8 Best website builders for artists 2023
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Miglė Šeikytė
Content Lead
If you’re an aspiring artist willing to showcase or sell your artwork, a tight budget can stand in the way of success. Especially if you have many ideas to fulfill your website yet a small budget to execute that. Thankfully, there is an abundance of website builders tailored for artists that help create eye-catching portfolios and e-commerce shops at a budget-friendly price.
Moreover, the best website builders for artists enable you to create fully functional, modern, and entirely customizable websites. These platforms offer comprehensive features such as online stores, marketing tools, and SEO optimization, making them ideal all-in-one solutions for artists who want to maximize their investment.
With numerous excellent website builders available, we have carefully tested and selected 8 best website builders for artists. We've ranked these providers based on performance and features tailored to help you and fellow artists sell and showcase their work. So, continue reading to select a website builder that caters to all your website needs while offering the best value for your investment.
Top 8 best website builders for artists
- Wix – the best website builder for artists
- Hostinger Website Builder – affordable option for artists
- SITE123 – business-oriented website builder for artists
- Squarespace – artistic templates for selling art online
- Pixpa – niche artist builder with e-commerce functionality
- Zenfolio – website builder for photographers
- GoDaddy website builder – simple and intuitive website builder
- SmugMug – easy-to-use website builder for visual artists
📢 LIMITED OFFER: Get an additional 10% OFF Premium Wix plans using code 'CyberNews10!'
Best website builders for artists – detailed list
A list of the best website builders for artists consist of top-tier providers that excel in features, lightning-fast performance, and friendly pricing. Therefore, artists with different budgets will be able to find the most fitting provider that meets their web development needs and matches their budget.
1. Wix – the best website builder for artists overall
| Features: | Curated website templates, thousands of apps |
| Templates: | 700+ |
| Best for: | Design and editing freedom |
| Current deal: | Get an additional 10% OFF Premium Wix plans using code 'CyberNews10!' |
Wix is the best web builder for artists due to its endless creativity options to showcase your art. Whether you want to showcase your art in a portfolio, create a business website, or sell your creations online store – Wix comes with a myriad of artistic template designs, limitless customization options, and a great deal of features for an easy and functional website building experience.
Templates. Wix offers over 900 fully customizable templates that you can alter with a drag-and-drop function. All the templates are modern, sleek, and really easy to customize and navigate. You can change colors, fonts, layouts, and other details to your liking, but bear in mind – once you complete all the website with one template, you can't transfer it to another one.
Features. Moreover, it comes with SEO and email marketing features to help you reach visitors via more channels. It includes animation, video backgrounds, and scroll effects. Plus, Media Galleries can help you display videos, text, and images in a gallery layout. And if you need further enhancement of your artistic website, Wix has an app store for that.
Performance. When you add a video or an image, Wix optimizes it to juggle the best possible quality with low size. However, we’ve put Wix to the test and built a website with heavy content, such as videos, images, and big chunks of text, to see how well it would perform for artists who work with content-heavy files. Our tests revealed that Wix can load quite slowly, taking between 5-8 seconds to see all the content.
Pricing. Wix offers a free plan in addition to its paid plans. However, if you want more functions, features, and an ad-free web-building experience, the cheapest plan costs $16.00/month. You can choose among three more plans, like Core for $27.00/month, in case you want to get the most bang for your buck.
Wix is the best website builder for artists that focus on simple and tasteful designs, and want to opt for a budget-friendly provider.
2. Hostinger Website Builder – perfect for artists on a budget
| Features: | Quick website setup, smart AI tools |
| Templates: | 130+ |
| Best for: | Budget photo portfolio websites |
| Current deal: | Get Hostinger Website Builder, now 75% OFF + 3 months FREE! |
Hostinger Website Builder is a top-tier website builder for artists, popular for its ease of use and allowing you to build a fully functional website without making it a daunting task. It’s modern, customizable, and budget-friendly, and includes a drag-and-drop function, so it’s a great pick even if you’re on a tight budget.
Templates. Hostinger Website Builder offers 130+ templates that are neatly sorted into categories such as Photography, Portfolio, and Events. All of them are tasteful, modern, and easy to use, so you'll build a mobile-optimized website within moments.
Features. Whether you’re looking to showcase your images or videos, Hostinger Website Builder is great for that. You can upload a YouTube video or embed a code in case you'd like to connect your selected media with your website. It offers Instagram feed integration to showcase on your website, so you can develop a consistent design across platforms. Finally, it offers AI-powered features that create a logo or write a compelling copy within seconds to enhance your website's performance online.
