Both are legitimate choices. This page explains what each one actually costs, in money and in time, so you can pick the right one instead of the cheaper-looking one.
Wix is not a bad product. It is a genuinely capable tool used by millions of small businesses, and for some of them it is exactly the right choice. The mistake most comparison pages make is pretending one option is always right, usually because they are trying to sell you the other one. This page does not do that. It sets out plainly what Wix and other DIY builders are good at, what a custom-built website adds, what each route actually costs once you count your own time, and which businesses fit which option. If you finish reading and decide Wix is right for you, that is a fair outcome. Most people reading this, though, are here because a DIY site has already cost them more time than they expected, and want to know what the alternative actually involves.
The appeal of Wix is obvious: a low monthly price and a promise that you can build it yourself in an afternoon. What the pricing page does not show you is the time cost. Choosing a template, rewriting its placeholder text, sourcing and resizing photos, working out the SEO settings, testing it on a phone, and then coming back every few months to update it, none of that is instant, and none of it is free even though no invoice arrives for it. For a business owner already running the actual business, that time has a real cost, even when the software subscription looks cheap. The other issue is less visible until later: a site built on a page-builder platform is tied to that platform. If you want to move it elsewhere, redesign it properly, or hand it to someone else to manage, you are usually starting again rather than migrating, because the site was never really a standalone asset, it was a set of settings inside someone else's system.
A custom-built website flips the time cost. Instead of you assembling the site, a person builds it around your business, using your actual services, your actual area and your actual photos, and hands you a finished, working result rather than a set of blank sections to fill in yourself. It costs more upfront than a Wix subscription, though for a small business site the gap is often smaller than people expect, and it is a one-time build cost rather than a subscription you pay indefinitely. In exchange you get a site that is genuinely yours: the domain is registered in your name, the code is not locked to one platform's editor, and if you ever want to move it, redesign it, or hand it to a different developer, that is a normal thing to do rather than a rebuild from zero. The honest way to choose is to weigh your own time against the price difference, not to assume the cheaper monthly number is automatically the cheaper choice.
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Business Websites
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Business Websites
Real 2026 prices for small business websites across the UK, Ireland, US and Canada. What each price band actually buys, the ongoing costs nobody mentions in the quote, and our own rates published openly.
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Business Websites
Most small business owners never check their website after launch. A free website audit takes under a minute and tells you exactly what is costing you enquiries — speed, mobile, SEO, security and trust signals — scored out of 100 in plain English.
Read MoreNo, and anyone telling you it is has usually got something to sell you. Wix works well for businesses with a simple offer, an owner with some time and a bit of design instinct, and no need to move the site elsewhere later. The trade-off is your own time spent building and maintaining it, and being tied to that platform for as long as the site exists.
The subscription is cheaper on paper, typically around £240 to £360 a year once you add a domain and business email. What that figure leaves out is your own hours spent building, writing and maintaining it, which for most business owners is worth more than the gap in price. We've broken the full cost picture down, DIY, freelancer, studio and agency, in our guide to what a small business website really costs.
Not directly. Wix sites are built inside Wix's own editor and do not export into a standalone website you can host elsewhere. Moving to a custom site later means rebuilding rather than migrating, so if you expect to outgrow Wix eventually, it is worth weighing that rebuild cost against building custom from the start.
Not automatically. Wix sites can rank perfectly well when the SEO basics are set up correctly. What a custom build usually does better is give you more direct control over page structure, loading speed and technical details, particularly as a site grows past a handful of pages. For a simple one-page site the difference is often small; for a multi-page service business it tends to matter more.
Our prices are published openly, starting at £495 for a single sharp page and £895 for a full multi-page site, in your own currency, with no consultation call required to see them. You can see the full breakdown on our pricing page.
Yes. We build a free working demo using your real business details before any money changes hands, which removes the biggest risk of going custom, paying upfront for something you have not seen. If you decide against it, the demo comes down and it has cost you nothing.
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