Category: Uncategorised

GoDaddy offers the fastest way to get a new website live on the internet – but lacks certain business features and template variety. It scored 4.1/5 in our rigorous testing, far outperforming website builders like Hostinger, Weebly, and Site123.

We ran GoDaddy through dozens of individual tests, and calculated scores across six categories (all ratings are out of five):

In this review, we’ll go through GoDaddy’s pricing, pros and cons, key features, customer reviews, and how it compares to similar products on the market.

The unique selling point of GoDaddy’s website builder is it helps get your website live really fast. But we’re going to look into whether or not that speed will be enough to make it worth choosing GoDaddy.

How much does GoDaddy cost?

GoDaddy is in the mid-range of website builder products, with pricing between $18 and $37 a month (after your first discounted year). There are four price plans, only one of which is for selling online. GoDaddy is one of the few providers to hike its prices after the first year of your contract.

Compare each price plan by clicking the arrows:

GoDaddy is OK value for money, with the following basic features in all of its price plans:

• Edit website on your phone or desktop
• Email marketing (max 100 per month on cheapest plan)
• Social media post creator (with templates)
• Web visitors can book appointments

You’ll have to subscribe to a pricier plan for more marketing emails and better booking features. Honestly, GoDaddy provides a sparse set of features for a mid-range price. 

GoDaddy’s Premium plan costs almost the same as Wix Business Unlimited, but Wix gives you full online selling abilities, whereas GoDaddy doesn’t. But you won’t get any email marketing on Wix’s cheaper plans (such as Wix Unlimited), like you do with GoDaddy.

Weebly’s plans are cheaper than GoDaddy, but again, you won’t get email marketing. Though Weebly gives you an online shop with every price plan, unlike GoDaddy.

Pricing isn’t everything, however. So let’s look at the quality of GoDaddy’s features before making a final judgement on its value.

Pros and cons of GoDaddy

✅ Super speedy start

If you’re short on time and need your website live ASAP GoDaddy is the fastest website builder tool. Answer just two questions (“What kind of website do you want?” and, “What’s it called?”) and you land straight in the editing workspace. From there you’re straight into altering the preset layout, images, and text to suit your tastes.

This is a major reason it’s rated one of the best website builders in our industry round-up.

✅ Helpful editing guidance

If you get stuck during the web design process, the “Next Steps” checklist in the top righthand corner of the editor ensures you stay on track. You can approach any of the steps as you feel ready, so you’re not forced into one course of action.

✅ Very reliable hosting

Unlike competitors such as Squarespace or Wix, GoDaddy is known first and foremost as a domain registrar and hosting service. That means it’s famous for providing website URL names and the physical servers for keeping websites online. GoDaddy guarantees 99.9% uptime (or you get a discount on your next month) – so your website should almost never come offline due to technical failures.

❌ Limited design options

With GoDaddy, there’s less focus on tweaking website design to make it exactly match your vision. No wonder it scores a measly 3.3/5 in the ‘Design Functions’ research category. There are just 22 templates (Wix has roughly 900), limiting the range of visual layout possibilities. You have to edit design elements within pre-defined sections and you can’t click-and-drag text or images to specific positions.

❌ Less sophisticated business features

GoDaddy lags behind competitors like Wix, Shopify and WooCommerce in the breadth of its website features. GoDaddy scores just 3/5 in our ‘Website Features’ research category. There’s no app store (unlike Squarespace and others), meaning limited business integrations are available. And the in-built business features aren’t exactly comprehensive, either. For example, GoDaddy confirmed in a March 2023 community post that there aren’t currently plans to include print on demand services within its website builder.

GoDaddy’s Website Builder Key Features

1. Simple website creation: go live in an hour

Since content is automatically generated for your website based on the type of business you run, much of the work is already done for you. For example, we selected “life coach” for our test website, and found an “About Me” page already full of zen imagery and persuasive text.

The content is ready-made, saving your brain precious creative energy. Not to mention the time saved. All we needed to do was make a few tweaks to make the placeholder text more specific.

The risk is your website ends up with a generic look and feel: with some 55,000 Canadian websites using the GoDaddy website builder. But that might not matter to you or your customer base. After all, a business website is a tool to attract leads, sign up new clients, and showcase your products or services. It’s not the Mona Lisa.

2. Fast-loading websites: Speedier than WordPress and Wix

Nobody likes a slow webpage. But did you know people hate it so much they’ll leave your website if loading takes longer than four seconds?

In our testing, GoDaddy scored 90/100 in our testing for its overall site speed performance (on desktop). That’s better than Wix (85/100), WordPress.com (81/100) or Weebly (75/100). That means the GoDaddy server responded quickly to the website’s request to appear on the reader’s screen.

What that really means is visitors are less likely to abandon your website while it boots up. They’ll have a better user experience, becoming psychologically influenced to like your website. Happy users are more likely to take the action you want them to: sign up for your emails, download your brochure, buy your products, book an appointment, and so on.

3. Basic marketing functions: no third-party app support

If you want to connect your existing marketing software with your GoDaddy website, you’re going to struggle. This is a serious hurdle for many business types, so we reckon it’s worth shouting about. While you can easily get an app that synchs your WooCommerce user data with your HubSpot account, there’s no such integration available for GoDaddy and HubSpot, for instance.

This means your website marketing activities are limited to the tools already in GoDaddy. There are some basic functions you can add to your website, such a form to collect subscriber email addresses or creating a pop-up message. You’ll get 100, 500 or 25,000 email marketing sends per month (depending on your price plan). But if you have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription through GoDaddy, you won’t be able to synch that with HubSpot Sales Office 365.

4. Questionable SEO (search engine optimisation) support

Your knowledge of search engine optimisation techniques – basically, how high up on lists of search engine results your website will appear – may be limited. But that doesn’t mean it’s not critical to the success of your website.

If your business is reliant on web traffic from search engines such as Google (the online equivalent of people walking into your shop because they saw it on the high street), you need good SEO. This applies to almost all websites, but particularly those from competitive industries such as electronics sales, legal services, private healthcare services, fashion retailers, and more.

Because GoDaddy’s website builder is designed as a really simple tool for non-experts, there’s a limit to the amount of control you have over the technical elements of your website. While GoDaddy offers a mini quiz tool to set you up for targeting keywords, it’s incredibly basic.

For instance, three keyword suggestions we got for a business offering financial services were: “Financial Service, financial service, service finance”.

But search engines don’t care about whether you use capital letters in words. So the GoDaddy keyword engine shouldn’t have suggested the same phrases with variations of capital letters. And it’s not particularly insightful that the keywords suggested are… the keywords we wrote in the first place. You don’t get any information as to how you should select your keywords, either. Realistically, you should know whether they are competitive and how many people search for them.

The tool takes you through adding your top three keywords to your homepage’s title tag, meta description, and H1 (main heading). This is quite a good intro to SEO for beginners. But it’s a very simplistic and old-fashioned view of SEO. Those who are a bit more search-engine savvy will know there’s more subtlety to targeting results pages than simply copying and pasting keywords into several places.

Search engines may re-write your meta description for its own purposes, so it may not matter that you included your target keywords in it. Also the scroll function for homepage preview didn’t work, so I couldn’t even see the sections of text I was editing on the live site.

While it may be expecting a little much of a beginner-level website builder tool to give you quality SEO advice, competitor products are already doing it better. Wix has a dedicated dashboard for updating your SEO settings, including troubleshooting through Google’s URL Inspection API. There’s also several video explanations on various aspects of SEO right in the Wix dashboard.

Overall, we don’t rate GoDaddy’s SEO capabilities. Given that SEO services can easily cost upwards of $1,500 per month, it makes sense to try and tackle at least some of this work yourself. But it seems you may not have the easiest time doing this with GoDaddy, as your access to SEO-related functions (such as the robots.txt file) are somewhat limited.

5. Help and support: Better than Wix

GoDaddy’s customer support options are healthy: there’s a phone line, with the company readily publishing their number online. By comparison, Wix makes it a bit awkward to talk to someone on the phone; you’ll have to click through online options and request a callback. Squarespace doesn’t even have a customer service number.

Customer care with GoDaddy is more equal than if you were to go with Wix, where you’d have to upgrade to a higher pricing plan to get VIP phone support. You also have a fair chance of getting real help on the GoDaddy community forum, too. This stands in stark contrast to the Wix equivalent, which is full of spam comments on its posts.

What kind of business is GoDaddy best for?

GoDaddy is suitable for a wide range of businesses, particularly those whose leaders are not tech wizards. It’s definitely not for ambitious online merchants that need scalable sales tools. For that, we’d recommend looking into our general guide on the best ecommerce platforms.

Here are some examples of business types that’d get along well with GoDaddy:

Service-based businesses: Hairdressers, pet grooming, fitness classes, online consultation

If you want customers to be able to book appointments with you online, GoDaddy is a good choice. Your website can create a Zoom meeting for visitors that book appointments with you. Or you can add your own link if you prefer to use a different online meeting service. That’s really handy for consultants, coaches, and therapists who rely on video calls to meet with clients.

But bear in mind you’ll only be able to take payments for appointment bookings at the Premium subscription level, which renews after the first year at $27.99 per month. Still, GoDaddy’s lack of transaction fees is appealing for local businesses for whom every penny counts. That’s one reason GoDaddy is one of our top picks of ecommerce platforms for small businesses.

Time-poor entrepreneurs: If you have no interest in complex web design

The main appeal of GoDaddy is how accessible it is for people with no real interest in technology. Twenty years ago, you had to be pretty clued-up to create a website and get it live on the web. Nowadays, beginner-friendly options like GoDaddy exist to get people online who’ve never written a line of code.

If you work in a busy industry like the care profession, youth work, animal rescue or similar, then time is a luxury you can’t afford. GoDaddy is a real boon to people like this. If you can edit a text box (we’re talking as simple as double-click and type), then you can edit a GoDaddy website.

How does GoDaddy compare to its competitors?

We’ve touched on a few points of comparison above, but it makes sense to look at GoDaddy’s subscription packages in direct comparison with its rivals:

As you can see from the table, GoDaddy’s pricing (you should focus on the renewal cost after your first year) is very similar to competitors’. You’ll get unlimited storage and bandwidth on your GoDaddy website, same as you will with Weebly and Squarespace. That’s a distinct advantage over Wix, which is worth bearing in mind if you want to upload videos and large images to your website.

The lack of transaction fees with GoDaddy is also appealing, but by no means unique (it’s also the same with Wix and some Squarespace plans). There’s also fewer payment provider options with GoDaddy than Wix, which could put off some customers from making purchases with your business.

Does GoDaddy have good customer reviews?

By and large, yes, it’s easy to find loads of positive reviews about GoDaddy all over the web. That being said, it does depend on who exactly you ask. GoDaddy is currently rated 4.7/5 on Trustpilot, but we found other ratings on American business sites as low as 1.9/5 and 2.6/5.

Our test users made the following comments:

😊 “GoDaddy is good for people who don’t want to fiddle around a lot with their website.”

😊 “[The editor] was good at keeping things neat and tidy. It was easy to keep my site clean.”

🤨 “The help and support content isn’t savvy, it takes quite a bit of digging to find what you’re actually looking for.”

🤨 “I didn’t see any features that were unique to GoDaddy. There was nothing different or interesting.”

Overall, the above comments are pretty fair representations of what it’s really like to use GoDaddy. It’s a basic tool to build a low-fuss website. If you’re into web design, there’s little to get excited about. But if you’re into time-saving and efficiency, GoDaddy is worth a look.

GoDaddy offers the fastest way to get a new website live on the internet – but lacks certain business features and template variety. It scored 4.1/5 in our rigorous testing, far outperforming website builders like Hostinger, Weebly, and Site123.

We ran GoDaddy through dozens of individual tests, and calculated scores across six categories (all ratings are out of five):

In this review, we’ll go through GoDaddy’s pricing, pros and cons, key features, customer reviews, and how it compares to similar products on the market.

The unique selling point of GoDaddy’s website builder is it helps get your website live really fast. But we’re going to look into whether or not that speed will be enough to make it worth choosing GoDaddy.

How much does GoDaddy cost?

GoDaddy is in the mid-range of website builder products, with pricing between $18 and $37 a month (after your first discounted year). There are four price plans, only one of which is for selling online. GoDaddy is one of the few providers to hike its prices after the first year of your contract.

Compare each price plan by clicking the arrows:

GoDaddy is OK value for money, with the following basic features in all of its price plans:

• Edit website on your phone or desktop
• Email marketing (max 100 per month on cheapest plan)
• Social media post creator (with templates)
• Web visitors can book appointments

You’ll have to subscribe to a pricier plan for more marketing emails and better booking features. Honestly, GoDaddy provides a sparse set of features for a mid-range price. 

GoDaddy’s Premium plan costs almost the same as Wix Business Unlimited, but Wix gives you full online selling abilities, whereas GoDaddy doesn’t. But you won’t get any email marketing on Wix’s cheaper plans (such as Wix Unlimited), like you do with GoDaddy.

Weebly’s plans are cheaper than GoDaddy, but again, you won’t get email marketing. Though Weebly gives you an online shop with every price plan, unlike GoDaddy.

Pricing isn’t everything, however. So let’s look at the quality of GoDaddy’s features before making a final judgement on its value.

Pros and cons of GoDaddy

✅ Super speedy start

If you’re short on time and need your website live ASAP GoDaddy is the fastest website builder tool. Answer just two questions (“What kind of website do you want?” and, “What’s it called?”) and you land straight in the editing workspace. From there you’re straight into altering the preset layout, images, and text to suit your tastes.

This is a major reason it’s rated one of the best website builders in our industry round-up.

✅ Helpful editing guidance

If you get stuck during the web design process, the “Next Steps” checklist in the top righthand corner of the editor ensures you stay on track. You can approach any of the steps as you feel ready, so you’re not forced into one course of action.

✅ Very reliable hosting

Unlike competitors such as Squarespace or Wix, GoDaddy is known first and foremost as a domain registrar and hosting service. That means it’s famous for providing website URL names and the physical servers for keeping websites online. GoDaddy guarantees 99.9% uptime (or you get a discount on your next month) – so your website should almost never come offline due to technical failures.

❌ Limited design options

With GoDaddy, there’s less focus on tweaking website design to make it exactly match your vision. No wonder it scores a measly 3.3/5 in the ‘Design Functions’ research category. There are just 22 templates (Wix has roughly 900), limiting the range of visual layout possibilities. You have to edit design elements within pre-defined sections and you can’t click-and-drag text or images to specific positions.

