Is Wix Free in 2026? What the Free Plan Gives You and What It Costs to Sell

Yes, Wix is free to start, and the free plan has no time limit. But a free Wix site shows Wix ads, lives on a wixsite.com address, and cannot take payments. If you want to sell online, you need the Core plan or higher, which costs $29 a month billed yearly or $36 billed monthly.

This guide covers what the free plan includes, what it leaves out, which plan you need to sell, and what Wix takes from each sale.

Key Takeaways

• The free plan costs $0 with no time limit, but it caps storage at 500 MB and bandwidth at 1 GB (Wix Help Center).
• You cannot sell on the free plan. Wix lists online payments as “Not included” on free sites. Selling starts at Core: $29/month billed yearly, $36 billed monthly.
• The cheapest paid plan, Light ($17/month yearly), removes ads but still cannot take payments.
• Wix Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 per US card sale, so a $100 order costs $3.20 in fees. Wix’s pricing and payment pages list no extra commission on store orders.
• A 14-day money-back guarantee covers your first upgrade to a paid plan.

Is Wix Really Free?

Yes. You can sign up without a credit card, build a site with the drag-and-drop editor, choose from Wix’s templates, and publish it. Wix hosts the site for you. Wix says there is no time limit: you can keep a free site for as long as you need it (Wix).

So “free” here is not a trial. It is a permanent plan with limits. The limits are what decide whether it works for you.

What Does the Free Wix Plan Leave Out?

Wix’s own help center compares a free site with an upgraded one (Wix Help Center):

Three of these matter most for a business:

• The address. A wixsite.com link is harder to remember and looks less trustworthy than your own .com.
• The ads. Every page carries a Wix banner. Visitors see Wix’s brand next to yours.
• The payments. This is the hard limit. A free site can show products, but it cannot take money for them.

The free plan is a fine way to learn the editor, test a design, or run a personal page. It is not built to run a store.

Can You Sell on Wix’s Free Plan?

No. Wix states that free sites have no ecommerce functionality or way to take payments, so you need a paid plan to sell online (Wix).

The cheapest paid plan does not fix this either. Light removes the ads and lets you connect a domain, but “Accept payments” first appears in the plan list at Core (Wix plans). Wix’s own guide to its plans says “Core and above unlock online payments” (Wix).

If you plan to sell, skip Light. Core is the real starting price.

How Much Does Wix Cost?

Wix publishes these US prices, before tax. Wix notes that prices vary by location (Wix; Wix).

Storage and the eCommerce labels come from Wix’s plans page (Wix plans). Wix does not spell out the full feature list for “Basic” versus “Standard” eCommerce on that page, so compare the plans side by side before you choose.

On a year of Core, the gap between billing options is $84: $348 billed yearly against $432 billed monthly.

Wix also offers a 14-day money-back guarantee. You pay up front and can ask for a full refund within 14 days. It applies only to your first upgrade to a paid plan (Wix plans).

Does Wix Take a Percentage of Sales?

Not as a commission on store orders. Wix’s pricing page and its payment fee page list no separate per-sale cut on top of processing. What you pay on each sale is the card processing fee.

With Wix Payments in the US, that fee is (Wix Help Center):

• Cards (except American Express): 2.9% + $0.30
• American Express: 3.7% + $0.30

Here is what that means on a single order:

Three details are worth knowing:

• Refunds do not return the processing fee. If you refund a $100 order, Wix does not pay back the original $3.20 (Wix Help Center).
• Some sales cost more. Wix lists a cross-border fee of 1.5% on top of processing in some cases, and a $15 fee per chargeback (Wix Help Center).
• Selling memberships is different. If you sell paid plans or subscriptions through Wix’s Pricing Plans app, Wix charges a separate transaction fee on those charges. The rate depends on your site plan and is shown on Wix’s upgrade page (Wix Help Center).

Does Wix Charge Transaction Fees?

For a normal product store on Core or higher, your per-sale costs are the processing fees above. The plan fee is fixed each month. Spread it across your orders to see your full cost per sale: at 50 orders a month on Core (yearly), the $29 plan adds 58¢ to each order.

The bigger picture is that your plan fee, the processing fee, and any paid apps add up. Our guide to hidden e-commerce costs walks through each line.

Do You Get a Free Domain With Wix?

Only with a paid plan. Most yearly or multi-year plans include a voucher for one free year of a new domain bought through Wix. You must use it within 60 days, and it cannot renew a domain you already own (Wix plans). After the first year, you pay the normal renewal price.

On the free plan, you keep the wixsite.com address.

Is Wix Worth It for an Online Store?

It depends on what you sell and how much.

Wix is worth it when:

• You want a site that is part brochure, part store, such as a studio that sells a few products and books classes.
• You like editing pages by hand with drag and drop.
• You sell enough to justify $29 to $39 a month, and you want no commission on store orders.

