Wix, an agency or WebGenPro: how to choose who builds your business website

If you have time, enjoy fiddling with design and have a tight budget, a builder like Wix is the cheapest route in euros — but all the work is yours, today and every time your opening hours change. If you need something genuinely specific (an online shop with stock, an integration with your clinic's software, a brand designed from scratch), a freelancer or agency justifies an investment of hundreds to thousands of euros. If you just need a correct, fast site that someone else builds and maintains, a done-for-you service such as WebGenPro is the shortest path.

The choice is rarely about which option makes prettier websites. It comes down to three questions: how much you pay up front, how many of your hours the site will eat, and who updates it six months from now. This guide gives you what you need to decide: a comparison table, the maths on your own time, the questions to ask a freelancer and the red flags worth taking seriously.

The three routes in a nutshell

• DIY website builder (Wix, Squarespace, WordPress and similar). You pay a monthly fee for the tool and hosting; you pick a template, write the copy, add photos and publish. Full control, full workload.
• Freelancer or agency. You pay someone to design and build the site, usually a fixed project fee followed by maintenance by the hour or on a contract. A freelancer tends to be cheaper and more dependent on one person; an agency has a team and a process, and charges for them.
• Done-for-you service. You hand over your business details and receive a finished site, with hosting and changes handled by the service, for a monthly fee. Less pixel-level control, almost no work on your side.

Side-by-side comparison

Criterion	DIY builder	Freelancer / agency	Done-for-you (WebGenPro)
Upfront cost	Low: builder plan + domain	Hundreds to thousands of euros, depending on scope	€0 to start, no setup fee
Monthly cost	Plan fee (check the renewal price too)	Hosting, plus maintenance if contracted	€0 on Free, €19/month on Professional, €35/month on Premium
Your time	Highest: copy, photos, building, testing and updates	Medium: briefing, meetings, revisions and sign-offs	Low: review the preview and ask for tweaks
Time to go live	Whatever your calendar allows	Weeks, often months	Preview in about 5 minutes
Who updates it later	You	The provider, usually with a new quote	You ask; AI edits included (5/month on Free, 15/month on Professional)
Lock-in	Monthly or annual; on closed builders the design can't be moved to another platform	Depends on the contract	None; cancel a paid plan and the site stays online on Free

Read the table by the row that matters most to you. For a busy owner the deciding row is almost always "your time"; for an unusual project it's the middle column.

The cost that never shows up on an invoice: your hours

A builder's monthly fee is the most visible number and the least important one. The real cost of DIY sits in the tasks nobody does for you:

• writing the copy for each page (about us, services, prices, contact);
• choosing, cropping and compressing photos so they're neither stretched nor heavy;
• assembling sections and testing everything on a phone, where many customers will see it;
• connecting the domain, checking the padlock (https) and testing the contact form;
• coming back every time an opening hour, a price or a service changes.

Do the maths with your own numbers: the hours you expect the first version to take, plus the monthly maintenance hours, multiplied by what an hour of your time is worth. A hypothetical example: if a plumber expects 12 hours to get a site up and values their time at €25 an hour, that's €300 of their own work before the site is live — hours taken from weekends or from paid jobs. If your figure is small, DIY is a sound choice. If it's large, you're paying a lot for a "cheap" website.

There's also a cost that's harder to measure: the site that never leaves draft. Starting in a builder, getting stuck on the copy and leaving the project half-done for months is a real risk for anyone who picks DIY without the time for it.

When a DIY builder makes sense

DIY is the right call if most of these are true for you:

• you enjoy design work and have a few hours a week for it;
• you write easily and already have good photos of the business;
• you want to control every detail and change the site yourself, at any hour;
• you're in no hurry to be online.

If you're weighing up Wix, see the direct comparison in WebGenPro vs Wix. If you're considering a self-hosted WordPress site, bear in mind that besides building it you'll be maintaining plugins, themes and security updates — the difference is explained in WebGenPro vs WordPress.

