The best website builder for most artists is Squarespace: its templates still make art look the most expensive, and it sells prints and originals competently. Format and Portfoliobox are the strongest portfolio-first picks (Portfoliobox has a free plan), ArtCloud wins if you're selling with inventory to manage, Pixpa adds client proofing for artists who also shoot, and Weebly or Hostinger's AI builder cover the budget end. The caveat this whole category shares: every one of them is a template. If your practice needs something real (commission requests priced by size, a print calculator that knows your edition rules), the last section covers the one path that isn't a template.
Artists get the worst version of the website-builder decision, because the site has two jobs that fight each other: gallery walls want to disappear behind the work, and working artists need machinery (commissions, print rules, collector follow-up) that most portfolio templates treat as an afterthought. Every builder below picks a side. Knowing which side you need is most of the decision.
What should an artist look for in a website builder?
Image handling first: full-bleed display, sane compression, and galleries that don't crop your work into squares. A store that fits how you actually sell: originals, prints, commissions, or all three have different needs, and commission fees vary (several builders below charge none). Commission workflow, if that's your income: at minimum a real inquiry form, ideally pricing logic. A domain and no builder badge, because "made with X" in your footer reads as amateur to the galleries and clients you're courting. Prices below were re-checked on each vendor's own pricing page on October 12, 2026.
At a glance
| Builder | Free plan | Entry price (as of October 2026) | Selling at entry tier | Best at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace | No, 14-day trial | Varies by country | Yes (2% transaction fee on Basic) | Making art look expensive |
| Wix | Yes, with Wix branding | Varies by country | No; payments start on Core | Design freedom |
| Format | No, 14-day trial | Basic $10/mo billed yearly ($14 monthly) | No; store starts on Pro | Portfolio-first workflow |
| Portfoliobox | Yes, 30 images and 5 pages | Personal $8.50/mo billed yearly ($11.70 monthly), excl. VAT | No; store on Professional, 0% commission | Clean portfolios, fair price |
| ArtCloud | Manager free tier (50 artworks, no payments) | Website Basic $17/mo billed yearly ($19 monthly) | Yes, zero commission | Selling + inventory |
| SmugMug | No, 14-day trial | $20/mo billed yearly | No; selling starts on Portfolio | Photographers, print sales |
| Pixpa | No, 15-day trial | Basic $5.40/mo billed yearly ($9 monthly) | Store from the Creator plan | Portfolio + store + proofing |
| Weebly | Yes, with Square ads | Personal $13/mo billed yearly ($16 monthly) | Yes | Budget simplicity |
| Hostinger AI builder | No | $2.99/mo on a 48-month prepay, renews at $10.99 | Store from Unlimited | Cheapest respectable start |
| Canva | Yes, up to 5 sites | Pro $144/year (US) | No native store | One-page portfolios |
| Greta | Yes, 5 credits a day | Starter $20/mo list, $5 on the welcome offer | Payments in the app you build | Custom functionality templates can't do |
The best, quickly
Squarespace is still the taste leader. Galleries hang your work in generous whitespace and the commerce is competent, with a 2% transaction fee on Basic and none from Core up. There's no free plan (a 14-day trial), and prices vary by country.
Wix offers more freedom and more decisions. Great when you have a specific vision; dangerous when you have four hundred choices and a deadline. The free plan carries Wix branding on a wixsite.com address, and you need the Core plan or above to take payments.
Format & Portfoliobox are built for portfolios first. Format's Basic plan is $10 a month billed yearly, its online store starts on Pro, and its client galleries cover favoriting, download controls, watermarks and password protection. Portfoliobox is the better value and the only one of the two with a free plan (30 images, 5 pages); its store, with 0% commission, is on the Professional plan.
ArtCloud is the pick when selling is the point: inventory, editions and gallery-world features, with zero commission on sales (card fees still apply). Its website plans start at $17 a month billed yearly, and its separate inventory Manager has a free tier for 50 artworks. Overkill for a pure portfolio.
SmugMug & Pixpa are photographer-lineage tools that fine artists quietly love. SmugMug brings strong image handling and print fulfillment, from $20 a month billed yearly, with selling from the Portfolio plan. Pixpa combines portfolio, store and proofing in one affordable tool, from $5.40 a month billed yearly.
Weebly & Hostinger AI are the budget tier. Weebly, now signed up through a Square account, has a free plan with Square ads and paid plans from $13 a month billed yearly. Hostinger's AI builder assembles a site fast from $2.99 a month, but only on a 48-month prepay, and it renews at $10.99. Both are fine for a first site you'll outgrow.
