Best Website Builders for Artists 2023

Website builders can be very helpful for artists and photographers. All-in-one website design, business, and marketing platforms are great for showcasing, promoting, and selling your work.

But each website builder is different: with varying designs, strengths, weaknesses, and use cases, they’re all meant for their own unique purposes. Artists are different as well. Some want to make a portfolio website and display their work – others are focused on the business side of things, and are looking to make a lot of sales.

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Many fall somewhere in between, looking for both excellent visual interfaces to showcase what they have, as well as marketing and business features to grow their brand. In this article, you can check the best website builders for artists, and pick a solution that suits you the most. Without further ado – let’s begin.

Best website builder for artists: overview

  • Wix – highly design-flexible builder for artist websites
  • Hostinger Website Builder – affordable option for artists
  • SITE123 – simple to build artist websites
  • Squarespace – excellent templates for artists
  • Pixpa – niche artist builder with eCommerce functionality

1. Wix – create stunning websites with unique designs

Wix is a powerful and flexible website builder that is not only popular among artists but also our top pick for best website builders overall. It’s not a surprise that creative artists love this builder – Wix offers a massive feature set, hundreds of beautiful template designs, and nearly limitless customization in its drag-and-drop editor.

Creating a website for artists with Wix

If you’re an artist and want to build a website that reflects your unique style, you’ll find Wix to be more than adequate for your needs. You start your website creation by telling Wix what kind of website you want to make. After that, you select your preferred Wix editor (either the regular one or the AI) and get to work.

If you’re up to the task, the classic Wix Editor packs a plethora of features that you can use to add some flair to your site. You can add animations, video backgrounds, interactive slideshows, maps, and music players to your web pages. The Wix Editor gives you full creative control over your site, allowing you to implement truly unique designs and showcase your work in a different and extraordinary way.

Of course, the flexibility and customizability the Wix Editor offers come at a cost – there’s quite a learning curve. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to build a website to showcase your art, you might find the classic Wix Editor to be a bit more complex than you’d prefer. Lucky for you, Wix offers an alternative – Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI).

Wix ADI is an AI-powered smart assistant and editor that is ideal for beginners. Creating a website with the ADI is a breeze as it does most of the work for you. The ADI is excellent for getting your site up and running in no time. For example, it can automatically integrate your social media into the site and select a suitable design for you – all you have to do is answer a couple of questions and make some decisions.

Visual appeal is extremely important when you’re trying to showcase your art. You can select a template that fits your style from Wix’s library of over 700 templates or start with a blank canvas. Wix templates are fully customizable which means that you can get your site to look exactly the way you want it.

Even if you started editing with the ADI editor, you can upgrade the selected template with the classic editor. Don’t be afraid to switch between these two to get the best visual result. But keep in mind that you can’t switch templates without losing your content – play around with the editors before uploading the majority of your works.

Wix also offers quite a nice feature – the Wix Pro Gallery. This feature allows you to showcase your images, videos, and text all in one stunning multimedia gallery. Your site will have a great space for all the artwork without you having to do much work.

Pricing

When it comes to pricing, Wix offers a free plan in addition to its paid plans. The free plan, however, is ad-supported. To get rid of those pesky Wix ads, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan. The premium plans Wix offers are:

  • Connect Domain ($4.50 a month) – 500 MB of storage, basic website building
  • Combo ($8.50 a month) – 2 GB of storage, no Wix ads on your site
  • Unlimited ($22.00 a month) – 10 GB of storage, site booster app
  • VIP ($45.00 a month) – 35 GB of storage, professional logo, priority customer care
  • Business Basic ($27.00 a month) – 20 GB of storage, 5 video hours, customer accounts
  • Business Unlimited ($32.00 a month) – 35 GB of storage, 10 video hours, $300 ad voucher
  • Business VIP ($59.00 a month) – 50 GB of storage, unlimited video hours, customized reports

If you plan on selling, you’ll need to select one of the business plans, because they have all the eCommerce features implemented. If you plan on just showcasing your art, I suggest the Unlimited plan – it has enough storage for you to fully be able to sell prints or music.

