Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress: Which Is Best for a Local Service Business?

Wix, Squarespace and WordPress can all run a good website for a plumber in Bensalem or a dental practice in Blue Bell. The differences show up later: when you want twenty town pages, when you need to change who maintains the site, or when you decide to leave the platform altogether.

This is an honest comparison for local service businesses. We build mostly in WordPress, but we also look after Wix and Squarespace sites, and for some owners those are the better fit.

The short version

• Wix: the fastest way to get a decent site up on your own. Good built-in search settings. You can't take the site with you if you leave.
• Squarespace: the most polished templates and the simplest editor. Fewer advanced controls, and only part of the site exports.
• WordPress: the most control and full ownership. It needs regular maintenance, and its speed depends on how it's built.

Side by side

	Wix	Squarespace	WordPress (self-hosted)
Monthly cost, billed yearly	About $17 to $159	$19 to $99	Software free; hosting and upkeep extra
Who hosts it	Wix	Squarespace	Any host you choose
Can you move the site to another host?	No	Partly, via a WordPress-format export	Yes, everything
Edit titles, descriptions and URLs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom structured data	Yes, on static pages	With custom code	Yes, full control
Sites with fast main content on phones	94%	86%	70%
Who handles software updates	Wix	Squarespace	You or your web team

Prices from each platform's pricing page (Wix US prices) and speed figures from CoreWebVitals.io's October 2026 analysis of Chrome field data (share of sites meeting Google's 2.5-second loading target on phones). Figures as of October 2026.

Cost: what you'll really pay

On Wix and Squarespace, the plan covers hosting, security and software updates. Squarespace's Basic plan is $19 a month billed yearly, Core is $29 and Advanced is $99, and Basic charges a 2% fee on store sales that the higher plans don't. Wix runs from about $17 to $159 a month on yearly billing.

WordPress itself is free, but a business site needs a domain, hosting and someone to keep plugins, themes and backups current. That upkeep is the part people forget. Skipping it is how WordPress sites get hacked or break after an update. Our website maintenance plans start at $149 a month for exactly this reason.

For the full picture of build and running costs, see what a small business website costs.

SEO control

All three handle the basics: editable page titles and descriptions, clean URLs, image alt text, an automatic sitemap and mobile-friendly templates. For a five-page site, any of them is fine.

The gaps appear as you grow:

• Wix has grown into a capable SEO platform. It lets you edit robots.txt and add your own structured data to static pages, though not to dynamic ones.
• Squarespace keeps things simple. Custom structured data and other code need the code injection feature, which isn't on the entry plan.
• WordPress lets you control everything: URL structure, page templates for dozens of town pages, structured data on every page type, and files like llms.txt that help AI assistants describe your business.

Speed

Speed matters because people searching on phones leave slow pages, and Google measures loading, responsiveness and layout shifts with its Core Web Vitals.

The October 2026 field data surprises people: 94% of Wix sites and 86% of Squarespace sites met Google's loading target on phones, against 70% of WordPress sites. That's because Wix and Squarespace manage speed for you, while a WordPress site is only as fast as its theme, plugins and host. A carefully built WordPress site passes comfortably. A WordPress site stuffed with plugins on cheap hosting often doesn't.

Ownership and portability

This is the difference that matters most when you change web designers or outgrow the platform.

• Wix: Wix's own help center says a Wix site has to be hosted on Wix's servers, and its system doesn't support hosting elsewhere. You can connect a domain you own, but the site itself can't be exported. Leaving means rebuilding.
• Squarespace: Squarespace exports a WordPress-format file with layout pages, one blog, text and image blocks. It leaves out store and other page types, extra blogs, audio, video and product blocks, drafts, custom CSS and design settings. Images often need to be moved by hand too.
• WordPress: you can copy the entire site, files and database, to any host, any time.

Whatever you choose, register your domain in your own name with your own login. That one step keeps your options open on every platform.

Local SEO features

None of these platforms does local SEO for you. What helps you show up in your town is the same everywhere:

• ✓ A page for each service you want calls for.
• ✓ A page for each town you serve, written for people who live there.
• ✓ Your name, phone and service area the same as on your Google Business Profile.
• ✓ LocalBusiness structured data on the right pages.
• ✓ A tap-to-call phone number at the top of every page on mobile.
• ✓ Fast loading on a phone over a weak signal.

WordPress makes the town pages and structured data easiest to do well at scale. Wix and Squarespace can do them, with more manual work per page.

Who should pick which

Pick Wix if

You're starting out, you'll build and edit the site yourself, and you need something live this month. Just accept that leaving later means a rebuild.

Pick Squarespace if

You care most about how the site looks, you're happy with a smaller site, and you want to make your own edits without worrying about updates.

Pick WordPress if

Google is a major source of calls, you plan to add service and town pages over time, and you want to own everything outright. Budget for proper maintenance, or have someone handle it.

As a hypothetical: an electrician in Lansdale who wants pages for panel upgrades, EV chargers and generators in each of eight nearby towns is looking at 30-plus pages that share a template. That's where WordPress earns its upkeep. A photographer in New Hope with a five-page portfolio would likely be happier on Squarespace.

Already on Wix or Squarespace?

Staying put is often fine. Move when the platform starts costing you: when you can't add the pages you need, the site is slow or you want to own it outright. A move is a rebuild plus redirects for every old address, and done carefully it protects the rankings you've already earned. Our website redesign service handles moves off Wix and Squarespace, and our guide to website redesign costs explains what to budget. If you're starting fresh, see our website design service.

What to do next

Not sure your current platform is the problem? Our free visibility audit checks your site's speed, pages and local visibility, and tells you plainly whether to fix what you have or move.