You're about to build your website and the very first doubt hits you: do I put it together myself on Wix, build it on WordPress or pay for a custom site? All three can end up as a good-looking page. The difference is what comes afterwards: what you can change, what it costs you each month, what happens the day you grow and what happens if one day you want to leave. Here we lay it out straight, without talking up our own corner.
Before we compare, one idea that saves you half the mistakes: the best platform doesn't exist in the abstract. The best one is the one that fits your business, what you're going to ask of the site and the time you can give it. A store that sells doesn't have the same needs as the site of a physio who wants people to call, and what one has to spare the other is short of. Let's take each option for what it is, with its real upsides and limits.
Wix is a website builder where you drag blocks and put the page together from your browser, without touching code. In the same family are Squarespace or Shopify's own editor for stores. You pay a monthly fee and, in return, you get the software, the hosting and the support in one place.
For it: you start today, you don't need anyone to publish and the fee covers almost everything. For a simple site run by one person who wants a presence and little more, it does the job.
Against it: you work within the platform's limits. What Wix doesn't let you do, you don't do, and when your business asks for something custom you hit a ceiling. Performance and SEO start at a disadvantage against a well-built site, and here's the key point: the site isn't fully yours. It lives on Wix, with its design and its rules, and moving it elsewhere isn't an "export and paste", it's rebuilding it. You stop paying and, in practice, you stop having a site.
Wix makes sense if it's just you, you want something quick and cheap to get going and you accept it's a starting point, not the final home.
WordPress is the content manager that a large part of the internet is built with. It's not a single thing: it's a base on which you build the site with a theme and a set of plugins (small programs that add features). You install it on your own hosting, so the site is yours and you can take it wherever you want.
For it: huge flexibility, almost any feature already exists as a plugin, it's relatively cheap to build and it doesn't tie you to any company. For a blog, a services site or a store with WooCommerce, it's a solid, widely used option.
Against it: that same freedom is its flip side. WordPress has to be maintained: the manager, the theme and the plugins update constantly, and a neglected site turns slow and insecure. If you pile up plugins without judgement, the site bloats and starts to break. It's not "set it and forget it"; it needs care (we cover it in what website maintenance is). Well looked after it's great; abandoned, it's trouble waiting to happen.
WordPress fits when you want a complete site, with a blog or store, that is truly yours, and you have someone (you or whoever runs it for you) to keep it up to date.
A custom site is built for your specific case, without the weight of a generic system that brings a thousand things you don't use. It can start from a very finely tuned WordPress or be coded from scratch. The difference isn't the tool, it's the approach: every piece is there because your business needs it, not because it came with the template.
For it: speed and performance in another league, a design that's yours alone and not a template you've seen on ten other sites, and the site does exactly what your business asks, no more and no less. It's the base on which you can really grow.
Against it: it costs more and takes longer to be ready, because there's design and development work behind it. It makes no sense for a project that's still testing whether it'll exist or for someone who only needs a business card on the internet.
A custom site makes sense when the site is a working tool that brings you clients, when your image genuinely matters and when you're thinking about the coming years, not just getting by. If you want to see how we approach it, it's in web design.
Comparing just the starting price is misleading, because each option spreads the cost differently. Wix is a little each month but forever, and what you pay is rent on a site that isn't yours. WordPress is cheaper to build, but add hosting and maintenance. A custom site is a bigger investment up front that then pays off if it genuinely works for you.
To give you an idea with real numbers, in our plans a launch site starts from €1,290 and an online store from €3,950; monthly maintenance runs from €149/month. You'll find it all broken down there, no surprises. The useful question isn't "which is cheaper", but "how much does it cost me over three years and what does it give me back in that time".
And one piece of advice above all: choose with where you want to be in two years in mind, not the rush of this week. Changing platform halfway is what really costs dear. If you like, we'll tell you with no commitment what fits your case.
And if you still have a question, write to us: we reply within 24 hours.
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