❌ Less sophisticated business features

GoDaddy lags behind competitors like Wix, Shopify and WooCommerce in the breadth of its website features. GoDaddy scores just 3/5 in our ‘Website Features’ research category. There’s no app store (unlike Squarespace and others), meaning limited business integrations are available. And the in-built business features aren’t exactly comprehensive, either. For example, GoDaddy confirmed in a March 2023 community post that there aren’t currently plans to include print on demand services within its website builder.

GoDaddy’s Website Builder Key Features

1. Simple website creation: go live in an hour

Since content is automatically generated for your website based on the type of business you run, much of the work is already done for you. For example, we selected “life coach” for our test website, and found an “About Me” page already full of zen imagery and persuasive text.

The content is ready-made, saving your brain precious creative energy. Not to mention the time saved. All we needed to do was make a few tweaks to make the placeholder text more specific.

The risk is your website ends up with a generic look and feel: with some 35,000 Australian websites using the GoDaddy website builder. But that might not matter to you or your customer base. After all, a business website is a tool to attract leads, sign up new clients, and showcase your products or services. It’s not the Mona Lisa.

2. Fast-loading websites: Speedier than WordPress and Wix

Nobody likes a slow webpage. But did you know people hate it so much they’ll leave your website if loading takes longer than four seconds?

In our testing, GoDaddy scored 90/100 in our testing for its overall site speed performance (on desktop). That’s better than Wix (85/100), WordPress.com (81/100) or Weebly (75/100). That means the GoDaddy server responded quickly to the website’s request to appear on the reader’s screen.

What that really means is visitors are less likely to abandon your website while it boots up. They’ll have a better user experience, becoming psychologically influenced to like your website. Happy users are more likely to take the action you want them to: sign up for your emails, download your brochure, buy your products, book an appointment, and so on.

3. Basic marketing functions: no third-party app support

If you want to connect your existing marketing software with your GoDaddy website, you’re going to struggle. This is a serious hurdle for many business types, so we reckon it’s worth shouting about. While you can easily get an app that synchs your WooCommerce user data with your HubSpot account, there’s no such integration available for GoDaddy and HubSpot, for instance.

This means your website marketing activities are limited to the tools already in GoDaddy. There are some basic functions you can add to your website, such a form to collect subscriber email addresses or creating a pop-up message. You’ll get 100, 500 or 25,000 email marketing sends per month (depending on your price plan). But if you have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription through GoDaddy, you won’t be able to synch that with HubSpot Sales Office 365.

4. Questionable SEO (search engine optimisation) support

Your knowledge of search engine optimisation techniques – basically, how high up on lists of search engine results your website will appear – may be limited. But that doesn’t mean it’s not critical to the success of your website.

If your business is reliant on web traffic from search engines such as Google (the online equivalent of people walking into your shop because they saw it on the high street), you need good SEO. This applies to almost all websites, but particularly those from competitive industries such as electronics sales, legal services, private healthcare services, fashion retailers, and more.

Because GoDaddy’s website builder is designed as a really simple tool for non-experts, there’s a limit to the amount of control you have over the technical elements of your website. While GoDaddy offers a mini quiz tool to set you up for targeting keywords, it’s incredibly basic.

For instance, three keyword suggestions we got for a business offering financial services were: “Financial Service, financial service, service finance”.

But search engines don’t care about whether you use capital letters in words. So the GoDaddy keyword engine shouldn’t have suggested the same phrases with variations of capital letters. And it’s not particularly insightful that the keywords suggested are… the keywords we wrote in the first place. You don’t get any information as to how you should select your keywords, either. Realistically, you should know whether they are competitive and how many people search for them.

The tool takes you through adding your top three keywords to your homepage’s title tag, meta description, and H1 (main heading). This is quite a good intro to SEO for beginners. But it’s a very simplistic and old-fashioned view of SEO. Those who are a bit more search-engine savvy will know there’s more subtlety to targeting results pages than simply copying and pasting keywords into several places.

Search engines may re-write your meta description for its own purposes, so it may not matter that you included your target keywords in it. Also the scroll function for homepage preview didn’t work, so I couldn’t even see the sections of text I was editing on the live site.

While it may be expecting a little much of a beginner-level website builder tool to give you quality SEO advice, competitor products are already doing it better. Wix has a dedicated dashboard for updating your SEO settings, including troubleshooting through Google’s URL Inspection API. There’s also several video explanations on various aspects of SEO right in the Wix dashboard.

Overall, we don’t rate GoDaddy’s SEO capabilities. Given that SEO services can easily cost upwards of $2,000 per month, it makes sense to try and tackle at least some of this work yourself. But it seems you may not have the easiest time doing this with GoDaddy, as your access to SEO-related functions (such as the robots.txt file) are somewhat limited.

5. Help and support: Better than Wix

GoDaddy’s customer support options are healthy: there’s a phone line, with the company readily publishing their number online. By comparison, Wix makes it a bit awkward to talk to someone on the phone; you’ll have to click through online options and request a callback. Squarespace doesn’t even have a customer service number.

Customer care with GoDaddy is more equal than if you were to go with Wix, where you’d have to upgrade to a higher pricing plan to get VIP phone support. You also have a fair chance of getting real help on the GoDaddy community forum, too. This stands in stark contrast to the Wix equivalent, which is full of spam comments on its posts.

What kind of business is GoDaddy best for?

GoDaddy is suitable for a wide range of businesses, particularly those whose leaders are not tech wizards. It’s definitely not for ambitious online merchants that need scalable sales tools. For that, we’d recommend looking into our general guide on the best ecommerce platforms.

Here are some examples of business types that’d get along well with GoDaddy:

Service-based businesses: Hairdressers, pet grooming, fitness classes, online consultation

If you want customers to be able to book appointments with you online, GoDaddy is a good choice. Your website can create a Zoom meeting for visitors that book appointments with you. Or you can add your own link if you prefer to use a different online meeting service. That’s really handy for consultants, coaches, and therapists who rely on video calls to meet with clients.

But bear in mind you’ll only be able to take payments for appointment bookings at the Premium subscription level, which renews after the first year at $32 per month. Still, GoDaddy’s lack of transaction fees is appealing for local businesses for whom every penny counts. That’s one reason GoDaddy is one of our top picks of ecommerce platforms for small businesses.

Time-poor entrepreneurs: If you have no interest in complex web design

The main appeal of GoDaddy is how accessible it is for people with no real interest in technology. Twenty years ago, you had to be pretty clued-up to create a website and get it live on the web. Nowadays, beginner-friendly options like GoDaddy exist to get people online who’ve never written a line of code.

If you work in a busy industry like the care profession, youth work, animal rescue or similar, then time is a luxury you can’t afford. GoDaddy is a real boon to people like this. If you can edit a text box (we’re talking as simple as double-click and type), then you can edit a GoDaddy website.

How does GoDaddy compare to its competitors?

We’ve touched on a few points of comparison above, but it makes sense to look at GoDaddy’s subscription packages in direct comparison with its rivals:

As you can see from the table, GoDaddy’s pricing (you should focus on the renewal cost after your first year) is very similar to competitors’. You’ll get unlimited storage and bandwidth on your GoDaddy website, same as you will with Weebly and Squarespace. That’s a distinct advantage over Wix, which is worth bearing in mind if you want to upload videos and large images to your website.

The lack of transaction fees with GoDaddy is also appealing, but by no means unique (it’s also the same with Wix and some Squarespace plans). There’s also fewer payment provider options with GoDaddy than Wix, which could put off some customers from making purchases with your business.

Does GoDaddy have good customer reviews?

By and large, yes, it’s easy to find loads of positive reviews about GoDaddy all over the web. That being said, it does depend on who exactly you ask. GoDaddy is currently rated 4.7/5 on Trustpilot, but we found other ratings on American business sites as low as 1.9/5 and 2.6/5.

Our test users made the following comments:

😊 “GoDaddy is good for people who don’t want to fiddle around a lot with their website.”

😊 “[The editor] was good at keeping things neat and tidy. It was easy to keep my site clean.”

🤨 “The help and support content isn’t savvy, it takes quite a bit of digging to find what you’re actually looking for.”

🤨 “I didn’t see any features that were unique to GoDaddy. There was nothing different or interesting.”

Overall, the above comments are pretty fair representations of what it’s really like to use GoDaddy. It’s a basic tool to build a low-fuss website. If you’re into web design, there’s little to get excited about. But if you’re into time-saving and efficiency, GoDaddy is worth a look.

In the urgent fight against climate change, gas-guzzling vehicles have long been a key target. As a fleet manager, this buying decision is more complex than that of your average consumer. In this article, we’ll dive into the three main clean energy transport solutions: electric vehicles, biofuels, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

The Biden administration’s plan to transform the way Americans use transportation is underway, with the 2030 emission reduction deadline edging closer. The latest proposal announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could result in two thirds of all new vehicles sold in the US being electric by 2032, in a bid to reduce approximately 10 billion tonnes of carbon emissions by 2055

This, coupled with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, allows EV manufacturers and buyers to benefit from tax incentives, and ensure zero-emission vehicles are on the rise.

With many greener vehicle alternatives available, which is the best choice? Below, we’ll also look at and explain the benefits of various categories, including cost, environmental impact, range and accessibility.

Electric Vehicles

When it comes to electric vehicles, it is generally referring to battery electric vehicles (BEV) as well as plug-in electric vehicles (PEV). Both of these are already common occurrences on US roads and we can expect to see a lot more of them in the future with Biden’s measures in place.

The general definition of a BEV/PEV is that it only runs on a battery– usually lithium-ion – rather than the traditional internal combustion engine (ICE). You also have plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) which are a combination of the two, featuring a chargeable electric motor as well as a traditional ICE. We’ll focus on the fully electric, zero-emissions EV in this comparison.

How Much Do Electric Vehicles Cost?

Cost has typically been a big hurdle in the process of electrification, especially when it comes to revamping a whole fleet. Bought new, an electric car can cost anywhere up to well over $100,000. For larger commercial vehicles, this figure can be even higher.

However, the total cost of owning a vehicle doesn’t stop at the point of purchase as you’ll need to look at running costs. The good news is that the average annual cost to charge an electric vehicle is less than filling up a gas car. Additionally, you may be eligible for federal tax credits when purchasing electric vehicles. If you qualify, you could save up to $7,500, which makes going electric significantly more cost-effective and accessible than in the past.

How Green Are Electric Vehicles?

It goes without saying that EVs are an environmentally friendly alternative to ICE vehicles, lessening both air and noise pollution. With an output of zero emissions, they are a key player in Biden’s plans to overhaul American transportation habits and create cleaner, greener roads.

When you consider well-to-wheel emissions alone, EVs are greener than ICE vehicles. However, there is a new argument that claims the battery production process means they are not as green as we think. During the production process, the lithium-ion battery does create more pollution than ICE production. That being said, a study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) found that no matter where you are in the world, EVs are less polluting than ICE. This is because EVs cannot outweigh the lifetime emissions of an ICE, which continues to pump harmful emissions into the atmosphere each time it is used. In the US, EVs are responsible for less than half as much CO2 as ICE vehicles.

What Are The Drawbacks of Electric Vehicles?

In terms of distance, this is where EVs reach their biggest roadblock. It’s great that, in theory, we can fully replace ICEs with electricity but they do still need to be charged. Part of Biden’s blueprint includes strengthening the infrastructure surrounding electric vehicles, to ensure that EV drivers won’t get stuck with a dead battery. As it stands, electric charging stations are nowhere near as prevalent as gas stations, meaning drivers will have to plan routes according to the availability of charging stations. For large vehicles, stopping at charging stations can also be a time-consuming process that will need to be taken into account when planning.

Not only do electric fleet vehicles require large batteries, but they usually drive long distances. Long-distance, heavy-duty vehicle drivers may encounter more issues when running out of charge than drivers of smaller EVs or lighter-duty vehicles that drive inner-city routes.

Charging EVs can also be time-consuming. Depending on the charger and battery size, charging can take as quick as 30 minutes or more than 12 hours. It’s also pretty difficult to keep your entire fleet charged at your depot without blowing your fuse as, of course, your limited electricity supply may not be sufficient to charge multiple large batteries at one time. Planning fleet operations around battery charging may be another thing to stay on top of, in an already hectic schedule.

Want to stay on top of your fleet? Check out the best vehicle tracking devices.

In terms of availability, demand often outweighs supply. That is becoming the case with lithium-ion batteries. As well as being a pollutant, they are also difficult to source due to a shortage of lithium, nickel, and cobalt.

Electricity is also a finite resource, and the US grid, in particular, is struggling to keep up with the demands of the country’s usage. If all fleets were to bypass hurdles and electrify overnight, there would simply not be enough electricity for all of these electric cars to run. Whether the US grid can upscale enough to accommodate the necessary electrification of transport remains questionable.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Another green alternative is the hydrogen fuel cell. These vehicles run on hydrogen and produce zero tailpipe emissions, only emitting warm air and water vapor. Hydrogen vehicles use a propulsion system similar to that of electric vehicles, with the fuel cell transforming hydrogen into electricity. The biggest pros of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are the short filling up time and their long driving range. They can be fully reloaded in less than 4 minutes as well as have a range of over 300 miles. This makes them a worthy replacement of ICE, and makes up for many of the shortcomings of battery powered electric vehicles that cannot drive as far without lengthy recharging periods.

Hydrogen fuel cells really perform in their range of distance, matching that of ICE vehicles. Their energy density is very high, which means they run out of energy slower, and need to be charged less frequently. When they do need to be charged, they also charge as quickly as ICE vehicles can be filled with gas, meaning less time is lost to recharging and more time in action.

How Much Do Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles Cost?

In terms of cost, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are even pricier than BEVs. The cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is not currently competitive with its alternatives, meaning it’s not an accessible choice for many fleet managers looking to decarbonize.

A joint venture from Volvo and Daimler Truck, Cellcentric, is researching and developing hydrogen fuel cell systems for long-haul trucking purposes. With customer testing set for 2024 and large-scale production the following year, long-haul fleets may soon be powered by hydrogen. Hopefully in time to hit emission reduction targets.

How Green Are Hydrogen Fuel Cells?

Environmentally speaking, hydrogen fuel cells are a clean form of energy as the only byproduct is heat and water vapor. It was a popular topic of conversation in the 1990s and 2000s as the next big thing in terms of clean energy, but the dreams never materialized. This could have been due to shortcomings in infrastructure, expensive manufacturing, as well as complicated storage processes.

