Finding the best website builder for artists can be a time-consuming experience. This is especially true if you don’t have much of a technology background.
For artists, nothing is more important than getting their artworks the attention they deserve. After all, you’ve spent so much time and effort to create those masterpieces! So if you’re looking to showcase your art or to sell them, having a website to post artworks on is a must.
Show your stunning works to the whole world with our recommendations of best website builders that can bring you into the limelight. In this article, LitExtension will go through these key points:
- Features that artists should look for in a website builder
- Best website builders for artists who sell arts
- Best website builders for artists who want to display arts
Whether to sell artworks or just to let others view your creations, here are our suggestion for best website builder for artists. Let’s take a look!
What Artists Should Look For In A Website Builder
Before the rise of the Internet, there were fewer opportunities for small artists to show off their artworks. They could only display or sell arts at physical locations, resulting in a limited group of audience. Now the Internet has become indispensable, offering a wide variety of tools from AI art generators to digital drawing tools, and with the now available website builders, artists have better chances of increasing their exposure and showing their credibility.
Depending on your profession and special requirements, you may have to take different artist website builders’ strengths into consideration. But in general, there are a few features you should take notice of when deciding between the best website builders currently available:
- Flexible customizability: a well-designed website that can help you flaunt your artistic skills and create a striking online presence.
- High quality media display: enable viewers to fully appreciate the works you've created.
- User-friendliness: artists might not have a lot of time on their hands, so it’s always better to have an artist website builder that’s straightforward and easy to navigate.
- Sufficient eCommerce features: if you're selling art, SEO and analytic functionalities should also be considered.
Best Website Builder For Artists To Sell Art
If your main goal in finding the best website builder for artists is to sell your arts, here are our top suggestions for best eCommerce platform for artists:
1. Shopify
Features | Details | |
Ease of Use | • Hassle-free setup • User-friendly backend dashboard | |
Themes & Designs | • 100+ professionally built and mobile responsive themes • 18 free themes are provided ✧ See our list of Best Shopify themes | |
SEO & Marketing | • Diverse built-in SEO and Marketing functions • Great site speed | |
Payment Options | • Over 100 payment options • Accept payments in multiple currencies | |
Pricing | • Starting from $29/month • 14-day free trial • No free plan | |
Apps & Extensions | • Biggest app store on the market: 6000+ apps • High functionality apps, easy to integrate with • Mobile app available for seller ✧ See our suggested Best Shopify apps for new store owners |
In the battle of finding the best eCommerce platform for artists, Shopify is undoubtedly one of the heaviest contestants. They excel in sales functionality as there are so many options for necessary eCommerce features. Many users agreed that Shopify has helped them build the best sites to sell art online.
For beginners, you don't have to worry about not having technical experience. Shopify’s setup process is made extremely simple – all you need to do is fill in necessary information and your store is already up and running!
They also have a large user community to help if you run into any problems while building your website.
What customers say about Shopify:
“LOVE LOVE LOVE Shopify! The only downfall is the price… it's a bit up there, but honestly worth it. If you're ready to upgrade your business, Shopify is the next step. Their blog is also amazing and full of educational posts, as well as their forums! Great community, awesome staff.” – Brandon W., Sitejabber
Are you ready to start a new adventure with Shopify? Check out our Shopify resources now to learn everything you need to know about this eCommerce platform:
Shopify Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Great website builder for beginners
- Robust eCommerce features
- Diverse apps and integrations
- Multichannel scaling
Cons:
- Less customizing options
- High price for small businesses
- High transaction fees
✧ Final verdict: Shopify is the best website builder for artists to sell and grow their business.
2. BigCommerce
Features | Details | |
Ease of Use | • Setup tutorial is available • Customization can be complex for beginners | |
Themes & Designs | • 100+ responsive themes to choose from • 12 free themes are provided • Style Editor - easily customize any theme ✧ See our list of Best BigCommerce themes | |
SEO & Marketing | • Good website speed & powerful SEO functions • Great range of necessary marketing tools | |
Payment Options | • Multiple payment gateways • BigCommerce POS: allow selling at brick-and-mortar stores • Allow refund payments to customers | |
Pricing | • Starting from $29.95/month, extra fee if surpass earnings threshold for each plan • 15-day free trial • No free plan | |
Apps & Extensions | • More than 900 apps covering multiple sales and design functions. • Mobile app available for seller ✧ See our list of BigCommerce apps you shouldn't miss |
With the help of BigCommerce, you can grow your art business fast! BigCommerce is a well-known platform for its robust eCommerce scalability. You can also quickly set up your store and change the design to your liking in real time with their convenient Style Editor.