2. Hostinger Website Builder – perfect for artists on a budget

Hostinger Website Builder (previously called Zyro) may be a newcomer to the website building industry, but it packs a punch – it’s simple, modern, and dirt cheap. You can easily express your creative side with its visual-focused designs and very appealing price, making it a great choice for artists.

Creating a website for artists with Hostinger Website Builder

Hostinger Website Builder combines an intuitive, clean interface and AI tools to offer a remarkably simple website building experience for dirt cheap. Even if your technical skills aren’t nearly as good as the art skills, you’ll still be able to navigate and work with Hostinger Website Builder very easily.

Hostinger Website Builder’s templates are professional and minimalistic. There are over a hundred different options neatly sorted into categories such as Photography, Portfolio, and Events. While not necessarily up there with Squarespace and Wix in terms of design and variety, Hostinger Website Builder certainly offers a good variety of well-designed templates.

Like Wix, however, Hostinger Website Builder won’t let you switch templates once you’ve begun editing one. On the plus side, the templates are very customizable. The drag-and-drop editor interface allows you to add and edit text, images, and other elements on the pages. The templates are also responsive and look great on mobile devices.

If you’re looking to sell your art online, Hostinger Website Builder gives you most of the tools you’ll need to create and launch your online store. And like the rest of the platform, it’s all very easy to set up and use.

If you need a logo for your site, Hostinger Website Builder’s free logo maker tool is an incredibly easy way to come up with something decent. However, if you’d like to run a blog on your site, you’ll find the blogging tool to be neither very robust nor intuitive.

Hostinger Website Builder’s AI tools are quite nice. If you can’t be bothered with writing copy for your site, the AI writer tool can help you generate somewhat professional-looking copy. While it’s not perfect, it works better than expected, and you can use it as a starting point for your copy.

Another great thing about Hostinger Website Builder is its customer service. It’s natural if you’re new to website building and have a lot of questions – Hostinger Website Builder’s team will do everything to help you out. They have an extensive FAQ section and also provide a ton of ways for you to get in touch with their support team – you can do that by 24/7 live chat or email.

Is it a surprise that Hostinger Website Builder’s combo of attractive price, an intuitive interface, and a couple of nice free tools for small businesses make it an ideal option for artists on a tight budget? If affordability and ease of use top your list of factors to consider, Hostinger website builder is for you.

Pricing

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Some builders may tell you that they are “cheap”. The truth is, they’re usually nowhere close to the excellent value Hostinger Website Builder can offer.

Even though it has only one subscription plan available, which is called Website Builder & Web Hosting plan and costs as little as $2.99 per month. And even from the plan name itself, you can guess that not only a website builder is included but also a market-leading Hostinger website hosting service! So, you shoot two birds with one rock, indeed.

3. SITE123 – ideal for simple portfolio websites

SITE123 is an easy-to-use website building platform that is ideal for creating simple art-focused websites with very little hassle. Its simple block-based interface lets you make intricate artist websites, with portfolio pages, social media integration, and blog editor – in just a few minutes.

Creating a website for artists with SITE123

SITE123’s major selling point is its ease of use. Even if you’ve got some experience with other intuitive website builders, you’ll be amazed at how quick and easy it is to put a website together with this platform.

SITE123 has a template library with over 100 different designs. The templates are responsive and look pretty appealing to the eye. However, you don’t get a lot of creative freedom with these templates.

The intuitive site editor isn’t drag-and-drop and it only allows you to customize your pages to a limited extent. You can’t just move things around as you’d like – sections have a predefined structure that you have to work with. While this means that you can’t screw your design up, you also can’t create unique stuff.

Nonetheless, if this painting-by-numbers style of website building is precisely what you need for your simple website idea, SITE123 is a nice option. If, on the other hand, you’re looking to implement a more complex design to highlight your artistic skills, SITE123’s templates and customization options simply won’t cut it.

