What Does a Florist Website Actually Need?
Before you start comparing platforms, it helps to know what a florist website needs to do - because it's not the same as a regular business website. You're not just listing opening hours and a phone number. You need a site that takes orders, manages deliveries, and looks good enough to match the flowers you're selling.
Here's what matters:
Online ordering with a proper checkout. Your customers want to pick a bouquet, choose a delivery date, and pay - all from their phone. If your website can't do that, you're handing orders to florists who can.
Delivery management. Same-day cutoff times, AM/PM slots, delivery zones with different pricing, click and collect. These aren't extras - they're how your business runs.
Mobile-first design. Over 60% of flower orders come from phones. If your site is slow or hard to use on mobile, customers don't complain - they just go to the next result on Google.
Payment processing. Stripe, Apple Pay, Google Pay - the payment methods people actually trust. If your checkout asks customers to type in card details manually, you're losing sales.
SEO for local search. When someone types "florist near me" or "flower delivery [your town]" into Google, your site needs to come up. Fast loading, mobile optimisation, proper meta tags, structured data - that's what gets you there.
Wedding and funeral pages. These are your highest-value enquiries. A dedicated page with an enquiry form does a lot more work than a paragraph buried somewhere on your homepage.
Product management. You need to add, edit, and remove products without hassle. Stock changes constantly. If every update means calling your provider or digging into code, that's a real problem.
Option 1: WordPress
WordPress runs on roughly 40% of all websites online. Ask anyone where to start and it'll probably be the first thing they mention - but widespread use doesn't make it the right fit for a florist.
How it works: You sort hosting (£5-15/month), install WordPress for free, pick a theme somewhere between £0-80, then start adding plugins for everything your shop actually needs. WooCommerce for the store, something for delivery management, something for SEO, something for security. Before long you've got six plugins running and the costs are stacking up.
The real cost: Hosting looks cheap at the start. A decent e-commerce theme runs £40-80, payment gateway extensions cost £50-80/year, and a delivery plugin that handles time slots and zones will set you back £80-150/year. Add SSL, security, and backups and you're looking at £300-500 in year one, then £150-250/year after that - before your time gets factored in.
The actual problem: WordPress is a general tool. It wasn't built for florists. Getting delivery slots, same-day cutoffs, and postcode-based pricing working properly means stitching together plugins that were never designed to talk to each other. When one updates and breaks another, you're the one sorting it out - or paying someone £50/hour to do it.
On top of that, security patches, backups, and server maintenance all fall on you. WordPress is the most hacked platform on the internet, not because it's insecure, but because most small business owners don't keep on top of plugin updates - and that's understandable when you're also running a shop.
The time investment: Realistically 40-80 hours to get from nothing to a site that's actually taking orders, and that's assuming you're comfortable around tech. If you're not, that number doubles.
Best for: Someone who genuinely enjoys the technical side and has the time to keep on top of it. Not the right call if your hours are better spent elsewhere.
Option 2: Wix
Wix markets itself as the straightforward option, and for certain types of sites that's fair. A basic menu page, a portfolio, a simple blog - it handles those without much fuss.
How it works: Choose a template, move things around, drop in your content, hit publish. No code involved. You'll need to bump up to a Business plan to sell anything.
The real cost: The Basic Business & eCommerce plan is around £16/month, covering hosting, SSL, and the core selling tools. Most florists end up adding paid apps from the Wix App Market once they realise what's missing.
The actual problem: Wix wasn't built with florists in mind. There's no native delivery zone management, no same-day cutoff logic, no time slot selection. You can patch bits of it together, but it's a workaround and customers tend to feel when something isn't quite right.
Wix sites also load slower than purpose-built platforms as a rule. Google weighs page speed heavily in local search rankings, so slower loading costs you visibility too.
The templates look decent at first glance, but most Wix florist sites start to look alike because you're working within the same constraints. Your flowers are individual - your website shouldn't look like everyone else's.
The time investment: Around 15-30 hours to get something that looks presentable. Faster than WordPress, but you'll hit walls regularly when the florist-specific features just aren't there.
Best for: Florists after a basic web presence without much complexity - and who don't need proper delivery management.
Option 3: Squarespace
Squarespace has a strong reputation for design. It tends to be what gets recommended when someone says they want their site to look polished.
How it works: Same general idea as Wix - pick a template, customise it, fill it with your content. The templates tend to be cleaner and more considered than Wix. E-commerce comes in from the Business plan up.
The real cost: The Basic Business plan sits at around £12/month. You get hosting, SSL, and a tidy editor to work in. There's a 2% transaction fee at that level, which drops off if you move up to a Commerce plan.
The actual problem: A nice template doesn't fix the delivery problem. There's nothing built in for florist logistics - no time slots, no zone pricing, no cutoffs. You end up building workarounds or running a checkout that doesn't reflect how your business actually operates.
When you need something the platform doesn't offer, you're stuck. Unlike WordPress, there's no plugin ecosystem to fill the gaps - you're working entirely within what Squarespace gives you.
The time investment: Somewhere between 15-25 hours. The templates take care of a lot of the visual side, but time gets eaten up working around what isn't there.
