How to choose a site builder — the questions that decide the outcome
What to compare beyond the headline price: editing model, substrate, renewal posture, and what a free plan actually covers.
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How to choose a site builder
Before comparing prices, compare shape. This guide asks the five questions that separate the products, and each answer is checkable on a pricing page without logging in.
1 · Which lane does it offer?
Ask how the site gets made: from a prompt (AI generates it), from a structured quiz, from a template, or through a designer. Every builder markets as if it were curate; almost none are. The lane decides how much work remains after the first response.
2 · Which editing model?
The axis nobody markets honestly:
| Model | What you can move | Breakage risk |
|---|---|---|
| Canvas | Anything, pixel-level | High — you can break the design |
| Section | Sections stack, content edits inside them | Low |
| Block | Pre-built blocks, swapped and styled | Low |
| Content-only | Text and images in fixed slots | Lowest |
Section and block models carry the same promise a managed service makes — the structure is the designer's job, not yours.
3 · What runs your site?
Own-platform (you never leave the renderer), WordPress (you get an admin to maintain), a layer over someone else's CMS, or hosting with a builder attached (an ordinary catalogue item). The substrate decides who performs maintenance and how work travels if you later change host.
4 · What does year two cost?
The category's central pattern is the renewal step: a cheap first term bought as a long prepay, then a step up of 2x-4.3x. Four profiled vendors print 1.0x (none of them discounted), and at least one states plainly what happens when the term ends. Ask, on the pricing page, before you commit:
- What is the regular rate? Is it printed, or only inferable?
- How long is the term behind the headline rate?
- Is a "monthly" rate actually a prepay spread? (One vendor's "$2.99/mo" is
a 48-month total divided by 48.)
5 · What does the free tier include, and can it be reached today?
Free tiers are three different products: a free-forever subdomain site, a free first year that converts to a paid plan on renewal, and a free year you have to be invited into. Compare what the free plan's own surface states rather than what a comparison table infers from it.
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Every vendor claim above is sourced in the internal research corpus with an as-of date. Our answering posture on the same five questions is stated on the platform's own pages, not typed into a comparison table.