The short answer

Pick Wix if you want a lot of things built in, like bookings and a store, and you don’t mind an editor with a lot of buttons.

Pick Squarespace if you find a template you like as it is and want a tidy site quickly, without changing much.

Pick Framer if you care about how the site looks and how fast it feels, and you’re okay spending an afternoon learning a design tool. Most of the work is the same as on the others, swapping text and images, but the editor works more like a design program.

What it costs to start

Wix has a free plan. Your site gets an address like yourname.wixsite.com and Wix shows its own ads on it.

Squarespace has no free plan. You get a 14-day trial, and you need a paid plan to publish.

Framer has a free plan too. The site lives on a Framer address and has a small Framer badge.

For your own domain, like yourbusiness.com, you pay on all three. If you pay yearly, all three include a domain for the first year at the time of writing (November 2026). I’m leaving out exact prices on purpose because they change, so check each pricing page before you decide.

How the editors feel

Wix lets you drag things almost anywhere on the page. That’s nice when you start, but it’s also how a lot of Wix sites end up looking a bit messy on a phone.

Squarespace works in sections, so it’s hard to break things. The flip side is that a lot of Squarespace sites look alike.

Framer is built like a design tool. Things sit in stacks that grow and shrink, and you edit the desktop, tablet and phone versions next to each other. It takes a little longer to get used to, but the result usually looks more like something a designer made.

Templates

Wix and Squarespace both have big galleries of free templates inside the builder. Framer has a marketplace where independent designers sell or give away templates, and that’s where mine are.

Whichever builder you pick, choose a template made for your kind of business. The colors are easy to change, the structure isn’t. A template for an author already has a page for every book, and a template for a designer already has customer stories and a pricing page.

Getting found on Google and in ChatGPT

All three handle the basics, like page titles, descriptions and a sitemap. Speed matters a bit too, and Framer sites are usually fast without you doing anything.

What matters more is what you write. Say what you do, who it’s for and where you are, in the words your customers would use when they search. A clear page on any of the three will beat a pretty page that doesn’t say much.

Selling things and taking bookings

This is where Wix and Squarespace are ahead. Both have a built-in store and booking tools.

Framer doesn’t have a built-in store the same way. You link to a checkout like Stripe, Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy, or add a booking tool like Calendly. That works fine for one course, a few digital products or booking a call. If you sell a lot of physical products, I’d pick Squarespace or Wix.

Which one I’d pick

I make free templates for Framer, so I’m not neutral. But I also built sites for local businesses before this, and here’s roughly how I think about it.

If your website’s main job is to make people trust you and get in touch, like a designer, a coach, an agency or an author, I’d pick Framer. If you run a shop with lots of products, I’d pick Squarespace. If you need bookings, payments and a member area all in one place and don’t care that much about design, Wix.

If you pick Framer

These are free and each one is made for a specific kind of business, so the structure is already done for you.

Brand designers, authors, course creators, digital products, app founders and AI agencies.

Or just see all templates. If you get stuck along the way, you can email me.