The Best Musician Website Builders 2024
“I’ve been playing the oboe for 25+ years. I’ve been a professional musician for almost two decades. I’ve been a web developer for 15 years. Here are my thoughts on the best musician website builders in 2024.”
A little backstory….
In 2007 I started building an HTML site for my music duo. We needed to promote a self-published album and our gigs. It was a simple site. So was the internet at the time.
Fast forward to 2013. I graduated from University and needed a website to promote myself as a freelance musician. Someone recommended Hostbaby. This was a CMS (content management system) website builder that let you build your own website without code. What??!!
I designed the site. A year later, I re-designed the site. I put up my bio and information about private lessons. I tried Weebly. I tried Wix. Then I moved it over to WordPress.com. A year later, I redesigned the site, again.
I am enjoying website design so much, I decide to make a business out of it. In 2014 I launched Khara Wolf Design, a marketing agency for small businesses that offers website design and development. I get into self-hosted WordPress websites and develop on WordPress for 10 years.
And then I find Squarespace. And then Squarespace launches their 7.1 framework and Fluid Engine builder in 2020-2022 and my mind is BLOWN. 🤯
What is the takeaway?
You are a musician. You don’t have time to be searching for the right website builder for musicians, let along building the actual website.
You also need to be able to share your music, embed audio and video, share images, create press kits, integrate with Bandzoogle/Soudcloud/etc, advertise your gigs and tour, sell downloads and merch, build your teaching studio, and connect with your audience. And hey, you probably also want to email your fans or students, create and sell courses, and customize your entire design all in one place.
Table of Contents
The Best Website Builders for Musicians
Squarespace
If you read the introduction to this blog, you’ll know Squarespace is my favorite. This is the platform I landed on after 20 years. Here is why: you can get all the music features you need and still customize the design, optimize it for SEO, and build unlimited pages and features. Anything you want to design on Squarespace, you can. This means you have room to grow. You may not have time right now to customize every aspect of your site, but wouldn’t it feel good to know you can later?
Some of the best features:
Visitor analytics
Unlimited bandwidth
Unlimited pages
SEO tools
Free domain (for a year)
Ecommerce functionality
Add your own music and videos
Mailing lists (email list)
Responsive templates
Custom domains
Advertise gigs and tours with the built-in Calendar or 1-click integration with Bandsintown
Sell music and merch direct to fans commission free (just credit card processing fee)
Sell music downloads and other resources as a digital e-commerce prodcut
Social media integration
Third party website integration
Easy to set-up and use without code
Free Trial
And So. Much. More.
The one downside? Their music and musician templates are a little limited. I am aiming to change that with a library of musician website templates! Shop my custom templates or check out Squarespace’s free music templates.
Price: Squarespace doesn’t offer a free version, but they do offer a 2-week trial. You can also email me and I’ll set up any free template you like, which comes with a 6-month trial. Yes, I’ll do the setup for free too!
Their personal plan runs at $18/month (if paid annually). Email marketing can be added on for $5, but there are workarounds if you want to stay on the personal plan and connect to a free Mailchimp account (for example).
Wix
Wix is a common go-to musician website builder. They are a good platform and they offer many of the same features as Squarespace. I find some musicians end up on Wix because they offer more music templates, and because Wix pays a zillion dollars on Google ads. They are everywhere. Squarespace is starting to compete in the ad-space, but I think their lack of music musician website templates drives people to Wix.
My one beef with them? Their templates aren’t responsive. This means, as you drag the corner of the screen on desktop, elements don’t resize. For me, this is a deal-breaker. Squarespace releases new features every week! In my opinion, Squarespace is leading the industry in CMS websites and will continue to offer a better platform in terms of SEO, performance, customizations, and features.
Price: Wix offers a free plan which makes them a good free website builder for new musicians (however you must pay to remove the Wix Advertising). Their Lite plan starts at $17/month.
Bandzoogle
Bandzoogle is a common musician website platform because music websites is all they do. They offer almost everything you could need, except their design is limited. You won’t be able to customize things as much as on Squarespace. They also don’t offer third-party integrations and features such as built-in membership and course platforms.
If you need a feature Bandzoolge doesn’t offer, or want full control over your design, go with Squarespace. If you are just getting started and Bandzoogle’s list of features is enough for you (for the next 3 years or so), then choose Bandzoogle. Their platform will have a slightly easier learning curve.
Keep in mind I am working on building the best musician website templates on Squarespace. These will come with a video that aims to get you launched in under an hour and back into the practice room!
Price: One benefit of Bandzoogle for new bands is the price: $8.29/month for up to 10 pages or just $6.95 for an EPK page.
Website Builders I Don’t Recommend for Musicians (and why)
Shopify
I don’t recommend Shopify. There, I said it. They have a good built-in e-commerce backend for musicians who want focus on just selling merch and music, but it is impossible to design. You need to hire a full-stack developer to customize anything outside the templates.
They are the same price as the Squarespace e-commerce plan, except Squarespace offers the ability to completely design your website, integrate with media and audio blocks, and build and sell courses and memberships. Plus a ton more. Squarespace doesn’t currently offer “subscribe and save”, but they do offer product subscriptions and their e-commerce features are quickly catching up to Shopify in every way.
Unless you are a large e-commerce business selling hundreds of physical items with the budget for a full-stack developer, go with Squarespace to sell your merch, music, and other products.
GoDaddy
The GoDaddy website builder one the most limited and frustrating builders I’ve ever encountered. You can get up and running fast, but only because there are literally NO design options. Again, go with Squarespace. You’ll just be wasting your time and rebuilding your site in under a year.
WordPress
WordPress shows up a lot in Google searches as an “easy website builder”, but that is only because it’s been around for a long time. It’s anything but easy. There are two version of WordPress: their hosted version on Wordpress.com and a self-hosted version of WordPress which requires a host and self-installation.
Isn’t reading that last paragraph already overwhelming? And I could spend 10 blogs explaining what a pain WordPress is. Save yourself the trouble (and the headache) and choose Wix, Squaresapce, or Bandzoogle for your music website. I promise you will thank me later.
Other platforms such as Webflow, Showit, etc.
I must admit, I haven’t tried every platform out there. I’ve steared clerar of Showit because they are super pricy (even more then Squarespace), and I haven’t spent much time on Webflow or others.
All I can say is the platforms I recommend, such as Wix, Squarespace, and Bandzoogle, are used by most musicians. They also have a big community behind them. In fact, that is one of the things I love most about Squarespace—the growing and supportive company and community.
Frequently asked questions about the best website builder for musicians
What is the best website builder for a musician?
The best website builder for a musician is Squarespace. They offer everything musicians need in one platform, plus the ability to completely customize your website. Squarespace is backed by an active community of designers and developers. The company is frequently releasing new features and is on the forefront of CMS (content management system) websites. Start with a professionally designed music website template, or hire me to design your music website.
Which website is best for music?
Squarespace is best for music. You can embed third-party media players such as Bandcamp and share music with their built-in audio block, video block, Soundcloud block, gallery block, and more.
How much does a musician website cost?
Most musician websites cost $0-$33 per month. Squarespace offers a free trial period and then the personal plan is $18/month. Wix offers a free version with ads. The starter Wix plan is $17/month. Bandzoogle is the most affordable at $8.29/month (up to 10 pages) or just $6.95 for an EPK page.