While EVs are considered green, their production process is not. With hydrogen production, the same is sort of true. To extract hydrogen, it often goes through a process called reforming, which emits a lot of CO2. So much energy is needed in this process, that it’s almost energy-neutral – meaning it uses as much energy as it creates. There are greener ways to extract hydrogen, such as via solar or wind power, but these forms of energy are not readily available worldwide. These production difficulties are some of the reasons why hydrogen fuel cell vehicles remain a complicated and expensive choice.

What Are The Drawbacks Of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles?

The biggest roadblock for the progression of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is currently the scarcity of publicly accessible charging points. As of April 2023, there are only 107 hydrogen refuelling stations in the US, most of which are in California.

A plus is that the government aims for a total of 1,000 hydrogen refuelling stations in the US by 2030, which is also its target year for greenhouse gas reduction. Since a typical station can only fill 50 to 60 cars before running out of hydrogen, if whole fleets were to be replaced with hydrogen fuel cells, they’d quickly run into difficulties with refuelling.

While this is a solid green alternative, it seems that the existing infrastructure around hydrogen fuel cell vehicles means they aren’t a realistic replacement for the everyday road user, let alone for replacing an entire fleet.

Biofuel

Not ready to replace your vehicles? Biofuels can be a great step. Biofuels, such as ethanol or biodiesel, can be made of many renewable “feedstocks” such as corn, sugarcane, and soybeans. Offering reduced emissions, rather than zero emissions when burned, they are a greener alternative to fossil fuels. They are often used in conjunction with fossil fuels as blending components, or they can be used interchangeably in some cases, such as with biodiesel for large fleet trucks.

In terms of range, there are thousands of gas stations already providing biodiesel in the US. With around 16 billion gallons already being consumed per year, it’s a very accessible solution that doesn’t require you to change your entire fleet.

How Much Does Biofuel Cost?

In terms of cost, it all depends on the fluctuations of the market, but in recent years biofuels have been up to 130% more expensive than regular fuels. However, after prices plummeted in the beginning of this year, they are set to stay much lower than 2022’s peak after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which set fuel prices into a volatile upward spiral.

Furthermore, there’s a number of tax incentives currently available from the US government, such as a $1 rebate per gallon of biodiesel, agri-biodiesel, or renewable diesel used in your trade or business. So all in all, it could mean that biofuels are the same price or even more cost-effective than regular fossil fuels.

If you want to consider another way manage fuel costs, consider investing in a gas credit card.

How Green Is Biofuel?

Environmentally speaking, biofuels do have many benefits. When burned, they produce less carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and other air toxins in tailpipe emissions than pure fossil fuels. To illustrate the difference, burning enough biofuel to create one megajoule of energy creates a byproduct of around 39g of CO2, whereas fossil fuels would give off 75.1g of CO2. So, biofuels create roughly half as much harmful emissions as pure fossil fuels. Furthermore, carbon emissions as a result of burning biofuels are not typically counted in greenhouse gas inventories as the belief is that they are offset by biomass feedstock grown in the production process.

Another benefit is that if spilt, pure ethanol and biodiesel are not nearly as harmful to the environment as fossil fuels, since they are non-toxic and biodegradable.

What Are The Drawbacks Of Biofuel?

It’s not all good news, as there are concerns with regard to the growth of biomass feedstocks to create biofuels. Some believe that resources, including land, fertilizer, and water, should be used to plant and grow crops for food rather than for biofuels.

There’s also concern that the production of crops for biofuel could mean that food prices rise in competition for land use. However, there’s also a growing encouragement for the regenerative use of “lipid” feedstocks, which are basically waste products, meaning that less crops are grown with the sole purpose of becoming fuel. Furthermore, since biofuels can be made domestically, it relieves some pressure on the need for foreign oil and the emissions involved in the importation and transportation of fuel.

Conclusion

It’s no easy feat to undergo the process of greening your fleet but one that will become increasingly necessary to hit upcoming carbon emissions goals. Whether it’s full electrification, swapping to hydrogen fuel cells or sticking with your existing fleet and considering the use of biofuel, there are many options if you do want to take steps towards a greener fleet. All three options have their pros and cons, but overall are all kinder to the planet than traditional ICE vehicles.

GoDaddy offers the fastest way to get a new website live on the internet – but lacks certain business features and template variety. It scored 4.1/5 in our rigorous testing, far outperforming website builders like Hostinger, Weebly, and Site123.

We ran GoDaddy through dozens of individual tests, and calculated scores across six categories (all ratings are out of five):

In this review, we’ll go through GoDaddy’s pricing, pros and cons, key features, customer reviews, and how it compares to similar products on the market.

The unique selling point of GoDaddy’s website builder is it helps get your website live really fast. But we’re going to look into whether or not that speed will be enough to make it worth choosing GoDaddy.

How much does GoDaddy cost?

GoDaddy is in the mid-range of website builder products, with pricing between £8 and £20 a month (after your first discounted year). There are four price plans, only one of which is for selling online. GoDaddy is one of the few providers to hike its prices after the first year of your contract.

Compare each price plan by clicking the arrows:

GoDaddy is OK value for money, with the following basic features in all of its price plans:

• Edit website on your phone or desktop
• Email marketing (max 100 per month on cheapest plan)
• Social media post creator (with templates)
• Web visitors can book appointments

You’ll have to subscribe to a pricier plan for more marketing emails and better booking features. Honestly, GoDaddy provides a sparse set of features for a mid-range price. 

GoDaddy’s Premium plan costs almost the same as Wix Business, but Wix gives you full online selling abilities, whereas GoDaddy doesn’t. But you won’t get any email marketing on Wix’s cheaper plans (such as Wix Unlimited), like you do with GoDaddy.

Weebly’s plans are cheaper than GoDaddy, but again, you won’t get email marketing. Though Weebly gives you an online shop with every price plan, unlike GoDaddy.

Pricing isn’t everything, however. So let’s look at the quality of GoDaddy’s features before making a final judgement on its value.

Pros and cons of GoDaddy

✅ Super speedy start

If you’re short on time and need your website live ASAP GoDaddy is the fastest website builder tool. Answer just two questions (“What kind of website do you want?” and, “What’s it called?”) and you land straight in the editing workspace. From there you’re straight into altering the preset layout, images, and text to suit your tastes.

This is a major reason it’s rated one of the best website builders in our industry round-up.

✅ Helpful editing guidance

If you get stuck during the web design process, the “Next Steps” checklist in the top righthand corner of the editor ensures you stay on track. You can approach any of the steps as you feel ready, so you’re not forced into one course of action.

✅ Very reliable hosting

Unlike competitors such as Squarespace or Wix, GoDaddy is known first and foremost as a domain registrar and hosting service. That means it’s famous for providing website URL names and the physical servers for keeping websites online. GoDaddy guarantees 99.9% uptime (or you get a discount on your next month) – so your website should almost never come offline due to technical failures.

❌ Limited design options

With GoDaddy, there’s less focus on tweaking website design to make it exactly match your vision. No wonder it scores a measly 3.3/5 in the ‘Design Functions’ research category. There are just 22 templates (Wix has roughly 900), limiting the range of visual layout possibilities. You have to edit design elements within pre-defined sections and you can’t click-and-drag text or images to specific positions.

❌ Less sophisticated business features

GoDaddy lags behind competitors like Wix, Shopify and WooCommerce in the breadth of its website features. GoDaddy scores just 3/5 in our ‘Website Features’ research category. There’s no app store (unlike Squarespace and others), meaning limited business integrations are available. And the in-built business features aren’t exactly comprehensive, either. For example, GoDaddy confirmed in a March 2023 community post that there aren’t currently plans to include print on demand services within its website builder.

GoDaddy’s Website Builder Key Features

1. Simple website creation: go live in an hour

Since content is automatically generated for your website based on the type of business you run, much of the work is already done for you. For example, we selected “life coach” for our test website, and found an “About Me” page already full of zen imagery and persuasive text.

The content is ready-made, saving your brain precious creative energy. Not to mention the time saved. All we needed to do was make a few tweaks to make the placeholder text more specific.

The risk is your website ends up with a generic look and feel: with some 80,000 UK websites using the GoDaddy website builder. But that might not matter to you or your customer base. After all, a business website is a tool to attract leads, sign up new clients, and showcase your products or services. It’s not the Mona Lisa.

2. Fast-loading websites: Speedier than WordPress and Wix

Nobody likes a slow webpage. But did you know people hate it so much they’ll leave your website if loading takes longer than four seconds?

In our testing, GoDaddy scored 90/100 in our testing for its overall site speed performance (on desktop). That’s better than Wix (85/100), WordPress.com (81/100) or Weebly (75/100). That means the GoDaddy server responded quickly to the website’s request to appear on the reader’s screen.

What that really means is visitors are less likely to abandon your website while it boots up. They’ll have a better user experience, becoming psychologically influenced to like your website. Happy users are more likely to take the action you want them to: sign up for your emails, download your brochure, buy your products, book an appointment, and so on.

3. Basic marketing functions: no third-party app support

If you want to connect your existing marketing software with your GoDaddy website, you’re going to struggle. This is a serious hurdle for many business types, so we reckon it’s worth shouting about. While you can easily get an app that synchs your WooCommerce user data with your HubSpot account, there’s no such integration available for GoDaddy and HubSpot, for instance.

This means your website marketing activities are limited to the tools already in GoDaddy. There are some basic functions you can add to your website, such a form to collect subscriber email addresses or creating a pop-up message. You’ll get 100, 500 or 25,000 email marketing sends per month (depending on your price plan). But if you have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription through GoDaddy, you won’t be able to synch that with HubSpot Sales Office 365.

4. Questionable SEO (search engine optimisation) support

Your knowledge of search engine optimisation techniques – basically, how high up on lists of search engine results your website will appear – may be limited. But that doesn’t mean it’s not critical to the success of your website.

If your business is reliant on web traffic from search engines such as Google (the online equivalent of people walking into your shop because they saw it on the high street), you need good SEO. This applies to almost all websites, but particularly those from competitive industries such as electronics sales, legal services, private healthcare services, fashion retailers, and more.

Because GoDaddy’s website builder is designed as a really simple tool for non-experts, there’s a limit to the amount of control you have over the technical elements of your website. While GoDaddy offers a mini quiz tool to set you up for targeting keywords, it’s incredibly basic.

For instance, three keyword suggestions we got for a business offering financial services were: “Financial Service, financial service, service finance”.

But search engines don’t care about whether you use capital letters in words. So the GoDaddy keyword engine shouldn’t have suggested the same phrases with variations of capital letters. And it’s not particularly insightful that the keywords suggested are… the keywords we wrote in the first place. You don’t get any information as to how you should select your keywords, either. Realistically, you should know whether they are competitive and how many people search for them.

The tool takes you through adding your top three keywords to your homepage’s title tag, meta description, and H1 (main heading). This is quite a good intro to SEO for beginners. But it’s a very simplistic and old-fashioned view of SEO. Those who are a bit more search-engine savvy will know there’s more subtlety to targeting results pages than simply copying and pasting keywords into several places.

Search engines may re-write your meta description for its own purposes, so it may not matter that you included your target keywords in it. Also the scroll function for homepage preview didn’t work, so I couldn’t even see the sections of text I was editing on the live site.

While it may be expecting a little much of a beginner-level website builder tool to give you quality SEO advice, competitor products are already doing it better. Wix has a dedicated dashboard for updating your SEO settings, including troubleshooting through Google’s URL Inspection API. There’s also several video explanations on various aspects of SEO right in the Wix dashboard.

Overall, we don’t rate GoDaddy’s SEO capabilities. Given that SEO services can easily cost upwards of £1,000 per month, it makes sense to try and tackle at least some of this work yourself. But it seems you may not have the easiest time doing this with GoDaddy, as your access to SEO-related functions (such as the robots.txt file) are somewhat limited.

5. Help and support: Better than Wix

GoDaddy’s customer support options are healthy: there’s a phone line, with the company readily publishing their number online. By comparison, Wix makes it a bit awkward to talk to someone on the phone; you’ll have to click through online options and request a callback. Squarespace doesn’t even have a customer service number.

Customer care with GoDaddy is more equal than if you were to go with Wix, where you’d have to upgrade to a higher pricing plan to get VIP phone support. You also have a fair chance of getting real help on the GoDaddy community forum, too. This stands in stark contrast to the Wix equivalent, which is full of spam comments on its posts.

What kind of business is GoDaddy best for?

GoDaddy is suitable for a wide range of businesses, particularly those whose leaders are not tech wizards. It’s definitely not for ambitious online merchants that need scalable sales tools. For that, we’d recommend looking into ecommerce platforms for large businesses.

Here are some examples of business types that’d get along well with GoDaddy:

Service-based businesses: Hairdressers, pet grooming, fitness classes, online consultation

If you want customers to be able to book appointments with you online, GoDaddy is a good choice. Your website can create a Zoom meeting for visitors that book appointments with you. Or you can add your own link if you prefer to use a different online meeting service. That’s really handy for consultants, coaches, and therapists who rely on video calls to meet with clients.

But bear in mind you’ll only be able to take payments for appointment bookings at the Premium subscription level, which renews after the first year at £16.99 per month. Still, GoDaddy’s lack of transaction fees is appealing for local businesses for whom every penny counts.

Time-poor entrepreneurs: If you have no interest in complex web design

The main appeal of GoDaddy is how accessible it is for people with no real interest in technology. Twenty years ago, you had to be pretty clued-up to create a website and get it live on the web. Nowadays, beginner-friendly options like GoDaddy exist to get people online who’ve never written a line of code.

If you work in a busy industry like the care profession, youth work, animal rescue or similar, then time is a luxury you can’t afford. GoDaddy is a real boon to people like this. If you can edit a text box (we’re talking as simple as double-click and type), then you can edit a GoDaddy website.

How does GoDaddy compare to its competitors?

If you’re interested in a detailed comparison of online shop platforms, check out our guide to the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses.

But to make it quick, here’s a nice easy comparison chart for GoDaddy versus its rivals:

As you can see from the table, GoDaddy’s pricing (you should focus on the renewal cost after your first year) is very similar to competitors’. You’ll get unlimited storage and bandwidth on your GoDaddy website, same as you will with Weebly and Squarespace. That’s a distinct advantage over Wix, which is worth bearing in mind if you want to upload videos and large images to your website.

The lack of transaction fees with GoDaddy is also appealing, but by no means unique (it’s also the same with Wix and some Squarespace plans). There’s also fewer payment provider options with GoDaddy than Wix, which could put off some customers from making purchases with your business.

Does GoDaddy have good customer reviews?

By and large, yes, it’s easy to find loads of positive reviews about GoDaddy all over the web. That being said, it does depend on who exactly you ask. It seems US customers are far more dissatisfied than GoDaddy users in the UK (or at least, those in the US are more vocal about their negative experiences). GoDaddy is currently rated 4.7/5 on Trustpilot, but we found other ratings on American business sites as low as 1.9/5 and 2.6/5.

