Best Website Builder for Tradies in NZ (2026 Comparison)
You've decided your trade business needs a website. Good call. But now comes the next question: how do you actually build one?
There are dozens of website builders out there, and most of them are built for cafes, photographers, and online shops. Not for a sparky in Hamilton who wants a site that shows up when someone googles "electrician Hamilton" and has a phone number people can tap.
Here's a straight comparison of the main options available to NZ tradies in 2026.
What Tradies Actually Need from a Website
Before comparing tools, it helps to know what matters. A tradie website needs to do four things well:
1. Show up in local Google searches (SEO)
2. Look professional on mobile (most visitors are on phones)
3. Make it easy for customers to call or enquire
4. Load fast — people won't wait around
Everything else (fancy animations, blog integrations, e-commerce features) is secondary. If a website builder makes those four things easy, it's worth considering. If it doesn't, move on.
Wix
Wix is the most popular DIY website builder worldwide. It uses a drag-and-drop editor, has hundreds of templates, and you can build a site without writing any code.
The free plan exists but puts Wix ads on your site, which looks unprofessional. You'll need a paid plan ($23-49/month NZD) to use your own domain and remove the branding.
For tradies, the main drawback is time. You'll spend hours picking a template, customising it, writing copy, sourcing images, and figuring out SEO settings. Wix gives you all the tools but none of the direction. It's like being handed a full workshop and told to build a house with no plans.
The other issue is speed. Wix sites tend to load slower than sites built on other platforms. Google cares about page speed, and so do your potential customers.
Cost: $276-588/year (ongoing)
Time to build: 10-40 hours
Good for tradies? Possible, but you're doing all the work yourself
Squarespace
Squarespace is the polished cousin of Wix. The templates are better designed out of the box, and the editor is cleaner. It's popular with designers, photographers, and creative businesses.
Plans run from $27-65/month NZD. Like Wix, you're building everything yourself. Squarespace's templates look great for portfolios and restaurants. For a plumber in Tauranga who needs a simple five-page site with a contact form, it's overkill.
Squarespace's SEO tools are decent but require you to know what you're doing. You'll need to manually set page titles, meta descriptions, alt text, and URL structures. If terms like "meta description" make your eyes glaze over, this becomes a problem.
Cost: $324-780/year (ongoing)
Time to build: 10-30 hours
Good for tradies? Beautiful templates, but you're paying a premium for features you won't use
WordPress
WordPress powers about 40% of all websites on the internet. It's free to use, but you'll need to pay for hosting ($10-30/month), a domain ($20-30/year), and probably a premium theme ($60-200 one-off).
WordPress is powerful. You can build almost anything with it. That's also the problem. The learning curve is steep. You'll need to choose a hosting provider, install WordPress, pick a theme, install plugins for SEO, forms, speed optimisation, and security, and then build your pages.
For someone technical, WordPress is a great option. For a tradie who'd rather be on the tools than messing with plugins, it's a lot of overhead. And WordPress sites need regular updates — themes, plugins, and WordPress itself all release updates that can break things if ignored.
Cost: $200-560/year (ongoing, varies widely)
Time to build: 20-60 hours (or $2,000-5,000 to hire someone)
Good for tradies? If you're technical or hiring a developer, yes. Otherwise, probably not
Hiring a Web Designer
The traditional option. Find a local web designer or agency, tell them what you want, and they build it for you.
For NZ tradies, this typically costs $2,000-8,000 for a basic site. Many designers also charge $50-150/month for hosting and maintenance. A five-page tradie website built by an agency can easily cost $4,000-5,000 upfront plus $1,200/year in ongoing fees.
The upside: you get a custom site built by a professional. The downside: it takes 4-8 weeks, costs significantly more, and you're dependent on that designer for changes. If they go out of business or stop responding to emails, you're stuck.
Cost: $2,000-8,000 upfront + $600-1,800/year ongoing
Time to launch: 4-8 weeks
Good for tradies? Good result, but expensive and slow
Site Sorted
Full disclosure: this is us. But here's why we built Site Sorted specifically for tradies.
We saw that the options above either cost too much, take too long, or require skills most tradies don't have (and shouldn't need to have). So we built a tool that generates a professional tradie website in minutes.
You answer a few questions about your trade, your services, and your service areas. Our AI builds your site with proper SEO, mobile-friendly design, and all the sections a tradie website needs — services, about, contact, gallery space.
Plans start from $299 one-time. Optional $49/mo hosting. You get a free preview before you pay anything.
Cost: From $299 one-time. Optional $49/mo hosting
Time to launch: About 5 minutes
Good for tradies? Built specifically for tradies
Quick Comparison
| Option | Upfront Cost | Ongoing Cost | Time to Build | SEO Built In? | Tradie-Focused? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | $0 | $276-588/yr | 10-40 hours | Manual | No |
| Squarespace | $0 | $324-780/yr | 10-30 hours | Manual | No |
| WordPress | $60-200 | $140-360/yr | 20-60 hours | With plugins | No |
| Web Designer | $2,000-8,000 | $600-1,800/yr | 4-8 weeks | Depends | Sometimes |
| Site Sorted | from $299 | Optional $49/mo | 5 minutes | Yes | Yes |
So Which One Should You Pick?
If you enjoy building websites and want full control over every pixel, go with WordPress or Squarespace. They're good platforms if you're willing to invest the time.
If you want a custom design and have $3,000-5,000 to spend, hiring a local web designer is a solid option. Just make sure you own the site and can move it if the relationship doesn't work out.
If you want a professional site without the hassle, the learning curve, or the ongoing costs, Site Sorted was built for exactly that. Five minutes, from $299, done.