5 Best Musician Website Builders: Our Fine-Tuned Selection
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Our methodology
We paid special attention to audio files, event bookings, and social media integration when we researched and tested potential builders for this list.
Written and researched by:
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You’ve got your sound and your look, but in today’s digital world, you’ll also need a web presence. To do that, you’ll need a top-notch website builder. This is why we’ve carried out in-depth research to sort the legends from the one-hit wonders: to find the platform that’ll work for you. Whether that’s Squarespace, our top choice for musicians, or Wix, with its music-focused features, or Shopify, which makes selling music online easy.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the five best website builders to get you noticed, take you to the next level, and help you sell your music online.
The 5 Best Website Builders for Musicians
- Squarespace – Best for customizing your aesthetic
- Wix – Best for offering music downloads
- Shopify – Best for selling music online
- GoDaddy – Best for advertising gigs
- Webflow – Best for connecting with audiences
Squarespace comes out on top in our research, rocking a 4.8 out of 5 rating (excuse the pun!). This was due, in part, to its amazing design capabilities, beating last year’s winner, Wix. In addition to your album covers and merch, your website is a face for your music. Therefore, you need creative control to truly represent yourself and your music aesthetically online. Unlike Wix and others on this list, Squarespace allows you to amend your aesthetics for new releases. It also has amazing features for listening and downloading music, but it was the creative flexibility that really shot it to our #1 spot this year.
We shouldn’t downplay Wix too much either because it offers awesome analytical tools that let you view the number of downloads, plays, and shares, as well as a selection of beautiful templates designed for musicians. Shopify is a newcomer at third, giving musicians the best commerce tools for selling and distributing their music. Online and in-person, Shopify can sell and ship anything from CDs to full audio libraries.
But how did we determine our top three? We’ll explain more about our detailed research process further below.
For now, if you just want to find you ideal builder quickly, check out our quiz:
Compare the Five Best Website Builders for Musicians
View the builders you want to compare by using the arrow at the top of this chart. Then, you’ll be able to see each website builder go head-to-head on features and price.
 | PEOPLE'S CHOICE  |  |  |  |
| Squarespace | Wix | Shopify | GoDaddy | Webflow |
| Overall Rating Our overall ratings are based on the average score of all ratings combined. 4.8 | Overall Rating Our overall ratings are based on the average score of all ratings combined. 4.6 | Overall Rating Our overall ratings are based on the average score of all ratings combined. 4.0 | Overall Rating Our overall ratings are based on the average score of all ratings combined. 3.9 | Overall Rating Our overall ratings are based on the average score of all ratings combined. 3.3 |
| Starting from $16 | Starting from $16 | Starting from $29 | Starting from $9.99 | Starting from $14 |
| Free Plan or Free Trial 14-day free trial | Free Plan or Free Trial Free plan | Free Plan or Free Trial 3-day free trial | Free Plan or Free Trial Both | Free Plan or Free Trial Free plan |
| Email Marketing Free, or paid upgrades | Email Marketing Free, or paid upgrades | Email Marketing Free, or paid upgrades | Email Marketing Free, or paid upgrades | Email Marketing Third party integrations only |
| Event Bookings and Scheduling Paid upgrade | Event Bookings and Scheduling Paid upgrade | Event Bookings and Scheduling Third party integration only | Event Bookings and Scheduling One-time appointments only | Event Bookings and Scheduling Third party integration only |
| Design Flexibility 4.7 | Design Flexibility 4.4 | Design Flexibility 3.9 | Design Flexibility 4.0 | Design Flexibility 4.4 |
| Embedded Instagram Feed Built-in | Embedded Instagram Feed Via app store | Embedded Instagram Feed Via app store | Embedded Instagram Feed No | Embedded Instagram Feed Via app store |
| Storage Space Unlimited | Storage Space 3 GB – Unlimited | Storage Space Unlimited | Storage Space Unlimited | Storage Space 1GB – 400GB |
| View Squarespace | Visit Wix | Visit Shopify | Visit GoDaddy | Visit Webflow |
To use these checkout links, all you have to do is create a free Square Online account, name and price your product, and create a checkout link to place on your site – the process is really simple!
