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Harborlight or Wix

Wix is a good product and millions of businesses run on it happily. The question is not whether it works, because it does. The question is who does the work.

With Wix you are the builder and the maintainer. That is the whole trade, and for a lot of owners it is the right one.

Choose Wix if

You enjoy the building part and want your hands on every detail.
You have a few hours a month, every month, to keep it current.
Your site is mostly a menu and a phone number and it rarely changes.
You want the smallest possible monthly bill and are willing to be the one maintaining it.

Choose us if

You want the site to stay right without being the person who keeps it right.
Your hours, prices or season change often and you would rather send a sentence than open an editor.
You would rather look at a finished site about your own business than at a blank template.
You want somebody to answer when something is wrong.

Side by side

	Wix	Harborlight
Who builds it	You do, starting from a template.	We do, from research about your business, before you pay anything.
What you start from	A layout you fill in.	A finished site with your wording, your photos and your hours already in it.
Making a change	You open the editor and make it.	You ask in plain words and check the preview.
A busy month	The site goes stale, because it only changes when you change it.	You send a sentence.
Your domain	Yours, though usually bought through them.	Registered in your name at cost, and still yours if you leave.
If you stop paying	The site goes offline or reverts to their free version.	The site comes down. Your domain and your content stay yours.

The bottom line

If you like building things, build it on Wix. That is not a polite concession, it is the right call for plenty of owners, and you will spend less. We are for the owner who wants a website that stays correct while they run the business.

Questions people ask

Is Wix bad for SEO?

No. Sites built on Wix rank perfectly well and the platform closed most of the old gaps years ago. What hurts a small business is not the platform, it is a site nobody has touched in two years. Whichever you pick, the one that stays current wins.

Can I move my Wix site to Harborlight?

We do not move it, we rebuild it, and we read the existing site first so your wording, hours, prices and photos carry over. You keep the domain. The build happens before you decide anything, so you can put the two side by side and pick.

Is Wix cheaper than Harborlight?

Usually yes, on the monthly bill. Wix charges you for the software and you supply the labour; we charge $89 for the software and the labour together. Whether that is actually cheaper depends on what an hour of your time is worth and how often your site needs to change.

Also worth reading: Harborlight or Squarespace, Harborlight or GoDaddy and Harborlight or hiring a web designer.

See what we would build before you choose.

The site is finished before you decide anything, so you can compare it with whatever else you are considering.

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Would rather talk to someone first? Ask us to come out