Wix vs. GoDaddy Website Builder: Which Is Better For Your Business?
Updated: May 5, 2023
When you’re starting out or looking to rebuild your website from scratch, you might wonder which is better for your business: Wix or the GoDaddy Website Builder?
One is a well-established content management system (CMS), while the other is a website building tool provided by a hosting company. No prizes for guessing which is which!
Nevertheless, there’s no denying both tools are pretty great.
However, we still feel in the Wix vs. GoDaddy Website Builder debate, there’s a clear winner. Keep reading if you’re interested in making an informed decision.
Website Examples
We’ll take a dive into the more detailed head-to-head comparisons in a moment. First, it’s always helpful to have some sort of visual representation of what both website builders are capable of.
So here are 3 examples of websites built using Wix:
And another 3 built using the GoDaddy Website Builder:
It should come as no surprise that it’s possible to build good-looking websites with either tool!
However, the end result’s aesthetics are only a small (albeit important) factor in this debate. After all, you’ll be starting from scratch and needing to design the site using the available tools, so you want the builder to be easy to use.
Plus, you don’t want to pay a lot of money only to end up with a good-looking but slow website.
So let’s dig a little deeper.
Design Tools
One of the biggest barriers most people fear when it comes to website building is needing to code. Luckily, both Wix and the GoDaddy Website Builder do all that heavy lifting for you.
Things are a little uneven, though…
Wix Editor
With the Wix Editor, you have a true WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) design tool.
There are a ton of preset elements to choose from, so all you need to do is drag and drop them where you want them to be. This way, you have full control of your layout – though of course, you can follow templates too.
You can also use the Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence), where you give the program information and it builds the site for you. But really, the Wix Editor is incredibly intuitive, beginner friendly, and offers better control.
GoDaddy ADI
The GoDaddy Website Builder, on the other hand, starts off with its ADI. You’ll get a list of set questions and the ADI will generate a website for you based on the answers.
That sounds a lot easier, right?
While it’s very convenient, the questions themselves tend to limit you. After all, there’s only so much detail you can give and you might not get the chance to provide the full context every time.
However, the GoDaddy Website Builder does allow you to reorder a few things (primarily sections, rather than elements) using the drag-and-drop method.
Conclusion
ADI options are incredibly beginner-friendly, but they can also be rather limiting.
Ultimately, being able to see your website come together as you build it (rather than having it auto-generated for you) allows you to make snap decisions and changes on the spot.
Even though GoDaddy Website Builder does give you the option of making some changes after their ADI has done its job, Wix absolutely takes the win here.
As a bonus, Wix even allows you to start with the ADI and use it as a starting platform by switching to the Wix Editor. And if you need to revert, the original ADI version is always available.
Popularity
Wix is considered one of the most popular website builders in the world. GoDaddy, on the other hand, can say the same as an internationally recognized website hosting company.
This “popularity contest” isn’t so much about who has more fans, though.
It’s actually a surefire way to gauge how much effort the provider puts into things like guides and support.
Wix: Growing Fast
Wix has over 180 million users globally and is expected to generate close to $1 billion in 2020.
GoDaddy Website Builder: Riding the Coattails?
It’s very difficult to make a true comparison here, as the GoDaddy Website Builder is part of the GoDaddy brand. Not everyone using their hosting services is going to be interested in the website builder too.
Conclusion
There isn’t really any way to decide on a winner here.
After all, GoDaddy doesn’t offer any information on how many sites are actually built using their tool or what portion of their revenue comes from it.
So let’s call it an uneasy tie.
Pricing and Cost of Help
The good news is, it’s pretty easy to build a great website with Wix – and with a little tweaking you can get nearly the same unique design with the GoDaddy Website Builder.
So even if you’ve never built a website in your life, you can rest assured you’ll almost certainly be happy with the final results.
But of course, you’re running a business. You might not want to spend time figuring out how to build your own website using either tool.
This means you need to consider how much you’ll be paying for a web designer, on top of your hosting fees and domain name.
As a general rule of thumb, expect to be paying $10 to $15 a year for your domain name (unless you want to stick with an unprofessional one that ends with “.wixsite.com” or the even uglier “156b36c-646ey7-godaddysites.com”).
Web hosting generally costs between $3 and $40 a month, depending on your hosting company and plan.
