- As of September 2026, Wix runs $17 to $159 a month and Squarespace $19 to $99 (annual billing); WordPress.com starts at $4 a month for the first year, renewing at $5.
- Wix is fastest to a working site with built-in payments, scheduling and deep SEO settings; it is hard to move off later.
- Squarespace gives the most polished design with the least effort but has no free plan; WordPress gives the most control and needs the most upkeep.
- Rankings come from real service pages and a Google Business Profile, not the platform; skip templated city pages.
Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress is the comparison most vending operators run before they build a site, and all three can produce a good one. The honest summary: Wix is the fastest to a finished site with the most built-in business tools, Squarespace gives the most polished design out of the box, and WordPress gives the most control if you are willing to maintain it. The right pick depends on how much time you want to spend on the site after launch, not on which one "ranks better."
Part of our complete guide: how to find vending machine locations.
Before comparing, a reality check from our post on whether vending machine businesses need a website: a brand-new operator should set up a Google Business Profile first. The time to build a site is usually around machine three to five, when you have photos of your own installed machines and enough enquiries that a request form earns its keep. Specialty routes (PPE, cards, produce) often build sooner. When you are at that point, here is how the three compare.
What does each cost as of September 2026?
All prices below are from each vendor's own pricing page as of September 2026, per month, billed annually unless noted.
| Wix | Squarespace | WordPress.com | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free option | Free plan (Wix subdomain) | No free plan; 14-day free trial | Free plan (shows WordPress.com ads) |
| Entry | Light $17 | Basic $19 ($25 monthly) | Personal $4 first year, renews at $5 |
| Small business tier | Core $29 | Core $29 ($39 monthly) | Premium $8 first year, renews at $9 |
| Higher tier | Business $39 | Plus $49 | Business $25 first year, renews at $28 |
| Top standard tier | Business Elite $159 | Advanced $99 | Commerce $45 first year, renews at $50 |
Sources: Wix pricing explainer and plans page, Squarespace pricing, WordPress.com pricing. Wix notes its prices vary by location. Every paid plan on all three includes a free domain for the first year when bought annually.
Two things the table hides. WordPress.com's low prices are first-year rates that renew higher, so budget on the renewal price. And "WordPress" can also mean self-hosted WordPress from WordPress.org: the software is free, but you pay a hosting company, and you handle updates, backups and security plugins yourself. Check your host's current price rather than trusting a number from a blog post.
Where Wix wins
Speed to a working business site. Wix's AI builder generates a site from a prompt and then drops you into a drag-and-drop editor with over 2,000 templates behind it. A vending operator with no design background can have a home page, services page, and "request a machine" form live in a weekend.
You can build all of this yourself in a spreadsheet over a weekend. If you would rather not, the operator kits package the same checklists and templates as a one-time download starting at $27.
Built-in business tools. Wix's plans page lists accepting payments, scheduling and services from the Core plan up, so if you offer site surveys or want to sell a snack box online, you switch it on instead of shopping for plugins. Its SEO settings are deep for a hosted builder: editable title tags, meta descriptions and URL slugs, canonical tags, structured data markup and a robots.txt editor, with the XML sitemap maintained for you (source: wix.com/seo).
If that matches how you want to work, start a Wix site free and only upgrade when you connect your domain.
Picture the machines paying you while you sleep
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Start building free →Where Wix does not win
Design polish per minute. Squarespace templates look finished with less effort, and its editor keeps you inside a grid that is hard to break. Wix's freedom to drag anything anywhere is also how people end up with cluttered mobile layouts.
Moving later. Wix sites do not export to another platform in any useful way. If you think you might hand the site to a developer or move it in three years, WordPress keeps that door open and Wix does not.
Top-tier cost. Wix Business Elite at $159 is more than Squarespace Advanced at $99. A vending company site will never need either, but it is worth knowing where the ceiling sits.