Performance. While Hostinger Website Builder lacks in features and templates, compared to Wix, it showcased immaculate performance when we tested it by building a content-heavy site. A website with several videos and large HD images loaded in 1.1s, which makes it unlikely for your visitors to bounce because it took too long to load the site.
Pricing. Hostinger Website Builder is really budget-friendly, as it only offers one versatile plan that costs $2.99/month. Therefore, it’s ideal for beginners or artists looking for a smaller website, that wouldn’t break their bank.
Overall, we recommend Hostinger Website Builder for artists who want to build a fully functional and stylish portfolio. It’s also applicable for small or medium-sized business owners, as it's cost-effective and doesn't take time to develop a site.
3. SITE123 – ideal for business art websites
| Features: | Intuitive editor with great social media integration |
| Templates: | 160+ |
| Best for: | Beginners |
| Current deal: | SITE123 coupon 40% OFF! |
SITE123 is one more excellent website builder. It boasts a comprehensive email marketing tool, versatile SEO features to enhance your website performance, and of course – an intuitive interface that won’t take long hours to showcase your special creations.
Templates. This website builder comes with a library of 160+ modern and aesthetic templates. All of them are listed in different sub-categories such as art, photography, and so on. It means that you'll find a fully designed template specifically for your purpose.
Features. SITE123 isn’t as feature-rich as other providers like Wix, but it covers the essentials. SITE123 includes business features such as e-commerce, social media integration, SEO, and marketing tools to boost the business side of your site. While it lacks some AI-powered features for a logo or copy generation, there’s a fully functioning email marketing tool to reach your audience via email.
Performance. SITE123 is among the fastest website builders we’ve tested. Even though our developed website had a bunch of videos and images, it managed to load the site in under a second, which is an outstanding result. Hence, if you want to publish your visual art, SITE123 got you covered.
Pricing. This website builder offers a limited free version and four paid plans. Premium starts at $12.80/month, and with the remaining plans, prices go up to $11.88/month. Beware that when you visit SITE123, you’ll only see a free and a Premium plan. 3 remaining plans appear only after you become a user of SITE123.
In short, SITE123 is great for artists looking to boost the business side of their art. It has plenty of performance, SEO, and analytics features, alongside its rich template library.
4. Pixpa – for artists looking to sell online
| Features: | Section-based editor, eCommerce functionalities |
| Templates: | 130+ |
| Best for: | Portfolio building and e-commerce integration |
| Current deal: | Get up to 63% OFF Pixpa! |
Pixpa is a website builder specifically designed for artists to showcase their work. It provides users with artistic design templates that are intuitive, easy to use, and, most importantly, optimized for efficient portfolio creation.
Templates. Pixpa includes 150+ artistic templates and all of them are optimized to fit different screens. Moreover, templates are listed among different categories, such as Photography, Creative, Fashion & Style, and much more, so whether you want to show or sell your art – there will definitely be a template for your needs.
Features. Pixpa mainly focuses on showcasing and selling the art of creatives to ensure an easy web-building process. That’s why it isn’t as feature-rich as other providers, like Wix. It offers a blog function to develop well-performing content, e-commerce for kickstarting your art business, and – cherry on top? Pixa comes with the Photo Gallery App that allows you to create a custom app with images as a sneak peek for your client.
Performance. Pixpa also went through our extensive performance test, so we could evaluate how well it loads and supports chunky portfolio files. We built our own portfolio on its Equinox template and filled it with resource-heavy files. The site loaded in around 4.7 seconds, which is the okay result, but it isn’t as good as the one showcased by SITE123.
Pricing. Basic plan for $1.88/month isn’t really worth it due to limitations on selling online and lack of features. We recommend the best-value Professional subscription Creator ($3.75/month), which includes 25GB and allows selling 50 products.
Pixpa is great for those looking to showcase their art, as it’s filled with features to help make your art stand out. But beware that cheap plans include limitations or a small number of products you can sell online.
5. Squarespace – great value website builder for selling art online
| Features: | Curated templates, business tools for selling |
| Templates: | 100+ |
| Best for: | Selling and marketing art |
| Current deal: | Get up to 30% OFF Squarespace! |
Squarespace is among the top website builders not only because of its eye-catching visual templates but also because it comes with several e-commerce plans and a bunch of marketing and analytical features. Hence, it's perfect for artists and individuals who are looking to boost their online sales.
Templates. One of the main things that Squarespace can boast is eye-catching, sleek templates. This website builder comes with over 110 templates that fit your brand's or art's visual identity. All of them have a drag and drop function, so you can customize every templates however you like.
