Choosing a website platform can feel unnecessarily complicated, especially when you are already trying to run a business, work with clients and keep up with everything else that comes with being self-employed.
Wix, Squarespace and WordPress are three of the most common options, and each one can work well in the right situation. The better question is not, “Which platform is best?” It is, “Which platform is best for the kind of business I am building?”
For coaches, healers, therapists and holistic practitioners, the right choice usually comes down to how much flexibility you need, how much control you want, how comfortable you are managing the site yourself, and how much you expect the business to grow.
What should you consider before choosing a website platform?
Before looking at the platforms themselves, it helps to get clear on what your website actually needs to do.
If you only need a simple online presence with a few pages, a contact form and a basic booking link, you may not need a highly flexible platform. If, on the other hand, you want to build a content library, sell digital products, offer memberships, create landing pages, connect booking systems, run a blog and strengthen your SEO over time, your needs are very different.
Think about the business you have now, but also the business you are likely to have in two or three years. One of the most frustrating website problems is choosing a platform that works beautifully at the beginning and then feels restrictive as the business evolves.
Is Wix good for coaches, healers and therapists?
Wix can be a very accessible starting point. It is visual, relatively easy to use and designed for people who want to build a website without touching code.
For a solo practitioner who needs a straightforward website with a homepage, About page, services, booking information and contact details, Wix can do the job perfectly well. It also includes a growing range of built-in tools for things such as bookings, payments and basic email marketing.
The advantage is simplicity. You can choose a template, edit the content visually and get something live relatively quickly.
The downside is that businesses often outgrow it. As your site becomes more complex, you may find yourself working around the platform rather than with it. Moving away from Wix later can also be more involved because the site is built within Wix’s own ecosystem.
Wix is often a good choice when speed and ease matter more than long-term flexibility.
Is Squarespace good for spiritual or holistic businesses?
Squarespace is popular with creative and visually led businesses because its templates are polished and consistent. It is especially good if you want a clean, beautiful site without needing to spend much time on technical setup.
For coaches, photographers, therapists and holistic practitioners with relatively simple offers, Squarespace can work very well.
The platform makes it fairly easy to create attractive pages, add a blog, connect basic ecommerce and present services in a polished way.
The main limitation is flexibility. Squarespace gives you a strong structure, but that structure can become restrictive if your business later needs more bespoke functionality or a more complex client journey.
It is often a strong choice for someone who wants their website to look good quickly and does not expect to need a lot of custom development.
Is WordPress good for coaches, healers and therapists?
WordPress is a very different kind of platform because it gives you far more ownership and flexibility.
It can support a simple five-page website, but it can also grow into something much more complex. You can add ecommerce, memberships, booking systems, courses, directories, digital products, advanced SEO tools and almost any custom functionality you may need.
That flexibility is why WordPress remains such a strong option for service-based businesses that expect to grow.
The trade-off is that WordPress requires more setup and more maintenance. You need hosting, themes, plugins, updates, backups and security. If you are building it yourself, there can be a steeper learning curve than with Wix or Squarespace.
But when it is set up properly, WordPress gives you much more control over how the website develops over time.
Which platform is easiest to use?
Wix is probably the easiest for a complete beginner who wants to drag and drop a site together quickly.
Squarespace is also beginner-friendly, but its structure is a little more controlled. That can be a positive if you do not want too many decisions.
WordPress takes more learning, especially at the beginning. However, once the site is professionally built, managing the day-to-day content can be very straightforward.
For many of my clients, the issue is not whether they can technically use the platform. It is whether they want to spend their time building and fixing websites at all.
That is an important distinction.
Which platform gives you the most control?
WordPress gives you the most control by a considerable margin.
You own the site files, choose the hosting, choose the plugins, control the structure and are not tied into one closed website builder.
Wix and Squarespace are hosted platforms. That makes them convenient, but it also means you are building inside their system.
For many small businesses, that is completely fine. But if ownership, portability and long-term flexibility matter to you, WordPress is stronger.
Which platform is best for SEO?
All three platforms can be optimised for search.
A platform alone does not guarantee SEO results.
What matters more is the quality of the content, the structure of the pages, the search intent behind the copy, the technical health of the site, page speed, mobile usability and how clearly the website communicates what the business does.
