Is it worth coding your own e-signature API, or is purchasing a ready-made solution a better option? Electronic signatures have become a popular way to verify one’s identity without signing printed forms. They have many benefits over written signatures, such as higher security.
What’s the best way to implement an API for using e-signatures: buying an API or building one?
Designers have a wide range of lucrative career options.
This resource puts together some of the best small business ideas to help chart your career path.
It covers the market size, earning potential, estimated startup cost, the target audience, and the value they bring to the table. You’ll also learn how to launch the business, the required training and licenses, and a few companies already killing it in the space for your inspiration.
So, let’s begin.
Table of Contents
Required Training, Certifications, or Licenses?
Example of Businesses in this Space
Required Training, Certifications, or Licenses?
Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
Required Training, Certifications, or Licenses?
Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
Required Training, Certifications, or Licenses?
Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
Required Training, Certifications, or Licenses?
Example of Businesses in this Space
Required Training, Certifications, or Licenses?
Example of Businesses in this Space
Required Training, Certifications, or Licenses?
Example of Businesses in this Space
Required Training, Certifications, or Licenses?
Example of Businesses in this Space
Required Training, Certifications, or Licenses?
Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
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Example of Businesses in this Space
How to Choose the Best Business Ideas as a Designer
The demand for digital designers will grow by 23% until 2031—faster than America’s 5% average occupation growth rate. And the market for online courses will grow at the same speed to reach $198 billion in sales by 2030.
Also, 87% of managers said hiring more UX designers is their organization’s top priority.
Create and sell online courses based on your transferable design skills. Let’s explore five options:
Students pay about $85 to $600 for motion design courses.
And students can recuperate their investment quickly since motion designers earn between $58 to $300 per hour.
Jaguar C-X16 Design. Creative Commons.
Product design courses are between $85 to over $4,000.
Product designer roles pay about $115,000 annually. And finding employment is easy, as over 70% of hiring managers have increased their designer hires.
Art Director and Graphic Designer Peter Cocking, on utilizing white spaces. Creative Commons.
Top-earning graphics designers earn about $43 an hour or $90,000 a year. So, you can sell this online course for $85 to $15,000 per student.
UI/UX online course creators usually take $85 to $2,500 per student. And students who become top earners take home up to $174,000 a year or $84 an hour.
Fashion designer courses cost $40 to $4,000.
However, top designers earn over $90,000 a year. So your students can get outsized value from their investment.
Launch your online design course in seven steps:
Most people get stuck in the ideas phase. Instead, find a simple course idea based on your skills and launch it.
Course marketplaces have unique education requirements. So check the publisher requirements of the platform you want to launch the course.
However, most marketplaces do not require special certifications to launch a design course.
Adobe After Effects: Complete Course from Novice to Expert by Louay Zambarakji.
Courses from Motion Design School.
Graphic design for brick-and-mortar outlets can be a quick way to start your small business for designers. These businesses use graphic design services to create marketing collateral, like flyers, presentations, and brochures, to send brand messages to their audience.
The increasing demand for designers drives consistent global graphic design market growth, currently valued at around $43.4 billion.
You can provide graphic design services to countless small businesses, and some of them include:
Image credit: Fiverr
You can create packaging designs and logos for those planning to own ice cream shops. The top Fiverr designers charge around $25 per project, while some value their services up to $260 per project.
Image credit: Fiverr
Most landscaping businesses need graphic designers to help with custom 3d Landscape concept design and illustrations for their client’s properties—some designers on Fiverr charge around $180 per project and up to $480 for premium service.
Image credit: Fiverr
Catering business logos on Fiverr costs $5 to $100 per project. However, some top designers charge up to $450 for premium services.
Image credit: Fiverr
Professional food truck and trailer wrap designers on Fiverr charge $25 to over $100 per project. You transform the designs into formats such as AI, JPG, and PDF to provide multiple use options for the business.
About 70% of U.S. households own a pet. That’s approximately 91 million households, nearly ten million more than the population of Germany, the EU’s largest population, making a pet business lucrative.
You can design logos and marketing materials for pet-sitting and dog-walking businesses. The standard rate on Fiverr is between $5 and $100.
Start your graphic design small business in six steps:
Starting this new business doesn’t need special certifications and licenses. However, pursuing certifications like Adobe Certified Associate and other courses on Udemy and Coursera can advance your credibility.
Some of the small businesses making waves in this space are:
Graphic design and animation coaching is one of the best small business ideas to start as a designer. Consider this career path if you’re curious about designs and motion graphics and are passionate about teaching.
Employment for professionals in this field will grow by 5% from 2021 to 2031, as fast as the average for all occupations.
Let’s explore some of the coaching services you can provide:
Image credit: Iveta Karpathyova Studio
One-on-one graphics and animation coaching via Zoom is in high demand. You can sell your training and coaching service on your website or online marketplaces. Some personal trainers charge about $650 for a three-month-long session.
Most non-marketplace users often charge more. For instance, Iveta Karpathyova, a graphic design personal trainer, takes about $2,000 for eight hours of private one-on-one instruction.
You can use RFPs to find companies who want to train their in-house design teams in 2D or 3D animations. Also, you can target companies that use graphics to boost user engagement, like UX professionals.
Austin Saylor is an example in this space. He earns up to $10,000 from his training program for graphic design teams.
Image credit: Udemy
You can create online courses and sell them on marketplaces like Udemy, Coursera, and Alison if you don’t have the resources for one-on-one coaching. For instance, some animation courses on Udemy cost between $20 to $139 for old students or between $14 and $24.99 for new users.
Start your graphic design and animation coaching small business idea in seven steps:
Once you possess transferable design and animation skills, you don’t need special training, certification, or licenses to operate a graphic coaching business. However, getting certification training will advance your qualification and give you the confidence to train people.
Some options include:
Some businesses offering graphic design and animation coaching services are:
A WordPress theme and website template development business is one of the most lucrative small business ideas for designers.
The WordPress platform controls nearly 65% of the CMS market share and powers 43% of all websites. That’s a staggering 82 million, meaning there are about three times more WordPress websites than the number of web developers worldwide.
Shopify comes a distant second, powering only 3.5% of all websites. However, WordPress has over 11,000 themes. As a theme developer, you can tap into this lucrative market.
Some of the most successful business ideas or markets to explore in this field are:
Image Credit: Themeforest
Bestselling themes on Themeforest cost $39 to $69, while the most expensive options go for $6,000 to $12,000. Also, Fiverr developers charge up to $1,000 for custom WordPress theme development.
Best-selling site templates on Themeforest cost between $12 to $49. The high-priced ones go from $200 to $1,000. The price range for popular themes on Creative Market is the same as on Themeforest. However, the most expensive options range from $520 to $5,000.
Landing page creation is a lucrative business because of its high demand for lead generation. The best-selling landing page templates on Themeforest cost $12 to $39, while the expensive ones go for $59 to $118, making them affordable.
Launch this new business idea with these simple steps:
You don’t need special training, certification, or licenses to build a successful career as a theme developer. In addition, some theme builders don’t require coding knowledge.
Some theme developers on Fiverr and Themeforest are:
Email template development is another good business idea to explore.
There are over four billion daily email users, sending and receiving more than 306 billion emails daily, making it an effective channel to reach and engage customers. Also, data shows that 37% of brands are increasing their email budget.
As an email and newsletter templates creator, you can design beautiful templates for small and medium-sized businesses that can’t afford an in-house design team, digital marketing services, and marketplaces.
You can offer your service on several marketplaces and your website. However, these options provide the most straightforward way to make it big in this field.
Themeforest’s top-rated email templates cost about $8 to $116. Most of these templates have between 100 and 1,500 sales, indicating high demand for Themeforest email templates. The most expensive option currently costs $117 for the regular license and has sold over 100 copies.
Demand for Fiverr email template creators is also pretty high. The best-selling professionals take between $10 to $25 per project. However, hand-coded responsive HTML options go as high as $80.
Creative Market has over 1,500 email templates. The popular designs go for $10 to $39, while the most expensive templates cost between $50 and $150. Most designs are for MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, and Constant Contact platforms.
Launch your email and newsletter design business in these few steps:
You don’t need special training or licenses to create email and newsletter templates. Instead, strong customer relationships and positive reviews are what you need to thrive in this field.
You can build a profitable business in this field. Let’s see a few of the successful ones for your inspiration.
Typography is one of the financially rewarding home business ideas for designers.
Custom fonts allow businesses to create unique brand identities to stand out from the crowd. As a result, this space holds limitless opportunities for typographers.
For instance, IBM paid over $1 million annually to use Monotype’s warhorse font Helvetica before developing its IBM Plex typeface.
Other companies like Netflix, Airbnb, and SAP also invested in custom fonts and typefaces to reinforce brand messages and save on licensing fees. So you might want to explore this small business idea. You can also structure it as a consulting business.
The best target audience for this small business idea is brands that want to create a unique identity to differentiate from the competition. Some of the places to sell your service are:
Envato has an extensive library of over 30,000 stunning fonts and types.
Many small business owners and online businesses use the marketplace to find unique fonts. Envato users with an active subscription can download the fonts for any project and marketing campaign.
The individual plan costs $16.5 monthly, while the team plan is available at $10.75 per member. The enterprise plan requires a custom quote.
Fiverr is a great place to start a typography business as a beginner. Small business owners and online businesses use it to hire affordable typographers. The platform currently hosts over 2,000 custom font services.
Typographers on the platform charge between $10 to $30 for custom fonts. The top earners take home over $60 for premium services.
Experienced typographers can explore this option.
Creating bespoke typefaces for corporate clients may cost up to $300,000. First, however, you’ll need to demonstrate your value by building a strong portfolio and understanding how to craft a pitch, an offer, and a closing.
Typographers are in high demand. Start your typography business in five types:
Typography is one of the most lucrative home business ideas for designers today. You can start this small business without special certifications and licenses.
However, taking typography courses on Udemy and other learning platforms can help you master your art and design better fonts.
Some of the businesses in this field are:
Marketing collateral is media and graphics materials organizations use to support their sales efforts and advance their brand messages.
It includes anything from brochures, business cards, and posters. These materials give prospects the information they need to make informed purchasing decisions.
Creating them as graphic templates lets people customize and use them as they wish, enabling a much larger potential audience size. For example, as a marketing collateral designer, you could also run a consulting business as part of your larger offering.
The target audiences for this small business idea are social media managers, cleaning services, brick-and-mortar stores, and dog-walking businesses.
Also, targeting profitable niches like small business owners, personal training businesses, and property managers can lower your customer acquisition and overhead costs.
Let’s examine some graphic templates and marketing collateral you can design for clients.
Image credit: Envato Elements
Brochures are some of the most widely used marketing collateral.
Creating them as customizable graphic templates and selling them on marketplaces like Envato and Creative Market allows you to attract many users.
You can also offer custom brochure design services on Fiverr. Designers on the platform take between $10 t0 $150 per project.
Image credit: Envato Elements
Custom business card designers on Fiverr charge between $10 to $640 per project. Some premium services go for as high as $1,300. You can also sell on Envato to earn money from users’ subscription fees.
Image credit: Fiverr
Flyers are another in-demand marketing collateral. Nearly 50% of surveyed companies said that door drop campaigns are essential to their marketing strategy.
Offering custom flyer design services to these businesses can help you make it big as a designer. Pro-verified designers on Fiverr make between $100 to $495 per project.
Their premium packages cost as much as $1,295.
Launch this small business idea with these six steps:
You need special training or a license to start this business at home. However, an impressive portfolio will help you land high-paying clients more quickly.
Some of the businesses in this field are:
Creating an entire presentation deck from scratch can be challenging for non-designers.
As a result, 79% of presenters use pre-built templates to find inspiration, streamline their workflow and create stunning presentations in a few minutes. So this is an excellent business idea for designers.
You can explore opportunities in this field to shore up your income and build a flourishing career.
Businesses in high demand for presentations, like landscaping businesses, property managers, startups, and consultancy businesses, are your targets. Also, executives and busy business people need you too.
Others include personal trainers, social media managers, and cleaning businesses.
Let’s explore some templates you can start with and what each brings to the table.
Image credit: Envato Elements
Marketing presentation templates do the heavy lifting for salespersons, enabling them to create their presentations and slides quickly. Your presentation design agency can charge between $90 to $6,000 per ten slides.
However, selling on marketplaces enables you to access a ready market with minimal marketing efforts.
Image credit: Fiverr
A beautifully designed pitch deck helps startup entrepreneurs to make a lasting impression on potential investors. So they often prefer to use templates to create theirs or outsource the project to professionals like you.
You can join marketplaces to reach potential clients more quickly, and there is a lot of money to make from those platforms. For example, pro-verified sellers on Fiverr earn between $100 and $1,500, while premium packages can go for as much as $3,000.
Professional keynote presentations from pro-verified designers on Fiverr are between $360 and $650 for the basic package. Non-pro-verified professionals on the platform price their service between $10 to $200.
Presentation design services hourly rate on Upwork ranges from $20 to $95. Some charge as high as $130 per hour.
A presentation template design business is a great business idea to pursue as a designer. You can launch yours with these six steps:
You don’t need any special training, certifications, or licenses for this small business idea. However, an impressive portfolio and many positive customer reviews will do.
Let’s examine some professionals in this space.
The high demand for customized wear makes custom T-shirt design a thriving enterprise. Future Market Insights estimated that the market size of global custom T-shirt printing would exceed $3.5 billion in 2022.
Furthermore, they believe it will grow by 9.7% CAGR over the next ten years to reach over $9 billion.
Build your business for these audiences:
Image credit: Teespring
Joining and selling your designs on custom t-shirt marketplaces like Teespring (now, Spring), CafePress and Zazzle is your best bet to hit the ground running immediately. T-shirt designs on Teespring can cost as much as $49.99.
Pro-verified custom t-shirt designers on Fiverr take home between $125 and $450 per design. Premium packages can go for as high as $1,200—other gigs in the category cost between $5 and $30.
An eCommerce store for your custom designs lets you control your marketing and the ideal audience you want as customers.
You can also connect the online store to print-on-demand platforms like Printful to run a full-fledged online t-shirt business. There is no limit to how much you can make from this business. Some sellers earn up to $10,000 monthly.
Follow these six steps to launch this business idea:
You don’t need any special training to thrive in this space. Getting many positive customer reviews and referrals can help advance your business.
Many designers are in this space, offering custom T-shirt design services to individuals, groups, and local businesses. Some of our top picks for your inspiration are:
Comics are graphic novels. It’s popular among kids and teens. Fortunate Business Insights estimated that the comics market size will reach $12.81 billion in 2028, up from $9.21 billion in 2021. It grew by a staggering 12% in 2020.
Analysts believe it’ll grow at a CAGR of 4.8% from 2021 to 2028.
