Alien Web Design vs Wix
Wix Business is $39.77 a month including GST in Australia, which is $477 a year, every year, for as long as you are in business. Our builds start at $690 plus GST ($759 including GST), once, with twelve months of hosting included. For the first 21 months Wix is cheaper. After that it never is again. From month thirteen our side is $99 a year including GST, and that covers hosting, your domain name and ongoing SEO updates.
Both numbers are real, and the decision lives in what happens after year one. This page shows the month the two running totals cross, what the $477 buys, what happens to a Wix site the day you stop paying, and when the honest answer is to stay where you are. Every figure is Australian, checked on 2 September 2026, with its GST basis named.
What each costs, both including GST
| Option | Price | Year one | Who builds it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wix Light | $17.77/mo incl GST | $213 | You do |
| Wix Core | $29.77/mo incl GST | $357 | You do |
| Wix Business | $39.77/mo incl GST | $477 | You do |
| Wix Business Elite | $159.77/mo incl GST | $1,917 | You do |
| Alien Web Design | from $690 +GST ($759 incl) | $759 incl GST | We do |
Wix prices are the Australian list prices published on wix.com, checked 2 September 2026. They include GST. Ours excludes it, so compare $759 including GST against $477 including GST. The year-one gap is $282.
Business at $39.77 is the row this page follows, so the rest of this page follows it. One thing the table cannot show: at $690 the words are yours to supply. The design, the page structure, the hosting, the schema and the search setup are ours, and the number is fixed in writing before any work starts.
Month 21: where the lines cross
Wix Business is $477 in year one, $477 in year two and $477 in year seven. Ours is $759 once, then $99 a year including GST. Those two shapes cross once.
| Running total, incl GST | Wix Business | Alien Web Design |
|---|---|---|
| End of year one | $477 | $759 |
| Month 21 (approximately) | The two running totals draw level | |
| End of year two | $954 | $858 |
| End of year three | $1,431 | $957 |
The arithmetic is short enough to check yourself. At the end of twelve months we are $282 dearer. From there Wix charges $477 a year and we charge $99, a difference of $378 a year, or $31.50 a month running the other way. $282 divided by $378 is a bit under nine months. Nine months into year two is month 21, and that is where the two totals meet.
Month 22 is the first month a built site has cost you less than the subscription. By the end of year three the gap is $474, and it widens by another $378, at today's prices, for every year you stay in business.
If your Wix site is live, send us the address. You get a fixed written quote for the rebuild, and we will tell you how many months of Wix Business it works out to. No obligation, and if the answer is that you should stay on Wix, we will say so. Send us your Wix URL.
What $477 a year buys, and what it does not
A builder plan is software. It buys an editor, a template, hosting and somewhere to publish. The words are still yours to write. You lay the services out in the order a customer reads them. You build a page for each suburb you want jobs from, and it has to say something. That is your evening, and it is the expensive part of a website whichever way you pay for it.
That is the comparison worth making: a tool against an outcome. A tool is worth what the person holding it has the hours to do with it.
Select Coolrooms & Construction had a website before we rebuilt it. It drew roughly three unpaid visits a month. We rebuilt it around a live quote calculator wired into their CRM, and it issued $299,521 in quotes in four days. It sits at #1 for "cool room builders Sydney", a search that costs $14 a click if you buy it instead. The full numbers are in the Select Coolrooms case study.
The $99 a year is the other half of that. We keep the titles and descriptions current, keep the structured data valid, add internal links as the site grows, watch Search Console and make the changes. That is labour rather than a plan tier, and it sits inside the $99 alongside the hosting and your domain name.
What happens to a Wix site when you stop paying
This one gets repeated badly online. Wix does not delete your site. Your custom domain disconnects from it, and the site drops back to an ad-covered Wix subdomain. That is what costs you: somebody types the address off your van, or clicks your listing in Google, and does not arrive at your business.
The export is the bigger problem. Wix does not let you export a working site, so the thing you spent your weekends building cannot be picked up and carried to another host. Your text, your images and your domain name are yours. The site itself never was.
Stop paying us and nothing disconnects, because there is nothing to disconnect from. You own the code, the domain and the hosting from the day it goes live. Move to another developer or another host and you take the files with you, and we hand them over without making it a conversation. That part carries no dollar figure, which is why it rarely turns up in a price comparison.
Stay on Wix if. Move if.
