Wix vs Squarespace for a UK small business

Most Wix versus Squarespace articles are written by people who get paid when you sign up to one of them. This one is not, and I have no affiliate arrangement with either. Every figure below was opened on the company's own pricing or support page and checked on 21 September 2026. Prices change, so check them yourself before you commit; the links are at the bottom.

Price, as each company publishes it

Squarespace shows UK prices in pounds when you visit from the UK, and it charges less if you pay for a year up front. The page says "Free for 14 days. Pay annually to save up to 36%."

From Squarespace's UK pricing page, checked on 21 September 2026. All plans include a free custom domain for the first year. CSS and JavaScript customisation starts at Core; Basic is capped at two contributors.

Wix is harder to pin down from the UK, and that is worth knowing before you start. Its plans page shows dollars with this note attached: "Prices and currency vary by location. USD prices displayed for reference only. Displayed prices are for yearly subscriptions, paid in full at the time of purchase. Additional subscription periods are available. Prices do not include applicable taxes, which are determined according to your billing address. The final price can be seen on the purchase page, before payment is completed." In other words, the number you are shown is not the number you will pay, and you learn the real one at the checkout.

From Wix's plans page, viewed from the UK and checked on 21 September 2026. I am quoting the dollar figures because Wix does not publish a pound figure to quote; converting them myself would be inventing a price it does not charge.

Take the sticker price as the floor rather than the bill. On top of it sit the things that only appear later: Squarespace's 2% online store transaction fee on Basic, its separate fee on digital content and memberships, card processing from 2% plus 25p, and on both platforms the domain. "Free domain for 1 year" means exactly one year. Wix spells this out: the voucher "is only valid with a purchase of a new domain from Wix and cannot be used to renew or extend a domain you already own". Year two, you pay for the domain like everyone else.

What you can take with you

This is the question that actually separates them, and almost nobody asks it in month one. You will ask it eventually, because businesses outgrow platforms, and by then you may have four years of blog posts and a shop full of products in there.

Quotations from Wix's support article on hosting your site elsewhere and Squarespace's importing and exporting guide, both checked on 21 September 2026.

Wix's position is a design decision, not an oversight. Its own words: "Since Wix is a SaaS solution, your site must run on Wix's servers... the SaaS architecture does not support external hosting since it uses Wix's proprietary technology and relies on Wix's services to operate." Squarespace is more open, but it is honest about the limits too: it warns that importing its own .xml into another Squarespace site "can cause broken image links and other issues", and that images cannot be exported in bulk.

So on either platform, leaving means rebuilding. The difference is how much of the content you carry across by export and how much you retype. If you plan to blog seriously, that difference is the whole ball game.

Where each one is genuinely better

Wix gives you more room to move. The editor lets you place things where you want them, the app market is large, and the free tier means you can build something before spending anything. If you want to fiddle, or you need a specific booking or membership feature without paying a developer, Wix usually has it.

Squarespace gives you a better looking result with less effort, because the templates hold you inside a grid and it is hard to make something ugly. It publishes plain UK prices, it exports your content, and it takes 0% in store transaction fees from the middle plan up. For a UK business that wants a smart brochure site and a small shop without thinking about it, that is the easier recommendation of the two.

On search, neither one holds you back much. Both produce clean enough pages, both let you set titles and descriptions, and both connect to Google Search Console. Ranking is mostly about your content, your Google Business Profile and your reviews, not your platform, which is why why don't I show up on Google has almost nothing to say about website builders.

Where both of them cost you

• The bill never ends. At Squarespace Core on annual billing, three years is a little over £600 before the domain, fees and any apps. That is not outrageous, but it is money spent on rent rather than on an asset.
• The design does not leave. Whatever you spend on making it look right is spent on a platform, not on something you keep.
• Code access is gated. On Squarespace, CSS and JavaScript customisation starts at Core, so the cheapest plan cannot be extended in the ways a developer would normally reach for.
• Team access is gated too. Squarespace Basic allows two contributors; Wix Light allows two collaborators. Adding your bookkeeper or a marketer can mean moving up a plan.
• Performance is out of your hands. Builders carry a lot of framework, and when a page is slow there is often nothing you can do about it beyond removing content.

Which I would pick, and when I would pick neither

If it has to be one of the two, I would take Squarespace for most UK small businesses: pounds on the page, an export route out, no store transaction fee above the entry plan, and a result that looks considered without much work. I would take Wix if you specifically need a feature from its app market, or you want to try something for nothing before you spend.

I would pick neither when the site is a real part of how the business gets work. At that point you are paying a monthly fee for something you cannot move, cannot fully control and cannot take with you, and for a small brochure site that money adds up to more than having one built properly. That is the trade, and I have set it out plainly against each platform in Wix vs a custom website and Squarespace vs a custom website.

Whichever way you go, do one thing today: check the domain is registered in your name and not your designer's or an agency's. Do you actually own your website explains how to check, and if the answer turns out to be no, what to ask for when you leave your web designer is the list to send. If you would rather own the thing outright, I build sites from £199.