vs Wix

Wix is fine. Your business deserves something built for it.

Wix is a popular drag-and-drop website builder with a broad template library and support tools. It is well suited to getting a simple portfolio, hobby, side-project, or one-page brochure online quickly.

Run a Free Site Check-Up on Your Wix Site Free site audit →

A hand-coded site offers a different tradeoff: more control over performance, structure, ownership, and conversion paths for a service business. This page is a side-by-side accounting of where Wix shines and where a custom site from ANTHONY. may be a better fit.

About Wix

Where Wix genuinely shines

Wix is the world's most popular drag-and-drop website builder, with 250M+ users worldwide, a deep template library, and a polished visual editor that lets non-technical owners ship a placeholder site in a couple of hours.

✓ Genuinely fast to spin up a placeholder site — drag-and-drop editor, no code required, live in an afternoon.

✓ Massive template library covering nearly every industry vertical, with a decent starting point for almost any business type.

✓ Built-in hosting that "just works" for low-traffic sites; no DNS or server configuration to worry about.

✓ 24/7 chat support with first-tier agents who can answer billing and "how do I change my logo" questions quickly.

✓ Strong integrated app marketplace for booking widgets, basic e-commerce, and email capture.

Where ANTHONY. pulls ahead

The dimensions that matter for SMB owners

Speed, ownership, local visibility, and total cost — the four levers that decide whether a website actually pays its bills.

Hand-coded site engineered around YOUR conversion goal, not a generic template aesthetic.

Mobile performance targets tested before launch and documented in the project handoff.

You own the code and the content. Take it to any hosting provider, fork it, modify it, sell it.

Local Visibility baked into the foundation — LocalBusiness schema, GBP integration, service-area pages, GEO citations.

Direct text/call line to Anthony, the person who designed and coded your site. No ticket queue.

The page-speed reality nobody on Wix wants to talk about

Performance varies widely by Wix template, installed apps, media, and implementation. A general-purpose visual builder can carry more framework and third-party code than a focused custom site, which may affect how quickly meaningful content becomes usable on a mobile connection.

ANTHONY. builds with hand-coded HTML, CSS, and only the JavaScript the selected features need. We set a project-specific performance target, test it before launch, and document the result. That does not promise a particular field score, search position, or conversion outcome, because those vary by content, device, connection, and business context.

Who actually owns your site when you build on Wix

Wix is a hosted platform, so its editor and templates do not transfer as a standalone hand-coded site. Domains and content can be migrated, but the export and rebuild plan should be reviewed against the current Wix capabilities and your content inventory.

ANTHONY. builds the marketing site as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a Git repository that you control. That makes it easier for another qualified developer to maintain or extend the code if your needs change.

What "local visibility" actually requires (and where Wix falls short)

Local visibility is valuable for service businesses, but no site or provider can promise a map or organic position. A useful foundation includes accurate business information, a clean technical implementation, an actively maintained Google Business Profile, and genuinely useful content for the places and services a business actually covers.

ANTHONY. can implement LocalBusiness and Service structured data that reflects visible business information, connect the site to the appropriate Google Business Profile, and build service-area content only where it is useful and truthful. Structured data, citations, and page count do not guarantee a ranking or review-star display.

The 3-year total cost of ownership

On the surface, Wix can look cheaper. A Wix Premium plan with a custom domain is listed at $17 to $36 per month, depending on the tier. That is $204 to $432 per year. Our build is $999 one-time plus $40/year Edge Hosting. After year one, Wix can cost less upfront.

Over several years, the comparison depends on the Wix plan, paid apps, support needs, and scope of the custom build. Use the table below as an illustrative model and confirm current vendor pricing before deciding. Performance and conversion outcomes should be evaluated for your own site rather than assumed from platform choice alone.

Head-to-head

Wix vs ANTHONY.

The same dimensions, side by side. No hedging.

Dimension	Wix	ANTHONY.
Built for you	Pick from a template	✓ Hand-coded to your business
Google speed score on mobile	Varies by template and setup	✓ Project target, tested before launch
Mobile performance	Varies by template and setup	✓ Measured against the agreed target
Hosting	$17–$36/mo + bandwidth limits	$40/yr unlimited Cloudflare hosting
You own the code	Locked into Wix platform	✓ Full source on Git, take it anywhere
Local Visibility ranking	Generic schema, no GBP integration	✓ Hand-tuned LocalBusiness + GBP managed
Direct support	24/7 chat with first-tier agents	✓ Text or call Anthony directly
Setup time	Days if you DIY, weeks with their pros	2–3 weeks (we do everything)
Custom integrations	Limited to their app marketplace	✓ Anything with a public API — Stripe, webhooks, custom integrations

The real math

Total cost of ownership

What you actually spend over the lifetime of the website — not just the sticker price.

Timeframe	Wix	ANTHONY.
Year 1	$432 (Premium) + $300 SEO add-on = $732	$999 build + $40 hosting = $1,039
Year 2	$432 + $300 = $732 (cumulative $1,464)	$40 hosting (cumulative $1,079)
Year 3	$432 + $300 = $732 (cumulative $2,196)	$40 hosting (cumulative $1,119)
Year 5	~$3,660 cumulative	~$1,199 cumulative

FAQ

Common questions when switching

If your question isn't here, text or call — happy to walk through the specifics for your business.

Why do Wix sites load slowly compared to custom-built ones?

Performance depends on the template, media, apps, and configuration. A hand-coded site can avoid unused framework and third-party code, allowing the implementation to focus on the assets and features a particular site actually needs.

Can I keep my domain when I switch from Wix to ANTHONY.?

In most cases, yes. We review the registrar account, DNS, and email setup before the migration, then plan the cutover carefully. A DNS change can take time to propagate, so uninterrupted availability and email continuity are validated rather than guaranteed.

What about my existing Wix content — do I have to retype everything?

No. We migrate your content for you as part of the build. We copy your existing copy, images, blog posts, and contact information into the new site's structure. You won't lose anything that was on the Wix site — though we'll usually rewrite some of it for SEO and conversion.

How long does it take to switch from Wix to a hand-coded site?

A typical migration takes 2-3 weeks from kickoff to launch. Week 1: discovery, scope, design preview. Week 2: build, content migration, GBP integration. Week 3: revisions, final QA, DNS cutover. You see weekly progress and approve every step.

Will my Google search rankings drop when I switch?

A careful migration maps old URLs to relevant new URLs and validates redirects before launch. That helps preserve valuable links and user paths, but organic performance can fluctuate and no ranking outcome is guaranteed.

What's the catch — why is your monthly hosting so much cheaper than Wix Premium?

No catch. Cloudflare's worldwide servers hosting genuinely costs that little because their architecture serves your static site from a global CDN with no compute cost per request. Wix bundles their hosting with their proprietary editor and support overhead, which is why their monthly fees are 7-10× ours. You're paying Wix for the editor + the lock-in, not the hosting itself.

Why ANTHONY.

A Wix template can launch quickly. ANTHONY. builds a hand-coded site you control, with a measured performance target and an accurate local-visibility foundation.

Run a Free Site Check-Up on Your Wix Site See pricing

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