Got an HTML website ready? Upload it and get a live link → Hosting an HTML file online means uploading it to a web server so people can open it through a public URL. You might want to share a single HTML page, publish a complete website or add a custom feature to a site you already run. There are several ways to do this, from drag-and-drop services where you upload website files to traditional web hosting and managed hosting platforms. The best option depends on your project, your technical experience and if you need more than static files. Go from code to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: host an html file Hosting an HTML file puts it on an always-online server so it gets a public link anyone can open. The right method depends on your goal, and for a single finished page or small site, a drag-and-drop static host is usually the quickest place to start. You'll learn: Which hosting option fits your project What hosting an HTML file means What files you need before you upload How the 5 hosting methods compare How to check your page is live and fix problems Which HTML hosting option is right for you? Start with what you're trying to publish. Share a simple HTML page: Use a drag-and-drop hosting service to upload your file and get a public link. This works well for a personal project, an event invitation or a simple webpage. Publish a complete website: Choose a host that accepts all your website files, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images. A portfolio or a small business website are good examples. Use hosting you already have: Upload your HTML files to your existing web hosting account. This is a practical choice if you already own a domain and a hosting plan. Update your website regularly: Use a host that connects to a code repository or supports command-line deployment. Both make it easier to publish changes as you work on your site. Publish a custom website with room to grow: Consider a managed hosting platform like Wix Headless. You can upload finished static website files and connect business features later if your project needs them. The easiest starting point. If you have a finished HTML file or website folder and just want a public link, choose a drag-and-drop hosting service. You won't need to learn code deployment or set up a server. What does it mean to host an HTML file? When you open an HTML file on your laptop, your browser reads it from your computer. The address bar shows a local file path, which points to a file on your device and won't work for anyone else. Web hosting puts that file on a web server, a computer that's connected to the internet and makes your page available to visitors. The host gives you a URL to share, so people can open the page without having the original file. Static pages vs pages that need a backend Most HTML pages are static, which means the server sends the same files to every visitor and the browser does the rest. Static doesn't mean basic. Browser-side JavaScript can still power menus, animations, image galleries and calculators. Features that need server-side processing are different. User accounts, database operations and order processing need a backend (the part that stores data and handles logic behind the scenes) or an external service that handles it for you. A static site can still connect to third-party services through their APIs, as long as those services accept requests from your site and you don't expose secret credentials in the browser. What do you need to host an HTML file? Before you choose a host, check what kind of files you have. One standalone HTML file: If the page's content, styles and scripts are inside the file or loaded from public web addresses, you may only need to publish that one file. A website folder: If your HTML file uses separate CSS, JavaScript, images or fonts, upload those files too and keep the folder structure so the page can find them. A coded or AI-generated project: Projects made with a coding toolkit often need a build step that creates the final website files. Upload that finished output folder, often called dist or build, not the original project files. 5 ways to host an HTML file online Each method below is a different way to get your files onto a server. For each one, you'll see what you do, when to choose it and what to check before you start. 01. Drag-and-drop static hosting This is the easiest way to put a finished HTML page or website online. You open a hosting service, upload your files or a ZIP folder and get a public URL you can share. You don't need to set up a server or use a command line. When to choose it: You have an HTML page, a portfolio, an event page or a small website you want to publish quickly. It also suits websites made with AI tools, as long as you have the finished files. What to check: Look at the upload size limits, if you need an account to keep your site online and if the free plan supports a custom domain. 02. Code repository hosting Many code hosting platforms can publish a static site straight from a repository (an online folder that tracks every version of your code). You upload your files, turn on the pages feature in the settings and get a free subdomain within a few minutes. When to choose it: You're comfortable with version control, or you want a record of every change you make to your site. What to check: These features come with usage limits, and some are meant for personal, project and organization sites rather than online stores or commercial apps. Read the terms before you publish a business site. 03. Traditional web hosting With a shared hosting plan, you upload your files into the account's public folder, often called public_html, through the host's file manager or a file transfer app. Delete any sample index page the host placed there first so yours shows up. When to choose it: You already pay for hosting or own a domain that's connected to a hosting account. What to check: Use SFTP rather than plain FTP to transfer your files. Both move files from your computer to a server, but SFTP encrypts the connection and FTP doesn't. Many providers manage the server and set up SSL automatically, though this varies by plan. 04. Command-line deployment Command-line tools aren't hosts themselves. They're a way to send your files to a hosting service from a terminal (the text-based command window on your computer). Many hosts offer one, and you publish a project folder with a single command. When to choose it: You update your code often or want to automate publishing. What to check: You'll need to be comfortable with a terminal and your host's deploy tool. For a one-time upload, a drag-and-drop page is usually faster. 05. Wix Headless static-site upload Wix Headless is a managed option for finished static sites. You upload a single HTML file, a folder or a ZIP file and get a live Wix URL with hosting and SSL set up, so there's no server to configure. When to choose it: You have a finished website, often one built with an AI coding tool, and you may want to add business features like payments, bookings or a CMS later. What to check: Uploads are limited to 20 MB and must be finished build files. Running your own backend code needs a separate setup. The full steps are in the Wix section below. What about website builder embeds? If you use a website builder, you can paste HTML into an embed or custom code element to add a calculator, map or widget to an existing page. That adds code to a site you already run. It isn't the same as hosting a standalone HTML file, since your code loads inside a box on a larger page. Compare the hosting methods Here's how the five methods compare at a glance. Hosting method Best for Skill level Main consideration Drag-and-drop hosting Quickly publishing a page or small website Beginner Upload limits and link expiration Code repository hosting Publishing projects and tracking code changes Beginner to intermediate Repository setup and usage limits Traditional web hosting Using an existing hosting account Beginner to intermediate File management and hosting plan limits Command-line deployment Frequent updates and automated publishing Intermediate to advanced Terminal and deployment knowledge Wix Headless Publishing finished static websites with managed hosting Beginner Upload limits and separate backend setup if needed How to host an HTML file in 3 steps With drag-and-drop hosting, the process is the same on almost every service. Get your HTML file ready, along with any CSS, JavaScript, images or fonts it uses. Upload the file, the whole folder or a ZIP file of it to the hosting service. Open the URL the host gives you and check that everything works. How to check that your HTML file is live Once your page is up, run through these checks. Open the public URL in a new browser tab Check that the page loads without errors Confirm that images, fonts, stylesheets and scripts appear correctly Test links and interactive elements Open the page on a phone or in a mobile browser view Check that every page of your site opens through its links Hosting multiple HTML pages A website with several pages works the same way. Upload every HTML file together with the CSS, JavaScript and images each page uses, keep the folder structure and link the pages to each other with relative paths, like about.html or blog/post.html. Name your homepage index.html so visitors land on it when they open your site's main URL. Get your HTML file ready before you upload Check these basics before you upload. Name your homepage index.html. Most hosts look for this file when someone visits your site's main URL. Some let you choose a different start page, but index.html is the safest choice. Keep related files together. Upload your CSS, JavaScript, images and other assets with the HTML file and keep the same folder structure. Check file paths. Links to images, stylesheets and scripts should be relative to the page, like images/logo.png, and never point to a folder on your computer. Many servers treat Photo.jpg and photo.jpg as different files, so match capitalization exactly. Check mobile compatibility. Include the viewport meta tag in the head section of your HTML so the page displays properly on smaller screens. Remove sensitive information. Never include passwords, API secrets or private keys in HTML or JavaScript files, because visitors can view them in their browser. A password screen built with browser-side code doesn't protect anything either. Free vs paid HTML hosting: what to check You can host an HTML file for free on plenty of services, and for a simple page that's often all you need. Many free plans come with a subdomain and SSL, but features and limits vary by provider. Paid website hosting makes more sense once the page matters to your business and you need your own domain, more storage or support. Learn more: How to host a website for free Before you pick a host, check these points. Upload limits for single files and the whole project Traffic or bandwidth caps Custom domain support SSL for a secure connection If you need an account to keep the page online If the published link expires Expert tip from Claudio Joao, founder of Felicé Studios: "It's better for me to host everything on Wix, because Wix is a big company with all the rights clearly written on its website. If something happens, you have a strong background behind you." How to connect a custom domain to your HTML page A custom domain is optional. The free URL your host gives you is enough to publish, test and share a page. A custom domain name like yourname.com just looks more professional and is easier to remember. To connect one, add the domain in your hosting dashboard. The host tells you which DNS records (the settings that point your domain to the right server) to add at your domain registrar, or handles the setup for you if you buy the domain through the same platform. The exact records depend on the host. DNS changes often update within a few hours but can take up to a couple of days. Once the domain works, make sure your page loads over HTTPS. Most modern hosts issue an SSL certificate automatically, though it can take a little time after you connect the domain. Fix common problems after you upload 01. CSS or images not loading Check that you uploaded the CSS and image files, that the folder structure matches your code and that filenames match exactly, including capital letters. Broken relative links, like a path that points one folder too high or too low, cause the same problem. Your browser's developer tools show which files fail to load. 02. Page shows a 404 or a list of files A 404 error means the server can't find what the URL asks for. Common causes are a missing or misnamed homepage file, a typo in the URL, files uploaded to the wrong folder or a host setting that points to a different folder. A plain list of files usually means the folder has no homepage file the host recognizes. 03. You uploaded the wrong folder If your project uses a build step, the host needs the finished output, often in a folder named something like dist or build. Uploading the source folder instead can leave you with a blank page or missing files. Run the build first and upload the folder it creates. 04. Changes not showing up Browsers and hosts store copies of files to make pages load faster, so an update might not appear right away. Do a hard refresh, open the page in a private window or wait a few minutes. If it still looks old, confirm you uploaded the new files to the same project, since uploading to a new project usually gives you a new link. How to host an HTML file with Wix Wix Headless takes the finished HTML, CSS and JavaScript files you upload and hosts them as a live site on a Wix URL. A secure connection and fast loading on servers around the world are set up for you, and you don't have to rebuild your design. Wix serves your files exactly as you upload them and doesn't build or compile them. If your project has a build step, run it first and upload the output folder. Uploads deploy static files only, so your own backend or server-side code won't run. Projects that need a backend use a separate setup with the Wix CLI instead. Expert tip from Tuvit Rubin Kaplan, Head of DevRel at Wix: "Frontend creation became easy almost overnight. But running a business still requires real infrastructure. Wix Headless is where those two things meet." Here's how to get your HTML file live with Wix. 01. Open the upload page. Go to wix.com/headless/drop in your browser. 02. Drop in your files. Drag and drop a single HTML file, your website folder or a ZIP file. The upload can be up to 20 MB per file and 20 MB in total, with up to 5,000 files. 03. Check your entry file. Your main HTML file has to sit at the top level of the upload, not only inside a subfolder. If there's more than one HTML file at the top level, name your homepage index.html. 04. Preview your live site. Your site goes live right away, so you can open it from its URL before you sign up. 05. Save your project. Sign in or create a free account on wix.com to save your project and manage it from your dashboard. 06. Connect a domain. Connect a domain you already own or buy a new one through Wix. Connecting a custom domain and accepting payments need a Premium plan. Uploading and previewing your site is free, and you can save it to a free Wix account. Your site runs on Wix-managed infrastructure, so you don't need to configure your own web server. Uploading your files publishes the part visitors see. Connecting business features is a separate step. To add tools like ecommerce, bookings, payments or a CMS (a system for managing site content), you copy a prompt from your dashboard into your AI coding tool and it connects those features to your site. Find out more: What is a headless website Need to make changes? In your project dashboard, click Edit Frontend and drop your updated build output onto the Update Site card. Each upload replaces the whole site, so include every file the site needs. This upload option stays available until you continue working on the site in a local coding tool, such as an AI coding agent or the Wix CLI. From then on, you publish updates from your local project with the Wix CLI release command. You can also unpublish your site from your dashboard settings. Unpublishing takes the site offline but doesn't cancel a domain or Premium plan. HTML file hosting FAQ: Can I host an HTML file online for free? Yes. Many static hosts, code repository platforms and website platforms let you host an HTML file for free. Limits vary by provider and can include file size caps, traffic limits, account requirements or links that expire. How do I host multiple HTML files? Upload them together as one site, either as a folder or a ZIP file. Keep index.html at the top level as your homepage and make sure every link between pages points to the right file name. Can I host an HTML file without a domain? Yes. Most hosts give your page a free URL, often on a subdomain of their own domain, so you can publish and share it right away. You can connect a custom domain later if you want a more professional address. How do I make an HTML file public? Upload it to a hosting service. Once it's on a web server, the host gives you a public URL that anyone with the link can open. A file shared from a cloud drive or sent as an attachment isn't public in the same way, since people download it instead of viewing it as a web page. Can I host an HTML file on my own domain? Yes. Most hosting services let you connect a domain you own by adding DNS records at your registrar, or let you buy one through the same platform. Some free plans don't support custom domains, so check before you choose. Can I host a website with HTML, CSS and JavaScript? Yes, that's what static hosting is for. Upload the HTML, CSS and JavaScript files together with their images and fonts, and visitors' browsers run the JavaScript when they open the page. Can I host an HTML file without a backend? Yes. A static HTML page doesn't need a backend to load or to run browser-side JavaScript. You only need one for features that process data on a server, like user accounts, saved orders or payments. Does hosting an HTML file make it appear on Google? Not automatically. Search engines find pages through links and sitemaps, so a new page can take time to show up. Linking to it from other sites, giving it a clear title and meta description and submitting the URL in Google Search Console can help.

Your Claude build deserves a real home: get it live on Wix Headless → Claude can put together a working website in roughly the time it takes to describe it. Getting it online is a different job from building a website, and the build doesn't host itself. So the question becomes: I made a site with Claude, now where does it live? Claude gives you a few specific routes out, and the right one depends on what it handed you. Go from Claude build to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in the HTML, CSS and JavaScript files Claude gave you to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: how to host a website you built with Claude To host a site Claude built, first check what you have (an artifact, a folder of code or a Claude Design), then upload clean files, connect from Claude Code or send the design straight to a host. Once it's live, you can keep editing in Claude and republish. You'll learn: What Claude hands you and why an artifact isn't a live site How to prepare Claude's output so it works outside your browser Three ways to get a Claude build onto Wix How to keep editing in Claude once your site is live What Claude gets wrong that breaks a hosted site What Claude actually gives you Claude produces websites in three different shapes and the shape decides your hosting path. An artifact lives on a claude.ai URL. Claude Code writes real files into a folder on your machine. Claude Design produces a design you can send to a host directly. An artifact is great for showing someone an idea but it isn't a website you own. There's no custom domain name, no control over what search engines see, nowhere for a contact form to send anything and no way to edit it outside Claude. That's a different job from what a website builder does and it's worth knowing which one you actually have. To host an artifact you need what sits underneath it. Ask Claude for the HTML, CSS and JavaScript as downloadable files and you're back to an ordinary static site, which is a solved problem. How it actually works: pasting a prompt via wix.com/headless/skill.md into an AI coding tool like Claude Code connects your project to the Wix backend instantly. If you built in a vibe coding platform instead, you start from the Wix Headless page and your project opens with the backend already wired in. The path is fast either way, but which one fits depends on how you're building your frontend. Read more: What is a headless website What is Wix Headless How to sell from a website built in an LLM Can Claude build a website Get your Claude files ready to host Ask Claude for a single HTML file Ask for a single-page site with inline CSS and JavaScript. Fewer files means fewer things that can point at the wrong place once the site leaves your machine. If your design needs several sections, ask for in-page navigation rather than separate pages. Learn more: Ways to host an HTML file online Upload your build output, not your source If your project has a build step, upload what the build produces, usually a dist folder. Source files will upload happily and then produce a site that doesn't run, because nothing on the hosting side bundles or compiles them. Know what the upload accepts Your entry file needs to be an HTML file at the top level, named index.html. HTML files buried only inside subfolders aren't accepted. Accepted file types cover markup, styles, scripts, images, fonts and data files like JSON or XML. Video and WebAssembly are rejected. Size limits are 3MB per file and 20MB in total. Uploads deploy static files only, so an Express server, framework API routes or server-rendered templates won't come along for the ride. Good to know: connecting to Wix Headless requires no server setup and no backend code. But you're still building and owning a frontend, which means some familiarity with your chosen AI tool affects how smooth the process is. The connection itself is handled in one prompt. What you build on the frontend once connected is still entirely up to you. Three ways to get a Claude build onto Wix hosting Send a Claude Design straight to Wix Connect the Wix destination once inside Claude Design, under Share and then the Send to tab. After that, Send to Wix publishes the site, generates a wix.config.json file and uploads everything with SSL, CDN and business APIs already configured. A success page gives you the live site, a domain option and a link into your Wix dashboard. Build the design as a single page before you send it. Send to Wix deploys one HTML page, so extra pages are left behind. There's also no Wix editor in this setup by design: you change how the site looks in Claude Design or in the project code, not in a drag-and-drop editor. Learn more: How to host your AI-built site Drag and drop your files If your files came out of Claude Code or you exported them yourself, upload the folder directly and the site goes live on a Wix URL within seconds. Hosting, SSL and the CDN are set up for you. This is the shortest path from a folder on your desktop to a URL you can send someone. Try Wix Headless drag and drop. Connect from Claude Code with one prompt Point Claude Code at the Wix Headless skill file and ask it to connect your project. The agent wires the frontend to the Wix backend without you touching a config by hand. When you want changes live, ask the agent to publish, or run the preview and release commands yourself from the terminal. Itay Shmool, VP, Chairman of Payments, Wix “People using Claude or Cursor to build are moving at a speed that traditional infrastructure just can't match. They'll have a working prototype in an afternoon and then spend weeks trying to bolt on payments. Wix Headless closes that gap. The infrastructure is already there, you're not setting it up, you're connecting to it.” Learn more: can you use Wix without an editor Worth knowing: Wix-managed headless means Wix handles all hosting, CDN, SSL and scaling automatically. Self-managed headless means you host the frontend on your own infrastructure and connect to Wix business data through the API. Both paths connect to the same complete Wix business backend. The choice comes down to how much control you want over your hosting environment, not what backend features you can access. Read more: How to connect Claude Code to a backend Keep editing in Claude after your site is live Sending an updated design from Claude Design refreshes the same live site. That keeps working right up until the moment you publish from a local project or an AI coding agent. After that first publish from your own project, Send to Wix stops updating the live site and starts creating a separate new one instead. To get later Claude Design changes into your project from that point, export the design and hand it to your agent rather than pressing the button again. Content behaves differently from code. Products, bookings, blog posts and form entries you change in the Wix dashboard appear on the live site straight away. You only republish when the design or the code itself changes. Worth being clear on: this is a one-way door worth understanding before you walk through it. Publishing from your own project gives you version control and a real development workflow, and in exchange the Send to Wix button stops being your update path. Most builders want that trade eventually, just not by accident. Read more: How to publish a website: what you need to go live What Claude gets wrong that breaks a hosted site The most common culprit is file paths. A page that references images or scripts by their location on your computer works perfectly in your browser and fails everywhere else. Relative paths fix it and Claude will convert them for you if you ask. The second is anything that quietly expected a server. API routes, server-side rendering and database calls never run on a static deploy, so the page loads and the interactive parts sit there doing nothing. Assets pulled from external sources can fail the same way if that source blocks hotlinking. The third is structural, an entry file that isn't named index.html, or one that sits inside a subfolder instead of at the top level. It's a two-second fix that looks like a catastrophic one. Worth knowing: none of this means Claude built it wrong and a file path that works locally is correct locally. The fix is telling Claude where the site is going to live before you ask for the files, which is one extra line in your prompt rather than a rewrite. Skip the guesswork and upload your files straight to Wix to get a live URL with SSL handled for you. Hosting a Claude website FAQ: Can you host a Claude artifact directly? Not as it stands. An artifact runs on a claude.ai URL, which you don't control and can't point a domain at. To host it properly you need the underlying HTML, CSS and JavaScript, which you can ask Claude to give you as downloadable files. From there it's the same as hosting any static site. Can Send to Wix handle a multi-page Claude design? No, send to Wix deploys a single HTML page, so any extra pages in your design are left behind. Ask Claude for a single-page build with in-page navigation between sections instead. If you genuinely need separate pages, deploy from your project with the CLI rather than the button. Can you keep editing the site in Claude after it's live? Yes, with one caveat. Sending an updated design refreshes the same live site until you publish from a local project or an AI coding agent. After that first publish, Send to Wix creates a separate new site instead, so later changes need to go through your project. What if your Claude site is bigger than the upload limit? The upload caps out at 3MB per file and 20MB total, which large images and video will blow through quickly. Compress your images and host video with a dedicated video service rather than shipping the file itself. If the project is genuinely large, deploy from the command line instead of the upload. Do you need the Wix editor to change a Claude-built site? No and there isn't one in this setup. Design and code changes happen in Claude Design or in your project. Business content like products, bookings and blog posts is managed from the Wix dashboard, which needs no code and no editor.

