How we test and rank website builders and hosting
This page explains how Pennybench scores website builders and web hosting. It covers the rubric, the tools we use, how often we re-check, and the things we refuse to do.
Where we are today
Our first hands-on test is done: in November 2026 we built the same bakery site on Squarespace and Shopify, paid for a month on each, placed test orders and cancelled both (the result). Every other page here is still untested and says so at the top.
Each review will show its own test log once its tests are done: what we bought, on what date, what we did, and what happened. Until a log exists, a review says so at the top, and it relies on public data we can link to (official pricing and terms pages, plus our AI-answer scan).
The rubric (v1.0)
Every website builder and hosting plan is scored on five things. The weights add up to 100.
| Criterion | Weight | What we look at |
|---|---|---|
| Cost over 3 years | 30 | The full price for 36 months, including renewal prices, not the first-month headline. Domain, email and add-ons that most small businesses need. Whether a longer term locks the price. |
| Cancel and refund experience | 20 | How to turn off auto-renew, how many steps it takes to cancel, the refund window, what is non-refundable (often domains and add-ons), and how long the refund takes to arrive. |
| Support | 20 | Which channels exist (chat, phone, ticket), whether a human or a bot answers first, the hours, and how long it takes to get a useful human reply. |
| Performance | 15 | Uptime and page speed of a live test site, measured over weeks, not one afternoon. |
| Features for small businesses | 15 | What a small business actually uses: bookings, forms, a simple shop, SEO controls, editing on a phone, and how easy it is to export your site and leave. |
Why cost and cancelling carry half the score: they ranked first and second among the complaints we found when we read buyer posts and low-star reviews. Renewal shock and refund fights come up again and again, and most “best of” lists ignore them.
The weights only change with a new version number. When they change, we note the date and the reason on this page, and we re-score every review against the new version.
Our instruments
- Paid accounts, bought with our own money. We sign up like a normal customer, on the plan a small business would pick. No free press accounts, no special treatment we know of.
- Checkout and cancel tests. We record what actually hits the card, any pre-ticked extras, the cancel path step by step, and the refund timeline. A refund window can take weeks to play out, so these tests take time.
- AI-answer scans. We ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity the same set of common buyer questions and record which brands they name and which sites they cite. The first scan ran on November 8, 2026: see What AI assistants recommend.
- Dated price checks. We read intro and renewal prices from official pricing, checkout and terms pages, and we write down the date. If a page will not load for us, or shows another country’s prices, we say “not verified” instead of guessing. See the renewal price tracker.
- Support checks. We contact support with the same plain questions and log the channel, the time, and how long the first human reply took.
- Uptime and speed checks. We put a simple test site live and measure it over time. Speed is measured from a US location, because a test from Europe does not reflect what a US visitor sees.
How often we re-check
| What | How often |
|---|---|
| Prices and renewal terms | Monthly, plus when a brand announces a change |
| AI-answer scan | Quarterly, with the run date on every chart |
| Cancel and refund terms | Each time we re-run a checkout test, and when terms pages change |
| Reviews as a whole | When a test log adds new results, or the rubric version changes |
Every page shows the date it was last updated. Every price shows the date we checked it.
Commissions never change the order
Some brands may pay us a commission when you buy through our links. That never changes where a product ranks. The order comes only from the rubric above. A product with no affiliate program stays in the ranking if it scores well, and a product that pays us drops if it scores badly. How we earn money is on its own page: How we make money.
What we do NOT do
- We do not say “we tested” until a test log exists for that product.
- We do not invent people, quotes, test results or star ratings.
- We do not sell spots inside a ranked list. Any sponsored placement sits outside rankings and is labelled.
- We do not rank by commission rate.
- We do not copy marketing claims (like “99.9% uptime”) as if they were our findings.
- We do not use another country’s prices for US readers. If we could not read a US price, we say so.
- We do not hide who should not pick a product. Each review will include an “avoid if” line.
Found a price that changed, or something we got wrong? Email hello@pennybench.com and we will check it and log the fix with a date.