Comics are lucrative when you build the business around these audiences:
Image credit: Cbr.com
You can try your hands here if you can create attractive graphics and illustrations for comic books. Professionals in this field typically earn over $63,000 a year. But they vary from city to city. For instance, San Francisco, California comic artists take home over $95,000.
Advanced skills in color flattering can also help you get something tangible out of this space. Some professionals in this field earn between $5 to $25 on Fiverr. The verified professionals take between $100 to $210 per project.
Color-flattering services on Fiverr are in high demand. Most color stylists on the marketplace charge between $5 and $40. As a verified professional, you may earn up to $100.
Comics are another successful business idea you can consider as a designer. It’s not expensive to launch, and you can run it 100% from home.
Start your own business in these few simple steps.
You don’t need special certification or licenses as a comic artist. However, professional courses on Udemy and other learning platforms can advance your skills.
Some professionals in this field are:
Image credit: Cbr.com
The U.S. 2022 fashion design market size stands at $2.9 billion. Data shows that the market size declined by 1% between 2017 and 2022. However, analysts believe the value will grow at 0.9% in 2022.
Set your sights on these markets to make it big in this field.
Creating and selling your designs to top-rated designers is one of your best bets to earn big from this small business idea. Most bespoke wears cost several thousand dollars, and many designers won’t mind paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for your designs.
Image credit: Fiverr
Joining marketplaces will save you a lot of marketing costs, and there is also money to make from the platforms—top professional stylists on Fiverr earn $100 to $300. You can also sell your designs on Dribble.
Image credit: Replicant
NFT digital fashion marketplaces like Replicant are reimagining fashion designing businesses, allowing anyone to try on a digital garment.
They are a new and growing trend. Jumping in right away lets you secure a space before it gets saturated. And the digital fashion business is financially rewarding.
For instance, the best-selling digital garments on Replicant cost around $35, while the most expensive digital fashion wearables sell for as high as $68.
You can launch this business idea in these steps:
The fashion design business doesn’t require any special training, certification, or licenses.
Some of the businesses in this space are:
The wrap design business is one of the most profitable business ideas to start as a designer.
Several organizations and individuals wrap their vehicles for branding and aesthetic purposes.
In addition, a vehicle wrap is cheaper than a painting, driving its demand in the U.S. The global automotive car wrap film market was $4.9 billion in 2021.
Analysts estimated it will grow at a CAGR of 22.2% from 2022 to 2030.
Wrap design small businesses can target:
Many auto repair shops in the U.S. offer car wrap services. You can create and sell your designs to them. They charge clients between $2,500 and $5,000 to wrap their vehicles, so it’s fair to expect some money from them for your design.
Top-rated custom wrap designers on Upwork charge between $30 and $50 hourly rates. Several have earned $10,000 to $60,000 creating and selling bespoke wrap designs on the platform.
Image credit: Wrap Stock
You can upload and sell your designs on marketplaces like Wrap Stock.
Here, you don’t have to worry about marketing or running ads. Instead, the platform handles every aspect of the process, enabling you to focus on creating stunning designs.
Launch this wrap design small business idea in these steps:
This small business idea doesn’t require special training, licenses, or certification. However, building your portfolio and generating positive reviews can advance your credibility.
Some of the professionals in this space are:
About 87% of businesses use video as a marketing tool.
YouTube, the world’s largest online video-sharing platform, has over 122 million daily users. They watch over one billion hours of content each day. Every minute, creators upload more than 500 hours of videos. These make video editing a lucrative business.
Let’s explore some ways you can earn money with your skills:
Image credit: Fiverr
Most video editors sell their services on Fiverr, Upwork, and other talent marketplaces. They charge between $10 to $40 per gig on Fiverr and an hourly rate of $10 to $25 on Upwork. You can join both marketplaces to maximize your options and reach a wider audience.
Create a portfolio website to target non-marketplace audiences and sell your service. It lets you take charge of your marketing, build your customer list and manage your customer relationships 100%. The median hourly rate of video editors is $20.
Videography and video editing are profitable business ideas. Launch yours in these simple steps:
This small business idea doesn’t require special training and licenses, especially if you want to run it from home. However, getting professional video editing training and certification can help you become a better video editor.
Some businesses in this field are:
The freelance industry currently contributes about $1.4 trillion to the U.S. economy. With over 58 million people offering freelancing services in the country, analysts believe it will grow to become the U.S. majority workforce.
A career path as an online freelance designer lets you have a slice of the pie.
An online freelance design offers limitless opportunities to designers. The small business idea will stay true to its potential when you build it around these target markets:
Joining a marketplace gives you instant access to ready-to-buy customers—beginners in this space charge between $10 and $80 on Fiverr. Pro-verified experts earn up to $800. Upwork graphic designers take $14 to $95 per hour.
A website lets you create a unique brand identity for your graphic design business.
It also allows you to approach your prospects directly, control your pricing and scale your business over time. The $20 to $150 average industry hourly rate is encouraging, and you can charge more as your business advances.
Action the steps below to launch this small business idea.
A freelance graphic designer doesn’t need any special license or training. However, acquiring advanced design and marketing skills improve their odds of having a successful career.
Some of the top professionals in this field are:
NFT lets owners prove authorship and authenticity, future-proofing digital assets. It’s one of the latest in-thing today and a trend that is not dying off soon.
The value of the global non-fungible token market was $4.6 billion in 2021. Analysts estimated that the market size will grow at a staggering CAGR of 23.9% between 2022 and 2028 to reach nearly $20 billion at the end of the forecasted period.
Let’s examine some target audiences for your NFT art business.
Create unique NFT art collections and sell them to NFT creators with the metadata. You can sell the service on Fiverr and Upwork. NFT artists on Fiverr charge between $40 and $150 for basic packages, while those on Upwork collect up to $5,000.
Image credit: OpenSea
You can mint your art on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, SuperRare, and others if you’re uncomfortable selling them to third-party NFT creators. The opportunities in this space are limitless. For example, some NFTs on OpenSea sell for as high as 19 ETH floor price.
Launch this NFT art small business idea in these few simple steps:
You don’t need any special training or license. However, you can take online NFT minting courses on Udemy, Coursera, and other learning platforms to master the art.
Also, the business doesn’t have special license requirements.
Some of the professionals in this field are:
Event designers work with planners to help them put details into their decorations. However, unlike planners focusing on event logistics and ensuring everything is on schedule and running smoothly, event designers transform the space and bring clients’ visions to life.
Segment your audience, targeting these markets:
Most organizations and companies hold at least one corporate event, such as annual general meetings, award ceremonies, and product launches. You can work with them to plan out the design and decoration. Payment is usually per project, and it’s encouraging.
Image credit: Harpers Bazaar
Partnering with event planners is your odds-on-favorite to ensure a steady supply of gigs. So, you don’t need a big marketing budget. Most event planners are already entrenched in the system and can quickly put something on your plate.
Catering services are another solid option to explore. Most caterers want to know how to set up their buffet and other items to ensure a seamless workflow. You can create multiple floor layouts of the event space to show them ways to arrange their stuff.
Launch a successful event design small business idea in these six steps:
This small business idea doesn’t require any special training, certification, or license.
However, professional certification and training in project management can make you a better event designer. Also, you’ll need a strong customer relationship, positive reviews, and a referral network to thrive in this space.
You might not need special licenses to run the business from home.
Some of the businesses in this field are:
Extended Reality (XR) is the catch-all term for all immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR).
Mordor Intelligence predicts the XR market valued at $26.05 billion in 2020, will grow at a staggering CAGR of 62.7% between 2021 and 2026 to reach $463.7 billion. A career as an XR designer can bring a lot to the table.
Who is your target audience in this space? First, let’s examine the top two and what you can gain from them.
Image credit: The Academy of International Extended Reality
You can have a lucrative career as an XR designer, working with extended reality developers to create cutting-edge XR applications for forward-thinking businesses.
While designers focus on figuring out the “whys” and ‘what’s” of the projects, developers’ interests rely on transforming them into a reality.
Typical XR designers earn around $106,000 annually. The more experienced hands go home with over $215,000 each year. So you’re getting in early on an industry poised for rapid growth.
Selling your XR assets on specialized marketplaces like Unity Asset Store, Unreal Engine, and Oculus Rift store lets you access a ready market, minimizing the efforts you need to put in to build your clientele.
You can also list on Upwork to diversify your income. For example, XR designers on the marketplace earn $20 to $85 per hour. Some designers have earned over $500,000 selling their skills on the platform.
These steps can help you launch this XR design small business idea:
This Extended Reality design small business idea doesn’t require any special licenses.
However, you’ll need specialized training and certifications to advance your credibility and credentials. Some of the top-rated in the industry are
Some of the professionals in this space are:
The photography business is competitive, and you can build a sustainable career, even while working from home, with the right skills.
The future outlook for the industry looks promising.
Analysts expect the global market size to reach $44.07 billion in 2025 from $32.92 billion in 2020, meaning, in three years, the global photography business value will be more than half the Serbian GDP, a country of over seven million people.
You can work with these people as a photographer and photo editor:
Image credit: Expert Photography
Event planners can guarantee you steady gigs. Working with them means you don’t have to worry about prospecting, writing proposals, and closing clients.
Some professional photographers charge between $75 and $300 per image, while experienced ones may earn up to $1,000.
Marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork are other excellent options for beginners. For example, photo editors on Upwork take home about $20 to $100 per hour; some have earned over $250,000 since joining the platform.
Image credit: Expert Photography
Commercial photography is one of the most lucrative options in this field. The professionals here earn between $800 to $5,000 per day. The licensing fees often start from $250 and may get as high as $10,000.
You can start a stock photography website or join already established stock photo websites like Shutterstock to sell your photos. Monthly subscriptions on Shutterstock cost between $49 to $479. The platform has paid over $1 billion to contributors in the last 15 years.
Launch your photography and photo editing business in these steps:
This business model doesn’t require special training, licenses, or certifications.
However, investing in professional courses can help you become better at what you do. Online courses are a great place to start. For example, you can check Udemy and Coursera for top-rated photography courses.
When creating a website for your business, consider taking marketing and customer relationship courses to improve your client acquisition skills.
Some of the businesses for your inspiration are:
A coloring book is one containing line art for coloring with the crayon. It’s a healthy way to relieve stress, calm the brain and help the body relax.
The adult coloring books market peaked between 2014 and 2017. It sold over 12 million books in 2015, up from one million copies the previous year.
Although on a decline today, exploring options in this field can be lucrative.
Create and sell coloring books online. You can begin with some of these marketplaces:
Children’s coloring books are popular on Amazon. A quick search shows over 80,000 results—the top-rated books on the marketplace cost between $5.99 and $12.
Lulu is an online self-publishing book company. Creating and selling coloring books on the platform lets you reach over one million monthly visitors. They also handle inventory and fulfillment. A paperback coloring book on Lulu sells for up to $16.
Teenagers use coloring books, and you can target teen themes that attract that audience. These books typically cost $8 to $38. You can even publish digital versions of these coloring books.
If you’ve found success creating and selling coloring books, you can teach others how to do it. Typically, these courses cost $14 and $50 and can attract over 5,000 students.
Follow these steps to start selling coloring books:
Selling coloring books doesn’t require any special training or certification. You don’t also need special licenses to run this business.
Some of the professionals in this field are:
Product packaging designers develop eye-catching labels and product packages that meet safety and packaging regulations. In addition, they often work closely with the marketing team to create designs that reinforce the brand’s messaging.
Analysts expect the market size of packaging design services to reach nearly $32 billion in 2030, up from $21.9 billion.
Getting gigs is the most challenging aspect of this business. Some sources you might want to explore are:
Image credit: Johns Byrne
Approach and pitch your packaging designs to nearby brick-and-mortar stores. Also, run paid adverts to reach more businesses and direct them to your website to schedule a discovery call—a typical packing designer charges between $80 to $100 per hour.
Image credit: PakFactory Blog
Many eCommerce stores fulfill their orders. Work with them to design custom packaging to ship their orders. You can reach them online via paid and organic promotions.
The $80 to $100 hourly rate is the competitive fee for designers in this niche.
Product packaging designers on Upwork take between $20 to $100 per hour. Also, pro-verified designers on Fiverr earn $500 to $1,000 per project. So, there is so much money to make from this channel.
Start your product packaging design business in these simple steps:
This business idea doesn’t require any special certification and training to start. However, obtaining packing training, licenses, and certificates can set you apart from competitors.
So consider these options:
Also, check with local authorities for necessary licenses.
Some businesses and professionals in this space are:
Publishing books and eBooks is an excellent way to monetize your design skills.
A career as an author is financially rewarding, and the future also looks promising. A report by Technavio shows that the electronic books market will grow by $6.93 billion between 2020 and 2030.
Also, published books don’t have recurrent expenditures. So you have nothing to lose exploring your options in this field as a designer.
You can write books based on your transferable skills, case studies, or the latest trends. Some of the platforms to self-publish your work are:
Amazon receives over two billion monthly visits, making it the biggest platform to self-publish books and eBooks. Most books on the marketplace are available at $2 to $30. So, some authors earn between $5,000 and $8,000 each month.
Self-publishing on Apple Books lets you target a wide range of Apple device users, including CarPlay and Apple Watch. Apple has sold over two billion iOS devices, and over 100 million people use Macs worldwide. So the Apple Book brings so much to the table.
You can sell through your website if you drive enough traffic to the online store and fulfill your orders. Your online store allows you to set your price, control your messaging, target your ideal audience and manage your customer list.
Follow these steps to turn this small business idea into a reality:
You don’t need special training or certifications to start a book or eBook publishing business. However, getting and flaunting them can boost your credibility and show off your expertise. Also, advanced book publishing and formatting courses can help you create better-looking and attractive books.
You can find and take these courses on Udemy, Coursera, and Alison.
Some designers in this space are:
The printing business is financially rewarding. About 25,000 U.S. companies are into commercial printing. They generate nearly $900 billion in revenue annually, more than the Saudi Arabian GDP and almost half that of Italy—the EU’s third-largest economy.
Set up your printing press to target these audiences:
The global commercial printing market is lucrative and has impressive long-term growth potential. You can have a slice of the pie by providing printing services to businesses like marketing collateral, catalogs, magazines, product labels, and packaging.
The U.S. has over 10 million companies, so you always have options.
Image credit: ABC News
Thousands of political and social campaigns happen in the U.S. yearly, making campaign posters and signage printing a thriving business.
The 2022 market size for printed signage alone is $33.9 billion, and analysts expect the number to grow at a CAGR of 2.8% to reach $40.08 billion in 2028.
The number of books published yearly in the U.S ranges from 500,000 to one million, excluding self-published authors. In 2021, the country sold over 826 million physical books, that’s nearly three books per citizen on average. So you can earn big printing books.
Launch your printing shop in ten steps:
A printing press doesn’t require any special training and certification to start.
However, you should comply with OSHA requirements and regulations. Also, check with the local authorities to learn other necessary environmental, health, and safety requirements.
