The Best Church Website Builders  

The best church website builder will help you reach more people, especially members who cannot physically attend worship services for one reason or another. A functioning website should be the first call of action for a church that wants to expand out of the city, state, or even overseas.

Reaching out to your followers in the 21st century needs more than just a great sermon. According to Grey Matter Research, over 17 million Americans attend online church services. Another study found that 96% of pastors use computers during church sessions. With websites being a basic need for any organization in this digital era, it’s important for a church to own a website. Perfect church websites start with choosing the best website builder and customizing your website to suit your congregation’s needs.

Regardless of your church website builder, there’s no reason to settle for less. You can still create an attention-grabbing, professional-looking, and mobile-ready website for your church while still keeping spirituality as the top priority.

The best website builder should be easy to use, without any programming background, and provide themes and templates that make access to information, documentation, and collaboration easier. If you’re a priest, pastor, reverend, or one of the church leaders yet to have a church website, it is time to start creating one. It will help in serving your congregation and other website visitors better.

Below is a composed list of the best website builders for churches.

1. Site123– Best overall website builder for churches
2. Squarespace- Best for beautifully designed templates for churches
3. Wix– Best church website builder for beginners
4. GoDaddy– Best flexible church website builder
5. Weebly– Best for creating a church website on a budget

Let’s look into these website builders in detail to help you make an informed decision.

1. SITE123

SITE123 is one of the most accessible website builders for churches. You can have your website up and running in three steps: select the design, attach content, and go live. The builder has a unique block-building system and focuses less on the standard customized designs. With that, you can create a massive website for a church.

Additionally, you do not need a professional website builder to make you a good-looking website. You also do not need to have any skills in website design to use SITE123.

With this website builder, you can make a website full of elements, menus, and sections in just a few minutes.

The website builder has several website templates for churches you can choose and customize as you desire. As you browse through the long list of templates, you will see demos on the templates. It’s always essential to test your template and ensure it looks excellent on hand-held devices and computer screens.

Some of the famous church templates available on SITE123 include:

• Education Center
• Children’s voice
• In God, we trust
• Community center
• Region clinic
• Welcome to the retirement center
• Conscience University

As a major plus, all the SITE123 templates are mobile-responsive and free to use. Therefore, you will not have more work to ensure your website looks good on tablets and smartphones.

However, the free plan of the builder only allows you to use templates in their most basic state. Therefore, what is visible in available templates is more of what you will get with limited edits on colors, fonts, and other design elements. You will need to upgrade to a paid plan to enjoy advanced customization options.

What Makes SITE123 Website Builder Stand Out for Churches?

The simplicity of SITE123 is one helpful element to ensure your website is ready within a short time. The builder has a design that allows you to add a music player, clickable maps, and worship team bios within no time.

Other notable features that make SITE123 standout for church websites include:

• Ease of implementation of donation forms: SITE123 comes with pre-made donation forms that you can customize to your website. You can include any relevant church images and a donation amount of your choice.
• Historical timeline page: The website builder includes a historical timeline page that you can use to tell your community about your journey. You can break down all the important milestones you have made on the page.
• Ready-made content pages: It also comes with ready-to-use pages that you can customize to suit your needs. On the ready-to-implement pages, you can add faith testimonials, a countdown page to the coming church gathering, or event promos.
• Multiple and single page site: The builder allows you to create church websites of any size. You can achieve that if you need a primary webpage with essential features like a map, contact form, and mass schedule. As you advance, you can then upgrade to a multi-page church website.

Features of SITE123 Church Website Builder

Customization features of any website builder are where things get interesting. Let’s look at some SITE123 exciting features that can be useful in building your church website.

• Free hosting: The platform offers free web hosting services for all the church websites you build with SITE123. The hosting includes modern security features, firewalls, and total confidentiality.
• Responsive web design: SITE123 provides you with a good experience and perfect responsive design for smartphones, tablets, and desktops. With that, your church website can get viewed amazingly on all devices. The improved user experience with the builder is just on another level.
• Website Translator: SITE123 includes top translation engines such as Bing Translate and Google Translate. The tools allow you to translate your church website text automatically. Alternatively, you can do a personal translation using an easy-to-use and unique interface.
• Robust e-commerce tools: Several e-commerce features get reserved for the first two subscription plans-Gold and Professional. The segment includes several unique things that are worth making. Some of these activities that come with the e-commerce tools include:

1. Online payments via Amazon Pay, Square, PayPal, Stripe, and more
2. Display of the unlimited number of products
3. Enable you to build a wish list and save it to your account
4. An unlimited number of orders get processed in a month.

