Comparing Wix vs GoDaddy: Discover My Winner for 2025

Need to see the builders up close and personal? I’ve put together this quick comparison table summarizing each research category, so you can see how each platform stacks up:

Who Do I Recommend Wix and GoDaddy For?

Both Wix and GoDaddy are among the best website builders we’ve tested, but the two cater to different audiences:

• Wix is great for growing small businesses – Wix offers a diverse range of high-quality features and design options, and while this can be overwhelming to newcomers, you won’t find a builder better equipped for managing a small online business.
• GoDaddy is best for getting your site online quickly and affordably – If you need a website up fast to promote your business, GoDaddy is perfect for that. Its simplified builder is beginner-friendly and means you can get a website ready in under an hour, giving you time to focus on other matters.

If you’re still unsure which to choose, how about taking our 4-minute quiz to see what the perfect builder is for you? Just answer the questions to receive an expert recommendation from our team!

Cheap prices always go down well, but we like to look beyond that and really see what you get for your money. Of the two builders, GoDaddy is better value for money overall. You can see a breakdown of pricing and plans in the sections below:

Wix Pricing

Wix’s pricing is split into four plans, three of which have ecommerce features:

• Light – $17 per month (billed annually)
• Core – $29 per month (billed annually)
• Business – $36 per month (billed annually)
• Business Elite – $159 per month (billed annually)

Overall, our research concludes that Wix isn’t the best value for money. Though you get the absolute best in features and creative customization, it comes at a slightly higher cost than GoDaddy, which starts at $9.99 per month. For new online businesses trying to get off the ground, Wix gives users the tools for succeeding – but with slightly larger start-up costs.

➡️ You can get 10% off your Wix plan if you use the code TAKE10 at checkout!

GoDaddy Pricing:

GoDaddy’s pricing is split into three premium plans, with only one plan having ecommerce features (the Commerce plan):

• Basic – $9.99 per month (billed annually)
• Premium – $14.99 per month (billed annually)
• Commerce – $20.99 per month (billed annually)

Compared to Wix, GoDaddy is better value for money, with the Basic plan’s starting price of $9.99/mo being much easier to budget for. If you do decide to sell, then the Commerce plan is almost $10 cheaper than Wix’s most basic ecommerce plan ($29/mo).

Can I Build a Website for Free?

For new users and businesses just getting started, Wix and GoDaddy both offer a free website builder. This is great if you have little to no budget, but I wouldn’t recommend staying on a free plan long-term since they lack the scalability and features of premium plans.

Wix’s free plan has no expiry date, meaning you can stay on this option indefinitely – as long as you don’t mind some limitations. First and foremost is the lack of sales features, which can massively impact new online businesses. You’ll also have Wix ads on your site, a small 500MB of storage space, and a Wix-branded domain name (.wixsite.com).

Similarly to Wix, GoDaddy’s free plan doesn’t let you sell products, and your site will include ads and a .godaddysites.com domain name until you upgrade to a paid plan.

The Winner

GoDaddy is the best value for money

GoDaddy’s cheaper pricing means it’s better value for money overall. Although you get fewer features, you can still run a quality website for nearly two-thirds the price of Wix.

A common feature shared by both builders is how easy they are for beginners to pick up and get to grips with.

Although they both provide a great user experience, my testing found GoDaddy to be the better choice for total beginners, whereas Wix is better for those seeking a more hands-on approach with plenty of creative control. When you boot each website builder up, you’ll be presented with a choice to use AI website builders to make your website template.

Setup

When starting a new business online, indecisiveness can be as much of a killer as unpreparedness. Using AI can effectively root this out by building you a custom template based on your answers to a short questionnaire. The finished product for both builders looks great and is filled with auto-generated images and text to give you an idea of what you should be aiming for – just like a premade template.

Also, in my own testing, I found that both Wix and GoDaddy generated completely new templates based on my answers, meaning it truly is customized for your particular business.

