Field note · Written in Sacramento

Wix and Squarespace vs a Sacramento Web Designer: When DIY Is the Right Call

WebsitesOct 20269 min readAAntonie Lewis

The honest answer to Wix vs web designer is that DIY wins more often than designers like to admit. If you are just starting, your budget is small, and you have evenings to spend on it, build it yourself on Wix or Squarespace. Hire a web designer when the website has to bring in a steady flow of calls or bookings, when your time is worth more than the build fee, or when you need real photos, a page for every service and a booking path that works on a phone. In both cases, keep the domain in your own name.

We are a two-person Sacramento marketing agency that builds websites, so we have a side in this. Below are the real prices, the hidden costs and the cases where DIY is the smarter call.

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The short version

	Wix (DIY)	Squarespace (DIY)	Web designer
Cash cost to start	Free plan, or a paid plan for your own domain	No free plan; paid plans from $19 a month billed yearly	A project fee, plus the platform's plan
Time cost	All yours: layout, writing, photos, setup	All yours	A few meetings and your feedback
Best for	Starting out, testing an idea, a simple brochure site	Starting out, a clean portfolio or simple service site	A site that has to produce calls, quotes or bookings
Main risk	It looks fine on a laptop and confusing on a phone	Same, plus a template that can look like many others	Paying for design without a plan for leads
Moving later	The site stays on Wix; take your words, photos and domain	Export is limited to a WordPress file	Depends on the platform, so ask before you sign

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What DIY really costs

The plan

Squarespace's pricing page lists Basic at $19 a month and Core at $29 a month on annual billing, or $25 and $39 if you pay month to month. In Squarespace's own words, "Squarespace doesn't offer a free plan, but every site starts with a free trial," and that trial lasts 14 days.

Wix has a free plan, but the free version lives at an address like username.wixsite.com/sitename and carries Wix branding. A Premium plan lets you connect your own domain and remove the branding. Wix's plans page says "Prices and currency vary by location," so check the current price on wix.com/plans when you sign up.

Both include a free domain for the first year on most yearly plans, then it renews at the normal rate.

Your time

This is the bigger cost. You pick the template, write every page, take the photos, set the page titles and test it on your phone. Our post on what a small business website should cost sums up the DIY builder this way: "Lowest cash cost, highest time cost. Fine if you are just starting and have more evenings than dollars."

If a weekend of site building costs you two jobs, the free plan was not free.

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What a web designer really costs

GoodFirms surveyed more than 300 web development firms in 31 countries for its 2026 report. For a basic site, 59.9 percent of firms quoted $1,000 to $3,000, and 71 percent said it takes 2 to 4 weeks. For a mid-sized site, 53.9 percent quoted $5,000 to $20,000. Those are global numbers, not a Sacramento price list.

GoodFirms also notes that "drag-and-drop builders have genuinely compressed both timelines and price floors at this end of the market." In plain English, builders made the cheapest websites cheaper. What a designer adds is everything around the template: the plan, the words, the photos and the booking path.

The build is not the only bill. You still pay for the domain, the platform plan and updates, so ask any designer to list those in the proposal.

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The platform is rarely the problem

The tool matters less than what you put on it. As our cost post puts it, "The platform matters less than whether you can update it and whether it loads fast on a phone."

Google says much the same. Its SEO Starter Guide notes that most content management systems turn the titles you write into the page title automatically, and some create your sitemap for you. Its page on hiring an SEO goes further: "If you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the work yourself."

What Google does care about is the phone. "Google uses the mobile version of a site's content, crawled with the smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking." And on speed, Google says "Core Web Vitals are used by our ranking systems," while also warning that a good score alone does not guarantee top rankings.

So a Wix or Squarespace site can rank. When a DIY site stays quiet, the reasons are usually the same ones that sink a cheap designer site:

The first screen does not say what you do and where.
Every service is crammed onto one page, so Google has nothing specific to rank.
The photos are stock and could belong to anyone.
There is no easy next step on a phone. If calling takes a hunt, people go back to the results.

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When DIY is the right answer

Build it yourself when most of these are true:

You are just starting and need a real website this month, not a perfect one.
Most of your work comes from referrals, and the site mainly needs to look legitimate when someone checks you out.
Your budget is small and every dollar is better spent on tools, insurance or your first truck.
You like this kind of work and will keep the site updated.

If that is you, pick a simple template, write one page per service, use your own job photos, put a tap-to-call number at the top, and fill out your Google Business Profile.

