Do you want to have your website for your business? Currently there are cheaper options to pay for a professional web development, today you will meet 2 of them: Wix and Squarespace.
Wix is currently one of the cheapest options in the market, even having a free plan with which you can have your website. Squarespace is considered a premium option with more professional templates and designs at a moderate cost.
Let's talk a little about the aspects of both.
Design
Wix offers you more than 500 templates with basic designs and a drag-and-drop system, which facilitates the process for people who are not familiar with web development. Squarespace does not have so many templates but they focus more on quality before quantity, so their designs are much more professional and also use the drag and drop system.
Both Wix and Squarespace are easy-to-use and user-friendly platforms, since you can have a professional-looking website made by yourself without having to invest any money.
Negative characteristics to consider:
Squarespace has a closed design style, which does not support third-party plugins, which limits the functionality of your website in that regard. While Wix does have an immense amount of plugins with which you can add a variety of functions to your website.
The negative side to consider about the Wix platform is that its design is non-transferable, this means that if you want to change to another template you will have to reconfigure your website again. It is important to note that it does not allow access to the HTML or CCS code to edit or export it, so if you want to change your platform - you will not be able to take your website with you.
If you want a representative and professional design, adapted to your needs and 100% functional - you can only achieve it through professional web development. This is because despite the fact that on platforms such as Wix or Squarespace they work with basic template design, they will never allow you to modify them to your liking 100%.
Domain
Wix offers a custom domain from the “Combo” plan and Squarespace includes 1 free domain for 1 year when paying any annual plan, otherwise you must buy a domain either on the platform or with third parties (In the case of third parties you must verify that it appears in the list compatible with Squarespace), the list of domain extensions in both cases is different however the 2 platforms have the most common that are .com, .org, .net, .info or .biz.
As for local domains (.do, .ve, .ar, .mx) they do not appear in the list, so if you want to use a local domain of the country in which your business is located you must acquire it through third parties.
If you buy a domain from third parties with Wix you can connect it with the "Connect Domain" plan. It is important to note that the free Wix plan does not allow custom domains, it hosts you directly to the wix subdomains and does not look professional at all (for example: your company. wix.com).
Hosting
Squarespace at this point is victorious, it offers you unlimited bandwidth and storage in any of its plans while Wix varies the bandwidth and storage depending on the plan you choose, which can affect the speed and functionality of your website. corporate Both Wix and Squarespace integrate the G Suites service that connects your domain with a personalized email and the cost will vary depending on how many emails you need, the minimum cost is US $ 6 per month per box.
To obtain this function in Squarespace you must have a minimum Business Plan and the first year is included free of 1 box if you make the annual payment. Wix allows you to connect corporate emails in any of your paid plans.
E-commerce
This point is very important to consider if your plan to have a website is to have an electronic store.
Squarespace:
It only supports 3 forms of payment, so you must verify that your payment platform appears in the list before hiring the service.
Wix:
It allows you to have an electronic commerce from the “Basic Business” plan for US $ 17 per month and does not charge you any type of transaction fee, this plan includes very basic functions so you will have to pay a much more expensive plan if you want a store With more professional functions.
Its platform is not as advanced, so if you want an international sales business we do not recommend you to use Wix, nor do we advise you to use it with the idea of later if your business is more successful to change your platform since we remind you that you will not be able to migrate your web to any other place, so you could lose a lot of valuable information.
Costs
Basically the more you pay, the more benefits both platforms offer you, if you make the payment annually - you can get a discount. It is very important to highlight that this will not be the total amount to be paid if you want additional services such as corporate emails (and the domain in case of Squarespace) you will have to pay an additional amount to the plan you choose.
Wix Business
Squarespace
Conclusion:
We have mentioned some pros and cons on both platforms and discussed a bit about the costs of both, in Squarespace it is not possible to have a website for free while in Wix it can be done but subject to publicity of the platform. Additionally both offer many facilities and plans that can be adapted to the needs of each person and that are a benefit for those businesses that cannot afford a personalized web development.
In terms of design both offer attractive templates and are very easy and intuitive to use, both have their pros and cons in terms of hosting and domain and use G Suites for corporate emails, which is the Google platform that works with Gmail and you host all the information in a cloud.
As a final reflection it is also important to keep in mind that web development will always be more professional, it is all a matter of assessing whether it is the most convenient or not for you and your business, especially if you are a more established company. To help you make this decision you can read our article in which we compare the most important points when deciding whether to use free development platforms or hire a professional service.