- Charges
- Wix prices by tier and by product: the site is one plan, and Bookings, Restaurants and email marketing have their own pricing above a free allowance.
- Gap
- Rental & hire reservations “Not native” Webkio: Cars, bikes, boats, equipment, holiday lets
Website builders compared
Twenty-five builders, shop platforms, booking tools and marketplaces, and the gap each one leaves for a business that needs more than pages.
Every gap below is one line lifted word for word from that tool's own comparison table, hedges included, with our answer from the same row beside it. Nothing is paraphrased, because a paraphrase of someone else's product is a claim we cannot stand behind. 21 of the 25 have a gap we can quote; the rest are listed without one rather than given an invented one.
Where the gaps actually fall
Counted across the comparisons that discuss each capability, not across all 25. The denominator is different on every row and is printed with it.
Read a row as: of the tools we compared on this, that many showed a gap in their own comparison table. Appointments and scheduling sits at zero because every booking tool compared here does it natively.
website builders11
- Charges
- Squarespace is a tidy set of tiers with commerce on the higher ones.
- Gap
- Restaurant online ordering “Not native” Webkio: Built in
WordPress
One hosted platform, or software you assemble and maintain yourself.
- Charges
- WordPress itself is free and almost nothing else is.
- Gap
- Online store “Via a plugin (e.g. WooCommerce)” Webkio: Built in
Webflow
Design control and code export, or the business running on the site.
- Charges
- Webflow prices by site plan and by workspace seat, and the capable tiers are aimed at teams.
- Gap
- Bookings & appointments “Not a listed native feature” Webkio: Built in
GoDaddy
Two all-in-one platforms. The differences are narrower than most comparisons admit.
- Charges
- GoDaddy bundles a site with the domain and the hosting, which reads as simple and gets less simple as you add commerce or appointments.
- Gap
- Rental reservations “Not a listed native feature” Webkio: Built in - cars, bikes, boats, equipment, holiday lets
Hostinger
An AI-led builder from a hosting company, or an operations platform with a site on the front.
- Charges
- Hostinger competes on headline price, and on price alone it usually wins.
- Gap
- Rental reservations “Not advertised” Webkio: Built in - cars, bikes, boats, equipment, holiday lets
Jimdo
Two builders aimed at small businesses, with different ideas of what comes next.
- Charges
- Jimdo is priced for simple sites and is honest about being that.
- Gap
- Email marketing “Not advertised” Webkio: Built in
Google Sites
When the free option is the right one, and when it is not.
- Charges
- Google Sites is free, and for an internal page or a simple notice board that is unbeatable.
- Gap
- Online store “Not offered” Webkio: Built in
SITE123
A simple guided builder, or a platform the business runs on.
- Charges
- SITE123 is priced for the simplest case and is straightforward about it.
- Gap
- Rental reservations “Not advertised” Webkio: Built in - cars, bikes, boats, equipment, holiday lets
IONOS
A European host that bundles everything, or a platform built around what the business does.
- Charges
- IONOS bundles the site with hosting and a domain at a low introductory rate that rises on renewal, which is worth checking before comparing anything.
- Gap
- Rental reservations “Not advertised” Webkio: Built in - cars, bikes, boats, equipment, holiday lets
- Gap
- Nothing we can quote as missing.
shop platforms3
Shopify
A full website with a built-in store, versus a commerce platform with apps.
- Charges
- Shopify is a monthly plan plus a transaction fee that depends on whether you use their payments, plus paid apps for most things that are not selling.
- Gap
- Bookings & appointments “Paid app” Webkio: Built in
Square Online
A till that grew a website, or a website built around the operation.
- Charges
- Square Online is close to free until you sell, then it is Square's processing rate and tiers for the extras.
- Gap
- Rental reservations “Not a listed native feature” Webkio: Built in - cars, bikes, boats, equipment, holiday lets
PrestaShop
A store somebody else keeps running, versus a store you own outright and maintain yourself.
- Charges
- PrestaShop itself is free to download.
- Gap
- Nothing we can quote as missing.
booking and hire tools5
Booking software
One platform, or booking software plus a website plus a payment setup.
- Charges
- Booking software is usually priced per staff member or per booking, and sits alongside whatever you pay for a website.
- Gap
- Your customer-facing website “Usually separate” Webkio: Included
Lodgify
Specialist rental software against one website for the whole business. Both charge a flat plan; neither takes a cut of a booking.
