A website is not an IKEA shelf

We mean systems like Wix, Squarespace, Jimdo or IONOS MyWebsite, plus WordPress combined with a page builder like Elementor or Divi. For shops there's Shopify, and for projects with more design freedom, Webflow.

They all work on the same principle. There are ready-made components, a template and a grid you slot them into. You don't build, you assemble. That's exactly what makes them fast, and exactly what becomes the limit later on.

This isn't criticism of the providers. A shelf from the catalogue isn't bad furniture either. It's built for a specific purpose, and outside that purpose it becomes uncomfortable.

We recommend it ourselves when the situation calls for it. A website builder is usually enough when:

• the site mainly needs to prove that you exist
• it's about a few subpages that rarely change
• it's not yet clear where the business is heading
• the budget has to stay small at the start
• there's nobody who wants to deal with technology

A quick site that's online beats a perfect site that doesn't exist. If you're just starting out, you should put your money into customers rather than technology.

The problem rarely shows up on day one. It shows up when the business moves forward and the website is supposed to grow with it.

Typical points at which we get called in:

• Twenty service pages with the same structure need to be created, and each one has to be rebuilt by hand
• The collection of projects or products should be filterable, but the system only knows individual pages
• Appointments should be booked directly on the site, with your rules and not those of an add-on service
• The site needs to connect to the inventory or customer management system
• A second language is being added
• Load time keeps getting worse with every additional add-on

Each individual point can be solved somehow in the builder. It's just that the solution is almost always: one more add-on, one more subscription, one more workaround.

That's how a stack grows. One add-on for forms, one for bookings, one for translations, one for the area the system doesn't provide for. Each of them costs money every month, needs to be kept up to date and can cause trouble after an update.

Then there's the time. What would be a field in the admin area of a custom-built site is often an hour of clicking in the builder, every single time. These hours don't show up on any invoice and are still the bigger cost.

That's why the comparison is never just the price on day one. What's interesting is what the site costs over three years, including the work it causes every month.

With closed systems, the site lives on the provider's platform and only works there. You can usually get your text and images out, but not what was built. Moving can mean starting from scratch.

On top of that, the rules don't belong to you. Prices change, features are rebuilt or discontinued, and a plan change can decide whether a feature keeps running. As long as the site is small, that's manageable. When enquiries come in through it, it's a risk.

With a custom-built site, what was created belongs to you. The provider behind it is replaceable, and you decide when something changes.

Modern website builders aren't inherently hard to find. Titles, descriptions and URLs can be maintained everywhere, and a clean builder site does better than a neglected custom one.

The difference lies in what goes beyond that. How fast the site really loads when five add-ons are loaded along with it. How clean the structure is when every page was clicked together by hand. How easy it is to create a dedicated, good subpage for each service and each location.

That's exactly what visibility depends on, and exactly what gets more tedious rather than easier in a builder as the number of pages grows. More on this in the article about why your competitor with the worse website can rank ahead of you.

A custom-built site reverses the order. It's not the template that dictates how the business is presented, but the business that dictates how the site is built.

In practice, that means:

• Content is structured, so a new service page is an entry, not a DIY project
• Only what's needed gets loaded, so the site is fast and stays fast
• Processes like enquiries, bookings or quotes follow your rules
• Other systems can be connected instead of being maintained side by side
• The design is yours, not the template's
• Moving to another provider is a decision, not a rebuild

The effort at the start is higher, that's the honest part. In return, the site gets cheaper rather than more expensive with every requirement, because it was built to be extended.

Switching isn't worth it because a site is old. It's worth it when the site gets in the way. We usually hear these sentences shortly before:

• We don't dare change anything anymore, because something always breaks afterwards
• We need someone from outside for every little thing
• We're now paying for five add-on services and no longer know what for
• Our people maintain the data twice, once in the system and once on the site
• The site brings visitors, but hardly any enquiries
• We wanted to implement something three times already and gave up because it wasn't possible

If two or three of these apply, the step usually already pays off. Not because the new would be prettier, but because the old costs money and time every month.

We first ask what should be added over the next two years. That decides how much technology is really needed. Sometimes the result is that the builder is enough for now, and then we say so.

If a custom solution makes sense, we build it so that you can maintain it yourselves. Content belongs in the hands of those who know it, not in a ticketing system.

If you're currently stuck with a website builder and don't know whether switching is worth it, send us the link. You'll get an honest assessment, even if it's that you should stay for now.