Websites for Vendors: Squarespace vs Wix vs WordPress vs Instagram-Only
Somebody searches "pizza van hire" plus your town tonight. If all you have is an Instagram grid, they won't find you, because Instagram doesn't really show up in that search. That's the whole argument for a website in one sentence. This guide compares the realistic options for UK vendors (Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, staying Instagram-only) with current UK prices and an honest view of how much website a food truck or wedding supplier actually needs.
What a Vendor Site Actually Has to Do
Strip away the web-design mystique and a vendor site has four jobs. Be findable for "your service, your area". Show the menu or packages with enough pricing to qualify enquiries. Put an enquiry form where a warm visitor can't miss it. Look alive: recent photos, next season's dates, not a 2023 news page.
That's a one-to-five-page site. Nobody books a burger van because it had a blog. Hold that scope in mind while the platforms try to sell you their whole catalogue.
Squarespace
Squarespace is the default recommendation for a reason: the templates look expensive straight out of the box and that flatters food and wedding photography especially. UK pricing runs £12 a month for Basic and £17 for Core on annual billing, VAT included, with hosting, SSL, the design system, all in one bill. One thing to know: the Basic tier adds a 2% transaction fee if you sell online, which vanishes on Core.
The trade is polish for flexibility. You work within the templates, the app ecosystem is curated rather than sprawling, and that's mostly a feature: fewer decisions, fewer ways to make it ugly. For a supplier who wants a beautiful five-pager live by Sunday with zero maintenance thereafter, this is the shortest path.
Wix
Wix runs from £9 a month (Light) up a long ladder to £119 for Business Elite, with a free tier that carries Wix branding and adverts (fine for a placeholder, wrong for a business). The mid-tier plans around £17 are where most small businesses land.
Wix's pitch is freedom: drag anything anywhere, bolt on apps (bookings, menus, chat), tweak endlessly. That freedom cuts both ways, since nothing stops the layout drifting into chaos and the app add-ons stack costs quietly. If you enjoy fiddling with your site, Wix rewards you. If you don't, the freedom becomes homework.
WordPress
WordPress comes in two flavours that people constantly confuse. WordPress.com is a hosted service like the others, from about £3 a month at the entry level with real limits, rising through tiers as you remove them. Self-hosted WordPress is free software on hosting you rent (a few pounds a month), with total control and total responsibility: updates, backups, security, the lot.
The honest vendor take: WordPress wins when the site is doing heavy lifting (a booking system, a content strategy, hundreds of pages) or when you're paying a professional who lives in it. For a five-page vendor site maintained by a busy trader, the maintenance burden usually outweighs the control. It's the strongest platform on this page and the wrong first choice for most readers of it.
Instagram-Only
Free. Alive. Already where wedding couples and street food fans scroll. Instagram is a genuinely good shop window and for some vendors it books every slot they have. The case for staying Instagram-only is real: zero cost, zero maintenance, the content habit you already have.
The case against is structural. You're building on rented land where an algorithm decides your reach, the grid doesn't rank for "hog roast hire Somerset", prices and FAQs live in highlights nobody finds, one account lock takes your whole business presence with it. The pragmatic answer for most vendors isn't either-or. It's Instagram for the audience plus a small site for the search traffic and the enquiry form, each linking to the other.
The Free Thing That Beats All of It Locally
Whatever you choose, a Google Business Profile is free and does more for "near me" and "your town" searches than any website tweak. Photos, reviews, service area, opening pattern: that profile is often the first thing a potential client sees. Our free Google Business Profile Checklist walks through setting it up properly. Do that this week regardless of the website decision.
Side by Side
| Option | Realistic cost | Effort to build | Effort to maintain | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace | £12-£17/month | A weekend | Minimal | Beautiful five-pagers, zero fiddling |
| Wix | £9-£17/month typical | A weekend, more if you fiddle | Low, rises with apps | Tinkerers, app-heavy needs |
| WordPress | £3-£10/month hosted, more self-hosted | Days, or a designer's invoice | Real (updates, backups) | Booking systems, content-heavy sites |
| Instagram-only | Free | Ongoing content | The content habit | Audience, not search |
Which for Which Vendor
Wedding supplier with a portfolio. Squarespace. The templates were practically designed for your photography. Couples judge polish. Core tier if you sell vouchers or prints, Basic otherwise.
Food truck chasing local bookings. A one-page Squarespace or Wix site with menu, area, enquiry form, plus a properly fed Google Business Profile. The profile will likely out-earn the website. Feed both.
Established business adding online booking or a shop. WordPress with a professional, or Squarespace Core if the requirement is simple. This is the point where paying someone £500 to £1,500 once beats £17 a month of your own evenings.
Brand-new, testing the idea. Instagram plus the Google profile, both free, until the enquiries prove the business. Buy the domain name now though (£10 to £20 a year), because your future site wants the name your van already carries.
Questions Vendors Actually Ask
I'm fully booked through word of mouth. Do I need this?
Need, no. But fully-booked is when a website costs you least and earns you most, because it lets you raise prices rather than volume: the vendor who looks established commands establishment rates. A five-page site is also your insurance against the year word of mouth goes quiet.
Can I move platforms later?
Yes, with friction. Your domain name moves freely (which is why you should own it, not leave it registered inside a platform bundle). Content gets rebuilt rather than transferred, realistically. Treat the first site as version one and the £12 a month as tuition, not marriage.
Should I just pay someone to build it?
A local designer will do a solid template site for £500 to £1,500, and for busy trading seasons that's honest money for skipped evenings. Two rules protect you: you own the domain and the accounts (not the designer), and you can edit prices and dates yourself afterwards without booking a call.
What about SEO?
For a local vendor, SEO is mostly doing normal things properly: a page that names your service and your area in plain English, the Google profile fed with photos and reviews, other sites linking to yours (directories, venues, suppliers). Skip anyone selling you monthly "SEO packages" before those basics exist.
Does the website need to handle bookings and payments?
Usually not at first. An enquiry form plus your normal payment links and invoicing covers most vendor workflows without e-commerce plans or transaction fees. Add proper online checkout when volume demands it, not before.
The Bottom Line
Squarespace for the polished five-pager with no homework. Wix for tinkerers. WordPress when the site is genuinely load-bearing. Instagram as the shop window, never the whole shop. And whichever way you go, the Google Business Profile is free, takes an evening, out-punches everything else on this page for local searches. Start there. Buy your domain. Keep the site small enough that you'll actually keep it current.
Get found before you get fancy
Our free Google Business Profile Checklist covers the highest-value hour of online marketing a vendor can spend, and the Social Media Content Planner keeps the Instagram side fed without eating your evenings.
Browse All TemplatesLast updated: August 2026. Platform prices checked at publication on annual billing; monthly billing costs more on every platform.