WordPress vs. GoDaddy

Website Builder for Your Business


To get your business online, one of the first decisions you will need to make is what website builder to use. Two of the biggest names in this space are WordPress and GoDaddy. In this detailed guide, we’ll compare plans, pricing, and features. We'll discuss considerations for both services so that you can make an informed decision.

Website Builder for Your Business

GoDaddy Plans and Pricing

Basic

$10 /mo

When billed annually.



No credit card

required.

1 month free trial.*

Start for Free
Standard

$15 /mo

When billed annually.



No credit card

required.

1 month free trial.*

Start for Free
Premium

$20 /mo

When billed annually.



No credit card

required.

1 month free trial.*

Start for Free
Ecommerce

$25 /mo

When billed annually.



No credit card

required.

1 month free trial.*

Start for Free

As you can see, GoDaddy offers four tiers of plans: Basic, Standard, Premium, and Ecommerce.

The Basic plan is $10 per month when you pay for a whole year. It includes the same basic features as the other three plans. Plus, one social media listing platform, 5 social posts and responses per month, and 100 email marketing sends per month.

Each tier adds more in terms of social media and email marketing as well as advanced features. At the top level (Ecommerce), you are paying $25 per month. Social media platform posts and responses are unlimited, and you get 25,000 email marketing sends per month. You also get access to a suite of ecommerce features that are not available with the other three tiers. If you pay per month, these plans will cost you more than what you see quoted. Also, note that you get a free trial month when you start out at any tier.

WordPress Plans and Pricing

Free Box

Free

Create a beautiful, simple website in minutes.

Personal Best for Personal Use


$4 per month, billed yearly

Start with Personal

Add some personality to your website with a custom domain and access to 24/7 support.

Premium Best for Freelancers

$8 per month, billed yearly

Start with Premium

Build a unique site with advanced design tools, customs CSS, and Google Analytics support.

Business Best for Small Businesses


$25 per month, billed yearly

Start with Business

Power your business with custom plugins & themes, 200 GB storage, and live support.

eCommerce Best for Online Store


$45 per month, billed yearly

Start with eCommerce

Open your online store with a powerful, flexible platform designed to grow with you.

Now let’s compare GoDaddy’s plans and pricing to the tiers available if you go with WordPress.

It’s important to note, self-hosted Wordpress is totally free. The free, selfhosted version of Wordpress is no different from the hosted plans we’ll be comparing here.

WordPress.com offers a total of four plans: Personal, Premium, Business, and eCommerce.

Billed annually, the Personal plan is only $4 per month. It is significantly less expensive than the $10 per month Basic plan from GoDaddy.

Even the Premium WordPress plan costs less than GoDaddy’s Basic Plan—at only $8 per month.

The WordPress Business plan, however, is priced the same as the GoDaddy Ecommerce plan ($25). Meanwhile, the WordPress Ecommerce plan costs $45 per month.

Should you want to get a feel of WordPress without paying, there’s a free version that includes the most basic features.

If you buy the $4 a month Personal Plan, you receive all the basic features plus free themes for site customization. Upgrade to Premium to access unlimited premium themes along with advanced design customization. All the marketing and monetization tools aside from SEO tools are included too.

The Business tier adds the SEO tools. There is personalized help, the ability to install plugins, automated backups, SFTP and database access, and more. The Ecommerce tier features everything in the Business account, plus ecommerce features that are not available in the other levels.

When comparing the features of WordPress and GoDaddy, WordPress has a lot more features that GoDaddy doesn’t. WP also has a much bigger plugin library available (see the next section).

So regardless of which tier you choose, you will be getting more bang for your buck from WP than GoDaddy.

WordPress vs. GoDaddy

Website Builder Features and Ease-of-Use



From the information above, you may have already noticed that WordPress beats GoDaddy in the features department. This is not overstated. GoDaddy’s features are adequate if you only need the basics. If you want to take advantage of thousands of plugins and all the enhanced functionality, choose WordPress.

Website Builder Features and Ease of Use

From a professional standpoint, if you want a solution that is completely adaptable to your needs, WordPress is the clear winner.

As far as ease-of-use, there is a bit of a learning curve with both WP and GoDaddy. That being said, GoDaddy is renowned for its streamlined setup process.

Once you learn the ropes, both editors are pretty easy to use. But the WordPress site editor is significantly more powerful than the one that comes with GoDaddy.

