allows collecting data from donors and website visitors. You can collect the names, locations, company names, and contact details of your donors.

Plus, you can create an email list for your newsletter using Mailchimp integration. You can send emails concerning upcoming events, news about your organization, and even blogs published on your site.

Simple Drag-and-Drop Editor

A simple and intuitive drag-and-drop editor allows every user to master Squarespace easily, regardless of their previous website development experience.

Squarespace’s drag-and-drop editor’s interface isn’t overloaded with details and is user-friendly.

Simple Drag-and-Drop Editor

It’s not as flexible as Wix’s editor and has fewer template editing options. But there are enough options for customizing your website to give it the right look.

Costs

Squarespace doesn’t have a free plan but allows you to try the services for free with a 14-days trial. After the trial, you can select one of the premium plans.

The most affordable one is the Personal plan that costs $12 monthly if paid for a year at once. With this plan, you get unlimited bandwidth and storage space, a free SSL certificate, and a free custom domain for 1 year. The plan has enough functionalities to build a small non-profit website with beautiful designs and the option to get donations.

Visit Squarespace pricing to learn more.

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Shopify – for Nonprofit Websites with Ecommerce Requirements

Shopify is a world-famous eCommerce platform for building online stores. But it also has a special section for launching websites for nonprofit and charitable organizations.

Most charitable organizations sell some products and a certain part of the proceeds from sales go to charity.

For example, one non-profit organization that I know very well sells wooden bracelets (made from dry, fallen branches). For every bracelet sold, the organization promises to plant a new tree. This not just helps get funds but also draws attention to forest conservation by taking actual efforts.

If your non-profit organization also plans to sell certain products, Shopify will be the ideal website builder for you.

It allows selling any type of goods, both physical and virtual. This website builder also provides a logistics facility and automated tax receipts and lets you access detailed analytics data about your customers and donors.

Special Prices for Nonprofit Organizations

Shopify doesn’t have low-cost plans and is, in fact, one of the most expensive online website builders. However, realizing the specific needs of nonprofit organizations, Shopify offers some plans specifically for them. These include the NPO Lite and NPO Full plan.

The cost of these special plans is not stated on the website, as Shopify recommends that charitable and other non-profit organizations contact them for the prices and additional information.

Advanced Features for Online Sales

If you want to make hassle-free sales and also increase your buyer base, Shopify is exactly what you need. With Shopify, you can sell any physical or virtual goods (like charitable online postcards) around the world.

If you are interested in selling your physical products in the United States, Canada, or Australia, you can save even more money thanks to Shopify Shipping. Under this, Shopify delivers your goods at a lower cost (almost 25% of the original cost). This is possible as Shopify has special agreements with shipping carriers like USPS, DHL Express, Canada Post, and Sendle.

This is a stress-free, simple and money-saving solution for charitable organizations.

Regular Donation Subscriptions

Another valuable feature of Shopify is that it allows receiving donations via regular subscriptions. Your donors can set up a monthly or quarterly subscription and automate their donations. It is very convenient for both charitable foundations and donors.

Shopify Pay – Receive Donations Without a Fee

Most payment systems charge a commission on payment processing. But if you use Shopify, you don’t have to pay any fees. Shopify doesn’t charge any extra commissions. With Shopify Pay, you can accept donations and payments for purchase without having to pay any extra charges.

Shopify Apps for NPO

Special apps for nonprofit organizations

Like Wix, Shopify also has an App Store from where you can download the necessary apps for free. The Shopify app store also has some apps for websites for non-profit organizations. The most useful ones are:

Give&Grow Donations – It is an end-to-end donation solution that allows donors to see the social impact of their donations.

Easy Donation – It is a donation app that allows NPOs to collect donations directly at the checkout page. Using this app, at the time of purchase, the customer gets an option to make a small donation to your organization.

Change Commerce – This is a fully customizable end-to-end donation app that can increase customer loyalty and the AOV for charitable companies.

Moreover, Shopify easily integrates with DonorBox, which allows using multiple channels for getting donations for your non-profit organization.

Costs

As I already said, Shopify caters to the needs of nonprofit and charitable organizations by offering two plans specifically for them: NPO Lite and NPO Full Plan.

These plans are available at lower costs and have additional capacities, suitable for nonprofit organizations.

You can get more information about the cost of these by sending in a request on the official Shopify website.

Create a site

The Importance of a Website for Nonprofit Organizations

No matter what kind of nonprofit organization you represent – charity organization, political organization, church, social club, consumer cooperative, or school – it’ll be hard to overemphasize the importance of having a decent website. More so if you run or manage a charitable organization that directly relates to social activities and donations.

The key point is trust and the organization’s reputation. You can visit the link below to see what Wikipedia tells us about the importance of trust for nonprofit organizations: “For a nonprofit that seeks to finance its operations through donations, public confidence is a factor in the amount of money that a nonprofit organization is able to raise. The more nonprofits focus on their mission, the more public confidence they will have. This will result in more money for the organization.”

nonprofit organizations

A website acts as a showcase and newsletter that reveals the objectives and mission of the organization to the public. However, that’s not the end of what a nonprofit organization’s website should look like or do. In the case of some non-commercial organizations, the website should make it possible for visitors to make a donation and, of course, contact the organization’s representatives.

How Should a Contemporary Website for Non-Commercial Organizations Be?

Before talking about choosing the best website builder for nonprofit organizations, let’s find out what features a good nonprofit site should have.

If you believe you have a deep understanding of the specific requirements of non-profit organization’s websites, you can skip this section and directly proceed to the section that discusses the website builders suitable for the job.

For everybody else, we have the specific requirements of a nonprofit website laid out right here.

Nonprofit Website Design

All websites should have a characteristic design. And by glancing at your nonprofit website your users should be able to immediately understand what your website and organization are about.

This is extremely important since most Internet users are likely to quickly bounce away from your website if they feel that the work of your organization doesn’t meet their expectations. They might also believe they have landed on the wrong site due to a mistake in the URL.

As it is already known, millennials and Generation Z tend to take rapid (often hasty) decisions based on first impressions. They hardly consider the details if the first impression isn’t good enough. That’s why you should pay more attention to the design of your nonprofit organization’s website.

Conclusion: The website builder you choose must have quality nonprofit templates created by professional web designers.

Responsive Design

In addition to a beautiful and clean design, a website should also have an adaptive layout and be responsive. This means it must be properly displayed on any device, whether it is a PC with a widescreen monitor, a laptop, or a mobile phone.

You might be surprised, but most people visit websites right from their smartphones. So, you should take mobile responsive design and layout into account.

