Several free website builders will let you design a decent site – but the one thing none of these builders will give you is a custom domain. If you want your site to look professional (and keep in tone with your brand), you need a paid plan.
As far as I’m concerned, Squarespace is my absolute favorite. It has the best-looking templates around, and even its cheapest plan includes a free custom domain plus unlimited storage. Squarespace has a 14-day free trial, so you can test all of its features before you buy.
To catch the eye of recruiters and HR managers, you need more than just a basic resume site that looks nice. You need useful features – like a contact form that really works and the ability to let your visitors download files.
As a freelance writer who basically survives on my online presence, I get it. And I’m not just compiling a list from other internet lists – I’ve personally tested dozens of website builders and am sharing detailed information, screenshots, and pro tips from my own experience with these tools.
You don’t want to waste time creating your new resume website only to realize that your site builder is too restrictive, too complicated, or too expensive for you. Job hunting is stressful and time-consuming enough…so start here to set yourself up for success.
In a Hurry? These Are Our Top Resume Website Builder Picks
Wix – The largest selection of resume templates with the most precise customization options
SITE123 – A quick and easy website builder with a timeline feature that’s perfect for resumes
Squarespace – Visually appealing templates for design, art, or other creative industries
What I Look For in the Best CV and Resume Website Builders
Resume-specific templates: The fastest and simplest way to create a resume website? Use a website builder with ready-made templates specifically designed for resumes and CVs.
Design flexibility: These tools will allow you to personalize your online resume, whether you want a simple, single-page CV or a more decked-out professional portfolio.
Ease of use: None of these website builders will require more than a few minutes to understand how to use them.
Low-cost plans: If you’re searching for a job, you probably don’t have tons of cash to waste. These website builders have affordable pricing, and some even offer free plans.
Pro Tip: Since you won’t be job-hunting for too long, you don’t necessarily have to commit to a long-term plan, either; just choose a monthly plan and cancel as soon as you’ve landed the perfect job.
On the other hand, if you plan to freelance and want your resume to be available all the time, you can often save hundreds of dollars by signing up for one or two years at a time.
You’ll find one of the largest selections of resume templates on Wix, giving you ready-made resume layouts that can fit virtually any industry. Because the most important sections are already there (e.g., skills, work experience, education, portfolio, and so on), all you have to do is fill in the blanks.
Even better, if you want more personalization, you can do that, too. With a drag-and-drop editor, Wix gives you very fine control over your website’s design. You can edit images, buttons, and text, or you can keep it quick by using the options built into the resume template.
Heads up: Before you build your site, be sure you’ve chosen the right template. Once you’ve started editing, you won’t be able to switch templates without starting over.
Another stand-out feature of Wix is the Wix App Market, which will help you customize your resume website to your specific job market and industry. (Some apps are paid, some are free, and some are paid but offer a free trial.)
For a resume or portfolio website, you might like these apps in particular:
Galleries – Add professional image galleries to showcase your photography, fashion designs, 3D renderings, or other media-focused work.
Scheduling apps – Allow recruiters to directly schedule an interview on your calendar.
Contact forms – Make it easy for companies and headhunters to contact you directly.
File downloads – Use Document by Wix (shown below) to allow site visitors to download your resume, degree verification, or professional certificates.
Along with these apps, you can add plenty of functionality directly from the Wix editor. You can create a blog (great for aspiring journalists or content writers), include buttons for LinkedIn or other social media, or add pre-designed testimonial strips.
Wix does offer a free plan, but like all free plans, it’s more limited than the paid options. You’ll be stuck with a Wix domain, your site will display Wix branding, and you’ll get just 500 MB of bandwidth and storage. To look more professional, it’s worth the low cost to upgrade.
If you want to create your website even quicker, you can also take advantage of Wix ADI (artificial design intelligence). By answering a few questions, Wix ADI will generate a personalized website for you. You can learn more about it in our in-depth Wix ADI review.
Beginner-Friendly?
Yes
Number of Templates
19 for resumes, 40 for portfolios
Mobile-Responsive Templates?
No – templates are mobile-friendly by default, but you’ll need to use the dedicated mobile editor to ensure that your customizations look good on various screen sizes
Free Plan Available?
