Wix or Squarespace vs a web designer

What website builders are good at

• A low start. No big bill up front, just a monthly fee.
• Speed. Pick a template and you can have something live in a weekend.
• Edit it yourself. Change words and photos whenever you like.
• Everything in one place. Hosting, security and updates are handled for you.
• Add-ons for bookings, shops and email lists, if you’re on the right plan.

For someone testing an idea, or a hobby that might become a business, that’s a good deal.

Where they fall short

• Your time is the real cost. Choosing, writing, resizing photos and fiddling with layouts on a phone takes far longer than most people expect.
• A good template isn’t a good website. Templates look great with the designer’s photos and words. Filled with your own, often in a hurry, they rarely look the same.
• You still have to write it. The builder gives you boxes. It doesn’t tell you what to put in them to get people to call.
• The fee never stops. The features most businesses need, like your own web address without adverts, or taking bookings, usually sit on the paid plans, and the price tends to go up as you add things.
• It’s hard to leave. You can’t simply pick up a Wix or Squarespace site and move it somewhere else. If you leave, the design usually has to be rebuilt.
• Google set-up is down to you. The tools are there, but page titles, descriptions and pages for your towns only help if someone fills them in properly.

What a web designer gives you

A designer’s job isn’t only to make it look nice. It’s to work out what your customers need to see, in what order, so they get in touch. With me, that means:

• A site designed around your business, not a template you’ve squeezed yourself into
• Pages laid out to lead to a call, a quote request or a booking
• Designed for phones first, and built to load quickly
• Set up for Google from day one, with search pages for your main services and towns included
• Help with your words, so you’re not staring at a blank page
• Someone to message when something needs changing

What each costs over three years

Comparing a monthly fee with a one-off price is tricky, so here it is over three years. Your domain is extra either way, usually £10 to £20 a year.

Check the builders’ own websites for their current prices, as plans change. The gap is often smaller than people think, and the hours you’d have spent building it yourself aren’t in the table.

Which should you choose?

A website builder is a good fit if:

• You’re testing an idea and might not carry on
• Your budget is very tight right now
• You enjoy design and have the time to do it well
• Most of your work comes from word of mouth, and the site is just somewhere to point people

A web designer is a better fit if:

• You want the website to bring in new enquiries, not just sit there
• You’re up against local competitors on Google
• Your time is worth more spent on paying work
• You want the site to match your logo and the rest of your brand

Changing it yourself

The main reason people choose a builder is to make changes themselves. You can have that with a designer too. A one-page site needs no logins at all: send me what needs changing and I’ll do it, quoted up front, or included on a care plan from £40 a month. If you’d rather do it yourself, I can add an editor, quoted to suit the site, and large sites from £1,500 come with one included.

Already on Wix or Squarespace?

That’s fine. Plenty of my clients started that way. When you’re ready, I can design a proper site, keep the words and photos that work, and move everything across carefully so your customers can still find you. Your domain can usually come with you. If you’re in Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Leicester or anywhere else in the UK, we can talk it through on a call.