Some of the businesses in this space are:
The 2022 total number of web developer and digital interface designer jobs in the U.S. is around 200,000.
However, Statista believes the number will reach 229,000 in 2032, while the total number of web developers and designers will grow to 205,000, so there’ll be enough jobs to go around.
Model your small business web development idea around these markets to have a home run.
Image credit: Unsplash
Small businesses and eCommerce stores drive the growing demand for business websites. A web development agency’s custom services cost between $15,000 and $30,000. But more complex site design projects can go as high as $75,000.
Image credit: Unsplash
Charities are another excellent option for web designers. Most of them need simple websites. So you’ll be looking at making $2,000 to $5,000 per project as a freelancer. And you can command up to $30,000 if you’re an agency.
Verified professional web designers on Fiverr walk away with $100 to $5,000 after each project. They priced some of their premium packages up to $12,000.
Web designers on Upwork charge between $25 and $150 per hour for their services.
Follow these steps to start a web design agency:
Once you have the requisite skills, you don’t need special training or certification to launch a web design service. However, enrolling in project management certification courses can help you seamlessly manage your workflow and customer expectations.
Other necessary certifications are:
Check out these businesses to see what other people are doing in this space:
A graphic design academy might cost you an arm and a leg, but it’s lucrative, as most soft skill training centers.
Data shows that the global soft skill training market reached over $24 billion in 2020, and market analysts believe the number will grow by a CAGR of 12.3% between 2022 and 2027 to reach $47.2 billion in 2027.
Besides the financial rewards, a career as an instructor can be fulfilling. You should consider this career path if you have a passion for teaching or other transferable skills to share with others.
Some of the target audiences for this business idea are:
Image Credit: Medium
Approach nearby businesses and show them how your training program can help advance the skills of their design team and save the company money. Then, negotiate your pay based on the value you are bringing to the table and what you think the business can afford.
Image Credit: Ms. Magazine
College students are excellent targets for graphic design training skills. Reach those that are interested in acquiring graphic design skills with paid ads.
You can run foundational, undergraduate, and postgraduate programs to cater to all categories of students. For example, some training schools charge up to $40,000 for postgraduate graphic design degree programs.
Professional graphic designers are always looking for ways to advance their design skills. You can target this segment with professional certification programs or bootcamps. You might also partner with reputable certifying bodies like Adobe to offer their certification programs.
Follow these steps to launch your academy:
You’ll need a license to run a degree-awarding training center.
Also, it would help if you had more than transferable graphic design skills as an instructor. Your students expect you to have professional certifications and specialized training from recognized bodies.
Some top options are:
Some graphic design training centers are:
YouTube is not just a video-sharing platform. It’s also the second-largest search engine after Google. Over 2.6 billion people use the platform once a month. They spend about one billion hours daily watching five billion videos.
A career as a YouTuber is financially rewarding but never a walk in the park.
Identifying your target audience and creating content that addresses their pain point is the most straightforward to succeed in this space.
You can target prospective graphic designers or designers with your video. Some ways you can monetize your YouTube content are:
Joining the YouTube partner program is the most popular option for monetizing YouTube videos through YouTube ads.
However, to qualify, you’ll need to rake in at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 video watch hours in the past year. Then, you can earn between $2 to $12 per 1,000 views.
Another way to monetize YouTube videos is by selling merchandise. If you don’t have any physical product, you can promote your design courses before or after your YouTube videos and drop the purchase link in the video description.
Image credit: Fran Patrillo.
Influencer marketing is reimagining how brands connect with their customers. YouTube is the second most popular platform for influencer marketing. Join the train if you have a large and engaged following.
Several brands can pay you $500 to $10,000 to recommend their products. Some may even pay up to six figures for a YouTube campaign if they are sure of the results.
Follow these steps to launch a career as a YouTuber:
You don’t need special training, certification, or licenses to become a YouTuber.
However, taking video editing courses can save you a lot of money. Also, if your business model centers on teaching your audience design skills, you should acquire professional certifications in the field to advance your credibility.
Some of the designs YouTubers making a wave in the industry are:
The global digital newspaper and magazine market, valued at $34.2 billion in 2021, will grow at a CAGR of 4.2% between 2022 and 2028 to reach $45.6 billion. The industry looks promising. You can register your agency and run it from the comfort of your home.
Some of the target audiences for this business are:
Image credit: Envato
Partner with newspaper and magazine companies. Offer to handle their designs to save them the cost of maintaining a full-time in-house team. Working with them can guarantee you a steady supply of jobs. Negotiate your pay per page or project.
Some magazine designers charge $50 to $90 per page.
Join marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork to build your client base and portfolio incrementally. You can earn between $10 to $55 by selling your service on Fiverr. Some designers on Upwork charge about $30 and up to $750 per project.
Catalog designers on the platform earn between $20 and $100 per hour.
eCommerce brands and retail businesses are your largest audience. Most of them use product catalogs and magazines to spread their marketing messages.
You can approach them for custom designs or target them with customizable templates on your websites or third-party template marketplaces like Envato or Creative Market.
Follow these steps to launch this business at home:
You don’t need special training, certification, or licenses to run this business model. However, you can find relevant professional courses to advance your skills.
Some of the professionals in this field are:
You can build a sustainable career selling custom drawings and handcrafts art collectors. Statista projected that the global arts and crafts market will grow from $35 billion in 2017 to $50.9 billion in 2024.
Besides the tempting financial rewards, the business lets you express yourself and bring your imagination to life.
Build your business around art lovers. It helps you lower acquisition costs and maintains a high conversion rate. Some small business ideas in this field are:
Image credit: Yasmeen A
You can make a lot of money creating custom art for clients. Since they’re tailor-made and provide personal significance and uniqueness, most collectors will be okay with paying more to have them on their walls.
Commissioned paintings from experienced artists cost $100 to $10,000.
Image credit: The Indian Express
An online store for your craft business lets you transform your passion and creativity into a business. Moreover, it’s lucrative so that you can earn a good living.
Candle making, jewelry, and headbands are some craft business ideas for your inspiration. Others include embroidery, home decor, sculpture, and decorative pillows.
Also, sell your crafts on Amazon, Etsy, and other marketplaces to reach more people.
Image credit: Artmajeur
Create stunning hand-drawn images and sell them on art marketplaces like Shutterstock and iStock. Also, sell on your website to cater to non-marketplace users.
Additionally, license your art to businesses for commercial use. It’s where the money is. You can make between $100 and $10,000 from licensing fees.
Follow these simple steps to launch your online drawing and handcrafting small business ideas:
This business model doesn’t require special training, certification, or licenses. However, check with local authorities to learn what applies in your area.
Some of the design businesses making it big in this space are:
We have explored some of the best small business ideas for designers. When you start your journey, choose options that match your passion and career objectives.
And remember to use this resource to start on the right footing.
Featured image via Unsplash.
The post 27 Best Small Business Ideas for Designers first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
When you need a website, you have two options, you can hire someone who’s an expert in website building to design it for you, or you can make it yourself.
Hiring someone with experience building a website means you’ll get a more professional result, and you should achieve a good return on your investment. However, hiring a freelancer or a design agency has plenty of pitfalls. Budgets can spiral, timescales get stretched, and the end result might not meet your expectations.
The answer might be to build your own website using a website builder. And the best site builders are designed to help you do just that — most don’t require any design or coding knowledge.
Creating a website with a website builder is usually cheaper than outsourcing the job, and the results can be almost as good as a bespoke website. There are even some free website builders out there.
The key is to choose the right website builder that ticks all your boxes and delivers what you want without paying through the nose for bells and whistles you don’t need.
We’ve tested the best website builders on the market. We’ve quizzed professionals and first-time users. We’ve poked around in the dark corners of UIs. All to bring you this guide to the top website builders on the web. This comprehensive guide to the best website builders for 2023 contains everything you need to know when selecting a site builder.
The most significant obstacle people face when using website builders is you don’t know what you don’t know. There’s so much information online that it’s hard to know where to start.
That’s why we put together this guide to the best website builders, so small businesses everywhere can make an informed decision about website building.
The first thing you need to look for is production-ready code. That means source code that is modern, robust, and hack-free. (All of the website builders on this list meet those criteria.)
Professional designers start by identifying a website’s purpose. Websites perform best when they have a clear purpose.
If you’re a wedding photographer, you will want to showcase your portfolio and generate new leads. You’ll want to sell products online if you own a clothing store. If you’re a community group, you want to raise awareness and encourage public interest.
Whatever your goal, a website builder listed below will help you achieve it. And choosing the best option for you will be a more straightforward process if you’re clear about that goal to start with.
One of the defining characteristics of any website builder is how flexible its designs are. Some of the best website builders give you complete control over every detail of your design. Other website builders limit you to choosing from a selection of pre-designed blocks.
If you’re prepared to compromise on your design, you will have more options. On the other hand, if you want to achieve a specific look, you may need to opt for a more flexible website builder.
Next, consider your own level of experience and the amount of time you have to invest in learning to use a tool and build a website. Some website builders will get you online fast, but even some of the best website builders take a little time to learn.
Some people can spare 3–4 hours every weeknight to learn how to leverage a complex website builder — that helps a lot when building a complex site like an online store. Other people have family commitments or social engagements and just need to get something done fast.
There’s no right or wrong answer. You don’t need prior experience, and you don’t need to commit to an evening course to get online. If you want to put a website online in 15 minutes and then forget about it, that’s fine. Make sure you choose a website builder that can help you do that.
Speaking of your experience, we don’t want to put a damper on things, but what will you do if something goes wrong?
Websites experience problems from which website builders are not exempt. Most of the best website builders use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) for web hosting. But CDNs aren’t infallible.
Some site builders offer a free domain, and all of the best website builders allow you to use a custom domain name and free SSL certificate. What happens if there’s a problem with it? Does the site builder’s support extend to domains?
Happily, most website builders offer an excellent level of customer support. So before you start, check what help you’re entitled to and how to get assistance should a problem arise.
Most of the best website builders offer a free trial or even a free-forever package. The free trial is your opportunity to try out the UI (User Interface) and get a feel for the product.
All the website builders we’ve listed below specialize in a particular type of site. Most cater to small business owners. Each has pros and cons and can help you achieve your online goals. However, in the end, the success of your site comes down to you; you can use a free web builder and still succeed if you’re willing to put in the work.
Trust your instincts: if you find a particular site builder intuitive, then the chances are you’ll be able to create a great website with it.
Wix is widely considered to be one of the best website builders of 2022, and a quick glance at its extensive list of features will tell you why we expect it to still be the top website builder platform in 2023.
First up is a vast number of templates giving you more selection than almost any rival. There’s so much choice that you’ll probably spend longer choosing your template than actually building your site!
Wix’s editor uses an intuitive drag-and-drop editor that enables anyone to create just about any design. It’s not the most straightforward editor on the market. Still, Wix has extensive documentation, so if you have the time to tackle a modest learning curve, you should quickly get to grips with the UI.
Of course, Wix also includes core features like custom domain names and free SSL certificates.
On top of these features, Wix provides various marketing tools to help your site grow toward profitability.
Finally, for freelancers and web design agencies, Wix provides Editor X, a professional solution for creating multiple websites for clients. Editor X is an excellent addition to Wix’s lineup. However, it’s not the best option for design agencies (keep reading to find out which tool we think tops Editor X).
Wix is the biggest website builder in the world and includes hundreds of features that make building a website simple. Here are just some of the highlights.
Wix boasts a huge range of 800+ customizable templates for every kind of business, from online stores to simple marketing sites.
Wix’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor makes it a simple task to achieve almost any design with little to no design experience.
There are a couple of downsides to this approach. Firstly, many small business owners opt for a website builder because they need a guided design process — unlimited options can actually make things harder. Secondly, the highly flexible design system Wix offers can introduce unexpected bugs at different device sizes.
Editor X is Wix’s solution for freelance designers and web design agencies. It allows you to build client sites with dedicated tools for professionals.
Wix’s AppMarket is a dedicated app store with hundreds of plugins that enable you to expand your website’s capabilities quickly and easily. You’ll find everything from table reservation apps for restaurants to social media integrations.
Velo is Wix’s open development platform for building web applications. This is an ambitious project that aims to move web builders into areas in which they typically cannot compete: complex web apps.
For most businesses, Velo is far beyond what you need; for most app developers, it isn’t enough yet. But it’s great to know this opportunity is on the horizon.
Wix has a range of tools to help your ecommerce business grow. There are coupons, discounts, bookings, and shipping tools.
Ascend is Wix’s built-in marketing suite. It includes a CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) which is excellent for fostering long-term business relationships and eliminates the need for a third-party app.
Email is still the most effective way of staying in touch with your customers. Wix’s built-in email marketing tools make it easier to manage email campaigns, all from your Wix dashboard.
Wix will even give you a free domain for a year on everything except its basic package.
Wix has multiple tiers of pricing depending on the features you require.
Note that the availability of some Wix plans varies depending on your location.
Website Plans are aimed at those users creating an individual site.
Combo: $16 per month — 2 Gb bandwidth and 3 Gb of storage, plus 30 minutes of video streaming.
Unlimited: $22 per month — Unlimited bandwidth, 5Gb storage, 1 hour of video streaming, and access to marketing tools.
Pro: $27 per month — Unlimited bandwidth, 50Gb storage, 2 hours of video, marketing tools, social media tools and priority support,
VIP: $45 per month — Unlimited bandwidth, 100Gb storage, 5 hours of video, marketing tools, social media tools, and priority support.
If you want to accept payments online with Wix, you’ll need a business plan.
Business Basic: $27 per month — 20Gb storage space, 5 hours of video, online payments
Business Unlimited: $32 per month — 35 Gb of storage, 10 hours of video, multiple currencies, multi-channel selling, dropshipping, product reviews
Business VIP: $59 per month — 50Gb of storage, unlimited video, marketing, and sales tools, dropshipping, product reviews, and a loyalty program
Wix provides custom solutions for enterprise customers. If you have a large site with complex needs, then Wix can design a complete solution for your brand. Contact Wix directly for pricing.
Wix is one of the best website builders available for creating your own website. Its flexibility, massive range of features, and ability to scale are ideal for many new and established businesses. But, if anything, Wix’s vast range of options can be a hindrance and make its learning curve a little steeper than necessary.
Wix is a great allrounder, but it’s not the easiest, cheapest, or fastest website builder. So keep reading to discover the best alternatives to Wix.
Squarespace is the ideal website builder for anyone for whom aesthetics are a primary concern; it boasts the most beautiful templates of any website builder.
On its higher tier packages, Squarespace allows ecommerce sites to host their own checkout. This is radically different from some website builders further down this list and ensures a consistent customer experience while maintaining a secure checkout.
For professional designers, Squarespace offers Circle, an invite-only program for professionals creating multiple sites in Squarespace. To qualify, you must build at least three websites on the Squarespace platform.
