Wix Editor to Wix Studio: what the migration really changes
Updated: 2 days ago
Since the summer of 2023, Wix has offered two editors side by side: the classic Editor you already know, and Wix Studio, built with agencies in mind. Many of our clients ask the same question: "should we migrate, and what does it actually change for us?" Here is our straight answer, with real numbers.
What Wix Studio really changes
First thing to know: Wix Studio is not an update of the Editor, it is a different building tool. Both share the same foundation (hosting, Wix Stores, Wix Bookings, blog, CMS, forms, email marketing), but the way pages are built is different.
Responsive design, at last. In the classic Editor, the mobile version is a separate layout that you fix by hand after every change. In Studio, pages are built with fluid sections, grids and breakpoints: content adapts to phones, tablets and large screens. For you, that means fewer nasty surprises when you add a paragraph or a photo.
A cleaner site under the hood. Studio enforces structured sections and containers. In practice, a site rebuilt in Studio has fewer elements placed pixel by pixel, so less breakage when edited, and a more consistent look from one page to the next.
Agency tools. Studio adds a shared workspace, fine-grained roles for your team, a built-in code editor, richer animations and interactions, and reusable components. This is where we save time on your updates, and that time shows on our maintenance quotes.
What does not change
This is the part that reassures most of our clients. Your domain name, your mailboxes, your Premium plan, your products, your bookings, your contacts and your automations live in the Wix dashboard, not in the editor. They stay where they are.
Your blog, your CMS collections and your product catalogue can be recovered: CSV export, re-import into the new site, or a direct transfer depending on the content. Customer reviews and order history follow the same path. What is not recovered automatically is the pages themselves: the layout has to be rebuilt.
Your search rankings do not vanish either, as long as someone takes care of them. Page URLs can be kept identical, and for those that change, the Wix redirect manager does the job. In our projects, a migrated site with clean redirects gets its Google positions back within a few weeks, with no dip.
What it costs, in time and money
Let us be clear: there is no "convert my site to Studio" button. An Editor to Studio migration is a rebuild. We start from your existing content, redesign the pages in Studio, reconnect the apps and switch the domain over.
Timing-wise, in our projects count on three to six weeks for a showcase site of five to fifteen pages, and six to ten weeks for a store or a site with bookings and a members area. Most of the time goes into rebuilding pages and testing on mobile.
Budget-wise, a simple migration costs between 2,500 and 4,500 euros excluding VAT with us, and a store or a multi-feature site between 5,000 and 9,000 euros. Your Wix subscription does not move: a Studio site uses the same Premium plans as the Editor, so there is no extra monthly cost tied to the editor.
A concrete example: a consulting firm we work with, a twelve-page Editor site built in 2019, mobile never touched since, and a contact form that was losing enquiries. Migration in five weeks, 3,800 euros, URLs kept identical.
Three months after the switch: the time the client spends updating a page has been halved, and the form finally pushes every enquiry into the Wix CRM.
When it is not worth it
We regularly turn down migrations. Studio is a very good tool, but not an end in itself. Here are the cases where we advise staying on the Editor:
Your site is less than two years old, looks clean on mobile and you have no plans for a visual redesign. Migrating means paying twice for the same thing.
You manage the site yourself, you are comfortable with the Editor, and nobody on your team has time to learn a new tool. Studio is more powerful, but also more demanding to pick up.
Your budget for the year is 1,500 euros: it is better spent on SEO, an email campaign or good photos than on a half-finished rebuild.
You plan to leave Wix within twelve months, for Shopify for instance. No point rebuilding what you are about to move.
On the other hand, migration makes sense when your Editor site is more than three or four years old, when mobile is a never-ending headache, when you want a graphic redesign anyway, or when you work with an agency that needs to step in often. There, every hour saved on maintenance pays the migration back.
Where to start
Take inventory. List your pages, your apps (store, bookings, blog, forms), your automations and your external integrations. That is what defines the real scope, and therefore the quote.
Test your site on a phone. Open every important page on a mobile. If you spot more than three annoying issues, the migration is probably justified. If everything is clean, it can wait.
Write down your URLs. Export the list of your pages and their addresses from the Wix SEO settings. That is the basis of the redirect plan, and the first thing we ask you for.
Ask for a fixed-scope quote. Refuse time-and-materials quotes on a migration. Demand a price, a deadline and a page-by-page list of what is being carried over.
Schedule the switch off-season. A restaurant does not migrate in December, a shop not in November. Pick a quiet period for the domain switch.
What we take away
Wix Studio changes how a site is built and maintained: native responsive design, clean structure, collaboration tools. It changes neither your subscription, nor your domain, nor your business data.
The migration is a rebuild, it costs between 2,500 and 9,000 euros depending on scope, and it is worth it if your site is ageing, struggles on mobile or needs to evolve often. Otherwise, keep your money for what brings in customers.
One last piece of advice: never migrate "because it is new". Migrate because a specific problem is costing you time or sales. In the jungle of tools, that is still the best criterion for clearing a path.
Torn between touching up your Editor site and moving to Wix Studio? We will set it up for you: les défricheurs agency audits your current site, quotes the migration at a fixed scope and handles the rebuild, the redirects and the switch. Book a slot with the agency or discover our Wix Studio services.
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