In 2021, it is increasingly more and more essential that businesses have an online presence to ensure they continue to remain competitive. For new businesses, an online platform allows for better reach while keeping ongoing costs low, increasing the probability of success.
Depending on how you are planning to make use of this website, and your level of technical knowledge, there are several factors to take into consideration while picking a good solution for your website builder.
Some factors to consider would be:
- Ease of use (templates)
- Degree of flexibility and ability to customize
- Page load speed
- E-commerce carts integration
- Pricing and Refund Policy
Among the website builders that we have used, we bring you the 3 best website builders that we have purchased ourselves. At the same time, we will analyze the pros and cons of each so that you can get a better idea which will be the best fit for you.
So, here’s our #1 Choice!
1) GrooveFunnelsTM
GrooveFunnelsTM is an all-in-one website builder. It consists of all the modules that you would need to run a successful business on the internet and even more!
Here are some of the available groove modules, but the list is always expanding…
- GroovePagesTM – build your funnel pages
- GrooveSellTM – world-class digital sales platform that helps you to promote and take payments for physical products, digital products, subscriptions and services to your customer
- GrooveAffiliateTM – running your own in-house affiliate program is going to be a breeze with this.
- GrooveVideoTM – hosting for the videos you need on your pages.
- GrooveMemberTM – run a membership program from here.
- GrooveMailTM – keep in touch with your leads, customers and clients with this autoresponder
- GrooveKart StoresTM – this is an online store for e-commerce where you can list your products to sell!
Pros:
- All-in-one solution website builder
- Free lifetime basic plan, with option to upgrade to platinum.
- 30 days refund policy for platinum upgrade
- Easy to set up with many available page templates.
- E-commerce solution (i.e. groovekart) is included in the website builder
- Hosted on cloud hosting: page loads super-fast and is easily scalable.
- Able to SEO optimize pages on GroovePages, for search traffic to locate your page easily.
Cons:
- Some groove modules are currently still in beta. However, it is possible to set up a fully functioning funnel and e-commerce shop with the current available modules.
Who is it suitable for?
GrooveFunnelsTM is suitable for anyone who is starting up a new online website, and for seasoned website builders who are looking to cut down on costs of maintaining a website. It is suitable for both paid or free traffic strategies and is indeed an all-in-one solution for any businesses going online.
How much is the investment?
The best part is that there is a lifetime basic plan where you can start small and upgrade when you want to scale up your business. For a free basic plan, this is really packed with awesome value!
Bringing on even more value is the lifetime platinum plan for GrooveFunnelsTM. Even though it is not free of charge, GrooveFunnelsTM lifetime platinum plan is still best value for money among the 3 website builders covered in this article.
The platinum upgrade is currently on a one payment for lifetime access. Once the modules complete this beta phase, it will then transit to a monthly/annual payment. So, it’s best to grab this lifetime deal while it’s still available!
Here’s a comparison of the Lifetime Platinum GrooveFunnelsTM against other options in the market…
2) WebflowTM
We love WebflowTM and continue to use it alongside our other website builders because of the power it puts in our hands. With WebflowTM, we can create outstanding websites in their visual canvas, customizing every pixel, interaction, and animation on the page, all without the use of coding.
WebflowTM has two types of plans: site plans and account plans.
With site plans, webhosting and content management system (CMS) is included. There are also site plans covering e-commerce solutions, where the customized shopping carts are included as well.
For account plans, webhosting is not included. You can think of it as just a standalone static webpage builder. After completing the webpage, it will need to be exported out to a webhosting to be deployed as a website on the internet.
Static pages have its benefits like faster page loading speed, and less prone to security breaches. However, if you’re planning to run a blog, it’s easier to have a content management system (CMS) which is only available in the site plans.
Pros:
- Extremely customizable website builder, enabling every pixel customization, use of interactions and animations on pages without any coding.
- Site plans are hosted on cloud hosting, so it ensures super-fast page loading speeds and ability to scale your business fast.
- Templates are available for all plans, saving time instead of designing each element from scratch
- 30 days refund period for any paid plans.
- Available for advanced SEO controls, to allow search traffic to easily find your page
Cons:
- No free tier for site plans. However, free tier is available for 2 projects on account plans.
- Pricing is on a monthly or annual plan basis, which will be more compared to GrooveFunnelsTM platinum lifetime plan in the long run.
Who is it suitable for?
WebflowTM is suitable for anyone who likes full control over the design aspects of their website, bringing up the sophistication level in their websites. At the same time, you want to do it fast, and without having the need to use codes for the interactions and animations.
How much is the investment?
As mentioned earlier WebflowTM has two types of plans: Site Plans and Account Plans.
3) WordPress on Interserver Webhosting
WordPress has been a very popular choice for the last 10 years for building websites. In fact, some estimates say that wordpress powers 30% of the internet. Also, with the duration it has been in the market, a huge variety of themes and plugins have been created for the wordpress platform.
These themes and plugins do everything from SEO optimization, optimizing page load speeds, to enabling more sophisticated page designs on top of what the wordpress platform provides. Most of the plugins have a free tier, and then a premium paid tier. Hence, having many premium paid themes and plugins could seriously add up to quite a fair bit of money.
Without themes and plugins, the wordpress platform is a just simple blogging platform that’s usually included when you take a wordpress hosting plan with any webhost.
Hence, depending on what you need, this website builder solution could be rather economical with minimal paid themes and plugins. However, if you want a platform where you can have e-commerce shopping carts and sophisticated website design, the paid plugin and themes may end up costing more than both GrooveFunnelsTM platinum lifetime plan and WebflowTM site plans.
For our team, we use wordpress on a standard hosting plan with Interserver webhost. We use this website builder option when we need specific functions that only a wordpress plugin can deliver. There are a few reasons why we choose Interserver webhosting – for just $5.00 a month, we feel that it delivers great value and the websites load decently fast.
Webhosting can affect page load speeds if their servers are overloaded. In the case of Interserver, we were happy at the page load speeds, even at the standard shared hosting tier. If you need faster speeds, Interserver also gives you the option of VPS or Dedicated server plans.
Pros:
- Economical option for simple blogging websites.
- Interserver’s plans are $5 per month charged at the start of each month. Unlike other hosting companies that charge a few years up front and inflates the charges upon renewal.
- Free migration of website from other webhosting companies. This also means they will migrate your website from your standard hosting to vps for free when you do need more bandwidth for your website.
- Unlimited number of websites
Cons:
- Not scalable, but is mitigated by the free migration if you upgrade your plan with Interserver
- Advanced customization options only available with paid themes and plugins which could add up to quite a fair bit of cost.
Who is it suitable for?
This option of using WordPress with Interserver Hosting is best suited for a simple blogging website that does not need too much advanced customization.
How much is the investment?
The standard hosting plan starts off at $5.00 per month. When there are seasonal discounts, you may even be able to get it at $2.50 per month. VPS and other plans they offer are competitive as well.