Let's say it up front: we build mostly in WordPress and WooCommerce. We mention it because almost every guide on this question is written by someone who sells one of the platforms, and it reaches exactly the conclusion that suits them. Our aim here is the opposite: to help you choose well, even when the answer is not to build with us. We checked the prices, terms and integrations on October 30, 2026, directly on the companies' websites.
The short answer, by business type
If you don't have time to read the whole guide, this table sums up what we'd recommend in most cases:
| Your business | Our pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Service providers with a site of a few pages who want to edit it themselves | Wix | A simple editor, with hosting, security and updates included in the plan |
| A local business that lives on Google and content: lawyers, clinics, contractors | WordPress | Full control over SEO, and a lot of content stays organized for years |
| A business website with a unique design | WordPress with Elementor, or Wix Studio | Both let you design almost anything |
| A small store the owners run themselves | Wix or Shopify Basic | Quick to launch, and no server to maintain |
| A growing product brand that also sells abroad | Shopify | Stability, lots of apps and 24/7 support, even with the fee |
| A store with Israeli needs: dealer pricing, couriers, a link to your accounting software | WooCommerce | You can connect it to almost any Israeli system |
| Courses, members-only content or a personal account area | WordPress | The most options, and the content stays with you |
Three questions that decide it
Who will edit the site day to day?
If the answer is you, and you don't want to learn a system, Wix and Shopify are simpler. WordPress can do almost anything, but it has more settings, and usually a professional builds the foundation while you update the content.
What do you sell, and how do you get paid?
A site that doesn't take payments is a fairly simple decision. Once you have a store, it becomes a question of payment processing, invoices, shipping and fees, and that's where the platforms differ a lot in Israel. More on that below.
How many of your customers need to come from Google?
All three platforms can get you onto Google. If the site is your main marketing channel, and you plan lots of pages and articles over the years, WordPress gives you the most control over every detail.
Wix in 2026: what's good and where it falls short
According to W3Techs, Wix powers 4.2% of all websites in the world. It now has three editors: the regular editor; Wix Harmony, which builds a site from a text description and launched in January 2026 (in English at first); and Wix Studio, which is aimed at designers and agencies.
What works well
- Hosting, security, an SSL certificate and updates are included in the plan. There's no server to maintain and no plugins to update.
- A drag-and-drop editor you can learn in a few hours, with right-to-left support for Hebrew.
- Built-in tools for a store, appointment booking and a blog, without hunting for plugins.
Where it falls short
- You can't take your site out of Wix. According to Wix itself, the site runs only on its servers. You can export products and contacts as a CSV file, but not the design, and for now not your blog posts either.
- Wix Payments isn't available in Israel, so you connect an Israeli payment provider, such as Tranzila, PayPlus or Grow.
- You can't buy a .co.il domain through Wix, only connect one you bought from another registrar.
- When you stop paying, the site goes back to Wix's free address with its ads, and your domain is disconnected from it.
Prices, according to Wix's pricing page on October 30, 2026: Light at $17 a month, Core at $29, Business at $39 and Business Elite at $159, billed annually and before VAT. Wix says the dollar prices are for illustration, and the final price is shown at checkout. To accept payments on your site, you need at least Core.
WordPress in 2026: the most flexible, but it needs maintenance
WordPress powers 39.5% of all websites in the world, and 58.2% of the sites built on a known content management system (W3Techs, October 2026). The software is free; you pay for hosting and a domain. WooCommerce, its store plugin, is free too, and it's the world's most common system for online stores: 47.4% of them run on it.
What you get
- The site is entirely yours: the files and the database are yours, and you can move to any hosting company.
- Thousands of plugins, including official integrations with Israeli payment providers and invoicing systems.
- Full control over every detail of the design, the structure and the SEO.
The maintenance nobody tells you about
WordPress.org says that your hosting company is usually responsible for the infrastructure, not for the software you chose to install, and that old versions of WordPress don't get security updates. In other words, WordPress itself, the plugins and the theme are yours to update. Someone has to do it, back up first, and check afterwards that the forms and the store still work. For our clients, it's part of our hosting and care plans, and of course you can also do it yourself.
Elementor: a page builder with a yearly license
Many WordPress sites are built with Elementor, which lets you design by drag and drop. The free version is limited, and paid plans start at $60 a year for one site, according to Elementor. Note that the basic plan has no popups, and form submissions aren't saved inside WordPress. For those you need Advanced Solo, at $84 a year.
Shopify in Israel: no Shopify Payments
Shopify is a closed system for stores, with hosting, security and 24/7 support. According to Shopify's pricing page for Israel, billed annually, Basic costs $35 a month, Grow $95 and Advanced $359.
Shopify Payments isn't available in Israel, so an Israeli store connects a local payment provider, and Shopify charges an extra fee on every sale: 2% on the Basic plan, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced. This fee comes on top of the payment provider's own fee.
The math worth doing
Say a store sells ₪20,000 a month. On the Basic plan it pays Shopify another 2%, which is ₪400 a month and ₪14,400 over three years, on top of the plan and the payment processing fee. Grow costs $60 a month more than Basic and saves 1% of sales, so it pays off from about $6,000 in sales a month.
About Hebrew: according to Shopify, themes in the Horizon family support right-to-left text, and checkout is translated into Hebrew. If you use another theme, check this before you start.
