Wix — A drag-and-drop website builder with a free ad-supported plan and paid tiers from about $17/month billed annually for a custom domain and e-commerce.
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Wix in 20 seconds
Best for: small businesses and freelancers who want a free published-site option and an AI-assisted site generator
Pricing: Free with Wix branding and ads; paid plans start around $17/month billed annually and reach $159/month for advanced e-commerce.
- Wix's free plan publishes a live site on a wix.com subdomain with Wix ads and branding.
- Paid plans run from Light at roughly $17/month to Business Elite at roughly $159/month, both billed annually.
- Templates cannot be changed after a site is published without a full rebuild.
- Wix operates an App Market of first- and third-party apps that extend the core editor.
- Wix holds a 4.4/5 rating from 10,760 reviews on Capterra.
Limitations: Templates cannot be swapped after publishing without rebuilding the site.; Free-plan sites carry Wix branding, ads, and a wix.com subdomain.; Business Elite is a steep jump in price for stores that need only one advanced feature.; Page performance can lag behind more code-flexible platforms as site complexity increases.
Top alternatives: Squarespace, WordPress.com, Shopify, Webflow — full list
What is Wix?
Wix is a website builder and hosting platform: users design pages with a freeform drag-and-drop editor or generate a starter site with Wix's AI-assisted builder, then publish on Wix-managed hosting with a free subdomain or a connected custom domain. A defining constraint is that Wix does not allow switching templates after a site is published without rebuilding it from scratch, a limitation shared with Squarespace but not with more flexible builders like WordPress. Beyond the core site editor, Wix operates an App Market of third-party and first-party integrations (booking systems, forms, chat widgets) that extend functionality similarly to a plugin ecosystem, and Wix Stores provides built-in e-commerce on Business-tier plans and above. The free plan keeps a Wix-branded subdomain and displays Wix ads on the published site.
Wix is a website builder aimed at small businesses, freelancers, and creators who want to design and launch a site through a drag-and-drop editor or its AI-assisted site generator without writing code. Its free plan publishes a site on a Wix subdomain with Wix ads; paid plans start with Light at roughly $17/month billed annually, Core at $29/month, Business at $39/month for e-commerce features, and Business Elite at $159/month for advanced store and marketing tools, all priced higher on month-to-month billing. Wix differentiates on its large app marketplace (Wix App Market) and the ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) site builder that generates a starter site from a short questionnaire. It competes directly with Squarespace on design-led site building and with Shopify for merchants prioritizing e-commerce.
Standout feature: The Wix App Market, a marketplace of first- and third-party apps (booking, forms, chat, marketing tools) that extends the core site editor without custom code, paired with an AI-assisted site generator.
Biggest weakness: Templates cannot be changed after a site is published without rebuilding it from scratch, and the jump from Business ($39/month) to Business Elite ($159/month) is steep for stores that need just one advanced feature; the free plan keeps Wix branding and ads on the published site.
Pros
- Genuinely free plan publishes a live site, not just a builder trial, though with Wix branding and ads.
- Drag-and-drop editor allows freeform element placement, more flexible than fixed-section builders.
- AI-assisted site generator (ADI) creates a starter site from a short questionnaire, useful for fast first drafts.
- Wix App Market extends functionality without custom code for booking, forms, chat, and marketing.
Cons
- Templates cannot be swapped after a site is published without rebuilding the entire layout.
- Free-plan sites carry Wix branding and ads and publish on a wix.com subdomain, not a custom domain.
- Business Elite jumps to $159/month billed annually, a steep increase from Business at $39/month for stores that need just one advanced feature.
- Site performance and page speed lag behind custom-built or more code-flexible platforms as site complexity grows.
Wix pricing
Free tier · paid from $17/mo
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Wix subdomain, Wix branding and ads on the published site, limited storage and bandwidth. |
| Light | $17/mo | Billed annually ($24/month month-to-month); removes Wix ads, custom domain, basic site features. |
| Core | $29/mo | Billed annually ($36/month month-to-month); adds e-commerce and marketing tools, larger storage and bandwidth. |
| Business | $39/mo | Billed annually ($46/month month-to-month); full Wix Stores e-commerce, unlimited bandwidth. |
| Business Elite | $159/mo | Billed annually ($172/month month-to-month); advanced store management, multiple currencies, custom reporting. |
What reviewers say
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