WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace for a Small Business (UK)
In the WordPress vs Wix vs Squarespace choice, Wix and Squarespace suit owners who want to build and run a simple site themselves on a tight budget. WordPress suits businesses that want a unique design, room to grow, stronger control over SEO and a site they can move. It needs more looking after, so many owners pay someone to maintain it.
The right choice depends on three things: who is going to build and look after the site, how unique it needs to look, and how much you expect it to grow. One thing to say up front: we build websites on WordPress, so we have a stake in this. Because of that, we have tried to be especially fair, and we say plainly when Wix or Squarespace is the better choice. This guide compares the three on ease, cost, design, search and ownership, then helps you pick.
What is the real difference between WordPress, Wix and Squarespace?
Wix and Squarespace are website builders: you rent a complete package of software, hosting and templates for a monthly fee, and build your site inside it. WordPress is software you run on hosting of your choice, with a huge choice of designs, plugins and page builders such as Elementor.
One point of confusion worth clearing up: WordPress.org is the free software you install on your own hosting, which is what most businesses mean by “a WordPress site”. WordPress.com is a hosted service, closer to Wix and Squarespace, run by one company. This guide is about the first.
| WordPress | Wix | Squarespace | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Free software you run on your own hosting | All-in-one website builder | All-in-one website builder |
| Who looks after hosting and updates | You, or whoever you pay | Wix | Squarespace |
| Design freedom | Almost unlimited | Good, within Wix’s editor | Polished, within Squarespace’s templates |
| Room to grow | Very high, through plugins and custom work | Moderate, through Wix apps | Moderate |
| Can you move the whole site elsewhere? | Yes | No | Only partly |
| Best suited to | Businesses that want something unique and expect to grow | DIY on a tight budget | DIY on a tight budget, design-led sites |
For scale: according to W3Techs, WordPress runs 39.6% of all websites, Wix 4.2% and Squarespace 2.4%, as of October 2026. Popularity is not a verdict, but it does mean WordPress has the widest choice of developers, hosting and add-ons.
Which is easiest to use yourself?
Wix and Squarespace, for building a site from scratch on your own. They are designed for exactly that: pick a template, drag in your words and photos, and publish. Hosting, security and updates are handled for you, so there is very little to go wrong behind the scenes.
WordPress asks more of you at the start. Someone has to choose hosting, set up the site, pick a theme or page builder, and configure the plugins it needs. Done well, the result is easy to edit: with Elementor, for example, changing words and images on a page is a visual job, much like a website builder. Done badly, it can become a tangle of plugins that nobody quite understands.
So the honest answer is:
- If you are building it yourself, Wix or Squarespace is easier.
- If someone builds it for you, a well-built WordPress site is just as easy to edit day to day.
Which costs the least?
At the start, Wix or Squarespace usually does, especially if you build the site yourself. Over several years, the answer is less clear. Rather than quote prices that change regularly, here is what you pay for on each. Check Wix’s pricing and Squarespace’s pricing pages for current plans.
On Wix or Squarespace, you pay for:
- a monthly or yearly plan, with more features on higher plans,
- paid apps or add-ons for extra features,
- your own time, if you build and update it yourself.
On WordPress, you pay for:
- hosting and a domain name,
- any premium theme, page builder or plugins,
- keeping it updated, backed up and secure, yourself or through a maintenance plan,
- usually a designer or developer to build it in the first place.
Two things change the long-term picture. First, builder costs tend to creep up as a business grows: a higher plan for the features you need, then an app here and another there. Rising plan and app costs are one of the reasons owners give us when they move away from Wix or Squarespace. Second, if you outgrow a builder, moving away means rebuilding the site, which is a cost in itself.
For a sense of what a professionally built site costs, see our guide to how much a small business website costs. If you want to sell online, our guide to online shop costs in the UK compares the platform and payment fees.
Can you make it look unique?
On WordPress, yes, almost without limit. A designer can build exactly the layout your business needs, rather than adapting a template. That is the most common reason owners give us when they move from Wix or Squarespace: they want a site that looks like their business, not like a template thousands of others are using.
Wix and Squarespace both offer attractive templates, and you can change colours, fonts, images and layouts within them. Squarespace in particular is known for polished, design-led templates. The limit is the template itself. Past a certain point, making a builder site look truly different means working against the tool rather than with it.
