Comparing the costs of WordPress and Wix
Since the functionalities of WordPress and Wix are so similar, it can sometimes be hard to choose between the two. Here’s how the two website building platforms compare on costs:
Wix
Wix offers a free plan — if you’re willing to allow advertisem*nts on your site. With a premium plan that ranges from $17-$159 a month, the ads are removed. The larger plans feature additional storage space, form builders, and e-commerce support. Every plan includes hosting, templates, a domain, and technical support. You can choose the free domain name included with the plan or, if you already own a custom domain, the cost to connect it to Wix’s free site is just $4/month.
WordPress
WordPress.com is also free* and includes hosting in exchange for allowing advertisem*nts, while the paid plans include a domain (or you can use your own) and range from $4-$45 a month. The premium plans include advanced features such as eCommerce functionality, full customization, personalized support and additional space.
*WordPress.org is truly free, but you’ll need to find your own hosting provider and purchase your own domain name, which can range from $50 to $150 per year.
Considering costs over the long term
You don’t need any money to get started with a WordPress or Wix site. However, it’s important to consider your company’s future goals and needs before you commit to a platform.
Wix is likely the easiest solution and the monthly/yearly cost will be more affordable for most businesses, but customization is also more limited.
WordPress, on the other hand, provides more flexibility, control, and opportunity for growth in the long run. Plus, if you later decide to use WordPress.org, you can easily migrate your site onto that platform, further expanding your options.
The best platform for custom websites
Both website building platforms make it easy to create visually stunning websites for businesses and individuals of all types, but there is some variation in how they do it. For example, they both use templates, but how you customize those templates and the amount of customization available to you is where the similarity ends.
Wix offers a more user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, making it easier for non-technical users, while WordPress provides greater flexibility and advanced customization options for those with coding skills.
Before you begin customizing any template, it’s important to first plan the site. This is done through a process called site mapping. Planning your site before designing can help you focus your intent so that your themes stay in line with your goals. This is especially true if you plan to monetize your site, optimize it for search or use it to provide a service.
Tools like Slickplan’s Visual Sitemap Generator can help you plan your website’s structure.
Themes help ensure proper site architecture (the organization of a site), which is fundamental to the user’s experience, but the overall design is also essential, and can be planned during the site mapping process. A well-planned small business website makes it easy for website visitors to scroll through and find the information they need and, hopefully, the solutions to the problems they hope to solve.
Wix
When it comes time to build your site, Wix is one of the easiest options. The Wix Editor uses a drag-and-drop website builder tool where you merely click on a page element hold it, and move it where you want it on the webpage. Building your site is hardly a challenge; deciding how you’d like it to look might be.
Wix offers more than 800 free themes, templates as they call them, to choose from, so plan on spending some time to select the right one. The free versions feature Wix branding at the top, but that can be removed with one of their premium subscriptions. You can also purchase custom Wix themes from a web designer, but you’ll need to find a Wix designer on your own.
Once you’ve selected your theme, you can customize the font and the color. Click Save, and your new theme is ready for use on the other pages of your site. If you’d like to do more than customize the theme, you can also change the design of your site via Wix ADI. This option lets you choose from hundreds of images, colors and fonts. You can also add animations and even adjust the height of particular sections.
It’s not as painful as it sounds,“ADI” stands for “artificial design intelligence,” meaning all the work is done for you and almost guaranteeing that, even with all the options, you’ll end up with an attractive site.
WordPress
WordPress.com offers themes as well, although the number of free options is nowhere near what is being provided by Wix. Some premium themes offer more functionality but are a little harder to set up. Premium themes are included with a premium subscription (premium, business or eCommerce) or can be purchased individually.
WordPress.org, on the contrary, has a vast variety of WordPress themes and in this case surpasses Wix in both free and paid options. Because WordPress.org is an open-source platform, anyone can create themes and upload them to the official theme directory. Themes are rated by community members but are not necessarily supported by WordPress.org. You can also create custom themes or hire a designer to create one for you.
Customizing a WordPress theme is as easy as customizing a Wix theme. To do so, select appearance and then themes. Your chosen theme will be highlighted and you’ll see an option to customize.
Like Wix, you can adjust the colors (font can be modified on individual pages), but you can also change the title and tagline of your website, add a logo for your site or even adjust the layout via site menus. WordPress customization also includes the ability to add CSS, making it possible to create exactly what you want without creating a custom template if you know how to code.