Alternatively, Squarespace lets you sell your merchandise by adding an online store to your website. We’ve put together a full Squarespace ecommerce review if you want to find out more!
#1. Squarespace
Best For Customizing Aesthetics
Pricing Range: $16 per month – $49 per month
Squarespace
Best for artistic representation
- Image-focused templates
- Simple audio integrations
- Social media savvy
Free trial available
Paid Plans: $16 - $49 / month
Pros
-
Customize audio files in content blocks - Unlimited storage on all plans
- Best template designs of any builder
Cons
-
Can be limiting - Only six music-specific templates
- Editor doesn’t autosave for you
Squarespace Overview
Squarespace is the perfect choice for creatives as it will allow you to promote events and gigs, and it offers users easy social media connectivity as well as an elegant audio player. These features are all ideal for promoting your work in the best possible light. In our research, it scores an overall 4.8 out of 5, making it the best on this list.
Since last year, we have shifted our grading for website builders for musicians to have a deeper focus on design flexibility since being able to shift aesthetics to match releases is key in establishing your music online. Squarespace has a design score of 4.7 out of 5, which sees it net the number one spot in this category on this list, overtaking the previous winner, Wix.
Squarespace Features
Squarespace has always offered great features for musicians. Its overall score is still the same as last year ( 4.8 out of 5), while Wix, which held the number one spot, took a drop of 5.5% since last year.
Squarespace offers its users:
- Audio Blocks: Add audio files to customizable content blocks, and include purchase links directly underneath audio files
- Unfold app: Create professionally designed social content to promote gigs and new tracks
- Events pages: Advertise up to 350 events per month onsite
- Email marketing: Choose from expertly designed email layouts, and even match the style of your emails to your website for consistency
- Blogging: Squarespace has many templates that allow for blogging, such as ‘Cruz’, so it’s a great place to begin if you’re looking to start a music blog
Squarespace Pricing
The cheapest Squarespace plan is the Personal plan, which is just $16 per month when billed annually, or $23 per month when billed monthly.
To sell your music online, you’ll need Squarespace’s ecommerce functionality as part of your site. It will cost $27 per month for the basic Commerce plan, or $49 per month for the Advanced plan. You can sell unlimited products with both, but you’ll get extra features with the Advanced plan, such as shipping and discounts.
All you need to do to test Squarespace for free for 14 days is to enter your email address.
Click the + to see a more detailed summary of Squarespace
A significant improvement Squarespace has made since last year is with its app store. Previously, users were stuck with the range of features Squarespace provided, but you can now choose from +30 third-party apps to improve your website. While this may not sound like a lot, it’s quality over quantity. In our research, Squarespace improved its app store functionality by 100%, going from a 2 to a 4 out of 5!
Squarespace’s templates are sleek and modern, and offer tons of creative control – they’re perfect for the creative expression that a musical website requires! As we mentioned earlier, Squarespace templates come with great flexibility. All templates have access to all features (with other builders, certain features are “locked” into certain templates). Although you can’t technically change your template, this allows you to update your design at any time, which is massive for when you need to change around aesthetics for new releases or tours. Image plays such a big part in a musician’s life, so being able to swap and customize on the fly is definitely a welcome addition and is something we took into consideration when ranking these website builders.
Offering email marketing and social media integration, plus all the basic SEO capabilities, Squarespace has increased its marketing capabilities by 25% from a 4 to a perfect 5 out of 5. It achieved this increase through its improved app store, which now gives users more options and control over their online marketing than ever before.
However, our testers had this to say about Squarespace during our last round of hands-on testing:
“Never thought I’d say this, but I found it easier to use than Wix.”
Squarespace rose up in our ranks by 11% to 4.4 out of 5, tying with Wix for the first time ever! What changed? Well, our testers said it was due to factors like Squarespace sharing great prompts for SEO, a new grid layout supporting creative freedom, and the ease of knowing the right template is being used for you individually. As we said, you can endlessly customize and change your template to suit your needs.