That said, BigCommerce is more suitable for artists who are already familiar with having an eCommerce store. It’ll be easier to navigate through the store’s dashboard and make necessary customization.
Moreover, BigCommerce’s pricing plans can be very pricey for emerging businesses, as they are more optimized for larger ones.
BigCommerce customer review:
“BigCommerce is almost perfect, but not quite. The loading speed is great, but the first byte is a problem. The SEO is much better than Shopify, but they haven't implemented a guiding character count next to the SEO Title and Description. 3rd party apps are helpful, but integrations are sometimes a little choppy. All in all, I am happy with Bigcommerce.” – Alex, Trustpilot
Access our essential BigCommerce resources to make the best out of your art website:
BigCommerce Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Great scalability
- Diverse apps for multiple purposes
- Multichannel integration
Cons:
- Time-consuming setup
- Not ideal for non tech-savvy users
- Can be costly for small businesses
✧ Final verdict: BigCommerce is the best website builder for artists with large stores and strong selling power.
3. Wix
Features | Details | |
Ease of Use | • Very simple setup process, suitable for beginners | |
Themes & Designs | • Over 500 templates • Wix Editor: real time web editor that let you freely customize your store’s visual • Wix ADI: automatic design tools that quickly set up your store by asking you a set of questions ✧ See our list of Best Wix templates in 2022 | |
SEO & Marketing | • Good range of built-in SEO and marketing functions • Let customers purchase memberships, subscriptions, and packages. | |
Payment Options | • 40+ payment providers | |
Pricing | • Starting from $17/month for Wix Business & eCommerce • Free plan available | |
Apps & Extensions | • Only over 200 add-on options • A lot of apps are free or very reasonably priced ✧ See our suggested Best Shopify apps for new store owners |
Among the best eCommerce platform for artists, Wix website builder makes selling art more simple than ever. For launching a small art store, Wix is undoubtedly one of the most popular choices. They even have art templates and in-house Wix Art Store app, which caters specifically for showcasing and selling your creative works.
Wix can help you create an even better impression with art-loving customers, as they provide you with flexible store design capability using Wix Editor. But if you're not great with design, no worries! Wix has another design feature called Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). It’s a smart builder tool that can assist you in creating a beautiful website in just a few minutes, by learning about your store with a series of questions.
Let's discover more about Wix:
When it comes to finding the best website builder for music, Wix is also considered the best website builder for music artists. With Wix Music, music artists can easily upload their tracks and see their music sales performance.
However, regarding eCommerce functions, Wix is a bit behind compared to Shopify or BigCommerce. Although there are still built-in SEO and marketing tools available, Wix still lacks a few crucial functionalities, such as abandoned cart recovery. Thus, you’ll need to rely on third party plug-ins to sell more efficiently.
Wix eCommerce Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Ease of use and setup
- Innovative website builder tools (Wix ADI and Wix Editor / Editor X)
- High design flexibility
Cons:
- Slower site speed compared to other eCommerce platforms
- No available feature for abandoned cart recovery
- Some selling features rely heavily on third-party or plug-ins
✧ Final verdict: Wix is the best website builder for artists who want unique store design.
4. Weebly
Features | Details | |
Ease of Use | • Well-known for user-friendliness • Straightforward dashboard that’s easy to navigate | |
Themes & Designs | • Over 60 clean, responsive themes • 100 Drag and Drop elements • Basic customizability | |
SEO & Marketing | • Built-in SEO and marketing features • Limited Heading structure for blogging | |
Payment Options | • 3 payment gateways: Paypal, Square and Stripe | |
Pricing | • Starting from $12/month for Weebly eCommerce • Free plan available | |
Apps & Extensions | • More than 360 apps divided into 5 categories • 56 free apps |
Regarding functionality and customizability, Weebly eCommerce may not be the most robust solution. However, simplicity and smoothness is certainly one of their biggest strengths.
