Squarespace or Wix: which is better?

Squarespace tends to suit design-led sites and small shops, with every plan able to sell. Wix offers more apps and a free plan for testing. For most businesses either is fine for a simple site; the bigger decision is whether you'll outgrow a builder at all.

How do we move from Wix or Squarespace to WordPress without losing traffic?

Map every old URL to its new one, set up 301 redirects, keep titles and content that already rank, and monitor Search Console closely for a few weeks after launch. Most traffic losses come from skipped redirects.

ComparisonPublished October 16, 2026

By Soren Halvorsen, Engineering Lead

A website builder is often the right start. It's rarely the right finish.

Wix and Squarespace get a small business online fast with little upkeep. WordPress takes more work but bends to almost anything. The right choice depends on how much your website has to do, not which platform is 'best'.

Our bias, declared

We build custom sites and WordPress sites, and we don't think every business needs either. If you need a simple, good-looking site with a few pages and you don't want to manage software, Wix or Squarespace is a reasonable choice. Once your site needs to rank for many searches, run complex forms or integrations, or grow into hundreds of pages, the limits of a website builder start costing more than its convenience saves.

Side by side

WordPress vs Wix (and Squarespace) comparison
Factor	WordPress	Wix / Squarespace
Share of websites	About 42% of all websites (W3Techs, 2026)	Wix about 4%, Squarespace about 2.5%
Time to launch a simple site	Days to weeks, usually with help	Hours to days, often without help
Upkeep	Updates, plugins, hosting and security to manage	Handled by the platform
Monthly cost	Hosting plus any paid plugins and maintenance	One subscription, roughly $17-$159 on Wix or $19-$99 on Squarespace billed yearly
Design and feature flexibility	Almost unlimited with themes, plugins and custom code	Limited to what the platform supports
SEO control at scale	Full control of URLs, templates, schema and site structure	Good basics, less control for large or complex sites
Owning and moving your site	Full ownership, move hosts anytime	Tied to the platform, moving means rebuilding
Security risk	Higher if plugins and updates are neglected	Lower, managed by the platform

Choose wordpress when

Your site needs to rank for many searches

If you need dozens or hundreds of service, location or content pages with precise control over structure and schema, WordPress gives you room to grow without hitting a wall.

You need custom features or integrations

Booking systems, CRMs, custom forms, member areas and complex catalogs are far easier on WordPress, with plugins or custom development.

You want to own the site outright

WordPress sites can move to any host. If the platform raises prices or changes terms, you aren't stuck rebuilding from scratch.

Choose wix / squarespace when

You need a simple site fast

A few pages, a contact form and good design can launch in days on Wix or Squarespace, with no developer and almost no upkeep.

Nobody will maintain the site

If no one on your team will handle updates and security, a managed builder avoids the risk of an outdated WordPress site getting hacked.

Design matters more than scale

Squarespace in particular makes clean, visual sites easy, which suits portfolios, small shops and service businesses with simple needs.

What each really costs over time

Website builders look cheaper at first: one subscription covers hosting, security and the editor. Prices can rise, though. Squarespace raised its plan prices in July 2026, so check current pricing before you commit.

WordPress software is free, but you pay for hosting, premium themes or plugins and someone to keep it updated. Outdated plugins and themes are a common way WordPress sites get hacked.

The hidden cost of a builder is the rebuild. If you outgrow it, you usually can't move the site; you rebuild it elsewhere and manage redirects carefully so you don't lose search traffic.

Related questions

Not for simple sites. Wix covers the basics like titles, descriptions, clean URLs and site speed. It becomes limiting for large sites that need detailed control over structure, templates and schema across hundreds of pages.

Other comparisons

Retainer vs project pricingEach model creates a different incentive, and matching the model to the work matters more than negotiating the rate.Full rebrand vs brand refreshThe symptom is usually that the brand looks dated. The diagnosis is almost never that the brand is wrong. And those two problems have very different price tags.Webflow vs a custom buildMost companies pick the platform once, at the point of least information, and live with it for four years. The better question is which one fits the next eighteen months.Programmatic SEO vs Traditional SEOEvery guide gates this decision on resources and a rough hybrid split. The real gate is narrower and less forgiving: does a truly unique dataset exist behind each page you'd generate, or would you be swapping a noun into a template.Wix vs SquarespaceWix gives you more apps, more layout freedom and a free plan to test with. Squarespace gives you cleaner templates and lets every plan sell. For a simple business site, either works. The bigger question is how much your site will need to grow.Webflow vs WordPressWebflow gives designers precise visual control and a hosted, low-maintenance site. WordPress runs a large share of the web and bends to nearly any need, but someone has to look after it. The right choice depends on who builds and runs the site.

Services referenced

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