There is a framing problem in how most businesses think about their website. They treat it like a phone plan — a recurring service you pay for access to. The website builder industry has deliberately encouraged this framing because it is enormously profitable. Wix generated over $1.7 billion in revenue in 2024, almost entirely from subscriptions paid by businesses that built something real and are now paying indefinitely to keep access to it.
What Renting Actually Means
When you pay Wix, Squarespace, or Durable monthly, you are not paying for improvements. You are paying for continued existence. Stop paying and everything disappears — the design, the content, the URLs, the traffic. You cannot export your Wix site. Every hour spent building it, every backlink earned pointing to it — stranded or gone. See the CBS vs Wix comparison and CBS vs Squarespace for the full breakdown.
What Ownership Actually Means
A site you own — a standard WordPress installation on hosting you control — is a genuine business asset. Every file is yours. The database is yours. You can move it to a faster host. You can sell it with your business. You can hand it to any of the millions of WordPress developers in the world. The platform knowledge you accumulate on WordPress transfers to 43 percent of all websites on the internet.
The Real Math
Wix Core is $29 per month — $1,044 over three years, $1,740 over five years. Squarespace Business is $33 per month — $1,188 over three years. None of these fees buy you anything. At the end of five years you have the same thing you had at the start — a site you do not own. CBS Growth is $699 once. Over five years with hosting that is $1,099 total and you own a real asset. See the real cost of free builders and our one-time pricing.
When Renting Makes Sense
Website subscriptions are fine for personal projects and temporary landing pages. The calculus changes when your website is business-critical. At that point renting is a tax on your success. Every SEO win and every conversion optimization you do increases the value of the platform — not your business.
CBS builds AI-powered WordPress sites you own outright. One-time price. No monthly fees. No lock-in.