Buying guides
Best website builders, by trade
Eleven shortlists, one trade each. Every price on them was read off the vendor’s own pricing page on the date shown, and the order is not a ranking — it is what each tool was built to do.
How these lists are put together
11 lists, 86 rows, 49 different builders, and 100 public pages read to write them — a vendor’s own pricing page, its own help centre, its own feature list, each one linked at the foot of the list it belongs to and dated. Prices reprice and features move, so every list carries the day it was last opened rather than a year in the title.
- Website builders with no transaction feesPlatform commission and card processing are two different charges, and a builder advertising no transaction fees is talking about the first one only. Squarespace charges an online store transaction fee of 2% on Basic and 0% on Core, Plus and Advanced; Naratake takes 0% of every order because the card is charged in the merchant’s own Stripe account (Sep 2, 2026). Six platforms below, each with the fee it publishes, the sentence it publishes it in, and the date we read it.Checked Sep 2, 2026
- Best website builders for plumbersEight tools for a plumbing business, judged on the one question that pays for the site: can the person standing in two inches of water get you booked without making a call?Checked Aug 28, 2026
- Best website builders for electriciansEight tools for an electrical business, judged on the stretch nobody measures: what happens to an emergency call-out request between the moment somebody taps send and the moment you call back.Checked Aug 28, 2026
- Best website builders for contractorsEight tools for a contracting business, judged on the two things that turn a website into work: the quote request, and the before-and-after photographs that make somebody trust you enough to send one.Checked Aug 28, 2026
- Best website builders for roofing companiesEight tools for a roofing company, each introduced by a sentence it wrote about itself, against the two things a roofing site has to do: ask for the estimate properly, and answer who stands behind the work.Checked Aug 28, 2026
- GloriaFood alternativesEight places to move an online ordering system to, judged on the question a shutdown does not answer for you: after the move, who is taking money out of each order — and out of whose pocket?Checked Aug 28, 2026
- Square Online alternativesSeven places to move the website half of a small shop, judged on the assumption most of these lists never make: the till on the counter is staying exactly where it is.Checked Aug 28, 2026
- Best website builders for bakeriesNine tools, judged on the three things a bakery order actually needs: a form, a collection time, and somewhere to describe a cake.Checked Aug 28, 2026
- Squarespace alternatives for photographersEight platforms, judged on the two things a photographer’s site has to do: show the work well enough to be shortlisted, and let the person who shortlisted you book something. The third job — delivering the files afterwards — is a different product, and the table says which rows sell it.Checked Aug 28, 2026
- Best website builders for restaurantsEight tools for a restaurant that wants orders arriving on its own website, ordered by what you already run: the delivery marketplace, the register at the counter, or nothing at all.Checked Sep 2, 2026
- Best website builders for hair salonsEight tools a hair salon can take appointments with, sorted by what you already run rather than by which one we like. Naratake Storefront Pro is $79 a month or $758 a year, publishes appointment booking by stylist and time slot on the salon’s own domain, and takes 0% of the deposit — the row for a one-to-three chair salon that wants the site and the booking in one place, which is why it sits sixth in that order rather than first.Checked Sep 2, 2026