Our test users made the following comments:

😊 “GoDaddy is good for people who don’t want to fiddle around a lot with their website.”

😊 “[The editor] was good at keeping things neat and tidy. It was easy to keep my site clean.”

🤨 “The help and support content isn’t savvy, it takes quite a bit of digging to find what you’re actually looking for.”

🤨 “I didn’t see any features that were unique to GoDaddy. There was nothing different or interesting.”

Overall, the above comments are pretty fair representations of what it’s really like to use GoDaddy. It’s a basic tool to build a low-fuss website. If you’re into web design, there’s little to get excited about. But if you’re into time-saving and efficiency, GoDaddy is worth a look.

As your business grows, you’ll operate multiple tools and apps for internal and external communication, storing and managing customer data, and creating and analyzing reports – and this can get confusing.

Fortunately, it’s possible to integrate these software into one platform, with a VoIP-CRM integration allowing you to streamline business processes and achieve improved communication, smoother data collection, and faster information sharing.

This article will tackle what VoIP and CRM integration is, how CRM phone integrations work, and the advantages you can reap by integrating these applications for your business. As well as this, we’ll also discuss the pricing, strengths, and weaknesses of the three best VoIP providers for CRM integration. So, if you’re browsing the world wide web for insights on how your business can benefit from this solution, you’ve come to the right place.

What is VoIP and CRM Integration?

The marriage between VoIP and CRM gives rise to a powerful tool that’s essential for boosting the efficiency of any business. It’s predicted that global spending on mobility solutions will reach $1.6B by 2030, and among these mobile solutions is the integration of VoIP and CRM. This is why more and more businesses are using this unified system to improve their operations.

CRM was originally created as a marketing database for monitoring your customers’ life cycles. Today, it’s evolved into a mobile tool that allows you to use a variety of customer information to your advantage, by delivering personalized customer service, creating effectively targeted marketing strategies, and monitoring and boosting sales metrics.

Meanwhile, VoIP (voice over internet protocol) is a cloud-based phone system that has superseded what a basic landline service can do. There’s no need for additional hardware – just a reliable, high-speed internet connection over which you can receive incoming calls and make outgoing calls, engage with your staff remotely through video calls and chat, and display call analytics.

Integrated together, these applications can help you achieve wonders, such as a shorter lead response times, improved customer retention, and a boost in sales. How? Well, this innovative synergy allows you to retrieve customer data before every call without having to juggle different applications just to access the right information. As a result, you can handle calls with special attention, achieving more customer satisfaction. All interactions will be recorded in the CRM, whether this is a phone call, an SMS, notes, or even call recordings. This way, every agent can be kept up to speed on a customer’s issue and call history. Keep reading as we’ll talk more about the benefits of VoIP and CRM integration below!

How Does VoIP and CRM Integration Work?

First, you’ll need a phone system provider that can assist you with this. A basic VoIP plan that offers native CRM integration can go for as little as $19.99 per user, per month. You’ll need to find out if either software comes with a ready-made integration option with the specific software you’re using. If you’re using 8×8 and Zoho CRM, find out whether they come ready to integrate with one another, and go from there. If not, you’ll need to find out whether your software has an open API, so you can configure the integration yourself or ask assistance from someone with the right technical knowledge to do this.

Considering your business’s unique needs can help you choose from infinite options for CRM-VoIP integrations. For example, the data stored in the software allows your sales reps to schedule the best call times or know which prospects are sales-qualified leads. So when the CRM is integrated with VoIP, and when there’s a need to retrieve customer information with call recording records, full customer data can be accessed in real-time, which enables your agents to provide improved customer interaction.  Adopting this solution enables you to have a simplified business process that results in increased productivity. These connected features help your marketers or sales reps easily multi-task while handling a customer, such as taking down notes while on a call or sending follow-up emails after talk time.

What are the Advantages of VoIP CRM Integration?

The integration of VoIP and CRM provides so many benefits for your business, including:

• Real-time call data

• Better customer satisfaction

• Lower costs

Let’s explore these benefits in more detail.

Real-Time Call Data

VoIP and CRM integration eliminates the need to manually input customer data in your CRM database, which saves your staff from doing this lower-value task, boosting their efficiency and productivity.

Aside from that, an integrated system provides a streamlined way to manage customer data that can save time, money, and resources. Depending on the package you’re on, this integration enables you to easily monitor call analytics, track live call data, and manage reports, that can help you identify trends or launch better marketing campaigns for a more successful business growth.

Better Customer Satisfaction

Your customer service agents can have access to customer data through the CRM. They can retrieve this whenever they need it while using the system’s VoIP features to contact customers, providing personalized experiences and fostering a higher level of customer satisfaction. You don’t just create rapport; you build relationships, which in turn, can boost customer retention rates.

Lower Costs

This cost-effective solution eliminates the need to purchase two separate software for CRM and VoIP applications. All there is to it is a low monthly cost for your business communication package that offers native CRM with your phone system service. However, there are phone system providers that offer CRM integration with additional charge, such as Net2Phone. Aside from that, its built-in functionalities increase your employees’ productivity which leads to improved efficiency and reduced unproductive hours that ultimately, saves time and money.

The Best VoIP Providers for CRM Integration

1. RingCentral

2. 8×8

3. Vonage

We’ve concluded that the BP Business Solutions Mastercard® is the best fleet fuel card with discounts on the market. After analyzing a range of competitors, our team of trusted researchers found that this fuel card offers the highest rebate per gallon with savings of up to 7¢ per gallon.

As of January 2024, the average national diesel is $3.876 per gallon. According to the latest figures from the Department of Energy, the price has fluctuated between an average of $4 to $5 per gallon throughout 2023. Experts predict diesel prices will continue to stabilize in 2024.

However, prices can always shift due to unforeseen national and international economic factors so it’s crucial you pick a fuel card that can save your business the most money, ultimately increasing profits for the business overall.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the best fleet fuel cards on the market for 2024.

Short on time? Get a free quote with our comparison tool.

Top 4 Fuel Cards with Discounts in 2024

We took a deep dive into the fleet fuel card market and tested a number of different cards, looking at card fees, savings and discounts, network coverage, and key features. Here are the four cards that came out on top, each with different features that may suit your business depending on your needs

BP Business Solutions Mastercard®

Savings: up to 7¢ per gallon

What discounts and savings can you get with this card?

• If you fill up with 10,000 gallons or more in a month, you can secure the maximum rebate of 7¢ per gallon. This is the reason the BP Business Solutions Card is best for larger fleets that are on the road frequently.
• A card fee of $10 a month only applies if you fill up less than 5,000 gallons a month.
• Other potential fees include a late payment fee of $75 or 7.25% of the new balance.

Where can you use a Business Solutions Mastercard®?

Since BP is partnered with Amoco, you can fill up at over 6,800 stations throughout the US at no extra cost. You can also use your card at any other station that accepts Mastercard. However, purchases at locations other than BP and Amoco will be charged a transaction fee and are not eligible for rebate.

How secure is the Business Solutions Mastercard®?

Through BPs online portal you can track exactly what purchases are being made in real time, meaning you can catch any irregularities as they happen. Alerts can be set for any purchases made outside business hours. During business hours driver IDs and odometer readings are required for each transaction.

Most importantly, spending limits can be set on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, ensuring all drivers stay within budget. On top of this, spending can be set to either fuel only or fuel and maintenance services.

bp Business Solutions Mastercard can be obtained via FleetCards USA, who offer a range of different fuel card solutions for various needs. Read our full review of FleetCards USA to learn more.

Shell Fleet Plus®

Savings: up to 6¢ per gallon

What discounts and savings can you get with this card?

• Fuel rebates for Shell Fleet Plus® are 6¢ per gallon if your drivers purchase 10,000 gallons per month.
• As we’ve mentioned there are no card fees, meaning this is the least expensive option when it comes to upfront costs.
• Shell is light on discounts compared to other providers but does offer a 15% discount on Jiffy Lube, which is an essential product for vehicle maintenance.

With some other cards, you may end up spending as much in fees as you save in rebates if you don’t use the card enough. With the Shell Fleet Plus® card, you will save money regardless of how much you fill up.

Where can you use the Shell Fleet Plus®?

The Shell Fleet Plus® card can only be used at Shell stations. Currently there are 1300 stations across the US. If you need more coverage, consider the WEX Fleet Card, which covers about 95% of the US.

How secure is the Shell Fleet Plus®?

Security is one of the most important issues for fleet owners and operators. The Shell Fleet Plus® card comes with access to the Fleet SmartHub® app, which provides you with a clear overview of your transactions and available credit and also allows you to spot potential misuse and cancel stolen or lost cards.

However, this card doesn’t have pin code protection or an alerts feature for unusual activity, meaning you could be left open to fraud and unauthorized use. If this is a concern for you take a look at the WEX FlexCard which has more robust security features.

Read our full Shell review to learn about the other cards on offer.

AtoB Unlimited

Savings: 3¢ per gallon, up to 25¢ off per gallon with AtoB Driver app

What discounts and savings can I get with AtoB Unlimited?

• AtoB charges a $35 setup fee and then $3 per month after.
• There’s no spending limits and it’s a pre-payment card so you won’t incur any late repayment fees.
• When it comes to rebates, AtOB is on the lower end of the scale with only 3¢ per gallon for the first 3 months. It offers a much higher 25¢ off per gallon through its Driver App.
• The Driver App can also help your drivers find stations with the best gas prices and it offers discounts on tires, maintenance and washes.

Where can you use the AtoB card?

AtoBs network is likely the most extensive of all the fuel cards we’ve profiled, as it works anywhere that accepts Visa.

How secure is the AtoB Unlimited card?

AtoB offer a comprehensive range of security features including spending limits, card deactivation, gas station selection and merchant category selection. These all give you complete control over your drivers activity, lessening the chance of fraud or unauthorized use.

You will also receive alerts for any suspicious activity on the card, allowing you to take action quickly and stop any fraudulent activity that may be taking place. Like other major cards from WEX and BP, a pin code is needed to use the card, increasing security further.

During the last update of this article in January 2024, we discovered that AtoB have raised their card fee from $25 to $35 and this is reflected in the article. 

WEX FlexCard

Savings: 3¢ per gallon and other exclusive discounts

What discounts and savings can I get with the WEX FlexCard?

While the rebates are lower than both the BP and Shell cards, at around 3¢ per gallon (at participating stations), you also get exclusive discounts on the following via the WEX EDGE Savings Network:

• Tires, auto parts and services at over 2,200 Bridgestone Retail Operations locations to help with overall costs.
• Stays at over 18,000 hotels across the US.
• Sprint Business wireless solutions and accessories.
• Deals on data analytics and reporting, premium GPS tracking, and other tools (though WEX doesn’t make it clear what platforms or software this applies to).

Where can you use the WEX FlexCard?

Valid for 95% of US, its possibly the most widely accepted card at major U.S. gas stations, the WEX FlexCard is also a reliable choice for cross-country fleets. The card is also accepted at more than 45,000 different service locations and can be used to pay for vehicle maintenance.

How secure is the WEX FlexCard?

The WEX FlexCard has a range of comprehensive security features, including pin code verification, driver ID, spending limits, unusual activity alerts, fraud protection and the ability to remotely block cards.

How We Test Fuel Cards for Businesses

We tested 13 market-leading fuel cards to evaluate them in terms of security, customer support, expense management, and more so we can make the most useful recommendations to US businesses.

Our rigorous testing process means these products have been scored and rated in five main categories of investigation and 13 subcategories – in fact, we covered 43 areas of investigation in total. We then gave each category score a ‘relevance weighting' to ensure the product's final score perfectly reflects the needs and requirements of Expert Market readers – and that's our algorithm in a nutshell!

Our main testing categories for fuel cards are:

Security: the measures and features implemented by the fuel card product to ensure the safety and protection of the cardholder's information and transaction.

Customer Support: the resources and assistance provided by the fuel card provider to cardholders, such as phone support, email or chat support, and online forums.

Expense Management: the features and tools provided by the fuel card product to track and manage fuel-related expenses, e.g. transaction tracking, expense reporting, and receipt capture and storage.

Convenience: the ease of use and accessibility of the fuel card product for cardholders, including the acceptance network of fuel stations, availability, price comparison tool, etc.

Card Specific Information: the details and specifications associated with the fuel card itself. This includes card fees, accepted fuel type, card type, fee structure and network coverage.

Our in-depth research into the top dropshipping suppliers in Australia sees Syncee emerging as the cream of the crop. There’s no denying that the dropshipping model, specifically in Australia, is lucrative. With the right supplier for your business, you can reach your goal income much faster. Besides, you won’t have to worry about shipping and inventory costs since your supplier covers them.

If you’ve been wanting to jump onto the dropshipping bandwagon, we’ve rounded up the top dropshipping suppliers in Australia. For this list, we looked at their supplier reliability, product selection, and fulfilment and delivery process, which our research identified as the key factors to consider in a dropshipping supplier. 

If you’re still looking for an ecommerce platform to start your dropshipping business, Shopify’s comprehensive sales features check all the boxes! It’s the best dropshipping platform in our in-depth research, as it’s fully equipped with sales features suited for your dropshipping needs.

Syncee: Best overall dropshipping supplier in Australia

Colourblocker: Best free dropshipping supplier in Australia

Spocket: Best dropshipping supplier for control over your brand in Australia

SaleHoo: Best dropshipping supplier for large businesses in Australia

iDropship: Best dropshipping supplier for high-ticket products in Australia

What products can I dropship in Australia?

Without a doubt, dropshipping is one of the most lucrative business models today, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 28.8% from 2019 to 2025. But more than choosing the right dropshipping supplier for your business, it’s also critical to know which products have the green light to be sold on the Australian market. Like other business models, dropshippers in Australia must adhere to the Australian Consumer Law. This includes all the product safety provisions and guidelines.

However, it’s also important to take note of the state laws, as they have varying lists of prohibited items you can import into Australia, but not sell or use, as per the Country Commercial Guide. The list is as follows:

• Weapons/firearms
• Heritage items
• Food
• Plants
• Animals and protected wildlife

How did we compare the best dropshipping suppliers in Australia?