When it comes to websites for artists, is it a surprise that you have to keep them constantly updated to not fall off the edge of the earth? Well, with SITE123 you can promote your events and upload your files (whether they’re images or audio) to share with your audience.

SITE123 also offers business features such as eCommerce and social media integration, SEO, and marketing tools. I hope you didn’t overlook the social media integration part – it means that, for example, you can connect your SoundCloud profile to your site to easily share your music. SITE123 even offers a newsletter builder and makes it easy for you to set up a mailing list to connect with your audience.

Overall, SITE123 is a good option for artists that are looking to craft basic websites and aren’t too concerned about building something truly unique. It’s very easy to use and it also offers extremely good optimization performance.

Pricing

When it comes to pricing options, SITE123 offers one very limited free plan in addition to four paid plans:

  • Basic ($12.80 a month) – 10 GB of storage, eCommerce functionality
  • Advanced ($11.88 a month) – 30 GB of storage, no ads, mailbox
  • Professional ($17.28 a month) – 90 GB of storage, 5 mailboxes
  • Gold ($20.88 a month) – 270 GB of storage, 10 mailboxes
  • Platinum ($45.00 a month) – 1000 GB of storage, 25 mailboxes

When you come to SITE123 to choose your plan, you might start thinking: “Hey, where are 3 more premium plans? I only see one!” The thing is, the other 3 plans appear only after you become a user of SITE123. Considering the fact that I’d like to recommend the Advanced plan for this builder, I have to say that you’ll first have to choose either the Free plan or the Basic plan to have the opportunity to actually get it.

4. Pixpa – for artists looking to sell online

Pixpa is a simplistic yet very functional niche website builder for artists looking to create a highly visual website to showcase and sell their work. Its functional editor allows for a fast and easy building process for beginners, while more advanced users might enjoy editing their site through HTML.

Creating a website for artists with Pixpa

Pixpa’s main selling point is the fact that it is designed exclusively for creatives of any sort. On top of that, the builder uses a functional drag-and-drop editor that makes website editing that much easier. However, it’s fair to note that while Pixpa advertises its editor as a drag-and-drop, it truly functions like a section-based one.

In terms of templates, Pixpa offers ~130 all-purpose, highly visual, and fully responsive templates. Since the builder is mainly oriented towards artists, it’s only natural that images are a focal point in Pixpa’s templates.

Now when it comes to editing these templates, Pixpa allows you to add new and edit the already existing sections. So while the design flexibility is fairly limited, you can still easily add new image, text, and contact blocks, as well as set up payments and donations.

That being said, Pixpa truly shines when it comes to eCommerce functionalities. No matter which builder plan (except the entry one) you choose, you can set up your own eCommerce store and sell either physical or digital products in minutes. Just click on the Store icon on the left side of your site’s management menu, and you’ll be able to configure your online store.

Pixpa’s eCommerce platform is truly the main attraction of this provider as it allows you to easily add and manage your product, group them into categories, create discount codes, configure shipping regions, accept online and offline payments, as well as track your sales.

More so, if you wish to accept online payments, the builder allows you to connect your Stripe Basic or PayPal Business account to your account.

Lastly, Pixpa offers a wide variety of marketing-oriented settings, so you can promote your artsy site easily. The builder enables you to create emailing lists, an announcement, and mobile action bars, as well as connect a WhatsApp widget for speedy communication.

As a whole, Pixpa is a great option for creating author websites quickly and efficiently. Especially if you’re looking to sell your work online. Best of all, Pixpa’s services are affordable too.