Features. Squarespace offers content features, like image galleries, for you to show your work in a slideshow. Moreover, there are heaps of marketing tools, such as email campaigns to enhance your email marketing game and built-in SEO tools for better performance on search engines.
Performance. We took Squarespace for a spin and tested its performance. We built our portfolio and tested the loading time. It loaded our test site within 3 seconds, which is an okay result and within Google’s standards.
Pricing. The cheapest, Personal plan, comes with unlimited bandwidth and storage for just $16.00/month, but it lacks unlimited products. So, we recommend Business ($23.00/month) which comes with more storage and e-commerce functions to sell your art.
This provider is a great fit for beginners thanks to its easy-to-use interface and for artists looking to sell their art. All pricier plans are still budget-friendly and are very flexible regarding its e-commerce capabilities.
6. Zenfolio – decent option for photographers
| Features: | Image-based tools |
| Templates: | 20+ |
| Best for: | Selling your images |
| Current deal: | Get up to 50% OFF Zenfolio! |
Zenfolio is a premium website builder targeted at photographers and visual artists. While it lacks a variety of template designs, all the available ones will take you just minutes to set up your photography portfolio or a functional e-commerce site.
Templates. Unlike Wix, Zenfolio comes with a smaller template fleet, offering only 11 designs. However, all of them are perfectly optimized for photographers. Templates focus on putting your images at the front, so it's ideal if you want to show your visual art.
Features. Zenfolio is suitable for showing and selling your art or services. The provider includes e-commerce and does all the optimization jobs for you with its SEO tools. Hence, you can focus on your art. There's even a Lightroom plugin for ad-hoc editing of your images. Zenfolio also offers to secure your galleries with passwords, so nobody can get and harm your art.
Performance. We built a website filled with images to test Zenfolio’s performance. Unfortunately, the site didn’t show results like its rival Wix or Hostinger Website Builder. It took 5.5 seconds to load the image-heavy website, which is below average result.
Pricing. Alongside the 14-day free trial, Zenfolio offers three more plans: Portfolio ($3.50/month), PortfolioPlus ($9.50/month, and ProSuite ($16.50/month). The cheapest subscription includes a small 15 GB storage, meanwhile with more expensive plans, you get from 150 GB to unlimited storage.
If you want to use it as your portfolio without planning to dive into e-commerce too much, Zenfolio is a great tool for photographers with all the fronts covered.
7. GoDaddy website builder – build simple websites quickly
| Features: | Art related templates, thousands of apps |
| Templates: | 100+ |
| Best for: | Design and editing freedom |
| Current deal: | Get up to 33% OFF GoDaddy website builder! |
GoDaddy website builder is great if you’re looking for a basic and intuitive provider to get a website quickly. It’s simple yet capable of meeting your website and e-commerce integration needs.
Templates. GoDaddy website builder strikes with over 200 modern templates, suitable for artists, blogs, communities, and other categories. While the ADI editor limits customization, you can still manage your templates to your liking.
Features. You can build a simple online store to sell your artwork with the integrated e-commerce offering. GoDaddy also gives you SEO, email marketing, and social marketing tools. InSight feature might look like an analytics tool, but it gets you a checklist of how you can improve the site’s performance. This helps not only beginners but also people who have tried selling their art before. And, of course, you can choose among 200+ pre-designed templates.
Performance. Through our in-house tests, GoDaddy showcased relatively great results. We built a website using a basic theme and put it to the test. It took around 1s to load the site, and the result is really satisfactory.
Pricing. Out of four GoDaddy website builder plans, Basic is the cheapest plan for $9.99/month and includes, indeed, basics – unlimited storage, guidance, and analytics. However, if you want to go for a full-scale online store, there's an Ecommerce subscription for $16.99/month that provides you with unlimited resources.
GoDaddy website builder is intuitive and beginner-friendly, so it’s great for artists who are looking to build a simple art-focused website.
8. SmugMug – a great website builder for visual artists
| Features: | Photography-based tools |
| Templates: | 20+ |
| Best for: | Professional photography and visual art sites |
| Current deal: | Get up to 38% OFF SmugMug! |
SmugMug promises the best web-building experience for visual artists and photographers due to its image-focused features. The provider offers a generous package of image galleries, quality printing, and of course – functional e-commerce.
Templates. SmugMug focuses solely on photographers and visual artists to showcase their work and serves as an aesthetic portfolio with over 20+ templates. It has a drag and drop function, so you can customize the website without losing focus on images, and display your visual arts in a way that you like.
Features. While there’s a possibility to use a selection of printing services, the provider lacks basic SEO and marketing tools to accelerate the website’s performance and visibility across channels. SmugMug doesn't limit storage, and it's a cloud-secured website builder to keep your art safe online.
