You want a website. Nothing fancy. Just something for your small business or portfolio. Then you open two pricing pages and your brain melts. Wix offers a free plan plus four paid tiers. Squarespace skips the freebie entirely and sells four flat packages instead. So who actually gives you the better deal?
I’ve built sites on both platforms, more than once. Honestly, the sticker price tells you maybe half the story. The rest hides in transaction fees, app subscriptions, and renewal rates. Let’s go through the real numbers.
## Key Takeaways
– **Wix has a free plan**, but it puts ads on your site and locks you out of connecting a custom domain. Treat it as a trial, nothing more.
– **Squarespace has no free tier**, yet its cheapest package is cleaner and comes with fewer surprise limitations.
– **Transaction fees differ**: Wix takes a 5% cut if you sell on its Core plan. Squarespace charges 3% on its mid-tier Business plan.
– **Wix gets expensive fast** if you need third-party apps to add features.
– **Squarespace bundles most core features** into the base price, which makes budgeting far more predictable.
## Wix Pricing Plans, Tier by Tier
Wix overhauled its pricing structure recently. The old unlimited plans are gone, replaced by storage caps and feature limits. All prices below reflect annual billing, which is the standard way to buy from either builder. Monthly billing exists but costs noticeably more.
### Wix Light: $17/month
The entry-level paid tier. You get 2 GB of storage and a free domain for one year.
– **Best for:** simple personal sites or basic portfolios.
– **The catch:** 2 GB fills up fast if you upload high-res photos. You also miss out on Wix’s marketing tools entirely.
In my experience, 2 GB sounds fine until you start dropping in images from a real camera. Then it really isn’t.
### Wix Core: $29/month
Most small businesses start here. Core includes 5 GB of storage, the free domain, and basic marketing tools like email campaigns and a social media logo creator.
– **Best for:** freelancers, service businesses, simple bookings.
– **The catch:** you can’t accept online payments without Wix skimming a percentage. This one genuinely bugs me.
### Wix Business: $36/month
Ecommerce begins at this level. You get 10 GB of storage, online payments with zero Wix transaction fees, automated sales tax collection, and dropshipping integrations.
– **Best for:** stores selling physical or digital goods.
– **The catch:** the jump from Core is steep, an extra $7 monthly. You’ll also pay standard processing fees (Stripe, PayPal) on every sale. That part never disappears on either platform.
### Wix Business Elite: $159/month
The enterprise option. 35 GB of storage, priority support, custom reports, shipping label printing.
– **Best for:** high-volume stores.
– **The catch:** most small businesses don’t need any of this. To be frank, $159 a month buys features you probably won’t touch for years.
Want to poke around first? Try Wix’s free plan and test the drag-and-drop builder before committing to anything.
## Squarespace Pricing Plans, Tier by Tier
Squarespace keeps it simple. Four plans, straightforward features, no gimmicks. Prices again assume annual billing.
### Squarespace Personal: $16/month
The cheapest route to a live site. Your first year includes a free custom domain, plus unlimited bandwidth, 2 GB of storage, and a free SSL certificate.
– **Best for:** personal blogs, resumes, simple portfolios.
– **The catch:** no selling, no donations, period. Some advanced design customization stays locked too.
### Squarespace Business: $23/month
This is the sweet spot for small operations. Unlimited storage, advanced website analytics, payment acceptance, promotional pop-ups, and Google Workspace integration.
– **Best for:** restaurants, service businesses, creators taking bookings.
– **The catch:** Squarespace takes a 3% transaction fee on every purchase. That stacks on top of your processor’s cut (Stripe charges 2.9% + 30¢). It stings once revenue picks up.
### Squarespace Commerce Basic: $28/month
Five extra dollars kills the 3% platform fee. You keep every Business feature and gain full ecommerce tools, merch capabilities, and customer accounts.
– **Best for:** growing online stores.
– **The catch:** credit card processing still costs money. Stripe and PayPal don’t work for free.
### Squarespace Commerce Advanced: $52/month
For serious sellers. Abandoned cart recovery, advanced shipping tools, subscription selling.
– **Best for:** established stores moving real volume.
– **The catch:** at $52 monthly, beginners won’t see a return quickly.
Curious about the designs? Check Squarespace’s pricing page and browse the templates. They’re genuinely beautiful, though I’ll admit the editor took me about a week to stop fighting with.
## The Hidden Costs: Wix vs Squarespace Pricing Compared
The monthly sticker is only half the bill. Website builders nickel and dime you in other places, and when you compare **wix vs squarespace pricing**, you need to factor these in.
### Transaction Fees
This catches people off guard more than anything else.
Wix: the Business tier ($36/mo) and up charge 0% in platform fees. But try selling on Core, and Wix takes 5% of every sale. On $2,000 in monthly revenue, that’s $100 gone. Ouch.
Squarespace: the Business tier ($23/mo) takes 3% per transaction. Move up to Commerce Basic ($28/mo) and it drops to zero.
Quick math: only $5 separates the two Squarespace tiers, so the upgrade pays for itself once you’re selling past roughly $170 a month. The same logic applies to Wix, where Core-to-Business breaks even around $140.
### Apps and Add-Ons
Wix’s App Market is both a strength and a budget trap. Plenty of free options exist, sure, but the features that actually matter (advanced forms, bookings, memberships) often hide behind their own subscriptions. Stack three or four and suddenly your affordable tier isn’t affordable.
Squarespace has less of this problem because most functionality ships with the plan. Extensions exist, but you’ll rarely need them.
### Domains and Renewals
Both platforms include a free domain for year one. After that, you pay standard renewal rates like anywhere else. And remember, these are annual-billing prices. Switch to monthly payments and each company charges noticeably more.
## So Which One Actually Saves You Money?
It depends on what you’re building. Here’s my honest read anyway.
Portfolio or blog? **Squarespace Personal ($16/mo)** costs a dollar less than Wix Light ($17/mo) and throws in a free SSL certificate.
Service business? **Squarespace Business ($23/mo)**. Unlimited storage for $6 less than Wix Core’s 5 GB is hard to argue with, and you can take bookings without upgrade pressure.
Online store? This gets closer. Wix Business ($36/mo) brings zero platform fees, automated sales tax, and dropshipping integrations out of the box. Squarespace Commerce Basic ($28/mo) matches the zero-fee part and undercuts it by $8. Squarespace wins on raw cost; Wix wins if its app ecosystem fits your specific workflow.
High-volume seller? Squarespace Commerce Advanced ($52/mo) versus Wix Business Elite ($159/mo) isn’t a fair fight. Unless you truly need Wix’s enterprise features, that gap is enormous.
My pick for most people is Squarespace. Predictable costs, no storage anxiety, lower total price in most scenarios. Choose Wix when you genuinely want its app market or need a free plan to experiment with.
One last tip: check both companies’ current pricing before you buy, since promotions shift constantly. And set a calendar reminder a week before your plan renews. Promo rates have a way of climbing after year one.