10 Best Wix alternatives for building your website: A comprehensive guide
Surprisingly, over 25 percent of small businesses still don’t have a website — even though nearly 99 percent of customers start online when looking for local businesses (Zippia). If you’ve got multiple SMB clients looking to have a new website created, you need to know which website builders are worth your time and which might not be a fit for your needs.
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A lot of companies and agencies are familiar with Wix, a popular website building platform. Maybe your clients are already using Wix, or maybe you’re still in the consideration stages. Before you commit a ton of time and effort to building a website on the platform, we’ve gathered the best alternatives to Wix to help you make the best decision for you and your clients.
What is Wix?
Wix is a popular website builder with over 200 million users worldwide. Wix is favored by new businesses and people without a lot of website experience, but there are plenty of competitors that are similar to Wix or even Wix alternatives that have more robust features for SMBs.
The main features of Wix
As a website builder and Content Management System (CMS), what makes Wix stand out among the crowd is how easy-to-use it is for beginners. It offers a lot of flexibility without learning to code, with a user-friendly interface that doesn’t intimidate. Some key features include:
- Drag-and-drop website builder: Wix’s intuitive editor means users can customize layout and design without needing to code or spend hours on website design.
- Customizable templates: Wix offers over 800 flexible designer-crafted templates to fit your clients’ brand, style, and needs.
- App market: The Wix app market gives you and your clients access to a variety of free and at-cost third-party apps that can be used for things like social platform integration, adding e-commerce functionality, booking and scheduling tools, and more.
- Mobile optimization: Wix’s platform ensures websites are mobile-friendly to make sure visitors have a great experience no matter the size of the screen.
- SEO tools: Wix’s platform features SEO tools and customizable settings to ensure your clients are showing up exactly where potential customers are searching.
- Ecommerce: Wix’s platform has a range of tools for ecommerce, including shipping and fulfillment solutions, inventory, payment, POS, and more.
- Analytics: Wix users have access to built-in website analytics so they can track things like traffic, sales, and visitor behavior.
- Hosting: Wix automatically includes hosting for all sites built on the platform.
Wix pricing
Wix has multiple pricing options ranging from free to $59/month, depending on your clients’ needs.
- Free: Wix’s free plan includes a website with up to 500MB of storage. However, you cannot customize your domain, and the site will display Wix ads.
- Combo: The Combo plan is $14/month and includes a custom domain, a free domain for one year, removal of Wix ads, 2GB of bandwidth, and 3GB of storage.
- Unlimited: The Unlimited plan is $18/month and includes a custom domain, a free domain for one year, removal of Wix ads, unlimited bandwidth, and 10GB of storage. It also includes a Google Ads budget, Site Booster app for one year, and the Visitor Analytics app for one year.
- Pro: The Pro plan is $23/month and builds on the Unlimited plan with 35GB of storage, a professional logo, and social media logo files.
- Business: These plans range from $23/month to $49/month with 20GB storage at the low range and 50GB at the higher end. They also include support for recurring and one-time payments, customer accounts, ecommerce features like subscriptions, tax, shipping, product pages, and more. Wix has custom enterprise solutions available for larger scale businesses as well.
Why explore Wix alternatives?
There are plenty of reasons business owners might want a Wix website alternative. One of the biggest reasons to switch is loading time — the platform works well for smaller websites or online portfolios, but visitors can experience significant lag the larger the site is. This is especially noticeable for businesses with ecommerce options or multiple pages. If you’re managing one or more websites for an SMB client, an alternative to Wix may be a better option for you.
More customization options
While there are templates you can use with Wix, it can lead to websites that look a bit cookie cutter. That may be fine for a client who wants a basic website, but some of your clients might require more control over their website design and functionality than Wix offers.
Support local SEO efforts and improve performance
Compared to some Wix alternatives listed below, Wix doesn't have the best performance or SEO tools. If you’re looking to maximize your SEO efforts, consider choosing a website builder that supports those goals.
Ecommerce tools that fit your clients’ needs
If you’re working with ecommerce clients, Wix’s offering may not be robust enough. The platform’s offering isn’t the strongest when it comes to ecommerce and marketing needs that online stores require to sell their products or services.
