Yesterday, I met with a solopreneur that’s been running a luxury rentals company for years. Website? Still on Wix.
He’d recently been looking to expand into another city and figured it was time for a tech overhaul.
The quote he got from a Wix developer to do it included a percentage of his business.
I don’t think even three years ago I ever would have imagined encouraging someone to go custom & off platform to SAVE money. Maybe as an investment.
But now?
Just considering a few of the bigger questions needed to be resolved IN the platform:
- figuring out how to setup a two-city site
- figuring out how to add language support
- getting forms to handle the four options (city X language) to start
- consider that language will be just 2. probably for many many years. Nothing complex needed here: a toggle.
- consider that city is not going to stay two. Two for a pretty short while, then 3, 4, 5, eventually dozens.
- new listings? he’d love to add through ChatGPT. Dump a few images, some text, etc.
- Top of the funnel sales leads? totally separate system. Not even handled inbound through the website.
Not even considering all the other weird tradeoffs the business made to fit into Wix in the first place.
I keep seeing more reasons to go custom. It really feels like a big change.
Will he need a developer?
Of course he will. But, he already did. And they needed to be a Wix specialist, working in the confines of that platform. With custom, he’ll probably need one for way less time than it will take to figure it out in Wix.
And he won’t have to give up a percentage of his business.
And he’ll be able to do smaller updates himself. Through ChatGPT. In text. No WYSIWYG / UI to figure out.
Oh, and his future payments? They’ll go to the business directly. No more platform in the middle, no more percentage.
Written on a keyboard by Kevin Doran — Jul 24, 2026
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