Wix vs Squarespace: what their own help pages say
Wix or Squarespace for a small business? Free plan or trial, changing your design later, and leaving, all from each builder's own help pages, plus my pick.
By Drew Palframan, Ucluelet · · 3 min read
Photo: Wickaninnish Beach, my own.
The short version
- Wix has a free plan, with Wix ads and a wixsite.com address. Squarespace has a 14-day trial instead.
- A Wix site can't switch to a different template. Every current Squarespace site shares one template family.
- With either one, the site itself can't move to another host.
- Whichever you pick, say what you do and your town on the home page, in plain words.
Wix and Squarespace are the two builders small businesses ask me about most, usually as “which one should I use?” I build sites by hand, so I’m not neutral about builders in general. But between these two, there are real differences, and most of them are written in their own help pages if you know where to look. I read those pages in October 2026 and linked each one as I go, so you can check them yourself.
Trying it out: a free plan or a free trial
Wix has a free plan. You can build a site and keep it online without paying, but it lives at an address like siteprefix.wixsite.com/siteaddress, a free site carries Wix ads on every page, and connecting your own domain needs a paid plan.
Squarespace has a trial instead. It’s 14 days, with no credit card, but the site is private while you try it and search engines don’t index trial sites. If the trial runs out, you can’t get into the site until you pay, and its content is marked for deletion.
So if you want to see a site online before spending anything, Wix lets you. Just don’t put a free Wix site with ads and a wixsite.com address in front of customers and expect it to look like a business.
Changing your mind about the design
This is the difference most people find out too late. On Wix, the template you start with is the one you keep. Wix’s own page says it’s not possible to switch to a different template for a site you already created. You can make a new site from a different template and copy your pages across, but the site’s theme, design and layout don’t transfer.
Squarespace works differently. Every site on its current version is part of the same template family, with the same features and style options, so a template is only a starting point. You change the look by restyling the site you have, not by swapping templates.
On Wix, the template you pick on day one is the template you keep. Pick it like you’re going to live with it.
Leaving later
Neither one lets the site itself leave. Wix says a site has to be hosted on Wix’s servers, and if you cancel your paid plan it goes back to a free wixsite.com address with ads. Squarespace has an export meant for WordPress that brings some of your content but leaves out your style settings, custom CSS, and store, portfolio and album pages, and if you cancel, visitors to your domain get a “Website expired” message. I went through what each builder lets you take in Stuck on a template website?
| What you want | Wix | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Try it free | YesA free plan, with Wix ads and a wixsite.com address. | PartlyA 14-day trial. The site is private and not indexed. |
| Your own domain | Needs a paid plan. | Needs a paid plan. A trial site is private. |
| Change the template later | NoNot on an existing site. A new site, and the design doesn’t carry over. | YesEvery current site shares one template family; you restyle instead. |
| Leaving the builder | NoIt has to run on Wix’s servers. | PartlySome content exports for WordPress; the design doesn’t. |
| If you stop paying | Back to a free wixsite.com address with ads. | Visitors get a “Website expired” message. |
Which one I’d pick
If you’re set on a builder, here’s how I’d choose:
- Squarespace if you want to be able to change the look later without starting over, and you’re happy to pay from the end of the trial.
- Wix if you want to try it free for as long as you like before deciding, and you’re confident in the template you start with.
Either way, put your own words in it: what you do and the town you do it in, on the home page, in plain sentences. That matters more to the people searching for you than which builder is underneath.
When neither is the right answer
A builder is a fine start for a lot of businesses. It stops being the right answer when the site has to do something specific to your business, like take bookings the way you run them or give a quote from your own prices, or when you want to stop paying rent on something you can never take with you. That’s what I build: a site written by hand, that’s yours once it’s paid for. The website packages say what each one includes, and the estimate builder gives you a price for yours in a few minutes.