- Charges
- Neither of us takes a share of a booking, so the comparison is subscription against subscription plus what each adds on a card payment.
- Gap
- Commission per booking “None” Webkio: None
Booksy
A bill that grows with your team, against one that does not. Neither takes a cut of a booking.
- Charges
- The shapes differ in one way that matters as you grow.
- Gap
- Commission per booking “None” Webkio: None
Checkfront
Both charge a plan and a percentage. The question is which percentage, and whether you run tours or a hire counter.
- Charges
- Both of us charge a monthly plan plus a percentage of online payments, so the comparison is one percentage against another and it is worth doing with your own volume.
- Gap
- Nothing we can quote as missing.
Fresha
A marketplace that finds you clients, and a site that keeps them. They are not the same job.
- Charges
- The two charge in different shapes, which is the whole story.
- Gap
- Selling products, courses or vouchers “Within what the platform offers” Webkio: A shop on the same site
marketplaces and portals5
Delivery apps
Keep the marketplace for reach. Stop paying it for the regulars who already know you.
- Gap
- Commission per order “A share of every order” Webkio: None - a flat plan plus card processing
Brokers & marketplaces
A second channel that does not take a share of every booking.
- Charges
- A broker takes a cut of every booking, so your cost rises exactly as your business does.
- Gap
- Cancellation policy “Theirs” Webkio: Yours to write
Listing platforms
For the guests who already stayed with you, and would book again if they could.
- Charges
- Listing platforms charge per booking, every booking, for the lifetime of the property.
- Gap
- Commission per stay “A share of each booking” Webkio: None - a flat plan plus card processing
Property portals
The portal finds the buyer. Your own site is what makes them choose you.
- Charges
- Portals charge per listing or per branch, so the bill tracks your stock rather than your income.
- Gap
- Winning the instruction “Not its job” Webkio: Valuation requests, your own pages
Selling marketplaces
Keep the marketplace for discovery. Stop paying it for the buyers who already know your name.
- Charges
- A selling marketplace charges listing fees plus a percentage of each sale, and the percentage never stops.
- Gap
- Fee per order “A share of every order” Webkio: None - a flat plan plus card processing
doing it another way1
A web designer
Build it yourself, or pay someone to build it for you.
- Charges
- A designer charges once to build and again whenever something changes, and the build is usually four figures.
- Gap
- Nothing we can quote as missing.
Questions this page answers
- Which website builders have rental or hire bookings built in?
- None of the 9 we compared on it. Renting an item out by the hour, day or week - with availability, a deposit and a return date - came back as a gap in every one of those comparison tables, usually worded "not native" or "not a listed native feature". It is the capability the fewest platforms cover. Webkio handles cars, bikes, boats, equipment and holiday lets as a first-class booking type.
- Can a website builder take restaurant orders on my own site?
- Every one of the 6 we compared on restaurant ordering leaves a gap. The closest any came was restaurant templates rather than an ordering system, which gets you the look of the thing without the order. It matters because an order taken on a delivery app costs a commission and an order taken on your own site does not.
- Do website builders handle appointments and scheduling?
- Mostly, yes, and this is where they are strongest: of the 5 we compared on appointments and scheduling, not one left a gap. If booking a time slot is all you need, most mainstream builders will do it. The differences show up in the bookings that are not a simple slot - a rental period, a table, an order.
- What counts as a gap on this page?
- A line in that tool's own comparison table where its cell says the capability is missing, not native, or only reachable through something else. Their wording is quoted exactly, hedges included. Where a cell describes something you can genuinely buy - a separate product, an add-on tier, a plugin - it is not counted as a gap, so these numbers understate rather than overstate. 4 of the 25 tools are listed with no gap at all rather than given an invented one.
- Is there a single best website builder?
- No, and any page that names one is usually ranking them for a living. Every tool here is somebody's right answer. The question worth asking is which gap would actually stop your business - if you hire things out by the day, a builder with no rental booking is not a near miss, it is the wrong tool.
Which one is right depends on what you sell
A photographer and a van hire firm want different things from the same price. The comparisons go into what each tool does with bookings, stock, payments and the customer record, one competitor at a time.
Deciding what to build rather than what to leave? We counted what a small business site is made of across our own 115 templates.