Website builder platforms: Squarespace, Wix and more

The decision people think they are making

Most buyers arrive having already chosen a platform — a website builder such as Wix, Squarespace or Webflow, a system like WordPress, or an ecommerce platform such as Shopify — usually because somebody recommended one or because a competitor’s site is built on it. The choice then shapes the quotes they receive, which makes it feel like the important decision.

It is rarely the important decision. What the site has to do — how many pages, how often they change, who edits them, whether it takes payment, what it has to integrate with — determines the cost and the difficulty far more than which system it runs on. Two builds on the same platform can differ by an order of magnitude; the same requirements on two different platforms usually do not.

Where the platform genuinely does decide something

Three things, and they are worth separating from the noise.

Who can edit it afterwards. Some website builders, such as Wix or Squarespace, are genuinely usable by the person who owns the business through a visual editor. Others, including a heavily customised WordPress build, require a developer for changes that sound trivial. This is the difference that shows up every month for years, and it is the one most often glossed in a proposal.

What it costs to keep running. Licences, hosting, plugins, any recurring website builder plan and the renewals attached to them. A cheaper build on a platform with expensive dependencies is not cheaper.

How hard it is to leave. Every platform is easy to move onto. They differ enormously in how hard they are to move off — whether the templates and design carry over anywhere else, whether your domain moves cleanly, and whether the content exports in a usable form — and that difficulty is not usually discoverable until you try.

What this website builder and platform section covers

A page per platform, each answering the same questions in the same order so they can actually be compared: what the platform is, who it suits, what it costs to run, who can maintain it, and what leaving involves.

The pages are deliberately written to a single template. That is not laziness — it is the only way a set of platform pages is useful, because the value is in the comparison and a comparison requires the same questions asked of each.

Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, WordPress and other website builder plans, compared on templates, pricing and features

Every website builder markets itself on the same three things: templates, an in-browser editor, and a monthly pricing plan with a free tier to try before you commit. Squarespace and Wix are the closest match for a small business wanting a visual editor with no code; Webflow trades some of that simplicity for finer design control; self-hosted WordPress trades the editor’s guardrails for the widest plugin ecosystem of any platform here. Features rarely differ where it matters — what differs is which plan tier actually unlocks the feature you need, and whether that plan’s free trial is a genuine free tier or a time-limited trial dressed as one. Choosing a platform for your business covers the one constraint that should decide it before any feature list does.

What is built so far

Squarespace website design is the first page in this cluster, re-homed here from the services cluster on 4 August 2026 — it covers what a commissioned Squarespace build actually includes and costs, distinct from the general platform explainer this section links out to.

Where to start instead

If the platform is genuinely still open, read choosing a platform first. It sets out the one constraint that usually decides it, and it is written from the buyer’s side rather than as an argument for any particular system.

If you already have a site and are unhappy with it, the platform is often not the problem. What drives the cost of a website covers what actually moves the figure.

The question that actually decides it

How much of the site changes, how often, and by whom.

A site whose content is stable for years and a site whose content changes weekly are different problems. So are a site one person maintains and a site four people edit with different permissions. Those two answers narrow the sensible options faster than any feature comparison, and they are answerable before talking to anyone.

Feature lists rarely decide anything, because every platform can do almost everything. What differs is how much work each thing takes, who can do it, and what it costs when it needs changing.

What a platform-specific quote should tell you

Whatever the platform, a quote that names one should also name what comes with it: which licences or subscriptions are required and what they cost annually, what happens to those costs if you leave, who holds the accounts, and what the update obligations are.

Those are the items that turn a build figure into a running cost, and they vary far more by platform than the build itself does.

For what web design covers before the platform question, start with web design in Australia.