Best for: Florists for whom aesthetics are the priority, who don't need complex delivery management, and are comfortable giving up flexibility for a cleaner design experience.
Option 4: Shopify
Shopify is about as well known as e-commerce platforms get. Big brands use it, it's well supported, and it handles online selling seriously.
How it works: The core selling tools are all included - product management, checkout, payments, inventory tracking. Anything beyond the basics comes from the app store.
The real cost: Basic plan starts at £25/month plus a 2% transaction fee. The apps you'll need on top - delivery date selection, florist-specific features, more granular shipping rules - typically run £5-20/month each. Once you've got the right setup, most florists are paying £40-70/month in total.
The actual problem: Shopify was designed around courier-based retail. That's a good fit for most online shops, but florist delivery works differently. You're not dropping a parcel with Royal Mail - you're getting a handmade, perishable product to someone's door within a tight local window.
Making it handle "order before 2pm for same-day delivery to these postcodes, morning or afternoon" takes multiple paid apps running together. It can be made to work, but it costs more than it should and the configuration can be brittle.
The time investment: 20-40 hours to get configured properly, depending on which apps you need and how they play together.
Best for: Florists who also shift non-perishable gifts and want one platform across both, or anyone who has a tech-confident person managing the site day to day.
Option 5: Traditional Florist Website Providers
Most UK florists are on one of these. Florist Window and FloristPro have been building sites for the industry for well over ten years and they understand the sector.
How it works: Pay a monthly fee, they build and host the site. Delivery zones, time slots, relay orders, seasonal stock - they know how a flower shop works and the features reflect that.
The real cost: Usually £65-90/month, with setup fees starting at £99.99 and additional annual charges layered on top.
The actual problem: The technology hasn't moved with the times. A lot of these platforms were built a decade or more ago and the gap shows - slow load times, designs that feel dated, and mobile experiences that were clearly never the focus. With the majority of orders now coming through phones, that's a significant issue.
You're paying near the top of the market for a product that hasn't kept up.
The time investment: Low - setup is handled for you. But you hand over a lot of control in exchange, and you pay a significant premium for the privilege.
Best for: Florists who want everything taken off their plate and aren't bothered about paying more for it.
Option 6: Purpose-Built Modern Platforms
A newer category - platforms built from scratch specifically for florists, using modern tech, with mobile at the centre of every decision rather than bolted on as an afterthought.
BloomScribe sits in this space. Built for independent UK florists, everything a florist needs comes included: online ordering, Stripe and Apple Pay, delivery management with time slots and zones, SEO, wedding and funeral pages, product management, order notifications. All at £29.99/month with no setup fee, no contract, and nothing hidden in the small print.
When it comes to getting the most for your money on a platform that was actually built for florists, BloomScribe is the strongest option going. The features that the legacy providers charge a premium for - and that the generic builders can't really offer - are all there from the start, at roughly a third of the price.
How it works: Your site is built around your brand - colours, logo, style. Products go in through a straightforward admin panel. Delivery settings, opening hours, pricing - all of it adjustable without going near any code. Everything else, the hosting, security, updates, backups, is taken care of.
The real cost: £29.99/month. That's the whole thing. No setup fee, no annual bill, no required add-ons. First month is free and you can cancel at any point.
What makes it different: Mobile-first from the ground up, not a desktop site with a responsive skin over the top. Pages load in under 2 seconds. The design makes your flowers look as good on a phone screen as they do in the shop.
Because it was built for florists specifically, every part of it connects properly. Delivery zones, time slots, same-day cutoffs, postcode pricing - one system rather than a collection of plugins hoping to cooperate.
The time investment: Days rather than weeks. If you're coming from another platform, products, images, and your Google rankings all move across.
What Matters Most
Once you've gone through the options, a few things consistently determine whether a florist website actually works for the business:
Speed on mobile. Three seconds is roughly where people give up and go elsewhere. It sounds harsh but that's how it works - most won't wait, they'll just hit the back button.
A checkout that doesn't get in the way. Every extra step, every clunky field, every slow-loading page is an order you don't get. Apple Pay and Google Pay are worth having for exactly this reason - people on phones don't want to reach for their wallet.
Showing up on Google. A well-designed site that nobody finds isn't much use. Structured data, fast loading, mobile optimisation, and clean meta tags are what put you in front of someone searching for a florist in your area.
Looking like you mean it. Your flowers speak for themselves in the shop. Online, your website does that job first. A slow, dated site creates doubt before anyone's even seen what you sell.
Where your time goes. Weekends spent troubleshooting plugins or battling platform limitations are weekends not spent on the business. A platform that handles the technical side means you're not the one dealing with it.
Ready to Upgrade Your Florist Website?
If you're fed up paying too much for an outdated site, or wasting weekends trying to get WordPress to do something it wasn't designed for, there's a better option.
BloomScribe gives you a modern, mobile-first florist website with everything you need - online ordering, delivery management, proper design - for £29.99/month. No setup fee. No contract. First month free.
Get in touch and we'll show you what your shop could look like.