Free and low-cost website creation tools for your business

PageCloud is a Canadian company that offers a fully managed service for creating and hosting your website. Its drag-and-drop interface mirrors desktop tools you already know such as PowerPoint or Keynote. As a result, you can create a custom website in almost any language without a single line of code. However, more advanced users still get full access to source code to add or customize any of the HTML, CSS or JavaScript.

SITE123 free website builder makes it possible to create multilingual responsive websites. Specifically designed for users who have no web design or web programming experience, SITE123 comes with a visual editor. To reduce loading time, websites built with SITE123 are hosted on servers spread across the world. You cannot, however, export your website’s source code and host it elsewhere.

SiteW is a website builder designed with creatives in mind. Its intuitive platform and breadth of functionality make it easy to use by small businesses in any industry. Customers can start with the free plan, which is ad free, and upgrade to a paid plan with a built-in online store as their needs evolve.

Squarespace offers a very intuitive drag-and-drop interface for beginners, as well as custom cascading style sheets (CSS) for more advanced users. Whether you want to publish a simple one-page website with Cover Pages or run a full-fledged store, Squarespace can accommodate your needs. All Squarespace sites use responsive design to optimize your site’s display on all devices. The blog importing function also makes it easy to transition from platforms such as WordPress, Tumblr and Blogger.

Votresite.ca is a French website builder specifically designed for personal websites, although the platform is used by many small businesses, even those that need an e-commerce solution. Being a Canadian organization, Votresite.ca has also negotiated many exclusive deals for its customers, such as integration with Desjardins online banking and preferred shipping rates with Canada Post. A free 30-day trial version is available.

WebSelf is a bilingual online editor developed by a Quebec-based company. It offers basic functionalities and more than 600 templates optimized for mobile devices. You can also create an online store. Although the company hosts some of its servers in Canada, clients cannot specify where they want their data to be hosted. All accounts come with a domain name, a number of email in-boxes, and phone or online technical support at no extra cost.

Website.com is a drag-and-drop website and ecommerce site builder. Designed with the small business owner’s perspective in mind, the platform lets you choose one of the customizable templates, then drag and drop apps and widgets such as Google Maps, Web forms, PayPal and Stripe, eliminating the need for complex coding. Should you need to build an online store, it also provides product listing options and shopping cart features. Based in Burnaby, British Columbia, Website.com offers packages for all budgets, allowing you to add more advanced features as your business grows.

WordPress is a well-known free blogging tool. More and more people are using it to create entire websites, because it is search-engine friendly and because you can choose from a wide range of plugins to extend the functionalities of your site. The basic tool is free but many options cost extra, including the no-ads upgrade and some responsive themes.