Best Website Builder For Artists (2024)

Squarespace is one of the most popular website platforms on the planet, but it is Squarespace’s reputation for stunning, modern designs that make it Forbes’ choice for best overall website builder for artists. With Squarespace, you can choose from a variety of award-winning templates to create the look and feel that evokes your unique artistic style.

All Squarespace sites are mobile responsive, ensuring your artwork looks just as good on mobile devices as it does on large screens. Top Squarespace features include unlimited bandwidth, video storage, mobile editing, an intuitive design editor and search engine optimization (SEO) tools to ensure your website is visible in search engines.

Choose from four Squarespace pricing plans that range from $16 to $65 per month; monthly and annual plans are available. The Personal plan is likely all you need if your only goal is to host an online portfolio. You’ll want to select a Business, Basic Commerce or Advanced Commerce plan if you plan to sell your art or creative services online.

Learn more: Read our full Squarespace Review.

Who should use it: Squarespace is a terrific web platform for artists who want to create an online portfolio, sell art online or promote creative services, such as photography or custom design work.

Wix is an all-in-one website builder that offers more than 800 designer-made templates, and each can be adapted to create the look and feel you want for your artist website. Even better, Wix is one of the most user-friendly website builders on the market, so even less tech-savvy artists can create a stunning online presence.

All Wix paid plans come with a storage allowance, video hour allotments, a free custom domain for one year and 24/7 customer care. Business and e-commerce plans also allow you to accept online payments securely, set up recurring payments and sell on social channels. Wix makes it easy to sell your original artwork on your Wix site—whether that be prints or digital art—or sell or rent subscriptions to your videos.

You can launch a website for free with Wix, though free plans are not e-commerce-enabled and feature embedded Wix ads. For a more professional site, choose from seven premium Wix pricing plans that range from $17 to $159 per month.

Learn more:Read our full Wix Review.

Who should use it:Wix is perfect for those with minimal technical skills who need an easy-to-use website builder with a wide variety of pre-built design templates from which to choose.

Shopify is best known as a user-friendly e-commerce platform for selling products online. What few realize, though, is that Shopify truly shines when it comes to helping artists and artisans develop distinctive online shops.

With Shopify, you can sell on your website, on social channels, in person—such as at art markets and fairs—or via online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon. You can start selling on Shopify during your 3-day free trial, and continue to build and expand your store once you choose the best Shopify plan for your needs.

Choose from three Shopify pricing plans that range from $29 to $2,300 per month when paid annually (many plans are $1 for the first month). Shopify also charges a credit card processing fee that ranges from 2.4% to $2.9% plus $0 to 30 cents depending on your plan. If you’re not ready to launch a website yet, you could go with Shopify’s $5 per month Starter plan that allows you to sell products through social and messaging apps.

Setting up your online shop with Shopify requires a small learning curve, but it’s worth it. Add extensive product description content, including multiple detailed images, videos and 3D model files. Offer product-specific custom choices, such as size, color, material options and one-of-a-kind or limited edition selections.

Learn more: Read our full Shopify Review.

Who should use it: Shopify is a perfect solution for artists who want to open an online shop plus sell their work in various other locations, such as at art markets and fairs, via social channels and on popular marketplaces including Amazon and eBay.

If you want to build an artist website fast—as in minutes, not hours or days—you’ll want to take a closer look at HostGator. Instead of using a drag-and-drop editor, HostGator users build their sites with intelligent automation technology, which HostGator calls its Intelligent Site Builder (ISB). This means you can build your site in mere minutes.

The downside of the ISB is that you’re limited on design flexibility. So, while you can build an attractive website fast, you won’t be able to customize it as much as you can with other website platforms.

HostGator offers three plans: the Start, Site and Store plans. Monthly, annual and three-year plans are available, and fees are lowest on three-year plans. Prices range from $4.95 to $19.95 per month with HostGator’s introductory offer, and all plans include a free domain and a free SSL certificate for the first year.

The Start plan only permits you to sell three products, and the Site plan allows up to 10 products. If you want to sell a wider variety of products, you’ll want to sign up for HostGator’s Store plan, which comes with unlimited products and no transaction fees. All plans come with e-commerce features such as accepting online payments, order and tax management, inventory management and integrated shipping management.

