This article is part of our Industry Software Guides: the website platforms, forms and booking tools practices and contractors use, with prices checked on vendor pages. Want to know where your site stands? Get a free 20–30 page website audit within 24 hours.
Pick Wix if you are a small crew that wants to build the site yourself, take bookings and payments in one place, and serve a handful of towns. Pick WordPress if you plan to rank in many towns, want to own the site outright, or expect to hand it to an agency later.
This guide looks only at what matters to contractors: quote requests, service area pages, reviews, booking and what happens when you outgrow the platform. For a general comparison, see our WordPress vs Wix guide.
Wix is faster to launch. WordPress is easier to grow.
At a glance
| Wix | WordPress (self-hosted) | WordPress.com | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Core plan; price varies by region, see Wix's plans page | Software free; hosting and plugins extra | Personal $4/mo billed yearly, per WordPress.com |
| Online booking | Built in from Core | Plugin or outside tool | Plugin or outside tool |
| Photo uploads on forms | Premium feature | Plugin (WPForms paid plans) | Plugin |
| Page limit | 298 pages, up to 100 static | No platform quota | Unlimited pages on paid plans |
| Move to another host | Not supported | Yes | Export to self-hosted |
| Who maintains it | Wix | You or your developer | WordPress.com |
Prices checked on vendor pricing pages on 2 November 2026.
Cost: Wix is simpler, WordPress is spread out
Wix's plans page lists Light, Core and Business plans, billed yearly. Wix shows prices by region, so confirm the US price there before you buy. For a contractor, Core is the realistic floor, because it is the first plan with "Scheduling and services" and accepting payments.
WordPress itself is free to download. The bill comes from hosting, a domain, a theme and premium plugins. For example, WPForms Basic is $49.50 for the first year, listed normally at $99.00, with renewals at full price. Yoast SEO Premium, which includes Local SEO, is $118.80/year.
If you want WordPress without buying hosting, WordPress.com runs from $4/mo (Personal) to $25/mo (Business), billed yearly. Paid plans include plugin installation. Our Wix website cost and Is WordPress free? guides go deeper on each side.
Verdict: Wix wins on a predictable bill. WordPress can cost about the same or less, but you have to add up the pieces.
Quote request forms
A contractor's form needs more than name and phone. It should ask for the job type, the address or ZIP code, and ideally photos.
On Wix, the file upload field is a premium feature and allows up to 30 uploads per submission. That covers before photos of a leaking roof or a cracked slab.
On WordPress, a form plugin does the job. Every paid WPForms plan includes file uploads, smart conditional logic and multi-page forms. Conditional logic lets you show roofing questions only when someone picks "roof repair."
Verdict: A tie on capability. WordPress gives you more form plugins to choose from; Wix keeps it in one dashboard.
Online booking and scheduling
Wix Bookings is the strongest reason a contractor picks Wix. Customers can book on-site services and pay online or in person. Wix sends reminders by email, SMS or WhatsApp and syncs staff calendars.
WordPress has no booking built in. You add a plugin or embed a booking widget from your field service software. If you already run jobs in Jobber or Housecall Pro, their online booking can sit on either platform. See our best website builders for contractors list for how those tools compare.
Verdict: Wix wins if you want booking without another subscription.
Service area pages and local SEO
Most trades win local search town by town. That means a page for each service and each area you cover, such as "water heater repair in Fresno."
Wix has a hard ceiling. Its help center says sites have a total pages quota of 298, including up to 100 static pages. Dynamic pages built from a CMS collection can create a URL for every item, so you can template city pages, but it takes more setup. Our guide to Wix dynamic pages SEO explains the tradeoffs.
WordPress is a content management system first. You can keep adding pages, and plugins like Yoast Local SEO manage multiple locations, add schema from your business details and generate a geo sitemap. On WordPress.com, paid plans include unlimited pages.
Whichever you choose, match your pages to your Google Business Profile. Google lets service-area businesses set up to 20 service areas, within about two hours of driving from your base. Our Wix local SEO guide covers the Wix side, and schema markup for contractor websites applies to both.
Verdict: WordPress wins for contractors who serve many towns.
Ownership and switching later
This is the factor owners regret skipping. Wix says your site must be hosted on Wix's servers, because its SaaS architecture does not support external hosting. Wix also says the content you build belongs to you, but moving it means rebuilding the site elsewhere.
WordPress is open source under the GPL, so you can move the site to any host. WordPress.com lets you export posts, pages and media links as an XML file and import it into a self-hosted site, though themes and customizations do not come along.
If you are already on Wix and want out, see our list of Wix to WordPress migration services.
Verdict: WordPress wins clearly.
Maintenance and security
Wix hosts the site for you: every plan on its plans page lists multi-cloud hosting, and there is no software for you to update. That is real value for an owner who is on a job site all day.
Self-hosted WordPress puts that work on you. WordPress.com's own FAQ says self-hosted owners are responsible for their hosting, security and maintenance. You need updates, backups and someone to call when a plugin breaks. WordPress.com is the middle path, since it manages the hosting for you.
Verdict: Wix wins on low effort, unless you have a developer or agency on call.
A typical setup on each platform
Here is how a small remodeling company serving eight towns might set up each option.
On Wix: Core plan, a home page, one page per service, a gallery, Wix Bookings for free estimate visits and a quote form with photo upload. Eight city pages fit well inside the 100 static page cap. Everything lives in one dashboard and one bill.
On WordPress: A managed host, a lightweight theme, a form plugin with file uploads and conditional logic, and a local SEO plugin. City pages and service pages can be combined (for example, "kitchen remodeling in each town") without watching a quota. Booking comes from your field service tool or a plugin.
The Wix setup is live sooner. The WordPress setup takes longer to build but is easier to expand when you add a second trade or a new county.
Which should you choose
- Choose Wix if you are a one or two crew business, serve a few nearby towns, want booking and reminders built in, and will manage the site yourself.
- Choose self-hosted WordPress if you serve many towns, want a page per service and city, plan to hire help with SEO, or want to own the site.
- Choose WordPress.com if you want WordPress's flexibility but do not want to deal with hosting.
- Stay on Wix but plan ahead if you are close to 100 static pages. Use dynamic pages for city content or plan a move before the quota bites.
Still unsure? Our when Wix is the right choice guide covers the cases where Wix is the better long-term call. If you want it built, our home services web design team works with both platforms.
Frequently asked questions
Is Wix good enough for a roofing or HVAC company?
For a small company serving a few towns, yes. Wix covers forms, booking and payments in one place. The limit shows up when you want dozens of city and service pages, because of the 298-page quota.
Is WordPress harder to use than Wix?
At the start, yes. You choose a host, a theme and plugins, and you keep them updated. Once it is set up, adding a new service or city page is as simple as on Wix.
Can I move my contractor site from Wix to WordPress later?
Yes, but it is a rebuild, not a one-click export. Wix says sites cannot be hosted outside its servers, so pages, forms and redirects are recreated on WordPress. Plan 301 redirects so you keep your rankings.
Which is cheaper for a contractor, Wix or WordPress?
It depends on your plugin and hosting choices. Wix Core is a single monthly subscription. A WordPress site can land in a similar range once you add hosting and a paid form plugin, or lower on WordPress.com.
