The short answer: Wix is an excellent choice for testing a business on a minimal budget with a site you build yourself. As soon as the site must carry your credibility, generate enquiries and last, custom takes the lead: you are an owner, not a tenant. Here is the full comparison, without caricature. The Wix prices quoted were checked on wix.com on 31 August 2026.
What Wix does very well
If Wix powers millions of websites, there are good reasons. The editor can be mastered with no technical knowledge, hosting and domain are included, and a site can be live the same weekend. For a starting independent, a business idea to validate or a one-off project, it is a perfectly rational answer. If your only need is a simple presence you manage yourself, Wix does that job very well.
What Wix really costs
On the international wix.com/plans page (checked on 31 August 2026), paid plans display from $17.77 to $159.77 per month billed annually, local taxes included; displayed prices vary by region. The mid-tier plan sits around $30 per month.
The amount matters less than the model: a subscription is rent. At around $30 per month, you will have paid more than $1,800 after five years, and the site will still not belong to you: impossible to take your site to another host, retrieve the code or continue without a subscription. Add the paid apps for missing features, and the platform's price evolutions, which you undergo.
The comparison, criterion by criterion
| Criterion | Wix | Custom website |
|---|---|---|
| Initial cost | Close to zero | From EUR 5,000 (entry) or EUR 12,000 (custom) |
| Recurring cost | Monthly subscription forever | Yearly hosting (first year included with us) |
| Ownership | Rental: the site stays at Wix | The code and the site belong to you |
| Design | Templates shared with thousands of sites | Designed for your business, unique |
| Go-live | A few days | A few weeks to about twelve weeks |
| Who does the work | You | A team (design, development, content) |
| Evolution | Within the platform's limits | Free: integrations, multilingual, business modules |
| Leaving / migration | Content rebuilt elsewhere | Portable site, code in hand |
The limits that end up mattering
Three ceilings come up in every story of a company leaving Wix. Differentiation: your template is used by thousands of other sites, and your competitors have access to the same ones. Customisation: as soon as a need falls outside the frame (an integration with your business software, a specific conversion journey, proper multilingual), the platform says no or does it halfway. The exit: the day you want to move on, nothing travels: you start again, preserving what can be preserved on the visibility side with a real migration method.
Choose Wix if...
- You are starting out and every euro counts: an imperfect site online beats a beautiful project on hold.
- You want to do everything yourself, right now, depending on nobody.
- The website is secondary to your business: an online business card is enough.
Choose custom if...
- The site is a sales channel: it must inspire trust and produce measurable enquiries.
- You want to own your tool, not rent a platform.
- Your project involves multilingual content, integrations or a specific client journey.
- This is your second website: the first one taught you what is missing.
In between, our Start package plays in the same budget league as a few years of Wix subscription, with a design framed by a designer and, in its AI-generated version, code that belongs to you. The detail is in our packages and in our article on website prices.
The questions we get asked
Can you migrate from Wix to a custom website? Yes, and it is common work: content is carried over, the addresses that matter are redirected, and existing visibility is preserved with method. The Wix site itself cannot be exported, but what it contains can.
Can a Wix site rank well? Yes, especially on local searches with little competition: the basic tools (titles, descriptions, sitemap) are there. The limit is structural: you optimise within the platform's frame, with the same engine as everyone else. On competitive queries, custom foundations make the difference.
Does the Brussels grant apply? The Prime Digitalisation targets external consultancy missions: a Wix subscription you manage alone is not one. A project delivered by a provider can qualify, under conditions: see our guide to the grant.
Hesitating for your own project? Describe it to us: if Wix is the right answer at your stage, we will say so.