Guide
Wix vs Squarespace vs a custom site
These three options suit genuinely different people, and the marketing for all of them is unhelpful. Here is what each actually costs in 2026, what you give up, and who should pick which.
The prices, plainly
Wix runs four paid plans: Light at $17 a month, Core at $29, Business at $39 and Business Elite at $159, billed annually. Monthly billing costs 5–8% more.
Squarespace runs $16 to $99 a month billed annually — Basic around $19, Core around $29, Plus around $49.
A built site is typically $750–$2,500 once from a fixed-price studio, or $4,000–$6,000 from a US agency. Hosting afterwards is a few dollars a month and the domain about $15 a year.
What the subscription price hides
The monthly fee is not the real cost of a DIY builder. The real cost is your time: twenty to forty hours to build something you are happy with, and then the ongoing small maintenance that you will keep putting off.
The second hidden cost is that you are renting. Stop paying and the site disappears. There is no equivalent of owning the files.
The third is portability. Wix sites cannot be exported and moved elsewhere in any practical sense. Squarespace is somewhat better but still not a clean handover. If you outgrow the platform, you rebuild.
Three-year totals
| 3-year cost | Your hours | You own it? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Core | ~$1,044 | 20–40 | No |
| Wix Business | ~$1,404 | 20–40 | No |
| Fixed-price build | $750 + hosting | ~2 | Yes |
| Agency build | $4,000+ | ~5 | Yes |
The comparison that surprises people is the first three rows. A one-time $750 build is cheaper than either builder before the end of year two, and costs you two hours instead of thirty.
Who should pick what
Pick Wix or Squarespace if you enjoy this kind of thing, you want to change the site constantly yourself, or the business is new enough that you are still working out what it is. Squarespace is better looking out of the box; Wix is more flexible and more cluttered.
Pick a built site if your time is worth more than the difference, you want it done once and done properly, or you want to own the domain and files outright.
Pick an agency if you need genuine brand work, complex functionality, or you are large enough that the site is a system rather than a page.
The one thing to check before you commit
Whichever you choose, ask what happens if you leave. Can you take the domain? Can you take the content? Will the site keep working?
With a builder the answer is no, and that is the trade you are making for convenience. With a built site the answer should be yes, and if a studio will not give you that in writing, that tells you what you need to know about them.