Enter your business details to see what each option would cost you. Prices are live from our database and shown in US dollars.
Every builder in our table will give you a draft site from a short description, with more or less AI doing the drafting. What differs for a business owner is what you are paying for after that, how you pay, whether the site can grow into a store, and whether you can leave. This guide answers those questions from stored data, with every figure read live from the same database as the table below.
How we chose these AI website builders for small business
The picks are ordered by fit, not by price or by rating, and commission never affects which builders appear or where. We read each vendor's own pricing page, store the true month to month price where one is published (Wix publishes an annual price only, and the table says so), and record the plan a feature sits on rather than a plain yes. The comparison table at the bottom of this page shows 14 builders at your own numbers, and the full comparison and buyer's guide carries the methodology.
One distinction shaped the whole list. The table mixes two kinds of product: template-based site builders with a flat plan price, and chat-driven app builders whose pricing model reads like Lovable's (pricing model row: Base plan plus AI credit consumption). For a business website that exists to describe what you do and bring in an inquiry, the flat-price builders are the fit, and they are the picks here. The app builders are the answer to a different question, covered in Lovable vs Base44, and the Flat price, no credits filter on the table removes them in one click.
What a small business actually needs from a website builder
Four things, in roughly this order. Your own domain, because a site on a vendor address is not what goes on a business card. A contact or inquiry form that lands somewhere you will see it. A clear answer to whether you will ever sell online, because that decides the plan on most builders. And a sensible exit, because a site that becomes the business is a site you may one day want to move. Design matters too, but the differences that cost money are the four above.
Where each pick fits
Wix is the builder for a business that wants to start without paying and keep the store option open. It has a free plan (free plan row: Yes, publishes live on a wixsite.com subdomain with Wix branding), your own domain needs a paid plan (custom domain row: Paid plans only (Light and above)), and an online store is gated by plan (online store row: Core and above). Its backend (backend row: Yes, via Velo (database, auth, backend code)) matters only if the site may one day need logins or a database. The catch is editor seats, which are capped per plan (team members row: 2 (Light) to 100 (Business Elite), hard caps), so count everyone who will touch the site before choosing a tier.
Squarespace is the builder for a business that wants a finished-looking site and a bill it can stop. It bills with no commitment (contract: None, monthly or annual), your own domain comes with every paid plan (custom domain row: All paid plans), and selling is open on every paid plan with a commission on the entry plan that drops away from the next rung (online store row: All plans, commission-free from Core). It publishes its AI allowance per plan (10 one-time (Basic), 20/mo (Core), 120/mo (Advanced)), so you know what you are buying. There is no free plan (free plan row: No, 14-day trial only). The two general-purpose picks are compared head to head in Wix vs Squarespace.
Hostinger is the builder for a business with more than one website, or one that would rather have hosting and builder on one bill. One subscription covers several sites (sites per plan: 3 (Premium), unlimited (Unlimited)) where Wix and Squarespace each cover one (sites per plan: Wix 1 per plan; Squarespace 1 per subscription), so set Websites to your real count in the calculator and watch the gap. Hosting is included (hosting row: Yes, it is a hosting plan), and the domain is included at first and then renews at a fee (custom domain row: All plans, free for the first year). Two things to know: editor seats are not published (team members row: Not published), and selling needs its upper plan (online store row: Unlimited plan and above).
WordPress.com is the builder for a business that wants to own its site rather than rent it. The site can move to another WordPress host (export row: Yes, it is WordPress), and editors are unlimited (team members row: Unlimited on every plan, including free). The AI builder is available on the free plan (free plan row: Yes, publishes live on a wordpress.com subdomain with ads). Selling needs its top plan (online store row: Commerce plan, bundles WooCommerce), and its AI usage limit is not published as a number (AI usage row: Not published as a number).
Durable is the service-business pick, and only that. It keeps a customer list and invoicing beside the site (integrations row: Built-in CRM and invoicing, limited third-party), which suits a business that invoices after the work rather than taking payment on the site. It has no online store on any plan (online store row: No), so a business that sells products should look elsewhere. Its AI allowance is published (10 AI chats/mo (Free), 1,000 (Launch), unlimited (Grow)), and its templates row reads AI-generated, limited manual control: you steer a generator rather than arrange a page. Durable vs Wix walks through the service-site decision in detail.
What you pay, and on what billing basis
The entry prices in the table are not all on the same basis, and that matters more than the digits. Wix bills a year at a time (billing basis: Annual only; contract: Annual, paid in full up front), so its monthly figure is a year's fee spread across the year and the charge lands once. Squarespace, Hostinger, WordPress.com and Durable are stored on the basis Squarespace's row shows (billing basis: True monthly): the price you pay with no commitment.
Two of those monthly figures sit well above the number on the vendor's own front page. Hostinger's contract row reads None on monthly, up to 48 months to get the advertised rate: the advertised rate assumes a long prepayment, and the table shows the real monthly price instead. WordPress.com's contract row reads None on monthly, up to 3 years for the advertised rate, and its committed-term prices are first-term rates that renew higher, so the table stores the ongoing monthly figure. Every pick bills natively in US dollars (local pricing row, Durable: Yes, native USD, and the same for the rest), and every pick is a flat plan price with no AI meter. Sales tax on a software subscription depends on your state, so the charge on your card may carry tax the vendor's page does not show.
Your own domain, who can edit, and leaving
Your own domain is where every free plan ends (custom domain rows: Wix Paid plans only (Light and above); WordPress.com Paid plans, free for a year on annual and longer terms; Durable Launch and above). Where the builder registers the domain for you, confirm you are the registrant of record and can get the transfer authorization code, because the domain is the one part of the site that moves with you.
The pages mostly do not. Export is unavailable on most of the picks (export rows: Wix No; Squarespace No; Hostinger No; Durable No); WordPress.com is the exception. Leaving any of the other four means rebuilding, which is an afternoon for a brochure site and much more once the site holds your customer list or your store. Decide how much the site will matter before you decide how little it should cost.
Editor seats are the quiet upgrade trigger (team members rows: Squarespace 2 (Basic), unlimited from Core; Durable Owner only on Free, unlimited on Grow; Wix 2 (Light) to 100 (Business Elite), hard caps). Set Users in the calculator to the real number, including whoever updates the photos and prices.
Two US notes: sales tax and accessibility
Sales tax on the subscription itself varies by state, and if you sell through the site the question moves to your buyers, where the rate depends on their location rather than yours. We hold no field on whether a store calculates destination-based sales tax at checkout, so ask the vendor before you build one.
Accessibility is worth checking on any generated site, and WCAG is the reference to check against. We hold no accessibility field for any builder, so test the published site yourself: move through every page with the keyboard alone, try it with a screen reader, confirm each image has a description and each form field a real label, and run your color pairs through a contrast checker. Since most of the picks do not export the site, any fix happens inside the builder's editor.
How to decide
Answer three questions in order. Will the site ever take payment at a checkout? If yes, Wix, Squarespace, Hostinger or WordPress.com, on the plan each gates its store to, and never Durable. Do you invoice after the work instead? Then Durable's bundled customer list and invoicing earn their place. How do you want to pay and leave? Month to month with no contract points to Squarespace or Durable; a year up front with a free rung to start on points to Wix; several sites on one bill points to Hostinger; the ability to take the site elsewhere points to WordPress.com. Then set Websites, Users and Sell online? in the calculator below and read the estimate each builder produces at your numbers.
