The tools I actually use to build and run my websites

A lot of the content on this site is research-based – comparing platforms, reading reviews, working through specs and pricing so you don’t have to. That’s valuable, and I stand behind all of it. But there’s a difference between knowing about a tool and actually using it day-to-day.

So this post is different. These are the tools I actually use to build and run my websites – right now, across my own sites – and how I got here. I haven’t used everything covered on this site. Nobody has. The platform landscape is too big for any one person to have hands-on experience with every option. But I have used a lot, over a number of years, across different projects with different needs – and I think that journey is useful to share.

If you’re just starting out and feeling overwhelmed by choice, maybe seeing how someone else’s toolkit evolved – and why – will help more than another comparison table.

Where I started: Wix

My first ever website was built on Wix – an author website, built with zero web design training.

I remember it being a steep learning curve at the time. Drag-and-drop sounds simple until you’re the one doing the dragging and nothing looks quite how you imagined. But what stuck with me wasn’t the difficulty – it was what I was able to create despite having no background in this at all. A genuinely professional-looking website, built by someone who’d never done it before. That was a real “oh, I can actually do this” moment.

Looking back, that first Wix site taught me more than just how to drag elements around a page. It taught me the basic vocabulary of building a website – what a header is, why navigation matters, how much content is too much on one page – lessons that carried through to every platform I’ve used since, regardless of how technical things eventually got.

If you’re at the very start of your journey and the idea of building a website feels intimidating, Wix is still a completely reasonable place to begin. It taught me that the barrier to entry is lower than it feels from the outside.

Read our full Wix review →

Then: Squarespace

After Wix, I moved into building Squarespace websites and templates for a while.

What struck me about Squarespace was how quickly things came together. Where Wix had been a learning curve, Squarespace felt like it was designed to get you to “this looks professional” faster – the templates do a lot of the heavy lifting, and even without design training, the output looked considered and polished.

Working on Squarespace for other people’s projects, not just my own, also taught me something Wix hadn’t – how much a genuinely good template system saves you when you’re moving between different clients or niches quickly. You’re not rebuilding your instincts from scratch each time; you’re adapting a strong foundation.

For anyone whose website needs to look good – visually, immediately, with minimal fuss – I still think Squarespace earns its reputation. I built multiple sites and templates on it and never felt like I was fighting the platform.

Read our full Squarespace review →

Where I landed: WordPress + SiteGround

When I started taking websites seriously – not just building them for other things, but building websites as the thing – I needed something different.

I wanted control. I wanted the option to monetise through display ads down the line, which neither Wix nor Squarespace really offers. And I wanted to know that whatever I built, I actually owned it – not just content sitting on someone else’s platform under someone else’s terms.

That meant WordPress. Self-hosted, full control, no limits on what I could eventually do with it.

For hosting, I went with SiteGround – and I’ve stayed there. A few reasons:

The support is genuinely good. Quick live chat, real answers, not endless scripted responses. When something’s gone wrong, or I’ve not been sure how to do something, SiteGround’s support has consistently sorted it quickly.

Starting new sites is simple. SiteGround’s setup prompts make spinning up a new WordPress site straightforward, which matters when you’re running multiple sites and don’t want each new project to be its own ordeal.

It’s held up as my portfolio has grown. Running several sites from one hosting account is a different demand than running one, and SiteGround hasn’t given me a reason to look elsewhere as that number has grown over time.

This is genuinely the setup behind every site in my portfolio now – WordPress for the platform, SiteGround for the hosting. It’s the combination I’d recommend to anyone who’s outgrown what Wix or Squarespace can offer, or who knows from the start that they want that level of control.

Read our full SiteGround review →
Read: How to start a WordPress website for beginners →

The tools that run alongside everything

Beyond the platform and hosting, there’s a small set of tools that have become part of how I work across every site.

Grammarly – because spelling

This one’s simple. I write a lot, across multiple sites, and Grammarly catches the things I miss when I’m moving quickly. Typos, awkward phrasing, the occasional embarrassing autocorrect disaster. It’s not glamorous, but it’s one of those tools that quietly saves me from looking less careful than I actually am.

Read our full Grammarly review →

Canva – design and social media

Canva has become genuinely indispensable, and it keeps getting better. Whether it’s a quick graphic for a blog post, a social media image, or putting together something for a digital product, Canva is where it happens. I don’t have design training, and Canva is one of the main reasons that’s never felt like a barrier.

