For a Brussels SME, the honest answer holds in three lines. Wix or Squarespace fits to launch a simple presence, test an idea or carry a 5-page leaflet without thinking further, with a subscription from around fifteen euros per month and a quick learning curve. A custom site takes back the lead as soon as you need to rank durably on Google, sell direct without paying a platform commission, or plug in your own tools (calendar, cash register, ERP, chatbot). Over 5 years, the cumulative cost of a Wix or Squarespace subscription paid every month often ends up at the level of a custom site paid once, without offering the SEO levers or the ownership of the code.
I am an independent web developer in Brussels, I work from the Le Metropole café, Charles Woeste avenue in Jette, and I deliver both models. I still set up Squarespace sites for freelancers who want a plain showcase without maintenance. I also rebuild, every month, SME sites that started on Wix three years ago and hit a ceiling today because the base does not follow their growth. This article gives the real calculation, without cheap bashing of the platforms and without overselling custom.
Wix and Squarespace: what these platforms actually do well
You must first state what Wix and Squarespace do well, because the caricature "everything is bad, go custom" helps no one. Both platforms provide a visual editor that lets a non-technician put a leaflet online over a weekend: five to six simple pages, a contact form, a few good photos. Hosting stability, HTTPS certificates, automatic backups and security updates are handled by the platform, with no intervention. For a freelancer who needs a pro link to put on a business card and nothing else, this is a real answer.
Entry plans start from around fifteen euros per month at Wix and from about fourteen euros per month at Squarespace for simple showcase use, with the domain name offered the first year. Excluding the initial build (often done in-house to save), the monthly budget stays very predictable the first year. Squarespace in particular offers elegant ready-made templates, a pleasant back-office, and a correct mobile rendering with no extra configuration.
For a specific profile (highly visual freelancer such as photographer, coach, therapist, artist, with clients coming through word of mouth and not through Google), Squarespace often remains the best decision. The question is not ideological, it is functional: what must the site do, over the next 3 years.
The real cumulative cost over 5 years, detailed calculation
The classic trap with Wix or Squarespace is the isolated monthly reasoning. Fifteen euros a month feels painless, until you add up over the real life span of the site. Take a realistic scenario for a Brussels SME: a Business plan around 25 to 30 euros per month (needed as soon as you want to remove the platform mention, get real statistics and sell online), plus an extension for appointment booking or emailing around 10 to 15 euros per month. Monthly total around 40 euros. Over 5 years, the cumulative rises to about 2400 euros, excluding domain name and mid-life visual refresh.
To that cumulative, add two hidden lines that few comparisons mention. First, the time spent by the owner or their assistant maintaining the site (photo updates, text rewrites, new module setup): 2 hours per month on average, often more when a module blocks. At 40 euros per hour valued, that represents about 4800 euros over 5 years. Second, the platform commission on online payments (Wix takes 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction on Wix Payments, Squarespace goes through Stripe at similar rates): for an SME selling 20,000 euros a year online, that means about 3000 euros of commissions over 5 years.
A custom showcase site billed once at launch, with no platform commission and clean hosting at a few euros per month, often ends up at or below the Wix or Squarespace cumulative over 5 years. The difference is therefore not in the price shown for month 1, it is in the price experienced over 60 months. To understand the cost logic of a website today, see How much does a website cost in 2026.
SEO, speed, ownership: the three areas where custom clearly wins
The first area is SEO. Wix and Squarespace have made real progress, but stay structurally behind on three measurable points. Schema markup (LocalBusiness, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList) is throttled, often limited to a few types offered by the platform without the option to add the specific properties that Google values locally. Fine control of titles, meta descriptions and URL per page stays limited on standard templates. Mobile load times, measured via Google PageSpeed Insights, often exceed the 2.5 seconds required by Core Web Vitals on templates loaded with animations and widgets. These three points combined mean that a well-built Wix site often plateaus on page 2 or 3 of Google on competitive local Brussels queries where a slim custom site reaches page 1. To go further on the SEO mistakes I see regularly, see The 7 SEO mistakes that sink SME sites in Brussels.
