Founded way back in 2006, Wix is a mainstay of the website builder industry. But is it any good?
I tested Wix by creating a website to evaluate the website builder's ease of use, server performance, customer service and value. Wix impressed me at almost every turn with beginner-friendly site editing tools, great server performance and solid customer service. However, the high cost and limited storage of the lowest-tier plan mean it might not be the best choice if your budget is tight.
The Wix website builder uses cloud hosting, storing site data in a series of interconnected (often virtual) servers instead of placing everything on one physical web server. This provides several benefits you won't get with more traditional hosting types like shared hosting, including:
All Wix plans are fully managed, meaning Wix performs all server maintenance for you, including updates to the website builder. Wix also provides a full roster of security tools like secure socket layer -- SSL -- certification, distributed denial of service -- DDoS -- protection and a custom firewall. As an added bonus, every plan includes a free domain for the first year.
Here's a detailed breakdown of the four Wix plans:
If you're running an e-commerce business, it's worth noting that Wix charges 2.9% plus 0.30 USD on all transactions from US-based credit cards. These fees come directly out of your customers' purchases, so you'll want to adjust your prices to absorb those costs. There is no Wix plan without transaction fees.
Wix also has a free plan, which I've left out due to its strict limitations. You can find out more about this option in our list of the best free website builders.
Wix offers over 900 site templates in categories like fashion, health and electronics. There are also specialized templates for blogs, e-commerce stores and professional portfolios. Most of these templates are highly attractive, with a good balance of images, text and interactive elements like buttons. There are a few duds, but with so many options, you're bound to find something you like.
The key here is to make sure you choose a template you'll like working with for a long time, as there's no easy way to switch your Wix template later on. If you decide to change your template you'll need to create a new site with the template you want to switch to and manually transfer data from your old site to the new one. You can then reassign your premium plan and domain to the new site. The whole process is clumsy and annoying, but you can avoid it by choosing an evergreen template and taking full advantage of Wix's site customization tools.
The Wix AI site generator has two phases. First, you tell a bot your website's title and purpose. The bot uses this information to personalize your site dashboard with a custom to-do list based on the functionality you'll need.
Next, click on the Design your site button. Select Build with AI and Wix will use the information from the first step to generate a website, complete with images and custom text. This process is quick, but I was disappointed with the result: an ugly site with an irrelevant and poorly placed header image.
The blog images and sample text were relevant to my proposed marketing business, but the overall site wasn't nearly as attractive as most of the premade templates. I regenerated the site and received similar results.
The Wix AI generator was particularly disappointing compared to the elegant website I built with the Squarespace AI generator. I suspect this is because Wix operates more like a standard generative AI tool, using basic information to spit out images based on what it thinks you want. Squarespace, on the other hand, provides a collaborative AI process where you can dictate several elements of your design -- like brand tone and color scheme -- and adjust them until you're happy with your site.
I strongly recommend using one of Wix's many elegant templates instead of this AI generator. You'll get a better design and avoid the moral and legal issues associated with generative AI, which is often trained by scraping content from the web without its creators' consent.
I tested Wix for ease of use in three areas: the purchase process, account/site management and website creation.
The Wix purchase requires you to create an account and set up your site dashboard before you can buy a plan. The good news is that, unlike Squarespace, Wix lets you skip most of the steps for creating a "site profile" (like the AI chat referenced in the previous section) to reach your dashboard quickly.
You'll see a purple bar across the bottom of your dashboard with a button to Upgrade now. I wish this button was more prominent, but the color does make it easy to spot. The rest of the process is simple: pick a plan, enter your payment information and you're good to go.
Like Squarespace, Wix's pricing model has no hidden fees or increased renewal costs, things you're almost certain to encounter when buying traditional web hosting. This makes it easier to choose the best plan for your website.
Logging into Wix takes you to the site dashboard, where you can see a customized website creation to-do list. This page also features quick links to areas for setting up content subscriptions, creating online courses/programs, managing your blog and viewing your analytics. Everything is clearly labeled and easy to navigate.
You can reach your account and billing settings by clicking on the person icon (or your profile picture) in the top right corner. I wish this icon were more prominent, but it's in the same location as the account menu on many other sites (including web hosts like HostGator and GoDaddy) so it's still easy for experienced internet users to find.
I was initially confused when Wix sent me an email confirming my domain purchase and telling me to connect it to my website. I was certain I'd already connected my domain to my website, but I clicked the link in the email to make sure. This link launched the dashboard personalization process and had me halfway through building a new site before I realized my domain was, in fact, already connected to my original site.
