You build it on Wix. Our experts build it for you.
Both get you a website. The difference is who spends the evenings on it and what you have to sort out yourself. Here is how the two compare, without us putting words in their mouth.
What Wix is good at
Wix is one of the biggest website builders in the world and it does what it says. Hundreds of templates, an editor where you drag things about until they look right, and an app for most things you might want to add.
It is a tool. You sign up, pick a template, and the site is yours to build, write, fill with photos and keep up to date. If you enjoy that kind of thing and you have the evenings free, it works.
Wix is the better choice if
You want to build it yourself, and you have the time to learn the editor and keep the site up to date.
Who does each job
A website is not finished when the template is picked. These are the jobs between that and a site that brings you work, and who does them.
| The job | Wix | My Webby |
|---|---|---|
| Choosing how it looks | You pick a template and lay it out | Two designs come back for your business and you choose |
| Writing the words | You write them | Your expert writes them, you check them |
| Photos | You find and fit them | Send yours over, or your expert sources them |
| A page for each job you want | You build each one | Tell your expert the jobs, they build the pages |
| Getting it ready for Google | You, or an app you add | Done at build, on every page |
| Your domain and hosting | Bought and renewed separately | In the price |
| Business email on your domain | Bought separately | In the price |
| Changing it in six months | You log in and do it | Message your expert, usually done the same day |
| When something breaks | A help centre and a ticket | Your expert, who knows your site |
Every row on the right is a job you would otherwise be doing yourself. See what one of our experts would build you before you decide.
See your new website nowWhat it costs
Most people take Starter Plus at £99.99 a month, including VAT. That gets you the website built for you, your domain, the hosting, business email, online booking and changes when you need them. Plans start at £59.99 if all you want is the website, and there is no build fee either way.
We have not put a figure on what Wix charges. Their plans change, they vary by tier, and the only price worth comparing is the one on their site today. Add up the plan, the domain, the email and anything else billed separately, then decide what your own evenings are worth.
Starter Plus
£99.99
a month, inc VAT
or £1,079.88 for the year, which saves you 10%. Plans start at £59.99, from £53.99 paid yearly.
What you actually do on Wix
Wix gives you a template and an editor. Everything after that is down to you. You pick a design, then work through the site page by page: home, a page for each job you do, an about page, a contact page. Every heading is yours to write. Every button is yours to place.
Then you go round again on a phone, because the editor keeps a separate mobile layout and things move about. After that come the bits nobody sees. The page titles Google reads. The contact form pointing at the right inbox. The redirect from your old address so nobody lands on a dead page.
None of that is hard. It is just evenings, and they add up. Most people get the home page looking decent in one sitting and then find there are nine more pages behind it. The question to ask before you start is not whether you could do it. It is how many Sundays you want it to take, and what those Sundays are worth against a monthly fee.
The writing takes longer than the design
People expect the design to be the hard part. On a builder the design is mostly done for you by the template. The writing is what takes the weeks.
A page about boiler repairs has a job to do. It needs to say what you fix, who you fix it for, roughly what it costs, how far you travel and what happens after someone gets in touch. That is three or four hundred words, and if you want work from five kinds of job you need five of them.
What usually happens is two get written properly, the steam runs out, and the rest end up as a list of bullet points under a stock photo.
With us your expert writes them. You tell them the jobs you want more of and how you like to work, and the pages come back written, in plain English rather than the sort of thing nobody says out loud. You read them and tell us what to change. Nobody hands you a blank page and a word count.
Your photos do more than the layout
Somebody deciding whether to ring you is looking for one thing: proof you have done this before. Photos of finished jobs are the only thing on the page that give it to them. Stock photos read as stock photos to nearly everyone now, and a page full of them quietly says there is nothing real to show.
On Wix, finding those photos is your job. So is cropping them, and making them small enough to load on a phone without going blurry, and doing it again for every page you add.
With us you send what you have. WhatsApp is fine. Your expert picks the ones that work, crops them and puts them where they do the most good. If you have nothing usable yet, they find images that suit the trade and swap them for yours as they come in.
You do not have to decide from a table
Answer a few questions and two designs for your own business come back in about five minutes. Free to look at, and no card.
Getting found on Google
This is the part we can speak on from our own trade. People do not search for plumbing services. They search for emergency plumber Norwich, or boiler not firing, or bathroom fitter near me. The job and the place.
One services page that lists everything you do matches none of those searches properly. What matches them is a page for each job, written around the words people actually type, with your town in it. That is a decision made when the site is built. It is much harder to bolt on later.
Then there is the plumbing nobody sees. Every page needs its own title and description. The site needs a sitemap and the right code behind it so Google can tell what you do and where. It has to load fast on a phone on a bad signal. On Wix those are settings you find and fill in yourself, page by page. With us they go in at build, on every page.
Six months in
Most websites are fine on the day they go live. The difference shows up six months later, when your hours change, you start offering something new, a photo needs swapping or a price is out of date.
On Wix that is yours to do. You log back into an editor you have not opened since March, work out how it goes again, make the change, check it on a phone, hit publish. More often it does not get done, and the site drifts until it is telling customers something that is no longer true.
With us you message your expert and they do it, usually the same day. It is the same person each time, so they already know your business. On Starter Plus and Growth a set number of changes are included every month. Anything bigger is quoted before it starts.
Moving from Wix to us
We do not lift your Wix site across. We build you a new one. That sounds like upheaval, but in practice it is less work than moving a site badly, and you end up with the structure you actually want rather than one you inherited from a template.
Your Wix site stays up the whole time. Your expert takes the words and photos from it as a starting point, so nothing you already wrote is wasted, and asks you about the gaps. When the new site is ready you look at it, tell us what to change, and only then does your domain get pointed at it.
If your domain is registered with Wix you can move it to us or leave it there and point it at the new site. Either way your expert does that part with you.
See what an expert would build you
It takes five minutes and costs nothing. Hold the designs up against a template and judge for yourself.
Which one is right for you
If you want to build it yourself, Wix is a good tool and we would not try to talk you out of it. Some people enjoy it. Some want the control. Some businesses change their site often enough that doing it at eleven at night matters. If that is you, go and build it.
If what you actually want is a website, and building one is the thing you have been putting off for a year, that is us. Answer a few questions, see two designs in about five minutes, and if you like one an expert takes it from there and has it live in days.
You decide with the designs in front of you. No card, nothing to pay until the site is live. Looking costs you five minutes.
My Webby and Wix, asked and answered
Can you move my Wix site over?
We build you a new one rather than move the old one. Your expert works from the words and photos on your current site so nothing is lost, and your Wix site keeps running until the new one goes live. Send us the address when you start.
Is My Webby cheaper than Wix?
We do not quote what Wix charges, because their plans change and vary by tier. Our price is on this page and it includes the build, the domain, the hosting and your business email. Add up a Wix plan plus the evenings you would spend building it and compare that.
Can I edit the site myself like on Wix?
No, and that is the whole difference. You message your expert and they make the change, usually the same day. If editing it yourself is what you want, Wix is the better fit and we would tell you so.
What happens to my domain?
If it is registered with Wix you can move it to us, or leave it there and point it at your new site. Your expert sorts that with you. A domain we register for you is yours after twelve months.
Let Webby take it off your hands
Answer a few questions and Webby designs it in front of you. No card required to look, and nothing to pay until your site goes live.