The features a small business website needs, by industry

A small business website needs the basics every visitor looks for, and then a short list of features that depend on the trade. The table below lists 28 kinds of business and the features suggested for each, read directly from the industries map in OneCraft’s code on 20 October 2026. The map covers 51 of the 65 capabilities the AI agent can build, and the most common across all 28 are email (9 kinds of business), bookings (8), payments (8) and maps (7).

The basics come first

Before any industry feature, every site needs the same five things: what you do and for whom, where and when you work, prices or how to get one, proof such as reviews, and one clear action. Google’s guidance on local business structured data asks for much the same facts, name, address, opening hours and contact, because those are what people search for. Get these right on a fast, readable page and an industry feature becomes a bonus rather than a crutch.

How to read the table

Each row is one kind of business. The middle column lists the words that match it: if a brief for a new site mentions “physio” or “vet”, it matches the clinic row. The last column is the suggested set of capabilities, each one a feature the agent knows how to build, with its own tables, access rules, screens and admin.

The map is a hint, never a preset. When a brief names a kind of business, the planner sees one line: the capabilities to consider for it, as suggestions, with an instruction to build only what the brief needs. A clinic that does not take online bookings will not get them.

What the capabilities mean

The names are short, so here is what the most common ones build:

• bookings: appointments, reservations and classes with availability, and double bookings refused.
• payments: card payments through the owner’s own Stripe account, one off and subscriptions.
• email: receipts, confirmations, staff alerts and newsletters, within OneCraft’s mail rules.
• maps: locations, a store finder, service areas and delivery zones.
• memberships: members only content, courses with lessons and progress.
• reviews: reviews and ratings with moderation.
• forms: custom forms, surveys, quizzes and applications with a responses table.
• team: a staff directory with bios, photos and book with this person.
• portal: a client area with projects, updates, private files, approvals and invoices.
• quotes and invoices: quote requests customers accept and pay, and invoices with a pay link.
• deposits: a deposit now and the balance later for bookings, rentals and pre orders.
• classes: timetables with sign ups, capacity, waitlists, passes and attendance.
• rentals: equipment, rooms, vehicles or holiday lets by the hour, day or night.

Patterns across industries

Service businesses book. Salons, clinics, tutors, photographers, trades, hotels, and law and accounting firms all carry bookings. Most add reviews or testimonials, because trust decides who gets the appointment.

Trades and agencies quote. Trades, agencies and event businesses carry quotes, and trades, agencies, law and accounting, and IT support carry invoices. Their customers buy a job, not an item.

Communities gather. Churches and clubs, schools and tutors, podcasts and influencers carry community or memberships. Their sites give people a reason to come back.

Shops sell. Shops, grocers, cake shops and digital creators carry a catalog and orders. Cake shops add pre orders and deposits, grocers delivery, digital creators downloads.

Only one industry carries some features. A menu belongs to restaurants, donations to churches and clubs, a roster and offline mode to staff apps, auctions to auction houses. These are the features that make a site recognisably that business.

Where the map stops

The map lists features to consider, not features that are guaranteed to suit you. Some limits apply across all of them on OneCraft: payments run through Stripe only, there is no SMS, no live calendar feed, no push to visitors and no barcode scanning, and the site can only email a signed in person at their own address or the owner. A gym that relies on text reminders, or a restaurant that needs a kitchen printer, should check those limits before relying on the suggested set.

Using this list for your own site

Pick your row and read the suggested set as questions. Do customers book? Do they pay online? Do they come back as members? Keep the features you can answer yes to and drop the rest; a smaller site that does three things well beats a large one that does eight poorly. Then write them into your brief, as the multi page website builder page shows. For a feature that needs data, the website with its own database page explains where it lives, and the restaurant website must haves post goes deeper on one row.