When you're thinking about your business website and general online presence, it's tempting to save money wherever you can. Website platforms like Wix, GoDaddy and Ionos are cheap and accessible, which is why so many business owners gravitate towards them. After all, you only need to spend a few quid on a website, right? Spank a quick couple of pages out and cobble a few templates together and all's dandy? But here’s the thing – going cheap on your business website can end up costing you much more in the long run. It's all about the impression you create, and it's important to remember that in this digital-first world, many of us are secret website snobs.
We’ve worked with many clients who've contacted us feeling frustrated with their Wix, GoDaddy or Ionos websites. They’d spent time and money, but weren’t seeing results. Low traffic, slow site speed, poor conversions and generic designs were all common complaints. In contrast, platforms like Webflow allow you to create custom, high-performing websites that are built to look sleek and professional, without a crazy price tag or the complexity of all the plug-ins you get from a Wordpress site.
In this article, we'll break down why cheap website builders like Wix, GoDaddy and Ionos don’t make the cut – and what you can do instead.
Wix looks easy, but it’s a false economy
Wix markets itself as the hassle-free solution for beginners, and it's very true that dragging and dropping elements onto a page feels delightfully simple at first. But if you're serious about growing a business, Wix quickly runs out of road.
Design restrictions
While Wix offers hundreds of templates, most free or very low cost options are rigid templates that aren't designed around conversion rate optimisation (CRO) or tailored user journeys. Worse, running a business on a free or sub-domain like yourbusiness.wixsite.com immediately undermines your credibility. It tells prospective customers that you cut corners on your digital presence. Which poses a question: if you won't invest in a dedicated web presence, why should clients invest in you?
Modern SEO and performance issues
There's a common misconception that Wix completely blocks search engine crawlers or lacks basic SEO tools like custom page titles and sitemaps. While Wix has added basic SEO settings in recent years, the real technical nightmare lies under the hood.
A main issue is bloated or 'hidden code'. Think of building a website like packing for a road trip. A clean website packs only what it needs in a neat suitcase. Wix, on the other hand, packs the entire house... throwing in extra code, unused scripts and heavy files just to render a basic page. Search engines and browsers have to dig through all that digital clutter before they can actually display your site, which drags things down in terms of time. Extra baggage in the background means that pages load slowly (especially on mobile). Google measures how fast your main content appears and how quickly the page responds when someone taps a button. Wix sites notoriously fail these speed tests.
This can harm your business because search engines prefer fast websites. If Wix drags your loading speed down, Google is less likely to rank you at the top of search results, which means that visitors will leave before your page even finishes loading.
As your business grows, you need a flexible content management system (CMS). Wix’s database tools are extremely rigid compared to modern platforms, turning website expansion into a massive technical headache.
Hidden costs
While Wix advertises entry-level plans for a few pounds a month, those prices only apply if you commit to multi-year billing and forego essential features. As soon as you remove Wix branding, attach a custom domain, add e-commerce capabilities or set up business email, the price jumps drastically.
The biggest trap, however, is vendor lock-in. Wix is a entirely proprietary, closed-loop platform. You cannot export your code, design files or layout structure. If your business outgrows the platform or you get fed up with its performance bottlenecks, you can't simply move your site to a better host. You can't transfer a Wix site directly to another platform, leaving you the option of rebuilding your entire website from scratch.
At Haddington & Haddington, we’ve helped numerous clients migrate away from Wix after they hit these exact walls. Wix works well for personal portfolios or hobby blogs, but for a business aiming to rank, grow and convert traffic, it's a dead end.
GoDaddy: the no-frills of website builders
GoDaddy might have everything under one roof – domains, hosting, websites, email and so on (the list seems endless). But much like the famous blue and yellow low-cost branded airline we all openly hate giving our hard-earned cash to, you’re paying for the bare minimum, not quality. Any extras that make life convenient will cost you dearly. And when it comes to business websites, that trade-off just isn’t worth it.
With GoDaddy, essential items that should come as standard like basic security locks (SSL certificates), keeping your personal phone number private, or setting up a professional email address, are turned into hidden add-on costs. That £5 deal quietly turns into a £150 annual bill.
Think of cheap web hosting like a massive apartment building where the landlord has crammed ten families into a single room. GoDaddy packs thousands of websites onto the exact same server to maximise their own profits. If one neighbour's site gets a spike in visitors or runs into a problem, your website slows to a crawl. If your site takes more than two seconds to load on a phone, potential customers will leave before they even see what you sell.
With its confusing control panel, managing the back-end of GoDaddy also feels like trying to navigate a maze blindfolded. Simple routine tasks like connecting your domain name to another platform or setting up basic email forwarding are buried under layers of confusing menus, pushy ads and clunky settings. It’s designed to confuse you so you’ll give up and pay them to fix it.
Ionos: confusing, clunky and limited
Ionos (formerly 1&1) is another platform that promises affordable websites for small businesses. But behind the low price tag is a cheap platform that’s confusing to use and not built for performance.
In terms of UX, the interface is questionable, especially if you’re not tech-savvy. Customising templates feels more like working in Excel than designing a modern website. You're locked into rigid boxes, and changing simple things like moving an image or adjusting text spacing often breaks the rest of the layout. The end result is a website that looks generic, dated and unmistakably low-budget. Want to make simple changes? You’ll likely spend hours searching help docs or waiting for customer support to respond.
Ionos also features wobbly layouts that confuse Google. Ever loaded a page on your phone where the text suddenly jumps around while images load, causing you to tap the wrong button? This is called a 'layout shift'. Ionos templates are prone to this lag and instability. Google tracks these user annoyances through its speed benchmarks, meaning a clunky Ionos build actively hurts your ranking on search result pages.
Ionos is built strictly for basic, static websites. The moment your business starts expanding and you want to try more fancy features like launching a dynamic blog, connect custom booking tools or create an integration with modern marketing software, you find yourself trapped. The platform simply isn't built to scale, forcing you to rebuild your site in another platform later on.
WordPress still has a place (for the right projects)
While we love using Webflow for fast, custom, conversion-focused websites, we’ll be the first to admit that WordPress still makes a great choice for websites with complex functionality or large amounts of content.
For example, let’s say you're running a membership platform, an online course, or a blog with hundreds (or thousands) of articles. WordPress has been around for over 20 years, and in that time, its system has grown to support just about every feature imaginable through advanced content management and vast numbers of plug-ins. It also offers WooCommerce for eCommerce. The trade-offs for this though are huge. It needs regular maintenance, never-ending plug-in updates, and good hosting to keep it secure and fast. That’s where many business owners get frustrated. But if you need a super custom content platform or application-like functionality, WordPress is still a strong choice (as long as it’s managed properly).
Our verdict: you’re better off with Webflow
We love keeping stuff simple. And platforms like Webflow give you all the benefits of a custom-coded site without needing to hire a developer for every update. It's also great for building bespoke, quick SEO-optimised websites that perform across all devices. You get full control over design and branding, your website is SEO-friendly from day one, and most importantly: your site is tailored to convert visitors into customers.
Invest in your website, invest in your business
If you’re a business owner, your website is your brand’s first impression. Choosing the cheapest option might seem smart now, but it usually leads to frustration, lost traffic and wasted time down the line. If you’re tired of a slow, ugly or underperforming website, we’d love to show you how Webflow can help you do better.