Here at Expert Market, we explore the top dropshipping suppliers in Australia according to the following criteria:

• Reliability: With dropshipping, most of the control lies with your supplier. We investigate if the dropshipping suppliers have a thorough screening process to ensure that the suppliers and their products are legit and profitable for your business.
• Product selection: More is indeed merrier with dropshipping. How many suppliers do they have? How many product categories can you explore and choose from? This will help you know which products speak to your business best. 
• Fulfilment & delivery process: Since you have limited control over your shipping and inventory with dropshipping, it’s essential to look at how the suppliers process and ship the orders. How long does it take them to send out the products? Do they have an automated system? What features do they have to make dropshipping more convenient for you?
• Pricing: This is where we analyse their pricing plans, perks, and the included features to let you know if it offers great value for money. If they have an affordable price tag, all the better! 

Our in-depth research into the top dropshipping suppliers in Canada sees Syncee emerging as the cream of the crop. There’s no denying that the dropshipping model, specifically in Canada, is lucrative. With the right supplier for your business, you can reach your goal income much faster. Besides, you won’t have to worry about shipping and inventory costs since your supplier covers them.

If you’ve been wanting to jump onto the dropshipping bandwagon, we’ve rounded up the top dropshipping suppliers in Canada. For this list, we looked at their supplier reliability, product selection, and fulfillment and delivery process, which our research identified as the key factors to consider in a dropshipping supplier. 

If you’re still looking for an ecommerce platform to start your dropshipping business, Shopify’s comprehensive sales features check all the boxes! It’s the best dropshipping platform in our in-depth research, as it’s fully equipped with sales features suited for your dropshipping needs.

Syncee: Best Overall Dropshipping Supplier in Canada

CJDropshipping: Best Free Dropshipping Supplier in Canada

Spocket: Best Dropshipping Supplier in Canada For Control Over Your Brand 

DropCommerce: Best Dropshipping Supplier in Canada For Sustainability 

AppScenic: Best Dropshipping Supplier in Canada for Automating Your Business

How did we compare the best dropshipping suppliers in Canada?

Here at Expert Market, we explore the top dropshipping suppliers around Canada according to the following criteria:

• Reliability: With dropshipping, most of the control lies with your supplier. We investigate if the dropshipping suppliers have a thorough screening process to ensure that the suppliers and their products are legit and profitable for your business.
• Product selection: More is indeed merrier with dropshipping. How many suppliers do they have? How many product categories can you explore and choose from? This will help you know which products speak to your business best. 
• Fulfilment & delivery process: Since you have limited control over your shipping and inventory with dropshipping, it’s essential to look at how the suppliers process and ship the orders. How long does it take them to send out the products? Do they have an automated system? What features do they have to make dropshipping more convenient for you?
• Pricing: This is where we analyse their pricing plans, perks, and the included features to let you know if it offers great value for money. If they have an affordable price tag, all the better! 

We recommend website building tool Wix for small business owners in almost any sector, but particularly for services-based industries such as hospitality, health and fitness, and online coaching. We put Wix through its paces in our rigorous review process, scoring it 4.9/5 overall.

We’ve tested dozens of website builders over the past decade, and it takes a lot to impress us. Yet its versatile website features, handy business tools, and marketing automations make Wix a great all-rounder.

We carried out tests in all the areas you care about: functionality, ease of use, support options, pricing, and the all-important design process. For a quick summary, check our research category scores (each out of five):

Or read on for our in-depth take on Wix’s features, pricing, weaknesses, use cases, and first-hand user experiences.

How much does Wix cost?

Wix has recently cut down its number of price packages from seven to four (plus an enterprise tier for large businesses). Three of its price plans will build a website with an online shop.

You can check out our detailed guide to Wix pricing or take a quick look at the table below for an easy overview:

In our testing, Wix only scored 3.6/5 for ‘Value for Money’, given its prices have gone up a little since this time last year. Wix is more expensive than GoDaddy or Weebly, but its creative editor is far higher quality. So if you’re serious about scaling up your business with a functional and attractive website, Wix is the way to go.

Here’s a bonus: you can score a sweet 10% discount on Wix plans with our code: TAKE10

Of course, prices alone won’t mean much until you’ve got a solid idea of what you’re getting for your money. Let’s get a quick overview of Wix’s strengths and weaknesses.

The pros and cons of Wix

✅ Tonnes of templates: better navigation

Wix has added more templates this year, so you can now choose from close to 900 templates for your website. For a comparison, we counted some 150 templates on Squarespace. The new Wix templates have clearer navigation options than its older designs, allowing for a better user experience (UX) for your visitors.

We like the fact you can choose between templates with placeholder content or blank canvas styles, depending on which you find easier. Here are some examples of each template type:

✅ Easy to customise your website

Our test users were pleasantly surprised by the easy-to-use website editing tools. That’s reflected in the solid 4.4/5 Wix scored in our ‘Ease of Use’ research category. It did so well, in fact, that it’s one of our top AI website builders.

We liked the toolbar feature in the main dashboard that would take you back to the last section you were editing. That helped ensure a smooth, continual set-up process that didn’t waste time.

The design editing space (known as the ‘Editor’) was detailed, yet clearly laid out. We definitely recommend following along with the pop-up help guides otherwise you’ll get lost pretty quickly.

“So many elements are available to add,” said one focus group participant. “Everything is there – premade – and you only have to customise it for your site.” Some users found the Editor became a bit cluttered while using it, though. If you start to struggle, make sure you use the zoom in and out options for a clearer view.

✅ Improved search engine visibility

Did you know it’s possible to tweak your website so it’s more likely to appear for certain web search results? So if you’re selling fluffy slippers, you want your website to pop up when people type in “buy fluffy slippers” on Google.

The official name for these tweaks is “search engine optimisation” (SEO). According to our research, Wix is the best ecommerce platform for SEO. That means it offers the best tips and technical set-up for anyone looking to boost their website’s search engine visibility.

Wix has provided its users with strong SEO advice for several years already. But its recent integration with leading SEO tool Semrush builds on this. Now you can create keyword tracking lists that you can monitor and update over time.

❌ Tricky to access phone support

There’s no publicly advertised phone line for Wix customers (nor is there for WordPress.com or Squarespace, either). But this isn’t universal; Weebly, IONOS, and GoDaddy all offer a phone line for their customers. Instead you can request a callback, but you may have to wait some hours before that comes through.

You can get priority support over the phone only if you upgrade to the Business Elite plan (over £100 per month).

❌ A little slow to load

We found ourselves staring at loading screens a few times during the Wix set-up process. That’s perhaps to be expected, given the entire website creation process is taking place through your web browser, rather than a program downloaded onto your computer.

But even with a fast internet connection, the loading time between stages can be 5-10 seconds long. So we’re not talking hours of wasted time, by any means. But you’ll need some patience.

Wix key features explained

1. Swiss army functionality

If you need a website that takes payments, schedules appointments, makes videos, and does a backflip, Wix is ready. (Alright, maybe not the last one). Scoring 4.8/5 in our ‘Website Features’ category, Wix is clearly trying hard – and succeeding – at holding onto its reputation as the best website builder on the market.

It does this by offering a bunch of essential business tools you’d usually have to buy separately. While its logo maker, social post creator, and email marketing are standard features you can expect of any website builder, some of its others are uniquely helpful.

For instance, Wix’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools and freelancer marketplace make it easy to automate marketing and hire creative talent on demand.

2. Order management: straightforward but solid

If you choose to upgrade to one of Wix’s business/ecommerce plans, you can take payments for services and appointments, sell subscriptions or ship physical items. Wix’s sales, inventory, and order tracking features are streets ahead of GoDaddy or Squarespace.

You won’t get end-to-end order fulfilment on the ‘Business Basic’ plan (£15/month), though. To get that, plus the ability to print shipping labels, you have to upgrade to ‘Business Unlimited’ at £20/month.

Those prices are still small potatoes compared with Shopify, though, whose prices range from £25/month for its ‘Basic’ plan, through to £344 every month for its ‘Advanced’ one. Though Shopify affords you more sophisticated features than Wix, such as more in-depth reporting. So larger online sales businesses would be better off with Shopify than Wix.

3. Payment processing: loads of options

Wix is a great choice for online sellers because of its very wide range of payment processing options. We know that offering a variety of payment options increases the chance of customers completing the checkout process.

Wix allows you to connect dozens of payment types (we counted 31 plus Wix’s own payment gateway), including buy-now-pay-later options and payment with cryptocurrencies. With Squarespace, on the other hand, you can only add a very limited range of payment processors to your web shop.

4. Help and support: decent online guides

When it came to troubleshooting website editing, Wix performed fairly well in our tests. The knowledge centre was a helpful resource when it came to simple technical questions about meta tags and page redirects. Wix scored 4.8/5 in our ‘Help and Support’ testing category, meaning you should be able to resolve most problems you’re likely to face.

But if you want to speak to a real human – even about an issue as vital as billing – Wix makes it somewhat hard to access direct contact. As we’ve mentioned, there’s no available phone line for UK customer support. Instead you can request a callback, which may come in several hours after your request.

By the way, we couldn’t find this callback option easily. It was only after asking the bot directly “How can I speak to a human?” that this service even presented itself. At least you can easily find the chatbot through the ‘?’ symbol on several Wix pages.

We were underwhelmed by the Wix community discussion forum, too, which appears to be unmoderated. There’s no option to report spam. As a result, almost all recent comments seem to be bot generated to promote spam links.

It seems limiting access to support staff may be a way to keep operating costs low, as Wix continues to cut its workforce this year.

What kind of business is Wix best for?

With its dual set-up areas of the Dashboard (for functions and features) and Editor (for visual layout), Wix is best suited to a wide range of business folk. Wix is for people who need their website to perform specific actions that help run their business.

In this vein, Wix has a versatile set of tools that equip you to run events, book appointments, set up meetings, sell subscriptions, stream videos, send out marketing emails, track sales, and so on. It’s a truly useful all-rounder for a relatively low price.

That said, it can be a little hard to use as a beginner. Wix is likely to be overkill if you don’t need fancy features such as lead tracking and sales management. If you want a website that’s more of a landing page with contact details or a simple showcase for images, you’re better off with Squarespace or Weebly.

We recommend Wix for the following types of business users:

1. Small or medium online sellers

If you want to bring in more revenue by selling services, physical goods, subscriptions or other digital products, a Wix website is a good idea. As a fairly mature platform (beginning in 2006), Wix has market-leading tools for small to medium sized web retail businesses. In fact, its sales features are such good quality that we’ve named Wix as the best ecommerce platform for a small business.

Examples of industries well-suited to Wix include: sporting goods retailers, fashion and accessories, homeware, arts and crafts, gift shops, pet supplies, healthcare products, and digital education course providers.

2. Hospitality, restaurants, and in-person entertainment venues

Wix has recently added table reservation management to its existing restaurant-specific features (which include food delivery services and menu display). All three features are suggested by the website creation engine if you select your business type as ‘Restaurant’ when you first get started with Wix.

This shows Wix has really put themselves in your shoes as a restaurateur, immediately showing you the priority features you need for your hospitality business. You can also save some time and admin effort by setting up food delivery services directly through the special ‘Food Orders’ feature.

3. Consultants, coaches, legal firms, medical facilities, and health clubs

Wix is an attractive option for services-based businesses thanks to its reliable appointment scheduling features. If you need your website to funnel curious customers into your in-person office or to book video appointments with you, we can safely recommend Wix.

What sets Wix ahead of competitors is its successful Spaces by Wix app, which allows users to buy products from and book appointments with their favourite businesses. Already five million users strong, it’s one of several app-based options for reeling in more customers.

Health and fitness businesses can specifically benefit from the Fit by Wix app (free to download without a premium subscription). It allows you to take bookings for gym classes, offer memberships, set up community groups, host discussions, and sell merchandise.

How does Wix compare to its competitors?

Wix’s closest competitor is Squarespace. And the two performed very strongly in our research overall, scoring 4.9 and 4.8 respectively. But Wix is the clear winner, thanks to its slightly more advanced business features.

They’re both beginner-friendly tools: Wix and Squarespace had the joint highest score in our research category for ‘Ease of Use’: 4.4/5. Yet Wix scored higher than Squarespace in both ‘Website Features’ and ‘Design Functions’ categories. Wix is therefore the better choice for most people.

We’d stress that Wix is a great do-it-yourself style website maker. If you’re after a more custom scalable site for building an online shop, then you should look into WooCommerce on WordPress. It’s one of our top ecommerce platforms for large companies.

Does Wix have good customer reviews?

Yes, Wix is backed by many positive customer reviews across several major review platforms. Our ‘Customer Score’ category analyses the popularity of website builder tools, and Wix scored an impressive 4.8/5 here.

Wix has seen its Trustpilot score improve massively over the past six to eight months. Although there are a fair number of one-star reviews, they’re now heavily outweighed by five-star reviews.

In general, Wix reviews mention appreciation for the range of features you can set up for your website (including extra ones you can find via the Wix App Marketplace). Many feel it’s good value for money, too.

What did our test users have to say?

Our research participants were divided over how easy Wix is to use. Scoring a 4.3/5 in the ‘Design Features’ category means the average person can get to grips with the editing tools. But broadly speaking, it takes some concentration and effort to learn to use Wix properly.

This comment from one focus group attendee sums up the general feeling pretty well: “It’s a funny one because so much of it [using Wix] is really easy, and then some things just feel like they’re a headache for no reason.”

According to our extensive research, 8×8 has the best virtual business phone number app and earns an outstanding 4.7/5 overall score in our analysis. With an excellent 4.6/5 score in our features category, 8×8 will give you a plethora of functionalities at your fingertips. RingCentral follows close behind with top scores in integrability, customer support, and scalability. 

As well as the best virtual phone number apps, our researchers have found the best VoIP providers on the market, check out our guide to find out more.

Our team of experienced researchers ranked five of the best virtual phone number apps by comparing the following key factors: inclusive minutes, inbound and outbound communication features, and prices. We recommend you consider these criteria when searching for the right business phone system for your team. 

The 5 Best Virtual Phone Number Apps

Here are our researchers 5 best virtual phone number apps for businesses:

1. 8×8: Best Overall Virtual Phone Number App

The prices above may no longer be accurate as 8×8’s prices are now bespoke.

2. RingCentral: Best Virtual Phone Service for Small to Medium Businesses

3. Vonage: Best Virtual Phone Service for Scaling Businesses

4. GoTo: Best Virtual Phone Service for Low-Price Longevity

5. Dialpad: Best Virtual Phone Service for Conversational AI

How Did We Compare the Best Virtual Phone Number Apps?

