You have a great product concept that you want to sell online.
You’re already on your way to a rewarding new profession as an entrepreneur, which is great.
But first, you’ll need a necessary tool – a website builder that you can use to create your online presence – before you can start making money or drawing in clients.
The good news? There are numerous options available.
Is that terrible news? That indicates that you, as an entrepreneur, have a difficult choice.
Wix and Weebly are two of the most popular options currently accessible. On the surface, these two ecommerce solutions appear to be extremely comparable; they both provide a wide variety of marketing options, have stellar reputations, and have a ton of customer support. Both market leaders offer a wealth of tools that you can use to create your online store, begin a blog, and even spread the news on social media.
Of course, there are some notable distinctions between Wix and Weebly and the many parallels between them. Today, we’ll discuss how these systems stack up against one another in terms of usability, website development, SEO, and many other aspects.
Comparing Wix vs. Weebly
Deciding between Weebly and Wix is difficult. The builders are comparable, offering a large variety of features that are extremely thorough for the typical business owner. Overall, we’d say Wix is the greatest option for creative business owners who want to create a variety of unique websites. On the other hand, Weebly is most likely the best option for ecommerce-focused businesses that want a robust online store.
Pros & Cons of Wix vs. Weebly:
Wix
Pros:
- Adaptable and trustworthy website builder
- Outstanding performance
- A variety of plugins are available.
Cons:
- The template will always lock the content.
- Expensive eCommerce plans
Weebly
Pros:
- Simple website design and setup
- Unlimited space and bandwidth
- A large selection of SEO tools
Cons:
- Few possibilities for customization
- A little less assistance for clients
Introducing Wix and Weebly
Let’s begin with the fundamentals.
Weebly is a website builder that focuses on offering top-notch ecommerce features in a simple setting. The company specializes in developing and improving ecommerce strategies for company owners. The company was established in 2007 and was acquired by Square, one of the top merchant services, in 2018.
With Weebly, you can buy your domain, create websites using a drag-and-drop interface, and use many other fantastic features. There are several high-quality options and professional templates available for business owners.
In contrast, Wix is a website builder that offers a live editor, hundreds of professional themes, and artificial intelligence. Wix websites debuted in 2006, at the same time that Weebly did. The company currently has about 150 million users worldwide.
Wix was created to make simple and efficient design accessible to everyone. Weebly websites can provide you with a bespoke domain, high-quality themes that are simple to use, or engaging contact forms. The learning curve is relatively low, and many SEO tools and plugins exist to explore.
Wix vs. Weebly: Pricing and Affordability
You’ll need to make numerous considerations when developing your own website. For instance, does the website builder offer a mobile version, various plugins to explore, and the drag-and-drop design method you prefer? However, you must first determine whether the software is inside your business plan’s budget before you can start worrying about the ecommerce capabilities your site builder offers.
The “free” option on Weebly is the least expensive and gives customers access to several essential services, including free SSL security and up to 500MB of storage. You will, however, have to put up with Weebly branding all across your website. Additionally, you receive zero e-commerce features.
A few options are available here once again, including the choice to connect a unique domain. The “Connect” plan, which starts at $8 per month, is the next level. However, until you upgrade to “Pro” or “Business,” no ecommerce capabilities are available.
The Pro Weebly plan costs $12 per month or $144 annually. For this cost, you receive many features, such as a shopping cart and the ability to accept clients’ payments via Square. Advanced site statistics, a phone helpline, and more are also available.
You can get advanced e-commerce analytics, pop-up notifications, shipment diagnostics, and many more features to help you manage your website if you upgrade to the $25/month Business plan.
The Business Plus option from Weebly is the most advanced one and includes a free domain, a $100 Google Ads credit, and a range of email marketing tools. For a small monthly fee of about $38, you can access shipping savings, abandoned cart emails, and other tools that greatly simplify online selling.
How does Wix compete, then?
First off, Wix offers many more pricing alternatives than Weebly does.
There are a total of 8 price packages available, including:
- Plan combination: $13 monthly when paid annually
- Continuity: $17 per month paid yearly
- Pro-plan: $27 monthly if paid yearly
- VIP program: $39 a month, yearly
- Basic business plan: $23 monthly, paid yearly
- Plan for businesses, unlimited: $27 per month, paid yearly
- Plan for business VIP members: $49 per month paid yearly
- Business plan: $500 monthly
VIP or one of the four business strategies is necessary to achieve business-level performance. For instance, the VIP plan offers limitless bandwidth, 20GB of storage, the ability to connect your domain, and a professional logo. One thing to remember is that VAT is not included in Wix’s payment plans, so you will need to consider it individually.
