If you’re an artist, you’re likely to want a create a website that looks good. And the best website builders do the hard work for you, making it nice and simple to create a good-looking site.
To compile our list of the best website builders for artists, we’ve tried and tested a range of platforms, making our own websites and trying out features from online forms, in-built ecommerce to SEO and marketing tools. We also looked at the UI/UX of the builder itself, as well as the websites we created with it. Below are our top picks.
These builders have a focus on clean design with easy to use ecommerce features, and you’ll find more options on our best web builders for small business or best website builders for photographers options.
Quick list
The best website builder for artists overall is Squarespace, because it has the most beautiful templates. They’re also easy to customise, allowing you to create a professional website without knowing code.
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Wix makes building your site easy, with no experience required. There’s a 14-day free trial to get you started, and the pricing is super-cheap. There’s even a free plan if you’re totally strapped for cash.
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Got prints, books or other items to sell directly online? Shopify makes it simple to set up your own online store, and while it’s a little more expensive than other platforms, think of the extra money you could earn. Shopify offers a three-day free trial.
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Best looking website builder for artists
In theory, having your own website gives you ultimate control over how your work is presented online. However, if you lack design and coding skills, you’re limited to using the templates that are available. This means that the best website builder for artists will normally be one that has great-looking templates. For this criterion, Squarespace wins hands down, making it our top pick.
Aimed specifically at creatives such as artists, illustrators and photographers, Squarespace goes to great pains to allow you to present your portfolio in style. Its templates are crafted by professional designers, and they really are lovely. You don’t need to know anything about coding: just pick a template, then drag and drop your images and text into it.
Admittedly, in our tests, we didn’t find Squarespace’s interface the easiest to use: there’s a bit of a learning curve involved. But you do get helpful advice pop-ups wherever you hover your cursor, so we found it doesn’t take too long to get up to speed. Squarespace is also one of the more expensive web builders. But if you want a website that can really show your work at its best, we reckon it’s worth the extra cash. You also have the option of adding a blog or an online store to sell prints and other items. In theory, it could pay for itself and more over time.
There’s no free plan, but Squarespace does offer a 14-day free trial, with no credit card needed, so you won’t get charged accidentally by forgetting to cancel the trial. For more details, see our Squarespace review.
Best value website builder for artists
Though not specifically aimed at creatives, Wix has a basic plan that’s worth investigating, partly because it’s so affordable.
Wix’s drag-and-drop editor offers more than 800 templates, including a lot of art-focused templates to choose from, many of them for specific things such as art photographer, illustrator, art gallery, and so on. And if even that’s too complicated, we found that taking the ultra-easy route of using Wix ADI, where you answer questions and the platform just designs a website for you works well (JimDo, number 4 on our list, offers a similar approach).
In short, this is best cheap website builder for artists today, and there’s even a ‘Free forever’ option that will give you a basic website for no cost at all. Be warned, though, that your site will be plastered with ads, you’ll have a Wix-branded URL, and storage and bandwidth will be limited. To learn more, check out our Wix review.
Best ecommerce website builder for artists
If your main interest in having a website is to sell paintings, prints and other artworks direct to the public, we recommend Shopify. The website builder that’s most focused on creating e-stores, Shopify is fundamentally geared towards helping you become a successful online retailer, whether you’re selling other people’s products or your own.
Shopify has some nice looking templates, we found the interface easy to use, and it offers all the ecommerce features you can shake a stick at. Be warned: unlike Squarespace or Wix, most of the templates aren’t free, and the service as a whole is on the pricey side. That said, if it helps you sell more, then that extra cost should be worth it in the long term.
The platform offers excellent technical support, its payment system works with a variety of providers, and you get a huge range of options for customising your store. Learn more in our Shopify review.
Best beginner’s website builder for artists
As we said earlier, you don’t need to understand code to use any of these website builders. But maybe you’re an artist who generally finds using computers and web technologies intimidating and difficult? If that’s the case, Jimdo is a great option when it comes to ease of use for beginners.
Anyone can use this website builder to get a site up and running: it really couldn’t get much simpler. Because you don’t actually have to build the site yourself: the system will automatically do it for you.
Here’s how it works. You start creating your site without committing any money or supplying a credit card – just choose the ‘free’ option when you get to the payment page. Then Jimdo will ask you a series of questions about what you want your website to do.
You can respond to (or skip) a series of prompts that makes it super-easy to do things like change the fonts and add your own images and text. This guided approach makes Jimdo great for those for whom even a template-driven platform like Squarespace is overwhelming. (Wix, number two on our list, offers a similar approach via its Wix ADI service).
We did find a few issues with Jimdo in our tests, though. Its templates are pretty basic and not exactly beautiful, which may be a deal breaker for artists. But if you want something quick and easy, that may be a compromise you’re willing to make. That said, Jimdo isn’t just for newbies. If you know how to code, you can install widgets that allow you to modify the HTML and CSS of the templates.
Jimdo lacks live chat or phone support, so if you get stuck, you have to fill in a form, which was a bit of a faff compared to the support other web builders offer. And you can’t expect the fastest response unless you’re on the most expensive plan, either. See our Jimdo review for more.
Best for portfolio websites
Fabrik is special in that you choose which creative discipline you’re showcasing, and its intelligent themes work accordingly to present your work in the optimum way. This includes artists, but also photographers designers, 3D artists, illustrators, agencies and more. You upload your high-res images and the AI does its magic, arranging your work in the perfect way for every device from mobile to billboard.
You can arrange your work in galleries and, crucially, you retain creative control over the final product as you can tweak any suggestions made by the intelligent system. We found in our tests that this setup is ideal for creating portfolio sites.