Conclusion: The website builder you pick must have responsive templates. Ideally, the website builder should also allow you to configure the mobile version of your website separately from the desktop version.

About Us and Our Mission Sections

Your website must have About Us and Our Mission sections. These sections tell your website, visitors, about your nonprofit organization. These pages on your website are perfect for placing videos too. With a video, you can quickly share the information with your target audience and also create a better impact on them.

Conclusion: The website builder should support video integrations on all the pages of your website.

News Section

Your website must have a News section where you can publish the details about the day-to-day activities and important milestones of your organization.

The presence of a News section on your website is important since it shows that your organization is active and is not just interested in collecting donations. This helps increase the reliability and image of your NPO in the community.

Conclusion: The website builder you use for your nonprofit organization’s website should have a News section with the possibility to add different types of content, including text, photos, and videos. The website builder should also have an option to schedule the new updates on a specific date. This will ensure that the news is communicated to your site users at the appropriate times.

Photo and Video Galleries

Photo and video galleries on your website will be a big plus. Using these sections you will be able to publish photo reports and videos of past events. It’s an effective way to raise the audience’s confidence in your organization.

Conclusion: The right website builder for your needs should have photo and video galleries with the possibility of sorting photos/videos according to categories and dates.

Donation Option

If there is one thing that is the most important for any nonprofit website (especially charity sites), then it is the ability to accept donations directly from the website. Usually, buttons with different amounts are shown on the website which can be clicked on, to use a payment gateway to make donations. Of course, there should also be an option where philanthropists can themselves decide the amount of money they would like to donate to your organization.

Conclusion: A suitable website builder should have a donation option. The more ways of receiving payment the platform supports, the better it would be.

Integration with Social Networks

Your website should give visitors a simple and quick option to share any website content on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you have a strong Reddit community, Reddit social Integration should also be available.

Conclusion: The website builder you choose must have an option that allows quick sharing of website content to social media platforms.

Contact Section

Your website should definitely have a Contact page with phone numbers, email addresses, and other contact information. Having a contact form on the page that allows visitors to quickly share messages is also essential to make your visitors feel that you are available for conversation.

Conclusion: Your preferred website builder must have a message sending option through a website contact form.

The Best Membership Website Builders: Free and Paid Tolls

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If you have ever visited an e-learning site like Udemy or an online community like Facebook, you know what a membership website is. In its simplest form, it is a portal with restricted access to its content, available to members only, although access can be paid, free, or a mix of both. Popular models include:

E-learning sites

E-commerce portals

Blogs/vlogs

Podcasts

News websites

Associations

Non-profits, etc.

Of, course you can use one of the best all-around website builder, bu specialized membership site platforms are the best way for thought-leaders to build their brand, develop an online community, and get paid for the knowledge transfer. This allows businesses with specialized information to set up a consistent revenue stream.

82% of the businesses adopting the “subscription economy” model claim it helped them become industry disruptors. But for every success story, there are dozens of others who have failed. One of the probable causes: choosing the wrong platform to build their portal.

The Top 8 Membership Website Builder

Wild Apricot

Wild Apricot is a fast-growing cloud-based software with a website builder platform to create membership sites. The standout feature? You get your own mobile app designed separately for customers and admins. You can also embed the Wild Apricot widget in other websites to promote an event you are managing on the Wild Apricot site.

Wild Apricot

For example, you can embed a calendar widget to a WordPress site for cross-platform publicity. Wild Apricot also offers a free version that can be used by organizations with 50 members or less. All plans include a 30-day trial period with full access to all features within the trial period.

Pros of Using Wild Apricot

Excellent database and event management tool.

Event coordination feature that lets you send promotions, discounts, and reminders to attendees.

Unlimited email campaigns.

Native mobile app for both Android and iOS that accepts payments and registrations.

Cons of Using Wild Apricot

The blogging platform is outdated and lacks basic features such as content moderation.

You can’t allot a membership ID within the software.

Create a site

Wix

Although not the most intuitive membership free website builder in the market, Wix is a strong contender because of the scalability it offers, along with an affordable pricing plan. The platform allows you to create a members-only area, add pages with restricted content, and process subscription payments.

Wix Member’s Area

You can integrate multiple Wix plugins to enhance the experience, including the Pricing-plan app, Wix bookings, Wix Events, Wix Forum, Wix chat, etc.

Pros of Using Wix

Membership areas can be created for free, although you can’t process payments with them.

Contacts are automatically synced in the back-end with the Wix email marketing tool.

Supports multi-platform registrations like Google, Facebook, or email.

Allows recurring payments.

The Pricing-plan app allows setting up a Paywall to grant restricted access to paid members.

Member roles restrict access to specific users on your site.

Cons of Using Wix

Has a steep learning curve, not suitable for novices.

New registrations have to be manually approved to send confirmation emails to users.

Doesn’t have a Learning Management System, so you can’t create online courses.

Doesn’t support content dripping and content locking.

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Memberpress

An easy-to-use WordPress membership plugin that allows you to create multi-tiered memberships, online courses, content-dripping, and integrating 3rd-party plugins to build communities.

Memberpress

One of the standout features of Memberpress is Paywall – a tool that allows non-members to access certain bits of content for free, a great bonus to attract initial users. With three different pricing options, you can choose to install it on a single website or across 5 different websites.

Pros of Using Memberpress

Integrates with existing WordPress sites.

Creates unlimited multi-level membership across all plans.

Users can have more than one membership at a time.

Good technical support.

Multiple access rules, including posts, pages, categories, tags, files, etc.

You can set content start and expiration dates.

Wide range of pricing options for subscriptions – recurring payments, monthly/yearly payments, free/paid trials, etc.

Customizable coupons and email marketing tools.

Analytics reporting dashboard.

Cons of Using Memberpress

Doesn’t support other CMS platforms.

Doesn’t offer a lifetime purchase plan.

Doesn’t have a built-in forum tool; you need to install an additional WordPress forum plugin.

You cannot customize registrations and login forms.

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Squarespace

Squarespace’s new Member Areas feature has remedied the one big issue that marred its utility as world class membership website builder – the software’s lack of integrated membership features necessary for creating members-only content. You can now create a membership website with Squarespace in two ways – use Member Areas, its very own membership software, or use MemberSpace, a third-party plug-in available with a business or higher plan.

Squarespace

The builder offers virtually every tool you can think of for creating, sharing and managing exclusive content.

Pros of Using Squarespace

It allows access to a wide range of high-quality, royalty free stock images, including the entirety of image gallery from Unsplash.