Thankfully, this was the only confusing part of building a Wix site. The guided site creation process makes it easy to choose a template, select components to auto-install (like a blog) and start editing your site. My only complaint is that Wix doesn't say you'll be stuck with your theme forever. I only knew this because of previous experience with Wix, and I had to reach out to customer service to learn that it's still true.
The site editor itself is remarkably simple. The first time you log in, Wix displays labels to help you understand the menu icons for things like adding elements and menus to your site.
You can click on any element of your site to drag it to a new spot or edit it. You can also choose to replace the placeholder content, like images and text, yourself or click on the three diamonds in the editing bar to generate new content with AI.
You can add content by clicking on either the appropriate icon (Add Elements or Add Section) in the sidebar or the area of the page where you want to add something. Elements are items like headers and buttons. Sections are pre-formatted multimedia blocks for things like company and team information.
You can access other pages of your site by clicking on the Pages icon in the sidebar and selecting the page you want to open. From there, you'll be able to edit the page. This is simpler than switching pages in Squarespace, which involves leaving the site editor entirely to reach the navigation menu.
I also loved the mobile site editor. This editor uses the same tools as the regular Wix editor but displays your site as it'll appear on a smartphone. This helps you understand -- and control -- how smartphone users will experience your site. The mobile site editor is really helpful, especially with mobile devices now accounting for 58% of all internet traffic.
I gave Wix a 9/10 ease of use ranking, notably higher than the 7/10 ranking I gave Squarespace, one of Wix's top competitors. Wix is easier to purchase, the account management area is more accessible and the site editor is more streamlined.
I built a test site with Wix and used it to evaluate Wix's server performance over the course of one week, focusing on two metrics:
I also researched the performance tools offered by Wix. Let's take a look at what I found!
Wix uses two protocols to improve site performance:
These protocols are automatically enabled, so you don't need to do anything to experience their benefits.
The industry-standard uptime guarantee is 99.9%, promising that server issues won't cause more than 10 minutes of downtime per week. Wix offers an even higher uptime guarantee of 99.99%, meaning your site shouldn't experience more than two minutes of downtime per week.
I tracked my Wix site for one week with BetterStack to see if Wix lives up to this promise. My site experienced no downtime during this week, suggesting that Wix might even exceed its ambitious 99.98% uptime guarantee and earning Wix a 10/10 uptime ranking. This is the same ranking earned by Squarespace and other top web hosts like Hostinger.
I used WebPageTest to test my website's speed over five days, running speed tests for both desktop and mobile devices in various countries to understand how a broad range of users experience Wix sites.
I used the data from these tests to establish the following averages (remember, lower numbers are better):
While these tests aren't a perfect representation of site speed (users' experience will vary based on their devices and internet plans) they are strong enough to provide a rough idea of how users will experience Wix sites. Specifically, I used these numbers to determine that:
This puts it well ahead of Squarespace's average of 2.67 second average. In fact, Wix's site speed is similar to the two fastest web hosts I've tested, Hostinger (with a 2.34 second average) and GoDaddy (with a 2.29 second average). This earns Wix a speed ranking of 8/10. The one drawback is the mobile site speed, but there are measures you can take -- like optimizing your images and modifying your mobile site layout -- to improve this.
Wix earned a 9/10 performance ranking with its excellent server performance and solid site speed. This puts it on par with our top-ranking web host, Hostinger, and ahead of Squarespace's 8.75/10 ranking.
Wix uses a variety of security protocols and tools to keep your data -- and your visitors' data -- safe:
These security measures are similar to those taken by other popular website builders like Squarespace and Shopify. It's also better than the security you'll get from most top web hosts, with the biggest benefit being two-factor authentication.
The internet is 24/7. Your website builder's customer service should be 24/7, too. They should also be available through multiple channels -- like live chat or phone -- quick to respond and knowledgeable in a variety of website builder-related issues. I tested every Wix customer support channel to determine how well Wix lives up to these expectations.
The Wix knowledge base, called the Help Center, is accessed through a drop-down menu. There's a search function if you know exactly what you're looking for and several categories of content you can peruse for general advice.
You can explore the categories without opening a new tab, which I appreciated since I always already have too many tabs open. Once you've found the article you need, you can keep reading in the menu or open the article in a new tab.
The articles themselves use beginner-friendly language, images and step-by-step instructions. A few also have animations demonstrating how to perform specific tasks within the website builder. However, video tutorials are few and far between, which could prove frustrating if you prefer to learn through video. This lack is particularly notable when compared to the Squarespace Help Center, which paired almost every article with a video tutorial.