The functionality of the GoDaddy site editor is limited to just a few operations— mainly adding content. But on WP, you can add or remove pages, categories, sections, blocks, and more on a far more extensive level.

WordPress vs. GoDaddy

Website Builder Template Comparisons


Website Builder Template Comparisons

Features and tools are important considerations when selecting a website builder. But, the quality of the templates is another huge consideration. Your template will determine the overall look and feel of your website. It will impact readability and navigation.

Let’s check out the template options for both WordPress and GoDaddy.

WordPress Template Options

In the Theme Directory, you can browse featured, popular and recently added themes.

WP Theme Directory

Below is an example of a popular theme with solid reviews called “Twenty Seventeen.” It features a beautiful, clean, neutral design that would be ideal for a wide range of niches.

WP Twenty Seventeen

WordPress also offers a library of premium themes which you need to pay for.

WP Premium Theme

Here’s a few of them.

1. Hestia - It is a modern theme that best suits professionals. It features a multipurpose one-page design that has a clean look. It has a widgetized footer and a blog or news page. It is compatible with flat parallax slider, photo gallery, travel map, and elementor page builder. It is also responsive, retina-readyeCommerce, and SEO friendly. It is recommended for startups, corporate businesses, online agencies and firms, ecommerce and freelancers. (https://wordpress.org/themes/hestia/)

WP Hestia Theme (Image source: https://i0.wp.com/themes.svn.wordpress.org/hestia/2.5.6/screenshot.png?w=1142&strip=all)

2. Allegiant - It is a free multipurpose theme that is apt for agencies and professionals. Allegiant has a neutral design and is extremely flexible. It features a full homepage slider. It comes with the CPO Content Types plugin and integrates well with other popular plugins like WooCommerce, WPML, Yoast, and Contact Form 7. (https://wordpress.org/themes/allegiant/)

WP Allegiant Theme (Image source: https://i0.wp.com/themes.svn.wordpress.org/allegiant/1.2.3/screenshot.png?w=1142&strip=all)

3. Astrid - It is a theme that is best suitable for business websites. It features an impressive business layout design with full width header image. Astrid is mobile responsive and is HTML5/CSS3 coded for cross-browser compatibility. It offers theme customization for colors, fonts, and header. Some other features are built-in widgets and a page building system. (https://athemes.com/theme/astrid/)

WP Astrid Theme

4. Sydney - A business theme that is best suited for companies and freelancers. Its best feature is being highly customizable. The theme is already responsive and is translation ready. It provides access to more than 600 fonts, allows parallax background effects, and has either a static or a slider image header

WP Sydney Theme

Even if you are using the free version of WordPress, you can download dozens of themes without paying a dime.

If you want to use an individual premium theme with a Free or Personal account, you can always purchase it independently. If you want unlimited access to premium themes, you can opt for the Premium, Business or eCommerce account. In any of those tiers, all the premium themes are included in the price you are paying for your monthly service.

GoDaddy Website Builder Template Options

Now that we have looked at some of the templates available for WordPress, it's time to take a look at what GoDaddy has to offer in this department.

GoDaddy Website Builder Template Options

In the GoDaddy template library, you can browse by category on the left. Click on an image on the right and you can select “preview” to take a look at the theme in action.

Go Daddy Factory Theme

At the bottom of the template, you will notice that it says, “Powered by GoDaddy GoCentral Website Builder.”

Powered by GoDaddy GoCentral Website Builder

It is common for website builders to add these footers. With most, deletion is easy. But with GoDaddy, it is more challenging to get rid of the footer. Many site owners seem to give up and leave it there. What you need to know is that you can get rid of it by following a few steps.

Here are the directions for removing the footer:

Direction for Removing the Footer

WordPress and GoDaddy

GoCentral Website Examples


We have looked at some examples of templates for WordPress and GoDaddy GoCentral websites. But what do these templates look like in action? How do websites built using these services compare? This is where the rubber meets the road.

GoCentral Website Examples

WordPress Template Options

Let’s check out a few WordPress business websites to start.

WP Theme Houston Zoo

The Houston Zoo has selected WordPress to power its website. Loading quickly, it features a design that is vibrant and eye-catching while still remaining clean and easy to navigate.

The zoo was able to use the builder’s tools to install features such as an upcoming events calendar, a subscription box, a daily schedule, and more. Drop-downs make it easy to navigate through the site categories (Plan Your Visit, What to Do, Programs, Give and Save Wildlife).