Squarespace has hundreds of templates, widely considered to be amongst the most beautiful designs of any website builder.
Additionally, you can purchase Squarespace templates at a number of different design marketplaces, giving you even more options.
Squarespace has everything you need to power an online store, from selling an individual item to a huge product range. You can even sell online classes.
Squarespace includes integrated marketing tools like email campaigns that carry your branding from your site to your customers’ inboxes.
Squarespace also includes a very capable blogging app with all the features you need to start publishing content that will engage your users and boost your position on SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages).
Circle is Squarespace’s partner program for professional web designers. You will need to build at least three Squarespace websites to qualify.
Members of Circle get free educational content to keep their skills up to date and access to product betas.
Squarespace offers four simple pricing plans. Additionally, you can save up to 30% by opting to pay annually instead of monthly.
Personal: $23 per month — 2 contributors, curated templates, simple analytics, mobile version of sites
Business: $33 per month — unlimited contributors, business tools, advanced analytics, ecommerce with 3% transaction fees
Basic Commerce: $36 per month — unlimited contributors, business tools, ecommerce analytics, merchandising tools, 0% transaction fees.
Advanced Commerce: $65 per month — Everything in the basic commerce package plus abandoned cart recovery, subscriptions, advanced shipping options, and discounts, as well as APIs for third-party integrations.
Squarespace offers undeniably beautiful sites. Its editing experience takes a little getting used to but is far from complex. Its simple, transparent pricing means your costs are predictable, and there is genuine value in its 30% discount for paying annually.
Due to its shallower navigation, it’s best suited to smaller online stores with dozens rather than hundreds of products. However, artists and craftspeople will love selling their work on Squarespace.
Shopify is the best-known website builder for creating an online store, and for a good reason. Few website builders manage to handle online sales with the grace of Shopify’s ecommerce features.
That does not mean it’s without its failings. The biggest issue for most Shopify users is the restriction on the number of product variants, which is capped at 100, and always seems to be reached too quickly. Another common gripe is the styling restrictions placed on the cart in the name of security, which prevent anything but basic styling from being applied to your checkout process.
Shopify is one of the best online website builders, but it eschews the usual drag-and-drop interface approach and instead uses templates and editable code.
Templates typically come with styling options, and there is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) style editor for adding content. However, you’ll need to hire a developer or learn basic coding to customize your template significantly.
The upside of this approach is that there’s a vast Shopify ecosystem, with thousands of templates and plugins available in the dedicated store and on third-party marketplaces.
Shopify has a huge number of templates, there are hundreds of native templates, and there are thousands more available from third-party marketplaces.
Shopify has an extensive plugin store with 6500+ add-ons, from apps to improve your UX to helpers to simplify third-party integrations with SaaS (Software as a Service) like Mailchimp and AliExpress.
Shopify isn’t just an online store; it makes selling products across multiple channels, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even email, a simple process.
Shopify has a plethora of resources to help you create an online store and maximize your sales. It provides online courses and community resources and a dedicated and knowledgeable customer support team.
Shopify offers three website plans. You can save 50% if you pay annually instead of monthly.
Note: in addition to your plan, Shopify charges a per-sale percentage plus $0.30 for online transactions.
Basic: $29 per month — Basic reports, 2 staff accounts, 4 inventory locations, up to 77% shipping discount, 2.9% + $0.30 fee per transaction
Shopify: $79 per month — Professional reports, 5 staff accounts, 5 inventory locations, up to 88% shipping discount, 2.6% + $0.30 fee per transaction
Advanced: $299 per month — Custom reports, 15 staff accounts, 8 inventory locations, up to 88% shipping discount, 2.4% + $0.30 fee per transaction
Shopify is aimed at small businesses but also provides ShopifyPlus, an enterprise-grade solution for high-volume businesses that starts at $2,000 per month.
Shopify sets the bar for ecommerce solutions. When it comes to selling online, it’s the first choice for many businesses.
Shopify occupies the middle ground between website builders and custom solutions. As such, making changes is difficult. Once you’ve chosen your template and exhausted the built-in features of the template, your only recourse for further changes is to hire a developer (or learn to code).
Shopify is laser-focused on ecommerce, so it’s a poor choice for anything but ecommerce. However, if you’re aiming to quickly establish an online store with scope to grow, Shopify is impossible to beat.
Webflow is a website builder geared solidly towards freelancers and design agencies concerned with building a website for their clients.
For professional website designers who possess at least a passing understanding of HTML & CSS, Webflow is an ideal way to create a website.
With its white labeling and a complete CMS (Content Management System), Webflow allows you to serve sites to clients as custom builds. Clients can then edit content in a simplified dashboard called Editor; this lessens the learning curve for clients and avoids the risk of them fiddling with site-breaking settings.
Webflow employs a full CMS (Content Management System) to separate design and content and allow you to use data to create a website rapidly. In this respect it’s like a the best elements of Wix and WordPress combined.
With Webflow you have the option to fully customize almost every aspect of your design, without code.
Start with a blank canvas, or a template, then use the drag-and-drop editor to add HTML elements onto your page. Create reusable symbols to speed up your site creation.
White labeling means teams can create client sites in Webflow without the client knowing how the site is built — design agencies don’t have to worry about clients cutting out the middleman and going straight to Webflow to save money.
Most website builders are out of their depth when it comes to enterprise-grade sites with high volumes of traffic. Not so Webflow, which delivers advanced security, traffic scaling, and guaranteed uptime for its enterprise customers.
Webflow offers a multitude of pricing options depending on whether you’re an individual, a reseller, or an online store.
If you’re running an individual site you’ll need either a website plan or an ecommerce plan. If you’re an agency planning to resell Webflow to your clients you’ll need a workspace plan for your team in addition to a website or ecommerce plan for every client site you publish.
If you’re an individual, Webflow provides three plans to choose from. You can save up to 22% by opting to pay annually instead of monthly.
Basic: $18 per month — 0 CMS items, 500 form submissions per month, 50Gb bandwidth.
CMS: $29 per month — 2,000 CMS items, 1,000 for submissions per month, 200Gb bandwidth, and up to 3 guest editors
Business: $49 per month — 10,000 CMS items, 2,500 form submissions per month, 400Gb bandwidth, up to 10 guest editors
To unlock features specifically designed for online selling, you need to opt for one of Webflow’s ecommerce plans. You can save up to 30% by opting to pay annually instead of monthly.
Standard: $42 per month — includes everything in the individual CMS plan, plus 500 products, 2% transaction fee, and a maximum of $50,000 in annual sales
Plus: $84 per month — includes everything in the individual business plan, plus 1,000 products, 0% transaction fee and a maximum of $200,000 in annual sales
Advanced: $235 per month — includes everything in the individual business plan, plus 3,000 products, 0% transaction fee, and unlimited annual sales
For teams, Webflow offers workspace plans in addition to website and ecommerce plans. There is a free plan while you learn Webflow, and you can save up to 33% by paying annually.
Note that team plans are charged per seat, so for example, the cost for four designers of the Growth package is $240 per month (not $60 per month).
Core: $28 / seat per month — for small in-house teams, up to 3 seats, a maximum of 10 unhosted sites, custom code and code export.
Growth: $60 / seat per month — for growing in-house teams, up to 9 seats, unlimited hosted sites, custom code, custom export.
Freelancer: $24 / seat per month — for freelancers or small agencies, up to 3 seats, full CMS access on unhosted sites
Agency: $42 / seat per month — for agencies, up to 9 seats, full CMS access on unhosted sites
Large teams with more than 9 team members will need to contact Webflow for its enterprise plan, which promises unlimited seats.
Webflow is aimed at design agencies and freelancers who need a web host for client work and is one of the best website builders for managing multiple sites.
Due to its advanced feature set, Webflow is relatively complex to use. However, it is far simpler than a bespoke site, and anyone with a cursory understanding of web technologies should master it in a short space of time. Additionally, its Editor feature simplifies it for clients.
Unfortunately, Webflow’s ecommerce plans are expensive and ecommerce features are limited. Anyone looking to sell online might want to consider other site builders instead.
If you’re a design agency building multiple client sites, Webflow is an excellent platform to adopt…if you can afford the team plans.
Duda website builder has been outperforming its rivals since 2021, when Google introduced Core Web Vitals and, in the process, made SEO all about speed.
Duda produces blazing-fast, reliable sites and, in doing so, ticks all of Google’s boxes for a quality site that it wants to rank highly.
On top of this, Duda provides a white-label option, allowing design agencies to build sites for clients on the platform. In fact, this is what Duda was initially created for.
Duda offers beautiful design in a simple-to-use package. As such, it produces some of the best no-code websites.
Duda offers a Simple Editor option that allows you to provide your clients with a simple website builder of their own. Predesign elements that work together, then let your clients combine them in whatever way they please.
Clients will feel empowered, and you get a website project out the door with less work and fewer revisions.
Duda is aimed squarely at freelancers and design agencies that want to foster an ongoing relationship with their clients.
Build your own library of widgets, templates, and sections. Share across your entire team, so client projects are created with your in-house approach.
Duda enables ecommerce sales across the web and social media, with your inventory synced everywhere you sell, from Facebook to eBay and Amazon.
Managing a store is simple with store management apps for iOS and Android.
Duda offers three pricing plans for websites, and you can save up to 33% by paying annually instead of monthly.
Basic: $19 per month — 1 website, email customer support only, no team or client collaboration
Team: $29 per month — 1 website, email chat and phone customer support, up to four team members, white label client access
Agency: $59 per month — 4 websites, priority email chat and phone customer support, up to ten team members, white label client access, widget builder, export control
Duda also offers custom plans for clients with enterprise-grade sites; contact them directly for pricing.
Duda provides ecommerce features as an add-on, which means if you want to use Duda to create an online store, you need to sign up for one of their website plans as well as one of their ecommerce plans.
Note: you can pair any of the ecommerce plans with any of the website plans; they don’t need to scale together.
You can save up to 25% on Duda’s ecommerce plans by paying annually instead of monthly.
Standard: $8 per month — Up to 100 products
Advanced: $22 per month — Up to 2,500 products, sell subscriptions
Unlimited: $49 per month — Unlimited products, sell subscriptions, Square PoS integration
SEO is a complex subject, and many factors feed your ranking on Google, Bing, and other search engines.
What is universally accepted is that fast pages translate into a better ranking.
If you’re looking for a blazing-fast website builder to help you establish a strong online presence, Duda must be near the top of your shortlist.
WordPress is a juggernaut of an app; its rise has been unstoppable, and 43% of the web is made up of WordPress sites. Furthermore, WordPress.com — not to be confused with WordPress.org — is a WordPress site builder. That means all you need to do is log in and have all the power and flexibility of WordPress at your fingertips.
The downside to all this power is that WordPress.com is a big step up in complexity from most of the site builders on this list. It’s not as complex as its self-hosted sibling, but you’ll still need to spend some time getting acquainted with the advanced features.
You’ve probably heard that WordPress is insecure. We’re sorry to say that’s true. WordPress’ main vulnerability is its third-party themes and plugins — the commonality of a WordPress site means criminals consider it worth exploiting. WordPress.com web hosting is considerably more secure than self-hosted WordPress.org, but hey, it’s still WordPress.
But if you decide the security risk is acceptable, WordPress.com offers an ecosystem of themes and plugins unparalleled for its range and variety.
WordPress has a vast ecosystem, perhaps the largest of any design software. There are thousands of professionally designed themes, and over 50,000 plugins, providing enormous scope for customization.
When vulnerabilities are found, more often than not, it’s the result of a flaw in a plugin update. So if you install a lot of plugins, you are exposing yourself to increasing security risks.
Unfortunately, in order to take advantage of the WordPress ecosystem, you need to be on one of WordPress.com’s higher-priced plans.
WordPress sites are notoriously insecure, but WordPress.com solves most of the issues thanks to a dedicated security team.
The whole WordPress community has been working on evolving the design process from coded templates to a drag-and-drop editor called Gutenberg. Gutenberg started out small, but it gets better all the time and now offers a good level of design control without overwhelming beginners with too many options.
There is a generous free plan that is ideal for getting started. Beyond that WordPress.com offer four price tiers. You can save up to 50% by paying annually instead of monthly.
Note: many of WordPress.com’s best plugins are not free; make sure you budget for the cost of any plugins you intend to use.
Personal: $4 per month — Remove WordPress.com ads, collect payments
Premium: $8 per month — Remove WordPress.com ads, collect payments, earn ad revenue, install premium themes, Google Analytics integration
Business: $25 per month — Remove WordPress.com ads, collect payments, earn ad revenue, Google Analytics integration, install plugins, automated site backups.
eCommerce: $45 per month — Remove WordPress.com ads, collect payments, earn ad revenue, Google Analytics integration, install plugins, automated site backups, accept payments in 60+ countries, top shipping carrier integration, premium design options.
WordPress.com also provides WordPress VIP, an enterprise-grade package that starts at $25,000 per year.
Opting to use WordPress.com boils down to one thing: building a website with the WordPress ecosystem. That means you must select at least the Premium price tier (to install premium themes) or the Business price tier (to install plugins). As a result, WordPress.com, on the lower packages, has limited appeal.
WordPress.com is one of the better choices on this list for blogging. If you hope to attract a lot of organic traffic from search engines, then WordPress.com’s blogging heritage will serve you well.
GoDaddy is best known for website hosting but does not have the best reputation regarding reliable software; however, its web builder dispels that myth by producing good quality code and decent page speed.
Unfortunately, it achieves its performance by limiting your design options. For example, you can’t add individual elements to your site; you must add whole sections and customize them. However, suppose you don’t feel particularly confident with design. In that case, having someone else make those decisions for you can be a real bonus.
A big flaw with GoDaddy’s ecommerce features is that the checkout isn’t hosted under your domain name; it’s hosted on a third-party website. Consumers are increasingly concerned about scams, and the site URL changing this way can feel like a real red flag.
GoDaddy website builder has a version control system built in. This helpful feature allows you to revert back to an older version of your site. So if you make a change, undoing it is just a couple of clicks. That’s great for websites that want to make temporary, seasonal changes to their website and then revert back to the everyday design.
GoDaddy uses a surprisingly effective AI to offer advice, helping you to establish an online presence and boost your business.
GoDaddy has some of the most comprehensive marketing tools of any website builder. SEO, social media, and email marketing can all be employed to connect with and retain customers.
GoDaddy offers hundreds of customizable themes that you can edit with no technical skill or experience.
Lots of businesses struggle with images when they first start out. GoDaddy has a built-in library of professional images that you can use until you have your own.
GoDaddy offers four simple pricing tiers. You can save up to 37% by paying annually instead of monthly.
Note: The availability of GoDaddy Plans varies depending on your territory.