We believe that the Business and ecommerce plans are the most appropriate choices for clients looking to launch an online business. Remember that the Connect plan from Wix costs about $5 per month; nonetheless, this is still more expensive than the free alternative offered by Weebly. Wix’s Connect package also includes Wix branding, making it impossible to project the professional image you may be seeking.
However, Wix stands out as the alternative with the biggest selection of options to choose from for different types of business owners, even while Weebly may provide you the chance to get started for free.
Remember that Wix’s pricing structure is intended to reward customers who do business with the company for an extended time. You receive significant price reductions if you pay for your website on an annual or biannual basis.
What you should know about Wix and Weebly’s price is as follows:
- Weebly still has a free plan, although Wix no longer does.
- Because it includes branding, Wix’s free tier is comparable to Weebly’s free option.
- You have 14 days to cancel your selected paid plan with Wix and get a full refund, no questions asked. You have thirty days to discontinue Weebly without paying any fees.
- You must pay for your domain name within the first year with Weebly and Wix, albeit Weebly charges more than Wix.
- You must pay for an email account to use Weebly or Wix for your website.
- Wix is most likely the most cost-effective solution because it offers you more options overall for less money. Although Weebly could appear more affordable at first sight, it won’t be once you start needing items like an Ecommerce shopping cart.
Wix vs. Weebly: Features
While a low price for your website builder is fantastic, it isn’t very sensible if you can’t acquire the required functionality. The best website builder is the one that can provide you with everything, including the ability to create an e-commerce site, as well as SEO, limitless storage, chat support, and even an in-built app store.
Wix and Weebly appear to be extremely similar productions at first glance. Both are drag-and-drop website builders, making them incredibly simple to use and great for allowing you to customize your website. The primary distinction is that Wix focuses on providing a wide range of choices through plugins and third-party apps for whatever you want to do with your website. On the other hand, Weebly is more geared toward eCommerce, maybe due to being owned by Square.
When evaluating alternatives between Weebly and Wix, you should remember that neither tool is solely a website builder. Depending on the premium package you select, you may also get extras like Google Analytics, an SSL certificate, website protection, a domain name, and web hosting.
Besides its free plan, Weebly gives unlimited storage and bandwidth, and each project allows for building up to 10 websites with access to hundreds of add-ons.
Regarding your Ecommerce experience, Wix only offers unlimited bandwidth if you spend $14 or more per month. However, you can use a free domain for up to a year or connect your own. All plans have a storage cap.
Additionally, both Wix and Weebly have a wide range of SEO capabilities that let you increase your presence on search engine result pages and increase your chances of making sales. With things like HTML coding that you can utilize to work on your site’s back end, Weebly has a few slightly more sophisticated capabilities to offer in the SEO arena.
When contrasting Wix and Weebly, you may also want to consider the capability of creating multilingual websites. All Wix packages come with this option; you must add the languages you want to use.
Although multi-language choices are also available for Weebly sites, they only cost an additional $3 a month so you might pay a little more overall.
There are some clear instances where one distinguishes out over the other, even if Wix and Weebly offer many of the same capabilities. For instance, both businesses offer the opportunity to access a mobile app, but only Weebly offers a broad range of features and tools that you can use to modify your web pages from the mobile app. The Wix mobile application is merely a tool for content management.
Wix does appear to be the best pick if simplicity is your top priority. Weebly, however, has a lot more to offer in terms of value and scalability for effective eCommerce.
Wix vs. Weebly: Ease of Use
The cost of features like SSL, social network connectors, and limitless bandwidth with your website builder premium plans is crucial. However, the cost is only one aspect of designing the ideal website. It would help if you also considered which tool will be the simplest for you and your team to utilize.
It’s crucial to remember that Weebly and Wix both have many built-in options to explore and are very user-friendly. Additionally, Wix frequently releases several new updates, ensuring you’re always up to date.
