7 Best FREE Website Builders for Political Campaigns in 2024

If you’re running for office or trying to get support for a petition on a tight budget, the last thing you want is to use a website builder that locks the features you need behind paid upgrades. However, even the highly rated free website builders might not be good enough for your political cause. You want a platform that gives you all the essential campaign tools, including contact forms, donation buttons, and site analytics.

I’ve tested multiple website builders and have discovered seven completely free plans that are perfect for political campaigns. Among them, Wix is the most exceptional as it’s the only web builder that provides templates specifically for political campaigns.

The other top free website builders in this list are also excellent choices, as they provide appropriate templates, a form builder, and other built-in features that come in handy for your next campaign run. Let’s take a look!

What We Look for in the Best Free Website Builders for Political Campaigns

Every vote counts, and so does every visit to your website. You need a site builder that has the tools to create a powerful campaign site, which is why I’ve prioritized these features:

• Ease of use. You want a website builder that won’t take a lot of time to learn. The sooner you launch your site, the sooner you can connect with voters and collect donations.
• Suitable templates. A well-designed website can help convince voters that you’re the best candidate for the job. While most website builders don’t have templates specifically designed for political campaigns, the ones on this list have options that will work well without much customization needed.
• Lots of form options. Your website is first and foremost about connecting with voters, but you also want to give your supporters actionable ways to help your campaign. An attractive form can encourage people to submit their questions or register to volunteer.
• Fundraising help. All the builders on this list have tools that make fundraising for your campaign easier. Some have marketing tools that help you indirectly raise funds, while others let you take donations directly on your site
• More free features. Not all free plans are created equal. Some are generous with storage and bandwidth while others pack in more free tools for social media. It’s all about finding what’s best for your needs.

1. Wix – Best Templates and Apps for Political Campaigns

Wix is an easy-to-use website builder that has lots of useful features to help you connect with voters online. Wix’s free plan has great forms for registering volunteers and email sign-ups.

With its huge (900+) template library, Wix is also the only website builder on this list with free templates built specifically for political campaigns. Plus, it has some great templates in the fundraising and events niches that could work just as well.

One downside is that Wix’s free plan limits your storage and bandwidth to 500MB each. So if you want to upload videos of your speeches, or if you expect a ton of traffic to your site, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan that gives you unlimited data.

Features

• Wix App Market. The Wix App Market has over 500 tools you can install for extra features, many of which are free. For example, there’s an app that lets you poll site visitors on important campaign issues and an app that lets site visitors call you.
• Visitor engagement tools. Wix apps like Forms & Payments let you collect supporters’ email addresses and send out newsletters (free up to 5000 total emails). Other apps, such as Wix Forum, let you add members-only sections for campaign donors or volunteers.
• Multilingual support. You can create separate versions of your website in different languages and choose between manual or automatic translation. This feature is great for increasing your visibility with different language communities.

Curious what else is included with Wix’s free plan? Read our in-depth review.

2. SITE123 – The Fastest Way to Build a Campaign Website

SITE123 has one of the easiest and most straightforward editors of any website builder, making it an ideal option for getting your campaign website up and running as quickly as possible.

The streamlined point-and-click editing bar offers a decent range of functionality and customizability, although the free plan does place limits on your design options. You’ll choose from various pre-built layouts for each new page section – for example, there are 10 possible layouts for testimonials (all of which are great for sharing your endorsements).

Unfortunately, SITE123 gives you even less storage and bandwidth than Wix, plus you can only collect online donations on the premium plan. That said, you can add donation buttons to your page so long as you collect payments through offline channels like bank deposits, money orders, or over the phone.

Features

• Mobile-responsive templates. While it doesn’t have any templates just for politicians, SITE123 has 180+ templates across 10 categories that look great on desktop, tablet, and mobile. The templates in the Event and CV categories work particularly well for political campaigns.
• Customizable forms. You can add multiple different forms to your site, meaning that visitors could sign up to volunteer on one page and submit questions about your campaign on another.
• In-editor support. Even with a builder as easy as SITE123, it’s great to be able to ask questions if you need to. You can contact SITE123’s support staff directly from the editor interface  – I got a reply to my question within 5 minutes.

Looking for more details? Check out our expert SITE123 review.