Squarespace: the design-first option
Squarespace is the right call if the look of the site matters most, for example if you pitch upscale offices, gyms or hotels and your site doubles as a brochure. Form blocks for collecting leads are included on every plan, according to its pricing page, so a request-a-machine form works on Basic. The Core plan adds code injection and advanced analytics.
What it is not for: operators who want lots of add-on tools, or anyone who wants a free plan to experiment on. There is no free plan, just a 14-day trial. The Basic plan also charges a 2% transaction fee on online store sales, which only matters if you sell products through the site.
WordPress: the control option
WordPress is the right call if you plan to publish a lot, want to own every file, or expect to hire help later. It runs a large share of the web, so any freelancer can work on it. The WordPress.com Business plan adds SFTP, GitHub deployments and real-time backups, per its pricing page, which puts it close to self-hosting without the server work.
What it is not for: owners who want to set a site up and forget it. Self-hosted WordPress needs updates, and plugins can conflict. Even on WordPress.com, the editor has a steeper learning curve than Wix or Squarespace for someone who just wants to change a phone number.
What pages does a vending site need on any of the three?
The platform matters less than the page list. A vending company site that brings in location requests usually has six to eight pages: a home page that says what you place and where; one page each for the services you actually run, such as snack and drink machines or micro markets; a locations-served page; a "request a machine" page with a short form; an FAQ written for property managers (who restocks, what it costs them, how commission works, what happens when a machine breaks); and an about page with photos of your own installed machines.
Wix, Squarespace and WordPress all handle every one of those pages without add-ons. The form is the page that earns money, so keep it short. Name, business, address, rough headcount and a phone number are enough. Every extra field costs you submissions. Our guide to what to put on a vending company website goes page by page.
Speed matters on all three too. Most requests come from a phone, often from an office manager between meetings. Compress photos before uploading, avoid autoplay video on the home page, and test the form on your own phone before you share the link.
Does the platform decide your Google rankings?
Not much. All three can produce a fast site with clean titles and a sitemap. What moves a vending company in local search is simpler: one page per service you really offer (snack and drink vending, micro markets, office coffee), a real service-area page for each city where you actually have machines, and a Google Business Profile that links to the site. Our Google Business Profile guide for vending operators covers that half.
We learned the city-page lesson the hard way. vendbuddy.io once published 613 near-identical templated city pages and Google treated them as thin content. Whatever builder you use, do not clone a page and swap the city name. Our vending website SEO guide has the full checklist.
So which one should a vending operator pick?
If you want the shortest path from nothing to a working site with forms, bookings and good SEO settings, pick Wix. If appearance is your selling point and you will not add much, pick Squarespace. If you want control and portability and do not mind maintenance, pick WordPress. There is no wrong answer among the three; the wrong move is spending a month choosing instead of building.
If none of them fits because you want a custom tool like a commission calculator, look at an AI app builder instead; we compare those in Base44 vs other AI website builders, and the best website builder for vending roundup puts all of them in one decision table.
One last thing. A site catches the people who search for you. The locations that never search still need a pitch. The Lead Finder in VendBuddy handles that outbound side, and the elevator flyer playbook is a cheap way to point people at your new site.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Wix better than Squarespace for a vending company?
For most operators Wix is faster to set up and has more built-in business tools, such as scheduling and payments from its Core plan. Squarespace produces a more polished design with less effort. Both handle a request-a-machine form and basic SEO well.
Is WordPress better for SEO than Wix?
Not in any way that matters for a local vending company. All three platforms let you edit titles, descriptions and URLs and generate a sitemap. Rankings come from useful service pages, real service-area pages and a linked Google Business Profile.
Which is cheapest?
WordPress.com has the lowest entry price, starting at $4 a month for the first year on annual billing and renewing at $5, as of September 2026. Wix and WordPress.com both have free plans; Squarespace has a 14-day trial but no free plan.
Can I move my Wix site to WordPress later?
Not cleanly. Wix sites do not export to another platform in a usable form, so moving means rebuilding the pages. If portability matters, WordPress is the safer starting point.