WordPress, Wix or custom-built?
Three genuinely different answers, each right for somebody. We build custom sites, so we have an obvious bias — which is why this page is explicit about the cases where one of the other two is the better choice for you.
The short version
| Site builder | WordPress | Custom-built | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical cost | £16–£45/mo | £1,500–£6,000 + upkeep | £45–£120/mo, or £1,495+ |
| Your time | 40–80 hrs | 10–25 hrs | 2–4 hrs |
| Speed | Fair | Depends entirely on the build | Excellent |
| Edit it yourself | Very easy | Fairly easy | Depends how it is set up |
| Ongoing maintenance | None — they handle it | Real, and ongoing | Minimal |
| Can you leave with it | No, not usably | Yes | Yes |
Site builders: Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy
What they are: an all-in-one subscription. Hosting, editor, templates, security and updates in one monthly fee, edited by dragging things around in your browser.
Genuinely good at: getting a decent-looking site live quickly for very little money, with nothing to maintain and nothing that can be hacked through your negligence. Squarespace templates in particular look better than most of what small businesses pay four figures for.
Where you hit the ceiling: speed has a floor you cannot get under, because you are loading their framework whichever template you use. Fine control over page structure and technical SEO is limited. And you cannot export the site — leaving means rebuilding, not migrating.
Choose it if: your needs are simple, you have the evenings, and you are not fighting hard for competitive search traffic. We tell people this on the phone regularly and mean it.
WordPress
What it is: free open-source software you install on your own hosting, extended with themes and plugins. It runs a very large share of the web, and there is a plugin for practically everything.
Genuinely good at: flexibility and portability. Anything you want to add, somebody has built. You own the files. Any WordPress developer can pick up the work, which is real protection if your original builder disappears.
The catch nobody mentions at quote time: WordPress is a responsibility. Core, theme and plugins all need regular updating, and an unmaintained WordPress site will eventually be compromised by an automated scan. A typical small business build also carries a commercial theme and several paid plugins, each with an annual licence — costs that often land on you in year two.
And the speed problem: most WordPress sites for small businesses are built with a page builder, which produces heavy markup and loads its whole framework on every page. That is where scores in the 30s come from. WordPress can be fast; the way it is usually sold at this price point is not.
Choose it if: you need a specific plugin ecosystem, want to edit deeply yourself, or expect to add complex functionality later — and you have someone responsible for maintaining it.
Custom-built
What it is: the HTML and CSS written by hand for your business, with no theme and no plugin stack. This site is one.
Genuinely good at: speed and durability. There is no framework to load, so pages arrive in well under a second. There are no plugins to update, so there is very little to break and very little to attack. Nothing needs re-licensing annually, and it does not age the way a plugin-dependent site does.
The honest downsides: you cannot drag-and-drop your own layout changes — you ask someone, which is fine when changes are included and irritating when they are billed hourly. And it is only portable if whoever built it hands over clean, readable files. Ask about that before you commit.
Choose it if: speed and search visibility matter, you would rather someone else made the changes, and you want fewer moving parts.
Brand new, tiny budget, simple needs, time on your hands: Squarespace. Need a specific plugin ecosystem or an unusual integration, and have someone to maintain it: WordPress. Want a fast, findable site with minimal upkeep and would rather spend two hours than eighty: custom-built. That last one is what we sell, and it is not right for everybody.
Questions
Is WordPress bad for SEO?
No — WordPress itself is perfectly capable of excellent technical SEO. The problem is not the software, it is what gets bolted onto it: a heavy page builder, a dozen plugins and unoptimised images produce a slow site, and slow sites rank worse. A carefully built WordPress site with a lightweight theme competes with anything.
Can I move my Wix or Squarespace site to WordPress later?
Not as a migration. Neither platform lets you export a working site, so moving means rebuilding the pages on the new platform. Your text, images and domain come with you, and your URLs can be preserved with redirects, but the build itself is done again. Keep a copy of your written content outside the platform as you go and this is far less painful.
What happens to a custom site if my developer disappears?
It keeps running — a static site has no software to maintain, so it does not decay if nobody touches it. To change it you would need another developer, which is why it matters that the code is clean and conventional rather than clever. Ask, before you commit, whether you get the source files and whether another developer could reasonably pick them up.
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