3. Webador – Best for Handling Lots of Site Traffic

Webador doesn’t have campaign-related templates, but don’t let that worry you: its 50+ templates are all-purpose. Although they look a bit dated, they are functional and easy to edit. There’s a limited number of page elements to add to your site, but this makes it easy to set up – Webador is probably the only builder that is simpler than SITE123.

While Webador’s tools may be basic, it has the essentials. For example, there’s a blog builder that displays a preview of your edits in real time, plus simple SEO settings for the site and individual elements. There’s also a straightforward form builder.

But Webador is generous with its resources: even the free plan has unlimited storage and bandwidth. This means your site can host tons of campaign photos and will perform well even if it gets a surge in traffic right before election day. Otherwise, the free plan has few features – but luckily the more advanced paid plans are relatively low-priced.

Features

• Stock photos. Every plan, including the free one, gets access to a library of 100,000+ free stock photos. This makes filling your site with content much easier and more affordable.
• Map widget. You can easily add a map onto your site to coordinate campaign volunteers or protestors.
• Embed code. You can place embedded code anywhere on your site, which is useful for displaying third-party widgets. For example, you can use code provided by your email service provider to display an email sign-up form on your Webador site.

See our expert review of Webador for more info.

4. WordPress – Best for Posting Shareable Campaign Content

Once you get the hang of WordPress.com’s drag-and-drop editor, this website builder is both powerful and easy to use. However, it may take some time to get used to its unique editing interface, which is more complicated than other builders’.

Its major advantage is its extensive blogging functionality, so if you want to post lots of campaign updates, link to your latest news features, or write about important issues in your community, this is your go-to-platform. You can also put social buttons at the bottom of each post so voters can share your content via social media.  

The free WordPress.com plan lets you take donations and access about 170 themes, but most campaign themes cost extra. If you upgrade to a paid plan, you can install third-party themes from marketplaces like ThemeForest, which has a large selection specifically for politicians.

Features

• Built-in plugins. WordPress.com’s free plan comes with lots of useful campaign and blogging tools. For example, you can build multiple types of signup forms and send your blog posts directly to your mailing list. WordPress also comes with anti-spam tools so you won’t get overrun with unwanted comments.
• Detailed stats tracking. See detailed information about your site’s visitors (like which pages they view and which links they click on) right on your dashboard.
• Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). You can use the AMP plugin to make your mobile pages load quickly on search engines, provided that you use AMP-compatible themes. This feature ensures that visitors can immediately see your site, leading to an instant improvement in your search engine rankings. Really, what’s not to like about that?

Need more details? Head over to our in-depth WordPress.com review.

5. Google Sites – Best for Using Your Own Domain Name

Google Sites is the only builder on this list that lets you use a custom domain for free. If you already own a domain name (which you will have to pay for, of course), you can easily link it to your Google Sites project.

Let’s clarify this: Besides offering custom domain support, Google Sites provides only essential services. The great news is that this streamlined approach makes it exceptionally easy for you to create your website, whether you start from scratch or utilize one of its 17 pre-built templates.

I wouldn’t use it for a highly interactive site, but it would be a good option for building a simple landing page for your campaign.

Features

• Google Analytics. Google’s analytics solution offers extremely in-depth insights reporting. To hook it up to your website, you just paste your Analytics account ID into the editor.
• Integration with other Google services. Google Sites operates much like other Google services, such as Gmail and Docs, and it smoothly connects with them too. You can insert event photos from Google Photos, videos from YouTube, and contact forms with Google Forms.
• Embed code. You can embed HTML, which is a good way of adding third-party widgets, like sign-up forms. You can even do a full-page embed and paste the code of a more elaborately designed page if you have someone on your campaign who can do web design.

Learn more about Google Sites in our in-depth review.

6. Webnode – Least Intrusive Branding on the Free Plan

Webnode is a streamlined website builder with over 100 mobile-responsive templates to choose from – including some good options for politicians in the Personal and Business categories. Charity, for example, has a section right below the header image that would be great for laying out your platform and stances on various issues.

One of my favorite things about this builder is how unobtrusive its branding is. While all builders stick branding on your site on the free plan, Webnode’s is by far the most subtle, with just a link at the very bottom of the page. This makes your website look more professional and less like a billboard for the site builder.