There are blogging tools available but ecommerce has to be set up through a plugin (Fabrik has tutorials to take you through this). The finish is gorgeous, and you can switch from theme to theme easily. Plus, it runs with Google Analytics.
On the downside, the only support available is live chat, available during UK working hours (8am-6pm), so this may be an issue for those based elsewhere in the globe. See our Fabrik review for more details.
Best detail-oriented website builder for artists
Do you take a lot of time to perfect your art, painstakingly working on every minute detail until you get it right? Then the chances are, you’ll want to do the same with your website, and won’t be satisfied with just dropping in your images into a pre-built template. In which case, if you’re prepared to put a little time and effort, Voog is the best website builder for you.
Voog has quite a limited number of templates, but we found them to be very well-designed and they look impressive on desktop, tablet and smartphone screens alike. And more importantly, you get a huge range of options for customising them to your heart’s content, especially when it comes to blogging and ecommerce.
You still don’t need to understanding coding to do so, although if you do, there are some great database and API tools to help you tweak things further. Either way, if you have problems, support is available 24/7 via live chat, email, and phone, although we didn’t find the customer support to be amazing when we tried it.
Another distinctive feature Voog offers is setting your site to be available in multiple languages. You can either set the language to change automatically depending on a visitor’s location, or let them to pick the language themselves. Either way, if you want to promote your art beyond the English speaking world – and art is a universal language, after all – this could prove very useful. See our Voog review for more.
Best website builder for WordPress
WordPress is website building software that powers around a third of the web. And if you have some familiarity with it, then Bluehost is well worth considering.
Bluehost doesn’t just offer web hosting, it also offers its own website builder. And what’s different to other services is that it runs on top of WordPress, which means you’re essentially editing a theme from WordPress, but within the interface of Bluehost. The bonus to this is that once you’ve built your site using the easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, you have many options to finesse things further using one of the thousands of WordPress plugins.
On the basic plan, Bluehost’s web builder isn’t as cheap as those of rivals like Wix. But it doesn’t include ads and clunky domain names. So if you want a professional look for your site, Bluehost represents good value. Particularly if you want ecommerce features, which are available for a lot cheaper than Wix has to offer. For more, see our Bluehost web builder review.
How to choose the best website builder for artists
As an artist, your website is both your digital gallery and a window to your soul. So choosing the right platform to build it on can make all the difference in connecting with your audience. To pick the best one, we suggest prioritising platforms with attractive minimalist templates.
In terms of features, you might also want to look for high-resolution image galleries, built-in lightboxes, and options to customise your layout and presentation. If you plan to sell prints, originals, or merchandise, ensure the platform offers robust e-commerce features like secure payment gateways, inventory management, and shipping integrations.
But above all, choose a platform that matches your level of tech know-how. For example, Wix and Squarespace offer drag-and-drop simplicity, while WordPress.org requires more technical expertise.
How we test
In order to bring together our picks of the best website builders for artists, we routinely and robustly test all of the best platforms, making our own websites and taking note of the whole experience, from signing up to tweaking the site.
For artists, we’re looking for website builders with a large amount of customisability and not too much complexity in user experience, and most importantly, that will look good and promote artists’ work well. We consider what different artists may be using their sites for, whether it’s for sale, display or creating intrigue and test out the web builders with these use cases in mind.
Lastly, we factor in practical aspects; how much does this service cost, how accessible is it, is it offering good value for money; and how good is the support? We test out the support options by asking a question and seeing how quickly we get help.
Once we’ve built a site, we also look at how easy it is to tweak and maintain, as well as how simple it is to make bigger changes.
FAQs
Do you need a website as an artist?
No artist needs a website. Indeed some established artists make a healthy living through word-of-mouth, and don’t have any digital presence at all. But if you don’t already have patrons funding you or commissions flowing in from existing customers, and you need to promote yourself and your art, having your own website can help enormously.
Yes, you could showcase your work on a social media platform like Instagram, but people are going to take you less seriously. On your own website, conversely, you can choose how your work is presented, who comments on it, and make it easy for people to find exactly what they’re looking for.
What is a website builder?
A website builder is an online service that you access via a browser, which allows you to build your own website. Most of these services are available as monthly or annual subscriptions, and will usually include hosting for your site and a domain name. Once you’ve signed up, you’ll usually gain access to an interface that allows you to craft web pages using templates and a drag-and-drop editor. Essentially, you just need to pick a template and add your own text, images, videos and so on.
What’s the best website builder for artists?
In our view, the best website builder for artists is Squarespace, because it’s specifically aimed at creatives and has the most beautiful templates. This means your work can displayed in the best possible light, with lots of white space that allows your art to breathe. The interface is also relatively easy to use, the service is good value (if not the cheapest on the market), and there are excellent ecommerce tools if you want to sell prints or similar items.
What should I include on my artist website?
Whether you’re seeking to attract buyers, clients or employers, it’s important that your online portfolio only contains your best work. Yes, it’s tempting to load it up with everything you have available, to make it look like you’re prolific. But most people aren’t going to have the time and patience to endlessly scroll until they see something they like. So you have to be ruthless, and pare it down to the bare minimum. Most importantly, if you’re looking for commissions, pick the kind of work you want to do in the future.
You’ll also need an ‘About me’ page, so people know who you are and what makes your art different, and a ‘Contact me’ page so they can get in touch.
How can artists build an online store?
The easiest way for artists who don’t know code to build an online store is using Shopify. This website builder platform makes it easy to set up a website and add a shop to it. This will allow you to list products such as paintings, drawings, prints, books and more, and sell them directly to the public. You’ll be take payments from a variety of payment providers, and there are also marketing tools to help promote your work.
There are countless other features to help customise your store, including integrating it with your social media accounts. Overall, you’ll pay more than with other website builders, but the extra income may potentially more than compensate for that.