Expert Market’s experienced researchers extensively analysed five of the best virtual phone services in the country, investigating the key criteria that matter most to UK businesses:

• Price – the plan’s cost and value for your money
• Integrability – the software’s ability to integrate with other platforms
• Features – the tools that define inbound and outbound communications, conversations, management, and collaboration functionalities  
• Customer Support – the customer support channels available 
• Customer Score – average consumer review scores across the most trusted review sites: G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and TrustRadius
• Security – the security measures the vendor enforces to protect your data
• Scalability – an aggregated score that assesses a product’s ability to scale alongside a growing business

After collecting scores from each of these key factors, we then calculate the final scores and rank them based on their overall performance. 

From our research, the absolute best vehicle tracking platform for trucks is Verizon Connect. While it’s the priciest option out there (scoring a 2.5/5 for affordabililty), it deserves this price tag, scoring a 5/5 for tracking, vehicle management, driver management, and product features.

Whatever kind of large vehicles your fleet contains, your business is bound to benefit from using a truck GPS tracking system. But with so many options out there, which providers offer the best systems for managing your vehicular behemoths? Read on to find out, or fill out your business’ info in our quick form. By doing so, you’ll allow various providers to send you quotes tailored made to fit you.

How truck tracking works

As well as tracking your fleet, many truck tracking systems also report on important fleet management data, including fuel consumption, route efficiency, and driver performance. You can find out more about the benefits of truck fleet management software in our FAQs below.

To get started with a truck tracking system, you’ll need to fit your fleet out with GPS tracking devices, as well as install vehicle tracking software – the live portal you’ll use to monitor and manage all the data your GPS devices transmit.

The best truck GPS tracking systems

According to our dedicated research, the best truck fleet management software is provided by:

Verizon Connect – Best for truck fleet management

Teletrac Navman (TN360) – Best for managing drivers

Radius Fleet Services – Best for smaller fleets

How Did We Find the Best Vehicle Tracking Software?

Our team of independent researchers looked at a selection of the best and most popular vehicle tracking systems. After finding all the information we need, the researchers then compare each platform against its competitors, allowing us to find the cream of the crop. The criteria we look at include:

Price: Simple enough – the platform with the lowest price tag scores the best

Tracking: How robust and effective are the platform’s tracking features? For example, how quickly does the tracking map refresh, does the map factor in traffic, etc.

Driver Management: Tracking and logging the behavior of each of your drivers. Does Driver #3 idle his vehicle for too long? Does Driver #4 tend to speed?

Vehicle Management: Checking up on the health of your vehicles. Are they in need of maintenance? Are they well protected against theft?

Product Features: What else can the product do? Can it sync up with third-party satnavs? Is there a phone app?

Customer Support: Again, easy enough – look at the options available and see what each platform offers its customers when it comes to their support resources

After factoring in all this information, alongside the scores they received, we were able to calculate a final overall score for each vehicle tracking system.

Leading the pack with an overall score of 4.7/5, our in-depth research crowns Verizon as the best among the top four fleet management software systems in Australia.

According to our latest survey, vehicle tracking, reducing fleet costs, and streamlining vehicle management are the top concerns of fleet owners today. Verizon tops the charts for tracking, driver management, and vehicle management, scoring a perfect 5/5 in these three categories.

However, its premium features come at a steep cost. Worried a new system might break the bank? Get accurate, obligation-free quotes directly from the top suppliers by filling in our free quote comparison tool.

Since 2009, Expert Market has been helping businesses thrive by providing highly competitive quotes from leading GPS providers. Our unbiased, research-led supplier reviews aim to help you make more informed choices.

1. Verizon Connect: Best overall fleet management software

2. Teletrac Navman: Best for understanding fleet data

3. Netstar: Best for heavy vehicle fleets

4. Inseego (Formerly Ctrack): Best for improving driver safety

How did we compare the best fleet management software?

At Expert Market, research integrity is our top priority, and it shines through in our work. Our expert software researchers are committed to providing the most reliable information, putting each vehicle system under the microscope to analyse every key factor, including:

Price: How much it costs and if it offers cost-effective pricing plans.

Vehicle Tracking: Its ability to track and monitor your fleet’s location and status in real time.

Driver Management: How thoroughly it can monitor your drivers’ performance and alert you to any dangerous driving behaviours like speeding, idling, and harsh braking.

Vehicle Management: How well it can help you keep track of your vehicle’s condition by automating alerts for maintenance and tune-ups.

Product Features: Its range of functionalities and ability to integrate with other devices.

Customer Support: The quality and availability of its customer support channels, and if it offers 24/7 support for all your fleet concerns.

Wix is considered to be one of the best website builders on the market. It’s a popular choice for many businesses, primarily because it doesn’t cater to one type of audience in particular – it’s designed to be suitable for anyone.

This was clear from the minute I landed on Wix’s homepage, where I was immediately prompted to choose from a variety of website types, including “online store”, “restaurant”, and “consultant”.

It’s great that Wix is a website builder that can do many things, but the question is can it do them well, and how easy is it to set up and use? I’ll be answering these questions in this article, as well as going over Wix’s pros and cons, its pricing plans, and what businesses I think it’s most suited to.

The Pros and Cons of Wix

Here’s what I think are Wix’s strengths and weaknesses:

✅ An abundance of templates

Wix has a library of over 800 pre-made templates, the most of any website builder the Expert Market research team has tested. This is great if you want a fast set-up without having to scratch your head over what font, color scheme, and layout to choose.

There are templates dedicated to different types of business websites, from cafes, to NGOs, to vets. The new Wix templates also have clearer navigation options than its older designs, allowing for a better user experience (UX) for your visitors.

If you don’t want a pre-populated template, you can choose between eight blank layouts, or even go for a totally blank page. Here are some examples of each template type:

✅ Easy to customize your website

Wix has a drag-and-drop editor, which makes customizing your website very easy. While editing, you can basically see how the website will look once it’s published without having to go into a preview.

You don’t need to go scouring around the backend to find the page element you need, since all the options are already there in the editing sidebar, waiting to be dragged onto the page.

I also liked the toolbar feature in the main dashboard that takes you back to the last section you were editing. That helped ensure a smooth, continual set-up process that didn’t waste time. I also definitely recommend following along with the pop-up help guides, otherwise you’ll get lost pretty quickly.

✅ A wide range of features to suit almost every business type

Wix has been created with a wide target audience in mind, which means it has tools to suit a multitude of businesses.

Business features include bookings and appointments management, invoice tracking, and memberships and loyalty programs. Wix also has marketing tools, such as email marketing, a logo maker, website analytics, and it offers SEO (search engine optimization) tips to help get your website noticed on search engines.

Our research team had a focus group test Wix so we could collect a variety of user experiences for this review. One participant said, “…[Wix] does have really useful business features. For instance, there is some understanding of being a dentist, you’re going to need to add services to your website, and also here are some pictures of dentist surgeries.”

✅ Save time with AI

Wix has been expanding its AI toolkit over the past few years. Starting off with a simple AI website builder and chatbox to help you design your site, Wix now has AI solutions for generating text, product descriptions, and email campaigns, to name a few.

This can really save you time, especially when you’re just starting to populate your website with content. But, as with all AI, it’s probably a good idea to check its work before making your website live.

✅ Test the website out using the free plan

Wix’s free plan is quite basic compared to its premium plans, but it’s one of the few website builders that actually offers more than just a free trial. This means you can take the time to get to grips with Wix, and figure out if you like using it before committing to a subscription.

Using the free plan can also help you determine which of Wix’s premium plans is right for you. It’s easier to know what features you need based on experience rather than trying to predict it by looking at the different premium plan features.

❌ Can’t switch templates after publishing website

One big downside to Wix is that it doesn’t let you switch out your template for a new one once your site has gone live.

Given the massive number of templates Wix puts at its users’ disposal, this seems like an odd restriction. It means you really need to be sure of your choices before you hit publish.

Wix’s main rival, Squarespace, may have fewer templates, but at least it lets you change them after the site’s gone live.

❌ Site is slow to load

I found myself staring at loading screens a few times during the Wix set-up process. That’s perhaps to be expected, given the entire website creation process is taking place through your web browser, rather than a program downloaded onto your computer.

But even so, the loading time between stages can be up to 20 seconds long if you don’t have the fastest internet connection. We’re not talking hours of wasted time, by any means, but you’ll need some patience.

❌ Abundance of features can be overwhelming for beginners

Wix’s large network of features allow for versatility, but this can quickly get confusing, especially if you’re new to creating websites. I found myself spending quite a lot of time just perusing through all the features in the Wix backend trying to figure out what they did and how to use them.

One of our focus group participants felt similarly. They said, “I think it’s one of those programs that’s been worked on by so many different people at different times that some features work so well, but there’s no one checking on the overall experience to say, does this work for the average person?”

How Much Does Wix Cost?

Wix has four price plans – one to build a regular website, and three to build an online shop. There’s also custom pricing for very large and enterprise businesses.

You can check out our detailed guide to Wix pricing or take a quick look at the table below for an easy comparison:

Here’s a bonus: you can get 10% off on Wix plans with our code: TAKE10

Wix’s prices have gone up in the past few years, which means it’s no longer as affordable as it once was. There’s a particularly big jump in price between the Business and Business Elite plans, which could make scaling your business with Wix challenging.

If you’re just after a simple website that’s more of an informational page, you’ll get better value for your money with website builders such as GoDaddy. It doesn’t come with as many advanced features or pretty template designs as Wix, but it’s cheaper and has all the basics.

Wix Key Features Explained

Wix’s best features include its SEO functions, online store, marketing tools, and help and support center. Here’s’ a closer look at Wix’s suite of features:

1. SEO

Wix is one of the best platforms for SEO. It allows you to customize URLs and it automatically adds meta tags to your pages.

It recently updated the dedicated SEO dashboard paying users have in their backend so that it displays data on your site’s health taken directly from Google Search Console.

Another new SEO addition is Wix’s built-in SEO assistant, which suggests SEO improvements for your existing website, and provides you with a personalized SEO checklist, a great resource for beginners.

Those with more advanced SEO knowledge will appreciate Wix’s URL redirect function, and the integrations it offers, such as Semrush.

2. Online store

If you choose to upgrade to one of Wix’s ecommerce plans, you can take payments for services and appointments, sell subscriptions or ship physical items.

A Wix ecommerce website comes with sales, inventory, and order tracking features, and its Business and Business Elite plans allow you to print shipping labels.

Wix also has a wide range of payment processing options, which can increase the chance of customers completing the checkout process. For example, Wix recently added AfterPay to its list of accepted payment methods, a provider that lets customers buy in installments. This can increase sales if your business sells high value items.

Wix has its own payment gateway, “Wix Payments” but it also allows you to integrate dozens of payment providers and methods into your ecommerce site, including Stripe, Square, and Paypal. With Squarespace, on the other hand, you can only add a very limited range of payment processors to your web shop.

That being said, Wix isn’t necessarily the best ecommerce platform to go with if you’re planning on growing your online store.

For that, Shopify is your best bet – it affords you more sophisticated ecommerce features than Wix, and in-depth reporting. Its prices are higher than Wix’s, however, starting at $39/month for the ‘Basic’ plan, through to $399 every month for the ‘Advanced’ one.

3.  Marketing

Wix has a comprehensive range of built-in marketing features, including email marketing and social media marketing. There’s a logo making tool you can use that’s AI assisted, for easy branding for your business.

From the Wix backend, users can design email campaigns and social media ads, using the same drag and drop editor used for web page editing. Posts can also be scheduled and their impact tracked from the same place in the Wix backend.

In addition to its built-in marketing features, Wix has integrations with reporting tools such as Google Analytics and CAPI, so that you can track the behavior of visitors to your website.

4. Help and Support

Wix’s knowledge center is a helpful resource when it comes to simple technical questions about meta tags and page redirects. There are also a series of video courses on Wix Learn that can help users learn how to maximize the website builder’s potential.

But if you want to speak to a real human – even about an issue as vital as billing – Wix makes it somewhat hard to access direct contact. There’s no public phone line. Instead you can request a callback, which may come in several hours after your request.

This callback option isn’t easy to find. It was only after asking the Help bot directly “How can I speak to a human?” that this service even presented itself.

It’s possible the support staff was hard hit by Wix’s round of layoffs in 2023, which might explain the long wait times.

What Kind of Business is Wix Best For?

Wix is designed to suit a wide range of businesses, and that’s part of its appeal, it’s a great all-rounder.

It has a versatile set of tools that equip you to run events, book appointments, set up meetings, sell subscriptions, stream videos, send out marketing emails, track sales, and so on.

However, it’s not the best option for businesses that don’t need a lot of features and just want an informational website or a contact page.

We recommend Wix for the following types of business users:

1. Small to medium online sellers

If you want to bring in more revenue by selling services, physical goods, subscriptions or other digital products, starting a Wix ecommerce website is a good choice.

As a fairly mature platform (beginning in 2006), Wix has market-leading tools for small to medium sized web retail businesses.

Examples of industries well-suited to a Wix online store include:

• Sporting goods 
• Fashion and accessories
• Homeware, and arts and crafts
• Gift shops
• Pet supplies
• Healthcare products
• Digital education course providers

2. Hospitality, restaurants, and entertainment venues

Wix has dedicated templates for restaurants and cafes, events, and hotels, all three of which appear on Wix’s website creation prompt on its landing page.

When you select these templates, you’ll be suggested useful features for the type of hospitality businesses you have. These include table reservation management and menu displays for restaurants, reservation management and availability calendars for hotels, and ticketing or reservation forms for event organizers, to name a few.

3. Consultants, coaches, legal Firms, medical facilities, and health clubs

Wix is an attractive option for services-based businesses thanks to its appointment scheduling features. If you need your website to funnel curious customers into your in-person office or to book video appointments with you, Wix can do it.

There are dedicated templates for a variety of service businesses, including consulting and coaching, law services, and medical clinics, along with useful features such as staff availability management and appointment reminders.

Health and fitness businesses can specifically benefit from the Fit by Wix app (free to download without a premium subscription). It allows you to take bookings for gym classes, offer memberships, set up community groups, host discussions, and sell merchandise.

How Does Wix Compare to its Competitors?

Wix’s closest competitor is Squarespace, and the two are both beginner-friendly tools.

This wasn’t always the case, but Squarespace has become much more user-friendly in the past few years, creating an intuitive drag and drop editor that integrates smoothly with the backend.

Wix does have slightly more advanced features than Squarespace, but Squarespace beats Wix out in terms of website aesthetics. Which one you prioritize really depends on your business website needs.

If you’re after a more custom scalable site for building an online shop, then you should look into WooCommerce or Shopify. They’re some of our top ecommerce platforms for large companies.

Does Wix Have Good Customer Reviews?

Customer reviews of Wix are generally positive.

Here at Expert Market, we collected reviews from ordinary Wix customers as part of our review process, and they gave the platform a 4.7/5 as a general website builder, and a 45.5/5 for its ecommerce functionality.

