When someone asks "how much does Wix cost?" the answer on the pricing page says £25/month. That sounds fine. Affordable, even.
But £25/month isn't what you'll actually pay. By the time you add a domain, business email, a couple of apps, and VAT — you're somewhere else entirely. And that's before you hit your first renewal.
This happens on every platform. The advertised price is the entry point. The real cost is what you pay once everything a proper business site needs is included.
Here's what the main platforms actually cost per year in the UK — with nothing left out.
Wix — £491 to £566/year
Wix Business plan is the minimum for a business site — anything lower shows Wix ads on your pages.
The subscription: £25/month billed annually = £300/year (ex-VAT). If you're not VAT-registered, add 20% — that's £360.
What's not included:
- Business email — Wix doesn't provide email. You need Google Workspace or similar at around £71/year per mailbox.
- Domain renewal — free the first year, then £15–18/year.
- Apps — Wix's App Market has plenty of free options, but most businesses end up needing 2–3 paid apps for things like booking, reviews, or advanced forms. Budget around £10/month.
Realistic total:
| Year 1 | Year 2+ | |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription (inc. VAT) | £360 | £360 |
| Email (1 mailbox) | £71 | £71 |
| Domain | Free | £15 |
| Paid apps (est.) | £120 | £120 |
| Total | £551 | £566 |
And that's before you pay anyone to actually build the site.
Squarespace — £204 to £290/year
Squarespace restructured their plans recently. For a service business that doesn't sell products online, the Core plan at £17/month is the realistic starting point.
The subscription: £17/month billed annually = £204/year.
What's included that others charge for:
- Free domain for year one
- Free Google Workspace for year one
- SSL, CDN, unlimited storage
- No platform transaction fees on sales (but payment processing fees still apply)
What you'll pay after year one:
| Year 1 | Year 2+ | |
|---|---|---|
| Core plan | £204 | £204 |
| Email (1 mailbox) | Free | £71 |
| Domain | Free | £15 |
| Total | £204 | £290 |
Squarespace is genuinely the cheapest all-in-one option for a simple service business site. The catch is design flexibility — you're working within their templates, and customisation has hard limits.
Webflow — £282 to £357/year
Webflow is the platform most agencies use to build client sites. It's powerful, the design tools are excellent, and it produces clean code. But it's not simple — and the pricing has layers.
Important: Webflow bills in USD only. UK clients pay in dollars and are subject to exchange rate fluctuations. The estimates below use $1 = £0.75.
The subscription: The CMS plan — which is what most business sites need — costs $23/month billed annually ($276/year, roughly £207). A simpler static site can use the Basic plan at $14/month ($168/year, roughly £126), but without CMS you can't have a blog, project listings, or any dynamic content.
What's not included:
- Domain — purchase separately, around £4–8/year.
- Business email — not provided. Google Workspace again, £71/year.
- Form submissions — limited to 1,000/month on CMS. If you need more, you pay extra.
- Editor access — if your client needs to edit content, that's included in the site plan. But the legacy Editor is being retired in August 2026, so the workflow is changing.
Realistic total (CMS plan):
| Annual (GBP est.) | |
|---|---|
| CMS plan | £207 |
| Domain | £4 |
| Email (Google Workspace) | £71 |
| Total | £282 |
Webflow is good value on paper. The catch is you can't build a Webflow site yourself without serious design experience — so you're paying an agency or freelancer to build it. And if you ever want to leave Webflow, you're starting over. Your site lives on their platform and can't be exported as working code.
Framer — £270 to £345/year
Framer is the newer player — popular with designers, fast to build in, and visually impressive. It's gaining ground quickly, especially for portfolio and agency sites.
The subscription: The Pro plan — which is what most business sites need — costs $30/month billed annually ($360/year, roughly £270). The Basic plan at $10/month ($120/year, roughly £90) is limited to 30 pages and only one CMS collection, meaning you can't have both a blog and a projects section.
What's not included:
- Domain — purchase separately, £4–8/year.
- Business email — not provided. Google Workspace, £71/year.
- Bandwidth — Pro plan includes 100GB/month. Fine for most small sites, but if you get a traffic spike, you could hit limits.
Realistic total (Pro plan):
| Annual (GBP est.) | |
|---|---|
| Pro plan | £270 |
| Domain | £4 |
| Email (Google Workspace) | £71 |
| Total | £345 |
Framer is slick and fast to build with — but it has the same lock-in problem as Webflow. Your site can't be exported. If you stop paying, it's gone. And the CMS is still maturing — it works well for simple content but doesn't have the depth of Webflow or WordPress for complex sites.
WordPress (self-hosted) — £372 to £588/year
WordPress itself is free. The hosting, plugins, theme, and email are not.
This is where it gets complicated, because there's no single price — it depends on your hosting provider, which plugins you use, and whether you go budget or premium.