It includes a vast line-up of web fonts, including more than 600 fonts from Google and approximately 1000 fonts from Adobe.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) enabled web pages that allow for accelerated content delivery on mobile devices.

Cons of Using Squarespace

Squarespace blogs lack the Autosave feature, so you can lose your content in the event of a server crash or accidental post deletion. This makes the platform unsuitable for professional bloggers.

Limitations on organizing the static pages and blog posts make Squarespace ill suited for creating large, more complex websites

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Yourmembership

Here’s a premium paid membership website builder that strikes the perfect balance of design and functionality. Yourmembership is a comprehensive platform with excellent content, event and membership management tools. It offers efficient blogging and email marketing solutions, along with the ability to manage both members and events through a single, advanced dashboard.

Yourmembership dashboard

Yourmembership excels at creating engaging, mobile responsive websites with futuristic features such as Microsites and expert website design assistance.

Pros of Using Yourmembership

Highly intuitive backend that makes updating and editing content a breeze.

It allows for seamless integration of the members’ registration pages and the events section.

It offers excellent accounting tools to help with invoice generation and delivery, tracking financial information such as the members’ donations and dues.

Cons of Using Yourmembership

The content editing and customization options are limited in comparison to other top membership website builders.

Yourmembership is one of the pricier software for building membership websites which makes it unaffordable for businesses with a limited budget

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Weebly

Weebly is one of the easiest to use website builders with membership features such as single click members’ login, different membership tiers, email newsletters and online store.

Weebly membership area

With Weebly, you don’t need to traverse a learning curve to create your membership website. Simple, drag-and-drop mechanism allows you to select the desired elements and click on them to edit or include additional features. It’s an excellent choice for businesses who aim to quickly build a community and offer online courses.

Pros of Using Weebly

Websites built with Weebly are practically ad-free. Weebly’s personal and free membership website builder plans include a Weebly logo at the screen’s bottom. Even the logo is absent in Weebly’s paid plans.

Unlimited navigation levels which support the creation of large, complex website structures.

Cons of Using Weebly

Doesn’t support multilingual sites. Character sets for languages such as Arabic, Chinese and Russian aren’t fully supported.

Certain features are too pricey compared to other top membership site builders. Attaching an email address to your website’s domain, for instance, entails a monthly cost of $6.

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Thinkific

Thinkific is one of the most popular and powerful platforms for creating, promoting and selling online educational courses.

Thinkific

You can include high resolution videos, images and rich text in your courseware. In addition, you can offer downloadable content such as quizzes, tables and certificates. The free plan includes excellent customization options and is great for new instructors who’re just starting out selling online courses. The premium plans allow you to create unlimited courses.

Pros of Using Thinkific

Thinkific allows you to extend a monthly payment option for the pricier courses.

The excellent voice-over tool for creating PowerPoint presentations allows even beginners to create quality video content.

Cons of Using Thinkific

Thinkific lacks integrated features for email marketing, so you’ll have to rely on third-party email providers.

Doesn’t offer chat support.

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Kajabi

Kajabi enables you to create and market membership websites, online coaching programs and courses using single-click templates.

Kajabi dashboard

Kajabi Pipelines offers custom automations for optimizing and scaling your website and online courses which reduces your team’s workload. The platform specializes in building large scale, close-knit online communities based on your business’ terms and conditions.

Pros of Using Kajabi

It has an excellent mobile app that facilitates better connectivity and uninterrupted learning. The app is included in all of Kajabi’s plans.

The visual email builder features allows for creation of beautifully personalized messages integrated with countdown timers, videos and animations.

Cons of Using Kajabi

It has a limited library of landing page templates.

Doesn’t support key quiz elements such as randomization and question banks.

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What Is a Membership Website Builder?

Membership website builders allow you to create gated or members-only websites having features such as paid membership, discussion forums, knowledge-based webinars, courses or classes, ebooks, and newsletters, along with exclusive perks such as free or expedited shipping, early access, discount offers and more. These membership websites can be paid, free, or include a tier-based monetary system for their members.

If your goal is to create a membership website, even the most popular or highest rated regular website builders can turn out to be inadequate. While many top-rated generic website builders do include premium membership features, you can only access them via additional plugins. The act of adding membership features by scouring through dozens of plugins can be both time-consuming and ill-suited to individuals that lack prior coding experience and technical skills.

What Is a Membership Website Builder?

A good membership website builder offers powerful, built-in membership tools such as recurring membership payment, discussion boards, Q&As, and drip campaign management – definitely the best choice for building your online membership platform.

What can you do with a Membership Website Builder?

In addition to the necessary website building tools such as customizable templates, the ability to add and modify pages, graphics, and media, the best membership website builder will also help you accomplish these tasks:

Create an Intranet portal for your members

With a good membership website builder, you can set up a password-protected intranet portal and create secure pages where members can sign up for exclusive programs and courses, share their personal details and engage other members in the discussion.

Create and manage dedicated member directories

A members’ directory is a handy means of listing and categorizing members who’ve signed up for exclusive products or services. It’s also a much-sought feature among the members for searching and connecting with other members. A good membership website builder allows you to create and manage the members’ directories in an easy, efficient manner.

Create and manage dedicated member directories

Plan and run effective marketing campaigns

A good membership website builder can help you market your products and services by using efficient marketing tools that aid in creating and customizing microsites and promotional campaigns that target email addresses and the members’ individual profile pages.

In addition to these benefits, the right membership website builder can also help you manage the events calendar, allow for a mobile check-in facility and e-ticketing. The best builders offer extensive learning material and expert, round-the-clock customer support, so you can get quick responses and resolutions to your queries and complaints.

Criteria To Select a Membership Website Builder

How to build a website with user accounts? You have two options – either to opt for a hosted solution or to install a plugin to your existing CMS platform. Both options can work equally well so don’t get into the analysis-paralysis mode.

Choose a platform that offers multiple pricing options and fits into your budget constraints. Look for hidden costs that come in the guise of set-up, support, or additional features.

Your chosen platform should be easy to learn, with minimal steps for adding new users. Check if you can test the platform from the user’s perspective to better understand its intuitiveness and simplicity.

Most providers offer a basic security level to all businesses. If you are considering additional security levels in your website, for example adding a captcha or two-factor authentication, check your options with the service provider.

Know what are the learning and engagement tools provided by the platform. If you are an educator, you would probably want learning management software integrated into your website.

What are the options to create a forum or community? Does the platform have built-in forum features or do you need to add third-party tools?