Let’s take a closer look at how each website editor promotes usability:
Customization options:
With Weebly, you can design contact forms, surveys, and much more using a drag-and-drop builder, video backdrops, and other powerful editing tools. In contrast, Wix provides comparable functionality for video backdrops and personalization options. Additionally, Wix offers scroll effects, infinite fonts, maps, contact forms, and testimonials.
Wix and Weebly excel in providing cutting-edge editing capabilities that make it simpler for you to construct an Ecommerce site that competes with the choices from WordPress and Squarespace. A few extra choices are available with Wix, including the opportunity to improve the photographs you use for your website.
Additionally, you can adjust the colors, fonts, and styles as necessary.
There is always a minor worry that you can become overwhelmed and ruin your site’s operation when you have many options to play with. However, Wix offers a global undo button and a site history tool to keep you secure.
Contrarily, Weebly offers the advantages of a rather straightforward user interface. You gain the advantage of knowing that you can track and manage your inventory, even if you decide to open a pop-up store in person because Square owns Weebly.
Weebly extends user-friendliness beyond the digital sphere and allows you the freedom to sell both offline and online with confidence. You may construct product search systems and badges, create coupons and gift cards using a built-in system within your editing environment, and even include user evaluations on your website. Additionally, various tools, such as Square, Stripe, and PayPal, are available for accepting payments. A built-in tax calculator is also available.
For businesses wishing to explore a wide range of complex customization possibilities, Wix is certainly a much better choice. Weebly is probably the best option for you if you’re a beginner who merely wants to be sure that you can sell products swiftly and successfully online.
Wix vs. Weebly: Flexibility and Design
Speaking of ease of use, it’s important to consider how Wix and Weebly handle tasks like website management and design.
You have complete control over the design of your home page, product pages, contact store, and everything else you can think of when you buy and create a website using a tool like Wix. You have the choice to add images and video animations to your background. Additionally, you can choose a template based on your industry and start from there if you want to be able to get started as soon as feasible.
With features like “Pixel Perfect” editing, Wix allows you the freedom to change as many aspects of your website as you’d like, even if doing so might initially make your content more difficult to access.
Both Wix and Weebly provide a wide selection of stunning websites. Wix’s library is quite big, with hundreds of options, so it’s important to keep that in mind.
Additionally, particular styles depend on the type of business you run. The main drawback is that Wix does not allow you to modify your template without erasing all your content and starting again.
However, Weebly allows you to alter your template without losing any data. Furthermore, even if Weebly has a limited range of themes, it still has a lot to offer in terms of cutting-edge design.
Weebly allows you more freedom to modify your design whenever and however you like, compared to Wix’s greater selection of templates.
Another thing to remember is that Wix provides you the choice of exactly how your website will appear on a smartphone, whereas Weebly does not.
Additionally, Weebly makes sure that all its websites are created to function flawlessly on mobile devices without needing any unpleasant alterations.
Wix vs. Weebly: Ecommerce
So how do things stand between Weebly and Wix regarding e-commerce and building an online store? While both options provide excellent tools for creating your small company website, it’s important to note that the pro package you select will affect the features that you receive.
Wix generally allows you to create a strong online store where you can sell both physical and digital goods. You can also use Stripe or PayPal to receive payments and optimize your product descriptions for search.
Wix also provides customer accounts so you can make sure returning consumers can quickly purchase their favourite products from your store.
When it comes to Ecommerce retailing, Weebly offers a very comparable experience. The tool focuses much more on e-commerce than Wix because Square just acquired it. Within seconds, you can quickly construct a storefront and import product listings from Square POS. Additionally, you have the choice to offer a variety of digital and tangible goods side by side.
All of the things you list on your Weebly website are eligible for SEO fields, and since everything has an automatic sales tax calculator built-in, there are no issues with tax calculations.
With choices to accept payments using Square POS systems, PayPal and Stripe, Weebly is fairly impressive regarding receiving money, just like Wix.
Weebly vs. Wix: SEO and Blogging
One aspect of starting a small business can accept payments and selling goods online. Additionally, you’ll need something to draw visitors to your website and encourage them to make purchases. Thankfully, Wix and Weebly offer a wide range of blogging and SEO tools.
You may customize URL names, meta descriptions, and titles on Wix and Weebly. Unfortunately, Wix does tend to change file names to something obscure and cryptic, which is quite problematic for SEO. The Wix mobile app allows you to adjust your SEO, which is a benefit.
