Wix vs Hiring a Designer: I Did the Math for a Small Business

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A bakery owner in Mississauga emailed me a few months back. She'd built her site on Wix and was paying $32 a month. The site was fine. Not great, but fine. She wanted to know — was she better off staying, or paying a designer once and being done with it?

So I did the math. Five years out. Not just the subscription cost — the time, the plugin upgrades, the conversion difference, the SEO tax. Everything.

Here's what I found. Spoiler: it's not as obvious as you'd think, but it's not close once you look at the full picture.

The Sticker Price (Year One)

This is where Wix wins, no contest.

Wix: The "Business" plan is currently $32/month, billed annually. That's $384 per year. Plus the time you spend building it — let's call it 20–40 hours if you're learning as you go.

Hiring a designer: For a typical small business website in Canada, you're looking at $1,500–$3,500 from an independent studio. From an agency, $5,000–$10,000. Time spent on your end? Maybe 5–10 hours providing content, reviewing drafts, approving the design.

So on day one, Wix is 4–10× cheaper. That's why most small businesses pick it.

But day one isn't the whole story.

The 5-Year Math

Here's where it gets interesting. Let me lay it out for a typical small business:

Cost over 5 years	Wix Business Plan	Custom Site ($2,500 once)
Subscription / build cost	$1,920 ($32/mo × 60 months)	$2,500 one-time
Premium apps / plugins	$300–$900	$0 (built in)
Stock images / fonts	$100–$300	$0 (sourced once)
Your time managing it	~80 hours over 5 years	~10 hours
Hosting	Included	$60–$180/year ($300–$900 total)
Small edits over time	You do them (40+ hours)	$200–$400/year ($1,000–$2,000)
Total cash + time	$2,320–$3,120 + ~120 hrs	$3,800–$5,400 + ~10 hrs

So in pure cash terms, Wix is still cheaper over 5 years — by about $1,500–$2,000.

But that's not the whole story either. The two big numbers I haven't included yet are conversion rate and SEO traffic. And those are what kill Wix's "cheaper" case.

The Conversion Tax

Wix sites are slower than custom-built sites. Almost always. The platform has to load Wix's framework before it can load your content, which means most Wix sites score 40–60 on Google PageSpeed. A well-built custom site scores 90+.

That gap costs you money. Google's own data says 53% of mobile visitors leave a site that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. If your Wix site loses even 10–15% more visitors than a custom site, that compounds fast.

Run the math on a typical local business getting 500 visits a month. Even a 1% drop in conversion rate is 5 fewer leads per month. At $500 average customer value (very modest), that's $2,500 a month in lost revenue. $30,000 a year. $150,000 over 5 years.

Suddenly the $2,000 you "saved" on Wix isn't looking like a savings.

The SEO Tax

Wix has gotten better at SEO over the years, but it's still not great. The structural problems are baked into how Wix builds pages. Schema markup is limited. URLs are messy. Page speed is mediocre. Internal linking is hard to control.

If you're in a competitive industry — and most Canadian small businesses are — you'll rank lower on Google than a custom site targeting the same keywords. Not by a little. By a lot.

I've migrated maybe 15 businesses off Wix in the last few years. The pattern is consistent: within 3–6 months of moving to a custom site, organic traffic doubles or triples. Same content. Same domain. Just a better-built foundation.

When Wix Is Actually the Right Call

I'm not anti-Wix. There are real situations where it's the right choice:

• You're starting a brand new business and have no budget. Use Wix to get online fast. Switch in 12 months once you have revenue.
• Your business doesn't depend on Google search. If 90% of your leads come from referrals or social media, the SEO tax doesn't apply to you.
• You're testing an idea before fully committing. Don't drop $3,000 on a website for a side project you might shut down.
• You genuinely enjoy building it yourself. Some people love tinkering. That's a valid reason.

For everyone else — particularly Canadian small businesses depending on local search to bring in customers — the math points the other way.

The Honest Conclusion

Wix is cheaper on day one. By month 36, it's about the same in cash terms but you've spent 120 hours of your own time managing it. By month 60, factoring in the conversion and SEO losses, it's significantly more expensive than just hiring someone once.

The pattern I see: businesses use Wix for 2 years, get frustrated by the limits, then pay a designer to build a real site. That's the worst of both worlds — you pay Wix subscriptions and a designer.

If you can swing the upfront cost, just build it right the first time. If you can't, use Wix for 12 months while you save up. Don't stretch it to 5 years.

Want a real quote on what your specific project would cost? Tell me about it. I'll give you a number within 24 hours and you can compare for yourself.