However, there is the issue of manual save. Remember that there is no automatic backup, so unless you save while editing, you could lose any precious progress!
As a musician, whether in-person or completely online, cash flow can be pretty sporadic. Therefore, Squarespace’s starting plan, the Personal plan, can run quite expensive at $16 per month, especially if you’re a musician who is just starting out.
That being said, for that price, you’re getting the best aesthetic customization possible and great features for musicians to boot, so the choice is yours.
Sadly, Squarespace does not run a free plan, but it does offer a 14-day free trial, so you can try it out and see if it works for you before you commit.
Squarespace Gallery
Click the image below to expand More Information
- Squarespace Review: Take a more detailed look at Squarespace with us
- Squarespace Pricing: Get a breakdown of each Squarespace pricing plan
- How to Make a Booking Website: Everything you need to know to help promote music events and sell tickets
#2. Wix
Best For Offering Music Downloads
Pricing Range: $16 per month – $159 per month
Wix
Best for online musicians
- Great help and support
- Feature-rich plans
- Plenty of customization
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $16 - $159 / month
Pros
- Get site stats from Wix Music Analytics
- Automatic backups keep your work safe
- Optional ADI tool for hands-off design
Cons
- Squarespace’s templates have more style
- Can’t change template once site is live
- May need extra apps to grow your site
Wix Overview
Wix has fallen to second place since last year as Squarespace made some major improvements and there were changes to our research system. Wix locks you into a template once you publish, meaning you have to commit to a certain aesthetic for your site, which can be difficult for musicians (just ask Bowie!).
However, although its overall score has dropped by 5.5% from 4.9 to 4.6 out of 5, Wix is still a very good option for musicians making a website. It has a dedicated app for streaming and selling audio – Wix Music – and it also has a larger range of music-specific templates than Squarespace.
Wix Features
In our research, Wix earns a 4.8 out of 5 – the same as Squarespace – for its range of music features. These include:
- Wix Music tool: Upload your music and sell downloads, commission free
- Wix Music Analytics: See stats on your top tracks played, top downloads, and highest revenue-generating tracks
- Wix ShoutOut: Powerful email marketing
On top of this, all of the music sales you make through your Wix website are commission free, so you don’t have to worry about fielding any hidden charges. Plus, Wix lets you upload tracks in FLAC and 320kbps MP3 files, so your audio quality is one less thing to worry about when starting out online.
Wix Pricing
In addition to these top-notch music features, Wix’s cheapest paid plan (the Light plan) offers:
- 2GB storage
- 30 video minutes
The Light plan is ideal for creative portfolios and is a great place to start your band or artist website. If you find your audience growing, you may want to consider the second-cheapest Core plan, which offers:
- 50GB storage
- Five video hours
Wix plans also come with a free domain name for the first year, and if you feel you need a helping hand along the way, this builder provides 24/7 support no matter which plans you choose.
Click the + to see a detailed summary of Wix
But, if you do decide you want to promote your music for live performances, Wix has you covered. You get access to a great range of tools, such as a Content Manager, bookings, scheduling events, and ticketing.
However, there are some downsides that keep it from the top spot. Once you pick a template, you are locked into it. This means you aren’t able to change templates to reflect new releases. While you can still edit the template after it’s published, they aren’t as effortlessly stylish as Squarespace’s offering.
On top of this, Wix provides its users with all the other marketing tools, such as email marketing, contact forms, newsletters, and social media integration.
One of our testers said:
“Wix is pretty simple to use and easy to wrap your head around! Plus, I really love the customization available, the templates, & pre-designed elements.”
However, some of our testers commented that Wix’s editor can sometimes feel like there’s too much creative freedom and users found they were making a mess of their websites. One of the product testers said:
“You have to be so careful how you customize your template. As I added new elements, my site quickly became messy and cluttered.”
Wix’s cheapest paid plan, the Light plan, costs just $16 per month when billed annually. The second cheapest Core plan costs $27 per month. Overall, while Wix does offer a lot, the monthly price of its plans are expensive and work out to be of less value for money than Squarespace. In our research, we gave it a 3 out of 5 for value for money.
