Last Update 09 Dec 25
Fair value Decreased 0.36%WIX: Elevated AI Spend Will Drive Long-Term Market Leadership Confidence
Analysts have trimmed their average price target on Wix.com by about $0.60 to roughly $167.15, citing near term margin pressure from elevated AI and Base44 related investments, even as they maintain confidence in the company’s long term growth and monetization potential.
Analyst Commentary
Street research following Wix.com's latest results reflects a more nuanced stance, with price targets reset lower but ratings largely remaining positive as investors recalibrate near term expectations around margins and free cash flow.
Bullish Takeaways
- Bullish analysts highlight that Q3 revenue and bookings exceeded expectations, with management also lifting FY25 and out year bookings guidance, reinforcing confidence in the durability of Wix's underlying demand and cohort trends.
- The rapid traction of Base44 and the hyper growth in vibe coding are seen as key growth engines that could expand Wix's addressable market and support a stronger AI monetization narrative into FY26 and beyond.
- Several firms argue that, despite the recent pullback and lower targets, the stock now offers a compelling valuation relative to medium term ROI potential from AI and Base44 investments.
- Analysts also point to resilience and improvement in the core website and Creative Subscriptions business, suggesting that Wix can sustain double digit growth even as AI products scale.
Bearish Takeaways
- Bearish analysts emphasize that elevated AI compute, Base44 related spend and higher sales and marketing are weighing on EBIT and free cash flow, delaying the margin expansion story that many investors had been underwriting.
- There is concern that Vibe coding and Base44 are pressuring margins more than initially expected, while not yet clearly proving incremental to the top line, which raises execution risk around the investment cycle.
- Some commentary notes that strength in Base44 may be masking softer trends in core Creative Subscriptions, suggesting that underlying growth might be less robust than headline bookings imply.
- Investors were surprised by the magnitude and duration of the new investment levels, prompting downward revisions to long term EBITDA and free cash flow forecasts and capping near term multiple expansion.
What's in the News
- Completed a major share repurchase tranche, buying back 1.3 million shares in Q3 2025 for $175 million and finishing a $275 million program totaling 1.946 million shares, or 3.49% of shares outstanding (company buyback update).
- Raised full year 2025 revenue guidance to a range of $1.99 billion to $2.0 billion. This implies 13% to 14% year over year growth, driven by Base44 outperformance partly offset by a mix shift to longer term subscriptions (company guidance).
- Issued fourth quarter 2025 revenue guidance of $521 million to $531 million, representing 13% to 15% year over year growth (company guidance).
- Integrated Royal Mail into Wix Shipping via partner Shippo, automating UK merchants' shipping workflows and offering exclusive pricing directly within the Wix dashboard (client announcement).
- Announced a strategic collaboration with PayPal to enable AI powered product discovery and payments across leading AI agents, including Perplexity, with Wix merchants syncing catalogs and maintaining direct customer relationships (client announcement).
Valuation Changes
- Fair Value: Trimmed slightly from $167.76 to about $167.15, reflecting modestly lower long term margin assumptions.
- Discount Rate: Risen marginally from 12.56% to 12.57%, indicating a slightly higher perceived risk or required return.
- Revenue Growth: Nudged up from approximately 14.42% to 14.43%, signaling a small increase in long term top line expectations.
- Net Profit Margin: Eased from about 9.43% to 9.35%, incorporating higher near term investment and cost pressures.
- Future P/E: Edged up from 47.39x to 47.63x, suggesting a modestly higher valuation multiple on forward earnings.
Key Takeaways
- AI-driven features and onboarding are boosting user growth, conversion rates, and monetization, supporting sustainable revenue and margin expansion.
- Diversification into new digital markets and ongoing global brand strength are broadening revenue streams and underpinning long-term business scalability.
- Rising AI-driven competition, regulatory pressures, and increased operational costs threaten Wix.com's growth, profitability, and ability to retain customers in a rapidly evolving web development market.
Catalysts
About Wix.com- Operates a cloud-based web development platform for registered users and creators worldwide.
- Accelerating adoption of AI-powered tools and onboarding funnels is driving a significant increase in new user cohorts and higher conversion to paid subscriptions, which supports expectations for revenue growth in both the near and long term.
