Leaving Wix
For what you already pay Wix each month, get a hand-built website, proper SEO foundations, hosting and a real person in Lightwater who makes every change for you.
It never goes wrong all at once. It goes wrong one small edit at a time.
Pick a template, drag a few boxes around, press publish. By Sunday night you had a website and you hadn't paid anyone a penny to build it.
You change one line of text. Something moves on your phone. You fix that and something else shifts. You finish at 10pm, and the job was your opening hours.
Every page was patched at a different time, in a different mood. Three fonts. Two shades of the same blue. No one decided that. It happened one small edit at a time.
You still pay every month. But the changes keep getting put off, and when a customer asks for your website you find yourself apologising for it first.
None of this means you did anything wrong. Wix got you online, and that counts. But you run a business. Being your own web designer was never meant to be part of the job.
Say your opening hours change. Here is what happens next.
Only the first one is your job.
Wix isn't a bad product. It's just a tool, and it leaves you holding it. Here is what that costs you, and what changes when you switch.
Wix sells you a tool, not a finished job. Every new photo, price change and typo is still yours to deal with, usually at night, after a full day of your actual work. Website builders promise easy changes, but small edits take far longer than they should, and the ones you put off never quite leave your head.
You send a request from your own portal. I make the change. That is the whole process.
Drag-and-drop lets you put anything anywhere, and over the years, you do. A new font here, a slightly different blue there, a button that doesn't match the last one. No single edit looks like a problem. Together, they make a business that takes care over its work look like one that doesn't.
Your site is built by hand with one set of fonts, colours and spacing, and every change follows it. It still looks designed years from now.
In the Wix Editor, the mobile version has its own layout. Changes you make there only apply to mobile, anything you add on desktop is copied across for you to sort out, and Wix says you can't lock your mobile site against desktop changes. So every edit means checking two versions, and for a local business the phone version is often the one customers see first.
One design that adapts to every screen, from phones to big desktop monitors. There is no second version to keep in step.
Wix's own help page says it is “not possible to switch to a different template for a site you already created.” To change the look, you start a new site, rebuild the design, and Wix warns that doing so can affect your SEO. So the template you picked in a hurry on day one tends to stay for good.
There is no template. Your site is made for your business, so any part of it can change when your business does.
To be fair to Wix, Google doesn't mark a site down for being built on it, and there are plenty of SEO settings in there. But a setting does nothing until someone fills it in properly. Page titles, headings, structured data, a page for each service and the towns you cover: that is the work, and it is the first thing to slide when you are busy running a business.
Proper SEO foundations come as standard, so Google understands what you do and where you do it.
Wix has got quicker over the years, and credit to them. But speed also depends on what is on the page. Oversized photos, app widgets and animations all add weight, and on a builder nobody is watching that for you. Most of the people who give up on a slow page never tell you they were there.
I compress every image and load only what each page needs, so your pages load quickly, especially on phones.
This is the one that surprises people. A Wix site has to run on Wix's own servers and can't be hosted anywhere else. Your words and photos are yours, but the site itself stays behind. However many years you have paid for, leaving means rebuilding.
After the first 12 months you can stay month to month. If you ever leave, the site is yours, and I hand over everything you need to run it elsewhere.
Wix is a huge global software company. It won't notice your homepage still advertises last summer's offer, or tell you your enquiry form could be doing more. Your money goes to a corporation and your questions go to a help centre.
You deal with one person in Lightwater who knows your site inside out, and your money supports a local business.
Send me your Wix site. I'll tell you what I'd fix, whether or not you switch.
Get a free look at your siteIncluding the row where Wix wins.
| Wix | Site Switch | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Your Wix plan | The same as your Wix plan, from £10 |
| Who makes the changes | You | Me |
| Change something yourself at 10pm | Yes, any time | No, you ask and I do it |
| Design | A template you can't swap | Hand-built around your business |
| Phones | A mobile layout to check as well | One design that fits every screen |
| SEO | Settings for you to fill in | Foundations done properly for you |
| Hosting | Included | Included |
| Move it to another host | Not possible | Yes, after the 12-month term |
| Who you talk to | Wix support | Rory, in Lightwater |
Details about Wix were checked against its own help pages in November 2026, and they can change. Sources: exporting a site, switching templates, the mobile editor, pointing a Wix domain elsewhere, and Google on site moves.
Local businesses that made the switch, in their own words. Drag the handle on each site to see it before and after.
Plumbers in Sandhurst
“I put off updating my website for so long and was hesitant to share it with customers. Now I share it with pride, and it's generating me a lot more work.”
Glamping site in Herefordshire
“Our website was okay, but making small changes was a nightmare and we didn't realise how bad it was in terms of loading performance until the change.”
Events company in Burton
“Our website sells high-end events so it needs to be polished and premium. Rory added that, and more. Direct enquiries have increased 22%.”
Live in under a week, and your Wix site stays up the whole time. I do the work and you approve it.
We go through what you like about your Wix site and what has been driving you mad.
A Wix site can't be exported, so I don't try. I build yours properly while your Wix site stays live.
I move your words, photos and pages across, set up the SEO, and send you a preview link to check.
I point your domain at the new site and tell you when it's safe to cancel Wix.
I'd rather tell you now. Switching isn't right for everyone.
I'm a web developer based in Lightwater, Surrey. I started Site Switch because so many local businesses pay every month for a website builder and still have a site that lets them down.
Instead of a ticket number or a chatbot, you get someone local who knows web design and SEO.
No, and neither can anyone else. Wix sites can only run on Wix's own servers. So I rebuild your site by hand and move your words, photos and pages across, which is also how it ends up better than the original.
Not at all. It can stay at Wix and simply point at your new site, or you can transfer it to another provider. If it was registered or changed in the last 60 days, a transfer may have to wait, but pointing it still works. I will talk you through it either way.
It keeps working. I only change the records that point at your website, and leave the ones that handle your email alone. If you later transfer a domain away from Wix, the email records need adding at the new provider, and I will make sure that gets done.
Google says to expect some temporary movement after any site move, so I won't promise you nothing will change. What I do is what Google recommends: keep your page addresses where I can, and set permanent redirects from every old address where I can't, so the visibility you have built carries over.
Whatever your Wix plan costs you each month, with a minimum of £10 a month. Send me your current plan and I will confirm the figure before you commit to anything.
Not necessarily, but check your renewal date first and we can plan around it. Don't cancel anything until the new site is live. I will tell you when it's safe, and it's worth turning off auto-renew so you aren't billed for another year.
Yes. Your existing posts come across with the rest of your content, and old post addresses are redirected to the new ones.
Those are a separate chat, because every business needs something different. Get in touch and we can work out whether switching makes sense for you.
There is a 12-month minimum term, then you can stay month to month. If you ever leave, the site is yours and I will hand over everything you need to keep it running elsewhere. That is the part you can't get from Wix.
Send me your Wix site and I'll come back with the things I'd fix and what your monthly price would be, whether or not you switch.