Basic: $9.99 per month — 1 social media platform, 5 social posts per month, 100 email marketing sends per month
Premium: $14.99 per month — Unlimited social media, 25,000 email marketing sends per month, SEO tools, group events, paid appointments
Ecommerce: $16.99 per month — Unlimited social media, 25,000 email marketing sends per month, SEO tools, group events, paid appointments, product listings, flexible payments, promotional features
GoDaddy isn’t the best overall website builder, and neither is it the cheapest website builder. But it is a good, solid, middle-of-the-road choice for small businesses.
Where GoDaddy website builder does excel is in the business tools that come with its site builder platform. Its marketing tools are excellent, and its new AI-powered hints are a great way of guiding you toward a profitable site.
Wrap all of this up at a competitive price, and GoDaddy is worth a look if you want to do all your web design and promotion in one place.
Carrd is website builder software for anyone building a one-page site. One-page sites are ideal for product microsites, event sites, small companies, time-limited promotions, contact forms, and many other websites.
One of the most complicated tasks when a software company sets out to create a website builder is navigation. Carrd circumvents that problem by eliminating the need for navigation, which results in a more straightforward UI, compact code, and faster page speeds.
There is a bit of a learning curve with Carrd. For example, it helps if you understand the basic principles of CSS. But if you don’t, the documentation will help. And getting to the nuts and bolts under the hood of your site can give you a real sense of ownership.
Carrd allows you to build and publish three sites for free. But if you want to publish more than three and use pro features like custom domains, it will charge you $19 per year — that’s just $1.58 per month.
Carrd is one of the cheapest website builders around. At just $19 for an entire year, you normally struggle to find plain web hosting this cheaply.
The price reflects the limited feature set — Carrd lacks the marketing and SEO tools that the top website builders have — but for many small businesses who just want to establish an online presence quickly, a one-page site is exactly what they need.
Unlike many of the premium website builders on this list, Carrd allows you to use custom code on its sites.
Custom code requires a little more knowledge than the average site builder, and many people prefer a drag-and-drop interface. However, adding custom code to Carrd is far easier than adding it to Shopify, for example.
Carrd refers to its plugins as widgets. It doesn’t have a full app market or ecommerce features, but you can add widgets from services like Stripe and PayPal to expand the capabilities of your Carrd site.
Carrd allows you to publish three branded sites for free. It only has one paid plan, which is billed per year. Carrd also provides a free seven-day trial.
Note: Carrd’s Pro plan allows you to build multiple sites.
Carrd Pro: $1.58 per month (billed annually at $19) — build more than three sites, custom domains, signup forms, payment forms, Google Analytics, widgets, custom code
Carrd is an excellent website builder that outputs solid production code. If you need to get a one-page site online fast, then Carrd is a perfect choice.
At just $19 for a whole year, Carrd is one of the best-value website builders on this list.
Unfortunately, one-page sites typically have a limited lifespan, and sooner or later, you’ll want to expand. At this point, Carrd will cease to be a viable option and you’ll have to look at other website builders.
But at this price, you could have a one-pager up in the next 15 minutes. That’s hard to knock.
Square Online is part of the Square product range that includes one of the most popular PoS (Point of Sale) solutions. Square Online is an excellent option for brick-and-mortar businesses that exist IRL (In Real Life). It’s also one of the few entries on this list that qualifies as a free website builder.
Square acquired the Weebly website builder in 2018 and redeployed staff to develop Square Online. Although Weebly continues to exist, all development seems channeled into making Square Online’s ecommerce features the best option for building an online store.
Square Online is more straightforward than Shopify for building an online store and offers a range of tools to integrate online and offline business.
Square Online is perfect for businesses that need an online store but feel website building is too technical. Its broader ecosystem of business tools means you can do everything digital in one place, with a consistent set of UIs and workflows, which makes things easier.
If you’re already a customer of Square’s PoS (Point of Sale) products, then you can export your inventory from your PoS device and import it into your online store, saving yourself hours while ensuring that your products are synced.
Square Online is just part of the Square group of products. Consequently, your sales aren’t limited to your website. As well as the obvious PoS option, Google, Instagram, and Facebook integrations are available.
Square is particularly well-suited to restaurants, bars, and cafes. It provides scheduling software, team management, and loyalty cards, all of which make running a service business online a cinch.
Square Online offers three price plans, all of which are priced monthly but billed annually. Its lowest-priced tier is free, except for card processing fees.
Note: different pricing plans are available in different territories.
Free: $0 per month — Unlimited products, sell on social media, SEO tools
Plus: $?? per month (billed annually) — Free tier features, Advanced item settings, Accept PayPal
Premium: $?? per month (billed annually) — Plus tier features, reduced processing rate, real-time shipping rates
In addition, Square Online offers an enterprise solution for high-volume, multi-location businesses. Contact Square directly for pricing.
With the financial backing of its parent company Square Online has the resources to evolve into a world-leading website builder; it just hasn’t gotten there yet.
Like a couple of other website builders on this list, Square Online is aimed directly at anyone who wants to build an online store — or, in fact, commerce in general. So you should look elsewhere if selling online isn’t central to your site.
But suppose you’re already invested in the Square ecosystem with PoS devices in physical locations. In that case, using Square Online is a no-brainer.
And if you’re willing to look past some of the design restrictions in favor of good customer service and the potential of a growing platform, then Square Online is a solid choice too.
Zyro is exceptionally cheap, especially for building an online store. But don’t let that fool you into thinking Zyro website builder is low on quality. On the contrary, hidden behind the low-ball sales pitch is a competent website builder with many features.
Zyro gives you complete control over the placement of your content, something that only Wix can rival.
Zyro offers an outstanding balance of powerful customization but not too many tools, so you won’t be overwhelmed by all the options.
Zyro doesn’t have a built-in app store like some rivals, which means you have limited options to expand the functionality of your site. However, it does offer some third-party integrations to services, so you’re not entirely without options.
Zyro does a tremendous job of getting new businesses online because you don’t need any experience to use this very simple site builder.
Many website builders usually scrimp on the extras and claw back a little money by charging extra for hosting. Not so Zyro, which provides unlimited storage and bandwidth.
Zyro includes a logo maker, so if you’re starting from scratch, you can get give yourself some professional gloss with a shiny new logo.
Zyro offers two price plans, one for simple small business websites and one for ecommerce.
Note: Zyro offers regular discounts of up to 75% off its packages. These discounts are time-limited, but once they expire, they reset. So you won’t miss out if you decide to think it over.
Website: $2.99 / month — free domain, free email for 3 months, marketing integration, logo maker
Business: $3.99 / month — All of the features of the Website tier, plus sell up to 500 products
With its AI-powered logo maker, fast build times, and simple options, Zyro is committed to getting you online fast.
We really didn’t like the deception of placing a fake countdown on the price discount. And hiding the increased renewal price in small print isn’t a good look for Zyro either. That type of blackhat UX doesn’t have a place on the modern web.
However, the prices beat almost everything except free website builder plans. In addition, Zyro’s ecommerce package is one of the most affordable options on the market, with an equally generous 1% transaction processing fee.
If you want to set up a side business over a weekend or even over your lunch hour, then Zyro is an excellent choice.
A website builder, or site builder, is a service for creating a website without any design or coding skills. The most popular website builders are designed to democratize the web by helping anyone build a website quickly and easily.
It sometimes helps to have some design ideas, and some website builders will allow you to add custom code if you want to, but neither is required.
With a website builder, all you need is the desire to create a website.
Because website builders are created with many potential uses in mind, they use generic source code. Unfortunately, this means that their code is typically less streamlined than a bespoke site.
However, over the past few years, the code quality that website builders generate has improved enormously. Now, many professional design agencies use website builders instead of coding their own websites.
If you have a very specialized site in mind, like a SaaS (Software as a Service, then even the best website builder won’t be able to create it. But for marketing websites and online stores, website builders are an ideal way to build a website.
The cost of a website builder varies from product to product. There are free website builders available, but many of the top website builders charge a monthly fee.
For one of the best website builders, you can expect to pay a subscription based on the features you require. Expect to pay more for e-commerce features, marketing features, and a flexible drag-and-drop interface.
There are sometimes hidden costs, such as a card processing fee for online sales.
If you opt for a website builder that uses templates or plugins, you may need to pay for those in addition to the subscription.
You don’t need to pay for web hosting services; web hosting should be included.
Most website builders offer a limited free plan or a free trial, so you can test out features before opening your wallet.
It depends on the nature of your business. For example, suppose you’re setting up an online store or a professional service like plumbing or landscaping. In that case, a website builder or perhaps a specialist e-commerce website builder could be ideal for you.
On the other hand, if you’re running a business like a car dealership or a travel agency — where you need lots of individual listings — that is a little beyond what website builders can do. In that case, you’ll probably need a complete CMS (Content Management System).
If you are building a complex app or SaaS, then sorry, but website builders can’t manage that; you’ll need to hire a professional developer or improve your coding knowledge.
You don’t need web design experience to use a website builder; they are designed to get new businesses online without professional assistance.
Some website builders are more complicated than others. Typically, the more features there are, the more time you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the user interface. A website can be created quickly with a drag-and-drop editor, but you may find you need to put in a little more work if you’re creating an online store.
As a guide, if you can use email, a web browser, or a document processor like Word or Pages, you’ll be able to use a website builder to build a website.
Custom domains, like myawesomewebsite.com, can usually be used with website builders.
Be aware that some website builders charge more for this option. But equally, you may be offered free domain name registration, at least for the first year.
You don’t need to worry about a web host; that’s part of what you’re paying the website builder to provide.
Many website builders even host your site on CDNs (Content Delivery Networks), making your site faster for a global audience.
Depending on your package, most website builders restrict the storage space you can use (the total size of all of your files combined). Some website builders also limit the bandwidth you can use (the total size of all the files users access on your site combined).
Getting your site to page one on Google is the primary aim for most businesses.
Many professional techniques boost your site up search engine rankings, but they all boil down to publishing good content and fast page load times.
You’ll find plenty of blog posts online claiming that website builders output low-quality and slow code. This used to be true, but in recent years the code website builders’ output has improved significantly.
A good website builder (like the ones on this list) won’t guarantee good search engine ranking, but the top website builders include marketing features that will help.
Some website builders can get you online in under five minutes. Others require hours of build time.
Typically, the more complex a site is, the longer it will take. Ecommerce, for example, will take longer than a simple résumé webpage.
Additionally, websites are not a once-and-done task. You will need to update your site, change information, and add features throughout its life.
But you’ll find that most website builders make this easy by taking away the hard work. As a result, most first-time website builders discover that they enjoy making websites, and some even decide to become professional website designers!
A drag-and-drop editor is exactly what it sounds like. You drag an element into position by clicking on it, and you drop it into place by releasing the mouse button when it’s positioned as you want it.
A drag-and-drop editor is considered a premium feature of the best website builders, but some people do prefer to make changes with code or via a simple form interface.
There isn’t a catch-all approach to building a website. The right website builder for you might not be the right website builder for someone else.
As you can see from the list above, Wix is a solid all-rounder, whereas Shopify is excellent for creating an online store. However, there are many occasions when other website builders would be a better choice.
Sometimes it comes down to something as simple as feeling an affinity with the website builder’s philosophy. If you find a website builder intuitive and it provides all the features you need, it’s the right website builder for you.
Featured image by upklyak on Freepik
The post 10 Best Website Builders for 2023 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
A robust email marketing strategy is a great way to reach your target audience directly.
But your email marketing campaign success rests on whether you used the best email marketing services.
No two email marketing services are equal. So you must choose carefully. We created this guide and ranked the 12 best email marketing services for you.
Although we ranked these best email marketing services in this list from number one to eleven, we also understand that everyone’s need is unique. So we identified where each email marketing tool performs best.
Here’s what to keep in mind to find a good email marketing service:
Please read on for the best email marketing services in the market today.
If your goal is to deliver timely, personalized, and unique email experiences to your customers, try ActiveCampaign. As the best email marketing service for putting your marketing on autopilot, this tool offers a built-in email automation system, a campaign tracker, and a CRM.
ActiveCampaign offers users loads of beginner-friendly advanced automation features. Here are a few:
You can focus on other important business pursuits and let ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation send welcome emails, track contact tags, monitor sales analytics, and fetch performance reports.
This feature empowers users to launch automatic email marketing campaigns or follow up on customers who abandoned their carts or disengaged from their content.
ActiveCampaign records your site visitors’ consumer behavior and demographic information in real-time. So you can segment your email list better and target your audience with messages that resonate with them.
Gathering visitor data can help you engage with them emotionally or during memorable events like anniversaries, birthdays, and other milestones.
ActiveCampaign offers a seamless move from your previous automated marketing service provider.
Best part? Migrating to ActiveCampaign comes at no cost to you.
Simply request for migration by filling out a quick form. And you’re on your way to a better email marketing experience.
Image Credit: ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign groups your email contacts into different categories to enable you to make sense of the data.
You can segment a contact list by name, date, location, subscription status, tags, and other metadata.
Segmented data helps you target the most conversion-ready audience for the particular campaign.
You’re free to link your favorite apps with ActiveCampaign if it enhances your business growth.
So you can integrate your account with third-party apps like
You don’t need to move contacts across email marketing platforms to access or manage your data. ActiveCampaign lets you keep your data on the platform you wish to use and then use integrations to extract the benefits of having those contacts.
Get real-time reports on your deals and sales activities using ActiveCampaign. The reports feature lets you know your campaign’s performance across these indicators:
ActiveCampaign lets you track your competitors by providing reports of users who switched to competitors.
You also get a funnel report to see how well your email marketing effort converts engaged audiences to buyers.
ActiveCampaign lets you start and manage conversations with current and prospective customers across multiple channels.
Send and receive instant direct messages, which you can also automate in full.
Customers will quickly reach you with questions and orders without losing their messages in your email pile.
ActiveCampaign is feature rich. You can fully integrate other applications on the platform without losing vital leads and data.
This email marketing software positions itself (and rightly so) as a leading email marketing solution that encompasses other parts of marketing and your CRM needs.
You can enjoy its free email marketing service offering for 14 days.
Although ActiveCampaign promises many features, most of them are exclusive to users who subscribe to paid plans. Sadly, this email marketing tool doesn’t offer a free plan.
Also, the workflows and features are sophisticated. So this email service provider will demand a learning curve.
ActiveCampaign offers four paid plans—Lite, Plus, Professional and Enterprise. The enterprise plan is customizable to meet the peculiar needs of big businesses.
Each plan is billed monthly at:
Lite: $29 per month
Plus: $49 per month
Professional: $149 per month
Enterprise: Customized rate
Sendinblue provides users with instant messaging features, sales enablement software, and email marketing tools to grow their businesses.
If you’re looking to engage users more instantly through SMS and chats along with your email campaigns, then Sendinblue is the solution. As the best email marketing software for instant messaging, Sendinblue has personalization features to help you engage better with your target audience.
Sendinblue offers over 40 responsive and professional pre-made email templates from which to choose.
If those are not enough, you can create bespoke email templates. Again, you’ll find the platform intuitive. In addition, you can use templates on multiple devices for the best results.