Weebly is considered the best website builder for artists who are looking for an economical way to sell artwork. Although you cannot sell using the free plan, Weebly eCommerce starting package is lower in price compared to a few other platforms.
Though the tools are a bit limited, beginners can still enjoy a great eCommerce experience with little starting funds. There are multiple built-in functions to assist you in growing your sales with Weebly.
Customer review of Weebly:
“Weebly is a wonderful website building platform. I have personally used it to create both a website and an online portfolio that I use professionally. I was very nervous when I began designing the site, but Weebly could not make it easier to develop the website of your dreams!” Meagan M., Capterra
Weebly eCommerce Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Simple and inexpensive, suitable for web building beginners
- Drag-and-drop website builder: great for designing the website the way you want
- Great data security
Cons:
- Limited scalability
- Cannot recover deleted web content
- Few updates over the years
✧ Final verdict: Weebly is the best website builder for artists who are just getting started.
Best Website Builder For Artists To Display Art
Not looking to sell your artwork and just want to have a professional-looking website? Then there are our picks for the title of best website builder for an artist portfolio:
1. Squarespace
Features | Details | |
Ease of Use | • Easy and convenient to launch a website • Drag-and-drop design feature might require a longer learning curve | |
Themes & Designs | • 100+ professional templates • Focus on quality over quantity • Detailed design panel with integrated stock image sources ✧ Check out our recommended Squarespace templates | |
Pricing | • Starting from $16/month • 14-day free trial • No free plan | |
Apps & Extensions | • Only 31 paid extensions available for limited website functions |
For building a beautiful art portfolio, there’s no doubt that Squarespace would come to the mind of many artists. The high-quality templates and intricate design functions that this platform offers can definitely cater to your creative needs.
Starting a website with Squarespace is also easier than ever. All you need to do is pick a template, and you can start designing a website of your own. However, to really make your website stand out and become uniquely yours, you’d have to take a bit of time to learn all the functions of Squarespace’s editor tool. But the effort will definitely be worth it – you’ll have yourself an attractive and professional looking website.
Squarespace is perhaps the best website builder for makeup artists. Not only can you create a stunning interface, but you can also offer subscriptions and digital lessons using the built-in Squarespace function.
All in all, if you’re looking to post your art online and make a lasting impression on your viewer, Squarespace is undoubtedly a top choice.
Squarespace Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Stunning templates and detailed designing tools
- High quality image display
- Mobile app available for convenient editing
Cons:
- Editor tool takes longer to learn
- Limited eCommerce scalability, slower website speed
- No autosave while editing your website
✧ Final verdict: Squarespace is the best website builder for artists to create an impressive art showcasing website.
2. GoDaddy
Features | Details | |
Ease of Use | • Simple signup process, no technical skill required • Straightforward dashboard that's easy to navigate | |
Themes & Designs | • Only 22 themes available • ADI - Artìical Design Intelligence for a quick website setup • Easy-to-use editor but has few functions | |
Pricing | • Starting from $6.99/month • Free plan available | |
Apps & Extensions | • Have to rely on third parties plug-ins |
GoDaddy is perhaps the best website builder for artists who don’t have a lot of time on their hands, and wish to have a live website quickly. Their Artificial Intelligence Design as well as the step-by-step web builder will assist you in setting up your site in a blink of an eye.
GoDaddy is also very reasonably priced for artists with a smaller budget. But this also means that you might be more limited in functionality and design flexibility compared to other platforms. If you need a website solely for showcasing your art, then GoDaddy is a fantastic solution.
Interested in starting your online journey with beginner-friendly platforms like GoDaddy? Check out this list of best website builders for small businesses that are just getting started.
Or if you wish not to invest too much money to sell art, here are our suggested Top 10 free eCommerce platforms and 10+ best free landing page builders!
Can’t decide between Squarespace and Godaddy? We made the comparison for you: Squarespace vs GoDaddy – Comparing The Key Differences
GoDaddy Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Artificial Design Intelligence for instant website setup
- Fast website speed
- Economic pricing plan
Cons:
- Theme designs are quite simplistic
- Limited features and basic functionalities
- No email support
✧ Final verdict: GoDaddy is the best website builder for artists to quickly get their art site up and running.
