Wix vs hiring a web designer: which one fits your business?

Short answer: Wix is fine if you enjoy building it yourself and your business doesn't depend on people finding you on Google. If the phone ringing is the whole point, a site built for your business by someone who keeps it up to date usually pays for itself.

Where Wix is genuinely good

• Cheap to start: about $29 a month prepaid, $36 month to month
• You can have something live in a weekend
• Fine for a portfolio, a hobby or a one-page placeholder

Where it costs a service business

Speed. Template builders load a lot of code whether you use it or not, and on a phone that shows. Google measures it, and so do your customers, who leave if a page takes more than a few seconds. Run your own site through Google's free PageSpeed test and look at the mobile score.

Looking like everyone else. When every plumber in town picks from the same few templates, nobody stands out, and customers pick up on it even if they can't say why.

You're renting it. A Wix site can't be moved somewhere else. If the price goes up or you want out, you start over.

The time. The real cost of a do-it-yourself site is the hours. Most owners I talk to started one and it's been half finished since spring.

What a built site does differently

It's built around the jobs you actually make money on: a page for each service and the towns you cover, your real photos and reviews, and the details Google and the AI assistants read to figure out what you do and where. It loads fast on a phone, and it comes with lead tools, like every new lead emailed to you in seconds.

What it costs, side by side

• Wix Core: about $29 to $36 a month, and you build and maintain it
• N5 Studio: $0 down, $99 a month, and I build it, host it and keep it updated, with the domain in your name and no contract

The difference is roughly $60 to $70 a month. What that buys is somebody else doing the work, and a site you'll actually finish.

Not sure which one you need?

Run your current site through the free check at n5studio.com/check, or see a free demo of your own site before you pay anything at n5studio.com/free-website.