Almost everyone starts on the Wix Free plan — no card required, no trial clock ticking, and the full editor at your disposal. That generosity is genuine, but it's also a funnel: the free plan is designed so that any site meant to be public, professional or commercial quickly bumps into its limits. This article lays out what free actually includes, what paid adds, and the honest answer to the question everyone asks: do I need to upgrade — and if so, what's the cheapest way to do it without overpaying?
What the free plan actually gives you
The Free plan ($0, permanently) includes the drag-and-drop editor, the template library, hosting and Wix's AI site tools. You can build a complete website without paying anything. The catch is in what comes with it:
- Wix ads on your pages. Banner advertising for Wix appears on your site. You can't remove it on the free plan.
- A wixsite.com subdomain. Your address looks like yourname.wixsite.com/yoursite instead of your own domain — harder to remember and visibly unofficial.
- No custom domain. Connecting a domain you own, or claiming the free first-year domain, both require a paid plan.
- Limited storage and bandwidth. Enough to experiment with, tight for any site with real media or traffic.
- No online payments. Selling anything requires at least the Core plan.
None of these limits is a bug — they're the design. The free plan is Wix's showroom: you get the full building experience so you can judge the editor before spending a cent. The cost of that showroom is that anything you publish inside it advertises Wix at least as loudly as it advertises you.
Free vs Light vs Core, side by side
These are the three tiers most people compare. Prices verified September 2026 — always check wix.com for live figures.
| Feature | Free | Light | Core |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 | $24/mo, or $17/mo billed yearly | $36/mo, or $29/mo billed yearly |
| Custom domain | No | Yes — free for year 1 | Yes — free for year 1 |
| Wix ads on your site | Yes | No | No |
| Storage | Limited | 2 GB | 50 GB |
| Accept online payments | No | No | Yes |
Every paid plan — Light and up — removes the ads, unlocks a custom domain (free for the first year) and raises your storage ceiling. Core is the first tier that can take payments, which is why it's the starting point for stores.
Above Core, the ladder continues: Business ($46/mo, or $39/mo billed yearly) adds the full e-commerce suite — subscriptions, memberships and 100 GB of storage — while Business Elite ($172/mo, or $159/mo billed yearly) targets high-volume stores with unlimited storage and priority support. Most people choosing between free and paid are really deciding among Free, Light and Core; the upper tiers only enter the conversation once selling is the core of the site.
When the free plan is genuinely fine
The Free plan isn't a trap — it's a legitimate tool for specific situations. It's the right choice when you're learning the editor before committing money, prototyping a design for yourself, building a hobby mockup that no public audience needs to find, or drafting a site you'll move to a paid plan once someone else is paying for it. In all of those cases, the ads and the wixsite address don't matter, because the site isn't representing you to strangers yet. A useful test: would you put this address on a business card? If not, the site isn't ready for the public — and the free plan is still the right home for it.
When it's time to upgrade
The rule of thumb is simple: the moment your site faces the public, free stops working. A business site with Wix ads and a wixsite subdomain undermines the exact credibility it's supposed to build. Upgrade to Light ($17/mo billed yearly) if you need a professional presence — portfolio, personal brand, small service site — and to Core ($29/mo billed yearly) the day money changes hands through the site. Both prices are the annual-billing figures; monthly billing costs meaningfully more. One more signal to watch: growth. When your storage needs outgrow the free tier's limits, or you want professional email tied to your own domain, the upgrade tends to pay for itself in credibility alone.
Upgrade timing: how to pay less
If you've decided to upgrade, timing is your lever. Annual billing alone saves roughly 25–35% versus paying monthly, any time of year. Wix also runs site-wide seasonal sales — New Year, spring and back-to-school windows — where discounts can reach up to about 50% off, applied automatically at checkout, and Black Friday (November 27, 2026) is historically the deepest discount window of the year. One warning: Wix almost never issues copy-and-paste coupon codes, so ignore any site that lists them — the discount either applies automatically or it doesn't exist. Our breakdown of every real saving path is on the discount codes page — including the ones that don't exist.
Bottom line
The Free plan is the best possible way to test Wix, and a poor way to present anything public. For a site that represents you or your business, Light on annual billing is the honest entry price; for selling, Core. Start free to learn the editor, upgrade when the site goes public, and time the purchase to a sale if you can wait. If you're upgrading today, check the live sale status before checkout; if you can hold out until late November, Black Friday is historically the cheapest week of the year to buy.