Wix vs Squarespace for Tradies in NZ: An Honest Comparison

Short answer: both are good website builders. Wix is more flexible and better if you like to tinker. Squarespace looks polished with less effort and is harder to make a mess of. But neither one builds your site for you, and for a tradie that's the real decision. Here's an honest comparison, and a straight answer on when DIY is the right call.

Wix vs Squarespace at a glance

Prices are the published US-dollar entry plans that allow your own domain, as at September 2026. Both show local pricing at checkout, and prices change, so check before you sign up.

Where Wix wins for tradies

• Freedom. You can put any element anywhere on the page, which is handy if you have a clear picture of what you want.
• Apps. Booking calendars, quote forms, chat widgets and review widgets are all a few clicks away.
• Plenty of trade templates to start from, so you're not staring at a blank page.

The downside of that freedom: it's easy to end up with a cluttered page, and the mobile layout needs checking separately. Most tradie customers are on a phone, so that check matters.

Where Squarespace wins for tradies

• It looks good by default. The templates are clean and the spacing takes care of itself.
• Less to go wrong. The structured editor keeps things tidy on phones without extra work.
• Fewer moving parts. Most features are built in rather than bolted on with apps.

The downside: less flexibility, and fewer trade-specific extras. If you want something unusual, you'll hit the template's limits.

What neither one does for you

This is the bit the builder ads skip. Whichever you pick, you still have to:

• Write every word, for every service and every area, in a way that reads well and ranks.
• Take and pick the photos, then size and crop them so the site stays fast.
• Do the local SEO: page titles, descriptions, a page for each service and main suburb, and your Google Business Profile.
• Set up the domain and email, and keep an eye on the renewals.
• Keep it up to date as your services, areas and phone number change.

Most tradies who go DIY lose several weekends to the first version, and then the site stops getting updated. A site that's never finished, or never updated, costs you more in missed jobs than the subscription ever will. We put the full options side by side in our DIY vs done-for-you guide.

So which should you choose?

• You enjoy a project and have the time: Wix. You'll get exactly what you want, if you're willing to tidy the mobile version.
• You want it looking professional with less effort: Squarespace. You'll give up some flexibility for a cleaner result.
• You'd rather be on the tools than on a laptop: skip DIY. A done-for-you service costs about the same each month as the higher builder plans, without the weekends.

Whatever you choose, keep ownership of your domain in your own name, keep copies of your text and photos, and link the site to your Google Business Profile. Those three things stay yours no matter where the site lives.