Company: Wix
Background: An Israeli software company by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan, Wix has seen a meteoric rise in uptake since 2006. Wix is now a leader in website creation, with over 200 million customers worldwide; this is nothing surprising, given its highly customizable and powerful drag-and-drop website builder with comprehensive features.
Starting Price: $8.50/mo
Currency: USD
Visit Online: https://www.wix.com/
Review Summary & Ratings
Wix is a comprehensive website-building tool that makes building a professional website so easy you can get one up within hours with no coding expertise. The website editor utilizes an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface with absolute freedom to design however you want. Also, powerful add-ons are available to extend website functionality.
Pros
- Reasonably-priced with varied options
- Over 800 pre-built templates
- Intuitive and powerful website editor
- Unique mobile site editor
- Powerful add-ons to extend functionalities
- Diversified Marketing and SEO Capabilities
- Comprehensive support available
- Wix websites are fast and secure
- Expand your business beyond borders
- Support multichannel selling
Overview: What is Wix?
How Does Wix Website Builder Work?
Wix Editor or Wix ADI?
Wix offers an online pure drag-and-drop by-pixel editing editor with customization options. An unstructured editor, Wix facilitates absolute freedom when moving anything to any space on the page. It took me (novice) a couple of moments to familiarize myself with Wix. Since I am a non-fussy non-designer, a simple functioning website with minimal customizations will do.
However, if you need more, Wix can still give you that, but you’ll need to take some time to explore and learn how to incorporate the functions if you’re not an advanced user. You see, Wix gives you a blank canvas with open-ended opportunities. Hence, experienced web designers would appreciate Wix more for its unlimited creative design freedom.
With Wix, you have two options when building your website: Wix ADI or Wix Editor. The former stands for Wix ADI (Wix Artificial Design Intelligence) and creates a website automatically for you. You’ll need to provide some basic information.
While Wix ADI takes over some of the control, making it easier for some, Wix Editor affords you greater control when building your website from scratch based on a pre-design template. With Wix Editor, you take the helm and handle aesthetics, feel, navigation, features, and everything on your website.
Examples of Websites Built with Wix
Izzy Wheels
Rafael Varona
Animal Music
See 18 more Wix website examples we absolutely adore.
Wix Features
Wix excels in its over 800 templates, neatly categorized for easy finding. The templates are varied to suit different industries across the board. From minimalist to complicated, Wix certainly has the right mix of styles. The Wix Wizard makes for easy getting started for beginners. Just follow through with the instructions.
Editing and customizing the template is a joy; the pure drag-and-drop interface helps you get the web elements into all the right places. Then, fill in your details and content, check, and hit the ‘Publish’ button.
To highlight, Wix continuously adds and revamps features in line with the latest trends. Seeing how SEO has helped boost a website’s presence, Wix has introduced its SEO Wizard, where you build your personalized SEO checklist. Then, complete the checklist tasks for your website to rank higher on Google.
For online sellers looking to expand their reach, Wix enables multichannel selling on leading marketplaces (Amazon and eBay) and social commerce networks (Facebook and Instagram). Also, tap into new global markets with Wix's salient features in translating your store into different languages. Also, leverage Wix's international payment processing and cross-border shipping methods.
Look into dashboard integrations and third-party apps in the Wix App Market if you need more functions. To date, over 300 web apps are available to enhance your website.
Screenshots of Wix Platform
Pros: What I Like About Wix
1. Massive Collection of Quality Templates
Wix has an impressive collection of over 800 templates nicely segregated into different categories to suit various uses and industries. The templates are attractive, professional, clean, modern, and mobile-responsive. Although some have commented that Wix’s templates’ quality may not always be commendable, beauty is subjective.
Perusing Wix’s templates, I felt overwhelmed with the choices and aesthetics of the templates, which were plenty pleasing. I had no trouble landing on an attractive and quality template. Since Wix’s templates cover most general and niche needs, kick-starting your website becomes easy.
Wix Templates
With over 800 pre-designed templates (browse all templates here), check out some of the templates I found intriguing:
2. Intuitive and Unstructured Visual Website Editor
Wix gives a pure drag-and-drop visual editor to build your website with zero coding knowledge. You operate building blocks to create your web design. You can start building your website either via Wix ADI or Wix Editor.
Wix ADI (Wix Artificial Design Intelligence) creates a website automatically for you based on the provided information. Wix Editor lets you build your website from scratch through a drag-and-drop builder based on a template. Either way will end up in the Wix Editor, where you customize the website to your liking.
Try out Wix for free – The free plan last forever
Wix Editor
Wix Editor gives you total control over the feel, interface, navigation, functions, and everything. Click ‘Begin with a template’ to use Wix Editor.
The relevant templates for your business will appear in the Wix Templates library because Wix has narrowed it down based on your previous answers. Peruse each template by hovering your mouse over it. Either ‘Edit’ (design your website) or ‘View’ (preview each template before deciding).
You must test the template design to have a feel of how the template works. Check if it complements your business well by looking at each page and how the pages work. Navigate the tabs at the top or use the handy search option on the top right to filter for more templates.