Modify emails to your taste by simply dragging and dropping items on the campaign template.
Sendinblue is one of the most advanced email marketing services today. For example, it takes personalization seriously. So you can craft the content of your emails to appeal to your target audience better.
If you wish to measure campaign performance rate or monitor engagement on certain emails, Sendinblue provides the option of turning on your Google Analytics tracker.
Google Analytics generates insights by drawing your customer information from all over the internet, including their behavior on social media.
Sendinblue lets you initiate instant communication with your site visitors through chat. Live chat is a handy email for engaging your leads at critical moments.
You can install this feature in seconds, assign conversations to your team, and customize the chat feature for your brand.
Every contact is different and often has unique preferences.
Target the right audience with the most suitable message by exploring Sendinblue’s segmentation; this categorizes contacts and helps you determine, create and push a tailor-made campaign to a ready market.
Sendinblue allows you to send your desired SMS volume to any chosen destination for a token.
You can also reach numerous contacts on your Whatsapp with customized messages about your business.
A recent report says that 69% of internet users use Whatsapp. So, you want to get your message to this audience.
Does managing all your conversations from a single place appeal to you?
With Sendinblue inbox, you can navigate smoothly between chats from your linked Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook accounts.
Keep your team and customers updated simultaneously with a simple inbox setup.
This Shared Inbox feature enhances organization.
Sendinblue’s free email marketing software offers advanced features for startups and supports unlimited contacts. Except you need to do more, you can function solely on the free plan.
As the best email marketing software for initiating instant communication with leads, this email marketing tool promises a simple user interface and instant account setup.
Also, Sendinblue is relatively cheaper compared to similar email marketing providers.
You can only send 300 emails daily on the free version of Sendinblue. A paid subscription is required to remove the Sendinblue logo from your emails.
Apart from the free plan, Sendinblue offers three other monthly plans—Starter Plan at $25, Business Plan at $65 per month, and Enterprise Plan at $1000 per month.
Drip is a personalized email, SMS, and automation service provider trusted by thousands of brands globally. It provides a seamless email workflow for businesses of all sizes.
Handling every marketing operation by yourself is overwhelming.
Save precious business time by using any pre-designed Drip templates.
The playbooks with heart-melting welcome series and abandoned cart reminders are ideal for growing your revenue.
Choose a suitable visual workflow and automate it fully.
If you like your emails deeply personalized and right on target, you’ll find Drip’s HTML builder useful.
Create 100 percent original content from scratch.
Personalized emails prove to your customers that you go the extra length and they’re special to you.
Customize emails to capture your brand image using its ultra-easy drag-and-drop email editor.
People and businesses exchange over 306 billion email messages daily. Your audience is already getting tons of messages. Stand out with branded emails.
The visual interface is vibrant and can help boost your creativity.
Get access to form templates that your on and off-site visitors can easily fill out on Drip.
You can redirect, engage, sponsor specific actions, offer discounts to customers and grow your audience with targeted pop-up notifications and forms.
Pop-ups and signup forms convert about 3.09% of site visitors.
Gain insights on your growth, audience, revenue, and overall campaign performance with Drip analytics and benchmark.
That’s not all.
Drip supports users with personalized guides to help them make informed decisions using these data that lead to business growth.
Your emails and SMS can run on autopilot without taking on the stress of maintaining correspondence with new and existing customers.
Simply set up revenue-targeted workflows and relax.
Since Drip comes with pre-built workflows, you don’t have to start your automation process from scratch.
Are you a new or an existing business owner? Drip supports your business on multiple channels.
Fully merge or connect your online store like Shopify, Magento, and other eCommerce tools to your Drip account with just one click. Easy breezy.
You can start conversations on your e-store and finish in your inbox.
Apart from unlimited email sends, Drip lets you access its advanced features and all the tools on its platform during your 14 days free trial.
Users get tailored assistance and live support when they need them. In addition, Drip simplifies the scaling process for businesses.
Although you get unlimited emails, this plan doesn’t support unlimited contacts and doesn’t offer a free plan. However, you have unlimited features access. But Drip limits usage by the number of contacts.
More than ten paid plans starting at $39 up to more than $1,899 and billed monthly. Email contacts vary by plan, but you can send unlimited emails and email support for all paid plans.
Constant Contact simplifies email marketing for event marketers and small businesses as one of the best email marketing providers. This email marketing solution helps users benefit from their email marketing effort without the typical steep learning curve of complicated email marketing software.
Constant Contact empowers small businesses to put their email marketing on autopilot. You can segment your lists automatically and initiate campaigns without manual effort. You can also set drip campaigns and automation to trigger based on your audience behavior, data, or events.
You can resend messages under different subject lines to contacts who didn’t open them the first time.
You can access a range of list-building tools on Constant Contact to help you attract and keep leads. In addition, you can access a landing page builder, form builder, text message signup FTW, and a contact management system.
One of this email marketing service’s biggest selling points is its event management tools. Users can create signup forms for their events, build unlimited landing pages, create email follow-ups, and collect payments using tools available on Constant Contact.
Users can find more than 100 mobile-friendly, drag-and-drop email templates on Constant Contact that match different business types and brands. So you will find the appropriate template for the occasion regardless of industry, market, design preference, holiday, event, or other needs.
Constant Contact understands that customer feedback and extra data can improve your marketing performance. You can consider Constant Contact the best email marketing service for getting feedback through surveys and polls.
You can customize these surveys with your branding and logo on your Constant Contact dashboard.
Constant Contact makes email editing a breeze for users with smart columns, undo-redo, an image library, color customizations, fonts, backgrounds, and more. In addition, its preview function lets you see what your email would look like across devices, so you can adjust your design or message to your heart’s content before sending it out.
Unlike most email service providers, Constant Contact offers marketing calendars. The feature helps plan your marketing. Marketers can create their messages, schedule them, send, and track them with the help of a marketing planner.
Constant Contact’s focus on small businesses means they’ve designed this email marketing platform with simplicity in mind. And they haven’t limited users’ who need more advanced email marketing automation features.
Its error checker is a good feature to catch bad links and fix issues that might lower conversion. Constant Contact is a great email marketing software for educators, event organizers, and small businesses.
Constant Contact doesn’t offer a free plan. Although it has simple pricing, this email marketing tool overcompensates higher-paying Plus users and leaves its Core plan users with limited functionalities.
Constant Contact offers two paid plans to accommodate two audiences:
However, for more advanced automation features, you’ll need the $449 per month marketing automation offer.
These paid plans come with 30-day money-back guarantees so that any small business can test-drive the tool without commitments.
Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing software available online. It integrates email marketing automation features and creative tools to deliver result-oriented email marketing.
Mailchimp is an artificial intelligence-enabled creative assistant to automate and personalize your email and newsletter design for your businesses.
The creative assistant uses AI to study your brand and create beautiful, professional designs tailored to your needs.
These AI-powered designs are useful across multiple channels.
Your email subject lines are crucial to your campaign’s success. Barilliance reported that 64% of email recipients open messages based on the subject line.
Thinking and drafting the perfect email subject line to drive customer engagement is often difficult. But not anymore.
Mailchimp’s subject line helper provides real-time feedback and suggestions to guide you.
Is your email marketing effort not yielding the desired results? You might be targeting the right audience with the wrong campaign.
Mailchimp helps to categorize your email list according to shared characteristics.
This ensures you send the right message to the right audience for better results.
Create professional-looking emails and landing pages in minutes using any of over 100 template designs on Mailchimp.
Campaign templates incorporate content blocks and exciting design elements for your exploration.
Save yourself the cost of hiring a data analyst using available insight predictions on Mailchimp to analyze data.
Get demographic information about your past, present and prospective customers at your fingertips. These predictions help you make better decisions that affect your brand.
Automate your brand marketing workflows and drip campaigns to get the work done in just a few clicks. Set up the processes new email subscribers will go through before conversion.
Send automated welcome notes, product notifications, abandoned cart reminders, and other vital information about your brand.
Alter, sync, and save your images or files with Mailchimp’s robust content studio.
Create a unique search-engine optimized website with Mailchimp’s free website builder.
No special coding or website design experience is needed. Instead, get right into it with your domain name and a clear idea of what you hope to achieve.
Mailchimp is easy to use, and its creative assistant takes away the mental hassle of creating original content regularly. Apart from its free plan, this email marketing service offers unlimited contacts on its Premium plan.
The free version only allows 500 contacts, and Mailchimp’s monthly email sends are limited across all paid plans.
Apart from MailChimp’s free plan, paid plans start from $11 per month, and the Premium plan starts is $299 per month.
Klaviyo is an eCommerce-centered email marketing platform that pools data to create workflows and enhance business growth.
Klaviyo promises users an experience, a unified database, and a learning platform guaranteed to launch their businesses to new heights.
Develop, personalize and automate your emails to portray your brand essence with Klaviyo.
This email marketing platform promises to help users maximize revenue, improve repeat sales, and increase customer retention using well-timed personalized email messages.
Klaviyo uses customer behaviors like these to target your messages better:
And also incorporates group behaviors like these:
So, whether customers appreciate group behavior or tend to repeat a behavior, Klaviyo picks up on that signal to improve your sales.
Klaviyo automatically syncs customers’ data from their first interaction with your brand. Segmentation is swift, specific, and happens in real-time.
Categorize customers in similar demographics or those with shared traits together. This will ensure they get appropriate email messages guaranteed to trigger recipients.
Get to know your customers better and build your email subscriber list with pre-built forms. Klaviyo forms can be embedded in the content or pop up when visitors land on your page.
Klaviyo provides over 100 SMS marketing and email templates to suit your brand. You don’t have to rack your brain trying to come up with authentic messages all the time. Pick expertly crafted
Klaviyo lets you move data across apps without a hitch.
This email marketing solution supports over 220 platforms that cater to eCommerce functions like payments and order management.
The eCommerce sector is highly competitive. So stay ahead of your peers. Catch market, industry, and emerging trends on time. And compare your growth with businesses selling similar products.
Benchmark helps you know where you stand in the grand scheme and what others are doing differently to achieve better results in your field.
Scale your business with direct SMS messages to old and prospective customers.
SMS makes communication easier, faster, and less formal. So you can talk to customers around the globe on the go.
Create the perfect newsletters about your brand and distribute them to your audience through their most preferred channel (email or SMS).
Broadcasts are one-off messages you can easily design without professional help. Klaviyo makes the process faster with send time automation.
Klaviyo targets eCommerce brands squarely. This targeting helps users of this email marketing platform optimize for result-driven marketing automation. Users can get a free plan on this email software.
Klaviyo is feature packed and specializes in increasing revenues for businesses.
The free version has limitations. And Klaviyo allows only a few integrations compared to other email marketing service providers. So, this email marketing solution is only good if you won’t be heavy on integrations.
Klaviyo offers a free plan for starters. After that, the email plan starts at $45 per month, and you pay $60 per month to access all the tools in the email and SMS marketing plans.
Campaign Monitor prioritizes ease and efficiency in delivering email marketing services to businesses.
The platform assures users of helping them to create memorable emails that convert and drive engagement.
As a business owner who is always on the go, creating an email from scratch is time-consuming. This email platform offers free brandable email templates.
Freely choose from the stash of professional templates and save yourself the stress and time it takes to design.
This email platform harnesses customers’ data from your website, apps, and eCommerce tools to enable you to craft and deliver personalized emails to them.
A Campaign Monitor report shows marketers record a 20% sales increase and 26% more open rates when they send personalized campaigns.
As the best email marketing software for transactional messages and autoresponder, this tool lets you deliver personalized experiences to your customers for as low as $9.
Sending messages that trigger specific actions from recipients has never been easier.
This email software allows you to create, modify and enhance your communication with customers using bespoke transactional emails.
As one of the best email marketing platforms, this popular email marketing service offers actionable email analytics you can access in just a few clicks. So you can rest assured of practical insights into your business performance.
Popular email marketing services like this email software gives you access to an interactive dashboard to measure results across metrics like these:
And others.
As one of the best email marketing platforms, this email software provides actionable insights from your top-performing campaigns that you can deploy across other campaigns.
Enjoy round-the-clock professional support services from one of the best email service providers.
If you run into technical problems, you can count on Campaign Monitor’s expert team at any time. From funnel to deliverability experts, you can get all the helps you need for your email marketing campaign with this feature.
As one of the best email marketing providers, this tool helps you find and fix broken links that might hurt your campaign efforts. The Link Review tools work in this capacity.
This tool scans your messages, flags any missing or broken links, and validates them.
Image Credit: Campaign Monitor
A signup form is a helpful tool that persuades customers to take the extra step into your business.
Direct the ideal audience to the right section of your business with editable signup forms.
You can also add a subscribe icon on your website’s landing pages.
Campaign Monitor is easy to use and offers affordable feature-loaded paid plans for all business sizes.
The SMS feature on Campaign Monitor is only available to contracted customers sending texts to the USA, and it doesn’t offer a free plan.
Three paid plans are billed monthly with prices starting as follows:
This email service provider’s prices changes per plan as your list grows, but you can send unlimited emails on the Unlimited and Premier plans.
If you’re looking for pocket-friendly email marketing services that deliver results, try Moosend.
Moosend is designed for small and big businesses seeking impressive emails that resonate with their audience.
You can send a limitless amount of emails to suit your business needs.
Whatever inspiration you have when recreating an email campaign, simply drag and drop it with Moosend’s powerful email builder.
You can also design your email campaigns with HTLM—you have full control over how MooSend works for you.
Build lasting and rewarding relationships with customers by automating basic CRM functions.
Handling every customer’s need is tedious and time-consuming. But you must make each customer feel special to ensure continuous patronage.
Automate basic CRM operations and focus on bigger tasks.
Your website landing pages help you convert visitors better—MooSend lets you create responsive and catchy landing pages to increase your site’s conversions.
MooSend lets you save time with pre-built subscription forms, landing pages, and newsletter templates.
Simply flip, personalize and use your most preferred template from this email marketing service provider.
Moosend provides eCommerce email marketing solutions to users, from abandoned cart reminders to product recommendations.
Like other best email marketing services on this list, MooSend uses artificial intelligence to help your business make more sales with email.
Design lead-generating subscription forms for onsite visitors.
When your landing pages receive visitors, they receive your pop-up or embedded forms immediately. Information from these forms goes to segment, retarget, and drive customer engagements.
You don’t have to let go of your best CRM, CMS, and eCommerce tools when moving to MooSend.
Bring your marketing tools or apps and integrate them into your MooSend account. This email service provider lets you connect your integrations without a developer’s help.
Moosend affords you access to powerful email marketing tools at a relatively cheaper rate.
The basic paid plan excludes account managers who provide expert support to users. Moosend also limits the number of email subscribers by payment plan.
Transactional emails are available to pro and enterprise subscribers, and no free plan exists.
MooSend offers a 30-day free trial. But its pricing starts from $9 per month.