As previously said, Weebly provides some fundamental choices for SEO, but the website emphasizes ecommerce more than anything else. On the plus side, you may provide your website with a site search feature to make it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
It’s also important to remember that both Wix and Weebly provide blogging tools that let you develop your online profile by regularly uploading new content. In recent years, Wix and Weebly have made major enhancements to their blogging capabilities to differentiate themselves from competitors like Squarespace and WordPress.
Weebly provides a little bit more in the blogging area, but it still falls short of Squarespace or WordPress in terms of quality. Weebly mainly differentiates from the other site builders due to the absence of the Wix blog editor. Compared to a WordPress option, the answer displays in an extra window, which feels pretty strange.
You may also build more complex environments for your blog entries using Weebly, complete with add-ons like forms, image galleries, and other features.
Weebly vs. Wix: Backup and restoration, speed
As was already noted, establishing a strong online presence requires careful consideration of your website’s backend functionality and other options. When deciding between Weebly and Wix, remember that you also get domain names and hosting in addition to the website builder. Therefore, it is essential to maintain and function well on servers.
Weebly’s server uptime is outstanding on average, at about 99.97%. However, monthly improvements are made in the response times. On the other hand, Wix boasts a remarkable uptime of up to 99.99 percent, making it slightly more dependable than Weebly overall. Wix might be a better option for small businesses that can’t afford to have their home page or website go down at any time.
Another thing to remember is that Weebly enables business owners to download and locally store a copy of their website. Your material and data can be protected much more easily as a result. It isn’t very pleasant because you can’t post the data you download back to Weebly’s website.
On the other hand, Wix has a superb feature called site history functionality that is great for backup and restoration needs. This indicates that Wix will store a duplicate of your website whenever you make an update to your small business website. In essence, this implies that your website is monitored and that any modifications are recorded in the backend of your hosting environment. A single click can also return your website to a previous state. Given that you don’t have to bother creating your backups and can always restore your websites, when necessary, this is undoubtedly a huge advance over Weebly’s offering.
Wix vs. Weebly: Customer Support and Extensibility
Let’s look at your options for customer support and business growth with Weebly.com and Wix.com. Any business owner must have access to various support options and channels because they must be confident that they can address issues as they emerge. For instance, Weebly provides email ticket help, phone support, and a comprehensive knowledge base with resources you may utilize to find solutions on your own. Every effort is made in the knowledge base to answer any queries you might have.
Weebly’s knowledge base is jam-packed with facts on a wide range of subjects, and the information is made available through various helpful videos, articles, and tutorials. However, the ticket system is also quite useful if you have any issues. Even if there isn’t live chat support, you’ll still receive a response rather fast, which isn’t usually the case with rivals like Squarespace and WordPress.
In addition to a comprehensive knowledge library, ticket and phone help are provided through the Wix editor and website building system. This site’s knowledge base is also amazing, with tons of detailed articles, step-by-step tutorials, and more to help you with your problems.
Additionally, Wix recently added a live chat support feature, a major improvement for businesses requiring prompt responses to their inquiries. Although Wix and Weebly’s services are extremely comparable, it’s important to note that Wix has an advantage with live chat assistance.
When picking which website builder to use, it’s also a good idea to look at your possibilities for expanding your site with new functionalities. Wix and Weebly have a vast selection of third-party apps and tools accessible through app stores and marketplaces. You can include many features on your website, including forms, comments, and more. It’s pretty comparable to utilizing plugins on Squarespace or WordPress.
The app store for Wix is a little bigger overall than the one for Weebly, and it has a few more excellent apps created by the Wix team, such as Wix Bookings and Wix Restaurants.
Wix vs. Weebly: Final Verdict
Wix and Weebly continue to rank highly on the list of options available to business owners, even though there are many other options like WordPress and Squarespace. The platforms of Weebly and Wix both provide a wide range of excellent services and reliable tools to give a powerful online site-building solution. Although Wix offers a little bit more to its users, Weebly is great for newbies that need to develop an amazing Ecommerce site quickly. For experienced users who wish to construct a variety of pages to help them stand out online, Wix is the best option. Claiming that if you’re looking for a great store-building option, it’s difficult to make a mistake with either Weebly or Wix.
Whichever service you select for your online presence, both Weebly and Wix will provide a first-rate user experience. Both website builders are dependable, reasonably priced, and made to change how you approach selling.
