Spec 01 · scope
One rubric. Forty points. Every major website builder.
The Build Standard is an independent standard for website builders, applied identically to every platform it covers. Every score is the sum of six weighted criteria, and the arithmetic is published in full.
Current revision STANDARD v2026.8 · scores re-checked monthly
The standings
Total out of 40 · headline score out of 10
Every score above is the sum of six weighted criteria, published in full on each builder’s scorecard. Where totals tie, the higher SEO score ranks first — the tiebreak is documented.
Recent documents
Full register →How We Score: Inside the 40-Point Rubric
MethodSix criteria, 40 points, and a headline score that is only the total divided by four. Here is why each weight is what it is, with one builder's card added up in full so you can check it.
DOC 10Website Builder Pricing 2026: What You'll Really Pay
MethodEntry prices across the six builders, then the two-year reality: Hostinger renews at +513%, GoDaddy at +136%, and Webflow is the only one with no first-year discount to fall off.
DOC 09Best Professional Website Builders 2026
7.3/10Professional is a specification, not an adjective: handoff, billing transfer, white-label, collaboration, code export and agency tooling. Only two of the six builders meet it.
DOC 08Best Website Builders for SEO 2026: The Evidence
7.3/10The 7-point SEO criterion unpacked across all six builders: which technical controls each one exposes, and what the November 2025 Core Web Vitals data does and does not prove.
DOC 07How to Choose a Website Builder: A Decision Framework
MethodFive questions decide which builder is correct for your project, and each one maps to a weighted criterion in the 40-point standard. This is the decision path, not a shortlist.
What the standard is
Every website builder covered here is scored out of 40 points against six criteria: ease of use (8), design and templates (8), SEO and performance (7), value for money (7), ecommerce and extensibility (5), and support and lock-in (5). The weights sum to 40. The headline score out of 10 is that total divided by four, to one decimal, rounded half up. Nothing is added for reputation and nothing is subtracted for unpopularity.
A published rubric beats an opinion for one structural reason: it can be checked. When a platform scores 32 rather than 31, the point is attributable to a specific criterion with a specific weight, and a reader who disagrees with the weight can recalculate the ranking to suit their own case. An unpublished judgement offers nothing to argue with. That is the whole difference, and it is why the arithmetic appears on the page rather than behind it.
The current standings, revision 2026.8: Wix 32/40 (8.0), Squarespace 31/40 (7.8), Webflow 29/40 (7.3), Shopify 28/40 (7.0), Hostinger 28/40 (7.0), GoDaddy 22/40 (5.5). Shopify and Hostinger tie on points; Shopify ranks higher under the documented tiebreak, which awards the position to the higher SEO and performance score.
How revisions work
The standard is re-checked monthly and carries a revision number, currently 2026.8. Scores move. Webflow's restructure on 13 May 2026, which merged the old CMS and Business site plans into a single Premium tier, is the kind of event that changes a value score without anything about the product itself getting better or worse. Renewal pricing, a new Core Web Vitals dataset, or a feature shipping natively where it previously needed custom code will all move a number.
Each revision keeps the same six criteria and the same weights, so revisions are comparable to each other. Changing a weight would mean changing the standard, not the scores, and that would be announced as such. When a figure turns out to be wrong, it is corrected and the correction is recorded rather than quietly overwritten.
Independence, and how this site earns
The Build Standard is not affiliated with any platform it scores, and no platform sees a score before publication. Some outbound links to the builders are affiliate links, which means a purchase made through them may pay a commission at no additional cost. Those commissions differ substantially between programs — enough that a site scoring on revenue would produce a very different order from this one. They are not an input to any criterion. The full terms are set out in the affiliate disclosure.
Where to start
If you want the ranking, read the best website builders standings: all six builders in order, each with its total, its two strongest criteria, its two weakest, and its entry price. If you want to know whether the ranking deserves your trust before you use it, read the 40-point methodology first — it defines each criterion, justifies each weight, and states the tiebreak rule in advance. If your requirements are unusual and the overall total is the wrong instrument, how to choose a website builder sets out how to reweight the rubric for your own case.
The per-builder pages are scorecards, not reviews. Each one shows the six criterion scores, the reasoning behind each, and the sum. There is no separate verdict that contradicts the arithmetic, because there is no verdict independent of it. The highest thing this standard says about any platform is that it meets the standard for a stated purpose.