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Software for authors
Prices and data checked October 14, 2026 · Author Score computed by a published formula, not paid for · List your tool
7 of 7 shown · How the Author Score works
Hosted WordPress with a free plan, themes, newsletters and plugins
Author website builders
Author website and email list builder from the BookBub team
Author website builders
Author website builder that sets up the site from an ISBN
Author website builders
General-purpose website builder with templates, store and email campaigns
Author website builders
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Prices in USD from each vendor’s own site, checked October 14, 2026. Searches: US Google searches a month for the product’s name, with the change over 12 months. Score out of 10, by one published formula; nobody pays to be listed.
BookBub Author Websites is the only one here whose free plan lets you connect your own domain. Wix and WordPress.com have free plans on their own addresses, and WordPress.com shows ads on its free sites. Carrd is free for up to three one-page sites; a custom domain starts with its Pro Standard plan at $19 a year. Squarespace and Tertulia offer a 14-day trial instead of a free plan, and Weblium’s free tier ends after a trial period, after which the site is blocked.
BookBub Author Websites and Tertulia are made for authors: their templates have book pages with store links built in. Wix and Squarespace describe author sites in their own guides, with a books page linking to retailers, and Weblium has one template for authors with books, author and ordering pages. WordPress.com and Carrd do not describe a book-page feature, though you can build one by hand.
Squarespace, Wix, WordPress.com, Carrd, Tertulia and Weblium say you can sell products from the site, which covers signed copies or ebooks you deliver yourself. BookBub Author Websites does not mention direct sales; its book pages send readers to the stores.
All seven confirm a newsletter sign-up form or a connection to an email service. A list of readers you can write to is the part of an author website that keeps working when a store changes its rules, so check that the form connects to the email service you already use.
We did not judge the look of the templates or how fast the sites load. Prices are the ones each builder showed on the day we checked; Wix’s yearly prices carried a limited-time offer, WordPress.com showed a first-year discount, and Squarespace confirmed only its $19-a-month entry price in US dollars.
Building the books section? Our ISBN barcode generator and QR code generator help with the printed side, and the book mockup generators turn a cover into images for the site.
Built for self-published authors, from facts anyone can check: each vendor’s own pages, read on October 14, 2026, and US Google search volumes (Google Ads data via DataForSEO). Nobody pays to be listed, and no score is adjusted by hand. We did not test the apps by writing a book in them; the score measures what they do for an author, what they cost and how widely they are used.
The score is the points earned divided by the points that could be checked, on a 10-point scale. A part with no data (no USD price, no search volume) is left out rather than guessed. How long a product has existed is not scored: few vendors state it. Review sites are not used: for most of these products the profiles rate the whole company or hold a handful of reviews.
| Author website builders | Author jobs /50 | Cost /25 | Adoption /25 | Score /10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | 50 | 25 | 21.6 | 9.7 |
| WordPress.com | 42.9 | 25 | 14.4 | 8.2 |
| BookBub Author Websites | 42.9 | 25 | 13.6 | 8.1 |
| Tertulia author websites | 42.9 | 16.6 | 15.3 | 7.5 |
| Weblium | 50 | 13.4 | 10.1 | 7.4 |
| Carrd | 28.6 | 25 | 19.2 | 7.3 |
| Squarespace | 42.9 | 5 | 22.8 | 7.1 |
The list above ranks them by the Author Score: what each confirms an author needs, what a year costs and how widely it is used. BookBub Author Websites and Tertulia are built only for authors; Wix and WordPress.com are general builders with free plans and author templates or guides.
Yes. BookBub Author Websites has a free plan that includes your own domain. Wix, WordPress.com and Carrd are free on their own addresses.
A page for each book with links to the stores, a short author bio and a newsletter sign-up. All seven builders confirm a sign-up form or an email connection; the book pages are built in on the author-specific ones.