The main praises we heard from customers were that Wix has useful features for businesses, and that its online store is very easy to use.

That being said, Wix’s customer rating has dipped slightly since this time last year, and it seems this is mainly because the platform has become a little less user friendly as Wix tries to expand its suite of features.

One customer told us, “the complexities make it harder to use and give you more to think about than you should have to, […] as someone who’s a non expert.”

Wix has plenty of good customer reviews across several major review platforms too. It’s got a 4.6 star rating on TrustPilot, with 73% of ratings being five stars.

Methodology: How We Tested Wix

The team at Expert Market evaluated Wix with its suitability for the average US business in mind.

We scored and rated Wix in six main categories, including features, usability, aesthetics, customer support, price, and feedback we received from everyday businesses who use Wix. We then gave each category score a ‘relevance weighting’, with features and functionality given the most weight, to ensure the product’s final score perfectly reflects the needs and requirements of Expert Market readers.

Here’s a more detailed look at what we considered when reviewing Wix:

• Features: the features Wix has, and how useful they are for businesses (SEO, marketing, online store, blog tools, AI assistant etc.)
• Aesthetics and design: the variety of templates Wix has, and how easy they are to customize to create a unique website that reflects a business’s brand
• Customer support: the availability of Wix’s customer support team, how many ways there are to contact them, and the usefulness of its support center and online forum
• Price: the balance between what Wix costs and the benefits it provides
• Customer feedback: how easy Wix is to use for the average customer, and their satisfaction levels with it as a website builder

Micro GPS trackers are really handy bits of kit. While there are lots of different uses for them, we’ve focused on the best ones for vehicle tracking, which is one of their most important features. This is especially true in today’s climate, where fuel prices and green concessions should encourage businesses to minimise fuel consumption.

We compared the specifications and customer reviews of many different micro trackers, and these are the three that will offer you the best vehicle tracking experience. Each excels in at least one area, but – spoiler alert – it was the Lightbug Pro that came out on top overall. Why? Because it’s a discreet and sturdy bit of kit with an amazing battery life, at a very reasonable price.

It’s worth noting at this point that if your business relies on more than one vehicle, your best bet is to skip the micro trackers and get a quote for a complete system. These will make your business a whole lot more efficient.

The best micro GPS trackers for vehicles

The best micro GPS trackers on the market today are: the Lightbug Pro, the Spy Tec GL300 and the MOTOsafety OBD GPS Tracker.

1. The Lightbug Pro

Best for: Long battery life

Lighbug only make two vehicle tracking products: the Lightbug Pro, and the Lightbug Zero. Why? Because both are so great, there’s really no reason to make more.

The Pro version is designed for use in vehicles, and if you’re after an epic battery life then look no further: when updating once every twelve hours, it will last an incredible five years from just one charge. Five years! That’s a big ask for a tiny gps tracker that’s only the size of a pack of cards.

The most basic version of the Pro tracker costs $242 upfront, then $9.30 monthly for the app and data (it works with a SIM card). More connectivity options and different mount types will cost a little more, but it’s generally a really good value tracker.

Prices are converted from GBP to AUD according to conversion rates on April 12, 2023.

2. Spy Tec GL300

Best for: Fast-moving vehicles, such as motorcycles

If it’s pinpoint accuracy you’re after, then the Spy Tec GL300 could be just what you’re looking for. It’s accurate to within 15 feet, and can update up to every five seconds (although this will seriously cut into its two week max. battery life).

This micro GPS tracker also offers geofencing (adding places such as an office, then being notified when the person enters or leaves these zones). And all this is packed into a pretty small package: around the size of three AA batteries. Spy Tec are also pretty on it when it comes to customer service – you can reach them over phone, email or webchat.

The downside? The ongoing price for using this tiny GPS tracker is quite significant at $38 a month (when paying annually) for the app.

Prices are converted from USD to AUD according to conversion rates on April 12, 2023.

3. MOTOsafety OBD GPS Tracker

Best for: Monitoring driver behaviour

This is a really small but advanced GPS tracker that does a lot more than simply tell you the location of your vehicle. If all you’re after is a simple micro GPS tracking device, then there are better (and cheaper) options out there for you. However, if you are after something a little more informative, this could be your model. At $105 upfront, then $38 a month for data, it isn’t the cheapest – but you do get a lot for your money.

MOTOsafety OBD tracker reports on driver behaviour. You can easily check back to see where your driver has been speeding or driving erratically. Dangerous driving is not just dangerous, it’s seriously bad for business, and this tracker can help you stamp it out for good. The downside of this product is that it has to be wired into the car, although this is easy enough to do.

But if its small size is what’s enticing you, check out the even smaller Spy Tec GL300 above.

Prices are converted from USD to AUD according to conversion rates on April 12, 2023

We’ve compared eight of the best small business phone systems in the UK, and our researchers hail Google Voice as the best for security features. This is because Google Voice offers robust security measures so you can enjoy its services without worrying about your privacy.

Our researchers measured Google Voice’s functionalities against its competitors using four key factors: inbound and outbound communications features, integrability (external connections), scalability, pricing, and customer support. Find out exactly how we rate it in our full Google Voice review below.

Expert Market’s team of experienced researchers has been reviewing the top business services and products in the market for years. So if you want to find out which business phone system best fits your organisation’s needs, try our free quote comparison tool.

Google Voice’s pros and cons

Pro – Reinforced security features

You won’t be disappointed with Google Voice’s security! Of the business phone system providers we tested, our independent researchers gave Google Voice the highest points for security features: a perfect 5/5.

Google Voice has doubled down on security measures, starting with complete compliance certificates to conform to various information security and data privacy laws. This means your phone system won’t collect, use, or share information without your consent.

Moreover, Google Voice employs multi-factor authentication, strict password rules, and user permissions, protecting your organisation’s personal, intellectual, and operational information. Likewise, it provides robust TLS/SRTP (Transport Layer Security/Secure Real-time Transport Protocol) encryption, securing your calls and protecting you from potential hackers and eavesdropping.

Pro – Terrific customer satisfaction rate

Real customer experience and insights help pace your expectations and help reduce your risk when making buying decisions. An overall 4.4/5 score across G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and TrustRadius tells us Google Voice is doing a lot of things right! Scroll down below to see reviews from actual clients.

Pro – An affordable choice

With prices starting at $10 per user, per month, Google Voice is definitely on the low-cost side of the spectrum, and is a lot more affordable than many other business phone system providers. Read our pricing section below for more information.

Con – Limited features

That said, there’s a reason why Google Voice is much more affordable than the other providers. Google Voice has limited capabilities when compared with its competitors, earning a low feature score of 2.6/5. For example, it doesn’t have customisable hold music and call queue features.

You can only get localised and toll-free numbers with a Premier price, and Google Voice requires you to have a genuine presence in that location. In comparison, other business phone systems, such as 8×8 and RingCentral, let you set up a local number whether you’re based in that location or not.

Read our 8×8 review and RingCentral review for more information.

Google Voice also doesn’t have call flip, barge, and whisper features, but it does have call forwarding across all pricing plans. The only management feature it offers, besides analytics/reporting, is customisable call routing, which you can only get on its Standard and Premier plans.

Con – Few external connections

Unlike some phone business providers, Google Voice doesn’t come with a desk phone. However, you can still connect third-party handsets from Poly, Cisco, Yealink, and Unify to maximise its services. Likewise, you can access Google Voice on your smartphone using the Google Voice app.

As for software integrations, Google Voice can’t integrate with chat and analytics platforms outside Google. But the biggest letdown would be Google Voice’s closed API. This means you can’t customise its software to integrate external applications, pulling its score for integrability down to 2.8/5.

However, Google Voice has the smoothest integrations with Google’s broad list of products, including Google Meet, Google Chat, and Google Workspace. Moreover, Google Voice has a ready-made Zoho Desk integration and various CRM integrations (Zoho CRM, Copper, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Freshsales, Agile CRM, Hubspot, MiniCRM, Apptivo) to help you gain and manage clients.

Con – Low scalability

Unfortunately, the absence of advanced features sees Google Voice score a below-average 2.9/5 score for scalability in our research. It doesn’t include call queueing, ring groups, local numbers, call barge, call whisper, and major management and collaborative features. This takes a toll on its ability to scale alongside a growing organisation.

However, it does offer some inbound and outbound communication features, management and collaboration capabilities, and software integrations, as well as security features.

How much does Google Voice cost?

Google Voice will be a good fit for your business if you want something easy on the budget and gets the job done.

Before we start discussing the cost, you should note that Google Voice is only available to Google Workspace users. Currently, Google Voice’s pricing is only presented in US dollars, with its cheapest plan costing $10 per user, per month. While this is very affordable, it has to be said that Google Voice doesn’t offer a great deal of features in return. For example, Dialpad may be a little more expensive, but it offers a more comprehensive list of features, and better customer support, thus offering better value for money. Read more in our Dialpad review.

At $10 per user, per month, Google Voice’s Starter plan includes a limit of ten users, unlimited domestic minutes, and free outbound calls to the US. On the other hand, Dialpad’s Standard plan costs $20 per user, per month and with unlimited users and unlimited domestic calls.

Now, when you upgrade to Google Voice’s Standard plan for $20 per user, per month, you’ll add call queue, ring groups, and customisable call routing to your features list. Moreover, you can sync Polycom desk phones to your system. Likewise, Dialpad’s Pro plan offers software integrations such as Salesforce, Slack, and Office 365 for $30 per user, per month.

Lastly, we have Google Voice’s Premier plan at $30 per user, per month, which allows you to set a localised toll-free number. Meanwhile, Dialpad’s Enterprise plan’s prices are bespoke and include a 100% uptime guarantee.

Google Voice’s standout features

Google optimised

Google Voice is offered as part of Google Workspace, that’s why it perfectly integrates with its apps and features. Since Google Workspace is one of the most used platforms for cloud computing, productivity, and collaboration tools, you’ll get to make the most of these features to boost your team’s productivity. Connect and collaborate with your team, clients, and suppliers with Gmail and Google Chat. Share important files through Google Drive, Google Docs, and Google Sheets. You can even make calls straight from Gmail. It also integrates smoothly with Google Meet, which means you can easily jump into a meeting on the go.

BigQuery

Get advanced reporting with BigQuery when you upgrade to Google Voice’s Premium plan. BigQuery is Google’s serverless multi-cloud enterprise data warehouse. With built-in machine learning and business intelligence (BI), BigQuery will analyse your data and make insightful reports in real time. This includes user information, call logs, and features, making it highly valuable for collecting information from your large number of callers. In other words, BigQuery allows you to manage complex data and run interactive queries quickly. This is most useful for large businesses with high call volume, storing extensive and detailed information about their clients.

What kind of business is Google Voice best for?

The best part about Google Voice is its top-of-the-line security system, making it the best business phone system for security features. Hence, we recommend Google Voice to businesses that prioritise security, particularly those that deal with a lot of sensitive information.

Google Voice offers all the basic features you need from a phone system, making it an affordable choice for small start-ups and businesses, especially for those that already use Google’s platforms. With affordable plans and user-friendly features, you’ll get a phone system with limited capital. Because it has the smoothest integration with Google Workspace, it’s the best business phone system for Google users.

If you have an international presence, Google Voice allows you to make calls from anywhere. In addition to this, Google Voice can route all calls from your team using a single number, making it practical for remote and hybrid teams. If you want to scale internationally, upgrading to the Premier plan for $30 per user, per month will allow you to make affordable international calls. This makes reaching out to your global clients and team much easier.

On the other hand, Google Voice will not be a good fit for organisations that require advanced call features. Its limited call features and software integrations will block your team from incorporating helpful business solutions outside Google.

How does Google Voice compare with other phone systems?

Our researchers compared Google Voice with its top competitors: 8×8, RingCentral, Vonage, GoToConnect, Nuacom, Dialpad, and bOnline. We rated these eight business phone system providers using four key factors: inbound and outbound communications features, integrability and scalability, pricing, and customer support.

Read more:

• GoToConnect Review
• Nuacom Review
• Vonage Review

1. Google Voice’s inbound and outbound communication features

When rating business phone systems’ communication features, Google Voice earned a low 2.6/5 features score. Google Voice lacks some features that many of its competitors provide, such as 8×8, which scores 4.6/5 for features in our research. It offers customisable greetings, a virtual receptionist, company hours, and local toll-free numbers across all of its plans, whereas Google Voice only provides these features on its Standard and Premier plans. Moreover, you can only set up localised and toll-free numbers on Google Voice’s most expensive plan, which also requires you to have a genuine presence in that location. Google Voice does not offer inbound communication features, including customisable hold music and call queues, which are offered by 8×8. These nifty additions will help you manage high call volumes.

Concerning outbound communication features, Google Voice also lacks 8×8’s power dialer, predictive dialling, auto dialers, and e-fax. Even call conferencing, a highly-useful feature all seven competitors offer, is missing across all Google Voice plans.

2. Google Voice integrability’s and scalability

Another drawback is Google Voice’s inability to integrate software and scale, seeing it score a low 2.8/5 for integrability in our research. Google Voice relies solely on Google Workspace for most of its features. While Google Workspace offers a wide variety of functionalities, most companies still use other collaborative and management applications to work.

Having a closed API makes it difficult for Google Voice to integrate with other software. It’s a good thing it has ready-made integrations with CRM systems Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, MS Dynamics, Oracle SalesCloud, Sugar CRM, Act!, Goldmine, and Workbooks.

If you run your business with various apps and software, consider RingCentral because it has the most ready-made integrations of all eight providers, with up to 97 CRM and 57 analytics platform integrations. Like Google Voice, RingCentral also connects with your helpdesk software, such as SalesForce, Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Hubspot. For team collaborations, 8×8 is another great option as it integrates with Microsoft Teams, Whatsapp, and Facebook.

Although Google Voice offers the best security out of all eight competitors, its scalability score is only 2.9/5, ranking eighth against eight competitors. Its low scores for integrability and its lack of call queues, ring groups, and several management features affect its ability to scale. If you want scalability in your phone system, 8×8 and RingCentral score the highest, with 4.9/5, respectively. Both providers have an extensive list of features, allowing them to handle high call volumes, manage a team, and foster collaborations.

3. Google Voice’s customer support channel

When it comes to customer support channels, Google Voice earns a mediocre score of 3.1/5. While it has 24/7 live support, a user forum and knowledge-base, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee, it doesn’t have email and live chat functions. This means you can only reach its customer support team through a phone line. It also lacks onboarding support, making it quite tricky to configure Google Voice’s system to match your business processes.

