All Things Compared

All comparisons

Small-business website builders, compared

Hosted website builders compared by what the cheapest paid plan costs, how you sell online, whether you can take your site with you, and what each one documents about search and AI crawlers.

8 options compared · checked Oct 31, 2026 · JSON

What do you need?

Framer

Online

Hosted, design-led website builder with a free plan, Basic and Pro site plans billed per site, and a separate charge for extra editors.

Our read Small teams that want to design and publish a modest marketing site on their own domain and do not need to export it or run a store.

  • A simple site for my business
  • Keep the monthly cost low
Cheapest paid plan on your own domain
$10 per month (Basic site plan, per site), shown beside the pricing page's "Yearly billing" label Basic lists a custom domain, 30 pages, 2 CMS collections and 50 GB bandwidth. The workspace owner is free; extra editors are $20 per month each and Content Editors $10 per month. Framer's help article says Basic is aimed at personal and small-team sites. Sales tax is added at checkout. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Annual and monthly billing
Monthly or annual billing. Monthly is billed at the start of each month and renews monthly; annual is billed up front for the year and renews on its anniversary. Framer says monthly billing typically costs more per month than annual. Switching from annual to monthly needs a request to support. Help article updated 2026-10-26; the billing-cycle article is dated 2026-09-15. The pricing page says "All prices are monthly and billed according to the billing cycle selected at checkout", and shows $10 for Basic and $30 for Pro. The monthly-billing prices could not be read from the page's markup. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Free plan or trial
Free plan at $0: free Framer subdomain, 1 GB bandwidth, 500 AI credits to try, up to 1,000 pages and 10 CMS collections. A "Made in Framer" banner shows on published sites. No custom domain. The pricing page calls the Free plan "ideal for non-commercial use". The banner detail comes from Framer's best-use-cases help article (updated 2026-09-15). No time limit on the Free plan is stated. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
What isn't clear from public sources

Its pricing page does not show a readable monthly-billing price, and no online-selling feature or transaction fee is described in the plan pages or help articles read. Whether the price can change at renewal is not stated.

Hostinger Website Builder

Online

Hostinger sells its drag-and-drop website builder, now part of Hostinger AI Builder, with hosting and a free first-year domain in each plan. Selling online needs the Unlimited plan or higher plus a separate Hostinger Ecommerce subscription.

Our read People who want a low advertised monthly price and accept a long prepaid term and a higher renewal price.

  • A simple site for my business
  • I want to sell products online
  • Keep the monthly cost low
Cheapest paid plan on your own domain
$2.49 per month (Premium plan, 48-month term, $119.52 charged today) Offer labelled "Up to 82% off ... this Black Friday", with a crossed-out price of $12.19 per month. The Premium plan lists a free custom domain for 1 year and up to 3 websites. Prices for 1-year or 2-year terms were not in the page markup read. The renewal price is higher (see renewal). Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Annual and monthly billing
All plans are paid upfront; the monthly rate is the total plan price divided by the months in the term. The page shows 48-month terms: Premium $119.52, Unlimited $167.52, Cloud Startup $383.52 today. Monthly equivalents shown: Premium $2.49, Unlimited $3.49, Cloud Startup $7.99. Other term lengths and a month-to-month price are not shown. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Free plan or trial
Not free; Hostinger offers a 14-day free trial, and a 30-day money-back guarantee on plans The page's FAQ says "Hostinger's website builder isn't free" and describes the 14-day trial. What the trial limits are, and whether it can publish on a custom domain, is not stated. A temporary preview domain is available until you connect your own. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
What isn't clear from public sources

The advertised prices are a Black Friday offer on a 48-month prepaid term; prices for shorter terms were not shown on the page. Hostinger does not say whether the Premium plan can add Ecommerce, what the domain costs after the first free year, or how structured data and AI-crawler blocking are handled.

Shopify

Online

Hosted commerce platform with four plans (Basic, Grow, Advanced, Plus) that each include an online store, hosting and a custom domain, plus a separate $0 Agentic plan for selling in AI channels.

Our read Businesses whose main aim is selling products online, in person and on social channels from one account.

  • I want to sell products online
Cheapest paid plan on your own domain
Basic: $29 per month billed yearly, or $39 per month billed monthly Shopify's pricing page shows prices in USD. Basic is the cheapest of the four main plans on the page, and its FAQ says every store can use a custom domain. The page also advertises "Try 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months" before standard pricing starts. A $0 per month Agentic plan is listed for selling in AI channels; the page does not list an online store or custom domain for it. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Annual and monthly billing
Pay yearly or pay monthly. Per month on yearly billing / on monthly billing: Basic $29 / $39, Grow $79 / $105, Advanced $299 / $399. Plus starts at $2,300 per month. The Terms of Service (updated 2026-10-20) say subscription fees are paid in advance and billed in 30-day intervals, and do not describe yearly billing. The pricing page does not say how yearly payment is charged. Plus has 1- and 3-year terms. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Free plan or trial
No free plan for an online store. Shopify offers a free 3-day trial with no credit card required; after it, most plans cost $1 per month for the first 3 months, then standard monthly pricing. The page also lists an Agentic plan at $0 per month for selling in AI channels, with card rates from 2.9% + 30 cents online and "Only pay when you make a sale". The page also shows an "Extend your trial for $1" link. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
What isn't clear from public sources

Shopify's help centre blocked automated access, so its articles on exporting a store, the sitemap and AI-crawler settings could not be read. The pages that were read do not say how to export a store, how the sitemap is made, or whether any AI-crawler setting exists. They do not give renewal prices, and the Terms allow fee changes on 30 days' notice. The pricing page does not spell out who qualifies for the $1-per-month offer.

Square Online

Online

Square's website and online store builder, sold inside Square's Free, Plus and Premium plans. The Free plan can sell online with no monthly fee, and a custom domain needs Plus or Premium.

Our read Businesses that already take payments with Square, or want to start selling online with no monthly fee and pay only per sale.

  • A simple site for my business
  • I want to sell products online
Cheapest paid plan on your own domain
$49 per month per location (Square Plus); the Free plan cannot connect a custom domain Shown in the "Locations" row of the pricing table as $0, $49 and $149 per month per location for Square Free, Plus and Premium. The table lists custom domain connect as not included in Free and included in Plus and Premium. Plus is a bundled plan that also includes point-of-sale features. The page does not say whether $49 is billed monthly or annually. Domain registration is extra: Square says a custom domain is available "for as low as $19.95 a year" (https://squareup.com/us/en/website-builder). Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Annual and monthly billing
Square bills paid services monthly or annually; its pricing page says "No hidden fees or locked-in contracts. Cancel or switch anytime." The "no locked-in contracts" wording is on https://squareup.com/us/en/pricing. Which plans offer an annual price, and what it costs, is not stated on the pages read. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Free plan or trial
Square Free has no monthly subscription cost; you pay processing fees when you take a payment. Plus and Premium each offer a free 30-day trial. Free sites publish on a free square.site subdomain (https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6943-use-a-free-subdomain-as-the-address-for-your-site). Verified · Oct 31, 2026
What isn't clear from public sources

Square's pages do not say whether the $49 Plus price is billed monthly or annually, or whether renewal prices change. They do not describe robots.txt editing, structured data, AI-crawler controls or any way to export a site. The Plus and Premium prices are bundled with Square's point-of-sale features, so there is no online-only price.

Squarespace

Online

Hosted website builder with four paid plans (Basic, Core, Plus, Advanced) and a 14-day free trial. Every plan can sell online; the store fee is 2% on Basic and 0% on the other three.

Our read Small businesses that want one hosted plan covering the site, domain connection and a store, billed monthly or annually.

  • A simple site for my business
  • I want to sell products online
Cheapest paid plan on your own domain
Basic: $19 per month billed annually, or $25 per month billed monthly Basic is the cheapest of four plans; the page says Basic lets you publish a personal or business website and that you can attach unlimited domains to any website plan. The page shows a $ sign without naming the currency; it was fetched from a US connection. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Annual and monthly billing
Pay annually or pay monthly. Per month on annual billing / on monthly billing: Basic $19 / $25, Core $29 / $39, Plus $49 / $65, Advanced $99 / $139 The page also says "Pay annually to save up to 36%"; the listed prices differ by about 24% to 29%, and the page does not explain the 36% figure. Whether an annual plan is charged as one payment is not shown on the plan cards. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Free plan or trial
14-day free website trial; no credit card needed to start. The pricing page lists no ongoing free plan. Other help articles say you cannot export content from a trial site and that sitemaps are not available for trial sites. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
What isn't clear from public sources

The pricing page does not give renewal prices or say how often prices change, and the plan cards do not show whether an annual price is charged in one payment. Help articles describe two robots.txt switches (search engines and known AI crawlers) and say the sitemap and page source cannot be edited; they do not say whether robots.txt can be edited directly.

Webflow

Online

Hosted visual website builder with a free Starter plan, paid site plans billed per site, and separate ecommerce site plans for online stores.

Our read Businesses that want a visual builder, are fine paying per site, and may want to export their site's code later.

  • A simple site for my business
  • I want to sell products online
Cheapest paid plan on your own domain
$15 per month, billed yearly (Basic site plan, per site); $25 per month if billed monthly Basic is described on the page as for simple sites that don't need a CMS. It includes a custom domain. Prices are in USD, per site, per month, plus taxes. Workspace plans are separate; a free Starter Workspace is included. The next plan, Premium (adds a CMS), is $25 per month billed yearly or $39 billed monthly. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Annual and monthly billing
Yearly billing is cheaper per month. Basic: $15 per month billed yearly, $25 billed monthly. Premium: $25 billed yearly, $39 billed monthly. Ecommerce Standard: $29 billed yearly, $42 billed monthly. Annual plans are billed up front for one year. The page toggle reads "Yearly (Save up to 40%)". Monthly figures come from the page's own price markup. The up-front annual billing line comes from Webflow's Terms of Service (effective 2023-11-15), section 8. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Free plan or trial
Free Starter site plan: webflow.io domain, limited CMS, 2 static pages, 1 GB bandwidth, 50 form submissions No time limit on the Starter plan is stated on the page. A free Starter Workspace is also listed. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
What isn't clear from public sources

The pricing page is undated and its Help Center blocked automated reading, so cancellation and refund steps in the Help Center were not read. Whether the free Starter plan ever expires is not stated. Support hours and response times on the standard plans are not stated.

Wix

Online

Hosted website builder with a free plan and four paid plans (Light, Core, Business, Business Elite). Light connects a custom domain; Core is the first plan that accepts payments.

Our read Small businesses that want to start on a free plan and move to a paid plan when they need a domain or a store.

  • A simple site for my business
  • I want to sell products online
Cheapest paid plan on your own domain
Light: $17 per month, billed yearly (paid in full at purchase) The page says displayed prices are for yearly subscriptions paid in full, that prices and currency vary by location, and that USD prices are for reference only. Taxes are not included. The Light monthly-billing price is not shown on the pages read. A help article says all Premium plans allow a custom domain. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Annual and monthly billing
Plans page shows yearly prices only, per month: Light $17, Core $29, Business $39, Business Elite $159. Billing cycles offered: monthly, yearly, or every 2 or 3 years. Monthly plans do not include the free domain voucher. The plans page says "Additional subscription periods are available" but gives no monthly or multi-year prices. The billing cycles and the voucher rule are from the help articles "Wix Billing for Site Plans" (2026-08-10) and "Purchasing a Monthly Plan" (2026-02-12), which say yearly plans are charged once for the whole year. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Free plan or trial
Free plan at $0, no credit card required, with hosting, the drag-and-drop editor and templates. A Premium plan is needed to connect your own domain and remove Wix branding. There is no free trial of Premium plans, but a 14-day money-back guarantee. The free-trial and money-back statement is from the help article "Wix Premium Plan Pricing" (2026-07-20). A help article on cancelling says a site without a plan uses a free Wix URL (siteprefix.wixsite.com/siteaddress) and shows Wix ads. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
What isn't clear from public sources

The plans page shows only yearly prices and does not show monthly-billing prices or renewal prices. The help articles read do not say whether renewal prices can change, name a separate Wix fee on store sales, or describe an AI-crawler setting. They say the site must stay hosted on Wix and describe no site-export tool.

WordPress.com

Online

Hosted WordPress service with a free plan and four paid plans (Personal, Premium, Business, Commerce), sold per site with discounts for paying for one, two or three years at a time.

Our read Small businesses that want a low entry price and WordPress's content tools, and can pay yearly to get the lowest rate.

  • A simple site for my business
  • I want to sell products online
  • Keep the monthly cost low
Cheapest paid plan on your own domain
$4 per month, billed every 12 months (Personal plan, per site, US dollars, excluding taxes); $9 per month if billed monthly Personal is the cheapest paid plan. WordPress.com's help article on connecting a domain says domain connection is available on Personal, Premium, Business and Commerce, and that free sites must upgrade. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Annual and monthly billing
Per month, by billing period (monthly / 12 months / 24 months / 36 months): Personal $9 / $4 / $3.25 / $2.75; Premium $18 / $8 / $6.50 / $5.50; Business $40 / $25 / $20 / $17.50; Commerce $70 / $45 / $36 / $31.50. Billed every 12, 24 or 36 months, or monthly, excluding taxes. The page shows only the per-month figure for each billing period. The "Free domain for one year" benefit applies to annual or longer plans, not monthly billing. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Free plan or trial
Free plan at $0 with "No expiration date": unlimited pages and users, 1 GB storage. Free sites show WordPress.com ads to visitors. No custom domain. The no-custom-domain point comes from WordPress.com's help article on connecting a domain ("For free sites, upgrade your plan"). Verified · Oct 31, 2026
What isn't clear from public sources

The pricing page fills in each plan's renewal price with script, so the renewal price per plan could not be read. It does not state the yearly total in dollars, or whether the listed rates are introductory. Structured data (schema) controls are not covered in the help articles read.