Your ChatGPT build deserves a real home: get it live on Wix Headless → You asked ChatGPT for a website and it gave you one. Maybe that's a live link on a chatgpt.site address, maybe it's a wall of HTML sitting in a chat window. Those are two very different starting points, so the answer to "I built a website on ChatGPT, how do I host it?" depends entirely on which one you're holding. Go from ChatGPT build to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in the HTML, CSS and JavaScript files ChatGPT gave you to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: how to host a website you built with ChatGPT ChatGPT can give you a deployed Site, raw code in a chat or a Codex project, and the last two still need a host. Pull clean files out, then upload them or hand them to a coding agent, or start fresh with the Wix plugin for ChatGPT. You'll learn: The three things ChatGPT might have given you What ChatGPT Sites does well and where it stops How to get clean, hostable files out of a chat Three ways to get a ChatGPT build onto Wix What breaks the moment a ChatGPT build gets hosted What building a website on ChatGPT actually means There are three versions of this and they lead to different places. You may have a ChatGPT Site, which is already deployed and sitting on a URL. You may have code that ChatGPT wrote into the chat or into a canvas, which is just text until you put it somewhere. Or you may have a real project built through Codex, which is a folder of files like any other codebase. The middle case is the most common and the most frustrating because the site looks finished on screen and does nothing at all until it's hosted. A block of HTML in a chat window is not a website and its a very different thing from what a website builder produces and knowing which one you have saves a lot of circling. Understand the basics: What is a headless website Before you start: work out which of the three you have before you do anything else. A deployed Site needs a migration decision, chat code needs a host and a Codex project needs a deploy step. Skipping this is why people end up trying to solve the wrong problem. Built in a different tool? There's a companion guide on how to host a website you built with Claude. If your site is already on ChatGPT Sites ChatGPT Sites lets you create, preview, publish and share interactive websites and lightweight apps from a prompt. OpenAI positions it for dashboards, project trackers, launch calendars, prototypes, internal portals and reports, and for that work it does the job with essentially no setup. A few things are worth knowing before you treat it as your permanent home. It's in public beta for workspaces, Plus and Pro accounts, so it isn't on Free or Go and it wasn't available in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK at launch. Usage limits apply across every Site on your account during the beta and reaching one can stop a high-usage Site staying publicly available. Custom domains work, with a catch worth planning around. Sites doesn't register a domain for you, so you need to already own one and be able to edit its DNS records. Custom domains also weren't available in Enterprise workspaces at launch. You can take payments through a third-party payment processor but you're responsible for connecting, configuring and maintaining it, and for fulfillment, refunds, customer support and calculating and remitting tax. Some frameworks, databases and background services aren't supported by the Sites runtime either. Worth being clear on: none of that makes ChatGPT Sites a bad product, it's built for internal tools and prototypes and it's genuinely good at those. A public site that takes orders, manages bookings and holds customer records is a different job and it's the job Wix Headless was built for. Choosing between them is about what the site needs to do next, not which tool is better. Read also: How to make an online store with ChatGPT How to sell from a website built in an LLM Can ChatGPT build a website How to upload a website and make it live How to get your code out of ChatGPT Ask for a single self-contained file Ask ChatGPT to rewrite the site as one self-contained HTML file with the CSS and JavaScript inline. Fewer files means fewer references that can break once the site leaves the chat window, and it sidesteps most of the path problems covered further down. Save everything it references If your site does span several files, save all of them into one folder and keep the structure ChatGPT assumed. A stylesheet that was described in the chat but never saved is the single most common reason a downloaded site renders as unstyled text. Know what the upload accepts Your entry file needs to be an HTML file at the top level, named index.html. HTML files buried only inside subfolders aren't accepted. Accepted file types cover markup, styles, scripts, images, fonts and data files like JSON or XML. Video and WebAssembly are rejected. Size limits are 3MB per file and 20MB in total. Uploads deploy static files only, so an Express server, framework API routes or server-rendered templates won't come along for the ride. If your project has a build step, upload what the build produces rather than your source. Good to know: connecting to Wix Headless requires no server setup and no backend code. But you're still building and owning a frontend, which means some familiarity with your chosen AI tool affects how smooth the process is. The connection itself is handled in one prompt. What you build on the frontend once connected is still entirely up to you. Learn more: How to publish an HTML file online Three ways to get a ChatGPT build onto Wix Drag and drop your files Upload the folder directly and the site goes live on a Wix URL within seconds, with hosting, SSL and the CDN set up for you. For a single self-contained HTML file this is the whole job, start to finish, and it's the fastest route out of a chat window. Use Wix Headless drag and drop here. Hand it to an AI coding agent Wix's AI toolkit works with coding agents including Codex, Cursor and VS Code. Point your agent at the Wix Headless skill file at wix.com/headless/skill.md, tell it to connect your project, and it scaffolds and deploys without you editing a config by hand. This is the natural path if your build already came out of Codex. Deploy from the command line If you'd rather drive it yourself, the Wix CLI previews the project locally and releases it when you're ready. It's the same deployment either way, so this comes down to taste rather than capability. Ran Levi, Developer Advocate, Wix “The hardest part of shipping something real has never been the frontend. Anyone can build a beautiful UI fast now. The wall people hit is always the same: payments, bookings, a CMS that actually works. Wix Headless knocks that wall down. You connect your frontend to the infrastructure millions of businesses already run on, in one prompt. You're not a backend engineer, you're just shipping.” Worth knowing: Wix-managed headless means Wix handles all hosting, CDN, SSL and scaling automatically. Self-managed headless means you host the frontend on your own infrastructure and connect to Wix business data through the API. Both paths connect to the same complete Wix business backend. The choice comes down to how much control you want over your hosting environment, not what backend features you can access. Learn more: How to publish a website What breaks when a ChatGPT build gets hosted File paths cause most of it because a page that points at images or scripts by where they sit on your computer works perfectly in your browser and fails everywhere else. Relative paths fix it and ChatGPT will rewrite them if you say where the site is going to live. Next is anything that quietly assumed a server. API routes, server-side rendering and database calls never run on a static deploy, so the page loads and the interactive parts sit there doing nothing. Assets pulled from outside sources fail the same way if that source blocks hotlinking. Then there's structure, so an entry file not named index.html, or one sitting in a subfolder instead of at the top level. It's a two-second fix that looks like a catastrophic one. Worth knowing: none of this means ChatGPT built it wrong. A file path that works locally is correct locally and telling it where the site will be hosted before you ask for the files is one extra line in your prompt and it removes most of this list. Hosting a ChatGPT website FAQ: Can you run an online store on a ChatGPT Site? You can take payments through a third-party payment processor but you connect, configure and maintain it yourself. You're also responsible for fulfillment, refunds, customer support and calculating and remitting tax. If selling is the point of the site, a headless platform, like Wix, with native commerce removes all of that setup and liability. Do you need to know how to code to move a ChatGPT site to Wix? No, uploading a folder of files is a drag and drop, and if you'd rather not touch it at all, an AI coding agent can do the connection for you from a single prompt. Coding knowledge helps when something breaks, not to get the site live. Does moving to Wix mean rebuilding the site? No. You keep the frontend ChatGPT produced and Wix runs the infrastructure and business tools underneath it. There's no Wix editor in this setup, so design changes still happen in your code or your AI tool of choice.

Make any AI project business-ready in one prompt. Try Wix Headless → Hosting is easy to forget while you're building with AI, and then it's the only thing you're thinking about. The question shifts from "how do I build it?" to "where does it actually live?" Getting a site from prototype to live depends on what you built and how much of the setup you want to handle, whether that's free website hosting for a landing page or a headless solution for a full business site. Go from code to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: how to host your AI-built site Every AI-built site needs hosting, and the right type depends on what you built: static pages fit basic hosts, dynamic apps need server infrastructure and business sites need a backend. Your choice also decides how much infrastructure you manage yourself and how you'll connect a custom domain. You'll learn: The three types of AI-built sites and how each one determines your hosting path. The three ways to host an AI-built website: static platforms, all-in-one managed hosting and headless hosting. How to set up Wix Headless hosting, step by step. What to do about payments, bookings and content after you launch. How to connect a custom domain and what SSL and CDN mean in practice. Five common mistakes to avoid when hosting an AI-built site. Static, dynamic or business site: what did your AI tool build? Not all AI-built websites are the same and the right hosting setup depends on what your site actually does. Before picking a host, it's worth taking a moment to categorize your build. A static site is made up of HTML, CSS and JavaScript files that don't need a server to process anything. They're served directly to the browser. If you built an AI website or used a tool to generate a landing page, portfolio or basic informational site and it exported clean code, you're probably working with a static site. Good news: these are the easiest and cheapest to host. A dynamic site or web app needs server-side logic to function: user authentication, database queries and personalized content. If your AI-built site pulls live data, handles user accounts or runs backend logic, you'll need hosting that supports runtime environments like Node.js or Python, not just static file delivery. A full business site goes further still. Accepting payments, managing bookings, running an online store or publishing content for clients all require a real business backend, and that's something most hosting platforms don't include out of the box. This is where the gap between "I built a great frontend" and "this is a live business" tends to show up. Not sure whether your AI-built site even needs hosting? Do AI websites need hosting answers that directly, with specifics by site type. For freelancers building client sites, web hosting for freelancers covers the cost and control tradeoffs worth knowing before you commit to a stack. For small businesses scaling beyond a simple frontend, best web hosting for small businesses breaks down what actually matters at that stage. Learn more about how to host your Claude built site with Wix. 3 ways to host an AI-built website Once you know what kind of site you have, the landscape of hosting options makes a lot more sense. Here are the three main paths. Static site hosts All-in-one platforms that include hosting Headless hosting: own your frontend, back it with Wix Learn more: What is web hosting? 01. Static site hosts For static AI-built frontends, the developer-friendly platforms are fast, simple to deploy to and generous on free tiers. Connecting a GitHub repo and deploying automatically on every push is now standard across all of them. A few honest distinctions worth knowing: Vercel offers the best developer experience for Next.js apps and integrates tightly with popular AI coding tools. Its free tier is generous for personal projects, but bandwidth-heavy traffic spikes can produce unexpected bills, so it's worth planning for that before your site goes live to a wide audience. Netlify is the simplest option for pure static sites and Jamstack projects. Straightforward configuration, solid free tier and reliable for anything that doesn't need complex server-side logic. Cloudflare Pages is the safe cost default for solo builders. Bandwidth is unlimited on every tier (commercial use included) and it handles high traffic without the billing anxiety. The setup is slightly more involved than Netlify. Keep in mind that none of these platforms manage a business backend for you. If your AI-built site ever needs to accept payments, schedule bookings or manage content without a developer, you'll need to add that layer separately. Before committing, compare web hosting prices across providers, the differences between free and paid tiers vary significantly. 02. All-in-one platforms that include hosting This is managed hosting in its fullest form: the platform handles infrastructure while you focus on content and customers. If you've found yourself weighing website builder vs web hosting as separate decisions, all-in-one platforms remove the question, the builder and the host are the same product. Wix is one of the strongest options here. The same infrastructure used by millions of businesses worldwide runs your site automatically: multi-cloud hosting, a global CDN and automatic scaling, all included with no separate setup. For AI builders who used Wix's own AI site creation tool, publishing is a single step. If you're comparing cloud infrastructure against cheaper shared servers, cloud hosting vs shared hosting breaks down the reliability and scalability differences. Learn more: What is managed hosting? 03. Headless hosting: own your frontend, back it with Wix Headless hosting is the pattern that more AI builders and agencies are moving toward, and for good reason. The idea is that your frontend (the part users see) lives wherever you want to host it, while a separate business backend handles commerce, bookings, content and payments behind the scenes. Wix Headless is the standout option here. It's the only headless solution that natively combines a CMS, ecommerce, bookings, events and payments in a single connected backend. No stitching together separate vendors, no third-party integrations, no separate CMS plan. The global web hosting market is set to nearly triple from $125.36 billion in 2025 to $355.81 billion by 2029 according to Market Research Future, and the tools making headless hosting accessible to AI builders are a big part of that trajectory. It comes in two hosting modes, which are covered in the next section. How to set up Wix Headless hosting, step by step The best website hosting lays out the main options side by side. If you've landed on Wix Headless, here's how to get live. Option 1: Wix-managed (recommended for most AI builders) If you want the fastest path from prototype to live site with zero infrastructure management, Wix-managed headless is the most straightforward option. Go to wix.com/headless and create an account if you don't have one. Open your AI coding tool: Claude Code, Cursor or whichever tool you used to build your frontend. Paste wix.com/headless/skill.md into a prompt describing what your site needs. Your project connects to the full Wix backend and Wix handles hosting, CDN, SSL and scaling automatically. Add a custom domain when you're ready (this requires a paid plan; you can test and build everything for free first). Use the Wix Business Manager dashboard to manage everything (content, orders, bookings, analytics) without touching the code. Wix-managed headless means Wix handles all hosting, CDN, SSL and scaling automatically. Self-managed headless means you host the frontend on your own infrastructure and connect to Wix business data via API. Both paths connect to the same complete Wix business backend, the choice is about how much control you want over your hosting environment. "We wanted AI builders to be able to go from prototype to live product without context-switching into a completely different platform. With wix.com/headless/skill.md, you describe what you want to your AI tool of choice and you get a running site with the business layer already wired in. It's not a workaround, it's the intended path." - Tuvit Rubin Kaplan, Head of DevRel, Wix Option 2: self-managed (your frontend, Wix as your backend) If you've already built and deployed a frontend on Vercel, Netlify or AWS and you don't want to move it, self-managed headless lets you keep your existing deployment pipeline and connect to the Wix business backend via REST API or JavaScript SDK. Sign in to Wix and go to the headless settings area. Connect your existing frontend project to your Wix account using the Wix CLI or API connection. Access Wix business data (product inventory, booking schedules, CMS content, member data) directly from your frontend via the Wix APIs. Your infrastructure, deployment tools and CI/CD pipeline stay exactly as they are. Wix handles the business layer. "If you built your frontend on Cursor or Gemini, you don't need to move your project into a Wix editor. That's the whole point. You keep your stack, you keep your workflow, you just get a real backend behind it." - Gonen Jerbi, R&D Manager, Wix Read more: Wix Headless storefront in one day Developer agency Wix Headless story How to sell from a website built in an LLM How to upload a website and make it live How to make a website with Claude Design The backend wall: payments, bookings and content management Most AI builders hit the same point. The site looks good, the frontend works and then someone asks: "Can I buy something?" or "Can I book an appointment?" or "How do I update the blog?" That's the backend wall. Static hosting platforms don't solve this. Bolting on a payment processor, a CMS and a booking system separately means managing three vendors, three billing cycles and three support lines, and eventually three things that can break. "The hardest part of shipping something real has never been the frontend. Anyone can build a beautiful UI fast now. The wall people hit is always the same: payments, bookings, a CMS that actually works. Wix Headless knocks that wall down. You connect your frontend to the infrastructure millions of businesses already run on, in one prompt. You're not a backend engineer, you're just shipping." - Ran Levi, Developer Advocate, Wix Wix Headless covers everything in one native backend: ecommerce with order management, inventory and checkout; bookings for scheduling and automated reminders; events for ticketing and guest management; a CMS for content collections your frontend can call via API; and payments, built in. Everything runs from a single Wix Business Manager dashboard. If you're building a store specifically, best domain and hosting for ecommerce covers what to prioritize before you go live. Beyond serving your site, the backend also handles file storage for media and assets. If you need to think about online storage for larger asset libraries, plan for it before you build. Read more: How much does Wix Headless cost? What is headless commerce? How to add an online store to an AI-built site How to add payments to an AI built app How to add a CMS to an AI-built site Domain setup: connecting your custom domain and what to expect For a complete guide to domain name and website hosting, including how they connect and where they differ, that guide covers it in one place. If you're also fuzzy on domain hosting vs web hosting as separate concepts, that distinction matters when configuring DNS. Whether you're using Wix-managed or self-managed headless hosting, connecting a custom domain follows the same basic process. Register your domain if you don't have one. Wix domains come with SSL included from day one, and you can add privacy protection. If you already have a domain registered elsewhere, you can either transfer it to Wix or update the DNS records to point to your Wix-hosted site. If budget is a factor, cheap domain and email hosting is worth reading before you commit to a registrar. DNS propagation typically takes anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours depending on your registrar and TTL settings. Your site stays live at its default Wix subdomain in the meantime. For self-managed setups where the frontend is hosted outside Wix, you'll update DNS to point to your external host and configure the Wix backend connection separately. One thing to sort before launch: email. If you want a professional address at your domain (e.g. hello@yoursite.com), does Wix provide email hosting? covers exactly what's available and what isn't. Learn more: How to host an HTML file SSL, CDN and auto-scaling: what Wix manages automatically If these terms feel like infrastructure you shouldn't have to think about, that's actually the right instinct. With Wix-managed headless, you don't have to. SSL (the HTTPS padlock) is included automatically. Every Wix-hosted site gets a free SSL certificate from day one, renewed automatically. There's no configuration, no expiry dates to track and no risk of the browser flagging your site as insecure. If you're hosting elsewhere and need to sort SSL independently, best free SSL certificate options cover what's available and how they compare. For a side-by-side look at hosts that include SSL vs. those that charge extra, website hosting with free SSL breaks it down. CDN (Content Delivery Network) means your site files are served from data centers close to each visitor, not just from one central server. Wix runs a global CDN, so someone visiting your site from Tokyo gets the same fast load time as someone in New York. For AI-built sites that rely on clean, fast-loading frontends, CDN is one of the biggest practical differences between platforms. Auto-scaling means that if your site gets a traffic spike (a product launch, a viral moment, a big campaign), Wix's infrastructure scales to handle it without you doing anything. No server monitoring, no DevOps calls and no worrying about whether your hosting plan's bandwidth cap is about to trigger an overage. "We're seeing an entirely new kind of builder emerge, people who are highly capable with AI tools, move extremely fast, and have real product vision, but don't want to become infrastructure engineers. Wix Headless was built for them." - Yoav Cohen, Head of Education for DevRel, Wix 5 hosting mistakes AI builders make (and how to avoid them) Choosing your host before knowing your site type. Picking a static host for a site that needs backend functionality, or a full managed platform for a site that's just a few HTML files, leads to either limitation or unnecessary cost. Categorize your build first. How to host a website covers the fundamentals if you want to understand the landscape before you decide. Ignoring billing caps on free tiers. Platforms with generous free tiers can produce a surprise bill the moment traffic spikes. Before going live, understand what triggers overage charges and whether your hosting setup matches your traffic expectations. Launching without a backend plan. The most common regret from AI builders: shipping a great frontend with no answer to "how does someone pay me?" Decide upfront whether your site needs commerce, bookings or content management, and choose a hosting setup that can support it. Skipping SSL. In 2026, an unsecured site is a trust problem before it's a technical one. Most managed platforms include SSL by default. If yours doesn't, treat it as a non-negotiable setup step before launch. Not testing mobile before go-live. AI-generated HTML can look correct at desktop screen sizes while having broken mobile layouts or misaligned elements. More than half of mobile users leave a page that hasn't loaded within 3 seconds according to Think With Google, so testing for both layout and speed before you publish isn't optional. Explore more: What is a headless CMS? Can you use Wix without an editor? Make a Wix Headless website step by step How to publish a website: what you need to go live How to host an AI-built website FAQ: Can I host an AI-built website for free? Yes, with limits. Static site hosting platforms like Netlify and Cloudflare Pages have generous free tiers for sites with low to moderate traffic. Wix Headless is also free to connect, meaning you can build, test and run your backend for free before upgrading to a paid plan. The two things that typically require a paid tier are accepting live payments and connecting a custom domain. For a full step-by-step guide, see how to host a website for free. What’s the difference between static hosting and headless hosting? Static hosting serves files directly to a browser. No server processing, no backend. It’s fast and cheap but limited to what can be done client-side. Headless hosting means your frontend is decoupled from a backend, and the backend handles business logic (payments, inventory, bookings, content) via APIs. The frontend can be hosted anywhere (on Vercel, on Wix’s own infrastructure or anywhere else) while the backend runs separately. Do I need coding skills to deploy an AI-built website? Not necessarily. Platforms like Wix, where the AI tool and the hosting are in the same product, let you publish without touching code. For more control, like deploying a frontend built in Claude Code or Cursor to Vercel, some familiarity with GitHub and basic deployment steps helps. The headless path via wix.com/headless/skill.md is specifically designed to work through natural-language prompts in whatever AI tool you’re already using. What is Wix Headless and how is it different from regular Wix? Regular Wix is an all-in-one website builder. The design tool, the hosting and the backend are all bundled together in the Wix editor. Wix Headless separates the frontend from the backend. You build the frontend however you want (in your AI coding tool of choice) and connect it to Wix’s full business backend (commerce, bookings, events, CMS and payments) via API. You get complete frontend freedom and a managed, enterprise-grade backend without building either from scratch. Can I keep my frontend on Vercel and still use Wix as a backend? Yes, that’s exactly what self-managed Wix Headless is for. Your frontend stays on Vercel (or Netlify, or AWS, or wherever you’ve deployed it), and you connect to Wix’s business data and logic via the Wix REST API or JavaScript SDK. Your deployment pipeline, your hosting bill and your frontend stack all stay exactly as they are.

