Wix vs Weebly vs Squarespace: The Ultimate Comparison

Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace have as many differences as they do similarities, and we’ll get into a detailed run-through below.

But if you just need to know the essentials, then we have made this quick comparison table for you to check out:

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Wix	Weebly	Squarespace
Starting from $16 $14.40 with code ‘TAKE10’	Starting from $10	Starting from $16 $14.40 with code “WBE10”
Number of templates 900+	Number of templates 50+	Number of templates 150+
Apps 500+	Apps 350+	Apps 40

If you want to know more about each provider individually, then read our in-depth reviews. Each review covers the full breadth of tools, marketing features, and customization options of each builder, told from our own writer’s personal experience making a website.

• Wix Review
• Weebly Review
• Squarespace Review

First things first, both Wix and Weebly have free plans. You’ll get to design, build, and publish a website all for $0. However, in our experience, these free plans are good for testing and nothing much else, as they aren’t very sustainable for long. They come with limitations like banner ads on your website, only 500MB of storage, and no custom domain.

Wix also limits certain features, like withholding ecommerce options. The only way to get rid of these limitations is to upgrade to its premium Wix pricing plans, which range from $16 – $159 per month (billed annually).

Wix’s starting plan, the Light plan for $16 per month, is good for personal websites or portfolios. But you won’t get the full use out of Wix till you upgrade to the Core plan for $27 per month and unlock ecommerce options. If you like discounts, you can use Wix’s code TAKE10 at checkout to get 10% off once you choose a plan.

Weebly actually lets you sell for free on its plan – one of the only builders to do so. Weebly’s pricing is also the cheapest, starting at $10 per month to $26 per month (billed annually). If money and keeping to a strict budget are at the top of the list when it comes to concerns, then consider Weebly the solution.

However, just because Weebly is cheap doesn’t mean it’s good value for money. Compared to Wix and Squarespace, Weebly’s features and design options are very limited. Even considering being able to sell for free, we wouldn’t recommend anyone serious about starting an online business use Weebly.

Squarespace, despite having no free plan, is the best value-for-money builder in our research. Ranging from $16 per month to $49 per month (billed annually), Squarespace’s pricing plans pack the most bang for their buck, giving you an excellent range of features on the starting Personal plan, and including ecommerce for the cheaper-than-Wix price of $23 per month on the Business plan.

Squarespace does have a 14-day free trial for you to try out its features with, plus like Wix you can claim 10% off at checkout if you use our exclusive code WBE10.

• Starting price: $16 per month
• Read our full Wix Review for more

Wix is the best-rated website builder in our research (and has been for the past nine years), and our number-one recommended choice for users wanting to start a small business website. This is due to the unparalleled quality and choice of professional features Wix offers. Whatever your business, whatever your industry, Wix has the exact tools for you to succeed.

Our Experience With Wix

The first thing you are greeted with when starting up Wix is a conversation with its AI Chatbot. This chatbot is a great tool for those in a rush to build their website, as while you engage in giving info about your dream site, Wix is generating your website with specific features based on your answers.

Once the website template was generated, the result was very professional-looking, but this method does take a lot of the agency away from you. On the other hand, our testers found Wix’s editor gave too much agency, reporting that they’d often mess up their design with no clear answer as to how to fix it. In the Wix editor vs Wix ADI debate, it’d be better if there was more of a middle ground between the two approaches.

If you prefer to have more of a choice in your template, you can pick one from over 900+ options. These templates are separated into industries, and some of these templates are very specific – from Beer Fan Club to Electrical Motor Repair Shop, Wix seemingly has a template for everything (or at least, one close to what you want).

If the Wix template, generated or otherwise, doesn’t meet your particular aesthetic standards, then Wix’s editor is ready for you to start personalizing your site. From our own experience, Wix’s editor is one of the most in-depth we’ve seen, but at the same time still super easy to use. Simply drag and drop the features and sections you want and place them on your site.

These features are the best in the industry, giving small businesses all the tools they could need to succeed. For example, its features include:

• contact forms for collecting leads
• Wix Menu for restaurants
• Wix Booking for creating appointments
• Wix Events for selling and distributing tickets
• Analytics to see how your visitors are interacting with your site.

All of these can be accessed from the Wix Dashboard, which in recent years has transformed into an all-in-one business center, with everything you need right at your fingertips.

This also includes an impressive range of marketing and Wix SEO tools. From integrations with Google Analytics, Semrush, and Microsoft Clarity – and features like email marketing for creating campaigns and newsletters, get the name of your business out and in the heads of customers.

If you plan on selling products with Wix ecommerce, it has you covered there too. But we should mention that ecommerce tools are only available on the Core plan for $27 per month – and even then, that’s just basic commerce.

To get features like advanced shipping and automatic sales tax, you’ll need the $32 per month Business plan, which admittedly is quite an expense for a new business – and double-fold when compared to selling for free with Weebly.

The Winner

Wix is the best website builder for small businesses

Wix has the best range of features hands down – if you are starting a small business and want the most comprehensive options and support, we recommend Wix. It may not be as cheap as Squarespace or certainly Weebly, but its quality speaks for itself.