Side by side

Full comparison table
Name Cheapest paid plan on your own domainAnnual and monthly billingFree plan or trialSelling onlineCustom domainTaking your site with youSearch and AI crawler controlsSupportRenewal and cancellation
Framer $10 per month (Basic site plan, per site), shown beside the pricing page's "Yearly billing" label Basic lists a custom domain, 30 pages, 2 CMS collections and 50 GB bandwidth. The workspace owner is free; extra editors are $20 per month each and Content Editors $10 per month. Framer's help article says Basic is aimed at personal and small-team sites. Sales tax is added at checkout. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Monthly or annual billing. Monthly is billed at the start of each month and renews monthly; annual is billed up front for the year and renews on its anniversary. Framer says monthly billing typically costs more per month than annual. Switching from annual to monthly needs a request to support. Help article updated 2026-10-26; the billing-cycle article is dated 2026-09-15. The pricing page says "All prices are monthly and billed according to the billing cycle selected at checkout", and shows $10 for Basic and $30 for Pro. The monthly-billing prices could not be read from the page's markup. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Free plan at $0: free Framer subdomain, 1 GB bandwidth, 500 AI credits to try, up to 1,000 pages and 10 CMS collections. A "Made in Framer" banner shows on published sites. No custom domain. The pricing page calls the Free plan "ideal for non-commercial use". The banner detail comes from Framer's best-use-cases help article (updated 2026-09-15). No time limit on the Free plan is stated. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Not publicly stated The pricing page and plan help articles read list no online-store, checkout or transaction-fee entry. The only payment article found says Framer does not process payments and covers selling in Framer's own Community marketplace, not a site's products. Not on the Free plan. Basic and Pro list a custom domain. Sites on a yearly plan can claim a free third-party domain through Hover once per subscription; it renews at the standard rate, and redeeming it forfeits the option to request a refund. Framer also offers free Framer subdomains (framer.website, framer.photos, framer.media, framer.wiki). The pricing page says a custom domain needs a paid plan. The standard domain renewal price is not stated in the article. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Framer says it does not offer HTML export for self-hosting. Published sites cannot be downloaded as HTML files or a static bundle. Help article updated 2026-09-15. It says that if you need complete control over hosting or need to export source code, Framer may not be the right solution. Exporting CMS content or design assets was not covered by this article. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 robots.txt is generated for every published site; a custom robots.txt can be uploaded as a static file on Pro and Enterprise. An XML sitemap is generated automatically at /sitemap.xml. An llms.txt file can be hosted on Pro and Enterprise. Structured data is added as JSON-LD through Custom Code. Redirects are listed for Pro. Drawn from four help articles (robots.txt, sitemap, llms.txt and structured data, each updated 2026-09-15) and the pricing page. No separate AI-crawler setting was found; the plan requirement for Custom Code was not stated in the structured-data article. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Basic and Pro sites get in-app support from Product Experts (Contact Support in the quick actions menu) or by email through the contact page. Billing Support at support@framer.com is described as working around the clock. Enterprise gets support through Slack, Teams or email. Help article updated 2026-09-15. Response times for Basic and Pro are not stated, and the article does not list support for the Free plan. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled before the next renewal date. Cancelling keeps plan benefits until the end of the paid term. Refunds: within 7 days of the initial purchase worldwide, 14 days in the EU and Turkey; none for unused time. A downgrade turns unused value into account credit that cannot be refunded. Cancel article updated 2026-10-22; subscriptions-and-charges updated 2026-10-26; refund policy updated 2026-09-15. Whether the price can change at renewal is not stated in these articles. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Hostinger Website Builder $2.49 per month (Premium plan, 48-month term, $119.52 charged today) Offer labelled "Up to 82% off ... this Black Friday", with a crossed-out price of $12.19 per month. The Premium plan lists a free custom domain for 1 year and up to 3 websites. Prices for 1-year or 2-year terms were not in the page markup read. The renewal price is higher (see renewal). Verified · Oct 31, 2026 All plans are paid upfront; the monthly rate is the total plan price divided by the months in the term. The page shows 48-month terms: Premium $119.52, Unlimited $167.52, Cloud Startup $383.52 today. Monthly equivalents shown: Premium $2.49, Unlimited $3.49, Cloud Startup $7.99. Other term lengths and a month-to-month price are not shown. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Not free; Hostinger offers a 14-day free trial, and a 30-day money-back guarantee on plans The page's FAQ says "Hostinger's website builder isn't free" and describes the 14-day trial. What the trial limits are, and whether it can publish on a custom domain, is not stated. A temporary preview domain is available until you connect your own. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Unlimited is the first plan listed with "Ecommerce available" ($3.49 per month on the 48-month term). Ecommerce is a separate subscription: an extra $4.99 per month for the first 3 months, then $8.99 per month. Hostinger states 0% Hostinger transaction fees; payment-provider fees may still apply. The Premium card does not list Ecommerce; whether Premium can add it is not stated on the pages read. The help article calls Hostinger Ecommerce "a separate subscription" that must be active to take payments (https://support.hostinger.com/en/articles/6538318-website-builder-how-to-enable-ecommerce-features-on-your-website). The $4.99 and $8.99 prices are in the page FAQ and are undated. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Every plan lists a free custom domain for 1 year. Manual mode can connect a domain registered anywhere; a domain registered elsewhere must be pointed to Hostinger, with up to 24 hours for DNS to update. The free-domain wording is on https://www.hostinger.com/website-builder. The price of the domain after the free year is not stated on the pages read. The help page shows "Updated 2 days ago", a relative date. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Manual mode can export pages, text, images and other files to WordPress, but not styles and layout, online store, integrations, forms, form submissions or SEO settings; backups cannot be downloaded. Agentic mode can export the project code as a .zip (React and Vite), without its backend data. Code export is in https://www.hostinger.com/support/10771345-hostinger-ai-builder-agentic-mode-how-to-export-code/ and the no-backup statement in https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583775-how-to-cancel-a-hosting-plan-at-hostinger/. Both pages show relative "Updated 2 days ago" dates. Exported code cannot be imported back into the builder. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Manual-mode SEO tools: meta titles and descriptions, preview images, alt text, header tags, a "noindex" tag to hide a page, dofollow and nofollow links, a website sitemap and a language tag Hostinger states that once a site is live on a custom domain, sitemap.xml, robots.txt and llms.txt are created automatically (https://www.hostinger.com/ai-builder/features/built-in-seo). Editing robots.txt, structured data and blocking AI crawlers are not described in the pages read. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Hostinger states "24/7 support" on its plans; Premium lists chatbot support from Hostinger Agent, while Unlimited and Cloud Startup list priority 24/7 expert support Support channels, response times and the support available to the free trial are not stated on the page. Provider claim · Oct 31, 2026 Renews for the same term at $10.99 per month (Premium), $16.99 (Unlimited) or $25.99 (Cloud Startup); the page says "Cancel anytime" Cancelling means switching off auto-renewal in Billing, so the service runs to the end of the paid term and is then deleted with its data; a refund request ends the service immediately (https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583775-how-to-cancel-a-hosting-plan-at-hostinger/). Hostinger advertises a 30-day money-back guarantee. Renewal prices are undated on the page. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Shopify Basic: $29 per month billed yearly, or $39 per month billed monthly Shopify's pricing page shows prices in USD. Basic is the cheapest of the four main plans on the page, and its FAQ says every store can use a custom domain. The page also advertises "Try 3 days free, then $1/month for 3 months" before standard pricing starts. A $0 per month Agentic plan is listed for selling in AI channels; the page does not list an online store or custom domain for it. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Pay yearly or pay monthly. Per month on yearly billing / on monthly billing: Basic $29 / $39, Grow $79 / $105, Advanced $299 / $399. Plus starts at $2,300 per month. The Terms of Service (updated 2026-10-20) say subscription fees are paid in advance and billed in 30-day intervals, and do not describe yearly billing. The pricing page does not say how yearly payment is charged. Plus has 1- and 3-year terms. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 No free plan for an online store. Shopify offers a free 3-day trial with no credit card required; after it, most plans cost $1 per month for the first 3 months, then standard monthly pricing. The page also lists an Agentic plan at $0 per month for selling in AI channels, with card rates from 2.9% + 30 cents online and "Only pay when you make a sale". The page also shows an "Extend your trial for $1" link. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Basic, the first plan, includes the online store, unlimited products and selling in person and in AI chats. Card rates with Shopify Payments: 2.9% + 30 cents (Basic), 2.7% (Grow), 2.5% (Advanced). Transaction fee if you use a third-party payment provider instead: 2% (Basic), 1% (Grow), 0.6% (Advanced), 0.2% (Plus). Other rates on the same page: premium cards 3.5% + 30 cents and international cards +1% on Basic, PayPal from 3.49% + 49 cents. Transaction fees apply only with a third-party provider; Shopify's FAQ says there are no setup fees on any plan. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Custom domain name is listed on the plan comparison for all plans. You can use a domain you already own, or buy a new one; a domain can stay with its registrar and be connected, or be moved to Shopify. Every store also has a free myshopify.com address. No domain price is on the pricing page. The Terms of Service say a domain bought through Shopify renews automatically each year while the account is active, and stops renewing if you cancel. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Not publicly stated Shopify's help centre (help.shopify.com) returned a "Verifying your connection" bot check to automated requests, so its export articles were not read. Not bypassed. The Terms of Service (updated 2026-10-20) say Shopify does not take ownership of the materials you provide, and that on termination the store is taken offline. They do not describe an export tool. Shopify generates a default robots.txt. Adding a robots.txt.liquid theme template replaces it, and rules are written per crawler (user agent), so a store can add, remove or change rules. The structured_data Liquid filter outputs schema.org JSON-LD for products (Product or ProductGroup) and articles (Article). These are Shopify's developer docs; the page is undated. The structured_data statement is from the developer page for that filter. How the sitemap is created, and any AI-crawler setting, are not described on the pages read, and the help-centre articles on them were blocked. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Shopify lists 24/7 support: live chat on Basic and Grow, enhanced live chat on Advanced, and priority 24/7 phone support on Plus. The 24/7 wording is Shopify's own and was not tested. The Terms of Service say technical support is provided only to Shopify users and that questions about the Terms go to Shopify Support. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Subscription fees are paid in advance and billed every 30 days. Shopify may change fees with 30 days' notice by email or in the admin. You cancel by contacting Shopify Support; on termination the store is taken offline, and the Terms say fees are not refunded, pro rata or otherwise. Domains bought through Shopify stop renewing on cancellation. The Terms are dated 2026-10-20. The pricing FAQ says "simply cancel your account" and that a 1- or 3-year Plus subscription can be cancelled when its term ends. After the $1-per-month period the page says plans switch to standard monthly pricing. The Terms do not say how yearly plans renew. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Square Online $49 per month per location (Square Plus); the Free plan cannot connect a custom domain Shown in the "Locations" row of the pricing table as $0, $49 and $149 per month per location for Square Free, Plus and Premium. The table lists custom domain connect as not included in Free and included in Plus and Premium. Plus is a bundled plan that also includes point-of-sale features. The page does not say whether $49 is billed monthly or annually. Domain registration is extra: Square says a custom domain is available "for as low as $19.95 a year" (https://squareup.com/us/en/website-builder). Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Square bills paid services monthly or annually; its pricing page says "No hidden fees or locked-in contracts. Cancel or switch anytime." The "no locked-in contracts" wording is on https://squareup.com/us/en/pricing. Which plans offer an annual price, and what it costs, is not stated on the pages read. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Square Free has no monthly subscription cost; you pay processing fees when you take a payment. Plus and Premium each offer a free 30-day trial. Free sites publish on a free square.site subdomain (https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6943-use-a-free-subdomain-as-the-address-for-your-site). Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Square Free can already build an online store. Online card payments cost 3.3% + 30¢ on Free and 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus and Premium. The rate applies to "card payments made online or through an invoice". Other listed rates include 3.5% + 15¢ for manually entered cards and 6% + 30¢ for Afterpay. Fees are undated on the page. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Square Plus and Square Premium subscribers can connect a domain bought from Square or elsewhere; Free sites use a square.site subdomain SSL is included for a connected domain. DNS changes for a third-party domain can take 24 to 48 hours. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Square's terms say it has "no obligation to store, maintain, or provide you a copy of any Content", and that cancelling takes effect immediately and Square may delete website information. Domains registered through Square can be transferred to another registrar. Terms page shows "Last Updated: Octover 27, 2026" (spelling as published). No help article on exporting a site was found, so a site export tool is not stated. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Site-wide and per-page SEO title and description, image alt text, and a "Hidden from search engine results" setting for the whole site or one page A sitemap named sitemap.xml is created automatically for every Square-hosted site (https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6992-verify-your-site-with-search-engines). Items and categories have their own SEO title, description and permalink (https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6953-optimize-your-items-for-search-engines). robots.txt editing, structured data and AI-crawler controls are not described in the articles read. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Chat on Free, Plus and Premium; phone 6am to 6pm PT Monday to Friday for the first 90 days on Free, 6am to 6pm PT Monday to Friday on Plus, 24/7 on Premium Square also lists email support; which plans include it was not read. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 A subscription renews automatically for a term of the same length until you cancel, and auto-renew can be turned off at any time. Cancelling an account or online store takes effect immediately. Domains renew yearly and are charged 45 days before expiry. Terms page shows "Last Updated: Octover 27, 2026" (spelling as published). In the Dashboard you can unsubscribe or change tier at any time; downgrades apply from the next billing cycle (https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/8309-manage-square-subscriptions). Renewal price changes are not stated. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Squarespace Basic: $19 per month billed annually, or $25 per month billed monthly Basic is the cheapest of four plans; the page says Basic lets you publish a personal or business website and that you can attach unlimited domains to any website plan. The page shows a $ sign without naming the currency; it was fetched from a US connection. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Pay annually or pay monthly. Per month on annual billing / on monthly billing: Basic $19 / $25, Core $29 / $39, Plus $49 / $65, Advanced $99 / $139 The page also says "Pay annually to save up to 36%"; the listed prices differ by about 24% to 29%, and the page does not explain the 36% figure. Whether an annual plan is charged as one payment is not shown on the plan cards. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 14-day free website trial; no credit card needed to start. The pricing page lists no ongoing free plan. Other help articles say you cannot export content from a trial site and that sitemaps are not available for trial sites. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Basic is the first plan and already includes selling functionality (unlimited products and services). Online store transaction fee: 2% on Basic, 0% on Core, Plus and Advanced. Card rates from 2.9% + $0.30 (Basic, Core), 2.7% + $0.30 (Plus), 2.5% + $0.30 (Advanced). Fees for digital content and memberships are separate: 7% Basic, 5% Core, 1% Plus, 0% Advanced. The card rates sit under an "Available only with Squarespace Payments" footnote on the page. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Every plan can use a custom domain. Annual plans include one year of free domain registration on available domains on the cheapest pricing tier; it renews at the standard rate after year one. You can attach unlimited domains to any plan, monthly or yearly. The free domain must be registered within one year of the subscription start, and only one free domain per website is allowed. A help article says an annual plan cancelled within 14 days loses the free domain offer. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Content exports as a WordPress-format .xml file. It includes layout pages, one blog page with its posts (up to 1,000 comments per post), and text and image blocks. It does not include store or product pages, product, video and audio blocks, drafts, style settings or custom CSS. You cannot export from a trial site. The article is dated 2026-10-15. It says content exported from one Squarespace site should not be imported into another. After you cancel, the Import & export panel stays available, per the cancellation article. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Sitemap is created and updated automatically and cannot be edited. Structured data is generated automatically for blog post, event, local business, organization, product and website schemas, and cannot be edited or removed. A Settings > Crawlers option adds a request to robots.txt to block a listed set of known AI crawlers, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended and CCBot; a separate option blocks search-engine crawlers. A noindex tag can be added per page. The sitemap and structured-data statements come from this article (dated 2026-09-14). The AI-crawler list is from the help article "Request that AI models exclude your site" (2026-07-17), which says blocking does not guarantee crawlers comply. The noindex and search-engine switch are from "Hiding your site from search results". An AI Visibility tracking tool is also described, with plan-based credits. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Email and live chat, plus X, Facebook Messenger and the Squarespace mobile app. No phone support. The help centre says support is offered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Custom code changes are not supported. The same article refers to "live chat hours" without listing them, so chat may not run around the clock. The 24/7 wording is Squarespace's own statement and was not tested. Another article says support cannot help with SEO strategy. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Subscriptions renew automatically. Annual plans get a reminder email 15 days before renewal; monthly plans renew with no reminder. Squarespace says it periodically adjusts plans and pricing, and a price rise applies from your next scheduled renewal. You can cancel at any time in the Billing panel; service then runs to the end of the billing cycle. Full refund only for an annual plan cancelled within 14 days of purchase. Cancellation and refund details are from the articles "Cancel your website subscription" (2026-10-20) and "Website refund policy" (2026-09-02): no refunds for monthly plans, renewal payments, or annual plans cancelled after 14 days. A cancelled site goes offline, and a Squarespace domain subscription stays active and billed. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Webflow $15 per month, billed yearly (Basic site plan, per site); $25 per month if billed monthly Basic is described on the page as for simple sites that don't need a CMS. It includes a custom domain. Prices are in USD, per site, per month, plus taxes. Workspace plans are separate; a free Starter Workspace is included. The next plan, Premium (adds a CMS), is $25 per month billed yearly or $39 billed monthly. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Yearly billing is cheaper per month. Basic: $15 per month billed yearly, $25 billed monthly. Premium: $25 billed yearly, $39 billed monthly. Ecommerce Standard: $29 billed yearly, $42 billed monthly. Annual plans are billed up front for one year. The page toggle reads "Yearly (Save up to 40%)". Monthly figures come from the page's own price markup. The up-front annual billing line comes from Webflow's Terms of Service (effective 2023-11-15), section 8. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Free Starter site plan: webflow.io domain, limited CMS, 2 static pages, 1 GB bandwidth, 50 form submissions No time limit on the Starter plan is stated on the page. A free Starter Workspace is also listed. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Ecommerce Standard, $29 per month billed yearly ($42 billed monthly): 500 ecommerce items, 2% transaction fee on top of Stripe or PayPal processing fees. Plus ($74 yearly) and Advanced ($212 yearly) show 0% transaction fee. Prices are USD, per site, per month, plus taxes. All three ecommerce plans list a custom domain, custom shopping cart and checkout, and no cap on sales volume. Stripe, PayPal and Apple Pay/web payments are listed. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Not on the free Starter plan (webflow.io domain only). Included from the Basic site plan up, and on all ecommerce plans. The page describes it as connecting a domain you own. Whether Webflow sells domains, and at what price, is not stated on this page. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Code export of clean HTML and CSS is listed on the Core and Growth Workspace plans ($19 and $49 per month billed yearly), not on the free Starter Workspace. CMS items and pages can't be exported in that export, and exported code can't be re-imported. The same page's FAQ says you can export and host anywhere with any paid Workspace plan, that dynamic content must be exported collection by collection, and that forms stop working. The feature table says dynamic content can't be exported. The two lines are not fully consistent. The Help Center export article returned HTTP 403 to automated fetches and was not read. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Pricing page lists: custom title and meta descriptions, alt text, Open Graph settings, CMS item indexing control, canonical tags, auto-generated XML sitemap, crawler access controls to allow or block search engine crawlers and AI bots, robots.txt and LLMs.txt control, schema markup support. Shown as available on the Basic and Premium site plans (the table header says Premier). On a free Starter site, sitemap, crawler, robots.txt and schema controls require a paid Workspace plan. 301 redirects are listed on Basic and up. This is the pricing page's feature list; the Help Center articles that document each control were blocked and not read. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Help Center and Support Portal are listed for all site plans. 24/7 priority support and phone support are listed only for the Team and Enterprise platform plans (Team is $2,500 per month, annual contract). Support channels, hours and response times for Basic and Premium sites are not stated on the page. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Annual plans renew automatically each year unless cancelled before the term ends, and fees can change, including at renewal, on notice. Cancel by downgrading to a Starter plan in the dashboard. No refunds or credits for partial terms. From the Terms of Service, section 8, effective 2023-11-15. Monthly plan refunds are handed to a separate Billing and Refund Policy that was not read. The Help Center billing and refund articles returned HTTP 403 to automated fetches. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
Wix Light: $17 per month, billed yearly (paid in full at purchase) The page says displayed prices are for yearly subscriptions paid in full, that prices and currency vary by location, and that USD prices are for reference only. Taxes are not included. The Light monthly-billing price is not shown on the pages read. A help article says all Premium plans allow a custom domain. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Plans page shows yearly prices only, per month: Light $17, Core $29, Business $39, Business Elite $159. Billing cycles offered: monthly, yearly, or every 2 or 3 years. Monthly plans do not include the free domain voucher. The plans page says "Additional subscription periods are available" but gives no monthly or multi-year prices. The billing cycles and the voucher rule are from the help articles "Wix Billing for Site Plans" (2026-08-10) and "Purchasing a Monthly Plan" (2026-02-12), which say yearly plans are charged once for the whole year. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Free plan at $0, no credit card required, with hosting, the drag-and-drop editor and templates. A Premium plan is needed to connect your own domain and remove Wix branding. There is no free trial of Premium plans, but a 14-day money-back guarantee. The free-trial and money-back statement is from the help article "Wix Premium Plan Pricing" (2026-07-20). A help article on cancelling says a site without a plan uses a free Wix URL (siteprefix.wixsite.com/siteaddress) and shows Wix ads. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Core ($29 per month, billed yearly) is the first plan listed with "Accept payments" and Basic eCommerce; Light is not. Wix Payments service fees in the US: 2.9% + $0.30 for cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, 3.7% + $0.30 for American Express, 3.49% + $0.49 for PayPal. The plan comparison is also in the help article "Choosing a Premium Plan" (2026-10-20). The fees are from "Wix Payments: Service Fees" (2026-04-24), which lists them for the United States in USD. Neither source lists a separate Wix fee on each sale; that is not confirmation that none exists. Fees for other payment providers were not checked. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Every paid plan (Light and up) can use a custom domain; the free plan cannot. All four paid plans list a free domain for 1 year. You can buy a domain from Wix or connect one you own. The plans page says the free domain voucher is only valid with a purchase of a new domain from Wix and cannot renew or extend a domain you already own. A help article says the voucher comes with plans billed yearly or longer, not monthly plans, and covers the first year of a new domain only. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Wix says a Wix site must be hosted and operated on Wix's servers, so it cannot be moved to another host. It says the content you build belongs to you under its Terms of Use. You can connect a domain bought elsewhere. If you cancel a plan, the site stays on a free Wix URL with Wix ads and its content is kept. The article is dated 2026-10-05 and describes no tool to export the site as files. A separate help article on exporting contacts exists but was not read. The cancel-and-keep-content statement is from the help article on cancelling a Premium or Studio plan (2026-08-19). Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Every Wix site has a sitemap that updates automatically. A Robots.txt Editor in the SEO & GEO dashboard lets you edit the robots.txt file; its default allows search engines to reach all pages. A robots meta tag can be set per page or per page type. Default structured data markup (Schema.org) is added to product pages and other page types, and manual or AI-generated structured data can be added. An AI Visibility Overview tool (Premium plan needed) tracks mentions on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. The robots.txt statements are from this article (2026-04-20). The sitemap statement is from "Submitting Your Sitemap and URLs Directly to Search Engines" (2026-03-10). Structured data is from "Understanding Your Site's Default SEO Settings" (2026-04-27) and "Adding Structured Data Markup to Your Site's Pages" (2026-09-09), which says AI-generated structured data works only for Wix Blog posts. The robots.txt and structured data articles say Wix Customer Care cannot help with those changes. No AI-crawler setting was found in the articles read. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Chat, with phone and email options, and Wix says help is available 24/7. Wix does not charge for phone, chat or email support. Availability depends on time zone, language and issue. The article is dated 2026-10-27. The plans page lists "24/7 customer care" under features included in all plans. The article refers to listed operating hours without giving them here, and the 24/7 wording was not tested. It also says Customer Care cannot help with robots.txt or structured data changes. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Plans renew automatically at the end of the subscription period, and a plan may renew up to 3 weeks before its expiration date. You can cancel at any time; after 14 days the plan stays active to the end of the billing cycle. Cancelling a first-time plan in the first 14 days ends it immediately with a full refund. No refund applies to renewals or upgrades. The article is dated 2026-08-19. The refund details are also in "Requesting a Refund for a Premium or Studio Plan" (2026-10-08). None of the articles read states what a plan costs at renewal or whether renewal prices change. Cancelling a plan does not cancel a separately bought domain or business email. Verified · Oct 31, 2026
WordPress.com $4 per month, billed every 12 months (Personal plan, per site, US dollars, excluding taxes); $9 per month if billed monthly Personal is the cheapest paid plan. WordPress.com's help article on connecting a domain says domain connection is available on Personal, Premium, Business and Commerce, and that free sites must upgrade. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Per month, by billing period (monthly / 12 months / 24 months / 36 months): Personal $9 / $4 / $3.25 / $2.75; Premium $18 / $8 / $6.50 / $5.50; Business $40 / $25 / $20 / $17.50; Commerce $70 / $45 / $36 / $31.50. Billed every 12, 24 or 36 months, or monthly, excluding taxes. The page shows only the per-month figure for each billing period. The "Free domain for one year" benefit applies to annual or longer plans, not monthly billing. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Free plan at $0 with "No expiration date": unlimited pages and users, 1 GB storage. Free sites show WordPress.com ads to visitors. No custom domain. The no-custom-domain point comes from WordPress.com's help article on connecting a domain ("For free sites, upgrade your plan"). Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Premium ($8 per month billed yearly, $18 monthly) is the first plan with payment buttons (Stripe and PayPal). Fee on paid subscriptions and payments, on top of Stripe fees: 10% Free, 8% Personal, 4% Premium, 2% Business, 0% Commerce. A WooCommerce store needs Business ($25 billed yearly, store features "available with plugins") or Commerce ($45 billed yearly, store tools built in); both list 0% transaction fee for standard WooCommerce payment features, plus standard processing fees. Read from the plan cards and comparison table. Payment processor fees are charged separately. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Connect a domain registered elsewhere with any paid plan, at no extra charge. Annual, two-year and three-year plans can also register a new domain free for the first year. Not available on the Free plan. Help article last reviewed 2026-09-21. The connect-a-domain article (reviewed 2026-09-11) lists Personal, Premium, Business and Commerce and says a free SSL certificate is issued for the connected domain. The price of a domain after the free first year is not stated in what was read. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Tools > Export creates an XML (WXR) file of posts, pages, comments, categories and tags, with links to media. It does not include the theme, design customizations or plugins, and media files can be downloaded separately. Business and Commerce sites can download a full backup. Help article last reviewed 2026-10-05. The article does not name which plans can export. To export the whole site including design, it points to a migration plugin. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 XML sitemap generated by default at /sitemap.xml. A robots.txt file is provided for every site; a custom one needs a plugin-enabled paid plan, or an SFTP upload on Business or higher. The "Prevent third-party sharing" setting opts out of content-licensing partners and adds known AI bots to the robots.txt disallow list, though AI platforms decide whether to honor it. Built-in extra SEO tools are listed for Premium, Business and Commerce. Drawn from three help articles: the SEO issues article (robots.txt), the sitemap article (reviewed 2026-10-05) and the make-your-website-public article (AI bots). Structured data (schema) controls were not found in these articles. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Free plan: no support line listed on the pricing page. Personal: free support. Premium: free support with faster response times. Business and Commerce: free 24/7 expert support with priority response times. A footer line in WordPress.com's help articles says AI assistant answers come "with access to 24/7 expert human support on paid plans", which reads more broadly than the pricing table. Verified · Oct 31, 2026 Plans, domains and other subscriptions auto-renew by default. Yearly plans renew one month before expiry. A discounted or coupon subscription renews at the full subscription price when the discount ends. Cancelling stops renewal and the plan runs to its end date. Refunds: annual, two-year and three-year plans within 14 days of purchase or renewal, monthly plans within 7 days. Auto-renewal article last reviewed 2026-09-17. Refund windows come from the refunds article (reviewed 2026-09-04). After a plan ends the site reverts to a free site with ads and a wordpress.com address, per the cancel article. The renewal price for each plan is filled in by script on the pricing page and was not readable. Verified · Oct 31, 2026

Questions

How were these builders chosen?

Each is a hosted website builder sold to small businesses, publishes its plan prices on its own site, and was still on sale on the check date. The page lists them in alphabetical order and does not rank them.

Where do the prices come from?

Each provider's own plan or pricing page, in US dollars, on the check date. Many builders show a lower monthly price when you pay for a year up front, so each price says which billing it applies to. Prices change, so check the provider's page before you buy.

What does "Not publicly stated" mean?

The provider's pages did not say. It does not mean the answer is no.

Sources

Every fact above links to the page it came from. 38 pages, each with the date we checked it.