Should I build it on Wix or hire someone?

The math that actually matters

Wix and Squarespace are not free: about $200 a year, every year, and the first year goes into learning where everything is.

Our page is $299 one time, which in your trade is 1 job of yours: a repair on the spot runs $120 to $600.

Over four years the Wix route is at $800 and still charging; this one is at $299 and charging nothing. But that is the small part, because the cost of doing it yourself is not the subscription.

The expensive part is time, and yours sells by the hour

Ten to thirty hours is normal to get something live and decent the first time. With a repair on the spot at $120 to $600, those hours cost more than the site.

And it does not end there. The evening you sit down to swap a photo is an evening the phone rings anyway, and answering wins every time.

Build it yourself if any of this is you

• You enjoy tinkering and a Sunday afternoon at a screen does not bother you.
• You are starting out and right now you have more time than money. That is a good reason and there is nothing to argue about.
• You only need somewhere for the Instagram link to land, with no ambition of ranking in Google.
• A company fleet keeps you booked and you do not need retail. In that case neither one: do not spend.

Have it built if this is you instead

• Your time is already sold. Every hour in the editor is an hour not spent on a repair on the spot.
• You tried once and it stalled halfway. That is the most common outcome and it is not your fault: templates are designed to look good empty.
• You need what you fix on site and what you do not, plus your area to be visible, which is what decides the call and what templates put in the wrong place.

What goes wrong almost every time it is done at home

It is the phone number buried halfway down when whoever lands has an emergency, and having to pinch to read it on a phone. Colors and fonts are almost never the problem.

Three concrete things, fixable in any template. If you are building it yourself, fix those and you are already ahead of most.

The detail that gives away who built it

A page put together in an afternoon from a template gives itself away one way: it repeats not saying how far you travel, which is what decides whether they call. The template knows nothing about mobile mechanics and gives you what it gives everyone.

It is not that Wix cannot do it right. It is that you have to know that needs fixing, and that in your trade what closes the job is what you fix on site and what you do not, plus your area, not whatever the template shipped with.