This guide is written by Jacob Wallace, President of Assist Art Services and eCommerce expert.

I talk to artists all the time about art, shipping, social media, you name it. Eventually, those conversations almost always end up at a discussion over websites. Artists will say things like:

<sigh> I know I should have a website.
I have a website, but I don’t really do anything with it.
My website makes me tons of money!
I don’t know how to get started.

Based upon my use of many different website builders and feedback from many artists, I’ve compiled this guide to help you choose the best website builder for your needs. As part of the evaluation, I considered:

Ease of use: How much learning curve is there to use this tool?
Website capabilities: What features does each tool have? What can you accomplish with and without the help of a developer.
Budget: How much does each tool cost?

By the way, I’m not affiliated with any of these builders and don’t get any affiliate payments from any of them.

The Top 3 Website Builders for Artists

Here’s the tl;dr. Keep scrolling for more in depth info.

Best website builder overall: Squarespace
Easiest website builder: Etsy
Best website for high volume sales: Shopify

Squarespace for artists

I’m a big fan of Squarespace. The more customization you can do to a website, the more complicated things get. Squarespace strikes a great balance of flexibility and ease of use. It has just about every feature an artist could want at a pretty reasonable price. There are a few features that would be nice to have that it makes you bump up to a higher tier to use, which is annoying for many artists. They are constantly updating and adding new features, so it gets better and better (as I was writing this paragraph I checked their plan comparison page and saw that they got rid of one of my biggest gripes!). It’s the most common website I’ve seen artists using and it’s what I built the Assist website with. You can use it as a basic website, an ecommerce site, a membership tool, and email marketing platform, and more. It’s a jack of all trades website builder that’s suitable for nearly any artist.

Pros:

Easy to use drag and drop editor.
Advanced shipping options.
Lot’s of prebuilt templates to use.
Has every feature most artists will ever need.

Cons:

Limited integrations.
Limited ability to customize permissions for users.
The lowest tier plan charges a transaction fee and lacks some features you’ll probably want.

Squarespace is best for artists needing an easy to use tool to showcase their artwork and list items for sale.

Etsy for Artists

Okay, okay, Etsy isn’t technically a website builder! You’ll end up with a profile on Etsy that you can send people to but it' won’t be your own website. It’s still worth including in this list because it’s a perfect viable option for your online presence.

If you want to sell some art but are intimidated about all things tech, this is just about the easiest possible way for you to list some stuff for sale. You won’t have much room to customize how things look, Etsy has already done the heavy lifting and decided all of that. You’ll basically be able to add a description, upload images, and set a price. With Etsy, you’ll want to spend some time getting your titles, tags, and descriptions written thoroughly with good keywords so that people can find your products. You’ll be competing with many other listings, so it can be hard to stick out organically. But, you can also send people directly to you shop through your other channels like emails or social media.

It’s worth noting that you don’t have to only do Etsy. I work with a number of artists that sell through Etsy and through their own website. I also know some artists that have a basic website that they use as a portfolio and then have Etsy as the place where they list things for sale.

Using Etsy, you’ll be at the mercy of their policies. They will charge you 6% of sales along with some fees for making listings (at the time of writing this post), but they could raise those rates at any time. You aren’t locked in forever though, you can always start with Etsy and then create a separate website down the line.

One of the most frustrating things about Etsy is its lack of shipping support. Let’s say you have an image that you want to offer as a 4x6 print (which will cost around $7 for shipping and packaging) and as a 30x40 stretched canvas (which will cost around $100 for shipping and packaging). In Etsy, you can list just one set of weights and dimensions for all of your different options on each product, so it will only calculate one shipping rate. People have been complaining about this on Etsy forums for years, so it probably won’t get fixed anytime soon. You’ll have to divide up listings or build shipping into the product cost.

Pros:

As easy as it gets.
Lots of built in marketing options.
Low up front costs.