You can see our experience using Wix’s AI website builder in the video below:

Play

However, what sets GoDaddy apart is its speed – you can have a published site in under a minute, making it the fastest builder for getting online. So, I highly recommend GoDaddy if you’re on a time crunch.

Editor

I found that once I was in the editor, GoDaddy’s drag-and-drop wasn’t as advanced as Wix’s. Elements could only be placed in certain blocks, and there was little customization to be found in their style and size on the page. With Wix, I could move elements anywhere on the page without limitation.

In streamlining the entire building process, GoDaddy has stripped back a lot of user choices. For example, while GoDaddy does have premade templates to pick from, it heavily advertises the use of its AI builder, whereas Wix is more upfront about there being two choices: an AI builder or templates.

The Winner

Wix has the best setup & editor

Wix’s editor is more advanced, meaning you can build your website with control over its design and the specific elements you want.

Wix is our highest-ranked builder for design. Each element of a Wix template is totally customizable, letting you drag and drop it wherever you want it to be. And, if you have some web design skills already, Wix Studio gives you total design freedom over your website to use code and other web development tools while still having access to Wix’s range of features.

When it comes to design, Wix stuns with over 900 templates, covering industries ranging from online sports stores to forensic pathology. GoDaddy, on the other hand, falls short with roughly over 200 themes.

When I explored the templates myself, the limited nature of GoDaddy’s editor made each template look fairly similar and blur together in my mind. GoDaddy pushes its AI building experience ahead of its templates for one reason: its template design is lacking. In comparison, I found I could get better design variety with Wix’s professionally-crafted templates.

Wix also introduced an AI Theme Assistant in September 2024, offering design suggestions within the editor itself to help with areas like color schemes and font style.

The Winner

Wix has the best templates

Wix’s templates have increased customization and come premade for a larger number of industries, meaning you’ll find at least one perfect match for your business.

Features are what really separate the average platforms from the elite. What you can and can’t do on each platform is crucial to your final decision, especially when starting a new business.

Wix’s Quality Features

Based on our research, Wix is currently the reigning king of website features. Its builder comes with a range of tools, including:

• Wix Menu (for restaurants)
• Wix Booking to help manage services and appointments
• Wix Hotels to support with reservations and payments
• Pricing plans to showcase transparent prices to your site visitors
• Membership groups for accessing exclusive content
• Email marketing for connecting with subscribers with branded newsletters

What truly sets Wix apart is how all these features work seamlessly together with the platform’s design, even at the extreme rate Wix adds them. Wix updates itself with new features regularly, meaning you’re never too long away from your website’s next upgrade. For example, Wix introduced AI Site-Chat in December 2024 to support businesses with customer interactions.

For users wanting to start a new business, Wix centralizes its key features within your dashboard. This makes it easy to access the features you need, when you need them.

GoDaddy’s Simplified Tools

GoDaddy can’t hold a candle to Wix’s range of features. As well as lacking an app store – meaning it loses a lot of niche, business-related features – building a website with GoDaddy is much more limited than Wix, with an emphasis on being streamlined and easy to use rather than offering the best quality features.

However, where GoDaddy does stand out is in its marketing and social media integration. With features such as building branded content and email automation available on every plan, GoDaddy is great for getting your business name out there. It’s also a good alternative for those needing a website to advertise their business and little else.

The Winner

Wix has the best website features

Wix’s range of features and quality of tools makes it flexible and usable for any type of business. The bulk of important features, such as email marketing, are built into the builder, but you can also add extra functionality through Wix’s app market.

Neither Wix nor GoDaddy are ecommerce-only platforms, but you can sell products with both of them, depending on your chosen premium plan. If you’re interested in starting a small business, selling a few products on a website is the easiest option. If that’s the case, I recommend Wix, since its sales features are more powerful than GoDaddy’s.