If a simple, clean, template-based look is all you need, that is not a problem. Many good small business websites are exactly that.
Which is best for SEO?
All three can get a small local business found on Google. Platform choice matters far less than most people think. What matters most is having clear pages for each service, written in the words customers search for, on a site that loads quickly on a phone.
Where the platforms differ is control:
- Wix and Squarespace cover the basics well: page titles, descriptions, mobile-friendly templates and sitemaps. You work within what they offer.
- WordPress gives you more control over almost everything: page structure, speed, structured data and how each page is set up. That control helps most when you are competing hard for searches, or when you publish a lot of content.
Wanting to rank better is another reason owners give us when they move to WordPress. But if your site is not showing up on Google at all, the platform is rarely the cause. Our guide to why a website is not showing up on Google covers the usual reasons.
Do you own your website on Wix or Squarespace?
You own your content, but not in the sense of being able to take the whole site elsewhere. This is the biggest practical difference between the three, and it is worth understanding before you build.
- Wix says your content belongs to you, but a Wix site “needs to be hosted and operated on Wix’s servers”. You cannot export it to another host. If you leave, you rebuild.
- Squarespace lets you export some content, but only as a file in WordPress format, and many things are left out, including shop pages, products, style settings and audio and video blocks.
- WordPress sites can be copied in full and moved to any other WordPress host, by you or by a developer.
This does not make Wix or Squarespace a bad choice. It means that choosing one is a longer-term commitment than it looks, and wanting proper ownership is one of the main reasons owners move away. Whatever you choose, keep the domain name in your own business’s name. Our website ownership checklist explains why.
Which should you choose?
Here is our honest guide, by situation:
| Your situation | Our recommendation |
|---|---|
| You want to build and run it yourself, on a tight budget | Wix or Squarespace. Easy to start, low upfront cost, nothing to maintain. Squarespace if you want a polished look with fewer decisions. Wix if you want more freedom in the editor |
| You are testing a business idea | Wix or Squarespace. Get online quickly and cheaply, and rebuild properly once the business is proven |
| You want a design that looks unique to your business | WordPress, built by a designer |
| You expect the site to grow: more services, bookings, a shop, a blog | WordPress, which has the most room to grow |
| Ranking on Google for competitive searches really matters | WordPress, for the extra control |
| You want to be able to move your site wherever you like | WordPress |
| You want someone else to handle everything, including updates and security | WordPress with a maintenance plan, or a builder if you are happy with its limits |
If you are doing it yourself on a tight budget, choose Wix or Squarespace without guilt. That is the right call, and we would tell you the same if you asked us. The time to consider WordPress is when the website needs to do more for your business than a template can.
How we can help
We build fast, custom websites on WordPress and Elementor for small businesses, and we have spent over ten years doing it, across more than 500 sites. You always own your website, and once it is built you can edit it yourself.
If you are outgrowing Wix or Squarespace, we can rebuild your site on WordPress, keeping your content and setting up redirects to protect your Google rankings. Our new website design page explains how we work and shows current pricing. Not sure whether you need to move at all? Start with a free website audit and we will tell you honestly.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I move my Wix site to WordPress?
- Not directly. Wix says its sites have to run on Wix's own servers, so there is no export. Your words, images and domain name can come with you, but the site itself has to be rebuilt on WordPress, ideally with redirects so you keep your Google rankings.
- Is WordPress free?
- The WordPress software is free. Running a WordPress website is not: you pay for hosting, a domain name, any premium themes or plugins, and the time or cost of keeping it updated and secure.
- Which is best for an online shop?
- For a handful of products, any of the three can work. For a larger or growing shop, WordPress with WooCommerce or a dedicated platform like Shopify is usually the stronger choice. Our guide to online shop costs in the UK compares the fees.
- Do I need a web designer to use WordPress?
- Not necessarily, but most small businesses benefit from one for the initial build. WordPress has more settings, hosting choices and plugins than Wix or Squarespace, and getting those right at the start saves problems later. Once built, editing your own pages is straightforward.
- Is Squarespace better than Wix?
- They suit slightly different people. Squarespace is known for polished, design-led templates with fewer choices to make. Wix offers more freedom to drag things around and more add-on apps. Both are hosted builders with the same basic trade-off: easy to start, but your site stays on their platform.