Omnisend is the best email marketing tool with eCommerce optimizations and pre-designed workflows.
This email marketing service reduces the work involved in running a thriving eCommerce business by relying on automation.
Your emails and campaigns must be consistent with your brand identity and message. The drag-and-drop email content editor lets you modify in-built templates to suit you.
Attract, retarget and convert web visitors with personalized push notifications. Set automated reminders for cart or browse abandonment and transactional emails beyond just offering a basic email marketing service.
Integrate contacts into your Facebook and Google for better and on-target ads. Omnisend harmonizes your contact every 5-15 minutes, keeping you up-to-date. It also supports cookie-less advertising, which is good for when Google deactivates cookies on Chrome.
You want to handle all your SMS and emails on a single email marketing service to keep you abreast of customer conversations.
Also, you can automate SMS by including it in your marketing workflow, so customers get timely and thoughtful messages.
Onmisend boasts a 47.7% higher conversion rate in users who combine SMS and email marketing.
Omnisend makes the switch to their email marketing service easy and seamless for users, specifically eCommerce brands.
As a popular email marketing service, Omnisend integrates with eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce.
Omnisend’s intuitive segmentation helps you understand your audience better to serve them better.
Increase your sales and campaign by targeting an audience based on purchase behavior and their unique journeys on your website.
Also, monitor customer lifecycle phases to develop and execute a better retention strategy.
Omnisend engages your eCommerce customers from different channels in one place. All your marketing activities, email campaigns, ads, and sales happen on the Omnisend platform.
You can finally keep an eye on all your important data and audience.
Omnisend is purpose-built for eCommerce businesses and integrated with 100+ eCommerce stores like Shopify and wooCommerce. So, you only need one click to start your eCommerce journey.
Plus, you can start exploring this email marketing software on a free plan.
Omnisend targets eCommerce users and offers limited features for other industries. But you can use the free plan to test drive it.
The free plan is available for 250 contacts, but you can upgrade to paid plan starting at $16 per month to enjoy premium offerings.
Mailerlite is an affordable email marketing service that offers growth-focused email solutions to customers.
It integrates your e-store with most email marketing tools to increase conversion. Mailerlite also incorporates ultra-tracking technology to deliver the most accurate insights on your marketing campaigns.
Newsletters are a great way to keep customers informed and updated about your product and services. Create outstanding newsletters from scratch or touch up existing beautiful designs.
Every business needs a responsive and attractive website where prospective customers can interact with their brands—most email signups happen on your website anyway.
Utilize Mailerlite’s drag-and-drop website builder to design your business’s lively and engaging website layout.
Image Credit: Mailerlite
Monitor email clicks, customer behavior, and response to your emails to enable you to strategize. Automated emails handle follow-ups, email resends, and action prompts based on analyzed data.
Mailerlite performs routine checks and deep cleaning on your email list to weed out inactive subscribers, dormant accounts, and spammy contacts.
Enjoy a fully optimized email list 24/7.
Use its drag-and-drop builder to craft attention-grabbing blog posts to build your audience and share your unique ideas with your community.
Blogs are an important marketing strategy to adopt for your business. According to statistics, 77% of internet users read blogs.
Leverage the power of blogs and increase your site clicks.
Your prospective customers need an online location to interact with your business. This could be a landing page.
Choose from a range of templates for a mobile-friendly landing page. So you have one less thing to worry about in building your email marketing campaign.
Mailerlite offers an avenue for users to sell virtual products like ebooks, online courses, or other digital services.
Set up websites and include a payment gateway for easy patronage.
You can equally promote your digital products on Mailerlite.
Mailerlite is simplified for even beginners to understand. Also, the email marketing service integrates with Shopify.
Pricing is fair, and you can enjoy up to 30 days free trial period for all paid plans to decide if you want to continue or not.
The free version is only open to one user and has limited functions and features.
Free for up to 1000 subscribers. Monthly billing based on their annual plan:
ConvertKit targets creators and builds its features around their needs to attract, engage and monetize their audience. As a result, users can build, manage, and earn a living from your audience on a single platform.
ConvertKit lets you breeze through the email writing process by automating every stage. For example, schedule email sends, deliver welcome messages, and group subscribers automatically.
ConvertKit’s creator pro takes the creator business a notch higher. This feature allows subscriber scoring, newsletter referrals, timely support, and teamwork and provides deliverability reports.
This is the best email marketing tool for mainstream creators.
Create, edit, and optimize your emails to convert faster. ConvertKit makes email designing easy and more fun.
You can choose from previous templates and flawlessly modify the font, color, or body of your emails.
Whether you want to choose from numerous form templates or create a customized form yourself, ConvertKit got you covered.
Access free signup forms to retarget your audience.
Turn your passion into a source of income with ConvertKit’s eCommerce channel, which enables you to sell or buy digital products easily.
Package and monetize your knowledge as ebooks, online courses, newsletters, music, or presets and sell to a willing audience.
Integrate your ConvertKit to your most preferred third-party apps. You can access eCommerce, lead capture, ads, CRM, and many other third-party integrations.
If you have rich content and a list of loyal readers who enjoy them, ConvertKit can help you earn from newsletters.
Create customized newsletters targeted at the right audience and put a price on your knowledge.
Mailerlite provides free newsletter templates.
ConvertKit promotes the creator business and is positioned to help creatives sell their products.
The free plan supports 300 subscribers with unlimited emails, forms, landing pages, and other email marketing features.
What’s more?
You get two months of free email marketing services when you opt for annual billing.
Features on ConvertKit are purpose-built specifically for creatives making the email marketing service a poor choice for other industries.
Migration to ConvertKit from any other email marketing tool is unavailable on the free version. Also, the creator plan only allows for a single team member addition.
Free for up to 300 subscribers. Monthly billing begins at $9 per month for Creator and $25 per month for Creator Pro.
Sendy uses Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) to deliver the best email marketing software for users who would like a solution that’s 100x cheaper than competitors.
Sendy is one of the most affordable email marketing services in the market.
Users don’t need to pay monthly subscriptions as this self-hosted email marketing service bills only the number of emails sent. However, you’ll need to buy, install, and update the Sendy email marketing software.
Sendy offers the lowest low-price email send rate in the market. For example, you pay only $1 for every 10,000 email messages.
The affordability doesn’t affect deliverability and speed as it uses the widely trusted Amazon SES. So, you can achieve your email marketing goals on a low budget.
Get timely reports on your campaign performance and other marketing activities on the platform.
Reports give updated insights on your site activities to help you focus your energy on marketing efforts that produce the most results.
Reports are organized into beautiful visual representations like charts to simplify data.
You can’t determine when customers will visit your site or indicate interest in your product.
But with auto response in place, you can rest assured that you’ll miss nothing.
Follow up on email subscribers without being present around the clock. Set marketing automation to answer inquiries, provide feedback, and engage customers while you’re away.
Sendy’s Housekeeping ensures your email list stays clean and relevant so you can channel your marketing efforts to the right audience.
Prune out redundant contacts, uninterested subscribers, and wrong email addresses, clogging your sales progress wheel.
Image Credit: Sendy
Explore many third-party apps like WordPress and thousands of marketing tools on Zapier by integrating Sendy with them.
The integration process is easy, but if you need expert support, the Sendy community is there to assist you at no cost. However, Sendy may charge a fee if you need them to help you install their email marketing software on your hosting server
Create your branded domain to increase brand awareness and customer trust. Let your URL capture your brand.
Save information about your subscribers on your created custom field. Stored data ranges from names to emails and demography.
Information from Sendy’s custom fields is useful in segmentation and audience tags when designing newsletters.
Sendy is feature-rich for a low-budget email marketing platform.
Users only pay for emails sent. And the one-time fee required to use Sendy is refundable if you don’t get desired results—but this is case-by-case.
You can install Sendy on one domain but host emails for multiple domain names.
Sendy runs on your web server and requires a license to set up. Requires updating to newer versions from time to time. Unfortunately, this tool doesn’t support a free plan.
No monthly payment plan.
Choosing an email marketing platform is tough. But you can make it slightly easier with a checklist.
Use this checklist to make your decision easier:
B2B email marketing involves sending messages and email campaigns to businesses rather than individuals.
In a B2B marketing scenario, the communication link is between your business and another business.
Your targeting, product, and marketing activities are channeled toward converting other businesses to loyal customers.
Frequent emails can turn customers off and make them unsubscribe from your list quickly. Ideally, you should drastically increase emails from twice monthly to once weekly.
Research shows that 33.3% of businesses send out emails weekly.
Whatever you decide, ensure to analyze progress reports and use insight to determine whether to increase or reduce the number of emails sent.
Email marketing helps businesses gather, manage and engage new site visitors. You can also keep existing customers updated on your latest offerings.
It costs 500% more to gain new customers than to retain an existing one. So, use email marketing to keep your loyal customers engaged.
Email marketing gives a significantly higher return than other types of marketing, like digital or traditional marketing.
You gain $42 per $1 invested in email marketing campaigns. This makes email marketing the most preferred digital marketing strategy for businesses.
Email marketing is an efficient and cost-effective approach to marketing across different industries.
Consumers who receive email offers are 138% more likely to patronize a business because of email marketing campaigns than those who don’t.
Hence, email marketing increases sales, lead generation, and overall brand engagement.
The email marketing space is rife with email marketing services built to meet different user needs.
So, choosing the right email marketing service from the pool of options can be tasking.
But we’ve highlighted the top email marketing services and features you should consider when migrating your email service to a different platform. Of course, Active Campaign would be the best email marketing service on this list if we must choose one.
Explore any of the best email marketing software mentioned above, and let us know if you need help.
Featured image by storyset on Freepik
The post 12 Best Email Marketing Services for 2022 (Ranked) first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
E-commerce storefronts have been slow to offer crypto payment methods to their customers. Crypto payment plug-ins or payment gateway integrations aren’t generally available, or they rely on third-party custodians to collect, exchange, and distribute money. Considering the growing ownership rate and experimentation ratio of cryptocurrencies, a « pay with crypto » button could greatly drive sales.
This article demonstrates how you can integrate a custom, secure crypto payment method into any online store without relying on a third-party service. Coding and maintaining smart contracts needs quite some heavy lifting under the hood, a job that we’re handing over to Truffle suite, a commonly used toolchain for blockchain builders. To provide access to blockchain nodes during development and for the application backend, we rely on Infura nodes that offer access to the Ethereum network at a generous free tier. Using these tools together will make the development process much easier.
The term “web design” refers to the process of planning, organizing, and editing content online. On the surface, it seems like a simple enough concept. However, the reality is what we consider “web design” can change over time, influenced by our perception of the “web.”
In 2022, a professional web designer might create custom websites from scratch, but they may also be responsible for:
Web design isn’t just about making a site look attractive anymore. The definition goes beyond the aesthetic to include a complete consideration of the functionality, performance, and abilities of countless assets we engage within the digital world.
Web design is the practice responsible for creating a website’s overall look and feel or web asset (such as web and mobile apps). It involves the process of planning and building elements of your project, from structure and layout choices to graphics and presentation.
Web design has various components that work together to create the final “experience” of a website, including graphic design, interface design, user experience design, search engine optimization, content creation, etc. These elements determine how a web asset looks, feels and performs on various devices.
Though the definition of web design in 2022 has evolved, it’s still different from web development, which refers to the actual coding which makes a website work. When you’re building a website, you’ll need web design and web development.
When designing a website, modern designers need to consider two overlapping concepts: the overall appearance of the website and its functionality. The proper connection between these elements will maximize the site’s overall performance and usability, and make a design more memorable (for all of the right reasons).
Let’s break down the elements of web design into its visual and functional components.
Visual elements of web design influence how a design looks. The various visual components of a design should still follow the basic principles of graphic design. In other words, designers should be thinking about contrast, balance, unity, and alignment simultaneously. The visual elements of web design include:
Functional elements in web design are the practical components designers need to consider to ensure websites and assets work as they’re supposed to. A website, app, or any other web asset needs to function correctly to be accessible to users.
Functional elements of web design may include:
More than ever, achieving high-quality web design is crucial to success in any industry or landscape. More than half of the world’s population is active online. If you’re not appealing to this audience correctly, you’re missing out on endless opportunities.
Notably, while elements of good web design can be subjective, such as which themes or colors someone might prefer for their website, the underlying foundations of strong web design are the same for everyone in 2022.
Good web design is any design that looks good, performs as it should, and delivers the best possible experience to your target audience. Effective web design should include components like:
Other elements like eye-catching imagery and professional photography can help your web design stand out. Using the right building blocks, like a strong color palette and the right shapes or icons in your design is helpful.
Of course, there is some scope for variation in good web design. A web designer in 2022 needs to be able to adapt their use of the various essential elements of design to suit a specific target audience or the unique identity of a brand.
Just as web design elements seem to appear consistently in all excellent examples, there are also parts of web design we’ve left behind over the years. Simpler, more straightforward designs have replaced cluttered spaces, flashing images, and endless animations.
The focus in 2022 is on creating an experience that’s simple, engaging, and intuitive, capable of speaking to the right audience without confusion or being visually overwhelming. In most cases, some of the top components to avoid include:
Today, the underlying definition of web design has a lot of similarities to the definition we’ve known for several years already. Creating a great website or web asset still requires focusing on user experience, aesthetic appeal, and functionality. However, today’s web designers generally have more components and different devices.
Web design in 2022 is about creating high-quality experiences for customers that can support various environments and devices. The best web designs are aesthetically appealing, functionally reliable, and capable of adhering to the latest trends in web creation, like augmented reality, 360-degree video, and ultra-high resolution.
Featured image via Pexels.
The post What Even Is Web Design in 2022? first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
A breakdown of a simple app, from UI design to deployment, that shows off why coding is a magic tool for designers.
Figma, Adobe XD, Photoshop, Wacom Tablet, sketchbook… all tools for interfaces and web designers, yes? Take 2 minutes, and try to remember why you want to become a designer and why you enjoy designing stuff.
Chances are it’s because you like to create; you’re a creative person. Maybe you started with artistic experiences as a child, then turned that creative energy into problem-solving while continuing to express it visually: You became a designer, a creative problem solver.
Today, I’ll try to show you how coding is an underrated tool to express your creative problem-solving mindset by building a real SVG generator from scratch. So let’s get into it!
We didn’t go into deep business considerations here, but seeing problems you face and deciding to solve them yourself is a great way to start.
During client work, I needed some SVG waves for illustrations. So I looked for a wave generator: There were a ton of wavy colorful wave generators with parametric inputs but no simple, perfect sine waves generator. I decided to draw it on my math tool GeoGebra and then export it to SVG.
Okay, but not fast. And we like to get our jobs done quickly. But wait… Why don’t we create a perfect sine waves generator? Without equations & boring math software to open, just a curve and an export button. You got it, now let’s design it.