Wix Gallery
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- Wix Review: Read our full-length review of all things Wix
- Wix Pricing: Get a breakdown of each Wix pricing plan
#3. Shopify
Best For Selling Music Online
Pricing Range: $29 per month – $299 per month
Shopify
Best for business
- Best for online commerce
- Third party integrations
- Great for scaling
Free trial available
Paid Plans: $29 - $299 / month
Pros
- Best for selling online
- Shipping and fulfilment handled
- Integrates with everything
Cons
- Limited customizability
- Have to pay for themese
- Need third party apps
Shopify Overview
If you’re looking to sell your music online, both physically or digitally, then Shopify is your builder! Ranked as our top overall ecommerce plan, Shopify allows you to create a product list, apply promotions, fulfill orders, and ship them all from your computer.
As a newcomer to this list, Shopify enters with a very respectable overall score of 4 out of 5. It has made a real pivot in recent years, evolving from an ecommerce-only site to one that accommodates other types of websites. That being said, you will still be relying a lot on third-party apps for many of the music-specific features mentioned here, plus there’s little customizability on its templates (most of which you’ll also have to pay for). But if you’re looking to sell, Shopify has you fully covered in this regard.
Shopify Features
If you’re looking to sell physical CDs and merch, then Shopify will make this process easier. It has one of the best product pages we’ve tested. You can easily separate items by catalogs for different releases. The same goes for merch, where you can actually get in contact with print-on-demand and dropshipping services, meaning you don’t have to clutter your garage with boxes of shirts!
For digital music, you are going to need third-party apps to let your visitors listen and download music. Luckily, there is a free music download app, Digital Downloads, that you can easily add to your store. If you have a bit more money and don’t mind splashing out on a premium app, Shopify has options too, like:
- Tuneboom – For licensing music. Offers a free plan for up to five tracks and its paid plans cost between $19.99 and $29.99 per month.
- Single – Includes automated chart reporting to Billboard, OCC, and ARIA. Pricing plans for the Single app range from $24 to $119 per month, with Single charging a 15% transaction fee (max 3) on digital music sales or attachments.
Shopify Pricing
Shopify has three different pricing plans available:
- Shopify Basic – $29 per month
- Shopify – $79 per month
- Shopify Advanced – $299 per month
These plans all come with Shopify’s great sales features, with the differences based on the size of your store (Shopify powers major brands like Gymshark, Sephora, and Red Bull, after all). As you can probably notice, these plans are more on the pricier side, not even factoring in all the extra monthly charges for third-party apps or templates. In our research, we gave it a 3 out of 5 for this category.
However, Shopify has a cheaper Starter Plan, which only costs $5 per month. It’s confined to mobile and for selling on social media, but it’s a great, low-cost way to get access to Shopify’s suite of sales features. If you’re planning on using social media as a major pillar of your music, then the Starter plan is perfect!
Click the + to see a detailed summary of Shopify
Shopify now has in-house audio uploads instead of relying on a third-party app, which makes it great for musicians. You still need a third-party app to download and distribute your music, but giving visitors a sneak peek of your music on your site is still super important.
We also must highlight its app store, which is great! There are over 4,000 apps available and they should be able to plug any gaps you may find in your dream site. In our research, we rated its app store a perfect 5 out of 5.
Shopify now has in-house audio uploads instead of relying on a third-party app, which makes it great for musicians. You still need a third-party app to download and distribute your music, but giving visitors a sneak peek of your music on your site is still super important.
We also must highlight its app store, which is great! There are over 4,000 apps available and they should be able to plug any gaps you may find in your dream site. In our research, we rated its app store a perfect 5 out of 5.
In terms of third-party apps, you have a great choice to choose from, especially for email marketing, such as:
- MailChimp
- Klaviyo
- Emma
“Shopify is unique in that it starts you off by focusing on adding products, rather than designing your storefront. This made the process feel more cohesive when incorporating the two. “
Focusing on the storefront is great if you’re opening a big store but, as a musician, it’s likely your merch store won’t be too egregious just yet.
Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t offer a free plan, but you can take advantage of its 3-day free trial, and get three months at just $1 per month on the Basic plan. This should leave you with enough time to decide whether it’s the right builder for you.
Shopify Gallery
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- Shopify Review: Take an in-depth look at Shopify
- Shopify Pricing: See a breakdown of Shopify’s plans
#4. GoDaddy
Best For Advertising Gigs
Pricing Range: $9.99 per month – $16.99 per month
GoDaddy
Best for advertising gigs
- No learning curve
- Simple editor
- Less impressive results
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $6.99 - $469.99 / month
Pros
- ADI editor creates website for you
- Allows audio integrations
- Great for getting online quickly
Cons
- Lacks creative freedom
- Unable to resize images or move blocks
- Templates aren’t as dynamic
GoDaddy Overview
GoDaddy climbed to fourth on our list of the top five website builders for musicians after showcasing a great starting price, and being a considerable, simple-enough builder for musicians to advertise their live shows.
With a starting price of $9.99 per month, GoDaddy is our cheapest starting paid plan, which, as a musician, must be music to your ears. You get a fully functional website with audio integrations and event pages without needing third-party apps. In our research, it earns a 4.3 out of 5 for value for money, the best in our rankings.
GoDaddy Features
GoDaddy is a great choice for beginners and, more specifically, beginners who don’t have a ton of time on their hands. Its features place a heavier emphasis on marketing over creativity, so it’s best if you want a professional feel to your website.
- Audio integration: Easily upload your music with an audio block and avoid paying for third-party apps
- Events page: Integrate an events page to let your audience know when events are taking place
- Simple-to-navigate editor: GoDaddy’s editor comes with block sections so you can keep adding elements to your site as you go
GoDaddy Pricing
GoDaddy’s pricing plans start as low as $9.99 per month (when billed annually) with the Basic plan. This paid plan offers you a free SSL, a custom domain, and email marketing tools.
Here are the other plans:
- Premium – $14.99 per month
- Commerce – $20.99 per month
Click the + to see a detailed summary of GoDaddy
You still have all the essentials like blogging, images and video, audio integration, menus, and forms – and for musicians, GoDaddy even has a logo maker. If you’re looking for a deep, feature-filled experience, Wix or Squarespace would be better suited for you.
The simplicity of GoDaddy’s editor has its pros and cons though. The great part is that you can stay relatively close to the original template, but the not-so-great part is that it lacks creative freedom. You’re unable to resize images or move blocks outside of the set parameter, which can be restrictive – especially for such a creative industry. If you’re looking for a platform that gives you a lot of design flexibility, Squarespace is the way to go!
It is worth highlighting that GoDaddy has made improvements to its SEO by incorporating custom headers and URLs, which raises its total SEO score by 33% from 3 to 4 out of 5.
“It was easy to use. I could find everything I needed to find. If I needed to make a simple website for a business, this is the one I would choose.”
Some testers were less impressed with the template design, saying:
“Your site is automatically given a template that is boxy and very similar to the rest.”
However, this is to be expected from a website in which ADI functionality can build it for you.
GoDaddy has a free plan, providing you with more than enough time to decide if it is the platform for you.
GoDaddy Gallery
Click the image below to expand More Information
- GoDaddy Review: Take a deeper look at the quick website builder
- GoDaddy Ecommerce Review: Is this the builder to help you sell online?
#5. Webflow
Best For Connecting With Audiences
Pricing Range: $14 per month – $212 per month
Webflow
Best for connecting with audiences
- More of a CMS
- Great range of templates
- Difficult to use
Free plan available
Paid Plans: $14 / month
Pros
- Great creative flexibility
- Free plan
- Solid templates
Cons
- Lack of features
- Users may find the layout confusing
- Price plans can get expensive
Webflow Overview
Webflow sits in fifth place in our list of website builders for musicians, with an overall rating of 3.3 out of 5. It’s a website builder that is geared towards web designers and is closer in style to builders like WordPress than Wix or Squarespace.
