Wix or Squarespace, or paying someone: what it really costs
The comparison people make is a builder subscription of a few pounds a month against a one-off fee of several hundred, and on that basis the builder wins easily. It is also the wrong comparison, because it counts one side's costs and not the other's.
This page sets out every cost on both sides over three years, including the ones that do not appear on an invoice. Prices for the platforms change regularly, so check the current figures rather than trusting any number written on a page like this one, including mine.
What a builder actually costs
The subscription is the visible part, billed monthly or annually, and the cheapest tiers usually will not do what a business needs: custom domains, removing platform branding, taking payments and proper analytics tend to sit further up the pricing table.
Then the add-ons. Booking, ecommerce beyond a handful of products, advanced forms and email marketing are frequently separate paid apps on top. A site with three of those can cost several times the headline subscription.
Then your time, which is the cost nobody counts. Learning the editor, laying out pages, writing the words, sizing images, getting it working on a phone, and coming back every time something needs changing. A first site built by its owner is rarely under thirty or forty hours. Price your own hour at what you charge a customer and that number is uncomfortable.
Then the maintenance nobody plans for. Platforms change their editors, images break, forms stop delivering silently, and content goes stale. Every one of those is another evening.
What paying someone costs
A build fee, then usually a monthly amount for hosting and upkeep. Mine is £249 to build and £49.99 a month, which covers hosting, changes, updates, monitoring and support. Agencies charge considerably more for the build and often a similar monthly figure.
The costs that are easy to miss are the domain if it is not included, and whatever you pay for changes after launch. Ask both questions before agreeing anything, because a cheap build with expensive change requests is a trap.
Three years of my arrangement is the build plus thirty-six months, which is a number you can work out on a phone. The question is whether that is worth more than three years of a subscription plus your evenings, and the answer genuinely depends on what your evenings are worth.
When a builder is the right answer
If you enjoy it, a builder is fine and you should use one. Some people do and their sites look good.
If the business is brand new and unproven, spending nothing while you find out whether it works is sensible. A simple builder site is better than no site.
If you need something online this weekend, a builder is faster than hiring anyone.
Anyone telling you a website builder is always the wrong choice is selling you something. They are a genuinely useful product used by millions of businesses.
When paying someone is the right answer
When your hours are worth more doing your actual job. A tradesman charging by the day loses more in two lost evenings than the build costs.
When the site has to be found on Google. Builders can be made to rank, but the technical setup, the page structure and the writing take knowledge that takes time to acquire, and most self-built sites never get it.
When you have already tried and stalled. This is the commonest reason people come to me: a half-finished builder site that has been nearly done for eight months.
When you want somebody to ring when it breaks. That is the real difference between the two models, and it is worth more than the design.
Questions to ask whoever you hire
Who owns the domain, and is it registered in my name? The correct answer is you and yes.
What happens if I stop paying monthly: does the site go offline, and can I take it elsewhere?
What does a change cost after launch, and how quickly are they done?
Can I see three sites you built that are still live, with the businesses named?
A builder that cannot answer the first two clearly is a bigger risk than any subscription.
Common questions
- Is a Wix site bad for SEO?
- Not inherently, and that claim is outdated. Wix and Squarespace both produce sites that Google can index perfectly well. The gap is usually not the platform, it is that a self-built site rarely gets the page structure, the titles and the local wording that ranking needs.
- Can I move a Wix or Squarespace site somewhere else?
- The content can be moved but the site itself cannot: both platforms are closed, so a move means rebuilding. Your words and photographs transfer, the design does not. That is worth knowing before you invest years into one.
- Why is £249 so much cheaper than an agency quote?
- No premises, no payroll, no sales commission and no project manager. I do the design and the build myself and reuse layouts and enquiry flows that already work on live sites, which takes days out of a build. The writing is done fresh every time.
- What if I stop paying the monthly fee?
- You keep the domain, which is registered in your name, and the site content is yours. The hosting and the ongoing changes stop. There is no clause that holds your website hostage, and you should check that with anyone you hire.
- How many hours does building your own site really take?
- For a first-timer doing a genuine small business site, expect thirty to fifty hours spread over weeks, more if you write the content from scratch. People routinely estimate a weekend and are surprised.
If you would rather somebody just did it
I build websites for self-employed tradesmen and small businesses across the UK: £249 to build, then £49.99 a month to host, maintain and update it. The sites I have built currently hold 97 page-one Google rankings between them.