Opt for platforms that have tiered membership levels so you can segregate members according to services offered.

You would probably have events that users can sign up for. Look for platforms that include tools like event calendars and online registrations.

The Best Membership Website Builder for You Is…

Different businesses have different needs, but a common thread across all membership sites is the membership base. Your membership base is dictated by the niche you have created for yourself in the industry. Hence, it would be wise to choose a website builder according to your business goals and the structure of your membership plans.

The Best Membership Website Builder for You Is...

For example, an e-learning site will need a website builder that has LMS software support. On the other hand, an e-commerce site will have to go for a platform that allows an online store. Some of your subscription models may need drip content to ensure recurring revenue. If your chosen website builder fails to provide any of the necessary integrations, your business model falls apart even before you begin.

It is also a good idea to keep the pricing constraints in mind while choosing a website builder with membership feature. What may fit an enterprise-level company may not be feasible for small businesses. Ideally, you should look for a platform that offers your users a rich set of features with a comprehensive and integrated experience, all under one roof.

What do you need to create a Membership Website?

Membership website builders such as MemberSpace have made the act of creating gated pages and websites easier than ever. The real challenge lies in converting your existing customer base into paying members and creating content that will invite new members to sign up. Creating the best membership platform for your business requires you to focus on these key factors:

Identify and target your audience

If you’re creating members-only pages for an established ecommerce business, you already have a customer base and need to focus on designing/presenting your products or services for a paid model. When creating a new members-only business from scratch, put some time into researching the current and recent trends, the competition, as well as the customers’ needs and unmet demands. Your members-only content needs to be tailored to the age, spending ability, and requirements of the target customer segment.

High-value content and services

Your membership website’s products or services need to be of high value in order to warrant paid member subscriptions. If, for instance, your product is online courses, you should look to ensure the course material is up-to-date, the curriculum description is accurate, and that the course has good accreditations. It’s best to incorporate popular content delivery methods such as video, email, and downloadable PDFs so you can target customers that favor different learning styles.

Decide on the type of membership and charges

One of the biggest decisions to make when creating a membership website is the cost and duration of the membership. If you’re offering a wide range of services, you may categorize them into different membership plans. If you stand to make money through sources such as displaying ads, affiliate marketing, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, you can also consider offering a free membership plan.

What features should a Membership Website Builder include?

When you’re looking for the right membership website builder for creating your membership platform, make sure to look for these features:

What features should a Membership Website Builder include?

Efficient forum software

Make sure the forum software of your membership website builder enables the members to customize their profiles. The ability to customize aspects such as profile pictures and watch or reading lists empowers the members, enhancing their engagement and overall service experience.

The forum software should have a good text editor and allow private messaging between the members. Customizable comment signatures and achievement-based rewards are some of the most vaunted forum features of the day. Make sure your chosen membership website builder includes these.

Easy, secure membership payments

The website builder you choose should allow for seamless, secure recurring payment for the membership fee. It should allow the members to set up membership renewal via both manual and automatic means. If you’re interested in offering a time-based trial membership, the website builder should allow the member to cancel or pay for his/her membership at the end of the trial period.

Your membership website builder should be able to work with multiple payment gateways, including all the popular payment channels such as credit card, debit card, net banking, PayPal, and digital wallets.

High-end membership features

Your pick of membership website builders should ideally allow for adding unlimited members as well as creating a large number of membership levels. A membership level determines the range of content or services included within a certain membership plan. If you offer a wide range of paid services or have plans for future expansion, look for a website builder that offers a large number of, or unlimited membership levels.

A dedicated members’ welcome page, the ability to hide selected content, and automatic integration with your email list are some other essential features you should look for in a membership website builder.

Do Membership Sites make money?

Recent research has revealed that 70 percent of the world’s business leaders consider membership or subscription business models to be the path to future business expansion and commercial success. In addition, a staggering 82 percent of the world’s businesses are looking to adopt the membership model and utilize private websites to achieve greater financial output.

A membership website is a reliable means of creating a steady stream of revenue, typically with little start-up expenditure. It also involves a high margin of profit – if you launch your membership website with a monthly membership fee of $20, you can generate a monthly income of $1000 with just 50 members.

It’s obvious that now is the most opportune time ever to start or switch to the membership-based business model. If you’re an existing business, it’s best to transition slowly, with the goal of converting no more than 50 percent of your existing customers into paid members over a reasonable time frame. You can begin by offering newer products and services to the paying members while maintaining the traditional setup for the existing customer base, let the growth of your paid membership numbers and the quality of service attract the rest to sign up in near future.

Cheapest Website Builders with Domain and Hosting 2024

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I had been putting off writing this piece for a long time. I believed price is an important factor when choosing a website builder but definitely not the main one. But recently, I received the following email:

“Hi Lesley. My name is Mary and I’m your reader. I would like to know – what is the cheapest website builder you can recommend? I don’t have a big budget, but the possibilities of the free plan are not enough for me. Therefore, using an inexpensive but at the same time powerful website builder would be the best solution for me. Thanks for sharing.”

And I decided to not answer Mary personally, but with a comprehensive guide on my website. I’ve just sent the link to Mary.

Today, I’ll tell you about the best website builders and at the same time budget-friendly. And share some thrifty ways of saving money during website development. (Read on to know what things you should or shouldn’t economize on. And how to get extra discount for website builders.)

From this review you will find out:

How to find the cheapest website builders and compare their capacities for creating various types of websites.

How to find more accessible alternatives to popular website builders.

How to find out how website builders are the most financially accessible way to build a website.

Factors that you can economize on while using website builders. (Like payment methods, coupon codes, promotions, and so on.)

What’s the best course of action for website development? (My own observations and recommendations.)

Keep on reading. This article is definitely going to help you save money while developing a website.

Why not Free Website Builders?

When you’re interested in saving money, using free website builders is certainly the best way. It won’t cost you anything.

But then your website design and its features are most likely to be far from what you wanted.

Moreover, most website builders’ free plans contain banner ads. They also won’t allow you to use your own domain name.

That’s why if you want to get a low-cost but still contemporary and user-friendly website with your own domain, you’ll have to forget about free website creators.

Cheapest Website Builder Plans

As you probably already guessed, any basic plan will be better than a free plan. First, you won’t have ads for the builder’s website. Most likely won’t, as some cheap premium plans do advertise the platform on websites. But this is more the exception than the rule.

Secondly, you can use a custom domain name. This is especially important for business websites.

Of course, there may be limits on the number of pages, Bandwidth and Storage space, but the low price of the plan justifies these limits.

