I Tested Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress: My Overall Winner in 2026

Get a quick overview of Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress from the table below:

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Wix	Squarespace	WordPress.org
Overall Rating 4.8	Overall Rating 4.5	Overall Rating 3.4
Today's best price $17 $15.30 with code “TAKE10”	Today's best price $16 $14.40 with code “WBE10”	Today's best price $3.99 (for Bluehost hosting)
Free plan or free trial Free plan	Free plan or free trial 14-day free trial	Free plan or free trial Free to install
Number of templates 2,000+	Number of templates 190+	Number of templates 13,000+
Apps 800+	Apps 40+	Apps 62,000+
Recommended for Businesses promoting their online presence	Recommended for Creatives, portfolios and service-based businesses	Recommended for Businesses running content-heavy websites

You can also watch our video to see how Squarespace and WordPress compare:

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Squarespace’s pricing starts from $16 per month and Wix’s pricing starts from $17 per month, with both offering built-in hosting, themes, and apps as part of the package. In contrast, WordPress is free to install, but you’ll need to source the costs of hosting (from $3.99/mo), themes, and apps yourself.

How Much Does Squarespace Cost?

• $16-$99 per month (billed annually)
• 14-day free trial
• 10% off at checkout with code “WBE10”

Of the three platforms, Squarespace is the best value for money. With four plans to choose from, Squarespace’s pricing ranges from $16 to $99 per month (billed annually). Its cheapest plan, Basic, is best for portfolios and side hustles, but you can also sell online at this price point. However, I recommend upgrading to the Core plan for the best sales features.

How Much Does Wix Cost?

• $17-$159 per month (billed annually)
• Free plan 
• 10% off at checkout with code “TAKE10”

Wix’s pricing starts from $17 per month and includes built-in AI, marketing, and analytics tools. However, you’ll need to upgrade to Wix’s $29 per month Core plan or above if you’re looking to build an online store.

How Much Does WordPress Cost?

• Free to install
• Need to pay for hosting, templates, and plugins
• Bluehost WordPress hosting from $3.99 per month (billed annually)

While WordPress’s CMS is free to install, you need to purchase third-party web hosting, templates, and plugins separately, unlike Wix and Squarespace which include these in their monthly plans. The key costs you need to consider are:

I recommend choosing Bluehost as your web host – prices for WordPress hosting start from $3.99 per month and include a custom domain for the first year and security benefits.

• Wix Pricing: Free – $159 per month
• Wix Review

Wix is our best website builder based on our in-house testing. It offers unmatched features for all-in-one website management, such as personalized SEO and built-in email marketing tools, on top of high-quality designs and ecommerce functionality.

What Is It Like To Set Up With Wix?

During set up, you can use Wix’s AI chatbot to create a custom website – ideal for small businesses short on time or individuals lacking technical confidence. In testing, the AI asked me a few basic questions about my goals and target audience, generating a tailored site plan based on my responses.

For example, I said I wanted to build an online store to sell house plants and Wix’s AI chatbot created a catchy tagline and suggested the tone of voice should be “straightforward and nature-loving”.

The whole onboarding and setup process takes about a minute from conversation to website creation, and I could easily customize the AI creation using Wix’s user-friendly drag-and-drop editor.

What Are Wix’s Key Features?

Wix offers the best website features on the market, including website analytics and a full marketing suite. It also comes with more generative AI tools than Squarespace or WordPress, which includes:

• AI image creation tool: generates professional images for your website based on a prompt
• AI product descriptions: creates product copy in a specific tone of voice
• AI email creator: puts together email marketing templates based on the kind of campaign you want to send
• AI marketing agent: creates a personalized marketing plan to help you promote your website
• AI visibility overview: tracks site visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, to help you understand where your brand is getting mentioned and its AI sentiment

🧰 For the full list of tools you can use, read our guide to Wix’s AI features

Wix’s high volume of  features and additional options in the app store can be overwhelming for some users. Your website might not need to offer appointments or take online orders, but these features are automatically included with your plan. To compare Wix to WordPress, WordPress lets you build your website from the ground up and only add what your site needs.

🚨 One thing I noticed during testing

I felt overwhelmed at times using Wix. Though the quality of the features is exceptional, I sometimes found it difficult to find what I was looking for. Because of this, I recommend signing up for the free plan and exploring the dashboard first. This gives you the chance to familiarize yourself with the platform, and pinpoint where to find the features you need.

Emma Ryan Lead Writer

The Winner

Wix is our top-rated website builder

Wix is the best website builder we’ve tested. Its impressive suite of built-in features, ecommerce capabilities, and over 2000 professionally designed templates, cater to a broad audience. I highly recommend Wix’s website builder for small businesses looking to launch their brand online.

• Squarespace Pricing: $16 – $99 per month
• Squarespace Review

Squarespace is the easiest website builder I’ve tested due to its user-friendly interface, drag-and-drop editor, and powerful scheduling automations. Paired with unique templates and AI design tools, Squarespace is the perfect platform for building a creative or service-based website.

What Is It Like To Set Up With Squarespace?

To set up with Squarespace, you can use its AI website builder, or choose from over 190 Squarespace templates. For artist websites or online portfolios, I recommend choosing a template to start with, since you’ll find industry-specific designs – I particularly love the “Novo” template if you’re looking to showcase your work.

Additionally, Squarespace’s AI builder, Blueprint AI, is ideal for custom designs. It let me select a distinct brand personality for my website (like sophisticated or playful) and choose which fonts and color palette I’d like to represent my brand online.

