How we compare AI website builders
We list 13 AI website builders available to a UK business, and a published rate card exists for 13 providers. Every figure in the table comes from the vendor's own pricing page, read as a UK buyer would see it.
The calculator asks how many websites you need, how many people will edit them, whether you want your own domain, and whether you sell online. Those are the axes this category actually prices on.
Two corrections are applied before a price reaches the table. Where a vendor bills in US dollars we convert at a recorded rate and keep the original figure behind it, so a dollar price and a pound price can sit in the same column honestly. Where a headline rate only exists on a long commitment we record the month to month price instead.
Ranking is arithmetic on those corrected figures at the inputs you enter. We do not sell position in the table, and a commercial relationship with a vendor never moves it.
Cookie consent, PECR and what a UK business site needs from an AI website builder
This is the obligation most likely to be missed, because it does not exist in the same form in the countries most of these vendors were built in.
Under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, a UK site needs consent before it sets non-essential cookies, and analytics cookies count. Consent has to be given, not assumed. A line saying that by continuing to use the site you agree is not consent, a pre-ticked box is not consent, and a banner whose only button is Accept is not consent either, because refusing has to be as easy as agreeing. Strictly necessary cookies, the ones that make a basket or a login work, are the exception.
So a cookie notice that merely appears is worth nothing. What matters is whether the analytics script is held back until somebody clicks Accept, and whether a genuine Reject sits on the same layer as it.
Our data does not record consent tooling for any builder, so we are not going to tell you which of these ships a compliant banner. These are the questions to put to the vendor, or to test on a trial site, before you pay:
Does the built-in banner block scripts, or only cover them up? Many builders load analytics on page load and show a notice afterwards. That is the wrong order for the UK.
Is Reject on the first screen? A Reject buried behind a Manage preferences link is a pattern the ICO has said it does not accept.
If you have to bolt on a consent platform, what does it cost, and can you install it? A third-party consent tool is a recurring subscription on top of the builder, and installing one means putting a script into the page head.
The code export row is the closest thing we hold, and it should be read carefully rather than as a proxy. Webflow lists Yes, code export, WordPress.com lists Yes, it is WordPress and 10Web lists Yes, it is WordPress, while Squarespace lists No and Wix lists No. That row tells you whether the build can leave the platform. It does not tell you whether you can paste a script tag into the head, which is a separate plan-level permission and the thing to confirm.
One row carries a direct cost signal. WordPress.com's integrations read Plugins (Business plan), WooCommerce, Jetpack, and the plugin gate is the point: if your consent tool is a plugin, you are buying the plan that allows plugins, not the entry plan. Free tiers that publish a live site carrying somebody else's advertising raise the same question from the other side, because you do not control what an ad network sets on the visitors it reaches.
None of this is legal advice. The ICO publishes its own guidance for small businesses, and it is short.
Contact forms, UK GDPR and where an AI website builder stores your enquiries
The moment a site has an enquiry form, a callback request or a newsletter box, the business is processing personal data and UK GDPR applies: a lawful basis for holding it, a privacy notice a visitor can find, a retention period, and an idea of where the data sits.
The product question underneath that is simple. When somebody fills in your form, where does the record go, and can you get it back out?
Builders in this table answer that in three different ways. Some hold a real database of their own. Lovable's backend row reads Full-stack: Supabase (Postgres) + auth, Base44's reads Yes, full-stack (database + auth + payments) and Wix's reads Yes, via Velo (database, auth, backend code). Some hold none. Squarespace's reads No, CMS and member areas (no app backend) and Framer's reads No, CMS collections (no app backend), which means submissions land in an inbox or in a third-party form service that becomes a processor you have to name in your privacy notice.
And one of them puts the enquiry straight into its own admin tools. Durable's backend row reads No app backend (site plus basic CRM and invoicing) and its integrations read Built-in CRM and invoicing, limited third-party. That is convenient for a sole trader who does not want a separate CRM, and it means your customer list lives inside the website subscription. Ask for an export before you rely on it, not after.
Marketing email is a separate rule. PECR governs unsolicited marketing to individuals, and a newsletter box that quietly subscribes anyone who submits a contact form is how a small site usually gets this wrong. Collect the opt-in as its own tick, record when it was given, and put an unsubscribe in every send.
Accessibility, templates and what an AI website builder hands a disabled visitor
Under the Equality Act a business providing services to the public is expected to make reasonable adjustments, and a website is one of the places that expectation lands. The public sector accessibility regulations are a separate regime that does not apply to a small private business, but the underlying duty does, and there is a commercial argument too: a form a screen reader cannot complete is a lead you never receive.
AI generation does not make a page accessible and can quietly make it worse. Contrast that looks stylish, headings used for size rather than structure, images with no alternative text, form fields with a placeholder instead of a label, focus outlines removed for tidiness. Nobody has reviewed a freshly generated page, by definition.
Which is why the template row is worth more than it looks. Wix lists 900+, Squarespace lists 150+, design-led and Hostinger lists 150+, while Bolt.new lists None, output is generated and Lovable lists None, output is generated. A template that has been sold for years has had its contrast and its heading order argued over by a lot of people. Generated output has not.
