wix business plans uk

• Website Builders /

Wix Pricing 2024: Costs and Hidden Fees

• Wix pricing plans comparison

Wix Business

Wix business elite, does wix charge transaction fees.

• Does Wix Have a Free Plan?
• Wix fees and hidden costs

How to get it cheaper: Wix deals and discounts

• Wix pricing versus competitors' pricing
• Expert Verdict

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Wix is a website builder that allows you to create a basic website for free. It also offers five paid plans, namely Light, Core, Business, Business Elite and Enterprise. Paid annually, the monthly cost of the first four plans range from £7.50 to £199 per month. The Enterprise pricing is bespoke based on your needs.

Wix previously listed pricing if you chose to pay monthly instead of annually but doesn’t list these prices on its website as of January 2024.

Our team of experts have combed through each plan in detail to find the key features, the type of person each plan will suit, and any costs and hidden fees outside the subscription fee.

Our goal is to ensure you pick the right plan for your business needs. We’ve previously selected Wix as one of the best websites builders for UK businesses .

As well as launching its AI writer tool this year, Wix has recently partnered with Forter to better protect sellers against payment fraud. Although its stock price has dropped drastically since 2021 peak, it remains a major website platform with strong long-term revenue growth.

But unlike most digital products right now, Wix ‘s recent pricing changes have not been straight skyward. Although Wix has increased its prices between now and last year, the rebrand of pricing plans this year includes more storage space for no additional cost.

Pivoting sharply towards business users, Wix pricing plans are now almost entirely geared towards online sellers , with just one plan – Wix Lite – available without online payment features.

Throughout this article, we’ve listed pricing as Wix publishes it. That means VAT is not included , and will be added at the checkout.

Wix Pricing: How much does Wix cost?

Browsing through Wix price plans was a bit mind-boggling last year, as you had eight separate plans to wade through. Now there are just four (plus the Enterprise option), and it’s much easier to pick and choose the plan you need.

Click the arrows to scroll through the table and compare all the price plans.

Pricing correct as of January 2024

Like most website builder companies, Wix offers a free trial of 14 days plus a 14-day money back guarantee on all premium plans so you can test out a price plan to see whether it’s the right fit.

All of Wix’s plans have been replaced with different offerings. For instance, Wix has dropped its “Connect Domain” and “Combo” plans to replace them with “Light” and “Core.” We’ll look in detail at each of these in the sections below.

Overall, Wix’s pricing changes mean it now offers more storage space for the same price . This was sorely needed, as many of Wix’s competitors offered a lot more storage for lower costs.

And you can still get unlimited storage with Squarespace from £12 per month (paying for one year upfront). You’ll only get the equivalent from Wix at its £119-per-month tier (on an annual billing cycle).

For a detailed breakdown of features, check out our Wix review .

Let’s take a closer look at Wix Light, next.

A new Wix feature that we love is the AI text generator – watch the video above for a quick demonstration. You simply type in a few phrases for inspiration, select the type of text you need, then choose from three auto-generated options.

• What: Create a basic website to promote services
• Who: Small businesses or micro entrepreneurs
• Why: Capture basic customer data with online forms
• How much: £7.50 per month (paying for one year upfront) – discounts available for two or three years’ prepayment

The Wix Light plan costs £7.50 per month if you pay for one year upfront, otherwise the month-to-month cost is £10.50. You’ll get an easy-to-use website builder without any sales features.

This plan is only really suitable for basic business purposes – a place customers can find your email address and some photos when they Google your name. Therefore it’s a decent option for local businesses with a smaller budget such as repair services, car dealerships, antique shops, and local services like tree surgery or dog walking.

The now-retired “Combo” plan was £7.50 per month, and used to plaster your Wix website with branded adverts. That generally created a pretty amateurish look.

But the new “Light” plan gives your website a more professional look. Although the storage space remains the same at 2GB, there are no Wix branded adverts for the same price of £7.50 a month.

Wix’s Connect Domain plan (£4 per month) is now no longer available. The cheapest premium plan for Wix used to offer just 500MB of storage space with no free domain offer (the idea being you “connect your own domain”).

It had been the cheapest plan not to offer Wix ads. Now Wix’s lowest price premium offer is Wix Light at £7.50 per month (paying for one year upfront).

Who do we recommend Wix Lite for?

However, as this plan is quite basic, it doesn’t offer any real audience engagement features. If you’re a small business who wants an open channel to talk to customers, look at Wix Core. It’s the next tier up that still is suitable for small businesses but with a better customer service offering.

What:  An affordable online store with solid sales features Who: Smaller retailers starting a small store Why: Customers can create an account to store payment and delivery details How much: £14 per month (paying for one year upfront) – discount available for two or three years’ prepayment

For £6.50 more per month (or roughly two iced coffees), you can buy Wix Core , and open up a whole range of retail opportunities compared with Wix Light. While Wix Light provides little more than a nice place to host images and collect customer emails, Wix Core allows you to set up a fully fledged online store.

You can sell a wide range of product types , including digital artwork, video, and audio. You can sell subscriptions affordably on the Wix Core plan, unlike Squarespace , which requires an upgrade to its $49 per month Commerce Advanced plan.

Wix Core doesn’t neatly replace any of its previous plans, but its 50GB storage space for £14 per month (paying for one year in advance) is more generous than the (now unavailable) Wix VIP, which cost £21 per month (on an annual billing cycle) and offered just 35GB of storage.

Another change is the introduction of a new webchat feature to interact with your site’s customers. That’s particularly useful for businesses in retail, as it provides a convenient customer service channel in case any questions are holding back a purchase decision.

It’s the lowest Wix pricing tier to offer site analytics as well, providing you with tips on how to improve traffic (the flow of visitors) to your website.

However, there are lots of limitations, making it unsuitable for more ambitious online merchants. For instance, you can’t collect product reviews , nor can you sell in multiple currencies. You don’t get access to shipping features like the ability to print shipping labels and manage fulfilment.

So you’ll need to arrange your own delivery processes  and keep a handle on orders without much automation from Wix’s side.

Who do we recommend Wix Core for?

In the pricing plan section on the Wix website, the tagline for Wix Core is “engage your audience” and the plan does offer tools to talk with your customers through your website. The webchat feature is an example of this. As well as that, the basic analytics offered allows you to see where your audience is visiting the site most.

This plan is still suitable for entrepreneurs and small businesses but is still limited in its features offering. For example, if you need to reach an overseas customer base, you won’t be able to with Wix Core. It doesn’t offer the ability to print shipping labels or sell in different currencies. If you’re an ambitious business who is looking to scale overseas,it’s recommended that you look at the next tier, Wix Business.

What: Organise and automate your sales process Who: Online sellers looking to scale up Why: Order fulfilment tools such as shipping label printing How much: £20 per month (paying for one year upfront) – discount available for two or three years’ upfront payment

Wix still has a £20 per month tier (formerly “Business Unlimited”, with 35GB storage) which has been replaced by “Business” with 100GB storage . Other aspects of this plan have stayed the same: you can print shipping labels, connect shipping apps, and enjoy automated tax calculation for 100 orders per month.

That means this is the plan for small business leaders who are truly looking to scale up , and expand their product offerings. On the other hand, smaller local businesses or micro entrepreneurs selling handmade trinkets or offering one-to-one services at very low volumes would do just fine with Wix Core, instead.

Wix Business costs £23 if you’d rather pay on a monthly billing cycle.

Wix allows you to sell a maximum of 50,000 products across any of its price plans. So if you want to scale up beyond that, we recommend you check out our Shopify pricing review instead.

One of the few limitations of this plan are that you can’t implement a loyalty program (with points, coupons, rewards, etc.). But other than that, it’s a genuinely great value option for online selling. You’ll be able to collect up to 1,000 customer reviews, which are vital for helping users to trust your site .

