Read The Renewal Line

The price on the ad is not always the price you pay next year. Both Wix and Squarespace say so themselves, just not on the pricing page. Here is what their own help center and terms of service actually say, in their own words.

Wix

Wix’s own Customer Agreement covers every auto-renewing plan: “such Service will automatically renew… at the then-current price for the Services (which may be higher or lower than the previous price).” The renewal price is not the price you signed up at. It is whatever Wix is charging on your renewal date.

Domains follow the same pattern. Wix’s help center: “The free domain voucher covers the first year of a Wix domain subscription. If you purchased your domain using this voucher, you will need to pay if you want to renew it.” The free year is the hook. Every year after is the real price.

Squarespace

Squarespace’s domain policy reads almost the same way: “the domain will renew for its listed price.” Their Terms of Service reserve the right to change plan fees at any time, with advance notice, effective on your next payment date.

I will not put a specific percentage on how much Squarespace’s prices have moved this year, because Squarespace has not published one themselves, only “we periodically adjust our plans and pricing as we continue to improve our service.” Other sites have reported a number. I only publish figures I can source directly from the company that set them, so I am leaving that one out rather than repeating someone else’s math.

The Exit Is Harder Than The Entrance

Wix’s own help center is direct about this: “Your Wix site is a standard HTML5 site… it needs to be hosted and operated on Wix’s servers… the SaaS architecture does not support external hosting.” There is no export of a whole Wix site. None, at any price. Squarespace’s export covers pages, posts, text and gallery blocks, not the design itself.

Renewal pricing is a number. This is bigger than a number: whatever you build on either platform stays on their servers, under their terms, for as long as you use it.

What This Means

None of this is hidden. It is all in their own agreements, publicly posted, and none of it is unusual for a subscription business. It just means the price that gets you in the door is not a promise about the price a year from now, or a promise you can take the site with you if you leave. A site I build does not have a renewal line to read, because there is no subscription to renew, and no exit to plan for. Full three-year comparison here.