Wix costs $17/month for a basic business site. A custom website starts at $1,500. The math seems obvious — until you look at three years of ownership.
Year 1: Wix Looks Cheaper
Let's be fair. For a simple brochure site — home page, about, services, contact — Wix is the fastest and cheapest way to get online.
Wix Year 1 cost: Business Basic plan: $204/year. Premium plan (you'll want this for the custom domain and analytics): $396/year. A few premium apps for forms or booking: $120–$360/year. A template that looks professional: $0–$150. Your time learning the platform and building pages: 20–40 hours. Total Year 1: roughly $500–$900, plus your time.
Custom site Year 1 cost: Build: $1,500–$4,000 (depending on complexity). Monthly retainer (Essential): $149/month × 12 = $1,788. Total Year 1: roughly $3,300–$5,800.
At this point, Wix wins on price by a wide margin. No argument.
Year 2: The Gap Narrows
By Year 2, the Wix renewal kicks in (same annual cost), but more importantly, you start hitting limitations.
You want a booking system that doesn't charge per booking. You want forms that route to different email addresses based on service type. You want to rank for local search terms, but Wix's SEO controls are limited. You want your site to load in under 2 seconds, but Wix injects its own scripts and the best you can manage is 3–4 seconds.
Each workaround involves a premium app ($10–$30/month), a third-party integration, or accepting the limitation. The platform tax compounds.
Wix Year 2: $500–$900 base + $200–$600 in premium apps and workarounds.
Custom Year 2: $1,788 retainer (which includes active development, bug fixes, and new features).
Year 3: Custom Pulls Ahead
By Year 3, the Wix site is running 5–10 premium apps, each adding load time and monthly cost. You're spending time managing app conflicts and working around template limitations. Your competitors with custom sites are outranking you because their pages load faster and their structured data is better.
Meanwhile, the custom site has been getting new features, SEO improvements, and performance tuning as part of the monthly retainer. The codebase has grown with your business instead of constraining it.
3-Year Total Cost of Ownership:
Wix: $1,800–$4,500 (platform fees + premium apps + your time). Plus: you don't own anything. Cancel Wix, lose everything.
Custom: $6,900–$10,400 (build + 36 months retainer). Plus: you own the code, the data, the domain. You can move to any host.
The Cost Wix Doesn't Show You
There are costs that don't show up in the monthly bill:
Opportunity cost. Every lead that bounces because your site loads in 4 seconds instead of 1. Every customer who gives up on your booking widget because it redirects to a third-party page.
Migration cost. When you outgrow Wix (and growing businesses do), you start from scratch. Nothing transfers. Your SEO authority, your content structure, your URL patterns — all gone. A custom migration from Wix to a real platform typically costs $3,000–$8,000.
Platform risk. Wix can change pricing, remove features, or shut down apps you depend on. You have zero leverage because you don't own the underlying system.
When Wix Is the Right Choice
Wix is great for hobby sites, personal portfolios, or businesses that truly only need a digital business card. If you need 5 static pages and a contact form, and you're comfortable building it yourself, Wix at $17/month is fine.
When Custom Is the Right Choice
The moment you need any of these, you've outgrown the template: custom booking logic, payment processing with deposits, a CRM or customer database, role-based access for your team, automated email sequences, or SEO control beyond basic meta tags.
The question isn't "can I afford custom?" It's "can I afford to spend 3 years on a platform I'll eventually have to leave?"