Best Portfolio Website Builder For Australians

Weebly is a website and e-commerce service that powers millions of businesses on more than 50 million sites worldwide. You can use this builder to build a professional, mobile-optimised site, grow your business with marketing tools such as advanced analytics and easily manage the administrative duties of running an online business by simplifying shipping, taxes and inventory management.

Weebly stands out as the most affordable option. It offers a free plan for those who can tolerate a Weebly subdomain, ads on the site and limited storage. Its Professional plan at $15 AUD a month (billed annually) offers unlimited storage, a free domain, advanced site stats and phone support, while the Performance plan at $30 AUD a month (billed annually) offers robust e-commerce features such as shipping labels, item reviews and abandoned cart emails.

While Weebly does not have the extensive catalogue of templates that its competitors do, it does offer fully customisable themes. The drag-and-drop interface allows you to showcase your content however you’d like, with elements such as slideshows, captions, and lead capture forms. Customise fonts, add video backgrounds and use HTML/CSS and JavaScript to create a site that is uniquely yours.

Templates are easy to use and designed to optimise for both mobile and desktop browsers, automatically reformatting to the proper display dimensions.

Who should use it:Weebly is an excellent choice for someone who wants a quick, easy-to-set-up website for little to no money.

Squarespace is known for its sleek, modern, well-designed templates. Over the years, Squarespace has positioned itself as the go-to portfolio option for those who showcase creative work in a visually stunning way. With zero coding knowledge, you can create an aesthetically pleasing website in a short amount of time.

Like most competitors, Squarespace lets users customise their templates to create websites suited exactly to their needs. With a simple click of a button, you can change colours, add an e-commerce page, switch fonts or create blog posts. Creatives such as photographers, filmmakers, fashion designers and visual artists gravitate toward the simple, clean template that puts their artwork front and centre.

Basic plans start at $16 AUD per month. With a single basic subscription, you can create a website, host your content, register your own custom domain name and have access to customer service 24/7. As you move up in the plans, you can sell unlimited products, track your site’s analytics and sell subscriptions.

Who should use it:Squarespace is the go-to website builder for bloggers, creatives and e-commerce stores.

Read more:

Read our full Squarespace review.

With 82 million domain names, GoDaddy is best known as the company to use when securing a domain name. It is the world’s largest web host services platform for entrepreneurs with more than 20 million customers, including in Australia. Of the companies on our list,  GoDaddy offers the cheapest paid plan options.

When designing a website, most website builders will have you first choose a website template, then spend time customising the features. GoDaddy uses Artificial Design Intelligence to help you build a website. After answering questions about your site, GoDaddy’s AI automatically creates a mock-up for you based on your answers. You can then tweak the website from there if you need to make further adjustments. GoDaddy’s computer-assisted website design is lightning fast, making it the fastest website designer of the bunch.

GoDaddy has four pricing plans. All plans are reasonably priced. Users can build and use their website for free with the company’s one-month free trial. For e-commerce businesses, GoDaddy has integrated marketing tools to grow your business. The Commerce plan comes with advanced payment options, various shipping methods, highlighted product sections and promotional coupons.

Who should use it:GoDaddy is a solid website builder for those looking to get online super fast and who do not need a website with a ton of customisable features.

Read more: Read our full GoDaddy review.

It’s no surprise why Wix is a favourite platform for Australian website builders year after year. The platform offers more than 500 designer-made templates that you can fully customise using an easy drag-and-drop editing system. The platform is one of the easiest to use and offers an Artificial Design Intelligence that allows you to get your website up and running quickly.

Notable features of this platform include online scheduling software to let clients book services quickly, a logo maker to help you brand your company, SEO tools to help customers find you online and a robust free plan with no pressure to upgrade. The platform also offers the Wix Video Maker to help you make short promotional videos to attract and convert customers.

While Wix does offer a free plan, be aware that its paid plans are on the more expensive side. The basic paid website plan starts at $16 AUD and goes up to $33 AUD while business and e-commerce plans go up to $179 AUD per month.

Who should use it:Wix is one of the easiest website builders out there and offers a robust free plan, making it a great option for users new to website building.

Related: Read our full Wix review.

WordPress.com software runs on over 40% of all the websites on the internet, it is no exaggeration to say that it is the world’s most popular website building platform.

One of its greatest strengths is its versatility. Because the website builder gives you complete control over every aspect of your website, it can be used for nearly any type of website—from simple portfolios that just display photos, to powerful e-commerce enterprises. WordPress.com offers more than 50,000 plugins, meaning you can customise your site down to the smallest detail.

All that customisation can come at a cost for those not advanced in website design. WordPress.com is not as intuitive to use as many of its competitors, and editing your website is not as easy as the drag-and-drop methods of Wix and Weebly. Building your website on WordPress.com will likely take longer than its competitors too, as it lacks the speed of platforms like GoDaddy.

Personal and Premium plans cost $6 AUD and $12 AUD respectively, whereas e-commerce plans range from $38 AUD to $100 AUD.

Who should use it:Due to its many advanced features and plugins, WordPress.com is a great option for portfolios that need a highly customisable website.