We recommend Wix Business for merchants with their sights set on overseas sales in particular, because of the following features:

• Sell in six currencies
• Build multiple websites
• Manage five locations from one account
• 10 staff accounts with custom roles for each

These features gives you extra control over website permissions, meaning you can set up your staff to collaborate effectively on various websites.

Who do we recommend Wix Business for?

Wix Business offers a lot more features for a small business who is looking to scale up and expand their customer base. The ability to print shipping labels and connect to shipping apps means you can reach more customers globally.

For example, if you’re a UK based business who wants to start shipping your products around the world, this is the plan for you. And, if you are selling to a wider customer base, you likely will have more staff on board to manage this. Wix Business allows you to assign up to 10 staff accounts to your team.

Wix Business is great for businesses in that first stage of scaling their business. However it’s limited in some areas, notably the limit of 100GB storage space and standard site analytics. If you feel these features aren’t keeping up with your growth, look at the next tier, Wix Business Elite, which has unlimited storage and advanced site analytics.

• What: Expand an established online store
• Who: Fast-moving SMB retailers with some experience under their belt
• Why: Priority customer support
• How much: £119 per month (paying for one year upfront) – discounts available for two or three years’ prepayment

If your online sales are steady, your brand is gaining popularity, and you’re looking to expand Wix Business Elite is a decent option for expansion support. At £119 per month (paying for one year upfront), it’s certainly more affordable than Shopify Advanced at £344 per month (annual billing cycle).

“Business Elite” is a new higher-priced subscription tier from the brand. Formerly, Wix’s most expensive plans (before the Enterprise level) were £21 and £27 per month (on an annual billing cycle). So this new plan represents a ten times price increase for upgrades including unlimited storage space  (the maximum used to be 50GB with Business VIP).

You’ll get priority customer support with Business Elite. This is the biggest price increase in any Wix service – formerly, you could get priority customer support for £27 per month (annual billing) with Business VIP.

We’d recommend Wix Business Elite for retailers in industries where speedy problem solving is vital to successful operations. If you’re selling pricier items (perhaps with customisation), your clientele are going to expect better customer service than a smalltime seller on eBay.

You’re more likely to be able to provide rapid issue resolution with the phone support from Wix that you get at this tier. We have to say it’s a bit cheeky to charge so much for access to phone support, given IONOS offers this at all levels.

Square Online offers 9-5 phone support on working days across all of its price plans – including its free one. Suffice to say it’s not hard to find competitors with more affordable customer support on the blower than Wix.

Who do we recommend Wix Business Elite for?

We’d recommend Wix Business Elite for retailers in industries where speedy problem solving is vital to successful operations. If you’re selling pricier items (perhaps with customisation), your clientele are going to expect better customer service than a small-time seller on eBay.

Wix’s major value advantage is  not charging any transaction fees (unlike Shopify, for instance).

However, you’ll need to pay for processing fees to third-party payment gateways, as is usual throughout retail. Wix will invoice you for these at the end of the month. Here are the rates:

• Credit or debit card with Wix Payments: 2.1% + 20p
• Apply Pay: 2.1% + 20p
• Chargeback fee: £15

It’s worth noting that Shopify’s chargeback fee is only £10, compared with Wix’s £15.

We go through competitors and their differences more thoroughly in our complete guide to the  best online sales platforms for small businesses . Click over there now to find out if Shopify or Wix took the trophy, overall.

• Wix now offers fast checkout with Google Pay.
• Tap to pay on Android is now available on Wix.
• A Site-Level SEO assistant is now available to asses the SEO health of your site.

Does Wix have a free plan?

Yes, Wix has a free plan, so you can design and publish your own website at no cost. Here are the limitations of the Wix free plan:

• URL contains “youraccountname.wixsite.com”
• Wix ads on every page
• 500MB of storage space
• Can’t take online payments
• No Google analytics

Wix also has a 14-day free trial so you can test its premium web builder free of charge. There’s a money-back guarantee for the first two weeks of any paid subscription as well.

Wix fees and costs: Billing cycles, ongoing costs and hidden fees

As well as the subscription price, there are some additional costs you should be aware of.

Wix billing cycles

You can choose to pay one of four ways: monthly, annually, once per two years  or once every three years . Of these, the discounts are bigger if you pick the latter.

Be aware that subscriptions are on auto-renew, so you should set a reminder for when your billing period is coming to an end.  Annual and biannual plans are renewed 14 days prior to the plan’s expiry date.

Additional Wix website costs:

The following additional charges may appear on your invoice from Wix:

• Custom domain name: approx £8-£48 a year
• Business email with Google: cost depends on price plan
• Paid apps (integrations)
• Third-party payment processing fees
• Mandatory taxes – including VAT

Bear in mind that if you bought a subscription while it was discounted, it will renew at the regular (higher) rate.

Wix frequently offers 50% off deals, which is a great chance to save on outgoings. However, if there isn’t one and you’re looking to buy then here’s a discount code: TAKE10 for 10% off a subscription.

The second way to save is to opt for longer subscription plans. Paying month-to-month is the most expensive way to use Wix, so you’ll save money in the long-run if you spend more upfront.

Wix pricing versus competitors’ pricing

If you’re looking to sell cheaply online, you’re probably wondering whether or not to choose Wix. To help solve this riddle, we’ve put together a comparison chart of Wix and its competitors’ lowest price plans for selling online without platform ads.

You can directly compare their features by clicking the left and right arrows:

As you can see from the above, the cheapest Wix plan does not offer all the features you’d need for a global sales set-up. For instance, Wix Core doesn’t allow you to sell in multiple currencies. You’d need to upgrade to Wix Business for that capability.

Yet if you’re purely looking at the cheapest way to sell online without adverts, Wix Core is a better deal than Squarespace Business, because the latter costs £3 more per month in subscription fees  and   charges 3% transaction fees on top of payment processing costs.

And while Wix Core doesn’t offer unlimited products like Squarespace Business , it does allow you to sell on Facebook and Instagram. This feature isn’t available on Squarespace Business and for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs, the ability to sell on social media is crucial.

Our Methodology

Our team of experts test each plan under different criteria to find out the pros and cons of each plan and which type of business owner suits which plan best. Overall Wix scored highest in our testing of the most popular website builders on the market, achieving a score of 4.9.

Our years of experience testing website builders and gathering feedback from end users have given us a keen insight into what to look for in a great builder. During our research and testing we look at the following criteria like website features, value for money, help and support, customer score, and ease of use.

Wix offers a healthy balance between attractive design options, time-saving AI tools, and reliable online selling options. We recommend small businesses looking to sell products and services sign up for a Wix free trial to try out its premium features.

There are a lot of great things to say about Wix, including that it offers the most affordable website builder price plans on the market today. Yet, there are limitations you get with Wix that you don’t with its competitors. These are:

• Limited storage space
• Limited product listing (max 50,000)
• Limited customer reviews
• Can’t print shipping labels on Wix Core plan

Still, Wix has a free plan you can use to publicise your local business or commercial project. However, this will come with Wix-branded adverts and you won’t be able to take payments from customers at this level.

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Reviewed by:.

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• Website builders

Wix website cost: Everything you need to know about Wix plans and pricing

• Nik Rawlinson

With plans for individuals, businesses and enterprises, Wix has an option for every user – at a range of prices

Wix.com is a web-centred software company based in Tel Aviv. Its headline product is a web publishing platform, operated under the Wix.com brand, which it runs alongside several subsidiary services and products. One of the best known of these is the art-focused social network, DeviantArt, which it acquired in 2017.

If you’re planning to launch a site and are weighing up your options, Wix – as one of the biggest names on the net – may well be on your shortlist. But, with several plans to choose from, you may be wondering which will best suit your needs.

Here, we will guide you through the various options, and what you get at each price point.

Get started with Wix now

What services does Wix provide?

