Sitebuilder Review

SiteBuilder is a powerful tool that’s been around for some time. Its drag-and-drop editor is easy to use and lets you publish an basic website in no time. Add the features you need to get started into the mix and you get a decent builder.

Unfortunately, SiteBuilder is not up there with our best website builders. Because the service rarely receives updates, the templates are outdated and the performance is lacking compared to Wix or Weebly, it feels like someone abandoned the platform in 2016 and let it roll.

You can get a decent website up and running, but it’s hard to do fine retouches afterward. Even if the service will suit certain audiences, such as small offline businesses that want to have a platform online, you can get the same thing from other, better builders.

Alternatives for Sitebuilder

Strengths & Weaknesses

Features

SiteBuilder boasts all the right features. It has everything you need, including blogging, ecommerce, forms and an app market.

It looks that way, anyway. The problem is the features aren’t fleshed out. They all come with limitations, so let’s talk about the most important ones.

SiteBuilder Blogging

To add a blog on your website, you first have to choose a template. There are quite a few, and they’re beautifully designed.

Adding and managing posts from the blog menu in the editor is easy. It’s a straightforward process that allows you to change fonts, sizes, headers and even tags for better search engine optimization. It could be improved for beginners, though.

For example, Voog lets you edit a blog post page as you would a regular page, which is impossible in SiteBuilder. If you want a more user-friendly approach to blogging, check out our Voog review.

On a different note, if blogging is fundamental to your online presence, you could try WordPress. It’s a fleshed out content management system that’s built for blogging. It’s complex, though, so make sure to read our beginner’s guide to WordPress first.

SiteBuilder eCommerce

To access ecommerce features, you must upgrade to a paid plan. After you do so, it’s easy to set up a store page, add products and integrate PayPal with everything (cart, buy buttons, etc).

The system is rigid because you have to switch between the store and element menus when editing, but you’ll get the gist of it after adding one or two products.

That said, the process is not well-rounded. You can’t customize a product page because you’re stuck with your template’s default. Other limitations include the website not storing abandoned items in your customers’ carts and the lack of batch processing.

Plus, you can only accept payments through PayPal and direct transfer. It could be enough, but some people prefer other methods, such as MakeCommerce or Stripe.

Wix is much better suited to support an ecommerce website. Its analytics, customization and support surpass those of SiteBuilder, so read our Wix review before making up your mind.

SiteBuilder could still work if ecommerce is secondary for you, but if selling online is your top priority, you should consider Shopify, as well. It’s a builder made for ecommerce, but it’s complex, so check out our beginner guide to Shopify before jumping in.

SiteBuilder App Market

You can access SiteBuilder’s app market from your account’s dashboard.

It looks promising when you open the tool. There’s a search bar and a categories tab, but you won’t need to use them. On the Pro plan, you can only choose from seven add-ons. That’s dozens too few.

Because the market isn’t open to third parties, you’re limited in upgrading your toolset. It just doesn’t compare to Weebly’s app market, for example, which is one reason it’s easy to set up a website with SiteBuilder but impossible to make it perfect.

If you’re keen on retouching your website with the newest updates, check out our Weebly review. That builder is much better suited to accommodate a perfectionist.

Features Overview

Pricing

SiteBuilder’s plans are not the best out there. You don’t get ecommerce unless you purchase the most expensive plan and you only get 5GB of storage at the lowest tier.

Free Drag-and-drop builder,Customizable templates,Subdomain,Website statistics,Website ads,Ad credits , Unlimited GB Storage Space Unlimited GB Bandwidth 1 Domains Domain Name	FREE
Pro Free hosting,Drag-and-drop builder,Customizable templates,Domain name included,Website statistics,No website ads,Ad credits included, Unlimited GB Storage Space Unlimited GB Bandwidth 1 Domains Domain Name	1-month plan $ 4.99/ month 1-year plan $ 4.61/ month $55.32 billed every year Save 8 % 2-year plan $ 3.64/ month $87.36 billed every 2 years Save 27 %
Premium Free hosting,Drag-and-drop builder,Customizable templates,Domain name included,Website statistics,No website ads,Ad credits included,Priority support, Unlimited GB Storage Space Unlimited GB Bandwidth 1 Domains Domain Name	1-month plan $ 6.49/ month 1-year plan $ 6.14/ month $73.68 billed every year Save 5 % 2-year plan $ 5.99/ month $143.76 billed every 2 years Save 8 %
eCommerce Free hosting,Drag-and-drop builder,Customizable templates,Domain name included,Website statistics,No website ads,Ad credits included,Priority support,ecommerce Unlimited GB Storage Space Unlimited GB Bandwidth 1 Domains Domain Name	1-month plan $ 12.49/ month 1-year plan $ 9.99/ month $119.88 billed every year Save 20 % 2-year plan $ 3.23/ month $77.52 billed every 2 years Save 74 %

On the Pro plan, you get most of the SiteBuilder functions. You can customize the templates and you get rid of float ads. Plus, you can access web stats and get a domain for free. It’s a decent plan until you get into the nitty-gritty.

5GB of storage is all you get with it, which is low. Most website builders offer more at their lowest price point, so SiteBuilder’s storage is an issue.

The Premium plan has even more problems. For almost double the price, the only upgrade you get is priority support, which is not worth it. You do get another 5GB of storage, so that’s no longer an issue.

