They’re both great platforms for website building. Wix is quite easy to utilise and offers a diverse range of technical support. WordPress is a CMS (content management system) which requires advanced technical knowledge. Between Wix and WordPress, which option is better for a beginner website? Read on as I compare and contrast these 2 platforms for you.
Wix offers a completely free plan, but you wouldn't be able to remove ads from your website as well as use a custom domain name. You’d have to use the default format of username.wix.com/sitename. Wix’s monthly plans (combo, unlimited, pro, eCommerce, and VIP) range from $18 - $47. Annual plans start from $14 - $39. And, wait for it. Depending on the selected package, you can save anywhere from 17% to 24% yearly on their annual plans.
While WordPress is free to download and use, there are additional requirements needed to build your website. You’d need to find and incur costs for your own:
⦁ Custom domain name (approx. $2.95/month)
⦁ Hosting provider (approx $10/year)
⦁ Pre-made WordPress theme (one time payment ranging from $25 - $299)
⦁ Plugins for extra functionality ($0 - $70/plugin
Building a live WordPress website means you’ll incur a total one-time annual cost of $200+. However, monthly costs thereafter are averagely between $10 - $40
Wix’s in-house support team can directly be contacted via phone/email from Monday - Thursday between 5 am - 5 pm EST. Outside of operating hours, Wix has ensured that their innumerable articles & video tutorials will be of further assistance.
WordPress seems quite indifferent. Since WordPress is open-source, the phone support feature is not as useful as it should be. Thus, users are referred to articles written by other WordPress users for assistance. You’re most likely to find a helpful article since 39% of the worlds websites are on WordPress sites. But, prepare your neck/back to sit through thousands of articles to get help!
Wix offers several in-house built SEO apps like Site Booster and it’s free, however, the Free & Combo plan users pay $3.50/month. WordPress too offers an SEO plugin known as Yoast, and well over 5 million websites use it! However, its free use is limited and it costs $69.
If we are considering the kind of budget a beginner website would entail, plus the kind of bugs the website may have and would require attention from technical support, Wix is a better option. And the costs are all-inclusive. Unlike with WordPress where a user would incur a one-time cost followed by monthly costs, its Yoast SEO has got the power to make a beginner website get traffic and rank better. At $69 for a beginner website, it’s quite steep on the owner. However, when compared to Wix $3.50/per for Free/Combo plan users, the trophy slips off WordPress’s grip to Wix.