Wix offers a wide range of internet publishing services, with a focus on simplifying the process of getting online and producing content. It does this by centralising all of the tools required to create and administer the site for use through the browser, rather than requiring customers to build their site off-line before uploading it.

Users can get a head start by picking from one of the 900+ free website templates that are included with an account, or opt for a blank page if they want to build something unique. Templates cater for a wide range of site types, including blogs, portfolios and online stores.

As well as providing the web-based software required to build web pages, Wix manages the site’s underlying hosting, and lets users either register a new domain or connect one that they already own to their Wix account.

Wix services are charged for, with different tiers for regular website hosting, setting up an online store, and enterprise use.

READ NEXT: Best website builders

How much does it cost to host a website on Wix?

Wix has four price plans for regular website hosting, starting with the most basic Connect Domain option at £4/mth. Although inexpensive, this doesn’t buy you many features, with just 500MB of web space and 1GB of bandwidth. Your site will also carry Wix branding.

If you can afford an additional £3.50/mth, you can opt for the Combo plan for personal users. This is free of Wix branding, offers double the bandwidth, and gives you 3GB of web space in which to play. You also get storage for 30 minutes of video and a free domain for your first year.

Wix claims that its most popular package is the £11/mth Unlimited tier for entrepreneurs and freelancers. The “unlimited” moniker refers to the uncapped bandwidth, not the web space, which runs to 10GB; or the video storage, which allows for an hour. Aside from that, it shares all of the features of the Combo plan, with the added benefit of a year’s visitor analytics, and one-year benefit from Site Booster, which aims to improve your performance in Google and other directories.

There’s only one option beyond this, called VIP , which costs £21/mth. As well as unlimited bandwidth, it lets you host five hours of video, alongside 35GB of regular data in your web space. You get all the benefits of the Unlimited plan, plus a professional logo design over which you will own full commercial rights, in more than 40 different sizes for use across various social media channels.

All tiers include round-the-clock customer care, but users on the VIP plan benefit from higher-level support and the ability to skip the queue.

What does it cost to run a business on Wix?

Wix has three plans aimed specifically at businesses. These build on the features of the regular website hosting plans, so that users can accept online payments.

All of the plans benefit from unlimited bandwidth and a range of essential ecommerce features. These include abandoned cart recovery, the ability to list up to 50,000 products (including those that require ongoing payments), a free domain (for one year), the ability to create customer accounts, social selling, and, of course, payment processing. Accounts also include a dedicated phone number through which you can send text messages to remind clients about upcoming bookings – so long as their phones have a UK, US or Canadian number.

Your visitors can pay for products, services and subscriptions using Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB and Diners, with processing fees varying according to country. If your customers opt for a credit card, debit card or Apple Pay, you will be charged 2.1% of the transaction cost plus 20p in the UK. You will also pay 2.5% commission on any tickets you sell through your store; but if the tickets are free, this commission doesn’t apply.

Beyond this, there are significant differences between the three business options, so it’s important you choose the one that best suits your organisation.

Business Basic

Business Basic is the entry-level plan. It costs £15/mth and includes 20GB of web space, on top of hosting five hours of video that you could use to show off the best features of your products. You can also generate up to 25 lead capture forms, such as quizzes and registration forms, with up to 50 fields apiece.

Business Unlimited

However, there are several features missing from Business Basic, such as currency conversion for international customers, the ability to offer subscriptions, shipping label printing, and the ability to sell on external marketplaces. Each of these is included in the £20/mth Business Unlimited plan, which Wix claims is the most popular of its three business packages.

Business Unlimited also benefits from an additional 15GB of web space, twice the amount of video storage as you get with Business Basic, the option to create up to 75 lead capture forms with 75 fields each, and automatic sales tax calculation for most currencies on 100 transactions per month. You can also gather up to 1,000 reviews through Kudobuzz and integrate with Modalyst’s drop-shipping services to increase your product range by up to 250 items without having to hold stock.

Business VIP

Finally, there’s Business VIP. As with the regular VIP hosting plans for non-commerce websites, this lets you skip the queue for support. However, that isn’t the only benefit you get in return for £27/mth. Its web space is capped at a generous 50GB and, as well as unlimited bandwidth, you get unlimited video storage, 150 lead capture forms (with up to 100 fields each), and the ability to create custom reports that will deliver greater insight into the performance of your business, helping you make more effective decisions.

You can sell an unlimited number of products using Modalyst drop shipping, gather 3,000 reviews, and offer points, discounts and coupons to loyal customers through Smile.io.

What does enterprise hosting cost on Wix?

Enterprise-level hosting is more difficult to quantify than regular website or ecommerce hosting. That’s because it’s tailored to the specific needs of the business that’s paying for it. Since no two businesses are quite the same, each plan should be discussed with the host and uniquely formulated, then maintained and adapted over time.

Not surprisingly, then, Wix doesn’t disclose its enterprise hosting prices online, since it would be impossible to offer even guidance, let alone fixed costs. Potential customers therefore need to request a call with a Wix representative , who will talk through their requirements and work with engineers to formulate a bespoke package.

Wix website builder review 2024: should you build a site on Wix?

Our research

Written and reviewed by:.

Our independent reviews are funded in part by affiliate commissions, at no extra cost to our readers.

• Website Features 4.9
• Design Functionality 4.4
• Value for money 3.4
• Help and support 4.8
• Customer Score 4.8
• Ease of Use 4.4
• Wix is simple to use , even if you’ve never created a website before
• Hundreds of professional-looking templates mean you can create an impressive website with ease
• An AI assistant tool can build you a website in minutes
• You can customise elements intuitively , adding your own logo, text and imagery, and choose which template pages to keep or add
• Wix is a great ecommerce platform for building an online store, letting you manage inventory and track sales all within the platform
• Pricing plans are competitive , and you can build a simple business site for under £100 per year

Based on our extensive testing, Wix is the best web builder for creating a business website. Whether you need to build a mouth-watering restaurant website, an online store that can drive huge sales, or simply a professional-looking landing page or two that describes your business and how to get in touch, you’ll find a Wix template ready-to-go.

As well as some brilliant designs and helpful features to get you started (even as a novice) there are plenty of powerful add-ons and tools under the hood. On top of this, the affordable Wix pricing plans mean you can create and run a business site for under £100 per year.

Wix is incredibly easy to use, and in our extensive testing, we sought feedback from novices to building websites, who – reassuringly – got on comfortably with the Wix platform. This makes it perfect for small business owners that don’t have time to learn complex code when designing their website.

To help you figure out whether Wix meets your needs, this review will take an honest look at the pros and cons of using Wix to create small business websites, as well as what it would cost you.

Creating a site with Wix: Startups.co.uk video overview:

This Wix website builder review will cover:

• What's it like building a website with Wix?
• How much does Wix cost?

How easy to use is Wix?

• Wix website features

Wix versus key competitors

• How did we evaluate Wix web builder for small businesses?
• Wix web builder review: The verdict

What’s it like building a website with Wix?

• Huge number of templates: 800+ including multiple ready-made templates for various industries
• Easy-to-use website builder: Drag-and-drop interface with no coding required, ideal for beginners.
• Mobile-friendly design: Ensures your website looks great and functions smoothly on all devices, crucial for reaching a mobile audience.
• Built-in SEO tools: Helps improve your website’s search engine ranking for better online visibility.
• App Market: Wide range of apps to add various functionalities like forms, bookings, email marketing, and more.
• AI-powered content creation : Generate headlines, descriptions, and short product descriptions to save time and effort.
• Blog features: Create and manage a blog to share news, updates, and engage with your audience.
• Image & video editing tools: Edit photos and videos directly within the builder, eliminating the need for external software.

If you’re looking to create a business website, you’ve already likely got a challenge on your hands: you’re busy running the business itself. This is why Wix is such a tremendous tool for business users – its huge range of professional looking templates, and its effective setup process that’s supported by a smart AI tool, mean you can genuinely be looking at the outline of a professional website in minutes .