Pros

• Simple setup
• Easy to use editor block
• Affordable donation features
• Helpful live chat feature
• Excellent site speed capabilities
• Fully mobile and tablet responsive templates
• Forever free plan
• Beginner-friendly

Cons

• Limited design customization
• Layout restriction
• You won’t get rid of all SITE123 ads.

2. Squarespace

Squarespace is a builder and website designer that you can use to create a church website that suits your specific needs. With its attached blogging tools, you publish and share inspirational messages, event announcements, and church news with the congregants.

Moreover, Squarespace comes with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools that you can use to enhance the prominence of your church website. SEO tools ensure that your site is reachable by Google and other online search engines.

Square space also comes with website analytics functionality. It analyzes your website, determines visitors, and shows keywords leading to traffic to your website. Squarespace will also give you a better idea of what your website needs to improve.

Interestingly, Squarespace features affordable website templates you can use to build a website for your ministry or church. The templates include:

• Montauk: A clean website theme perfect for ministries and churches. You can include an introduction and images of your church on the homepage. The template also consists of the event page, a calendar, and a drop-down menu where you can include a donation page, your blog, and other pages.
• Lusaka: An excellent church template that allows you to list all your programs, church services, mission statement, and events on the front page. The scrollable homepage also contains different sections you can customize with “Visit Us” and “Join Us.”
• Euclid: An ideal template for someone looking for a longer homepage. On the homepage, you can embed a clear and bold mission statement. Then, when you scroll further down, include a call to action to encourage new members to join the church.
• Rosetti: A fantastic template for someone who wants to showcase classes, sermons, and upcoming events on the homepage. When the userland of the website for the first time, you can salute them with a mission statement and then encourage them to register and join the congregation.
• Palmera: If you intend to start a blog, Palmera is the best template. You can write about religious topics on your blog or update church members about current and upcoming invents. The template also has a small menu option at the top-right corner where you can include links about the direction to church, a location to church, and an about page.
• Hoyd: Hoyd is a one-page church website to announce a new event or project and allows visitors to RSVP. You can include a brief message about the event or project opening and add an address and important contact. You also have the RSVP button.
• Paloma: A perfect template for someone looking to start a religious podcast. Users can instantly listen to the podcast by clicking “Listen Now.” Additionally, you can scroll down to the most recent podcast episodes.
• Colima: A beautiful template that allows you to feature upcoming Bible study sessions, workshops, or any other event and let guests sign up.
• Irving: A perfect church website template listing all your upcoming prayer sessions and Bible classes.
• Almar: An eye-catching church website template best suited for preachers, pastors, or religious organizations wanting to start personal, branded websites. A is a good template for creating a community and is easy to navigate.

What Makes Squarespace Website Builder Stand Out for Churches?

Some of the notable features that make Squarespace the best church website builder include:

• Recurring and Donations payments: Squarespace allows you to set up regular fees and one-time donations. Therefore, church members who cannot manage to make real-time contributions can make pledges and pay in the future when it is convenient for them.
• SEO features: The builder allows customization of page descriptions and titles. With that, people looking for places of worship can find the church using localized searches.
• Excellent mailing list management: With the Squarespace website builder, you can send special announcements, regularly scheduled newsletters, and event invitations.

Features of Squarespace Website Builder for church

• Search engine specifically designed for a website: Squarespace features an internal search function that enables users to look up information based on relevance.
• It allows users to have a selective access level to the website. For example, depending on their permission, some church members may be administrators, website editors, comment moderators, viewers, scheduling editors, etc.
• Excellent design options are available on Squarespace, including distinctive background images, adaptable layouts, built-in photo editing tools, TypeKit and Google Photos, and personalized color schemes.
• There are various types of content included. If you are skilled, you can customize any form of content, including text, video, products, galleries, social network profiles, menus, files, charts, and code.
• Several customizable settings: You can create various applications using the builder, such as a website, blog, online store, or portfolio for church officials.

