Four ways to get a website without touching a server, what each costs in year three, and the one that lets you leave.
If you do not want to think about hosting at all, a builder is a reasonable answer and there is no shame in it. The four mainstream options differ more than their marketing suggests — mostly in what happens when you want to change your mind.
The comparison
| Wix | Squarespace | GoDaddy Builder | WordPress.com | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| From | Free (ads) / £8 | ~£13 | ~£9 | Free (ads) / £4 |
| Realistic business plan | ~£22/mo | ~£20/mo | ~£15/mo | ~£25/mo (Business) |
| Editor | Best in class, true drag-and-drop | Structured, design-led | Simple, template-driven | Block editor |
| Template switching | No — rebuild | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Plugins / extensions | App market | Limited | Minimal | Full plugin library on Business |
| Export your site | No | No | No | Yes |
| SEO for large content sites | Adequate | Adequate | Weak | Strong |
| Best at | Getting something good-looking live fast | Portfolios, studios, visual work | Bundling with a domain you already own | Publishing, and keeping your options open |
Wix
The most capable editor of the four by a distance — genuine absolute positioning, an enormous template library, and built-in bookings, ecommerce and marketing tools. Wix Studio is a credible agency-grade tier. If the goal is a good-looking site this week without technical help, Wix does that better than anyone.
Two hard limits: you cannot change template after publishing without rebuilding, and there is no export, ever. See the Wix question for how much that should weigh.
Squarespace
Better design taste, less flexibility. The templates are the most consistently attractive on the market and the constraints are the point — it is difficult to make a Squarespace site look bad, and difficult to make it look unusual. Strong for photographers, restaurants, studios and anyone selling on visual credibility. Also no export path.
GoDaddy Website Builder
The weakest of the four, and worth listing mainly because millions of people arrive at it after buying a domain. It is fast to set up and adequate for a single-page presence. It is thinner than Wix on every axis, the SEO tooling is basic, and you are inside the GoDaddy upsell environment. If you already own a GoDaddy domain, the builder is still not the reason to stay.
WordPress.com
The odd one out, because it is a builder that is also real WordPress. Below the Business plan it is as locked down as any of the others — no plugins, no custom themes. Above it, at around £25/month, you get the full plugin library, SFTP and database access, and the ability to export the entire site to self-hosted WordPress whenever you like.
That export is the single most valuable feature in this table. It means choosing WordPress.com is a reversible decision, and choosing the other three is not.
The recommendation
- Local service business, will not grow much: Wix. Take the convenience, accept the lock-in knowingly.
- Visual portfolio: Squarespace.
- Anything you might want to move, extend, or hand to a developer: WordPress.com, or self-hosted WordPress from the start.
- A shop above hobby scale: none of these — Shopify.
The question that resolves most of this: in three years, if you want to hire someone to improve your site, can they work on it? On WordPress the answer is yes and the pool of people is enormous. On the other three you are restricted to what the platform allows and who knows that platform.
Published 18 May 2026. Prices and ownership change — check the comparison table for current figures, and the provider's own site before buying. No affiliate links anywhere on this site.