Wix is streets ahead of most of its competitors when it comes to the range of templates it offers, and how easy it is to then customise the design, layout, text and imagery after the initial template is set up for you.

There are over 800 templates (more than any other web builder) that cover all of these industries:

• Art and culture
• Animals and pets
• Design and photography
• Electronics
• Education and books
• Business and services
• Cars and motorcycles
• Sports, outdoors and travel
• Fashion and beauty
• Food and restaurants
• Home and family
• Entertainment, games and nightlife
• Holidays, gifts and flowers

So, whether your business provides perfect paving or maintains magnificent motors, you’ll find the perfect template for your small business needs. Once you’ve picked one, you then use Wix’s intuitive drag-and-drop interface to customise almost every aspect of it – adding your own text and images, moving elements, and changing fonts and colours to really make it your own.

Another standout feature is the extremely useful preview tool, which lets you quickly and easily see how your customers will experience your website. Wix also looks very similar on the backend to the frontend, making it super efficient for you to edit your website with zero fuss.

This is in contrast to many of its competitors, WordPress.com included, which frustratingly looks different on the backend to the frontend – meaning you have to keep previewing your website every time you add an element to make sure it fits

A warning on being locked to your chosen template

Once you’ve picked a template and edited it, you’re basically stuck with it. The only way to change it is to create a new website, which means rebranding your business’s online presence is a lot of work on Wix.

Other web builders (most notably Squarespace) don’t impose this restriction, so it’s definitely worth bearing in mind if you think you might want to change your site design in the near future.

How much does it cost to build a website with Wix?

• Low cost plans:  from £7.50 per month, excluding discounts – the Light plan will suit very small, basic business sites only
• Free plan to be avoided:  business users should avoid the Free Wix plan, as it covers your website with Wix adverts and doesn’t let you use a custom domain address.
• Core plan : ideal for most business site needs, including smaller online stores, and just £14 per month
• Business plan : at £20 per month, this is a great plan for growing businesses and the minimum plan you’d need to consider for creating a large online store
• Extra charges: the above prices are a monthly cost, based on an annual payment; you will need to budget extra for purchasing a domain and hosting your website, which can be done through Wix.

As the table below shows, Wix won’t cost you the earth – basic plans start from just £7.50 a month  (and ecommerce plans from £14 a month), plus there are  regular deals and discounts  that can slash the monthly cost.

The first thing to note: the prices above are billed annually, so you’ll pay for a year upfront. You can also pay monthly, but you’ll pay a bit more per month if you choose that option.

Wix does have a  free plan , but this is very limited, your site will be plastered with Wix ads, and you’ll have just 500MB of storage. It’s a good way to see what Wix has to offer, but not suitable for any serious business use.

This is the same across the board with web builders, but to find out more about free plans, check out our review of the  best free website builders if you’re keen to learn what’s possible without spending.

For a full guide to what each plan offers, check out our dedicated  Wix pricing page , but here’s a quick summary:

💰 Light (£7.50 per month)

This is as basic a paid plan as you’re going to find in the website builder market – it allows you to change your free Wix URL (username.wixsite.com/siteaddress) to your own domain name, which is of course super handy to maintain professionalism.

However like the free version of Wix, it still imposes severe limitations on what you can do with the platform.  You only get 2GB of storage space, 2 collborators, and just 30 minutes worth of video content on your site.  This can severely limit how professional and appealing your site ends up looking.

💰 Core (£14 per month)

You can create a fully customised website with no Wix ads, and use your own custom domain, free for a whole year. However, your bandwidth is limited to 2GB, so this won’t be suitable for more ambitious design ideas and businesses that want to dazzle their customers with plenty of videos and photos on the site.

Despite this, we would recommend this plan for any micro business owners that want to dip their toe in the website building water – especially if you want the basics for a super affordable price.

💰 Business (£20 per month)

The  Wix Business  plan is our top recommendation for the majority of small businesses and is the platform’s most popular plan.

Not only does it come with all the bells and whistles of the Core plan, including a free custom domain for one year and the removal of Wix ads. But you also get access to the Site Booster app for a year, 100GB of storage, and 10 hours of video content on your site.

💰 Business Elite (£119 per month)

The VIP plan is a serious ramp up from what Wix’s unlimited plan offers, and has been  designed to support growing SMEs . It includes everything from the previous plans, as well as first priority support so you can skip the queues and get immediate assistance for any issues, such as site errors.

Professional logo and social media logo designs (when purchasing a yearly subscription or higher) are available, so you can present your brand to your customers in the most sophisticated way possible.

It’s important to mention that, if you want to sell on your website, then you’ll need a Wix ecommerce plan. To get the lowdown on how Wix shapes up as an ecommerce platform, check out our in-depth Wix ecommerce review (spoiler, it’s our No. 1 choice for that too).

Use discount code 'TAKE10' for 10% off from any Wix plan!

• Wix is the easiest website builder to use, based on our comparative testing
• The intuitive ADI can build a website for you, and it’s simple to customise from there
• Users, including novices, rated it well in our panel testing, and were likely to recommend it to others
• Wix has extensive help & support resources to assist users who get stuck

We’ll say it loud and clear – Wix is the easiest website builder we’ve tested, and we’re confident that even users who’ve never built a website before will be able to create something impressive using Wix. Your business website is your impression to the world, so you won’t want to get it wrong, and thanks to its intuitive tools and great templates, Wix will help you create a site with ease.

You can either select to create your website through ADI functionality or by using the Wix editor. For those businesses that want to create a website quickly and with minimal fuss, the ADI option is ideal. Whereas those that have a bit more experience in web design, they can choose to use the editor and get their creative juices flowing.

In comparison, web builders like WordPress don’t offer ADI as an option when users are creating their website, so you’ll have to spend time and effort putting together your website from scratch – which for some businesses is time not well spent.

Once you’ve chosen your template – a process that Wix tries to guide you through by asking what sort of website you want to create and then suggesting suitable options – Wix makes creating your website an incredibly easy and enjoyable process.

To change the position of any element on the page, you simply drag and drop, while clicking on an element brings up a range of editing options so you can easily change an image or choose a different colour/font for text etc.

A toolbar on the left gives easy access to bigger changes like choosing a new theme or adding media, while buttons along the top allow you to undo and redo any changes you make to the site to save yourself time.

Based on our first hand user testing, we found it was easy to drag and drop elements into the web builder, as well as deleting them. Its intuitive user interface makes it easy to grasp by those who are new to website building.

This is also where you’ll find the mobile view button, so you can customise the mobile version of your site without affecting the desktop version.

As you can tell, ease of use is one of the biggest feathers in Wix’s cap – you should be able to get to grips with it very quickly and you can easily add whichever features you need to your site.

Wix user testing and feedback

As part of our website builder testing, we get a panel of users – with varying levels of expertise – to try building a website with each provider. Simply put, our users loved Wix – its 4.8 out of 5 customer score was the highest for any web builder we tested.

One of our testers was particularly impressed with the amount of creative freedom offered by the platform:

“I love that you can drag literally anything in it to literally any position, and it doesn’t snap into the nearest grid position.”

There was also a lot of praise for Wix’s intuitive interface, while criticism centred on the sometimes confusing site navigation and site speed issues for sites that featured a lot of different elements.

Although these site speed complaints were most likely from users on lower level plans with restricted bandwidth, so by upgrading you should easily avoid this issue.

Those minor irritations aside, ease of use remains Wix’s trump card over most other web builder platforms.

Wix help and support

If you get stuck, Wix has your back. There is a solid range of help and support options to get you back on track.

Wix offers phone, social media, and live chat support. Subscribers to the £21 per month VIP plan get priority support and the ability to skip the phone lines and virtual queues. This is ideal for customers that have a large online audience, and need immediate support for issues like site downtime and bugs.

