What a site builder does well
In short
A builder gets a clean, working site online quickly, for a plan that already covers hosting and the platform's upkeep. For a business that mostly needs to be found and to look credible, that is often enough.
Both platforms sell plans with hosting included, paid monthly or yearly. Wix says its paid plans include hosting and a custom domain, and most yearly plans come with a free domain for the first year; Squarespace says paying yearly saves up to 36 percent.
If you sell online, read the fees as well as the plan price. Squarespace's Basic plan takes a 2 percent transaction fee on online store sales, and its higher plans drop that fee to zero, so a shop with steady sales can pay less on a pricier plan.
The platform maintains its own software, so there is little to look after beyond your words, photos and prices. That is the real advantage for an owner with no one technical on call.
Where a custom site earns its price
In short
A custom site pays off when the site has to do real work for the business, such as sending every inquiry into your CRM or taking bookings on your own terms, or when you want the code and the hosting in your own name.
Our smallest site is the Launch site: 3 to 5 pages with a contact form that emails you. Projects start at $2,500. The Starter site is 5 to 12 pages built for phones first, with an intake form that reaches you by email, the SEO baseline and an accessibility check, launched on your own hosting and domain. The Growth site adds 15 to 30 pages, a CRM hook so each inquiry lands in the tool you run on, and two automations.
The trade runs the other way from a builder. A custom site costs more to start and needs someone to apply updates after launch, which is what our care plans cover for a monthly fee, but nothing about it is rented: the code, the hosting account and the domain are yours.
What you can take with you
In short
A Wix site cannot move to another host, and Squarespace exports only part of a site. A custom site is code in your own repository, so it can move to any host and any developer.
Wix's help center says a Wix site must run on Wix's servers, because its technology does not support hosting anywhere else. You can buy and manage the domain with another provider, but the pages stay on Wix, so leaving means rebuilding them.
Squarespace can export some content to a file that WordPress imports: layout pages, one blog, and text and image blocks. Its help center lists what stays behind, including store pages, product blocks, other blogs, style settings and custom CSS.
| Wix | Squarespace | A custom site | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How you pay | A plan, monthly or yearly | A plan, monthly or yearly | A build price, then hosting at cost |
| Where it runs | On Wix's servers only | On Squarespace's servers | On your own hosting account, any host |
| If you leave | The domain can move; the pages cannot | Some pages and one blog export to a WordPress file | The whole site moves, code and content |
| Upkeep | The platform's | The platform's | Yours, or a care plan |
| Best fit | A simple site you run yourself | A simple site or a small shop you run yourself | A site that works with your tools, in your name |
Swipe sideways to see every column
What this means for a small business
In short
Start on a builder if the site only needs to be found and to look right, and plan a custom site for when it has to do work or you want to own it outright. Moving later means rebuilding the design, so decide before the site grows large.
List what you want the site to do in the next two years, not only what it shows. If every item is a page, a builder will likely serve you well; if items read like "send", "book" or "sync", those are jobs for a custom build or for tools a builder cannot connect.
If you are in Los Angeles, we can look at the site you have in person and tell you plainly whether it needs replacing. Sometimes the answer is to stay where you are and fix a few pages.