Pros

• Excellent marketing tools
• A couple of weeks free trial is available.
• User-friendly interface
• Several eye-catching templates
• Unlimited bandwidth and storage
• Seamlessly integrates with many third-party apps

Cons

• No church-specific designs
• No reliable free plans
• No autosave for posts and pages

3. Wix

Wix is a versatile website builder with excellent editing tools, features, and templates. Many of its features make it the best church website builder. In addition, the builder has beautiful templates to help create a functional site for your church. Some of the best Wix church website templates include:

• Church: One of the most popular Wix church website templates. The slider on the homepage enhances visual appeal and catches visitors’ attention. The template also comes with an events calendar and an in-built donation feature. With a Church template, you can quickly use your website to raise money for trips and missions or inform your community of an upcoming event.
• Bible camp: The Bible camp template is one powerful theme that allows you to highlight the church and its main activities on the main page. Additionally, on the main page, you can provide information about other events and camps you host. With the template, you can also include information about ministries and pastors. Finally, you can pull your Instagram feed photos for a personal touch as if that is not enough.
• Online Church: Online church is a flexible Wix template focused on streaming your church service. The template is ideal for churches whose majority of the members like flexibility and freedom to worship from home. The online church template has a clean and friendly layout and is easy to navigate.
• Catholic Church template: It is a perfect template for churches, spiritual centers, and religious congregations. The template is colorful and allows you to edit features such as schedules, events, sermons, and staff members.
• Traditional church template: It is a user-friendly Wix template that enables you to build a mind-blowing online presence for your church. The values and mission of your church can easily be shared through the template. You can also communicate to your follower about upcoming events and philanthropic activities through your website.
• Community church template: It is a highly responsive template that creates clean websites for church communities, social communities, and churches. It has highlighted text allowing you to provide a detailed description of services, histories, and ministries.
• Christmas Boutique Template: An ideal website for building a shopping website. The template can be used to create a church website for Christmas parties, holiday celebrations, and special events. It has e-commerce features that allow you to organize your products and merchandise in various categories. You can highlight special deals, unbelievable discounts, and sales.

What Makes Wix Website Builder Stand Out for Churches?

• Donor Support options: Wix allows you to customize all the possible ways church members can support your church. Be it through online donation forms, in-person donations, text messages, or emails, and they are all supported.
• Media sharing: The versatile website builder allows you to embed or upload video and audio content. In addition, you can also host weekly live streams of church gatherings, and members and visitors can join from home or on the go.
• Event Management: Through the Wix website builder, it is easy to learn about future church events and sign up for them. You can also sell tickets, track RSVPs, and send reminders before an event starts.
• Features templates specifically for church websites. Wix is unique because it is the only builder providing community-focused and church-specific designs. In addition, you will find more than 20 templates just meant for religion and non-profit websites.
• Forums: Wix provides you with an online platform where your parishioners can interact. You can have both members-only and public areas designated for prayer request page, church questions, and news.

Features of Wix Website Builder for church

• Well-established platform: For several years, Wix has proven beyond doubt to have provided excellent services to all its user. The platform is still one of the best church website builders and offers the best in the industry.
• E-commerce features: Wix offers some of the best e-commerce features for can ever receive from a website builder. If your church has a gift shop, Wix Stores or Wix’s online store feature is the best way to get your shop digital.
• Professional church-specific templates: The platform includes pre-programmed templates for church websites. You do not have to create anything from scratch.
• The Members’ Area feature enables you to create a substantial website community. Church Members can make profiles, share content, like, follow, and leave comments.

Pros

• Tons and tons of church-specific templates
• Enables you to collect donations
• Beginner friendly
• Generous free plan
• Excellent apps
• A couple of solid website editor options

Cons

• A classic editor that may seem a challenge to use for the first time
• The website isn’t transferrable.
• Relatively costly
• Templates cannot get interchanged.

4. GoDaddy

One of the best website creation tools is the GoDaddy site builder. It blends cutting-edge designs with low prices, simplicity of use, and quality features. GoDaddy is, therefore, the ideal option for a church community wanting to expand their web presence efficiently.

For churches, GoDaddy offers some excellent template possibilities. They are simple to incorporate into your website and personalize. Typical GoDaddy artists’ templates include the following:

• Club mission: A clean and neat template with streamlined navigation, a clear call to action, and an impactful layout.
• Unity: It is a creative design template with a unique placement of social media icons, custom banners, and PayPal donation buttons.
• Global spark is a good GoDaddy template ideal for churches and non-profit organizations. Features a “Donate Now” call to action and email signup to help others join the cause. The Contact page focuses judiciously on increasing community involvement. You can share forthcoming inspirational and educational programs on the Events page. Even if your programming is free, you might want to include an online registration form to keep track of attendance.
• Collectors: It is a well-designed template with sharp text, a full-width marquee, and multiple interactive features, including a custom event calendar.
• Good works: It is a pet-friendly and playful template with a dedicated donation button, a color scheme, and a calendar. It can make a good choice for a church fundraising or donation platform.
• Ludlow: Build anticipation with this dreamlike, animated, one-page template that tells visitors to check back soon. That’s what the Ludlow template does.

