Wix Alternatives in 2026: 9 Options and the Price After Year One

The lowest-cost Wix alternatives for a UK small business in November 2026 are Hostinger's builder at £1.79 a month on a four-year term, Carrd at $19 a year for a one-page site, and an AI agent that builds and hosts the site for £7 a month. Wix itself starts at £9 a month before tax, and its own help centre confirms a Wix site cannot be moved to another host. This guide compares 9 options on the price after year one.

You built the site over a free weekend three years ago. Now the renewal email shows a bigger number than you remember, the template you chose cannot be swapped for another, and a web designer tells you the site cannot leave Wix at all. So you search for Wix alternatives and find 40 lists that all say "it depends". The stakes are real: the government's UK Business Data Survey 2026 found that 78% of UK businesses now have a website, including 76% of sole traders, so the customers comparing you with a competitor expect to find one.

Below: how we judged, a table of 9 options with the entry price and what it becomes, what Wix really costs in pounds today, the three locks that make owners leave, each alternative in plain English, the route where an agent builds the site for you, and a step-by-step move that keeps your domain and your place in Google.

How we judged

1. Prices read on the vendor's own page on 11 November 2026. Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Hostinger, IONOS and 20i showed pounds. WordPress.com, Carrd and Framer showed dollars, so we quote dollars and do not convert.
2. The price after the first term, not the banner. Introductory discounts are labelled as such, with the renewal price beside them where the vendor publishes it.
3. Lock-in from the help centre, not from forums. Whether you can export, switch template or keep the site when you stop paying is taken from each company's own support pages.
4. A domain you own. Whether a plan includes one, for how long, and what happens to it when you leave.
5. What we could not read is left out. GoDaddy's and Webflow's pricing pages would not load for us on the day, so they are not in the table.

Wix alternatives compared: 9 options and what each costs

Read across the Wix alternatives and you see why "cheaper than Wix" is a harder claim than the adverts make it. Squarespace is dearer than Wix Light. Hostinger is far cheaper for four years and then costs more than Wix Light. The honest comparison is the total over the time you expect to keep the site.

Wix pricing in the UK today

Wix's plans page, read in a UK browser on 11 November 2026, lists five tiers. Free is £0 and sits on a Wix address with Wix branding. Light is £9 a month with 2 GB of storage and two collaborators. Core is £16 a month with 50 GB, payments and basic ecommerce. Business is £25 a month with 100 GB. Business Elite is £119 a month. Every price is for a yearly subscription paid in full, and Wix states that prices do not include taxes.

On the day we looked, Core, Business and Business Elite carried a 50% offer, so Core showed as £8 a month. The small print matters: Wix says the offer is "only valid for the initial term of yearly / multi-year subscriptions". The second year is at list price. That gap between year one and year two is the renewal shock in the email.

Three more facts from Wix's own pages:

• The free domain is for one year, once. It applies to a first-time Premium purchase and cannot be used to renew a domain you already have.
• Prices can rise at renewal. Wix's support article on plan pricing says the update "will apply to new subscriptions, as well as plan renewals". The amounts sit in a separate document we did not read, so we give no figure.
• There is a 14-day money-back guarantee on a first Premium upgrade.

On Light, a year is £108 before tax. On Core at list price, it is £192.

Why owners leave Wix: the three locks

Price is the trigger. The reasons people stay angry are structural, and all three are in Wix's help centre.

• You cannot export the site. Wix's article on exporting says its "SaaS architecture does not support external hosting" and that a site "needs to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers". Your text and images are yours, but the pages, the design and the layout do not come with you.
• You cannot change template. Wix's support page says it is "not possible to switch to a different template for a site you already created". A redesign means building a second site inside the same account.
• Stopping payment downgrades the site, it does not delete it. When a Premium plan ends, Wix says the site stays online on a free Wix address with Wix adverts, and its blog adds that the connection to your custom domain is removed. Customers who type your domain get nothing until you reconnect it somewhere.

