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Artist is a pretty broad term, at least if we go by my definition.
In my book:
What I am getting at is there’s a lot of nuance to the idea of making a list like this “best website builder for artists” one. Therefore, solid foundational rules are a must.
Let's dive into it.
Squarespace is the best all-around website builder. For artists, it has features for both a gorgeous online portfolio and ecommerce.
Aesthetic-wise, there’s no better website builder than Squarespace. It’s so good that the top three artist websites and art portfolios we’ve come across are created using Squarespace. And the same goes for the top ecommerce website examples.
For example, the Novo template:
Homepage
Inner page
Sell all kinds of art with Squarespace
All Squarespace plans include a free domain name, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, SSL security, and a 14-day free trial. The annual plans cost:
Though Squarespace’s ecommerce plans have all you might need, the best overall ecommerce builder is Shopify. Read Shopify vs. Squarespace.
Shopify is built for sophisticated ecommerce websites. So if selling art is your priority, get Shopify.
Note: Shopify is an ecommerce platform and not a visual builder, so if you’d want to make changes to your template, it’ll be complex and require you to know to code.
Shopify includes core ecommerce features. For more, there's the Shopify app store.
All Shopify plans come with a 14-day free trial. After that,
If you want to build a portfolio website quickly and on a tight budget, Weebly is your friend. It’s the easiest to use among all on this list, and its base paid plan costs a mere $6/month. However, it’s not as feature-rich or design-rich as Squarespace or pretty much any website builder. Read more.
Weebly themes
The Weebly editor - drag from the left and drop in a block on your website
Apart from its free plan, these are Weebly’s annual plan prices:
Format is primarily built for photography portfolios and selling photos online. And it’s among the only two photography website builders we recommend.
Though it doesn’t have as many website building or ecommerce features as a general-purpose site builder like Squarespace, it’s right at the top with the best portfolio website builders.
The "Peak" template by Format
After a 14-day free trial, Format’s professional portfolio plans annually cost:
Wix is the #1 website builder by market share. You can use it to create any kind of website, including art portfolios. Plus, there’s Wix eCommerce to sell your art.
It’s a double-edged sword, though — complete control over customization can lead to chaos and bugs if not handled carefully. For example, in our tests, the desktop and mobile versions of the website went out of sync.
Wix has a 14-day moneyback guarantee. Its annual plans are a bit expensive than others:
Website plans
Business & eCommerce plans
The GoDaddy website builder is on the Weebly side. By it, I mean it’s easy to use, and you’ll be able to create a website in no time.
However, you won’t have much control over the look and feel of your website. For example, you can add sections to your site but can’t add individual elements to those sections.
Similarly, GoDaddy’s ecommerce isn’t ideal. There are some issues, like your store checkout wouldn’t be hosted on your domain — your customers will be redirected to mysimplestore.com during checkout.
There’s a limited free option and then these paid ones:
Note: The plan prices increase on renewal.
When people say “WordPress,” they mostly mean WordPress.org, an open-source content management system (CMS). WordPress.com, on the other hand, is a popular blogging platform that has expanded into offering other sorts of website-building tools, including one for portfolios.
Compared to all others in the list, WordPress is complex and will likely need you to know HTML, CSS, and JS to make most of the changes. So we recommend not touching it unless you are comfortable coding.
Get plugins for SEO, stats, security, contact forms, and more.
But the more important part about the “Theme options” is, you can even upload your own themes on its Business plan. And there are thousands of third-party themes out there!
WordPress.org is free-to-use but needs you to buy web hosting, SSL, and more. WordPress.com includes all of those, which annually costs:
The above seven are the best website builder for artist portfolios and/or online stores. But there are definitely other website builders worth checking out:
In general, you can’t ever go wrong with Squarespace. It’s easy to use and made keeping creatives in mind, i.e., all its templates are aesthetically-pleasing. At the same time, it has all the functionalities and robustness of a top-of-the-line artist website builder or ecommerce builder.
If you choose a portfolio website builder like Format, all templates are around building a top-notch portfolio. However, if you use a general-purpose website builder, you’ll need to select specific templates to build a portfolio website—for example, Squarespace’s Novo template.
Moreover, drag-and-drop editors typically have a gallery feature. You can use it to add a portfolio.
Both Wix and Squarespace have their pros and cons. But in general, given its ease of use, higher-quality templates, and solid ecommerce features, Squarespace is the better of the two.
Read more: Wix vs Squarespace
Over time, art museums and galleries have figured out the best way to present art. You just have to replicate those fundamentals on your websites to make it eye-catching:
If you want to showcase and sell your art to the world, yes, you need a website.
With a professional website comes credibility, creative ownership, copyright protection, and more.
If your priority is showcasing + selling, use Squarespace to sell artwork.
If your goal is just more sales, use Shopify. Its ecosystem + third-party ecommerce tools for marketing enable you to sell more.
None of the website builders on the list block search engines from crawling web pages. And most have basic SEO (search engine optimization) features like adding meta descriptions, setting URLs, etc.