Pricing

When it comes to pricing, Pixpa offers 4 plans:

  • Basic ($1.88/mo) – you can connect a custom domain. However, the plan does not specify the amount of storage included and does not allow you to sell online.
  • Creator ($3.75/mo) – 3GB storage and allows selling 5 products. You can sell images as prints or for downloading with 0 commission. More so, you’ll get discount coupons and the possibility to set taxes/shipping rates, as well as to collect payments directly.
  • Professional ($5.63/mo) – 25GB storage and allows selling 50 products. More so, it includes everything from the Creator plan, plus free website setup, announcement bars, and marketing pop-ups.
  • Advanced ($9.38/mo) – 100GB storage and allows selling 1000 products. In addition to the Professional plan’s offerings, it also includes customer accounts, abandoned cart recovery, payment forms, and inventory management.

If you’d like to try out the platform before committing, Pixpa offers a 15-day free trial, with no credit card needed. Now, in terms of priced plans, be aware that if you wish to sell online, the Basic plan will not be suitable for you, as it does not include eCommerce functionalities.

5. Squarespace – best template designs

Squarespace is an excellent visual-centered website builder with stunning templates and a decent array of features (great marketing and email campaign tools) that could be very beneficial for artists, looking to grow their audience. It offers an easy-to-use editor and an app store with good third-party integrations, useful for any kind of site.

Creating a website for artists with Squarespace

Squarespace’s claim to fame is its beautiful, eye-catching templates. As an artist, you’ll likely be drawn to Squarespace once you’ve set your eyes on the company’s homepage. You can immediately tell that the platform is targeting artists and other creative professionals with its heavy focus on visuals.

Squarespace houses a library containing more than 100 remarkably good-looking and minimalistic templates. From the images to the fonts and font sizes, the careful attention to detail in design is evident. The templates are neatly sorted into different categories including portfolios, photography, blogs & podcasts, events, and online stores.

When it comes to customizing these templates, Squarespace gives you a considerable amount of control. While you don’t get the pixel-perfect, drag-and-drop customization you can move elements around, change the image layout, add and delete sections, and replace images. Squarespace also allows you to switch templates even after you’ve published your website, allowing you to do major design changes on the fly.

The templates offered by Squarespace are not only extremely visual-focused but also fully responsive. It’s no surprise that they look great on both desktop and mobile.

One thing to keep in mind is that these templates rely heavily on high-resolution professional photos to fill the large blocks. Ideally, you’ll fill those blocks with nice pictures of your artwork.

However, if you can’t find a suitable image, you can take advantage of Squarespace’s partnership with Getty Images to get some free stock photos.

Now, working with the Squarespace editor interface isn’t too complex but does take some getting used to. The templates are section-based – this makes it nearly impossible to mess up the design of the templates.

You should know that Squarespace also offers a lot of decent in-house business tools and features. You can easily integrate your social media accounts and feeds into your website. It also offers good SEO and marketing tools to grow your audience both locally and globally. You can take advantage of Squarespace’s in-house Email Campaigns marketing tool or integrate MailChimp.

There’s also an app store – Squarespace Extensions – where you’ll find a curated list of 24 third-party extensions. Some of the extensions are free while others are paid apps. While the selection is rather small, the offerings should be good enough for most use cases.

Pricing

Squarespace offers four premium plans:

  • Personal ($16.00 a month) – unlimited bandwidth and storage
  • Business ($23.00 a month) – advanced analytics and eCommerce with a 3% fee
  • Basic Commerce ($27.00 a month) – customer accounts and professional emails as well as no fee for eCommerce
  • Advanced Commerce ($49.00 a month) – selling subscriptions and abandoned cart recovery

If you plan on selling online, I’d recommend you to implement the Basic Commerce plan – even though it’s more expensive than the Business plan, it doesn’t have the 3% transaction fee, meaning that you won’t have to pay additional fees to Squarespace.

Unfortunately, there’s no free plan available. However, Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial on all its premium plans as well as a 14-day money-back guarantee. You also get a free custom domain for one year if you get an annual subscription.

Chinedu Okeke

Chinedu is the founder of Nigerian Tech. He is a tech enthusiast who has the passion for emerging trends in the tech industry. He is also a professional web content developer.

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