Wix vs GoDaddy: Which is Best for My Small Business?

When it comes to Wix vs GoDaddy, the clear winner is Wix for its superior customization options and stronger marketing features.

That said, GoDaddy is easier to use than Wix.

We undertook in-depth research and testing into Wix versus GoDaddy to compare their features like-for-like and assess how well-matched each product is for small businesses. We’re excited to present the results to you, so you can make the best choice of online store builder for your small business.

Wix vs GoDaddy: Price and Features Quick Comparison

As you can see from the table above, the main differences between Wix and GoDaddy come down to complexity and pricing. Wix is a beefed-up web sales platform with lots of opportunities to connect to online marketplaces across the web. GoDaddy just isn’t there yet; while you can sell across five marketplaces with Wix, you can only reach four with GoDaddy (Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Instagram).

As far as pricing goes, while they both have a free trial, GoDaddy’s ecommerce plan undercuts Wix’s cheapest equivalent by 1¢. All in all, GoDaddy is a low-hassle website builder, well suited to beginners who want to set up a simple online store quickly.

Wix vs GoDaddy: Key Differences Small Businesses Should Consider

We tested GoDaddy and Wix in five main categories (well, actually six, but we’ve chosen to focus on the most critical ones for the purposes of this review). Using a series of purpose-designed questions, we rated their features and assigned scores out of five. Here’s a summary of our research:

What’s clear is both Wix’s sales-specific features and website features are much better than GoDaddy’s. That means you simply have more options when it comes to setting up a custom online store when using Wix.

Critically, Wix stores allow you to accept a wider variety of payment types than GoDaddy. It’s important to choose a web platform that adapts as your customers’ buying behaviour changes. For instance, the rising cost of living has impacted the choice of payment methods for online purchases for 30% of Canadians.

You may find an advantage in the simplicity of GoDaddy as a website builder; some users found the Wix editor rather cluttered and finicky. If time is of the essence for you, GoDaddy is a quick-and-slick program. Yet both Wix and GoDaddy are two of the best ecommerce platforms for small businesses in Canada, so you can’t go far wrong with either.

Wix Pricing vs GoDaddy Pricing

Wix has three pricing plans specific to building an online store, whereas GoDaddy has just one. While, arguably, you could also sell one-off online appointments with the GoDaddy Premium plan, it’s too limited to be counted as an option to build a full online store.

Let’s take a look at the pricing plans for building online stores from GoDaddy and Wix:

So the main reason we reckon Wix’s pricing plans are superior to GoDaddy’s is because you can list unlimited products on your Wix store, whereas GoDaddy only allows up to 5,000. That means there’s no lid on your selling potential with Wix, no matter the price point of your subscription. As we’ll go on to explore, Wix also delivers more by way of customization for your web store compared with GoDaddy.

Nevertheless, if outgoings are a major concern for you – and why wouldn’t they be if you’re running a small business – then GoDaddy is the de facto cheapest option.

Wix vs GoDaddy: Which Has the Best Free Plan?

Both Wix and GoDaddy have a free trial option. Although Wix’s free trial is only 14 days, GoDaddy’s is a whole month. Each one will give you the chance to try out the website editor, and have a go at adding digital and/or physical products for sale. Since GoDaddy’s free trial lasts more than twice as long, it’s objectively better than Wix’s.

However, you won’t actually be able to take payments on either platform until you sign up for a paid subscription on Wix or GoDaddy. That renders the free plan of both GoDaddy and Wix equal. Moreover, the money-back guarantee of GoDaddy (where you can get your money back if you change your mind after purchase) is 30 days long, whereas it’s just 14 days with Wix. That’s good to know if you’re weighing up how long you want to test an online sales platform before financially committing.

Best Sales Features: Wix

Wix is the clear front-runner when it comes to sales features supporting dropshipping, while GoDaddy’s Help Centre mentions nothing at all on the subject. While GoDaddy offers integration with Amazon, eBay, Instagram, and Facebook, Wix lets you connect with all of those plus Google Shopping.

Wix also provides advanced analytics such as tracking customer behaviour and conversion, which GoDaddy lacks. Wix also has more accounting options and accepts more payment types than GoDaddy.

Best Website Features: Wix

Wix has superior marketing tools compared to GoDaddy. In particular, we rate Wix’s search engine optimization (SEO); It provides tips while you build that allow your products to get better visibility on results pages of search engines like Google.

However, our testing found the server response time was better on GoDaddy: 0.3 seconds versus Wix’s 1.2 seconds on mobile.

Ultimately, you can customize your Wix store to your heart’s content with its endless app store. GoDaddy? No app store in sight.

Best Design Functionality: Wix

Wix has a notoriously inflexible feature where you’ve got to start your design from scratch if you switch templates halfway through. That’s not the case with GoDaddy by any means: your design simply converts over, no sweat.

However, Wix has more aesthetically mature web design templates – plus a wider variety – so you can achieve a more show-stoppingly beautiful website than you ever could with GoDaddy.

Best Usability: GoDaddy

In tests to set up different kinds of websites, Wix received a total score of 21/24, while GoDaddy scored 22. That means it was slightly easier to get up-and-running with GoDaddy than Wix. However, block design features were harder to resize on GoDaddy, whereas we didn’t face such issues using Wix.

Both platforms performed similarly here. However, we found GoDaddy to be the quickest and most efficient website building experience of any of the ecommerce platforms we tested.

How Do Wix and GoDaddy Compare with the Competition for Small Businesses?

Compared to other market leaders, Wix comes out on top as the best ecommerce platform money can buy. Wix is definitely not the cheapest way to sell products online – that would be Square, the only web store to allow you to sell things for free.

We’ve included a quick round-up of competitor ecommerce platforms for you to compare:

GoDaddy makes it to sixth position on our list of best ecommerce platforms, with a respectable 3.9/5 score overall. It has the advantage over Square of charging no transaction fees (after all, you didn’t think Square would let you use their platform without taking any cut at all, did you?). Granted, the same is true of Wix, yet GoDaddy pricing is lower overall.

How We Compared Wix and GoDaddy