Which Website Platforms Are Best for Event Pros?

If you want to be taken seriously as a business in the world today, you must have a website— and a Facebook page doesn’t count (though it’s also important). For most of us, creating a website ourselves is a no-go situation. At the same time, many of us don’t have the funds to pay a professional developer for their skills. So where does that leave us? Which website platforms are best?

Luckily, there are a number of excellent options for people who aren’t tech wizards. They offer drag-and-drop capabilities and, with just a little learning, you can create a beautiful, professional looking website without breaking the bank. Whether you’re totally new to web design or simply need a refresher, there are options for everyone at every level.

We like for our clients and readers to have options. That’s why we’ve assembled our favorite event website builders that have proven their worth with our users, plus a few that have had less than stellar results.

Note: We aren’t sponsored by any of these platforms. Our opinions are based solely on our client’s opinions and our own testing over the years.

Our top picks

Below are our favorite event website platforms to date. While there are plenty of options out there, these have the best stability, flexibility, and user-friendliness of all the platforms we’ve worked with.

Squarespace

You’ve probably heard advertisements for Squarespace at least once before, especially if you listen to podcasts. Squarespace has become such a popular choice because of its user-friendliness, customization, templates, analytics, and mobile capabilities. You can create any type of site using Squarespace, from blogs to company pages to e-commerce sites. It’s super easy to use, so this is a great option for people who don’t consider themselves to be “tech-y,” but it also has enough flexibility to keep web designers happy.

Plus, their Business Plan starts at $18 per month and is perfect for most of our users, so it’s definitely an affordable option. You can also start your website for free!

Webflow

Webflow is a visual web design platform, CMS, and hosting provider for building websites. It enables you to build beautiful, dynamic websites without writing code so you can launch quickly with a click.

It’s the only hosted service that allows designers to create websites that work on every device, and push them to live production without the need for a developer. You can easily design your website on a visual canvas and create the website you want, without needing a restrictive template.

Webflow offers a free beginner plan and their plaid plans start at $18 per month, $14 per month if you pay annually. Webflow’s free option will get you started, but you’ll need to upgrade to a Basic Plan in order to publish, host, and unlock additional features.

WordPress

WordPress is a web tinkerer’s wonderland and the techie’s best friend. While it is still much easier to use than building your own website from scratch, it does take more set-up and know-how than Squarespace and Weebly, so it isn’t our first recommendation for people new to the world of web design. That being said, it is an excellent website platform and a great choice for event pros if you’re up for a steeper learning curve.

WordPress also has a free to start option. After that, we recommend using at least the Business Plan, which is $25 per month, for optimal functionality.

These three website platforms are our favorites on the market, hands down. They really create a good balance between user-friendliness and customization, so you can create and manage a website that you and your clients will love. As an added bonus for Goodshuffle Pro users, these also work seamlessly with our Website Integration.

Things to watch out for

When looking at different site platforms, you want to make sure they offer as much flexibility as possible. The last thing you want is to build a beautiful site you love on a platform…only to outgrow it. For example, we’d love to love Wix, but they only allow integrations that are sold through their store— meaning no 3rd party apps, widgets, or integrations whatsoever. This is extremely limiting for their clients long-term, so we don’t recommend their website platform to event professionals.

Another somewhat common problem we see is independent web designers and developers creating their own platforms and charging clients to build their websites on those platforms. While that isn’t inherently a problem, issues arise when people realize that they cannot make even minor changes to their own website and are, essentially, no longer in possession of it. If you see a typo in your text, you’ll have to pay the developer to change it. Need to add some dates? You’ll have to pay for that too. We’ve even had clients tell us they were billed for an entire hour of work to change one date!

We love developers and wholeheartedly recommend using them if you don’t want to build your own website, or you’d like something highly customized— just exercise caution and make sure you understand how your relationship with your developer will work. Always read the fine print!

Now that you have some event website platforms explore, what are you waiting for?! We recommend getting a free trial for multiple platforms and seeing which one you prefer. This is where your business will operate from online, so it’s important that you’re comfortable with your software and can use it to create the website of your dreams.