3. WordPress
Features | Details | |
Ease of Use | • Need at least some technical knowledge to set up your site | |
Themes & Designs | • Super flexible in terms of customizability • Over 31,000 high quality themes available | |
Pricing | • Mainly consist of domain name ($12/year) and hosting fee ($3-$40/month) • Can be costly if required heavy customization and maintenance | |
Apps & Extensions | • Over 55,000 plug-ins to choose from |
Comparing WordPress with other popular platforms:
In case you’re in search of over-the-top customization and flexibility for your website, look no further. WordPress is the best website builder for artists to create a highly personalized and tailored website look. With its robust blogging feature, WordPress is also one of the best website builders for SEO on the market.
You’ll also have access to a huge inventory of plug-ins to integrate with your website. For instance, Elementor is a very user-friendly plug-in for artists to design beautiful WordPress websites.
However, WordPress is surely not a website builder for beginners. It’d take more time for you to set things up and get your website running if you don’t have previous technical knowledge. But once you’ve got the grasp of it, your effort definitely won’t go to waste!
WordPress Pros & Cons
Pros:
- High customizability
- Extremely diverse plug-ins and themes
- Powerful blogging features
Cons:
- Require higher technical experience
- Need a hosting provider
✧ Final verdict: WordPress is the best website builder for artists who are looking for very tailored online presence.
Why artists need to display art online
Creating an online art portfolio can sound like a lot of work, especially for artists who don’t have a lot of time on their hands. However, it’s a great way to help you grow your reputation, and even earn a better living with the artwork you’ve created.
Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why having an online presence can be highly beneficial for artists:
- More exposure to potential customers: With how quickly social media is growing, you can reach a much larger audience if you have an online medium for others to view your art. They can react, give comments, and even share your sites if they love your creations. Thus, this will enable your artwork to show up to even more people.
- A way to save your past and present artworks: Seeing how you’ve improved through time can be a great motivator if you post art online regularly.
- Showcase your creations to impress: Having a website of your own can help you present yourself better to the public or recruiters.
- Build your personal branding: Advertise yourself more professionally and let viewers learn more about you as an artist. Post not just artwork but also related content on your website.
- The ability to sell your artwork: With the help of the right artist website builder, you can turn your creations into a decent living.
How to create your art portfolio online
With many powerful artist website builder tools currently available, it’s easier than ever to build your own art portfolio online.
- Choose a branded name for your website and domain
- Find the best websites for artists’ portfolios based on your profession: For example, a website builder for music artists has to provide great audio quality.
- Sign up for an account with the website builder
- Pick your desired web template
- Upload the works you’re most proud of
- Fill in other website content so people can know more about you – the artist
- Connect and promote your website on social media channels
Best Website Builder For Artists: FAQs
Is Shopify a good website builder for artists?
Yes! Shopify lets artists grow their sales easier than ever. With their simple setup process and robust selling functionalities, there’s no doubt that this is among the best website builders for artists who are looking for an eCommerce solution.
What kind of website should an artist have?
Depending on their needs and profession, an artist can either have a website that focuses on selling their art products, or just to showcase their creative works. You should have a site that can present yourself in the best way possible, letting people know who you are and the artistic skills you have.
What is the best platform for an artist?
Artists should be able to exhibit their work to their desired audience in the best way possible. Thus, here are some of the recommended platforms that artists can use to publish their work:
- Physical exhibition: the most realistic way to show your artwork
- Social media: lets you share your work-in-progress or final works, and help you reach more people
- Art website: shows your arts and personal branding in a more professional way
- Creative network: acts as an online portfolio for you to show recruiters and potential clients
How can I sell my art online?
To sell your art online, there are a few methods you can try:
- Set up an eCommerce website: using website builders for artists, you can have an online store of your own to sell your work, both physical and digital ones.
- Sell through social media: post your products on social media channels to draw customers’ attention.
- Join an online marketplace: setting up your store on large marketplaces like Amazon or Etsy lets you have access to larger traffic and more potential customers.
Final Thoughts: Best Website Builder For Artists
Nowadays, artists are no longer limited by any boundaries. Not only do they have more creative freedom, they also have the ability to showcase their stunning artworks to thousands of audiences online.
With our recommended best website builder for artists, we hope that all artists can maximize their potential and earn the recognition they deserve. If you love receiving tips and tricks to help your business grow, join our dynamic eCommerce community and discuss with thousands of successful store owners!