Why the platform decision matters
The platform you build your Townsville website on decides how much it will cost over 5 years, who can touch it, whether your search rankings survive a migration and whether you actually own the site. Picking the wrong platform is the most common mistake I see in Townsville small business websites.
Wix
Wix is the easiest to start. The drag and drop editor is genuinely intuitive and you can have a basic site live the same afternoon you sign up. It costs $14 to $39 a month depending on the plan and includes hosting, SSL and a basic domain.
The trade offs: every page lives inside Wix’s platform. You cannot move a Wix site to WordPress, Shopify or anywhere else without a complete rebuild. SEO has improved over the last 5 years but is still 10 to 30 percent weaker than WordPress for the same content. Customisation beyond what Wix’s editor offers is impossible. Wix raised prices in 2024 with no path to opt out.
For a Townsville sole trader who wants something live this week and does not care about ranking on Google, Wix is fine. For anyone planning to scale, it is the wrong choice.
Squarespace
Squarespace has the prettiest default templates of the three. Plans run $16 to $52 a month. The editor is more constrained than Wix but the output looks more polished. Good for portfolios, photographers, designers and lifestyle brands in Townsville and on Magnetic Island.
The trade offs: same lock in problem as Wix. Same SEO weaknesses. Limited third party integrations compared to WordPress. Difficult to extend with custom functionality. Customer support is slow.
If your Townsville business is visually driven (wedding photography, interior design, gallery) and you do not need much beyond what Squarespace offers out of the box, it is a defensible choice. For most service businesses, no.
WordPress
WordPress runs more than 40 percent of every website on the internet. For a Townsville business in 2026 that translates to: any developer in the world can take over your site if needed, the largest plugin ecosystem so almost any feature you want already exists, the strongest SEO output of any platform and full ownership of the site (you can move hosts, change developers and download the database any time).
The trade offs: there is a learning curve. The editor (Elementor or Gutenberg) is more powerful than Wix and Squarespace but takes more setup. You manage your own hosting (typically $15 to $25 a month from a specialist host like SiteGround or Hostinger). You are responsible for plugin and theme updates unless you sign up for a maintenance plan.
For 80 to 90 percent of Townsville small businesses, WordPress is the right call. The lock in risk on Wix and Squarespace is the single biggest reason to choose otherwise.
5 year cost comparison for a small Townsville business
Wix: 5 years of Premium plan at $20 a month equals $1200, plus $200 a year for premium templates and apps equals $2200 total. You do not own the site at the end.
Squarespace: 5 years of Business plan at $23 a month equals $1380, plus $150 a year for integrations equals $2130 total. You do not own the site at the end.
WordPress (sole specialist build): $2200 build plus 5 years of hosting at $20 a month plus 5 years of maintenance at $59 a month equals $7140 total. You own everything and the site grows with the business.
The WordPress total looks higher but you got a much more capable site that you actually own. Wix and Squarespace look cheap on paper, expensive in lost rankings and migration costs when you outgrow them.
Migration realities
I migrate 4 to 6 Townsville businesses a year off Wix or Squarespace onto WordPress. The reasons are always the same: SEO is not working, the editor cannot do what is needed, prices went up or the business outgrew the platform.
Migration cost is typically the same as a fresh Complete Website build ($2200) because the content has to be rewritten anyway and the new structure needs to be built from scratch. Old Wix URLs cannot be cleanly redirected so some SEO is lost. Best to pick the right platform first time.
What I recommend for Townsville
Use WordPress unless you specifically need what Squarespace offers (portfolio, photography, lifestyle) and you are sure the business will stay on that visual brand for 5 years. Avoid Wix for anything you plan to keep beyond 2 years.