That being said, it’s a good, (if simple) builder with quality templates and it offers the ability to sell on the platform. Its main features include its Content Management System (CMS) and preprogrammed library of animations to give your site some pizazz. This is a database of all your assets that you can easily swap in and out, giving you a good amount of flexibility.
Additionally, you can have multiple editors with Webflow, meaning multiple members of your band can edit your site (hopefully not leading to any creative differences!)
Webflow Features
Much like Shopify, you will need plugins and integrations to listen to and download music. However, unlike Shopify, which is primarily run for ecommerce, Webflow is design focused. This means that hundreds of designers craft clever code plugins that Webflow users can clone onto their own site – for free!
The community aspect is the biggest draw for musicians because you can spread your name around, as well as build a like-minded group of creatives to help you on your journey.
However, this does mean that Webflow is pretty bare on features. It can’t do a whole lot of anything without its designer libraries, meaning it receives the lowest feature score on this list – 2.8 out of 5.
Webflow Pricing
Webflow has six paid plains, split between General and Ecommerce.
General plans:
- Basic – $14 per month
- CMS – $23 per month
- Business – $39 per month
The ecommerce plans allow you to sell on the builder, but they do start to get expensive!
Ecommerce plans:
- Standard – $29 per month
- Plus – $74 per month
- Advanced – $212 per month
Also, be aware that Webflow does indeed have a free plan, but you don’t get much for it. You have to put up with a Webflow badge and no custom domain, and you can only have two pages on your site. Webflow could do more to make these plans more appealing, so we gave it a value-for-money score of 2.9 out of 5.
Click the + to see a detailed summary of Webflow
That being said, Webflow’s CMS feature is a nice touch for keeping everything together. You can effortlessly swap out features and images from one place, keeping your website fresh and updated with relative ease.
You also get access to other Webflow designer layouts, meaning you don’t have to commit to a template and can rather utilize a library of creator-made layouts and animations.
It isn’t as good as others on this list, like Squarespace or Wix, but it certainly makes SEO navigation a lot easier than others
Being made for professionals is reflected in Webflow’s price. The Basic $14 per month is what we would recommend to most people, but you only get a few standard elements, like image galleries, contact forms, or menus. You would be better off paying the extra $2 a month and going with Squarespace or Wix, as they offer a lot more value for that price.
Webflow Gallery
Click the image below to expand More Information
- Webflow Review: Our full-length look at Webflow
- How to Design a Website: Eight simple steps for success
Other Website Builders for Musicians
All five of the website builders ranked above have gone through our rigorous research process, and have been compared through both our overall and music-specific research categories.
But it’s good to know that there are a few other music-specific website builders out there that we haven’t analyzed yet – so until we put the following three players through our in-house process, we’ve weighed their strengths and weaknesses in these general summaries:
Bandzoogle
Bandzoogle Pros
- Commission-free ecommerce available with every plan
- Reasonably priced
Bandzoogle Cons
- Sites aren’t quite at the same standard (visually or technically) as bigger website builders, such as Squarespace and Wix
Bandzoogle was literally built by musicians, for musicians – its journey began in the late 90s, when founder and musician Chris Vinson created his own website.
Bandzoogle is a drag-and-drop website builder, meaning all its templates are customizable without the need to code anything yourself. It may not be quite as polished as Wix and Squarespace, but it has handy features like easy SoundCloud, YouTube integration, and commission-free selling of merch and tickets.
Bandzoogle offers three paid plans: the $8.29 per month Lite plan is the cheapest, but you’ll be capped at 10 pages and 10 tracks. The $16.63 per month Pro plan is the priciest, and it offers unlimited pages, tracks, and mailing list subscribers.
Music Glue
Music Glue Pros
- Great ecommerce features
- Ability to set up pre-orders
Music Glue Cons
- £4.99 monthly fee plus 2% commission on gross revenue
Music Glue is an ecommerce-heavy platform that lets you set up your music website for a monthly fee, with some useful features like advanced data tools and merch pre-orders.
