Guide · Straight answer

Wix vs hiring a web designer: the real cost math.

Cole Matlock · Founder, FLXW · August 2026

Here is the honest answer up front, because most pages on this topic bury it. Wix is cheaper in year one. It is not close. A Wix plan runs a few hundred dollars a year and my websites start at $2,500 CAD. If the subscription is the only number you count, Wix wins that column forever.

But the subscription is not the whole bill. By year three the gap is a lot smaller than you think, and the Wix site was slower the whole time, and you never owned it. I design websites for a living, so read this knowing that. I am still going to give you the real numbers, including the ones that do not favour me, and there is a section near the bottom on when Wix genuinely is the right call. Because sometimes it is.

The real cost table

Canadian dollars, rounded, checked August 2026, before tax. Builder prices move around and depend on billing term, so treat these as typical, not gospel. A domain is extra either way, usually around $20 a year.

Builder rows are plan fees only. Apps, extra storage, and email usually push them higher. My row is the whole thing: design, build, hosting, SSL, security updates, small content edits.

So on fees alone, three years of Wix Business is roughly $1,300 and three years of me is roughly $3,000. Wix is still ahead by around $1,700. That is the honest version. Here is where that lead goes.

The part the table leaves out: your time

A builder site does not build itself. You pick a template, fight the template, write the copy, resize the photos, redo the mobile view the template broke, and figure out why Google cannot find you. For a first-timer that is typically dozens of hours, spread over evenings, and the result is usually a site that looks like a template because it is one. Put any dollar value on your own working hours and the $1,700 lead is gone, often in the first month.

And a lot of people do not finish. They pay a Wix designer to rescue it, which typically costs four figures on top of the subscription, and now they have paid designer money for a rented site.

You are not really choosing between $15 a month and $2,500. You are choosing between your hours and mine.

With me it is a free 30-minute call, then a fixed price in writing, then I build it. Real example: Ignite HRT, a clinic in Portland, paid $1,500 USD for a custom site with online booking wired into their EHR, first year of hosting included. It renews at $180 USD a year, which covers hosting, SSL, security updates, small content edits, and keeping the booking working. Their site's job is booking patients, and it does that job while they run a clinic.

Speed, the part nobody puts in a pricing table

Builder sites ship the whole editor along with your website. Every visitor downloads megabytes of framework so that you could drag and drop once. That is why builder sites typically score poorly on Google PageSpeed, especially on phones, which is where your customers are.

A hand-built site carries nothing it does not need. The flxw.ca homepage, animation and all, is just over 40KB of HTML. The page you are reading is plain HTML with no JavaScript at all. It loads before your thumb leaves the screen.

This is not a vanity stat. Page speed feeds into Google rankings, and slow pages bleed visitors before they ever see your phone number. If the site exists to bring in clients, speed is not a nice-to-have, it is the point.

Ownership: buying vs renting

When I build your site, you own the domain and you own the code. If you get sick of me, you take both to any host or any other developer and I hand everything over. That is in writing.

With a builder, you are renting. The site only exists inside their platform, the export is partial at best, and the day you stop paying, the site is gone. That is not evil, it is just the deal, but most people do not realize they signed it until year four when they want to move.

When Wix is the right call

Honestly, sometimes it is. Use Wix, not me, if:

• You are testing an idea. If the business might not exist in six months, do not spend $2,500 on its website. Spend $15 a month and find out first.
• The budget is genuinely near zero. $2,500 is real money. A live Wix site beats no site while you save up.
• You actually enjoy the DIY. Some people like tinkering with their site on Sunday nights and will keep it current. If that is you, a builder is a fine home.

If one of those is you, close this tab with my blessing. Come back when the idea sticks.

A note on Squarespace

Everything above applies. The templates are prettier out of the box and the editor fights you a little less, but it is the same deal: monthly rent, editor weight on every page, and you do not own the result. It also bills in USD, so your Canadian price drifts with the exchange rate.

The bottom line

Wix is cheaper in year one, every time. By year three, once you count your own hours and the add-ons, it usually is not, and it was slower and rented the whole way. If your website is a hobby, rent. If it is how clients find you and book you, buy it once and own it. I wrote up the fuller numbers in what a small business website costs in Canada if you want to go deeper, and if it is the busywork behind the website that is eating your week, that is what automation is for.