Website Builder Pricing 2026: What You'll Really Pay

Almost every published comparison of website builder pricing quotes year one. Year one is the number the vendors chose, and on two of the six builders assessed here it understates the real cost by a factor of five. This page prices the same site over two years instead, because two years is the shortest period in which an introductory rate and a renewal rate both appear.

The scenario is fixed for all six so the figures are comparable: one small-business brochure site on a mid-tier plan, plus one domain and one business mailbox. Where a component is bundled, it is costed at zero. Where it is not, it is costed at the prevailing rate. All plan prices were verified in August 2026.

The Value criterion measures two years, not one

Value for money carries 7 points of the 40 in this standard, and its definition is deliberately narrow: true cost over two years, including the renewal year. A builder cannot earn points for a promotional rate that expires. This is the criterion where the published ranking diverges most sharply from the advertised one, because the advertised one is built entirely from first-year figures.

Entry prices across the six

Wix runs a permanent free plan, then Light at $17 a month billed annually or $24 monthly, Core at $29 or $36, Business at $39 or $46, and Business Elite at $159 or $172. Squarespace has no free plan at all and starts at Basic $19 annually or $25 monthly, through Core at $29 or $39, Plus at $49 or $65 and Advanced at $99 or $139. GoDaddy Websites and Marketing opens at $9.99 on Basic, $14.99 on Premium and $20.99 on Commerce, all annual introductory rates. Hostinger advertises the lowest entry price in the set, at $1.99 a month for Premium and $2.99 for Business on a 48-month term. Shopify starts at $5 for Starter, which is a link-in-bio and checkout product rather than a website, with Basic at $39 monthly or $29.25 billed annually, which works out at $348 a year. Webflow offers a genuine free Starter plan, then Basic at $15 a month annually and Premium at $25.

Two entry prices carry conditions that change what they mean. Webflow's Basic plan at $15 has no CMS at all, so any site with a blog needs Premium at $25. Squarespace's 14-day trial does not permit publishing, so there is no way to put a live Squarespace site in front of anyone without paying.

The renewal cliff: Hostinger, plus 513%

The Business builder plan renews from $2.99 to $16.99 a month, and Premium from $1.99 to $10.99. On the fixed scenario, year one costs $35.88: twelve months of plan at $2.99, no domain fee because the first year is included, and no email fee because Hostinger bundles native mailboxes. Year two costs about $219.88: twelve months at $16.99 comes to $203.88, plus roughly $16 for the domain renewal, with email still bundled. That is an increase of 513%.

Two qualifications belong with that figure. The renewal rate applies whether the original term was 12 or 48 months, so a shorter commitment does not soften the landing. And the $2.99 rate itself requires prepaying 48 months up front, which is $143.52 handed over on day one; a 12-month term costs meaningfully more per month than the headline suggests.

GoDaddy's structural uplift, plus 136%

GoDaddy raises prices at renewal across the whole lineup, not on one plan: Basic from $9.99 to $16.99, a 70% increase; Premium from $14.99 to $29.99, exactly double; Commerce from $20.99 to $34.99, up 67%. On the fixed scenario using Premium, year one is about $191.87, being $179.88 of plan plus roughly $11.99 for the domain, with email commonly bundled in the first year. Year two is about $453.75: $359.88 of plan, $21.99 for the domain renewal and around $71.88 for the mailbox once the bundle ends. The total change is 136%, and unlike Hostinger it arrives from a base that was never especially cheap.

The four that hold roughly flat

Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and Webflow apply no plan-price uplift at renewal. Their second year rises only because a free first-year domain voucher expires and the domain starts costing roughly $20. On Wix that is $396 in year one becoming $416 in year two, a 5% change. On Squarespace it is $432 becoming $452, also 5%. On Shopify it is about $447 becoming about $452, a 1% change. On Webflow it is about $399 becoming about $404, again 1%.

Webflow deserves a line of its own here, because it is the only builder of the six that offers no first-year discount whatsoever. There is no introductory rate, which means there is no cliff to fall off and nothing to diarise. It is a genuinely under-reported honesty point in a market where the promotional rate is the standard sales instrument, and it costs Webflow the appearance of being cheap in every comparison table that only prices year one, including the ones its competitors publish.

Rows are listed in rank order under the standard rather than by price. Read the two-year column instead and the order inverts almost completely: Hostinger is cheapest across two years at about $256 even after a 513% increase, then GoDaddy at about $646, Webflow at about $803, Wix at $812, Squarespace at $884 and Shopify at about $899. Both readings are true, which is the point of publishing the arithmetic rather than a verdict.

What the plan price excludes

• Domains. Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and Hostinger all include a first-year domain on the relevant plans, then charge roughly $20 a year afterwards. Webflow does not sell domains at all, so you buy one elsewhere and point it at the site.
• Mailboxes. Hostinger bundles native email, which is worth more than it looks over two years. Wix sells a mailbox at around $48 a year on an annual term, though published figures for it were inconsistent at the time of checking. Squarespace, Webflow and Shopify assume an external provider; the scenario above costs that at roughly $7 per user per month, about $84 a year, which was the going rate at the time of checking rather than a confirmed 2026 price.
• Applications. This is the largest excluded cost and it falls almost entirely on Shopify. Common add-ons run $8 to $20 a month each, and a working store routinely spends $30 to $80 a month on apps, which is $360 to $960 a year against a plan fee of $348. The plan is not the expensive part.
• Transaction fees, if you sell. Squarespace charges 2% on the online store and 7% on digital content on Basic, falling to 0% and 5% on Core, 0% and 1% on Plus, and zero on Advanced. Webflow's Standard ecommerce plan charges 2%. Shopify charges no platform fee but applies a third-party gateway penalty of 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. Wix and Hostinger charge 0% on paid plans, as does GoDaddy Commerce.

The prepayment conditions nobody reads

Two offers in this set are conditional in ways that reverse their apparent value. Hostinger's cheapest rate requires a four-year prepayment of $143.52, so the monthly figure is real only if you are willing to commit before you have built anything. And Shopify's promotional pricing, three days free followed by $1 a month for three months on Basic, Grow or Advanced, is available on monthly billing only. Taking it forfeits the 25% annual discount, so year-one plan fees become $3 plus nine months at $39, which is $354, and the second year runs at $468 rather than $348. The promotion costs $120 a year from year two onward, in exchange for saving about $114 in year one.

How the Value scores fall out

Hostinger takes 7/7, the only full mark awarded on any criterion to any builder outside design and SEO. The 513% renewal is severe, and it is still the cheapest route in the set across two years by a margin of roughly $390, with a domain and native email bundled in. A cliff from a very low base can leave you below everyone else at the bottom of it, and the arithmetic has to be allowed to say so.

Wix and Squarespace both take 5/7 as mid-market pricing with no renewal cliff, marked down because mailboxes and applications are extra on both. Webflow takes 4/7: the site plans look inexpensive until workspace plans and $39 full seats stack on top, though there is no cliff. Shopify takes 3/7, because $39 a month is the entry point with no brochure-tier option beneath it and app subscriptions routinely exceed the plan fee. GoDaddy also takes 3/7, for a $9.99 headline renewing at $16.99, and a Premium tier doubling to $29.99, attached to a notably thin feature set.

Value is 7 points of 40, so it moves a ranking without deciding one. Hostinger's 7/7 still totals 28/40, because the same platform scores 2/5 on ecommerce and 4/7 on SEO. Price is the criterion buyers weigh first and the criterion the standard weighs fourth, and the full working for all six is published in the ranking of the best website builders for 2026.