Customize Your Website
Edit and customize your website through the left panel:
- Add elements – peruse the webpage elements (images, buttons, text boxes, blogs, lists, events, and others) and use them accordingly.
- Add sections – these premade modules (about your store, welcome, contact information, promotion, services, and more) help speed up the process.
- Pages and menu – add and edit menus, sign-up and login pages, member pages, booking pages, and more.
- Site design – select the theme’s colors, page backgrounds, and transitions.
- Add apps – Wix App Market contains more than 300 apps to help extend your website’s functions (pop-ups, analytics, Wix Chat, social media buttons, and more).
- Media – upload images/videos from your desktop, social media, or cloud storage. If you need help, use Wix Photo Studio to enhance your images, and Wix Video Maker to create videos.
- Content Manager – managing your website’s content becomes easy.
Once everything is in order, check through everything and hit that blue ‘Publish’ button. Very straightforward, isn't it?
3. Unique Mobile Site Editor
Wix recognizes the importance of making your website adaptive. Hence, it provides mobile-responsive templates in sync with your basic design. That said, you can still customize a mobile-friendly website independently.
Also, Wix offers a group of apps specific to website owners and members, named Wix mobile apps. The Wix Owner app enables you to build and manage your website on the go. Hence, if you want hands-on at all times, this Wix Owner app will do you justice.
The Wix member apps enable the members to interact with your business through a seamless experience between your website and their mobile device.
Learn more: How to create your first website using Wix
4. Powerful Add-ons via App Market
What makes Wix appealing is its capability to extend functions to your website. Similar to WordPress plugins, there are many add-ons that you can choose for the feature you want from the Wix App Market. With over 300 web apps, you have plenty of room to maneuver to expand your website and grow your business.
In-house (Wix Stores, Wix Blog, and others) and third-party apps are mostly free.
However, some premium apps need a premium upgrade. The good news is that most apps are mobile-optimized. I must commend Wix App Market for being one of the most comprehensive lists so far among website builders.
5. Diversified Marketing and SEO Capabilities
Anyone who’s online will tell you the importance of an SEO-friendly website. After all, your website is useless no matter how beautiful it is if nobody can find you. Wix recognizes this fact. As such, Wix has a dedicated ‘Marketing & SEO’ section to help boost your website’s visibility.
Head there, and you’ll find recommended tools to help drive traffic to your website. You can also monitor your campaign’s performance, create and schedule marketing activities, and more. What I find intriguing is that Wix can build a personalized SEO checklist for you. For newbies, this feature is priceless. All you have to do is complete the checklist tasks for your website to rank higher on Google.
Also, Wix offers promotion options, including email marketing campaigns, Facebook ads, discount coupons, and free promotional videos. Create Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns directly from your Wix dashboard. There are professional email templates to reach out with a branded message too.
6. Comprehensive Support
What impressed me when exploring Wix was its comprehensive self-help knowledge base that is neatly categorized. You’ll find answers to just about anything that comes to mind there. The user community/forum serves as a platform for you to interact with other Wix users, especially for more complicated issues.
The onboarding is easy, and many tips and prompts guide you as you start your website-building journey with Wix. The Wix Editor has question marks on each design element for clarification. You also have the choice to contact Wix via phone, live chat, and social channels if all else fails.
7. Wix Sites Are Fast and Secure
Speed is crucial to determine the success of your business website. The free plan with Wix gives you free web hosting that includes 500MB of cloud storage and 500MB of bandwidth. If you need more, you have to go with a Premium Plan. Wix utilizes multi-cloud web hosting through Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Hosting with Wix’s private data centers and a network of Fastly CDNs.
Wix also has disaster recovery servers to ensure minimal downtime should these networks go down. Wix hosts your website on worldwide servers with 99.9% uptime and data backup protection. You get 24/7 security monitoring, HTTPS, and SSL/TLS protection with DDoS protection. I would say that Wix has got you covered.
8. Expand Your Business Beyond Borders
Wix makes it easy for you to go international. Translating your store into the respective languages, providing global payment processing, and cross-border shipping methods are among the few essentials offered by Wix. The Multilingual App caters to over 180 languages. Wix’s local currency converter makes for price viewing in the local currency.
Wix allows international payments via its native Wix Payments or over 80 payment gateways supported by Wix worldwide. Based on pre-configured tax rules, Avalara computes the sales taxes accordingly for your Wix eCommerce website, or you manually calculate the sales tax rates. Also, set your shipping fees (consider cross-border fees, regional tariffs, and local taxes), shipping rules, and other shipping options. Wix can get you to go global.
9. Reach More via Multichannel Selling
Wix allows you to expand your reach via leading marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and social commerce networks. Through dashboard integrations and third-party apps in the Wix App Market, you can sell on Amazon and eBay to tap into a much wider audience. Also, create an integrated social storefront on Facebook within minutes through the Wix dashboard.
