Wix Pricing: Costs and Hidden Fees

Wix is one of the best website builders on the market, and just edged out Squarespace to take the top spot on our most recent platform tests. All in all, Wix has four premium pricing plans to pick from, a well as a free plan.

You can now subscribe to Wix for as little as £9 per month (for the Light plan) and up to £119 per month (for the Business Elite plan) when billed annually. There’s also its £16 per month Core plan and our favorite value e-commerce Business plan for £25 per month. For larger businesses, the custom-priced Enterprise plan is a solid option for scaling up operations, too.

Read on for full impartially-reviewed details about each of its plans, plus the hidden costs, to see if you want to join the 2 million signups Wix receives every month.

Following on from launching its AI writer tool last year, Wix recently announced a ChatGPT-style website builder than can generate custom sites for you, based on short prompts. These AI additions can cut down your total building time from several hours to just minutes, which is a huge boon for beginners.

Although its stock price has dropped drastically since its 2021 peak, it remains a very popular website platform with strong long-term growth. But, unlike most digital products right now, Wix‘s recent pricing changes have not been straight skyward. Wix has increased its prices since last year and rebranded its plans to offer a new selection of options. On the plus side, they do include more storage space now, for no additional cost.

Pivoting sharply towards business users, Wix pricing plans are now almost entirely geared towards online sellers, with just one plan – Wix Light – available without online payment features.

Wix Pricing: How Much Does Wix Cost?

Browsing through Wix price plans was a bit mind-boggling last year, as you had eight separate plans to wade through. Now there are just four (plus the Enterprise option), and it’s much easier to pick and choose the plan you need.

Click the arrows to scroll through the table and compare all the price plans.

Like most website builder companies, Wix offers a free trial of 14 days plus a 14-day money back guarantee on all premium plans so you can test out a price plan to see whether it’s the right fit.

Wix Light: Who Is It For?

This plan is only suitable for basic business purposes – a place where customers can find your email address and some photos when they Google your name.

Its storage size is realistic for small and local businesses uploading photos of products, audio content, menus, and so on. And, by removing any Wix-branded adverts found on its free plan, it avoids amateur aesthetics that may distract from your business message.

The addition of a custom domain name is another boon for your business. Our research shows that having a unique URL should allow your company to be found via search engines much more easily. However, be wary of hidden costs: after the first year, you’ll begin paying for that custom domain name.

Because of these benefits, we feel it’s a solid option for small business web design such as repair services, automobile services, antique stores, and neighborhood services like tree surgery.

Wix Core

Wix Core: Who Is It For?

With Wix Core, you can sell a wide range of product types, including digital artwork, video, and audio.

You can sell subscriptions affordably on the Wix Core plan, unlike Squarespace, which requires an upgrade to its £35 per month Commerce Advanced plan. While it’s bookings platform lets your clients book services, classes and more, all synced with calendar, communication, and analytics tools.

Businesses in retail will enjoy its webchat feature too, since it provides a convenient customer service channel in case any questions are holding back a purchase decision.

It’s also the lowest Wix pricing tier to offer site-wide analytics, providing you with tips on how to improve traffic (the flow of visitors) to your website.

However, there are lots of limitations, making it unsuitable for more ambitious online merchants. For instance, you can’t collect product reviews, nor can you sell in multiple currencies. You don’t get access to shipping features like the ability to print shipping labels and manage fulfilment.

So you’ll need to arrange your own delivery processes and keep a handle on orders without much automation from Wix’s side.

Wix Business

Wix Business: Who Is It For?

All the above means this is the plan for small business leaders who are truly looking to scale up and expand their product offerings for selling online. On the other hand, local businesses or micro-entrepreneurs selling trinkets or offering one-to-one services at very low volumes would do better with Wix Core.

We recommend Wix Business for merchants with their sights set on overseas sales in particular, because of the following features:

• Sell in six currencies
• Build multiple websites
• Manage five locations from one account
• 10 staff accounts with custom roles for each

These features give you extra control over website permissions, meaning you can set up your staff to collaborate effectively on various websites.