Make any AI project business-ready in one prompt. Try Wix Headless → You've built your website. Now you need to get it out of your browser or AI coding tool and onto the web where people can visit it. The steps depend on how you built it. A website builder can publish your site for you, while an AI-generated or custom-coded site may require hosting, a domain and backend services. This guide covers what to check and how to get from a finished website to a live URL, including where a headless solution fits in. Go from code to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: how to publish a website Once your site is ready, there are a few key decisions to make before you share it with the world, from choosing where it will run to making sure visitors can reach it and search engines can find it. You'll learn: What do you need before you publish your website? How to publish your website without coding How to publish a website built with AI or custom code How to publish a website with Wix Headless How domains, hosting and DNS get your website online How much does it cost to publish a website? What to do after your website goes live What does it mean to publish a website? Publishing a website means making it available on the web at a URL that visitors can access. Until then, your site may exist only as a draft, preview or local project that isn't publicly accessible. Draft vs. published Most websites move through three stages before visitors see them. First, the site lives on your computer, where it opens at an address like localhost that only works on your machine. Next, it may sit on a staging or preview URL where you can test it and share it with others. Finally, it moves to a public URL that visitors can access. This distinction matters for AI-generated sites, too. A working preview doesn't necessarily mean your site is published. If the site is still running on your computer or inside an AI tool, you'll need to get it running on a host that can serve it to visitors. Wix Headless drag and drop deploy lets you upload your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files and get your site live with a shareable URL. What do you need before you publish your website? Publishing comes down to 4 things. Depending on how you build your site, some of them may be included together. 01. Your website For a coded site, that means the files that make it up, usually HTML, CSS and JavaScript plus images, fonts and other assets. If you use a website builder or CMS, your pages and content live inside the platform, so you don't handle the files directly. If an AI tool built your site, the files it gave you may not be the final version yet, and the AI section below explains how to tell. 02. A place to host it Hosting is where your website files or application run so visitors can load your site. Website builders include hosting, while a CMS or coded site may require you to choose a host yourself. Learn more: How to choose web hosting 03. A URL Every published site needs a web address. Most platforms give you a free URL to start, and you can connect a custom domain when you're ready to share the site more widely or use it for a business. 04. HTTPS HTTPS encrypts the connection between visitors and your site and shows that the connection is secure. You rarely need to buy or install a certificate yourself, since most modern hosts and website builders set HTTPS up automatically. Worth knowing: If your site shows a "Not secure" warning after you connect a domain, the SSL certificate may still be provisioning or your domain may not be configured correctly. Check that your domain points to the correct host, then follow your host's SSL troubleshooting steps if HTTPS doesn't become active. How to publish your website without coding If you built your site with a website builder or CMS, you can usually publish it without dealing with code, website files or servers. The platform handles the technical side while you prepare the site, publish it and check that everything works. If an AI tool built your site, the next section goes deeper on the steps that work differently. Identify what you built Choose where to publish it Prepare your site Upload, deploy or publish Connect required services Test the live site Connect your domain 01. Choose where your site will live Your website needs a platform that keeps it online so people can visit it. If you haven't chosen one yet, a website builder is usually the simplest option because it lets you build, host and publish your site in one place. You may also use a CMS if you want more control over how you manage your content. A managed headless platform is another option if your website was built separately from the system that manages its content and business features. The important thing is to choose a platform that supports the type of site you want to run and the features you need. Read more: Do I need a CMS for my website? Best headless CMS Headless CMS pros and cons 02. Get your site ready Before you publish, go through the site from a visitor's point of view. Make sure your pages are finished, your text and images are correct and your contact information is up to date. Check the site on your phone as well as your computer. Make sure the menus, buttons and links work and remove anything that still looks unfinished, such as placeholder text, sample images or test pages. It's also a good time to add basic information that helps search engines understand your pages, such as page titles and descriptions. 03. Publish your site Publishing makes your website available for other people to visit. With most website builders, you simply click Publish and the platform takes care of the technical work. After you publish, the platform will give you a URL for your site. Open it in a new browser window and check that you're seeing the live version rather than the editor or preview. You can usually start with the free URL provided by your platform and connect your own domain later. 04. Connect your features Some websites need more than pages and text. You may have a contact form, appointment booking, accept online payments, newsletter signup, member login or another feature that needs to be connected before the site is ready. Set up and test these features before sharing your site. If you're using a website builder, many of these features can be added through the platform itself rather than set up separately. 05. Test your live site Don't stop at the preview. Visit the published URL and use the site as a visitor would. Check that: Every important page opens Navigation and links work Images and videos load correctly The site looks good on a phone Contact forms send successfully Buttons do what they should Your 404 page appears when a page doesn't exist Your site loads over HTTPS without a security warning Payments, bookings or other important actions work from start to finish If something doesn't work, fix it in the editor and publish the changes again. Then test the live site once more. 06. Connect your domain You can publish a website without buying a domain. Your website builder can give you a free URL, such as a platform-branded web address, that lets people visit your site. If you want your own address, start with domain registration to get a custom domain such as yourbusiness.com. You can register a domain through a domain provider, then follow your website platform's instructions to connect it. After connecting the domain, visit it yourself and make sure the site loads correctly over HTTPS. If you recently registered or connected the domain, it may take some time before the change works everywhere. Free URL vs. custom domain A free URL is a quick way to get your site live without buying a domain. It's useful for testing, personal projects or sites you aren't ready to give a permanent address yet. A custom domain gives your site an address of its own, such as yourbusiness.com. It's easier to share and remember and you can usually keep the domain if you move your site to another platform. Worth knowing: You don't have to announce your site the moment you publish it. Share the live URL with a few people you trust first, ask them to try the important parts and fix any problems before you send it to everyone. How to publish a website built with AI or custom code If you built your site with AI or wrote the code yourself, publishing usually involves a few more steps. You need to get the code running on a service that can serve it to visitors, connect any backend services the site needs and make it available at a public URL. A working site in your code editor or AI tool isn't necessarily a published site. Before you go live, you may need to choose where the site will run, deploy the code and test that everything works outside your development environment. Here’s what to check before you put your AI- or custom-coded site live, from figuring out what you have to choosing how to deploy it. If you want a simpler, less technical way to get your site live, Wix Headless offers another option. See how it works below. 01. Did the AI give you a website or a project? This is the first thing to figure out. Open the folder you got from your AI tool or developer and look at the files inside. A finished website might look something like this: index.html styles.css script.js images/ You can usually upload files like these directly to a host and make the site live. A project that still needs to be built might look more like this: package.json src/ components/ vite.config.js These files are the source code used to create the website. They may need to be built into the files that visitors' browsers can load before you can publish the site. A file called package.json is a common sign that you're looking at a JavaScript project. Open it and look for a script called build. If you see one, the project will usually need to be built before it can be deployed. How to build your project If your project has a package.json file and a build script, you may need to build it before you can put it online. Building turns the project's source code into the files your host can use to run the website. Here's the basic process: Install Node.js. Download and install the current LTS version of Node.js on your computer. Open your project folder. Find the folder that contains package.json. Open a terminal in that folder. On Windows, right-click the folder and choose Open in Terminal. On Mac, open Terminal and use cd to move into the project folder. Install the project's packages. Run: npm install Build the project. Run: npm run build Find the finished files. Look for a new folder such as dist, build or out. This is usually the folder you'll deploy. The exact folder name and build command can vary by framework. If npm run build gives you an error, check the scripts section in package.json or the instructions provided with the project. Read more: How to host an AI-built site 02. Can you upload the files directly? Sometimes. If you have a finished static website, you may be able to upload the files to your host and go live. If you have a project that needs to be built, or a site that depends on a database or other services, you'll need a hosting setup that can handle those requirements. Before choosing where to host it, ask yourself: Does it need to be built? Check if the project has a build command, as explained above. Does it use a database? If so, you'll need somewhere to store and retrieve that data. Does it use an API? You'll need to make sure the API is available when the site is live. Does it need passwords or secret keys? These should be stored securely as environment variables, not in the public website files. Does it have logins, payments or bookings? These features may need a backend service to work properly. The more your site depends on these services, the more you'll need to check that your hosting setup supports them. Learn more: How to host a website you built with ChatGPT 03. Know the difference between upload, build, deploy and publish You'll see these four words often when you're putting a coded site online. They describe different parts of the process. Upload: Move your website files from your computer to a hosting service. Build: Turn your project's source code into files that can be used to run the website. Deploy: Put the built website or project into its hosting environment so it can run. Publish: Make the website available for people to visit. A simple static site may only need to be uploaded. A project built with a framework may need to be built first and then deployed to a host that supports it. 04. Check the parts behind the website A website can look finished in a preview but still have missing pieces behind the scenes. This is especially important if your site lets visitors do more than read pages. Think of it this way: Frontend: The part visitors see and use, such as pages, menus, buttons, forms and animations. Backend: The part that handles things behind the scenes, such as user accounts, databases, payments, bookings and form submissions. For example, an AI tool can create a checkout page that looks and works like a real checkout. But the page still needs a payment service connected to it before customers can actually pay. Make sure your site works The same applies to other features. A contact form needs somewhere to send the message. A login page needs a system that can create and verify accounts. A booking page needs access to real availability. If your site uses API keys, passwords or other secrets, store them as environment variables in your hosting settings. Don't put secret keys directly into frontend code because visitors may be able to see them. AI-generated code can look finished even when some of these connections are missing. Before you publish, test every important feature using the live setup, including forms, logins, payments and bookings. 05. Choose how to get your site online Once you know what your project needs, choose a deployment method supported by your host. You don't need to understand every option. Pick the one that fits your project and how you plan to update it. Common options include: File manager: Upload your website files through your host's dashboard. SFTP: Transfer files from your computer to your host using a file transfer app. Git: Connect your code repository so your host can build and deploy new versions when you push changes. Drag and drop: Drop a folder or ZIP file into a hosting service that supports this method. For a simple static site, uploading the files may be all you need. For a framework project, connecting a code repository or using a deployment service may be easier because the host can build and deploy the project for you. After deployment, open the live URL and test the site as a visitor would. Check your pages, links, forms and other important features, then look through your public code to make sure you haven't accidentally exposed an API key, password or other secret. How to publish a website with Wix Headless If you built a site with AI or custom code, you don't have to figure out hosting, deployment and business features separately. Wix Headless gives you a simpler way to get your coded frontend online and connect it to Wix. For a finished static site, you can upload your files directly. If your project needs to be built first, build it before uploading the output. Here's how to get started. 01. Upload your finished website Go to the Wix Headless drag and drop deploy page and upload your finished website files. You can drag in a folder or ZIP file, or select the files from your computer. If your project uses a framework and you built it first, upload the build output rather than the original project files. Wix serves the files you upload as they are, so it doesn't run the build for you. There's no terminal or installation required for this upload method. Once the upload is complete, Wix hosts the site and gives you a live Wix URL. Good to know: This upload method is for static websites. If your site needs its own backend code, you'll need to use the Wix CLI instead. 02. Get your site online Once your files are uploaded, Wix hosts them on its infrastructure with a global CDN and automatic SSL. Your site is released on a Wix URL, so you can open it, test it and share it without setting up a separate hosting service. You can start for free and connect your site to Wix business solutions as you develop it. 03. Connect a custom domain When you're ready for your own web address, connect a domain to your project. A custom domain requires a Premium plan. You don't need to set up an SSL certificate yourself. Wix-managed Headless provides automatic SSL for your hosted site. 04. Add the features your site needs Once your frontend is live, you can connect Wix business solutions such as CMS, Stores, Bookings, Events and memberships. You can manage much of the business side from your Wix dashboard without changing your frontend code. You can also use AI tools to help connect Wix features to your site. For example, you can ask an AI coding agent to add a store, bookings or a blog to your project. For features such as checkout, bookings and other complex flows, Wix also provides hosted pages and APIs, so you don't have to build every piece yourself. Read more: How to add an online store to AI-built site 05. Keep managing your site Your custom frontend stays separate from the Wix dashboard, so you can keep working on the code while managing your business data in Wix. From the dashboard, you can manage things such as products, bookings, blog posts, forms and members. Changes you make there can appear on your live site without you having to redeploy the frontend. When you change your code, you can build and deploy the updated version through the Wix CLI. If you're working with an AI coding agent, you can also ask it to publish the changes for you. Read more: How to move a WordPress site to Wix Headless Expert tip from Anat Fennig, UX Lead at Wix: "There's no developer pricing, no fees for API calls, no enterprise tier you have to unlock. You connect for free and upgrade when you're actually ready to launch. We built the pricing to match how AI builders actually work, fast iteration first, monetization when the product is ready." How domains, hosting and DNS get your website online These terms are easy to mix up, but the relationship is simple. Hosting. The service where your website runs. Domain. The web address people use to find your site. DNS. The system that tells a domain where to send visitors and other services. HTTPS. The secure connection between visitors and your site. When you connect a domain to your website, you'll usually need to add DNS records at the company where your domain is registered. Your host will tell you which records to add, such as an A record or CNAME record. Some hosts instead ask you to change your domain's nameservers so the host manages your DNS. Once the domain is connected, your host or another certificate provider can set up an SSL certificate, which allows your site to load over HTTPS. DNS changes don't show up everywhere at once. Depending on the record and how long networks cache the old information, your new settings may work for some visitors before they work for everyone. How much does it cost to publish a website? You can publish a simple website for little or no cost, but the price goes up when you add a custom domain, more hosting resources or features such as payments and databases. For a basic site, expect to spend around $10–$20 a year for a domain and anywhere from $0 to $30+ a month for hosting, depending on the platform and what your site needs. Here's what typically adds to the total: Domain: Usually around $10–$20 a year for a standard domain, although some extensions cost more. Hosting: Can range from free to $30+ a month for a basic site, with more complex sites costing more. Business features: Payments, bookings and other features may have monthly fees or transaction fees. Backend and database services: Simple projects may have free tiers, while larger or more active sites can cost more. Professional email: Often costs around $6–$30+ per user per month, depending on the provider and plan. Third-party APIs: Some APIs are free up to a certain usage level, while others charge based on how much you use them. An all-in-one platform can combine several of these costs into one plan, which can make the total easier to predict. Worth knowing: check renewal prices, not just first-year prices. Domains and hosting plans are often discounted for the first term and renew at a higher rate. Get the details: Web hosting cost What to do after your website goes live Right after launch Open the site on a desktop and a phone, submit every form and confirm HTTPS works on every page. Test any redirects, click through your most important links and make sure your analytics are recording visits. For search Search engines find new sites on their own eventually, but you can help them discover your pages sooner. Verify your site in Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and use the URL inspection tool to check if key pages are indexed. A sitemap helps Google find your URLs, but it doesn't guarantee they'll be indexed. Make sure your robots.txt file isn't blocking important pages and that each page points to the right canonical URL. For maintenance Renew your domain before it expires, monitor uptime, back up important content and recheck forms and integrations every so often. For AI-generated projects, keep dependencies updated and watch for security patches, since generated code often pulls in libraries you didn't choose yourself. Worth knowing: indexing takes time. A brand-new site can take days or weeks to appear in search results, even when everything is set up correctly. If key pages are still missing after a few weeks, the page indexing report in Search Console will usually tell you why. Learn more: How to host an HTML file online in 5 easy ways How to publish a website FAQ: Can I publish a website for free? Yes. Many website builders and hosts let you publish on a free URL on their domain, and static files can often be hosted at no cost. You'll usually start paying once you add a custom domain or business features like payments. Can I publish a website without a domain? Yes. You can publish many websites using a free URL provided by your website builder or hosting platform. You only need a custom domain when you want your own web address. Do I need hosting to publish a website? Yes, every published website needs hosting because its files have to live on a server that visitors can reach. Website builders and managed platforms include hosting, so you may not need to set it up separately. With a CMS or a coded site, you typically choose a host yourself. How long does it take for a website to go live? On a platform URL, a site can be live within seconds of uploading or clicking publish. Connecting a custom domain takes longer because DNS changes need to spread across the internet, and timing varies by record and provider. Showing up in search results is a separate process that can take days or weeks. How do I publish a website generated by AI? Start by checking what the AI gave you. If it's a folder with an index.html file plus CSS, JavaScript and images, you can upload it to a static host or a drag and drop deploy service. If it's a project with a package.json file, check if it needs a build and deploy it to a host that supports its framework. Then connect any backend services it needs, add your domain and test the live site. Why isn't my website showing up on Google? New sites take time to be discovered and indexed, often days or weeks. Verify your site in Google Search Console, submit your sitemap and check that your robots.txt file or a noindex tag isn't blocking pages. If key pages still don't appear, the page indexing report in Search Console usually explains why.

