WordPress or a custom website: which is right for you?

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WordPress or a custom website: what is the difference?

A custom website can be built from €995 on a ready base design, and WordPress with a ready-made design starts at about €2,500. Which of the two suits you depends less on that starting price than on two questions: how often you want to change the layout of your pages yourself, and who looks after the website afterwards.

WordPress is a content management system: a program in which you create and change pages and which you extend with separate parts called plug-ins. A custom website is built for your business. Usually it consists of files that are built in advance, with no content management system and no database. We are a studio that makes the second kind ourselves, so read this with some suspicion. That is also why the cases where WordPress is better are set out here.

What do WordPress and a custom website cost?

The smallest custom website costs from €995: five pages on a ready base design, in your colours and with your logo, where the builder makes changes for you. If you want to change the text and images yourself, a custom website starts at €2,950, and with a design drawn for your business at €5,000. WordPress with a ready-made design is 25 to 55 hours of work, so €2,500 to €5,500 at €100 an hour. All amounts exclude VAT.

Do compare like with like: WordPress with a ready-made design next to a custom website on a ready base design, or both with a design of their own. Take the law firm’s website from the cost breakdown: six pages with a form, and text and images the firm can change itself. With a ready-made design, at €100 an hour, count on:

With a design of their own, both cost more. The custom website from the cost breakdown then takes 69 hours, €6,900, and WordPress with a design of its own comes close to that, because for both the design and building it in take most of the hours. The running costs stay as in the table, because the design changes nothing about the updates.

The running costs are worked out in what website maintenance costs. They are rough figures, not prices. Over three years the custom website in this example usually costs less, mostly because of the running costs. Even so, the money rarely decides: the choice depends mostly on what you want to do yourself and what a mistake costs.

Would you rather work it out for your own pages than for the law firm’s? Request a quote for a custom website, with the running costs included.

When is WordPress the better choice?

WordPress is the better choice in five situations:

• You want to build and move pages yourself, and often. On a custom website you change text and images, not the layout.
• Several people write in it, as on a website with a lot of news or articles.
• You want to start quickly and with little money, and you expect the website to keep changing.
• You have someone who does the updates, and you know who that is.
• You want a feature that exists as a plug-in, and you do not have to have anything built.

If you have a web shop with many products, a shop platform is better than either, because a platform was made for it.

When is a custom website better?

A custom website is better in six situations:

• You change little: a text or a photo a few times a year.
• Speed and security matter: a website with no database and no plug-ins loads fast and has little that can be attacked.
• You do not want monthly updates: maintenance is a few hours a year.
• You want a design made for your business, and not an adapted design that looks the same for many others.
• You want low and predictable running costs.
• You need more than pages, such as signing in, a link to another system or a feature of your own. Then you keep building on the same base.

What is the biggest risk of each?

With WordPress it is the plug-ins. Every plug-in is code from someone else, not written for your website. A plug-in that is updated can break another, and a plug-in that is not updated can have a known vulnerability. That can be managed, with a backup you have tested and someone who does the updates every month.

With a custom website the risk is that everything depends on the builder. If the builder is gone and the source code and accounts are not yours, you have to start again. You solve that with the agreement in the cost breakdown: the domain name, the account and the source code are yours.

Do you already have a WordPress website? How to assess it

If your WordPress website works and is looked after, you do not have to change anything. Go through these eight questions:

If you score badly on three or more questions, updating and clearing out is the first step. If that does not work, or you do not want to, moving to a custom website is a way of getting rid of the problem. Switching only because the website is old does not pay: if it works and someone looks after it, staying is often the right choice.

Want to see your homepage as a custom website before you decide anything? Ask for a free preview; it commits you to nothing.

How do you decide? Four questions

Four questions get you to the answer. How often do you want to change the layout of your pages? Often points to WordPress, rarely to a custom website. Who does the updates? If you do not know, choose a custom website, which needs almost none. How long does the website have to last without you thinking about it? The longer, the more it points to a custom website. And what is a day without a website worth to you? If it is worth a lot, choose the system with the fewest parts.

Frequently asked questions

Having a custom website built with us

If you want to build and move pages yourself, or you have a web shop with many products, you do not need us. If you want a website that loads fast, needs almost no updates and whose domain name, account and source code are yours, we make it, starting at €995 with us, or €2,950 if your staff edit the text themselves. Describe in the request form what the website has to do, and you get a quote with hours, schedule, price, what is not included and an estimate of the running costs.

See an example website quote first.