· 5 min read
Wix vs Squarespace vs a custom website: which is right for your business?
Short answer: Wix is the most flexible DIY builder, Squarespace gives the most polished results with the least effort, and a custom website is worth it once your site needs to win work rather than just exist. The right choice depends less on features than on how much the website matters to your income.
The quick comparison
| Wix | Squarespace | Custom website | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | £0 (your time) | £0 (your time) | usually £500–10,000 with a freelancer |
| Monthly cost | from £9 (annual billing) | from £12 (annual billing) | hosting and care, often £10–150 |
| Design | templates, drag anywhere | templates, neat but similar | designed around your business |
| Time to launch | days, if you do it yourself | days, if you do it yourself | usually 2–8 weeks |
| Can you move it later? | no, it stays on Wix | only blog posts and products | yes, if you own the files |
| Best for | tinkerers, very small budgets | creatives, simple service sites | businesses that rely on the site for work |
Wix: what it costs and who it suits
UK plans on annual billing in 2026: Light £9 a month (no selling), Core £16 (basic online shop), Business £25 and Business Elite £119. Paying monthly adds roughly 16–28%. Card payments through Wix cost 2.1% + 20p per UK transaction. The domain is free for the first year on annual plans, then renews at around £10–20 a year; business email is extra.
Good at: freedom. You can drag anything anywhere, and there’s an app for almost everything.
Watch out for: that freedom makes it easy to build pages that look fine on a laptop and messy on a phone. And a Wix site can’t be moved: it has to stay on Wix’s servers, so leaving means rebuilding.
Squarespace: what it costs and who it suits
UK plans on annual billing in 2026: Basic £12 a month, Core £17, Plus £29 and Advanced £79. Monthly billing costs 13–41% more. On Basic, Squarespace takes a 2% fee on physical product sales, on top of card fees of around 2% + 25p.
Good at: good-looking templates and a tidy editor. It’s hard to make a Squarespace site look truly bad.
Watch out for: sites tend to look alike, and some business tools, such as scheduling and email marketing, are paid add-ons. When you leave, you can export blog posts and products, but pages, layouts and forms have to be rebuilt.
A custom website: what it costs and who it suits
A custom website is designed around your business and customers, then built either on a platform you can edit yourself or as a fast, simple site. UK freelancers typically charge £500–1,500 for a simple brochure site and £1,500–3,000 for a five-to-ten page business site; agencies charge more. Full ranges are in how much a small business website costs.
Good at: turning visitors into enquiries. A designer starts from what your customers need to see and do, so the structure, wording and layout all push towards one goal.
Watch out for: quality varies hugely between designers, and so do running costs. Check who owns the domain and files, and what happens after launch.
What builders don’t tell you
- The template isn’t the hard part. Deciding what to say, in what order, for which customer, is where most DIY sites go wrong.
- Your time has a price. Most people spend several days building a DIY site, then keep tinkering.
- Prices add up. The domain after year one, business email and paid apps for booking or forms can easily double the headline monthly price.
- Leaving is expensive. If you outgrow the builder, you pay for a new site anyway.
Three-year cost, side by side
An illustrative comparison for a simple service business, using typical 2026 prices:
| Wix (Light) | Squarespace (Basic) | Custom (freelancer) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build | your time | your time | £2,000 |
| Plan or hosting | £9 a month | £12 a month | £10 a month |
| Domain after year one | about £15 a year | about £20 a year | about £15 a year |
| Business email | about £5 a month | about £5 a month | about £5 a month |
| Three-year total | about £530 + your time | about £650 + your time | about £2,570 |
The builders are cheaper in cash. Whether that’s cheaper overall depends on whether the site brings in work. If a custom site wins you one or two extra clients a year, it has usually paid for the difference.
How to decide
- Testing an idea or very early days? Start with a builder. Squarespace if you want it to look good quickly, Wix if you like to tinker.
- Most of your work comes from word of mouth, and the site just needs to confirm you’re real? A builder or a simple one-page site is often enough.
- People find you through Google, ads or social media, and decide online? The site is doing sales work. A custom site usually pays off.
- Selling products? Compare Shopify (Basic is £19 a month on annual billing) with a custom shop. For a handful of products, a builder’s shop plan can be fine.
- Planning to grow? Pick something you can take with you, or accept you’ll rebuild later.
You don’t have to choose forever. Plenty of businesses start on a builder, learn what customers ask about, then move to a custom site with much clearer content. That first site is research.
Common questions
Is Wix or Squarespace better for a small business?
Squarespace is usually easier to make look good; Wix gives you more freedom and more apps. For a simple service business, both work. The bigger question is whether you have the time to do the writing and structure well.
Can a designer build my site on Squarespace or Wix?
Yes, many do. You get professional design while keeping an editor you know. You’ll still have the platform’s limits and monthly fees.
Is a custom website better for SEO?
Not automatically. Google cares about useful content, speed and a clear structure. A well-built custom site makes those easier to get right, but a good builder site can rank too.
Can I move from Wix to a custom website later?
Yes, but the site itself can’t be exported, so it’s rebuilt. Your domain can be moved, and old addresses should be redirected so you keep your Google rankings.
Not sure how big the site should be? Read landing page or full website.
Tatiana · UX/UI, web & product designer in the UK with 10+ years across B2B and B2C. I design and build websites for small businesses, and design products and apps for startups and established teams.