What Makes GoDaddy Website Builder Stand Out for Churches?

• Donation options: GoDaddy allows you to collect donations from church members online. You just need to customize the PayPal button on your website, and you are good to go.
• Downloadable content: With GoDaddy, you can include any downloadable content on your website. The content may include but not be limited to eBooks and PDFs. Church members access such materials and download them from the website.
• Video and audio features: GoDaddy allows you to upload or embed audio(SoundCloud) and videos (Vimeo and YouTube). You can upload sermons on the website for church members to listen to and download.
• SEO visibility tools: The SEO visibility tools are included in all paid tiers. The tools help optimize your website from the site title, keywords, header text, and meta descriptions.

Features of GoDaddy Website Builder for church

• Marketing tools: GoDaddy offers marketing solutions to assist you in reaching your objective. For a year, the GSuite provides you with a personalized email. You may handle your emails using the built-in email service as well. For example, you can use this tool as a church to run customized email marketing.
• Google Analytics: You can easily link it with the website builder to track the traffic of people visiting your website.
• Search Engine Optimization: GoDaddy has a function that automatically checks your website for optimization needs regularly. As a result, it improves your visibility when customers are looking for your goods and services.
• Social media integration: GoDaddy simplifies integrating your social media accounts with your web pages. By including relevant social network icons, the feature is made possible. However, the free plan does not allow you to use the restricted features.
• Backup and restoration: As a safety measure in the unlikely event that your website gets hacked or crashes, the platform provides you with a backup and restoration tool.
• 24/7 phone support: GoDaddy’s customer service team is available via phone 24 hours a day, seven days per week.

Pros

• Excellent for beginners
• Business management, social media posting, and email features
• Comparatively affordable pricing plans
• Ideal marketing features: email marketing, social media dashboard, et cetera

Cons

• Limited design options
• It lacks an app store.
• Restrictive block elements

5. Weebly

One of the most straightforward and comprehensive website builders is Weebly. The platform helps to create eCommerce storefronts, blogs, and portfolios, making it an ideal choice for church websites.

Additionally, Weebly offers a drag-and-drop website builder tool with over 40 responsive mobile themes. The drag-and-drop editor’s capabilities are simple to use and approachable for new users.

If you are a developer, Weebly lets you add and update code. There are restrictions on what you may and cannot modify, though.

You may be as creative as you want with your design using the Weebly website builder. On the other hand, you may focus on refinement, simplicity, and relaxation with its unique templates. The accessible church website templates may be installed, modified, and built in a short amount of time. The following are a few of the well-known Weebly church website themes:

• Urban Church – Weebly: The urban church is a free Weebly theme specifically meant for designing church websites. With customizable templates, you can achieve any church website of your choice.
• Unite – Weebly: The Unbound – Unite theme conveys a powerful statement by combining lovely design elements with subtle backgrounds. The Unite theme is ideal for churches that wish to create content to uplift and motivate others. The blog is at the center of the template, but you may also include other pages, like a Donate page.
• Verbena – Webfire Themes: A premium Weebly theme with an interactive user experience. You can add a menu to the homepage’s header. In addition, you can add or remove custom pages and make drop-down menus to arrange your site.
• Aria – Web Fire Themes: Aria is a contemporary theme for corporate websites. However, the theme meets all the requirements to be considered a church theme. First, it is a flexible and incredibly responsive theme. This implies that everyone can view your church website’s content on any device screen because it automatically adjusts to the size.
• ePAGE – Roomy Themes: A unique theme for religious organizations, education institutions, churches, and more. The ePAGE modern template is vibrant. Although it may not be the neatest theme available, you may express information and feelings using solid church graphics and colors.
• Infiniti Weebly Template: The most delicate Weebly business theme is Infiniti, which focuses on gorgeous, clean, crisp layouts and element design. It also has robust, customizable options to help you create a professional and stylish ministry design.

What Makes Weebly Website Builder Stand Out for Churches?

• Features Multiple Apps: The most well-known website builder, with over 350 different apps. You can utilize the tools for building websites and integrate them into the apps.
• Easy-to-use editor with drag-and-drop functionality: The editor is simple to use. As a result, it won’t take long to discover how to use the user-friendly website builder.
• Has an uptime of 99.98%: It indicates that most of the time, your Weebly website will be operational
• Primarily focuses on eCommerce: Reports, fulfillment, altering goods, etc., are all included in the dashboard.

