Best Website Builder Pricing 2026: Squarespace, Webflow, Wix, and More
Website builders have consolidated into a few clear categories: template-first builders for non-technical users (Squarespace, Wix), design-code tools for professionals (Webflow, Framer), and ecommerce-first platforms (Shopify). The pricing across these tools varies significantly, and the cheapest option is rarely the best one for your use case.
This guide breaks down what each major website builder costs in 2026 and which one makes sense for different types of sites.
Quick Pricing Overview
| Platform | Starting price | Best for |
|----------|---------------|---------|
| Wix | $17/month (annual) | Beginners, drag-and-drop simplicity |
| Squarespace | $16/month (annual) | Polished design, service businesses |
| Webflow | $14/month (annual) | Professional designers, custom layouts |
| Framer | $0 (free with limitations) | Designers, product teams |
| Shopify | $29/month (annual) | Ecommerce primary focus |
| WordPress.com | $4/month (annual) | Content-heavy sites, blogging |
Wix Pricing (2026)
Wix is the most popular website builder by user count. It offers the most flexibility in layout (true drag-and-drop, not constrained by rows like Squarespace) and has a large app marketplace.
| Plan | Monthly (annual) | Monthly (monthly billing) |
|------|-----------------|--------------------------|
| Light | $17/month | $27/month |
| Core | $29/month | $36/month |
| Business | $36/month | $51/month |
| Business Elite | $159/month | $159/month |
Light ($17/month): 2 GB storage, custom domain, ad-free, no ecommerce. Suitable for a basic portfolio or brochure site.
Core ($29/month): 50 GB storage, 5 video hours, basic ecommerce (no subscriptions, no advanced shipping). Good for adding a small shop to an informational site.
Business ($36/month): 100 GB storage, subscriptions, auto-tax, multiple currencies. This is the tier most small online stores need.
Business Elite ($159/month): Unlimited storage, priority support, custom reporting, loyalty program. For high-volume ecommerce stores.
Wix charges no additional transaction fees on top of payment processor fees at any tier — a meaningful advantage over some competitors.
Wix Ecommerce Costs
Unlike Squarespace or Webflow, Wix does not charge platform-level transaction fees. You pay only Stripe or PayPal processing fees (typically 2.9% + $0.30). This makes Wix's effective ecommerce cost lower than it first appears compared to Squarespace Business (which charges 3% on top of processor fees).
Squarespace Pricing (2026)
Squarespace offers polished templates optimized for service businesses, photographers, and brands that care about design consistency.
| Plan | Monthly (annual) | Monthly (monthly billing) |
|------|-----------------|--------------------------|
| Personal | $16/month | $23/month |
| Business | $23/month | $33/month |
| Commerce Basic | $27/month | $36/month |
| Commerce Advanced | $49/month | $65/month |
Personal ($16/month): Unlimited pages, custom domain, SSL, no ecommerce. Suitable for portfolios and informational sites.
Business ($23/month): Basic ecommerce with a 3% transaction fee on top of payment processor fees. Fine for low-volume selling; expensive for real stores.
Commerce Basic ($27/month): Removes the 3% transaction fee, adds point-of-sale, customer accounts, abandoned cart recovery. The minimum viable plan for a real online store.
Commerce Advanced ($49/month): Subscriptions, advanced shipping, gift cards, commerce APIs. For stores with more complex fulfillment needs.
Squarespace's templates are consistently better-looking than Wix's out-of-the-box. The trade-off is less layout flexibility — you work within template constraints rather than placing elements anywhere on the page.
Webflow Pricing (2026)
Webflow is the professional choice for designers who want full CSS control without writing code. The output is production-quality HTML/CSS, not a template wrapper.
| Plan | Monthly (annual) | What you get |
|------|-----------------|-------------|
| Basic | $14/month | Static pages, custom domain, no CMS |
| CMS | $23/month | 2,000 CMS items, 3 content editors |
| Business | $39/month | 10,000 CMS items, 10 editors |
| Enterprise | Custom | Unlimited, SLA |
Webflow's ecommerce is a separate add-on ($29–$212/month) on top of site plan costs, which makes it significantly more expensive for online stores than Wix or Squarespace.
Best suited for: Designers, agencies building client sites, product teams creating landing pages. Not the right choice for non-technical users or ecommerce-primary businesses.
Framer Pricing (2026)
Framer is the newest significant player — a design tool that became a website builder. Popular with product designers and SaaS companies.
| Plan | Monthly (annual) | What you get |
|------|-----------------|-------------|
| Free | $0 | Framer.site subdomain, 1 page, 1,000 visitors/month |
| Mini | $5/month | Custom domain, 10 pages, 1,000 visitors/month |
| Basic | $15/month | 100 pages, 10,000 visitors/month |
| Pro | $30/month | Unlimited pages, 200,000 visitors/month |
| Business | Custom | Unlimited visitors, SSO, SLA |
Framer's pricing includes a free tier that's useful for prototyping. The Mini plan at $5/month is the cheapest custom domain option in this comparison.
Framer doesn't have native ecommerce. For sites that need a checkout, you'd add a third-party solution (Stripe checkout, Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad). This makes it unsuitable as a primary ecommerce platform but fine for SaaS landing pages with external checkout.
Best suited for: Product designers, SaaS landing pages, portfolios with interactive animations.
Shopify Pricing (2026)
Shopify is ecommerce-first and should be evaluated separately from other website builders.
| Plan | Monthly (annual) | Transaction fee (non-Shopify Payments) |
|------|-----------------|----------------------------------------|
| Basic | $29/month | 2% |
| Shopify | $79/month | 1% |
| Advanced | $299/month | 0.6% |
| Plus | $2,300/month | 0.2% |
Using Shopify Payments (available in most countries) eliminates transaction fees at all tiers. Third-party payment processors (PayPal, Stripe directly) incur the fees above.
Shopify is more expensive than Squarespace or Wix for ecommerce but offers a significantly better commerce experience: inventory management, multi-channel selling (Instagram, TikTok, Amazon), abandoned cart, POS, and a vast app ecosystem. If ecommerce is the primary purpose of your site, Shopify Basic at $29/month is a better starting point than Commerce Basic on Squarespace.
WordPress.com Pricing (2026)
WordPress.com is the hosted version of WordPress (separate from self-hosted WordPress.org).
| Plan | Monthly (annual) | Notes |
|------|-----------------|-------|
| Free | $0 | WordPress subdomain, limited |
| Personal | $4/month | Custom domain, no ads |
| Premium | $8/month | Upload videos, monetize |
| Business | $25/month | Full plugin access (key feature) |
| Commerce | $45/month | WooCommerce ecommerce |
The Business plan at $25/month is the first tier that allows installing custom plugins — without this, WordPress.com is significantly limited compared to self-hosted WordPress. For full WordPress capability, $25/month is the effective entry point.
Self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org) has no software cost but requires hosting ($5–$30/month depending on provider) and more technical management. For non-technical users, WordPress.com's Business plan is a reasonable middle ground.
Total Cost Comparison
For a simple portfolio or business website (no ecommerce):
| Platform | Annual cost |
|----------|------------|
| Framer Mini | $60/year |
| WordPress.com Personal | $48/year |
| Squarespace Personal | $192/year |
| Webflow Basic | $168/year |
| Wix Light | $204/year |
For an ecommerce site with no transaction fee:
| Platform | Annual cost |
|----------|------------|
| Wix Core (no transaction fee) | $348/year |
| Squarespace Commerce Basic | $324/year |
| Shopify Basic (with Shopify Payments) | $348/year |
| Webflow CMS + Standard ecommerce | $624/year |
Webflow is the most expensive ecommerce option. Squarespace Commerce Basic and Shopify Basic are nearly identical in annual cost, with Shopify delivering more ecommerce-specific features.
My Recommendations
Best for beginners: Wix. More layout flexibility than Squarespace, no transaction fees, straightforward pricing. The drag-and-drop editor is genuinely the most flexible in this category.
Best design quality: Squarespace. Templates are consistently excellent for service businesses, photographers, and brands where visual consistency matters. The constraint-based editor produces more uniform results than Wix's free-form approach.
Best for professional designers: Webflow. The CSS-level control produces better output than any template builder. Worth the learning curve if you're a designer or working with one.
Best for ecommerce: Shopify. The multi-channel selling, inventory management, and app ecosystem make it the right choice for any serious online store. Squarespace Commerce Basic is fine for simple stores.
Best on a budget: Framer Mini at $5/month for a non-ecommerce site with a custom domain. Or WordPress.com Personal at $4/month.
For more detailed head-to-head comparisons, see Webflow vs Squarespace and the full website builders category on CompareTiers.