• Starting at: $10 per month
• Read our full Weebly Review for more

We’re going to be honest – of the three builders, Weebly is the worst. Ever since the payment processor Square bought Weebly in 2018, many of its developers have moved to Square’s new ecommerce platform Square Online, leaving Weebly having had no updates since 2019. That being said, there is still a niche for Weebly – being able to sell for free is an attractive offer, one not many website builders can match.

Our Experience with Weebly

Weebly doesn’t give off the best impression when booting up, asking you whether you want a “business website” or a “personal website”. Clicking business will take you to Square Online to use its ecommerce tools, which is confusing because you can make a business site with Weebly, as not all business sites require ecommerce.

Minor trauma aside, once you are actually building a website with Weebly you can choose your template. There are no AI tools like Wix to generate a personal template for you, which is disappointing as AI website builders have become almost industry-standard over the past year or so.

The templates to choose from didn’t soothe the disappointment either. Receiving no updates since 2019 has left Weebly’s templates looking outdated and bland by today’s standards. And with only 50 to choose from, you won’t get the same variety as Wix or the design quality of Squarespace.

Much of Weebly could be described as “stripped-back”. The editor is very rigid and overly simple, meaning you are more or less stuck with your chosen template. Feature-wise, Weebly doesn’t reach the level of Wix or Squarespace – it only has basic SEO, no built-in social media, and an email marketing feature that only lets you send two emails even if you’re on the free plan!

The real reason to use Weebly over Wix or Squarespace is the fact you can sell unlimited items for free. Very few builders offer this feature, and it represents a significant cost reduction for users, with both Wix and Squarespace offering ecommerce for $27 and $23 per month, respectively. Weebly certainly has enough features to run a website, and combined with free ecommerce means making a profit with no overhead costs –  a compelling offer.

However, like Wix, the free plan has limitations. You have a storage limit (500MB), Square Online ads on your site and you can’t connect a custom domain. Weebly’s ecommerce is also limited, with no shipping, no digital goods, and quite shockingly no accepting PayPal payments till you upgrade to the $29 per month Performance plan. 

The Winner

Weebly is the best website builder for selling for free

Weebly wins this award for being the only competitor, but from our own experience, users may find Weebly’s free plan to be too limited for any long-term selling. Eventually, you may need to upgrade to a paid plan or swap to a more robust ecommerce platform, like Shopify.

• Starting from: $16 per month
• Read our full Squarespace Review for more

Squarespace is renowned for its impeccably-designed templates and super accessible editor – all powered by Squarespace’s Fluid Engine. If you are looking for a platform to design the best-looking website and showcase your art, Squarespace has your back.

Our Experience With Squarespace

What makes Squarespace so good for creatives is that it lets you try out and experiment with design without messing up the readability and UX of your website. This is all thanks to Squarespace’s Fluid Engine, its drag-and-drop editor that lets you place any element or section where you’d like, while also seamlessly integrating it into your site. 

Our own testers reported back that Squarespace was the easiest-to-use builder we’ve researched, and they actually found it difficult to build a bad website! On top of that, there’s even the AI-powered Squarespace Blueprint to build you a custom template if things aren’t easy enough.

Squarespace’s over 150 templates are a veritable gallery in and of itself. Each one is skillfully designed, and they even field professional artists to design templates, like with the Magnum Collection. While not as industry-focused as Wix, you should find enough inspiration in the designs – with plenty of white space and modern, image-heavy templates, you’re bound to find something you like no matter your business

For artists, Squarespace’s Acuity Scheduling is the platform’s new feature for organizing events and classes. However, it costs an additional $16 per month on top of the pricing plan, slightly disappointing when considering the inconsistent pay of most artists.

With the Business plan for $23 per month, you can get fully integrated ecommerce on Squarespace. While it’s not as strong as Wix’s capabilities, you can still run a small online store on just this plan – if you need more advanced ecommerce tools, you’ll need to upgrade to the Commerce plans. And for artists, you can sell both physical and digital products, meaning you aren’t limited by your chosen medium.

The Winner

Squarespace is the best website builder for selling art

Thanks to its Fluid Engine. Squarespace makes creating professionally designed websites a breeze. If you’re selling art online, your website will be judged as evidence of your artistic ability, so best to choose the builder that not only gives you the tools but makes it easy as well.

Our rigorous research methodology covers 398 areas of investigation across every single website builder we talk about. Through this, we can accurately evaluate and assign scores across categories like website features, design functionality, user experience, and value for money – creating a definitive yearly ranking for each.

For this particular article, we looked past just the raw research and considered the common user for all three of these platforms. We wanted to make sure that everyone reading could take something away – as such each builder had a clear target audience in mind when writing, which we compared in consideration as we evaluated its pros and cons.

We’ve looked at Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace in close detail, and through our data-led research, we’ve determined that Wix is the best website builder overall. It’s super easy to use, very customizable, and gives you everything you need for a small business website.

Squarespace also had its fair share of victories – it offers stylish and unmatched design options, making it ideal for creatives trying to make a living online.

Unfortunately for Weebly, it’s difficult to compete with the likes of Wix and Squarespace since they’re such powerful platforms. However, if you’re only after the basics and want to be able to sell for free, then it could be a good fit for you!

Even so, Wix is still our go-to-builder, and we recommend it as the best option for the trio. And, luckily for you, Wix’s free plan means that you can try it out risk-free!