The downside is that you’ll only get 100 MB of storage, so if you want to include more than just a few high-res photos, you’ll have to upgrade or look elsewhere.

Features

• Simple form builder. It’s easy to make your own contact forms field-by-field with Webnode’s form builder. You can add single-choice, multichoice, or dropdown menus so your visitors can let you know exactly how they want to get involved.
• WYSIWYG editor. Webnode’s point-and-click editor is quite straightforward – it actually reminds me a lot of SITE123’s. I don’t find it quite as intuitive, but it’s easy to change any element just by clicking on it.
• Easy metadata optimization. You can easily edit the meta description and keywords for each page of your website, giving you more control over what people see about your site in search engine results.

Not sure if Webnode is right for you? Check out our complete review.

Other Notable Website Builders for Political Campaigns

If you want to know about other website builder options for your political campaign, I’ve got a few more – although a couple of them aren’t free.

7. Weebly

Weebly is a bit unique in that it has a free plan that can process online payments, and it offers two site editors. Its classic drag-and-drop builder is easy to use and has dozens of templates that are pretty modern. The Weebly App Center also has hundreds of apps, so you have some options to extend your site’s functionality.

On the downside, Weebly’s main builder is a bit outdated. Weebly does offer a more modern e-commerce builder, but that builder doesn’t give you template options. If your top priority is fundraising by selling merchandise, that might be okay, but for other campaigns, it could be excessively e-commerce oriented.

8. Hostinger Website Builder

Hostinger Website Builder isn’t free, but bear with me – its entry-level plan usually has low introductory pricing. Then once the first term ends, it renews at a higher rate, but even that higher rate is low cost compared to most site builders.

The lowest-priced plan comes with a free domain for the first year, free email, 150 templates, and an AI website builder. Plus, it has some useful integrations with third-party marketing tools, like Facebook Pixel. The downside is that it’s not free and the site editing is a bit limited.

9. IONOS

Like Hostinger Website Builder, IONOS doesn’t have a free plan, but its paid plans are affordable and have very low introductory prices. All plans have generous storage space and strong business tools, like a branded email inbox and analytics for competitor tracking. There are also some AI content-generation tools.

The editing interface is very easy to use, but you also can’t change much about your site. Overall, IONOS is good if you need to quickly establish a strong online presence on a tight budget, like during the final months of an election, but your ability to make a unique campaign site is limited.

Picking the Best Free Website Builder for a Political Campaign

Still not sure which of these builders is best for you? Here are my recommendations:

If you want to build a website that looks great and lets you keep in touch with supporters, I’d use Wix. It’s the only builder with free templates for political campaigns. And even better, its huge selection of free apps make it easy for you to accept donations and keep in touch with voters.

If time is of the essence and you need to start reaching voters ASAP, I’d recommend SITE123. You’ll be able to build a solid site with all the essential tools without spending too much time on customization and design.

Finally, use Webador for a site that can handle lots of traffic. Its free plan has more feature constraints than SITE123 or Wix, but it also has more generous resources and is extremely easy to use.

Or, if you’re still considering your options, check out the table below for a side-by-side comparison:

FAQ

Can I build a political campaign website for free?

Yes, but there will be some important limitations no matter what. Even the best free plans won’t let you use a custom domain name, may put ads on your site, may limit your storage space, and restrict useful features (like donations).

If you’re intent on using a free plan, determine what you’re most willing to sacrifice. For example, if you’re prioritizing storage over customization, then Webador’s free plan is probably better for you than Wix’s.

What should a political campaign website include?

An election campaign website should have pages for your bio, political platform, and any endorsements you’ve obtained. If your site is intended to gather support for a local cause or petition, then you may want to have a blog to regularly talk about the issue. Either way, you definitely need some contact forms, and ideally a way to collect donations.

What is the best free website builder?

That depends on the particular features you need. Wix has some great templates built specifically for politicians and offers robust tools for interacting with voters via your website. However, if you need to launch your site quickly, I’d recommend going with SITE123.

What is the best template for political campaigns?

I’d recommend any of Wix’s templates for politicians. There’s not a specific category you can filter for, but you can find them by searching for “politician” in Wix’s template gallery. Or if you feel bold, you can find any template that fits your campaign’s vibe and customize it. Our guide to building a website in 2024 has some tips for that.