If you’ve got spare evenings, a good eye and one simple salon, Wix or Squarespace can do the job. If your evenings already belong to the salon, or you’ve got sunbeds, courses and several sites to explain, a specialist usually gets you there sooner.
We build websites for tanning salons, so we’ve got a horse in this race. We also run three salons, and we’d rather you picked the right one than ours. Here’s how the two compare.
What each one costs
We read these on each company’s own pricing page on 31 October 2026, in pounds. Prices move about, so check them before you buy.
| Wix | Squarespace | Tanning Salon Websites | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Light, £9 a month, paid yearly | Basic, £14.40 a month on annual billing | Starter, £595 one-off |
| Next step up | Core, £16 a month, paid yearly | Core, £20.40 a month on annual billing | Full, £995 one-off |
| Paying monthly instead | Other periods available, so check | Basic £19.20, Core £28.80 | Doesn’t apply |
| Domain | Free for the first year on paid plans | Free for the first year on annual plans | Ask us |
| Hosting | Part of the plan | Part of the plan | Included for the first 12 months |
| Who does the work | You | You | Us |
Squarespace’s figures include its estimate of VAT. Wix says its prices don’t include applicable taxes, so the two aren’t quite level as shown.
These aren’t like-for-like, so we’ve not added them up into a total. A builder is a subscription you keep paying and a set of tools you use yourself. A build is a one-off for finished work. Hosting is included for the first 12 months with us. After that, keep it with us on yearly hosting (we confirm the price before your first year ends) or take your site with you. And the builders’ prices leave out the biggest cost, which is your own time.
What you’re really choosing
| Website builder | Specialist | |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes and lays it out | You | Them, from what you tell them |
| Who knows what a course or a minute is | You | They should, so ask |
| Who fixes it when it looks wrong | You, with the help desk | Them |
| Speed | As fast as you are | Depends on the queue |
| Control | You change anything, any time | Depends on the provider, so ask |
A builder gives you the tools and a blank salon. Nobody will tell you that your prices don’t make sense, or that your bed page reads like a catalogue. A specialist should, and if they don’t, you’ve paid more for the same thing.
What a tanning salon website has to do
This is the comparison worth making. Lay your salon out against each job and see who’d be doing it.
| Job | On a builder | What to ask a specialist |
|---|---|---|
| Price list | You build a table for single minutes, courses, memberships and spray tans, and keep it right on a phone | How will my prices be set out, and who changes them? |
| Your beds | You write a page for each bed type from scratch | Do you know a stand-up from a lay-down, and what a first-timer needs to read? |
| Spray tans | A separate page, with its own booking button | Will spray tans get their own page? |
| Getting found | You add your town, opening hours and titles to each page | What do you set up for my town and my Google Business Profile? |
| Booking or walk-in | You pick a route and add the button | Can you link to my system, or build for a walk-in salon? |
| Ad rules | You check your own wording against the ASA’s sunbed advice | Who checks what the site says about sunbeds? |
| Photos | You take them and size them. Our shot list helps | Do you use real photos of my salon? |
None of that is beyond a salon owner with time. It just adds up to more than picking a nice template.
Online booking on a builder
You’ve got three ways to take bookings on a website builder.
| Route | What it is | Check first |
|---|---|---|
| Wix Bookings | Wix’s own bookings tool, with reminders, payments, packages and membership plans. You need a paid plan to take bookings, and the plans page lists scheduling on Core and above, not on Light | Whether it can handle beds or rooms. The page we read doesn’t mention them |
| Acuity Scheduling | Squarespace’s scheduling product, sold with its own plans. Packages and memberships are listed on the Standard plan | The cost on top of your website plan |
| A link or widget from your booking system | A button or embedded widget from whatever you already use | That it works on a phone and lands on the right service |
For most salons the third route is the safest, because your booking system stays the same if your website ever changes. Our booking systems guide covers how to choose one, and Fresha vs Treatwell vs Booksy sets out their fees. If you sell minutes, test any of these on your real price list first, since none of the pages we read talks about minute balances.
Templates, Google and analytics
A template gets you a good-looking start in an evening. It won’t know your town, your beds or your best seller, so the job is replacing every placeholder with something true about your salon.
Three things are easy to skip on a builder:
- SEO basics. Give each page a title with your town and what the page is for. A builder gives you the boxes, and it can’t tell you what to put in them.
- Your Google Business Profile. Link it to your site and keep your hours matching on both. Plenty of local searches start there.
- Analytics. Set it up from day one, so you can see whether people reach the price list and tap the book button. Otherwise you’re guessing.
A specialist should cover the first two as part of the build, so check that it’s written down. Ask about analytics too, and who gets to see the numbers.
If you change your mind
Check your way out before you start. A builder is hard to leave with your site intact.
- Wix: its support page says sites have to be hosted on Wix’s servers, so you can’t move one elsewhere as it stands.
- Squarespace: you can export some content, but not everything comes across, and it doesn’t include your style settings. Plan on rebuilding the design.
- A specialist: ask before you sign. With us, hosting is included for the first 12 months. After that, keep it with us on yearly hosting (we confirm the price before your first year ends) or take your site with you. Others differ, so get it in writing.
Either way, buy your domain in your own name. It’s the one part you can always carry to the next place, and our moving guide explains what else to line up. If you’re still naming the salon, run these checks first.
How to choose
A builder makes sense if:
- you enjoy this sort of job and have the hours for it
- you run one salon with a short price list
- your budget won’t stretch to a build this year
- you want to change things yourself every week
A specialist makes sense if:
- the website keeps slipping down your list
- you’ve got minutes, courses and memberships to explain
- you’ve got more than one site, or plan to
- you want someone else to think about Google for your town
Neither route is a shortcut past the basics. An expensive site with no prices on it is still a site with no prices on it.
If you’re leaning towards a specialist, ask these before you pay anything:
- Have you built for a tanning salon before? Can I see one?
- Who owns the domain, and who controls the website accounts?
- What does hosting cost after the first year?
- How do I change a price, and how long does it take?
- What happens to my site if I leave?
Six checks, whichever you pick
We tested six website basics in a sample of 303 trading UK tanning salons. 94 had their own site. Of those 94, 83% were mobile-friendly, 54% showed prices and 35% offered online booking. We didn’t split them by who built the site, so this says nothing about builders against designers. It does tell you where sites tend to fall short.
Before you call yours finished, check that:
- it’s on your own domain, with your town and “tanning” on the page
- it loads over HTTPS with no browser warning
- it reads properly on a phone with no sideways scrolling
- your opening hours are written out as text
- your prices are written out as text, and set out so customers can follow them
- the book button goes straight to your booking system, or a walk-in salon makes it easy to call or visit
Build it yourself and you can run that list on a Sunday night with a cup of tea. Hire someone and it’s a fair list to put in your brief. For the wider price picture, see what a salon website costs.
Sources
- Wix plans, read on 31 October 2026
- Wix Bookings and exporting a Wix site, read on 31 October 2026
- Squarespace scheduling and exporting site content, read on 31 October 2026
- ASA: beauty and cosmetics, sunbeds
- Squarespace pricing, read on 31 October 2026
- The state of UK tanning salon websites 2026
Questions owners ask
Can I build a tanning salon website on Wix or Squarespace?
Yes. Both will give you a working site, and for one simple salon that can be enough. What you're buying is the tools, so the words, the layout and the price list are down to you.
Can I move from a builder to a specialist later?
Yes, and the sensible way is to keep your domain in your own name from the start. Our moving guide covers what to check before you change provider.
Can a website builder take online bookings for a tanning salon?
Yes. Wix has Wix Bookings, Squarespace has its separate Acuity Scheduling product, and either can link to or embed the booking system you already use. The question to test is whether it copes with your beds, minutes and courses, because the ones we read are written around appointments and classes.
Will a template work for a tanning salon?
It can give you a clean layout, and that's a decent start. You'd still need to shape it around sunbeds, spray tans and a price list in minutes and courses, because a template built for a hair or beauty salon won't have those sections.
Do I pay for hosting with a specialist?
Ask, because it varies. With us, hosting is included for the first 12 months. After that, keep it with us on yearly hosting (we confirm the price before your first year ends) or take your site with you.