Features of Weebly Website Builder for church

• It includes several e-commerce features, such as a quick shop, in-store pickup, and inventory management. Additionally, it quickly communicates with online payment systems.
• Mobile app: You can check analytics, edit, and publish your website using the Weebly mobile app while on the go.
• SEO guide: The platform’s help and support center provide the best advice on how to begin using a search engine optimization strategy and tools.
• Weebly allows you to create custom contact forms, advanced comment management, built-in RSS (Really Simple Syndication), and blog social sharing capabilities.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Intuitive drag-and-drop editor
• 24/7 email support
• You can switch themes even after launching.
• Full HTML/CSS code editing
• Excellent for accepting payments and donations

Cons

• Limited design flexibility
• Limited blogging tools
• Branding and ads are included in the free plan.
• Lacks church-specific templates

Factors to Consider When Selecting the Best Website Builders For Churches

When choosing the best church website builder, consider the following church website functions.

• Church content and news: A good church website and its content should be interactive, easy to discover, intuitive, delightful, and easy to use. It should also allow incorporation with social media accounts, making it simple for visitors to find and interact with them.
• Design and templates: Flexibility in site design is essential, too! Select a church website builder that offers a large selection of church website content templates and the flexibility to make modifications even if you don’t know much about websites. In addition, you’ll need features that enable a professionally designed church website template to make your site appear beautiful and work as one of the top church websites available.
• Ease of use: A good website builder should allow you to get your church website online even if you have no prior experience.
• Sermons, podcasts & media player: Before visiting a church, many individuals listen to its podcasts or media collection. To address this, prepare to post audio or video recordings of your sermons on your website. For that reason, choose a website builder that allows you to upload video and audio recordings on your website.
• SEO: A good website builder should enable you to maximize your search engine visibility through customized titles, meta descriptions, internal linking, URL structuring, custom domains, and alternative domain names for special events or ministries.
• Church app: A church app can be a fantastic way to engage your congregation through mobile devices. In addition, you will require less management if a church app uses the same data and content as the church website. It’d because members will get alerts about events, podcasts, and other things through the app.

Inspiring Church websites to consider

All church websites have a similar challenge when it comes to design and customization. Information overload is a prevalent challenge because there is so much information to include on a church website.

A good church website can synthesize all necessary information into a coherent whole.

Below are some of the most stunning church websites and related website builders.

Bay Area Christian Church

Bay Area Christian Church is a popular worship joint in the San Francisco area. The Christian church is very open to many individuals. Their website is themed with a “Discover God” template in a dark color. The website design looks very neat and very informative. Bay Area Christian Church website features a WordPress website builder.

Grace

Grace is a religious community that aids and teaches about abuse in Christianity. They aim to help victims and prevent future occurrences of the same vices. The organization has an eye-catching website with a sunflower theme. The website is engaging and informative. Grace’s website features Squarespace website builder.

Darby Community Church

Darby Community Church is a famous Christian church in Dade City, Florida. The organization focuses on families and shaping the future generations of Christ. Besides the Sunday program, they also offer additional programs. They have an excellent website that details them and their programs. Darby Community Church website features a GoDaddy website builder.

Hope Church of Sparta

Hope Church of Sparta first started with two people- Pastor Michael Hamilton and pastor Kayte. The church follows sixteen different doctrines. Which they believe are non-negotiable and the core of their church. The church website homepage has menus together with the Sunday service worship schedule. It also has a “Give” button which people use to make online payments to the church. In addition, Hope Church of Sparta’s website features the Weebly website builder.

Which is the Best Website Builder for Churches?

Not everyone has the exact needs and requirements when looking for the best website builder for churches. In addition, each builder has its weaknesses and strengths for particular use cases.

Therefore, always choose a website builder that meets your needs and preferences.

If you are looking for the simplest way to create an extensive church website, SITE123 is the best option.

SITE123 is at top of our list because it offers the best features, designs, and graphics compared to other church website builders. The builder can manage all that if you want to have just the basic information or several components.

In addition, SITE123 has unique capabilities, such as allowing you to share sermons, promote the church calendar and enable church members to interact through posts and comments.

Are you looking for a straightforward solution for your church site? You go wrong with our best website builder for churches. Signup now enjoys several impressive features. Unlock the different paid plans and enjoy additional features.

Frequently Asked Questions about Website Builders for Churches

Talking about the best church website builders, here are the frequently asked questions: