Wix and Squarespace are the two most popular website builders in the UK – and they appeal to very different types of user. Wix gives you maximum design freedom, 900+ templates, and an expanding suite of AI tools from £9 per month. Squarespace gives you fewer choices but consistently better-looking results, with curated templates and polished design defaults from £12 per month.
Our verdict upfront: Wix wins for flexibility, AI features, and affordability at entry level. Squarespace wins for design quality, brand credibility, and zero transaction fees on its mid-tier plans. Neither is the right choice for every business – the best option depends on how much design control you want versus how quickly you want to look professional.
- Wix wins on flexibility & customization options - drag-and-drop editor with 800+ templates & apps
- Squarespace plans 20-40% more expensive - but includes superior design quality & built-in features
- Wix better for DIY users wanting full control - unlimited design freedom but steeper learning curve
- Squarespace ideal for design-focused professionals - photographers, artists, agencies needing polished aesthetics
Related Web Design Guides
- Compare Web Design Options
- Best Website Builders UK 2026: 6 Platforms Compared
- How Much Does a Website Cost UK 2026? Full Price Guide
- Wix Review UK 2026: Pricing, Features, Pros and Cons
We verified all pricing directly from Wix and Squarespace’s UK websites in March 2026. All prices are shown annually billed and inclusive of VAT where noted.
Wix vs Squarespace: Quick Comparison
Wix starts at £9/mo with a free plan option and 900+ templates. Squarespace starts at £12/mo, has no free plan, but offers higher-quality curated templates and zero transaction fees from its Plus plan.
| Feature | Wix | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (annual) | £9/mo (Light) | £12/mo (Basic) |
| Free plan | Yes (Wix subdomain, ads shown) | No (14-day free trial) |
| Templates | 900+ | Curated selection, all premium-quality |
| AI tools | 20+ (ADI, text, image, SEO, blog) | Blueprint AI, AI copy, AI images |
| Ecommerce | From Core plan (£16/mo) | All plans (transaction fees on Basic/Core) |
| Transaction fees | 0% (platform); Wix Payments 2.1% + 20p | Basic 2%, Core 3%, Plus/Advanced 0% |
| Storage | Unlimited (Core+) | Unlimited (all plans) |
| Trustpilot | 3.6/5 “Average” | 3.0/5 “Average” |
| Best for | Design flexibility, AI tools, beginners | Creative businesses, portfolios, brand-conscious SMEs |
Pricing Comparison
Wix is cheaper at entry level (£9/mo vs £12/mo) and has a free plan. Squarespace removes transaction fees at £29/mo (Plus); Wix never charges platform transaction fees on any paid plan.
| Plan | Wix (annual, VAT incl) | Squarespace (annual only) |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Light – £9/mo | Basic – £12/mo |
| Mid-tier | Core – £16/mo | Core – £17/mo |
| Business | Business – £25/mo | Plus – £29/mo |
| Advanced / Enterprise | Business Elite – £119/mo | Advanced – £79/mo |
| Free plan | Yes (Wix-branded subdomain) | No |
| Transaction fees | 0% platform fee (all paid plans) | Basic 2%, Core 3%, Plus/Advanced 0% |
| Annual billing required | No (monthly available at higher price) | Yes (all plans) |
At entry level, Wix is £3/mo cheaper. If you are primarily selling online, the transaction fee structure matters more than the headline price. Squarespace charges 2% on Basic and 3% on Core – unusual, since Core costs more than Basic. For a business doing £2,000/mo in online sales, Squarespace Core would cost £60/mo in transaction fees alone, making Wix significantly cheaper in practice.
Squarespace requires annual payment on all plans, which reduces flexibility if you want to trial it before committing. Wix offers monthly billing as an option, though the per-month cost rises. Both offer a free trial of sorts – Wix via its free plan (limited, ad-supported), Squarespace via a 14-day trial with no credit card required.
Design and Templates
Wix offers 900+ templates with pixel-level drag-and-drop control. Squarespace offers fewer templates but every one is polished and professional – the quality ceiling is higher.
Wix gives you more templates than any other website builder. They are organised by industry – restaurants, portfolios, online stores, blogs – and you can customise every element: fonts, colours, spacing, and layout, down to the pixel. This is genuine creative freedom, but it also means you can create something that looks inconsistent or unprofessional if you do not have an eye for design.
One important limitation: once you choose a Wix template, you cannot switch to a different one without rebuilding your site from scratch. Squarespace allows template switching without losing content, which is useful if you change your branding or want to refresh the site’s look later.
Squarespace operates on a section-based editor. You drag sections rather than individual elements, which keeps layouts cleaner by default. The trade-off is less granular control. Squarespace’s templates are widely cited as the most design-forward in the industry – they are regularly used by photographers, architects, and agencies as a genuine showcase tool. If your business needs to make a strong visual first impression, Squarespace’s design floor is higher than Wix’s.
Winner: Depends on priority. Wix wins on template volume and control. Squarespace wins on design quality and consistency. If you will be handing the site to a non-designer to maintain, Squarespace is more likely to stay looking polished.
AI Tools
Wix leads on AI with 20+ tools including ADI site builder, AI SEO meta, AI colour scheme, and blog writer. Squarespace’s Blueprint AI focuses on site structure and content generation.
| AI Feature | Wix | Squarespace |
|---|---|---|
| AI site builder | ADI – full site from a prompt | Blueprint AI – site structure from a prompt |
| AI text / copy | Yes (page text, blog, product descriptions) | Yes (AI copy assistant on all plans) |
| AI images | Yes | Yes |
| AI SEO tools | Yes (meta title, description auto-gen) | Basic (limited SEO meta generation) |
| AI colour scheme | Yes | No |
| AI blog writer | Yes | No |
| AI product descriptions | Yes | Yes |
| Total AI tools | 20+ | 4-5 focused tools |
Wix’s AI Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) can generate a complete site – pages, layout, copy, and images – from a short description of your business. This is one of the most mature AI site builders available and is particularly useful for business owners who want to get online quickly without making design decisions. The 20+ AI tools cover practically every area of site creation.
Squarespace’s Blueprint AI is newer and more focused. It generates a site structure and page outlines based on your business type, then lets you refine within Squarespace’s design system. The AI copy tools are good but less comprehensive than Wix’s. If AI-assisted site creation is a priority, Wix has a meaningful lead.
Winner: Wix – more tools, more coverage, and a more mature AI site builder.
Ecommerce
Wix charges 0% platform transaction fees on all paid plans; Squarespace charges 2-3% on its two cheapest tiers. For online selling, Wix is often cheaper despite similar headline prices.
Both platforms support ecommerce, but the cost structures diverge once you start processing sales. Wix charges no platform transaction fee on any paid plan – you only pay the payment processor fee (Wix Payments UK: 2.1% + 20p). Squarespace charges an additional 2% on its Basic plan and 3% on its Core plan on top of payment processor fees, which is costly at any meaningful sales volume.
Squarespace removes transaction fees entirely at the Plus plan (£29/mo). If you are selling more than approximately £1,500/mo, the maths favours paying for Plus rather than staying on Basic or Core. For lower-volume sellers, the fee structure on entry plans is a genuine deterrent.
Wix Ecommerce (available from the Core plan at £16/mo) includes abandoned cart recovery, subscriptions, multichannel selling (Amazon, eBay, social), and dropshipping integrations. Squarespace’s ecommerce suite is similarly capable, with strong inventory management, flexible product variants, and built-in email marketing. For most small UK businesses, the functional difference is minimal – the fees are the deciding factor.
Winner: Wix – 0% platform fees across all paid plans make it cheaper for most online sellers compared to Squarespace Basic and Core.
SEO and Marketing
Both platforms offer solid on-page SEO tools. Wix has more built-in marketing features and AI-assisted SEO meta generation. Squarespace has cleaner URL structures and stronger email marketing at higher tiers.
Wix provides a dedicated SEO Setup Checklist, site verification, structured data markup, custom meta titles and descriptions per page, canonical tags, and sitemaps. Its AI SEO tools can auto-generate meta descriptions and suggest focus keywords. The Wix App Market also gives access to third-party SEO tools like SE Ranking and SEMrush integrations.
Squarespace has historically been noted for cleaner, faster-loading sites – which can benefit SEO via Core Web Vitals. It offers custom meta tags, clean URL structures, automatic sitemaps, schema markup, and SSL on all plans. Squarespace Email Campaigns (included on higher tiers) is a solid built-in email marketing tool, comparable to a basic Mailchimp setup.
On social media, both platforms integrate with Instagram and Facebook. Wix has broader channel support via its marketing integrations. For most UK small businesses doing their own SEO, both platforms are functionally adequate – neither will create a technical SEO penalty if used correctly.
Winner: Draw – Wix has more marketing features overall; Squarespace has cleaner site performance. Neither has a decisive edge for standard SEO requirements.
Ease of Use
Squarespace has a gentler learning curve – its constrained editor guides you toward good layouts. Wix’s flexibility is an asset for experienced users but can overwhelm beginners with too many choices.
Wix’s drag-and-drop editor places elements anywhere on the canvas. This is powerful but also means you can easily create misaligned layouts. New users often spend time adjusting spacing and positioning that a structured editor would handle automatically. The Wix editor has improved significantly in recent years, and the ADI option lets you bypass design decisions entirely – but if you choose the freeform editor, there is a moderate learning curve.
Squarespace uses a section-based approach. You choose from pre-built content blocks and adjust within them. This means less creative freedom but a much faster path to a professional-looking result. For business owners who want to get online quickly and do not have a strong design preference, Squarespace’s structured approach tends to produce better first results.
Both platforms offer onboarding checklists and help centres. Wix has a larger volume of support articles and community threads due to its larger user base. Squarespace has a reputation for more polished, curated help content.
Winner: Squarespace – faster to a professional result for most non-designers. Wix is better for users who want granular control and are willing to invest time in the editor.
Customer Support
Wix offers 24/7 live chat and callback on paid plans; Squarespace offers 24/7 live chat on all plans. Both score “Average” on Trustpilot, with Wix rated slightly higher at 3.6/5 vs 3.0/5.
Wix provides 24/7 live chat and a callback option for paid plan users. Its help centre is extensive, covering most common setup issues with step-by-step guides and video walkthroughs. Response times are generally reported as fast for live chat. Wix’s Trustpilot score of 3.6/5 (“Average”) reflects a mix of very positive reviews from users who found setup easy, and negative reviews largely about billing disputes and app store integrations.
Squarespace offers 24/7 live chat on all plans, which is notable given its lower entry price. It does not offer phone support. Its help content is well-designed but less exhaustive than Wix’s. Squarespace’s Trustpilot score of 3.0/5 (“Average”) is driven partly by complaints about template-switching limitations and ecommerce fee structures on lower plans.
Winner: Wix – slightly higher Trustpilot rating and the option of a callback for users who prefer speaking to someone.
Wix Pros and Cons
Wix suits businesses that want maximum design freedom, AI-powered site creation, and the lowest entry price with a free plan option to get started risk-free.
Squarespace Pros and Cons
Squarespace suits creative businesses, portfolios, and brand-conscious SMEs that prioritise visual quality and want a polished result without deep design knowledge.
Our Verdict: Wix vs Squarespace
Wix is better for flexibility, AI tools, and price. Squarespace is better for design quality and brand credibility. The right choice depends on your priorities, not which platform is objectively “best”.
After testing both platforms, we do not have a single overall winner – and that is the honest answer. Wix and Squarespace serve different needs well. Choosing the wrong one based on price alone could mean rebuilding your site in 12 months.
Choose Wix if: you want a free plan to start, maximum template choice, the most AI tools, monthly billing flexibility, or no platform transaction fees on an affordable plan. Wix also works better for complex, multi-page sites where you want full layout control.
Choose Squarespace if: visual quality is your top priority, you work in a design-sensitive industry (photography, architecture, fashion, creative services), you want to switch templates without rebuilding, or you are willing to pay more for a consistently polished result without needing design skills.
| Use Case | Winner | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest starting price | Wix | £9/mo vs £12/mo; free plan available |
| Design quality | Squarespace | Curated templates, consistently polished output |
| AI tools | Wix | 20+ tools vs 4-5; more mature ADI site builder |
| Online selling (entry level) | Wix | 0% platform fees vs 2-3% on Squarespace Basic/Core |
| Online selling (mid-tier) | Draw | Both offer 0% fees at £25-29/mo tier |
| Design flexibility | Wix | Pixel-level drag-and-drop vs section-based editor |
| Ease of use (beginners) | Squarespace | Faster path to professional result; template switching |
| Portfolio / creative business | Squarespace | Template quality is a genuine competitive advantage |
| Flexibility of billing | Wix | Monthly billing available; Squarespace is annual only |
| Customer support rating | Wix | 3.6/5 Trustpilot vs Squarespace 3.0/5 |
Both platforms are well-established, actively developed, and used by millions of businesses worldwide. If you are still undecided, use Squarespace’s 14-day free trial to get a feel for its editor, and try Wix’s free plan to compare. There is no cost to testing both before committing.
Related Guides
See also: Best Website Builders for UK Businesses – our full comparison of 8 platforms including Shopify, Weebly, and GoDaddy. If you are focused on selling online, see our Shopify UK Pricing Guide and Best Free Website Builders UK. For a standalone Wix deep-dive, see our Wix Review. For a Squarespace deep-dive, see our Squarespace Review. Considering ecommerce costs? Read our Website Payment Processing Costs guide.