A fair share of the people who ask us this question should not be paying us anything, and we would rather say so on the phone than after an invoice. Read both columns.
| Stay on Wix if | Move if |
|---|---|
| The site is a business card that is not going to change | The site has to bring in work |
| You enjoy building it, and the evenings are there | You want to be found for the suburbs and services you want jobs from |
| You want to swap a photo at 11pm without asking anyone | You have already paid Wix for two years, which is $954 gone with nothing to show a buyer |
| $17.77 a month is the entire website budget | You would like to own the thing you have been paying for |
If the right-hand column is describing you, the next thing you need is a number.
How a move from Wix works
You will worry about losing your place in Google. Four steps, and the Wix site stays live through the first three of them.
- We crawl the Wix site and list every URL. Every page, every service, every post, so you do not find a dead link in a search result six months later.
- We build the new site on your domain while Wix keeps running. Your customers see no gap. You see the finished site before anything changes hands.
- We point every old URL at its new home with a 301 redirect. That is the mechanism that carries the standing your old pages have built. We verify the redirects after launch, because before launch they prove nothing.
- We move the DNS, then you cancel Wix. In that order. Cancel first and you lose enquiries you never find out about.
Your domain name comes with you. The Wix site itself cannot be exported, so we rebuild it rather than move it, and you have the fixed price for that rebuild in writing before step one.
Where Wix wins
Three real advantages, and we would rather name them than have you find them afterwards.
- Same-day changes. You edit it yourself at 11pm without emailing anyone.
- Lower entry price. Wix Light at $17.77 a month is less than we will ever quote.
- No dependency. You are not relying on an agency still being around.
If your site is a business card that will not change, and you enjoy building things, Wix is a reasonable answer. Say so and we will tell you the same on the phone.
What the difference looks like
Two we have built, so you can judge the claim rather than take it. A Mosman chiropractor was invisible in local search; the rebuilt site now ranks first for its main local term and is named first in Google's own AI answer for "who is the best chiro in mosman", cited from its own pages. That is the AEO work this page keeps referring to, on a real site. A Sydney coolroom builder's rebuild issued $299,521 in quotes in four days through a calculator wired into their CRM, and ranks first for a search that costs $14 a click.
Neither is a template. Both are on our work page with the rest, live, so you can open them and look.
Wix questions
Is Alien Web Design cheaper than Wix?
Not in year one. Wix Business is $477 a year including GST in Australia as at 2 September 2026, and our builds start at $690 plus GST once. The difference is that ours is a one-off and you own the result, while the Wix fee continues every year and the site loses its custom domain and drops to an ad-covered subdomain if you stop paying.
What happens to a Wix site if I stop paying?
It is not deleted. Your custom domain disconnects from the site and the site drops back to an ad-covered Wix subdomain, so anyone typing your usual web address does not land on it. Wix also does not let you export a working site, so it cannot be picked up and carried to another host. Your text, your images and your domain name are yours. Stop paying us and nothing disconnects: you already own the code, the domain and the hosting, and you can take the files anywhere.
Can I move my Wix site to you?
Yes. Wix does not let you export a working site, so a move is a rebuild. We map every URL and set up 301 redirects so your existing rankings survive the change.
Can I edit the site myself, the way I can on Wix?
Yes, if that is what you want. Tell us before we start and we build it in WordPress, so you can log in and change text, photos and prices yourself. If you would rather never touch it, we hand-build it and make the changes for you. Either way the $99 a year covers hosting, your domain name and ongoing SEO updates, and you own the code and the domain.
What happens after the first twelve months?
Hosting, SSL and monitoring are included for the first twelve months. After that it is $99 a year including GST, which covers hosting, your domain name and ongoing SEO updates. You own the code and the domain either way.
Weighing up more than one builder? We have run the same arithmetic against the other three platforms.
- Alien Web Design vs Squarespace: why year one is a wash and year three is not.
- Alien Web Design vs GoDaddy: the cheapest entry tier, the tier that is a wash, and the row that is not like for like.
- Alien Web Design vs Shopify: when you need a store, and when you are paying for one you don't.
- Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and Shopify compared: all four in one table.
The $282 question
In year one the whole decision is $282. That is the gap between another year of Wix Business and a site that is built for you, structured so it can be found, handed over, and yours. You get the $282 back in year two: Wix charges $477 again, we charge $99, and you finish year two $96 in front. Everything after month 21 is you paying less for something you already own.
The build most people weigh against Wix Business is one page at $690 plus GST, or five pages at $1,490 plus GST, with the larger builds and the store above those (full package detail). Every tier includes twelve months of hosting, SSL and monitoring, and a fixed written quote before any work starts.
Send us the address of the Wix site and we will price the rebuild against it, in writing, before you commit to anything.
Get the fixed quote or call 02 9161 8000. Sydney based, 18+ years.