Wix vs Squarespace vs Done For You: An Honest Look

When a small business owner decides it is finally time for a website, the search usually leads to the same two names: Wix and Squarespace. They advertise everywhere, they promise anyone can build a beautiful site, and they are genuinely capable tools. But there is a third option that rarely makes the list because it does not run big ad campaigns: having someone build the site for you. To choose well, you need an honest look at all three, including the part the builders leave out. Here it is.

Wix: flexible, powerful, and a lot to manage

Wix is the more open-ended of the two builders. It gives you enormous flexibility, a huge library of templates, and the ability to drag almost anything anywhere on the page.

That freedom is its strength and its weakness. In skilled, patient hands, Wix can produce a great site. In the hands of a busy owner who is not a designer, that same freedom becomes a trap. With so many choices, it is easy to end up with a cluttered, slightly-off result, or to lose whole evenings tinkering. Wix is best if you enjoy the process, have real time to spend, and want maximum control. If those do not describe you, the flexibility works against you.

Squarespace: polished, opinionated, and easier to keep clean

Squarespace takes the opposite approach. Its templates are more structured, which means it is harder to make something ugly. Designers love it for good reason: the results tend to look sharp with less effort, and the built-in tools are elegant.

The tradeoff is less flexibility. You work within Squarespace's way of doing things, and pushing beyond its defaults can get frustrating. It is also still a build-it-yourself tool, which means the work, the learning curve, and the ongoing upkeep still land on you. Squarespace is a strong choice if you have some taste, a bit of time, and want a clean result without wrestling with endless options.

The honest truth about both builders

Here is what the ads do not dwell on. Both Wix and Squarespace are do-it-yourself tools, and "do it yourself" is the whole catch. The monthly fee (often somewhere between fifteen and forty dollars once you add a custom domain and the features you need) is only part of the cost. The real cost is your time and attention.

You are the designer. You are the writer. You are the person who has to figure out why it looks wrong on a phone, keep it updated when your hours change, and troubleshoot when something breaks. Many owners start full of energy, hit a wall, and end up with a half-finished site they are quietly embarrassed by, or one they never touch again. The tools are not bad. They simply hand a specialized job to someone who has a business to run.

Done for you: the option nobody advertises

The third path is to skip the building entirely and have a studio create the site for you. Instead of learning software, you describe your business and hand over the details. A team designs, writes, and builds the site, then handles the hosting and any future changes.

The honest tradeoffs here are real too. You give up the hands-on control of moving every element yourself, and you are trusting a team to capture your business well (so a good one asks the right questions). What you get in return is your time back, a professional result, and freedom from the endless upkeep. For an owner whose gift is running their business, not designing web pages, this is usually the option that actually gets a great site live and keeps it that way.

How to choose

Strip away the marketing and it comes down to a few honest questions:

• Do you genuinely enjoy building and tweaking things, and have hours to spare? A builder like Wix or Squarespace can be rewarding.
• Do you have some design sense and a little time, and want to stay hands-on? Squarespace is the friendlier builder.
• Would you rather spend zero evenings on this and just have a professional site that stays maintained? Done for you is built for exactly that.

There is no shame in any answer. The worst outcome is picking a builder because it seemed cheap, then never finishing, and ending up with no real website at all.

Where we fit

Catapult is the done-for-you option, built specifically for owners who would rather run their business than build a website. You tell us about what you do, hand over your domain, and our design studio builds you a clean, professional site. When something needs to change, you just ask us and we make it happen, no logging into a dashboard or fighting a template.

It is $79 to launch, then $9 a month for hosting with unlimited change requests, and most sites go live in about 48 hours. You keep your own domain, always. If the builders sound like more time than you have, that is exactly the gap we fill. When you are ready to have it handled, reach out.