Wix or a web designer? What a DIY website costs over three years

Wix is cheaper than a web designer in the first year, and it stays cheaper if your time costs you nothing. Viewed from South Africa on 23 September 2026, Wix's paid plans run from $17 to $159 a month, billed yearly in US dollars. The cheapest plan that lets you take payments is $29 a month. Over three years, a Wix site and a small designer-built site cost closer to the same than most people expect, so the real choice is about your time and what you need the site to do.

Below is the sum, with sources, and our own prices for comparison. They're also on our pricing page.

What does Wix cost in South Africa?

We loaded the Wix plans page from a South African connection on 23 September 2026. It showed prices in US dollars, not rands. Checked September 2026:

Wix plan	Price shown	Paid upfront for a year	At about R16.2 to the dollar	Takes payments?
Free	$0	$0	R0	No
Light	$17/mo	$204	about R3 300	No
Core	$29/mo	$348	about R5 600	Yes
Business	$39/mo	$468	about R7 600	Yes
Business Elite	$159/mo	$1 908	about R30 900	Yes

Some things on that page are worth reading twice:

• These are offer prices. The page says the offer is "only valid for the initial term of yearly / multi-year subscriptions", with an expiry date on it. It doesn't show what the plan costs when it renews.
• They're billed yearly. The page says prices are "for yearly subscriptions, paid in full at the time of purchase".
• Tax is extra. Prices "do not include applicable taxes", which are worked out from your billing address.
• The rand amount moves. Because you're billed in dollars, your cost goes up when the rand weakens. The conversions above use about R16.2 to the dollar on 23 September 2026. Treat them as a snapshot, not a quote.

The free plan is a real option for trying things out, but it has no custom domain. According to Wix's own FAQ on that page, a paid plan is what lets you "connect your own domain, remove Wix branding from your site, and more".

What about the domain?

Paid Wix plans include a domain free for the first year. The Wix FAQ says that voucher "is only valid with a purchase of a new domain from Wix and cannot be used to renew or extend a domain you already own". From the second year you pay the renewal. If you already own a .co.za, you connect it instead and keep paying your current registrar (the company your domain is registered through).

What does a designer cost over the same three years?

Here are our prices, since they're the ones we can vouch for. Other designers charge differently, and you should put their numbers through the same sum.

	Build	Yearly subscription	Three years
Sirat Profile	R5 000	R1 500	R9 500
Sirat Business	R12 000	R1 500	R16 500

The subscription covers hosting, backups, monitoring, the admin you edit the site with and the enquiry inbox. The prices are in rands and don't move with the exchange rate.

For Wix, three years at the offer price comes to $612 on Light, $1 044 on Core and $1 404 on Business, before tax. At today's rate that's roughly R9 900, R16 900 and R22 700. Those figures are a floor. Wix doesn't promise the offer price at renewal, and the rand may be weaker in two years than it is today.

So in rands, a Wix Light site over three years costs about what our Profile site does. Our Business tier lands close to Wix Core. We're not claiming to be cheaper. The money is simply less decisive than it first looks.

What's the cost that isn't on the invoice?

Your time. With Wix, you are the designer, the copywriter and the person who fixes it. The drag-and-drop editor is easy to start with, and Wix now has AI tools that draft a site from a description. Getting from a draft to a site that brings in work still takes hours: writing a page for each service, choosing photos, checking it on a phone, setting up the contact form, learning how Google finds pages.

We can't tell you how many hours that is for you. Count them honestly, and put a value on them. For an owner who bills R500 an hour, a site that takes 20 hours to get right has cost R10 000 in time before the plan is paid.

The hours don't stop at launch either. Someone has to update prices, add new services, answer when a customer says the form isn't working, and notice when something breaks.

Can Wix take payments in South Africa?

Yes, on Core and above. Wix's list of payment providers by country shows these for South Africa, checked September 2026: PayPal, Yoco, Paystack, Peach Payments, DPO Group, Payflex and iKhokha. Each provider charges its own fee per sale.

If you mainly want to sell products online, compare Wix with a proper store platform rather than with a brochure website. That's a different article, and a different product for us (Sirat Retail OS).

Can I move off Wix later?

Not the site itself. Wix says this plainly in its help centre: "In order for your site to work properly, it needs to be hosted and operated on Wix's servers." You can take your words and images with you, and you can move a domain you bought from Wix to another company. If you leave, the design and layout get rebuilt somewhere else.

That's normal for website builders, and it isn't a reason to avoid Wix. It is a reason to know what you'd be starting over with. Every option has some version of this, ours included: with us, you keep the domain in your name and your content and data, and on 30 days' notice we hand over a static copy of the site's pages that any host can serve. We keep the platform and the code. We go through the details in who owns your website.

When is Wix the better choice?

Pick Wix, or another website builder, if:

• your budget for the first year is under R5 000
• you're testing a new idea and might change direction in six months
• you enjoy doing it yourself and have the evenings to spare
• the site only needs to say who you are and how to reach you

For many new businesses that's the honest answer. A decent Wix site that's live this week is worth more than a perfect one you can't afford yet.

When is a web designer the better choice?

Pay someone if:

• you'd rather spend those hours on paying work
• people find you through Google and compare you with competitors, so each service needs its own page
• you want enquiries in one inbox, or want to know which ad or call brought each one in
• you want someone to answer when something breaks, instead of a help-centre article

With us, you see working pages on a private link from the first week, and we reply within one working day. If you'd like the full breakdown of what a site costs with us and what moves the price, read how much a website costs in South Africa.

The short version

Do the three-year sum, in rands, with your hours in it. If Wix wins, use Wix. If it's close, decide on how much of the work you want to do yourself.

To see our numbers for your business, get an estimate on the price page or compare the tiers on the pricing page. Or WhatsApp us on +27 73 453 8352 and ask.