Best AI Website Builders: The Future for Small Businesses?

Artificial intelligence is making website creation easier, quicker, and more personalised than ever. We recently rated and ranked the best website builders – and now we’ve done it again, looking specifically at AI features.

And the winner is: Pineapple! It’s fast, responsive, and produces beautiful results. But it lacks an app store and payment processing, meaning Wix is a better fit for appointment booking and retail businesses.

We created a small business website for a (fictional) car repair services business and scored each AI builder on the following:

• Affordability
• Breadth of AI tools
• Design
• Relevancy to business

Curious to discover the best AI-driven website maker for your business? We’ve got the data you need.

Final ranking: Best AI website builders

And the winners are…

1. 1. Pineapple (4/5): ★★★★★
   2. Hocoos (3.7/5): ★★★★★
   3. Durable (3.5/5): ★★★★★
   4. GoDaddy (3.5/5): ★★★★★
   5. Hostinger (3.4/5): ★★★★★
   6. Wix ADI (3.2/5): ★★★★★
   7. 10Web (3.1/5): ★★★★★
   8. Jimdo (2.9/5): ★★★★★

Where builders have scored the same number of points, the one with the shorter creation time was ranked higher.

Now let’s look at a quick comparison of each tool:

1. Pineapple: Best for sales-driven text

• Time to create: 7 minutes 42 seconds
• Best score: Breadth of AI tools
• Biggest highlight: Use GPT-4 for text creation
• Major drawback: Limited ready-made integrations
• Suitable for: Low-budget business promotion

Although the website creation journey was the longest of all the website builders we tested, Pineapple delivered impressive results based on the latest AI technology. Despite being a relatively little-known brand, Pineapple rocketed to the top of our list thanks to its full suite of AI-driven features including:

• AI text generator (with the option to use GPT-4 or GPT-3.5)
• Prepopulated text (highly relevant to my chosen business)
• Prepopulated images (sourced from Unsplash, meaning they’re free to use)
• AI assistant that interprets your questions and delivers helpful responses
• Building a website with multiple pages

We were particularly impressed by its range of colour scheme choices, and the option of precise colour selection with hex codes. The platform supports blog creation, making it a better choice than Jimdo for anyone who needs to regularly publish articles.

Unfortunately, you’re going to get stuck searching for plug ins on Pineapple. There’s no extension suite, unlike mature website builders such as Squarespace. But at least there’s the option to add in custom code sections.

I also faced a couple of glitches that interrupted the website creation process. For instance, a 404 page appeared after I clicked to save my business name and logo I’d uploaded.

When editing, I managed to get a section “stuck” behind at top of the page, where it couldn’t be selected again. When I tried to mouseover to bring up the edit menu, it brought up the edit menu for the section above it – and I couldn’t get it to move using the left-hand list view either.

2. Hocoos: Best free AI website builder

• Time to create: 4 minutes 18 seconds
• Best score: Relevancy to my business
• Biggest highlight: Easy and pleasant creation process
• Major drawback: Design was too “busy”
• Suitable for: Startups and small businesses

You may not have heard of Hocoos since it was only launched in April this year. But the magic themed AI tool certainly hit the market with a bang, conjuring up a website that worked as I needed it to. Certainly, there were fewer glitches along the web creation journey compared with Pineapple.

The build process takes the form of a chatbot conversation, alongside a progress bar that delivers encouraging comments along the way. Dotted with pretty illustrations, Hocoos is really fun to use, dampening the stilted or inhuman feel that often comes with using AI tools.

Hocoos was therefore more enjoyable than GoDaddy, with emojis creating an informal feel. That adds to the sense that anyone can use it because it’s not intimidating.

Hocoos delivers multiple pages which serve my particular business needs (such as showcasing my services, introducing my team, and collecting new customer inquiries). Each is populated with relevant imagery and highly relevant text.

As far as negatives go, the design could be seen as overly fancy. Sometimes design elements prioritised style over clarity; some text was hard to read on top of busy imagery. There wasn’t much blank space (known in design as “negative space”), which could damage your conversions.

A big bonus, though, is the fact Hocoos offers both a free trial and a free plan. That means you can save on marketing costs (such as paying for a copywriter) if you’re happy to use the AI generator instead.

Hocoos pricing is in US dollars, so you’ll need to convert it to know what you’re paying.

3. Durable: Fastest AI website builder

• Time to create: 1 minute 15 seconds
• Best score: Relevancy to my business
• Biggest highlight: Expertly written text
• Major drawback: Just one web page
• Suitable for: Simple business advertising

Durable’s AI website builder is clearly aimed at business users. I appreciated the high quality of the text generated, such as the catchy headline: “Revive your vehicle today.” This showed very close adherence to my business purposes: promoting my auto repair services and attracting new customers.

Durable even includes an AI auto-fill for page title and meta description – elements which signal the subject matter of your page to search engines such as Google.

It’s a flexible builder, giving you the option to re-do any section that doesn’t suit you down to the ground. Simply mouseover the page slice you want to change and click “Regenerate section” to prompt the AI to have another go at it.

