7 Best Cheap Website Builders 2023 – From $1/Month | Tech.co

Square – Best for businesses on a budget

After reviewing the top ecommerce platforms on the market, our team of in-house researchers decided that Square was the best value solution we tested. In fact, securing an impressive value score of 4.8/5, Square’s affordability is truly in a league of its own.

While the price of Square’s cheapest paid plan has recently increased from $12 to $29 per month, its software does allow you to sell online for completely free, unlike other major e-commerce platforms like Squarespace and Shopify. Offering SEO, delivery & shipping, and Afterpay tools — its free plan doesn’t skimp on useful features either. Businesses can also use Square Free to sell on a variety of social media platforms, allowing them to unlock valuable new revenue streams.

However, like Square’s other plans, Professional, Performance, and Premium, its free tier does charge transaction fees on all sales. This means that while start-up costs are rock bottom, costs may add up over time.

Find out more about Square’s pricing structure here.

Value for money aside, Square is also one of the easiest platforms to get started with. The platform’s interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, and it doesn’t overload you with unnecessary details. This makes the system ideal for businesses just getting to grips with ecommerce software, as well as those with tighter budgets.

Squarespace – Best for marketing features

If you’re in need of a slightly more feature-rich platform, Squarespace is another affordable e-commerce platform. Our researchers awarded it a value for money score of 4/5, which lags some way behind Square’s rating but is still very solid.

Squarespace offers two e-commerce focused plans: Basic Commerce for $27 per month, and Advanced Commerce for $49 per month. Businesses don’t need to fork out for the advanced plan to build a high-quality online store though, with Squarespace Basic Commerce offering an impressive set of website building and marketing and ecommerce features.

If you’d like to learn more about this ecommerce platform, read our Squarespace feature and pricing review here.

Wix – Best overall ecommerce website builder

With Wix donning the title of our best overall ecommerce website builder, this solution ranks very highly across the board. But crucially, with its prices starting at $27 per month, Wix is one of our top cheap ecommerce platforms too. In fact, with a value for money score of 4/5, our research suggests the tool is just as affordable as Squarespace.

Thanks to Wix’s streamlined design tools, seemingly endless array of templates, and slick usability, the ecommerce platform will be an asset to almost any business looking to sell online. The platform even allows you to create multilingual online stores, which is especially – for businesses with a global reach.

Just like Squarespace, Wix’s ecommerce plans start at $27 per month. For this price, businesses can have their own custom domain, secure online payments, and store up to 50GB of data. The provider also offers a Business Unlimited plan for $32 per month and a Business VIP plan for $59 per month for those after slightly more robust ecommerce features.

You can learn more about Wix’s different pricing plans here.

Honorable mention: Shopify

You can’t go wrong with any of the solutions we’ve listed above. However, we can’t talk about ecommerce building platforms without mentioning our #1 frontrunner, Shopify.

Shopify is one of the most widely used ecommerce website builders — and for good reason. From its in-built sales system to its diverse range of sales integrations, Shopify is essentially a one-stop-shop for businesses looking to shift stock fast. The platform lets users add and manage goods in a few simple clicks,  and even track sales on third-party platforms like Instagram and Google Shopping. Shopify also received an impressive customer satisfaction score of 4.5/5, ranking it first in this field overall.

The software isn’t unaffordable either. While Shopify’s value for money score (3/5) is lower than Square’s, Squarespace’s, and Wix’s, its plan ‘Shopify Starter’ is available for as little as $5 per month. This basic package may contain slightly less advanced features than pricier tiers, but its still a decent option for businesses watching their bottom line.

However, if your business can shell out a little extra for Shopify’s Basic and Shopify plans (which cost $29 and $79 per month respectively) it may be a better decision in the long run. With both of these plans offering sophisticated selling and reporting tools, they are likely to provide your business with a much better return on investment.

You don’t need to take our word for it either. Click here to start your 14-day free trial with Shopify, or read our Shopify review to learn more about the ecommerce solution.