You just talked your Shenzhen supplier down from $2.10 to $1.85 per unit. Three weeks of negotiation, and you earned a 12% win. Then Squarespace’s Business plan skims 3% off every sale you make. Quietly. On a $12,000/month store, that’s $4,248 a year, which is more than the air freight on your last shipment. I’ve watched importers burn this money for years, and honestly, it’s the easiest waste to fix. When you’re weighing Wix or Squarespace, cost is the one variable you can calculate down to the dollar before committing. Most importers still run the math wrong. Here are the real numbers, the traps, and a 10-minute exercise that will pick your platform for you.

Wix or Squarespace Cost: The 2025 Plan-by-Plan Numbers

Sticker prices tell you almost nothing. What matters is what actually leaves your bank account each month once transaction fees, apps, and billing cycles pile up. Below is published US pricing on annual billing as of early 2025. Verify everything before you commit, because both platforms raise rates regularly.

Wix Pricing (Annual Billing)

  • Light, $17/month: portfolio and brochure sites only. No online checkout, so ignore it if you’re selling product.
  • Core, $29/month: the real entry point for e-commerce. You get full checkout, 0% Wix transaction fees, abandoned cart recovery, and a free domain for year one.
  • Business Elite, $159/month: advanced shipping automation and priority support. In my experience it only pays off above roughly $50,000/month in revenue.
  • Enterprise, custom, typically $500+/month: skip it unless you have a dedicated ops team.

Squarespace Pricing (Annual Billing)

  • Personal, $16/month: no e-commerce. Great for a portfolio site. Useless for an importer.
  • Business, $23/month: checkout enabled, but Squarespace stacks a 3% transaction fee on top of payment processing for every single sale. This is the trap. Details below.
  • Commerce Basic, $28/month: 0% transaction fee. The true apples-to-apples rival to Wix Core.
  • Commerce Advanced, $52/month: adds subscription products, advanced discounting, and lower payment processing rates.

One more rule. Monthly billing costs 25 to 30% more on both platforms. A Wix Core store pays $29/month on annual billing versus roughly $36 month-to-month. That’s $84 a year burned for zero benefit.

The 3% Trap: Where Wix vs Squarespace Cost Really Diverges

On paper, Squarespace Business at $23/month beats Wix Core at $29/month by $72 a year. In reality, the 3% transaction fee flips that math the moment you gain traction. Run a real scenario: an importer selling phone accessories sourced at $1.85 landed cost, doing $12,000/month across roughly 750 orders.

  • Squarespace Business: $23 subscription + $360 in transaction fees (3% of $12,000) = $383/month, or $4,596/year.
  • Wix Core: $29/month with 0% platform fees = $348/year.
  • Squarespace Commerce Basic: $28/month = $336/year. Statistically identical to Wix.

The gap between the naive pick and the smart one is $4,248 per year. At $1.85 landed cost, that’s 2,296 extra units of inventory. An entire reorder cycle, funded by one platform decision. The break-even math is brutal: the 3% fee overtakes the $5/month saving over Commerce Basic once revenue passes about $167/month. Every functioning store crosses that line within a quarter. Payment processing (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction via Stripe or PayPal) hits both platforms equally, so it cancels out of any comparison.

Hidden Costs That Blow Up Your Website Budget

The subscription is only about 40% of what you’ll actually pay. The rest sneaks up on you.

  • Wix app subscriptions: product reviews ($8 to $15/month), currency converters ($5/month), upsell and bundle apps ($10 to $30/month). A typical store stack adds $30 to $90/month, which works out to $360 to $1,080 a year.
  • Domain renewal: free for year one on both platforms, then $15 to $20/year after.
  • Email campaigns: both companies upsell marketing tools priced by contact volume. Budget $10 to $25/month early on.
  • Custom design: platform-neutral but real. Expect $500 to $3,000 if you outsource, whichever builder you choose.

Squarespace has a structural advantage here: nearly everything is built in, so the app stack rarely exceeds $20/month. Wix’s marketplace is far bigger, but every install is a recurring bill. To be frank, I prefer the smaller integrated option over a marketplace that nickel-and-dimes me. Audit your apps quarterly. Stores routinely carry $40/month in subscriptions for tools they stopped using months earlier.

How to Calculate Your True Wix or Squarespace Cost in 10 Minutes

You can do this over one coffee.

  • Step 1: Forecast 12-month revenue. Take your last three months of sales and multiply by four. Stay conservative; inflated forecasts push you into overpriced plans.
  • Step 2: Apply the transaction fee. Multiply forecast revenue by 3% if you’re eyeing Squarespace Business. Use 0% for Wix Core or any Squarespace Commerce plan.
  • Step 3: Annualize the subscription. Annual-billing rate × 12, never the month-to-month rate.
  • Step 4: Price your app stack. List