WordPress, Wix or custom?

01

Wix and other builders: easiest to start, rented forever

Website builders like Wix, Squarespace and Hostinger's own builder let you drag and drop pages yourself, with hosting included. They are quick to set up and genuinely easy to edit. For a very small business that wants to manage its own site with no designer, they are a reasonable choice.

The trade-off is that you rent everything. The site lives on the builder's platform and generally cannot be moved elsewhere; if you leave, you rebuild. Plans renew every year, often at a higher price than the first year, and advanced features sit on higher tiers.

Good fit: you want to edit everything yourself, have a simple site, and accept the platform's limits.

02

WordPress: flexible and editable, needs looking after

WordPress runs a huge share of the web. It is free software you install on hosting you choose, which means you own the site and can move it to any host or designer. You can edit pages from a dashboard, add a blog, a shop or booking with plugins, and find someone to work on it almost anywhere.

The cost of that flexibility is maintenance. WordPress, themes and plugins need regular updates, and an unmaintained WordPress site is a common target for hackers. You either spend half an hour a month on it, or pay someone to. My own maintenance plan is ₹2,500 a month, and it is optional.

Good fit: content changes often, you want to edit it yourself, and you will keep it updated.

03

Custom (static) site: fast, secure, edits go through a designer

A custom site is hand-built pages with no content management system behind it. It loads very fast, has almost nothing to hack, and needs no updates — just domain and hosting renewals. This site is built that way.

The trade-off: you cannot log in and change text yourself. Every edit goes through your designer. For a business whose website says the same thing most of the year, that is a fair trade.

Good fit: content changes rarely, speed and low running costs matter, and you have a designer you trust.

04

What each one really costs per year

Leaving out the build, the yearly cost of a typical small site is roughly: a builder plan, which varies by tier and renews each year; WordPress, which is domain plus hosting (roughly ₹4,000 to ₹8,000 a year) plus any premium plugins and your maintenance time or fee; and a custom static site, which is domain plus hosting and occasional paid edits.

05

Ownership matters more than the platform

Whatever you choose, register the domain in your own name, keep the hosting or builder account in your own email, and hold the owner-level login. A WordPress site registered in an agency's name is no more yours than a Wix site. Ownership is about accounts, not software.

The question that usually decides it

Ask yourself: in the last year, how many times would I have changed my website? If the answer is "every week — new offers, new menu, new photos", choose something you can edit yourself: WordPress or a builder. If the answer is "a few times", a fast custom site with occasional paid edits is usually cheaper and safer over time.

Choose the platform for the person who will update it, not for the person who builds it.

If you do pick WordPress or a builder, insist on a short handover session where you make a real edit yourself while the designer watches. If you cannot do it then, you will not do it later.

Is WordPress better than Wix for a small business?

WordPress is more flexible and portable; Wix is simpler to start and edit with no maintenance. If you want to own the site and grow it, WordPress usually wins. If you want something simple you can run yourself with no technical upkeep, a builder may suit you better.

Can I move my Wix site to WordPress later?

Not directly. Builder sites generally cannot be exported as a working site, so moving means rebuilding the pages on the new platform. Your domain can be moved, and text and images can be copied across.

Is a custom website more expensive?

Not necessarily to build, and often cheaper to run, because there are no plugins, licences or updates. The difference is that edits are paid for, so it suits businesses that change their content occasionally rather than weekly.