Keep agency costs down
If you’re managing multiple websites for your clients, Wix isn't the most cost-effective option. You may need to pay for each site and plan upgrade separately, which isn’t ideal when you’re adding more client sites to your workload.
Handle complex projects
Speaking of multiple clients, as your agency grows and you need to take on large-scale projects, Wix may not be able to scale with you. As projects become more complex, they may require solutions that offer flexibility around custom code, integrations, or plugin options.
10 Wix alternatives to consider
1. Website Pro by Vendasta
As a busy agency, you need tools that make your life easier and make your clients look good. You need a plan and solutions to sell website services to local businesses. That’s what makes this Wix alternative a great option. Website Pro’s features include:
- Flexible, scalable and customizable: Since Vendasta uses WordPress as the platform, you’ll be able to offer clients more customization options, plugins, and themes than Wix.
- Reliable hosting: Vendasta solves the pain point of slow-to-load websites with low-maintenance, Google Cloud hosting. You’ll have guaranteed fast loading speed, high security, and scalability so your clients’ customers always have the experience they want on their website — and hopefully keep coming back for more.
- Ecommerce integrations: Website Pro integrates with WooCommerce, which enables ecommerce functionality and features the online stores your clients need to sell their products and services.
- All-in-one dashboard: This Wix alternative includes an admin dashboard that allows agencies to manage multiple websites and clients from one place — saving you time and streamlining your client management process.
- Drag and drop builder: Website Pro also comes with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder, social media integration, 24/7 customer support, and the analytics you need to share with your clients.
- Flexible pricing: Website pro has competitive pricing plans that include hosting, domain name, SSL certificate, and support services so you pay for what you use and not what you don’t.
Access to the Vendasta ecosystem
As part of the larger Vendasta ecosystem, this Wix alternative goes beyond just building clients’ websites: with Vendasta’s other offerings, you can scale your business by reselling white-label web-design services to your SMB clients.
If you’ve never considered becoming a white-label web design reseller, it’s a low-risk way to grow your business and create recurring revenue while solving a client need.
If you’re unsure of where to start, check out this guide on how to resell white websites, web design, and hosting.
Cost: Pricing varies depending on the plan you choose and the features you require, as well as how many websites your agency needs to build and manage.
2. Squarespace
Similar to Wix, Squarespace has a user-friendly interface that requires no coding or design experience to create a professional-looking site. Looking to go a bit further on the design? Outsourcing web design and development might be the right Wix alternative for your agency. Like Wix, this alternative also features plenty of designer templates that can be customized for your clients’ business needs.
Squarespace is also built with ecommerce in mind, for clients who offer both brick-and-mortar and online products. However, if your clients require a lot of ecommerce support, another white-label ecommerce solution may be a better fit — especially if you’re managing multiple clients’ ecommerce needs.
Cost: Squarespace starts at $16/month for a basic, mobile-optimized website with a custom domain with more advanced plans between $23 to $49 monthly, depending on if you require features like shipping, discounts, and subscriptions. Some of these plans include a transaction fee, which is important to note for any clients offering ecommerce on their websites.
3. Weebly
Another well-known Wix alternative, Weebly is another drag-and-drop website builder for people looking to create a professional-looking website without the hassle of coding. Compared to other websites similar to Wix, Weebly offers the least opportunity for customization. If your clients require a very specific look and feel for their website, Weebly might not be the right fit. On the plus side, Weebly is a low-cost option with quite a few features:
- Drag-and-drop creator
- Customizable templates
- Ecommerce tools
- SEO integration
- Built-in blogging tools
- App Center
- Mobile app to manage your site wherever you are
- Hosting and security
Cost: Weebly’s biggest benefit is that it is extremely low cost if you or your client are on the budget sensitive side.
- Free: This plan comes with limited features and some Weebly branding. Support is limited to their community forum, chat, and email.
- Personal, $5/month: This plan also has ads, but allows users to connect a custom domain, and includes pop-up notifications and shipping labels.
- Professional, $12/month: This plan includes a free domain, advanced analytics, removal of ads, password protection, coupons, and gift cards for ecommerce, and phone support.
- Performance, $25/month: This plan supports PayPal purchases, item reviews, abandoned cart email marketing, advanced ecommerce insights, and priority customer support.
