Best Google Sites alternatives for small businesses (2026)

Most of the pieces are already yours, going by Google's own pages (read 4 Nov 2026, support.google.com). In order:

• Keep a copy. The Sites help index points to Google's "Export your data from Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Sites, Drive, Forms & Vids" article (Google's help index), so take an export before you change anything.
• Your words and photos. Paste the text into the new builder. Images you uploaded are "stored within that site. They are not added to Drive" (read 4 Nov 2026: Google's Sites admin help), so save them from the export or the published pages; Zarla's import can also read the published site and rebuild it, keeping each page address it can.
• Your enquiries. Responses to an embedded Google Form stay in Forms (and in a linked sheet, if you made one), so nothing is lost when the form leaves the page.
• Your domain. A custom domain on Sites is one you registered elsewhere, so you change its records at that registrar to aim at the replacement, as the final step.
• Old links. Note each page's address, then add permanent redirects in the replacement, and send a test enquiry before switching the domain over.

The 8 tests, and what it takes to get a tick:

• Search titles you can set. Google Sites names each page's search title after the page, and its help has no setting for a separate title or a description. Tick: the builder writes each page's search title and description, makes a sitemap, and connects Google Search Console for you or gives you a box in its settings for Google's verification code. Dash: some of that, or Search Console means pasting Google's tag into the site's custom code or adding a plugin.
• Appointments on the page. On Google Sites, booking means embedding a Google Calendar appointment schedule, a separate product. Tick: customers book from the site, built in on the website plan. Dash: a second subscription, a plugin or another company's scheduler. Cross: none.
• Taking payments for products. No topic in Google's Sites help covers a shop or a checkout. Tick: products, a checkout and card payments, built in on the website plan. Dash: only a few products or buy buttons, or a store that needs another subscription, plugin or app. Cross: none.
• Still free to start. Google Sites costs nothing with a Google account, so the step up shouldn't start with a bill. Tick: you can build the whole site and see it for free with no time limit, on a free plan or free to build and preview with payment only to publish. Dash: a free trial with a time limit. Cross: you pay before you can build anything.
• Finished first draft. Google Sites gives you templates or a blank page to fill in. Having the first version of a business site written for you saves the evenings a Sites page took. Tick: it writes the whole site, pages and words, from a description of your business. Dash: templates, or AI that only writes some of it.
• Edit by chat, new pages by AI. Google sells Sites on "drag-and-drop design". Describing the change instead is quicker when the site is one job among many. Tick: you type a change and the site updates, and you can ask for a new page and get one.
• Leads, quotes, invoices and payments together. On Google Sites, enquiries come in through an embedded Google Form; a business wants them in an inbox with quotes and invoices beside them. Tick: a leads inbox, quotes your customers accept online, invoices and online payments, all built in. Dash: some of them, or only with plugins.
• Fast pages, measured. Slow pages lose visitors on phones. We measured this ourselves with Google's PageSpeed test on real sites built with each builder. Tick: a typical phone score of 90 or more, which Google calls good. Dash: 50 to 89. Cross: under 50.

How we picked them. When we asked ChatGPT "what is the best google sites alternative for a small business?" on November 4, 2026, it named Wix, Squarespace, Hostinger Website Builder, WordPress.com, Shopify and Carrd. We score the general builders that appear on every page in this series, Wix, Squarespace, WordPress.com and GoDaddy (its Websites + Marketing builder), whether ChatGPT named them this time or not, plus Hostinger and Shopify from its answer, and Square, which ChatGPT didn't name. Zarla is ours. Carrd, which ChatGPT named last, makes one-page sites and is compared on our page of free builders, where Google Sites is scored too. Square joins because its free plan comes with an online store and a booking site, two things the Sites help has no topic for.

How we scored them. Same tests for everyone, each worth the same. We checked every answer on the builder's own website and help pages on September 28, 2026, and the search titles you can set test on October 17, 2026, and the taking payments for products test on October 17, 2026, and the still free to start test on October 28, 2026, and the leads, quotes, invoices and payments together test on October 4, 2026, except Hostinger and Shopify, which joined on October 17, 2026, when their answers to the tests before then were read, except Square, which joined on October 12, 2026, when its answers to the tests before then were read, and Hostinger's answers on the search titles you can set, still free to start, edit by chat, new pages by AI and leads, quotes, invoices and payments together tests on November 3, 2026, and WordPress.com's answers on the search titles you can set, taking payments for products, finished first draft and edit by chat, new pages by AI tests on November 3, 2026, and Shopify's, GoDaddy's and Square's answers on the search titles you can set test on October 28, 2026, and Hostinger's answer on the taking payments for products test on November 4, 2026, and GoDaddy's answer on the finished first draft test on October 17, 2026, and Squarespace's answers on the edit by chat, new pages by AI and leads, quotes, invoices and payments together tests on November 3, 2026, and GoDaddy's answer on the edit by chat, new pages by AI test on October 12, 2026, and Shopify's answer on the leads, quotes, invoices and payments together test on November 3, 2026. Google's Sites help was read on support.google.com, where a feature Sites lacks simply has no article; when this page says Sites doesn't do something, it means its help index has no topic for it, and says so. hostinger.com and godaddy.com were fetched through a reader service on their own days. A verdict a builder's pages leave unsettled is marked down a notch, and the cell explains. When two builders tie on points, the one with fewer crosses goes first.

How we measured speed. Google's PageSpeed test, three runs each on phone and desktop, on up to ten real sites per builder. For the others we used the first sites built with them that came up in Google for home-service businesses in five US cities (for WordPress, any WordPress site). Zarla sites don't rank in those searches yet, so we picked ten at random from our customers' published sites and don't name them. Square joined later, so we ran the same PageSpeed test on October 12, 2026, on ten sites each, almost all found by searching Google for each product's own web addresses, a search not limited to US businesses (of the sixty sites for the six products measured that day, only two came up in Google for hair salons, barbershops, restaurants, gyms or auto repair shops in the same five US cities). Shopify joined later, so we ran the same PageSpeed test on October 17, 2026, on ten sites that came up in Google for boutiques, bakeries and florists in the same five US cities. When we searched on October 17, 2026, Google listed no sites built with Hostinger's builder that loaded (the five on its own zyrosite.com addresses that Google listed showed an error page), so its speed isn't measured and it gets the middle mark. It's a sample, not a promise about any one site.

What we didn't score. Price isn't a test, since plans bundle different things: each rival's price appears in its listing; see our pricing page for Zarla's. Design is a matter of taste and isn't scored; their example sites show it. Hostinger's speed is marked partly, not guessed, since the Hostinger sites from our search never loaded. Google Sites isn't in this table; it's scored as a free builder in our ranking of free builders, and its own help pages, quoted above, say what it does here. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.

The same method elsewhere. The best website builders for small business, the best free website builders, the best Wix alternatives, the best Squarespace alternatives, the best WordPress alternatives, the best Weebly alternatives, the best Hostinger alternatives and the best Duda alternatives, and trade by trade for 87 kinds of business on our comparisons page.