Creating a wedding website is usually free. The real cost appears when cash gifts start arriving: custodial platforms take a percentage and control when you are paid, while direct platforms charge a flat publish fee and take nothing from gifts. Our Big Yes charges $29 once internationally, or R399 in South Africa.
Nearly every wedding platform will let you pick a theme, write your story and preview the whole thing without paying anything. That is why comparing headline prices tells you almost nothing useful. The number that decides what your wedding site really costs is the one attached to your cash gifts, and it follows from a single structural choice: does the platform hold your gift money, or does it never touch it?
Every competitor figure below was read from the company’s own site and checked on 2 August 2026.
Custodial platforms versus direct-to-gateway platforms
A custodial platform collects contributions into an account it controls and releases the money to you when you ask for it. Zola holds funds until the couple requests a transfer. Honeyfund holds contributions in what it calls a “Honeyfund Wallet” until you redeem them. Hitchd holds funds until they are transferred, and holds the first payout for 10 business days. All three are as published on their own sites, checked 2 August 2026.
A direct platform never holds the money at all. You connect a payment gateway in your own name, the gateway processes each guest’s card, and the funds settle into your own bank account on that gateway’s normal schedule. Our Big Yes works this way. Internationally you connect your own Stripe account with your own keys. In South Africa you can connect Paystack, Yoco, PayFast or iKhokha instead.
Custody drives three things that matter more than any percentage: when you get paid, what menu of payout options you are offered, and whether you are eligible at all.
The United States bank account requirement
This is the constraint that quietly disqualifies the biggest names for most couples outside the United States.
Zola’s wedding websites are free to create and publish. Its cash funds carry a 2.5% card handling fee, charged to guests by default. But transfers require a United States checking account with a United States address, and Zola does not support transfers to international bank accounts. There is also a fee-free path where guests contribute via the couple’s Venmo username, which carries the same geographic assumption. All as published on Zola’s own site, checked 2 August 2026.
For a couple banking in Dublin, Auckland or Cape Town, the 2.5% is beside the point. The account requirement ends the conversation before the fee ever applies.
Hitchd publishes a supported country list that does not include South Africa, as published on its own site, checked 2 August 2026. If you are marrying outside the obvious markets, read the eligibility page before you spend an evening designing funds you may not be able to collect.
Who pays the fee changes the optics, not the cost
Platforms differ on where they put the gift fee:
- Zola charges its 2.5% card handling fee to guests by default.
- Hitchd charges 4.98% on contributions, payable by the couple, by the guests, or split equally.
- Honeyfund states plainly that it does not charge platform fees, and takes its cut at redemption instead. Its published March 2026 redemption fees are 0% to a prepaid Mastercard or gift cards, 2.2% to PayPal or Venmo, and 3.5% plus $0.59 to a bank account. Guest tips are optional rather than mandatory.
A fee charged to your guests is still a cost of running your registry. Guests decide on a budget, and the handling fee comes out of that budget before the balance reaches you. Moving the fee onto the guest changes who sees the line item, not whether the money leaves the gift.
Paying for a site with no cash gift product
Not everyone wants cash funds. WedSites sells one-time plans at $39, $99 and $199, which include 6, 12 and 24 months of hosting respectively, with additional hosting from $5 per month after that. It has no cash gift product, offering registry links only. That is as published on its own site, checked 2 August 2026.
If you only want a beautifully organised site and you intend to point guests at retailer registries, that is a clean model. Just note that the hosting clock is part of the price: a one-time fee that covers 6 months is a different purchase from one that never expires.
The comparison, side by side
| Platform | Site cost | Cash gift fee | Who pays it | Where gift money sits | Payout reach |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zola | Free to create and publish | 2.5% card handling | Guests by default | Held by Zola until you request a transfer | United States checking account only |
| Honeyfund | Free for couples, no platform fee | 0% to prepaid Mastercard or gift cards, 2.2% to PayPal or Venmo, 3.5% plus $0.59 to a bank account | Couple, at redemption | Held in a Honeyfund Wallet until redeemed | Depends on redemption method chosen |
| Hitchd | No price published on its pricing page | 4.98% on contributions | Couple, guests, or split equally | Held until transferred, first payout held 10 business days | Supported country list, which excludes South Africa |
| WedSites | $39, $99 or $199 one-time, including 6, 12 or 24 months hosting | No cash gift product | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Our Big Yes | $29 once, or R399 in South Africa | 0% platform fee | n/a | Never held by us, gifts go to your own gateway | Wherever your own gateway pays you |
All competitor figures are as published on their own sites, checked 2 August 2026. Our Big Yes figures are our own published prices.
What the direct model actually costs
With Our Big Yes you build the entire site for free and pay only when you publish. That is one payment of $29 internationally, or R399 for South African couples. There is no subscription, no renewal, no per-guest charge and no percentage of gifts.
Because gifts move through your own gateway rather than ours, the only other cost is that gateway’s standard processing fee, which every platform on this page is subject to in one form or another. Our Big Yes never holds, routes or processes your gift money.
The publish fee covers everything on the features page: ten themes, household-based RSVP with a secure personal link per household and no guest accounts to create, your registry, and your shareable address at join.ourbigyes.com/your-names or your own custom domain.
Currency, which is the other half of the problem
If your guest list spans more than one country, the currency question arrives right behind the fee question. A custodial platform pays you in the currency of the account it can reach. A direct setup pays you in the currency your own gateway is configured for, and with Our Big Yes you can receive gifts in any currency Stripe supports.
This matters in both directions. Guests are more comfortable giving when the amount on screen is in money they think in, and you would rather not lose a slice of every gift to a conversion you did not choose.
Where a competitor is genuinely the better choice
We are not the right answer for everyone, and pretending otherwise would be silly.
Zola, if you are a United States couple with a United States checking account who wants guests to absorb the fee. The site is free, the fee sits with the guest by default at 2.5%, and the bank account restriction is not a restriction for you. That is a good deal, and the Venmo path removes the fee entirely.
Honeyfund, if you would rather not onboard to a payment gateway at all. Its published 0% redemption to a prepaid Mastercard or gift cards is a real zero. If you are happy taking your gifts in that form, you can run a whole registry without paying a platform anything.
WedSites, if you want a site and no cash gifts. Fixed one-time pricing with a defined hosting window is easy to reason about when there is no gift money in the picture.
Our model wins when you want the gift money to arrive in your own account, in your own currency, without a platform sitting between your guests and your bank.
Getting married in South Africa?
The maths look different in rand, and the local platforms are different too. We wrote a separate breakdown for that market: how much a wedding website costs in South Africa, which covers local gateways and South African competitors in detail.
Wedding website pricing rewards reading past the headline. Find the custody model, find the payout geography, find who the fee is charged to, and the real cost stops being a mystery.
If a one payment, 0% on gifts model suits you, start building for free at app.ourbigyes.com/start. You pay nothing until you publish.