However, both providers include the most vital sales features on their respective ecommerce plans:

• Sell unlimited types and quantities of products
• Sell both physical and/or digital products
• Process payments securely through gateways like PayPal, Stripe, or Square (although Wix offers a larger number of gateway options)
• Mobile apps for managing your store on the go
• Various shipping and accountancy options
• Discount and sale codes

With GoDaddy, you can have all this for the low price of $20.99 per month, compared to Wix’s more expensive $29 per month Core plan.

The issue with GoDaddy’s ecommerce is that its features are limited and lack scalability. For example, GoDaddy won’t be ideal if you’re looking for dropshipping or international selling tools. As a small business, you don’t want to immediately cap your business’ potential growth.

Wix’s ecommerce plans extend all the way up to specialized enterprise plans for industry-leading brands, meaning you have plenty of room to grow your business with Wix’s subscriptions. To put it simply, Wix’s sales features let you run a sizable and profitable online store, while GoDaddy limits you to a smaller business.

The Winner

Wix is the best for selling

Wix has the best sales features available because it allows online stores to scale up as they grow bigger, meaning you can rely on Wix for longer.

The strength of your website’s SEO (search engine optimization) will determine how highly you rank on search engines, like Google. The higher you rank, the more eyes will be on your site. Simple, right?

Wix’s SEO features are the strongest overall. Like its website-building features, Wix provides top-notch customization across the board, allowing you to edit things that will have an impact on SEO, such as meta titles and descriptions, URL slugs, and header code.

But, that on its own wouldn’t be enough. What really elevates Wix’s SEO suite above GoDaddy is the partnerships and integrations Wix has been able to swing.

Wix’s SEO Tools

Wix has plenty of built-in SEO tools, as well as integrations with popular SEO platforms:

• Customized SEO checklist – Wix offers personalized SEO support and recommendations based on your website, so you can make strategic improvements to boost your rankings
• Semrush – a popular keyword research tool you can use to look for search keywords related to your industry.
• Google Analytics – gives you access to numerous website metrics, from key traffic sources to the number of conversions on a page.
• SE Rankings – this tool provides you with insights into your main competitors, helping you compete with them on search engine results pages.
• Microsoft Clarity – used to access insights on user behaviors, so you can track what real visitors are doing via heatmaps and website sessions metrics.
• Wix SEO Learning Hub – access resources on all things SEO, including webinars, glossaries, and online courses from industry experts
• Searchlight newsletter – a newsletter by Wix detailing the latest SEO updates.

How Does GoDaddy’s SEO Compare?

No matter which premium plan you choose, GoDaddy provides access to SEO basics, as well as its SEO Wizard website optimizer.

Unfortunately, GoDaddy lacks the advanced SEO features that Wix provides. GoDaddy covers the basics, such as editing your meta titles and descriptions, URL slugs, and image alt tags. However, you’ll have to do without canonical tags or SEO best practice prompts. It also can’t compete with the sheer amount of extra integrations and partnerships Wix has, but then again no other competitor really can.

The Winner

Wix has better SEO tools

Wix demolishes all others when it comes to SEO, offering unique integrations with platforms like Semrush and Microsoft Clarity.

We test all website builders using our research methodology. This means we can give our readers the most accurate information and a solid base for all of our recommendations. But, we don’t just rely on the research – as writers, we make sure to get hands-on experience building with every provider we talk about. So, when I express an opinion about a builder, positive or negative, you can trust that it’s coming from a place of genuine, human interaction with the product.

For a versus article like this one, we take special care to pick out and analyze who the target audience is for both builders. For Wix vs GoDaddy, we cast ourselves in the shoes of a small business owner and used that in combination with our own knowledge to inform the winners of each category.

It was a great showing from the two builders, but in the end, Wix is the overall winner. Its superior features make it difficult to suggest any other builder to prospective online business owners.

That being said, GoDaddy certainly cements itself as a solid cheap alternative, great for those who are short on time and money and, perhaps, those who need to streamline their operations between their in-person and online presence.

If you want to know more about each builder, you can read our full Wix review and GoDaddy review.