How Easy Is the Squarespace Editor To Use?

Squarespace has a drag-and-drop editor with a grid overlay to help users align elements easily, which provided me with a smooth editing experience during my firsthand testing.

Squarespace continues to give you creative control as you build. Just like its broad range of templates at the start, I found that I could choose from almost 20 pre-designed section types in the editor, all with multiple styles available. For creatives, portfolios, and online stores, there are plenty of options, such as “Services” and “Testimonials”.

What Are Squarespace’s Key Features?

Squarespace offers a lot of useful features, such as:

• Squarespace Beacon AI: AI-powered business partner that answers questions about your website
• AI blog posts: generates, edits, and polishes blog posts
• AI SEO scanner: suggests ways to improve your visibility in traditional and AI search engines

Be warned that some Squarespace tools come with an additional fee. For example, Acuity Scheduling gives websites the power to offer bookable services, such as pottery classes or online tutorials, but it has an add-on subscription fee starting at $16 per month (billed annually).

🚨 One thing I noticed during testing

Acuity Scheduling impressed me when I tested it, because I loved the number of easy-to-use features it has. You can create different types of appointments to display on your profile, set your availability, and also customize your scheduling page to make sure that it reflects your brand personality. Definitely consider this platform if you intend to offer services!

Emma Ryan Lead Writer

• WordPress Pricing: Free, but with additional costs
• WordPress.org Review

WordPress is a content management system (CMS), not a website builder, so it isn’t as beginner-friendly as Wix or Squarespace. You’ll need to source and manage your own hosting, security, and overall website maintenance. But, due to WordPress’s blogging tools and large plugin library, it’s ideal for content-heavy websites.

What Is It Like To Set Up With WordPress?

Unlike Wix and Squarespace, you’ll need to download and install WordPress to set up, which can be an intimidating step for beginners. Before your site can go live, you’ll also need to figure out how to host your website so visitors and customers can find you.

For affordable WordPress hosting, I recommend Bluehost since it has close ties with WordPress already, offers automatic WordPress updates, and has plans starting from only $3.99 per month (billed annually).

How Easy Is the WordPress Editor To Use?

While WordPress’s editor isn’t recommended for complete beginners, it does offer options for users who aren’t tech savvy. For instance, the Gutenberg editor is WordPress’s block-style editor that lets you stack basic elements on your pages, such as galleries or latest blog posts. You can also install a plugin like Elementor that adds drag-and-drop design functionality.

That said, if you want to make more advanced changes to your website, such as custom features or highly specialized designs, you will need coding knowledge that you can apply to the backend settings. Because of this, I don’t recommend WordPress for beginners – Squarespace is much easier to use and will help you get online without a headache.

What Are WordPress’s Key Features?

WordPress’s key features include comments management and a suite of publishing tools to schedule and revise blog posts at your leisure. This makes WordPress ideal for anyone looking to simply share content online, as opposed to setting up an online store or visual portfolio.

What Plugins Do You Need for WordPress?

Because of its nature as an open-source platform, you’ll need to explore WordPress’s library of over 62,000 plugins if you want added functionality. For example, you can install Jetpack for a boost to your site’s security and speed, or Yoast SEO to help optimize your content effectively.

You can add as many or as few plugins as you need to your WordPress site, but I don’t recommend installing everything you see – make sure to check the reviews, ratings, and compatibility first. Downloading plugins does come with risks, such as vulnerability to malicious attacks.

For an accurate assessment of Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress, we’ve tested 12 leading website builders using our research process to bring you up-to-date recommendations.

We’ve conducted over 300 hours of data collection to determine which builder comes out on top, helping you find the right fit for your business. Our testing covered 207 individual areas within six core categories:

1. What can I do with my website? (30%): We looked at the range and quality of built-in website features, including AI tools, email marketing, SEO, blogging functionality, memberships, scheduling capabilities, storage space, global support, and the existence of a third-party app market for additional integrations.
2. Can I create a professional-looking site? (25%): We reviewed the number of templates, the appeal of designs, AI building support and output quality, customization options, and the adaptability for different devices.
3. How much does the builder cost? (15%): We compared the balance of features vs price, premium plan structures and scalability, as well as any free plan or trial options.
4. Is it easy to use at any skill level? (15%): We carried out 54 individual user tests to assess ease of use across 1,200+ tasks, from designing a website to SEO to tracking site performance.
5. How can I get in contact with the builder? (10%): We looked at what customer support options are available, expert support availability, the accuracy and relevance of answers, responsiveness, and restore options.
6. Is the platform trusted and credible? (5%): We analyzed each platform to determine its popularity in the market through search volume, third-party product review scores, user recommendations, the number of built sites, and online comments.

From these categories, we get unique insights and ratings to share with our readers.

I’ve also tested out the builders myself, creating a website from scratch and exploring each platform’s features, functionality, and support channels. I’ve used these findings to add informed, first-person insights to this article’s recommendations.

🤔 You can also try our quiz to get a personalized recommendation based on your needs.

Wix is the best website builder overall, offering top website features and beautiful templates for a wide range of industries.

To recap, here are my recommendations for who Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress are best for:

• Wix is best for promoting your business online with its impressive range of built-in tools spanning design, marketing, and ecommerce
• Squarespace is suitable for creatives or service-based businesses because of its stunning templates and built-in tools for building engagement with clients and scheduling services
• WordPress is a great option for content-heavy sites thanks to its suite of publishing tools, but I don’t recommend it for beginners due to the lack of built-in features

💡 Want even more options? Read our guide to the best website builders to compare the other top platforms on the market.