A store: payments and invoices on each platform
We checked the websites of the payment providers, the invoicing systems and the platforms to see which have an official integration with which platform:
| Service | WooCommerce | Shopify | Wix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tranzila | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Grow | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PayPlus | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cardcom | Yes | Yes | No |
| iCredit | Yes | No | Yes |
| Morning (formerly Green Invoice) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| iCount | Yes | Yes | Yes |
WooCommerce has the widest choice, and above all the option to connect systems that have no ready-made plugin, such as accounting software, a warehouse or a delivery company. On Wix and Shopify, anything without an official app usually won't connect.
What it really costs
Comparing only the plan price is misleading. Here's the full picture, by type of expense:
| Expense | Wix | WordPress | Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan or hosting | A Wix plan, and at least Core for a store | Hosting with a hosting company | A Shopify plan |
| Domain | Separate, and .co.il not through Wix | Separate | Separate |
| Plugins and apps | Paid apps, as needed | Plugins, plus Elementor Pro if you build with it | Paid apps, as needed |
| Platform fee on sales | Not listed in Wix's pricing | None | 2% to 0.6%, depending on the plan |
| Payment processing fee | To the payment provider | To the payment provider | To the payment provider |
| Updates and security | Included | On you, or whoever maintains the site | Included |
Accessibility: what the law requires, on every platform
Under the 2013 service accessibility regulations, a website that serves the public in Israel has to meet Israeli Standard 5568 at level AA, which is based on WCAG 2.0. The Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law lets a court award compensation without proof of damage, up to ₪50,000, linked to the consumer price index. There are exemptions and reliefs for small businesses, and it's worth checking whether they apply to you: under the regulations, a VAT-exempt small business (osek patur), or a business whose average annual turnover doesn't exceed ₪100,000, is exempt from making its website accessible.
Two things the Commission for Equal Rights of Persons with Disabilities states explicitly: an accessibility plugin (the button that opens a menu of adjustments) doesn't exempt you from the obligation, and isn't required at all. And you may not build a new site on a platform that doesn't allow full accessibility. What matters is how the site itself is built: contrast, keyboard navigation, alt text for images, and forms with labels. On any platform, check the template before you choose it.
Who owns the site, and what happens when you leave
| What | Wix | Shopify | WordPress |
|---|---|---|---|
| The site and design | No | No, the theme stays | Yes, all of it |
| Products | Yes, as a CSV file | Yes, as a CSV file | Yes |
| When you stop paying | The site goes back to a free address with ads | After 28 days without payment, the store is frozen | Your files, with any hosting company |
And on any platform: the domain should be registered in the business's name, with a registrar you control. A domain registered in the name of whoever built your site is the most common problem we run into when businesses want to move.
Who answers when something breaks
Wix and Shopify offer support from the company, but it covers the platform, not your design and not other companies' apps. WordPress has no company support at all: there's your hosting company, and there's whoever built and maintains the site. Before you choose, find out who you'll call when the form stops sending enquiries.
And what about AI?
Every platform has AI tools now: Wix Harmony builds a site from a text description, Shopify has a built-in AI assistant, and WordPress has plugins, including in Elementor. They save time on the first draft. The decisions about the structure, the copy and the connections to your systems are still yours to make.
When we won't recommend building with us in WordPress
- Your budget is very small, the site has a few pages, and you want to edit and update everything yourself. Wix will suit you better.
- You're a product brand that sells mostly abroad and you don't want to think about maintenance at all. Shopify, even with the fee.
- You need a site for a short time, for an event or a launch that lasts a few weeks.
In any other case, and especially when the site needs to bring in customers from Google or connect to your systems, WordPress is our choice. If you're on the fence, a short call is enough for us to tell you honestly what fits. Read more on our building a business website and setting up an online store with us.
FAQ
Wix or WordPress: which is better for a small business?
If you want to edit it yourself, the site is small and you have no one to maintain it, go with Wix. If the site needs to bring in customers from Google over time, or connect to your systems, go with WordPress.
How much does a Wix site cost?
According to Wix, from $17 a month (Light) up to $159 (Business Elite), billed annually and before VAT. To accept payments you need at least Core, at $29 a month. On top of that comes a domain, and apps if you need them.
Can I move a site from Wix to WordPress?
The content, yes. The site, no. The design doesn't come out of Wix, and blog posts can't be exported right now either. In practice, you rebuild the site in WordPress, move the content over, and set up redirects from the old addresses.
Is Wix good for SEO?
You can do SEO on a Wix site: it lets you edit titles and descriptions, set up 301 redirects, and it has a sitemap. WordPress gives you more technical control, and it's more comfortable for a site with lots of content.
Does Shopify Payments work in Israel?
No. You connect an Israeli payment provider, and Shopify charges an extra fee on every sale: 2% on Basic, 1% on Grow and 0.6% on Advanced.
Who owns the site and the domain?
With WordPress, the site and its files are yours. With Wix and Shopify the content is yours, but the site runs only on their platform. Either way, register the domain in the business's name.
Does my site have to be accessible?
If it serves the public in Israel, yes, under Israeli Standard 5568, whatever the platform. There are exemptions and reliefs for very small businesses. An accessibility plugin alone isn't enough.
Sources
- W3Techs: content management system market share October 30, 2026
- W3Techs: WooCommerce
- Wix: plans and pricing
- Wix: exporting your site
- Wix: payment providers by country
- Shopify Israel: pricing
- Shopify: countries with Shopify Payments
- Shopify: frozen stores
- WordPress: security and updates
- Elementor: pricing
- Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law the compensation section
- Service Accessibility Regulations, 5773-2013 Regulations 35 to 35F
- Commission for Equal Rights of Persons with Disabilities: website accessibility FAQ
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