4. GoDaddy
Long associated with domain name purchases, GoDaddy recently entered the realm of Wix alternatives as a website builder. Like many of the other options similar to Wix, GoDaddy also has a drag-and-drop interface that’s beginner-friendly and eliminates the need to code. While the templates are customizable just like the others, this option is not quite as flexible as some alternatives.
Other features include SEO tools, ecommerce solutions, social media integration, and analytics, with 24/7 phone, chat, and email support.
One of GoDaddy’s biggest drawbacks is the lack of SEO support, making it a potentially less attractive Wix alternative. You may want to consider a solution that allows you to offer both, such as bundling Vendasta’s web design and SEO services to make your agency as profitable and scalable as possible. Some customers have also reported that the website builder can be a bit buggy or slow, which can be frustrating if you’re managing multiple websites.
Cost: GoDaddy has multiple plans depending on which features you need:
- Basic Plan: $10/month, including custom domain connection, support, analytics, and integrated support for one social media page.
- Standard Plan: $15/month, including SEO tools, three social media platforms, and upgraded email marketing.
- Premium Plan: $20/month, including unlimited social media integration, order email automations, payments and reminders for appointments, and recurring appointments.
- Ecommerce Plan: $25/month, including robust ecommerce support.
5. Webnode
With 45 million users worldwide, another Wix alternative to consider is Webnode. If you and your clients are in the market for a cheap and cheerful option, this might be it. Webnode’s free plan includes the drag-and-drop design you’ve come to expect, a variety of flexible templates, responsive design, hosting, 100MB of storage, support for over 20 languages, and basic SEO tools. Because this is one of the simpler Wix alternatives, Webnode isn’t a great choice for people looking for a lot of customization or to host a larger, more complex site.
Cost:
- Limited Plan, $4/month: this basic plan comes with 200MB of storage and 1GB of bandwidth, and a form builder with up to five fields.
- Mini Plan, $7.50/month: Get a free domain for one year, 1GB and 3GB of storage and bandwidth respectively, it also includes email support and video background.
- Standard Plan, $12.90/month: If ecommerce tools are necessary for your clients, this is the first Webnode plan to support an online store. It also includes Google Analytics, AdSense, membership registration, and up to two languages.
- Profi Plan $22.90/month: This plan has 7GB storage, unlimited bandwidth, removes Webnode branding, unlimited languages, registration, and backups, and a site search feature.
6. Site123
If simple and cheap are at the top of your list, another Wix alternative to consider is Site123. Similar to Webnode, this basic website builder is frill-free.
Keep in mind that you get what you pay for, especially when it comes to customization. It’s very fast and easy, but you’ll have the least control over what the website looks like compared to any other alternative to Wix on this list.
Cost: Like the website builder it offers, Site123 keeps things streamlined with just two plans:
- Free: This plan comes with 250MB of storage, 250MB bandwidth, and uses a subdomain.
- Premium: This plan includes a free domain for one year, 10Gb of storage, 5GB bandwidth, removing the Site123 branding, and an online store.
7. Jimdo
Jimdo is another option for low-cost, but again low-customizable Wix alternatives. Jimdo does cater to business owners and entrepreneurs more so than other website builders mentioned as there is a separate option to build just an online store.
Like many of the websites similar to Wix, you can use Jimdo to create a website without any coding or design experience thanks to its drag-and-drop editor. You can do some limited customization, but if you want to go further it may not be the best solution for you and your clients.
Cost: Jimdo has multiple pricing tiers depending on what your clients are looking for.
- Play: This tier uses a Jimdo subdomain, which isn’t a great branding option.
- Start: For $9/month, you get a domain and remove Jimdo ads.
- Grow: At $14/month, you get SEO tools, analytics, and support with a four-hour response time.
- Unlimited: For $49/month, you get unlimited storage, a professional design review, and support with a one-hour response.
For the online store offering, there are three tiers depending on how many products and pages you need: Basic ($19/month), Business ($25/month), and VIP ($49/month).
8. WordPress
WordPress is one of the more flexible Wix alternatives. With that extra flexibility, there is more of an investment. If cost and/or time aren’t a factor and you really want to customize your clients’ websites, WordPress might be the answer.