Here are the three tables comparing the cheapest website builders that allow custom domain names.

NOTE: Most website builders have different pricing policies for various regions. Depending on your location, prices will be shown in USD (if you’re from the USA), GBP (if you’re from the UK), and EUR (for European users). That’s why I thought that it’d be more convenient to analyze prices using not one but three tables.

For the United States:

Web Builder	Basic Plan Name	Monthly Cost (USD)	Cost for 1 Year (USD)	More Discounts
Webnode	Limited	$3.90	$46.8	up to 50% off for 2+ years
WordPress.com	Personal	$7	$48 (42% off)	Check 50% Off Coupon
Weebly	Personal	$9	$72 (33% off)
Strikingly	Limited	$12	$96 (33% off)	41.6% off for 2 years
Jimdo	Start	$9	$108	Check 40% Off Coupon
GoDaddy	Basic	$11.99	$119.88	30% off for the first year
Squarespace	Business	$16	$134.40 (30% off)	Check 10% Off Coupon
Webflow	Basic	$15	$144 (20% off)
Wix	Combo	$16	$192	Check 10% Off Coupon
SITE123	Premium	$12.80	$153.6
Duda	Basic	$19	$168 (26% off)

For the United Kingdom:

Web Builder	Basic Plan Name	Monthly Cost (GBP)	Cost for 1 Year (GBP)	More Discounts
Webnode	Limited	£2.90	£34.8	up to 50% off for 2+ years
WordPress.com	Personal	$7	$48 (42% off)	Check 50% Off Coupon
Wix	Connect Domain	£4	£48	Check 10% Off Coupon
Weebly	Connect	n/a	£48
GoDaddy	Basic	£7.99	£59.88	37% off for first year
Strikingly	Limited	$12	$96	12.5% off for 2 years
Jimdo	Start	£9	£108	Check 40% Off Coupon
Squarespace	Business	£12.98	£120 (23% off)	Check 10% Off Coupon
Webflow	Basic	$15	$144 (20% off)
SITE123	Premium	$12.80	$153.6
Duda	Basic	$19	$168 (26% off)

* Price in USD means that a website builder doesn’t offer prices in GBP. At the time of purchase, recalculation will take place at the current exchange rate.

For the European Union:

Web Builder	Basic Plan Name	Monthly Cost (EUR)	Cost for 1 Year (EUR)	More Discounts
Webnode	Limited	€3	€36	up to 50% off for 2+ years
WordPress.com	Personal	€7	€48 (42% off)	Check 50% Off Coupon
Wix	Connect Domain	€5.50	€66	Check 10% Off Coupon
Weebly	Connect	n/a	€60
SITE123	Premium	$7.80	$93.6
Strikingly	Limited	$12	$96	12,5% off for 2 years
Jimdo	Start	€9	€108	Check 40% Off Coupon
GoDaddy	Basic	$11.99	$119.88	16% off for the first year
Squarespace	Business	€15	€ 132 (30% off))	Check 10% Off Coupon
Webflow	Basic	$15	$144 (20% off)
Duda	Basic	$19	$168 (26% off)

* Price in USD means that a website builder doesn’t offer prices in GBP. At the time of purchase, recalculation will take place at the current exchange rate.

As you can see, the cheapest tariff plans start from $30, £26.76, or €30.48 per year. It’s the lowest price that you need to pay for a premium website builder.

In fact, there aren’t too many website builders offering plans for less than $100 per year. Webnode, WordPress.com, Weebly, Strikingly, and Wix (for those who live in the UK or EU) are the only ones that do.

ALERT:

Actually, I’ve seen other website builders with even lower prices. But they were mere threepenny website builders. (There was almost no information about them). And I prefer web development using a software solution that’s in good standing and has been in existence for at least five years.

I am absolutely against using just any website builder based only on its rock-bottom price. Remember that you develop a website, not for just one year. The platform you choose should be reliable and worth your trust in the long run.

I don’t think you’ll be too pleased if your website creator suddenly ceased to exist. Or if your experience keeps going from bad to worse. Or if your website is down too often.

The website builders that I have selected are reliable and time-tested online tools. You can freely use any of them.

Comparison of the Most Affordable Website Builders

Now let’s compare the six cheapest website builders from these tables. And then we will find out what features they have and what’s included in their most affordable plans:

Cheapest Website Builders Comparison

	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site	Visit Site
Plan Name	Limited	Personal	Personal	Limited	Start
Monthly Cost	$3.90	$7	$9	$12	n/a
Annually Cost	$46.8	$48	$72	$96	$108
Custom Domain	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Free SSL Certificate	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Free Domain Name	Not included	Yes (for 1 year)	Not included	Yes (Yearly)	Yes (Yearly)
Remove builder ads?	No	No	No	No	Yes
SEO options	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Bandwidth	200 MB	Unlimited	Unlimited	50 GB	10 GB
Space Storage	1 GB	6 GB	500 MB	1 GB per site	5 GB
Number of Pages	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Single page	up 10 pages
Google analytics	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Backup and recovery	No	No	No	No	No
Design Customization	3	2	5	2	3
Easy of Use	5	4	5	4	5
Embed HTML/CSS code	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Multilingual Options	No	No	No	No	No
Membership Options	No	No	No	No	No
Ecommerce Options	No	No	No	Yes (only 5 products)	No
Support	FAQ – Yes Email – Yes Chat – No Telehone – No	FAQ – Yes Email – Yes Chat – No Telehone – No	FAQ – Yes Email – Yes Chat – Yes Telehone – No	FAQ – Yes Email – Yes Chat – Yes Telehone – No	FAQ – Yes Email – Yes Chat – No Telehone – No

Which of These Cheap Builders is the Best?

First of all, don’t expect too much. We are choosing from the cheapest platforms in the world here.

But, know that they aren’t too bad either. They are good enough for a small personal website or a website for a non-profit organization.

Webnode (Limited plan) – $46.8 per year

Webnode is a great all-in-one website builder with a basic plan and a very attractive price. It has been around since 2008. This website builder is perfect for Windows, for Mac and for any other platform.

Webnode Premium Plans

Its extremely affordable plan – Limited – will cost you only $46.8. And for just that much money, you’ll get hosting with 1GB bandwidth and 100MB storage space. This will be enough for you to run a small site with moderate traffic.

Main Webnode advantages:

Simple and user-friendly drag and drop editor

Easy-to-use even for beginners

A large selection of quality responsive themes

SEO friendly

Ample of opportunities for creating multi-language websites.

Moreover, the Limited plan will allow you to use your own domain name.