Performance. Considering that SmugMug is a website builder designed to compose image-heavy sites, we put one to the test. We expected to see a slow loading time, but the provider took around 2 seconds to show the website, and overall 3 seconds to load all of it. It just meets Google’s threshold for websites.
Pricing. While SmugMug offers a two-week trial to test the service, the plans are generally pricey. You can get SmugMug from $11.00/month, and cover all the basics, like customization or integration with Adobe Lightroom. But if you want some marketing tools, like promotions or coupons, the price can go up.
Overall, SmugMug is great for solely showcasing your visual work. While it lacks performance and marketing tools, it’s well-developed for those looking to demonstrate their images.
How we tested the best web builders for artists
We tested a dozen of website builders to compile a list of the best providers for artists. A test was based on several criteria that play a crucial role for artists when choosing the best-fitting provider for showcasing and selling their creations:
- Features. Not every artist has the technical knowledge to develop or code a fully functioning website. Therefore, a list of the best web builders for artists includes features that help artists get the best out of their website with as little effort and technical skills as possible. It includes pre-designed templates that users can fully customize, SEO and marketing tools to enhance their site’s performance, image galleries, etc.
- E-commerce possibilities. While website builders can serve as portfolios, artists also want to show and sell their work. That’s why we tested and selected providers that offer the possibility to build an online store without any struggle.
- Performance. It’s important that a website performs smoothly and loads the site within Google’s standards. Therefore, we tested each provider by developing a fully functional website that is resource-heavy (includes high-quality images, videos, and text). We identified how fast it loads and how long it takes to showcase all the content for the visitor.
- Pricing. We only selected website builders that offer a variety of plans and prices. Our main focus was to identify providers that include great deals for the best value for money. This way, even artists on a tight budget can select a well-fitting provider for their needs.
Comparison of the best website builders for artists
| Wix | Hostinger Website Builder | SITE123 | Pixpa | Squarespace | Zenfolio | GoDaddy | SmugMug | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Best for | Top design customization | Easy website building | Top ease of use | Portfolio building and e-commerce integration | Beautiful site designs | Simple online stores | Small business websites | Professional photography and visual art sites |
| How many templates | 900+ | 130+ | 160+ | 150+ | 100+ | 20+ | 200+ | 20+ |
| Editor | Wix ADI and Wix Editor | Drag-and-drop and AI editors | Section-based ADI editor | Section-based editor | Section-based editor | Drag-and-drop and a block-based portfolio editors | ADI editor | Drag-and-drop editor |
| Free domain name | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Custom email | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Price starts from | $16.00/month | $2.99/month | $11.88/month | $1.88/month | $16.00/month | $3.50/month | $9.99/month | $11.00/month |
| Free plan | Yes | No | Yes | No, free trial only | No, free trial only | No, free trial only | No, free trial only | No, only free trial |
| Review | Wix review | Hostinger Website Builder review | SITE123 review | Pixpa review | Squarespace review | Zenfolio review | GoDaddy review | SmugMug review |
How to make an artist website?
Building a website with one of your recommended providers is a breeze. Here’s how you make one:
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Select a reliable website builder. We recommend Wix, now 37% OFF
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Choose what kind of website you want to create and name it
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Pick a template for your website or customize your own
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Design your website and add features of your choice
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Get a new domain name or connect to the one you already have
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Opt for the best subscription that meets your needs
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Hit Publish, and that’s it – you have a fully functional website
What kind of website should an artist have?
Artists should have a fully functional website that is easy to use and has features that allow quick customization of the site and offers elements that enhance their website’s visual and commercial aspects. Here’s a list of factors you can consider including in your art’s website:
- Aesthetic and responsive design. Alongside aesthetic and eye-catching website design, ensure that your website is mobile-friendly and optimized for different devices and screen sizes to provide a seamless user experience for visitors.
- Portfolio. Whether you wish to sell or simply showcase your art, ensure that your website includes elements with a diverse range of your artwork. Reputable website builders like Wix allow displaying of images and videos in different mediums, styles, and themes. This helps your visitors get a comprehensive view of the creator’s artistic abilities.
- Online store. It’s essential that you incorporate an online store if you wish to sell the artwork directly to your visitors. Make sure it includes secure payment options and clear terms and conditions for purchasing your pieces.
- Blog or news section. Include a blog or news section to share updates, behind-the-scenes stories, art-related articles, or interviews. This helps engage visitors and provides a platform for the artist to share their thoughts and insights. Nedavius is a great example of how blogging complements his work on social media and helps build a community around the artwork.
