Is Wix actually free?
How free55/100
Value5/10
How these scores work
Free Score (0–100) follows a fixed rubric: cards up front, auto-billing, hard time cutoffs, withheld core features, and paying with your data or attention all deduct points. 90–100 truly free · 70–89 free forever · 45–69 squeezed · 15–44 trial mechanics · under 15 fake or gone. Value (0–10) is editorial: real-world worth of the free offering measured against its paid equivalent. Full rubric on the methodology page.
Sort of. You can build and publish a site free with no card — but it lives on a wixsite.com address and carries a Wix banner.
What it’s worth
Real hosting starts around $5–15/month; the free tier is a permanent demo.
What you get free
- The full drag-and-drop site builder
- Hundreds of templates
- Publishing and hosting on a wixsite.com address
In practice: a real sandbox — build and publish an actual working site today without spending a cent.
Drawbacks
- A Wix banner sits on your site
- You live at a wixsite.com address
- Builder lock-in makes leaving later painful
Also paywalled
- Your own domain name
- Removing the Wix banner from your site
- Taking payments and e-commerce
Free facts
| Verdict | Free-ish |
| Card required | No |
| Auto-bills | — |
| Account | Required |
| Limits | Wix ads on your site, wixsite.com subdomain |
| The real cost | Your site advertises Wix until you pay. |
The catch
A site that shows another company's ad and URL isn't really yours; it's a live demo you built for them. Fine for practice, not for a business.
The smart play
- Treat the free tier as a sandbox — build, learn, screenshot for a portfolio
- Never print or advertise a wixsite.com address; buy the domain before going public
- Compare first: a free Netlify site with your own ~$12 domain carries no Wix banner
More info — tap to expand
What the banner and subdomain cost you
A business on a wixsite.com address with a Wix ad reads as temporary to customers and to Google. The free tier is genuinely useful — as a build-and-learn sandbox, not a storefront.
The lock-in caveat
Wix sites don't export to other hosts; leaving means rebuilding. Decide whether you're okay marrying the platform before pouring months of content in — or build on plain HTML hosting (see Netlify) where your files are portable forever.
Last checked: July 2026 · Verdict: Free-ish — a free tier exists, but it's shaped to squeeze you toward paying.
Visit Wix →