Sadly, the drawbacks are fairly major: the navigation bar feature is currently in development. So you can’t include a strip of links at the top of pages to help users access other pages on your website. In fact there are no other pages on your website, as Durable so far only creates a landing page for you.

That’s a mega blocker for most website makers, as most will want more than one page for visitors to fully appreciate their business.

4. GoDaddy: Best for mobile web design

• Time to create: 2 minutes 20 seconds
• Best score: Design
• Biggest highlight: Really well optimised for mobile
• Major drawback: No AI text generator
• Suitable for: Online retail businesses

GoDaddy is known for its speedy website creation – a fact we highlighted in our full GoDaddy review. But it delivered a better website than Durable (which was twice as fast), thanks to its clear navigation and suggested colour schemes. After all, Durable only builds you a landing page, whereas GoDaddy creates a multi-page site.

But the strength of an AI-generated GoDaddy website is its clean display on mobile. While 10Web produced some stretched images, and Durable’s alignment was occasionally off in mobile view, my GoDaddy website adapted perfectly.

We know it’s critical to consider how your website appears on mobile, as Google announced in 2020 it would consider the mobile view of your website for indexing purposes.

We recommend GoDaddy for selling online because it has robust ecommerce support, unlike Pineapple or Hocoos (which aren’t set up for selling at all).

On the GoDaddy Ecommerce plan (£12.99 plus VAT per month for the first year, paid upfront), you can list up to 5,000 products and access marketplace and social selling for up to 50 orders per month. The plan renews at £19.99 plus VAT per month (billed annually) after the first year.

There were a few negatives to the final GoDaddy design, however. The placeholder text was somewhat relevant to my business (although I had to pick “gas station” because there was no option for “auto repair services”), yet it was full of true-sounding lies.

Inventing a fake history of my business is a slightly irritating feature of GoDaddy’s AI generation. It’s so well-written, it’s tempting to publish it. But the story is so involved – and even emotional (examples include: “you’ll still find Chris Sr. around the shop with his trademark smile” and “volunteering with many local charities”) – that it’s basically useless.

It would have been better to suggest writing prompts, insert plain repetitive placeholder text or write something far more generic.

And there’s no option to “regenerate” text, like there is in 10Web, Durable, Pineapple, Hocoos or Wix. GoDaddy has no standalone AI text generator, so hopefully you’re a good copyeditor.

5. Hostinger: Best for on-screen guidance

• Time to create: 2 minutes 12 seconds
• Best score: Breadth of AI tools
• Biggest highlight: Step-by-step tutorial
• Major drawback: No free trial
• Suitable for: Professional services

Hostinger recently launched its AI website builder, which has decent functionality compared to its competitors. It’s beginner-friendly thanks to the handy on-screen instructions that guide you through the creation process.

Like Durable, Hostinger is a very speedy way to create a website. All you do is type a few sentences about the kind of website you need, and within a minute or two you’ll have three freshly made sites to choose from.

Hostinger’s AI website scored well in the “Design” category thanks to its clean presentation and easy-to-navigate menu bar. Unfortunately, the royalty-free placeholder images felt generic on the whole but at least they broadly matched the theme of the site. You’ll have to check each one carefully, though, as I did spot a photo of a smartphone being repaired on my “Contact” page – clearly that’s not right for an auto services site.

You can generate AI text in two ways, making Hostinger better than GoDaddy as the latter doesn’t have an AI text maker. I struggled with the AI Writer Tool in the lefthand menu because there were only a few options to choose between, and none of them matched what I needed. I had more success with the “AI Assist” function, which appears in a pop-up menu bar over a text box when you click on it.

As a hosting provider, Hostinger has a very solid technical foundation to support any website you should make. As we pointed out in the standalone review of Hostinger’s website builder, it’s the best platform for uptime. That shields you from website outages which can cause revenue loss and reduced business visibility.

6. Wix: Best AI websites for revenue boost

• Time to create: 4 minutes 16 seconds
• Best score: Affordability
• Biggest highlight: Supports online selling
• Major drawback: Bit tricky to use
• Suitable for: Bringing in revenue

Probably the most famous website builder on our list, Wix has had an ADI (artificial design intelligence) engine since 2016. The maturity of this platform means it’s reliable as a web sales platform.

Wix is well set up for taking online bookings, and offering a choice of payment options for your customers. That’s extremely handy for merchants with or without a physical storefront.

Its options to improve search engine visibility for your website make Wix the top ecommerce platform for SEO. Wix certainly has better sales and SEO features than Pineapple or Durable. Its Core plan is affordable for low-income businesses; it’s £14 per month (plus VAT) if you pay for one year upfront. You’ll get basic online selling capabilities included for that price.

When adding services, I had to go back into the dashboard to fill out all the details. This made the editing process somewhat fractured and tricky. However, it allowed for greater precision in my pricing, as I could indicate taxes and payment options from the dashboard more easily than I could have in the Editor. Experienced business users are likely to find this a more robust and appealing option for adding paid services to a website. However, beginners or those less confident with technology may not appreciate this added complexity.

