There are dozens of website platforms out there, and if you’ve spent any time Googling, you’ve probably seen a different “best” recommendation on every single page. Here’s an honest breakdown from someone who works in this space every day.
The truth is, there is no single best website platform for everyone. The best platform for your business depends on what you do, how you work, and what you need your website to actually accomplish. That said, for creative entrepreneurs — photographers, designers, coaches, educators, and service providers — there is absolutely a shortlist worth knowing about, and a clear frontrunner for a very specific type of business.
Let’s walk through the most popular options, who they’re actually built for, and why so many creative professionals are landing on Showit.
The most popular website platforms compared
Showit
Showit is a drag-and-drop website builder designed specifically for creative entrepreneurs. Unlike most platforms, it gives you true pixel-perfect design freedom, meaning nothing is locked into a grid or template structure. You design exactly what you envision, on both desktop and mobile, independently.
Every Showit plan includes hosting, an SSL certificate, 20GB of media storage, and design backups every 10 minutes. If blogging is part of your strategy (and for SEO purposes, it absolutely should be), the Basic Starter Blog and Advanced Blog plans add a WordPress-powered blog to the mix. That combination of visual freedom and WordPress SEO power is genuinely hard to beat.
Best for: Creative entrepreneurs and service-based businesses who care deeply about design, brand, and long-term SEO growth.
✦ Showit Tip: Showit currently offers three plans. The basic Showit plan ($22/month or $259/year) covers your website only, with no blog. The Showit & Basic Starter Blog plan ($27/month or $326/year) adds a WordPress blog with pre-installed plugins, up to 10K blog visits per month, and daily blog backups. It’s perfect if you’re starting a brand new blog. The Showit & Advanced Blog plan ($39/month or $470/year) unlocks thousands of custom WordPress plugins including e-commerce options, up to 25K blog visits per month, unlimited WordPress users, and a free advanced blog migration from WordPress or Squarespace. If content marketing is any part of your growth strategy, start on at least the Basic Starter Blog plan from day one.
Squarespace
Squarespace is a fully hosted, all-in-one platform with beautiful out-of-the-box templates. It’s one of the easiest platforms to get started on, and it handles your domain, hosting, and design all in one subscription.
The limitation is flexibility. Squarespace templates are gorgeous but constrained. You’re working within a grid system, and customization beyond the template requires CSS knowledge. Its blogging tools are functional, but they don’t carry the SEO weight of a WordPress-powered blog.
Best for: Beginners who want something live quickly, or businesses with simple needs and no immediate plans to scale their content marketing.
Shopify
Shopify is the leading e-commerce platform on the market, and it does one thing exceptionally well: selling products online. If your business is primarily built around a physical or digital product shop, Shopify is purpose-built for that. It handles inventory, payments, shipping, and checkout with more polish and reliability than any other platform on this list.
Where Shopify falls short is everything outside the shop. The blogging tools are basic, the design freedom is limited compared to Showit, and it isn’t built for service-based businesses or content-heavy sites.
It’s worth knowing that Showit can integrate with Shopify for creative entrepreneurs who want the best of both worlds — a stunning, custom-designed Showit website with a Shopify-powered shop embedded inside it.
Best for: Product-based businesses where the shop is the primary focus of the website.
✦ Showit Tip: If you sell digital products like presets, templates, or guides alongside your services, you don’t necessarily need Shopify. Showit’s Advanced Blog plan gives you access to WooCommerce, which handles lighter e-commerce needs really well and keeps everything under one roof.
GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel is a different kind of platform entirely, and it’s worth understanding what it actually is before deciding whether it belongs on your radar. It is primarily a CRM and marketing automation tool — think email sequences, SMS campaigns, sales pipelines, appointment booking, and client management — that also happens to include a website and funnel builder.
The real value of GoHighLevel isn’t in its website builder alone. You get an entire ecosystem of marketing and client management tools that work together seamlessly. Source: Ghlelite For that reason, most people using GoHighLevel aren’t choosing it because they want a beautiful website. They’re choosing it because they want powerful automation and client management, and the website builder comes along for the ride.
The website builder itself is functional and has improved significantly, but it doesn’t offer the design freedom or visual polish that Showit does. If you need a highly customized website with advanced features and unique designs, you might want to consider other options. Source: Ghlelite
Pricing reflects the platform’s scope. GoHighLevel starts at $97/month for the Starter plan, $297/month for the Unlimited plan, and $497/month for the SaaS Pro plan. Source: Ghost These are not website-builder prices — they’re all-in-one business software prices.
Best for: Coaches, consultants, and agencies who prioritize marketing automation and CRM over website design, and who want their website, funnels, email, SMS, and client pipelines all inside one platform.
✦ Showit Tip: A lot of creative entrepreneurs end up using both. They build their public-facing brand website on Showit for the design quality and SEO benefits, then use GoHighLevel behind the scenes for client management, automations, and follow-up sequences. The two platforms serve very different purposes and can genuinely complement each other.
WordPress (.org)
Self-hosted WordPress is the most powerful and flexible platform on the internet. It powers roughly 43% of all websites globally, and its SEO capabilities are unmatched. The catch is that it requires you to purchase separate hosting, handle your own security and updates, and navigate a steeper learning curve than any other platform on this list.
It’s worth noting that Showit’s blog plans use WordPress on the backend, so Showit users get the SEO power of WordPress without the technical overhead of managing a self-hosted site. Best of both worlds.
Best for: Developers, agencies, or businesses with complex functionality needs and access to ongoing technical support.
Wix
Wix is a beginner-friendly drag-and-drop builder with a large template library. It’s accessible and affordable, but its SEO reputation has historically been weaker than other platforms, and Wix sites can load slowly, which directly impacts your Google rankings.