Speed and search ranking come up in every forum thread. We found no statement from Google that the builder you choose affects ranking, and Google's own SEO starter guide treats the choice of platform as a practical matter. Move for cost or control, not because someone promised a ranking boost.

Wix alternatives that work the same way: Squarespace, Hostinger and IONOS

Squarespace

Squarespace's UK pricing page lists Basic at £12 a month paid annually or £16 paid monthly, Core at £17 or £24, Plus at £29 or £36 and Advanced at £79 or £89. Basic takes a 2% fee on shop sales and the higher plans take 0%. Annual plans include a domain for the first year and there is a 14-day trial with no card. Squarespace does let you export some content: its help centre, updated on 9 October 2026, describes an .xml file that imports into WordPress and warns that "some content doesn't export". It is the closest like-for-like swap for a Wix owner who wants templates and an editor, and it is not cheaper than Wix Light.

Hostinger Website Builder

Hostinger's UK page shows Premium at £1.79 a month, which is real, with a condition: it is a 48-month term paid as £85.92 upfront, and it renews at £10.99 a month. The Unlimited plan at £2.49 intro includes ecommerce and renews at £13.99. A domain is free for year one. If you are confident you will keep the site four years, no full builder in the table is cheaper. If you are not, you have prepaid for time you may not use.

IONOS

IONOS prices its Starter builder at £6 a month for six months, then £10, before VAT. Its Plus plan is £1 a month for 12 months, then £16. The shop versions list at £22 and £30. A domain is free for a year and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. Year one of Starter comes to £96 before VAT, and each year after is £120.

Shopify and WordPress: when the site is really a shop or a blog

Shopify

If most of your pages are products, compare Wix with Shopify rather than with other brochure builders. Shopify's UK page lists Basic at £25 a month or £19 paid yearly, Grow at £65 or £49 and Advanced at £344 or £259. Online card payments on Basic cost 2% plus 25p, and using an outside payment provider adds a 2% fee. The trial is three days free, then £1 a month for three months. Our online shop guide covers what a small shop needs before it needs Shopify.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com has a free plan on a WordPress address with 1 GB of storage. Personal is $9 a month or $4 paid yearly, Premium $18 or $8, Business $40 or $25 and Commerce $70 or $45. Plugins start at Business. Its support guide, reviewed on 5 October 2026, explains how to export posts, pages and comments to move to "another WordPress site or platform", which is the opposite of the Wix position.

Self-hosted WordPress

This is WordPress on hosting you rent. As one example, 20i's hosting page lists a one-site plan at £1 for the first month and £10 a month after, with no contract and free SSL. Hostinger's shared hosting is cheaper on a long prepaid term. You own everything and can move host in an afternoon. You are also the person who updates the plugins, takes the backups and fixes it when an update breaks the theme. Budget your own time honestly.

Carrd and Framer: when the site is one page

Many small firms pay Wix for a site that is one page with a phone number, a map and six photos. Carrd's Pro Standard plan is $19 a year for up to ten sites with custom domains; its cheaper Pro Lite at $9 a year does not allow your own domain. Framer is free on a Framer address and $10 a month on Basic, where a custom domain becomes available. Neither is the answer if you need bookings, a shop or a customer login.

The agent route: describe the site and have it built

The newest of the Wix alternatives is not a website builder at all. You describe the business in a message and an AI agent writes, builds and hosts the site. Durable sells this as a product from $25 a month with a domain included, and Lovable from $25 a month with custom domains on paid plans only. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Manus and Meta's Muse will all draft the words and the code, and leave the hosting to you.