The only reason to upgrade to its ecommerce plan is if you started with SiteBuilder and want to add a store to your website. ecommerce is the only plus of this plan, and, as we said, the service’s ecommerce feature is not fleshed out.

You can try SiteBuilder for free, but you’ll only get a subdomain and you’re stuck with developer ads. We recommend this option to test the service, but not for doing anything else.

Design & Tools

SiteBuilder’s editor is complex. There are a lot of elements you can drag into your page and many options when it comes to formatting, style and code.

The problem is the system is not deep enough. Yes, it’s complex, but there’s no point in having a lot of options if none of them are customizable enough to reach a desired result. Imagine the Atlantic Ocean if it was one foot deep. It would look beautiful from the surface, but you wouldn’t be able to sail anywhere. That’s SiteBuilder’s editor.

Besides general limitations, you can’t change a template once it has been published. That means you have to be careful choosing one because you’ll be stuck with it. If you want to use SiteBuilder, we recommend trying a few templates before you press publish.

Though all that’s true, there is merit to the tool. It’s easy to set up a simple website and you can quickly navigate its options. As good as that sounds, though, it’s not enough. Most of the competition also has that perk.

The elements tab is complex. For example, you can  add shapes that can be resized and colored any way you want. That provides a lot of flexibility, but it doesn’t end there. Everything is easier to set up with things such as on-page anchors being directly inserted as “scroll down” or “scroll up” buttons.

All in all, the system is set up so you can get something simple up and running quickly.

The “pages” menu lets you manage your website’s pages. Adding or removing pages will modify the header menu, so, once again, you can see SiteBuilder’s dedication to making everything easy.

Under the “section” button, you can modify the structure of the page you’re editing. Though there aren’t a lot of options, it makes everything easier to organize, so it’s another plus for beginners.

What’s great is you can hide sections for different platforms. If something doesn’t look good on mobile but works great for a desktop visitor, you can hide it on the mobile version of your website.

The “design” section lets you modify the style and fonts. Everything is straightforward, but this menu is a big plus for people who want an artsy website. You can choose from a lot of textures that act as your website’s background.

Unfortunately, you can’t upload your own textures, but you can edit existing ones by changing shapes and colors.

The “blog” and “store” sections deal with their respective features: blogging and ecommerce. In both cases, you have to answer a few questions to set up the feature and access global changes from the tabs.

These menus are organized well and make it easy to manage a blog or store, but they don’t offer many customization options. For example, you can’t categorize posts or batch process orders.

The “stats” tab lets you view in-house statistics. It pales in comparison to what you can analyze with Google Analytics, but it should work better if you’re not running an online business.

People who just need to promote their offline business will find SiteBuilder’s “stats” tab much easier to navigate and interpret, so, again, you can see a software better suited for people getting started.

The “manage” button reveals back end customization possibilities. You can access options relating to form submissions, integrate Google Analytics and more.

A cool thing about the menu is the revision history. You can save the website at any point and revert to an older version if a new feature didn’t go well with your audience. Granted, you have to upgrade to a paid plan to do that, but it’s still a helpful feature.

You can also modify on-page elements with a few pop-up options when selecting anything from your page.

That generally deals with style, but the options it provides help streamline the process of getting your website published.

Finally, some options are available from the dashboard.

It’s where you can access the app market, get a quick overview of form submissions and upgrade your pricing plan.

As you can see, there are important options there, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. For example, it would help if the app market was accessible from the editor because you’d have an easier time integrating plugins and getting your job done faster.

Ease of Use

SiteBuilder’s editor is easy to use. There are a few advanced issues, such as layering background colors or effects, that will prove hard to solve without contacting a representative, though. On top of that, some processes, such as setting up your store, are counterintuitive. That said, you shouldn’t have a hard time getting your website up and running.

The platform’s templates also make your life easier because they require little customization to look beautiful.

Unfortunately, you can’t change your website’s template once you publish it. That’s a bummer because it makes rebranding in the future hard. That’s a problem, because, though it’s easy to modify the look of a template, templates come with structure limitations.

If you have an offline business and want a quick website up to expand your customer base, SiteBuilder will work fine, but you should try something else if your business is online-first.

Support

SiteBuilder’s knowledgebase isn’t organized well. It only features 10 categories of answered questions, but the search engine works fine.

The answered questions are hit and miss. Some are thorough, but others don’t offer a great deal of help. That said, the most important topics are covered, so you shouldn’t have a hard time finding what you need.

If you run into issues and have to contact the company, the situation is better. If you’re in the U.S., you can call at any time. Users from other locations can also get in touch via email or chat.

The response time for both — up to 48 hours for a human to look at your inquiry — is decent. Though helpful, the response we received to one of our tickets wasn’t professional.

All in all, the support for SiteBuilder is not stellar, but it will do the job.

The Verdict

If you have a clear picture in mind of what your ideal website will look like or you’re a perfectionist, you might be better of with a different builder.

That said, if you want stunning results in no time, give SiteBuilder a shot, as long as you don’t like Squarespace or Weebly, which offer the same and let you do retouches afterward.

If you want something different, read our best web hosting providers article. We recommend WordPress, but look around and see if something else piques your interest.

What do you think about SiteBuilder? Was our take on it fair? If you don’t agree with us or if there’s something you want to add, give us your take take in the comment section below. Thank you for reading.