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Verified Free / Software

Is Wix actually free?

Free-ish
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

VerdictFree-ish
Card requiredNo
Auto-bills—
AccountRequired
LimitsWix ads on your site, wixsite.com subdomain
The real costYour 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: August 2026 · Verdict: Free-ish — a free tier exists, but it's shaped to squeeze you toward paying.

What users actually say

No consumer-rating consensus at scale — the free plan's reputation is set by what visitors see, not by reviewers.

What they praiseEase is the constant: people with no web experience get a real, working, responsive site up in an afternoon, hosting handled.
What they complain aboutTwo complaints dominate. The free plan puts Wix's own ad and a wixsite.com address on your site. And the template can't be swapped after you publish — a redesign means rebuilding.

The free tier is a working showroom for Wix with your content in it. Fine for learning; the moment it represents a business, the ad and the subdomain cost you more than the plan saves.

Our reading of the public review record — patterns, not quotes. Scores link to their sources above.

Visit Wix →

Was this verdict right?

Free tiers change without notice. If you have just used it, you know something we don't.

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