Drag your finished site files in and get a live URL in seconds. Try Wix Headless → You made a website. Maybe you coded it yourself, used an AI tool to create it or downloaded the files from another platform. Now you have a folder of website files, but how do you actually get that website online? You need to put those files somewhere that can make them available on the internet. This is called website hosting. To get your site online, you can take the technical route, using tools such as SFTP or Git, or choose a hosting platform that lets you upload your finished website files directly and takes care of the deployment for you. Go from files to a live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live on a Wix URL, with SSL and a global CDN included. You can add ecommerce, bookings, a CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: how to upload a website Uploading a website means getting the right files or project onto a service that can make your site available online. The easiest method depends on how your site was created and whether you have finished files or a project that still needs to be built. You'll learn: What website files you need and whether they're ready to upload How uploading, publishing and deploying differ Which hosting and upload method to use, including File Manager, SFTP and Git How to upload websites created with AI tools How to upload finished website files to Wix Headless How to connect your domain and troubleshoot common issues How to test and update your live website What does it mean to upload a website? A website is made up of files that work together to create the pages people see. The main types are: HTML creates the structure of a page CSS controls how the page looks JavaScript adds interactive behavior Images, fonts and other files provide the content the site needs When those files are only on your computer, the website is not available for other people to visit. You need to put a copy of the files on a web server, which is a computer connected to the internet that can deliver your website to visitors. Uploading a website means transferring your website files from your computer to a web server through a hosting service. Once the files are uploaded to the right location, the server can send them to a visitor's browser when they open your website address. Upload vs. publish vs. deploy You'll see these three words throughout website tutorials. They can sound like different versions of the same thing, and sometimes they are. Upload means transferring your website files from your computer to your hosting service so the site can be accessed online. Depending on the service, you might upload the files through a File Manager, SFTP or another method. Publish means making a website or your latest changes available for visitors. The term is especially common with a website builder, where you make changes to your site and click "Publish" to put those changes live. Unlike uploading, you don't usually handle the website files yourself. Deploy means taking a website or application and making it live on a server. Uploading files can be one step in deployment, but deployment can also include building the site, setting up its configuration and making sure everything is ready to run. The term is common with coded websites and applications, especially when using Git or automated tools. For a simple website, uploading the files can effectively be the same step as putting the site live. For a more advanced project, there can be several steps between writing the code and making the finished site available to visitors. You don't need to understand all of those differences to upload your first website. Start by finding out what files you have and what your hosting service supports. What website files do you need to upload? Before you upload a website, first check what you actually have. The files you receive from an AI tool or coding tool can be very different, and the right upload method depends on them. If you have finished website files If your folder contains files such as index.html, CSS, JavaScript and images, you likely have a finished website that can be uploaded directly to hosting that supports this type of site. A ZIP file containing these files works too. Many hosting services let you upload the ZIP and extract it on the server. If you have a code project If you see files such as package.json, a src folder or other project files, you may have the files used to create the website rather than the finished website itself. These projects often need to be built first, which turns the code into the files that can be uploaded and served to visitors. Don't upload the whole project folder yet. Check the instructions for the AI tool or coding tool you used to find out how to build the project and where it puts the finished files. The resulting folder may contain files such as index.html, CSS, JavaScript and images that are ready to upload. Does your website need server-side features? Some websites need more than HTML, CSS, JavaScript and images. If your site has features such as user accounts, saved customer information, a database, online payments or code that runs on the server, you'll need hosting that supports those features. These are often called server-side or backend features because part of the website runs on the server rather than in the visitor's browser. Uploading a folder of website files to basic static hosting won't provide a database or run that server-side code. If you're not sure, check the instructions for the tool or coding project that created your site. It should tell you what your website needs to run. What you need before you upload a website Before you upload your website, make sure you have the files that make up the site, a place to host them and a way to transfer them to the server. You may also need a domain name if you want people to visit the site at a custom web address. 01. Your website files This might be a folder on your computer, a ZIP file or the finished files produced by an AI or coding tool. Make sure you have every part the site depends on, including images, CSS, JavaScript and fonts. 02. Web hosting Hosting is the service that keeps your website files available on the internet. Some hosting services are designed for simple websites, while others support applications, databases, server-side code and other requirements. Managed cloud hosting takes care of the underlying servers for you, so you don't have to manage the hardware yourself. The hosting service you choose also affects how you upload your website. For example, many shared hosting plans include a control panel with a File Manager, while other services may have you upload files with SFTP, connect a Git repository or use the provider's own deployment tools. If you are weighing up the options, cloud hosting vs shared hosting is the comparison worth reading first. Read more: What is web hosting? How to host a website Web hosting cost How to publish a website 03. A domain name A domain is the web address people use to visit your site, such as yourbusiness.com. Domain registration is a separate purchase from hosting. You don't always need a domain before uploading your site. Many hosting services give you a temporary web address that you can use for testing. 04. A way to upload the files Depending on your hosting service, you may upload your website using one of these methods: A File Manager in your browser SFTP FTP Git The platform's own upload or deployment tool For a first upload, a File Manager is often the simplest option if your hosting provider offers one. Good to know: You don't need to choose an upload method before you choose your hosting. The options available depend on your hosting service, and you can choose the one that fits your site and how you plan to manage it. You can also connect a domain later. Learn more about Wix headless CMS and what is headless commerce Which upload method should you use? The right method depends on what you have, what your hosting service supports and how often you plan to update your site. For a finished website that does not need a complicated development setup, a direct upload is usually the simplest route. File Manager is the simplest option for a first upload. It lets you select files and folders in your browser and upload them directly to your hosting account, so you don't need to install or learn another program. The drawback is that uploading large sites or frequent updates can become tedious because files usually have to be selected and uploaded manually. SFTP is useful when you need more control over your files. It uses a file transfer program to securely move files between your computer and the server, which can make regular updates easier. The tradeoff is that you need to install a program and enter your server connection details, so it has more setup than a browser-based upload. FTP works in a similar way to SFTP but does not encrypt the connection. It can still be found on older hosting services, but SFTP is generally the better choice when both are available. For a new site, there is little reason to choose traditional FTP over a secure alternative. Git is designed for websites that are managed as code projects. Instead of treating the site as a folder of files, Git keeps track of changes to the project and can work with a deployment process that sends those changes to your hosting. This is useful for developers and teams, but it adds concepts and setup that most people don't need for a simple finished site. Automated deployment removes much of the manual uploading. Once it is set up, a change to your code can trigger a process that builds the site and sends the updated version to your hosting automatically. This saves time for sites that change often, but setting up the workflow can be more work than manually uploading a small site. Some hosting platforms let you upload finished website files directly. This can be a useful middle ground when you have a site created with a coding or AI tool but don't want to configure SFTP, Git or a deployment pipeline. For example, Wix Headless lets you upload or drag in finished website files and handles the deployment to a live URL, so you can go from a completed site folder to a live site without setting up a separate server workflow. Method Best for How it works File Manager Simple websites and first-time uploads Upload files through your browser SFTP Secure file transfers Transfer files securely between your computer and the server FTP Older hosting setups Transfer files between your computer and the server Git Coded websites and development projects Connect a code repository and deploy changes Automated deployment Sites updated through code Automatically sends new site changes to hosting when you update your project Platform upload tool Hosting platforms with their own workflow, like Wix Headless Upload or deploy files using the platform's tools Drag your finished site files into Wix Headless and Wix handles the hosting, SSL and CDN for you. How to upload a website with a File Manager A File Manager is usually the easiest way to upload a simple website because you can do everything from your browser. 01. Log in to your hosting account Open the dashboard or control panel provided by your hosting company. Look for an option related to your website files. 02. Open the File Manager The tool might be called File Manager, Files, Website Files or something similar. The name depends on your hosting provider. 03. Find the folder for your website Your hosting account has a specific folder where your website files need to go. This is sometimes called the document root or web root. On many hosting setups, the main website uses a folder called public_html. Other hosts may use a different name, so check your hosting provider's instructions if you're not sure. 04. Upload your website files Upload the files and folders that make up your website. For a simple site, you might have something like this: index.html css/ js/ images/ Keep the folder structure the same as it is on your computer. If your HTML expects an image at images/logo.png, for example, the images folder needs to be in the correct location on the server too. 05. Upload a ZIP if you have many files If your site contains a lot of files, you don't need to upload every file separately. Many hosting File Managers let you upload one ZIP file and extract it on the server. After extracting it, check the folder structure carefully. A ZIP might contain a top-level folder, which can leave your site one level deeper than expected. For example, you might end up with: public_html/ my-website/ index.html css/ images/ when you actually need: public_html/ index.html css/ images/ If index.html is inside an extra folder, your domain may not show the site you expect. 06. Open your website Visit the temporary URL provided by your hosting service, or your domain if you've already connected it. Check the homepage, images, navigation and other pages. If something looks wrong, the upload may still have worked correctly. A missing CSS file, image or JavaScript file is often caused by a file path or folder structure that doesn't match the original site. Where should index.html go? For many simple websites, the homepage file is named index.html. It needs to be in the folder your hosting service uses as the website's root folder. For example: public_html/ index.html css/ js/ images/ If you put it here instead: public_html/ my-site/ index.html your website may not load at your domain's main address because the homepage is one folder too deep. Not every website uses index.html, so don't rename files automatically if your project uses another setup. Frameworks and some hosting systems have their own rules. Good to know: On many hosting setups, index.html is the default file shown when someone visits the site's root address. File names can be case-sensitive, so Index.html and index.html may be treated as different files. How to upload a website with SFTP SFTP is another way to transfer website files from your computer to your hosting account. Instead of using a browser-based File Manager, you use an SFTP program to connect to your hosting account and transfer files directly. You'll usually need: The server or host address Your username A password or SSH key A port number The connection details provided by your hosting service Your hosting provider should give you these details and tell you which connection settings to use. Once you connect, you'll normally see your computer's files alongside the files on the server. Find your website's root folder and upload your website files there, keeping the same folder structure. SFTP is useful when you have many files to transfer or need to update your site regularly. It also encrypts the connection, which makes it a safer choice than traditional FTP when both options are available. FTP vs. SFTP FTP and SFTP both transfer files between your computer and a server, but they use different types of connections. FTP does not encrypt the connection. SFTP runs over SSH and encrypts the connection. If your hosting provider supports both, SFTP is generally the better choice because the connection is protected. You don't need to use SFTP if your host's File Manager already does everything you need. It's simply another way to transfer files, and it can be more convenient when you manage files regularly. Good to know: An SFTP client usually shows your computer's files on one side and the server's files on the other. The tricky part is knowing which folder on the server is the one your host uses for your website. Find that folder first, and transferring the files is straightforward. How to upload a website with Git Git is a tool for keeping track of changes to a project. If your website already lives in a Git repository, you may not need to manually upload files every time you make a change. Some hosting and deployment services can connect to your repository and automatically deploy the latest version of your site. A typical workflow looks like this: Put your website project in a Git repository. Connect the repository to your hosting or deployment service. Choose the branch and any required build settings. Deploy the site. Connect your domain. After that, updating the site can be as simple as making a change, committing it and pushing it to the repository. The connected service can then detect the change and deploy the updated version. This is useful if you're developing the site regularly. For a small website that you update only occasionally, manually uploading files may be simpler. Worth knowing: Git takes more setup than a simple file upload, but that setup can save time when you update your site often. Once everything is connected, you can update the site without manually selecting and transferring the files each time. Skip the deployment setup completely. Upload your build output to Wix Headless and your site goes live on a Wix URL in seconds. How to upload a website created with an AI tool AI tools can create websites in different ways. Some give you a ready-to-publish site, some give you finished website files and others give you a code project that needs to be built first. What you do next depends on which one you have. 01. The AI tool gives you a live website If the AI tool gives you a website that is already hosted, you don't need to upload the files yourself. Use the tool's publishing settings and connect a domain if you want a custom web address. If you create your site with the Wix Website Builder, the site is already hosted on Wix. You can make changes in the editor and click Publish when you're ready to make them live. 02. The AI tool gives you finished website files If you receive a folder or ZIP containing a finished website, you can upload those files to a hosting service that supports them. This is the simplest case because the website is already built and ready to run. Wix Headless lets you upload or drag in finished website files and deploy them to a live Wix URL. This can be useful if an AI or coding tool created the files but you don't want to set up a separate server or Git workflow. 03. The AI tool gives you a code project If you receive a project with files such as package.json and src/, you may have the source code rather than the finished website. The project may need to be built first, which creates the files that can be put online. The project may also require server-side code, a database or other services. In that case, you'll need a hosting setup that supports those requirements. Wix Headless can work with coded websites, but the exact setup depends on the project and what it needs to run. If the project can be built into finished website files, those files can be uploaded through the Headless workflow. Projects that require server-side features need the appropriate Wix or external services as part of the setup. Paste wix.com/headless/skill.md into Claude Code, Cursor or any AI tool you already use and your project is connected to the full Wix backend instantly. Expert tip from Yoav Cohen, Head of Education for DevRel at Wix: “We're seeing an entirely new kind of builder emerge, people who are highly capable with AI tools, move extremely fast, and have real product vision, but don't want to become infrastructure engineers. Wix Headless was built for them.” How to upload a static website to Wix Headless If you have a finished static website, Wix Headless lets you upload it directly and have Wix host it. This is useful if you created a site with code or an AI tool and have the finished website files but don't want to set up hosting separately. Wix hosts the files on a global CDN with automatic SSL and gives the project access to Wix business APIs. 01. Get the finished website files Make sure you have the finished build output, not the development project. Wix serves the files as they are and does not build them for you. If your project needs server-side code, use the CLI deployment route instead of the static upload. 02. Upload the files Go to the Wix Headless upload page and drag in your build output, or select a folder or ZIP file.Wix creates a new Headless project, hosts the files and publishes the site to a Wix URL. 03. Check the live site Open the URL provided after the upload and test the pages, images, links, navigation and interactive features. 04. Keep developing if you need to The upload is a starting point, not a dead end. After setting up the uploaded project locally, you can keep developing it and deploy updates with the Wix CLI. You can also connect the frontend to Wix services such as the CMS, ecommerce, bookings, events and memberships. If you need a build process or server-side code, use the CLI route instead. Wix Headless can host and run supported existing frontends through that workflow. Good to know: Wix Headless is free to start. Paid plans unlock features such as custom domains and live payments, so you can start building and testing before committing to a paid plan. Do you need a domain and hosting? They do different jobs, and domain hosting vs web hosting covers the distinction in full. Your domain is the web address people use to find your website. Your hosting is where the website files are stored and served to visitors. You can upload a website without having a custom domain. Your hosting provider may give you a temporary web address that you can use to test the site, then connect your own domain later. Learn more: How to host an HTML file online How to connect your domain to your website Uploading your website and connecting your domain are separate steps. Uploading puts your files on the hosting service, while connecting your domain tells the internet where your website is hosted. If your domain and hosting are with the same provider, you can often connect them from the provider's dashboard. If they're with different providers, your hosting service will give you the DNS settings to add where your domain is registered. Tip: Test your site using the temporary hosting URL first. If the site works there but not on your domain, your website files are probably fine and the issue is with the domain connection. Why isn't my uploaded website showing? If your site doesn't look right after uploading, don't start over immediately. Most problems are caused by one of a few things. 01. You see a blank page Check that your homepage is in the correct website root folder. If you're using a simple static site, check that index.html is there. Then check that your CSS and JavaScript files are in the locations your HTML expects. 02. You see a 404 error A 404 means the server couldn't find the page you requested. Check these. The URL The page's file name The folder structure The website root folder That the page was actually uploaded If the homepage works but another page doesn't, check the path to that specific page. 03. The page loads but the design is broken Your HTML may have uploaded correctly while your CSS or JavaScript did not. Check the paths in your HTML and make sure the corresponding files are on the server. File names can also cause problems. On many servers, style.css and Style.css are treated as different files. 04. Your images aren't loading Check that the image files were uploaded and that their paths match the paths used in your HTML or CSS. For example, if your page refers to this image. then the server needs to have logo.png inside an images folder in the expected location. 05. You uploaded a ZIP and the site doesn't work Check where the ZIP was extracted. You may have accidentally created an extra folder inside your website root. website/ index.html If the site expects index.html directly in the root, move the files up one level. 06. Your domain still shows an old site The domain may still point to your previous hosting service, or DNS changes may not have finished updating. You may also be seeing a cached version of the site. First, open the temporary URL from your hosting service. If the new site works there, the upload itself is probably fine and the issue is more likely related to the domain or DNS. How it actually works: almost every problem on this list traces back to a path that does not match or a file that landed one folder off. Keeping your local folder structure and your server folder structure identical removes a whole category of problem before it happens. How to check that your website is really live Don't stop at seeing the homepage. Go through the site as a visitor would, and check that everything below works. The homepage loads Other pages open Images and videos appear Fonts and styling look correct Navigation and links work Buttons do what they should Forms work Downloads work The site looks good on a phone Your domain opens the correct site HTTPS is working It's also useful to open the site in a private browsing window. That reduces the chance that an old cached version is confusing your test. If HTTPS is not working, check that a free SSL certificate is active on your domain. How to update your website after uploading it You don't usually need to start the entire upload process again every time you change something. How you update the site depends on how you originally put it online. With a File Manager, edit your files and upload the changed files. With SFTP, replace the changed files on the server. With Git, make your changes, commit them and push them to your repository. Your hosting service can then deploy the new version if it is set up for automatic deployment. With a website builder, make your changes in the builder and publish again. For a small site that changes occasionally, manually replacing files is perfectly reasonable. If you're making changes every week, a Git-based or automated workflow can save time because you don't have to keep track of which files need to be uploaded. How to upload a website FAQ: Can I upload a website without hosting? Your website needs somewhere to be served from, so you need a hosting service or a platform that provides hosting. You don't necessarily need to buy traditional hosting separately. Some platforms combine the upload, hosting and publishing steps. Can I upload a website without a domain? Yes. You can often upload and test a website using a temporary URL provided by your hosting service. You can connect a custom domain later. Do I need FTP to upload a website? No. You can often use a hosting File Manager, SFTP, Git or another upload method instead. Some hosting providers still support FTP, and when both FTP and SFTP are available, SFTP is generally preferable because the connection is encrypted. Can I upload a ZIP file instead of individual files? Usually, yes. Many hosting File Managers let you upload a ZIP and extract it on the server. After extracting it, check the folder structure to make sure your homepage and other website files aren't hidden inside an extra folder. How long does it take for an uploaded website to go live? The files can often be available as soon as they're uploaded to the correct location. If you've also connected a new domain, the domain connection can take longer because DNS changes need time to update. Can I upload a website created by an AI tool? Yes, if the AI tool gives you website files that can be hosted by the service you're using. If you receive finished HTML, CSS, JavaScript and assets, you may be able to upload them directly. If you receive a development project that needs to be built first, follow the project's build and deployment instructions instead. Can I upload a website to Wix? Yes. Wix Headless supports uploading a finished static site and hosting it as a Wix-managed Headless project. You can upload a folder or ZIP of the finished build output, and Wix handles hosting, SSL and CDN delivery for that site. For a project that needs a build process or server-side code, Wix also provides a CLI-based deployment path for supported frameworks.