Web designer fees fluctuate a lot more. Scrapping the bottom of the barrel for amateurs, you can probably get away with paying around $40 for a mediocre site. At the other end of the spectrum, some agencies charge $50,000.
Based on our experience, balancing high-quality, professional results with the budgets of the small, growing companies we love to work with, we’ve figured out a pretty great sweet spot.
For Wix websites, we charge $600-$1,500.
Wix Plans
Sad but true – many businesses outgrow the regular Wix plans very quickly.
The good news is, unless you want to include an e-commerce section, the Unlimited Entrepreneurs & Freelancers plan ($12.50/month) will have everything you need.
For e-commerce tools and features, however, you’ll need one of the Business & eCommerce plans, which range from $17 to $35/month.
Even better, with most plans, you’ll get all the features you'll need. If you do need extra tools and features, however, Wix App Market has a range of free and premium options.
GoDaddy Website Builder
With GoDaddy Website Builder, you’re even more limited.
The Standard Plan claims to offer everything new businesses needs for $14.99/month. But looking at the available tools and features included, you’re better off starting with the Premium Plan at $19.99/month, especially if you intend to do any email marketing.
If you need any e-commerce tools, the only option available is the Ecommerce Plan – which costs $24.99/month. It’s basically the Premium Plan with e-commerce features added.
Conclusion
Regardless of whether your business website needs to include an e-commerce section, Wix is the cheaper option all the way through. The only time it starts getting more expensive is if you upgrade to one of the higher Business & Ecommerce plans.
However, even comparing the cheapest of these to the only e-commerce plan GoDaddy offers… you’re better off with Wix on features too.
Templates
If you do decide to use either tool to build your website by yourself to save on costs, then have no fear.
Both offer a range of templates that give you a great starting point and can help you get a better idea of what to expect if you go the ADI route with either platform.
Wix Templates
You’ll get to choose from nearly 800 Wix templates professionally designed specifically for the platform. The only downside is some of the older ones are pretty ugly – but the more modern options are absolutely beautiful.
GoDaddy Website Builder Templates
GoDaddy is a little misleading when they boast of offering around 16,000 Website Templates.
After all, they’re strictly segregated according to your business’s industry. Plus, most of them are very slight variations of the exact same theme.
Conclusion
Not only does Wix offer a much wider true variety of templates to choose from, it’s also a lot easier to further customize your design layout.
With GoDaddy Website Builder, on the other hand, you run a much higher risk of ending up with a website that looks like the ADI copy-pasted your competitor’s site and changed the company names, etc.
Which, to be honest, is basically exactly what happens. So Wix once again stands out as the clear winner for us.
Ease of Use
Ease of use often ends up being a major deciding factor when comparing website builders.
However, perhaps for the first time in one of our comparison guides, I feel the need to point out that sometimes easier isn’t necessarily better…
Wix is Easy
Building a beautiful website for your business is easy when you use Wix, even as an amateur (though of course, a professional will be able to do a a much better, much faster job).
The preferable option is to start with a template and use the drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor to customize the design. If you want the absolute easiest route, you can start with a template and the ADI before switching to the editor.
Either way, even someone who’s never built a website before shouldn’t take more than a few days to learn how to build a variety of websites with Wix. This is a huge bonus if you’re looking to start offering your services as a website builder yourself!
GoDaddy Website Builder is Even Easier
Truthfully, using the GoDaddy Website Builder is much easier.
All you really need to do is choose a template, answer some questions, and play around with the limited drag-and-drop editing tool to try escaping the cookie-cutter mold the ADI spits out for you.
It’s so easy you’ll probably have a hard time finding anyone bothering to offer website building services for the platform.
Conclusion
While GoDaddy Website Builder makes it much easier to generate a good-enough-to-launch website in about an hour (maybe 2 or 3 if you fancy struggling with the editor), it’s much harder to make the website stand out from the competition.
Doing so is, ultimately, a very important aspect of website design. The more your website stands out, the more likely your target market is going to remember it.
So even though it’s easier to generate a website with the GoDaddy platform than it is to build one using Wix… it ends up being a close call.
Wix takes the win for us. But if you aren’t too bothered blending in with the crowd, GoDaddy might be the easier option for you.
SEO and Speed
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is how you improve your website so it ranks better on search engine result pages (SERP).
A page that has the keywords “Wix vs. GoDaddy,” for example, might show up at the top of the SERP if you have good SEO, or on page 2 if you have poor SEO.
