Wix vs a custom website: which is right for a small business?

There’s no single right answer. Website builders like Wix, Squarespace and Shopify are genuinely good tools, and plenty of small businesses run happily on them. A custom website makes more sense when your site needs to do more work for you: win customers against local competitors, take bookings smoothly, rank on Google, or do something a template can’t.

Here’s how the two compare on the things that matter to a small business.

Website builders have a low monthly subscription, with more expensive plans for booking, selling and removing adverts. You don’t pay a designer, but you do pay with your time.

A custom website has a one-off design and build fee, then usually low ongoing hosting costs. With me, a small business site starts at £495 (Starter) or £995 (Business), with no VAT added. See the full breakdown in how much a website costs in the UK.

Over a few years, the gap is often smaller than people expect, especially once builder add-ons are included.

Builders give you templates. They look polished, but they aren’t planned around your customers. The result is often a site that looks fine and still doesn’t make the next step obvious.

A custom website starts with how your customers decide: what they need to see first, which questions stop them booking, and where to put the call or booking button. That planning, not the colours, is what turns visitors into enquiries. You can see this in local projects such as Beehive Boutique and Tex Mex LDN.

Modern builders have improved a lot and handle the basics: page titles, descriptions, sitemaps and mobile layouts.

A well-built custom site can go further: lighter pages that load faster on mobile data, a page structure built around the searches you want to appear for, structured data that tells Google your business details, and full control over every redirect when things change. For competitive local searches, these details add up.

With a builder, you work within what the platform allows, and your site usually can’t be moved elsewhere. If prices rise or features change, you adapt or rebuild.

A custom website is yours. You can move it to another host or developer, add features when you need them, and connect it to the tools you already use, such as booking systems, WhatsApp or automations.

One of the best things about website builders is that you can change text, photos and prices yourself whenever you like. That’s a real advantage, and it’s worth asking any designer how updates will work on a custom site.

There are a few common approaches:

• A simple editor. Some custom sites include an easy way to change menus, prices or opening hours without touching code.
• Updates on request. Many small businesses prefer to send a quick message and have changes made for them, especially for things that only change a few times a year.
• A monthly plan that covers regular updates, new photos and seasonal offers.

Think about how often your content really changes. A restaurant with weekly specials needs something different from a garage whose prices change once a year.

Whichever route you lean towards, these questions help:

• What do I want visitors to do, and does this option make that easy?
• How much time can I realistically spend building and updating the site?
• Do I need bookings, ordering or a shop, and what will those cost each month?
• How important is Google for winning customers in my area?
• If I outgrow this, how hard will it be to move?

If your answers point to “the website needs to win customers and I don’t have time”, a custom site is usually the better investment.

A new mobile beauty therapist. She’s just starting, has a small budget and mainly gets clients through Instagram and word of mouth. A simple builder site with her services, prices, a booking link and her Instagram feed is a sensible first step. She can upgrade later, once the business is established.

An established restaurant on a busy high street. It competes with several nearby restaurants on Google Maps, takes bookings and orders, and gets most new customers from people searching on their phones. Here, a fast custom site with a proper mobile menu, booking and ordering links, and local SEO set up properly is likely to pay for itself.

Most businesses sit somewhere in between, which is why it helps to be clear about what the website must do for you before choosing.

If you start on a builder and later move, plan the switch carefully:

1. List every page and its URL on your current site. 2. Save your content: text, images and any blog posts you want to keep. 3. Check who owns the domain. Make sure it’s registered in your name and that you can change its settings. 4. Set up redirects from old URLs to the new ones so you keep your Google rankings. 5. Update your Google Business Profile and directories if any links change. 6. Keep the old plan running briefly until the new site is live and checked, then cancel.

Our website redesign checklist walks through the full process.

A common mistake is cancelling the builder subscription before the domain and email are moved. If your domain or email is managed inside the builder, move those first, check that email still arrives, and only then switch the website over.

A website builder is a good fit if:

• You’re just starting and the budget is tight.
• You need a few simple pages and enjoy doing it yourself.
• You’re happy to spend time learning the tool and keeping it updated.

A custom website is worth it if:

• Your website is a main source of customers.
• You compete with other local businesses on Google.
• You need bookings, ordering or features that work smoothly together.
• You’d rather spend your time running your business.

Already on Wix and it isn’t working? A website redesign can rebuild it properly while keeping your Google rankings, or a custom website can start you fresh.