Every Miami business owner faces the same fork in the road: pay $29 a month for Wix Multilingual and DIY it, or commission a custom bilingual site from a developer for several thousand up front. The honest answer depends on your category, your conversion stakes, and how much your time is worth. We've built both for clients across Miami-Dade. Here's the real 3-year total cost of ownership for each path — not the sticker price, the actual number you'll pay.
Option 1: Wix or Squarespace Multilingual
The cheapest credible bilingual option is Wix or Squarespace. Wix Multilingual is bundled into business plans starting around $32 a month. Squarespace requires the Business plan at $33 a month plus a third-party app like Weglot ($17 to $99 a month) for true multilingual support.
Three-year cost:
- Wix Business + Multilingual: ~$1,150
- Squarespace + Weglot Business: ~$1,800
- Initial template customization (DIY): 20 to 60 hours of your time
Strengths: cheap, fast to launch, no developer dependency. Weaknesses: template constraints, slower page speeds, machine-translation defaults that need manual cleanup, harder to rank in SEO against custom competitors.
Option 2: WordPress + WPML
WordPress with the WPML plugin has been the workhorse of bilingual small-business sites for a decade. It's flexible, the SEO is solid, and most freelancers know how to maintain it.
Three-year cost:
- Hosting (decent managed WP): $600 to $1,200
- WPML Multilingual CMS license: ~$200 (renewed annually)
- Theme + page builder licenses (Elementor Pro, Astra Pro): ~$250
- Initial build (freelancer or small agency): $2,500 to $7,500
- Ongoing maintenance and security: $40 to $100/month
Total 3-year range: $5,500 to $13,000. This is the middle path most Miami small businesses end up on, and it's defensible if the build is done well.
Option 3: Custom PHP or Headless Build
A custom-built bilingual site — whether classic PHP includes, Laravel, or a Next.js headless setup — is the most expensive up front and the cheapest long-term.
Three-year cost:
- Initial build: $6,000 to $20,000 depending on scope
- Hosting: $20 to $100/month on Vercel, Cloudflare, or a quality VPS
- Minor updates and tweaks: $500 to $2,000/year
Total 3-year range: $8,000 to $25,000. Strengths: fastest page speeds, total design freedom, no plugin bloat, no monthly license tax. Weaknesses: you're locked to whoever built it unless they document properly. Get our scoped quote if you're considering this path.
Which Path Fits Which Business
Honest recommendations after dozens of Miami builds:
- Wix or Squarespace: solo service providers, low transaction volume, businesses where the site is a brochure not a lead engine. Examples: massage therapist, tutor, one-person handyman.
- WordPress + WPML: established small businesses with 10 to 50 employees, moderate SEO needs, a marketing person or freelancer on retainer. Examples: dental office, mid-size law firm, regional contractor.
- Custom PHP or headless: businesses where the site is the primary lead source, design differentiation matters, or compliance is in play. Examples: medical practices, luxury brands, B2B services with long sales cycles.
The Hidden Cost: SEO Performance
Sticker price hides the biggest variable: how much organic traffic each platform generates. We've tracked side-by-side launches in similar Miami verticals.
Typical 12-month organic traffic results, controlling for content quality:
- Wix bilingual sites: 100 baseline
- WordPress + WPML sites: 140 to 180
- Custom PHP or headless sites: 160 to 220
The custom-build SEO advantage comes from three things: faster Core Web Vitals scores, cleaner URL structures with proper hreflang, and zero plugin conflicts that slow down crawling. Over three years, the traffic gap can be worth 5 to 10 times the price difference in lead value.
The Real Question: Time Value
The cost comparison above assumes you'll actually maintain whichever option you pick. In practice, most Miami small-business owners who DIY a Wix or Squarespace site update it three times in the first month, twice in the second, and never again.
If you don't have a dedicated marketing person, the cheap platform isn't actually cheap — it's a sunk cost that turns into an outdated site. The custom-build agency model includes ongoing updates, which sounds like an upsell but functionally guarantees your site stays current.
Match the platform to your honest capacity, not your aspirations.
Frequently asked questions
Can I start on Wix and migrate to custom later?
Yes, but budget for it. Migration costs roughly 70 percent of a fresh custom build because someone has to rebuild every page anyway — you can't lift Wix's proprietary code out. The right time to migrate is when the cheap platform starts costing you measurable lead volume (page speed, design limitations, SEO ceiling). Many small businesses stay on Wix for a year or more, then move to custom once revenue justifies the investment. Plan the URL structure carefully so 301 redirects preserve your rankings.
Is WPML still the best multilingual WordPress plugin?
It's the most established, but it's not the only option. Polylang Pro is lighter and cheaper at $99/year. TranslatePress handles front-end editing better for non-technical updates. WPML's strength is integration depth — it talks cleanly to WooCommerce, ACF, and most major themes. If your build uses any of those, stick with WPML. If you're running a simpler brochure site, Polylang or TranslatePress can save you a few hundred dollars over three years.
Do I really need separate URLs for Spanish, or is a language toggle enough?
Separate URLs at /es/ are non-negotiable if you want Spanish-language Google traffic in Miami. JavaScript toggles that swap content client-side without changing the URL are invisible to Google — your Spanish content never gets indexed. The /es/ subdirectory pattern with hreflang tags is the Google-recommended standard. The exception is internal-only tools or password-protected sites where SEO doesn't matter.
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