Wix likes to think big. Really big. Superbowl ads, celebrity endorsements, superlatives, that kind of thing. And we also find there is substance behind those boasts. The company regularly tops our list of the best website builders for beginners.
But how big a company are they really? Is their popularity real, or boosted by marketing campaigns? This is what I’ll try to establish today by working out the Wix market share in the world of website builders.
1. How big is Wix’s market share?
Among all the websites using a content management system, Wix’s market share is 3.6% according to W3techs. This makes Wix the third most popular website building solution after WordPress (63.7%) and Shopify (5.7%).
Looking only at the simple website builders category, Wix is the leader and captures 44% of the market share (according to BuiltWith). Squarespace (16%) and GoDaddy Website Builder (11%) are the second and third-biggest competitors.
2. How many Wix websites are there?
Based on Wix’s official information, there are 238 million Wix users (end of Q3 2022). Wix currently has 6 million premium subscribers, which means only 2.52% of all its users are paying for a premium plan.
| Year | Number of Wix websites | Number of premium subscriptions | Growth (%)* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 238,000,000 (as of Q3) | Data not available yet | |
| 2021 | 220,000,000 (source) | 6,000,000 | 8.33 |
| 2020 | 200,000,000 (source A+B) | 5,500,000 | 18.18 |
| 2019 | 165,000,000 (source) | 4,500,000 | 11.11 |
| 2018 | 142,000,000 (source) | 4,000,000 | 20.00 |
| 2017 | 119,000,000 (source) | 3,200,000 | 22.97 |
| 2016 | 97,400,000 (source) | 2,465,000 | 26.98 |
| 2015 | 77,000,000 (source) | 1,800,000 |
* Growth rate is based on premium subscriptions
In 2020 Wix experienced strong growth due to the pandemic. That year alone, Wix added 31 million users and reached 200 million users by the end of 2020. They also added 1 million paid subscribers. Thereafter, Wix’s growth slowed down: from 2020 to 2021 Wix was only able to add 20 million new users and 0.5m premium subscriptions to their platform.
3. Wix is indeed the most popular hosted website builder
These stats come to us from BuiltWith.com. What’s noteworthy is the actual percentage that allows them to claim that prize: a mere 0.76% of the top 1M websites were built with Wix (read review).
However, that rate increases as you reduce the pool of included websites. This seems to be a sign that Wix is moving upwards, competing more and more for the market of high-quality websites and ecommerce stores.
- Top 1m websites: 0.76% built with Wix
- Top 100k websites: 0.77% built with Wix
- Top 10k websites: 0.99% built with Wix
If you don’t count websites where the CMS is unknown, and only filter for hosted solutions, the figure rises to 11%. Still, it’s hard to say if this is actually a lot, or surprisingly little. The numbers certainly pale in comparison with WordPress, which powers 43.2% of all websites on the entire Internet (but is mainly a self-hosted solution).
4. What does Wix’s revenue growth look like?
Look at the growth on these charts, which come directly from Wix’s public quarterly report in 2022:
Let’s take a look at the geographical breakdown of Wix’s revenues:
The vast majority of Wix’s revenues come from North America: 59%. It’s also the fastest-growing market for Wix, with a growth rate of 11%.
Europe is second with 26% of revenues. Asia accounts for only 11% of all revenues. And finally Latin America with 4% and hardly any growth.
Given its enormous population, Asia seems underrepresented and should offer opportunities for growth.
Creative subscriptions are more than triple that of business subscriptions
If you have any doubts as to whether Wix was more popular with creatives or business users, just take a look at the graph below. Up until the third quarter of 2022, revenue generated by its creative solutions $840 million, in contrast to the $261 million generated by its business solutions:
There’s no doubt that Wix’s eye-catching templates, portfolio features, and print-on-demand integrations make it popular with artists, designers, and other creative professionals. But Wix is also investing a lot in its small business solutions, with features like the Wix Ascend sales and marketing suite helping to make Wix a one-stop-shop for small business owners. So, let’s see how this split of creative vs business users evolves over the next few years.
5. Wix’s market share is now growing faster than Squarespace’s
Interestingly, in terms of market share trends, Wix is battling it out with Squarespace. According to W3techs, it recently overtook Squarespace in terms of usage (when looking at the overall CMS market):
| CMS | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 58.5% | 60.0% | 59.7% | 62.1% | 64.1% | 65.2% | 63.7% |
| Shopify | 1.3% | 1.8% | 2.6% | 3.4% | 5.2% | 6.6% | 5.7% |
| Wix | 0.6% | 0.9% | 1.8% | 2.3% | 2.4% | 2.9% | 3.6% |
| Squarespace | 1.5% | 2.6% | 2.7% | 2.7% | 2.3% | 2.7% | 3.0% |
| Webflow | – | – | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.7% | 0.9% |
| Godaddy Website Builder | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.7% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% |
| Weebly | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.7% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.7% |
| Jimdo | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.2% |
So the takeaway here is that there could be very serious competition between Wix and Squarespace in the hosted website builder market – learn more about Squarespace market share.
