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What free website builders actually cost you
The $16/month plan looks reasonable until you add up three years of price hikes, missing phone clicks, and the day you decide to leave.
Sarah runs a nail salon in Fishers. Last year she told me her website costs "basically nothing, like fifteen dollars a month." She was on Squarespace, the Personal plan, paying month-to-month.
The Personal plan is advertised at $16/month on annual billing. Month-to-month, it runs $23. And Squarespace restructured its pricing in early 2025, so the old "Personal" plan changed what it included. Sarah had been on it for two years, which meant her "basically free" site had quietly run her $552.
That's not a scam. It's just math nobody walks through out loud.
What the platforms actually charge
Wix and Squarespace are the two most popular website builders for small shops. Here is what they charge in 2026, on annual billing:
| Platform | Entry plan | Mid plan | Business plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wix | $17/mo (Light) | $29/mo (Core) | $39/mo (Business) |
| Squarespace | $16/mo (Personal) | $23/mo (Business) | $33/mo (Basic Commerce) |
The catch: these are annual prices. Pay month-to-month and you add 30 to 50 percent. Most people don't know they're paying month-to-month until they go looking.
Wix's Business plan, the one you need if you take online payments, jumped from $27 to $39/month in 2025. That's a 44% price increase. If you signed up in 2023 thinking "$27 a month is fine," you're now paying $39 and may not have noticed it on the card.
Three years on Wix Business, month-to-month: roughly $1,500. Three years on Squarespace Personal, month-to-month: around $830. Neither number is catastrophic. But neither is "basically nothing."
The cost that doesn't show up on your statement
Here's the number I actually care about.
A dry cleaner in Speedway has a Wix site on the Light plan. His phone number is on the homepage. I checked it on my phone. You can see the number, but it's plain text, not a tap-to-call link. On iPhone, about a third of the time the browser won't auto-detect it. The customer sees a number. They don't call.
Say 10 people a month try to call from that page and can't get through. Say half of them give up and try the next shop. If a dry cleaning customer is worth $60 a visit and comes twice a year, those 5 lost customers cost him $600 that year. More than the platform fee.
The $16/month site that doesn't answer the phone isn't cheap. It's expensive in a way that doesn't show up on your credit card statement.
His Wix template is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. The fix is twenty minutes of work if you know where to look. The builder isn't going to tell him about it.
The exit cost
The other thing nobody mentions until it's already a problem: you don't own your Wix or Squarespace site.
Your content lives in their system. If you decide to move to a developer, a different platform, or something custom, there is no clean handoff. You export your images, you copy-paste your text, and you rebuild from scratch. That's real time, yours or someone else's you're paying for.
This isn't a dealbreaker. It's just worth knowing before you're three years in.
When the builder is actually fine
I want to be honest here, because some shops are exactly right to use a $17/month Wix site.
If you're just starting and need proof of concept before spending more, a builder is the right call. If your business runs primarily on Instagram and your website is a contact card with hours and a phone number, a simple builder is fine. If you need something live this week and can't wait three weeks for a custom build.
The problem isn't the tool. The problem is using a $17/month tool for a job that's costing you $600 a year in missed calls, and not knowing the difference.
What to check before you renew
Before you click "renew" on that subscription this year, check three things in under ten minutes:
- Tap your own phone number on a real phone. Does it dial?
- Look at your hours on mobile. Are they current?
- Can your office manager edit the site without calling you or paying someone? Try it right now.
If one of those fails, the $17/month plan isn't the problem. The site is.
The platform wars between Wix and Squarespace produce a lot of noise about templates, AI features, and page speed scores. None of that matters to the baker in Broad Ripple who just needs customers to see her hours and tap to order.
Fix the calls first. Worry about the platform later.
Sources
| # | Source | What it backed up |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wix Pricing 2026: All 4 Plans Compared | Wix plan names and monthly prices for 2026 ($17, $29, $39, $159). |
| 2 | Wix vs Squarespace Pricing 2026: Full Cost Breakdown | Side-by-side pricing comparison and month-to-month vs. annual cost differential. |
| 3 | Squarespace vs. Wix — Squarespace | Squarespace pricing tiers and plan restructuring in 2025. |
| 4 | Wix vs Squarespace 2026: 11 Crucial Things You Must Know | Independent review documenting price increases and plan changes in 2025. |
Prices listed are on annual billing and current as of May 2026.