Cons: What I Dislike About Wix
1. Restricted Free Plan
Although Wix’s free plan suits bloggers and for testing purposes, it can be restrictive and crippling in ways. While I can understand the Wix branding on all free Wix websites, it can be annoying, especially when you’re starting a small business. Also, you get up to 500 MB of storage and bandwidth, and Wix ads appear on EVERY page.
The thing is, Wix ads and their domain branding do not carry a professional feel if you’re serious about your business.
2. Switching Templates is Difficult
Once you settle on a Wix template and do most of the work and customization, it is challenging to change the template later; they are not compatible. Hence, your content won’t transfer easily. Chances are you will have to redo everything with a different template.
3. Cannot Export Your Wix Website
One of the criteria when choosing a web host is the easy-to-migrate factor. After all, changing web hosts happens often for different reasons. However, Wix does not allow you to export your website or any of its pages.
Also, you cannot embed any elements in your Wix website, somewhere else. Wix justifies this by improving your website's loading time, SEO, and more. I am unconvinced though.
Wix Plans & Pricing
Wix Website Plans
While it is tempting to stick with Wix’s free plan, you may have a change of heart when you cannot use your domain name and keep seeing Wix branding on your website. So, let’s take a look at Wix's paid plans. You’ll notice a widespread buffet of paid plans segregated into non-eCommerce and eCommerce plans.
The higher you go, the more you get. If you merely want to remove Wix branding, the least you’ll consider is the Combo plan at $8.50/month. However, look at the Unlimited plan at $12.50/month when scaling up your business shortly.
| Free | Connect Domain | Combo | Unlimited | VIP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Price/month | $0 | $4.50 | $8.50 | $12.50 | $24.50 |
| Disk Storage (SSD) | Up to 500MB | 500MB | 3GB | 10GB | 35GB |
| Bandwidth | Up to 500MB | 1GB | 2GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Free SSL | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Connect Domain | No * | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Free 1st Year Domain | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Showcase Video Hours | No | No | 30 minutes | 1 hour | 5 hours |
| eCommerce Features | No | No | No | No | No |
| Remove Wix Ads | No * | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Secure Online Payments | No | No | No | No | No |
* Remarks: For Wix Free Plans
- Wix ads will appear on every page & favicon in the URL
- Your site address will be Wix assigned URL: accountname.wixsite.com/siteaddress
Wix Business and eCommerce Plans
If you want to start an eCommerce store, the minimum plan that accepts online payment is the Business Basic plan at $17/month. Take note that there is a processing fee for each payment you receive through Wix Payments. Be careful, Wix’s pricing is annual figures; some may find this misleading, with a fine print at the bottom.
| Business Basic | Business Unlimited | Business VIP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Price/month | $17.00 | $25.00 | $35.00 |
| Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Free 1st Year Domain | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Video Storage | 5 hours | 10 hours | Unlimited |
| eCommerce Features | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Transaction Fees (Wix Payment) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Our Verdict on Wix
Wix makes it easy to build beautiful and professional websites quickly with zero coding knowledge. Just imagine getting your website up within hours or less! With tons of powerful apps, the functionalities and possibilities are almost endless. However, does this mean Wix is perfect? Well, nothing is flawless in this real world.
Yet I feel that the flaws in Wix are minimal compared to its strengths. Wix website builders afford a very streamlined experience for anyone, ranging from a beginner to an advanced user. There is little room for confusion. Even if there is, a comprehensive self-help section guides you.
I find Wix a solid offering with vast capabilities that many will find a hard-to-beat proposition.
Wix Alternatives
- Other website builders similar to Wix: Weebly, Webnode
- Online store builders: BigCommerce, Shopify
- Traditional web hosting providers: Hostinger, InMotion Hosting, TMD Hosting
Also, check out these 20+ awesome platforms to create a website
How to Begin with Wix?
Anyone can signup and create a website on Wix platform (no credit card needed).
Wix FAQ
Wix is a cloud-based site builder platform that allows users to create professional-looking websites without any coding skills. It works by offering a drag-and-drop editor, a large selection of pre-made templates, and various tools to help users create their desired websites. Users can easily add text, images, and videos; as well as integrate e-commerce, blogging, and social media functionalities to enhance the user experience.
Wix offers a free plan that allows users to create and publish a website with a Wix-branded domain (ie. username.wixsite.com/sitename). The free plan includes basic features and limited storage and bandwidth. To access more advanced features, remove Wix ads, and use a custom domain, Wix free plan users can upgrade to one of the premium plans.
Yes, you can use your own domain name with Wix. If you already have a domain name, you can connect it to your Wix website by updating the DNS settings. Alternatively, you can purchase a new domain name through Wix and connect it to your website.
Wix stands out for its user-friendly interface and ease of use – which makes it an ideal choice for beginners. It offers a wide range of templates and customization options to create a unique website.
Wix is an excellent choice for both information websites and online stores as the platform offers a variety of eCommerce features and tools. With Wix, you can create product pages, manage inventory, set up payment gateways, and handle product shipping and tax. Wix also offers marketing tools to help boost your business's visibility and sales.