It’s going to be interesting to keep a close watch on these two in the years to come. (And if you want to compare them in terms of product quality, pricing, and features, here’s our breakdown of Wix vs Squarespace.)
6. Wix shares were at one point worth 941% more than at IPO
Wix went public as a company in late 2013. One share was worth $17.30 at the time. It went up by 17% in January 2020 alone, even before COVID started to accelerate tech stocks across the board. In December 2021, it reached $162.87.
Guess you wish you had invested in them at the time, right?
However, in the tech stock correction of May 2022, all these high valuations came crashing down. As of Jan 2023, Wix’s stock is trading for only $82.91.
7. It earned $1.27 billion in 2021
The company made $1.27 billion in 2021, up from its 2020 revenue of $989 million. As of Q3 in 2022, it had earned $1.03 billion, meaning it was on track to beat its previous year’s earnings. It also employs 5,000 people worldwide. However, in terms of gain, it’s still not as impressive as Shopify’s $4.612 billion for 2021.
We shouldn’t forget about Squarespace. As a public company, they now also publish their revenue numbers and recorded $784 million for 2021.
8. Wix has a massive marketing and advertising budget
Wix’s marketing spend in 2022 was $64 million, although this actually was less than the $81 million spent the previous year. But that’s nothing compared to their whopping $100M advertising budget a year. That explains the Superbowl ads, dreamed up yearly by their own in-house advertising team.
Worth noting that their 2017 ad, featuring Gal Gadot and Jason Statham, was considered the most socially engaging of all Superbowl campaigns that year. So they’re not only designed to woo TV viewers, but also to work across multiple channels.
9. Wix is still the most searched for, but fewer people are now searching
Proof that these big marketing bucks pay off in one area: interest. People sure search a lot for Wix online, although monthly global searches have actually dropped by about 3 million since 2021.
According to Ahrefs, it’s typed into Google more than twice as much as Shopify. (Although, like WordPress, Shopify is not exactly a direct competitor, as it is only for ecommerce.)
- Wix: 3.8 million global searches/month
- Shopify: 3.3 million
- Squarespace: 898,000
- Weebly: 387,000
But speaking of ecommerce….
10. It Is Not Doing Bad With Ecommerce Either
Wix’s popularity in ecommerce continues to grow. In fact, it’s the fourth most popular ecommerce builder for the top 1 million sites – pretty impressive considering the top 3 are specifically designed for online stores. Up until recently, its close rival Squarespace was actually more popular in the ecommerce category, but Wix has now gained a firm lead ahead of them.
And if you were wondering if there’s a price advantage between Wix and Squarespace: both let you build an online store starting from their respective Business plans, which cost between $27 (Wix) and $23 (Squarespace).
See similar stats about Shopify’s market share.
11. But Wix Is Nowhere Near As Popular As WordPress
Google Trends graphs aren’t the most reliable or precise statistical tools out there, but it’s worth looking at the one below:
As you can see, WordPress has the highest volume of Google searches globally – more than double that of Wix’s. Shopify was also ahead of Wix in terms of global interest, although Wix was significantly ahead of Squarespace and Weebly.
So They’re Working Hard to Expand Their Market
Two interesting insights I’ve learned from researching Wix. Both of them have to do with expanding the size of Wix’s market with new products:
- Editor X: a completely customizable solution to build websites with much more flexibility than the current editor. It’s aimed at expert web designers and agencies who want complete control over the design.
- Velo (formerly Corvid): an advanced platform for creating web apps. Once again, it’s targeting technical coders who need a robust solution to deliver sites for clients.
It’s particularly interesting how it sits at the other end of the spectrum of Wix ADI, Wix’s beginner-friendly automated builder. All this would enable Wix to offer solutions for everyone, from complete beginners to advanced web designers (and probably attacking WordPress’s market domination there).
Will The Wix Uptrend Continue?
So it’s an interesting time for Wix. In terms of ecommerce it’s going to be nearly impossible for them to catch up with Shopify. Similarly, users who self-host their sites tend to choose WordPress.
Or could it all change with the announcement of their new editor, built with designers and agencies in mind? And they certainly bet big on Velo, their platform for creating web apps.
Now, while other hosted website builders like Weebly, GoDaddy and Shopify are nowhere near as popular, Wix should probably watch out for their biggest direct competitor: Squarespace. Webflow is growing rapidly too but is more of a competitor to Editor X than the classic Wix product.
Let’s see how much of an impact these $100M yearly advertising budgets have in the long run!
Want more stats about website builders’ market share? Please leave your thoughts below!
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26 Sep 2022: Additional data added
21 Sep 2022: Updated numbers, added new geographical information
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