BlogtoPin – for Pinterest

For sites where Pinterest is a meaningful traffic source – and for me, it genuinely is – BlogtoPin helps with designing and scheduling pins. Pinterest is its own world with its own rules, and having a tool that’s specifically built around that makes the whole process far less time-consuming than trying to do it manually.

Email marketing: Kit

For email, I use Kit – and I use it in two different ways depending on the site.

For my site, which has an active email newsletter and digital products, I have a paid Kit account. The newsletter is a real part of that business, and the digital products benefit from Kit Commerce and the automation capability that comes with the paid plan.

For sites where the email side is simpler – a sign-up form and a welcome email, nothing more elaborate than that – I use Kit’s free plan. The free tier’s generosity (up to 10,000 subscribers) means it covers what those sites need without any cost, and I’d rather have one tool I know well across different sites than juggle different platforms for different needs.

Sticking with one email platform across every site, rather than picking whatever seems trendy for each new project, has also just made my own life easier – I’m not relearning a new interface or a new automation builder every time I start something new.

Read our full Kit review →

Selling digital products: Payhip and Etsy

For digital products, I use Payhip and Etsy.

Etsy gives me access to an audience I haven’t had to build myself – people are already there, searching for things in the categories I sell in. The trade-off is the fees and the lack of a direct customer relationship, but as a channel alongside everything else, it works.

Payhip is more straightforward – selling digital products directly, with more control and better margins than Etsy, but without Etsy’s built-in audience. Using both together means I get Etsy’s reach and Payhip’s ownership, rather than relying on just one.

This combination – one channel for discovery, one channel I fully control – is a pattern that shows up elsewhere in my toolkit too. It’s the same underlying logic as running WordPress on my own hosting rather than relying entirely on a platform I don’t own.

So – what should you actually use?

Here’s the honest answer: probably not exactly this. This is what’s evolved for me, over time, across my specific projects, based on my specific priorities – control, the option to monetise with ads, running multiple sites, selling digital products.

Your priorities might be completely different. Maybe you just want something simple that looks good with minimal effort – Squarespace might be your answer and you might never need to think about WordPress at all. Maybe you’re starting a shop and Shopify is genuinely the better fit than anything I’ve described here. Maybe email marketing isn’t part of your plan yet, and that’s fine too.

The point of sharing all this isn’t “do what I do.” It’s “here’s how one real person’s toolkit actually evolved, and why” – in the hope that it’s more useful than another abstract comparison.

If you want help figuring out what’s actually right for your situation, that’s what the quizzes on this site are for.

Take the platform quiz →
Take the WordPress hosting quiz →
Take the email marketing quiz →

Frequently asked questions

What tools do you actually use to build and run your websites?
WordPress on SiteGround hosting for every site in my portfolio, Canva for design, Grammarly for writing, BlogtoPin for Pinterest, Kit for email, and Payhip and Etsy for digital products. Each one earned its place over time rather than being chosen all at once – the full story of how that toolkit evolved is above.

Would you recommend the same tools to someone just starting out?
Not automatically. What I use now reflects priorities that took years to develop – wanting full ownership, planning to monetise with display ads, running several sites at once. Someone just starting out with simpler needs might be genuinely better served by Wix or Squarespace, at least to begin with, rather than jumping straight to a self-hosted WordPress setup.

Why did you move from Wix and Squarespace to WordPress?
Mainly control and ownership. Wix and Squarespace are genuinely good at what they do, but neither offers the option to monetise through display ads, and both mean your site ultimately lives on someone else’s platform under their terms. Once that started to matter to me, self-hosted WordPress was the only option that fit.

Do you use different tools for different websites in your portfolio?
The platform and hosting stay the same everywhere – WordPress and SiteGround. Where it varies is scale: Kit is a good example, where I run a paid account on my main site with an active newsletter and digital products, and the free plan on sites where the email side is simpler.

How has your toolkit changed over time?
It’s moved from all-in-one platforms (Wix, then Squarespace) towards a self-hosted setup with individual best-in-class tools layered on top for specific jobs – writing, design, Pinterest, email, and digital product sales. Each addition came from hitting a specific limitation with what I had, not from switching tools for the sake of it.