Best for: Hobbyists, side projects, or very early-stage businesses testing an idea on a minimal budget.
Webflow
Webflow sits somewhere between a design tool and a development platform. It offers exceptional design control and clean code output, making it a favorite among designers and developers who want full creative freedom without writing code from scratch. The learning curve is significant and it is not a self-service platform for most business owners.
Best for: Designers and developers building custom sites for clients, or tech-savvy business owners with a design background.
Squarespace vs. Showit — the question I get asked most
Since a lot of creative entrepreneurs are deciding between these two specifically, here’s the honest side-by-side:
Squarespace:
- All-in-one with domain, hosting, and design in one place
- Beautiful templates with limited customization beyond the grid
- Easier to DIY for complete beginners
- Built-in e-commerce on higher plans
- Functional blogging tools, but not WordPress-level SEO power
- Lower starting price point
Showit:
- Pixel-perfect design freedom with nothing locked into a grid
- Hosting and SSL included on all plans; domain purchased separately
- WordPress blog included on Basic Starter Blog and Advanced Blog plans
- Designed specifically for the creative industry
- Steeper DIY learning curve, which is why hiring a designer gets you so much further
- Scales beautifully as your business and blog grow
Squarespace will get you online. Showit will get you noticed.
What actually matters when choosing a platform
Before you pick based on price alone, consider these factors:
Design freedom. Does the platform let you build the website you actually envision, or are you compromising your brand to fit inside a template someone else designed?
SEO capability. Your website is only valuable if people can find it. Showit’s blog plans give you a WordPress-powered blog, which is the gold standard for content SEO, without requiring you to manage a self-hosted WordPress site.
Scalability. Will this platform still serve you well in three years when your business has grown? Migrating a website is expensive and time-consuming, so choose a platform you can grow into.
Mobile design control. On most platforms, mobile is an automatic adaptation of your desktop layout. On Showit, you design desktop and mobile independently, which means your mobile site is just as intentional and polished as your desktop experience.
Support and community. Showit has an exceptionally active designer community, regular platform updates, and highly rated customer support. When something goes wrong (and at some point, something always does), you want a platform that’s in your corner.
The best platform isn’t the cheapest one or the most popular one. It’s the one that serves your specific business goals and grows with you.
Common questions about choosing a website platform
“Can I switch platforms later if I change my mind?”
Yes, but it’s not painless. Migrating a website, especially one with a large blog, takes significant time and sometimes money. It’s worth doing your research upfront and choosing a platform you’re confident in for the long term. Many of my clients come to me after outgrowing Squarespace or Wix, and while we absolutely make it work, starting on the right platform saves that hassle entirely.
“Is Showit good for e-commerce?”
Showit’s Advanced Blog plan gives you access to thousands of WordPress plugins, including e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce. For service-based businesses with a secondary shop selling digital downloads, presets, or templates, this works really well. If you need a more robust shopping experience, Showit also integrates with Shopify so you can have a beautifully designed Showit site with a full Shopify store powering the checkout. Note that e-commerce plugins are only available on the Advanced Blog plan.
“Should I use GoHighLevel instead of Showit?”
These platforms aren’t really competing for the same job. Showit is a website design platform built to make your brand look exceptional online and support your long-term SEO through WordPress blogging. GoHighLevel is a business operations platform built to manage leads, automate follow-ups, and run your client pipeline. Many creative entrepreneurs use Showit for their public-facing website and GoHighLevel for behind-the-scenes client management. If you’re just starting out and need to choose one, Showit is the right first investment for establishing your online presence.
“What platform is best for photographers specifically?”
Showit. It’s not even close. The platform was originally built with photographers in mind, and the design freedom it offers is unmatched for showcasing visual work. Full-bleed galleries, custom hover effects, cinematic layouts, all without touching a single line of code. The majority of high-end photography websites you admire are almost certainly built on Showit.
“Which platform ranks best on Google?”
WordPress is the gold standard for SEO, and Showit’s blog plans use WordPress on the backend. That matters enormously for long-term search visibility. If content marketing and blogging are part of your growth strategy, make sure you’re on Showit’s Basic Starter Blog or Advanced Blog plan so you have that WordPress SEO power working for you from day one.
“Is Showit worth the monthly cost?”
When you factor in that every plan includes hosting, an SSL certificate, 20GB of storage, and 10-minute design backups, the pricing is genuinely competitive. The Basic Starter Blog plan at $27/month gives you a fully hosted website plus a WordPress blog, which is exceptional value compared to paying for hosting, a WordPress theme, and plugins separately. The Advanced Blog plan at $39/month is the right choice if you’re migrating an existing blog, need custom plugins, or have worked with an SEO expert who requires specific WordPress tools.
The bottom line
For creative entrepreneurs and service-based business owners, here’s the honest platform ranking:
✦ Showit — best overall for design freedom, SEO, and creative industry fit
✦ Squarespace — best for beginners who need something simple and fast
✦ Shopify — best for product-based businesses where the shop is the core focus
✦ GoHighLevel — best for businesses prioritizing CRM and marketing automation over design
✦ WordPress (.org) — best for complex, high-traffic sites with technical support
✦ Webflow — best for designers and developers who want code-level control
✦ Wix — best for hobby projects and very early-stage idea testing
If you’re a photographer, brand designer, coach, educator, or creative service provider who is serious about your online presence, Showit is the platform I recommend without hesitation. It’s what I build on, it’s what I know inside and out, and it consistently produces the most elevated, strategic results for my clients.
One last thing: if blogging is any part of your business plan, don’t sign up for the basic website-only Showit plan. Start on the Basic Starter Blog or Advanced Blog plan from day one. Your future SEO rankings will thank you.
Thinking about building or redesigning your website on Showit? I’d love to be your designer. Browse packages and reach out at ericakdesign.com.
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