Make any AI project business-ready in one prompt. Try Wix Headless → Headless CMS pricing can be hard to compare because two platforms with similar starting prices can give you very different things. One may include hosting and infrastructure while another leaves you to set them up yourself, and a free plan can come with limits that only matter once your site starts growing. A clearer picture starts with understanding what you're paying for at each stage, from getting a small site running to supporting a larger project with more content, users and technical requirements. Go from code to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: headless cms pricing A headless CMS can be free or cost thousands of dollars a month, but the real budget depends on how you host it, who builds the frontend, what infrastructure you need and how much work your team has to maintain. You'll learn: Typical headless CMS pricing by tier How platforms compare on starting price How the main pricing and hosting models work What the cheapest setup for a small site looks like The hidden costs beyond the license Why SaaS prices jump and how to estimate your budget What does a $0 headless CMS actually mean? A $0 headless CMS can mean free open-source software you install yourself, a free tier of a hosted SaaS plan or a platform that lets you connect a frontend to its backend at no connection fee. Some free hosted plans are also limited to testing and learning, so they may not be suitable for a commercial site. Free software, free hosting and free commercial use are three different things. A free plan may include hosting and other services, but usually with limits on users, content, API requests, storage or features. With open-source software, you'll typically need to pay for hosting and infrastructure yourself. So when you look at a $0 option, check what the free price actually covers and what you'll need to pay for as your project grows. Discover more: What is a headless CMS What is a headless website How to choose a headless CMS How to migrate from WordPress to Wix Headless Headless CMS cost at a glance Headless CMS pricing varies a lot from one platform to the next. The table below breaks a headless setup into cost areas and shows what each one usually covers. Cost area Typical cost What you're paying for Free CMS tier $0 A hosted CMS with limits on users, content, API usage, storage or features Open-source CMS $0 license The CMS software itself. Hosting, infrastructure and maintenance are separate Entry-level paid SaaS Tens to low hundreds/month Managed hosting, CMS features and a set amount of users, content or usage Mid-market SaaS Hundreds/month Higher usage limits, more seats, environments, permissions and support Enterprise CMS Custom pricing Higher limits, security, governance, support, SLAs and enterprise features Self-hosting $0 license + infrastructure Servers, database, backups, monitoring, security and the engineering time to maintain them Frontend and implementation Project-dependent Frontend development, integrations, content migration and deployment The first five rows cover common ways you may pay for the CMS itself. Self-hosting works differently because the software can be free while hosting, infrastructure and maintenance are separate costs. The final row covers the work of building and implementing the frontend, which can become one of the largest costs in a headless project. Good to know: a free CMS doesn't mean a free website. Even with a $0 license, you'll still need a frontend, somewhere to host it and usually a domain. Budget for the full stack from day one and the numbers won't surprise you later. Headless CMS pricing models Headless CMSs generally fall into a few pricing and hosting models. Many platforms combine more than one, so it helps to know which one you're on before your costs start to grow. 01. Open-source and self-hosted An open-source headless CMS is free to download and use. You install it on your own servers or cloud account, so you control the code, the data and the setup. The catch is that self-hosted doesn't mean free, and the hidden cost is people, not servers. A small server or database may cost relatively little each month, but someone still has to configure deployments, apply security updates, monitor uptime, manage backups and troubleshoot failures. If that work takes even a few hours of engineering time each month, the labor can quickly cost more than a managed CMS plan. 02. SaaS subscription tiers A SaaS headless CMS is hosted for you and billed monthly or yearly. Plans usually start with a free or low-cost tier, then step up as you add users, content and features. A fixed SaaS plan is usually easier to budget for because the vendor handles the infrastructure. But usage limits, additional seats and overages can still make the bill rise as the project grows. 03. Usage-based pricing Some platforms charge based on how much you use. Common meters include API calls, content records, bandwidth and media storage. Usage-based pricing can be cheap for a small site and expensive for a busy one. If your traffic spikes or your content library grows fast, your bill grows with it, so check the overage rates before you commit. 04. Enterprise contracts Enterprise headless CMS plans are usually priced through a sales conversation rather than a public price list. You get a custom annual contract built around your volume and requirements. Enterprise plans are usually aimed at organizations that need higher limits, advanced security, governance, support or service-level agreements. For smaller teams, the jump from a mid-tier plan to an enterprise contract is one of the biggest cost cliffs in headless CMS pricing. Good to know: a free license is only free to download. Running the software yourself still costs servers, backups and engineering hours every month. Price out a full year of hosting and upkeep before you choose self-hosting to save money. Headless CMS pricing comparison Most headless CMS options start free in some form, so the starting price won't tell you much. What matters is who each type suits and what makes the bill grow once you're up and running. Platform type Best for What makes the cost grow Watch out for Open-source, self-hosted CMS Teams with developers who want control over the code and infrastructure Hosting, database, backups, security and engineering time The software may be free, but running and maintaining it isn't Hosted SaaS with per-seat pricing Teams with a small number of content editors Additional seats, higher usage limits and paid features Check both the seat price and the usage limits Hosted SaaS with flat tiered plans Teams that want managed hosting and a clear upgrade path More users, content, environments, locales, storage or API usage A small increase in usage can sometimes mean moving to a much more expensive tier Headless business platform (Wix Headless) Builders who need a CMS plus business features such as payments, bookings or ecommerce Paid plans when you need features such as payments, custom domains or advanced analytics Development, third-party services and other project costs can still be separate Some open-source CMSs also offer managed cloud hosting alongside their free self-hosted edition. In that case, the CMS license and the cost of running it are separate, so the same product can have very different total costs depending on how you host it. Strapi is a current example of this model. Free tiers can also come with restrictions that matter for real projects. Check the current pricing and usage terms before choosing a platform, especially if you plan to use it for a commercial site. Good to know: the plan that's cheapest today isn't always cheapest next year. Per-seat pricing grows with your team and usage pricing grows with your traffic. Project your second-year costs before you choose. How much is the cheapest headless CMS for a small site? For a small site, the cheapest option is usually one of three setups. You can use a free hosted tier, a free open-source CMS that you self-host or a platform that lets you connect a frontend for free. The cheapest license isn't always the cheapest setup. A free self-hosted CMS still requires hosting, backups, updates and someone to maintain it, while a free SaaS plan may have limits on commercial use, users, API requests or storage. Estimate your total first-year headless CMS cost For a small business, compare the first-year total rather than the CMS license alone. First-year cost = CMS + hosting + domain + development + integrations + maintenance If you're building the site yourself and already know how to manage infrastructure, an open-source CMS can keep cash costs low. If you want to spend less time managing servers, a free or low-cost managed CMS can be cheaper overall even if its license isn't $0. Before you start: check the commercial-use terms of any free plan. A free tier that only allows testing won't cover a live business site, which can turn your cheapest option into a forced upgrade at launch. Hidden costs of a headless CMS The CMS subscription is rarely the whole bill. Because a headless CMS only handles content, everything else your project needs comes with its own price tag. 01. The CMS license This is the number on the pricing page and the easiest cost to compare. Depending on the platform and plan, it can be anything from $0 to thousands of dollars a month. Treat it as your starting point, not your total. For many headless projects, the license ends up being one of the smaller line items. 02. Frontend development A headless CMS separates content management from the frontend, so you still need to build and host the presentation layer somewhere. That can mean hiring a developer or agency, using your own team's time or building it yourself with AI coding tools. AI coding tools can also change the development cost, especially for smaller projects. In Stack Overflow's 2025 Developer Survey, 84% of respondents said they use or plan to use AI tools in their development process. AI can reduce the time needed to build parts of a frontend, but teams still need to handle architecture, testing, deployment and maintenance. Development costs can vary significantly depending on the scope and who builds the project. Jan van der Heide, founder of Gitaartabs.nl and a Wix Headless user, saw a large difference between the quotes he received for his site. Real-world tip from Jan van der Heide, founder of Gitaartabs.nl: "I got quotes from other developers who said we start at 50,000 euros. This company said 5,000, so I said let's try it." 03. Hosting and CDN Many headless CMS plans host your content but not your frontend. You'll usually pay separately to host the site itself and serve it quickly through a content delivery network. Costs here range from a few dollars a month for a small static site to much more for a high-traffic app. SSL, caching and scaling can add to the bill if they aren't included. 04. Integrations Most real projects need more than content. Selling products, taking bookings, processing payments or adding search usually means connecting extra services, each with its own subscription and setup work. Every integration also adds something to maintain. When one service changes its API, someone has to update the connection. 05. Maintenance and DevOps A headless setup has more moving parts than a traditional website. Someone needs to apply updates, watch performance, fix broken connections and keep everything secure. On a self-hosted setup, this can take up a meaningful share of an engineer's time every month. On a managed platform, much of that work is handled for you, which is why ongoing costs differ so much between setups. 06. Content migration and training Moving from an existing site means mapping old content into new structured fields, setting up redirects and testing everything. This can take longer than the build itself, especially for large content libraries. Your team will also need time to learn a new editing workflow. It's a one-time cost, but it's easy to leave out of the budget. Worth being clear on: development can be the largest cost in a headless project. The license gets the most attention when you compare platforms, but the frontend and integrations usually take the biggest share of the first-year budget. Plan those first and the rest falls into place. Build your project on any AI tool, run it on Wix. Try Wix's headless solution → What makes headless CMS pricing go up Once you've chosen a platform, the CMS price itself tends to rise as your project grows. These are the most common triggers. 01. Seats and user roles Many plans charge per user or cap the number of editors on each tier. Adding a few freelancers or a new marketing hire can push you into the next plan. Custom roles and approval workflows are also often reserved for higher tiers. 02. API usage and bandwidth Plans usually include a monthly allowance of API calls and bandwidth. Go over it and you may pay overage charges or need to upgrade. API limits and overage charges can make costs unpredictable, especially for sites with seasonal traffic spikes. 03. Environments and staging A staging environment lets you test changes before they go live. Lower tiers often include only one or two environments, and extra ones can cost significantly more. Teams working on several features at once usually hit this limit first. 04. Languages and localization Serving content in several languages often means paying for extra locales. Some plans charge per language, so going global can multiply your CMS bill. Find out more: How to run multiple sites from one headless CMS 05. Security, SSO and support Single sign-on, audit logs, advanced permissions and priority support are common upgrade triggers. They're often only available on business or enterprise plans. 06. Storage and media Images and video take up space fast. Plans with low storage limits can add charges as your media library grows. Why SaaS headless CMS prices jump The biggest pricing jump usually happens when you cross a plan limit rather than when your traffic increases gradually. You might need a higher tier because you added editors, need another environment, exceeded API or bandwidth limits or need features such as SSO and advanced permissions. Before choosing a plan, find the limits that trigger the next tier. A $20 plan with a low usage ceiling can cost more than a $50 plan with room to grow if your project is likely to cross that ceiling quickly. Worth knowing: usage-based fees can matter more than the base plan. A plan that looks cheap can end up costing more than a pricier one once you add overages. Estimate your monthly traffic, content volume and team size before you compare plans. Connect your frontend to a free headless CMS and full business backend. Try Wix Headless → Headless CMS vs traditional CMS cost Headless isn't automatically cheaper or more expensive than a traditional CMS. The right comparison is the total cost for your specific project and team. A traditional CMS often costs less in these situations: The site is fairly simple The built-in templates and frontend work for you One team manages both content and design You don't need multiple frontends A headless setup can make more financial sense in these situations: You publish to several channels, such as a website and an app You need a custom frontend You already have engineering resources You need complex integrations or business logic You want to reuse one backend across several experiences A traditional CMS usually wins on upfront cost because the frontend comes built in. A headless setup costs more to build, but it can save money over time if it lets you reuse content and backend logic across several products instead of rebuilding them. How it actually works: your CMS bill isn't your total headless cost. When you compare the two approaches, add up the license, development, hosting and maintenance for each. Comparing license prices alone almost always makes headless look cheaper than it is. How to estimate your headless CMS budget The easiest way to estimate your headless CMS cost is to add up each part of the stack. Use this simple formula as a starting point, then adjust it for your project type. Total annual cost = CMS + frontend development + hosting + integrations + maintenance + migration and training + other services Solo builder or side project Start with a free CMS tier, a domain and basic hosting. Your biggest cost is usually your own time building the frontend, plus any third-party services like email or forms. If you build it yourself, your cash costs can stay low, but count the hours too. Small business Add a professionally built frontend, a paid CMS or backend plan, hosting, a few integrations and analytics. Ongoing maintenance becomes a real line item here, even if it's just a few hours a month from a freelancer. Growing team Expect to pay for multiple seats, staging environments, localization, search, commerce features, monitoring and better support. This is the stage where usage-based fees and plan upgrades start to add up. Enterprise Budget for implementation, content migration, security reviews, SSO, multiple environments, governance and service agreements with dedicated support. Most of these costs are negotiated as part of a custom contract. A setup decision worth making early: managed infrastructure can reduce ongoing engineering work. If your platform handles hosting, scaling and security updates, you spend less on maintenance every month. Factor that into your budget alongside the license price. How to get a free headless CMS with Wix Headless Wix Headless gives you a free headless CMS as part of a complete business backend. You can connect your frontend at no cost, with no separate developer pricing, API fees or enterprise tier required. You only need to upgrade when you want paid capabilities such as a custom domain, live payments or advanced analytics. The CMS works alongside ecommerce, bookings, events, payments and pricing plans in the same Wix backend. This lets you manage core business functions through one Wix dashboard instead of connecting separate providers for each one. 01. Connect for free Build your frontend with any framework or an AI coding tool such as Claude Code or Cursor, then connect it to Wix using the Wix Headless skill file, Wix CLI or APIs. You can also connect an existing project without rebuilding it from scratch. Already have static files? Drag and drop deploy lets you upload your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files and publish them with a shareable URL. 02. Build with the Wix backend Create content collections in the headless CMS and add business features such as ecommerce, bookings, events or pricing plans through the same Wix connection. Your frontend can then use Wix APIs to work with this business data and functionality. For hosting, choose Wix-managed hosting or host the frontend yourself. With Wix-managed hosting, Wix handles the hosting infrastructure, CDN, SSL and scaling while you focus on the frontend and business logic.. 03. Upgrade when you need paid capabilities You can build and test your Headless project for free, then upgrade to a Premium plan when you need paid features. These can include a custom domain, accepting live payments and more advanced analytics. Your Headless connection itself doesn't add a separate developer fee or charge you based on API calls. You pay for the Wix plans and business products you choose to use. Expert tip from Anat Fennig, UX Lead at Wix: "There's no developer pricing, no fees for API calls, no enterprise tier you have to unlock. You connect for free and upgrade when you're actually ready to launch. We built the pricing to match how AI builders actually work, fast iteration first, monetization when the product is ready." Worth being clear on: free to connect doesn't mean every Wix service is free. The connection to the Wix backend costs nothing, but your complete website may still have costs such as a domain, a Premium plan, third-party services or development work. The upside is that you can build and test everything before you decide what to pay for. Headless CMS pricing FAQ: Is there a free headless CMS? Yes. Open-source headless CMS platforms are free to download, many SaaS platforms offer a free tier and Wix Headless includes a free headless CMS you can connect to at no cost. Some free SaaS tiers are limited to testing and learning, so check the commercial-use terms. Free usually covers the CMS itself, so you may still pay for hosting, a domain or development. Is a headless CMS more expensive than a traditional CMS? It usually costs more upfront because you need to build a separate frontend. Over time, it can work out cheaper if you publish to several channels or reuse one backend across multiple products. For a simple website run by one team, a traditional CMS is often the more affordable option. Is a self-hosted headless CMS really cheaper? The license is free, but you pay for servers, databases, backups, monitoring and the engineering time to keep everything secure and updated. Self-hosting can make financial sense for teams that already have infrastructure and DevOps expertise, especially when they need control over the environment. It isn't automatically cheaper at scale because engineering, security and infrastructure costs continue to grow with the system. Why do some headless CMS platforms charge for API calls? When your application requests content through a CMS API, that request can count toward the platform's usage limits. Serving those requests uses the vendor's infrastructure, so some platforms meter API calls to price their plans by usage, and some also meter bandwidth, storage or other resources. Wix Headless doesn't charge a separate fee per API call. Is a headless CMS worth it for a small business? It can be, especially if you want a custom design, plan to add an app or need features like online sales and bookings. The key is choosing a setup where you don't pay for complex infrastructure you won't use. Starting on a free tier or a free connection lets you test the fit before you spend money.

