WordPress vs Wix vs Custom: How to Choose

Choose Wix if you need something online this month, you'll maintain it yourself, and the site isn't your main sales channel. Choose WordPress if you publish content regularly and want a large plugin ecosystem. Choose custom when the site has to do something specific — speed, an application, an integration — that platforms make you fight for.

The comparison that actually decides this isn't features. It's what you'll have paid by year three, and how hard it is to leave.

The three-year cost of ownership

Sticker price hides the real number. A typical small business site over three years, using published 2026 NZ market ranges:

Two things stand out. Wix is the cheapest and it isn't close — if budget is the binding constraint, that's your answer and the rest of this post is optional reading. And the WordPress and custom bands overlap almost entirely, which means that choice is about fit rather than money.

Where the table misleads: it prices the site, not the outcome. A $900 site producing two enquiries a month is more expensive than a $15,000 site producing twenty. Run that arithmetic for your own business before you optimise for the cheapest row — what a website costs in New Zealand has the build-side detail.

Speed: what each platform lets you control

Wix ships a substantial JavaScript runtime with every page. It has improved a great deal and a well-built Wix site can pass Core Web Vitals — but you're working inside their rendering pipeline. You can compress images and remove apps. You cannot change how the platform builds the page.

WordPress can be very fast or catastrophically slow, and it comes down entirely to what's installed. A lean theme with caching performs well. The same site with a visual builder, a slider, five analytics scripts and thirty plugins commonly ships 2–4MB per page, because every plugin adds its CSS and JS to every page whether or not that page uses it.

Custom is the only option where you decide exactly what ships to each page:

// The pricing calculator's bundle downloads only for people who visit /pricing
import { lazy, Suspense } from "react";

const PricingCalculator = lazy(() => import("./PricingCalculator"));

export default function PricingPage() {
  return (
    <Suspense fallback={<CalculatorSkeleton />}>
      <PricingCalculator />
    </Suspense>
  );
}

On a platform site, that calculator's code loads on your homepage too. On a custom build it loads for the people who asked for it.

Being fair about this: most small business sites do not need that control. Eight pages of text and images will hit good Core Web Vitals on a tidy Wix site or a well-configured WordPress install. Performance decides the platform when you have heavy interactive features, large catalogues, or a mobile-first audience on poor connections. Measure before you assume — run your current site through PageSpeed Insights and read the field data, not the lab score.

SEO: smaller differences than the marketing suggests

All three can rank. Google awards no points for platform.

All three give you custom titles and meta descriptions, custom URLs, alt text, sitemaps, robots.txt, canonicals and structured data. That's the majority of on-page technical SEO, and it's table stakes everywhere now.

WordPress pulls ahead on the technical SEO plugin ecosystem, bulk metadata editing across hundreds of pages, and the plain fact that any consultant you hire already knows it.

Wix limits you on fine-grained redirect logic at scale, response headers, and some markup control. Irrelevant on a twelve-page brochure site. A daily annoyance on a 400-page content site.

Custom wins on rendering strategy, response headers, and generating schema from the same data the page renders — so the markup can't drift away from what's visible:

// One source of truth: the page copy and the structured data read the same object
export function generateMetadata({ params }) {
  const service = getService(params.slug);
  return {
    title: `${service.name} | WebDevStudio`,
    description: service.summary,
    alternates: { canonical: `https://example.com/services/${params.slug}` },
  };
}

const schema = {
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Service",
  name: service.name,
  description: service.summary,
  provider: { "@type": "Organization", name: "WebDevStudio" },
  areaServed: ["NZ", "CY"],
};

The honest summary: platform is maybe 10% of SEO outcomes. Content quality, intent match and internal linking are the other 90%, and they're identical on all three.

Ownership and lock-in, the part nobody asks about until it matters

Wix — you're renting. The site cannot be exported and re-hosted in any usable form. Content can be copied out page by page; the site itself cannot come with you. Outgrow Wix and you rebuild from scratch. Check who registered your domain too: if it was created inside a Wix plan, confirm it's transferable and in your name.

