For a hobby business, a personal project or a shop test, Wix (or Squarespace) is fine: cheap, quick and good enough. For a business you actually rely on for income, hiring a web designer is almost always the better long-term call. You'll pay more upfront (usually £500–£2,500), spend far less of your own time, and end up with a site that doesn't look like the ten other Wix templates in your sector.
What Wix and Squarespace get right
Modern site builders are much better than the reputation they got a few years ago. Templates look reasonable, page speed is decent, and you can be online in a weekend. If you're pragmatic and willing to accept a slightly generic result, they work.
They're a genuinely good fit for: a new venture testing an idea, a hobby-scale side business, a portfolio for a solo creative, or a temporary landing page while you get a proper site built.
Where they cost you
- Your time. The average DIY build takes 40–80 hours. That's a full working fortnight you're not earning.
- Design ceiling. Templates are templates. Yours will look like your competitor's.
- Locked ecosystem. You can't move a Wix site off Wix. Cancel and you lose the site.
- Compounding monthly cost. £16–£40/month, with add-ons for bookings, e-commerce, email, storage. Adds up.
- Support is a ticket queue. When something breaks, you're competing for attention with everyone else's problems.
What a designer buys you
- A site built specifically around your business, not adapted from a template.
- Copy written properly, the difference between a site that describes you and one that sells you.
- Real ownership. Cancel any time, take the site with you (with any studio worth its salt).
- A specific person who knows your site, picks up the phone and fixes things fast.
- Room to grow, new pages, integrations and features added properly.
The honest cost comparison
Wix at £27/month over 3 years = £972. Plus 60 hours of your time at (let's say) £30/hour opportunity cost = another £1,800. Total real cost: ~£2,770, and you still own a template.
A designer at £500 upfront + £50/month over 3 years = £2,300. Total real cost: ~£2,300, plus you own a proper site and got your evenings back.
The maths flips as soon as your time is worth anything at all.
Our honest recommendation
If your business will make more than about £30k a year, hire someone. If it won't yet, Wix or Squarespace will get you to that point, then move.
We built CAPVANE for the businesses in the first camp, £500 up front, £50/month after, cancel any time. If we're not right, we'll say so and point you at whoever is.