Wix is not worth it when:

• You only want to test an idea. The free plan cannot take a real order, so it cannot tell you if people will pay.
• You plan to stay on the free plan and run a business. The ads and wixsite.com address work against you.
• You need a specific store feature that sits on a higher tier. Check the plan comparison first, because moving from Core to Business Elite is a jump from $29 to $159 a month.

If Wix does not fit, our list of Wix alternatives compares other builders, and Wix vs Shopify covers the most common head-to-head.

Where Runner AI Fits

Runner AI is an AI-native e-commerce platform. You describe your store in chat, and the AI builds the storefront, product pages and checkout. You keep editing by chat or with visual tools.

Like Wix, Runner has a $0 plan that publishes your site to a free address with the platform’s branding. Here is the plain version (Runner pricing):

• Free ($0): build the store and see a live visual preview. You get 150 welcome credits plus quest rewards, 1 project, AI product sourcing and dropshipping, and you can connect Stripe, TikTok and more. You can publish the store to a free runnerai.dev address, with a Runner watermark.
• Plus ($25/month): your own domain starts here. You get 1 always-on published store, a custom domain, the watermark removed, an unlimited product catalog, and 1,000 credits per billing cycle. Runner’s fee per sale is 2%.
• Pro ($49/month) and Max ($159/month) lower the Runner fee to 1.5% and 1%.

Annual billing is 20% lower than monthly on every paid plan. Your payment provider’s own processing fee, such as Stripe’s card fee, is charged on top of the Runner fee on every plan.

The honest trade-off. Runner Plus costs less per month than Wix Core: $25 against $36 on monthly billing. But Wix takes no commission on store orders, and Runner takes 2% on Plus. That 2% passes the $11 monthly gap once you sell more than about $550 a month. Above that, Wix Core costs less per sale. Below it, or if you want the AI to build the store for you, Runner can cost less.

Runner fits sellers who want to describe a store and have it built, or who want AI sourcing and dropshipping in the same tool. Runner does not fit people who want an always-on store on their own domain without a paid plan, or high-volume sellers who want no platform cut on sales. For a closer look, see Runner AI vs Wix.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Wix free forever?

Yes. The free plan has no time limit. Your site keeps Wix ads, a wixsite.com address, 500 MB of storage and 1 GB of bandwidth for as long as you stay on it.

Can I accept payments on a free Wix site?

No. Wix lists online payments as not included on free sites. You need Core ($29/month billed yearly) or higher. The Light plan also cannot take payments.

Does Wix take a percentage of my sales?

Wix lists no commission on store orders. With Wix Payments in the US, you pay 2.9% + $0.30 per card sale, or 3.7% + $0.30 for American Express. Paid plans sold through the Pricing Plans app carry a separate transaction fee.

How do I remove Wix ads?

Upgrade to any paid plan. Light ($17/month billed yearly) removes the Wix ads and lets you connect your own domain.

Is there a free trial of Wix’s paid plans?

Wix’s plans page offers a free plan and a 14-day money-back guarantee on your first upgrade, rather than a trial of paid plans. The free plan lets you try the editor; the guarantee lets you try a paid plan.

Is Wix good for ecommerce?

It can work well for a small store, especially when the store is one part of a wider business site. Selling starts at Core, and store features grow with each tier from “Basic” to “Advanced” eCommerce.

Sources

• Wix Help Center: Upgrading Your Wix Site — free vs upgraded site: wixsite.com address, Wix ads on every page and favicon, 500 MB storage, 1 GB bandwidth, online payments not included. Retrieved 2026-11-12.
• Wix: Is Wix really free? — no time limit, no ecommerce on free sites, US prices billed yearly and monthly, Light removes ads, free domain with paid plans, 14-day money-back guarantee. Retrieved 2026-11-12.
• Wix: Wix Premium Plans — plan names, yearly prices, storage, “Core and above unlock online payments.” Retrieved 2026-11-12.
• Wix Plans — “Accept payments” from Core, eCommerce tier labels, storage, free domain voucher terms, 14-day money-back guarantee on the first upgrade. Retrieved 2026-11-12.
• Wix Help Center: Wix Payments Service Fees — US card rates (2.9% + $0.30; Amex 3.7% + $0.30), cross-border fee, $15 chargeback fee, processing fees not returned on refunds. Retrieved 2026-11-12.
• Wix Help Center: Pricing Plans transaction fee — tiered transaction fee on charges for paid plans sold through the Pricing Plans app. Retrieved 2026-11-12.
• Runner AI Pricing — Runner plan prices, credits, free publishing to a runnerai.dev address, custom domain on Plus, and fee per sale. Retrieved 2026-11-12.