Wix or Squarespace vs. a custom website for contractors.

Honest answer: DIY builders are fine for a hobby site or a very early-stage business testing whether they even need a web presence. Once you're relying on the site to actually book jobs, the tradeoffs start costing you more than the money you saved.

Where Wix and Squarespace hold up:

• Low upfront cost and fast to get something live
• Fine for a single-page "we exist, here's our number" presence
• No coding knowledge required to make small text edits yourself

Where they fall short for a trades business specifically:

• Templates look like every other contractor site using the same template — nothing distinguishes you
• Page speed suffers from builder bloat, and slow mobile load times hurt both rankings and conversions
• Limited control over the exact structure Google rewards — dedicated pages per service and per town are harder to set up cleanly
• Lead capture is usually a generic contact form, not one built around how a homeowner actually decides to call a contractor

The real cost of a DIY builder isn't the monthly fee — it's the leads that never convert because the site didn't build enough trust or wasn't structured to be found in the first place. If you're past the "just testing the waters" stage, a custom build pays for itself in booked jobs.