NorthLuma blog · 2026-05-16 · 9-minute read
Wix vs Squarespace 2026 — the honest review nobody on payroll will write.
Every Wix-vs-Squarespace article ranking on page one was written by someone who gets paid an affiliate cut when you sign up. We don't. So here is the comparison we wished existed when we started shipping websites for SMBs in 2024: verified pricing, real lock-in, real export reality, and a 5-year all-in cost table that includes the things both vendors hide in the fine print.
TLDR
- · Both Wix and Squarespace are fine if you plan to stay on the subscription forever and never move the site.
- · Neither lets you walk away with the source code. Wix's export gives you static HTML stripped of every dynamic feature; Squarespace has no export.
- · Five-year all-in cost sits between $960 (Squarespace Personal) and $1,740 (Wix Core) for a single brochure site, before domain + email + premium-template extras that push the real number up another $250–400.
- · We charge $49 once for a deployable site you download as a ZIP, host free on Vercel/Netlify, and own forever. The comparison we're running here is, ultimately, between renting a website for the rest of your life and buying one for the price of dinner.
The one question they won't answer
Open a chat with Wix or Squarespace sales and ask: "If I stop paying, what happens to the site I built?" The honest answer is the same in both cases: it goes dark. Wix lets you export a stripped-down static archive; Squarespace doesn't. Neither hands over the source code, the design tokens, the form-submission endpoint, the analytics dashboard, the booking widget, or the e-commerce schema. You rented the apartment; you can't take the apartment with you when you leave.
That asymmetry is not a small thing. It is the difference between a website being an asset on your balance sheet and a website being a recurring expenseon your P&L. Asset becomes "your laptop has a folder you back up"; expense becomes "a card on file that compounds for as long as the business exists."
The 5-year all-in cost (verified May 2026)
Pulled from each vendor's public pricing page as of May 2026, billed annually for the discount. We did not include domain ($12–18/year), business email ($72–120/year per mailbox), or premium templates ($60–250 one-time) — all of which apply equally to Wix, Squarespace, and the NorthLuma comparison row.
| Product | Year 1 | Year 5 | Year 10 | Owns the code? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wix Light | $204 | $1,020 | $2,040 | No |
| Wix Core | $348 | $1,740 | $3,480 | No |
| Squarespace Personal | $192 | $960 | $1,920 | No |
| Squarespace Business | $276 | $1,380 | $2,760 | No |
| NorthLuma Starter | $0 | $49 | $49 | Yes — full source on your laptop |
Year-1 numbers reflect annual-billing discount. Year-5 and Year-10 numbers assume no price increases, which is generous — Wix has raised list prices at least once a year since 2022. Real 10-year totals are 15–30% higher than the table shows.
Lock-in reality, side by side
Wix Light
support reply ≤ 24hTotal — site lives inside Wix's editor; export gives static HTML stripped of dynamic features
Wix Core
support reply ≤ 24hTotal — same as Light, with more features that don't survive export
Squarespace Personal
support reply ≤ 24hTotal — no source export option exists
Squarespace Business
support reply ≤ 12hTotal — same as Personal
NorthLuma Starter
support reply ≤ 24hZero — ZIP file with full HTML/CSS/JS lands on your laptop; deploy anywhere
Where Wix and Squarespace are genuinely better than NorthLuma
This is the section every honest review needs but few include. NorthLuma is not the right tool for every job. If you need:
- A drag-and-drop visual editor for ongoing daily content changes by a non-technical owner — Squarespace wins. Our $49 ZIP is editable in any text editor, but that's a different ergonomic.
- A real e-commerce flow with inventory, taxes, shipping zones, refund automation, abandoned-cart recovery — Wix Business or Shopify Basic ($32/mo) wins. NorthLuma can ship a static product list with Stripe-checkout links, not a full storefront.
- A marketplace of pre-built apps for niche functionality (legal forms, Spanish-language booking, real-estate IDX feed, multi-vendor marketplace) — Wix App Market wins. We carry roughly 50 capabilities; Wix has 300+.