Quick tips: If you are looking for a problem, look for memes in your field. They always show a deep, painful, well-known problem.
Two main rules: First rule, think about who will use it; the second rule, predict what they expect from how it works. So who? Front-end developers. What are they waiting for? A curve that can be edited with direct feedback and an export button.
Wireframe design
High-Fi design
A quick tip: You can grab the Figma design of the app for more technical tips on the design.
As a designer, stopping at step two is perfectly fine. But imagine if you could build what you design! You already know you can create everything you want.
You can see coding as a way to translate your UI that will surely end with a .com application that is usable by everyone. This is why “best languages” don’t matter; coding is just a tool to express your creativity and build stuff for others. And as a designer, a creative person, this might sound…interesting.
UI to functional app
Every web app interface can be translated from UI design to code with HTML/CSS/JS. There is how we can see the role of each of those 3 “languages”:
HTML: I want a button.
CSS: I want my button to look rounded.
JS: I want something to happen when I click on my button.
To build our app, I’ll use Svelte. Svelte is a JavaScript compiler that allows us to use all those three “languages” in one place. So, let’s see how code can translate our UI to functional things.
HTML button code
“Hey web browser, I want a button named “exportButton” and everything in a function named “downloadSVGpath” to be carried out when someone clicks on the button :) Thanks”
CSS style button code
“Hey web browser, I want you to apply these style rules to my basic HTML button: I want a beautiful rounded corner at 16px, a mouse pointer when we hover it, I don’t want any borders, but I want a cool color gradient as a background color. Then, I want the font inside the button to have its color set to #fcfcfc and use the Inter typeface (bold, please). Like my Figma design, I also want to center stuff in the button and add padding. Oh, and add a subtle shadow :) Thanks.”
Drawing SVG curve function
“Hey, web browser, each time our slider moves, I want to run this function: I want you to draw a curve inside a frame that I have defined inside my HTML code. I also want my curve stroke to look rounded at each cap and have a color and width I’ve defined inside variables. You will take the sine function parameters from the stored values of the sliders. Finally, while your x variable hasn’t reached the total width in the x-axis of our frame, you will solve the y-axis point position of the sine equation and draw the curve :) Thanks.”
Quick tips: You can grab the source code files of the app to explore them.
The post Designers Should Code: Build an App From Scratch first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
A career as a web designer can be extremely lucrative. The average web designer in the US makes around $50-55,000 per year, equating to an hourly rate of around $25. Of course, not every designer will automatically get a full-time, high-paying job as soon as they earn their web design credentials.
Sometimes, you might need to generate a little extra cash, perhaps to supplement your part-time income or keep the lights on while you’re taking some new courses. You can even use your web design skills to earn some extra money on the side while working a standard 9-to-5.
Today, we will be looking at some of the most effective ways to make extra cash on your web design skills.
Starting with the simplest option, working as a freelancer is one of the best ways to start making cash with your design skills. There are dozens of websites out there to help freelancers find clients these days. Some of the best options include:
As a freelancer, you’ll be able to choose which hours you want to work, and which projects to work on. You can make money from all kinds of design skills this way, from making pages for a website to designing widgets and applications.
However, you’ll also be responsible for tracking down potential leads, building your portfolio, and managing your own taxes, so keep this in mind.
As a web design professional, you’ll end up with a lot of assets over the years. Whether you’re working freelance or full-time, not every asset you create is going to be picked up by your customers. Sometimes, you’ll end up with unused content sitting on your computer.
Fortunately, you can leverage these assets for some extra cash. You can sell things like icons, backgrounds, UI assets, and more. You can even sell themes on sites like ThemeForest if you’ve built something your clients weren’t happy with.
There’s a market out there for just about every asset, from icons and PSD templates to documents, fonts, UI assets, backgrounds, and brushes. You might even build your own website where you can sell assets in the future.
Feel like getting in on the cutting-edge of a new marketplace? NFTs are probably one of the hottest topics in the digital world today. As concepts like Web 3.0 and the metaverse gain traction, NFTs will only become more valuable.
Countless companies and innovators are looking for people to design their NFTs for them these days. If you don’t mind dedicating some of your free time to creating digital graphics, you’re in for a significant amount of earning potential.
If you learn enough about the NFT landscape and blockchain, you could even create your own NFTs. However, this would probably require a lot of time and research. You can learn more about the NFT design and art landscape here.
Don’t have time to build endless new websites right now? No problem, just help other people build their sites instead. Consultants are people in any industry with expertise and insights they can share to support other people. As a web design consultant, you can offer your expertise to other upcoming freelance designers or business leaders.
You’ll need to invest some time into building your personal brand as a consultant. This means developing your social media pages (like LinkedIn) and creating a portfolio. It also helps to have an air of thought leadership. This usually means you’ll need to share at least some content online.
Consulting can be an excellent way to share your skills with other people without having to do all the work of building a design course.
On the other hand, if you like the idea of being a teacher, you can make money almost passively with web design courses and webinars these days. While you do have the option of selling one-on-one education to students, this will usually take up a lot of your time.
If your focus right now is on a side hustle to increase your earnings, it’s often much easier to use a site like Udemy or Skillshare. The great thing about teaching web design these days, it’s much easier than you might expect. The majority of solutions on the web allow you to drip content to your clients automatically. This means you only have to create the content once.
You can create a handful of videos, quizzes, and downloadable assets, and make money off your educational resources while you sleep.
Blogging is still a surprisingly lucrative way to make money. If you have a creative streak and you know how to write about web design in a way other people can understand, you can turn this into an excellent side hustle.
Start by building your own website using your design skills, then start publishing regular blogs with the content you know your customers would be interested in. It’s a good idea to cover a range of topics, from Photoshop, to how to design widgets and more. You can even share reviews of various web design tools and add affiliate links to earn money that way.
Make sure you use SEO strategies to improve your chances of customers actually seeing your blog and promote your content as often as you can across social media. Once you have your blog, you can make money from it by:
If you decide to take the affiliate route, here are some excellent programs to consider.
If you don’t have time to launch your own website and build a following for your blog, you can still make money from writing in other ways. Becoming a freelance web design writer means you can sell your blogs and content to other leading publications.
Many popular websites are constantly looking for new content to add to their blog. If you develop a strong relationship with some of these site owners, you could get yourself a regular gig.
Contributing to other sites as a writer helps you to develop your thought leadership. Many companies will even allow you to link back to your social media pages or profile.
At the same time, you get to earn some extra money writing about things you enjoy.
A lot of web designers today rely on other themes and templates created for WordPress to help them build their websites. Access to themes and templates can make building a new website a much easier, straightforward process.
If you’ve got some excellent coding prowess, you can develop and sell a host of website themes and templates, and sell them wherever you choose. As mentioned above, there are a number of websites available for selling web design assets. Alternatively, you can sell your own packages and templates on your website, depending on your needs.
If you create a particularly valuable theme, you can actually earn a full-time passive income over time. Placing your themes and templates on marketplace sites will also get you a lot of attention from potential clients in the future.
If you’ve ever seen one of those shows where someone buys a house, makes it look great, and then sells it for a higher price, you’ll understand the basic premise of flipping websites. The idea is to purchase an existing website for a low price (preferably with a good domain name), then fix it up to sell on a website selling directory.
If you want to earn a decent amount of money for your website, you’ll need to dedicate a decent amount of time to building traffic, improving the appearance of the site, and so on. However, it can be fun to take on these projects in your free time if you’re looking for a way to hone your skills.
You might learn some important lessons about how to make websites more profitable while you’re flipping your various sites, which could make you more appealing to customers in the long term.
Similar to flipping websites or producing an income from a high-traffic blog, writing a book isn’t something that’s going to give you a lot of extra income overnight. However, it can be an excellent source of passive income in time if you know how to use this strategy correctly.
If you have a specialist skill in web design, or you serve a specific niche, you can generate a lot of attention for an eBook or physical book sharing plenty of accurate and specific information. Remember, writing about web design, in general, will usually make it harder to earn money because there’s already a lot of competition out there.
Writing a book is a fantastic way to create a possible extra source of income as a side hustle, and it can also make you more credible if you decide to go full-time with your web design skills in the future. It’s definitely more impressive to present yourself to clients as a published author.
Remember to advertise your book whenever you can to improve your chances of additional sales.
Web design skills are highly sought after in various parts of the digital world. If you’re willing to devote a little time and creativity to exploring the various avenues above, they can all deliver an excellent source of income to you and your potential business. All you need to do is figure out which side hustle makes the most sense for you.
Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all. In some cases, you might even be able to run multiple side hustles at the same time, particularly if you’re using strategies for passive income, like writing your own book or selling your own course.
Featured image via Unsplash.
The post Side Hustles for Web Design Professionals: How to Make Some Extra Cash first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
Ask any seasoned web app developer about their choice of programming language, and they are sure to mention PHP. PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. As per Builtwith, 3,090,319 live websites are still using PHP. However, when it comes to developing massive projects without lag or stability issues, developers tend to use frameworks, and PHP has two remarkable frameworks: 1) Laravel and 2) Yii. Both frameworks have a lot of followers in terms of full-grown communities globally, and there may be questions arising about which to choose.
Laravel is a simple PHP framework frequently used for web-based or web application development initially created as a better alternative to Codeigniter. It is known for MVC Support, articulated ORM systems, reliability, modularity, and uncomplicated coding rules. Some of the key features of Laravel Framework are:
Whether you are looking for comprehensive tutorials on UX design or professional courses on topics like logo design, video or photo editing, there’s the perfect YouTube channel for you as a designer.
The best thing about YouTube is that you do not have to be a professional to jump into a video tutorial and gain the knowledge you need. There are many people who have become experts in, say, Photoshop by watching many hours of YouTube videos.
In 2022, there are established and emerging channels that you, as a designer, can use to get inspired and fix problems in your workflow.
Let us take a look at our 14 favorite YouTube channels for designers:
Subject: Logo design, hand lettering, Illustrator tutorials
Subscribers: 608K
Creator: Will Paterson
Are you looking for a YouTube channel that will help you improve your logo designs and entertain you at the same time? If so, Will Paterson is the channel for you. Whether you are a professional designer or a beginner, this channel has everything you need: from logo design and Illustrator tutorials to product reviews and vlogs; nothing is left out.
Subject: Web design (UI, UX), Freelancing, Figma tutorials
Subscribers: 7.7K
Creator: Arnau Ros
In about a year, Arnau Ros has managed to become one of our favorite YouTube channels. In a few words, Arnau is a very talented freelance product designer. He has published numerous videos on how to use Figma, one of the most popular problem-solving platforms for designers.
And that’s not all. Arnau has created a series of videos that will help you get started in the world of freelancing from scratch as a new designer.
Subject: Photoshop tutorials
Subscribers: 618K
Creator: Adobe
Although there are numerous YouTube channels that offer top-notch Photoshop tutorials, the official Adobe Photoshop channel should not be underestimated. Adobe has created a quick start guide for most Photoshop features, toolboxes, etc. So if you need to quickly complete a task in Photoshop, this is the perfect channel for you.
Subject: Freelancing, Graphic design guides (fonts, plugins, techniques, etc.)
Subscribers: 884K
Creator: Tom Cargill
From career development videos to poster and type designs to workflow tutorials, Satori Graphics has it all. We highly recommend this channel for beginners and designers who want to master Illustrator and create a top-notch portfolio for their design work.
Subject: Freelancing, UX design, vlogs
Subscribers: 23K
Creator: Alexa Herasimchuk
Alexa’s YouTube channel is a great choice if you are a UX designer and want inspiration. What we love about Alexa is that her channel covers everything a UX and product designer needs to know. Be sure to check out the fascinating video discussions with other designers that she has uploaded.
Subject: 3D animation, motion graphics guides, Adobe After Effects
Subscribers: 277K
Creator: Mt. Mograph co.
For more than 3 years, Mt. Mograph has been one of the most popular YouTube channels for graphic designers. The channel is especially popular among creatives who want to learn more about 3D animation, geometric motion, and need the best After Effects tutorials.
Subject: Photo editing, motion graphics
Subscribers: 167K
Creator: Swerve
Swerve has created some of the most comprehensive how-to videos for Photoshop, Illustrator, and Motion Graphics. The channel’s speed art videos are extremely inspiring. Even though the channel is not constantly updated, it already contains many videos that you should definitely watch.
Subject: Graphic design software (Illustrator), Photo and video editing (Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom)
Subscribers: 1.19M
Creator: Nathaniel Dodson
Tutvid needs no introduction. With more than 1 million subscribers, this has been one of the most popular YouTube channels for creatives for years. When it comes to tutorials about Adobe Creative Cloud software, nothing beats this channel.
If you are looking for comprehensive tutorials on Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, and Premiere, Nathaniel Dodson is your man.
Subject: Freelancing, web development, chats and vlogs
Subscribers: 209K
Creator: Charli Prangey
If you are not yet familiar with the digital nomad lifestyle, be sure to check out the CharliMarieTV channel. Charli is a freelance web designer and entrepreneur who has created some of the best videos on website design, coding, remote work, and more.
Subject: Canva tutorials
Subscribers: 126K
Creator: Canva
Canva is a popular web-based graphic design platform. Like the official Adobe Photoshop channel, this is the best way to quickly learn how to use Canva software. In addition to quick tutorials, this channel includes videos with all the important software updates and in-depth Canva workshops.
Subject: Graphic design guides for Procreate
Subscribers: 345K
Creator: Teela Cunningham
When it comes to Procreate tutorials, there’s nothing better than Every Tuesday. The channel has different playlists for beginners, intermediate and professional creatives. From hand lettering projects to watercolor flowers to digital gouache, you’ll find everything you need to master Procreate on Teela’s channel.
Subject: Logo design tutorials, vlogs, logo redesign
Subscribers: 437K
Creator: Zimri Mayfield
Those of you who love logo designs probably already know all about Zimri Mayfield’s channel. Professionalism and a great sense of humor are combined in one of the most inspiring YouTube channels for designers.
Subject: Adobe creative cloud tutorials
Subscribers: 517K
Creator: Martin Perhiniak
As a certified Adobe design master and instructor, Martin Perhiniak has created a must-follow channel on YouTube. From basic Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials to advanced masking tutorials, you’ll find it all at Yes I’m a Designer.
Subject: Adobe tutorials, brand/business development
Subscribers: 549K (as of March 2022)
Creator: Roberto Blake
If you are looking for something more than graphic design tutorials, our last suggestion is perfect. Roberto Blake has created numerous Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, and Indesign tutorials, but also gives numerous talks and shares his knowledge on video marketing and brand development.
Although there are numerous YouTube channels for designers, these are our absolute favorites. Of course, that does not mean there are not more equally successful and inspiring designers on YouTube. Made by Mighty, Sketch Together and Ch-Ch-Check It are just a few more examples of great YouTube video creators if you search for a specific topic.
Featured image via Unsplash.
The post 14 Best YouTube Channels for Designers in 2022 first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.