Make any AI project business-ready in one prompt. Try Wix Headless → Choosing a headless CMS can be difficult because the best option depends on how your team builds, manages and delivers content. You need enough flexibility for developers without making content management harder for everyone else. The right choice comes down to finding a balance between developer control, content workflows, business needs and cost. This guide walks you through the key factors to consider so you can compare headless CMS platforms and choose one that fits your project. Go from code to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: how to choose a headless cms Don't choose a headless CMS based on its feature list alone. See how it works with your actual content and team, check what you'll need to build and maintain yourself and look at the full cost before you decide. You'll learn: When headless makes sense and when it doesn't How to define what your project needs What to check when comparing CMS platforms The difference between self-hosted and managed options What a headless CMS really costs How to test and compare your shortlist How Wix Headless fits into the options What a headless CMS is and when you need one A headless CMS stores and manages your content, then sends it through an API to any frontend you build. Unlike a traditional CMS, it separates content management from the presentation layer. Your developers choose the frontend framework, and the same content can power a website, an app or a kiosk. That separation gives you flexibility, but it also shifts work to your team. Someone has to build and maintain the frontend, so going headless only pays off when you actually need that freedom. Learn more: What is a headless CMS Signs headless is the right fit Headless tends to make sense when you publish to more than one channel, have developers on hand and need control over the frontend and performance. It's also a strong match if you build frontends with AI coding tools and need a reliable backend behind them. It's especially useful when you need the same content across several products. If product information, articles or other content needs to appear on a website, mobile app and other interfaces, a headless CMS keeps that content in one place. Teams outgrowing templates often hit this point first. If your designers keep asking for layouts your current platform can't handle, a decoupled setup removes that ceiling. When a traditional CMS is enough If you run a simple blog or a brochure site and nobody on your team writes code, headless can add cost without adding much value. A visual website builder or a traditional CMS gets you live faster and keeps editing simple. The same goes for very tight timelines. Building a custom frontend takes time, so if you need to launch next week, a template-based site is usually the smarter call. Define your project requirements Before you look at any platform, write down what you're building. List every channel the content will reach, from your website to a mobile app or in-store screens. Then note the content types you need, such as products, blog posts, events or team profiles. Next, look at your people and your stack. A team of developers can handle a code-first platform, while a marketing-led team needs a friendly editor and visual preview. Note the frontend frameworks and hosting setup you already use, since the CMS needs to fit them. Finally, set a budget and timeline that include the frontend build, hosting and ongoing upkeep. If you plan to sell online, add commerce to the list early, since headless commerce changes which platforms make your shortlist. Read more: What is headless commerce? If you're migrating an existing site List the content you already have and identify what needs to move, change or be rebuilt. Check how the new CMS handles redirects, URLs, structured content, media, SEO metadata and content export before choosing a platform. Key factors to evaluate in a headless CMS Once you know what you need, compare platforms on the factors that shape daily work. These eight cover what matters most to editors, developers and the business. 01. Editor experience and visual preview Your editors will live in the CMS every day, so test the interface early. Look for clear fields, drag-and-drop media and the option to schedule content without help from a developer. Don't just ask editors if they like the interface. Give them a real publishing task and see how long it takes without developer help. Also ask every vendor to show a live preview of your frontend, since editors who can't see a page before it goes live end up filing endless support tickets. Expert tip from Rafal Koziarz, developer of Solitairec: "The CMS has been very helpful. I try to get my partner to manage as much as possible through the Wix admin console, from product management to text and content." 02. Content modeling and reuse Content modeling is how you define the structure of each content type and its fields. For example, a "Team member" model might include a name, role, photo, bio and social links. That same content can then be reused across different pages or channels. Check how easy it is to change a model later. Projects evolve, and a platform that makes schema changes painful will slow you down for years. Learn more: Can one headless CMS handle multiple sites? 03. APIs, SDKs and integrations Most platforms offer a REST API, a GraphQL API or both. REST is simple and widely supported, while GraphQL lets developers request exactly the data they need, which can be useful for complex frontends. Look for ready-made integrations with the tools you already run, plus webhooks. Webhooks let the CMS notify other systems when content changes, which matters for search indexing, publishing workflows, analytics and other connected services. 04. Developer experience and frontend compatibility Check that the CMS works well with the frameworks, languages and deployment setup your team already uses, such as React, Next.js, Vue, Astro or a mobile app. Look for clear documentation, SDKs, starter projects and examples for your preferred frontend framework. A technically flexible CMS can still be a poor fit if developers spend too much time working around its APIs or documentation. 05. Roles, workflows and versioning As your team grows, you'll need control over who can edit, approve and publish. Look for custom roles, approval workflows and a full version history so you can roll back mistakes in seconds. Also check for draft, review and published states if several people work on content. 06. Localization and media handling If you plan to reach other markets, check how the platform handles translations and locale-specific content. Check that localization covers structured content, URLs, metadata and media as well as body copy, since adding it later is far harder than planning for it now. Media matters too. Built-in image optimization and delivery through a CDN keep pages fast without extra tools. 07. Performance, scalability and security Ask how the platform handles traffic spikes, where its servers are located and what uptime it commits to. For security, look for single sign-on, audit logs and compliance with the standards your industry requires. Managed platforms usually handle hosting, SSL and scaling for you. Self-hosted options give you more control, but your team owns every patch and outage. 08. SEO controls A headless setup gives developers more control over technical SEO, including markup, rendering and page performance. But that control only helps if the frontend is built well. Make sure editors can manage meta titles, descriptions, URLs and structured data without touching code, and preview metadata before publishing. Check how the setup handles redirects, canonical URLs, XML sitemaps and robots.txt, plus server-side rendering or static generation where relevant. Want a CMS that comes with a full business backend built in? Try Wix Headless for free. Self-hosted vs managed headless CMS The biggest structural choice is who runs the infrastructure. You can host the CMS yourself or let the vendor manage it for you. Self-hosted Open source software can be free to download and customize, but running it still has infrastructure and maintenance costs. You can host it anywhere and change the code to fit your needs. The catch is everything around it. Your team handles servers, databases, updates, backups and security, and those hours add up fast. Managed SaaS A SaaS headless CMS runs in the vendor's cloud, so you skip the infrastructure work and get updates automatically. Setup is fast and support is usually included. In return you accept the vendor's pricing and usage limits. Read the fine print on API calls, records and seats, since crossing a limit can push you into a much pricier tier. All-in-one platforms Some managed platforms combine a headless CMS with services such as commerce, payments, bookings and hosting. This can reduce the number of separate systems your team has to connect and maintain. Calculate the real cost of a headless CMS The sticker price is only part of the bill. A free plan can turn expensive once you add more editors, content or API traffic, and the jump between tiers is rarely small. Then add the costs outside the CMS itself, from frontend development and hosting to image delivery and extra services such as search or commerce. Ongoing maintenance often costs more than the initial build. Expert tip from Tuvit Rubin Kaplan, Head of DevRel at Wix: "Frontend creation became easy almost overnight. But running a business still requires real infrastructure. Wix Headless is where those two things meet." To compare fairly, estimate your total cost for the first two years. Include CMS fees, hosting, frontend development, developer maintenance, additional services, migration and the time your content team spends managing the system. How to evaluate your shortlist A structured evaluation keeps you from picking on hype or a polished sales demo. Work through these steps with your team. 01. Build a shortlist Use your requirements to narrow the field to three or four platforms. Drop any option that fails a must-have, like a missing localization feature or a hosting model your team can't support. 02. Ask vendors the right questions Go beyond the feature list. Ask how pricing changes as you grow, what support you get, how preview works with your framework and how you can export your content if you leave. 03. Run a proof of concept with real editors Build one realistic page, populate it with real content, connect it to your actual frontend and let an editor publish a change. This tests the whole system rather than just the CMS interface. Watch where people get stuck, since their feedback is often the deciding factor. 04. Test content export and migration Export a sample of your content and check that it comes out clean and complete. If you're moving from another system, map your existing content to the new model before you sign anything. Learn more: How to move a WordPress site to a headless CMS Learn more: Wix Headless vs Sanity Learn more: Wix Headless vs Contentful 05. Score the options and decide Rate each platform against your requirements, weight the factors that matter most and add up the scores. Share the results with every team involved so the final choice has full buy-in. Run your proof of concept on a full business backend. Connect your frontend to Wix Headless and test every flow for free. Is Wix Headless a good fit? Wix Headless is worth considering if you want a custom frontend but also need managed business capabilities such as a CMS, ecommerce, bookings, events and payments. It can be particularly useful for agencies and AI builders who want to create the frontend themselves without building every business service from scratch. You keep full control of the frontend. Build it with any framework or AI coding tool, then connect to Wix through REST and GraphQL APIs, the JavaScript SDK or the CLI. Wix manages the business data, content and permissions through its backend and dashboard, while your custom frontend remains under your control. Hosting is flexible too. With Wix-managed headless, Wix takes care of website hosting, the CDN, SSL and scaling. With self-managed headless, you host the frontend on your own platform and connect to the same Wix backend. You can start building for free and move to a paid plan when you're ready to accept payments or connect a custom domain. Get inspired: Headless website examples The developer agency that went all-in on Wix Headless Migrating from WordPress to Wix Headless How to evaluate Wix Headless If Wix Headless makes your shortlist, these steps take you from setup to a working proof of concept. 01. Choose your hosting option Decide if you want Wix to host your project or prefer to host the frontend yourself. Both options connect to the same backend, so pick the one that suits your workflow. 02. Connect your frontend in one prompt Point your AI coding tool at wix.com/headless/skill.md and it wires your frontend to the Wix backend for you. Already have static files? Use drag and drop deploy to take your HTML, CSS and JavaScript live in seconds. 03. Set up your CMS collections Organize your content into collections that connect directly to your frontend. Editors can then update text and images from the dashboard without touching code. 04. Add the business solutions you need Turn on stores, bookings, events or payments as your project grows. These services are managed through the same Wix backend, so you don't have to build each business system from scratch. 05. Test with deploy previews and go live Use deploy previews to check changes before they're public. When you're ready, upgrade to a premium plan to add your domain and start selling. Choosing a headless CMS FAQ: What should I look for in a headless CMS? Start with the editor experience, content modeling, API options, frontend compatibility and preview. Then check roles and workflows, localization, performance, security and SEO controls. Finally compare pricing models and support so the platform fits both your team and your budget. How much does a headless CMS cost? Costs range from free open source software to enterprise plans that run thousands of dollars a month. Your real budget also includes frontend development, hosting, migration and ongoing maintenance. Estimate the total cost over two years rather than comparing starting prices. What's the difference between a headless and a decoupled CMS? Both separate content management from presentation. A decoupled CMS may provide a built-in frontend and also allow a separate one, while a headless CMS is designed to deliver content through APIs without requiring a built-in presentation layer. In practice the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Can non-technical editors use a headless CMS? Yes, as long as the platform offers a clear interface and visual preview. Some headless systems are built mainly for developers, so test the editor with your content team before you commit. A good setup lets editors update text and images without filing a ticket. Should I choose a CMS with a REST or GraphQL API? Both work well, and many platforms offer each. REST is simple and widely supported, which makes it easy to start with. GraphQL lets developers fetch exactly the data they need in a single request, which can make data fetching easier to manage in complex frontends. How do I avoid vendor lock-in with a headless CMS? Choose a platform that lets you export all your content in a standard format such as JSON. Also check that you can access your content through standard APIs and export your media, metadata and structured content. Test an export during your evaluation, not after you sign.