Learn more: Read our full HostGator Review.

Who should use it:HostGator makes it easy to build a website quickly, which makes it our top choice if you’re facing an urgent deadline.

The true beauty of WordPress.org is that it gives artists nearly limitless design flexibility. With over 30,000 themes available—free and paid—and nearly 60,000 WordPress plug-ins on the market, you can customize your site’s design and functionality to suit your specific needs.

With WordPress, you can create a site that has a portfolio, an online shop, promotes special events and more. Use third-party plug-ins to add additional functionality to your site, including hosting large, bandwidth-draining animations and videos, selling on social platforms and hosting special events such as online art auctions on your site.

The WordPress content management system (CMS) you need to build a WordPress site is free, but you’ll need to acquire WordPress hosting services before your site can go live. On average, shared hosting services range from $3 to $150 or more per month, depending on the vendor and hosting services selected.

If your host does not include a domain with your hosting package, you’ll need to purchase a domain from a domain registrar, which typically costs between $5 and $25 per year.

Some people find that WordPress.org has a steep learning curve. You can always work with a WordPress designer or agency to help develop an artist site for you. If you’re relatively tech-savvy, though, you can likely build most if not all of your WordPress site on your own.

Learn more: For additional insights, check out our article on how to build a WordPress website. Read our full WordPress.org review.

Who should use it: WordPress.org is the ideal website builder for artists who want complete control over the look, feel and functionality of their websites.

If you want to showcase your artwork in a stunning online portfolio, then consider building your website with Format. This website builder was developed specifically for the creative community with the goal of helping artists display their work online.

The user-friendly design editor helps you create a stunning website quickly and easily. Thousands of design variations can be achieved through simple tweaks of Format’s fully responsive design templates. Format takes a mobile-first approach to website design to ensure your artwork looks exceptional on any size screen.

You can try Format for free for 14 days. Format offers three plan options, including Basic, Pro and Pro Plus. Starting prices range from $5 to $13 per month (if billed annually under current promotion). If you plan to host an online store, you’ll need to go with the Pro Plus or Bundle option that lets you list up to 1,000 products in your shop.

Format offers top features that are important to artists, including Lightroom and Capture One integration, copyright protections, SSL security, high-resolution images, hosted video and various premium design features. Professional business tools include client contracts, gallery password protection, client galleries and file transfers.

In addition to building your online portfolio with Format, you can also sell prints via the Prints Marketplace or store and manage large photo files in the Format Photo Storage Cloud.

Who should use it: Format is an excellent platform for hosting an online portfolio, which makes it a great website builder for photographers, artists, interior designers, fashion designers, music artists, video artists, models and architects.

Zyro by Hostinger is a budget-friendly, user-friendly website builder that is an option for artists who want to create a basic website. The builder is known for its reliability, boasting a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

To get started, choose from over 100 designer-crafted templates to create a website for your portfolio or online shop. Then, use the Zyro drag-and-drop editor to design your site.

Zyro gives its users a number of helpful AI tools, including the AI Writer, AI Blog Title Generator, AI Business Name Generator, AI Heatmap, the AI Slogan Generator and the AI Logo Maker.

Zyro has two plans and, other than price, the main difference between the two is e-commerce functionality. The Zyro Website plan starts at $2.59 per month in your first year but climbs to $11.99 upon renewal. The e-commerce-enabled Zyro Business plan starts at $3.59 per month and climbs to $14.99 per month upon renewal.

All paid plans come with a free domain for one year, 24/7 customer support and a 30-day money-back guarantee. All users also receive a three-month free trial of Titan email.

As your website grows, Zyro can scale with you, offering the additional storage and bandwidth you need to host large image and video files (subject to add-on fees, which vary by usage).

Learn more: Read our full Zyro Review.

Who should use it: Zyro is a terrific website platform for artists looking for a budget-priced, ultra-easy-to-use website builder for creating simple websites.

Weebly has a solid reputation as one of the best website builders for several reasons, but in our opinion, user-friendliness tops the list. Weebly is an excellent web platform for true beginners.