Unfortunately, the domain name isn’t a freebie that you get with the plan. You’ll have to shell out $90 per year for that and go with the Mini plan.

NOTE: Webnode allows you to get an even lower price if you buy the subscription for 2, 5, or 10 years. The discount can go up to 50%. Sounds exciting and lucrative, right? But I would still advise you to test Webnode Limited plan thoroughly before deciding to buy it for the long term. Once you know that the Limited plan works fine for you, it is obvious that with the extra discount of up to 50%, Webnode will be the best and cheapest solution for you.

WordPress.com (Personal plan) – $48 per year

Everyone has heard of WordPress. So it was all about another WordPress – CMS with open code (WordPress.org). Unlike the CMS of the same name, WordPress.com is a classic representative of online website builders with free of charge web hosting, domain and SSL certificate. And of course, with very affordable prices for all this.

WordPress.com pricing

The cheapest WordPress plan is Personal for $7 per month billed monthly and $4 per month yearly. There is no additional discount when paying for 2 years. But on the other hand, you will receive a free domain for 1 Year as a gift.

What does WordPress.com offer in the basic plan?

Easy-to-use even for beginners

Free SSL certificate

Free Domain Name for 1 year

Remove WordPress.com Ads

On the Personal plan, you will be limited to using only free themes – more advanced premium themes are available on the Premium plan and up. Advanced design customization will also not be available. This means that you will only be able to slightly edit your design using the basic options of the visual editor. Also, only Email Support will be available to you.

NOTE: Unfortunately, WP Personal plan doesn’t have SEO tools, doesn’t support Advanced Social Media and doesn’t allow Google Analytics integration. In my opinion, these are important options, especially when it comes to a business website.

Weebly (Personal plan) – $72 per year

Weebly is the oldest online builder with wide. You can create almost website – from simple personal blogs to multipage portals and large online stores. Few website builders even come close to Weebly in terms of functionality.

Weebly Pricing

The most affordable Weebly plan comes at $9 per month. That is if you pay $72 for a whole year at once. That’s a 33% saving on what you’d pay if you make monthly payments – that’s not something you’d have complaints with, right?

Though it is priced slightly higher than Webnode, Weebly makes up for it with its richer component parts.

What does Weebly offer in its cheapest plan?

Powerful and user-friendly drag and drop editor. (It is among the best ones in the market.)

Custom domain

Free SSL certificate

SEO options

Chat and Email Support

Plus, Weebly is simple to use. Not as intuitive as Wix, but simple enough even for beginner webmasters to handle. And as a bonus you will get some SEO options – it’s an offering seldom seen in basic plans.

Strikingly (Limited plan) – $96 per year

Strikingly is a website builder that takes a fresh look at website development. It positions itself as a website creator for single-page sites. And creating websites that consist of only one large page is a perfect solution for several situations. Small business websites, landing pages, online portfolios, personal websites, and one-page online stores.

Strikingly Prices

The cheapest Strikingly plan is Limited, which costs $12 a month. Or $96 yearly (which is 33% cheaper) if you pay upfront for the entire year.

Want to save even more? Get 41.6% off if you pay for two years straight. This makes Strikingly one of the best-priced website builders.

Moreover, the Strikingly Limited plan will allow you to get not one but two premium websites. And yes, you’ll get 1GB storage space for each one.

This plan also includes ecommerce options with the possibility of selling up to five products without any Strikingly commission. It’s not bad for less than $100 per year.

What is good about Strikingly?

Free domain if you buy the Limited plan for a year

Possibility to quickly change website templates for existing websites

Possibility to sell through the site

Responsive technical support in chat and email

However, Strikingly is clearly inferior to its competitors regarding template selection and the possibility of their customization. However, it’s not hard to use, has a user-friendly interface, and allows creating two one-page websites. This may sound irresistible to some users.

Wix (Connect Domain plan) – £36 for the UK and €54 for the EU

If you live in the UK or EU, pay attention to Wix’s low-cost Connect Domain plan. In fact, it’s the same Wix Free plan but with the possibility of connecting to a custom domain name.

Wix Premium Plans

There aren’t many great opportunities in this plan, but it’s really cheap – £36 or €54. That’s a very low price for such a powerful website builder like Wix. And I’d like to remind you that Wix is the best website builder (according to numerous media) and the world’s most popular online website builder.

What does Wix offer for this money?

Powerful and very user-friendly drag and drop editor (one of the best ones)

More than 800 free and premium themes to select

Connect custom domain

Free SSL certificate

Chat and Email Support

Storage Space (500MB) and Bandwidth (1GB) limitations do rain down a bit on Wix Connect Plan’s attractiveness. But if you decide to switch to more powerful Combo and Unlimited plans in the future, you’ll understand why 180 million users in the world prefer this very website builder.

Thus, buying the basic Wix plan will open fine opportunities in the future. When you are ready for more than just the basics – Wix will display all its advantages to the fullest.

Universality, simplicity of use, ample functional opportunities, incredibly user-friendly drag and drop editor, a great selection of themes compared to other online website builders – that’s summing up Wix without singing verses in its praise.

Jimdo (Start plan) – $108 per year

Jimdo is one of the cheapest website builders without ads. After releasing its AI Jimdo Dolphin platform, Jimdo became incredibly easy to use. Jimdo Dolphin uses artificial intelligence even for the simplest website building tasks. And it requires minimum human participation. In acse you would like to make someting more complicated, for example, to build a photography website – such help will surely come in handy.

Jimdo Pricing

NOTE: If you’re interested in using AI for your website development, take a look at Wix ADI. It’s an excellent contemporary solution designed in order to make website development much easier. In fact, you just have to answer a few questions about your preferences (favorite colors, website style, theme, and so on), and AI is going to build your website independently and fill it with content. It will be a real catch for inexperienced users. Also be sure to check out more AI website builders for a smarter choice.

In addition to its simplicity of use, Jimdo also comes with a free domain name for one year. Plus, it gives access to SEO options, allows installing Google Analytics, and, most importantly, opens up the possibility to add HTML code to your website. With that, you’ll be able to install third-party widgets, additional scripts, buttons, and other graphical elements. While these options are commonly offered in more expensive premium plans, Jimdo doesn’t shy away from giving it all in the basic plan.

Now, if we talk about Jimdo’s cons, we have web design editing restrictions and a limit of 10 pages (for the Start plan).

So, Jimdo is a really good and thrifty solution, but only for some small websites that require no more than ten pages.

Squarespace Review – why customers love it?