Self-hosted WordPress — you own the files and the database. You can move hosts in an afternoon. This is the platform's strongest argument and it is entirely real.

Custom — you own the source and the repository. Any competent developer can pick it up, provided it's mainstream tooling and documented. A custom site on an obscure framework with no README is its own form of lock-in, and a worse one than Wix — at least Wix will still be running next year.

Before signing with anyone, on any platform, get it in writing that you own the domain, the hosting account, the repository and the content. More on that in how to choose a website developer.

Maintenance burden

Wix — near zero. The platform updates itself. Genuinely excellent, and the reason it suits time-poor owners better than any amount of feature comparison suggests.

WordPress — ongoing and non-optional. Outdated plugins are the most common route into a hacked WordPress site. Either you do this monthly or you pay someone to:

# A minimal monthly WordPress routine — export a backup first, always
wp db export backup-$(date +%F).sql
wp plugin update --all
wp theme update --all
wp core update
wp core verify-checksums   # flags modified core files, a common malware signal

Custom — low, but not zero. Dependencies need updating and frameworks ship major versions, but there is far less installed to patch. A well-built custom site can sit a year untouched without becoming insecure. A WordPress site cannot.

Real annual figures for all three are in annual website maintenance costs in NZ.

Migration: what changing your mind costs

• Wix to WordPress or custom — effectively a rebuild. Content copied manually, design recreated, and a complete redirect map needed to protect your rankings. Budget close to new-build cost.
• WordPress to custom — much easier. The database is accessible, and WordPress can run headless, serving content to a custom front end via its REST API. A common, low-risk middle path.
• Custom to anything — depends entirely on how it was built. Standard framework and a clean data model, straightforward. Bespoke everything with no documentation, expensive.

Whichever direction you go, the redirect map is what protects the search equity you've already built. Never let it be the line item cut to win a quote.

The decision, in one table

One honest disqualifier: if nobody in your business will ever update the site and you don't want a maintenance retainer, don't choose WordPress. The unmaintained WordPress site is the single most common broken website anyone gets asked to rescue.

What I'd tell you if you called me

Most people asking this question have already decided they want better than what they've got, and are looking for permission. So, plainly: if your current site is a Wix page that's been fine for three years and your leads come from word of mouth, keep it and spend the money on content instead.

If the site is your main sales channel and it's slow, unmaintained, or you can't edit it without calling someone — that's a real problem worth real money, and the platform choice above is the first decision rather than the last.

Frequently asked questions

Should I use Wix or hire a developer?

Use Wix if your budget is under about $1,500, you'll maintain the site yourself, and it isn't your main sales channel. Hire a developer when the site needs custom functionality, real speed, integrations, or when the enquiries you're losing cost more than the build would.

Is WordPress better than Wix for SEO?

Marginally, and only at scale. Both support custom metadata, URLs, sitemaps and structured data. WordPress gives more control over bulk editing and redirect logic, which matters on large content sites and rarely on a ten-page brochure site. Platform is roughly 10% of SEO outcomes; content and intent match are the rest.

Do I own my website if I build it on Wix?

You own your content and your domain, but not the site in any portable form. Wix sites can't be exported and re-hosted, so moving off means rebuilding. Self-hosted WordPress and custom builds are both fully portable — you can take the files, the database or the repository with you.

Is a custom website worth it for a small business?

When the site does something a platform makes difficult: app-like features, unusual integrations, or performance as a genuine competitive edge. For a straightforward brochure site, well-built WordPress or Wix delivers the same commercial result for less money.

Can I move my website from Wix to WordPress?

Yes, but treat it as a rebuild rather than a migration. Content transfers manually, the design is recreated, and you'll need a complete 301 redirect map so you don't lose the rankings the old URLs earned.

Where to start

Answer two questions before you look at any platform: what does the site have to do that your current one can't, and who is going to maintain it? Those two answers eliminate at least one of the three options every time, usually more.

Not sure which of the three you need? Tell me what the site has to do and who it's for, and I'll tell you straight — including when the answer is "stay on Wix and spend it on content". Get in touch, or see recent work.