Picking a website builder isn't about who has the cheapest sticker price. It's about who actually builds your site, who maintains it, and who gets you customers. Here's the real math on Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, Webflow, and Cozy Sites in 2026 — with the prices people quietly leave out.
The sticker prices (the part everyone shows you)
Start with what each builder charges per month, billed annually. These are the numbers in every comparison article on the internet — but they're only half the story.
| Builder | Starting Price | What's Included |
|---|---|---|
| Squarespace | $16/mo | Website only. No ecommerce on cheapest plan. Annual billing required for that rate. |
| Wix Light | $17/mo | Basic site. No ecommerce. Annual billing. Monthly billing is 20–40% higher. |
| Wix Business | $19.50/mo | Adds ecommerce and marketing tools. |
| GoDaddy | $9.99/mo | Basic templates, less design flexibility. Renews at $16.99/mo year 2. |
| Squarespace Business | $23/mo | Ecommerce included. 3% transaction fee on sales until you upgrade further. |
| Cozy Sites | $25/mo | Done-for-you. SEO, domain, lead form, AI build, QA, updates — all included. |
| Webflow CMS | $29/mo | More powerful but steep learning curve. Built for designers, not owners. |
| Shopify Basic | $29/mo | Ecommerce-focused. Overkill if you're a service business. |
Looking at just the sticker, we're $5–$9/month more than Wix and Squarespace. That's $60–$108/year. Easy comparison, right? Wrong.
The hidden price: your time
Here's what nobody tells you. According to web industry data, building a website on Squarespace or Wix takes 20–40 hours if you've never done it before. That's a full work-week. And it doesn't include the ongoing time you'll spend:
- Learning the platform
- Picking and customizing a template
- Writing your own copy
- Sourcing and editing photos
- Setting up SEO, schema markup, sitemaps
- Configuring lead forms and notifications
- Connecting your domain
- Troubleshooting when something breaks
If your billable rate is $50/hour — modest for most trades — that's $1,000 to $2,000 of your time on the build alone. And the ongoing maintenance (updates, fixes, content changes) is on you, forever.
What's actually included at each price
The other thing the sticker price hides: most builders nickel-and-dime you on features that should be standard.
Domain name
Wix and Squarespace include a free domain for year 1, then charge $10–$20/year to renew. GoDaddy charges separately for domains. Cozy Sites includes the domain forever.
SEO
This is where it gets ugly. Most builders give you basic SEO settings (title, description) and call it done. JSON-LD schema markup, sitemaps, robots.txt, IndexNow submission, AI-crawler configuration? You're paying $30–$80/month for SEO add-ons or hiring an agency at $500–$2,500/month. Cozy Sites bakes all of this in.
Lead capture
Wix and Squarespace have contact forms, but routing those leads to your phone instantly (so you can call back before the customer moves on) requires third-party tools. Cozy Sites built it in. Every lead texts you the moment it comes in.
Updates and changes
"Cancel anytime" sounds nice, but if you want to add a service or change your hours on Wix, that's your job — and your time. Cozy Sites includes unlimited content updates. You text us, we make the change.
The real comparison: total first-year cost
And year two? Wix and Squarespace renew at higher rates ($16.99–$17/mo). Cozy Sites stays at $25/mo. Forever.
Where each builder makes sense
To be fair — there are scenarios where the other builders are the right pick:
You're a designer or developer
Webflow is genuinely the best tool for designers who want full control. If you write code or know CSS, you'll love it. If you don't, you'll hate it.
You're running an ecommerce empire
If you're selling 100+ products with inventory, variations, and shipping rules, Shopify is built for that. Cozy Sites isn't an ecommerce platform — we're for service businesses.
You enjoy building websites
Some people genuinely enjoy the design process. If that's you and you have the time, Squarespace's templates are gorgeous.
You want the absolute cheapest option and don't care about features
GoDaddy's $9.99/mo is the cheapest custom-domain builder out there. The trade-off is fewer features, weaker design tools, and no real SEO infrastructure. You get what you pay for.
Where Cozy Sites makes sense
You're a small business owner. You don't have 30 hours to learn a website builder. You don't want to be the SEO guy. You want a site that actually brings you customers — and you want to spend your time doing the work that earns you money, not building digital infrastructure.
That's the entire pitch:
- AI builds your first draft from a 15-minute questionnaire
- Our QA agent reviews and fixes it before you ever see it
- Live in 24 hours on a custom domain we register for you
- Industry-specific SEO baked in — schema, sitemap, IndexNow, AI-crawler ready
- Lead form built in — texts you when a customer wants service
- Unlimited updates — text us what you want changed, we do it
- No contracts — cancel anytime, we don't lock you in
Sources: Tech.co (Wix pricing 2026), Websitebuilderexpert.com (Wix vs GoDaddy 2026), Webcostestimator.com (annual builder pricing 2026), Domato.ai (real-cost analysis 2026), Tooltester.com (Wix vs Squarespace 2026), Squarespace.com (official 2026 comparison). All pricing reflects annual billing rates verified May 2026; monthly billing is typically 20–40% higher.