Yes – but includes Wix domain, Wix ads, and 500 MB storage
You can choose from eight resume/CV-specific templates, each of which has different preset pages for skills, work experience, contact information, and so on. You can add new pages or change the design of existing pages from the editing bar on the left side of the screen.
All SITE123’s templates are mobile-responsive, so busy recruiters and hiring teams will always see an optimized version of your website – even on the go. You can make a few surface-level edits to your mobile site (like changing the menu color or text alignment), but the options here are less robust than what Wix’s mobile editor offers.
Just like with Wix, you can either keep the basic setup of your resume template or customize it to suit you. Through the SITE123 App Market, plugin library, or editing bar, you can add features like:
Calendars to display your upcoming events or accept bookings for interviews
Galleries to showcase photographs of your work
Buttons to your LinkedIn profile or other professional social media
Ready-made content blocks for testimonials from clients or previous employers
Another great feature for a resume or CV site is the timeline page. Instead of typing out dates in a regular text box, you can showcase your relevant experience in a clear, visually engaging way (without having to design anything yourself).
Similar to Wix, SITE123 offers a free plan with a SITE123 domain, SITE123 ads, and restricted storage and bandwidth. It’s worth upgrading to a paid plan because free users are much more limited. For example, you won’t be able to install apps/plugins or make certain website edits, even to relatively basic features like colors and fonts.
Beginner-Friendly?
Yes
Number of Templates
8 resume/CV templates
Mobile-Responsive Templates?
Yes – and you can make limited edits to the mobile version
Free Plan Available?
Yes – but comes with SITE123 domain, SITE123 ads, just 100 MB storage, and limited customization options
Squarespace has long been a favorite among the design crowd, as its templates are modern, clean, and aesthetically pleasing. With a focus on large, high-resolution photography, Squarespace is a great resume website builder if you’re looking for a job in the creative arts, like graphic design, fashion, or photography.
Squarespace has 15+ dedicated resume/CV/portfolio templates, each of which comes with various key features ready for you to customize, including:
Testimonial blocks
Image galleries
Embedded videos
Blog-style writing portfolios
Resumes (both as on-page text and downloadable files)
Contact forms
Squarespace’s website editor is intuitive, with all the possible actions shown at the top and left-hand bars. You can’t drag individual components (like a header or paragraph), but you can drag entire content blocks to reorder them on the page.
Instead of adding a button to your site, you can connect your Squarespace website to your LinkedIn profile, which will automatically publish your blog posts, images, videos, and events to LinkedIn. If you happen to be looking for a music production job, you can even push audio tracks.
Unlike Wix and SITE123, Squarespace does not have an app market, but it does have built-in integrations with many external apps. Depending on your industry, you can choose to:
Display your recent Twitter posts
Showcase your recent Instagram posts
Sync with Acuity Scheduling for appointments/interviews
Although Squarespace has no free plan, you can start with a 14-day free trial. If you want to publish your site, though, you’ll have to upgrade to a paid subscription. Good news for job seekers still in school: You can get a 50% discount if you sign up with your academic email address.
The bottom line: Squarespace has an easy-to-use interface, modern website templates, and built-in integrations to make your resume website better. You won’t get as many fine editing capabilities as Wix or as many preset page styles as SITE123, but you’ll likely get more than enough functionality, all in a visually striking package.
Check out our expert review of Squarespace for more pros and cons.
Beginner-Friendly?
Yes
Number of Templates
15+ for resumes/CVs and portfolios
Mobile-Responsive Templates?
Yes – and you can make limited changes to the mobile version (on certain templates)
Zyro’s templates have simple, clean designs, and they load quickly.
Zyro offers 15 resume-specific templates, but be sure to also check out the Photography, Portfolio, and Blog sections for some neat designs, depending on your niche. All templates are mobile-responsive, and you can edit the desktop and mobile versions of your site separately.
If you’re in a hurry to launch your website, Zyro’s got you covered. Its impressive set of AI tools includes an AI writer, which generates SEO-optimized content based on your industry, an AI Business Name and Slogan generator, an Image Upscaler (for hi-res photos), and more.
Customizing your site is easy even if you’re a total beginner – you can drag and drop elements anywhere on the page, and they will snap into a grid, so your layout will always look organized. You can choose between plenty of blocks for different types of content, so there’s a lot of potential for creating attractive custom designs.