Plugins and apps
While customizing the theme does a great job of putting a personal touch on your website, plugins and apps provide advanced features that help create uniquely useful websites. These ‘add-ons’ are individual software programs that add functionality to your site. WordPress plugins are downloaded from WordPress.org and you can find Wix apps in the dedicated Wix app store; the Wix App Market.
Popular WordPress plugins:
- Forms: collect information from your site visitors
- Analytics: collect information about your site visitors
- SEO optimization: prepare your website for search engines
- Email marketing: make it easy for site visitors to opt-in to emails
- Security: protect your website from threats
- Backup: automatically store copies of your website
- Chat: add chat functionality to your site
Popular Wix apps:
- Forms: collect information from your site visitors
- Analytics: collect information about your site visitors
- Chat: add chat functionality to your site
- Blog: add a blog to your site
- Store: add an online store to your website
- Social media: connect a social media account to your site
Unlike WordPress, there isn’t a popular SEO plugin for Wix, but that doesn’t mean Wix doesn’t focus on SEO. Keep reading to learn about Wix vs WordPress SEO.
In most cases, plugins and apps are created by third parties, so you’ll need to do your research to select a reliable option. Although Wix has fewer options overall, many of their apps are developed by Wix, meaning they’re guaranteed to work with your site.
Creating an ecommerce site on Wix and WordPress
When you’re building a website that can process online orders, you need more than an attractive design, you also need specific functionalities. Here’s how Wix and WordPress compare when it comes to setting up an eCommerce website.
Wix
To set up an online store using a Wix website, you’ll need to install a store app. Currently, the two most popular options are Online Store, by Ecwid, a free, but limited option, eCommerce Store by POWR Wix Stores, which is available with a business subscription.
A Wix business subscription enables online payments via your website and includes Google Analytics, online ad credits, and generous storage space. Business subscriptions currently start at $29/month; however, the monthly Wix eCommerce price for a small business can reach $159.
WordPress
You’ll also need to do some customization if you’d like to create an online store on WordPress. The most popular approach is using a custom theme. WordPress.com includes more than 30 compatible store themes. WordPress.org users and WordPress.com business and eCommerce plan subscribers can choose from additional custom themes in the theme directory or upload their own.
You can also use a plugin instead of a theme to create your store site, but you’ll need the business or eCommerce plan if using WordPress.com. Ecommerce functionality is no additional cost on WordPress.org, but you may pay more for hosting. Popular eCommerce premium plugins include WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads.
Both the WordPress.com business and ecommerce subscription includes an automatic backup of your site, but you’ll need the eCommerce subscription to accept online payments. The business subscription is currently $25/month, and the eCommerce subscription is $45/month.
Which option is better? While you can do more with a WordPress site, for most small businesses, it’s cheaper and easier to create an attractive online store using Wix. However, if your business is based solely on eCommerce, it’s typically a wise decision to invest in a WordPress.org site or other ecommerce platforms like Shopify so that your website can grow with your business.
Once you’ve decided on the design for your store, it’s time to plan for how your customers complete their purchase. This is represented by user flows. Creating user flows before you build your website can help you understand user behavior, which can lead to more site visits, more purchases and, ultimately, higher revenues.
Optimizing WordPress and Wix for online search
Search engine optimization (SEO) helps users find your website via sites like Google, Bing and Yahoo. A specific form of SEO, on-page SEO, helps improve search results via website design. It’s an art and science that combines user experience and content to influence the likelihood of people finding your website. SEO can be complicated if you don’t have the necessary technical knowledge. Therefore, the best website platform will be not only easy to use but also easy to optimize for search via on-page SEO.
Many people mistakenly believe that on-page SEO merely involves keywords, and that including them in your content is good enough. Instead, website owners must also think about user-facing features such as the overall website content and backend considerations such as metadata. There are also things like bounce rate, site engagement and responsive design, as well as design fundamentals such as page speed and user experience.
Why is the user experience part of SEO? The two are highly linked. Search results are supposed to be helpful. Users want answers to their questions and solutions to their problems, and they want them fast. When a website provides this, it’s likely creating a positive experience for the user. That’s possibly one reason why Google considers page load speed when ranking sites.
