Wix vs WordPress vs Squarespace: which suits a small business?

We build custom websites for a living, so you might expect this article to end with "hire a developer". It doesn't always. For plenty of small businesses, a website builder is a perfectly sensible choice, as long as you pick the right one and know its limits before you commit.

Here's how the three most common options compare, and the situations where each one fits.

The short version

• Squarespace: the most polished templates and the least fiddling. Good for service businesses, restaurants, photographers and anyone who cares most about looks and wants things to just work.
• Wix: the most freedom to drag things around, with a huge app market. Good for owners who want to design their own pages and add features without a developer.
• WordPress: the most flexible and the most widely used. Good when the site will grow, needs custom features or will be handed between people over the years. It also needs the most care.

WordPress

WordPress runs over 40 percent of all websites. First, an important distinction: WordPress.org is free, open-source software you install on hosting you choose. WordPress.com is a hosted service built on that software, closer to Wix and Squarespace in how it works. When people say "a WordPress site" they usually mean the self-hosted kind.

What it does well: almost anything. There's a plugin for bookings, memberships, courses, directories, stores (WooCommerce) and every SEO setting you can think of. You own the files and the database, so you can move hosts or developers whenever you like. Nearly every web designer knows it.

Where it bites: you're responsible for updates, security, backups and speed. A WordPress site with twenty-five plugins that nobody has updated in a year is one of the most common ways small businesses get hacked. Page builders like Elementor make design easier but can make pages heavy and slow. Budget for ongoing maintenance, either your own time or a care plan with your developer.

Wix

Wix is an all-in-one hosted builder. You pick a template, drag elements anywhere on the page and publish. Hosting, security and updates are handled for you.

What it does well: freedom and speed of setup. Its app market covers bookings, events, restaurant orders, online stores and more. Its SEO tools have improved a lot over the years and cover the essentials, including custom titles, descriptions, redirects and structured data.

Where it bites: in the classic Wix Editor you can't switch to a different template once your site is live without rebuilding it. You also can't export your site to move it elsewhere. If you leave Wix, you're starting the design over (your text and images can come with you, but the site itself can't). Free-form positioning also makes it easy to build pages that look fine on a laptop and messy on a phone, so check the mobile view of every page.

Squarespace

Squarespace is also all-in-one and hosted, with a tighter design system than Wix. You work within sections and grids, which limits what you can do and also makes it hard to build something ugly.

What it does well: good-looking templates, clean mobile layouts, and built-in tools for scheduling (Acuity), email campaigns, simple stores and member areas. Hosting, SSL and updates are all included. Squarespace also took over Google Domains' customers in 2023, so many businesses already have their domain there.

Where it bites: fewer integrations and less flexibility than WordPress or Wix. Features it doesn't offer usually mean a workaround or a code block. Export is limited too: some content can be exported in a WordPress-compatible file, but the design and many page types can't.

How they compare on SEO

All three can rank. None of them will rank you on their own. Google doesn't favour one platform over another. It looks at your content, how fast and usable your pages are, and the signals around your business. Things to check on any platform:

• Can you edit the title and description of every page? (All three: yes.)
• Can you set up 301 redirects when you change a page's address? (All three: yes, though WordPress may need a plugin.)
• How fast are pages on a phone? This varies more with how you build than with the platform. Heavy images, video backgrounds and lots of apps slow any site down. Our guide to Core Web Vitals explains what to look for.
• Can you add structured data? WordPress through plugins, Wix and Squarespace partly automatically and partly through code blocks.

What about Shopify?

If selling products online is the main point of the site, Shopify belongs on the list. Its checkout, inventory, shipping and tax tools are better than the store features in Wix or Squarespace, and it handles growth well. For a service business with a small shop on the side, the builders' own store features are usually enough. We cover store platforms in more depth on our e-commerce development page.

When a custom build makes more sense

A custom-built site, designed and coded for your business, is worth it when:

• You need features no builder does well, such as custom quote calculators, dealer inventory feeds, customer portals or connections to your own software.
• Speed and search performance are a competitive edge in your market and you want full control over both.
• You've outgrown a builder and keep paying for apps to patch gaps.
• You want a design that doesn't look like a template, and the brand matters enough to justify it.

The trade-off is a higher upfront cost and needing a developer for structural changes. A good custom build should still let you edit text, images, blog posts and pages yourself through a content management system, without touching code. That's how we build ours.

How to choose

Ask yourself four questions. Who will update the site, and how comfortable are they with technology? What will the site need to do two years from now? How much do you care about owning and moving the site later? And what's your real budget for maintenance, in money or time?

If the answers point to "me, simple, not much, very little", go with Squarespace or Wix. If they point to growth, custom features or several people working on it, WordPress or a custom build will serve you better.

Not sure which way to go? Tell us what the site needs to do and we'll give you an honest recommendation, even if it's a builder you set up yourself. You can reach us through our website design page.