WP Theme Nove

NOVE takes a moment to load, but once it does, it is nothing short of stunning. The modern, minimalist design runs video in the backdrop and is overlaid with a set of transparent “tiles.” As you move your cursor across them, they are tinted.

You can also click on “Menu” on the right and the entire screen will take on a blue tint. The video continues to play in the background. But the blue tinting facilitates easy reading and prevents the motion in the backdrop from being a distraction. You can then read the location of the business and navigate to pages like Team, Services, About Us and more.

The typeface also stands out. It is clear and legible, displaying smoothly without jagged lines. The combined effect of all the elements on the site is mesmerizing.

The Awesome Motive

The Awesome Motive website built in WordPress features a lot of white space for an open, modern look. It loads fast and is easy to navigate. Even with a ton of information packed onto the front page, it never looks cluttered and is never difficult to read. Scrolling down, you get a great overview for what Awesome Motive is all about.



Examples of Business Websites Built With GoDaddy Website Builder

Now that we have analyzed some WordPress sites in action, let’s take a look at some sites made with GoDaddy Website Builder.

Golden Visa Portugal Residency By Investment

The warm, bright colors of the background photo and the site elements are inviting. While the top of the page looks a bit cluttered, this is the fault of the site designer, not the platform. The background image is simply too busy.

When you scroll down, a dark menu bar appears at the top of the page. While its transition into visibility is smooth, it can appear a bit abrupt when scrolling rapidly down the page. This adds to the “busy” impression. The rest of the design is pretty basic.

WP Website Popcorn Willy

There are multiple issues with this site. First of all, the subscribe box/banner pops up over the top of the site header, hiding it from view. “Save 10% on your order” appears on top of that. So we have three site elements all piled on top of each other, which is both messy and confusing.

The screenshot you see here is what remains when you close out of the subscription prompt. Frankly, this website feels like a trip back in time to the 90s. The images are in random sizes with no borders, like they were just slapped on the white background pell-mell. It’s not impressive. In fact, it almost shouts “amateur.”

Welcome to St.Paul's Episcopal Church

This is probably the nicest example of a GoDaddy site in action. The menu is fixed at the top of the page as you scroll. For the most part, the page elements are simple, clean, and appealing to the eye.

The top section, however, that reads “Welcome to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church” is pretty hard on the eyes. Note the strange positioning of the image of the church. This may or may not be the fault of the designer as opposed to the template, but regardless, the outcome is not very professional looking.

It is worth noting that awkwardly placed headers, images, text blocks and more are not just aesthetically unappealing—they also do you no favors when it comes to SEO.

Pros of Wordpress

Pros of WordPress:

  • For the most part, WP’s pricing is more affordable than GoDaddy’s pricing.
  • The templates for WordPress are beautiful and professional-looking.
  • WP allows for superior search engine optimization.
  • With WordPress, you get access to thousands of plugins. The editor also gives you the customization power you need to truly fine-tune your website.

Cons of Wordpress

Cons of WordPress:

  • WP’s learning curve is a bit daunting at first, but once you get the hang of it, it is not too complicated to use.


Pros of GoDaddy

Pros of GoDaddy:

  • GoDaddy offers a fast setup process. Even though it provides you with less in the way of features and control, more casual users may find it less intimidating.

Cons of GoDaddy

Cons of GoDaddy:

  • GoDaddy plans are more expensive overall than WP’s plans.
  • The editor is extremely basic, and only lets you do a few things with your site.
  • While there is a large plugin selection, it is not as vast or sophisticated as the selection available through WordPress.
  • GoDaddy is not as good for SEO, and the templates look a lot less attractive.

Godaddy Website Builder
vs Wordpress:

Who’s the Best?



Godaddy Website Builder vs Wordpress: Who's the Best?

Even though GoDaddy has some nice features and is easy to get started with, there is no contest with WordPress.

Even GoDaddy itself seems to be aware of this. On the company’s freelancer marketplace, there is zero mention of its proprietary website builder. Instead, it urges you to “Connect with the perfect WordPress designer or developer to work on your website.”

Knowing that some customers would want to simplify their lives, GoDaddy put together a basic website builder to capture them. It lets them purchase a domain and build their websites at the same time.

WordPress, with its superior pricing, features, templates and plugins, is the clear choice.

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