- The acquisition and rapid scale of Base44 is opening new addressable markets beyond traditional website building-such as application and prototype development-broadening total addressable market and further diversifying revenue streams.
- Sustained organic brand awareness and improving retention, especially among longer-term, higher-value users, creates greater revenue predictability and supports expanding operating margins as marketing spend becomes more efficient.
- AI-powered feature rollouts (e.g., generative engine optimization, AI marketing agent, advanced business solutions) are driving higher user monetization and enabling price optimization, which can contribute to rising average revenue per user and enhance gross margins.
- Ongoing expansion of digital presence among SMBs, entrepreneurs, and creators globally-paired with increased demand for mobile-optimized and no-code/low-code solutions-provides secular tailwinds that underpin multi-year growth in users, bookings, and operating leverage.
Wix.com Future Earnings and Revenue Growth
Assumptions
How have these above catalysts been quantified?- Analysts are assuming Wix.com's revenue will grow by 13.3% annually over the next 3 years.
- Analysts assume that profit margins will increase from 8.9% today to 15.3% in 3 years time.
- Analysts expect earnings to reach $415.6 million (and earnings per share of $7.15) by about September 2028, up from $166.3 million today. However, there is a considerable amount of disagreement amongst the analysts with the most bullish expecting $463.8 million in earnings, and the most bearish expecting $298.5 million.
- In order for the above numbers to justify the analysts price target, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 39.4x on those 2028 earnings, down from 55.9x today. This future PE is greater than the current PE for the US IT industry at 29.0x.
- Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to grow by 1.06% per year for the next 3 years.
- To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 11.69%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.
Wix.com Future Earnings Per Share Growth
Risks
What could happen that would invalidate this narrative?- The ongoing decline in organic search traffic to individual websites, coupled with the rise of AI-powered large language models (LLMs) that may increasingly aggregate and surface content directly, could structurally reduce demand for traditional DIY web solutions, eventually impacting Wix.com's long-term revenue growth trajectory.
- The rapid growth of new market entrants leveraging cutting-edge AI and no-code/low-code solutions-even as Wix acquired BASE44-raises the threat of intensified competition and potential commoditization, possibly leading to stagnating or declining average revenue per user (ARPU) and margin compression over time.
- Incremental and potentially sustained increases in R&D, AI infrastructure, and marketing expenses (due to acquisitions and integrating new technologies like BASE44 and expanding the product roadmap) could pressure operating and net margins, particularly if revenue growth slows or the expected synergies do not fully materialize.
- The evolving regulatory landscape regarding data privacy (GDPR), website accessibility, and global digital taxation presents an ongoing risk of elevated compliance costs and increased operational complexity for Wix.com, which could negatively affect net earnings and constrain international expansion.
- As AI-driven web creation and application building tools lower the technical barriers to switching platforms, there's risk that user churn could increase if competitors close the functionality gap, which may limit Wix's ability to retain customers, grow revenue predictably, and maintain its premium positioning in a maturing market.
Valuation
How have all the factors above been brought together to estimate a fair value?- The analysts have a consensus price target of $206.091 for Wix.com based on their expectations of its future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors. However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of $255.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just $160.0.
- In order for you to agree with the analyst's consensus, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be $2.7 billion, earnings will come to $415.6 million, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 39.4x, assuming you use a discount rate of 11.7%.
- Given the current share price of $167.04, the analyst price target of $206.09 is 18.9% higher.
- We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.
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AnalystConsensusTarget is a tool utilizing a Large Language Model (LLM) that ingests data on consensus price targets, forecasted revenue and earnings figures, as well as the transcripts of earnings calls to produce qualitative analysis. The narratives produced by AnalystConsensusTarget are general in nature and are based solely on analyst data and publicly-available material published by the respective companies. These scenarios are not indicative of the company's future performance and are exploratory in nature. Simply Wall St has no position in the company(s) mentioned. Simply Wall St may provide the securities issuer or related entities with website advertising services for a fee, on an arm's length basis. These relationships have no impact on the way we conduct our business, the content we host, or how our content is served to users. The price targets and estimates used are consensus data, and do not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and they do not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Note that AnalystConsensusTarget's analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.