WordPress does offer more flexibility when it comes to SEO tools and technical control. Plugins such as Rank Math or Yoast can help manage metadata, schema, sitemaps and other search settings more easily.
That can be useful if SEO is going to become an important part of your long-term marketing.
However, a poorly structured WordPress site will not outperform a well-written, well-organised Squarespace site simply because it is WordPress.
The strategy matters more than the platform.
Which is best if I want to blog regularly?
All three can support a blog, but WordPress was originally built around publishing and still handles content very well.
If blogging is going to be central to your visibility strategy, WordPress gives you more control over categories, internal linking, metadata, content structure and SEO.
Squarespace has a perfectly usable blogging system, particularly for lighter content strategies.
Wix also supports blogging, although it can feel more limited if you start building a large content library.
If you are planning to create ten, twenty or fifty useful articles over the next few years, it is worth thinking about how easy that content will be to organise and manage later.
Which platform is best for bookings?
All three can support bookings, although the setup differs.
Wix has its own booking tools.
Squarespace connects neatly with Acuity Scheduling.
WordPress can integrate with a wide range of booking systems, including Acuity, Calendly and specialist WordPress plugins.
The important thing is not simply whether a platform has a booking system. It is whether that booking system suits the way you actually work.
Some businesses need direct appointment booking. Others need an enquiry or discovery call before a client can purchase.
The website should reflect your real client journey rather than forcing you into a system that does not suit the business.
Which platform is best if I want to sell digital products?
If you only want to sell a few simple digital products, all three can potentially support that.
For more complex ecommerce, WordPress gives you significantly more options. WooCommerce, membership plugins, course platforms and payment integrations can all be added as the business grows.
That makes WordPress particularly useful if your website may eventually become more than a service brochure.
If digital products are likely to become a meaningful part of your business, think carefully before choosing a platform based only on what you need today.
Which platform is cheapest?
This is where comparisons can become misleading.
Wix and Squarespace usually bundle hosting and the website builder into a monthly or annual fee.
WordPress itself is free, but you still need hosting, a domain and potentially paid themes or plugins.
A DIY WordPress site may be inexpensive.
A professionally designed WordPress site is a larger upfront investment.
The real question is not simply which platform has the lowest monthly cost. It is which one gives you the right balance of cost, flexibility and longevity.
A cheaper website that has to be rebuilt in twelve months is not always the cheaper option.
What if I already have a Wix or Squarespace website?
You do not need to move platforms simply because WordPress offers more flexibility.
If your current site is working, your clients can find what they need and the platform supports the direction of the business, there may be no reason to change.
A platform move should solve a problem.
Perhaps your current site has become difficult to expand.
Perhaps you want more control over SEO.
Perhaps you need functionality your existing platform cannot easily support.
Perhaps the structure has become too restrictive.
Those are practical reasons to consider moving.
Changing platforms purely because someone told you one is “better” is rarely enough.
What if I am starting from scratch?
If you are just starting out and want something simple, Wix or Squarespace may be perfectly adequate.
If you already know you want a website that can grow with the business, support a strong content strategy and adapt as your offers evolve, WordPress may be worth investing in from the beginning.
The key is to be honest about what you want the website to become.
If you know you are likely to add a membership, digital products, courses, multiple services or a large blog later, choosing a more flexible foundation now can save a lot of frustration.
Why I build with WordPress
Creative Witch Designs works primarily with WordPress because I like the flexibility it gives both the business and the website.
My clients often have businesses that do not sit neatly inside one box. They may combine coaching, healing, retreats, workshops, digital products and several ways of working. Their websites need room to evolve.
WordPress allows me to build that flexibility into the site from the beginning rather than forcing the business into a rigid template.
That does not make WordPress the right answer for everyone.
It simply means it aligns well with the kind of businesses I work with.
So which platform should you choose?
Choose Wix if you want something straightforward, accessible and relatively quick to set up.
Choose Squarespace if visual polish and simplicity matter most and your website needs are unlikely to become highly complex.
Choose WordPress if you want greater flexibility, ownership and room for the site to grow alongside the business.
The best platform is the one that supports the way you want to work, rather than creating more problems for you to solve.
Your website should be an asset to the business.
Not another job you have accidentally given yourself.