Wix.com Reviews

Wix.com is a leading cloud-based website building platform that makes it easy for everyone to create stunning, professional and usable websites. Users can choose from a large set of templates and customize them for their needs.

Wix was founded in 2006 and today is one of the most popular and well-established website building platforms, having over 90 million users worldwide.

Wix is beginner friendly, enabling non-technical users to create their own websites with no need of learning any programming language or web design. With their drag and drop site builder everyone can set up different type of website: simple business site, blog, online shop, photography portfolio, online CV, event or other.

In the next part of our Wix.com review, I will reveal the pros and cons of Wix site builder and will do an in-depth overview of their features, plans and performance.

What’s good about Wix?

• Professional Templates: at Wix you can choose from hundreds of beautiful and professional templates. The designs are categorized for different industries so you can easily find the template that is right for your business.
• Flexible & Powerful Builder: beside the fact that Wix’s builder is straightforward and easy to use, even beginners can create the layout they want, moving the web elements around. There are also tons of apps that you can add to your site in order to extend the functionality and features.
• App Market: gives you access to hundreds of third party apps that you can install to your website. Apps such as live chat, Google maps, newsletter, booking form and other marketing, analytics and blogging tools will enable you to add extra functionality and features to your site.
• Mobile Editor: this is a great feature that allows you to customize the mobile-view of your website. Here you can hide / show certain website elements on mobile devices without compromising the layout of the desktop view.
• Hosting & Domain: all plans include web storage and good amount of bandwidth, and all plans come with a free domain name except the Connect Domain plan. You can also register your domains at Wix if you want to create more than one website, so you don’t have to use any third party registrar.

What’s bad about Wix?

• Ads on Basic Plan: even though you pay for the most basic plan (from $4.08 / mo), which allows you to connect your domain to their system; Wix will still display their brand ads on your website. Your site will be “ads free” only with the Combo plan (from $9.25 / mo).
• Can’t change Template: choose your design carefully, because once you’ve pick a template, this can’t be changed. Certainly you can edit the elements of the template and customize it for your needs, but it is not possible to choose a new design.
• Website Ownership: if you build your website with Wix, you will have to stay with Wix as long as you want to keep your website. You don’t have access to website files or source code, nor can’t edit the code. You can still add custom HTML to your site using a widget.

Detailed Review of Wix.com

You have probably heard about Wix before, as it is one of the leaders in the website building industry. It is known for its ease of use and this is the reason why it is so popular among users worldwide. Wix has around 100 million users, from more than 190 countries.

Their “what you see is what you get” browser based website builder is a great concept,  and you will get used to it in no time at all. Wix is not only simple, but very effective too. You will build excellent looking and easy to use websites in less time.

The great thing about the Wix website builder is that it is free to start with. For many users, this free option will be enough. It has all the tools needed for a successful blog or a small informative website.

And the best thing about Wix is user-friendliness. Even the biggest noobs will have no trouble getting used to the interface. Everything is easy to understand, and in no time at all, you will start a beautiful website.

But, if you find the free option insufficient, Wix has solutions for you. They offer different, paid, options that will give you more leverage. And they’re quite affordable too!

All in all, Wix is a good option, especially for beginners. And if you are one, it is definitely worth considering, since it is free.

Now let’s dig a little deeper. We will show you more details about this great hosting provider and website builder and some of its great functions. Let’s begin!

Plans and Pricing

Wix has 6 different plans – 1 free plan, and 5 scaling, paid plans.

We recommend starting with their free option. It’s a great opportunity and a great way to test the service yourself without risking any money. And plus, maybe it will prove enough for your needs. If needed, you can always upgrade later. Being free does not mean it has no value, on the contrary. Wix’s free option will be sufficient for most small websites and blogs. It will give you so many great tools, and you will be able to create websites that are not only beautiful but also very functional. You will enjoy doing it, the whole process is intuitive, easy and fun.

But of course, like everything that is free, the Wix free plan has its limitations, such as ads. Also, it only has 1 GB of bandwidth per month and 500 MB storage, which is good enough only for most basic websites, that do not attract much traffic. And if you want to override these limitations, you will have to pay.

Their cheapest paid plan “Connect Domain” is the most basic of all. For as little as $4.50/mo you will be able to connect your domain, but the rest will be the same like with the free plan (500 MB storage, 1 GB bandwidth). This includes Wix ads, which is the major downside of this. If you want to remove them, you will need to get something better.

Their second cheapest premium plan is “Combo”. This is the first one that is ad-free, which is great, as you will be able to promote only your brand. Also, it doubles the bandwidth of the Free/Connect Domain plans, to 2GB, and it will give you 3 GB of storage. Now, this is something. You will also get to register a free domain and will be able to get a customized favicon, so your website will be fully branded. All this for $8.5/mo.

