Getting started
Wix, WordPress or custom built: what's right for a small business?
A straight comparison of the three realistic options, including the trade-offs each one hides and who should actually pick which.
There is a lot of tribalism about this and most of it is unhelpful. All three options are genuinely right for somebody. The question is which one is right for you.
Website builders: Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy
How it works. You sign up, pick a template, drag things around, pay monthly.
What is genuinely good about it. It is cheap to start, you can do it yourself today, hosting and security are handled, and nothing can catastrophically break. For a business that needs something online this week, it is a reasonable answer.
The trade-offs nobody mentions:
- You are renting. £15 to £30 a month, forever. Over five years that is more than a custom site would have cost, and you own nothing at the end.
- You cannot leave with it. There is no meaningful export. Moving means rebuilding.
- The template is the ceiling. You can change colours and images. Changing how something fundamentally works is usually not possible.
- Speed is often poor. Builders load a lot of code to make the drag-and-drop work, and that arrives on your customer's phone.
- It looks like what it is. Anyone who has seen a few Wix sites recognises the next one.
Pick this if: you are testing an idea, you genuinely enjoy fiddling with it, or your budget is zero and you need something now.
WordPress
How it works. Open-source software, installed on hosting you arrange, usually with a purchased theme and a stack of plugins.
What is genuinely good about it. It runs a very large share of the web. There is a plugin for almost anything. You own the files and can move hosts. Any developer can work on it.
The trade-offs:
- It needs maintaining. WordPress, the theme and every plugin need updating. Skip it and you eventually get hacked. This is the single most common way small business sites break.
- Plugins accumulate. Twenty plugins to achieve what should be simple is normal, and each one is a performance cost and a security surface.
- "Custom WordPress site" often is not. A lot of quotes are a £50 theme with your logo in it. Nothing wrong with that, but you should know that is what you are buying.
- Speed takes real work. A default WordPress install with a heavy theme is slow, and fixing it is its own project.
Pick this if: you need to publish content constantly and want to edit it yourself, you need a specific plugin ecosystem, or you want a site that any developer can pick up.
Custom built
How it works. Somebody designs and builds the site for your specific business, usually with modern tooling that produces fast, lean pages.
What is genuinely good about it:
- It does exactly what you need. No fighting a template into a shape it does not want.
- It is fast. Nothing loading that your site does not use. This matters for both customers and search.
- Almost nothing to maintain. No plugins to update, no weekly security patches.
- Hosting is usually near-free for a small business site, because of how these sites are built.
- You own it outright.
- It can grow. Bookings, accounts, payments and dashboards can be added later without starting over.
The trade-offs, and these are real:
- You cannot restructure it yourself. Editing text is one thing; adding a whole new section is a developer job. If you want to rebuild your own pages at midnight, this is the wrong choice.
- Higher upfront cost than a builder. Lower over five years, but the first payment is bigger.
- You need to trust the person. Which is why you should look at three sites they have built before committing.
Pick this if: you want it to look like your business rather than a template, speed matters, you would rather someone else handled changes, or you might need real functionality later.
The five-year maths
Worth doing, because monthly fees hide well.
| Upfront | Ongoing | 5-year total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wix / Squarespace | £0 | ~£20/mo | ~£1,200 |
| WordPress (built for you) | £800–£2,500 | Hosting + maintenance ~£25/mo | ~£2,300–£4,000 |
| Custom built | £150–£800 | Minimal hosting; optional care from £20/mo | ~£350–£2,000 |
Rough figures, and yours will differ. The point is that the cheapest-looking option often is not, and the difference is smaller than people assume.
What actually matters more than the platform
Honestly? All three can produce a site that works. What separates a website that generates enquiries from one that does not is rarely the technology:
- Is it obvious within five seconds what you do and where?
- Does it load in under three seconds on mobile data?
- Can someone contact you in one tap from any page?
- Are there real photos of real work?
- Does each service have a proper page?
- Is there evidence that other people trusted you?
A Wix site that does all six beats a custom site that does none. Get those right first, then argue about the platform.
My honest recommendation
- Testing an idea, zero budget: a builder. Move on when it starts costing you customers.
- Publishing content constantly and want full control yourself: WordPress, budgeted properly for maintenance.
- Established local business that wants to look credible and be left alone: custom built. It is what I do, and it is what I would recommend even if I did not.
If you already have a site on any platform and it is working, the right answer might be to leave it alone and spend the money on photos and your Google Business Profile instead.