- Artistic elements. Many top-tier website builders include elements that boost the design and authenticity of your design. Do not hesitate to employ features such as animation or scroll effects to make your site lively and captivating.
Best artist website builder: final recommendations
Choosing the best website builder for artists can be a really intriguing yet daunting task. There are many aspects to an artist should consider, such as the amount of features, ease of use, provider’s performance, and of course – figuring out how to get the best value for money.
That’s why we conducted thorough testing and carefully handpicked the best website builders for artists. With an extensive collection of captivating designs and lightning-fast loading times for resource-intensive websites, Wix stands out among the rest. Not only does this website builder offer cost-effective pricing and plans, but it also boasts user-friendly features that eliminate the need for technical expertise to create a stunning art website.
However, our selection of top-notch website builders for artists expands beyond Wix and includes other top-notch providers, such as Hostinger Website Builder, which guarantees an equally exceptional, affordable, and intuitive website-building experience. Choose the one closest to you and the things you want to achieve: you’ll be making excellent artist websites in no time.
Best website builder deals this week:
Other best website builder articles you might find interesting:
Best artist website builder – FAQs
What is the easiest website builder for artists?
Hostinger website builder is a really easy and intuitive web builder for artists. It's extremely user-friendly, with a range of nice design options that are straightforward to implement.
What is the best website builder to sell artwork?
If selling your work is the main goal, Shopify’s eCommerce options are excellent for selling artwork. Not only does Shopify look great, it comes equipped with specific features to help you make money, from sales funnels and payment plans to smart product inventory management.
Can I protect my artwork with a website builder?
Website builders offer features and techniques to stop people from copying or stealing your work. You can create custom watermarks to go over your images on the Wix Art Store app and built-in Zenfolio features. And most builders, like Squarespace, let you build password-protected areas of your site to keep work hidden until it’s ready to be shared.
How do I start selling my art?
Sell your art by setting your budget, goals, and existing skill level. Then, choose from the available artist website builder platforms – and get on to making your store!
Is Squarespace or Wix better for artists?
Wix is better website builder for artists than Squarespace. Wix includes over 900 pre-designed templates tailored for portfolio, offers a massive amount of eye-catching and analytical features, performs at blazing-fast speeds, and is a budget-friendlier option than Squarespace.
Comments
WordPress isn’t mentioned in this article, since it’s a website building tool rather than a website builder. However, there is a website builder by WordPress, and you can read more about it here: https://cybernews.com/best-website-builders/wordpress-org-vs-wordpress-com/
Now, since you’re looking into making a portfolio website and want a custom domain, I would suggest you to try out Squarespace. This website builder is very focused on visuals, so you’ll be able to show your work in the best possible way. All of Squarespace’s plans include a free custom domain, too. Since you haven’t mentioned wanting to sell anything on your site, you would be good to go with the Personal plan, which costs 12$ a month.
In your case, the best website builder for selling art would be either Squarespace or Zyro – these builders are very visually focused and offer eCommerce functionality. Both Squarespace and Zyro allow you to sell digital products, so in your case, they both fit your needs :) I suggest you check out their individual reviews and choose the one that you like most.
Our Squarespace review: https://cybernews.com/best-website-builders/squarespace-review/
Our Zyro review: https://cybernews.com/best-website-builders/zyro-review/
Three years of a website builder would cost anywhere from $350 to $500. You can get premium hosting for less – for instance, Hostinger would cost around $60 to $80 for the same period of time.
However, hiring a designer would definitely cost more than $300-$450, and if it did cost that little, you can be sure that they would be using a premade template. Besides that, other changes that you might need to do for your website (that includes fixes, extra features, and edits) will also cost extra.
When you pay for a builder, you pay for everything – support, maintenance, hosting, and the ability to change up your website whenever you want. When you pay for hosting, you receive… hosting. You have to figure everything else on your own. Or pay someone to figure it out for you.
In theory, hosting is cheaper. But when we look into a three-year period, where you might need to change things up a lot in your website, a website builder is a better choice.
When choosing a website builder, you have to keep in mind that free builders most of the time are not ideal. They’re usually ridden with ads and you can’t connect a custom domain. There is one I can confidently recommend to you – Ucraft. This builder allows you to connect a domain, but it does leave a Ucraft logo on your site as well as the site editing is more limited than when, for example, you choose a paid plan. You can check out our article about our free website builders here: https://cybernews.com/best-website-builders/free-website-builders/
Also, I checked out Dribble – it reminds me a lot of Behance.net. Behance is not a website builder though, just a place for you to put out your artwork.
WHAT would you recommend?
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