Here is what a Jobbit agent does that changes the sum:

• Builds the whole site from one brief. Pages, wording, photos you upload, a contact form and the legal footer, previewed on the free plan before you pay anything.
• Hosts it on your domain for £7 a month. Go is £7 a month or £70 a year with 2,000 credits, hosting, a custom domain and SSL. Plus is £15 with more room. The site stays live while you subscribe.
• Finds and connects the domain. You can search names on the domains page and the price per year is shown before you buy, or you can point a domain you already own with one DNS record.
• Adds what a builder charges extra for. A booking form, a price calculator, a customer list or a small shop are further messages to the same agent, not further subscriptions.
• Changes are a sentence. "Add Saturday opening hours and a Christmas closing notice" replaces twenty minutes in an editor.
• Hands over to a person when needed. A photographer, a copywriter or a developer from the human network picks up the part an agent cannot do, with payment held in escrow.

The honest limits: there is no drag-and-drop editor, so if you enjoy nudging boxes around a canvas, Squarespace will suit you better. Credits are finite. And for a single page with no form, Carrd at $19 a year costs less. Our guide to building a website with AI shows the first hour.

How to leave Wix and keep your domain

1. Check who owns the domain. If you bought it through Wix it is a separate subscription from the site plan, and it keeps working until its own renewal date.
2. Watch the 60-day lock. Wix's help centre explains that a domain cannot transfer within 60 days of registration, of a change to the registrant's contact details or of a previous transfer. Do not edit your contact details the week before you move.
3. Copy your content out by hand. Wix confirms the content belongs to you, so save the text of every page, download your original photos and list every page address.
4. Build the new site first. Keep Wix live while the replacement is built and tested on a temporary address.
5. Keep the same page addresses or redirect them. A page that was at /services should still be at /services, or redirect there. This is what protects the positions you already hold in Google.
6. Point the domain. Either change the DNS records to the new host or transfer the domain to a new registrar. Our guide to connecting a domain explains the records.
7. Cancel Wix last. Only once the new site has answered on your domain for a few days. Remember the cancelled Wix site stays up on a free Wix address, so unpublish it to avoid a duplicate.

Whichever of the Wix alternatives you choose, the new site has the same legal duties as the old one. A limited company must show its registered name, number and office address, according to gov.uk, and the Information Commissioner's Office says you need consent before setting non-essential cookies. Our website legal requirements checklist has the full list.

Read next

• How Much Does a Website Cost for a UK Small Business?
• Best AI Website Builders in 2026
• How to Buy a Domain Name

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest alternative to Wix?

For a one-page site, Carrd's Pro Standard at $19 a year. For a full builder, Hostinger at £1.79 a month if you prepay 48 months, rising to £10.99 at renewal. For a site built and hosted for you with no long term, Jobbit Go at £7 a month. Wix Light is £9 a month paid yearly before tax, so check the renewal price of anything that looks cheaper.

Can I move my Wix site to another host?

No. Wix's help centre says a Wix site must be hosted and operated on Wix's servers and cannot be exported. You can take your text, your images and your domain, and rebuild the pages elsewhere. Plan for a rebuild, not a transfer.

Is Squarespace cheaper than Wix?

Not at the entry level. Squarespace Basic is £12 a month paid annually against £9 for Wix Light, both read on 11 November 2026. Squarespace does let you export some content to WordPress, which Wix does not, so the question is control as much as price.

Will I lose my domain if I cancel Wix?

Not if you handle it separately. A domain bought through Wix is its own subscription and can be transferred to another registrar, subject to the 60-day lock after registration or a change of contact details. What you lose when the plan ends is the connection between that domain and the Wix site.

Is Wix bad for SEO?

We found no statement from Google saying so, and Google's SEO starter guide does not rank one platform above another. What moves a small business up is useful content, a complete Google Business Profile and reviews. If you do move, keeping your page addresses or redirecting them matters more than which builder you move to.

Can I change my Wix template without starting again?

No. Wix's support page says you cannot switch to a different template on a site you have already created. You can create a new site in the same account with the new template and copy your content across.

Can an AI agent build my website instead of a website builder?

Yes. You describe the business, the agent builds the pages and you preview them before paying. On Jobbit the free plan gives 100 credits a day with no card for building and previewing, and Go at £7 a month hosts the finished site on your own domain with SSL.