Make any AI project business-ready in one prompt. Try Wix Headless → Why use a headless CMS? Because it frees your content from any single design, so you can publish to a website, an app or an AI-built frontend from one place and change the look anytime without moving a word. Paired with the right headless solution and a solid build, it can also give you faster pages, fewer exposed weak spots and room to grow. Go from code to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: why use a headless cms A headless CMS keeps your content in one backend and sends it to any frontend through an API. That split is the source of most benefits people go headless for, from design freedom and content reuse to performance and security gains when the site is built well. It's a strong fit for AI-built projects, multichannel brands and agencies handing sites to clients. For a simple one-page site, it may be more than you need. You'll learn: What makes a headless CMS different The 8 biggest benefits of a headless CMS Who gets the most out of going headless When a headless CMS isn't the right fit How to tell if it's worth it for your project How to get headless CMS benefits with Wix Headless What a headless CMS does differently A traditional CMS typically bundles two jobs together. It stores your content and usually controls how that content looks through built-in themes and templates. A headless CMS removes the "head" (the presentation layer) and focuses on managing content and delivering it through an API. Think of it like a kitchen that cooks for dine-in, takeout and delivery. The food is made once in the same place, then plated differently for each channel. In a headless setup, your content lives in structured collections and gets delivered through an API to a website, a mobile app, a smart display or anything else that can request it. The practical trade-off is ownership. You get full control of the frontend, but you or your AI assistant also build and maintain it. If you want the side-by-side breakdown, see how a headless CMS compares with a traditional CMS. Worth knowing: a headless CMS on its own manages structured content and delivers it through an API. Features like checkout, bookings, member logins and payments usually come from separate services or integrations. Some platforms, Wix Headless among them, bundle those business features into the same backend as the CMS, so check which kind of product you're comparing before you choose. Why use a headless CMS? 8 key benefits These are the benefits of a headless CMS that come up again and again, from developer forums to the teams that run headless sites every day. Most of them depend on how the site is built, so think of them as what headless makes possible. Create content once and publish it everywhere Full freedom on the frontend Faster pages and better Core Web Vitals A smaller security risk Scales when traffic spikes Redesign without migrating content Built for AI coding tools Easier editing for clients and teams 01. Create content once and publish it everywhere With a headless CMS, a product description, a blog post or an event listing is written once and reused across every channel you run. Your website, your app and your email templates can all pull from the same source. Update it in one place and every channel connected to the CMS can pull the new version. This is what people mean by omnichannel content. It cuts out double entry and keeps details like prices, hours and product specs consistent. Adding a new channel later is mostly a frontend job. Some headless CMSs also help you manage different language versions of the same content. Getting that reuse to work starts with how you structure the content. If you model an event as separate fields for title, date, description, image and location, your website can render it as a full detail page while your app shows it as a compact card, all from the same entry. Read more: Headless CMS multisite explained 02. Full freedom on the frontend Because the CMS doesn't dictate your design, you can build the frontend with any framework, design system or AI tool that can call an API. Specific hosting setups support specific frameworks, so check what your provider supports before you pick a stack. That freedom is why developers and designers tend to love headless. You get pixel-level control over the experience while the content model stays clean underneath. Accessibility lives on the frontend too, so it's worth building in from the start. 03. Faster pages and better Core Web Vitals Headless gives developers control over how pages are rendered and content is delivered. With strategies like static generation, server-side rendering and CDN caching, a headless site can hit strong Core Web Vitals instead of assembling every page from a heavy theme on request. Speed isn't automatic, though. Heavy JavaScript, slow API calls, client-side rendering and unoptimized images can still drag a headless site down. Headless gives you more control over performance. The build decides how much of that control turns into speed. Fewer than half of mobile websites pass Core Web Vitals, according to HTTP Archive's Web Almanac. A fast-loading site is still an edge over most competitors. A well-built headless frontend is one way to get there. Faisal, CEO of the web and mobile development agency Strugbits, puts the business case simply. "People just want a good website that runs fast. Wix Headless ticks all of those boxes, so why wouldn't we pitch it?" 04. A smaller security risk In a traditional setup, the public site and the admin panel often live together, frequently with plugins that each need patching. A headless setup separates the two, so fewer backend components are exposed through the public site. That can mean fewer weak spots for attackers to find. It doesn't make a site secure on its own. Your APIs still need proper authentication, permissions and access controls. Your frontend, credentials and integrations still need regular care too. 05. Scales when traffic spikes Content delivered through a CDN can absorb a sudden rush of visitors without every request hitting your servers. A product launch, a viral post or a holiday sale doesn't have to mean a crashed site. Capacity still depends on the backend services, databases, API limits and code behind the site. Managed infrastructure that scales automatically takes much of that work off your plate. Pairing a headless CMS with a managed backend is the simplest way to get it. 06. Redesign without migrating content Headless keeps your content backend independent of any particular frontend framework or rendering system, so you can rebuild the experience with a different technology stack while continuing to use the same content API. Traditional CMSs can also change themes without moving content, but you stay within what that CMS can render. That makes it much easier to keep up with new design trends, new frameworks or a full rebrand. Your content becomes a long-term asset instead of something trapped inside one site. Worth knowing: content stays in place as long as your content model holds up. Restructuring the model itself, like splitting one field into three or renaming collections, can still mean some migration work and frontend code changes. A little planning on the content model upfront saves the most time later. 07. Built for AI coding tools AI coding tools have made it fast to generate a frontend from a prompt. What they don't solve on their own is where the content lives and who edits it after launch. A headless CMS fills that gap with structured content your AI-built frontend can call through an API. It also keeps you flexible. You can swap tools, regenerate the frontend or try a new framework while your content and business data stay exactly where they are. Rafal Koziarz, the developer behind the Solitairec project, describes what that split feels like day to day. "It feels like I don't have any backend to test. I rely a lot on the SDK, which makes development a lot smoother." Read more: How to connect Claude Code to a backend How to launch your AI project's frontend and backend How to use a headless CMS 08. Easier editing for clients and teams Editors typically don't need to touch code to update a headless site. They usually work with structured fields for titles, images and copy, so there's less risk of breaking the layout. Editing and preview tools vary by CMS. Some offer visual editing or live previews. For freelancers and agencies, this is often the benefit that matters most at hand-off. The client gets a place to make changes on their own and you stop being the permanent help desk. Ready to put these benefits to work? Connect your frontend to Wix Headless in one prompt. Who benefits most from a headless CMS Headless used to be an enterprise thing. Today, the benefits of a headless CMS reach much smaller teams, especially these three. AI builders and vibe coders If you built a frontend with an AI builder, you already have the look. What's missing is the engine behind it. A headless CMS gives your project real content management. Pair it with a business backend and you also get a path to payments, bookings and orders when you're ready to turn a prototype into a product. Expert tip from Tuvit Rubin Kaplan, Head of DevRel at Wix: "Frontend creation became easy almost overnight. But running a business still requires real infrastructure. Wix Headless is where those two things meet." Agencies and freelancers Agencies can build a custom frontend for every client without rebuilding the backend from scratch each time. The same CMS setup and business tools carry over, so you launch more sites with the same team. At hand-off, clients get a dashboard they can run on their own. That keeps projects profitable and keeps you focused on building instead of fixing typos. Freelance agency builder Shahkam Abdul Aziz used to turn down bigger client projects because the backend work felt out of reach. After pairing the Wix CLI with an AI coding agent, that changed. "Projects I was afraid to take on before, I now take on with confidence, and I build real solutions that save my clients a lot of time." A setup decision worth making early: after handoff, clients manage their own CMS content, orders, bookings and business tools from the Wix Business Manager dashboard. Built-in AI tools in the dashboard help with many day-to-day tasks without developer involvement. Clients who have never used a CMS before may need a short walkthrough on first login. The dashboard is intuitive, but it is a real business management tool, not a simplified page editor. Small businesses that sell online A small business with a website, an online store and maybe an app can keep its content and product data in one place. Connected channels show the same prices, stock and descriptions without double entry. Headless also gives a growing business room to change direction. You can redesign the site, launch a new sales channel or add a booking flow without starting over. Learn more: What is headless commerce How to add an online store to an AI-built site When a headless CMS isn't the right fit A headless CMS isn't the best answer for every project. It may be more than you need if any of these sound like you. A simple brochure site. If you need a few pages that rarely change, a traditional website builder gets you live faster. No one to build the frontend. Someone has to create and maintain the presentation layer. That could be you, a developer or an AI coding assistant. You want the fastest launch with no setup. Planning a content model and building a frontend add steps a simple site may not need. Your editors want drag-and-drop design. Headless editing is usually field-based, so most visual page building happens on the frontend side. Swapping your frontend is straightforward with headless. Swapping your CMS provider is not. Moving to a different CMS can mean rebuilding content schemas, remapping APIs, migrating media and reconfiguring permissions and integrations. For a full look at the trade-offs, read our breakdown of headless CMS pros and cons. Worth being clear on: a headless CMS doesn't build your frontend for you. With Wix Headless, Wix runs the business backend and the frontend is yours to build and own. If you don't have one yet, an AI coding tool or vibe coding platform can generate it and connect it to Wix Headless. You can also start on the Wix Headless page and open your project with the backend already wired in. Is a headless CMS worth it? A quick self-check Answer these five questions before you decide. Weigh the answers together, especially how complex your project is, who will maintain the frontend and how many channels need the same content. Will your content appear in more than one place, like a site, an app or emails? Do you want full control over your design or plan to build with AI coding tools? Will someone other than the developer publish content regularly? Do you expect to redesign or change frameworks within the next few years? Do you need business features like payments, bookings or a store connected to your content? This surprises most new users: Wix Headless is free to start, with no credit card required and no developer pricing or API fees. You can connect your frontend to the Wix backend and build before you spend anything. A Premium plan adds live payment acceptance, a custom domain and in-depth analytics when you're ready for them. How to get the benefits of a headless CMS with Wix Headless Wix Headless gives you the benefits on this list without the usual stitching. It's a headless solution that natively combines a CMS, ecommerce, payments, bookings and events in one connected backend. You own the frontend, built on any AI tool or code stack, while Wix handles the backend. Because the CMS and the business tools come from one backend, you don't need a separate vendor for each feature or servers to maintain. Wix Headless centralizes business logic, data and permissions in a single Wix Business Manager dashboard. Connect your project or start from scratch Set up your CMS collections Add the business solutions you need Choose your hosting and hand off 01. Connect your project or start from scratch Already have a frontend from an AI coding tool? With supported AI coding workflows, a single prompt can connect your frontend to Wix Headless. The setup depends on whether you use Wix-managed or self-managed Headless, and existing projects may need additional SDK or authentication configuration. Starting fresh? Describe what you want on the Wix Headless page and your project opens in your chosen vibe coding platform with the backend already wired in. 02. Set up your CMS collections Create content collections in the Wix headless CMS, define your fields and serve that structured content to your frontend through the API. You manage it all from the dashboard, no matter where the frontend was built. 03. Add the business solutions you need Plug in Wix ecommerce, bookings, events and payments through the same connection. Orders, inventory, scheduling and ticketing are handled for you, so your AI-built frontend can take real payments and bookings. 04. Choose your hosting and hand off Choose Wix-managed hosting if you want Wix to take care of hosting, CDN, SSL and scaling. Prefer more control? Self-host the frontend on your own platform and connect through the API. Worth knowing: both hosting paths give you the same access to Wix business APIs. What changes is the development experience. Wix-managed Astro projects handle authentication automatically and include built-in SEO support, while other frameworks and self-managed projects need more configuration. Then hand clients or teammates the Wix dashboard so they can update content on their own. Jonathan Cantillo, founder of the fitness app Samprand, did exactly that when he handed the CMS to a member of his team. Expert tip from Jonathan Cantillo, founder of Samprand and Wix Headless user: "We taught her how to use the CMS, and I think that's one of the biggest benefits of Wix. You don't have to be super tech-savvy to upload things to the CMS or change categories. She's completely self-service." Good to know: with Wix-managed Headless, you get ready-made CMS and business services without building your own backend infrastructure. Depending on your framework and what your app needs to do, custom authentication, server-side logic or additional integrations may still be necessary. You're still building and owning a frontend, which means some familiarity with your chosen AI tool or framework affects how smooth the process is. What you build on the frontend once connected is still entirely up to you. Why use a headless CMS FAQ Is a headless CMS good for SEO? A headless CMS can support strong SEO, but results depend on how you build and configure the frontend. Make sure your pages render crawlable content and that you handle metadata, canonical URLs, structured data and sitemaps correctly. With Wix Headless, the available SEO features depend on your setup. Wix-managed Astro projects include built-in SEO support, while other frameworks and self-managed projects need additional configuration. Is a headless CMS more secure? It can be. Separating the content backend from the public frontend reduces how much of your system is exposed and removes the plugin layer common in traditional setups. Security still depends on implementation and ongoing maintenance, including API permissions, access controls and how you host the frontend. Do I need a developer to use a headless CMS? Someone needs to build the frontend, but that someone doesn't have to be a full-time developer anymore. You can generate a frontend with an AI builder and connect it to a headless backend. Once it's live, editors can update content from a dashboard without writing code. Is a headless CMS good for small businesses? It can be, especially if you sell online, run more than one channel or built your site with AI. A managed headless option removes much of the backend work that used to make headless an enterprise-only choice. If you only need a simple site with a few pages, a traditional website builder may still be the faster route. How much does a headless CMS cost? The total cost of a headless CMS project includes more than the CMS itself. Depending on your setup, you may also pay for frontend hosting, development, third-party integrations and ongoing maintenance. Some providers also charge per seat, per API call or per locale. Wix Headless is free to start with no developer pricing or API fees. A Premium plan adds payment acceptance, in-depth analytics and custom domain connection. What is the difference between a headless CMS and a decoupled CMS? Both separate the content backend from the presentation layer. A decoupled CMS usually still ships with an optional default frontend you can use or replace. A headless CMS has no built-in frontend at all and delivers content only through an API. In everyday use, the two terms often overlap. Do I still need a CMS if AI builds my site? Not always. If your site rarely changes, you may be able to manage content directly in the code or through your website builder. A headless CMS earns its place when non-developers need to update structured content regularly or publish it across several channels.

Make any AI project business-ready in one prompt. Try Wix Headless → Headless is one of those web terms that sounds more complicated than it is. Strip away the jargon and a headless website is a site where the part visitors see is built separately from the part that stores your content. If you've been wondering if that setup is worth it, the short answer is that it trades a little extra work up front for a lot more freedom in how your site looks and where your content can go. Go from code to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: what is a headless website? A headless website keeps its design and its content on separate layers, connected by an API. Compared with a traditional site, that split makes it easier to scale and to publish the same content to an app or other channels, and it pays off when you need that flexibility. You'll learn: What a headless website is, in plain terms How the front end, back end and API fit together How headless compares to a traditional website The benefits, the tradeoffs and when headless is worth it What is a headless website? A headless website is a site built so the front end is decoupled from the back end. The front end is the head: the pages, design and everything a visitor sees and clicks. The back end is the body: the content, data and business logic. In a headless setup you cut the head off the body, then connect them through an API instead of bundling everything into one system. Your content lives in one place and can be sent anywhere and your front end is yours to build however you want. Read more: How to choose a headless CMS How does a headless website work? A headless website has three moving parts: the back end, often a headless CMS, stores and structures your content. An API acts as the bridge, delivering that content on request. The front end, built in whatever framework you like, calls the API and renders the pages. When someone visits, the front end asks the API for the content it needs and displays it. Because the front end is not tied to the back end's templates, you can rebuild or replace it without touching your content. A quick distinction worth making: a headless CMS, like Wix, is just the content layer, while a headless website is the whole site built on that decoupled architecture, usually a headless CMS plus a custom front end and services like payments or search. Learn more: Headless CMS pricing How to set up and use a headless CMS Headless CMS multisite Headless website vs. traditional website The difference comes down to how tightly the front end and back end are joined, and how much freedom that leaves you. Aspect Traditional website Headless website Architecture Front end and back end coupled Decoupled, connected by an API Front-end control Bound to the platform theme Fully custom, any framework Channels One website Many surfaces from one source Speed Tied to the monolith Typically faster, lighter front end Setup Faster to start Needs a developer to wire up Upkeep One system Two connected systems Read more: Steps to migrate WordPress to a headless CMS The benefits of a headless website The upside of going headless is concrete and it grows as your content and channels do. Speed and SEO: a lighter, decoupled front end loads faster than a monolith, and faster pages help both visitors and search rankings. Flexibility: you build the front end in any framework and redesign it without rebuilding the back end, so the site is never boxed in by a theme. Omnichannel delivery: one content source can feed a website, an app, a kiosk or a smart display through the same API, with no duplicated work. Content security: with content living apart from the presentation layer, the public front end exposes a smaller attack surface than a traditional all-in-one setup. Scalability: you can add new channels or swap the front end as you grow, so the architecture scales with the business instead of against it. Learn more: What is headless commerce Worth being clear on: going headless means the front end is yours to build and own. That is the whole point of the model and its main cost. The headless cms that make it painless are the ones that hand you a full business backend so you are not solving payments, scheduling and commerce from scratch on top of the frontend work. Read more: Is headless CMS the future When a headless website makes sense A headless website earns its keep when your content needs to travel and your front end needs to be yours. It is the right call if you publish across more than one channel, want full control over design and performance, or expect to scale into new surfaces over time. A simple single-page site with one editor and no plans to expand is usually better served by a traditional website builder. The more custom and multi-channel your project, the more headless pays off. How it actually works with Wix Headless: pasting a prompt from wix.com/headless/skill.md into an AI coding tool like Claude Code or Cursor connects your project to the backend instantly. If you build on a vibe coding platform like Base44, you start from the Wix Headless page and your project opens with the backend already wired in. The path is fast either way, but which one fits depends on how you are building the frontend. Learn more: How to migrate from WordPress to Wix Headless How to build a headless website with Wix Headless The usual catch with headless is that you have to assemble the backend yourself. Wix Headless removes that step. You get a complete business backend, with a CMS, ecommerce, payments, bookings and events all natively connected and you connect any frontend to it in a single prompt. Ran Levi, Developer Advocate, Wix: The hardest part of shipping something real has never been the frontend. Anyone can build a beautiful UI fast now. The wall people hit is always the same: payments, bookings, a CMS that actually works. Wix Headless knocks that wall down. You connect your frontend to the infrastructure millions of businesses already run on, in one prompt. You're not a backend engineer, you're just shipping. Something most people don't expect: the Wix headless CMS is included at no cost. You create content collections, define your fields and serve structured data to your frontend through an API without paying for a separate CMS plan. There is no per-collection fee and no content cap at the free tier. You get two hosting paths, not one: Wix-managed hosting handles CDN, SSL and scaling automatically, or you self-host the frontend on your own infrastructure and connect to the Wix backend by API. Both paths reach the same complete business backend, so the choice comes down to how much control you want over hosting. After handoff, clients manage content, orders and bookings from a clean dashboard with natural-language editing, so a headless website does not have to mean a harder day-to-day for editors. Nearly 32,000 people used Wix MCP to connect external AI tools like Claude directly to their sites in 2025, managing content and updates through natural conversation (Wix State of Websites 2026). Read more: can you use Wix without an editor Read more: Frontend infrastructure for beginners Read more: Wix Headless vs Shopify Headless Commerce Read more: Wix Headless vs Sanity Read more: Wix Headless vs Contentful Read more: How to make a Wix Headless website step by step Headless website FAQ: What does headless mean? Headless means the front end of a website, the part people see, is separated from the back end, where content and data are stored. The two connect through an API. The name comes from cutting the head, the presentation layer, off the body, the content layer. Is a headless website better for SEO? It can be. Decoupled front ends are often faster and give you direct control over markup, structured data and performance, which all help SEO. The results still depend on your content and technical choices, not the architecture alone. Do you need a headless CMS for a headless website? Usually yes. A headless CMS is the content layer that a headless website pulls from through an API. You can serve content from other sources but a headless CMS is the most common and practical backend for one. Is a headless website worth it? For multi-channel content, custom front ends or fast-scaling sites, it usually is. For a simple single site with one editor, the extra setup may not pay off. Match the choice to how many places your content needs to live and how much control you want. Can you build a headless website without a developer? Building and connecting the front end normally needs some development, but AI coding tools and managed backends have lowered the bar a lot. A small team or a solo builder can now do what used to take an engineering department, and day-to-day editing is built for non-technical users.