If any of those three lines describes you, ignore us and pick the right vendor. We aren't for everyone — we're for the 80% of small businesses whose actual website need is a 5–10 page brochure / portfolio / services site with a contact form, a pricing page, and SEO. For that 80%, paying $192–276/year forever instead of $49 once is the financially irrational choice.
The NorthLuma frame
The reason we don't fit on the Wix-vs-Squarespace shelf is that we sell a different category of thing. They sell hosted-website-as-a-service at a recurring fee. We sell a deployable site you own and operate at a one-time fee. The closest historical analogy is the difference between leasing a car and buying one — at low mileage the lease looks competitive; at high mileage you discover what the salesperson hid in the paperwork.
Our $49 ZIP file contains: the HTML, the CSS, the JavaScript, the image assets, a README that walks you through Vercel + Netlify deployment in five minutes, and a screenshot of the site you generated so you remember which one this is. Total bundle is usually under 500 KB. You can host it on Vercel free tier forever, on a Netlify free tier forever, on your existing cPanel for free, or on a $5 DigitalOcean droplet. The hosting cost over five years is, optimistically, $0.
Frequently asked
Is Wix or Squarespace better in 2026?
If you stay on the subscription forever and never plan to move the site elsewhere, they are roughly equivalent — both let a non-technical owner ship a decent-looking site in an afternoon. Pick Wix if you want the largest template library and Wix App Market integrations. Pick Squarespace if your priority is design polish and the built-in commerce flow. Neither lets you walk away with the source code — that is the line we drew NorthLuma on the other side of.
Can I export my Wix site to host it elsewhere?
Not the dynamic version. Wix's export ships static HTML stripped of the editor, the App Market features, and the form-submission pipeline. The site you see in the editor is not the site you download. Squarespace currently offers no source export at all — your only path off the platform is to rebuild the site on a competitor.
What's the real 5-year cost of a Wix Light site?
$1,020 if Wix never raises prices (they have raised prices at least once a year since 2022). Add a custom domain ($12–18/yr after the first free year), business email if you want one ($72–120/yr per mailbox), and any premium template ($60–250 one-time) and the real number sits closer to $1,200–1,400.
Why does NorthLuma charge $49 once when competitors charge $200+/year?
Because we don't have to host you. The site you download is a static bundle that deploys free on Vercel or Netlify (both have indefinite free tiers for sites this size) or on any cPanel host you already pay for. We sell the build, not the hosting — the hosting is a commodity nobody should be renting at $200+/year per site.
What about the SEO? Aren't Wix and Squarespace better for SEO?
That hasn't been true since around 2020. Both platforms produce Lighthouse-90+ HTML; so does NorthLuma. The SEO question that actually matters is whether you can ship content quickly and edit your meta tags freely — both are easy on all three platforms. Search engines rank pages, not platforms.
What happens to my Wix site if Wix goes bankrupt or changes its terms?
It goes offline the moment Wix's servers go offline. Same with Squarespace. NorthLuma's site lives as a folder on your laptop — if we go bankrupt tomorrow, your site keeps working until you turn it off. That asymmetry is not a marketing line, it's the difference between renting and owning.
Is NorthLuma right for an e-commerce store?
Today, no — Shopify or WooCommerce are better fits for a real store with inventory, taxes, shipping zones, and refund flows. NorthLuma is right for the website your business actually needs in 2026: a 5–10 page brochure / portfolio / services site with a contact form, a pricing page, and SEO. If you need cart + checkout at scale, Shopify Basic at $32/month is still cheaper than the alternative of getting it wrong on a generic builder.
Try it before you migrate
The builder is free until you decide to download. Type your business name, pick an industry, and watch the AI compose a real multi-page site in under 90 seconds. If it's better than what you would have built on Wix or Squarespace — and we genuinely think it will be for the kind of brochure-shaped SMB site this article is about — keep going. If it isn't, close the tab; you paid nothing.
A note on bias: NorthLuma sells the product compared against Wix and Squarespace, so the comparison is structurally interested. We wrote the article anyway because the alternative — pretending an interested vendor doesn't exist — produces worse reviews. Every Wix and Squarespace price in this article was verified on May 16, 2026 from each company's public pricing page; we will update the page when the prices change. If you find a factual error, email [email protected] and we will correct it within 24 hours.