Wix or a custom website: which is right for a Quebec small business?

Wix has a free plan, but it shows Wix ads and gives you an address you can't customize. A business needs a premium plan. According to Wix, the Light, Core, Business and Business Elite plans cost US$17, US$29, US$39 and US$159 a month when you pay for the year up front. Paid monthly, Light, Core and Business go up to US$24, US$36 and US$46.

For comparison, the Squarespace pricing page lists US$19 a month for the Basic plan and US$29 for Core on yearly billing, or US$25 and US$39 paid monthly.

Over 36 months, the entry-level plans on both platforms come to:

• Wix Light: US$612 billed yearly, US$864 billed monthly.
• Wix Core: US$1,044 billed yearly, US$1,296 billed monthly.
• Wix Business: US$1,404 billed yearly, US$1,656 billed monthly.
• Squarespace Basic: US$684 billed yearly, US$900 billed monthly.
• Squarespace Core: US$1,044 billed yearly, US$1,404 billed monthly.

Treat the Wix totals as a minimum. Wix publishes these prices in US dollars and tells you to check the total on the purchase page, so look at the amount in Canadian dollars and the taxes before you pay. The free domain for the first year only applies to a new domain bought from Wix, you pay for the renewal after that, and premium apps are extra.

At Kollowo, a website costs 1,000 to 2,000 CAD, paid once: the lower end for a basic site, the higher end for a bilingual site with more pages and features, and the details are on our pricing page. The domain and hosting are extra every year, as they are for any site. Over three years, a Wix Core plan and a custom site end up in the same range. With Wix, you pay for as long as the site exists; with a custom site, the build is paid once.

With Wix, you do the work: choosing a template, writing the copy, finding photos, filling in each page's title and description for Google, checking how it looks on a phone. In Quebec, you then translate or rewrite every page for the second language and keep both versions current every time something changes.

The first pages come together quickly. The time goes into the details: the form that sends to the wrong email address, the English page you forgot after a price change, the photo too heavy for a phone. Count your hours and compare them with what an hour of your time earns in your trade.

With a custom site, you still supply the information (services, areas served, prices, photos) and approve the copy. Someone else handles the layout, the second language, the technical side and the testing. The trade-off: to change a page, you go through your provider, unless you have an updates plan.

On speed, Wix's bad reputation is somewhat out of date. According to HTTP Archive's 2025 Web Almanac, 74% of Wix sites had good Core Web Vitals on mobile, up from 55% the year before. That is one of the best results among the platforms studied, behind Duda and TYPO3. An average says nothing about your own site, though: run it through PageSpeed Insights before you decide.

The limits come from working inside the platform: on Wix, you work with the templates, apps and structure the platform provides, and the code stays Wix's. On a custom site, every page is decided on its own terms: its structure, the structured data for Google, the URLs in each language, what loads and what doesn't. For Le Cèdre Urbain, a hedge trimming company in Boucherville, we built a three-page bilingual site that scores 100/100 for SEO and 100/100 for desktop performance in Lighthouse.

For a local business, SEO depends first on your content (your services, the areas you serve, your answers to customers' questions) and on your Google Business Profile. That work is the same on Wix as on a custom site.

Yes, as long as you check every element. According to the OQLF, when the law requires French, you can use another language if French appears on at least an equivalent basis, which means the same information is available in French and in the other language. A complete English site with a partial French version doesn't meet that standard.

Wix Multilingual, Wix's translation tool, covers your pages and several Wix apps, including Bookings, Forms, Blog and Stores. The Wix Help Center also lists what it can't translate, including third-party apps, Wix Email Marketing campaigns, Wix Video, site search, gift cards, the loyalty program and the Pricing Plans app, which is used to sell packages and subscriptions.

If your site relies on one of these, part of what visitors see will exist in only one language, or you'll have to find another way to offer it in French. Before choosing Wix for a bilingual site, list everything a customer sees (forms, confirmation emails, error messages, the cookie banner) and check that each one exists in French.

On a custom site, every piece of text is part of the site itself, in both languages. The one-page site we built for Pavé Larouche, a student-run paver cleaning business on the Rive-Sud, is in French by default, with a button to switch to English.

Law 25 applies whatever tool runs your site. According to the CAI, you must publish a privacy policy on your website in clear and simple terms. If you use technology that can identify, locate or profile a visitor, you must tell them beforehand, and those functions must be turned off by default.

Wix offers a cookie banner powered by Usercentrics. According to its Help Center, the banner blocks non-essential cookies and scripts until the visitor consents, and it keeps a log of consents. Wix also notes that you are responsible for third-party apps and services added to your site, and recommends linking your privacy policy from the banner or the site footer. Writing the policy itself is up to you.

Check two things. If your site is bilingual, the banner has to show in French and in English. And every tool you add (a Google map, the Facebook pixel, a chat widget) has to wait for consent before it loads. On a custom site, we decide what loads, and the fewer third-party tools there are, the fewer consents there are to manage.

You can copy your text and photos. The site itself can't leave Wix. The Wix Help Center is clear about it: a Wix site can't be exported or hosted elsewhere, because it runs on Wix's infrastructure and proprietary technology. To switch platforms, you rebuild the site by hand.

As long as Wix suits you, that's not a problem. The day you want to change providers or add a feature the platform doesn't offer, you start from scratch, and the rebuild comes on top of the years of subscription you've already paid.

On Wix or anywhere else, keep the domain name in your name, in your own account: it's the address your customers know, and you'll be able to transfer it. A custom site comes with its files, so you can change hosts or providers without redoing everything. Ask for that in writing in the contract.

Wix is a good fit if you're testing an idea and don't know yet whether the business will exist a year from now, or if your starting budget is very small and a monthly subscription is easier to absorb than one larger payment. It also works if you like doing things yourself and have the time to build and maintain both languages, or for a temporary page, such as one for an event.

If you're unsure, start with Wix and write down what gets in your way. If the list keeps growing after a few months, you'll know exactly what to ask for in a quote for a custom site.

A custom site tends to pay off when:

• Your site has to bring in calls or quote requests for several years.
• You want a complete bilingual site that complies with Bill 96, without depending on what apps can translate.
• You want control over what loads on your pages, for speed and for Law 25.
• You want to be able to change providers without starting over.