You can also create a positive user experience during the design process. Planning for the experience of the user means focusing on the goals, requirements and needs of the end-user. Much of this is done during the planning process with the creation of user flows. Once you’ve created those user flows, the best website building platforms simplify the process of integrating them through usability focused site design. Here’s how WordPress and Wix compare for page speed and user experience:
Wix vs WordPress for page speed
WordPress
WordPress sites typically do not have problems with page load speed, but If your WordPress website loads slowly, you can use Google’s Page Speed Insights to diagnose the problem. It’ll show how fast your web pages load, as well as how well the site performs overall on both mobile and desktop devices. Often, slow load times are related to code bloat within the WP theme. For site owners with no technical knowledge, you can install various WordPress plugins that make the corrections for you in the background.
Wix
Wix has had a long history of using a lot of client-side Javascript, which leads to code bloat. This tends to make it impossible for search engines to crawl site links and index content. As recently as 2015, many Wix site owners found that their webpages were literally falling out of search engine indexes, including Google’s.
Today, the drag-and-drop web design platform has evolved and ensures faster page loads. Compared to before, a Wix speed test should reveal faster loading of sharper-looking layouts based on advanced CSS functionality. This is thanks to 4x as many worldwide data centers on the network, as well as smart caching combined with fast JavaScript for quicker execution.
Although Wix is taking action to improve page speed for its customers, WordPress gives its users more control over the process. With WP plugins, the process is automated, making it easier to improve page load times. Wix doesn’t allow such backend access and maintains control of such features.
Wix vs WordPress for user experience
WordPress
WordPress is a CMS (content management system) meaning its purpose is managing content, and it’s designed to do so efficiently. Writing and producing content on WordPress is incredibly easy, making it simple for those with little technical knowledge to create useful, information-rich websites through regular content delivery. WordPress also makes it easy to improve usability by adding plugins such as Jetpack or utilizing cache and image optimization tools to help the site operate smoothly.
Additionally, most WordPress themes are responsive (mobile-friendly). For content optimization, plugins such as Yoast SEO can help with keywords. Some WordPress SEO plugins help with performance and speed, as well as added features to help engage site visitors.
Wix UX
Wix revolutionized the process of creating beautiful, user-friendly websites. However, when it comes to content optimization, Wix is not as strong. Although the website building platform includes applications that function as part of a content management system, Wix works a bit differently than a CMS and is not ideal for optimizing a website that will deliver large amounts of regular content (such as a business blog).
When it comes to user-experience, Wix is best at developing an immersive small business website or personal portfolio site. Wix site owners have everything needed to create excellent user experiences for their website visitors. However, WordPress gives you the ability to fully-customize UX using both free and premium plugins.
With Wix, usability is pre-planned with little room for customization, while WordPress site owners may need to do a bit more work to achieve similar results. In the end, the difference comes down to the amount of control desired.
Making your site SEO-friendly
Both Wix and WordPress provide basic search engine optimization via user-friendly templates and fast loading sites. Though, as mentioned above, this is only a small portion of SEO. These tools will help improve the SEO of your website:
WordPress SEO plugins
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO makes it simple to add SEO-friendly titles, URLs, and descriptions to your webpages and blog posts. Use it to add social media images and open graph metadata to content, and automatically generate an XML sitemap so search engines can quickly crawl your site.
Google Search Console
For a free tool that helps you track your site’s presence in search results, turn to Google Search Console. You’ll get notifications anytime Google can’t access, crawl or index your site’s webpages and tips on fixing the errors.
All in One Schema Rich Snippets
What are rich snippets? They are search engine results that stand out from others by showing videos or images next to product descriptions, products featuring prices below them, reviews followed by star ratings, etc.
What are rich snippets? They’re search engine results that stand out from others by showing videos or images next to product descriptions, products featuring prices below them, reviews followed by star ratings, etc.
Wix SEO tools
Instant Google Indexing
A suite of SEO tools
Wix now offers a whole toolkit of SEO goodies, completely changing the narrative. As Google’s John Mueller said;
"Wix is fine for SEO. A few years back it was pretty bad in terms of SEO, but they’ve made fantastic progress, and are now a fine platform for businesses. The reputation from back then lingers on, but don’t be swayed by it. What they’ve done in recent years is really good stuff, including making it trivial to have a really fast site (as you see in the Lighthouse scores — admittedly, speed is only a tiny part of SEO). If Wix works for them, and they don’t need more, there’s no reason to switch."
