Using a website builder is an easy and cheap way to create and maintain professional websites. These programs enable small businesses and startups to make their presence known online. If you aren’t keen on spending thousands on web design a website builder is the best option for you. These online tools are equipped with all the features that are required in order to create professional websites.

Most startups look for an easy solution to add shopping carts and built-in ecommerce functionality to their sites without much hassle. Most of the options that we discuss today come with in-built shopping cart widgets that make the process a breeze.

Here are some of the most suitable website builders for startups:

IM Creator

IM Creator is a free website authoring tool with a very simple drag and drop user interface that is relatively easy to use. Around 4 million websites have already been created with IM Creator.

IM Creator allows anyone, especially non-technical users, to build a beautiful, professional looking presence online.  With thousands of free website templates available the service helps users to bring their vision to reality without necessarily starting from scratch; saving a lot of time, energy and money.

There are different categories to choose from. These choices include business designs, law firm designs, fashion and beauty designs, architect, restaurant, consultant design websites and hundreds more.

The user interface comes equipped with a powerful drag and drop editor. The editor has some bonuses such as free stock images, social media integration, form creation and business icons that can enhance a website’s look tremendously.

The free account has a limit of 50 megabytes of storage and can only run under the im.mx domain. For customized domains, one needs to pay a monthly fee of about 6 to 10 dollars depending on the type of website.

Wix

Wix is another website builder that offers professional website designs for all types of websites. Their service offers a variety of templates which are very dynamic and have a professional look. There’s a theme category that suits every occasion under the sun.

Wix offers a free hosting site for hosting on a sub domain. A pro account can cost around 29 dollars per month. One drawback about Wix is that you must use Wix as your hosting company because they do not allow files to be downloaded to another host. The downloaded files have compatibility issues. So, keep that in mind.

Wix does offer an ‘unlimited’ package, but it is not really unlimited and comes with a mere 10 GB of space, Google (News - Alert) analytics support, mobile responsive templates, unlimited bandwidth and the use of your own domain.

Unfortunately, the ‘unlimited’ version does not support a shopping cart and an upgrade to the $16 dollar package becomes necessary with an offer of 20 GB of space.

Squarespace

Squarespace is another great website builder that allows an individual to create good-looking, professional and functional websites. The interface is nice and very simple to use. It also allows the creation of multiple versions of a website allowing for easy replication and testing of various concepts.

This website builder is also very convenient as it offers blogging capabilities and incorporates a social media presence. One great benefit that users get by using Squarespace is the ability to import content from other blogging platforms such as WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger.

A personal site can cost as low as $8 per month but a business website could cost as much as $16 per month. Professional packages start from $24 per month. Both the business and the professional websites include a shopping cart feature.

Squarespace offers a 14 day free trial which should be enough for you to get a feel of how the program works.

Honorable Mention – The Grid

The Grid is another powerful website builder that promises to elevate us beyond the traditional methods of programming and design through the use of smart artificial intelligence that designs websites itself.  The grid has been nicknamed the “website of the future” due to its ability to learn to build itself from the data that it starts collecting from you.

This makes work even easier and fast when using this great authoring tool. The amazing fact about The Grid is its ability to adapt and change depending on new content and the designer’s needs or tastes. Special templates appear and disappear as needed without the intervention of a designer.

With this technique in mind, The Grid is expected to be one of the most promising of website builders.

Concluding thoughts

These are just a few among the vast collection of tools that can save a lot of money and time if utilized properly by any designer. You have the ability to manage the sites created easily. There are a confusing number of options available but it’s quite easy to take a test drive of each platform to determine which is right for you. The current age of web design is promising not only for professional designers and developers but also holds massive potential for the non-technical user.

Do you have a favorite website builder you could recommend to other users? Have you any experience with any of the programs reviewed above? Please share your thoughts using the comments box below.