Wix and Squarespace
- Good for: getting something presentable online yourself, quickly, with hosting and updates handled.
- Monthly cost: a subscription for as long as the site exists, usually higher for online stores and booking.
- Watch for: speed on phones, limits on what you can change in the code, and leaving. You can’t take a Wix or Squarespace site with you; moving means rebuilding the pages somewhere else and redirecting the old addresses.
WordPress
- Good for: content-heavy sites and owners who want full control with a big ecosystem.
- Monthly cost: hosting, plus premium plugins and themes, plus someone’s time to update them.
- Watch for: plugin and server updates. Most hacked small business sites we see are WordPress sites nobody updated.
Custom
- Good for: businesses that want a fast, secure site built around how they actually sell, with booking, payments or portals done properly.
- Cost: more up front, then hosting and care. No platform subscription and no per-sale fees from a store builder.
- Watch for: who keeps it running. Ask what changes cost, how fast they happen, and whether you own the code.
Questions that decide it
- Who will update it?If the answer is you, pick a builder you’ll actually log into. If it’s someone else, make sure they’re named and paid for it.
- How much of your business runs through it?A brochure site can live anywhere. A site that takes bookings, deposits or orders is worth building properly.
- What happens if you leave?Ask before you start. Your domain should always be yours, and with a custom site, so should the code.
- How does it do on a phone?Run any site built on the platform through Google’s PageSpeed Insights. In our report, 48 of 63 local sites scored under 70 on mobile.
Written by Nikita Huttenlocher, founder and lead engineer at Huttenlocher Technologies, a web design and software company in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.