Here are some Zyro features that could be quite useful for your resume:
Image galleries, slideshows, and videos (via embedding, not uploading)
Customizable contact forms (adding and removing fields, marking required fields, changing the form’s design, etc.)
Downloadable content (if a potential employer wants to save a PDF copy of your CV)
Live chat apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp to interact with your site’s visitors
Granted, Zyro doesn’t give you as many features as Wix or SITE123, but it has a solid set of SEO and marketing tools, including Facebook Pixel, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and heatmaps.
Visible call-to-action (CTA) and social media buttons encourage visitors to take action.
Zyro doesn’t have a free plan or a free trial, but its plans are super affordable (and there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee that you can use to test the builder first.)
The cheapest paid plan includes 3GB of bandwidth, 1 GB of storage, and features like SSL security, SEO and AI tools. That’s more than enough for a simple resume website.
Check out our expert Zyro review to learn more about the platform.
Beginner-Friendly?
Yes
Number of Templates
100+
Mobile-Responsive Templates?
Yes – and you can edit the mobile version independently
Although GoDaddy doesn’t have a resume-specific template category, you can find plenty of attractive designs by browsing through Personal & Blog, Photography, Art & Design, and Music categories, depending on your industry. All templates are mobile-responsive, and you can edit them on the go via the GoDaddy Mobile App.
GoDaddy’s point-and-click editor makes it easy to customize your site, and it comes with various key features for eye-catching resumes, such as:
Image galleries (carousel, grid-based, etc.)
Access to stock photos
Downloadable digital products
Embedded videos (YouTube and Vimeo) and audio (SoundCloud)
Integrated blog (with article previews, depending on the template)
Contact forms and email sign-up forms
Depending on the template you choose, you’ll also be able to integrate reviews, event calendars, and more. The appointment scheduling feature is also pretty cool (one-time appointments are available on all plans, while recurring appointments come with the Premium subscription and higher).
You can upload multiple images at once, but there are limited photo editing options.
Although GoDaddy’s editor is super easy to use, its beginner-friendliness comes with a caveat, as you don’t get much creative freedom. If you’re not preoccupied with having complete control over your site’s look, and you’d rather have most of the design choices handled for you, then GoDaddy is your go-to site builder.
GoDaddy doesn’t have an app market like Wix, but it lets you connect various social media to your site, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Yelp, and Houzz.
Compared to the other site builders on this list, GoDaddy offers the cheapest plan with a custom domain. It also includes on-the-go editing, 24/7 customer support, and limited social media and email marketing.
Beginner-Friendly?
Yes
Number of Templates
100+
Mobile-Responsive Templates?
Yes – you can edit the mobile version independently
Final Recommendations on Building Your Online Resume or CV
We’ve sped through a huge amount of information, but the main takeaway is this: Every tool on this list can give you a professional-looking website in as little as an hour (or even faster, if you don’t care to tinker with fine customizations).
Here are some personal recommendations:
If you want complete control over your online resume (without having to spend tons of time on it), I’d go with Wix. You can choose a relevant template, fill in your work history and other details, then drag and drop everything into the perfect place.
If you want something a little simpler but still robust enough to customize, I recommend SITE123. You won’t get quite as many options as with Wix, but you’ll have more than enough features to create an engaging resume for any industry.
One last piece of advice? Although most of these website builders offer a free plan, I wouldn’t recommend using that option for anything but trial and error.
Once you’re ready to share your website with potential employers, it’s worth paying for an upgraded subscription. Not only will you look more professional (thanks to the custom domain), you’ll also get added benefits like access to more apps, more storage, and more customization options. And a better online resume means better odds of getting hired.
If you’re planning to use Wix, don’t miss our detailed Wix pricing guide for some pro tips on saving even more.
Check out the comparison table below to choose the best resume website builder for you.
Biggest Pro
Biggest Con
Best Feature on the Cheapest Plan
Wix
50+ templates designed for resumes, CVs, and portfolios
Andrea is an experienced content writer, copywriter, and editor with special interests in graphic design, sustainable development, travel, and literature. Originally from Texas, she has lived around the world and makes frequent trips to explore new places and visit family in Japan.
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