Wix is a good editor. That is exactly the problem: the editor is what you pay for, and the hours you spend inside it are the line nobody prints. Three years of Core is $1,044 at Wix's own yearly rate, before the domain renews and before a single evening. A page built for you, handed over with the files: $199, once.
Wix sells five plans by the site. The prices it prints are monthly rates on a yearly subscription, paid in full at purchase:
Core is $348 once a year; Business is $468. Wix's page says other billing periods exist but prints no price for them, so the month-to-month number is whatever your checkout says — and it is always the higher one. The other number to watch is the one you signed up on: Wix ran half price on Core, Business and Business Elite in February 2026 and the reduction ended, which is how a $19.50 Business plan becomes $39 at the next renewal. The free domain is year one only; from year two it renews at Wix's rate, on a domain you would have kept either way.
Then there is the fee that hides in plain sight. Sell a package, a membership or a course through Wix Pricing Plans and Wix takes 4% on Core, 2% on Business, 0% only on Business Elite — on top of whatever your card processor charges. A shop selling $2,000 of memberships a month pays Wix $80 a month on Core before the processor sees a cent, and the cure Wix offers is the $159 plan.
The 40 hours is the only figure here that is not Wix's. No builder publishes how long a first site takes, because the honest answer is "as long as you keep tinkering". Thirty to fifty hours is the range we hear from owners who built one themselves, and we cost it at a deliberately low $25 an hour. If your time is worth nothing to you, delete the $1,000: the subscription is still $1,044 against a $199 page, and the site still is not a file you can take anywhere. Card processing is left out on both sides — we do not touch your sales, and Wix's card rates are your processor's, not a website line.
This is the part of the DIY bill a pricing page cannot show. It is the same list for Wix, Squarespace or any other editor:
Wix's answer to this is its AI builder: describe the shop, get a draft, then "flow between AI generation and drag and drop to refine any detail" — their words, and the refining is the 40 hours. A draft is not a menu with prices, a phone layout that survives 40 items, or photos that are not the template's stock. Some owners finish in a weekend and are happy. Most are still moving boxes in the third week, which is the week a subscription starts to feel like a job.
Same job — putting your hours, your prices and your phone number where a customer looks — with two very different bills.
| Wix (Core / Business) | ShopLaunch | |
|---|---|---|
| List price today | $29 (Core) / $39 (Business) a month, on a yearly subscription paid in full | $49 / $199 / $499, once |
| What you pay in year 2 | $348 at Core · $468 at Business, plus the domain's renewal | $0 |
| Who builds it | You do, in Wix's editor — that is what the $29 buys: the tools | We do, from your hours, menu and photos |
| Time to live | A draft in minutes from a prompt; the finishing is days to weeks, and it is yours to do | 24 hours from a completed form |
| What you end up owning | A site that runs on Wix's servers, inside Wix's account | A URL and the files: HTML, CSS, images |
| Can you take it elsewhere | No. Wix's help centre: “It is not possible to export or embed your Wix site to another external destination or host.” | Yes — that is the deliverable |
| Edits after handover | In the editor, on a desktop browser | An edit key on the same page, or an email to us |
| Fees on your sales | Your card processor's, plus 4% (Core) or 2% (Business) on Pricing Plans sales | None — we do not touch your sales |
| Store, bookings, blog, memberships | Yes, from Core — this is the half of Wix that a page does not replace | No. Those stay exactly where they are |
| The mobile page | Generated by Wix from the layout you built | One column, built as a phone page first |
| Speed | Every page is rendered by Wix's own runtime on Wix's servers — the same reason it cannot be exported | One HTML file and one stylesheet; no framework |
| Cancelling | The yearly plan is paid up front; the 14-day money-back window is Wix's | Nothing to cancel |
Wix figures are the US list prices on wix.com/plans read 11 November 2026 — monthly rates on a yearly subscription paid in full, before tax. Wix prices by country and currency, so your checkout will differ; the arithmetic holds at whatever number you see. We are not going to print a Lighthouse score for Wix: it moves per template, per image and per day. If speed matters to you, run PageSpeed Insights on the Wix site you are considering, then on ours.
This page would be dishonest if it claimed to replace everything Wix does. It replaces one line of the bill.
If you are opening a store this month, Wix is a real product and we do not sell one — buy it, and keep it for the store. The question worth answering is narrower: does a one-page shop site with hours, prices, photos and a QR code need a $29-a-month platform, a thousand dollars of your evenings, and a site that cannot leave? For the shops that answer no, the remaining part is not a website: it is a menu, a few posters and five posts — which is what the $199 is.
Not a template you fill in. We take your hours, prices and photos, build each piece, and hand back files and a live link.
One form, five minutes. Live the next business day. No app for you or your guests, no monthly fee, and no cut of anything you sell.
The page and the menu are the Local Pack. Nothing here is a subscription, and nothing renews.
Less than two months of Core, and nothing after it.
The one most shops order.
Everything, plus 30 days of us on call.
Payment is taken by Polar Software, Inc., our merchant of record, on their checkout page — we never see your card. By ordering you agree to our terms and refund policy. The files are yours to keep and reprint.
For a one-page shop site, yes. For a store, a bookings calendar, a blog, memberships or courses, no — we build a static page from your hours, prices and photos, and hand over the files. We do not sell hosting, a store or a calendar, and we do not take payments on your behalf.
Not as a site: Wix's own help centre says it cannot be exported. What does move is everything you would actually reuse — your words (copy them off the live site), the photos you uploaded (Media Manager, folder by folder), your contacts, products and orders as CSV. The design does not move, which is why the honest way to leave Wix is a rebuild. Send us the link and the text and that is the $199.
It is fast at producing a draft, and if the draft is finished enough for you, keep it — it is a fair deal. Price the year first: $348 for Core, against $199 once. The draft still arrives with the template's photos, a menu you type yourself, and a phone layout you have to sit with.
No. Google reads the page — the words, the hours, the address, the speed. We write a search title and description, put your hours and location in the text and in LocalBusiness markup, and point the page at the Google Business Profile you already have. What we cannot do is the work of collecting reviews.
Your site comes off its address and the plan's features stop — that is what a subscription is. The content is yours to copy; the site is not a file you can host elsewhere. With us there is no subscription to stop: the page stays on its URL, and if you ever move it, you copy a folder.
Polar Software, Inc., our merchant of record, takes it on their checkout page. Your card details are entered there, never on this site, and they handle the receipt and the tax. We never see your card number.
The plan ladder, the three-year total, the export rule and the six questions to ask Wix, on one printable A4 page.
Fourteen more, each priced over three years from the vendor's own page — restaurant POS, ordering, and the booking apps barbershops use.
Everything on one page: the 2026 cost comparison · the fee calculator · barbershops & salons.
Send your shop once. We build the page, the menu, the posters and the posts, and hand it back the next business day — with the files. No subscription to forget, and nothing to export later, because it was never locked in.