WordPress vs. Wix for bloggers

#1 WordPress pricing
#2 Wix pricing
#3 WordPress vs. Wix pricing conclusion

The risk of Googling WordPress vs. Wix

For this chapter, you can either watch the video or read the text. Whatever you prefer.

I know. Everyone advises WordPress if you want to start a blog, right?

When researching this topic, I started by searching in Google: WordPress vs. Wix.

To my surprise, the quality of the articles that rank high in Google is pretty bad.

Some of them are biased opinions, like the article from WPbeginner.com. 

In their article, you’ll read that they conclude that WordPress won the comparison in a landslide. 

Firstly, their domain name is WPbeginner.com, whereas WP stands for WordPress. This doesn’t scream unbiased to me.

And I’m not saying the content on their website is bad. 

On the contrary, I believe WPbeginner.com offers lots of great high-quality content for free for WordPress users.

But when they compare “their” platform, WordPress, with Wix, one of their biggest competitors, I’m a bit more careful of their intentions.

Because you must know, their platform, WPbeginner.com, is 100% focused on helping people with their WordPress websites. 

Furthermore, they own multiple popular WordPress software tools.

These software tools are the popular SEO WordPress tool All in One SEO, WPfroms, MonsterInsights, OptinMonster, and SeedProd.

Of course, they favor WordPress over Wix. 

Their complete business model depends on people building websites with WordPress.

If there were a decline in new WordPress websites, their new business would decline too.

Knowing all of this, I wonder whether they would speak the truth if they believed Wix is the better choice for new bloggers.

Maybe they would, and perhaps they won’t. You never know.

What we do know is what arguments they come up with as to why they favor WordPress over Wix. 

For example, in their second chapter, they talk about ease of use, and the conclusion is that there’s a tie between both platforms-meaning; there’s no winner between the two whether one is easier to use than the other. 

As a heavy WordPress user who built multiple websites for clients and owns a successful blog and store about puppy training I talked about earlier, Wix is easier to use, in my opinion.

In their chapter on ease of use, they only talk about designing the website. But what about the setup process and the maintenance of the website? They don’t talk about that in their article. 

Why not, you wonder?

Well, probably because the setup process for WordPress takes a bit longer than the setup process for Wix. 

To be clear, I recently published a step-by-step blog where I explain how I set up and launch a new WordPress blog, and it’s not that difficult if you know what steps you need to take.

But I’ve gone through the setup process with Wix, too, and I can say it’s much smoother. Far fewer clicks and things you need to do before you have your website up and running. 

Furthermore, and this is the tricky part, there’s ongoing maintenance for WordPress websites. 

On my WordPress blog, where I sell my self-published books, I have more than 30 plugins installed.  

As a WordPress website owner, I need to update these plugins myself when there’s a new update.

Also, there are template updates and WordPress core updates. 

WordPress does have the feature to enable automatic updates. Still, if you have an important website that generates lots of revenue for you, in my opinion, you don’t want automatic updates. 

Why not? 

Whenever you update your WordPress website, you need to make sure you have created a backup of your current working website.

Why?

Whenever you update, there’s a chance something isn’t working correctly any longer.  

One time, my WordPress website crashed because one of the 30 plugins I updated had an error.

Imagine generating $500 with your website per day, and suddenly your website stops working. 

With Wix, you don’t have to worry about updating your website. 

Wix does this for you in the background. There’s no downtime.

Also, Wix has a nice little feature called Site History, which is basically your backup tool. If you screwed something up, you can go back in your site history and pick the one before you screw things up.

In my opinion, WPbeginner.com didn’t do their due diligence on researching every little aspect.

You can’t answer WordPress versus Wix with only a few thousand words. You need to test so many variables to find the real answer to whether what platform works best for bloggers.

Then there’s www.websitetooltester.com explaining that they advise every hardcore blogger to use WordPress. 

Their argument for that statement, and I quote:

WordPress has always been mainly focused on blogging options and that’s why it has all the features you need out of the box such as tags, categories, RSS, etc. 

www.websitetooltester.com

So, this is their argument for why hardcore bloggers should go with WordPress?

Tags, categories, RSS?  

Really? Is that your argument for hardcore bloggers? Come on, bro. Couldn’t you come up with anything better than that? Tags?

Who the heck uses tags and categories any longer in blogging?

And RSS? Who uses that?

I consider myself pretty knowledgeable in the SEO field, but this guy Brian Dean, from Backlinko.com, who many people follow as the SEO expert explains he never uses tags and advises people to no-index category and tag pages.

And then the “etc.” at the end finishes it.  

Beautiful conclusion.

Okay, we’re not entirely done yet with finding great arguments for choosing WordPress over Wix.

I found another article, also ranking on the first page on Google when searching for WordPress vs Wix, from ecommerce-platforms.com, they say, and I quote:

Part of the reason that we think WordPress might be better for ecommerce business owners than Wix, is that it combines things like content marketing and SEO with sales opportunities. 

ecommerce-platforms.com

Maybe it’s because I’m not a native English speaker, but where the heck are they talking about?

“It combines THINGS like content marketing and SEO with sales opportunities?” 

