Wix or Squarespace vs. Hiring a Local Web Designer: The Honest Math
Should a small business build its own site on Wix or Squarespace, or hire a local web designer? Real costs, time, and results compared side by side.
Site builders are good products. For some businesses, they're the right call. For most busy owners, they end up costing more than they look — just in time instead of money. Here's how to decide.
When a DIY builder makes sense
- You're just testing an idea and need a page up this week.
- You genuinely enjoy design and have 15–30 hours to spend.
- You don't depend on Google or your website for new customers yet.
The hidden cost: your hours
Most owners spend 20–40 hours building, rewriting and fixing a DIY site. If your time is worth $40 an hour, that's $800–$1,600 of work — before the monthly plan. And the result often looks like a template, because it is one.
Where DIY sites usually fall short
- Slow on phones because of heavy templates and huge images.
- Missing local SEO basics: town pages, schema, a clear H1, good titles.
- No tracking, so you can't tell if the site is bringing in calls.
- You're locked into the builder — moving later can mean starting over.
When hiring a local designer pays off
If your phone ringing depends on showing up in Google, or your business sells something people compare (contractors, salons, restaurants, retailers), a custom site usually pays for itself with a handful of extra customers. Use our free revenue calculator on the homepage to run your own numbers.
Questions to ask any designer
- Will the domain and hosting be in my name?
- Who owns the site when it's paid off?
- What does the monthly cost cover, and can I cancel?
- Can I see sites you've built that are live right now?
At Propel513 the answers are: yes, you, updates/security/backups/edits, and yes. Want to see what your site could look like first? Try Propel Studio — design it yourself in 60 seconds.
Free mockup plan, straight answer on price the same day. Sites from $599.