Website development
A marketing site that explains what you do and brings in the request. Fixed scope, fixed price, a date.
Read more →WordPress or a custom build: which and when?
WordPress runs roughly four in ten websites. That is neither coincidence nor recommendation — it depends entirely on what the site has to do.
The short version
For a marketing site that mostly shows text and images, that you want to update yourself, and that contains no unusual logic, WordPress is almost always the cheapest sensible choice. The ecosystem is enormous, anybody can work with it, and you are not locked to one builder.
It tips the moment you need functionality that is not built in. Then plugins arrive, and plugins are third-party software with their own update schedules, their own security histories and their own assumptions. At two plugins you notice nothing. At eight your site is a stack of parts nobody designed together, and every WordPress update is an evening of uncertainty.
Choose WordPress if
- The site mainly informs: services, projects, about, contact.
- You want to change text and images yourself without phoning anybody.
- A blog or news section is a significant part of it.
- The budget is limited and the site mostly needs to exist.
- You want to be able to change builder easily later.
Choose a custom build if
- It needs a process specific to your business: a calculator, a portal, a link to your systems.
- You need per-customer pricing, logins or roles.
- Speed is a selling point — a custom build is structurally faster because nothing ships that you do not use.
- You have already been stuck once on a stack of plugins fighting each other.
- The site has to exchange data with something else you already run.
What gets overlooked here
The cost people forget is not in the build but in the maintenance. A WordPress site with ten plugins needs structural attention: updates, security patches, the occasional thing that breaks afterwards. Budget a few hundred a year for that, or accept the risk of not doing it — and an un-updated WordPress site is the single most hacked category of website there is.
The reverse also holds: a custom build costs more to make and less to leave alone. There is no plugin ecosystem shifting underneath you. What is there stays there, and if you touch nothing for two years it still works. That is the real trade-off, and it is financial rather than technical.
Once you have decided
DIY or hire
Making a site yourself is not hard. Making one that brings in customers is a craft, and you only notice the difference after six months.
Read more →Off-the-shelf or custom
There is almost always a package that handles eighty per cent of your process. The question is what the last twenty per cent costs you.
Read more →Freelancer or agency
The question that matters is not who builds it cheapest, but who is still there in two years when something has to change.
Read more →Frequently asked questions
Is WordPress insecure?
WordPress itself is not. Out-of-date plugins are, and that is what almost every hacked WordPress site traces back to. Kept updated and with few plugins it is fine.
Can I move from WordPress to custom later?
Yes, and it is usually not even expensive, because your text and images come across as they are. What needs care are the URLs: all of them must redirect, or you lose your rankings.
Roughly what is the difference in cost?
A good WordPress site and a custom marketing site are closer together than people think. The gap opens once functionality is involved, and then it is large. We put both figures in the quote so you can see it.
Not sure which way to go?
Send a short brief with what you have now and what needs to be better. You get an honest answer, including if that answer is that you do not need us for it.