When a freelancer or agency makes sense

Hiring someone pays off when the site has to do something a brochure site doesn't: an online shop with stock and shipping, a customer login area, an integration with booking or invoicing software, several languages with different content, or a brand identity built from scratch. In those cases you're paying for specialist hours and close support, and that has real value.

Questions to ask before you sign

1. Whose name is the domain registered in? It should be yours, with your own login at the registrar.
2. Where is the site hosted, and who holds the credentials? Ask for administrator access, not just editor access.
3. What does the price include, and how many revision rounds? Get it in writing.
4. Who writes the copy and who handles the photos? Many quotes assume the client supplies everything.
5. What's the deadline, and what are the interim deliverables? Real dates, not "soon".
6. How much does a change cost after launch? For example, updating opening hours, a price or a photo.
7. What happens if we stop working together? Do you get the files, the logins and the domain?
8. Can I see three sites you built that are live today? Open them on your phone and try the contact button.

Red flags

• The domain is registered in the provider's name "to make things easier".
• They ask for 100% up front, with no payments tied to deliverables.
• They promise a "guaranteed first place on Google" — nobody controls Google's rankings.
• The portfolio is screenshots only, with no links to live sites.
• There's no contract and no written description of what will be delivered.
• The site lives in a builder account in their name, not yours.
• Maintenance is mandatory but has no fixed price.

For a sense of the numbers before you ask for quotes, see how much a professional website costs on each route.

When a done-for-you service is the practical choice

For most local businesses — a restaurant, a hair salon, a garage, a clinic, an accounting practice — the website has a simple job: show what they do, where they are, when they're open, and make it easy to get in touch. That doesn't call for a bespoke project or for your weekends.

That's what WebGenPro is for. You type the business name and location; we read the public information on the Google listing (photos, hours, reviews) and on public social profiles, generate the site and show you a preview in about 5 minutes, with no card. Before you see it, automated checks confirm the mobile layout, the contrast and overflow (content spilling off the screen). Every site comes with hosting, SSL, meta tags, schema markup and a sitemap, plus a contact form that sends enquiries to your panel.

• Free (€0): a 1-page site on a webgenpro.com subdomain, no card, no deadline, 5 AI edits a month.
• Professional (€19/month): multiple pages, your own domain (first year free on annual billing, then €50/year), the full editor including SEO fields, 15 AI edits a month and priority support.
• Premium (€35/month): a fully custom site, your own domain included, analytics, a monthly visits report and one blog article a month.

There's no setup fee and no lock-in, and annual billing saves 2 months. Where it isn't the best fit: if you want to design every detail yourself, a DIY builder gives you more freedom; if you need an online shop with hundreds of products, look at an e-commerce platform or a specialist.

Decide in five questions

Question	If the answer is…	Leans towards…
How many hours a month can you give the site?	Several, and you enjoy it	DIY builder
Do you need an unusual feature?	Yes (shop, integrations, customer area)	Freelancer or agency
How much can you pay now?	Little or nothing	DIY or done-for-you
Who changes the opening hours six months from now?	Not you	Done-for-you, or an agency with a maintenance plan
Do you need to be online this week?	Yes	Done-for-you

If the answers point in different directions, give priority to the question about who keeps the site up to date. An out-of-date site — old hours, two-year-old prices, a phone number nobody answers — does more damage than a simple design.

Common mistakes when choosing

• Choosing on the first month's price. Compare the cost of a full year, including renewals, the domain and changes.
• Comparing pretty templates instead of outcomes. What counts is a customer finding your phone number, address and hours within seconds, on a phone.
• Not knowing who owns the domain. It's what you take with you if you switch provider; check it before anything else.
• Forgetting maintenance. A site nobody updates ages fast. See other common mistakes when building a business website.
• Waiting for the perfect site. A simple, correct site today serves more customers than an ideal one that's ready in six months. See how long each route really takes.

Next step

Before you request quotes or open a builder, see what your business looks like at no cost: create a free preview with WebGenPro from your business name and location. Having a real site in front of you makes any comparison — with Wix, a freelancer or an agency — far more concrete.