Artists on a budget will appreciate that Weebly offers several affordable plans. You can build a simple site on Weebly for free. One downside to a free site is that it will have a Weebly-branded domain, which doesn’t convey the professional image most artists want to make with their artist websites. Still, if you’re low on funds or just want to try out the Weebly editor, you might want to sign up for a free plan.

There are three premium Weebly plans: Personal, Professional and Performance. Weebly pricing plans range from $10 to $26 per month when billed annually or $13 to $29 per month when billed month-to-month. E-commerce functionality is available on all Weebly plans.

In 2018, Square, a top online payment processor, purchased Weebly and since that time, Weebly’s e-commerce functionality has expanded dramatically. Top e-commerce features include the ability to sell both physical and digital goods, coupons, inventory management and tax and shipping calculators. You can also add product reviews to your artistic offerings; positive reviews are extremely helpful in growing sales.

Learn more: Read our full Weebly Review.

Who should use it: Weebly is an affordable website builder for artists such as photographers, designers, illustrators and music artists who are true beginners at building websites.

SmugMug is one of the most popular website builders for photographers who want to build visually stunning websites. Top photographers around the world use SmugMug to promote their photography services as well as share, sell and store their photography online.

SmugMug offers three plans that range from $13 to $45 per month; save 29% to 33% by paying annually. All plans come with built-in stats and analytics, drag-and-drop design customization, basic bulk image management, in-app editing tools and password protection for photos, galleries and pages.

Advanced SmugMug plans come with sales and fulfillment tools and watermark protection. The SmugMug Pro plan includes marketing promotions, coupons and client management tools.

With SmugMug, you can sell prints, products and digital downloads. Host password-protected private client galleries for individual or group clients. You can also integrate your SmugMug account with print labs to put your photos on canvas, metal, paper, glass and keepsakes.

Who should use it: SmugMug is a terrific website builder for photographers who want to sell their photography services and photos online.

With its aggressive consumer advertising strategy, GoDaddy has become a household name for website design. The platform is also a strong option for artists who need an intuitive website builder that’s capable of creating an attractive and modern website. Use your GoDaddy-built website to showcase your artwork or set up an online shop.

Get started with GoDaddy for free. Even free plans come with branded content creation using GoDaddy Studio, email and social media marketing, 24/7 customer support, an SSL certificate, one-time appointments, and the ability to start selling with GoDaddy Payments. As with most free plans, you cannot connect a custom domain to your free account, and GoDaddy branding will appear on your website. You can upgrade to a feature-rich paid plan at any time.

GoDaddy offers four premium plans that range from $10.99 to $20.99 per month when paid annually. Artists who want to open an online store need to go with either the Commerce plan, which is priced at $20.99 per month.

Every GoDaddy premium plan comes with built-in video creation tools. Post your custom videos and self-made animations on your website and social channels. All paid plans also include the ability to connect to a custom domain, SEO tools, marketplace selling and flexible shipping options. If you have either commerce plan, you can also connect your GoDaddy site to your social media accounts to sell your artwork on Facebook and Instagram.

Learn more: Read our full GoDaddy Website Builder Review.

Who should use it: GoDaddy is a good solution for artists who want to build a polished website, yet whose technical skills are limited. GoDaddy is an intuitive website builder with the design flexibility you need to create a distinctive professional online presence.

Starving artists who have zero to spend for a new website should take a close look at Webs. You can launch your artist website with Webs for free. As with most free website builders, Webs adds advertising banners to your site and requires you to use a Webs-branded domain; remember, your free site isn’t costing you a nickel so these trade-offs should be expected.

Webs offers three premium plans that start at $5.99 to $22.99 per month. All paid plans come with unlimited pages, password-protected pages, web statistics and a storage allotment. Storage for the Starter plan is only 1GB while you get unlimited storage with the Pro plan.

If you plan to use your Webs website to showcase your portfolio, the free plan is a good way to go. If you plan to build an online store, you’ll need to upgrade to a Webs Pro plan which enables you to list up to 20 items. Though frankly, we think building your online store on Squarespace or Shopify is a better option, as these builders both have stronger e-commerce features than Webs.

Who should use it: Webs is a solid website builder for artists looking to create an online presence for free.