BaseKit 2025 Year in Review
BaseKit’s 2025 story reflects progress in AI, stronger ecosystem partnerships, higher B Corp standards, and deeper team collaboration, all designed to help small businesses get online faster, more responsibly, and with greater confidence.
Strategic partnerships and ecosystem growth
Among several new exciting partnerships across the hosting, logistics and online market place industries, one of the biggest highlights of 2025 was our new partnership with Mastercard. Together we aim to boost digital inclusion for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) globally by integrating BaseKit’s AI website builder and e-commerce capabilities into Mastercard’s new Merchant Cloud ecosystem.
This partnership positions BaseKit as a key enabler for financial institutions supporting small business digitisation across EMEA. In October, we joined Mastercard’s EDGE event in Dubai to demonstrate the BaseKit platform and connect with regional leaders to better understand their challenges. The response and engagement from the event were fantastic.
We also announced a partnership with the Netherlands-based wholesale domain registrar RealTime Register, expanding BaseKit’s reach within the domains and hosting ecosystem and strengthening routes to market for white-label deployments. RealTime Register also became our new platform domain provider.
Market trends and insight
This year we observed a clear industry shift among banking leaders, with many now prioritising customer experience, aligning their strategic goals around delivering additional value to customers rather than simply doing more with less.
We also explored the growing trend of services beyond banking, where banks are evolving from product providers into full business-enablement platforms for SMEs. Small business customers increasingly expect their banks to act as growth partners, supporting them to attract customers, run operations more efficiently, and grow revenue through value-added services.
Our research showed that innovation in AI, no-code, and e-commerce will be key trends defining website builders in 2026. However, for AI in particular, success depends on accessibility. Companies that innovate with embedded, easy-to-adopt AI tools are best placed to help small businesses thrive.
With growing pressures on SaaS vendors to deliver AI capabilities, we’ve seen market leaders blend automation, intelligence, and integration to create smarter, scalable workflows. White-label partnerships built with open ecosystems have also played a major role in enabling sustainable innovation without expanding headcount too quickly.
Advancing AI and onboarding experiences
As AI became more practical in 2025, BaseKit leaned in to streamline workflows for our partners’ small business customers. Our new multi-page AI onboarding flow helps users launch content-rich, professional websites in minutes, driving faster engagement from day one.
BaseKit customers can now start a website with AI, alongside our existing ‘Start a website with a template’ flow. Early analysis revealed that template onboarding journeys still perform toe-to-toe with AI-assisted experiences, an encouraging sign that BaseKit continues to cater effectively to diverse user preferences.
We also added AI enhancements for content creation and product descriptions, with SEO automation next on our roadmap.
Design and commerce
Throughout the year, we released a wave of design and UX enhancements, including a drag-and-drop shape widget, richer heading controls, new button styles, and a featured product carousel to help customers better showcase key products and services.
Store owners gained new tools such as promotional product ribbons, customer account logins, and enhanced shipping and payment integrations with SendCloud and Stripe Elements. Collectively, these updates have made it easier for small businesses to build more flexible, localised storefronts that convert.
Platform security
Security remains a core focus at BaseKit. In addition to our twice‑monthly automated penetration tests, we partnered with an industry‑leading security firm to conduct comprehensive, human‑led penetration testing of the BaseKit platform.
We strengthened our vulnerability management processes. Using Snyk and GitHub Dependabot, we continuously scan for potential vulnerabilities, and this year we formalised how our development and operations teams triage and respond to alerts, ensuring swift, severity‑based action to keep our platform secure. We also reviewed and improved our processes and security around cloud access accounts (IAM).
Goodbyes
Earlier this year, we said a heartfelt thank you to our VP of Product, Gordon Plant, who will be retiring at the end of Q1 2026 after an incredible 17-year journey with BaseKit.
From shaping our product vision to delivering features that empower millions of small businesses, Gordon’s impact has been profound. As our CEO, Simon Best shared:
“Gordon has been a key member of the BaseKit team since the very early days and he is the driving force behind our product vision and execution. That’s 17 incredible years of working with us and growing the business. It has been a privilege to travel all over the world with Gordon representing BaseKit at trade shows and visiting partners. He is well respected not just by the BaseKit team but also by many partners and friends across the hosting industry. We wish him all the best in his retirement starting next year.”
Raising the bar with new B Corp standards
In 2025 we strengthened our commitment to responsible growth by aligning with the revised B Corp standards. These new benchmarks have guided us to increase accountability, transparency, and consistency in how we support our people, design our products, and consider our broader impact.
We’ve listened more intentionally to feedback, embedded fairness and inclusion deeper into our decisions, and reinforced our belief that people, planet, and profit are interconnected. Together, this work helps BaseKit continue building a people-first culture while driving measurable positive change for our partners and the wider ecosystem.
Company Kaizen
This year, we introduced a new company-wide Kaizen process to gather meaningful employee feedback and inspire continuous improvement. Monthly sessions gave every team member a chance to share what they liked, learned, lacked, and longed for – insights that guided tangible actions to improve communication, processes, and our working environment.
Local community
On Earth Day in April, we pledged to litter-pick Bristol’s Castle Park twice a year. Our first clean-up came immediately after the city’s huge 4/20 event, when our BaseKit crew gathered to restore our local park, a small but meaningful contribution to our local environment.
We also continued our support for Caring in Bristol, our local charity of the year. The team helped with their spring fundraising appeal by helping to prep 4,000 envelopes for distribution with vital support for people experiencing homelessness in our community.
They also took on the Three Peaks Challenge in South Wales, tackling 55,000+ steps to raise funds for homelessness support. Their determination and teamwork showed that no challenge is too big with the right mindset (and a few snacks).
Looking ahead
As we close 2025, we’re proud of the progress we’ve made, from powering new global partnerships to advancing our AI capabilities and recommitting to responsible, B Corp-driven growth.
BaseKit enters 2026 with strong momentum, a clearer sense of purpose, and a shared mission: to make getting online faster, simpler, and more accessible for small businesses everywhere. Here’s to another year of innovation, inclusion, and impact, together.
Reflecting on the year, CEO, Simon Best said:
“This year, we’ve tailored our products and services to meet the needs of new sectors including banking, payments, and SaaS, building on our strong foundation in telco and hosting. We’re proud to be partnering with leading global brands who trust BaseKit to power websites and stores for their small business customers.
We’ve also advanced our AI vision, enhancing key parts of the platform to complement our simple editing tools. Our users now have the choice of building their sites manually or using our multi-page AI technology, both delivering great results and control.
It’s been a busy, transformative year thanks to our dedicated team driving growth and innovation. Looking ahead to 2026, we’ll continue to evolve our AI to make creating stores and booking experiences even easier, keeping BaseKit at the forefront of small business digital tools. And with an exciting new partner announcement early next year, we’re entering a brand-new sector that perfectly aligns with our vision.”