Lanternbee vs Wix

Looking for a Wix alternative for your books?

A drag-and-drop website builder with store plans. Here is what it costs, where it does better than Lanternbee, and what moving would take.

What Wix is

Wix builds websites by dragging pieces onto a page. Its store plans add a checkout, digital products and shipping.

Who it suits

Authors who want to design every page of their website themselves and sell a few books from it.

What Wix costs

US prices, checked against the sources at the bottom of this page.

Plan	Price	Fee on sales
Core	$29 a month. Billed yearly; monthly billing is priced at checkout	No Wix fee on store orders; Wix Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 in the US
Business	$39 a month. Billed yearly	No Wix fee on store orders; card fees apply

Wix and Lanternbee side by side

The jobs a bookstore has to do, and how each one handles them.

Wix and Lanternbee, feature by feature
What you need	Wix	Lanternbee
One book with several editions	PartlyProduct options on one product.	Yes. Ebook, audiobook, paperback and hardcover live on one book page.
Series with a reading order	Not listed	Yes, with the reading order you set.
Bundles and box sets	Not listed	Yes. Readers who own book one pay less for the rest.
Ebook and audiobook delivery	YesDigital products by download.	Yes. Download links by email, and a reader library.
Send to Kindle	Not listed	Yes, from the reader library.
Print on demand for books	Not listed	Yes, through BookVault or Lulu.
Your reader list	PartlyEmail marketing, with limits by plan.	Yes. Every buyer lands on your list, with tags.
Your own domain	Yes	Yes. yourname.lanternbee.shop or shop.yourname.com.
Monthly cost	Core: $29 a month. Billed yearly; monthly billing is priced at checkoutBusiness: $39 a month. Billed yearly	Free: nothing a month. Author: $45 a month, or $35 paid yearly.
Fee on sales	Core: No Wix fee on store orders; Wix Payments charges 2.9% + $0.30 in the USBusiness: No Wix fee on store orders; card fees apply	Free: 5%, only when you sell. Author: none.

US prices. “Not listed” means we could not find it on Wix’s own pages or in the sources below, so check with them. Card fees apply everywhere; on Lanternbee they are Stripe’s, with nothing added.

What Wix does better

No store is right for every author. These are fair reasons to stay.

Free-form page design. You can place anything anywhere.
Bookings, events and a blog in the same site.
No Wix fee on store orders.

Moving from Wix

There is no importer for Wix. Here is what you would do by hand.

Keep your Wix website if you like it, and link the book buttons to your Lanternbee store.
Add your books on Lanternbee, with every format on one page and your series in order.
Download your Wix customers if you need them and keep them in your email tool. Lanternbee cannot import that list yet.

Questions about Wix and Lanternbee

Does Wix charge a fee on book sales?

Not on regular store orders, according to the guides we checked. You pay the plan and the card fees. Memberships sold with Wix Pricing Plans carry a fee on some plans.

Is Lanternbee cheaper than Wix?

Wix Core is $29 a month billed yearly, and Business is $39. Lanternbee Free costs nothing a month and takes 5% when you sell; Author is $35 a month paid yearly with no fee. Wix also builds your whole website; Lanternbee is only the store.

Can I keep my Wix site?

Yes. Put the store on an address such as shop.yourname.com and link to it from your Wix pages.