One of the few limitations of this plan is that you can’t implement a loyalty program (with points, coupons, rewards, etc.). But other than that, it’s a genuinely great value option for online selling. You’ll be able to collect up to 1,000 customer reviews, which are vital for helping users to trust your site.

Wix Business Elite

• What is it? A heavy-duty website builder for expanding established online stores
• Who is it for? Fast-moving SMB retailers with some experience under their belt
• Why should you use it? Priority customer support
• How much does it cost? £119 per month – discounts available for two or three years of prepayment

If your online sales are steady, your brand is gaining popularity, and you’re looking to expand Wix Business Elite is a decent option for expansion support. At £119 per month (paying for one year upfront), it’s certainly more affordable than Shopify Advanced at £344 per month.

Wix Business Elite: Upgraded Features vs Business

• Unlimited storage space (instead of 50GB)
• 15 collaborators (vs 10)
• Advanced features, including marketing tools, analytics, and e-commerce
• Retain customers with loyalty programs to share discounts, coupons, and rewards
• Collect up to 3,000 product reviews (vs
• Unlimited dropshipping products via Modalyst
• Advanced marketing, analytics and e-commerce tools
• Priority customer support, including VIP phone support (vs regular 24/7 support).

Wix Business Elite: Who Is It For?

For these reasons, we recommend it for retailers in industries where speed is vital to successful operations. If you’re selling pricier items (perhaps with customisation), your clientele is going to expect better customer service than a small-time seller on eBay.

A total of 15 collaborators should appeal to large businesses that need to delegate work amongst employees, too. Meanwhile, a boost to the number of potential product reviews and the ability to loyalty rewards should help improve customer trust and retention, attractive to businesses looking to improve customer numbers further.

You’re more likely to be able to provide rapid issue resolution with the phone support from Wix that you get at this tier. We have to say it’s a bit cheeky to charge so much for access to phone support, given that IONOS offers this at all levels.

Alternatively, Square Online offers impressive 24/7 phone support at its £64 per month plan, making it potentially more appealing for ambitious sellers concerned about monthly outgoings.

Does Wix Charge Transaction Fees?

Wix’s major value advantage is not charging any transaction fees (unlike Shopify, for instance).

However, you’ll need to pay for processing fees to third-party payment gateways, as is usual throughout retail. Wix will invoice you for these at the end of the month. Here are the rates:

• Credit or debit card with Wix Payments: 2.1% + 20p
• Apply Pay: 2.1% + 20p
• Chargeback fee: £15

It’s worth noting that Shopify’s chargeback fee is only £10, compared with Wix’s £15.

We go through competitors and their differences more thoroughly in our complete guide to the best online sales platforms for small businesses. Click over there now to find out if Shopify or Wix took the trophy, overall.

As you can see from the above, the cheapest Wix plan does not offer all the features you’d need for a global sales set-up. For instance, Wix Core doesn’t allow you to sell in multiple currencies. You’d need to upgrade to Wix Business for that capability.

Yet if you’re purely looking at the cheapest way to sell online without adverts, Wix Core is a better deal than Squarespace Business, because the latter costs £3 more per month in subscription fees and charges 3% transaction fees on top of payment processing costs.

And while Wix Core doesn’t offer unlimited products like Squarespace Business, it does allow you to sell on Facebook and Instagram. This feature isn’t available on Squarespace Business and for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs, the ability to sell on social media is crucial.

Our Methodology

Our team of experts test each plan under different criteria to find out the pros and cons of each plan and which type of business owner suits which plan best. Overall Wix scored highest in our testing of the most popular website builders on the market, achieving a score of 4.9.

Our years of experience testing website builders and gathering feedback from end users have given us a keen insight into what to look for in a great builder. During our research and testing we look at the following criteria like website features, value for money, help and support, customer score, and ease of use.