Why hand-coded sites win.
Page builders look easy until you check your Google rankings, your monthly subscription bill, or what happens when you try to leave. Hand-coded sites are faster, cheaper over five years, and you actually own them.
The math nobody else shows you.
Same five-page site. Same hosting and domain needs. Stretched out over five years, this is what each option actually costs.
Wix Business Plan
- SetupFree
- Subscription$32/mo
- 5 years × 12$1,920
- 5-year total$1,920
You don't own the code. Leave Wix and you rebuild from scratch on whoever you go to next.
Squarespace Business
- SetupFree
- Subscription$23/mo
- 5 years × 12$1,380
- 5-year total$1,380
Locked into their platform. Your customizations don't transfer when you leave.
SWS Standard build
- One-time build$1,200
- Hosting$95/mo
- 5 years × hosting$5,700
- 5-year total$6,900
You own the code. Hosting includes monitoring, backups, SSL, security, 30 min/mo edits. Cancel anytime.
Yes, the SWS total is higher in raw dollars. The honest framing: that extra money buys real custom code, monitoring, security, and a real human answering when something breaks. Versus a template at $1,920 over five years that's also $1,920 of "good luck" when the platform changes its pricing or its algorithm.
What actually matters when Google decides if you rank.
| What matters | Wix · Squarespace | Hand-coded SWS |
|---|---|---|
| PageSpeed score | 30 – 60 typical | 95 – 100 |
| Custom schema markup | Limited or none | Full custom JSON-LD |
| Code ownership | No · locked to platform | Yes · full source is yours |
| Monthly contract | Required | No · cancel anytime |
| Per-page SEO | Templated | Custom per page |
| Mobile responsive | Yes. But bloated | Yes. Lightweight |
| Direct contact when broken | Support tickets | Text Dominic directly |
A page builder optimizes for the company running it. Hand-coded optimizes for you, your customers, and Google.
· What the comparison comes down to
Verify it yourself.
Three free checks any non-developer can run in 60 seconds.
View the source
Right-click any SWS site, "View Page Source." Real HTML. No platform-generated div soup, no tracking pixels, no auto-injected widgets.
Run a Lighthouse audit
Chrome dev tools → Lighthouse → run mobile audit. Compare 30-60 on a Wix site to 95-100 on a hand-coded one. Google reads those scores.
Inspect the network
Dev tools → Network tab → refresh. Builders load 80+ requests and 3 MB. Hand-coded loads 12 requests and 200 KB. That's why we win on mobile.
Real result. Real client.
C&D Lift LLC, a family-owned forklift business in Minco. No website before April 2026. Today: #1 in Google for their primary service across the OKC metro, cited by name in Google's AI Overview across five metro searches.
Real questions, honest answers.
Isn't hand-coding slower to build?
Standard tier ships in 10-14 days from deposit. Growth ships in 14-21. That's faster than most agencies and faster than wrangling a Wix template into something custom.
Can I edit the site myself?
Hosting includes 30 minutes of edits per month. Text changes, image swaps, new product photos. Bigger changes (new pages, layout reworks) are billed as add-ons. No CMS for you to manage, no broken-plugin emergencies at 11 pm.
What if I want to leave?
You take the source code, the domain stays in your name, and you can host it anywhere a static site runs (Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, your own VPS). No data hostage. No ransom hosting bill.
Why is the 5-year cost higher than Wix?
Because real custom code, monitoring, security, backups, and a human on the other end of a text message cost more to provide than a templated subscription with a help-desk queue. The trade-off is: you get a site that ranks, you own it, and when it breaks at 2 am we know before you do.
A site you actually own.
Pick a tier, pay the 50% deposit, get live in 10-14 days.