7. 10Web: Best for gaining new customers

• Time to create: 5 minutes 44 seconds
• Best score: Design
• Biggest highlight: Clever page design
• Major drawback: Creepy AI-generated images
• Suitable for: Showcasing any business (option to migrate from WordPress)

Most website builders have page features which collect customer contact information. But 10Web’s AI design takes aim at this goal with a particularly effective set of weapons.

Firstly, you can choose the tone of your website’s text – a rare feature for precise customer targeting. I selected “informal” (as opposed to “formal”) to better match my customers’ expectations – after all, engine servicing and tire alignment are hardly black tie occasions.

But the best part was including a built-in contact field and email subscription prompt on every page of my website. This offered my web visitors plenty of chances to pass me their email address – exactly what I need as email marketing is often the most effective communication strategy.

I have to credit 10Web for leading the charge on AI image innovation, being one of very few website builders on the market to incorporate composite images generated through machine learning.

Yet, unfortunately, the results range from haunting to hilarious. The more you look at them, the deeper the pit in your stomach grows.

Moreover, the algorithm unfortunately interpreted “bodywork” as a type of massage therapy. A human would have been able to tell from context that it’s really referring to the car’s outer shell. So I won’t abandon the option of hiring a top London web design agency instead.

8. Jimdo: Best for auto-generated images

• Time to create: 3 minutes 30 seconds
• Best score: Design
• Biggest highlight: Great stock images
• Major drawback: One website maximum
• Suitable for: Visual-heavy websites

German website builder Jimdo uses AI to whip up a website that you can publish online for free. That’s a bonus for small businesses and entrepreneurs who are not yet ready to invest in expensive web subscriptions.

And if you choose to sell online with Jimdo (from £15 per month), there are no transaction fees either.

Encouragingly, Jimdo scored 4 points out of a possible 6 in the “Design” category. It fell short only for having text over images (a no-no for accessibility) and a lack of blank space.

Otherwise, the images selected by the AI decision engine were sharp, attractive, and spot-on for my auto repair business. Jimdo also scored full marks in the categories of colour scheme relevancy and appropriate design overall.

To be clear – the AI is making decisions over which images to include on my page. But that’s not to say the images themselves are made by AI. So you’ll get stock photos on your website, not AI composite creations.

But sadly a lack of AI text generator weighs Jimdo down in the fast-moving world of AI website tech.

Another thorn in Jimdo’s side was the lack of localisation in the placeholder text. While it was vague enough to be relevant for any business, and ripe for simple editing, it just couldn’t match the fantastic location-specific content of Durable’s AI.

But if your website doesn’t need to attract customers from a specific geographical area, then Jimdo could be the low-cost solution for you.

Extras: What are the best AI web building tools and add-ons?

If you’re still looking for easy-access AI tools, then try this handy list of ideas:

1. Shopify Sidekick

We’re excited to see chatbot assistant integration increasingly within website builder tools. Set up like an instant chat, you simply type in prompts the way you’d speak to a colleague. You’ll be able to ask why your sales are dropping, as well as commanding automated tasks such as a shop-wide discount. Shopify is set to launch its Sidekick AI feature in the near future.

2. Shopify Magic

In April this year, Shopify launched its “Magic” text generator, which you can use to write product descriptions, email subject lines, and answer common customer questions. This can save valuable time and rescue you from writer’s block when you’re scaling up your sales business.

3. Uizard Autodesigner

Uizard’s design tools for websites and apps include mock-ups, wireframing, and prototype generation. These are focused on UI (user interface), which is a fancy phrase for the view of a website that a regular user sees. It’s helpful for creating designs very quickly.

4. WordPress Plugins

If you’re keen to use WordPress to create your business website, make sure you search its plugin library for AI tools. There’s loads of useful ones including AI Engine (for a chatbot based on ChatGPT), and AI Power (for content generation).

5. GoDaddy Generative AI Prompt Library

If ChatGPT leaves you at a loss for words, why not take a look at GoDaddy’s list of ideas for web design questions to ask it? Released in April, it contains a wide range of ideas to automate through AI. There’s an entire section for business websites, too.

Our methodology: How did we test AI website builders?

I designed a set of questions to test each website builder on its features and capabilities under four categories: Breadth of AI tools, Design, Affordability, and Relevancy of final design to my business.

Each category contained between three and six questions, with points scored for each one. For instance, a product would get one point if it built a website with multiple pages (but not if it only built a landing page).

“Design” elements were chosen according to widely recognised principles of web design including clear navigation, no more than three fonts on a page, and the presence of sufficient white (or blank) space.

When it came to Affordability, the cheapest AI website builders (Wix, Hostinger, and Jimdo) were awarded three, two, and one point respectively.

I also timed the duration between clicking “Let’s get started” (or equivalent) and the moment I could view a website preview. Some further exploration of web editor features took place after this, to provide better insight into products’ full capabilities.