Make any AI project business-ready in one prompt. Try Wix Headless → A headless CMS sounds like an obvious upgrade until you ask whether it's worth the added setup. Both the pros and the cons are real, and which side wins depends on what you're building. For a growing business that needs speed, flexibility and the same content on more than one channel, the benefits tend to come out ahead, especially with a backend that handles hosting and security for you. Go from code to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: headless CMS pros and cons A headless CMS keeps content separate from how it's displayed, so one set of content can feed a website, an app or a smart display. The trade-offs are more initial work and a bigger role for developers, in exchange for flexibility, speed and content reuse. You'll learn: What a headless CMS is and how it works The main pros of going headless and why they matter The real cons and how to handle each one When a headless CMS is worth it, and when it is not What is a headless CMS? A traditional CMS keeps content and design locked together in one system but a headless CMS, like Wix's, separates them. The backend stores and structures your content, then delivers it to any frontend through an API. The website, the mobile app and anything else all pull from the same source. That separation is the root of every pro and con below. It gives you freedom on the frontend and asks you to own a bit more of the stack in return. Read more: What is a headless CMS The pros of a headless CMS The upside of going headless is concrete and it compounds as your content and channels grow. Flexibility and omnichannel delivery: content is not tied to one theme or template, so you can publish the same source to a website, an app, a kiosk or a smart display without duplicating work. Speed and SEO: a decoupled frontend loads faster because it is not dragging a heavy monolith behind it, and faster pages help both users and search rankings. Developer freedom: teams build the frontend in the framework they already know, like React, Vue or Next.js, and pull content over an API instead of fighting a rigid theme. Stronger content security: with content living apart from the presentation layer, the public frontend exposes a smaller attack surface than a traditional all-in-one setup. Scalability and future-proofing: you can update or replace the frontend without rebuilding the backend, so the system grows into new channels instead of boxing you in. Content reuse: structured content is modular, so a single entry can power many pages, regional sites, apps and campaigns at once. The cons of a headless CMS (and how to handle them) None of these are dealbreakers necessarily but they are real, and each has a clear way around it. More upfront development: a headless build needs a developer to wire the frontend to the API. Managed backends and AI coding tools have lowered that bar a lot, so a small team or a solo builder can now do what used to take an engineering department. Editor preview friction: many headless platforms ship without a visual editor, which frustrates content teams used to seeing changes live. Pick a platform with a clean dashboard and preview and this mostly disappears. Two systems to manage: running a separate backend and frontend can mean more infrastructure, maintenance and hosting cost. A fully managed headless backend removes the ops work so you are not babysitting servers. Integration and learning curve: connecting payments, search or analytics takes more setup than a plug-in-and-go CMS. Choosing a platform with native business features instead of bolt-ons keeps the integration list short. Worth being clear on: going headless means the frontend is yours to build and own. That is the whole point of the model and its main cost. The platforms that make it painless are the ones that hand you a full business backend so you are not solving payments, scheduling and commerce from scratch on top of the frontend work. Read more: How to migrate from WordPress to a headless CMS When a headless CMS is worth it Headless earns its keep when your content needs to travel and your frontend needs to be yours. It is the right call if you publish across more than one channel, want full control over design and performance, or expect to scale into new surfaces over time. A single simple blog with one editor and no plans to expand is usually better served by a traditional CMS. The more custom and multi-channel your project, the more the pros outweigh the cons. How it actually works with Wix Headless: pasting a prompt from wix.com/headless/skill.md into an AI coding tool like Claude Code or Cursor connects your project to the backend instantly. If you build on a vibe coding platform like Base44, you start from the Wix Headless page and your project opens with the backend already wired in. The path is fast either way, but which one fits depends on how you are building the frontend. Read more: Is headless CMS the future How to use a headless CMS step by step Running multiple sites on a headless CMS How Wix Headless removes the usual tradeoffs Most of the cons above come from managing infrastructure and wrestling with editor experience. Wix Headless takes both off your plate. You get a complete business backend, with a CMS, ecommerce, payments, bookings and events all natively connected, and you connect any frontend to it in a single prompt. Ran Levi, Developer Advocate, Wix The hardest part of shipping something real has never been the frontend. Anyone can build a beautiful UI fast now. The wall people hit is always the same: payments, bookings, a CMS that actually works. Wix Headless knocks that wall down. You connect your frontend to the infrastructure millions of businesses already run on, in one prompt. You're not a backend engineer, you're just shipping. Something most people don't expect: the Wix headless CMS is included at no cost. You create content collections, define your fields and serve structured data to your frontend through an API without paying for a separate CMS plan. There is no per-collection fee and no content cap at the free tier. You get two hosting paths, not one: Wix-managed hosting handles CDN, SSL and scaling automatically, or you self-host the frontend on your own infrastructure and connect to the Wix backend by API. Both paths reach the same complete business backend, so the choice comes down to how much control you want over hosting. After handoff, clients manage content, orders and bookings from a clean dashboard with natural-language editing, which answers the editor-friction con directly. Nearly 32,000 people used Wix MCP to connect external AI tools like Claude directly to their sites in 2025, managing content and updates through natural conversation (Wix State of Websites 2026). Explore more: the full Wix Headless guide Explore more: Wix Headless vs Shopify Headless Commerce Explore more: how to make a Wix Headless website Explore more: Moving from WordPress to Wix Headless Explore more: Wix Headless vs Sanity Explore more: Wix Headless vs Contentful Headless CMS pros and cons FAQ: Is a headless CMS worth it? For multi-channel content, custom frontends or fast-scaling sites, a headless CMS is usually worth it. For a single simple website with one editor, the extra setup may not pay off. Match the choice to how many places your content needs to live and how much control you want over the frontend. Is a headless CMS good for SEO? Yes, often better than a traditional setup. Decoupled frontends can be faster and cleaner, and you control the markup, structured data and performance directly. The SEO results still depend on your content and technical choices, not the architecture alone. Is a headless CMS harder for content editors? It can be, since many platforms lack a visual editor. The gap closes fast on platforms with a clean dashboard, live preview and natural-language editing. Wix Headless gives clients that kind of dashboard after handoff, so editors are not stuck guessing how a change will look. Is a headless CMS more expensive? Not always, ppen-source options are free to self-host, and some managed infrastructure platforms include the CMS at no cost, Wix Headless for example. Costs rise when you add hosting, seats or API volume, so compare pricing on how you will actually use it rather than the headline number. Do you need developers to use a headless CMS? No, day-to-day editing is built for non-technical users and AI coding tools now let small teams handle the initial setup that once needed a full engineering team.

Make any AI project business-ready in one prompt. Try Wix Headless → With Wix connected to Claude, you can describe the website you want in a regular chat, let Wix create and host it, then keep editing and managing it through Claude or Wix. No coding is needed, and the same chat can later add pages, products, bookings or blog posts. There's also a route for people who write their own code. This guide walks through both, from your first prompt to a live site you can keep improving. Go from code to live site with Wix Headless. Upload or drag in your HTML, CSS and JavaScript files to get your site live with a shareable URL. Wix handles the hosting and infrastructure, and you can add ecommerce, bookings, CMS, payments and more with a single prompt. TL;DR: how to make a website with Claude and Wix You can create a Wix website directly from Claude by connecting your account through the Wix connector and describing what you want. Use the Wix plugin with Claude Code for more advanced and local dev experience. Build a custom website with a design tailored to your vision and connect it to Wix's business tools to manage content, sell products and grow your business. You'll learn: Which way to make a website with Claude fits you How to make a website from a Claude chat How to write a strong site prompt What Claude can manage after launch How to edit, publish and add a domain When to use Claude Code and Wix Headless What it costs How Claude and Wix work together Claude is the AI assistant you talk to. Wix is the platform that creates, hosts and runs your website. The Wix connector links the two, so you describe what you want in Claude and Wix makes it real. Your site lives in your Wix account, and you can keep working on it through Claude or Wix. Behind the scenes, the connector uses the Wix MCP. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants use outside tools, a bit like a plug that fits many devices. You don't need to set it up yourself. If you build with code, the Wix plugin adds the Wix MCP and Wix Skills to AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor and Codex. It's made for coding tools; you don't need it to make a website in a regular Claude chat. Choose your way to build with Claude Wix offers three ways to build with Claude, from creating a site through chat to coding your own. 01. Create and manage a Wix website through Claude chat The Wix connector lets you create and manage a Wix website directly from Claude.ai or the Claude desktop app, using natural language instead of code. Describe the website you want and ask Claude to create pages, update content or manage site settings. It's the best place to start if you want a business website without writing or maintaining code yourself. 02. Develop Wix apps and integrations with the Wix plugin The Wix plugin connects AI coding tools like Claude Code, Cursor and Codex to Wix development tools. Use it to build custom Wix apps, connect external services or extend what a Wix site can do. For example, you can create an app that adds a custom dashboard feature or connects your Wix site to an external business system. 03. Build a custom website with Claude Code and Wix Headless Use Claude Code to help build a website with your own code and connect it to Wix Headless for business solutions such as content management, ecommerce, bookings and payments. This lets you create a website using tools like React or Next.js while relying on Wix to manage the business side. If you'd rather design visually on a canvas first, how to make a website with Claude Design shows how to send a design straight to Wix. Learn more: How to use Claude with Wix How to make a website with Claude and Wix You describe the website, Wix creates it, and you keep improving it through Claude or Wix. Here's how it works. 01. Connect Wix to Claude Open Claude.ai or the Claude desktop app, go to the connectors panel and search for Wix. Select Connect, sign in to your Wix account and approve the access request. If you don't have a Wix account yet, you can create one during this step. You only do this once. 02. Write a strong site prompt Start a new chat and describe your site in everyday language. A strong prompt covers four things: your type of business, the site's purpose (sell, book, inform or showcase), your audience and the pages you need. Here, Oz Golan, Group Product Lead for AI Creation at Wix, turns a weak prompt into a strong one. Weak: "Make me a website for my ballet studio." Strong: "I run a ballet studio in Austin, Texas called Pointe & Grace. We offer classes for adults and kids ages 4+, from beginner to advanced. What makes us different is our small class sizes (max 10 students) and our focus on classical technique in a warm, non-intimidating environment. I need visitors to see our class schedule, meet the instructors and easily sign up for a trial class. Give it an elegant but approachable feel." "The difference? The second prompt tells the AI what only the owner knows: the differentiators, the audience, and the goal. Everything else, AI can handle." - Oz Golan, Group Product Lead for AI Creation, Wix For more examples across industries, browse these AI prompts for website building and prompts to use with an AI website builder. By default, Claude creates the website behind the scenes and Wix hosts it. You don't need to work with the code yourself; you ask Claude for changes in the chat. If you want to design visually, ask for the Wix Harmony Editor from the start. 03. Confirm the plan and let Claude build Claude may ask a question or outline the pages and features it plans before it builds. Ask for changes in the chat, then confirm. Refining the plan in the chat is quicker than reworking a finished site. If your site needs a store, bookings or event tickets, Claude sets up the matching Wix tools and adds sample content, like placeholder products, for you to replace. When it's done, Claude shares a link to your site and a link to its Wix dashboard, where you manage orders, bookings and content. 04. Set up SEO, connect a domain and publish Replace sample text and images with your own and test any form, checkout or booking flow. Then set up the basics for search: a unique meta title and description for every page, and headings that use the words your customers search for. The Wix website builder includes SEO features that walk you through each step, and you can ask Claude to help with specific pages. A site created the default way is already live on a free Wix web address. A site built in the Wix Harmony Editor is published from the editor. You can connect a custom domain from your Wix dashboard either way. What kind of websites can you make with Claude and Wix? You can create most types of business website through the connector. Start your prompt with the kind of site you need: A business website. For a consultant, studio, restaurant or local service. Try: "Create a website for my interior design business with a homepage, portfolio, services page and contact form." An online store. Customers browse and buy products, with checkout and payments run by Wix. Try: "Create an online store for my handmade ceramics business with product categories, product pages and a shopping cart." A booking website. Customers see your services and book appointments or classes. Try: "Create a website for my yoga studio with a class schedule, instructor profiles and online booking." An events website. Share event details and sell tickets. Try: "Create a website for my local music festival with a schedule, artist pages and ticket sales." A blog or content site. Publish articles and organize them by topic. Try: "Create a travel blog with categories for destinations, travel tips and guides." What you can do with Claude after your site is live Your work with Claude doesn't stop once your website is published. The Wix connector stays active, so you can use Claude to update your site, manage business tasks and add new offerings as your business grows. It works with any site in your Wix account, including sites you built before connecting the two. What Claude can do depends on the Wix apps on your site. For example, it can manage bookings only on a site that has Wix Bookings. Did you know? According to Wix State of Websites 2026, nearly 32,000 people used Wix MCP to connect external AI tools like Claude directly to their websites, and Wix MCP logged 102 million sessions in 2025. Here are five practical ways to use Claude beyond your initial website build. 01. Bring more visitors to your website Keep your website content fresh and give potential customers more reasons to find and explore your business. Ask Claude to draft blog posts around common customer questions, update service descriptions or create content for seasonal campaigns. You can also use it to publish new content directly to your Wix site. Example prompt: "Write a blog post about the 10 things couples should consider when choosing a wedding photographer. Add an introduction, useful tips and a call to action to book a consultation, then publish it on my blog." 02. Turn more visitors into customers Make it easier for visitors to understand what you offer and take the next step. Ask Claude to update service descriptions, clarify pricing information, add answers to common customer questions or make your contact details and booking options easier to find. Clear, useful information helps potential customers decide if your business is right for them. Example prompt: "Update my services page to explain what's included in each photography package, add a FAQ section about pricing and make the consultation booking option more prominent." 03. Expand your products and services As your business grows, you may want to introduce new products, offer additional services or reach new customer groups. Claude can help you add products to your store, update descriptions and prices or create new booking services. This lets you keep your website aligned with what your business offers. Example prompt: "Add these three new products to my store with their names, descriptions, prices and product details." "Any change you'd normally make by clicking through menus and editing fields, you can now make by typing a sentence. Rename a category, update a product description, adjust a price, add inventory by chatting with Claude." - Oren Inditzky, VP & GM, Online Stores at Wix.com 04. Keep day-to-day business tasks up to date Save time on routine updates by asking Claude to manage information across your Wix site. Update opening hours, change staff details, adjust booking availability or refresh seasonal announcements. This is especially useful when business information changes frequently and you want your website to reflect the latest details. Example prompt: "Update my business hours to Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM, change the availability of my consultation service and update the Staff collection with our new team member." 05. Manage multiple websites from one place If you run several businesses or manage websites for clients, you can use Claude to work across the sites in your Wix account. Ask it to find a specific website, make updates or help manage content across different projects without having to start from scratch each time. Example prompt: "Show me all the websites in my Wix account and list the business name and main purpose of each one." Editing your site: in Claude or in the Wix editor You don't have to make every website change in the same place. Claude and the Wix editor serve different purposes, so you can choose the one that best fits the task. Make changes through Claude Use chat when you know what you want to change and prefer to describe it in plain language. You can ask for several related updates in one conversation, explain the result you're after and refine the changes through follow-up prompts. For example, you could ask Claude to make the tone of your website more professional and consistent across several pages. Claude works with any site in your Wix account, including sites you created before you connected Wix to Claude, and what it can change depends on how each site was built. Use the Wix Harmony Editor for visual changes If your site was built in the editor, part of Wix's AI website builder, you can work directly on its visual design. Drag and drop elements, adjust spacing, change images or rearrange sections while seeing how the page looks. You can also ask Aria, Wix's AI assistant in the editor, to make design and content changes. For example, you could ask Aria to redesign your homepage hero section or change the layout of a service page. Manage your business from the Wix dashboard Editing your website is only one part of running it. Your Wix dashboard is where you manage orders, bookings, customer information and business content. You can move between Claude, the editor and your dashboard as needed, depending on whether you're working on your site's content, visual design or business operations. "If you approach AI without intention or direction, then yes, you're handing over your creative license. But if you view every part of the process as a chance to inject your personality, whether it's picking colors, designing the UX or creating the content, then AI becomes a partner, not a replacement." - Yarin Singolda, Product Marketing Manager, Wix Learn more: What is an AI agent? How to design a website with AI Build with Claude Code and connect Wix business features The Wix connector is the simplest way to make a website through Claude. If you'd rather build the site in code, Wix Headless is the other route. In a Headless setup, you build the part of the website visitors see yourself. Wix handles the business features behind it, such as payments, bookings, products and content management. "The hardest part of shipping something real has never been the frontend. Anyone can build a beautiful UI fast now. The wall people hit is always the same: payments, bookings, a CMS that actually works. Wix Headless knocks that wall down. You connect your frontend to the infrastructure millions of businesses already run on, in one prompt. You're not a backend engineer, you're just shipping." - Ran Levi, Developer Advocate, Wix Start a new site or connect one you built In Claude Code, describe what you want and include the Wix Headless skill, a set of instructions that teaches Claude how to connect your site to Wix. For example: "Build a site for my ballet studio with a class schedule and trial-class signup using https://wix.com/headless/skill.md." The same prompt connects a site you already built with Claude. If you only have finished HTML, CSS and JavaScript files, you can use drag and drop deploy to put them online on a Wix web address, with hosting and a secure connection set up for you. You can host on Wix, or host the site yourself on platforms like Vercel, Netlify or AWS. Both options connect to the same Wix business tools. Wix-managed Headless projects use Astro and support React, Vue, Svelte and Solid. "What works really well is the API calls. I use Claude Code a lot to build the website, and those APIs can be configured directly in Claude Code, so the AI agent knows how to use them to do a lot of things." - Yanye Tang, developer of the Accessibility Hub Keep building with the Wix plugin The Wix plugin is for developers building Wix apps, integrations and custom sites. It adds Wix Skills (ready-made instructions for building on Wix) and the Wix MCP to AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor and Codex, so your coding assistant can search Wix's documentation and call Wix's APIs. In Claude Code, install it with /plugin marketplace add wix/skills, then /plugin install wix@wix. Your team or clients can update content from the Wix dashboard without touching the code. Wix Headless also supports GitHub integration and CLI deployment, and gives you SEO controls for meta tags, editable URLs and structured data, plus an automatically maintained XML sitemap. Learn more: MCP vs API Why make a website with Claude and Wix? Using Claude with Wix gives you four practical advantages. Start with a website you can actually use When you create a site through the Wix connector, you get a hosted Wix website you can publish and manage. With Wix Headless, you can connect your own code to Wix's business infrastructure instead of building and maintaining every business system yourself. Both options give you a path from an initial idea to a working website. Grow your business without building everything from scratch Wix provides business solutions such as ecommerce, bookings, payments and content management. You can start with a simple website and add products, services, booking options and content as your business grows, without having to develop these systems yourself. Make changes through conversation Instead of navigating multiple settings or writing every change yourself, describe what you want Claude to do and refine the result through follow-up prompts. You can keep using Claude after launch to update your website and handle supported business tasks as your needs change. Choose the approach that fits your needs You don't need coding skills to create and manage a Wix website through Claude chat. If you want more control over how your website is built, you can use Claude Code with Wix Headless and your preferred development tools. This gives you options as your needs and technical skills evolve. How much does it cost to make a website with Claude and Wix? Connecting Wix to Claude is free on the Wix side. You need a Claude account, and Claude usage follows Anthropic's plans and limits. Creating a Wix site is free. A free site uses a Wix web address and shows Wix ads. A paid Wix plan lets you connect a custom domain and remove Wix ads, and most plans let you accept online payments. Wix Headless is also free to connect, with no time limit, no credit card and no developer pricing or API fees. A paid plan is needed only to accept live payments, connect a custom domain and use advanced analytics. How to make a website with Claude and Wix FAQ Can Claude make a complete website for me? Yes. Connect Wix to Claude, describe your business and the site you want, and confirm what Claude plans to build. Wix creates and hosts the site in your account. You can then review it, ask for changes and connect a domain. Do I need coding skills to make a website with Claude and Wix? No. The Wix connector works through a regular chat, and Claude handles the technical work behind the scenes. Coding knowledge helps only if you choose to build a custom site with Claude Code and Wix Headless. Do I need to install the Wix plugin to make a website in Claude? No. In Claude.ai or the Claude desktop app, you only need the Wix connector. The Wix plugin is a separate tool for developers who use AI coding tools such as Claude Code and Cursor. Can I edit my website after Claude makes it? Yes. You can ask Claude for changes at any time, and manage orders, bookings and content in your Wix dashboard. If you asked Claude to use the Wix Harmony Editor, you can also edit the design there by drag and drop or with Aria. Can I build an online store with Claude and Wix? Yes. Ask for a store when you describe your site, and Claude sets up Wix's store tools with sample products for you to replace. Later, you can add products, update prices and manage orders through the chat. With Wix Headless, you connect your own design to Wix checkout and payments. Is a website I make with Claude and Wix good for SEO? It can be, with a few steps. Write a unique meta title and description for every page, use headings that match what people search for and ask Claude to help with specific pages. Wix's SEO tools guide you through each step, and Wix Headless sites get SEO controls plus an automatic XML sitemap. Is making a website with Claude and Wix free? The Wix connector is free to connect on the Wix side, and Claude usage follows Anthropic's plans. Creating a Wix site is free; connecting a custom domain and accepting payments need a paid Wix plan.