The most popular plan is “Unlimited”, and it will cost you $12.50/mo. As you may have guessed, you will get unlimited bandwidth. Also, you will have 10 GB of storage. On top of all that the “Combo” plan has, you will get a Form Builder App ($48 value), and Site Booster App ($60 value). Site Booster is especially important, as it will draw more traffic to your website, and help your business.

If you plan to build a web store, Wix has a plan for you. Their “eCommerce” plan is best suited for small businesses. It will cost you $16.50/mo, and its main characteristic is the online store feature that will allow your users to buy from you, with an easy-to-use shopping cart.

The best, and the most expensive, Wix plan is “VIP”, a combination of all the best features other Wix plans have. Unlimited bandwidth, 20 GB storage, you will be able to connect your domain, and get a free domain registration. Also, ads will be removed, and you will get a customized favicon. It has the online store feature, as well as Site Booster and Form Builder apps. On top of all this, you will be able to create 10 email campaigns each month, which will boost your visibility even further, helping you sell your products. And the cherry on top, with Professional Site Review, Wix’s experienced professionals will offer you one-time advice about your website overall quality and SEO. All of this only for $24.50/mo, it’s a bargain!

To sum it all up- Wix plans offer a lot, and they will meet most users’ needs. Their free plan is good enough, and it deserves trying out. You can always upgrade later if you find it lacking.

Important note: If you decide to get one of their premium plans, and find yourself unsatisfied and want to cancel your subscription or to use your money-back guarantee, don’t worry about losing data. Wix will just downgrade your plan from paid to free, and your data will be kept.

Wix Features

Naturally, the greatest thing about Wix.com is their website builder. This is their main selling point that has put them on the IT map, and the biggest shining diamond on their crown.

So simple to use, and even users with no coding/technical background will be able to build amazing websites. Everything is done inside your web browser, using the drag-and-drop editor with in-line editing, and that famous WYSIWYG experience. With Wix, previewing your website separately is history. When finished, everything will look exactly as it looks while you were building it!

The new ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) tool will let you create a website without a mouse click. It will guide you through the wizard, step-by-step trying to understand what type of website you need. It will ask questions about your personal preferences and needs, and will offer you choices. In the end, you will have a custom-made website that suits your needs perfectly. For most users this will be enough to start, as you can rework small things later.

Wix App market is something else. There you will find all that you need to build your dream website. There are many free and paid options. You can use them to create sign-up forms for your users, link your social media such as Instagram, create comment sections, or create and manage events, etc. You can also create forums, run eCommerce (check out their eCommerce plan in the “plans and pricing” section above), add blogs, and create newsletters. Also, you can optimize your website for mobile use using Wix Mobile View. It is good to know that Wix also does most of the SEO (with Wix SEO wizard, an amazing tool) for their users, but there are some more advanced options to tweak around.

We have already presented you with the Wix hosting plans, but now we will dig in a little deeper. All Wix hosting is cloud-based, which means you will get similar speeds from anywhere in the world. Test results show this, as websites hosted on Wix tend to have speeds that are above the industry’s average. But, the lacking of VPS, dedicated, and reseller hosting means Wix will fail to meet the requirements of bigger websites.

One of the things Wix.com is lacking is uptime guarantee. Their website claims they currently have 99.8% uptime, which is lower than standard (99.9%). But since Wix aims mostly at users with lower needs, this will probably be good enough. Free plans share this uptime too, which is excellent.

If you are an advanced technical user that likes deep customization, you should look elsewhere. Wix does not allow tweaking your website’s source code. Also, because of the unique interface, it is impossible to move Wix.com websites to another host.

Customer Support

This area is certainly not the biggest strength of Wix.com, especially if you have a free account, as most complaints come from this user group. But this is somewhat understandable, because they have so many users, and you can’t expect free accounts to get the same attention like premium ones do.

There are three methods you can reach support- email, phone, and support library. So no live-chat, which is not good. The phone is available only from Monday through Friday, 6 AM to 5 PM PST, so you don’t really get 24/7 support.

Wix offers 14-day money- back guarantee for their premium users, which is simply not good enough, when compared to other hosting providers.

Pros:

• Great free account
• Good variety of paid accounts
• One of the best website builders
• Easy-to-use, beginner-friendly
• Hundreds of apps and templates

Cons:

• No advanced features like source code access
• No dedicated/VPS/reseller hosting
• Support not great, short 14-day guarantee

Conclusion

Wix is really awesome in its main line of work and that is website building and hosting for non-technical users. It provides easy-to-use tools to beginners, allowing them to create awesome websites in no time at all. They offer so much even if you only have a free account.

If you are considering to start your first website, we strongly recommend choosing Wix.com. It will give you all the needed tools, and the interface will make you feel like a professional. Everything will go smoothly, and seamlessly, and before you know it, your beautiful website will be up and running.

And if you find the free account lacking, you can upgrade it at any point, depending on your needs.

Wix lacks advanced features, but it really doesn’t need it. It is meant for creating simple but beautiful and effective websites, and it does just that. Nothing more, nothing less, WYSIWYG.