XML sitemap
When a site is created using Wix, an XML sitemap is automatically created. This is what Google and other search engines use as a guide for crawling each page of the site. The sitemap is automatically updated when changes are made to the website’s structure.
Structured data
Wix automatically adds schema markups instead of you having to do it manually. This helps search engines determine which portions of your site’s content can be viewed in search responses as rich text.
Wix vs WordPress: SEO-wise
Despite the dramatic improvements that Wix has undergone over the years, we’ll still give the SEO edge to WordPress. WordPress site owners just have more flexibility and control through metadata and plugins, making it more effective for those willing to put a little time into optimizing their sites.
Wix vs WordPress for website security
Regardless of the size of your website, you should be concerned about website security. Nonsecure sites can be hacked or hijacked. Your site could be held hostage by ransomware, your customers’ private information stolen or used to distribute malware to your site visitors.
It can also ruin your SEO.
Google places about 10,000+ sites on blacklists every day for distributing malware. Every week, an astounding 50,000 are blacklisted for phishing.
The search engine guru believes web safety is a top priority and slams sites that pose online threats. Both WordPress and Wix include features that improve site security. Here’s how they compare:
HTTP vs HTTPS
Any data transferred to or from a site using HTTP can be easily accessed and attacked. With HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) sites, the data is encrypted and authenticated before being transmitted or received.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate secures your visitors’ connections between your site and their browsers. It allows them to visit your domain over a secure HTTPS connection. This makes the website safe for both you and your users. Wix currently offers HTTPS sites to all its customers for free. WP users must purchase SSL certificates from their web hosting companies.
With a dedicated server, website security is your responsibility. Hosting providers will secure and power your server, but you’re responsible for securing the content on it. You’ll need technical expertise to configure software that alleviates threats as it detects them. Most site owners will not choose this option, but it can be helpful for larger sites.
Shared hosting lets hosting providers secure your website. They install programs, server security applications and firewalls, which are monitored by experts who help ensure stable, safe operating environments.
Wix and WordPress.com have shared hosting. Since WordPress.org site owners choose their own hosting companies, they have access to both.
Core code safety
When a site is hacked using third-party code, every bit of bad code needs to be removed. WordPress’s core code is rarely hacked, meaning there is little to worry about with WordPress.com. However, themes and plugins are, making WordPress.org sites susceptible to attack if they’re not regularly updated.
To ensure your code stays safe, you’ll need to update themes, plugins and WP versions when prompted by WordPress. Wix security is designed for ease of use. There’s no need to worry about remembering to update your site.
Wix vs WordPress’s approach to security
Wix security is geared toward HTTPS. This platform automatically enables HTTPS on all new sites created at no extra cost. Wix makes it easy and free to launch a secure site with an SSL certificate.
WordPress security focuses on reducing risks on an ongoing basis. This continuous process evolves as needed to keep up with current threats and keep core code safe. WordPress site owners are provided with the necessary tools for improving site security through WordPress version updates, as well as theme and plugin updates.
Both platforms are dedicated to site security; however, Wix provides a true hassle-free solution.
WordPress or Wix: The final verdict
If your small business needs a website, both Wix and WordPress offer reliable and secure solutions for creating a website at a reasonable price. The difference comes down to the amount of effort you’re willing to put into it and the level of complexity that you need.
When it comes to price, Wix is more affordable. Although both platforms offer free options, the Wix eCommerce price is significantly lower than WordPress. On other plans, however, the Wix monthly/yearly cost can sometimes be higher than WordPress especially if you know how to code and can use WordPress.org
SEO should also be a consideration when considering which platform to use. While the paid versions of both Wix and WordPress.com provide basic search engine optimization via SEO tools, load times, and a focus on UX, third party software provides the best results. Unfortunately, there isn’t a recommended SEO plugin for Wix, while there are plenty of WordPress SEO plugins to choose from. So, if you need an entry-level website that will dazzle your customers and is easy to build, Wix is a great way to go. If you’re ready to invest in a system that will grow with your business, start with WordPress.com and migrate to their open-source option if needed.
If neither is your cup of tea, there are other website builders out there like Weebly, Squarespace, Hubspot and more.
