Last Updated on February 27, 2019 by Larious

Gone are the days when launching a website cost you a fortune. If you want a simple website started, you don’t need anyone’s assistance. A good website builder and one hour of your time are all that you need to own a website.

So, how do you know which builder to pick for your blog? We’ve done the research for you and compiled all the information you need to build a good site on a budget.

Preview WordPress

WordPress is the most popular website builder. 32% of websites on the Internet use it. Tech Crunch, BBC America, Time, Star Wars, Variety, Beyoncé and Walt Disney all use websites powered by WordPress. So unless you want an extremely personalized site, chances are you can find what you want in this free builder.

WordPress works in a simple way. Find a domain name registrar and a blog hosting service provider. After that, get a WordPress account and link it your hosting service. The account mimics any other website.

Besides the administrator account, you get access to an exhaustive list of themes, plugins, templates and other features to customize your site.

WordPress is a community consisting of thousands of developers and millions of account owners. Any theme you’ve ever dreamed of is probably available on the CMS platform.

While it’s popular and full of features, WordPress leaves you to do most of the work. You have to buy domain registration services. You also have to pay for web hosting every month. If that’s not enough, the best themes and plugins are paid for.

When you accumulate all these costs, WordPress may not be as cheap as some people would have you believe. Domain registration plus web hosting can cost in the upwards of $100 for quality services.

Let’s you even pay $50 for cheaper services. You may have to spend another $50 or more for premium themes and plugins. Things don’t end there. SEO optimization and other marketing services can up your costs to $500 or more.

WordPress Alternatives

Wix

If you don’t want to deal with all the hassles that come with a WordPress site, Wix is the best alternative. For as low as $5 a month, you can get a 5-page website with a free domain name and all-inclusive hosting services.

Designed for small and big websites alike, you can be assured to find a template that will impress you on Wix. Their layouts resemble fabricated houses. Pick your favorite and add some finishing to personalize it to your liking.

The best plan on Wix costs $11 a month. You get a wide range of templates designed to suit different website types. Keep in mind the templates and drag and drop, which makes your job easy. Wix also offers an automatic backup option and security features to keep you secured.

While you pay up to $20 per month for a commerce site, Wix gives you value for your money. There are lots of SEO features, a blog, quick customer support and hundreds of third-party apps to work with.

The only downside is that your web space is limited by your plan. Migrating from one plan to a more expensive one also means doing things from scratch.

Weebly

Weebly is one of the easiest website builders you can find around. Its biggest strength is in the editor that allows you to manage 150+ pages with better ease compared to Wix. It also offers more features than some better rated cheap website builders.

Like Wix, the starter plan is free for life. You can’t achieve much with it but you can sign up to simply check how Weebly works. The professional plan costs $12 per month and is suited for bloggers and small site owners. Their e-commerce store site costs $25 or $38 per month for the ultimate plan.

The builder works in a drag and drop manner. Simply find a template from their exhaustive library and drop it to your account. With the right plan, there is no type of website you can’t manage on Weebly.

You can manage a team by creating editor privileges for a few. Their themes are stylish. There are no ads and you own your domain name.

On the downside, Weebly can be expensive after the first year. For instance, domain renewal after the first free year costs $19.95, almost double the average price. Support for languages besides English limited and there are some complaints about their customer support.

Yola

Pricing starts at $4.95 per month, making Yola one of the cheapest builders you can find. Setting up your site requires that you create an account with them. That’s a matter of providing your name and an email address. Yola then gives you access to dozens of web templates, each possessing a unique name.

After you pick a template, Yola lets you fill a few details before giving you access to your site. From there, you can view the editor, plugins and other features that could help personalize your website. Accessing the features and dropping them to your new site is the easiest thing you can do.

Yola’s limitations come clear when you click to upgrade to a paid plan. The $4.95 plan, for instance, doesn’t give you access to premium editing features.

You can’t optimize your site for mobile or link it to Facebook. You also can’t do SEO optimization or access more than 2GB worth of data until you upgrade to the $19.95 plan a month.

That leaves Yola as a great web builder for a very basic site. If you want to build a quality website, try different builders. Preferably, pick the best-rated builders—Weebly, Wix and the likes. Even WordPress will offer better value. However, Yola still offers some good value with its $9.95 a month plan you should check out.

To Conclude

Creating a website doesn’t have to be an expensive affair. Not in an age of website builders and building a good site takes no more than one hour.

Some builders, like WordPress, gives you a free platform and lets you choose hosting and domain registration independently But if that’s too much to ask, there are lots of cheap alternatives, some better than WordPress.