Still, the Wix Help Center is easy to navigate and the articles are beginner-friendly, earning Wix a 9/10 knowledge base ranking.
Wix primarily offers customer support through live chat. You'll initially be directed to an AI chat that pulls answers from the knowledge base. After receiving excellent responses to some basic questions, I asked to speak to a person. The AI asked for more details about my query, then sent another AI-based response. These responses were great, but I was frustrated by the bot's determination to keep me away from Wix's customer service representatives.
I tried again, and this time typed in "speak to a person" twice. The bot finally got the hint and connected me to a customer service rep in about a minute. The rep had atrocious spelling and a habit of providing three-word answers, forcing me to ask for clarification several times. They also didn't have access to my information (they asked if I had a Wix site despite me being logged in).
After much debate, I gave Wix a live chat ranking of 7/10. While there were some frustrations in the chat process, the AI bot is well equipped to answer most questions and the customer support representatives were both fast and -- once we hammered out some initial misunderstandings -- helpful.
Wix also offers a callback service in several languages. However, English is the only language with 24/7 callback service. You can check the callback information page to check the hours for other languages your team might need support in.
I submitted a callback request and received a call two minutes later. Again, the initial answers were short and unhelpful, forcing me to ask gradually more granular questions until I got a useful answer. This leads me to believe the support team is trained to answer specific questions, not to have a broad understanding of how Wix tools work. Still, once I found the right questions I managed to get helpful answers, and the whole process took less than ten minutes.
Once again, I found myself debating how to rank Wix support. I eventually settled on a phone support ranking of 8.5/10 because this was one of the fastest phone support interactions I've had and the representative provided comprehensive, helpful responses once we'd gotten past the initial confusion.
Wix doesn't offer customer service via support ticket or email. While this might be frustrating for some users, the live chat and phone support are good enough that I don't feel like it's a major loss.
On the whole, Wix customer service is impressive. The knowledge base is comprehensive and easy to navigate. The live chat -- both the bot and the customer service rep I spoke to -- was fast and relatively helpful. The phone support was fast and, after some initial confusion, helpful.
All of this earns Wix an overall customer service ranking of 8.16/10. While this doesn't live up to the 9.5/10 rankings earned by Ionos and SiteGround, it's higher than the Squarespace customer support ranking of 6.66/10. Even our current frontrunner for best web host overall, Hostinger -- which performed admirably in every other category -- only received a 6.5/10 customer service ranking, showing that Wix offers better support than most other web hosting companies.
Wix has an excellent reputation, with a 4.6 out of 5 star Trustpilot ranking based on over 21,000 reviews. There are several hundred recorded complaints on the Wix Better Business Bureau page, but these are all closed, suggesting that Wix is good about addressing issues in a timely manner.
With my tests concluded, the final thing to consider is how valuable its offerings are when compared to other website builders. I started by analyzing the most affordable plans from two website builder companies, Squarespace and Shopify:
This data allows me to draw the following conclusions:
Based on these facts, it's safe to say that Wix provides below-average value for a website builder.
Many traditional web hosting companies now offer website builders. Hostinger is a notable example, with a website builder plan starting at $3 a month. This plan offers much more storage than the equivalent Wix plan -- enough for at least 1,000 pages -- plus email hosting for up to 1,000 email addresses and an excellent security suite. You'll need to pay for four years up front, but this is only $144, equivalent to eight months of Wix hosting. The renewal cost of $13 a month is also less than Wix's $17 a month, leading to significant long-term savings.
Other traditional web hosting companies offer significant introductory discounts on their website builders, but the renewal cost is closer to what you'll pay for Wix. GoDaddy, for example, offers a website builder that starts at $10 a month, but this rises to $17 a month on renewal.
The limited storage and the lack of e-commerce features on the Light Wix plan means you're getting a lot less for your money than you'll get with other website builders like Squarespace or Shopify. The difference is even more drastic when you look at newer alternatives like the Hostinger website builder. This lands Wix a value ranking of 6.5/10.
So, what's the verdict on Wix? Well, let's take a look at the rankings for the categories we tested:
These numbers lead to an overall ranking of 8.1/10, higher than Squarespace's 7.47/10. However, it's not as high as the 8.6/10 ranking earned by Hostinger, with the value being the main detractor. In other words, Wix is a good tool, but it might not be worth the cost, especially if you're trying to build a website on a shoestring budget.