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Layerly vs Wix: The difference between DIY and done-for-you website builders for small businesses

Wix vs layerly cover

What Wix is built for (and where it falls short)

Every business should have a clean, user-friendly website. It builds your legitimacy and makes space for your clients or customers to find you and learn more about your business. It’s also 2025, there’s really no excuse to not have a website — whether you run a basket-weaving business or a hair salon. 

If you’re not a web designer or computer science nerd, you probably have no idea how to build a website. Luckily it’s 2025, and there are tons of tools to help you design the best website for your business.  

Today let’s compare website builder tools: Layerly and Wix.

Let’s start with Wix. 

Wix homepage

Building a small business website with Wix

Wix is a very popular tool, boasting over 250 million users in 190 countries. It’s been around for 17 years and has a reputation for being easy to use, customizable and reasonably priced. 

Premade website templates with Wix

Wix offers over 2,000+ fully customizable templates with intuitive design features. You have access to numerous features that you can add to your site as your business grows: eCommerce and scheduling capabilities, portfolio and blog options, even online courses and events tools. 

Wix AI SEO tools

It also has built-in AI and SEO tools. Wix provides a personalized SEO setup checklist so you can follow actionable steps to optimize your site for search engines. Wix allows you to use or modify default meta tags, URL structure and slugs, structured data markup and create your own SEO logic to apply across multiple pages.

Wix allows users to start building their website for free (14 day trial) before committing to a plan. All plans include a custom domain name, web hosting, AI creation tools, and 24/7 customer care. The cheapest plan starts at $17 per month, and the most expensive plan is $159 per month. 

Support with Wix

There are tons of educational resources and design inspiration on the Wix Blog, and also a lot of free business tools to explore. Wix offers 24/7 support with Wix Help Center, Helpmate and Customer Care Experts. If you need even more help, you can also hire a professional to help with anything from site creation to online growth through the Wix Marketplace.

Moving on to Layerly. 

Layerly homepage

Getting a website custom made by Layerly

Layerly allows you to sit back and relax while experts build your dream website — in as little as 5 days.  Unlike Wix, Layerly does NOT use templates. Your website is custom designed and is built to highlight what makes your business unique. 

With Layerly, you get the creativity of a top design firm, but with speed and simplicity. Layerly’s in-house design team customizes every detail of the website to match your brand, from colors and fonts to imagery and messaging. Layerly’s websites also come with free stock photos, a comment tool to quickly and easily give feedback, and unlimited free changes and edits. 

Layerly website add-ons

Layerly offers a wide range of add-ons, so your website can grow with your business. Add-ons include e-Commerce features, scheduling tools, online courses, AI-powered translations, membership options and more. 

Search engine visibility with Layerly

Layerly websites are built to be seen with SEO. All Layerly sites include Google optimization for better rankings, targeted keywords, meta titles, descriptions, sitemaps, and local SEO. While Wix gives you the tools to make your own SEO decisions, Layerly’s professional SEO team researches, compares, writes and optimizes keywords, meta titles, descriptions, and permalinks for you. Instead of spending hours learning SEO strategy, you can let Layerly handle the technical details so your site will load faster, rank higher, attract the right visitors and help your business grow.

Personalized support

Layerly offers free, unlimited U.S. based support. You’ll get personalized help from real people. You’ll work with an expert creative partner who knows your business and can guide you through design and strategy decisions. You get in-person calls via video, phone or email, whichever you prefer. You’ll also have access to Layerly Pulse — quarterly strategy sessions to review performance, suggest improvements and plan updates so your site grows with your business. 

Layerly offers simple all-in-one subscription options — no hidden fees or surprise costs. Your subscription includes a free.com domain, premium hosting, built-in security, and everything else highlighted in this review. Your website is fully managed by experts, so you have nothing to worry about. 

Layerly examples

The verdict in choosing the right website builder

While Wix has an impressive bandwidth of tools and resources, you’ll still have to invest a lot of time and effort into designing your ideal website and maintaining it. If you don’t have the time or mental capacity to go through countless templates and build a website from scratch, Layerly is a better option for you. You can skip the stress and let Layerly do the rest.

Why Layerly is the best website service for small business

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