Notably, Wix doesn’t offer any email support whatsoever, so if this is something that’s important to you, you may want to choose a different web builder, like Squarespace.

However, you should be able to find an answer to most of your questions in the Wix Help Center – Wix’s online knowledge base – which is full of tutorials and explainers for more advanced features.

However, this information is not always arranged in the most user-friendly way, so you may need to do a bit of searching to locate what you’re looking for.

Taking everything into account, Wix offers very good help and support – with only an occasionally tricky to navigate help centre and the lack of email support preventing it from getting absolute top marks.

What features does Wix give you?

With Wix, you can easily do anything, from setting up a business blog, creating an online booking system, to creating a spectacular online home for your SME that’s the launchpad for spectacular digital marketing campaigns.

For busy small business owners without experience building a site, the brilliant thing is learning that you won’t have to code any of these features or hire someone to build them for you. Wix has tons of tools ready to go, and even more available from its app store.

Here are just a few of the core features that Wix offers its users – many of these can help a small business website with everything it will need:

• Email marketing : Design and send email campaigns to reach your target audience and promote your business.
• SEO features : Optimise your website content and structure to improve search engine ranking and attract organic traffic.
• Social media integration : Easily connect your website to your social media accounts for effective promotion.
• Members areas : Create a members-only section to offer exclusive content, discounts, or community features.
• Multilingual support : Create your website in multiple languages to reach a wider audience.
• Analytics & reporting : Track website traffic, user behavior, and marketing campaign performance to gain valuable insights.
• Security : Secure hosting infrastructure and various security features to protect your website and data.
• Contact forms : Allow visitors to easily contact you through your website.
• Live chat : Chat with website visitors in real-time to answer their questions and improve customer service.
• Booking system : Manage appointments, bookings, and online scheduling directly through your website.
• Social media feed integration : Display your social media feeds on your website to engage your audience and showcase your brand.
• Ecommerce platform : Sell products directly through your website with features like product management, secure payments, and shipping options.
• Inventory management : Track product stock levels and manage inventory efficiently.
• Customer accounts : Allow customers to create accounts and manage their orders and purchase history.
• Payment gateway integration : Accept secure online payments from customers through various payment providers.

If you do find yourself needing a feature that’s missing from default Wix, the app market should have what you’re looking for. The most comprehensive web builder app market out there with over 300 apps, add-ons that will let you optimise your shipping, turn your Wix website into a native mobile app, easily integrate customer reviews, and loads more besides.

The apps are also ‘no-code’ and incredibly easy to use, unlike other competitors like WordPress, in which you’ll need some knowledge of coding before you can integrate them into your website; this is one of the most crucial points in the Wix vs WordPress competition.

Also, in terms of SEO features, Wix is the only web builder that has an exclusive partnership with SEO giant Semrush. This partnership transforms Wix’s SEO offering for its users, who can now access Semrush’s high-quality SEO keyword data directly through the Wix dashboard.

This in turn will help Wix users identify the ideal keywords to target and propel their website up the search rankings.

How has Wix improved recently?

Recent updates for Wix include multilingual support that lets you easily use Google Translate or manual translation to make your site accessible in different languages, opening up your business to new markets.

In fact, the work that has been done to improve Wix over the last year has simply solidified its spot as our number one website builder for depth of features.

• You can now access audits with tailored actions and recommendations to improve your site’s search performance and overall SEO health with Wix’s Site-Level SEO Assistant
• Wix has introduced a number of new SEO tools , including a dashboard that allows you to produce reports and see how your site is performing with data provided by Google Search Console
• During testing, we also found its AI Text Creator , while not as advanced as Shopify Magic, is very user friendly and can produce a range of content, including catchy titles
• Wix has launched Wix Studio, an end-to-end solution which gives you the tools to simplify your workflow, including a centralised workspace to manage all your sites, reusable assets, your team, subscriptions, and domains.

About 332,000 e-commerce websites are currently using Wix. This means plenty of entrepreneurs have trusted Wix will be the perfect digital storefront for their business.

As you can see, Wix is our best all-round web builder overall. But, small businesses choosing the site builder they may commit to for years will still want to weigh Wix up carefully against alternatives.

Here’s how Wix rates against the competition, based on our testing:

Squarespace:

When it comes to just how attractive the templates are, you really can’t do any better than Squarespace. Sorry Wix, but this includes you. Businesses with a particularly visual focus – think design firms, photography portfolio sites, and fashion brands – will likely prefer the cutting edge looks of Squarespace’s templates. Wix is the cheaper option, and we’d also argue it’s easier to use than Squarespace, plus it’s a better choice for making an online store in terms of the depth of features under the hood. But, for looks alone, Squarespace trumps Wix. Read our Squarespace pricing guide for more, or check out our Wix versus Squarespace comparison.

If you’re building an online store , then Shopify is one of the best choices you can possibly make. The other one, though, is still Wix! In our testing, we found that Shopify narrowly trumps Wix in terms of the sheer depth of sales features it has baked into the platform. Wix has plenty of its own, and thanks to its huge app market, you can go looking for extras without too much trouble. Smaller ecommerce sites may prefer the innate useablity of Wix – the templates and drag and drop editor are much simpler to get started with. But, larger or rapidly growing online stores may do better to put their lot in with Shopify. See our full Shopify pricing guide for more details.

Want to get your site live before your cup of coffee has gone cold? GoDaddy is for you. It’s remarkably quick and easy to build a site and get it out into the world with GoDaddy. Wix is no slouch, of course, thanks to its AI-assistant and simple templates. But, the depth of features Wix gives you and its ability to let you customise the look and feel mean you may get held up making tweaks and changes, where GoDaddy’s streamlined approach gets you live with less customisation. Pricing-wise, GoDaddy is terrific value, and has an especially cheap ecommerce plan.

If you’re looking to build a website, you’ve probably heard the word ‘WordPress’ more than once or twice. Millions of sites worldwide use the WordPress platform, and thanks to wordpress.org, you can even build a site for free. So, what’s the issue? Well, if you aren’t familiar with creating a website, and in particular if you don’t feel comfortable with delving into the code now and then, you may be less cosy with using WordPress. It’s perfectly intuitive, and experienced users will vouch for it every time thanks to the unrivalled flexibility of what you can build on a WordPress site. But, if you’d rather get on with running your business, and you don’t want to learn to code (or pay for someone to help you), our advice is pick a Wix template and get up and running in no time.

To see how each measures up, check out our guide to the best web builders for small businesses .

How we test website builders for small businesses

We tested 10 website builders to evaluate them in terms of functionality, usability, accuracy, and aesthetics so we can make the most useful recommendations to small UK-based businesses.

Our rigorous testing process means these products have been scored and rated in six main categories of investigation and 33 subcategories – in fact, we covered 251 areas of investigation in total . We then gave each category score a ‘relevance weighting' to ensure the product's final score perfectly reflects the needs of our Startups.co.uk readers.

Our main testing categories for website builders are:

Website Features: the capabilities and functionalities offered by a website builder, e.g. blog functionality, SEO capability, and marketing capacity.

Design: the aesthetic appeal and visual layout of a website created using a website builder. It encompasses aspects such as page templates and customisable themes.

Customer Score: external customer opinion; the feedback and ratings given by customers who have used a particular website builder – the market position and reputation a website builder holds.

Ease of Use: how user-friendly and intuitive a website builder is for people with varying levels of technical expertise.

Value for Money: the balance between the cost of a website builder and the benefits it provides. It considers factors such as pricing plans, subscription models, and available features.

Help and Support: the assistance and resources available to users when they encounter issues or need guidance while using a website builder.

The Startups product testing process

Wix web builder review: the verdict

Wix is our number one overall web builder for small businesses.