Cons:

Very crowded, hard to stand out.
Very little ability to customize.
Very limited shipping support.
High percentage fee for orders.

Etsy is best for artists wanting to quickly and easily get art listed for sale without needing much technical know-how.

Shopify For High Volume Artists

Shopify is arguably the best known ecommerce tool out there. I’ve had lots of conversations with artists that are thinking about Shopify simply because they’ve heard of it and aren’t aware of other options.

Most artists I know don’t need Shopify. It has far more tools than they need and the learning curve is steeper than other tool (like my top pick, Squarespace). Unless you are a web designer or are willing to pay one, you’ll have a hard time getting it to look the way you want.

However, if you are selling a lot and bumping into some limitations of other tools, Shopify is worth taking a look. Shopify will have more robust shipping tools (handy if you send a lot of things of different weights/sizes or do a lot of international shipping), much more customization possible, tons of connections to third party apps, access to Shop Pay, a great connection to Faire, and much more. If there’s something you want your site to do, Shopify can do it so long as you have the budget to pay a developer to make it happen.

Pros:

Highly customizable.
Lots of shipping options.
Lots of third party app connections.

Cons:

Steep learning curve.
Expensive.

Some Honorable Mentions

There are lots of other tools out there that didn’t make my top list but are still worth mentioning!

Wix For Artists

Wix is a solid choice and very comparable to Squarespace. I find Squarespace a bit easier to work and think that it has a more intuitive drag and drop editor. I’d still pick Squarespace overall, but if you already have a Wix site, I don’t think it’s worth making a change.

Woocommerce For Artists

Woocommerce is a plugin for Wordpress. If you are a developer or have some technical know how, this can be a decent option. But for most people, this isn’t a good way to go. You’ll have to install Woocommerce onto your Wordpress and there won’t be any support if themes go out of date, if there are technical problems, etc. From my own experience of running a few Wordpress sites, there are frequent problems and lots of maintenance required. I know of at least one large art brand using Woocommerce. We were getting pretty far along in talks to start drop shipping and they had to delay… because they needed to spend a month troubleshooting their site! Woocommerce also has limited support with the tool we use for dropshipping, so it limits some options. If you aren’t already using a Woocommerce site, I’d steer clear.

Art Storefronts

If you spend anytime on Instagram, you’ve probably gotten ads for Art Storefronts. They are a bit different than everything I’ve covered so far. They’ll set up your whole site for you for free (at least they seem to always have a free set up deal going when I see them). Overall, I think their sites are pretty solid, though they tend to follow a similar template. They’ll help you with automated tracking tools, email automation, etc. The downside from my perspective is that they lock you into their system. They have their own print and framing fulfillment partners that you have to use, a limited set of tools, and a limited ability to edit the look of your site. I don’t like being locked into things, so I personally wouldn’t go this route. They also don’t list their pricing anywhere that I could find without getting in touch with them (though some third party sites claim $50/month minimum plus fees for commissions and marketing). I filled out the form on their site and they’ve consistently left me voicemails trying to sign me up for over a year now. However, I know several artists that use it and are very happy!

Faire For Wholesale Artists

Kind of like Etsy, this isn’t really a website builder. It’s a place to list products for sale specifically for wholesale shops to purchase them for retail. The highest volume artists we work with use Faire in addition to whatever they build their main website with.

BigCommerce For Artists

I’ve operated a large eCommerce store using BigCommerce for over 10 years and am a fan. Overall, it’s very comparable to Shopify. The reason I didn’t include it in the list is that it’s features are more geared towards Business to Business (B2B), not Business to Consumer (B2C). So, I think that Shopify is the better choice for high volume artists.

When Will The Sales Come?

It’s worth noting that no matter which platform you choose, the orders aren’t going to magically start. You need to generate traffic and an audience to come to your site if you want to make sales. But, choosing the right platform will make sure that there’s a good place for your audience to visit and buy things once you’ve got them!

The Best Website Builder