Website builder
Software you use to assemble a site. Fast to start, and still your nights and weekends.
What does Website builder mean?
An online tool that lets you assemble pages from templates and widgets in a browser. You operate it. The subscription usually includes hosting while you keep paying.
Also called: DIY website builder, site builder
What you are renting
Wix, Squarespace, and GoDaddy's builder are the names owners usually mean. You pick a template, you drag sections around, and the company hosts the result. The plan price is not a designer. Writing, photos, and the decision about what to say remain yours.
That is a fair product when you have the time and you like the control. It is a poor product when you bought it to avoid the work and then did the work anyway. Our comparisons, checked against their pricing pages, live in Artol vs Wix, Squarespace, and GoDaddy.
The lock-in to understand
The layout usually does not export as a working site. If you leave, you take words and images and you rebuild. Plan for that on day one, not as a surprise. Website migration is the rebuild, and the moving guides are the checklists.
Domain and email can be tangled into the same subscription. Untangle them before you cancel. A builder is not your domain registrar unless you also bought the name there, and even then the roles are separable.
Where Artol is the other shape
We write, design, build, launch, and host it. $0 down and $249/mo hosting, live in less than a week, fully custom, 100% US-based. You are not in a template account at midnight. You review a draft.
If you enjoy the builder and the site is already good, stay. We would rather say that than talk you out of a tool that fits. The freelancer, agency, or subscription guide is the wider choice.
An example
A caterer started on a builder to post a menu before a holiday weekend. Two years later they were still the ones fixing the mobile layout between jobs. They kept the domain, copied the menu text, and moved to a hosted site so a menu change was a request instead of an evening in the editor.
Questions we get asked
Is a builder cheaper?
The software fee is often lower than $249/mo, and your time is the rest of the price. Check the current plan on the company's own pricing page. We do not guess those numbers in this definition.
Can you take over my builder and just tweak it?
We rebuild on our hosting rather than renting a seat in your builder account. The words and photos come across. The theme does not. That is the move described in the migration guides.