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Squarespace has been a leading website builder platform for professionals and beginners for years. The premium design options and customization options make Squarespace the highest-rated site-builder in town. While the builder platform might take a while to get used to, you will receive a treat of spectacular templates, endless customization and premium features at the end of the wait.

Squarespace is the website builder for creative professionals. Currently, Squarespace is powering the business sites of Hollywood celebs, studio designers, fashion designers, and makeup artists. More than 2.7% of all active websites use Squarespace. Squarespace poses a fierce competition to Shopify and Joomla in terms of market position.

NOTE: You can use the Squarespace promo code to get a 10% off discount on any of the Squarespace Prime plans. Since you can only use the coupon code once, I recommend paying for the annual subscription right away. This way you will get the maximum benefit.

What Is Squarespace?

Squarespace review

Since 2004, the easy-to-use, highly visual and no-code website builder has been leading the website builder market. The user-friendly content management system (CMS) makes the site builder accessible for website designers of varying levels of expertise.

This website building platform eliminates the need for expensive packages that require extensive knowledge of CSS and HTML for creating the basics of a site. With Squarespace, a designer needs little more than the templates and the style editor to create completely functional websites.

Its highly visual, click-to-edit interface allows the website designer to tweak with element placement, layout and designs by clicking on the individual elements of the template. For example, you can click on the background to change its color and pattern, or click on a piece of content to change its font color, size, and type. Editing is a dream with Squarespace’s beginner-friendly user interface (UI).

Who Should Use Squarespace?

Target audience of Squarespace

Interestingly, Squarespace isn’t for someone who wants to build his or her site from the grounds up. It has one of the largest collections of ready-to-use templates for fast creating, editing and deployment. Squarespace is for the fast-builder, who wants to get his/her site up and running in a couple of hours with a minimal number of edits.

The leader in website design comes with the full array of portfolio options, blogging tools, SEO tools, analytics, apps and tools, and mobile editing. It is a one-in-all website design platform that will be especially good for building websites for photographers, designers, artists and any site where the purpose is to display images and photos.

Squarespace Analytics

Squarespace comes with the complete collection of marketing tools, email marketing options, advanced site analytics, promotional banners, ads, and pop-ups, social media marketing integration, customizable shipping options, additional discounts, abandoned cart recovery options, smart and integrated accounting, eCommerce analytics, and more.

What are the differences between Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1?

Differences between Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1

There are a few unmissable distinctions between Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1.

Squarespace 7.1 comes with more design options as compared to 7.0. These design options include additions to the global color palettes and text spacing.

Editing on 7.1 is much easier since all templates offer identical design options. However, in 7.0, the controls differ by each template.

7.1 supports design alterations in real-time alongside content editing. Whereas, in 7.0, editing options and design changes are in separate sections.

7.0 supports the edit of specific elements of mobile site design exclusively.

7.1 does not allow users to add sidebars to the blogs.

How to Begin with Squarespace?

Start Squarespace free trial

You can begin a free trial of Squarespace by choosing one of the templates. To find the right one you can filter the templates by category and purpose. For example, when you click on “start free trial” Squarespace takes you to their templates section which has ready-to-use templates for portfolios, photography, online stores, blogs and podcasts, professional services, community and non-profits, events, musicians and bands, restaurants, real estate and properties, personal and CV, and small businesses.

The navigation of this page is simple, and the aesthetics are stunningly minimal. It is refreshing to see a website builder with no fluff of unnecessary options. It boasts a responsive design that you can access from your PC and mobile with equal ease. You can choose one of the popular templates too for beginning your website building journey with Squarespace. However, Squarespace needs you to create an account for beginning the trial. You don’t need to provide your credit/debit card details.

What’s Our Take on the Squarespace Editor?

Choosing Squarespace website template

The Squarespace editor is neat and clean, yet robust. It has the features and options necessary for a website designer, complete with demo content for each page. Squarespace uses a WYSIWYG editor that enables you to preview your website as it would appear to the end-user.

The templates already come with a contemporary feel, so modern site designers require minimal editing for clients who need a contemporary look and feel. One of the caveats of choosing Squarespace is having to settle for only around 90 templates that work better with professional photography. That is indeed easy with unabated access to Unsplash’s image library.

Stock Images for Squarespace

Squarespace gives you access to Unsplash’s elaborate library of images. The majority of the collection are royalty-free and you can add these to your template to personalize them. “Search for image” and choose a fitting photo from Unsplash. It is as easy as that!

Squarespace also allows its users to purchase images directly from Getty. These images can cost around $10 each. Both Unsplash and Getty images are useful if your client does not have professional images handy for their websites. Having ready-to-use images at your disposal indeed makes up for any lack of branding effort from the client’s side.

The Selection of the Fonts

Fonts selection

Squarespace users will find thousands of web-fonts, 1000 on Adobe and more than 600 of Google. The huge collection of readily usable fonts are perfect for any site you build using Squarespace.

Editing the Template on Squarespace

Editing Squarespace template

Currently, designers are using Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1. These are the two most popular versions, yet each has vastly different UI. Both versions make editing an easy task for all designers with a plethora of styling options. You can adjust almost every feature of a site including the font type, size, color and site width with minimum effort.

All Squarespace templates are inherently responsive, which makes editing the style, layout, and background easier than traditionally non-responsive sites. You have one site for all devices, and updating site elements on one version of the site reflect the changes for all devices and browsers simultaneously.

How Does the Squarespace Editor Look on Mobile?

Squarespace Editor on Mobile

Any user looking for your site on mobile or tablet will a viewing-ready version thanks to the template’s responsiveness. Mobile responsive sites provide SEO benefits by making the site accessible for a wide range of devices. Designers can also enable accelerated mobile pages (AMP) on their Squarespace sites. Since AMP speeds up content delivery to mobile devices, it contributes significantly to user experience (UX) and site SEO.

Using AMP you can create faster-loading webpages for mobile users. it reduces the bounce rate resulting from extended page loading time. Google prioritizes AMP content to some extent in the search result carousel and that adds SEO benefit to all sites. Currently, you can only enable AMP on Squarespace for the blog posts. Contemporary website builders including Shopify and Bigcommerce allow the enabling of AMP for products too.

You need to be careful while enabling the AMP on the blog. Only a few forms of content find space on the AMP version of a blog post and any custom code or embedded forms will come in the form of “click here for the original post”. Since it takes away from good UX, you might have to pay in terms of site optimization to Google. Go through your blog posts on a mobile device after you switch the AMP on in your Squarespace blog posts.

Does Squarespace Support Video Backgrounds?