Then there is how much of the result you are allowed to change. Durable's template row reads AI-generated, limited manual control, which is honest and is also the constraint you meet when an audit tells you a heading level is wrong. Framer's code export row reads No, but supports custom code, and it is that second clause that matters here: being able to reach the markup is what turns an accessibility finding into a fix rather than a support ticket.
No field in our data records an accessibility conformance claim, and a vendor's own claim is a claim rather than a fact. Test the built page yourself: tab through it with the keyboard only, check every image has meaningful alternative text, and run the colours through a contrast checker.
Your .co.uk domain, and whether an AI website builder registers it or only connects it
The domain is the one asset in this purchase that is genuinely portable, so decide early whether you want the builder to own that relationship.
Most of these unlock a custom domain at the first paid rung. 10Web lists All plans, Framer lists Basic and above, Webflow lists Basic plan and above and Durable lists Launch and above. Where it is attached differs: v0 lists Via Vercel and Emergent lists Paid plans (private hosting), so the domain is configured at the hosting layer rather than inside the builder.
The rows to read twice are the free-domain ones. Hostinger lists All plans, free for the first year and WordPress.com lists Paid plans, free for a year on annual and longer terms. A domain included for the first year is a real saving, and it also makes the builder your registrar. Before you take it, ask what year two renews at, confirm you are the named registrant rather than the vendor, and confirm you can obtain the transfer authorisation code on request. A .co.uk is cheap to register independently, and keeping it at a registrar of your own choosing removes the leverage entirely.
Email is the part people forget. Registering the domain does not give you mailboxes on it, so moving enquiries from a free webmail address to a .co.uk one is a separate subscription and a separate migration. Do it in the same week as the site.
Paying in dollars for an AI website builder from a UK bank account
Part of this table bills in pounds and part does not, and that distinction survives every price change a vendor makes.
The genuine UK rate cards are the straightforward ones. Squarespace's local pricing row reads Yes, genuine GBP rate card, Wix's reads Yes, genuine GBP rate card, Hostinger's reads Yes, genuine GBP on the UK site and Framer's reads Yes, genuine GBP rate card. What the vendor publishes is what leaves your account.
The dollar-billed ones behave differently. Lovable's reads No, US dollars only, Base44's reads No, US dollars only and Webflow's reads No, US dollars only. Two effects follow. The sterling amount is set by the rate on the day your card is charged, so the cost drifts month to month while the vendor's price sheet never changes. And most UK debit and credit cards apply a non-sterling transaction fee, charged as a percentage of the payment, which shows on your bank statement and never on the vendor's invoice. A card with no foreign transaction fee removes the second effect entirely.
VAT is the other adjustment. Check whether a price is quoted before or after VAT, because a headline shown before VAT is not what clears your account. If you are VAT registered the ex-VAT figure is closer to your real cost, since input VAT on business software is normally reclaimable; below the registration threshold it is not, and the inclusive figure is what you pay. Software bought from a supplier outside the UK is usually handled under the reverse charge when you are VAT registered, so the VAT goes onto your own return rather than the invoice. That is a question for your accountant rather than a guess.
Billing basis matters on top of all of it. Wix's basis row reads Annual only and its contract row reads Annual, paid in full up front, while Hostinger's contract row reads None on monthly, up to 48 months to get the advertised rate. A cheap headline attached to a multi-year commitment is a different financial product from a rolling monthly one, and it is the reason the table corrects for it before comparing.
Who edits the site after the AI website builder has built it
Generating the site takes an afternoon. Running it takes years, and that is where the plan you picked starts to bite.
Editors are the first constraint. Framer's team row reads Owner free, then £25 per editor, hard ceiling of 10, Wix's reads 2 (Light) to 100 (Business Elite), hard caps and Squarespace's reads 2 (Basic), unlimited from Core. At the other end, WordPress.com's reads Unlimited on every plan, including free, Lovable's reads Unlimited on every plan and Base44's reads Multi-user editing on every plan, while Durable's reads Owner only on Free, unlimited on Grow. Count everyone who will genuinely need access, including the bookkeeper who updates a price list, and price the plan on that number rather than on yourself.
Support is the second, and it is the row people skim. Hostinger lists 24/7 chat, Wix lists 24/7 chat and callback and Squarespace lists 24/7 email, live chat on business hours, whereas Bolt.new lists Community and email, Lovable lists Community and email and v0 lists Community; guaranteed SLAs on Enterprise. Community and email support suits a developer building a prototype. It suits a business whose booking page has stopped working on a Friday afternoon in a UK time zone far less well.
One more thing if you pick a chat-driven builder. Lovable's pricing model reads Base plan plus AI credit consumption and Base44's reads Base plan plus AI credit consumption, so later edits made by prompt draw on the same monthly allowance the original build did. Changing a phone number by asking is not free in the way editing a text field is.
If your site is a handful of pages describing what you do, you probably do not need the app-building end of this market at all, and the money is better spent on the consent tooling, domain and mailboxes a UK business has to get right anyway.