The second area is speed. The platform ships a generic base optimised to cover all use cases, which inevitably loads JavaScript and stylesheets your site does not need. A custom site only loads what your pages truly use: PageSpeed score regularly above 90 on mobile, LCP under 2 seconds, INP in the green. On google.be, mobile speed is a direct ranking factor, and a silent conversion factor: three out of four visitors leave a page taking more than 3 seconds to show.
The third area is ownership. On Wix or Squarespace, you rent a base: stopping the subscription means losing the site. Migrating later to another solution requires rebuilding everything, because content and structure are not cleanly exportable. On a custom site, you own the code, templates and content, and you can change host or maintainer without losing three years of work. This ownership has no perceived value on launch day, it has a lot on the day the relationship with the platform degrades (price change, feature removed, account dispute).
The SME profile for which Wix or Squarespace remains the best decision
Honesty requires saying when a Wix or Squarespace subscription stays preferable. Three profiles fit that case. First, a freelancer wanting a strict showcase site, no e-commerce, no calendar, no explicit SEO ambition, with clients coming through direct recommendation: in this case a light monthly subscription is perfectly fine and custom would be an overcost with no return.
Second, a pilot project needing to validate an idea in 2 months before investing seriously: putting a Squarespace online over the weekend allows testing the market cheaply, before deciding whether the project deserves a definitive custom site. Many of my clients go through this step and come back to me 6 to 12 months later, when traction is proven.
Third, an SME with no one in-house to frame a web project (no owner involved, no available assistant, no communicator): a custom site requires about 15 hours of client participation spread over 2 weeks. If that time does not exist, better a Squarespace correctly filled in by the team than a half-finished custom site. To understand the subscription logic when you want simplicity without platform dependency, see Website subscription in Brussels.
My approach in Brussels: affordable custom in 7 days or Studio from 49€/month
When a Brussels SME contacts me to arbitrate between Wix, Squarespace and custom, I offer a free 30-minute audit at the Le Metropole café, Charles Woeste avenue in Jette, or remote if it is simpler. I check four points: does your current site rank on the commercial queries that matter to you, does it sell directly with no platform commission, how much time is actually spent maintaining it each month, and is the ownership of content and templates clear.
On that basis, two custom delivery formats with no Wix or Squarespace dependency. A custom showcase up to 7 pages is delivered in 7 days, from 500€ one-off, with clean hosting at a few euros per month, full code ownership and local SEO markup (LocalBusiness, FAQPage, hreflang if bilingual FR/NL) placed correctly from the start. A fuller site with Pixel Noir Studio modules (online appointment booking, click and collect, online shop without commission, on-site conversational assistant, automatic confirmation and reminder emails) is on quote depending on scope, generally deliverable in 2 to 3 weeks minimum, plus a Pixel Noir Studio subscription from 49€ per month on a 6-month commitment for maintenance, content updates and follow-up. To start: contact@pixelnoir.dev.
Frequently asked questions
Can I migrate my Wix or Squarespace site to a custom site without starting over?
The content (texts and images) is recoverable in every case, usually by manual extraction or via the limited export offered by the platform. The page structure and design have to be redone, because Wix or Squarespace code is not portable. In practice, migrating a 5-page showcase takes 5 to 7 working days, with the same content laid back into a base that will be yours and optimised for Google.
Can a Wix or Squarespace site rank well in Brussels?
On low-competition queries and with serious editorial work, yes, a Wix or Squarespace site can appear on the first page. On very disputed local Brussels queries (trade plus commune, service comparators), the structural limits of mobile speed and Schema markup control often make it plateau on page 2 or 3, where a slim custom site reaches page 1. The difference is mostly measured over 6 to 12 months of tracking, not at launch.
What does a Squarespace or Wix subscription really cost for an SME over 5 years?
For a Business plan around 25 to 30 euros per month plus one or two extensions around 10 to 15 euros per month, the cumulative over 5 years is around 2400 to 2700 euros excluding domain name. Add internal maintenance time (about 2 hours per month) and platform commissions on online sales: the real total often exceeds 5000 euros over 5 years. A custom showcase site from 500€ one-off plus clean hosting often ends up below over the same period.
Do I really own my site on Wix or Squarespace?
You own the content you produce (texts, images) and the domain name if you registered it yourself. You do not own the code, the templates or the technical structure: those remain the property of the platform and disappear if you stop the subscription. On a custom site delivered by an independent developer, you own the whole and can change maintainer without starting over.