This means it plays a huge role in your online business’s success. So you want a website builder and CMS that makes SEO easier.
Wix SEO: Surprisingly Good
WordPress is pretty much the SEO Golden Standard and pretty much thrashed Wix in our Wix vs. WordPress post when it came to SEO.
But Wix is actually surprisingly good at it.
It held its own against the giant and has proven to do just as well in real-life (according to studies by Ahrefs). Wix has absolutely everything you need to nail your SEO.
Pretty much the only area it does struggle is with loading speed. Wix websites do tend to load a little slower than ideal, which can negatively affect your SEO rating.
GoDaddy SEO: Not So Beginner-Friendly
One thing you won’t have to worry about if you build your website using the GoDaddy tool is speed. The web hosting giant tends to do pretty well on this front, whether you using their Website Builder or simply host an existing site on their servers.
However, you’re far more limited in other areas of SEO. And to get those features on offer, you have to invest in one of the more expensive subscription plans.
Conclusion
The good news?
You can opt to pay for extra SEO tools with the GoDaddy Website Builder to make up for some of the built-in limitations. The bad news is you have to pay extra for them, driving the cost even higher when simply trying to catch up to Wix.
SEO can be a very tricky topic and one even most so-called experts don’t fully understand. This is why it’s vital to use a CMS that makes it as easy as possible for you.
And this means Wix manages to maintain its lead.
Blogging
When it comes to engaging with your target market and developing a name for yourself in your industry, blogging is arguably the go-to option.
Blogging is also a great way to add content to your website that engages with your target market while helping you build a reputation in your industry.
It’s also a great way to practice SEO and attract more visitors!
Basic Wix Blogs
Blogs tend to be a dime a dozen these days.
Unfortunately, you’re going to have a surprisingly hard time customizing the blogging section using Wix. The feature is fairly basic, though it does have everything you need to build a decent blog.
Plus, the platform is almost constantly implementing new ways to improve here – so I won’t be surprised if they become a formidable competitor in the near future.
Even More Basic GoDaddy Blogs
GoDaddy themselves have a pretty decent blog. So it’s very surprising their Website Builder sucks for blogging.
Don’t get me wrong – you still have most of the basics.
But you can’t add an internal search function so site visitors can easily find posts on the topics they care about. And you can’t add a comment section at all – which means zero engagement unless you include social media widgets.
Conclusion
With a wider variety of blogging features and better customization, plus continuously seeking to improve in this area, Wix wins this one by a landslide.
E-Commerce
While we already know Wix has more subscription plans geared toward e-commerce, let’s take a closer look at the actual set-up.
Wix Stores
Using one of the Business & Ecommerce plans, you’ll have everything you need to set up a beautiful online store using Wix. You’ll be able to setup and customize everything as you go, and adding your products or services only takes a matter of minutes.
As a bonus, if you start receiving orders before you’ve finished configuring your payment processor, you won’t have to turn the customers away. Wix will simply hold the funds on your behalf until you have everything setup for transferring – and at zero extra cost.
GoDaddy Stores
Even if you only plan on putting up a products or services page without any online transactions available, you’ll still need to fork out for the most expensive GoDaddy Website Builder Plan.
And if you’re serious about having an online store at all, you’ll find the Online Store Builder very limiting. You’ll only get the basics too – and far less of them compared to Wix.
Conclusion
Let’s not mince words – if you want to build an e-commerce site or even just feature a very simple e-commerce section on your website, go with Wix.
You’d just be paying a lot extra for a lot less functionality with the GoDaddy Website Builder.
Summary
In the Wix vs. GoDaddy Website Builder, there’s a very clear winner – Wix.
As a website builder and CMS, Wix seems to be more popular. The GoDaddy Website Builder, on the other hand, is mostly riding the web hosting giant’s coattails.
More importantly, Wix has tons more features, functionality, and flexibility than the GoDaddy Website Builder. And for the most part, unless you’re going the e-commerce route, it tends to be significantly cheaper too.
With GoDaddy Website Builder, you’ll probably end up bridging the price-gap even for e-commerce sites by having to pay extra for marketing and SEO tools – while still lagging behind Wix customers enjoying their already built-in tools.
But of course, if you only need a basic, good-looking website to showcase your business portfolio, GoDaddy Website Builder can be much easier for beginners.
Which one do you think you’ll be using? Share your thoughts with me in the comment section below!
תגובות