Budget setup (SiteGround hosting):
SiteGround is one of the most recommended UK WordPress hosts. Their GrowBig plan starts at around £4/month — but that's the introductory rate. After year one, it renews at £20–25/month. That's a 5x increase that catches a lot of people off guard.
| Year 1 | Year 2+ | |
|---|---|---|
| SiteGround hosting (intro/renewal) | £48 | £264 |
| Domain | £4 | £4 |
| Theme (Astra Pro) | £35 | £35 |
| Page builder (Elementor Pro) | £44 | £44 |
| Security plugin (Solid Security) | £74 | £74 |
| SEO plugin (Rank Math Pro) | £44 | £44 |
| Backups (UpdraftPlus) | £52 | £52 |
| Email (Google Workspace) | £71 | £71 |
| Total | £372 | £588 |
Year one looks reasonable. Year two is where the real price shows up.
Premium setup (WP Engine hosting):
WP Engine is more consistent — around £225/year — and includes backups, staging, CDN, and automatic updates. But your plugin stack still runs £150–200/year on top.
The hidden cost nobody mentions: maintenance.
WordPress sites need regular updates — core, theme, and every plugin. Skip an update and you risk security vulnerabilities or things breaking. Most agencies charge £30–100/month for WordPress maintenance. That's another £360–£1,200/year that rarely appears in the initial quote.
Shopify — £1,151+/year
If you're selling products online, Shopify is the platform most people consider. The Basic plan is £19/month billed annually (£228/year).
That sounds manageable — until the apps start adding up.
Shopify's core product is deliberately basic. Most essential features — email marketing, product reviews, advanced SEO — require third-party apps from their marketplace. A realistic small store ends up spending £50–65/month on apps alone.
Then there's payment processing: 2% + 25p per transaction through Shopify Payments. On £2,000/month in sales, that's around £540/year just in processing fees.
| Annual | |
|---|---|
| Basic plan | £228 |
| Domain | £12 |
| Email (Google Workspace) | £71 |
| Essential apps | £240–780 |
| Payment processing (est.) | £540 |
| Theme (one-off, amortised) | £60 |
| Total | £1,151–£1,691 |
Shopify is excellent at what it does — but it's not £19/month. Not even close.
Custom-coded site on static hosting — £79/year
This is what we build at WebOrb. A site written in clean code, deployed to a static hosting platform like Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, or Vercel.
What you pay to keep it running:
| Annual | |
|---|---|
| Hosting (Cloudflare Pages) | £0 |
| Domain (.co.uk) | £4 |
| Email (Google Workspace) | £71 |
| SSL / CDN | Free |
| Backups | Free (Git) |
| Security plugins | None needed |
| Platform subscription | None |
| Total | £75–79 |
No monthly subscription. No plugin renewals. No hosting renewal shock. No app marketplace. No transaction fees.
The site loads faster because there's no platform overhead. It's more secure because there's no admin panel to hack. And you own it — no vendor lock-in, no "your site disappears if you stop paying."
The upfront cost is higher than doing it yourself on Wix. But you're not paying £300–600/year every year after that. The savings compound.
What this looks like over three years
Here's the total cost of ownership over three years, assuming no price increases (which most platforms do annually):
| Platform | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | 3-Year Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace Core | £204 | £290 | £290 | £784 |
| Webflow CMS | £282 | £282 | £282 | £846 |
| Framer Pro | £345 | £345 | £345 | £1,035 |
| WordPress (budget) | £372 | £588 | £588 | £1,548 |
| Wix Business | £551 | £566 | £566 | £1,683 |
| WordPress (premium) | £574 | £574 | £574 | £1,722 |
| Shopify Basic | £1,151 | £1,151 | £1,151 | £3,453 |
| Custom-coded (static) | £79 | £79 | £79 | £237 |
The custom-coded column doesn't include the cost of building the site — that's a separate one-off investment. But even factoring in a professional build fee, the total cost of ownership is lower than every platform within 2–3 years.
Over three years, a Webflow or Framer site costs £800–1,000 more than a custom-coded site just in running costs. WordPress is £1,300–1,500 more. Wix is £1,400+ more. That's money that could go towards advertising, better photography, or literally anything else.
So what should you choose?
There's no single right answer. It depends on your situation:
Squarespace makes sense if you want to build something yourself, you don't need heavy customisation, and you want the lowest hassle option. It's the most honest all-in-one pricing.
Webflow makes sense if you want a high-quality design tool and you're working with a designer or agency who knows the platform. Just know you're locked in — your site can't leave Webflow.
Framer makes sense for the same reasons as Webflow, with a faster build process and a more modern feel. Same lock-in applies — and the CMS is less mature.
WordPress makes sense if you need a complex site with specific functionality, and you have someone to maintain it. Just budget realistically — it's not the cheap option people think it is.
Shopify makes sense if you're selling physical products online and need inventory management, shipping, and payment processing built in.
Wix makes sense if you want to build it yourself on a tight budget and you're comfortable with the trade-offs in speed and SEO control.
A custom-coded site makes sense if you want something fast, secure, and cheap to run — and you'd rather invest once in a proper build than pay platform fees indefinitely.
Want to know what your current site is actually costing you? Get in touch — we'll give you an honest comparison, no pressure.