Wix vs Squarespace vs custom: what Frankston small businesses actually need

If you are starting a new business in Frankston, Mornington, or the broader Bayside area, you will eventually have to make a choice: do I build my website myself using a DIY platform like Wix or Squarespace, or do I hire a local developer to build a custom site?

It's a tough decision. On one hand, the DIY platforms promise you a beautiful website for just $25 a month. On the other hand, horror stories abound of business owners spending months trying to get their Wix site to look right on a mobile phone, only to abandon it and pay an agency $5,000 anyway.

As a local web development studio based near Frankston, we get asked about this comparison weekly. In this guide, we are going to break down the cold, hard reality of Wix, Squarespace, and Custom Development in 2026.

Wix: The "Drag and Drop" Behemoth

Wix is the most famous website builder in the world. Its biggest selling point is its unstructured drag-and-drop editor. You can literally drag a piece of text or an image anywhere on the canvas.

Pros of Wix

• Extremely low barrier to entry: You can start for free, and paid plans are cheap.
• Absolute visual freedom: You are not locked into rigid grids.
• App Market: They have hundreds of plugins for bookings, restaurants, and simple eCommerce.

Cons of Wix

• The Mobile Nightmare: Because you can drag elements anywhere, Wix struggles to automatically adapt to mobile screens. You essentially have to design your site twice—once for desktop, and manually fix it for mobile. If you are a landscaper, 80% of your traffic is on mobile. A broken mobile site means lost money.
• Performance: Wix sites are notorious for loading slowly due to the heavy javascript required to run the drag-and-drop builder.
• Vendor Lock-in: You cannot export your Wix site. If you outgrow it, you have to start from scratch.

The Verdict: Wix is okay if you have exactly zero budget and plenty of time to learn, but we rarely recommend it for serious local service businesses because of the poor mobile experience.

Squarespace: The "Designer's Choice"

If Wix is a messy artist's palette, Squarespace is a rigid, curated art gallery. It relies on strict, grid-based templates that are heavily focused on large, high-quality photography.

Pros of Squarespace

• Beautiful Templates: It is genuinely hard to make a Squarespace site look ugly. The templates enforce good typography and spacing.
• Mobile Responsive: Unlike Wix, Squarespace's strict grids mean your site will automatically scale nicely to mobile devices.
• All-in-one: Hosting, domains, and the builder are all cleanly integrated.

Cons of Squarespace

• Rigidity: If you want to move an element 10 pixels to the left, you can't. You have to play by the rules of the template.
• Requires Great Photos: Squarespace templates look amazing with professional, high-resolution photography. If you are using iPhone photos of a muddy job site, the templates suddenly look very amateurish.
• SEO Limitations: While better than they used to be, Squarespace still lacks the deep technical SEO capabilities required to rank highly in competitive local markets (like tradies in Mordialloc).

The Verdict: Squarespace is excellent for creatives, photographers, and boutique stores who have fantastic imagery and just need a clean portfolio.

Custom Development: The "Performance Engine"

A custom website means hiring a professional to code a site specifically for your business. In 2026, modern developers use frameworks like Astro to build sites that are lightning-fast and perfectly tailored to your needs.

Why Local Businesses Choose Custom

If DIY platforms are so cheap, why do successful businesses invest in custom websites? It comes down to three things: Time, Performance, and Conversion.

• You Buy Back Your Time: Building a "simple" Squarespace site usually takes a business owner 40-50 hours of frustration. That is time you aren't spending quoting jobs or serving customers.
• Unbeatable Speed: Custom sites built with modern tools (like we do) load in under 1 second. Google officially uses page speed as a ranking factor. A custom site will outrank a sluggish Wix site simply by being faster.
• Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO): A developer isn't just making it look pretty; they are designing user flows. They know exactly where to put the "Call Now" button, how to structure the Local SEO schema, and how to write copy that converts a visitor into a lead.
• Technical SEO: Custom sites allow for perfect HTML structure, specific JSON-LD schema (telling Google exactly what area you serve), and ultra-optimised images. DIY builders simply cannot match this level of technical plumbing.

So, what does your Frankston business need?

The right choice depends entirely on the stage of your business.

If you are a solo operator just starting out and watching every dollar, use Squarespace. It will force you to keep things simple and ensure it works on mobile.

However, if you are an established local business—say, a builder in Mornington—and you rely on your website to generate high-value leads, a DIY site is costing you money. The leads you lose to competitors with faster, better-optimised websites will far exceed the cost of hiring a professional.

At WeMakeSmall, we bridge the gap. We don't charge $10,000 agency fees. We build lightning-fast, custom-coded performance engines for local businesses starting from just $750. You get the speed and SEO of a custom build, without the bloated agency price tag.