What are these crap arguments about? I don’t even understand what they’re saying.

Then they follow up that statement by saying that they consider the WordPress features for blogging to be a lot better than what Wix can offer. 

Okay, so what good reasons do they mention that support their statement?

For starters, they mention that there isn’t a great commenting system within Wix blogs. Apparently, you need to use Facebook comments, they say. 

I tested this myself on my free Wix website, and I can just comment on my blog posts anonymously without using Facebook comments.

Lastly, the BIGGEST DIFFERENCE according to ecommerce-platforms.com is that within WordPress, you have the option to place an image on the top of your blog posts.

OH MY GOD.

An image. At the top? Of a blog post? For real? Are you kidding? That’s so COOL!

In my opinion, we’re focusing on totally the wrong things here. 

Do you really think that because of the fact you can insert an image at the top of your blog post makes a difference in how much money you make with your blog? Or in regards to how much traffic your blog gets?

No, of course not.

The other thing they mention is that you can backdate content within WordPress, and according to them, you can’t do that in Wix.

Besides the fact that you can backdate content within Wix, it doesn’t matter.

FOCUS on the things that make a difference in your blogging career instead of whining about these useless things.

If you read other articles ranking on the first page of Google on the search term WordPress vs. Wix they pretty much say the same thing in other words.

Some of them just copy and paste one another and don’t do proper research themselves.

The same arguments come up again and again.

WordPress pricing

You can either watch the video or read the text. Whatever you prefer.

My English puppy training website and this blog, Creatoregg.com, both run on WordPress.

To use WordPress, you need to buy web hosting and a domain.

I chose to buy my domains and web hosting over at the web hosting company Bluehost.com.

Bluehost is one of the most recommended web hosting companies for WordPress websites.

The cheapest plan Bluehost offers, and the plan I use is $2.95 per month for the first 36 months or three years.

This price is the discounted and introductory price. After those first initial 36 months, you pay $8.99 per month for their web hosting.

Furthermore, Bluehost offers you a free domain extension, like my domain name creatoregg.com, for free for the first 12 months. After that, it’s $17.99 per year.

So, what’s the total cost of having a WordPress website with Bluehost for 6 years (72 months)?

Why 6 years?

Well, you don’t want to start a blog for only 1 year right? 

Starting a blog is a long-term decision. And using 6 years gives you the best outlook on what costs you may expect.

I could also have chosen 5, 7 or 8 years, but I went with 6.

First, you have the Bluehost web hosting costs for 3 years of $2.95 per month.

That’s a total of $106.20.

The Bluehost web hosting costs for the next 3 years after that is $8.99 per month. This is the regular pricing. That’s a total of $323.64.

The total web hosting cost for using Bluehost for 6 years is $429.84.

Then there’s the domain cost.

The first year you’ll get a free domain. 

After that, you pay $17.99 per year. 

If you choose to do that for the next 5 years, you’ll pay a total of $89.95 for having your domain name for 6 years in total.

In total, web hosting + domain, that’s $519.79 for 6 years. 

That’s $7.22 per month if you choose to use WordPress + Bluehost, as I have for my English puppy training website and this blog, Creatoregg.com.

Besides the web hosting and domain cost, you also need a premium template.

Of course, you can go with a free WordPress template, but if you want your future blog to look professional, you need more design features.

The one I use for this blog, Creatoregg.com, and my puppy training websites is Theme X Pro.

It’s a great theme that offers many features.

It’ll cost you $69 as a one-time payment for a single website. So it’s pretty cheap in my opinion.

So, adding the $69 as a one-time payment to the earlier $519.79 of the web hosting and domain cost, we’ll end up paying $588.79.

Besides a premium theme, you need a security and backup system, so if anything happens to your website, you have a backup.

I believe the most affordable and user-friendly option for backing up your WordPress website is UpdraftPlus.

UpdraftPlus is one of the most popular backup tools for WordPress websites.

The premium version of UpdraftPlus is $70 for the first year.

After that, you’ll pay $42 per year.

This subscription is for two websites. So if you have another website, you can add that website to it as well.

The total amount you pay for UpdraftPlus for six years is $280. 

Adding $280 to the earlier amount of $588.79 for the domain and web hosting costs and premium theme costs, we’ll end up paying $868.79 for six years of having a WordPress website.

That’s $12.07 per month.

When starting, you don’t need fancy tools. The only thing I do suggest is that you begin incorporating email marketing the moment you start having some consistent rankings in Google with your blog. But there are great email marketing tools out there you can use for free while growing your list. 

I created a video where I compared and selected the best free email marketing tool. You can find the video below.

I can assure you; you can definitely get to $1,000 in revenue per month with your blog with these costs I just described. I did it with my puppy training blog as well.

Ok, so let’s talk about Wix pricing.

Wix pricing

Wix offers multiple plans if you want to start a blog or website.

For starters, you can start a Wix blog for free, which you can’t do with WordPress.

The beautiful thing about having the free option is that you can start building your blog before paying for it.

When reading other comparison articles around Wix vs. WordPress, they often point out that you still have Wix ads on your site if you go with the free plan, you can’t use a custom domain name, can’t use Google Analytics, favicons, etcetera. 