The array of templates offered is staggering, and the huge amount of design freedom Wix gives you means that choosing a template is just the starting point. You can then tweak and reposition to your heart’s content to create something that really feels personal to your business. Or, you can use the ADI to knock up a professional website in minutes, tweak it and then get on with running your business.

There are minor drawbacks, of course. Wix is a premium product and its monthly charges are a bit higher than some competitors – though it’s still tremendous value and far cheaper than hiring a web designer. The sheer amount of options it offers to builders can be intimidating for some, and the editor can slow down a bit when you add a lot of elements to your site.

But this is nitpicking; whatever your business does, Wix is a superb web builder that’s packed with features, is easy to use, and offers great support.

To see how it could help you, just head to Wix and get started.

• Unbeatable range of features. These include free access to the site booster and visitor analytics apps for one year
• Over 800 templates covering a range of 16 different industries to suit pretty much every business - the largest selection of templates available on the market
• Intuitive drag-and-drop interface. It's incredibly easy to apply changes to your website, specially if website building is new to you
• Affordable pricing plans to suit all budgets
• Creates mobile-friendly pages so you know how your site will look on mobile
• Free 24/7 phone and live chat support
• ADI functionality makes it easy to start your website in just minutes by answering a few simple questions
• Template is unchangeable once site is live. This could cause problems in the future
• Free plan site is littered with Wix ads and a Wix branded domain
• No plan has unlimited storage
• Its value for money score is lower because its price is not the most accessible compared to other competitors
• Is Wix website builder really free? In short, yes. You can use Wix as a free website builder to build your own website. However there are big limitations to what your site can do, and because you have to have a Wix branded domain name, it won't look very professional. There is no ecommerce functionality so you can't sell online, and your website will be littered with annoying Wix ads. We would suggest paying for a plan - but if you just want to try Wix out and create a very basic website - the free plan will do the trick.
• Is WordPress better than Wix? Wix is a much better choice for small businesses than WordPress.com – it offers more powerful features, is far easier to use and offers a lot more support in crucial areas like SEO and marketing. However if you are a whizz at coding and have used open source platforms before, WordPress might actually be the better option. It will open up doors to huge creative freedom that Wix can't offer. However for beginners, Wix every time.
• Is Wix a good website builder for beginners? Wix certainly is a great web builder for beginners. The fact you can use the ADI system to help you set up a website in just minutes can really speed things up for you and save you pulling your hair out before you've even got the foundations of your website together. It also offers helpful prompts to help support you as you navigate the website, and its help centre has the answers to pretty much every question. It is also easy to use with its intuitive drag and drop interface. And the SEO prompts are a must for any beginner who otherwise won't understand how to capitalise on this important aspect of website creation.

Startups.co.uk is reader-supported. If you make a purchase through the links on our site, we may earn a commission from the retailers of the products we have reviewed. This helps Startups.co.uk to provide free reviews for our readers. It has no additional cost to you, and never affects the editorial independence of our reviews.

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UK's Labour Outlines Plan to Renationalise Railways Within 5 Years

UK's Labour Outlines Plan to Renationalise Railways Within 5 Years

A train passes in front of Battersea Power Station as it enters Victoria station in London, Britain, February 10, 2023. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo

(This April 24 story has been refiled to say that Arriva is being sold to I Squared, not owned by I Squared, in paragraph 10)

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's opposition Labour Party said it planned to renationalise the country's rail network within five years without paying compensation to private operators as it set out its plans to fix the troubled railway system.

Britain's train services were privatised in the 1990s but several operators have been renationalised in recent years, some of them losing their franchises after underperforming.

Labour wants to set up a publicly owned Great British Railways which will inherit passenger rail contracts currently held by private firms as they expire, a process it expects to be completed within its first term in office.

The party leads the governing Conservative Party by around 20 percentage points in opinion polls with a national election expected later this year.

"Labour will deliver the biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation," Labour transport policy chief Louise Haigh said ahead of a speech on Thursday setting out the plans.

Photos You Should See - April 2024

Battered by the COVID-19 pandemic and more recently disrupted by industrial unrest, the deteriorating quality of key services has drawn widespread criticism.

Nearly 70% of voters support bringing train operators back into public ownership permanently, a poll conducted this month by polling firm YouGov showed. Fewer than 10% opposed it.

NO SURPRISE

In the 2010s, Britain had several listed transport groups operating rail contracts, but they have either been taken private, such as Go Ahead Group, or exited the sector, such as National Express now Mobico, leaving FirstGroup the only quoted stock.

Shares in FirstGroup, which runs buses and also has contracts for rail services in western England, to Edinburgh from London, and some commuter services in London, fell 2% in early deals. Analysts said FirstGroup's stock does not price in any future rail contracts, hence the small move.

Among the other companies running rail contracts in Britain are Trenitalia which operates the c2c line east of London and Arriva Group, which is being sold to private equity firm I Squared, and they are unlikely to be surprised that their British rail contracts would not be renewed.

"This is not a surprise. Labour have been talking about this for absolutely ages," said Liberum analyst Gerald Khoo. "The only thing that's slightly more tangible is they're much closer to getting into power."

Train operators in Britain will still have a chance to operate some lines as Transport For London outsources some of its connections, such as the Overground which is operated by Arriva.

SUNAK'S PLAN

The current government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunakhas also proposed establishing a new Great British Railways (GBR), company but with a different role.

The government's proposals would group responsibility for rail infrastructure and services under GBR while maintaining a franchise system, giving it the role of contracting out passenger services to private firms.

The government has highlighted the need for private sector involvement to boost efficiency in the network after the coronavirus pandemic reduced commuting by passengers.

Latest statistics show that cancellations in the last three months of 2023 were at their highest level since records began in 2018 although industrial action by staff was a factor behind some of the problems.

Labour said the increases in cancellations and rail fares showed the current system - with four rail operators already managed by the government - had failed.

It said it planned to establish a Passenger Standards Authority to hold GBR accountable for its performance and passengers would be given price guarantees for future fares.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout, additional reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by William Schomberg, Alex Richardson and Daniel Wallis)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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Tags: United Kingdom , Europe

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British railways under Tories are symbol of national decline, says Labour

Party plans to nationalise network and ‘unlock the trapped potential’ of rail to drive economic growth across the country

Britain’s railways have become a “symbol of national decline” under the Conservatives, the shadow transport secretary has said, announcing Labour’s plans to nationalise the rail network within five years in government.

In a speech at Trainline headquarters on Thursday, Louise Haigh said “today’s broken model simply doesn’t work”, with train cancellations at a record high and fares having risen almost twice as fast as wages since 2010.

Jody Ford, the chief executive of the travel company, echoed Haigh’s words, saying rail had “significant power and potential” to drive economic growth into all parts of the country’s communities.

Haigh said: “Our railways are critical to making our country a better, wealthier and happier place. We can only achieve our five national missions if we unlock the trapped potential of our railways to boost growth, and opportunity and to connect all of us with each other, with work and with pleasure.”

Haigh said a Labour government would establish Great British Railways, which she described as a “single directing mind to control our railways in the passenger interest”. She joked she was not allowed to call the nationalised railway “Rail Britannia” and would not rule out an endorsement of her plan from the Conservative former transport secretary Grant Shapps.

Asked why Labour could not guarantee cheaper and more affordable train tickets under their plans, Haigh said it was Labour’s “ambition” to make fares cheaper but “simplification is our first priority” via the party’s best fare guarantee scheme.

Keir Starmer vowed to bring an end to the “Tory boom and bust” cycle for the rail industry, after visiting Hitachi’s rail manufacturing plant in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, where 700 jobs are at risk, and a further 1,400 jobs at risk across its supply chain.

The rail minister, Huw Merriman, has been accused of dismissing the job losses as “natural peaks and troughs”. Starmer said: “The workforce here at Hitachi is staring down the barrel of job losses. This was not inevitable.”

“After 14 years of chaos and uncertainty, [this Tory government] has left our rail manufacturing sector teetering on the brink,” he added.