Video background support

Squarespace templates support video backgrounds even in the trial versions. The video background feature allows each designer to use a YouTube video URL for creating a magnificent looped background for your site.

Additionally, you can control the speed of the playback, and apply any filter from the Squarespace video background filter options. The use of the video background feature makes an already beautiful Squarespace template look stunning and sophisticated beyond measure.

How Does Logo Designing with Squarespace Work?

Creating a logo

Squarespace comes with an inbuilt logo design app. You can browse through a huge collection of symbols and typefaces that can create professional logos from scratch. If you are anxious or confused about creating your very first brand logo with Squarespace, be sure to watch their video tutorial on the same. You should try their drag-and-drop builder. Download a high-res version of the same when the logo is ready and you can use it on your website as well as print marketing material.

Some limitations of the logo builder tool from Squarespace include:

The designer has access to only a few selected typefaces.

You cannot upload images to the tool even with the pro-Squarespace plans.

It is available to everyone, including those not registered with Squarespace.

How to Manage Content on Squarespace?

Content editing

Squarespace brings a refreshing take on content management for all types of websites. Indeed there is a lot you will love about its content management strategies and options if you believe in building quality websites with a content-first and SEO-ready approach.

Here are a few features you will love about Squarespace’s content development and management tools:

Content blocks – The “layout engine” is super simple, as it supports a complete drag-and-drop content building method. You can drag and drop content (images, videos, forms, and code snippets) anywhere on your website. Squarespace has one of the most flexible and easy-to-use content management UIs among website builders.

You can add myriads of content blocks to a page, including (but not limited to) text, images, audio, video, calendars, content summaries, code snippets, markdown, and maps.

You can peruse a wide range of preset page layouts for your About Us, Contact, Product/Features, Services, Pricing, and Team pages. These can prove to be incredibly time-saving for all website designers, who are tired of creating every page from grounds up for each category and sub-category.

Images – Image management is incredibly easy for all Squarespace users. As a designer, you will be delighted with the uncountable image manipulation and management tools for your site. Resizing, cropping, rotating, color adjustment, and adjustment of focus point are only a few of the editing options designers can leverage to create a one-of-a-kind, image-rich website.

Once you have checked out all the image editing options, you should browse the various gallery options. Select from slideshows, grids, and carousels to collate the images and imagery that best describe the brand you are working on.

Easy-to-use charts – Squarespace does not skimp on the different types of charts and the editing options. You can readily create pie charts, bar graphs, and line charts by using the Squarespace chart tools. They give you the option to lessen the text content and create a visual representation of the data.

Irrespective of the wide variety of charts, Squarespace fails to integrate tables into their design options.

How is Squarespace as a Blogging Platform?

Squarespace blog options

Squarespace has several pros, beginning with:

You can add as many blog posts as you wish.

You can create blog summaries and “drop” them to any page of your site.

You can enable AMP on all blog posts for catalyzing their loading speed.

Nonetheless, here are some drawbacks you should consider as well:

There is no option to autosave your drafts.

You cannot access archives for your older posts.

Working on older posts is a pain since it does not support draft versions or archives.

These pose CMS problems that become quite unavoidable once the blog and website start picking up pace. With hundreds of pages and blog posts, you might want an add-on feature on Squarespace that supports the archival of older posts and editing of published blogs.

Does Squarespace Integrate with Other Applications?

Squarespace app integration

Squarespace comes with multiple built-in integrations of apps. You can utilize the features of at least the following marketing and communications applications while using Squarespace:

Zapier – is a popular IFTT tool that aids in data management on a site and CMS.

MailChimp – is an email marketing and communications integration that enables brands to commit to their digital marketing campaign directly from their website.

Dropbox – now share large files, folders, and bulk data during site-building and management with in-built Dropbox integrations.

Google Drive – Google Drive integration further helps in data archiving, sharing of posts and page content, and better management of content files for your site without the need for installing more plug-ins.

Other integrations include Pinterest and Github, but you will need access to the Business plan to make the most of these app integrations. These integrations contribute significantly to data capture and management on any Squarespace website. the platform also supports a varied pricing range of email marketing plans

Squarespace pricing range

Does Squarespace Support Code Editing?

Custom CSS rules

You can edit CSS and HTML codes, but we don’t typically encourage it.

Both Squarespace versions do allow the addition of CSS to the website. Squarespace does not display the full CSS stylesheet to the designer, but you can include personal CSS rules for altering the appearance of specific items on the site. You should remember that if you add your own CSS, Squarespace might limit their customer support towards your site.

The only way to gain complete access to your template’s CSS and HTML is by using the developer’s version. Currently, the developer’s version isn’t available for Squarespace 7.1.

Does a Squarespace Template Contribute to SEO?

Squarespace SEO options

Squarespace templates are naturally SEO friendly. All websites powered by Squarespace get brownie points from Google for their optimization. These sites are visual feasts and they are easy-to-navigate for all users. additionally, they are mobile-friendly and have the option of AMP enabling on their blogs.

You can enable SSL for the site. Since Squarespace is a completely hosted solution, you don’t have to worry about page speed, especially since Squarespace assures that their page loading speeds are well within optimization limits.

Sadly, the alt tags and URL redirects options for Squarespace users are confounding. Especially changing URLs can be a pain for the SEO team or webmaster since the entire task is highly manual. There are no options for adding rich snippets either. Moreover, you will find no SEO tool. A Yoast-like SEO tool would indeed be welcome from Squarespace by now!

Does Squarespace Have Additional Options for Ecommerce Sites?

Squarespace Ecommerce options

Squarespace eCommerce sites have VAT Mini One Stop Shop (VAT MOSS) integration. It makes trading for EU-based sellers much easier due to their VAT MOSS regulations. You can create and add new tax rules, but it does not reduce manual intervention and often makes the integration of tax, pricing and shipping rules messy.

In short, if you want a full army of eCommerce integrations and functions, you might be better off with Shopify, WordPress, and BigCommerce instead of Squarespace.

What Can be the Deal-breaker When Considering Squarespace for Powering Your Site?

Squarespace Help Center

With round-the-clock customer support, and it super-easy web builder interface, Squarespace is rapidly gaining popularity among the beginner-level website designers. However, you should know that adding novel features or functionalities to your Squarespace site won’t be easy if they don’t come out-of-the-box.

Yes, Squarespace is easy to use and you can switch templates in 7.0, enjoy higher customizability in 7.1. However, according to veteran users, Squarespace can be quite sluggish and prone to crashing, and its lack of autosave options does not do bloggers any favors during such situations.