WordPress still features a user-friendly editor, although it may take more getting used to than other alternatives to Wix. It also comes with a large variety of themes and plugins that can be used to create the exact site your clients need. WordPress is also designed with SEO in mind, and the themes are responsive so they’ll look great on any device.
Cost: Unlike the other sites similar to Wix, WordPress doesn’t have tidy packages and plans. Instead, you create the initial site for free and pay for hosting or to upgrade to premium themes. Some plugins also have a cost associated with them, which means a WordPress site can add up.
9. Shopify
Shopify focuses heavily on ecommerce, giving users the ability to customize their online stores, manage product inventory, pricing, payment, order fulfillment, marketing, SEO, and more. This Wix alternative also comes with in-depth analytics, is fully responsive, and has an extensive app library. However, managing a Shopify store can be time-consuming, making it one of the more resource-heavy alternatives to Wix on this list.
If your clients need a lot of ecommerce support, offering white label ecommerce solutions could be a great way to scale your own business without spending up all your time learning the Shopify ecosystem.
Cost: Shopify is also one of the more expensive options on the list, with monthly plans and processing fees on top. The more expensive plans offer more detailed reporting and delivery and store pickup options.
- Shopify Basic $29 per month, with 2.9% + 30¢ per online transaction.
- Shopify $79 per month, with 2.6% + 30¢ per transaction.
- Advanced Shopify $299 per month, with 2.4% + 30¢ per transaction.
10. Mailchimp
A longtime favorite for email marketing, Mailchimp now offers a website builder that’s worth a look for people seeking a Wix alternative. Mailchimp offers another code-free, drag-and-drop interface, and the biggest advantage is that it integrates easily with the platform’s marketing tools. It also supports online stores and online appointment scheduling.
Cost: Mailchimp has three pricing plans, from its free offering (although it does have transaction fees for online products) to the $10/month and $29/month more advanced plans. The biggest difference between the plan is the number of seats, so if you require more than one account, the free option isn’t a great choice.
How do you know if you’ve chosen the right Wix competitor?
There are a lot of alternatives to Wix to sort through when it comes to selecting the best website builder for you and your clients. The major things to take into consideration are:
- how much time do you want to spend,
- how much money do you want to spend, and
- how much customization do you need?
With many of these websites similar to Wix, you can spend less but trade off either your time or design flexibility.
One place to start when evaluating your clients’ needs is with the competition: what do their websites look like, and how can you make your clients stand out?
The bottom line: why you should consider Wix alternatives
Wix is a great place to start for basic websites, but there are many other options that may suit your clients’ needs better. When you decide on a Wix alternative, the following things may be deciding factors:
1. High-quality websites
Your agency can deliver high-quality websites that meet the clients' expectations and requirements in terms of design, functionality, and performance.
2. Resources
With the right website builder, you can save time and money by using a platform that offers efficiency, all-in-one solutions, cost-effectiveness, and responsive website creation for your clients.
3. Customization
Your clients have different customers and audiences, which means you need to customize and optimize their websites for a variety of offerings. The right website builder can support customization across ecommerce, marketing, SEO, analytics, and more.
4. All-in-one solution
If you have multiple clients, you’ll want a solution to manage and maintain multiple websites easily and securely while tackling hosting, domain name, SSL certificate, and support services in one place.
5. Scalability
As you grow, you need a website builder that grows with you. Choosing a Wix alternative that offers flexibility, performance, integrations, plugins, and custom code options ensures you.
If you’re looking to save time and produce highly-customizable websites for your clients, a suite of tools all in one place like Vendasta might be the best of both worlds.
Frequently asked questions
What is the downside of Wix?
Wix has a few limitations as a website builder. Some downsides of Wix are limited customization when it comes to design, Wix branding on free plans can make a website look unprofessional, the website structure can harm SEO efforts (which are crucial for SMB), limited ecommerce options, and a lack of integration with third-party tools.
Which is better, WordPress vs. Wix?
Deciding which is better between WordPress vs. Wix all comes down to evaluating what you need in a website builder. If you’re looking for easy to use drag-and-drop functionality that’s beginner-friendly or are interested in a lower-cost option, Wix is the better choice. If customization and flexibility are more of a priority and you don’t mind spending more time and money building a more tailored website, WordPress is a good option for you.