Haigh accepted that the plan would take time, as the final private operator contract with a core term was not due to expire until 2029. “We’d expect all contracts to be brought under Great British Railways by that time,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “It will take time; there’s no overnight fixes to a very complex system. We’re not starry eyed about this.”

But a Labour government would immediately be able to create a “shadow Great British Railways [organisation] to fire the starting gun on reform” and ensure the party did not lose time or momentum. It would bring together key players including Network Rail and the Rail Delivery Group, before primary legislation was passed to formally establish GBR as an arm’s length body.

“The Conservative party has achieved the worst of all worlds for our railways, partially privatised, overly centralised, expensive, but unreliable, confusing and shamefully unaccountable,” Haigh said.

She quoted Shapps, who once said: “Unlike most privatisations, that of the railways has never become publicly accepted, because its failings have remained all too obvious … The fragmentation of the network has made it more confusing for passengers, and more difficult and expensive to perform the essentially collaborative task of running trains on time.”

Haigh also vowed to see the “workforce as an asset rather than a liability” but she refused to commit to a pay increase because she had “not seen the books” and “wouldn’t do that in an unfunded way”. But she vowed to meet the unions on day one in order to solve the strikes that she said were costing £25m a day.

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UK FCA Doubles Down on Naming Financial Firms Under Probes (1)

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The UK ’s financial watchdog pushed back against criticism of its plan to name firms it’s investigating at an early stage, which it thinks will boost transparency and deterrence.

The Financial Conduct Authority believes the proposals are timely, according to its response to a House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee published on Friday. Firms and consumers benefit from knowing which issues are in the watchdog’s sights, leading to better standards of conduct, it said.

“We know that a number of those to whom we are accountable have frequently and forcefully expressed their frustration at our lack of transparency,” said ...

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Meta earnings results: Shares tumble on weak sales guidance despite earnings beat

• Meta reported first-quarter earnings on Wednesday.
• Mark Zuckerberg talked about Meta's plans to invest more in AI.
• Shares tumbled 17% in after-hours trading.

Meta reported first-quarter earnings on Wednesday after the closing bell.

The company reported revenue and earnings-per-share that beat consensus analyst estimates. But shares slid after Meta gave a range for second-quarter sales that was on the light side of forecasts and said it's going to spend more than it expected this year.

The report is Meta's first without monthly- and daily-average-user numbers specifically broken out for Facebook. The company instead reported overall "Family of Apps" results that also included Instagram and WhatsApp . The combined group saw $36 billion of revenue, beating the consensus estimate of $35.5 billion.

Meta's stock fell as much as 17% in after-hours trading, having slipped 0.5% on Wednesday. It had previously gained a robust 39% in 2024.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg's main focus on the investor call was Meta's plans to invest more significantly in AI. He also hyped up the company's recent partnership with Ray-Ban.

Meta's stock shows no sign of recovery as the Q&A ends.

Shares remain down nearly 17% in after-hours trading as the call draws to a close.

Meta CFO Susan Li is pretty tight-lipped about TikTok

Li says Meta has been following the potential for a TikTok ban closely, but it's too soon to comment on how it could impact Meta's business — for example, Instagram Reels.

The call moves on to the Q&A portion

Time for investors and analysts to (try to) get more details.

Zuckerberg appears to take a dig at Apple's Vision Pro

Zuckerberg hypes up Meta's Ray-Ban AI glasses. The company introduced new styles and features on Tuesday.

"You know, I used to think that AR glasses wouldn't really be a mainstream product until we had full holographic displays. And I still think that that's gonna be awesome and is the long-term mature state for the product. But now, it seems pretty clear that there's also a meaningful market for fashionable AI glasses without a display," he says.

It could be seen as a dig at Apple's Vision Pro headset, which has been accused of being clunky and uncomfortable. Or it could just be another step forward in Zuck's recent fashion journey .

Zuckerberg starts the call by getting straight into Meta's AI plans and spending

He says the company plans to invest "significantly more" in AI, but warns it will take "several years" to build "the leading AI."

"Realistically, even with shifting many of our existing resources to focus on AI, we will still grow our investment envelope meaningfully before we make much revenue from some of these new products," he says.

The CEO says Meta has a "strong track record of monetizing" its work, especially after spending time building up its products over time. But that doesn't seem to reassure investors right now, with shares slumping even further in postmarket trading.

The call kicks off.

Mark Zuckerberg and CFO Susan Li are here to discuss the results.

Meta's AI plans are going to cost them more than they expected.

Heading into the call, investors were looking for news about Meta's future AI plans, but — whatever they are — they're going to cost way more than the company predicted just a few months ago.

"Our full-year 2024 capital expenditures will be in the range of $35-40 billion, increased from our prior range of $30-37 billion as we continue to accelerate our infrastructure investments to support our artificial intelligence (AI) roadmap," the report says, noting Meta plans to "invest aggressively to support our ambitious AI research and product development efforts."

Total expenses will be in the range of $96-99 billion, up from a prior $94-99 billion forecast due to higher infrastructure and legal costs.

Still, Max Willens, senior analyst at market research firm Emarketer, a sister company to Business Insider, says it's not surprising Meta changed its guidance.

"Companies investing in this space, especially at the scope Meta is investing in it, may struggle with costs in the near term," Willens says.

Meta stock falls 10% in after-hours training after light 2nd-quarter revenue forecast.

Meta beats 1st-quarter sales and EPS estimates, but issues weaker-than-expected 2nd-quarter guidance.

1st quarter

Revenue: $36.46 billion, +27% y/y, estimate $36.12 billion

Advertising revenue: $35.64 billion, +27% y/y, estimate $35.57 billion

Family of Apps revenue: $36.02 billion, +27% y/y, estimate $35.53 billion

Reality Labs revenue: $440 million, +30% y/y, estimate $494.1 million

Other revenue: $380 million, +85% y/y, estimate $300.1 million

Family of Apps operating income: $17.66 billion, +57% y/y, estimate $17.76 billion

Reality Labs operating loss: $3.85 billion, -3.7% y/y, estimate loss $4.51 billion

Operating margin: 38% vs. 25% y/y, estimate 37.2%

EPS: $4.71 vs. $2.20 y/y, estimate $4.30

Average Family service users per day: 3.24 billion, +7.3% y/y, estimate 3.16 billion

2nd quarter

Revenue: $36.5 billion to $39 billion, estimate $38.24 billion

Goldman Sachs says Meta's platforms offer 'sizable opportunity' ahead.

Meta looks geared for strength as it's a key beneficiary of a robust advertising environment, Goldman Sachs said.

The bank expects continued investment in digital channels, advertiser verticals to recover, and digital products to expand, such as short-form video monetization.

Meta's Instagram Reels is a prime example of this, with the platform reaching revenue neutrality

"We still see a sizable opportunity for Reels to remain a key revenue growth tailwind for META in the coming years as the CPM gap closes further and as Reels continues to increase as a % of total ad impressions," analysts led by Eric Sheridan said.

Goldman Sachs rates Meta at "Buy" and holds a 12-month price target of $555.

JPMorgan sees Meta as 'built for the long term.'

JPMorgan considers Meta one of its top picks among internet stocks for its scale, growth, and profitability.

"We believe Meta's virtual ownership of the social graph, strong competitive moat, and focus on the user experience position it to become an enduring blue-chip company built for the long term," analysts led by Doug Anmuth wrote last week.

The bank expects Meta advertising to continue outperforming, bolstered by AI investments and Instagram Reels revenue expansions. Cost discipline will continue on through 2024, even if investments start rising.

Still, the bank did note some room for concern after this quarter's earnings, as Meta may need to find new catalysts for further expansion.

