Wix, WordPress, Squarespace or Custom: an Honest Comparison for SMEs

Disclosure first: we sell custom websites. You have every right to read what follows with that discount applied. But the truth is that each of these four paths is the right choice for someone — and recommending them to the wrong person is like a restaurant pushing its most expensive dish on someone who came in for coffee. This guide tells you which path is yours, even when it is not us.

The map in thirty seconds

Path	Who it is really for	The true cost
Wix	People who want to be online tomorrow, alone, without touching code	A subscription forever + your time
Squarespace	Portfolios and visual businesses that value looks above all	A subscription forever + accepting the template's limits
WordPress	People who have (or hire) someone to care for it regularly	"Free" + hosting + plugins + constant maintenance
Custom	When the site is a working tool, not a brochure	More upfront; yours forever

Now the version with the maths done.

Wix: the fastest path — with rent for life

Wix genuinely solves the problem it promises to solve: within hours, knowing nothing technical, you have a page live with the drag-and-drop editor. For validating an idea, for an association, for a business still testing itself, it is a perfectly dignified answer — and we say that without irony.

The costs arrive with time. A business-usable plan runs at a few dozen euros a month (prices change often — check the current ones), and climbs as soon as you need "apps" for features you assumed were included. After four or five years, the accumulated rent has paid for a site that would have been yours. And the detail almost nobody reads in the small print: you cannot leave Wix with your site under your arm — content exports poorly, design does not export at all. Changing platforms means starting over.

Squarespace: the prettiest of the moulds

Squarespace has the most elegant templates in the DIY market, and for photographers, architects, studios and restaurants with good photography it is often the DIY path we would recommend. The subscription is comparable to Wix; the philosophy differs — less drag-anything freedom, more template discipline, which in practice protects non-designers from hurting themselves.

The limit is the same as the freedom: when the business needs something the mould did not anticipate — real booking logic, a Portuguese integration, a client area — you hit the wall fast. It is a beautiful ready-to-wear suit: perfect until the day you need an alteration the fabric will not give.

WordPress: the most powerful — and the most mis-bought

Let's first undo the confusion: there is WordPress.com (a hosted service, Wix-like) and WordPress.org (the free software you install on your own hosting). When people say "half the internet runs on WordPress", they mean the second — and it truly is the most flexible DIY path there is: thousands of themes and plugins, a huge community, no hard ceiling.

What the comparisons keep quiet is that WordPress is not a product — it is a responsibility. The software, plugins and theme demand constant updates; ignoring them is the single most common way an SME site gets compromised. "Free" means: hosting, domain, probably a paid theme or plugin, and — the part nobody budgets — someone to look after it every month. With that someone, it is an excellent choice. Without, it is the site that by 2027 is slow, outdated and quietly serving spam.

Custom: when the site is a tool, not a brochure

The path we sell, with the honest pitch: it is not for everyone. If you need five good-looking pages with your contacts, you do not need us — you need one of the three above or a well-chosen template.

Custom wins when the site does something: bookings with your rules, pre-enrolments landing in a management panel, calculated quotes, a client area, invoicing integration — when the site is part of the business's operating system. There, the moulds either cannot reach or reach with so many glued-on "apps" that the subscription and the fragility both explode. The structural differences: you pay for the build once instead of renting forever; the result is yours (code, data, domain — in your own name); and speed and SEO are designed, not inherited from a loaded template. Realistic Portuguese market prices are in this guide.

The Portuguese details foreign comparisons ignore

Any comparison you read in English misses three things that decide choices in Portugal:

1. Certified invoicing. If you sell online, invoices must come from software certified by the tax authority (AT) — which none of these international platforms does natively. The store needs to connect to a Portuguese invoicing programme; the quality of that connection varies wildly between platforms, and on a custom build it is designed in from the start.
2. Multibanco and MB Way. Portuguese customers expect to pay the way they always pay. It is possible on these platforms via payment gateways — but confirm before choosing, not after building.
3. The legal footer duties. The electronic complaints-book link, the ADR notice, the privacy policy: on any DIY path, you are the one who has to know they exist and put them there. Nobody will warn you — except ASAE.

The decision, in three questions

1. Does the site need to do anything beyond inform? No → Wix or Squarespace will serve. Yes → WordPress with paid upkeep, or custom.
2. Who looks after it a year from now? "Me, on Sundays" is a valid answer for a brochure; it is not for a store or a booking system.
3. What is your time worth? The 40–80 hours a decent DIY build consumes are real. At your hourly value, "free" has a price — sometimes higher than the quote you were avoiding.

If after these three questions the answer looks like "custom" — or you simply want a number to compare against the subscription you already pay — describe the project in our estimate form and you will get a concrete figure with no sales calls. And if the answer is "Wix is plenty": go in peace, with our blessing and the launch checklist under your arm.