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When a web designer pays for itself

Hire help when most of these are true:

The website is how new customers find you, through Google searches, ads or social posts that point to it.
You run ads, because every click that lands on a confusing page is money spent for nothing.
You need real photos and video and do not have the time or gear to shoot them.
You need a booking or quote path tied to your calendar or follow-up.
Your DIY site is live and the phone is quiet. If that is the situation, our guide on whether to redesign or start over walks through what to keep.

Google's own advice on hiring help says "a great time to hire is when you're considering a site redesign (the earlier, the better), or planning to launch a new site." It also says "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google," so walk away from anyone who promises one.

A simple test from our cost post: how many extra booked jobs would cover the first-year cost? For a contractor with a high average ticket, it might be two or three. If the site cannot plausibly bring in that many, stay with DIY for now. Either way, our contractor website must-haves list what the site needs.

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The lock-in question nobody asks

Before you build on any platform, know what happens if you leave.

Wix. Wix's help center says "In order for your site to work properly, it needs to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers." It also says "the content you build on Wix belongs to you," and that you can buy and manage your domain with another provider. Blog posts are a gap: "Currently, it is not possible to export blog posts to other platforms." That page is a feature request, so recheck it before a move.

Squarespace. Squarespace can export some content, but "The exported file can only be in a WordPress format." Its help page lists what will not export, including video blocks, store pages, style settings and custom CSS, and says "Not everything will export, as many features rely on our platform's JavaScript and CSS."

Framer, the platform we build on, is hosted too. As our Framer vs WordPress post says, "Framer is a hosted website builder." So the same rules apply to the sites we build:

Register the domain in your business name, with an email you control.
Keep your own copies of every photo, video and page of text.
Make the website account yours, with your designer added as a collaborator.

Moving later means rebuilding the design. Your domain, words and photos carry your reputation, so keep them yours.

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A 10-minute check for your DIY site

If you already have a Wix or Squarespace site, do this on your phone today:

Open your homepage. Can a stranger tell what you do, where you work and how to reach you before scrolling?
Tap your phone number. Does it dial?
Search your main service plus "Sacramento" on Google. Does a specific page from your site come up, or only your homepage?
Look at your photos. Are they your people and your work?
Fill out your own contact form. Did the message reach you, and how fast would you reply?

Four or five yeses means your site is probably not the problem. Put your time into reviews and your Google Business Profile.

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Where we fit, honestly

We are Antonie and Teo, a two-person team that does all of the work in-house. Our about page says it plainly: "Nothing outsourced." For website design in Sacramento, we build in Framer because, as our web design page puts it, "It is fast on a phone, and it lets us build a designed site instead of a template." We do not have a storefront, so we come to you: we film your team and your work, write a page for each service you want more of, and build a booking path a customer can finish with one thumb. Most launches take about 30 days.

Elysian got 109 new client inquiries in 30 days from a new site, shop content, paid social, local SEO and booking automation together, a full-system result. AIMS got 20 bookings in 30 days from a rebuilt site, paid ads and content shot on site. We hold a 5.0 rating from 18 Google reviews.

The limits are real too. We were founded in 2025, we take on a small number of clients at a time, and if you are just starting with a small budget, a DIY site is probably the better first step. When the site has to start bringing in work, start with a free audit: we tell you what is leaking and what to fix first, then quote the work.

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Sources

FAQ /

Questions people ask

Is Wix or Squarespace good enough for a small business website?

Often, yes. Both can produce a site that loads on a phone and shows up on Google, and Google says a small local business can probably do much of the SEO work itself. Sites usually fall short because of what is on them: a vague first screen, one page for every service, stock photos and no easy way to call.

How much does Squarespace cost compared to hiring a web designer?

Squarespace lists Basic at $19 a month and Core at $29 a month on annual billing. GoodFirms' 2026 survey found 59.9 percent of web firms quote $1,000 to $3,000 for a basic site and 53.9 percent quote $5,000 to $20,000 for a mid-sized one. A designed site usually still runs on a paid platform plan as well.

Can I move my Wix site to another platform later?

Not as a working site. Wix says sites must be hosted and operated on its servers, and its help center says blog posts cannot currently be exported. Your content belongs to you and your domain can move, so keep copies of your text and photos and plan to rebuild the design somewhere else.

When should I stop doing my own website and hire a web designer?

When the site is how new customers find you, when you run ads that point to it, or when your DIY site is live and the phone stays quiet. A quick test: if two or three extra booked jobs a year would cover the build, a designer who plans the site around leads is worth pricing out.

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