So, what’s the catch? Music Glue takes a 2% commission of your gross revenue. If you’re not making money, you won’t have to pay anything – but once your sales take off, you’ll notice the fees coming out of your revenue!
BandVista
BandVista Pros
- Users praise its ease of use
- Affordable plans
BandVista Cons
- Templates are all very similar, and look dated
BandVista makes it easy to upload video and music files. The cheapest plan allows for 50 music tracks and 1,000 newsletter subscribers, while the priciest plan offers 1,000 music tracks and 25,000 newsletter subscribers.
BandVista’s templates aren’t a standout feature because they’re a bit cluttered and, while there are a few to choose from, they all look pretty similar. If creative expression is important to you, you may want to look elsewhere. That said, at $9.95 per month, BandVista’s cheapest plan is affordable for what you get.
Our Testing Methodology
We’re pretty proud of our research process because not many sites can say they’ve carried out such in-depth testing before making recommendations. In addition to our overall website builder research categories, we’ve applied weighted research criteria to the builders on this list to determine which platforms are best for musicians.
First, here’s a look at the categories we investigate in our overall research:
- Website features – weighting: 35%
Our website features research focuses on the quality of each builder’s features, and whether or not these tools are built-in or available via an app market. We also look at each builder’s blogging functionality, SEO, marketing tools, internationalization capabilities, storage space, site speed, and if its plans come with a domain name or email address, for starters.
For a music website, we closely look at music-specific subcategories as well, such as event booking and newsletters. If your website can’t support audio files, or let people listen and download, then is it really of any value to a musician? While linking to music-sharing sites like Spotify or SoundCloud are extremely important, you’ll need a site that makes it really easy for visitors to navigate your albums and new releases.
- Design functionalities – weighting: 25%
We know how important it is for you to have a website that represents your artistic style and personality. This is why we’ve taken special consideration for design flexibility in this year’s ranking. You’ll want to reflect your music’s identity in the aesthetics while also being to change that design for any new releases. Our testing includes the number of templates available, building options (e.g. ADI), the flexibility of design, UX, and the power of the builder’s image and mobile editor.
- Value for money – weighting: 10%
When it comes to value for money, we focus on the price point when compared to the features on offer. We also look at whether a builder has a free plan or trial, and the average pricing plan so you can plan your budget accordingly.
- Help and support – weighting: 5%
Our supporting rating is determined by looking at the help channels available (such as live chat or phone), restore options, and knowledge center. We also analyze the level and quality of support on offer for the lowest priced plan, so you can see what you get from the start.
- Customer satisfaction – weighting: 5%
Customers trust other customers, so we make sure to factor this into our overall research. For this score, we carry our market analysis and look at review sites, online comments, brand recognition, and whether or not customers would recommend the builder to others.
- Ease of use – weighting: 20%
As experts, we use and test these builders regularly to make sure we’re bringing you accurate reviews and recommendations. But that’s not enough – we get everyday people and businesses, including musicians and entrepreneurs, to try the builders out for themselves and share feedback with us.
The Website Builder Expert product testing process
Best Website Builders for Musicians: Summary
So there you have it: a whistle-stop tour of the best website builders for musicians on the market today. Whether you’re focused on pricing, design, or merch, there’s a builder here for you. Here’s a quick recap of the website builders we’ve covered and their top selling points:
The 5 best website builders for musicians are:
- Squarespace – Best for customizing your aesthetic
- Wix – Best for offering music downloads
- Shopify – Best for selling music online
- GoDaddy – Best for advertising gigs
- Webflow – Best for connecting with audiences
Squarespace is our number one pick due to its impressive creative control. Just like your music, you can express yourself creatively on Squarespace in as many ways and genres as you like. For musicians, there’s no other builder quite like it.
Wix is also a great choice because it makes being a musician online viable by offering users amazing audio hosting and downloading features. Finally, if you just want to sell records, Shopify is the best ecommerce website builder, so you don’t need to look further.
If you still can’t make up your mind, don’t worry! All of the website builders featured on this list either offer a free plan or a free trial. Give one a try – you can always switch if it doesn’t feel right.
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