If you’re looking for better customer support, 8×8 and RingCentral both provide top-notch customer service, scoring 5/5 in our customer support research. Both provide 24/7 customer support through various channels, such as live chat, email, and phone. Like Google Voice, 8×8 and RingCentral have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, so you know you’ll be using a reliable system. Best of all, they can provide onboarding support to help you go live with your phone system.

Does Google Voice have good customer reviews?

Customer reviews help you hear honest insights from real-world users. An overall score of 4.4/5 across G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and TrustRadius, shows that Google Voice’s customers have had great experiences with it.

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) features, we found Wix to be the best overall, with an overall score of 4.6/5 in our in-depth research of the top ecommerce platforms. With its convenient SEO tools that are readily available as you set up shop, generating traffic to your online store should become a walk in the park.

For physical stores, you’d want them to be somewhere accessible, so easily accessible – it’s the same online! You want people to find you so they can buy your goods. This is exactly what SEO does for your business – it attracts customers by enhancing your visibility in a vast sea of competition.

In this article, we ranked these ecommerce platforms according to their SEO-enhancing features: keyword support, traffic generation, and mobile responsiveness. Read on for more.

The Best Ecommerce Platforms for SEO:

1. Wix
2. Squarespace
3. BigCommerce
4. Shopify
5. Square

Wix: Best Overall Ecommerce Platform for SEO

Squarespace: Best Ecommerce Platform for Keyword Support

BigCommerce: Best Ecommerce Platform for Advanced SEO Management

Shopify: Best Ecommerce Platform for SEO Apps and Plug-ins

Square: Best Ecommerce Platform for Affordability

How Did We Compare the Best Ecommerce Platforms for SEO?

At Expert Market, we have an in-house team of expert researchers that do a deep-dive into the finer details of ecommerce platforms in Canada. We compare these platforms according to the following criteria:

• SEO Features: We explore all of the features provided, like keyword support, social media integration, and mobile responsiveness, which contribute to your Google ranking.
• Website Features: We look at which provider has the capabilities to make your online stores more functional and convenient for your clientele. We also analyze its marketing tools that can help you improve your online presence.
• Sales Features: Since you’re building an ecommerce website, we look at the features offered that can help boost your sales. We also compare their payment channels and whether these are convenient for you and your customers.
• Design Functionalities: Here, we match up the platforms to analyze the design tools they offer, from the themes to the customizable elements.
• Value for Money: We also explore every platform’s prices, plans, and included features to see if it’s a great bang for your buck.

For a business owner, forking out for insurance is just one of life’s inevitabilities. But this expense can get pretty hefty – especially if you run a business fleet. After all, insuring your business’ vehicles and drivers isn’t just a good idea – it’s a legal requirement.

The good news? You’ve got more control over your fleet insurance costs than you think. That’s right – by adopting certain technologies, policies and practices, you can slash the cost of your commercial fleet insurance premium.

Sound good? Let’s explore what you can do to push those prices down…

What is fleet insurance?

Commercial fleet insurance is basically what it says on the tin – it’s insurance that covers all your vehicles and drivers on a single policy. Ultimately, it’s much more manageable – and usually cheaper – than insuring each vehicle individually.

The amount of cover you go for will depend primarily on your business’ needs, but also on your budget. The bare minimum you can get is third party only fleet insurance (TPO) – which covers other people and their property in an accident, but not your vehicles or drivers.

Meanwhile, third party, fire and theft fleet insurance (TPFT) and comprehensive fleet insurance offer more extensive cover, but come with a higher price tag.

How to reduce commercial fleet insurance

Generally speaking, if you want cheaper commercial fleet insurance premiums, you’ll need to:

• Show your insurer that your vehicle security is airtight – your vehicles are unlikely to be vandalised or stolen.
• Show your insurer that your drivers are safe and reliable, and unlikely to get into accidents.
• Look over your policy with an eagle eye and make changes to reduce your costs.

But what does this mean in practice? Well, with the above in mind, we bring you 13 pieces of actionable advice to apply to your fleet operations. These actions have been proven to get results – that is, reduced commercial fleet insurance premiums.

For ease, we’ve split these 13 actions into three sections:

So, are you ready to cut some costs? Let’s drive on…

How to reduce commercial fleet insurance while building or growing your fleet

1. Use the newest vehicles you can

Newer vehicles cost less to insure than older ones. Why? There are plenty of reasons:

• The newer the vehicle, the more up-to-date its security system, and so the more difficult it is to steal.
• Safety features are always improving, reducing the risk that drivers will need to make personal injury claims.
• Newer vehicles meet more stringent CO2 emissions standards and are more fuel efficient.

If you already have a fleet of older vehicles, replacing them with new models will certainly be expensive. Whether it’s a worthwhile cost is up to you, though it’ll almost definitely pay dividends later.

2. Install a vehicle tracking system

It’s our recommendation that all fleet managers install a vehicle tracking system, to keep 24/7 tabs on their vehicles and monitor crucial data, including fuel usage and driver behaviour.

A vehicle tracking system typically uses GPS to show where each vehicle is, in real-time, on a digital map. So, if a vehicle is stolen, you’ll see where it’s gone straight away. Plus, many systems enable geofencing – that is, putting a virtual border around your approved routes. If a vehicle crosses that border, you’ll be alerted.

With this security – plus the ability to monitor driver behaviour – in mind, plenty of insurers offer lower premiums to businesses that use vehicle tracking systems.

Would you like some help finding the right vehicle tracking system for you? Tell us about your fleet, and you’ll receive custom quotes from the trusted vehicle tracking providers that can cater to your unique needs!

3. Install alarms and immobilisers

This one’s pretty obvious – the more security measures you shower on your vehicles, the lower your insurance quote will become.

Making sure they’re fitted with alarms and immobilisers – electronic devices that do not allow an engine to run unless the appropriate key is used – makes your vehicles that much harder to steal, translating to less risk to the insurer.

4. Install dash cams

‘Crash for cash’ schemes – in which fraudsters deliberately crash their vehicles into others and submit claims for their so-called accidents – cost the motor insurance industry dearly.

When an incident happens, a dash cam will act as an impartial witness, recording exactly what happened and who’s at fault. This evidence is invaluable when it comes to defending or settling claims, and means the process can be dealt with much faster.

As an incentive, insurers often give discounts to businesses whose fleets are kitted out with dash cams. Yep, installing them does involve a decent cost, but many fleet managers will find the long-term benefits of having them worthwhile.

5. Only employ drivers with clean licenses

It goes without saying that you want your fleet to be made up of the safest drivers possible – and that starts with your recruitment process. Always ask to see a candidate’s driving record before employing them.

If any of your drivers have points or convictions on their licenses, your insurance provider has grounds to charge you more. In particular, insurers will look out for:

• Drunk driving convictions
• Speeding
• Personal car insurance claims

How to reduce commercial fleet insurance while managing your business

6. Act on dangerous driving

A vehicle tracking system can monitor your drivers’ behaviour, alerting you to any unsafe or aggressive habits – such as speeding, tailgating or harsh braking. It’s your job to train your drivers up in safer driving, otherwise you may find your renewal quote soaring through the roof.

Many insurers provide driver training programmes through partners, and will offer you a lower premium if your drivers have successfully taken part in one. Just be sure to choose a course that your insurer recognises and values. 

If you’re in need of inspiration for managing driver distractions, have a look at our strategies.

7. Conduct regular risk assessments and risk management

Your insurance company will carry out a risk assessment of your business. Working closely with your insurer on this is a great way to see your business through an insurer’s eyes, and target any points for improvement it uncovers.

Of course, you should also carry out your own risk assessments and management regularly, to make sure your high safety and security standards don’t slip. You can do this by using a well-rated fleet management software system. 

8. Keep your vehicles in a secure spot

Insurers want to know the chances of vandalism and theft are as slim as possible. When your vehicles aren’t in use, ensure they’re parked in a secure location – whether that means investing in fencing, locks and lighting for your communal parking area, or helping drivers to boost their home parking arrangements with extra security measures.

Different insurers may have different ideas about what makes for a safe spot. For example, some don’t like garages, thanks to the risk of objects falling on and damaging vehicles. Check with yours to see what their preference would be.

9. Make claims quickly

If one of your drivers does have an accident, make your claim immediately and do all you can to smooth the investigation and settling process along quickly. If your insurer sees you as efficient and cooperative, they may give you a smaller quote when renewal time comes around.

How to reduce commercial fleet insurance when organising your cover

10. See if you can combine your policies

You might be able to save money by combining your other insurance policies with fleet insurance. Of course, this will depend on whether or not your insurer will allow it.

Some insurance companies can combine public liability insurance and employee liability cover with fleet insurance – meaning you pay less for this ‘bundle’ than you would for three separate insurance policies. We’d say that’s definitely worth asking for!

11. Only pay for what you need

Delve a little deeper into your fleet insurance policy, and you might find it includes a few supplementary extras that could be a waste of your money.

For example, you might be paying for windscreen cover, even though third party repair companies can often repair and replace windscreens at a smaller cost. Or maybe you’re paying a lot for your insurer’s breakdown cover, but another company offers it for less.

Basically, it’s up to you to make sure that you’re only paying for what you really need from your insurer. Investigate your policy to see if you can get anything for less elsewhere, and save some money on your premium by dropping things that are unnecessarily costly.

12. Ask to increase your excess

Now, this one’s a bit of a risk. As with your personal car insurance, if you increase your fleet insurance excess (that is, the amount you’ll need to pay towards an insurance claim), your premium will be cheaper.

The downside? You’ll need to pay more in the event of a claim. So, if you claim fairly regularly, increasing your excess could actually cost you more in the long run. If you claim very rarely, though, boosting your excess might well save you a lot of cash. Only you can decide whether it’s something you should do.

13. Find the insurer that’s right for you

If your current insurance provider is still too expensive, don’t be afraid to shop around for alternative options – believe us, there are plenty out there. Just be sure to compare as many providers as possible, both in terms of price, and what they offer in return. This isn’t a decision to rush into!

Of course, if you’ve been a loyal client, it’s likely your insurer will want to keep you onside. Try asking whether there’s any way your premiums could be made cheaper, and the company might just make you an offer you can’t refuse.

Next steps

Commercial fleet insurance is a huge expense for any business. But, as we’ve explored, there are plenty of things you can do to keep your premiums and renewal quotes as low as possible. These range from heaping security measures on your vehicles and training up your drivers, to taking a closer look at your policy and making some tweaks.

Introducing a vehicle tracking system is a great place to start – and we can help you to find the right one for your business’ unique needs. Simply tell us about your fleet using our quick form, and you’ll receive custom quotes from suppliers that can cater to your requirements. It’s free and fast – why not give it a go?

Our rigorous research reveals that 8×8 offers the best business cell phone plan, scoring an almost perfect 4.7/5 in our overall analysis. Equipped with the most comprehensive list of features, 8×8 offers the mobility you need out of a cell phone plan. RingCentral follows close behind with its formidable inbound communication features and scalability.

In this article, we’ll be exploring the top eight business VoIP plans that are accessible via cell phone. We’ll be focusing on domestic and international minutes, SMS capability, and all the features you’ll be looking for in a cell phone plan. Below you will find an  overview for each contender that is sure to help you decide which VoIP to choose for your team.

Alternatively, get expert recommendations specially made for your team with our free quote comparison tool. Just answer a few questions about your business requirements, and we’ll get you connected with the best VoIP providers that match your business’ needs. They will then contact you with tailored, obligation-free quotes.

1. 8×8: Best Overall Business Cell Phone Plan Provider

2. RingCentral: Best for Small to Medium Businesses

3. Vonage: Best for Scaling Businesses

4. Ooma: Best for Low-Cost 24/7 Support

5. Nextiva: Best for Flexible Set Up

6. GoTo: Best for Low-Price Longevity

7. Net2Phone: Best for Low-Cost International Calling

8. Dialpad: Best for Conversational AI

How Did We Compare the Best Business Cell Phone Plans?

Our team of software researchers compared the top business cell phone plans in the US, analyzing key categories, including the following:

• Price – the plan’s cost and value for your money
• Integrability – the software’s ability to integrate with other platforms, such as Salesforce, Slack, and GSuite
• Features – the tools that define inbound and outbound communications, conversations, management, and collaboration functionalities
• Customer Support – the customer support channels available, such as phoneline, chat, and email
• Customer Score – average consumer review scores across the most trusted review sites: G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and TrustRadius
• Security – the security measures the vendor enforces to protect your data
• Scalability – an aggregated score that assesses a product’s ability to scale with business growth

As a result, we’ve narrowed it down to the top 8 business cell phone plans in the US, highlighting their benefits and drawbacks.

Once we collect the scores from these key factors, we then calculate the final score of each VoIP plan and rank them based on their overall performance.

When it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO) features, we found Wix to be the best overall, with an overall score of 4.6/5 in our in-depth research of the top ecommerce platforms. With its convenient SEO tools that are readily available as you set up shop, generating traffic to your online store should become a walk in the park.

For physical shops, you’d want them to be somewhere accessible, so easily accessible – it’s the same online! You want people to find you so they can buy your goods. This is exactly what SEO does for your business – it attracts customers by enhancing your visibility in a vast sea of competition.

In this article, we ranked these ecommerce platforms according to their SEO-enhancing features: keyword support, traffic generation, and mobile responsiveness. Read on for more.

The Best Ecommerce Platforms for SEO:

1. Wix
2. Squarespace
3. BigCommerce
4. Shopify
5. Square

*Prices are converted from USD to AUD according to conversion rates as per writing.

Wix: best overall ecommerce platform for SEO

Squarespace: best ecommerce platform for keyword support

BigCommerce: best ecommerce platform for advanced SEO management

Shopify: best ecommerce platform for SEO apps and plug-ins

Square: best ecommerce platform for affordability

How did we compare the best ecommerce platforms for SEO?

At Expert Market, we have an in-house team of expert researchers that do a deep-dive into the finer details of ecommerce platforms. We compare these platforms according to the following criteria:

• SEO Features: We explore all of the features provided, like keyword support, social media integration, and mobile responsiveness, which contribute to your Google ranking. 
• Website Features: We look at which provider has the capabilities to make your online stores more functional and convenient for your clientele. We also analyse its marketing tools that can help you improve your online presence.
• Sales Features: Since you’re building an ecommerce website, we look at the features offered that can help boost your sales. We also compare their payment channels and whether these are convenient for you and your customers.
• Design Functionalities: Here, we match up the platforms to analyse the design tools they offer, from the themes to the customizable elements.
• Value for Money: We also explore every platform’s prices, plans, and included features to see if it’s a great bang for your buck.