Hostnet Website Builder

What Hostnet Website Builder is

Hostnet Website Builder is a site and webshop builder sold by Hostnet, a hosting company whose pages run in Dutch, quote prices excluding 21% VAT and sell .nl and .com domains next to hosting, email, VPS and Microsoft 365. The builder is for a founder, freelancer or small business owner who wants a site or a small webshop without coding and without hiring a designer or developer. Hostnet's own wording is that you make and manage a website "zonder dat je daarvoor hoeft te coderen" (without having to code), so that you hold the reins yourself and need no help from a designer or developer.

What you build and how

The editor is a click-and-drag builder. The company describes the workflow in one sentence: "Je kiest een kant-en-klare template, klikt en sleept verschillende blokken op de juiste plek en zet je website online" (you pick a ready-made template, click and drag blocks to the right place and put your website online). You add images, text and other blocks, then choose the colors, copy and pictures you want, and you can change the template to your own taste before publishing. The feature list on the product page adds that you can upgrade when it suits you, that the site is simple to manage, and that the builder helps make the site easy to find in Google.

Templates are grouped by the kind of site you are making. The page shows 5 groups: Zaken en Diensten (business and services), Portfolio en CV, Familie en Recreatie (family and recreation), Eten en Gastvrijheid (food and hospitality) and Evenementen (events), with a link to many more templates. The site navigation also has pages on building a website for a restaurant, a coaching practice, a ZZP'er (a Dutch freelancer) and a portfolio.

AI sits at two points in the process. The first is a questionnaire: you fill it in and AI builds the site for you within a few minutes, "van ontwerp, tot afbeeldingen en tekst" (design, images and text). The second is for people who prefer to build by hand but want help with copy: the AI-Schrijfassistent (AI writing assistant) writes unique, professional text, and the plan table lists it on all 3 plans. The media library of the Pro and Plus plans holds hundreds of photos you can use for free.

The webshop is built into the same product. Hostnet says that with Website Builder Plus you pick a template, add your products and start selling. Products are managed in one dashboard: for each one you set a category, an image, a price and stock, and from the same place you monitor inventory, create discount coupons, show related products and set automatic VAT rates. If design is not your thing, a 1-click option publishes a basic webshop on a single page straight away. The page adds contact forms, a Google Maps route description to your shop and Google Analytics, so you can see how visitors behave.

Payments go through an integration with the payment platform Stripe. With it you can accept iDEAL and other worldwide and local methods, named as PayPal, credit card, bank transfer and gift cards. The page states plainly that you pay Hostnet no commission on sales: "Jouw webshop, jouw winst" (your webshop, your profit).

Beyond pages and products, the plan table lists bookings (Boekingen) and blogs as features of the builder, so a coach or a restaurant can take appointments and publish news from the same site. Social media is handled by embedding: the page says you can place links or a feed for channels "van Instagram tot X" (from Instagram to X) on your site. Each package also comes with email on your own domain, so a business contact is answered from an address that matches the site.

Publishing is a 3-step flow on the page. Step 1 is to claim your domain and order the Website Builder Plus package. Step 2 is to design the site with AI and the click-and-drag system, with no programming knowledge needed. Step 3 is a last check and a launch with one press of a button. For the domain, the FAQ says that ordering Website Builder has you pick the name as part of the order, and that if you already own a domain you only need to connect it to a Website Builder package. Every site is suitable for desktop and mobile, which the company lists among its headline promises.

Hostnet also sells a done-for-you route. The homepage offers "Onze designers bouwen de website van je dromen" (our designers build the website of your dreams), and the Website laten maken service has Hostnet build and maintain a professional site, which is useful if you start in the builder and decide you would rather hand it over.

Plans, limits and support

The pricing table names 3 plans: Start, Pro and Plus, with Plus marked "Meest gekozen" (most chosen). The listed prices are 10,50 for Start, 17,50 for Pro and 26,- for Plus, each shown beside a "v.a. 0,-" per month promotional price, and a footnote says the promotional price applies to the first contract period. All prices exclude VAT. On the homepage, Website Builder is listed "v.a. 0,- p/m" (from 0 per month), and a banner offers to make your own website with AI "nu 3 maanden gratis" (now 3 months free). The Website Builder page also invites you to "Probeer 14 dagen gratis" (try it free for 14 days), and a footnote says the webshop tool is not included in that trial period.

The limits differ by plan:

• Start: 5 published pages, 5 mailboxes and 5 GB of storage.
• Pro: unlimited published pages, 50 mailboxes and 50 GB of storage.
• Plus: unlimited published pages, 75 mailboxes and 75 GB of storage.

The table lists webshop, bookings, blogs, free images, the AI writing assistant and desktop and mobile suitability as rows for the packages, and the webshop copy ties the store to Website Builder Plus.

The company claims 200.000+ tevreden klanten (200,000+ satisfied customers) and shows a 4.7 rating labeled "Uitstekend" (Excellent). Personal contact is offered 7 days a week, with a chat button that promises a direct answer, a contact page and an email option in the help menu. The homepage also advertises green data centers and a program for agencies. One customer story on the product page comes from Danitsja and Esther of Bont & Pastel: "Met Website Builder stonden we in één week live met de website van onze nieuwe onderneming" (with Website Builder we were live with the website of our new business in one week). Hostnet Academy publishes guides, including "Wat is een websitemaker?" and "Een bedrijfswebsite maken: 8 tips".

The FAQ also places the builder within Hostnet's own range. It says the choice depends on your technical level and your wishes: someone without technical knowledge who wants simple site software should choose Website Builder, while Hostnet's WordPress offer, sold as hosting from 0,99 per month on the homepage, takes some technical knowledge in exchange for more ways to adapt the site. Plain webhosting is listed from 4,99 per month on the homepage.

Who it suits and who it does not

The builder fits a Dutch-speaking freelancer, a local service business, a coach taking bookings or a small shop owner who wants a finished site this week. The AI questionnaire gets you a first version fast, the templates are grouped by business type, iDEAL and Stripe cover payments for a Dutch customer base, and the product dashboard handles stock, coupons and VAT without extra tools. People who already use Hostnet for their domain and email will find it convenient to keep the site in the same account, and personal support 7 days a week is a real asset for someone who is not technical.

The caveats are the usual ones for a template builder. The pages describe sites, shops, bookings and blogs, not a database, user logins or custom code, so a team that wants app logic or a portable codebase belongs on another kind of platform. The Start plan caps you at 5 published pages, so a growing business should budget for Pro or Plus from the regular price, not the promotional first term. And the pages are written in Dutch, which is a hurdle for anyone who does not read it.