But are any of these things important when I’m building and designing a new blog?

No, of course not.

I don’t mind having a Wix ad on my website when the website is still in maintenance mode, while building it. 

Furthermore, who cares about not having a custom domain name and not being able to use Google Analytics? 

I don’t even have visitors on my website, so why should I care about tracking it with Google Analytics? 

In my opinion, these arguments trash-talking Wix aren’t valid ones.

So, to make a valid price comparison between the two, let’s find out how much I need to pay for using Wix for the upcoming 6 years, or 72 months, as I did with WordPress.

Firstly, you can perfectly start by using the free Wix version in the beginning.

Furthermore, you’re better off by starting with a free Wix site because after a few days or after a week or so you’ll receive a 50% discount offer from Wix.

After a while, that discount will go away, and Wix does not permanently offer that 50% discount on their website.

So, in this example, calculating the costs for running a Wix website I’m using the initial 50% discount offer.

While you’re still on the free Wix website, you can start designing and readying up your website.

The moment you receive the 50% discount offer, you sign up for a paid plan. 

When you have the paid plan, you DO want to use the custom domain and start tracking your first website traffic with Google Analytics.

Wix offers 4 different pricing plans besides the free plan.

They are called Connect domain, Combo, Unlimited, and VIP.

With the Connect domain you still have Wix ads on your website, so we don’t choose that one.

The downside of the Combo plan is that there’s a bandwidth limitation. 

In short, with a maximum of 2GB bandwidth, you can handle 1,000 to 2,000 people visiting your website every month. It depends on the size of your web pages.

The other downside of the Combo plan is that Wix only offers a 50% discount on the Unlimited and VIP plan.

The Unlimited plan is even cheaper than the Combo plan if you incorporate the 50% discount period.

So, let’s do the calculation.

You first sign up for free. 

The moment you see the 50% discount offer, you sign up for the Unlimited plan.

Same as with WordPress and Bluehost, you can choose a monthly, yearly, or two-year billing plan. 

We’ll go with the cheapest option, the 2-year plan.

As said before, like Bluehost, Wix also offers an introductory plan.

If you choose the 2-year plan you pay $6.98/mo for the first two years. 

After that, you pay the regular price of $13.96/mo when choosing the 2-year billing cycle.

So, what’s the total price for having a Wix website for 6 years (72 months)?

For the first 24 months, you’re on the initial Unlimited plan of $6.98 per month.

That’s $167.56 in total.

After the first 24 months, there are still 48 months left of those six years.

Multiplying 48 months with the regular Wix unlimited pricing plan, which is $13.96/mo if you pay for two years upfront, is $642.31.

In total, that’s $642.31 + 167.56 = $809.87 for the first 6 years of using Wix, the Unlimited plan.

 Then you also have domain costs.

In the first year of using Wix, you get a free domain. Same as with WordPress + Bluehost.

After that, you can select a registration period of your liking.

1 year to 3 years whereas 3 years is the cheapest option. When you choose 3 years, you pay $15.72 per year for your domain so it’s a bit cheaper than Bluehost.

Since we have 5 years left after that first initial period of 1 year where you receive the domain name for free, we’ll pay a total of $78.60 for the domain for 5 years if we choose the 3 year registration period.

Adding the website costs of $809.87 of the Unlimited plan for 6 years to the domain costs of $78.60 for 6 years, we have a total cost of $888.47 for choosing Wix for 6 years.

That’s $12.34 per month.

So, what about backups? 

The cool thing about Wix is that you don’t need to buy an additional service for backing up your website.

The backup feature inside Wix is called Site History.

The Site History feature from Wix is a standard feature inside your Wix toolbox. It’s included in the free website version of Wix so you don’t need a premium plan to get this feature.

The Site History feature is comparable with one of the most expensive backup tools for WordPress, called JetPack. 

The Site History feature of Wix offers you real-time backups. Whenever you change something on your website the Site History feature creates a new version for you to fall back on if screw things up.

WordPress vs. Wix pricing conclusion

What platform offers the best pricing for you if you want to start a website/blog for 6 years?

Why 6 years?

Well, you don’t want to start a blog for only 1 year right? 

Starting a blog is a long-term decision. And using 6 years gives you the best outlook on what costs you may expect.

I could also have chosen 5, 7 or 8 years, but I went with 6.

So, again, the cost of choosing WordPress + Bluehost when starting a blog/website is $868.79 in total for six years.

That’s $12.07 per month.

These are the domain costs, web hosting costs, the cost of a one-time payment for a premium WordPress theme, and the cost for the premium package of UpdraftPlus, a tool that helps you create backups of your website.

When choosing Wix for 6 years, you pay a total of $888.47. This includes the Website Unlimited plan and a .com domain.

That’s $12.34 per month.

In total, you pay $19.68 more if you were to choose Wix over WordPress+Bluehost.

That’s $0.27 more per month.

In my opinion, there’s a tie between WordPress and Wix if you only look at the net prices. They both offer similar pricing.

While WordPress might be slightly cheaper, Wix’s tool is more convenient, in my opinion-especially regarding maintenance and creating backups.