Canva: you already know the editor. Free users can publish up to 5 sites on a my.canva.site address. A good-looking one-pager in an afternoon; not a working artist's system.
Also worth a look outside this list: Cargo is a single plan at $14 a month billed yearly ($19 monthly) with built-in commerce, and Adobe Portfolio is included with Creative Cloud plans.
If you shoot for clients rather than sell your own art, our photography website builder comparison adds up the yearly cost of galleries, storage and sales fees.
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What's the best free website builder for artists?
Portfoliobox's free plan is the best genuinely free portfolio (30 images, 5 pages, a Portfoliobox subdomain). Wix's free plan gives more design freedom but carries Wix branding and can't take payments. Weebly is free with Square ads, and Canva is free for one-page sites. Squarespace, Format, SmugMug and Pixpa offer trials, not free plans.
Writers have different needs, such as buy links to several stores and a series reading order; see our author website builder comparison.
Are these customizable, or just templates?
Direct answer: in the workflow they sell you, templates, including the ones marketed as "AI," which generate a template faster rather than building anything custom. You choose a layout and fill fixed fields; the store sells the way the platform decided stores sell, and the contact form asks what it was built to ask.
One exception worth naming rather than glossing: Wix ships a real developer layer. Velo runs JavaScript, has its own database collections and backend code, so a commission form with pricing logic genuinely can be built there, as an application you maintain inside Wix's editor and runtime, on a Wix plan. Squarespace allows code injection on its Core, Plus and Advanced plans (not Basic), which is narrower. So the question isn't whether it can be customised; it's where you want that application to live.
For a portfolio with occasional sales, that's genuinely enough. Buy the Squarespace subscription and go make work.
When your practice needs more than a template
The working-artist problems no template ships: a commission form with real pricing logic (size, medium, framing, deposit math) instead of "email me for pricing." A print calculator tied to your actual paper and edition rules. A waitlist that opens by collection drop, with the queue and the notification handled for you.
Client proofing is deliberately not on that list. Pixpa ships it on every client-gallery plan (favourites, labels, star ratings, side-by-side comparison, per-image comments and an email when the client is done), and Format's client galleries cover favoriting and download controls. If approving images before you ship is the job, buy one of those rather than building it.
Those are applications, and describing one to Greta builds it: "collectors browse finished work; commission requests pick size and medium and get a quoted range with a deposit link; my dashboard tracks each commission from deposit to shipped." Database, payments, your domain, no badge. It can sit alongside a portfolio you already love (the Squarespace stays, the commission system lives on your subdomain) or replace the whole stack. The free plan (5 credits a day) builds the first version; Starter is $20/month list, $5 with the current welcome offer.
The pattern matches what we found across wedding builders and every template category: the templates are good at the gallery. They were never going to be your back office. For the wider choice between site builders and app builders, see our guide to the best website builder for non-technical founders.
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Just start with a simple prompt. No coding required: Greta.sh turns your idea into a working app in minutes.
FAQ
What is the best website builder for artists? Squarespace for most artists, because its templates present work best and its commerce handles prints and originals. Format or Portfoliobox for a portfolio-first site, ArtCloud for selling with inventory, and Pixpa if you also need client proofing.
What's the best free website builder for artists? Portfoliobox's free plan for a real portfolio; Wix free if you can live with its branding and no payments; Canva for a one-pager. Genuinely free and professional is a short list, and most working artists end up on a paid plan to get a custom domain and a store.
Should artists use Squarespace or Wix? Squarespace if you want it to look right by default; Wix if you have a specific layout in mind and the patience to build it. Taste by default versus freedom with effort.
Which artist website builders charge no commission on sales? As of October 2026, ArtCloud, Portfoliobox (on Professional) and Pixpa all advertise zero commission, though card processing fees still apply. Squarespace charges a 2% transaction fee on its Basic plan and none from Core up.
How do artists handle commissions on their website? Most templates stop at a contact form, and most artists quote by email forever after. A commission system with pricing logic and deposits is custom functionality, the one part of an artist's site worth building rather than templating, because it's where the money actually moves.
Do I need to know how to code to get a custom art website? No. Describing the workflow in plain English to an AI app builder covers it now: the build is generated, including database and payments. The skill that matters is knowing your own commission process well enough to describe it precisely.