"META remains well-owned, but there is growing caution into earnings on almost-certain growth deceleration beyond 1Q due to tough comps & perception of lack of new drivers vs. '23. We believe slower growth is well-anticipated, & likely taken into account in META's undemanding multiple," the bank wrote.

JPMorgan rates Meta at "Overweight" with a $535 price target.

Wells Fargo says AI upside is accelerating Meta's growth.

Meta is an accelerating growth story led by emerging AI upside, uplifting everything from the firm's ad tools to consumer messaging products, Wells Fargo said.

The bank projects above-consensus revenue growth, with Meta boosted higher by a healthy e-commerce environment.

"Combined with a newfound appetite for efficiency, we believe META should be a steady earnings compounder at a reasonable multiple," analysts led by Ken Gawrelski said.

However, revenue could moderate into the second-quarter, and Meta will have to demonstrate another product-cycle catalyst to keep momentum rolling, the bank wrote.

"We view WhatsApp as an under-appreciated asset w/ sizable potential, should Meta invoke more direct monetization beyond Click-to-Message ads," Gawrelski wrote.

Wells Fargo rates Meta at "Overweight" with a $600 price target.

RBC Capital spotlights Meta's growing lead in the ad business.

The Canadian bank touted a significant ramp up in ad volumes across Meta services, with Instagram Reels advertising taking center stage.

In fact, ad loads on Reels jumped 22% from January's 16.4%, outpacing declining volumes among competitors such as TikTok.

"While slower growth out of Facebook is to be expected going forward, we believe few others in the space can come close to matching META's scale for incremental spend, and we therefore expect META to at least maintain share going forward," analysts led by Brad Erickson wrote last Thursday.

The bank also considers Meta to be trading at a discount to the broader internet segment, a gap that will persist or narrow based on whether the firm can demonstrate stability in the ad business.

However, some pullback could occur in the first half of the year given China's economic slowdown, which could impact ad spending. Still, the firm offers other positives, analysts said.

RBC rates Meta at "Outperform" with a $600 price target.

Bank of America sees Meta's AI assets as under-appreciated.

Bank of America expects to see upside in Meta's first-quarter report, citing higher ad spending that was boosted by seasonal events, such as Easter.

Meanwhile, Meta's AI assets remain under-appreciated, and the firm will benefit by highlight its growing capabilities in the space, the bank said in a note last week.

"We remain positive on Meta and reiterate our thesis that Reels, Messaging, and AI driven ad improvements are still early, and could lead to positive product surprises & revenue momentum in 2024," analysts Justin Post and Nitin Bansal said.

Meta also looks to be the biggest winner amid a possible TikTok ban , which has now made its way through the Senate.

Bank of America rates Meta at "Buy" with a $550 price target.

Meta's consensus first-quarter revenue estimate is $36.12 billion.

Revenue estimate: $36.12 billion

Advertising rev. estimate: $35.57 billion

Family of Apps revenue estimate: $35.52 billion

Reality Labs revenue estimate: $494.1 million

Other revenue estimate: $286.4 million

Adjusted operating income estimate: $13.45 billion

Family of Apps operating income estimate: $17.76 billion

Reality Labs operating loss estimate: $4.52 billion

Operating margin estimate: 37.2%

EPS estimate: $4.30

Facebook daily active users estimate: 2.11 billion

Facebook monthly active users estimate: 3.08 billion

Ad impressions estimate: +17.1%

Average price per ad estimate: +5.85%

Average Family service users per day estimate: 3.16 billion

Average Family service users per month estimate: 3.97 billion

Revenue estimate: $38.24 billion

Full-year 2024

Total expenses estimate: $96.87 billion

Capital expenditure estimate: $34.5 billion

• Main content

Fisker plans more layoffs as cash dwindles and bankruptcy looms

Fisker says it’s planning more layoffs less than two months after cutting 15% of its workforce , as the EV startup scrambles to raise cash to stay alive. Fisker expects to seek bankruptcy protection within the next 30 days if it can’t come up with that money, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filing.

The imperiled company said in the regulatory filing Tuesday it had just $54 million in cash and equivalents as of April 16, and another $11.2 million that can’t be immediately accessed. Fisker said in the filing that it’s currently trying to raise money to pay off a loan that it defaulted on in order to avoid bankruptcy. The outstanding balance as of mid-January was north of $300 million .

Fisker still employed 1,135 people globally as of April 19, according to the filing. That’s down from 1,560 at the end of 2022, and around 1,300 at the end of September 2023. The company also said Tuesday that it will be “reducing its physical footprint.”

This follows Fisker’s announcement Monday evening that a second member of its board of directors has left the company, with the first coming at the end of March. The company has also hired a chief restructuring officer who is now solely in charge of approving Fisker’s budget, as well as the decision-making process for any sale of Fisker’s business.

Fisker finds itself on the brink of bankruptcy following a troubled launch of its first electric vehicle, the Fisker Ocean SUV, that kicked off in June 2023.

The Ocean has been hampered by numerous problems, including buggy software, reports of sudden power loss and brake failure, and insufficient customer service, as TechCrunch reported in February . Fisker struggled to meet internal sales goals and lost track of millions of dollars of customer payments for some of the vehicles it did sell, triggering an internal audit that helped recover a majority of that money. It has spent the last few months attempting to pivot to a dealership model.

The Ocean is now subject to three separate federal investigations from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The company has not issued any recalls, but has paused production of the SUV. In the meantime, it slashed prices on its existing inventory by as much as 39% in an attempt to generate short-term cash. The company has also been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

If Fisker ultimately seeks bankruptcy protection, it would be founder Henrik Fisker’s second automotive startup to do so. His previous effort, Fisker Automotive, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013.

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Waterford brand agency Totem plots expansion after UK award wins

Irish firm plans to double in size over next three years.

Colin Byrne, founder and director of Totem. He said there has been an uptick in marketing spending this year after companies slashed budgets in 2023 in the face of macroeconomic challenges. Photograph: Totem

Totem, a Waterford-headquartered branding agency, is priming itself for expansion after winning two awards at an industry event in the UK last week.

Spurred on by the victories and an increase in demand for its services in recent years, the agency plans to double in size over the next three years. Totem is led by creative director Colin Byrne, who founded the business in his garage in 2002, and employs seven people in Dungaravan, Co Waterford.

Market research conducted in the UK and Europe has reinforced Totem’s commitment to expansion, Mr Byrne said. “Somewhere between 12 and 14 is the ideal size for an agency. It’s kind of the Goldilocks zone: you’re not too big, not too small. It’s kind of driven by getting the balance right because we’re driven by service. So I don’t want to get too big because I think we could lose that hands-on approach.”

Totem took home a bronze medal in the best naming strategy at the prestigious Transform Awards Europe in London last Wednesday evening and was also highly commended in the best brand development project category.

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Both awards related to Totem’s campaign for French bioscience company Aton, formerly known as Hybergenics, for which the Irish firm led a rebranding process.

Last week’s victories will be a “catalyst” for the expansion process, said Mr Byrne. “It gives voter confidence and it’s a nice kind of feelgood factor. So that’s important.”

As well as Aton the agency boasts a client list that includes airport operator DAA – for which it has worked on campaigns for Cork Airport – and Luxembourg-anchored life sciences company Eurofins among others. “I think having that work with high-profile clients behind us allows us to pitch forward and give new clients a lot of confidence in Totem and who they are dealing with”, he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Byrne said there has been a noticeable decline in spending on branding within the market over the past 18 months as businesses slashed marketing budgets in the face of rising costs and macroeconomic upheaval. However, he said business levels had picked up in the early part of 2024, and the pipeline looks good across the industry.

“Definitely last year I noticed that projects were kind of slow to get going,” he said. “But the beginning of this year, kind of the opposite has been happening. There has been a little bit of a turn, certainly in quarter one. People who were kicking to touch at the end of last year they have decided they’re pulling the trigger, which is good.”

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Ian Curran is a Business reporter with The Irish Times

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